Footsteps clicked on the wood floor, and someone bustled into the foyer. Clarence and I jerked our heads around to find Mary, her eyes practically popping out of her skull. She bowed her head, her chestnut bun bouncing with the force of the movement.
Clarence and I sharing an interlude in the hall? How inappropriate, and how very suggestive of an intimacy that did not exist. I was sure Mary salivated at the thought of telling Mama.
Mary looked back up, her lips twitching with the effort not to smile. “Your mother sent me to find you. The séance is beginning.”
“Of course. Thank you.” I glanced at Clarence.
He started, and then—as if realizing he was expected to act—he gracefully took my arm and hooked it on his. Together, we marched past the maid and down the corridor toward the drawing room.
“Miss Fitt,” he murmured over the whispers of my skirts and the clack of our heels. “I would greatly appreciate it if you would keep our conversation in the hall to yourself.”
“Of course,” I said primly. “Though I want some explanation of your behavior.”
“How about a bouquet of roses instead? Or a new hat?”
“Are you trying to bribe me?”
He chuckled, his cheeks reddening slightly. “I suppose I am. It always works on Allie.”
“Well, I am most definitely not like Allie.”
He smiled. “Yes, I can see that.” He whisked me into the drawing room.
Mama, who hovered at the room’s center, gave me a look of utter joy. No doubt, like Mary, she assumed my arrival with Clarence suggested a budding intimacy.
My family’s drawing room was as lush and bedecked with patterns as our parlor. At the moment, the sofa and armchairs had been pushed to the walls, and an enormous oval table with eleven seats was in the center of the room, ready for the séance. The table’s polished surface shone from the three candles at its center, which were meant to attract the spirits. There was also a bowl of bread as an offering.
All the other guests were seated. Mrs. Wilcox beside Mama; Allison beside her mother; the Virtue Sisters next, followed by their parents; and finally the Moores. That left two seats vacant and adjacent.
Of course Mama had seated Clarence and me beside each other. Fabulous. The man had caught me eavesdropping, for heaven’s sake, and the last thing I wanted at that precise moment was more time in his company.
Once we were seated, I opened my mouth to beg him for answers, but Mama spoke sooner.
“Let us begin,” she commanded.
She gave me a regal eyebrow arch, and I flashed my brightest, sweetest smile. Clarence adores me.
She stood in front of her seat, and her hands flourished gracefully as she spoke in a low voice. “Tonight we shall try to commune with the spirit world, so let us use our combined energies to call forth the ghosts of our loved ones.”
Since the séances never succeeded in contacting spirits, all of the entertainment was in the presentation. And Mama was an excellent presenter. Shadows billowed from the lone candles and flickered eerily across her face.
“As is customary,” she continued in a somber tone, “we must hold hands and chant together in order to summon the spirits’ attentions.” She lowered herself gracefully into her chair, her head held high. She extended her arms to grasp at her neighbors’ hands, and soon each person was locked, gloved hand to gloved hand.
“I would like to begin with my dear husband, Henry,” she proclaimed, “and once we have visited with him, we can move to any other spirits you may wish to see.”
A wave of nods moved around the table. Allison and the Virtue Sisters twittered.
Mama closed her eyes. “Henry, it is your wife, Abigail. I call to you in heaven. Commune with us, Henry, and move among us.”
The guests and I repeated her words and waited, our eyes closed.
The scent of the fresh-bread offering wafted into my nose, and my stomach bubbled with hollow hunger. To fit myself in my corset, I’d had to forego most of my supper. Perhaps I could steal a slice while our guests’ eyes were closed.
Several silent moments passed, and then Mama led everyone in another chant. I wondered who would be the first to tap the table. On the third round of chanting, I decided it should be me.
I lifted my slippered foot as silently as my skirts would allow, and with a gentle thrust, I kicked the table.
“Henry!” Mama exclaimed, her face a dramatic mask of pleasant surprise. “Is that you?”
I kicked twice—two knocks meant “yes.”
Around the table, guests giggled or gasped, though I was certain no one believed it to be real.
“Have you any message for us?” Mama asked.
Someone else knocked once for “no,” and everyone twittered.
“Are you certain there is no message?” Mama pressed. Two knocks this time, and I suspected she’d done the tapping herself.
“Do you miss your wife?” Allison cooed. “Or how about—”
A loud whack resounded in the room and cut her off. It was the heavy, hollow bang of a fist on wood. I stopped breathing. It hadn’t been the wood of the table—I’d felt the vibrations through my whole body. It had rattled my bones and teeth.
The knock had come from beneath the floor.