The Luminaries (66 page)

‘I am a man of philosophy,’ he rejoined. ‘Those aspects of
religion that can be called philosophy, interest me extremely; those that cannot, do not.’

‘I see,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘I am afraid that in my case it is quite the reverse: it is only those philosophies that can be called religions that hold any interest for me.’

Gascoigne laughed outright at this. ‘Very good,’ he said, wagging his finger. ‘That is very good.’

Moody was amused, despite himself, by the widow’s acuity, but he was determined not to let her take the upper hand. ‘It seems that we have little in common, Mrs. Wells,’ he said. ‘I hope that this lack of common ground will not be an impediment to friendship.’

‘We disagree upon the validity of spirits: we have established that much,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘But let me put the contrary question to you. What about a soul—a living soul? Do you believe that you can “know” a person who is living, if you cannot “know” a person who is dead?’

Moody considered this, smiling. After a moment, the widow went on:

‘Do you feel that you could ever truly “know” your friend Mr. Gascoigne, for example? Can you see
him
from all sides?’

Gascoigne looked very peeved for having been used as a
rhetorical
example, and said so aloud; the widow shushed him, and put the question to Moody a second time.

Moody looked at Gascoigne. In fact he had anatomised Gascoigne’s character to a very fine degree of detail, over the three weeks of their acquaintance. He felt that he understood the scope and limits of the man’s intelligence, the quality of his sentiment, and the tenor of his many expressions and habits. He felt, as a whole, that he could summarise the man’s character very accurately. But he knew that Lydia Wells was intending to trap him, and in the end he chose to reply very blandly indeed, repeating that he had only arrived in Hokitika but three weeks ago, and could not hope to form an accurate assessment of Gascoigne’s soul in such a time. That
project
, he added, would require more than three weeks of observation.

‘Mr. Moody was Mr. Carver’s passenger,’ Gascoigne put in. ‘He arrived on the
Godspeed
the very night she came to ground.’

Moody felt a stirring of unease at this disclosure. He had used a false name while booking his passage upon
Godspeed
, and he did not like to advertise the fact that he had arrived in Hokitika upon that craft, given the nature of what he had witnessed—or imagined that he had witnessed—in the hours before the ship had foundered. He looked at the widow, seeking, in her face, some flicker of doubt or recognition that might show that she had known about the bloody phantom in
Godspeed
’s hold.

But Lydia Wells was smiling. ‘Did he?’ she said, looking Moody up and down. ‘Then I’m afraid Mr. Moody is a very common specimen of a man indeed.’

‘How so?’ Moody said stiffly.

The widow laughed. ‘You are a lucky man who is scornful of the notion of luck,’ she said. ‘I am afraid, Mr. Moody, that I have met a great many men like you.’

Before Moody could think of a reply to this, she picked up a small silver bell, rang it sharply, and announced, in a voice that was no less penetrating for its husky half-whisper, that all those without tickets were to make their departures at once, for the
séance
was about to begin.

What a different gathering this was to the clandestine council that had assembled in the Crown Hotel three weeks ago! The Crown had played host to a party of twelve, which, following Moody’s arrival, became a party of thirteen; here, in the front room of the Wayfarer’s Fortune, they were a party of eleven seeking to summon a twelfth.

Charlie Frost, under Joseph Pritchard’s instruction, kept his eyes fixed upon Lydia Wells as the widow led the seven ticket holders into the parlour where Ah Sook and Ah Quee, shining with
greasepaint
, sat cross-legged on either side of the hearth. The drapes had been drawn over the parlour windows, and all but one of the
paraffin
lamps had been doused, giving the room a pinkish glow. Above this last lamp a tin dish of attar had been placed on a metal stand, and the liquid, gently heated by the warmth of the flame, filled the room with the pleasant scent of roses.

Mrs. Wells invited the men to take their seats, which, in the
interval
while the other guests departed the Wayfarer’s Fortune and dispersed into the night, had been arranged in a circle in the middle of the room. There was much embarrassment and
nervousness
in the room as the seven guests were seated. One man kept emitting a high-pitched giggle; others grinned and elbowed their
mates in the ribs. Mrs. Wells paid these disturbances no notice. She was busy arranging five candles in a star pattern upon a plate, and lighting them, one by one. When the candles were lit, and the paper spill extinguished, Lydia Wells seated herself at last, and remarked, in a voice that was suddenly hushed and conspiratorial, that Anna Wetherell, these hours past, had been preparing her mind for the impending communion with the dead. She was not to be spoken to, when she made her entrance in the parlour, for even the smallest disturbance could disrupt her state of mind, which in turn would disrupt the widow’s own transmissions. Did the present company consent to ignore her?

The present company consented.

Did the present company consent to assist the widow’s
transmissions
further, by maintaining a state of mental receptivity for the duration of the event? Would every man agree to keep his mind cool and open, his limbs relaxed, his breathing deep and rhythmic, and his attention focused absolutely, like that of a monk at prayer?

This was assured.

