The Dead of Winter by Jane A. Adams Page B

name. You said— ’
    â€˜ Mrs Southam,’ Weston said gravely. ‘If I have put you under any misapprehension then I am deeply sorry. ’
    â€˜ Misapprehension? You said he— ’
    â€˜ I said merely that Mr Creedy asked for the Reverend Spinelli.’ He put gentle emphasis on Spinelli’s title. ‘A reasonable wish, I would have thought. Mr Creedy knew that he was a dying man. ’
    â€˜ But— ’
    â€˜ Elizabeth, you’ve said and done enough. Go to your room,’ Albert interrupted.
    â€˜ I’m not a child. You can’t order me! ’
    Albert turned to the maidservant now cowering by the door. ‘Take your mistress to her room, and Pym, may I trouble you to give her something to settle her nerves.’ Albert’s tone was restrained, but his face was flushed.
    â€˜ Settle my nerves? There is nothing wrong with my nerves! ’
    â€˜ Come now, my dear,’ Dr Pym said. He reached out and patted her hand, then turned to her husband. ‘Don’t be too hard on her, old man, you know how women can be when they are in a delicate condition. ’
    Delicate! Elizabeth blushed. She had told no one but her husband and the doctor that she was pregnant; to have it announced in such a cavalier manner was too much.
    â€˜ Mr Weston, please.’ But even as she begged him to explain what they had done and why, that Weston had heard Creedy’s last accusing words, she knew she had been betrayed. Weston would not help her. Weston had his own agenda.
    Without another word, she turned and left the room, the servant rushing after her. Dr Pym paused to offer reassuring words to Albert and then followed them. He would listen to her, she was certain of that.
    An oddly celebratory atmosphere prevailed when Rina came back down at ten that evening in preparation for the seance. Everyone had dressed for the occasion, men in suits and woman in the best dresses they had with them. Gail had gone ahead of them into the seance room – to prepare and meditate, apparently – everyone else seemed to be drinking and eating again, and Rina began to wonder if Melissa had threatened to lock them all in until some specific volume of the food mountain had been consumed.
    â€˜So,’ she asked, approaching Edwin Holmes as he helped himself to another glass of wine, ‘do Joy and I get to know anything about this invented ghost of yours?’
    The old man turned and smiled at her, his pale blue, rather watery eyes crinkling at their corners. ‘Oh, no, I’m afraid not. You already know far too much. The two, or should I say four, neutral witnesses on that other night knew absolutely nothing. They fully believed in the process, so I can’t tell you more than we already have or it would ruin the whole effect.’
    Rina frowned. ‘But we’ve already drifted miles from the original proposition,’ she argued. ‘So far as we know, everyone that night was a believer and, as you say, there was total secrecy when it came to the origin of the phenomena they claimed to be calling up. And,’ she emphasized, ‘we don’t even know who or what they were claiming to be trying to contact, do we? So—’
    â€˜You are, of course, absolutely right. We have only a limited knowledge of the spirit they claimed to be trying to summon that night, but I’d still like to keep as close as we possibly can to the original experiment, even allowing for all of those variables.’ The pale eyes twinkled. ‘Tell me, though, Rina, where do you stand on all of this? Believer, non-believer, or, like our friend Terry, have you not yet made up your mind?’
    Rina ignored the question. ‘I thought nothing was known about the 1872 invention?’
    â€˜Almost nothing. I promise, I will tell you everything I know afterwards, but we really don’t want to put any of that into people’s minds. Tonight, we must focus on our