The Golden Key

by Marian Womack

  ‘My dear woman! May I remind you that this is a private office? I will have no compunction in calling a constable right now!’

  The false seamstress stopped what she was doing, turned to look at him, and said:

  ‘Sir, you are misinterpreting this scene wildly; you know nothing of what is going on here.’

  ‘Then, pray, illuminate me,’ he said, his voice slightly mocking her. She looked briefly amused, but the emotion passed over her face like a cloud, as she appeared to consider his proposition.

  ‘Again, I am sorry, but that would mean breaking my clients’ right to their privacy.’

  ‘Your clients?’ This threw Sam off balance for a moment. Surely she did not mean the women whose clothes she pretended to mend? Sam sighed heavily. ‘I’m afraid you leave me no alternative.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To find a constable!’

  She walked slowly in his direction, shaking her head left and right, as if she were deeply saddened by something, or as if she were his governess and he a little errant child.

  ‘Then you leave me no alternative either,’ she said, and before Sam could react, the infuriating young woman had delivered a blow to the lower part of his neck that rendered him expertly unconscious.

  * * *

  It was all over the papers: the third under-manager of the Waterloo Variety had been operating a white-slavery operation from the theatre, serving rich men, and preying on the young female entertainers. Definitive proof had been unearthed, in the form of a couple of coded notebooks detailing the grim transactions, and the man and his accomplice were now behind bars, awaiting trial.

  The atmosphere backstage at the Waterloo was ecstatic, with many bottles of authentic champagne opened and consumed. The mysterious seamstress, however, was nowhere to be seen, and had not been seen since the night of their peculiar encounter. Sam had not cared to share with anyone how he had really come to be unconscious. The others had put it down to alcoholic excess, and he had let them think exactly that. He had woken up in the corridor, under the worried gaze of some of the girls fussing over him. What he couldn’t see anywhere was his attacker.

  The vanishing of the woman shouldn’t have been so remarkable; people were coming and going from the place all the time. But Sam’s curiosity had been piqued after their unexpected exchange. And if he was already curious, he was much more so when none of the girls admitted to ever having met her. A seamstress? Here? They explained how they did all their mending themselves. But Sam had seen them talking to her—why were they lying? The more he asked, the more he confronted a combination of shrugged shoulders, looks askance, and the notion that people were trying to avoid the issue. And, as so often happens, the more rebuffs that came his way, the more compelled he felt to find out the truth. Surely he had not invented her.

  Or had he?

  Was she another vivid dream? Was he going mad, perhaps?

  Freddy proposed his own theory one evening over pints of cloudy ale:

  ‘Do you think she might have been a ghost? You know, the ghost of a seamstress who used to work here, or in the Alhambra? But there are too many ghosts in the Alhambra, everyone knows that! So maybe there was no place for her, and she had to come down here instead.’

  ‘Lord, Freddy, I’ve no idea.’

  But his friend had made him curious. What if he were indeed sensitive to these oddities of nature, as his uncle had mildly suggested after his arrival in London? He decided to explain the situation to Charles; the old man was, when it came down to it, the expert on unexplained presences. According to his uncle, nothing made one more prone to pick up on these hidden currents than closeness to death, or the sudden loss of someone beloved. Sam had tried to drop the subject; he could not think of anything more ghastly than coming into contact with a deathly version of his former beloved: Viola pointing a skeleton finger in his direction.

  Sam quickly summarised the story of the vanishing young woman whom apparently only he had seen one morning, over his kippers and buttered toast.

  ‘My suggestion, Samuel, would be to attend a séance.’

  ‘A séance?’

  ‘We can try to make contact with this mysterious creature, or else ask guidance from an all-seeing spirit.’

  Charles got up, rummaged through his recent correspondence, and put a piece of paper in front of Sam. It was a playbill, and it read as follows:

  MADAME FLORENCE WAYFARER,

  the Californian Psychic, has returned from America, and will be in London for another season.

