Page 18 of Unforeseen Affairs
He was holding on for dear life.
“Sir Colin,” cried Mrs. Stone in a voice that recalled the sound of a yowling cat, “you need not crush my hand!”
Colin suddenly realized he’d violently seized both Mrs. Stone and Miss Sedley’s hands, as if they were a length of rigging he’d caught to avoid being pitched overboard in a storm.
Quickly he released them both.
“Maintain the circle, please!” barked an unfamiliar voice, which after a moment he identified as that of Mr. Trenwith.
The singing tapered off, and Mr. Bass chuckled good-naturedly.
“Yes, please maintain contact,” Mr. Bass explained. “You might not be aware, Sir Colin, as this is your first spirit circle, but it is paramount to maintain the flow of a companionable energy, to beckon the spirits forth.”
His mother released an exasperated sigh, and Colin felt his anxiety grow even more.
When she had received the news about Bernard, she hadn’t left her room for three months. Or at least, that’s what the housekeeper had told him. Colin had been away at sea.
He hadn’t even learned of his elder brother’s fate until they’d docked at Portsmouth weeks later. Nearly all he could think about in the months afterward—aside from Bernard—was his mother, who’d been forced to bear her grief all alone until Colin returned from his posting.
“So sorry,” he apologized, mainly for his mother’s sake.
“Of course, of course,” Mr. Bass said, humming before he added, “Mr. Trenwith, as you can see, will oversee things, to make sure that everything is, er, above board, as they say. Pay no mind to his… brusqueness.”
Someone, likely Mr. Trenwith, snorted derisively at that.
“I should also explain, Sir Colin, that when contacting the dead, we must give them voice by whatever means possible. They typically knock as a way of answering. One knock is a no, two knocks a yes.”
Colin nodded politely, as if Mr. Bass had just commented on something as banal as the weather.
“Three knocks means you’ve had far too much to drink and ought to be put to bed,” chortled Beaky.
Mr. Bass turned a severe gaze in Beaky’s direction. The young lieutenant, blithely unaware, waggled his eyebrows at Colin, as if expecting a responding jibe.
Mr. Bass cleared his throat and waited.
“A gentle hold,” Mrs. Stone instructed Colin. “Only the fingertips need touch.”
She rested her hands loosely on the table, and this time Colin followed suit, such that their fingertips overlapped only just.
“Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Everyone, together now, from the top,” Mr. Bass began, then kicked up the hymn once more.
Soon the chorus of hesitant voices again joined in, some managing the melody far better than others.
Some kind of incense must have been lit, for the air was now especially pungent. Captain and Mrs. Pearce, whom Colin had regarded since childhood as stiff and strait-laced, were singing with gusto, their gazes intent upon one another from across the table. Colin frowned. He’d have to ask Beaky if they were the ones who had put his mother on to this nonsense; he had a sneaking suspicion about Mrs. Pearce’s influence in that regard. He dared not look his mother’s way, not wishing to feel that curious distress in his chest once more.
Beaky was still grinning in Colin’s direction, but Alice was gazing at Mr. Bass with all the fervor of an enraptured young maid, with parted lips and eager eyes.
Colin frowned at her apparent enchantment. Why, the medium was old enough to be her father!
By now the assembled had warbled their way through the first stanza. They really ought to get on with it, for he’d no desire to be reprimanded by Mr. Trenwith again and disappoint his mother.
He realized his right hand was still alone on the table, and he looked to Miss Sedley.
She was watching him in the low light, her expression inquisitive and determined, her eyes large and piercing. He felt the urge to look away, as if she were an effigy of a pagan goddess in a crumbling temple somewhere in the Aegean Sea, and gazing upon her for too long would turn him to stone.
But he didn’t look away.
She was seeking something, the answer to an unknown question hidden somewhere within him. But what on earth could that be? What could be so mysterious about him?
