‘Nor I you, though I knew who you were straightaway,’ said the woman. ‘I am Miss Smight, Miss Ethel Smight. Oh but I can see the likeness in you.’
‘Likeness?’
‘To Julia Howlett. Your aunt.’
‘Aunt Julia. I have not seen her for many years. How do you know my aunt?’
‘You are the very image of her,’ said the woman, finally letting go of Helen’s hand but not answering the question. ‘The image of her when she was younger, much younger of course.’
‘But how do you know her?’ persisted Helen. ‘And how do you know we are connected? I was never a Howlett but a Scott and I have another name now.’
She brushed her hand against Tom’s sleeve. Tom thought she was enjoying herself. The woman, presumably a sister to Mr Smight, pushed some of her straggling hair back beneath her cap before replying.
‘I knew your aunt well at one time. I knew your mother when she married Mr Scott. I am also a devoted reader of the marriage announcements in the newspaper. People of my age are sometimes said to prefer the death column, but I am all for life, yes all for life! When I saw at the end of last year that a Miss Helen Georgina Scott of Highbury was to marry a gentleman called Mr Thomas Edward Ansell, I said to myself that she must be the niece to my old friend, Julia Howlett. Said it over the breakfast table not only to myself but also to my brother Mr Smight. So when our maid told me that a Mr and Mrs Ansell had arrived, I put two and two together. I wonder what brought your feet to our door?’
‘Destiny?’ said Helen. Tom could tell she was speaking lightly, if not flippantly, but the woman treated the answer with seriousness. Miss Smight peered through the gloom at Helen.
‘Is it destiny? If you are able to say such a thing, then perhaps you have the gift.’
Helen looked sideways at Tom, who said, as a way of getting himself into the conversation, ‘What gift is that, Miss Smight?’
‘There is only one gift that matters,’ said the woman, leaving them not much the wiser. ‘You have favourable features, Mrs Ansell. Helen, if I may call you that. Blue eyes and fair hair are particularly conducive.’
‘That’s what my husband always says,’ said Helen, looking sideways again. Tom thought she was trying to stifle a giggle.
‘He is a wise man then,’ said Miss Smight, looking full at Tom for the first time. ‘A wise man, sir, to appreciate the value of blue eyes and fair hair. And a wise man altogether to judge by the shape of your head. If you will permit me…’
Miss Smight put out her podgy red hands and gently pressed the fingers into the sides of Tom’s head. As when she’d seized Helen’s hand, she acted as if it were her right to do so.
‘It’s a pity we have no time for the callipers; in order to take the exact dimensions of the skull, you know.’
‘I can do without the callipers,’ said Tom, as Ethel Smight continued to palp the sides of his head. She reached round the back of Tom’s head and then ran her hand over the top of it. Tom had almost had enough when she lowered her hands and stood back. She cocked her head and the attitude made Tom think of a great bird.
‘Ho hum,’ went Miss Smight, sounding like a doctor. ‘The organs of Conscientiousness and Hope are well developed in you, Mr Ansell. They are next to each other, you know. Secretiveness is quite prominent in you too. That property lies on either side of the head just above and behind the ears. Would you say you were a secretive man?’
‘What if I refuse to answer?’
‘Hah, good. But the most developed organ or bump is one which also happens to be unique. It is the site of Amativeness and it is the only organ in the skull which stands by itself. It has no mirror in the other hemisphere. As a newly married man, you are an individual with a well-developed organ of Amativeness. An amative husband.’
Helen, still standing near Tom, was gripped by a sudden fit of coughing and had to get out a handkerchief to cover her mouth. It was as well, perhaps, that the maid knocked on the door at this point to announce the next visitors.
‘Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs.’
