Woman Who Spoke to Spirits

by Alys Clare

  ‘Albertina!’ the verger cries, interrupting her. ‘Yes, of course, I do indeed recall that Albertina Goodchild went to London and subsequently was married. One or two of her friends were invited to her wedding, although it was by no means a grand affair.’ And then, as if the full portent of her remarks has only just penetrated to his understanding, his expression of polite enquiry turns to one of mild shock and he says, ‘But you say her husband fears for her safety? My goodness, how frightful! In what way?’

  Deciding in an instant that she will learn more from the man if she plays down the danger element, Lily says calmingly, ‘I sense it may be no more than a deeply uxorious man worrying about his young wife, but nevertheless these matters should not be lightly dismissed.’

  ‘No indeed!’ agrees the verger. Then he takes Lily lightly by the elbow and, escorting her across to a pew, invites her to sit down and settles beside her. ‘My name is Pepperson, Francis Pepperson, Miss –’ he glances down at the card – ‘Miss Raynor. Now, since all of us here hold the Goodchild family in high esteem and would hate to see any harm come to Albertina, please tell me what I can do to help.’

  ‘Albertina has sensed that she is being threatened,’ she says, once again maintaining a matter-of-fact tone. ‘As far as can be ascertained, she has met with nothing but friendship in her married life. She met her husband, Ernest Stibbins, when she began attending services at St Cyprian’s, where—’

  Once again the verger interrupts. ‘Where young James Jellicote went to take up his first incumbency! Yes, of course, I remember now. He was curate here, you know.’

  ‘So I’ve been told,’ Lily murmurs.

  Francis Pepperson smiles. ‘Which, of course, is why you are here.’ Before she can concur, he says, ‘Well, from what I know of Joshua and Grace Goodchild, I can imagine not a single element of their past that could lead to anybody now wishing to threaten Albertina.’ He speaks for some time of the little family’s fine qualities, and Lily takes it all in.

  ‘Albertina was an only child?’ she asks.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And when her parents died, she went to be companion to an elderly relation?’

  ‘Yes, yes, her spinster great-aunt Millicent Snell, sister of her maternal grandmother.’

  ‘Who also died?’

  ‘She did, she did, and we were all rather concerned when the news made its way back to us, meaning as it did that Albertina was all at once quite alone among strangers.’ He lowers his eyes. ‘Many good intentions were expressed concerning venturing all the way down to London –’ he speaks of the city as if it were on far distant shores rather than twenty-five miles away – ‘to ensure that Albertina was not about to become homeless and destitute, but sadly good intentions are not deeds, and time elapsed, and then came the welcome news first that she had found her way to St Cyprian’s and the guiding hand of James Jellicote, and, soon afterwards, of her pending nuptials.’ He raises his head again. ‘All’s well that ends well, eh, Miss Raynor?’ Then, as if recalling her mission, he blushes and adds, ‘Except that of course all may not be well.’

  Sensing that she has discovered all there is to discover about Albertina from this particular source, Lily stands up and thanks him. As she prepares to depart, she says, as if it is an afterthought, ‘You mentioned that some of Albertina’s friends had attended her wedding. Would it be possible, do you think, to direct me to them? I would very much like to speak to them.’

  It seems to take Francis Pepperson some time to work out whether or not to comply, and while Lily waits, she notices that he seems to be studying her intently, as if trying to look inside her mind. Eventually, apparently not alarmed by what he sees, he says, ‘I am sure the two young women in question would be pleased to speak to someone who has Albertina’s welfare at heart,’ and provides the information Lily has asked for.

  Conveniently for Lily, these two young women both work in a milliner’s shop, situated in a little side street some five minutes’ walk from the cathedral. The glass-panelled door is set back between two small bow windows, in each of which is a display of bonnets trimmed with flowers, ribbons and feathers. The display on the right is in shades of green, turquoise and blue; that on the left, red, yellow, vermilion and orange. Apart from the fact that there is rather too much of everything, the displays are quite artistic. Two young women are standing behind the counter when Lily walks in, and they interrupt their intense conversation to give her bright smiles.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t come to buy a hat,’ Lily says, returning the smiles.

