Velvet (5 page)

Complimenting Mrs Cameron on the wonderful fruitfulness of the cake, Velvet, looking around the table and feeling very happy, wondered if her ma and pa had ever had such good times together. She decided they had not for, as far back as she could remember, her father had been an impossible man to please. Why, only last Christmas she’d made an effort to create a little cheer, buying a joint of ham for their Christmas dinner and studding it with cloves, but her father had sniffed it, said that he hated cloves and thrown the whole thing to the floor. He’d taken exception to the way she’d decorated the room, too, and tossed the evergreens outside, saying they were a pagan tradition which he would not tolerate (although he certainly could not be called a religious man).

‘Lizzie tells me that your mother and father are no longer with us, my dear,’ Mrs Cameron said as they sat, much later, toasting chunks of bread before the fire. ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Thank you,’ Velvet murmured.

‘And you have no brothers or sisters?’

‘None that survived their childhood,’ Velvet replied.

‘And had your father a trade?’ asked Mr Cameron, who was immensely proud of his position as an omnibus driver.

Velvet nodded. ‘I suppose you might call it so,’ she said. ‘He was a children’s entertainer and called himself Mr Magic. He performed conjuring tricks at private parties.’

‘Oh!’ everyone exclaimed. ‘What fun.’

‘Did he play tricks on you?’ Lizzie said.

‘Were you always finding rabbits in his pocket?’ Mrs Cameron asked, making them all laugh. ‘What a merry time you must have had.’

Velvet looked around her, wondering how much to say and, because the faces turned towards her were kindly, shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t really a merry time.’

‘Might one ask why?’ ventured Mrs Cameron.

Velvet took a deep breath. There was so much she could say. She thought of the big things – his wickedness to her mother, his cruelty to animals, the way he’d lose his money gambling and then rail at her if there was no hot dinner, his enormous capacity for self-pity, and the smaller things – the way he’d ask for a sugary sweetmeat from a party saying it was ‘for my daughter’ and then eat it in front of her, the way he’d make her run behind his hired transport carrying his cases. So many things, a hundred unhappinesses, but which to choose? And how could she air them now and spoil everyone’s day?

‘He was like . . . two different people,’ she said eventually. ‘He was jolly Mr Magic to the children at the parties, but when he came out of their houses he changed and his jolliness disappeared. He became someone else and I was always frightened of him.’

‘Never!’ said Mrs Cameron. ‘He sounds beastly. I’d like to find him and give him a piece of my mind!’

‘Now, now, dear,’ Mr Cameron put in. ‘The man’s passed away, remember.’

‘Even so . . .’ Mrs Cameron dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘But were you well nourished, my love?’ she asked Velvet. ‘Who kept house after your dear mother died?’

‘I did,’ Velvet said, ‘though sometimes I didn’t have much to housekeep.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Father was a gambler, you see, and I don’t know what was worse: when he won at the races and got roaring drunk, or when he lost and got dismal drunk. Either way, it was never pleasant.’ She looked around at their kindly faces. ‘I know one shouldn’t speak badly about one’s father, but I fear he wasn’t a good or decent man. My mother had a miserable life with him, and I believe he drove her to an early grave.’

‘I’ve known men like that,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Nice as pie when they’re out and about, but the very devil to live beside.’

‘But I mustn’t speak ill of the dead,’ Velvet said. ‘He’s gone now and there’s an end to it. You’ve all been so nice to me and I don’t want to spoil the festivities.’

‘Nor have you, my dear!’ said Mr Cameron. ‘You needed to get that off your chest.’

‘And as you haven’t had a fortunate past, we’ll drink to your happy future. The future of the girl who got the lucky silver horseshoe!’ toasted Mrs Cameron, raising her glass of plum wine in Velvet’s direction.

The family joined in, then settled down even closer to the fire for what Mrs Cameron assured Velvet was the way they always concluded Christmas Day – the head of the family reading from
A Christmas Carol
.

