The Spirit Is Willing (The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries Book 2)

by T E Kinsey

  Neither of us spoke for a few moments; the only sounds were the crackle of the fire, the soft ticking of the hall clock and the tapping of the wind-blown rain against the windows. The shutters were still open and I’d not yet drawn the curtains.

  There was a sudden blinding flash of lightning as it struck a tree a little way down the lane, and the almost simultaneous explosion of thunder gave us both such a start that I dropped the book and we both yelped in surprise. A gust of wind blew sparks from the fire.

  And then, of course, came the inevitable laughter.

  ‘Crikey,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘That was a close one.’

  ‘It’ll be the ghost of Sir Samuel, cursing you for not believing in him,’ I said.

  ‘Without a doubt,’ she said, still chuckling. ‘I recant my sceptical ways and shall hie me to a séance at the earliest possible opportunity.’

  ‘It’s funny you should say that, my lady.’

  ‘No,’ she said, firmly.

  Daisy the barmaid had buttonholed me one day during the previous week as I walked past the pub on my way to do a little shopping. She was standing outside the pub in the road, appraising the effect of the large poster she had just put in the window.

  ‘Morning, Miss Armstrong,’ she had said. ‘What do you reckon?’

  I looked at the neatly-painted poster. “An Evening with Madame Eugénie, England’s Foremost Medium and Psychic.”

  ‘Good morning, Daisy,’ I said. ‘It looks intriguing. When is it?’

  ‘When is…? Oh, blow it. I forgot to put the day on.’ She seemed to find this terribly amusing. ‘I’d forget me own head if it weren’t nailed on. Monday. Next Monday. Do you think you and your mistress might come along?’

  ‘I can certainly ask,’ I had said. ‘I’d love to come along myself, that’s for certain. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Right you are,’ she had said cheerfully. ‘It’d be lovely to have our local dignitaries here.’

  I laughed at this. ‘Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud not good enough for you these days?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, they’s charming and all,’ she said. ‘But they a’n’t got that air of glamour like you has.’

  I laughed again. ‘I shall endeavour to persuade Lady Hardcastle to bring her air of glamour, then. But even if she is otherwise engaged, I shall be there myself. I would love to meet a medium.’

  But Lady Hardcastle had been less than impressed. Until now. I sensed a weakening of her resolve.

  ‘Oh, go on,’ I said. ‘Daisy does so want us to go.’

  ‘I refuse to sit around a table at The Dog and Duck in the pitch black while some charlatan talks to her spirit guide in a silly voice and rattles the china.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ I said.

  ‘Seriously? You really want to go?’

  ‘Well…’

  She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Oh, I suppose it couldn’t hurt,’ she said at length. ‘And we could do with an evening out; we seem to have been cooped up in here for days.’

  I grinned.

  ‘You and your silly shows,’ she said with another chuckle. ‘The circus I can understand, and the musical theatre… just. But this…? Still, I suppose there’s no harm in it.’

  ‘This isn’t a silly show,’ I said, defiantly. ‘Madame Eugénie is one of the best mediums in the country. And she’s clairvoyant, too. Daisy said she’ll do a private reading for a shilling.’

  ‘A shilling!’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’m in the wrong line of business.’

  ‘Give her the shilling and she’ll be able to tell you what line of business you should be in.’ I decided not to mention the money I’d already paid for two tickets for the séance.

  She laughed. ‘All right, pet, I’ll strike a bargain with you. If Madame Eugénie can tell me a single thing about me that she couldn’t have picked up from the newspapers or from village gossip, I’ll give you a shilling as well.’

  ‘Done,’ I said.

  ‘But if I get even a trace of ectoplasm on my new dress, you can clean it up and I’m taking the money back.’

  ‘It has occurred to you that I’d be cleaning it anyway?’ I said.

  She harrumphed and we returned to our books.

  The next day saw no end to the storm, only brief interludes when we would look out of the windows and optimistically suggest that it might finally be over. The resumption of meteorological hostilities was met with weary resignation and we returned to our moping.