  SÉANCES HELD ON

  Thursday evenings, 7.30 for 8, at 135 Gower Street, W.C.

  ‘An American medium?’

  ‘The Fox sisters were American!’ Charles beamed, choosing to ignore, as always, the scandal on his religion that Margaret Fox’s confession had brought. But then he frowned, and grumbled: ‘In any case, this new science originated in the New World!’

  Perhaps Charles had been right all along; perhaps Viola’s death had heightened his sensibility somehow. He could not remember clearly what had happened on the river. He just had a persistent feeling of dread; he felt as if he was chewing death all the time. He also dreamt of the house every night, and woke up not knowing where he was, or who he was. Something needed to be done.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, on one of those cloudy evenings when it looked like the sky was deciding whether to rain or not, Sam set aside his book, and started getting ready to attend his first séance. At the agreed time he came down to find Charles even more nervous than usual. The older man kept looking through one of the little windows to the side of the main door, adjusting and readjusting his cravat with shaking fingers. Sam peeped out discreetly.

  An odd-looking beggar was standing on the other side of the pavement, leaning against the street lamp. He was big as a bear, clad in strange old-fashioned robes, with a long mat of grey hair covering his shoulders. The amber light of the lamp projected his long, amorphous shadow.

  They left the house. The street was completely empty by then, and the redbrick buildings around them shone, wet with the light evening drizzle that had decided to fall. Charles kept looking left and right, and Sam sensed that the older man would be grateful for any topic to discuss.

  ‘Have you ever been to one of this American’s séances before?’

  Charles turned to face him, and fixed his eyes on Sam’s.

  ‘You are so young, Samuel. So young and full of life.’

  This took Sam by surprise. If only his uncle knew how he felt when someone mentioned youth and life in the same sentence. A few months earlier, Sam would have smiled with the true detachment of youth, not really feeling any pain, any loss, any fear. Now all he could think of was Viola.

  They climbed into Sam’s car in silence and set off. The machine vibrated like a consumptive in a coughing fit, as if ready to die at any moment.

  ‘Sam, I have been meaning to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am most impressed at your recovery. Health and occupation are the main purveyors of a happy mind! Have you had any inkling of what you might want to do next?’

  Sam had feared this conversation, but he was prepared for it.

  ‘Mind you, you are welcome to stay as long as you want!’

  ‘I had the notion of preparing myself to climb some mountain,’ Sam cut in, in the face of Charles’s embarrassed look.

  ‘Very good! Train the body and the spirit will look after itself. The most important thing is to be able to control the dark impulses—’

  Sam had a private, interior laugh. Was his uncle serious? Was he preaching against dark and fanciful notions, while taking him to a séance, of all things?

  ‘Let the work of the day tire you so that you fall into a black well when you go to sleep,’ continued the older man. A cloud passed over Sam’s mind; what did his uncle know about his nightmares? Perhaps he shouted in his dreams. Did he shout about the ruined house, about Viola, about the ghos
tly seamstress?

  Charles imparted some more of this kind of vague, Spiritualist-magazine advice during their drive to Gower Street, while Sam nodded and uttered agreements in all the right places. They reached their destination shortly after half past seven. A maid opened the door for them, and they were shown into a parlour. The room was in half-darkness, and what light there was twisted the aspidistras at the other end into fantastical shapes. Sam weighed up his surroundings, an old habit from a time when he used to pick fights in taverns. Entrances and exits.

  Two members of the Gower Street Circle were greeting the guests: serious Miss Clare Collins, a poised young black woman with a shocking streak of white in her hair, and a Scot, Thomas Bunthorne, whom Sam had met previously. Charles greeted both of them, and introduced Miss Collins to Sam:

  ‘My dear boy, here you have the most faithful group of devotees in the whole of London!’ he announced, and Miss Collins laughed heartily, as though Charles had said something truly amusing. Sam felt as if he had missed a trick.

  ‘How do you do, Miss Collins?’ he offered.

  ‘Sam, Miss Collins here will direct the séance,’ Charles explained.