Chapter Four

In Which Velvet and Lizzie Attend an Evening of Mediumship

The excursion to Prince’s Hall for an evening of mediumship had been planned, timed and talked about in detail. The most urgent matter was what to wear, of course, for neither Velvet nor Lizzie had ever been to what Mrs Cameron assured them would be a ‘proper do, with society and all’. Deliberations about their costume did not occupy them for very long, however, because each girl had only two outfits: one for work and one for Sunday. Their hats were to be given new trimmings, however, and here Velvet put to use the felt corsage she’d been given by Charlie, breaking up the flowers and sewing them individually around the brim of her hat. Regarding their outerwear – and feeling that the woolly shawls the girls usually wrapped themselves in would not do for such an event – Mrs Cameron lent Lizzie her best black mantle, and Velvet borrowed a similar one from Mrs Cameron’s sister, who lived next door. Velvet also washed her hair and dried it wrapped around rags, so that, away from the heat and damp of the laundry, it was transformed into shiny dark ringlets instead of a cloud of frizz.

The travel arrangements were quite straightforward: the girls were to catch the number fifty-one omnibus which would drop them almost outside Prince’s Hall. To save them from being pestered by young men or street sellers afterwards, Mr Cameron would meet them and escort them home.

Prince’s Hall turned out to be a small, intimate theatre with gold-painted chairs arranged in semicircles before the stage. The girls were seated halfway down the hall, which suited Velvet. She was very much looking forward to seeing Madame, but she would have felt exposed if she’d been any nearer to the front. She really didn’t want to be called upon and told that someone from the spirit world wished to speak to her in case that someone was her father. She hadn’t actually killed him, she repeatedly reassured herself. Surely she couldn’t be accused of murder . . .

‘Look!’ Lizzie said, pointing to a chair and table before them on the otherwise bare stage. ‘Those things will go up in the air – my sister said that always happens. It goes dark and then there are rapping sounds and things fly everywhere.’

‘Not with Madame Savoya!’ the large woman beside Velvet said in a somewhat admonishing tone. ‘Madame does not do party tricks.’

‘Then, if you’ll excuse me for asking,’ Velvet said politely, ‘what does she do?’

‘We’ve never been to such an evening before,’ explained Lizzie.

‘Why, Madame Savoya communes with the spirits,’ replied the woman. ‘She asks them questions and they answer. Madame has the most wonderful rapport with those on the Other Side.’ She lifted a finger and waggled it at them. ‘She doesn’t need to sound trumpets and make furniture fly in the air!’

Velvet and Lizzie thanked her, nudging each other in excitement, then began a game of counting the number of fur coats they could see in the front four rows. They had just reached seventeen when the gaslights were dimmed, a voice called for complete silence and the audience immediately became hushed. Velvet, who’d earlier been scared that she might giggle nervously at an inappropriate moment, now felt herself much too overawed to do so.

After perhaps three minutes, a curtain parted at the centre back of the stage and a young man in an evening suit came out, holding the drape open for a small, darkly beautiful young woman with elaborately coiffed hair, dressed in – Velvet gripped Lizzie’s arm in excitement – the grey silk, pin-tucked blouse that she personally had laundered not four days before! She instantly recognised it because it fastened all down the front with mother-of-pearl buttons, and one of these had broken in half before it came to Ruffold’s and had had to be replaced with an identical one from Mrs Sloane’s button tin.

‘I laundered that!’ she whispered in Lizzie’s ear. ‘That very blouse she’s wearing.’ But Lizzie was too rapt watching the stage to answer.

Madame Savoya walked towards the chair. Her skirt (soft cashmere in dove grey) was pulled back at each side into an elaborate bustle which fell to the floor in gentle drapes and revealed the toes of shiny silver shoes. As she sat down, the young man standing to one side of her bade everyone welcome on her behalf, introducing himself as her assistant and saying his name was George. ‘Gorgeous George,’ Lizzie breathed in Velvet’s ear, for he was very handsome indeed.

‘What you are about to witness will amaze and confound you,’ he told the enthralled audience. ‘Madame Savoya’s grandmother was a Russian princess, one of the Romanovs, and the women of her family have always had the Sight.’

