The Lammas Curse

by Anna Lord

  “Pas du tout! It sounds like great fun!”

  “That’s the spirit!” praised Miss Dee. “My brother tends to take things to heart. Minor injustices that just wash off me have a tendency to eat away at him. I hate to admit it,” she confided, leaning closer to whisper in the Countess’s ear, “and I would never say this to another human being, but, well, Lola was right. He is not a man’s man. He’s a bit of a sissy. You’ve probably noticed how his hands shake. He is such a nervous Nellie. Every little noise appals him and sometimes he even jumps at his own shadow. I fear that if I win the tournament it will shatter his confidence completely.”

  “He is so fortunate to have a caring sister to look out for him.”

  “I try my best,” sighed Miss Dee. “But I feel as if I am walking on eggshells the whole time. It is a fine line between making a man of him and looking after my own best interests. I don’t think he has ever gotten over the fact I was first born the natural way and he was plucked from our mother’s womb after she actually died on the birthing bed. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “I’m an only child.”

  “You don’t realize how lucky you are. I love my brother dearly, but, well, sometimes I find myself wishing I was an only child. That is such an awful thing to admit. I hope I have not horrified you. It’s just that I feel I can say things to you that I would not be able to reveal to another living soul.” She gave the Countess’s arm a tight, quick, endearing squeeze. “I feel I have known you forever. If only we could have been sisters it would have been so jolly!”

  The Countess did not notice that Miss Dee had steered her toward a piano.

  “Let’s play a duet,” she suggested enthusiastically.

  “Oh, yes!” approved the dowager, parking herself in the seat nearest to the fire. “We could do with some music after that tedious dinner. Such talk would never have been tolerated in my day. Manners have been allowed to slip. Someone needs to take a shotgun and put that disgruntled young man out of his misery!”

  “Oh, Lady Moira!” chastised Miss Lambert, pouring the dowager a cup of cocoa. “You don’t really mean that!”

  “Oh, yes I do!”

  Miss Dee’s flexible fingers suddenly fumbled a couple of ivories on the piano but the Countess managed to cover for her. The growing empathy between the two young women was cemented at that moment. When they ceased playing, Miss Lambert took to the piano. No one noticed that Miss O’Hara had not joined them until it was time for the séance to begin.

  “Oh, come sisters!” essayed the dowager. “It is time to speak to the spirit world!”

  “Shall I fetch the gentlemen from the billiard room?” asked Miss Lambert helpfully.

  “Yes,” replied the dowager. “Direct them to the library. And Miss O’Hara too,” she added with a disapproving scowl. “She will most likely be ingratiating herself with the male members of the household.”

  The library was a long narrow room about eighty feet in length with a coffered ceiling and an abundance of wood-panelling. Bookshelves lined one entire wall and large sash windows punctuated the other, double doors stood at either end for ease of entry and exit. Doric columns cleverly delineated what could have been nothing more than a grand corridor into intimate areas dotted with armchairs for reading, desks for letter-writing, library tables and folio cupboards. A quartet of columns also served to define the mid-point of the room which featured a bow window and a massive fireplace with an elaborately carved black marble mantel featuring caryatids, acanthus scrolls, thistles and some intertwined C’s.

  It was in the front of this fireplace that a large round table stood with eleven chairs around it. The room had not been electrified for fear of the bright light ruining the antiquarian books, and the Stygian gloom was perfect for inducing dead spirits to rise from their graves.

  Lady Moira occupied the throne-like chair facing toward the bow window, her back to the crackling fire. Miss Dee and the Countess sat side by side, directly opposite.

  Miss Lambert soon joined them and took the chair to the left of the dowager.

  Lord Cruddock and the Rajah arrived next. They chose not to take a seat just yet but chatted quietly in the alcove created by the bow window. His lordship stood with one hand shoved casually into the pocket of his dinner jacket and the other hand wrapped around a whiskey tumbler, giving the semblance of a host who is at ease among his guests but a clenched jaw belied the relaxed air. His eyes kept darting to the double door as though Beelzebub might blow in any minute.