‘I cannot tell you what will happen in this room tonight,’ the widow went on, still speaking in a voice of conspiracy. ‘Perhaps the furniture will move about. Perhaps we will feel breezes—the breath of the underworld, some might call it—as the spirits around us are disturbed. Perhaps the dead will speak through the mouths of the living. Or perhaps they will reveal themselves by the presentation of a token.’

‘What do you mean, a token?’ one of the diggers said.

Lydia Wells turned her calm gaze upon the speaker. ‘Sometimes,’ she said quietly, ‘and for reasons unknown to us, the dead are unable to speak. When this happens, they choose to communicate in other ways. I was party to a
séance
in Sydney where this occurred.’

‘What happened?’

Mrs. Wells became glazed. ‘A woman had been killed in her own home,’ she said, ‘under circumstances that were a touch
mysterious
—and some months following her death, a select group of spiritists convened at her house, to contact her.’

‘How was she killed?’

‘The family dog went savage,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘Quite out of character, the beast attacked her—and ripped out her throat.’

‘Hideous.’

‘Ghastly.’

‘The circumstances of her death were suspicious,’ the widow continued, ‘not the least because the dog was shot before its true nature could be established by the law. But the case was closed, and the woman’s husband, wild with grief, quit the house and sailed away. Some months later, a servant who had been employed in the house brought the matter to a medium’s attention. We arranged for a
séance
to be held in the very room in which this woman had been killed.

‘A gentleman in our group—not the medium, but another
spiritist
of high renown—happened to be wearing a pocket watch that evening. The watch was tucked inside his vest pocket, with the chain pinned to his breast. He had wound it, he assured us
afterwards
, before he arrived at the house, and the piece kept very good time. Well, that night—during the
séance
—there came a queer little whirring noise from his vest. We all heard it, though we did not know what it was. He retrieved the piece, and found to his
astonishment
that the dial now read three minutes past one. He insisted that he had wound the watch at six o’clock, and it was not yet nine. There was no way that the hands could have moved so far on their own accord, and he could hardly have turned the knob by accident! He tried the knob—and found that it had stuck. It was broken. In fact the piece never worked again.’

‘But what did it mean?’ someone said. ‘Three minutes past one?’

The widow’s voice became low. ‘We could only assume,’ she said, ‘that the spirit of the dead woman was trying to tell us something, very urgently. The time of her death, perhaps? Or was she
delivering
a warning? A death that was yet to come?’

Charlie Frost found that he was breathing shallowly.

‘What happened next?’ Nilssen whispered.

‘We decided to stay in the drawing room until three minutes past one in the morning,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘Perhaps, we thought, the spirit was inviting us to stay until that time—at which point something was
to happen. We waited until the hour struck one; we waited in silence for one minute—two minutes—three—and then, exactly at that moment, there was a terrible crash: a painting tumbled from its hook upon the wall. We all turned, and saw, behind it, a hole in the
plaster
. The painting had been put up, you see, to mask the hole.

‘Well, the women in the group were screaming; there was noise all about; you can imagine the commotion. Someone found a knife, and cut out the piece of plaster—and lo and behold, lodged into the plaster, there was a ball of shot.’

Frost and Nilssen exchanged a quick glance. The widow’s story had reminded them both of the bullet that had vanished from Anna Wetherell’s bedchamber, in the upper room of the Gridiron Hotel.

‘Was the case ever solved?’ somebody said.

‘Oh, yes,’ the widow said. ‘I shan’t go into the details—there are too many—but you can look it all up in the papers if you’re
curious
. You see, the woman was never savaged by a dog at all. She had been murdered by her own husband—and he’d shot the dog, and slashed her throat himself, to cover it up.’

There were murmurs of distress around the room.

‘Yes,’ said Lydia Wells. ‘Tragic, the whole story. Elizabeth
something
, the woman’s name was. I forget the last name. Well, the good news was that when the case reopened, they had two clues on their side: first, that she had been killed by a ball from a Colt Army handgun … and second, that the precise time of her death was three minutes past one.’

The widow was quiet for a moment, and then she laughed. ‘But you aren’t here tonight to hear me tell tales!’ She rose from her chair. Several of the assembled men made to rise also, out of
politeness
, but the widow put up her hand, stalling them. ‘I regret to say that the sceptics of the world are very many,’ she said, ‘and for every good-hearted man, there are ten more who are not good at all. There may be men among you who will attempt to deny
whatever
happens tonight, or who will attempt to discredit me. I invite you all to look around you, now, and to reassure yourselves that this room contains no tricks or deceits or follies of any kind. I know as
well as you that there are many pretenders in the art of fortune telling, but you may rest assured that
I
am not one of them.’ She spread her arms and said, ‘You can see that I am concealing
nothing
on my person. Don’t worry—you are free to look.’

There was tittering at this, and much shuffling as the men looked around them, examining the ceiling, the chairs, the paraffin lamp on the table, the candles, the rug upon the floor. Charlie Frost kept his eyes on Lydia Wells. She did not look tense. She twirled around, revealing that she was hiding nothing in her skirts, and then seated herself very easily, smiling at the room at large. She picked at a loose thread upon her sleeve and waited until the men were still.