  The faces fall. ‘Some ribbon? A feather? We’ve some lovely peacock feathers in the back, and they’re proving very popular, for all that some folks say they’re terrible bad luck,’ says the plumper of the two girls.

  Lily shakes her head. ‘I’m not looking to purchase anything,’ she says firmly. She extracts another of her cards and puts it on the counter. The smaller girl reads it, her lips moving, then looks up at Lily with bright, interested eyes. ‘Private enquiry!’ she whispers. ‘Coo!’

  ‘It’s nothing to be alarmed about,’ Lily says calmly, ‘merely a small matter concerning a young lady who I’m led to believe is a friend of yours, Albertina Stibbins, née Goodchild. Assuming, that is, that I am right in believing you to be Florence Barton and Rose Jordan?’

  They confirm that they are, the plump one being Rose Jordan. Perhaps it is a dull day in the millinery business, but both girls prove to be the perfect informants, chattering away about Albertina as if this is the very thing they’ve been longing to do since she left St Albans.

  It soon becomes clear that they both liked Albertina, although the fulsome way in which they describe her looks, her temperament and her winning ways has, to Lily’s alert ears, a very slight touch of spite, and she suspects both young women might have been a little jealous of their popular, and now married, friend. ‘Her late parents and she attended services at the cathedral?’ Lily prompts when the flurry of comments begins to run dry.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, they—’ Rose begins.

  But, ‘That Mr Jellicote what was curate, he really liked her,’ Florence interrupts. ‘He used to wait behind after choir practice and help her tidy away the scores, and I heard him offer to walk her home more than once, for all that her own father would be waiting outside for her to do that very thing!’

  ‘No, and he was very sorry when he left here and went to be a vicar in London,’ adds Rose. ‘Word was he didn’t really want to go, but vicars and that can’t say no, can they?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose they can,’ agrees Lily, who really has no idea. ‘Still, it was a good thing he had gone to London, wasn’t it, when Albertina’s great-aunt died and, left alone, she was in dire need of a friend?’

  Florence glances at Rose as Lily says friend, and both girls snigger. ‘Yes, it was, of course it was,’ Florence says.

  ‘You went to her wedding, I’m told?’ Lily asks.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, and he – the curate, only he wasn’t, he was the vicar then – did the service,’ Rose says. Again the glance between the two young women. ‘He’s old, her husband. Much older than her,’ Rose adds.

  ‘But kind, and solicitous; perhaps providing a modicum of security to a woman on her own,’ Lily replies, a slight note of reproof in her tone.

  The two young women look at her blankly. ‘He’s still old,’ mutters Florence.

  On the train back to London, Lily makes up her notes. She has discovered pretty much what she expected to discover from her visit to Albertina’s former residence, amounting to a picture of utter respectability. The two young milliners were able to direct her to the house where the Goodchilds lived, and it, too, proved to be much as Lily expected. She has discovered nothing that could constitute a threat to Albertina in her new life in Battersea.

  She does, however, write as a footnote: find out about James Jellicote and his feelings for Albertina.

  Very soon after Lily’s departure, Felix realizes that h
e has done all he can do on the list of Circle regulars. He has memorized names and descriptions and is confident of knowing which belongs to whom, if necessary. While appreciating that there are not a few useful clerical and general office jobs he could be getting on with, his mind is full of Albertina Stibbins and the danger she may be in and he has not the least enthusiasm for anything else.

  He sits quite still for a few moments, then gets up and strides to the bookshelf that he himself arranged during his first weeks (which, he notices in passing, seem an awfully long time ago). Reaching up a hand in exactly the right place, he draws out Kelly’s Directory for the area.

