by Mary Hooper
‘I’ve known men like that,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Nice as pie when they’re out and about, but the very devil to live beside.’
‘But I mustn’t speak ill of the dead,’ Velvet said. ‘He’s gone now and there’s an end to it. You’ve all been so nice to me and I don’t want to spoil the festivities.’
‘Nor have you, my dear!’ said Mr Cameron. ‘You needed to get that off your chest.’
‘And as you haven’t had a fortunate past, we’ll drink to your happy future. The future of the girl who got the lucky silver horseshoe!’ toasted Mrs Cameron, raising her glass of plum wine in Velvet’s direction.
The family joined in, then settled down even closer to the fire for what Mrs Cameron assured Velvet was the way they always concluded Christmas Day – the head of the family reading from A Christmas Carol.
Chapter Four
In Which Velvet and Lizzie Attend an Evening of Mediumship
The excursion to Prince’s Hall for an evening of mediumship had been planned, timed and talked about in detail. The most urgent matter was what to wear, of course, for neither Velvet nor Lizzie had ever been to what Mrs Cameron assured them would be a ‘proper do, with society and all’. Deliberations about their costume did not occupy them for very long, however, because each girl had only two outfits: one for work and one for Sunday. Their hats were to be given new trimmings, however, and here Velvet put to use the felt corsage she’d been given by Charlie, breaking up the flowers and sewing them individually around the brim of her hat. Regarding their outerwear – and feeling that the woolly shawls the girls usually wrapped themselves in would not do for such an event – Mrs Cameron lent Lizzie her best black mantle, and Velvet borrowed a similar one from Mrs Cameron’s sister, who lived next door. Velvet also washed her hair and dried it wrapped around rags, so that, away from the heat and damp of the laundry, it was transformed into shiny dark ringlets instead of a cloud of frizz.
The travel arrangements were quite straightforward: the girls were to catch the number fifty-one omnibus which would drop them almost outside Prince’s Hall. To save them from being pestered by young men or street sellers afterwards, Mr Cameron would meet them and escort them home.
Prince’s Hall turned out to be a small, intimate theatre with gold-painted chairs arranged in semicircles before the stage. The girls were seated halfway down the hall, which suited Velvet. She was very much looking forward to seeing Madame, but she would have felt exposed if she’d been any nearer to the front. She really didn’t want to be called upon and told that someone from the spirit world wished to speak to her in case that someone was her father. She hadn’t actually killed him, she repeatedly reassured herself. Surely she couldn’t be accused of murder . . .
‘Look!’ Lizzie said, pointing to a chair and table before them on the otherwise bare stage. ‘Those things will go up in the air – my sister said that always happens. It goes dark and then there are rapping sounds and things fly everywhere.’
‘Not with Madame Savoya!’ the large woman beside Velvet said in a somewhat admonishing tone. ‘Madame does not do party tricks.’
‘Then, if you’ll excuse me for asking,’ Velvet said politely, ‘what does she do?’
‘We’ve never been to such an evening before,’ explained Lizzie.
‘Why, Madame Savoya communes with the spirits,’ replied the woman. ‘She asks them questions and they answer. Madame has the most wonderful rapport with those on the Other Side.’ She lifted a finger and waggled it at them. ‘She doesn’t need to sound trumpets and make furniture fly in the air!’
Velvet and Lizzie thanked her, nudging each other in excitement, then began a game of counting the number of fur coats they could see in the front four rows. They had just reached seventeen when the gaslights were dimmed, a voice called for complete silence and the audience immediately became hushed. Velvet, who’d earlier been scared that she might giggle nervously at an inappropriate moment, now felt herself much too overawed to do so.
After perhaps three minutes, a curtain parted at the centre back of the stage and a young man in an evening suit came out, holding the drape open for a small, darkly beautiful young woman with elaborately coiffed hair, dressed in – Velvet gripped Lizzie’s arm in excitement – the grey silk, pin-tucked blouse that she personally had laundered not four days before! She instantly recognised it because it fastened all down the front with mother-of-pearl buttons, and one of these had broken in half before it came to Ruffold’s and had had to be replaced with an identical one from Mrs Sloane’s button tin.