  Dr Watson arrived with Mr Bancoe. The doctor immediately chose a seat away from the Countess, which offered a different perspective of the room. If there were going to be any supernatural shenanigans at this séance he wanted to be able to spot them and call their bluff.

  This was a fact little known about the good doctor but as well as being a member of the Micawber Club he was also a member of the Ghost Club. He belonged to the Ghost Club not because he believed in ghosts, but because he did not. The name of the club was chosen deliberately for its ironic value. Members were called in whenever someone was convinced their house was haunted or they themselves were the victims of supernatural forces. In every case, there was a human hand behind the paranormal happenstance – hidden wires, fuzzy photographic images, invisible chemical vapours and diabolical imaginations.

  Mr Bancoe hovered behind his chair, puffing on a pipe and tugging at his cuffs as he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, giving the impression of a man whose shoes were the same as his suit - one size too small.

  “I’m, er, I’m sorry, Lady Moira,” he stammered nervously, “but I cannot be a party to supernatural soliciting. My father was a Methodist minister and he deplored all things to do with the dark arts and Lucifer and his evil minions. Once the gates of Hell are opened they cannot be closed. My conscience will not allow me to participate in this hocussing and pocussing,” he finished gruffly, spinning on his heel and rushing from the room, flushed with self-righteous embarrassment.

  He was moving so swiftly he almost collided with his golfing partner.

  Mr Larssensen glanced back over his shoulder as the other whooshed past him like a wayward golf ball with a mind of its own.

  “Are you alright, old salt?” Mr Larssensen called with some concern. When he didn’t get an answer he shrugged his substantial Viking shoulders and joined the two men in the alcove.

  “Where did you disappear to after dinner?” put his lordship somewhat bluntly as he tossed back a decent measure of whiskey. “We could have used a good snooker player. That god-son of mine is utterly hopeless. Fortunately he didn’t hang around for long.”

  “I needed forty winks,” replied the Viking, adjusting his white tie which he suddenly noticed via the overmantel mirror was sitting slightly askew. “I played a shocker today, six over par. I think I need to cut out the late nights and all the rich food.”

  Just then the double doors opened at the opposite end of the library and in sashayed Miss O’Hara. Irish eyes flew down the length of the room, scanning the faces of those present before settling on her beloved. “I hope I’m not late,” she offered breathlessly, as she smoothed back her voluptuous red hair.

  Lord Cruddock flashed an indulgent smile. “Not at all, darling. Did you decide to have a lie down after dinner?”

  “No,” interrupted Carter Dee, speaking for the actress as he followed in her glamorous wake and quietly closed the door. “She was with me. We both had the same idea about checking the costumes for the play. Seyton’s costume should fit Dr Watson without the need for any adjustment but the witch’s cloak for Countess Volodymyrovna may need the hem taking up. Isn’t that what we decided?”

  “Yes,” Lola smiled agreeably. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

  “Let us proceed,” interrupted the dowager impatiently. “This is not the time to discuss costume fittings. Remove the extra chair, Carter. Finish your whiskey, Duncan. Everyone else, take your seats as you please and remain silent. I sense that the s
pirits are restless. They wish to communicate with the living and they will not be denied. Join hands and then place them on the table so that the sceptics amongst us will have no cause to doubt that what they are about to witness is genuine and real. Whatever happens, do not speak.”

  9

  The Séance

  Ten pairs of hands joined up and rested on the table as instructed by Lady Moira who closed her eyes and began to hum plaintively. Gradually, the mnemonic humming turned into a tuneless chant as she began to sway from side to side. Before long she appeared to fall into a sort of self-induced hypnotic trance. Flickering firelight silhouetted her pale head and shoulders but the effect was anything but halo-like. The wispy white bird’s nest hair seemed to stand on end as if electrified.

