The Seance by John Harwood Read Free Book Online

look for new situations, of course.’
    ‘But Papa—’
    ‘Kindly do not interrupt me. They will receive the usual month’s wages in lieu of notice, which I consider more than generous, and you may give them references if you choose. And now I have a great deal of business to conduct, thanks to your mother’s – to this unfortunate event – no, not a word further, if you please. I shall not be home until late.’
    Lettie and Mrs Greaves, to my surprise, took the news philosophically. ‘We’ll be all right, my dear,’ said Mrs Greaves, ‘I know you’ll give us good characters; but it won’t be much of a life for you, in Cambridge.’ Indeed I felt that I would as soon go to prison, but I had no spirit to protest. I sent Mrs Veasey a painfully composed letter, saying that Mama had died and that I would not be able to see her or any of the circle again, and wondering, as I struggled with the wording, how long it would be before Miss Carver’s circle intersected with Mrs Veasey’s. And so Mama was buried on a bleak October morning with only my father, Mrs Greaves, Lettie and myself at her graveside.
    A week or so after the burial, I was folding away my mother’s clothes, and wondering what I ought to do with Alma’s things, when Lettie came up to tell me that a gentleman was here, asking to see me. My father was out as usual; he claimed to be run off his feet with the business of closing up the house, but I suspected he was spending most of his time at the Museum. I went numbly downstairs expecting someone to do with books or furniture, and found instead a small, stocky man who seemed vaguely familiar, though I was sure I had never seen him before. He was wearing a green velveteen jacket, rather the worse for wear, and grey flannel trousers with a smear of paint on one knee, and looked to be somewhere between fifty and sixty. His head was bald on top, but surrounded by a mane of grey-brown hair, long and unruly at the sides, so that his ears were almost hidden. Tangled whiskers, a beard and a thick moustache obscured his mouth and much of his cheeks; his eyes were dark brown, the lower lids wrinkled and heavily lined, and his skin – what could be seen of it – was much weathered by the sun.
    ‘Miss Langton? My name is Frederick Price, and I think I must be your uncle; I saw the notice of my sister’s – your mother’s – death in
The Times
, and came to offer my condolences.’
    I looked at him wonderingly; I could indeed discern a very faint resemblance to my mother.
    ‘Thank you, sir. I am afraid my father will not be back until late – he is very seldom home. Will you have some tea?’
    ‘I really should not disturb you at such a sad time.’
    ‘You would not be disturbing me,’ I said. His voice was low and slightly hesitant, and something in its cadence appealed to me. ‘I should welcome a change from my thoughts.’
    I took him into the drawing-room, where many of the ornaments had already been packed up; a half-filled box stood beside the fireplace.
    ‘You must wonder,’ he said, ‘why we have never met. The fact is, I lost touch with your mother after she married; I had no idea that she was living in London until I saw the notice the other day. And – well, tobe frank, we were never close, partly because I saw so little of her. I quarrelled with my father, you see; he wanted me to preach, and I wanted to paint, and it ended with his cutting me out of his will, and my running off to Italy before I was twenty-one. Poor Hester was left to look after him, and I suppose she must have resented it – who could blame her? – and then when my father died I couldn’t, or at least didn’t, come home. The last letter I had from her was to say she was engaged to be married. I hoped she’d be happy at last ... And then I came back to London in ’75 and took a house in St John’s Wood, where I’ve had my studio ever since, never knowing I had a niece living not three miles away.’
    ‘And I