  Although there was no less to do about the house, somehow being trapped indoors made time hang heavy and I looked for ever more industrious ways of passing it. Things were tidied, mended, cleaned and polished whether they needed it or not, and cake production reached an almost industrial level.

  Lady Hardcastle came into the kitchen to cadge a cup of tea. ‘Are we opening a cake shop, pet?’ she asked when she saw what was cooling on every available surface.

  ‘I got a bit bored, my lady,’ I said, piping some whipped cream into a choux bun.

  ‘So it would appear,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope someone drops in unexpectedly for tea. Several people.’

  ‘We’ll get through it, my lady. Be brave.’

  ‘Woman cannot live by cake alone, Flo.’

  ‘I can give it a bloomin’ good try.’

  ‘Are we being fed tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘At the pub?’ I said. ‘There was talk of a tray of sandwiches, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Joe does his best, but he’d not be well reviewed in the society pages for the soaring quality of his cuisine.’

  ‘So perhaps we should eat a decent lunch?’

  ‘I am, as is so often the case in matters domestic, at least one step ahead of you,’ I said. ‘If my lady would care to ready herself for luncheon, I have prepared a delicious pie.’

  ‘A pie?’ she said, her eyes brightening. ‘You do make excellent pies. What’s in the pie, ma petite pâtissière?’

  ‘Something inspired by your most recent triumph,’ I said. ‘La tourte au boeuf et aux champignons, à la Meule de foin.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I’ll work it out… Beef and mushroom pie… la meule de foin… Oh, you clever old stick. Haystack. Hayrick. The Hayrick’s Beef and Mushroom Pie.’

  ‘It’ll be ready in half an hour, my lady.’

  ‘If you poison me with it, I’m bally well coming back to haunt you,’ she said as she turned to leave.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘I’ll make an exception for you, pet,’ she called from the hall.

  We enjoyed lunch together in the dining room and neither of us died (though there was still plenty of time, obviously). Lady Hardcastle was trying to teach me to draw, so we spent an entertainingly silly afternoon trying to sketch each other. It was becoming clear that I was no artist, but with only two of us in the house to eat them, there were only so many cakes that could sensibly be cooked so it was a fun use of our time.

  Tea came and went (and we made a reasonable dent in the cake supply) and it was eventually time to get ready for our evening at The Dog and Duck. A séance works best in the dead of night when the spirits are abroad, so it was actually quite late by the time we left and I was realized that I was no longer concerned about the quality of Joe’s sandwiches – I would happily eat anything.

  We had been granted us a brief respite from the viciousness of the storms and we walked into the village through what seemed, by comparison, a very pleasant gusty drizzle. By the time we reached the door of The Dog and Duck less than ten minutes later, we were wet through, but somehow it still seemed less disagreeable than having battled through the tempest.

  I tried the door but it was locked and I was forced to hammer upon it quite vigorously before we heard the bolts being drawn on the other side.

  ‘Welcome to The Dog and Duck, ladies,’ said Daisy Spratt as she opened the door. ‘Please join us.’ She was wearing a long, black, old fashioned dress that I’d not seen before
and had adopted a breathy, would-be mysterious tone which I thought fitted the mood of the evening perfectly.

  Lady Hardcastle attempted to suppress a smirk. I gave her my most threatening stare as we walked in, just to make sure she knew to behave herself, but that just made her laugh.

  The tables and chairs in the public bar had been pushed against the walls, and a large circular table now filled the centre of the room where the other guests were already seated. The room was lit only by a lamp in the centre of the table. The rest of the guests looked up at us through the gloom as we took off our coats.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lady Hardcastle, hanging up her hat. ‘We seem to be the last to arrive. I do hope we haven’t kept everybody waiting too long.’

  There was a cheerful murmur of assurance from the small group.

  ‘Madame Eugénie isn’t quite ready yet,’ said Daisy, ‘so we were just having a little tipple and a gossip. Come and sit down; I’ve put you on that side of the table, either side of Madame Eugénie. I hope that’ll be all right. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Brandy for me, please,’ said Lady Hardcastle, enthusiastically.

  ‘And for me, please,’ I said. ‘That would be lovely.’