  ‘But I thought—’

  Charles and Miss Collins smiled at Sam’s confusion.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Moncrieff. Madame Florence is the one you have come to see tonight, and you will see her. She will lock herself in that cabinet,’ Miss Collins explained, signalling an imposing piece of black mahogany furniture at the other end of the room. Sam was unpleasantly reminded of an oversized coffin. ‘From there she will summon the spirits, but I will direct the questions from the table.’

  The rest of the small gathering was completed by a little plump woman in a worn-out gown who kept wringing her hands, and a distinguished-looking lady dressed in heavy mourning regalia, sitting on a chair with the aloof air of not needing to talk to anyone. Sam noted that Charles greeted her coldly, in a manner suggesting that he must have known her in passing, but he did not offer an introduction. Mr Woodbury, an elderly bookseller whom Sam had seen sometimes in Charles’s house, arrived shortly before the proceedings began.

  He had not expected to see the medium before the séance, but Madame Florence appeared in the dimly lit room. She moved like a graceful hostess, talking to everyone, quite as if she were about to announce dinner instead of a meeting with the dead. She was not at all as Sam had expected: he had pictured a plump spinster, an earthly matron surrounded by a group of admiring fools.

  ‘Madame Florence,’ said Charles, ‘may I introduce Mr Samuel Moncrieff?’

  She extended a heavily bejewelled hand in his direction, and Sam bent down to kiss it. He had the impression that she was sizing him up, and that she was happy with what she saw. Madame Florence seemed to be a woman who made sure her partialities were understood. She had deep, intense green eyes, which seemed to pierce through his skull and communicate hidden meanings.

  ‘Are you a believer, Mr Moncrieff? Or will I have a problem with you?’

  Her directness disarmed him for a second. She must have noticed the slight bewilderment in his eyes, for she added:

  ‘I’m only joking! Please excuse me. It’s just that I can smell a non-believer from miles away.’

  ‘Madame Florence, if I may—’ he started. ‘I am new to Spiritualism, and there are still certain things that perplex me. One question, for example. If mediumship is a service, as the members of your religion proclaim, pray inform me on one point. I do not quite understand why these people have to pay to be here.’

  ‘Sam!’ Charles looked horrified.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Bale. Nothing gives me more pleasure than dispelling these little malicious and unfounded myths about my profession. Let’s put your assertion to the test, Mr Moncrieff. Do you see that lady?’ She pointed at the woman in the worn-out dress. ‘She came to see me days ago. She needed help, solace. I could not turn her down. Of course, she could not afford to pay for my services, but she needed them nonetheless. People have their pride, Mr Moncrieff, even the less fortunate among us.’ She fixed him with an icy stare, as if daring him to take up the issue with her. ‘She is a very talented milliner, and has promised to make me a new summer hat in lieu of payment. I have accepted. It is more than fair, and I only fear that I shall be benefiting much more than her in the exchange.’

  Her honesty was refreshing, he thought. Sam noticed that his uncle had moved away, with a wounded look.

  ‘That is very generous of you,’ he said.

  ‘And that man over there…’ To Sam’s surprise she pointed to Mr Woodbury, who was conducting what looked like an agitated exchange with Thomas Bunthorne. ‘As well as being a celebrated vegetarian, and a significant figure in the temperance movement, he happens to want to study my psychic powers. Perhaps even to shame me as a fraud!’ She suppressed a little laugh. ‘Anyway, I cannot charge him for attending this gathering in his pursuit of scientific knowledge! You are in safe hands, Mr Moncrieff. I assure you he will scrutinise everything that happens here this evening.’

  To her amusement, he didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Pray, excuse me, I had better prepare myself,’ Madame Florence cut off. ‘A psychic expert and a non-believer!’ she laughed. ‘I have to offer an excellent performance tonight, don’t you think?’ and she walked away from him.

