* * *
James was dressed in an overcoat and hat in the golden October sunshine. He watched me approach him, standing at the gates to Hyde Park, his hands in his pockets, his gaze warm with appreciation.
“Well?” he said when I drew close.
“It’s done,” I replied.
He raised his eyebrows at me.
I reached up and brushed an imaginary speck from his coat with my gloved hand. It was an excuse for me to touch him, and he knew it, but he stood still and humored me. “I talked to him,” I said. “That was all. I didn’t have the heart to do a reading.”
He caught my meaning immediately, which was why I loved him so. “It was that bad, was it?”
“Worse.” I tried to say more, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead I said, “I’ll tell you about it later. If I can.”
“All right,” he said, but I knew he was watching me carefully.
I shrugged. “Anyway, while I was there, I made a decision. No more readings, ever again.” I looked up at him. “It seems I’m out of work.”
That made him smile. “I know the feeling.” He’d left his job at the New Society, telling Paul Golding that he could no longer work with ghosts. Going back to the law was out of the question, and he’d been at loose ends for the past three weeks. It hadn’t bothered him, since we’d spent part of that time selling my mother’s house and as much of the rest of it as possible in bed. “Though I may not be out of work for long.”
“Why not?”
“I got a letter this morning. An acquaintance of Paul’s, referred by him. This fellow has a bit of a problem, and he needs someone discreet to look into it for him. For a fee.”
I smiled. “An investigator.”
“It’s a thought,” he said. “I always was good at it.”
“No ghosts?” I asked.
“None at all.”
I thought it over. “Will you answer him?”
“Tomorrow, perhaps.”
“I like it,” I said. “You can work while I study.” I’d sold my mother’s house and moved into James’s flat, complete with Pickwick. His landlady was beside herself. She said we could keep the dog, but we couldn’t stay in her house unless we were married. James told her to be patient and she’d get everything she wished. In the meantime, I had enrolled, embarrassing as it was, in courses. It had always bothered me that I’d never been to school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my schooling yet, but just the idea of learning made me think of possibilities.
James leaned down and kissed me, gently, right in front of the Hyde Park crowds, as if reading my tumbled thoughts. “In the meantime, we have a free afternoon,” he said. “What will we do with it?”
The leaves were falling in Hyde Park, the trees turned gold and gently preparing for winter. The sun made the colors vivid, and we joined all the other Londoners strolling in the quiet, taking in the fragrant air under the trees. We made it partway down the first path before he put his arm around me, and pulled me to him again, and kissed me, warm against me in the autumn chill. I laughed, and I didn’t care whether anyone was watching.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The years before and after the First World War saw a wave of interest in spiritualism and the occult, fueled by those grieving for their loved ones lost in battle. With such a large market of customers, fakes and frauds made an excellent profit.
The New Society for the Furtherance of Psychical Research is fictional, but it is loosely based on the British Society for Psychical Research, a group that gathered scientific minds determined to prove the fact or fiction of psychical phenomena; a well-known member was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The actual society performed extensive tests on those who claimed psychic ability, and at times those tests included tying the subject’s hands and legs to a chair in order to prevent toe or finger taps. They also attempted a countrywide census of the supernatural, encouraging the populace to write in with its experiences in hopes of compiling usable data.
The slang words used in the world of psychics, including skimmer, showgirl, and fortune-petter, are my invention. Many psychic frauds did (and still do) use audience plants to appear trustworthy. The “rules” of séances, including using a round table and staying in one’s own environment, are of my own making but are an extension of the kinds of tricks con artists have always used.
Many Americans associate the flappers of the 1920s with the USA, but the flapper culture in 1920s London was deliciously wild. The media called them the Bright Young Things and breathlessly reported their exploits.
The woman Ellie envisions while seeing from Colin’s point of view is fictional but was inspired by Edith Cavell, a British nurse who was convicted of treason by the German (not the British) government for helping Allied soldiers escape German-occupied Belgium. She was executed by firing squad in 1915.
Read on for a preview of Simone St. James’s haunting new novel. . . .
In England, 1921, a young woman hired as the companion to a wealthy matriarch, and grieving for her husband killed in the Great War, begins to believe that something is not right about the family she is working for . . . or about her husband’s death. . . .
LOST AMONG THE LIVING
Available in April 2016 from New American Library
in paperback and as an e-book.
CHAPTER ONE
ENGLAND, 1921