  Dr Watson remained sceptical. During the last few years many so-called spiritualists or mediums had been exposed as charlatans and fraudsters. Every form of magical trickery and clever chicanery had been employed to deceive and defraud a gullible public desperate to communicate with deceased loved ones. When his beloved Mary had died he too had toyed with the idea of visiting a medium. The chance to say the things he did not have the courage to say when she was dying was overwhelming. And then when his best friend died so unexpectedly and violently at Reichenbach Falls the overwhelming need to communicate a last goodbye became unbearable. He sought out the most famous medium in London – Madame Moghra.

  He had wanted to believe and it was this wanting that transcended not only his rational sense but plain old common-sense as well. When someone cried out that the table was levitating, and those around him voiced their accord, he had believed it too even though he knew the table top was exactly level with the point of his body where it had been when he first sat down. When a phosphorescent green cat appeared at the window sill and a chorus of shocked gasps followed he thought of Stapleton’s trick with the gigantic hound, but still he wanted to believe. When a ghostly image of a child appeared in the mirror he thought about Sherlock’s old friend, Dr Savernake, and the amazing feats he could achieve with his photographic equipment. But still he wanted to believe. And so he convinced himself it was all above board. It was a full three years later that he discovered he was not only being deceived but was in fact deceiving himself. Madame Moghra had done her homework. Her accomplices had been thorough and played their parts well. The Spiritualist knew everything that anyone could know. But she did not know what she could not. In 1894 he promptly joined the Ghost Club.

  He wasn’t sure what to expect with Lady Moira, but if she had an accomplice it could only be his wife’s niece, Miss Adeline Lambert. That notion both upset and distracted him. He spent much of the time watching the young lady from the corner of his eye when he should probably have been watching elsewhere. However, there did not appear to be any hidden wires for the purposes of levitation, no ghostly images were reflected in the mirror, there materialized no phantom phosphorescent cats, neither did any invisible vapours waft through the darksome air, nor did any strange smells infuse the library. There was not even any rapping – a sure-fire favourite of credulous devotees. Lady Moira appeared merely to serve as a simple conduit for the spirit world. Her humming and swaying increased in tack and pitch like a tempest-tossed yacht in a squall until she almost pitched herself out of her chair. There was a collective gasp but everyone heeded the warning not to speak and pulses were quickly calmed.

  And so it started – Lady Moira channelled the spirit world:

  “The Pictish Raven croaks hoarse,

  Blueblood o’er runs the course,

  Weep for the woad,

  Reap what you sowed.”

  The voice grew more strange and cobwebby.

  “The Celtic Raven croaks hoarse,

  Redblood o’er runs the course,

  Weep for the dead,

  They will warm your bed.”

  The voice was now so feeble it was barely audible and almost disappeared down its own throat like a dying echo under water.

  “The Sacred Raven croaks hoarse,

  Holyblood o’er runs the course,

  Weep for the bones,

  Buried mid the stones.”

  Lady Moira did a commendable job changing her voice for each spirit but there was no denying that the sentiments expressed by the spirit world were her sentiments too. She wanted the golf tournament halted and the Lammas moor turned back to how it was when she first set eyes on it as a young bride. It was widely understood that the old disliked change but change was inevitable. Time and tide and life move on whether one liked it or not.

  Dr Watson hoped the séance might move on too. He suppressed a yawn as his mind drifted. He thought about Graymalkin and his bedroom at the top of the peel tower around which the wind whistled like a lonely banshee, where he had left a fire crackling in the ancient stone hearth so that the room would be toasty warm for his return. He yearned for the bed, the tower, the room, the fire and…

  Something cold brushed the back of his neck. He put it down to a draught and checked to make sure the doors were still closed. Indeed they were, yet he could have sworn the room was suddenly colder, and not just by a few degrees. The library felt like an ice house. He checked the fire. It was still faintly flickering but the coals seemed to be giving off no heat.

  He felt it again, a cold sensation on the back of his neck. This time it travelled down his spine like a creeping spider, no, more like a hundred spiders, yes, as if a hundred spiders had crawled inside his clothes and were scuttling down his back. Without moving his head, his eyes roved around the circle of faces. He could see everyone clearly except the two people either side of him – his lordship and the Rajah of Govinda. Each face looked pale and ghost-like, all eyes were transfixed on Lady Moira who had fallen silent and whose white head suddenly sagged forward as though she were dead, the eerie glow behind her was like the deathly hallows surrounding a corpse.