Madame Savoya smiled faintly and nodded as George continued. ‘On her sixteenth birthday, she had a vision in which her grandmother appeared and told her that she was going to become a medium of enormous talent. She said that Madame would gain immense influence and respect in the world, but must never allow her talents to corrupt her. Her grandmother told her she must always give half of everything she would earn to charities, institutions and those poor creatures less fortunate than herself.’

A murmur of appreciation ran through the hall.

‘Madame has, of course, always abided by this rule, and is now the leading medium in London – perhaps in all of England. Tonight, in Prince’s Hall, she is going to give you a demonstration of her powers. We hope to be blessed with help from the spirits this evening, although one can never guarantee visitations from the world beyond.’

The audience’s eager faces dropped just a little at this, as did Velvet’s and Lizzie’s. ‘I hope they
do
come,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘Fancy us doing ourselves up like this and not hearing any messages.’

‘Madame Savoya is a ray of light into the spirit world, a rainbow which links their existence to ours,’ the young man elaborated. ‘Madame is an open book wherein the spirits can write.’

Madame smiled and inclined her head gracefully.

‘The large number of you here tonight means an equally large number of spirits is waiting patiently on the Other Side, for they know that we’re hoping to hear from them. Channelling messages from this dense throng will be extremely tiring for Madame and she will not, at this time, be able to deal with those newly passed spirits, who are usually somewhat bewildered and demand a lot of patience and attention. Madame asks, therefore, if you have someone who has recently passed, to contact her so that she may conduct a private sitting and dedicate more of her time and consideration to you.’

George finished his introduction and bowed, then Madame rose and came forward to address the audience. She was not foreign, Velvet realised straight away. Her voice was low, cultured, and she was younger than she first appeared, perhaps only twenty-two or twenty-three. Her face was pale, her lips full and her eyes dark and expressive under thin, arching brows. She had glossy black hair, pulled back and piled into curls on top of her head, leaving a few wisps about her face. She looked both beautiful and serene.

‘I see some tense faces amongst you,’ she said. ‘But I must tell you that tonight there will be no dire prophecies or tales of woe. Tonight is a light-hearted diversion to show what help our guiding spirits can provide. Perhaps it will give you the courage to have a longer and more personal sitting with me.’

‘She is
such
an inspiration!’ the large woman beside Velvet was heard to murmur.

‘Underneath each of your chairs is a pencil, a slip of paper and an envelope,’ Madame went on. ‘If you would care to, please write down a question, place it in the envelope and tuck in the flap to ensure that it cannot be seen by me. It is not I who will answer your questions, ladies and gentlemen, but the spirits.’

There was a pause and then the scraping of chairs as the audience located their pieces of paper. After that came some whispered consultations, followed by the soft scratching of pencils.

Velvet and Lizzie exchanged glances. What to write? Nothing that might mean her father being called back, Velvet thought. After a moment or two she wrote,
For how much longer will I be working at Ruffold’s?
Lizzie, who had spent near three years at a dame school and so had quite a passable hand, wrote,
Will I marry a rich man?

The questions were collected by the young gentleman assistant who, Lizzie and Velvet were sure, smiled and crinkled his eyes at them as he took their envelopes. ‘Not that I’m surprised at him being saucy with us,’ whispered Lizzie, ‘because everyone else here is so very old.’

The envelopes were dropped into a top hat and taken to Madame. ‘You will have seen that your questions cannot be viewed through the envelopes,’ she said, ‘and they will be in your full view the entire time I’m on stage. I have absolutely no way of knowing what you’ve asked before I open your envelope.’

‘Madame and the spirits will try to answer as many questions as possible,’ said the young man. ‘But we ask for your support and understanding if she becomes exhausted by the demands upon her.’

The audience was still and silent as Madame dipped into the top hat and pulled out an envelope. She closed her eyes for a moment, held the envelope to her heart and spoke out brightly. ‘Ah, a lady here wishes to know if she will receive a proposal of marriage in the near future.’