Page 45 of Mesmerized

“It was a person, my lady,” Olivia said with all the gentleness she could muster. “Not a lost soul. A person who went into the nursery and cried by the fireplace, where the sound would come down into your sitting room.”

Lady St. Leger stared at her. “But, my dear, why would anyone do such a thing?”

“To convince us, perhaps, that there are lost souls here.”

Lady St. Leger gasped. “Lady Olivia! You must be overwrought. It is quite understandable, of course, what with the ordeal you and Belinda have been through, but you can’t have thought—you are implying that—”

“Yes, my lady. I can see no other possibility.”

“Disbelievers...” Howard Babington spoke up, sighing and giving a sorrowful shake of his head. “They will concoct any preposterous story to keep from admitting what is right in front of their eyes.”

“Yes. Someone was in the room with us, crying,” Lady St. Leger said. “We all heard it. You yourself checked the hall. It couldn’t have come from the nursery. It is too far away.”

“You have only to take up a tile at the fireplace—” Stephen began.

“Did you see someone doing this?” Babington asked innocently.

“No. They had left the room. They started the crying again and led us away, into the unused wing of the house.”

“That’s right, Mama,” Belinda interjected. “We followed it until we were lost, and then it just stopped.”

“But, darling, if you didn’t see anyone, how can you know that it was a person?” Lady St. Leger asked her daughter reasonably. “And Madame Valenskaya was right there in the room with us. She couldn’t possibly have done such a thing. You must see that you are being very unfair to her.”

“Her daughter and Mr. Babington were not with us,” Olivia pointed out.

“But they are right here. They have been with me for some time.”

“Sometimes the spirits can be unkind,” Mr. Babington said with the air of one imparting a sad truth. “When they are caught here, unable to reach the other world where they belong, they can be bitter. They will play tricks, frighten people, lead one astray.”

“Yes.” Madame Valenskaya nodded her head sagely. “Is true. I haff seen it. Ferry sad.”

“Lady Olivia,” Pamela drawled, “while I admire your desire to support Lord St. Leger’s views of Madame Valenskaya and her friends, I feel I must point out that they are strangers to this house. How could they have known this trick with the tile in the nursery? I had never heard of it. Did you know about it, Lady St. Leger? Belinda?” At their negative shakes of the head, she went on, raising her eyebrows. “You see? If even we did not know about it, having lived in this house for years, how could these relative strangers have guessed that they could do it?”

“Yes, of course. It would be impossible,” Lady St. Leger agreed, pleased. She patted Olivia on the arm, giving her a sweet, understanding smile. “I am afraid you have been listening too much to my son’s doubts. Stephen has become much too cynical in the years he’s been away. But you can see that Madame Valenskaya and Miss Valenskaya and Mr. Babington could not have done such a thing. It was, I fear, as Mr. Babington mentioned—a restless spirit playing tricks on us.” She sighed, turning toward the medium. “We really must try to communicate with the spirits again, Madame. Clearly we must do something to try to help.”

“Yes, of course. As you wish,” the squat woman replied, her eyelids lowering over a gleam of triumph. “We try again.”

* * *

EVEN LADY ST. LEGER agreed that the séance must be put off until the next evening, as Olivia and Belinda had been through too much that day to participate. Olivia was a little surprised that Lady St. Leger wanted her at the séance at all. She was fairly certain, from a single malevolent glance Madame Valenskaya delivered to her, that the medium would have been more than happy to have her gone entirely.

However, she began to realize that Lady St. Leger was hoping to win her over to the side of the believers and that she felt sure another séance would do so. Lady St. Leger smiled benignly and patted Olivia’s hand the next morning after breakfast, assuring her that the séance would straighten everything out for them.

“You will see, dear,” she said, giving her a twinkling glance. “And then, perhaps, you will be able to persuade my cynical son.”

As for Lady St. Leger, her own faith in the medium appeared to be unshakable. When, that afternoon, Stephen showed Lady St. Leger and Olivia the loose tile in the nursery schoolroom and demonstrated that sound could indeed travel down to the sitting room below, she did for a moment look uncertain.

But then she shook her head and said, “No, Stephen, my love, how could Madame Valenskaya or her daughter or Mr. Babington have done any of that? It is too absurd. Madame Valenskaya is a dear friend. She has helped me so much the past few months. It would be most unkind of me to suspect her of playing such tricks. And, anyway, they are strangers to this house. They could not know about the nursery tile, and they certainly could not have led Belinda and Lady Olivia into getting lost in the old wing. Surely you must see that.”

“They could have explored the place,” Stephen said. “They have been here an ample amount of time, and it isn’t as if we keep watch on them all the time.”

“My dear! Of course not—what a thing to say.” She shook her head a little sadly. “You have set your mind against the possibility of the spirit world. You should be more tolerant, more open to new ideas.”

“Mother...”

She smiled, patted his hand and sailed out of the room. Stephen gazed after her in frustration.

“It is something of a sticking point,” Olivia admitted. “How could they have known of the loose tile? I feel sure they could have explored the old wing and set up that trick, although I’m not sure to what purpose. I mean, Belinda and I would have suffered nothing more than an uncomfortable night, and probably not even that. You would have been bound to search the whole house.”