Page 64 of A Gathering Storm
Nicholas’s silver gaze was cold. “Yes. In your eyes, you are the master and I am the servant. That’s how things started between us, and nothing’s changed.”
“No,” Ward repeated, shaking his head. “That’s not how it is at all. Christ, Nicholas, I let youinsideme—how can you think I want to master you?”
Nicholas’s lip curled with disdain. “You think that makes a difference? Because Ifuckedyou?” He gave a harsh laugh. “I put my cock in you because you told me to put it there. It doesn’t matter which one of us has a cock in his arse. What matters is who decides what’s to happen—and that’s always been you.”
Ward stared at him, stung.
“I was a fool to let my guard down with you,” Nicholas went on bitterly. “I’d actually begun to believe you truly saw me as a friend—alover. But tonight I realised that’s just how you treat me when I’m doing what you want. The rest of the time you expect me to know my place and hold my tongue.”
“That’s not true!” Ward protested. “Friends don’t always get along, Nicholas. Sometimes they argue, like we did tonight. Tonight you interrupted that séance at a point when I believed, truly believed, that I might be about to communicate with George. So yes, I lashed out at you. And I’m sorry for it—it wasn’t fair and I’m not proud of it, but I wasn’t pulling rank on you!”
Nicholas’s lip curled again. “No? What about when you told me I should be ashamed of myself? That didn’t feel like a man speaking to his equal. You were scolding me, Ward. Telling me off like a naughty child.”
Ward’s cheeks heated at that memory. “I regret my words, I do! I wish beyond anything I could take them back. But can’t you understand how I felt? I was sosurethat George was there, and I’ve waited so long to speak to him. This last year, I’ve risked everything—thrown away my very reputation—in pursuit of this, and then tonight, just when it seemed he might be near—” His voice gave out.
Nicholas was silent for a long moment.
At last, he said, very quietly, “Your brother is dead, Ward. At some point, you need to accept that.”
“I know he’s dead!” Ward cried. “Jesus, Nicholas, what do you take me for? An imbecile?”
Nicholas said evenly, “You haven’t accepted it, though. This obsession of yours is testament to that.”
“I’m not obsessed. I’m gathering evidence for my studies—”
“Was that what you were doing tonight?”
Ward opened his mouth but couldn’t make any words come out.
“You told me you were coming to Truro to see if Bryant would make a good subject for your work, but the truth is, you just wanted to go to that séance to see if he could contact your brother. You were so caught up in that, you weren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what the man was actually doing, never mind studying him. If you had been, you’d know he’s a fraud. Not even a very good one. Christ, my mother was better!”
Ward stared at him. “She wasn’t—”
“Clairvoyant?” Nicholas laughed harshly. “No. She did what she did for money, because we were poor, and she had no other way of earning. She knew how to read people, how to manipulate their emotions. Mostly, she made them feel better, I think, but it was all lies.” He shook his head. “So you see, I reallywasn’tthe subject you were hoping for.”
Ward couldn’t understand why he felt so gutted. He’d already guessed that Nicholas’s mother wasn’t a medium—hell, Nicholas had disclosedhethought she was a fake with that comment about her mind-reading—but somehow, having it so bluntly stated was different. It was like that moment in Bryant’s parlour all over again, when Mathilda Harris had prised open the panel in the wall, revealing the woman standing inside.
“I was foolish tonight,” Ward croaked. “Gullible. But I won’t let that happen again. No more looking for mediums—what I need to do is concentrate on re-creating the conditions I experienced on theArchimedesand—”
“And what? You achieve that and you’ll be able to speak to George again? So what if you do? What can he possibly tell you that will benefit you, or anyone else for that matter? What is all thisfor, Ward?” Nicholas threw up his hands, exasperated. “Can’t you see how absurd this is?”
Ward felt like he’d been knifed.
“Absurd?” he echoed, disbelieving. “Absurd, am I?You’ve got nerve, criticising me, Nicholas. What do you think I am? An idiot? For Christ’s sake, I’ve got more education in my little finger than you have in your whole—”
He stopped himself just before he finished the rotten, mean-spirited thought, but it was already there, between them. The silence rang with the final word of that unfinished sentence, and when Ward dared to meet Nicholas’s gaze, the other man’s expression was disconcertingly level.
“Nicholas,” he said. “I—”
“It’s time I went,” Nicholas interrupted, lifting his valise in his hand. “Past time, in fact. Safe journey home, Sir Edward.”
Ward searched for something to say in response, something that would breach the yawning gulf that had opened up between them, but he couldn’t think of anything.
And then Nicholas was gone, and he was left staring at the closed door.
FromThe Collected Writings of Sir Edward Fitzwilliam, volume I
Several days after I attended Mrs. Haydn’s séance, I spoke of what I had witnessed at a gathering of a number of scientists of my acquaintance. With the benefit of hindsight I can see how very raw my grief was then, but at the time I thought myself perfectly rational. When several of the gentlemen questioned Mrs. Haydn’s abilities, I defended her with a passionate fervour that was quite unlike me—I was then and am still now of a generally even temperament, but that evening I was beside myself. The whole debacle ended with me storming out of the house in which we had met.