A man and woman were ushered into the front room. Tom thought he recognized them as the couple who had been hanging about on the other side of Tullis Street when Helen and he arrived at number 67. Their connection was quickly explained: they were engaged to be married. The man was slight with pointed facial features. Mrs Briggs, presumably a widow rather than divorced, was larger than her fiance and had a dull bovine stare. They looked awkward and uncomfortable at being here, but then, Tom reflected, that wasn’t so surprising. Perhaps they had been waiting on the street for others to arrive first before summoning up the nerve to come in themselves. Tom, too, felt uncomfortable, particularly after his skull inspection at the hands of Miss Ethel Smight.
She might have been about to try her technique on the newcomers but was prevented by the arrival of two more visitors in quick succession. Both of these women seemed to be known to Miss Smight and were not announced. There was a young, rather attractive one with a mass of lustrous dark hair, and a severe-looking one in middle age. The young woman was referred to by Miss Smight as Rosalind — if she was given a last name Tom didn’t hear what it was — while the older was plain Mrs Miles.
After brief introductions had been made, Miss Smight directed them to take their places at the oval table. She said that it would have been better to alternate the sexes but with two men and four women that was obviously not possible. Tom and Helen sat next to each other with Mr Seldon and Mrs Briggs facing them, and the two single women towards the narrower end. As Helen had predicted, the dining chair with arms, the one facing the mirror, was left empty.
Miss Smight went across to a sideboard, opened a drawer and brought back a collection of small objects, cradled in her arms. She placed them on the baize tablecloth apparently at random. They included a little handbell and a tambourine. Then she left the room.
‘It’s always a tambourine, isn’t it?’ said Tom to Helen in a half-whisper. He had never been to one of these events before but thought he should say something, should say anything, to show he wasn’t going to be easily taken in.
‘They use it because it’s small and it makes a noise when it flies about,’ whispered Helen.
The two women, Rosalind and Mrs Miles, looked vaguely disapproving at this while the engaged couple gazed straight ahead. The silence was broken by the opening of the door and the appearance of Mr Ernest Smight. He stood there for a moment as if he were making a stage entrance and ready to acknowledge any applause. He inclined his head with a slight smile at his guests. Behind him loomed Miss Smight.
The medium was an imposing man with pale, clear-cut features and a neat moustache. He wore a cravat which was the same green as the feather in his sister’s cap. He sat down at the head of the table while Ethel fussed over him, brushing a speck of dust now from one shoulder, now from the other. At first sight there didn’t seem any likeness between brother and sister. But the light was not good and it grew poorer still when Miss Smight went to draw the curtains and turn down the already dim gas lamps on either side of the fireplace. The room became sepulchral. Ethel Smight retreated to sit on an armchair in the corner.
‘My friends,’ said Ernest after a long pause. He steepled his hands like a man in ostentatious prayer. His voice was an actor’s voice, resonant and cultured. It was too big for the room. Tom’s suspicions were beginning to be confirmed. ‘We should join hands for a moment.’
Tom regretted that Helen was sitting between him and Mr Smight. But she put out her right hand willingly enough for the medium to take while she slipped her left into Tom’s, who gave it a squeeze. With his own left he clasped Mrs Miles’s right hand and wished it had been the dark-haired Rosalind’s. Mrs Miles’s hand was cool and dry. They all sat like that, in a hand-in-hand ring round the oval table. Ernest bowed his head for a few seconds. Then he looked up in the direction of his sister.
‘I require vibrations. Give me a verse please.’
His sister stood, edged her way round the room to the little upright piano, drew out a stool, sat down again and plinked out a few bars. The piano needed tuning. Tom thought he recognized the opening of Jesu, Thou art all our Hope. As the music started to play, Ernest nodded as if to show he was receiving the vibrations he wanted. The music stopped abruptly. Ethel sat back on the piano stool. There was another prolonged pause.
Tom was starting to wonder what, if anything, was due to happen next when his ear was caught by a chinking sound. It was coming from the surface of the table. In the very centre had been positioned the tambourine. Tom couldn’t be sure but the simple instrument seemed to be regularly rising and falling a few inches up and down
