Wild Talent (15 page)

We none of us had the courage to tell HPB outright that my new employer was a medium, but of course she guessed. Sadly, she had not the strength for more than a token protest, though she condemned Madame Rulenska in no uncertain terms as a fraud, a jiggery-pokery artist and a flapdoodle. As I bent to kiss her cheek, as I had never dared to do until this day, she grasped my hand in one of hers, and whispered, “Take care, my child. Take care.”

April 26

At dinner last night I was introduced to Madame Rulenska's boarder, Mr. Rufus Dodds. He is a short, stout, sandy-haired, ruddy-cheeked gentleman of fifty or so. Madame Rulenska has told me privately that he used to be the Reverend Dodds, but had to resign his living in Berkshire because of inappropriate behaviour; and now devotes himself to writing a book on the history of Clerkenwell. Indeed, with his educated voice and kindly, somewhat abstracted air, I can easily imagine him as a country clergyman. I did not ask what that inappropriate behaviour might have been, for I do not wish to know.

Today at breakfast we found ourselves alone, and by way of greeting, as we helped ourselves to porridge, he asked “And how are you getting on with Madame Rulenska?”

“Well enough, I believe. She seems . . . ” While I was still thinking how, tactfully, to describe my new employer, he remarked, “She is a fraud, of course — a charlatan of the first order.”

I stared at him. “But . . . are you sure of that? There are things she told me, that surely she could not have known . . . ”

Settling himself at the table, Mr. Dodds poured a cup of tea and added a generous helping of sugar. “Could she not? I am familiar with her methods, and I, who make no pretence to be clairvoyant, could be just as convincing. For example . . . D id she tell you that there was a young man in your life, and that he was somehow associated with a change in your circumstances?”

I nodded, feeling a faint chill as I recalled Madame Rulenska's words.

“Well then. I see before me an attractive young woman of marriagable age. For such a young woman, there is bound to be a young man somewhere in the picture. But this young woman is not London-bred, her speech is northern. For some reason our young lady has left home and has come to London. Supposing the young man in question is also from the north. Since our young lady is clearly sensible, of good reputation and, it seems, at present unattached, it is unlikely that they have run away together. On the other hand, she may have met someone in London. Whatever the case, I am safe enough in saying that there has been a change in circumstances. When I mention the young man I watch your face to see your reaction. If your expression is a happy one, I will hazard a guess that you've had an offer of marriage. If less than happy, the offer may have been declined. But should my mention of a young man cause you to look uncomfortable or upset, then I have gained another useful piece of information, and I will surmise that the encounter was not a pleasant one. You see?”

I was not at first convinced, but thinking it over, I believe that Reverend Dodds is correct. Madame Rulenska's talents are observation and intuition, not clairvoyance; and in that respect, she is every bit as clever as Dr. Conan Doyle's detective. But how gullible I was, how easily persuaded!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

May 12

I
n the fortnight past I have had few evenings to myself, but tonight there are no sittings, so I will take this time to bring my journal up to date.

The Clerkenwell household is small. Besides Madame Rulenska, Mr. Dodds and myself, there is the cook, Mrs. Bragg, and the maid-of-all work Milly. Mrs. Bragg's cooking runs to mutton, potatoes, cabbage and suet puddings, and not the spicy vegetarian dishes I grew accustomed to at Lansdowne Road. Milly is a plump, rosy-cheeked country girl of seventeen or so. She puts me so much in mind of the girls I knew in the Borders that I think we could be good friends; but Madame Rulenska makes it clear that as her assistant, I must keep the servants in their place.

No fashionable West End ladies, no duchesses or famous authors attend Madame Rulenska's séances. Her clients are people of modest means, widows of clerks and shopkeepers — chapel-goers with an unquestioning belief in an afterlife and the possibility of messages from beyond.

As she explained, though she sees her vocation as a caller-up of spirits, Madame Rulenska has also taught herself some simple stage conjurer's tricks. A part of my duties is to assist in displays of what she calls clairvoyance — the reading of things that are hidden. In one of her popular entertainments, a member of the audience is asked to write a series of numbers on a thick piece of card. Then I hold up the card so that the numbers are visible to the audience, but hidden from Madame Rulenska, who sits the front of the room. Madame R. hesitates for a while, as though the spirits (who supposedly are dictating the hidden numbers) are absent or inattentive. My task is to encourage her efforts, until finally, as revelation strikes, she reads off the correct numbers, one after another. This performance never fails to impress the onlookers, and convinces them of Madame's psychic powers, but the trick is absurdly simple enough once you know how it is done. All it requires is a good memory, and an ability to think on one's feet.

In Madame Rulenska's method, each number from 0 to 10 has a secret word assigned to it (and these words are changed from one performance to the next). For example:

Zero: Listen

One: Look

Two: But

Three: Is

Four: Ask

Five: What

Six: Yes

Seven: Please

Eight: Now

Nine: Tell

Ten: Madame

And so if the numbers on the card are 5, 2, 7, 6, 8, each sentence I speak to Madame must begin with one of the secret words, and the conversation might go something like this:

Me: “What (5) do the spirits tell you?”

Madame R: “Wait a moment, the message is not clear.”

Me: “But (2) do you not hear what they are saying?”

Madame R: “Only very faintly. Wait, there is something . . . ”

Me: “Please (7) try to listen more carefully.”

