The Seance by John Harwood Read Free Book Online Page A

never knew I had an artist for an uncle.’
    ‘More a jack of all trades, I should say. In my time I’ve been – let me see – an illustrator (which is how I make most of my living), a copyist, an engraver, a draughtsman, and a restorer, as well as a painter of sorts... Was it a long illness? – your mother, forgive me.’
    ‘Yes, but not in the way you ... the truth is . . .’ and with that I was launched upon my story. He listened gravely and without surprise, even when I came to the séances, and I managed somehow to reach the end without breaking down.
    ‘And so you see, sir – though my father does not know it – I am the cause of my mother’s death.’
    ‘You judge yourself too harshly,’ he replied. ‘From everything you say, the wonder is that she did not choose to end her life long before this. Yours was a generous action, and you ought not to reproach yourself.’
    I did weep, at that, but I saw that it made him most uncomfortable, and controlled myself as soon as I could.
    ‘And now,’ he said, ‘you go with your father to your aunt in Cambridge?’
    ‘I have never met her. They don’t want me, and I would far rather not, but yes, I must.’
    ‘I see,’ he said, and was silent for a while.
    ‘Constance – if I may—’ he said at last, ‘I am a bachelor – and I know myself well enough to say that I am a selfish man. I like my quiet, andmy comforts, and the certainty that I can go to my studio after breakfast and not be disturbed for the next ten hours. I have a cook and a maid, both excellent women, but they will sometimes bother me with questions. Now if I had someone to keep house for me; someone who would study my likes and dislikes and see that everything ran smoothly – a quiet, reserved young woman, let us say – and especially if her father were disposed to make her an allowance, for I am frankly not well off ... It wouldn’t be an onerous task, and the house is large enough for you to have your own quarters.’
    A week later I was installed in my uncle’s house in Elsworthy Walk. I was so relieved not to be going to Cambridge that I should have been glad of a bed in the cellar; to find myself in a room on the top floor, looking eastward up the grassy slope of Primrose Hill, seemed altogether miraculous. The dining-table was always strewn with books and papers; my uncle’s idea of comfort was being able to leave things exactly where he wanted, and he was happy for us both to read at meals: sometimes a whole day would pass without our exchanging more than good morning and good-night. At first I could not leave the house without fearing that I would run into someone from Mrs Veasey’s or Miss Carver’s circles, but I never did, and my uncle never referred to the séances again. Instead of the Foundling Hospital I had Primrose Hill, and often that autumn I would sit by my window and watch the children at play, finding an obscure comfort in the sight.
    But even in this tranquil setting it was many months before the burden of guilt and self-reproach began to lighten, only to be displaced by an increasing restlessness of spirit. My housekeeping duties were indeed far from onerous, leaving me with a great deal of time on my hands. My uncle, I soon realised, shrank from any display of emotion; not, I think, from any essential coldness but because he feared its effect upon him. From certain things he let fall, I came to suspect that his conscience sometimes troubled him about his neglect of his family, especially my mother,whom he could have traced easily enough, and that taking me in had been his way of making amends. He seemed to like having me in the house; it gave him someone to talk to when he wished to talk, and left him to his own thoughts when he did not, and if he sensed my trouble, he gave no sign of it.
    I could not, in any case, have told him what my trouble was. I was accustomed to solitude, and did not miss – or did not think I missed – the society of people my own