  For a brief moment he wondered if perhaps she might in fact be dead when she gave a demented cry, louder than any mythical banshee, and lifted her head. Her eyelids flew open. Everyone gasped and caught their breath, including him.

  Suddenly she began to speak, but not in any voice they had previously heard. This voice was portentous and deep, like the booming voice of someone stuck down a well, crying for help.

  “The whitebird calls tomorrow,

  The redbird smiles hollow,

  The blackbird cries sorrow,

  The bluebird will follow.”

  Miss O’Hara suddenly clutched at her own breast and cried out as if in pain. She appeared to swoon and would surely have tumbled sideways out of her chair but for the fact the chairs were grouped so tightly together. She slumped sideways and was caught by Carter Dee. He supported her by the shoulders until her fiancé could rush around the table. Lord Cruddock then scooped her up and transported her to the nearest armchair where he continued to kneel anxiously by her side, patting her hand and murmuring soothing platitudes.

  Dr Watson hurried to her side to check for a pulse but without his medical bag which housed his stethoscope and some smelling salts there was nothing more he could do. He held her other wrist and counted the faint beats.

  Miss Dee, practical as ever, ran to the bell pull to summon a servant then began to light the candles.

  Mr Dee threw a log on the fire then lit two cigarettes and handed one to his sister.

  Mr Larssensen puffed nervily on a cigarette as he paced the bow window.

  Countess Volodymyrovna and the Rajah exchanged concerned glances as they too lit up some gaspers.

  Miss Lambert, who did not smoke, fanned her flushed face with her hand.

  No one remembered Lady Moira until they heard a clunk.

  “Oh, good heavens!” cried Miss Lambert as her mistress banged her white-coiffed head on the table. “Is she, er, is she dead, Uncle John?” she stammered when Dr Watson rushed back to the séance table.

  “It’s alright,” he said in a reassuring tone, discerning a weak pulse in Lady Moira�
��s carotid artery. “No one is dead. The two ladies have merely fainted.” He glanced down the length of the room and realized that the icebox had turned into an oven full of acrid fumes. His sights shifted to the Norwegian pacing the bow window. “For goodness sake, man! Open a window! Fresh air and ventilation is what we need!”

  By the time the butler arrived with a tray of refreshments the panic had passed. The two ladies had been revived and Dr Watson began to breathe easier. He was loath to admit it to anyone but he had believed, albeit briefly, that perhaps one or both of the ladies had indeed died.

  Miss O’Hara, slightly dazed and dizzy, waved away the glass of brandy proffered by Mr Larssensen and managed with the help of her fiancé to climb the stairs to her bedroom.

  Lady Moira, however, insisted on downing a large brandy before undertaking the short carriage drive to Mawgate Lodge. “Did the spirits speak?” she asked of Miss Lambert.

  “Oh, yes, Lady Moira,” the young woman gushed. “They were quite magnificent!”

  “What did they say?” the old lady quizzed.

  “You mean you don’t know?” said Dr Watson incredulously, helping himself to a generous measure of brandy to fortify himself for the cold journey home.

  “Of course I don’t know!” Lady Moira returned indignantly, rubbing her forehead. “What sort of doctor are you? I was in a catatonic state. I had hypnotized myself. How could I possibly know what was said after I went into a trance!”

  “There were three spirits,” explained Miss Lambert quickly. “A Pict, a Celt and I think the last one was a monk from Lammas Abbey. They spoke in rhyming couplets. It was very poetic and exciting! They pleaded to be remembered and pitied. And then…”

  “Yes?” prompted the old lady.

  Miss Lambert’s auburn brows drew down in a very pretty bother. “Well, it is hard to describe what was said next. It was very cryptic. I’m not sure that I understood it.”

  “Repeat it,” directed the other sternly. “Verbatim.”