  We sat in our allotted places while Daisy poured two generous measures of brandy behind the bar.

  ‘I think we all know each other,’ she said as she came back to the table and handed us our drinks. She moved to her own chair and sat down. ‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘Lady Hardcastle most of you know. Then there’s Mr Snelson.’

  The smartly dressed man to Lady Hardcastle’s right inclined his head in greeting.

  ‘Our Ma, I think you knows her an’ all.’

  Mrs Spratt smiled self-consciously.

  ‘Mr Holman from the baker’s. I’m Daisy, as I reckon you knows. Dr Fitzsimmons everyone knows. And then Miss Armstrong who works for Lady Hardcastle.’

  I nodded my own greeting. I knew, or at least knew of, everyone there except Mr Snelson. He had moved to the village shortly after Christmas, but with Lady Hardcastle being on the sick list all winter we’d not had the opportunity to pay him a welcoming visit. We’d heard talk of his having retired from a business in Gloucester, but we didn’t have any details.

  There was a momentary flutter of excitement when the door to the back room opened, but it was just the landlord, Joe Arnold, bearing the promised tray of sandwiches.

  ‘I’ll just leave these on the bar,’ he said, toothlessly.

  ‘Not joining us, Joe?’ asked Lady Hardcastle with a grin.

  ‘No, m’lady. T’i’n’t right, messin’ with t’other side.’ He gave a little shudder. ‘I’ll just provide the refreshment and keep out of the way if you don’t mind.’

  And pocket a decent slice of the entrance money, too, I entirely failed to say out loud.

  He shuffled back out towards the kitchen and left us to wait for Madame Eugénie to arrive. I was just about to get up and help everyone to sandwiches when the door opened again and a tall, willowy woman wafted in. She was clad entirely in black, from the gauzy veil thrown back over her black hair, the darkly-tinted spectacles perched on her long nose, all the way to her black boots. Even her earrings, necklace and rings were of jet.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ she said in a faraway voice. ‘My apologies for my late arrival, but I am bound to the rhythms of the other realm and oftentimes the spirits forget that I have appointments to keep in this world.’ She glided to the empty chair and sat down. ‘Daisy, my dear, have you made the introductions?’

  ‘I have, Madame Eugénie,’ said Daisy with an eager nod. ‘Would you like me to–’

  ‘No, my dear,’ interrupted the medium in her dreamy voice. ‘I prefer to let the spirits guide me.’

  ‘Yes, Madame Eugénie,’ said Daisy, a good deal more respectfully than I’d ever heard her speak to anyone before.

  ‘So, dear friends,’ said Madame Eugénie, ‘let us begin. We are about to breach the barrier between this world and the next. Most of the spirits that loiter near the border seeking access to the world of the living are benign, they are merely curious to visit once more the world they have left behind. But there are those who are not so well intentioned, who would wish us ill. Alone we cannot fight them, but together we are too strong for them and they can do us no harm. Please take your left hand and hold tightly to the right wrist of your neighbour to form a circle of love and power; only then can our psychic strength combine to protect us.’

  After a moment’s puzzled hand waving, we managed collectively to work out what she had in mind. I clasped Dr Fitzsimmons’s right wrist with my left hand and the chain formed around the table so that eventually Madame Eugénie’s slender left hand took hold of my own right wrist.

  ‘There,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘Now we are protected. Remember, we must not break the circle, no matter what might happen.’

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement from around the table.

  ‘Daisy, would you be so kind as to extinguish the lamp, my dear. The spirits prefer the darkness.’

  Daisy freed her right hand from Dr Fitzsimmons’s grasp and turned down the wick on the lamp until it was extinguished. In the darkness, I could hear the tiny sounds of movement as the doctor tried to find Daisy’s wrist once more. They soon settled and the room fell into silence.

  Suddenly, the silence was broken by the loudest and most forceful sneeze I have ever heard. It came from Madame Eugénie.

  ‘Oh, my dears, I am most dreadfully sorry,’ she said through a slightly blocked nose. ‘I think I must have picked up a chill in this awful weather. Do please excuse me.’