‘I laundered that!’ she whispered in Lizzie’s ear. ‘That very blouse she’s wearing.’ But Lizzie was too rapt watching the stage to answer.
Madame Savoya walked towards the chair. Her skirt (soft cashmere in dove grey) was pulled back at each side into an elaborate bustle which fell to the floor in gentle drapes and revealed the toes of shiny silver shoes. As she sat down, the young man standing to one side of her bade everyone welcome on her behalf, introducing himself as her assistant and saying his name was George. ‘Gorgeous George,’ Lizzie breathed in Velvet’s ear, for he was very handsome indeed.
‘What you are about to witness will amaze and confound you,’ he told the enthralled audience. ‘Madame Savoya’s grandmother was a Russian princess, one of the Romanovs, and the women of her family have always had the Sight.’
Madame Savoya smiled faintly and nodded as George continued. ‘On her sixteenth birthday, she had a vision in which her grandmother appeared and told her that she was going to become a medium of enormous talent. She said that Madame would gain immense influence and respect in the world, but must never allow her talents to corrupt her. Her grandmother told her she must always give half of everything she would earn to charities, institutions and those poor creatures less fortunate than herself.’
A murmur of appreciation ran through the hall.
‘Madame has, of course, always abided by this rule, and is now the leading medium in London – perhaps in all of England. Tonight, in Prince’s Hall, she is going to give you a demonstration of her powers. We hope to be blessed with help from the spirits this evening, although one can never guarantee visitations from the world beyond.’
The audience’s eager faces dropped just a little at this, as did Velvet’s and Lizzie’s. ‘I hope they do come,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘Fancy us doing ourselves up like this and not hearing any messages.’
‘Madame Savoya is a ray of light into the spirit world, a rainbow which links their existence to ours,’ the young man elaborated. ‘Madame is an open book wherein the spirits can write.’
Madame smiled and inclined her head gracefully.
‘The large number of you here tonight means an equally large number of spirits is waiting patiently on the Other Side, for they know that we’re hoping to hear from them. Channelling messages from this dense throng will be extremely tiring for Madame and she will not, at this time, be able to deal with those newly passed spirits, who are usually somewhat bewildered and demand a lot of patience and attention. Madame asks, therefore, if you have someone who has recently passed, to contact her so that she may conduct a private sitting and dedicate more of her time and consideration to you.’
George finished his introduction and bowed, then Madame rose and came forward to address the audience. She was not foreign, Velvet realised straight away. Her voice was low, cultured, and she was younger than she first appeared, perhaps only twenty-two or twenty-three. Her face was pale, her lips full and her eyes dark and expressive under thin, arching brows. She had glossy black hair, pulled back and piled into curls on top of her head, leaving a few wisps about her face. She looked both beautiful and serene.
‘I see some tense faces amongst you,’ she said. ‘But I must tell you that tonight there will be no dire prophecies or tales of woe. Tonight is a light-hearted diversion to show what help our guiding spirits can provide. Perhaps it will give you the courage to have a longer and more personal sitting with me.’
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‘She is such an inspiration!’ the large woman beside Velvet was heard to murmur.
‘Underneath each of your chairs is a pencil, a slip of paper and an envelope,’ Madame went on. ‘If you would care to, please write down a question, place it in the envelope and tuck in the flap to ensure that it cannot be seen by me. It is not I who will answer your questions, ladies and gentlemen, but the spirits.’
There was a pause and then the scraping of chairs as the audience located their pieces of paper. After that came some whispered consultations, followed by the soft scratching of pencils.
Velvet and Lizzie exchanged glances. What to write? Nothing that might mean her father being called back, Velvet thought. After a moment or two she wrote, For how much longer will I be working at Ruffold’s? Lizzie, who had spent near three years at a dame school and so had quite a passable hand, wrote, Will I marry a rich man?
The questions were collected by the young gentleman assistant who, Lizzie and Velvet were sure, smiled and crinkled his eyes at them as he took their envelopes. ‘Not that I’m surprised at him being saucy with us,’ whispered Lizzie, ‘because everyone else here is so very old.’