  The directory, comprising as it does the names and street addresses of local businesses, tradesmen, landowners, charitable institutions and other varied information, seems a good place to begin. Assuming, of course, that the people who attend Albertina’s Circle are reasonably local … He decides he’ll worry about that once the intriguing possibilities of Kelly’s have been exhausted. He has transcribed Lily’s list into alphabetical order, and the first name is Carter, Leonard. Lily describes him as pale, brown hair and eyes, nervous and twitchy, early twenties, recently lost his mother, lives in lowly digs about half a mile from Parkside Road (here Lily had included a street name with a question mark), in full-time work. If Leonard is renting his modest accommodation, Felix thinks, then his name will not appear as the owner. But Lily had a putative name for the street, Beulah Road, and so Felix looks it up on his map. At least two of the houses in the road appear large enough for multiple occupancy, and he makes a note of their numbers. Not at all sure how, or even if, it will advance him to know where Leonard lives, he moves on.

  Next is Haverford, Arthur. Saturnine complexion, strong handshake, is all Lily has to say. The directory is considerably more helpful, informing Felix not only of Arthur Haverford’s address – in a close just off Battersea Park – but that he is an officer in Her Majesty’s Excise. Translating, Felix thinks: reasonably well-off, respectable occupation, lives in a pleasant area. By himself, he notes: Arthur Haverford is the sole occupant of his house.

  Whether anything among those facts could possibly lead to his making menacing threats against Albertina remains to be seen.

  Next are two names bracketed together, the word ‘sisters’ written beside the bracket. The first is Hobson, Eileen, Miss, the second Philpott, Agnes, Mrs. Reasoning that a married woman might be the more likely to own her own house, Felix tries the latter first, but soon has to revise his thinking when he discovers that both sisters in fact live in a large house close to the river in the possession of Miss Hobson. Perhaps it is a case of a widowed sister returning to live with the last surviving sibling inhabiting the family home, for the area is prestigious and Felix thinks it unlikely that a spinster would have afforded such a dwelling by her own efforts. Is it at all likely that either of these women – middle-aged, according to Lily – has malicious designs upon Albertina?

  Malloy, Richenda, Miss, is next, described by Lily as young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, and dressed in unrelieved black. Flipping through Kelly’s pages Felix comes across several households of Malloys, but since without more information he cannot tell which one is home to Richenda, he leaves her and moves on.

  Sutherland, George, and Sutherland, Robert are father and son, the son described as of soldierly bearing. Lily has added a note to the effect that George has a serious anxiety, concerning which Albertina – or, more correctly, Albertina’s guide from the spirit world – advises waiting for time to do its work. Father and son appear to share George Sutherland’s house on the Chelsea Embankment, and so far among those on the list have the longest journey to seances in Parkside Road. George is a solicitor with a firm whose name Felix recognizes as being on the King’s Road, and Robert, as Lily has perceptively detected, is a soldier. Felix makes a note to ask Lily to try to find out more about this anxiety. On the face of it, Albertina appears to be helping George Sutherland, perhaps his son too, and so why should either of them want to harm her?

  Sullivan, Dorothy, Mrs (widow) is the last name. According to Lily, she is elderly, kindly, has recently lost her husband (?) Rodney and misses him sorely, to the extent of not eating. Much comforted by A, Lily has noted. Again, thinks Felix as he thumbs through the directory, why would Mrs Sullivan entertain dark and menacing thoughts towards the very person able to give comfort?

  He sits back in his chair, frowning. He lets all that he has just learned filter into his mind, for, tonight, he is going to be talking to Albertina herself, and he wants to be as well prepared as it is possible to be.

  NINE

  Felix waits with some impatience for Lily to return because there is something he urgently wants to raise with her; something, indeed, that he is quite surprised neither of them has mentioned before.

  As soon as she is inside the door, even as she is taking off her hat, he says, ‘I’ve been thinking, and I imagine you have too, about this business of Albertina being warned by her spirit guides of the danger to her.’ Lily’s greenish eyes watch him closely but he can’t read their expression. ‘I mean, I don’t know your feelings on the matter, but I don’t believe there is any such thing. As spirit guides, I mean. Voices from beyond the grave. Messages from the dead that imply they are still involved with the living. All that.’