‘Excellent,’ she said, when the collective attention had focused upon her once again. ‘Now that we are all happy, and ready, I shall cut the lights, and await Anna’s arrival.’

She leaned forward and doused the paraffin lamp, plunging them all into the gloom of candlelight. After several seconds of quiet, there came three knocks at the parlour door behind them, and Lydia Wells, still fussing over the lamp, called, ‘Come!’

The door opened, and the seven men turned. Frost, forgetting Pritchard’s instruction for a moment, looked too.

Anna was standing in the doorway with an expression of ghostly vacancy upon her face. She was still wearing the mourning dress she had been gifted by Aubert Gascoigne, but if the dress had been ill fitting once, it looked wretched on her now. The gown hung from her shoulders as though from a rail. The waist, though plainly cinched, was loose, and the tatted collar masked an almost concave breast. Her face was very pale, her expression sombre. She did not look at the faces of the assembled crowd. With her eyes fixed upon the middle distance, she came forward, slowly, and sank into the vacant armchair facing Lydia Wells.

Why
, thought Frost, as she sat down,
she is starving
! He glanced at Nilssen, meaning to catch the other man’s eye, but Nilssen was frowning at Anna, an expression of grave perplexity upon his face. Too late, Frost remembered his own assignation, and turned back to the widow—who, in the brief moment while every man’s head was turned towards the door, had
done
something. Yes: she had
done something, certainly, for she was smoothing down her dress in a self-conscious, satisfied way, and her expression had suddenly become brisk. What had she done? What had she altered? In the dim light he could not tell. Frost cursed himself for having looked away. This was just the kind of subterfuge that Pritchard had
predicted
. He vowed that he would not look away a second time.

The corners of the room had now vanished entirely into black. The only light came from the flickering glow of the candles in the centre of the group, and around it the eleven faces had a greying, ghostly look. Without taking his eyes from the widow’s face, Frost noted that in fact the circle of chairs was not perfectly circular: it was more nearly an ellipsis, placed with its longest axis pointing to the door, and Lydia seated at its farthest end. By placing the seats in this configuration, she had been able to ensure that every man’s head would turn towards the door—and away from
her
—when Anna arrived. Well, Frost thought, the Chinese men, at least, must have seen the sleight of hand that she had performed in that quick instant when Anna appeared in the doorway. He made a second mental note: to question them once the
séance
was over.

The group now joined hands, at the widow’s instruction; and then, in the fluttering light of the candles, Lydia Wells heaved a great sigh, smiled, and closed her eyes.

The widow’s visitation took a very long time coming. The group sat in perfect silence for nigh on twenty minutes, each man
holding
himself very still, breathing rhythmically, and waiting for a sign. Charlie Frost kept his eyes on Mrs. Wells. At length she set up a humming sound, low at the back of her throat. The humming thickened, acquired pitch; soon one could make out words, some nonsensical, some recognisable only by their shapes, their syllables. These too thickened into phrases, entreaties, commands: finally Mrs. Wells, arching her back, made her request of the world of the dead: to give up the shade of Emery Staines.

Later, Frost would describe the scene that followed as, variously, a ‘fit’, a ‘seizure’, and a ‘prolonged convulsion’. He knew that none of these explanations was quite right, for none conveyed,
accurately
, either the elaborate theatrics of Lydia Wells’s performance,
or Frost’s acute embarrassment, in witnessing them. Mrs. Wells called out Staines’s name, again and again, intoning the words with a lover’s dying fall—and when no answer came, she became
agitated
. She suffered paroxysms. She repeated syllables, like a babbling child. Her head lolled against her chest, reared back, lolled again. Presently her convulsions began approaching a kind of climax. Her breathing became faster and faster—and then
suddenly
quelled. Her eyes snapped open.

Charlie Frost felt a cold jolt of unease: Lydia Wells was staring directly at him, and the expression on her face was unlike any he had seen her wear before: it was rigid, bloodless, fierce. But then the flames from the candles ducked and leaped and he saw that Lydia Wells was not looking at him, but past him, over his shoulder, to where Ah Sook sat in the corner in his Oriental pose. Frost did not blink; he did not look away. Then Lydia Wells gave a strange sound. Her eyes rolled back in her head. The muscles in her throat began to pulse. Her mouth moved strangely, as though she were chewing on the air. And then in a voice that did not belong to her she said:

‘
Ngor yeu nei wai mut haak ngor dei gaa zuk ge ming sing tung wai waai ngor ge sing yu fu zaak. Mou leon nei hai bin, dang ngor co yun gaam cut lai, ngor yat ding wui wan dou nei. Ngor yeu wan nei bou sou—
’

And she gave a great shudder, and pitched sideways, onto the floor. In the very same moment (Frost would discuss this
inexplicable
event with Nilssen for weeks to come) the paraffin lamp on the table lurched violently to the side, coming down upon the plate of candles that had been set out next to it. This was a mistake that ought to have been very easily righted, for the glass globe of the lamp did not shatter, and the paraffin did not spill—but there was a colossal
whoosh
of flame, and the circle of men was suddenly
illuminated
: the entire surface of the table was burning.