She watched the ray of light which came slanting from a hooded lamp and made the crystal ball look like a bubble of light floating on dark, deep water. You couldn’t see the table, or the velvet, or the ebony stand-only the ball with the light swirling round in it. Because that was what it seemed to do. It swirled like water-no, like mist-like cloudy thoughts in a dream. And then they cleared, and as plainly as she had ever seen anything in all her life, she saw Anna Ball’s face looking at her out of the crystal. It was there for a moment, and then it was gone again. But she had seen it, and nothing and nobody was ever going to persuade her that she hadn’t. She drove her nails hard, hard against the palm of either hand.
Miranda gave a long, deep sigh, and leaned right back against the cushions of her chair. The ray and the bright crystal were between her and Thomasina. When she leaned back like that she went into the darkness. Her voice came out of it, very deep and low.
“Anna, where are you?”
All the words were on the same deep muted note. Then the voice lifted. It became another voice, faint and far away.
“Not-here-”
Then the deep voice again.
“Where are you?”
“A-long-way-off-”
“Where?”
“I-don’t-want-her-to-know. Tell her… happy… no good-to-cling-to the past… Broken links-cannot- be replaced…This is-final.”
There was another of those deep sighs. Miranda moved, put up a hand to her head, groaned distressfully, and sat up.
“What happened?” she said in her natural voice. She sounded bewildered. “Did anyone see anything? I didn’t. I went into the trance-or did I? I feel awful. Here, for pity’s sake put on the lights, Augustus, and switch off that ray-it’s blinding me!”
As the lights came on, Miranda could be seen to be pale. Between the dark red of her hair and the violet of her robe this pallor had a greenish tinge. But the room was consolingly ordinary again. The remnants of the tea, hastily bundled on to a side table, were reassuringly domestic. The crystal on its ebony stand was just a big glass ball. The black velvet square upon which it stood had a worn place on it, and the edges had begun to fray.
Miranda blinked and said,
“I don’t remember a thing. What happened?”
Elaine was twittering with excitement.
“You went into a trance!”
Miranda ran a hand through her hair.
“But I was going to look into the crystal-”
“Oh, but you didn’t! You just leaned back, and of course we knew it was the trance. And then you began to talk.”
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Anna, where are you?’ ” Thomasina spoke in a voice which she only just kept from being an angry one. “Why did you do that?”
“I haven’t the least idea. Did I say anything else?”
Augustus Remington gave his odd high laugh.
“Oh, yes, my dear, you did indeed! First you said, ‘Anna, where are you-’ ”
“And then your voice was quite different, and you said, ‘Not here-’ ”
“And then-”
They tumbled over one another to tell her what she had said- breaking sentences, jumbling up the words, correcting one another. Only Thomasina took no part in it. She looked at Miranda and she held her tongue.
“ ‘Anna, where are you-’ Well, I can’t make head or tail of it,” said Miranda. “Can anyone?”
Miss Gwyneth was frowning.
“That Miss Ball’s name was Anna, wasn’t it?”
Miss Elaine gave a little sniff.
“I don’t know, I’m sure. She wasn’t at all friendly-no one called her by it. And she went away almost at once.”
“And why should you get a message from her?” said Gwyneth. “So-so irrelevant.”
Augustus Remington had picked up his tambour frame. He held the needle poised and took a delicate stitch.
“How too, too true! The irrelevance of these communications intrigues me. Why wander in from the void to make perfectly banal remarks?”
“But there was a message,” said Miss Elaine.
“Oh, a definite message,” said Miss Gwyneth.
They spoke as if taking part in a duet.
‘“I don’t want her to know-’ ”
“ ‘Broken links cannot be replaced-’ ”
Then, both together,
“But what does it mean? Who is the message for?”
Augustus took another stitch. His glance mocked them.
“That, alas, we cannot tell.”
Miranda closed her eyes.
“Well, all I can say is that it means nothing to me, except that it’s given me a headache. But then that’s often the way with messages like this-they don’t mean a thing to me. I am only the medium.” She raised her hands above her head and stretched magnificently. “Well, that’s that, and I’m going to have another cup of tea.”
When your hostess has confessed to having a headache it is not in very good taste to linger upon the scene. Miss Elaine and Miss Gwyneth made their farewells. The embraces were on the languid side, and Thomasina got off with quite an ordinary handshake.
As they walked the short distance to the converted stables, Miss Elaine remarked with some acerbity that she thought Augustus should have had enough sense to come away when they did, instead of settling down on Miranda with his everlasting embroidery. Upon which the sisters started an argument as to whether Miranda would have preferred him to leave, and whether it was really true that he spent every evening there and did not go away until after midnight. Nothing but Thomasina’s youth and innocence prevented either or both of them from adding, “If then.”
CHAPTER XXIX
Thomasina went up to her room and began to take off her things. When she had unfastened her coat she slipped a hand into the pocket, because she knew she had put a handkerchief there and she remembered about the sandwiches. She didn’t want it stained to the bone with Miranda’s horrid filling. Her hand went down, and came up again all clammy. The sandwiches were there, and the handkerchief wasn’t. She opened the window, threw them out, and wiped her hand, all rather vigorously.
And then she remembered having the handkerchief before she put the sandwiches in her pocket, because a drop of that horrid green tea had fallen on her dress, right in front where the coat opened, and from the way it tasted she thought it might leave one of those lingering stains, so she had got out her handkerchief and dabbed it. And then-what had she done with the handkerchief? There was no pocket in her dress, and it wasn’t in the coat. She must have just left it lying in her lap and forgotten it when they got up to go. She did up the buttons of her coat again and ran downstairs.
Neither of the Miss Tremletts was in the sitting-room. She would be able to run along the path to Miranda’s and get her handkerchief without having to explain how she had come to leave it there. Elaine and Gwyneth were pets, but they did love to talk anything to shreds, and the sandwiches made it all a bit delicate. She shut the door softly behind her and melted into the dark.
As soon as her eyes were accustomed to it she could see quite well. There was a light in Miranda’s sitting-room. The curtains didn’t quite meet, and a long bright streak showed between them. She came up to the door and found it ajar. That would be Miss Elaine, who never managed to latch a door. She held on to the handle too long, and Miss Gwyneth was always telling her about it.