Madame R: (With a touch of annoyance) “Really, I am doing my best.

Me: (Soothingly) “Yes (6) of course, Madame, we understand that.”

Madame R: “(Brow wrinkled, listening hard) “Ah, that is much better!”

Me: “Now (8) are you able to tell us the numbers?”

Madame: “Yes, certainly. They are 5, 2, 7, 6, 8.”

(Delighted applause)

I am becoming quite clever at this game, and I find that I enjoy the challenge. It is trickery, to be sure, but I think of a fairly harmless kind. I am much less comfortable with invoking the spirits of the dead. I feel it is very wrong to profit from a widow's bereavement, or a mother's desperate grief.

But now Madame Rulenska has added another stage trick. Each of our guests is asked to write a question on a card, then seal the card carefully into an envelope, and sign their name in ink across the seal. I collect the envelopes in a basket and take them out of the room — “to avoid any psychic interference,” Madame Rulenska explains, obscurely. Then she leans back in her chair, breathes deeply, and drifts into trance. Our visitors, abuzz with anticipation, are left to chat among themselves.

After thirty minutes or so I return with the basket of envelopes. I choose half a dozen at random and pass them to their owners for inspection, asking them to confirm that the flaps are still firmly sealed down and the signatures intact. Then I gather up the envelopes and hand the basket to Madame Rulenska, now apparently deep in trance. She chooses an envelope, presses it with a dramatic gesture to her brow, and calls upon one of her spirits to read what is written inside. The odour of incense, oppressively strong in that close room, conceals the faint whiff of benzine that a sensitive nose might otherwise detect.

For that is how the trick, is done: with a benzine-soaked sponge, wiped over the front of the envelope until, briefly, the paper becomes transparent, and I am able to read what is written on the card inside. Then I take another, identical, blank envelope, write this question across the sealed flap, and mark it with the questioner's initials. That envelope, meant for Madame Rulenska's eyes alone, goes into the basket along with all the others.

There are two spirits whose task it is to answer questions. Running Wolf — so Madame Rulenska tells me — is an Iroquois chief from the wilds of Canada. He has a deep, gruff voice, and speaks in a peculiar sort of pidgin English. And then there is the Countess Violette, the shy sweet-voiced spirit of a French aristocrat, guillotined in the Revolution.

They take turn about manifesting themselves at our sittings. Both are very popular with our visitors, and no one seems to mind that their replies are too vague and general to be much help.

For example, this afternoon one of the ladies wrote on her card, “Where shall I look for my missing amber brooch?”

The Countess Violette, always eager to oblige, said, “Eet ees
très necessaire
to make a thorough search of your house, with particular regard to your bed
chambre.”
(Which reply the lady received with a nod and a grateful smile — as though she could not have worked this out for herself.)

In another session a gentleman asked for investment advice, and was advised by Running Wolf to proceed with care, like a hunter in the forest, “for him who runs with heavy feet may lose much wampum.”

For our afternoon sittings we draw the curtains and sit in half-light — an atmosphere of gloom being, I expect, more comfortable for spirit visitors than ordinary daylight. In the evenings, with the séance room plunged into darkness, Madame Rulenska's performances grow more adventurous, and she is finding new ways to make use of what she calls my “psychokinetic gifts”. Besides the usual raps and knocks and dancing furniture, with my assistance she produces thrilling effects with “spirit lights”. While our guests sit hands clasped in marvelling silence, I make hundreds of tiny points of light appear, and drift slowly round the room like luminous snowflakes, or fallen stars. “How strange! How wonderful!” I hear the astonished whispers, as the last of the lights float away, and audience begins to stir.

It is a trick that never fails to enchant and mystify. Our audiences leave with a comforting assurance that the spirit world exists, and is near enough at times to touch our own. No one suspects that in Madame Rulenska's bag of tricks is a vial of phosphorous oil, or that after the séance Millie comes with her broom to sweep from behind the furniture hundreds of tiny scraps of silk.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

May 18
^th

W
ith today's post, a troubling note from Alexandra:

Chère Jeanne,
I am writing letters tonight, because I find it impossible to sleep. Too little sleep, too little food, too much studying, that is what my mother says. My parents are urging me to return to Brussels, so that I can continue my studies in music. But Jeanne, I cannot bear the thought of life in Brussels. I would feel imprisoned. C
'est vrai
, I am exhausted, but it is a fatigue of the mind and spirit, not the body. These past months I have wandered down so many paths — exploring theosophy, occultism, esoteric religion — and lately, I confess, some paths better left undiscovered. Yet none of them have satisfied this restless longing — this search for a thing I can neither name nor describe. What shall I call it? Wisdom, understanding, the visionary experience, the light of divine clarity? In Paris, the City of Light, I thought to find it, but still it eludes me.

Write soon
, amie
. On nights like this my resolve fails, my search for knowledge seems like chasing after phantoms, and I am filled with a terrible
ennui.

Alexandra.

I did not imagine I would ever fear for Alexandra. She has always seemed so brave, so confident, in a way that I can never hope to be. But she spoke to me once about the fits of melancholia, or neurasthenia, that afflicted her sometimes in childhood, and now I think she may be slipping once again into that black mood of despair. And though Paris may be the City of Light, by all accounts it is a sinful place, where one as bold as Alexandra may easily be led astray.