  She released my right hand and, after a moment’s rustling, blew her nose with a sound like an inexpertly played euphonium. More rustling while the handkerchief was put away and then she grasped my wrist again.

  ‘Can you find my hand, my dear,’ she said, presumably to Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I have it now, thank you.’

  The room was quiet again save for the steadily increasing rain outside, and for a few moments everything was perfectly still. Then, starting with the smallest movement, but with slowly growing strength, Madame Eugénie began to sway back and forth.

  ‘Come, spirits,’ she said in her faraway voice. ‘Join us. Join us in our–’ I could feel that she had stopped moving. Her grip on my wrist relaxed slightly. Then there was a knocking which sounded for all the world like someone rapping on the table, but with everyone’s hand held firmly by their neighbour’s, it couldn’t possibly be anyone at the table.

  ‘Is it you, Madame Eugénie?’ she said in a deeper, foreign-sounding growl. ‘You have been gone far too long. I have many here waiting for your call.’

  There were questioning murmurs around the table.

  ‘That’s Monsieur Diderot,’ whispered Daisy, who had clearly done her research. ‘Her spirit guide.’

  The murmurers seemed satisfied.

  ‘There is someone here who wishes to communicate with Dr Fitsimmons,’ said Madam Eugénie. Or Monsieur Diderot, I should say. ‘Her name is… her name is Jane… Jennifer…’

  There was no reaction.

  ‘Juliet? Or is it June?’ he said.

  ‘My late wife was June,’ said Dr Fitzsimmons, sadly.

  ‘She says she is happy, and that you must be, too,’ said Madame Eugénie’s growly voice.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said the doctor, quietly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is there anyone else there?’ said Madame Eugénie in her normal voice.

  ‘There are many,’ said the growly voice. ‘I have John here.’

  ‘Mum?’ said Daisy excitedly. ‘Wasn’t Grandad’s brother called John?’

  ‘Ohh,’ said Mrs Spratt. ‘He was. Is that you, Uncle John?’

  ‘He says that the matter that has been concerning you will be settled soon and that all shall be well,’ said Madame Eugénie’s growly voice.

  ‘Oh, thank go
odness for that,’ said Mrs Spratt. ‘I’d been worrying myself silly.’

  Suddenly, Madame Eugénie began to convulse.

  ‘There is someone trying to get through,’ said the spirit guide. ‘He is angry! I cannot hold him!’

  I heard the scrape of a chair near the window and turned to try to see what was happening. There was a sudden draught, the coldest of breezes. From the opposite side of the table, a man gasped. Mr Snelson. ‘Something touched me,’ he said in a terrified voice. ‘A hand. Freezing cold.’

  Daisy and her mother screamed together. A flash of lightening. Something moved in the shadows. Another flash, and there, standing behind Dr Fitzsimmons was a man. A ghastly white face, a ghostly white suit, his arm outstretched and pointing directly at Mr Snelson. All visible in an instant and then gone. A terrifying crash of thunder, then in the silence that followed, a hoarse, ghostly whisper said, ‘Murderer!’

  There was uproar. Mrs Spratt screamed again. Daisy who had seen nothing of the ghost, screamed anyway. Mr Holman yelled in fright and there was a rustle of movement around the table.

  ‘Do not break the circle!’ shouted Madame Eugénie above the hubbub. ‘We shall be perfectly safe as long as we do not break the circle. If the lady to my right will join hands with the lady to my left, I shall relight the lamp. I shall be perfectly safe with my spirit guide to protect me and the circle will be broken for a mere moment. Not time enough for us to come to harm.’

  She released my hand and I scrabbled around in a panic trying to locate Lady Hardcastle’s hand. I felt her grip my wrist and give it a reassuring squeeze as Madame Eugénie stood and leaned forwards towards the lamp at the centre of the table. Some clinking, then a match flared and the gloom was gone. She lit the lamp and refitted the chimney and we were once more in what seemed a bright and welcoming room.

  ‘The spirits will not trouble us while there is light. Not with so many of the living in the room,’ said Madame Eugénie. ‘Daisy, my dear, would you be so kind as to bring the sandwiches over. And some more drinks? I think we could all do with a bit of a break.’