preparing to make themselves known to us.’
George grinned in the dark. ‘How very convenient for us,’ he said. The thread he had glimpsed stretched to the dresser, and he would be willing to bet it was attached to the bell. But before he could decide whether or how to tell Liz, he felt her hand shift too.
‘Look!’ she gasped. Liz had raised her arm, dark silhouette pointing across the room towards the door. ‘A spirit,’ she breathed. ‘At the door.’
George shifted slightly to see the door. And sure enough, a pale, ghostly face was staring back at him.
‘Don’t look,’ Husband Gerald whispered loudly. ‘They don’t like you to stare.’
‘And please don’t break the circle,’ Madame Sophia said. ‘That could be very dangerous indeed.’
‘Of course,’ Liz said, returning her hand to its position next to George’s. He thought he could detect a hint of amusement in her tone, and as if to tell him he was right, her fingers tapped the back of his hand.
‘Yes,’ Madame Sophia was saying. ‘Yes, I can hear you … You wish to speak to someone here?’ Her voice had taken on an ethereal, sing-song quality. The bell rang again. ‘You do!’ Sophia exclaimed in delight. ‘And your name is … Edward.’
‘Edward?’ Liz’s voice was shaking with emotion. ‘Not Edward?’
‘You know an Edward? Someone who has passed over?’ Husband Gerald asked. There was a glimmer of satisfaction in his voice.
‘Why, no,’ Liz said. ‘It just sounds such a nice name. For someone who is dead.’
George stifled a laugh. ‘I don’t know any Edward either,’ he said helpfully.
‘It’s a small world,’ Liz told him in apparent seriousness.
‘No wait,’ Sophia interrupted quickly. ‘Edward is his spirit name. Here on Earth he would have been known as …’ She hesitated, for all the world as if listening to a voice that George and the others could not hear. ‘As …’ she added impatiently after a few moments. ‘It isn’t,’ Mrs Paterson said in a squeak. ‘I mean, it couldn’t be — could it?’ She gave a table-jolting sigh. ‘Not little Andrew?’
‘Why yes.’ Sophia seemed surprised. ‘That is what he says his name was. Andrew. There is another name …’ She made no effort to give it.
‘Griffiths,’ Liz said with conviction.
‘Andrew Griffiths,’ Sophia agreed. Then she realised that it was Liz who had spoken. ‘Er, is not the name,’ she finished.
‘Andrew Jones?’ George suggested.
‘Do we all have to guess?’ Mr Paterson asked. He sounded bored.
‘My brother,’ Mrs Paterson explained with an oblivious sob. ‘He … passed over when we were children.’
‘It
‘We were hoping for an Albert,’ Liz said sternly.
George sensed she had had enough of this. ‘Or a Percy,’ he added, trying to sound equally stern.
‘The spirits are not at our beck and call,’ Husband Gerald reprimanded them.
‘Oh, aren’t they?’ Liz murmured, just loud enough for George to hear. Then a moment later: ‘Look!’ she gasped.
Their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness now, and everyone looked where Liz pointed. They all saw a white shape, formless and ethereal, hanging in the air above the table. It shimmered and twisted as if trying to become real, dancing across the room towards the dresser. It disappeared into the darkness and the bell gave a startled jangle.
Mrs Paterson clapped her hands together in delight. ‘A ghost. Oh, do say I have seen one of the spirits.’
But Madame Sophia did not answer. She was staring open-mouthed across at the dresser. ‘I don’t …’ she muttered. ‘I never …’ She turned white-faced towards Husband Gerald. But he too seemed pale and shocked.
‘Is that the end?’ Mr Paterson demanded. ‘Show over, is it? Can we go home now?’
George was about to say that he thought they probably could. But then, the table levitated. He was not actually aware of it happening until Liz gave a startled gasp. ‘The table,’ she cried out. ‘It’s moving. Can’t you feel it?’
Her eyes were wide and pale in the gloom as she looked round at them. ‘There it goes again. Oh, my goodness — it’s rising up. You must be able to feel it.’
George could indeed. And by the ashen expressions on the dimly lit faces of everyone else so could they.
‘You can tell it’s moving, can’t you, Mr Smith, dear,’ Liz said to George. He nodded dumbly, really nervous for the first time since they had sat down. But despite her apparent anxiety, she winked at George. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said as she did so. ‘Here it goes again.’
The new delivery boy was charming, if rather scruffy, Mrs White decided. She was surprised he had been sent out so late, but the lad insisted that this was his last delivery of the day and he would be off home soon. But could he beg a quick cup of tea before he went — just to keep out the cold of the night?
Mrs White was the cook, not a maid, so she wasn’t in the habit of making tea for delivery boys. But he seemed so cold and exhausted that she made an exception. And after all, he had come out late in the night to her kitchen. He was a chatty boy. Well, he didn’t talk an awful lot, but he was interested.
He told Mrs White that he had heard that the house was used for seances and the like. ‘Are you a believer in the afterlife and all that?’ he asked her.
So she told him. Yes, she thought there was probably something in it. So many people thought so, after all. Not that you would want to come here to find proof, she told him.
‘Oh?’ He seemed surprised.
Mrs White shook her head. ‘Madame Sophia, she calls herself. Sophie Southgate’s her real name, but she never uses that. No, nothing’s real here.’
‘What do you mean?’
But Mrs White refused to be drawn. ‘It’s not my place to say, young man. More than my job’s worth.’
‘That’s all right,’ the boy assured her. He finished his drink. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
The boy handed her his cup, and Mrs White took it over to the sink. When she turned back, the boy was gone. Funny, she thought — she had not heard the outside door. He was a strange one, working all hours, demanding tea, then just slipping away like that. Still, it was kind of him to bring the …
Mrs White frowned. What was it the boy had delivered? For the life of her she could not remember. She blew out a long breath. It had been a tiring day. She locked the outside door before making her way up to the servants quarters, and bed.
Liz was having fun. She had realised almost at once, just as she assumed George had, that it was all a fake. At first she had considered going along with it, appearing to be impressed, then making as early an escape as possible. But soon she decided that if she was wasting her time she might as well enjoy herself while she did it.
Husband Gerald was sitting next to her, and Liz could see his leg jerk every time the bell rang. It did not require much imagination to work out that there was — literally — a connection. The face painted on the door had provoked a quick frisson. But again, she knew all about luminous paint from the theatre.
Confusing and misleading Madame Sophia was almost too easy, so Liz tried to think what else she could do to liven up the proceedings. It was a challenge, to see if she could beat Madame Sophia and Husband Gerald at their own game — could convince them that they were experiencing genuine spiritual moments through the simplest of tricks. Throwing her handkerchief across the room with the same movement as pointing had worked well. The lacy material seemed almost to hang in the air before landing on the dresser and — with a stroke of good fortune — knocking the bell. But Husband Gerald had glared at her, evidently not convinced.
So she turned her attention to the table. It was not really levitating. She nudged and jiggled the heavy wooden table with her knees, just enough for the seance participants all to feel some slight movement. In the darkened room, their minds attuned to the possibility of mysterious happenings, Liz’s insistence that the table was levitating might be enough for their imaginations to do the rest.
It worked better than she had hoped. Even Husband Gerald gasped in surprise, and seemed to be trying to push the table back down — into the floor. George too seemed taken in, bless him. His eyes were wide with amazement. Mrs Paterson was shrieking with a mixture of delight and fear. Mr Paterson was grumbling as if bored
