Page 69 of Mesmerized

A ripple of nervous laughter responded to his quip, and Stephen stood up and began to relight the candles.

“I don’t understand,” Lady St. Leger said, looking puzzled and distressed. “The séances were never like this before. Madame Valenskaya is obviously upset.”

“I think,” Olivia said carefully, “that Madame Valenskaya has perhaps never had this sort of thing happen until now.”

“Would these things cease if we gave the Martyrs back their treasure?” Lady St. Leger asked, frowning, and Olivia could sense the first widening cracks in Lady St. Leger’s trust in the medium. “I mean, I don’t understand how we could give it to them. Bury it at their graves? But, you know, I don’t even know where they were buried. They were killed in London, after all.”

“Don’t distress yourself, Mother,” Stephen told her. “There is no way we can give them back their treasure. And even if we could, I feel sure that they do not want it. I doubt very seriously if ghosts have much need for jewelry.”

Lady St. Leger smiled faintly at his words. “It is quite distressing. I was telling Madame Valenskaya about it this afternoon, how the treasure is passed from father to son and doesn’t belong to me at all.”

“And Stephen would never give it over just to ease his mother’s distress, would you, Stephen?” Pamela asked in a hard voice.

“Pamela!” Lady St. Leger looked shocked. “I would never think of asking Stephen to do such a thing! The treasure belongs to the St. Legers. It is a family heirloom. It doesn’t belong only to one man or one generation. It is something that the current lord keeps in trust for the generations after him.”

Pamela grimaced.

“My dear,” Lady St. Leger went on gently, “I know it always upset you that Roderick would not let you wear any of the jewelry from that box, but it truly was not his to give, you know.”

“I don’t care about the jewelry,” Pamela said, rising. “Frankly, I find all this talk terribly boring. The séances used to be rather fun, but now...” She shrugged and walked out of the room.

“She is right, you know,” Lady St. Leger said somewhat sadly. “Madame’s sittings are no longer enjoyable. They have become so frightening. I can think of no other word for it. And poor Mr. Babington...”

“Don’t worry, my lady.” Great-uncle Bellard spoke up for the first time. “I feel sure that this will all be resolved in good time.”

Lady St. Leger smiled at him. “Thank you, Lord Moreland.” She rose to her feet. “I should go talk to Belinda. I imagine she feels a trifle lonely, missing the séance tonight. But it was fortunate that she decided not to come. I fear it would have scared her badly.”

Stephen’s mother left the room, and they were back down to the four who had sat together in the study that afternoon.

“Well,” Rafe said, “I think we can safely say that Madame Valenskaya didn’t plan or execute any of that. The woman looked scared witless.”

“Yes, and she was none too eager to perform the séance, either,” Bellard noted. “I think, whatever is happening, it is entirely out of her control, and she has no idea what to do about it.”

“You know, Stephen,” Olivia said, “if you simply want to be rid of Madame Valenskaya, I think you could achieve that now rather easily. I don’t think we would have to expose her fraud to your mother. I think you could suggest that Madame Valenskaya go back to London, and she would jump at the opportunity.”

“Especially if you offered her a mite of consolation money,” Rafe added.

“Yes, you are probably right,” Stephen agreed. “But what about Babington, unconscious up there in his room? And what about all the other things that have been happening? I don’t think Madame Valenskaya’s leaving will get rid of the rest of it.”

“No. But what are we going to do about the rest of it?” Olivia asked. “How do we stop Lady Alys and the others from popping into our dreams? Or keep whatever it was tonight from banging open doors and blowing out candles? I frankly don’t have any ideas.”

“I wonder...” Great-uncle Bellard mused. “Let us just suppose, for the sake of argument, that Madame Valenskaya is a complete fraud and that the dreams, visions and so forth are real. What happened tonight at the séance seemed quite real to me—the cold, the candles going out despite the fact that there was no draft, the doors flying open. Except possibly for the doors, I can’t think of any way those things could have been rigged to happen. And this Mr. Babington’s coma, at least, is confirmed by the doctor to be real, and from what the two of you say, it did not seem to you as if he were performing when he spoke in that ominous voice. Is that correct?”

Olivia and Stephen nodded.

“What if, despite Madame Valenskaya’s lack of any real skill, somehow, in that mishmash of words she mutters or even simply in her calling on the spirits, opening up the room to them, so to speak, she actually somehow opened up a pathway to, well, to another realm, for want of anything better to call it.”

“You mean she really did awaken the spirits?” Stephen asked skeptically.

“I’m not sure. But if we can believe there were ghosts from a twelfth-century love triangle somehow locked into this house, isn’t it possible that when Madame Valenskaya conducted these séances, she provided a connection to those shades? Perhaps something used her to somehow come into the room tonight, or to pop into that Babington chap and use him to speak for him.”

“Uncle!” Olivia shivered. “Now you are really scaring me.”

“We cannot discount the fact that you felt an evil presence in this house, as well,” Stephen said. “In your room that night you dreamed about Lady Alys, when you touched the gold casket, and in the room containing the casket. You have described it as a ‘dark presence,’ an overpowering sense of evil.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean Madame Valenskaya’s sessions brought the presence out,” Olivia argued.

“That’s true,” Rafe agreed. “I think that clearly what stirred this thing up is the feeling between you two. The connection between then and now is the love that this Lady Alys and Sir John felt, obviously strong enough to make them break their vows and risk the sort of tragedy that happened. They are drawn to you two because you have the same emotion.”