The envelopes were dropped into a top hat and taken to Madame. ‘You will have seen that your questions cannot be viewed through the envelopes,’ she said, ‘and they will be in your full view the entire time I’m on stage. I have absolutely no way of knowing what you’ve asked before I open your envelope.’
‘Madame and the spirits will try to answer as many questions as possible,’ said the young man. ‘But we ask for your support and understanding if she becomes exhausted by the demands upon her.’
The audience was still and silent as Madame dipped into the top hat and pulled out an envelope. She closed her eyes for a moment, held the envelope to her heart and spoke out brightly. ‘Ah, a lady here wishes to know if she will receive a proposal of marriage in the near future.’
There was a murmur of interest from the audience and Madame asked if the lady who had asked the question would please rise. A woman stood up, not in the first flush of youth but very elegantly dressed in a black-and-white silk costume with a small feathered hat. When she smilingly confessed that the question had been hers, Velvet noticed that she had prominent front teeth which made her lisp slightly.
Madame was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘You will be happy to know that the answer from my spirits is a very positive one. They tell me that the gentleman in question is on the verge of proposing . . .’ this produced another murmur from the (mostly female) audience ‘. . . and that you will marry before next Christmas.’
‘How marvellous!’ said the lady.
‘They have even given me sight of the outfit you’ll be wearing when you receive the gentleman’s proposal,’ Madame said, and she smiled. ‘It’ll be an azure satin gown.’
‘I shall go and buy such a garment tomorrow!’ the questioner said, clearly delighted.
‘But you must try and look surprised when the gentleman asks you,’ George the assistant said, and everyone laughed.
‘May I confirm your question?’ Madame asked. The woman assenting, Madame pulled out the flap of the envelope she held, removed the slip of paper and read out, ‘Will I marry soon?’
An excited buzz ran around the hall. ‘How did she know it said that?’ Lizzie asked, truly amazed, but this time it was Velvet who was too transfixed to reply.
Madame took another envelope and held it to her heart for a moment, as before. ‘A question from someone who signs himself, A gentleman from Scotland,’ she said. Then followed a long pause during which Madame held her head on one side, as if listening. She eventually continued, ‘The spirits tell me that you will live a long and happy life, sir. What’s more, you and your wife will be blessed with one more child.’
The ‘gentleman from Scotland’ who stood up to own this question looked sheepish, but gave Madame permission to open the envelope and read out his question: ‘I fear I will die young. Can the spirits tell me otherwise?’
Madame held the next envelope aloft. The question inside was from someone who wanted confirmation that her father was in the spirit world, for she said he’d gone abroad and hadn’t been seen for many years. A stocky woman stood up to claim the question, and Madame told her that he was indeed on the Other Side, but that she shouldn’t grieve, as he was happy with another woman in spirit. ‘His wife or his sister?’ Madame asked.
‘That would be his sister,’ the stocky woman agreed. ‘She passed just last year.’
‘Indeed it is,’ Madame confirmed.
‘Has my father no messages for me?’ the woman asked.
Madame Savoya listened, then smiled. ‘He says he always was a man of few words. Is that correct?’
The woman laughed, saying, ‘Yes, he was.’
‘Do come and see me privately if you wish to communicate with him more fully,’ said Madame.
The questions and answers resumed, following the same format. Occasionally Madame would put aside an envelope, saying that the question within was too intimate and that the questioner might care to consult her privately. Laughter was provoked when, holding an envelope, Madame said, ‘Well, there’s someone here whose maid must have dressed them completely in the dark, for they’re asking me what colour gown they’re wearing. Would the lady who wrote this please own her question.’
A woman wearing a fashionable dress in dark green velvet rose to her feet, smiling and a little embarrassed.
Madame addressed her very kindly. ‘I’d say that you’re wearing moss green, madam.’
Madame continued as before, occasionally putting her hand to her forehead and looking somewhat strained. As it neared ten o’clock, there was still a number of envelopes left in the top hat but the young man said that they could only take two more.