  There is quite a long pause, and then – somewhat to his relief – she says, ‘I agree with you.’ He is just about to express this relief when she adds, ‘But I have the advantage over you in that I have sat in that room in the house on Parkside Road, and I have felt a little of what I understand Albertina feels. The menace. The darkness.’ She pauses. ‘The danger.’

  He has always felt there were aspects of the seance that she has not revealed to him. This, however, is a bit of a surprise. ‘You didn’t say,’ he says quietly.

  She shakes her head, a small, rueful smile on her wide mouth. ‘No, I didn’t.’ He thinks that is her only comment but then she adds, ‘I really didn’t know how to. It was so strange. Disturbing. And also she—’

  But this time she doesn’t go on, and he is left wondering.

  After a moment she says, ‘I do not, however, believe that this is any reason not to pursue the line upon which we have embarked, by which I mean the backgrounds of the regular Circle members, for it still seems most likely – most logical – that the threat comes from one of them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Someone I know said—’ She stops and begins again. ‘I have heard it said that some people have the ability to pick up the thoughts of others, in particular their most powerful, persistent and emotional memories.’ As if she knows full well he is bursting to interrupt, she says quickly, ‘I believe it is possible that Albertina has this ability; that she detects what is distressing the members of her Circle, understands their pain and, because she is a good and kind-hearted young woman, tries to assuage it. By dressing up her ability as hearing the voices of her spirit guides, perhaps, unconsciously, she believes her reassurance and comfort will be the more powerful.’

  He thinks about this for a moment but does not speak. The words he would have uttered, he realizes, are perhaps a little too forceful in their scepticism. Instead, after a while, he says mildly, ‘You may well be right. I shall go to see Mr and Mrs Stibbins this evening with an open mind.’

  There is a small and, Felix feels, slightly awkward silence. Fortuitously, she comes up with something to fill it. ‘I spoke to two of Albertina’s friends today,’ she says. He raises his eyebrows in query. ‘They were invited to her wedding, and remember her fondly, although they don’t envy her her husband, he being much older than her, to quote one of them. They were not able to provide much in the way of useful information, except for the fact that they both believed James Jellicote was sweet on her.’

  ‘On Albertina?’ This is unexpected.

  ‘Yes.’

  He senses her watching him and he has a fair idea what is going through her mind. It would, he feels, be insu
lting if she were to tell him not to raise this inappropriately with Mr and Mrs Stibbins when he meets them later, and happily she doesn’t.

  He makes a note in his book. Then, looking up he says, ‘I find it hard to conceive the mild vicar could be having malicious thoughts about her, and, even if he has, then why should they be made manifest to her during the seances, since he doesn’t attend them, and not at any other time?’

  ‘But do we know they are not?’ she counters.

  It’s something he hasn’t thought of before and, to judge by Lily’s expression, neither has she.

  He makes another note.

  He walks across Battersea Bridge an hour before he is due at the Stibbins house. He wishes to spend this time walking around the neighbourhood, since he finds his mind works better when he can visualize the scene and, so far, he has only been to the vicinity immediately surrounding St Cyprian’s Church.

  Around the park there is a large residential area, street after intersecting street of houses which in the main are in terraces or sometimes in semi-detached pairs. There is an air of respectability in the majority of these tightly packed streets. However, as so often happens in London, there are also one or two streets of more exclusive dwellings, especially in favoured locations such as facing the cricket ground or the river. And, within a short walk of these, are a few examples of the overcrowded, stinking slums of the poor. Felix stands at the end of one dank, dark court, watching two near-naked children filling a pail from a standpipe at the near end. He counts ten doors opening into the court, whose cobbled surface slopes down to a gully flowing through the middle of it which, from both the sight and the stench, is filled with sundry waste, including animal and human. He can hear raised voices coming from one of the doors: a man’s and two women’s, and they are far from having a cheery chat about the happenings of the day. There is a crash, a scream and a man comes running out of the door, shouting a stream of obscenities over his shoulder. One of the children at the standpipe – he is, Felix estimates, about six – notices Felix and yells, ‘Oi, you, what yer staring at? Fuck off out of it!’