Sapphire Battersea Read online

  I managed to curb my impatience when it was Sarah’s turn at last, and her mama spoke to her softly and warmly, as if big lumpy Sarah were a small girl again. I could scarcely breathe now. It was my turn! Would my mama cross over from her new home in the spirit world to talk to me?

  ‘Is there anybody there – a new spirit, anxious to reassure her little daughter?’ Madame Berenice asked.

  There was no answer.

  ‘Is there anybody there?’ Madame Berenice repeated.

  We waited, again in vain.

  I gave a little sob, and Sarah’s hand tightened over mine.

  ‘Won’t you come, Mama?’ I whispered in the dark.

  ‘Hush, child. The spirits can only communicate through me,’ said Madame Berenice. ‘We must all stay holding hands, shut our eyes, and pray for a materialization. I sense a presence – but the spirits are shy, especially when asked to materialize.’

  We held hands, we shut our eyes, we waited. Then I was aware of a slight rustle of material. I opened my eyes. An indistinct figure, all in misty white, was standing near us, very slowly moving towards me. Her face was obscured by a long white veil.

  ‘Is it you, Mama?’ I asked. ‘Oh, Madame Berenice, is it really my mama?’

  ‘It is your own dear mother, Hetty,’ a strange, eerie voice whispered.

  ‘You sound so – so different, Mama. Are you all right? Are you still coughing?’

  ‘There are no ailments in the spirit world, my dear. I am in perfect health now. I am very happy. You must not grieve for me, Hetty.’

  She glided nearer. She walked with slow strange grace, her skirts rustling.

  Mama had always walked with quick darting steps.

  She bent down before me. She was tall and stately.

  Mama was scarcely taller than me.

  She bent nearer and I smelled her rose cologne.

  Mama never used cologne in her life – she simply smelled of her own sweet warm flesh.

  She kissed me on the forehead with smooth cool lips.

  Mama’s lips were chapped and rough because she licked them anxiously – and she never kissed my brow. She kissed my cheeks and lips, and sometimes the tip of my nose when she was being playful.

  ‘Mama?’ I said.

  ‘My dear little child.’

  I wasn’t her dear little child at all. She wasn’t my mama. I started trembling. I knew who she was – Emily, the tall woman who had let me in and taken my money. Madame Berenice’s sister – and accomplice. I wanted to rip her white floating veil from her head, switch on the light, and expose her to all the people sitting there so stupidly, paying their money week after week for a fraudulent trick. But somehow I held myself rigid. I bit my lips in an effort not to fly into a temper.

  All these people sitting with me in the dark believed utterly. My dear friend Sarah lived for these moments with her ‘mother’. She had given up her chance of a materialization tonight for my sake. I could not take away the most precious consolation of her hard life.

  So I held my tongue while the ghastly false Mama kissed me again and circled the table, and the others cried out and marvelled. She told me to be a good brave girl, and she promised to watch over me and visit me often on Sunday evenings. Then Madame Berenice told us to close our eyes again and give thanks for this marvellous materialization from the spirit world.

  I kept my eyes open and watched the white woman steal silently out of the door. I waited while Madame Berenice murmured some spirit mumbo-jumbo, taking short rapid breaths as if she’d been running. Then she called out for light. Emily returned, bearing a lamp. She was dressed all in black now. She had obviously thrust her ghostly white garments into some cupboard. It seemed quite clear to me that she was the apparition pretending to be Mama. She had the same stance, the same walk, even the same smell – but all the others were totally oblivious to this. They marvelled at the success of the evening and crowded around me joyfully.

  Sarah gave me a warm hug. ‘I’m so very happy for you, Hetty,’ she said.

  The others patted me fondly and congratulated me.

  ‘Say thank you nicely to Madame, Hetty,’ said Sarah. ‘She has worked so hard on your behalf.’

  I stared at Madame Berenice. She was worse than Mr Clarendon. At least he only charged a few pennies per person, and he didn’t just prey on the bereaved. I bent forward and whispered into her turbaned ear, so that only she could hear me: ‘You’re a wicked old fraud. I want my ten shillings back!’

  She looked at me with narrowed eyes, her rouged lips set in a strained smile. She did not acknowledge me in any way – but at the door on the way out, Emily took me a little roughly by the shoulder and thrust a ten-shilling note at me.

  ‘Take it and never come back,’ she hissed.

  Then Sarah caught me up, still so innocently happy for me. I had to keep up the pretence, though inside my heart was breaking. I so wished I’d been convinced by the clumsy materialization, but I was too close to dear Mama to be fooled by a charlatan.

  Sarah burbled on and on about her dear mother. I listened sadly, trying my best to make encouraging responses.

  ‘But you must tell me all about you now, Hetty dear. How have you been keeping? Have you got a new position? Come back and have a cup of tea with Mrs B and me and tell us everything!’

  Sarah was so persuasive, linking her arm in mine, smiling at me fondly as if I were her long-lost sister, that I took her up on her offer. I had nowhere else to go, after all.

  It seemed very strange approaching Mr Buchanan’s house and going down the area steps. Sarah looked anxiously up at the dimly lit study window, but Mr Buchanan was safely at his desk out of sight. Sarah put her finger to her lips even so, and I tiptoed down the steps as if I were her silent shadow.

  The kitchen smelled warmly and wonderfully of savoury pie. The table was all set for supper. Mrs Briskett was busy cutting the pie into slices. She paused dramatically when she caught sight of me, and then rushed towards me, mercifully dropping the knife before embracing me, hugging me hard against her upholstered chest.

  But there was another person in the kitchen – a pretty little fair girl with big blue eyes, almost as blue as my own.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, taken aback.

  She smiled sweetly at me. ‘I am Rose-May. I know exactly who you are. You’re naughty Hetty Feather! I’ve heard such tales about you!’

  ‘Rose-May’s our new little maid,’ said Mrs Briskett, and she gave her a fond pat on her curly head. ‘She’s shaping up nicely now.’

  ‘Mrs Briskett and I have been making rabbit pie,’ said Rose-May. ‘Won’t you try a slice, Hetty?’

  I looked at the steaming pie, the pastry crust crisply golden, risen high, a fancy edging pricked all the way around. ‘Did you do the pastry?’ I asked Rose-May.

  She nodded proudly, flexing her fingers. ‘Mrs Briskett says I have a really light touch,’ she declared.

  ‘Well, isn’t that just fine and dandy,’ I said. I looked at Sarah, who was taking off her bonnet, still flushed with excitement after her encounter with her mama. ‘Why did you not accompany Sarah to Madame Berenice’s?’ I asked prissy little Rose-May. ‘Did she not ask you? I used to go with her to make sure she didn’t have a swooning fit.’

  ‘I care about Sarah, of course, but I couldn’t possibly go with her to that meeting. I am a Baptist, and we don’t hold with spirit meetings and suchlike,’ said Rose-May.

  ‘Rose-May’s very devout,’ said Sarah, sounding a little in awe of her.

  ‘Mr Buchanan sent me to the Baptist Society to find a new maid of all work. He wanted to find a good meek girl who wouldn’t cause any trouble,’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘He didn’t want to risk another foundling! But tell me, Hetty, what are you doing here? Did you meet up with our Sarah by chance?’

  ‘Hush now, Mrs B, poor Hetty’s been through a great deal. Her mother passed over this summer.’

  ‘Oh, dear child, I’m so sorry,’ said Mrs Briskett.