Madame pulled out the next sealed envelope and held it close. ‘Here’s someone who asks about her future,’ she said. ‘A nearby spirit tells me that it’s from a young lady, who’s enterprising and bright, who’s not content to let the grass grow under her feet.’
Velvet nudged Lizzie and held her breath. This could be her question!
‘I see the young lady in a hot and steamy environment . . . could it be a place similar to the hothouses at Kew?’ Madame paused a moment, holding the envelope between her palms, as if praying. ‘No, I believe it to be a laundry, or something very like.’ She looked around the hall. ‘Will the young lady own her question, please?’
Velvet, her legs shaking at the thought of being conspicuous in such company, got to her feet. Several fur-coated ladies looked at her and exchanged glances of surprise, for it was highly unusual for a working-class girl – not only that, but someone who apparently worked in a laundry – to attend such a gathering.
Madame smiled at her kindly, however, and Velvet no longer felt small and insignificant but – as she told Lizzie later – as if she were standing in a pool of sunlight. ‘My dear girl,’ Madame said sweetly, ‘don’t be nervous. The spirits say there are great things in store for you. You won’t continue long in your present position, but will rise up in the world.’
Overawed, Velvet could do no more than say, ‘Oh! Thank you very much, Madame.’ She would have liked to ask many other things – when she might meet her future husband, what he would be like, how she would know he was the one and how soon all this might come about – but she did not dare. She merely stammered that she was grateful for the information and sat down.
Following the last question, which sadly was not Lizzie’s, Madame left the stage leaning heavily on the young man’s arm. He returned to apologise on her behalf because she hadn’t been able to answer everyone’s questions and repeated that those who needed specific advice, or wanted messages from their relatives on the Other Side, should attend a private session. He spoke so elegantly, seemed so solicitous of the feelings of others and had such chiselled cheekbones that Velvet and Lizzie both returned home to dream of him.
Chapter Five
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In Which a Terrible Disaster Leads to a Very Surprising Outcome
Velvet’s life continued as before – if it was going to be her lucky year there was no indication of it. Every day was the same: rise, wash and dress by the light of a candle, breakfast swiftly on anything left over from supper the night before, meet Lizzie outside the house for the brisk, icy cold walk to work and spend the next near-twelve hours in stupefying heat before walking home again, ashen-faced with tiredness, and falling into bed. Velvet found that it was a little cooler working at the Personal Laundry end of the room, but this was negated by the intense concentration required for the exacting, detailed work she had to do so that she felt just as weary. Every day bar Sunday was the same, and the routine was only briefly interrupted at the start of February when everyone was given a day off work to mark the funeral of Queen Victoria.
The queen had been in deep mourning and more or less permanent seclusion on the Isle of Wight since the death of her husband Prince Albert forty years before. Mindful of all this gloom and anxious to start a new, forward-thinking regime, her son, the new King Edward VII, put a three-month limit on the mourning of her by her subjects. Within this time, however, a great deal of black garments descended on the laundry to be freshened, sponged and pressed.
Velvet thought a lot about Madame Savoya whilst pressing black bombazine skirts, black-beaded bodices and the tight little black jackets which were so much in fashion. In fact, she had a recurring dream in which Madame adopted her and brought her up as her own child. She knew this was quite ridiculous because Madame was probably not more than five or six years older than her – and anyway, she herself was over sixteen now and surely too old to be adopted. Nevertheless, the dream was often repeated and proved strangely comforting. Waking, shivering, in her miserable room in the middle of the night, Velvet would imagine that she was safe and comfortable, a daughter in Madame’s house, only momentarily feeling chilled because her feather-filled quilt had slipped from the bed. Soon she would wake to a warm house, find hot water for washing and her clothes laid out for her by her maid, then go downstairs to breakfast on kedgeree. Sometimes the make-believe would work and she would easily fall asleep once more, but mostly it did not and she would lie awake until the church clock struck five and then rise to the same poor room, her washcloth frozen hard and the water in her jug having formed itself into a block of solid ice.