  * * *

  The séance would turn out to be rather a theatrical affair. There was an argument that there had been a particular design in mind to be extrapolated from each affectation, as if a stage manager from the Waterloo Variety had been in attendance in Gower Street that night. Sam’s recent exposure to the bright lights and painted faces of the theatre did to a degree recall what had transpired in the candlelit parlour, even though the effect had been the exact opposite: if the chorus girls and comic singers and magicians tried to please and enchant, then Madame Florence’s purpose was none other than to introduce a sense of the uncanny into the lives of her sitters.

  The first thing that he had learnt from the experience was that raising the dead seemed to be a tedious business. He couldn’t tell how long ago Madame Florence had entered the dark mahogany cabinet, where she had allowed Mr Bunthorne to tie her up and lock her away. She had been left unable to move, but had been smiling faintly, like a heroine accepting her sacrifice. So far there had been no sign of Kitty, Madame Florence’s spirit-guide, and the sitters avoided looking at each other as much as possible. Sam’s concentration faltered, and he tried to focus on anything, but found nothing.

  And then it appeared, all of a sudden, clarifying itself in his mind’s eye as the one thing he truly feared: the ruined little manor house, with the capricious moss in its walls, so wrong and so abundant, as if it had a will of its own; the decayed abandoned structure left to rot as if it hid a horrible secret.

  Sam shook the image away, and his hand left the circle momentarily to readjust his cravat, an unwitting gesture. Miss Collins directed a furious look in his direction. His hand darted back to the table, and he responded to the woman’s disapproving look with an apologetic nod.

  The reality was that not much was happening. How many in that parlour were starting to feel cheated? From what Charles had explained, guaranteed hand or face materialisation was assured with this medium. The group was not even breathing in unison, and whatever concentration they had managed at the beginning, there was no sign of it now. The milliner was trying to muffle her uneven gasps; she seemed frankly agitated and on the verge of tears. The old lady, a Mrs Ashby, looked frankly cross, as if she were being made to lose a perfectly good evening among a group of fools.

  It suddenly struck him what a hideous business was now being conducted in that candlelit room. He saw the ‘parlour game’ for what it really was: they were inviting the dreadful shadows of the dead to join them; unknown presences that, he feared, would be anything but angelic if they were truly to show themselves, even though he did not believe such apparitions possible. He wondered vaguely about Madame
Florence’s safety inside the cabinet.

  He tried to recall the exact lyrics of the hymn they had sung at the beginning of the séance; ghastly, horrid words, made all the more horrid for they sounded like a children’s rhyme:

  Hand in hand with angels; some are out of sight,

  Leading us unknowing into paths of light;

  Some soft hands are covered from our mortal grasp,

  Soul in soul to hold us with a firmer clasp.

  And then it happened, three knocks.

  That was what Miss Collins had told them to wait for.

  One. Two. Three.

  Next to him, Mrs Ashby swallowed a scream.

  Sam saw all eyes turn towards the cabinet where Madame Florence sat alone inside, arms and legs tied, inducing her trance.

  Without a word Miss Collins got up, and moved towards the heavy piece of furniture. She turned the key, and the door of the cabinet creaked slowly open. The mahogany interior was as black as a deep cave. That could not be; they had all seen Madame Florence sitting on a little stool placed inside the diminutive interior, no hidden depths. Miss Collins resumed her seat at the table, and for a moment nothing else happened.

  Something moved inside the cabinet. And then they all saw her.

  The figure revealed itself, little by little, as they heard the rustle of a dress, distinguished a face. Or was it a trick of the light? Madame Florence was completely still. The light condensed around her, changed shape, and this pale and flat whiteness shone a little, reflecting her sombre features.

  Each and every one of the sitters had encountered death, witnessed how it subtly changes the features of loved ones, turning them into wrong versions of their living selves. Putrefaction settles at once on a corpse, and hollowness imposes itself on the face, altering it almost at once, shockingly definitive. Madame Florence’s face was changed in such a manner. It was the same face they had all seen thirteen minutes earlier, entering the cabinet. But it was also a corrupted version of it.

  And then Sam realised. Surely the medium was— dead?