Philip Gooden: The Durham Deception

Tom and Helen Ansell were walking home. It was still light and the earlier overcast skies had partially cleared to show the setting sun. The air was clearer than on a weekday because the factories were closed. Evensong had long finished but quite a few people were still strolling about in their Sunday best. Tom and Helen wanted fresh air after being confined in a front parlour which was somehow both chill and stuffy. They wanted time to talk about what they’d just seen, to talk out in the open and not shut up inside an omnibus or a hansom cab clattering its way towards north London.

The seance had broken up as soon as Arthur Seldon and Mrs Briggs — or rather Mrs Seldon — departed. Rosalind Minton and Mrs Miles were sympathetic to the Smights, telling them that their testimony would hardly be much use in court because they could not be sure of what they had seen. Besides, they knew Mr Smight and his sister for honest people. They said this, glancing defiantly towards Tom and Helen. Perhaps they would have said more if Tom had not been identified with the authorities in some way.

Tom was unable to make the same half-promise about any testimony. He was pretty sure that, in law, the medium had accepted money for services to be rendered. He felt sorry for the brother and sister but at the same time he was impatient with them and impatient to be away from this place. The slightly better light in the parlour revealed how worn and shabby was the furniture, and hinted at why Ernest Smight had fastened on the half-sovereigns.

Surprisingly it was Helen who was more distressed by what they’d seen. She had been the one looking for evidence of fraud under the table before Miss Smight’s arrival. She’d speculated on how the fakery might be done and talked about tambourines, but now on the way home she sounded indignant rather than justified.

‘There’s nothing wrong with fortune-tellers at funfairs,’ said Tom. ‘They’ll never be prosecuted. But Seldon was right, all the same. The law won’t hold back. Smight won’t get leniency if he’s been hauled up in front of the bench before.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The law was never meant to apply to a palm-reader at a fair. It’s been dormant for years until it was brought back for individuals like Ernest Smight. Mediums can be prosecuted under the Vagrancy Act of eighteen-something-or-other, which was originally intended to deal with vagabonds and gypsies and such. People like that weren’t supposed to make money by pretending to foretell the future. They weren’t supposed to make a nuisance of themselves at all.’

‘But this is different, it is nothing to do with gypsies. It is getting in touch with the dead and hearing their messages. In fact, all their messages were reassuring. Did you notice, Tom? Everything was all right, everything was going to be all right.’

‘I thought you didn’t believe, Helen. You’re the sceptic. You’re convinced none of it is true.’

‘I am still a sceptic. It will take more than this evening to unconvince me. But Tom, you have heard from the spirit of your father!’

‘My father? I don’t know. How could it have been? A man in a blue uniform. It might have been a lucky guess by the medium.’

‘But the person he saw was soaked to the skin — and your father was buried at sea.’

‘Twenty years ago. He should have got out of those clothes by now. He’ll catch his death.’

‘You are making jokes about it but I can tell you were affected by what Mr Smight saw. What he said he saw. Your hand was in mine, remember. You were sweating and tense.’

‘Let’s be rational about it. How many people know some details of my father’s death? Quite a few. Others could find out. It’s probably written down in some army record. And there’s your mother! She knows of course. And it was your mother who told us about Ernest Smight. She suggested we went to consult him. Probably she mentioned something about my father’s death to him or to his sister. And there’s another connection. Miss Smight used to know your aunt.’

‘But Miss Smight did not seem to have any warning we were coming.’

‘She’s a good actress.’

‘Besides I don’t think my mother has communicated at all with the Smights even though she might have known them once. Mother is not well disposed towards mediums and the spirit world. Why should she have said anything to a man she distrusts?’

‘Then why did she ask us to go and see him?’ said Tom.

‘You know why,’ said Helen. ‘Because of what she has asked me to do. She wants me to have some knowledge of the world I am entering.’

‘Like Daniel going into the lions’ den.’

‘I hope not. Anyway, you’ll be with me,’ said Helen. ‘What will happen to him?’

‘Him? Oh, Ernest Smight. He’ll be lucky if he is only fined. He could get a month or two in gaol, perhaps with hard labour.’

‘Hard labour? But that might kill him. He did not look strong.’

‘He’ll only get that if he comes up before a magistrate who doesn’t like mediums.’

‘What if we are called on to give testimony? That policeman took down all our details.’

‘He was doing it for effect, to show his authority.’

‘We could always say that we saw no money change hands. I would not like to be responsible for sending a man to prison. I didn’t care for Mr Smight or his sister very much but they seemed harmless enough.’

‘I doubt if we’ll have to testify. The word of the policeman and his wife will probably be enough, especially if Smight has performed these tricks before.’

‘I agree with Miss Smight. It still does not seem fair. Tom, I have had enough of walking.’

They hailed an omnibus which was going towards Kentish Town. They might have taken a hansom but two journeys by cab in one day seemed an extravagance. Tom, by himself, would have climbed to the roof of the bus but the exposed seating was not really suitable for ladies even if Helen had made a point of doing it a couple of times in fine weather. So the Ansells sat in the cramped interior which was oddly like the Smights’ front room, stuffy and cold at the same time. It was like the Smights’ too because there were half a dozen other people inside the compartment, strangers pushed up against each other.

The Ansells got out of the bus at the near end of Kentish Town Road. They walked the short distance to their terraced house in Abercrombie Road. Number 24, which they had taken on a three-year lease, was newer and in better condition than the houses in Tullis Street. This spot on the edge of town was about right for Tom and Helen. It was affordable, although they had to be careful with their money (saving on hansom cab journeys, for example). The air was good, or at any rate less dirty and smoky than the air in the centre. There was quite a bit of building going on as the suburbs spread north, and there was a sort of bustle associated with the whole area. The people moving into their street and the neighbouring ones were, by and large, professionals like Tom.

Tom and Helen employed a maid-of-all-work — an amiable, youngish and plain woman called Hetty — who helped with the cooking. They’d contemplated doing without anyone but it didn’t seem right somehow. Tom was glad there was company in the house for Helen while he was at work. The place would do for a couple of years until they needed somewhere bigger when the children arrived, or until Tom increased his salary at the law firm of Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie in Furnival Street.

Helen was born a Scott, as Miss Smight had accurately remembered from the marriage announcement. Her father, one of the original founders of Scott amp; Lye, had been dead these several years, and while Mr Alexander Lye occasionally shuffled into the office, his chief activity was to scrawl his signature on correspondence placed in front of him. That left David Mackenzie as the principal partner. Tom had hopes of becoming a partner in due course but he wanted to do it on his own merits and not because of his marriage.