room, but their light, hampered as it was by heavy brocade lamp shades, cast more shadows than illumination.
They didn’t have to wait long in that uncomfortable room, for the sour servant departed for a moment, then returned, and conducted them into the next room.
This, evidently, was only an antechamber to the room of mysteries; heavy draperies swathed all the walls, and there were straight-backed chairs set against them on all four walls. The lily-scent pervaded this room as well, mixed with another, that Nan recognized as the Hindu incense that Nadra often burned in her own devotions.
There was a single picture in this room, on the wall opposite the door, with a candle placed on a small table beneath it so as to illuminate it properly. This was a portrait in oils of a plump woman swathed in pale draperies, her hands clasped melodramatically before her breast, her eyes cast upwards. Smoke, presumably that of incense, swirled around her, with the suggestion of faces in it. Nan was no judge of art, but Mem’sab walked up to it and examined it with a critical eye.
“Neither good nor bad,” she said, measuringly. “I would say it is either the work of an unknown professional or a talented amateur.”
“A talented amateur,” said the lady that Mem’sab had called “Katherine,” as she too was ushered into the chamber. “My dear friend Lady Harrington painted it; it was she who introduced me to Madame Varonsky.” Mem’sab turned to meet her, and Katherine glided across the floor to take her hand in greeting. “It is said to be a very speaking likeness,” she continued. “I certainly find it so.”
Nan studied the woman further, but saw nothing to change her original estimation. Katherine wore yet another mourning gown of expensive silk and mohair, embellished with jet beadwork and fringes that shivered with the slightest movement. A black hat with a full veil perched on her carefully coiffed curls, fair hair too dark to be called golden, but not precisely brown either. Her full lips trembled, even as they uttered words of polite conversation, her eyes threatened to fill at every moment, and Nan thought that her weak chin reflected an overly sentimental and vapid personality. It was an assessment that was confirmed by her conversation with Mem’sab, conversation that Nan ignored in favor of listening for other sounds. Over their heads, the floor creaked softly as someone moved to and fro, trying very hard to be quiet. There were also some odd scratching sounds that didn’t sound like mice, and once, a dull thud, as of something heavy being set down a little too hard.
Something was going on up there, and the person doing it didn’t want them to notice.
At length the incense-smell grew stronger, and the drapery on the wall to the right of the portrait parted, revealing a door, which opened as if by itself.
Taking that as their invitation, Katherine broke off her small talk to hurry eagerly into the sacred precincts; Mem’sab gestured to the girls to precede her, and followed on their heels. By previous arrangement, Nan and Sarah, rather than moving towards the circular table at which Madame Varonsky waited, went to the two walls likeliest to hold windows behind their heavy draperies before anyone could stop them.
It was Nan’s luck to find a corner window overlooking the street, and she made sure that some light from the room within flashed to the watcher on the opposite side before she dropped the drapery.
“Come away from the windows, children,” Mem’sab said in a voice that gently chided. Nan and Sarah immediately turned back to the room, and Nan assessed the foe.
Madame Varonsky’s portraitist had flattered her; she was decidedly paler than she had been painted, with a complexion unpleasantly like wax. She wore similar draperies, garments which could have concealed anything. The smile on her thin lips did not reach her eyes, and she regarded the parrot on Sarah’s shoulder with distinct unease.
“You did not warn me about the bird, Katherine,” the woman said, her voice rather reedy.
“The bird will be no trouble, Madame Varonsky,” Mem’sab soothed. “It is better behaved than a good many of my pupils.”
“Your pupils—I am not altogether clear on why they were brought,” Madame Varonsky replied, turning her sharp black eyes on Nan and Sarah.
“Nan is an orphan, and wants to learn what she can of her parents, since she never knew them,” Mem’sab said smoothly. “And Sarah lost a little brother to an African fever.”
“Ah.” Madame Varonsky’s suspicions diminished, and she gestured to the chairs around the table. “Please, all of you, do take your seats, and we can begin at once.”
As with the antechamber, this room had walls swathed in draperies, which Nan decided could conceal an entire army if Madame Varonsky were so inclined. The only furnishings besides the seance table and chairs were a sinuous statue of a female completely enveloped in draperies on a draped table, with incense burning before it in a small charcoal brazier of brass and cast iron.
The table at which Nan took her place was very much as Mem’sab had described. A surreptitious bump as Nan took her seat on Mem’sab’s left hand proved that it was quite light and easy to move; it would be possible to lift it with one hand with no difficulty at all. On the draped surface were some of the objects Mem’sab had described; a tambourine, a megaphone, a little hand-bell. There were three lit candles in a brass candlestick in the middle of the table, and some objects Nan had not expected—a fiddle and bow, a rattle, and a pair of handkerchiefs.
