Free Wild Talent by Eileen Kernaghan

whole of the afternoon walking on the Heath.
    Though not as fashionable as Hyde Park, the Heath seems very popular on a Sunday with courting couples. Everywhere we saw young women in beribboned bonnets, walking out with their young men on their afternoons off. Wandering across the autumnal meadows and along the woodland paths carpeted with golden leaves, I could almost imagine myself in the Borders once again; and I was happier than I have been for many weeks. Though all the same it disturbed me to see men offering rides on poor starved looking donkeys — these Londoners seem to care very little for the treatment of their animals — and I said so to Mr. Grenville-Smith.
    I was not sure why Mr. Grenville-Smith had invited me, but I could not imagine it was merely for the pleasure of my company, for I have so little conversation to offer, and he is accustomed to the clever talk of Cambridge folk, and it seems is a landed gentleman besides. But come to that he does not talk a great deal in any case, seeming content enough to stroll by my side in the misty October light. Once though, he turned to me with a smile, saying, “Your hair, Miss Guthrie . . . ” and I put up an anxious hand to my head, wondering if my sailor hat was askew, or my plaits, as they often did, had come unfastened. But then he pointed to a maple along the path ahead, bright with autumn reddish-gold. “Look,” he said, “the leaves are exactly the colour of your hair!”
    For a while we watched the kite-flyers, climbed to the top of Parliament Hill, and saw all of London spread out before us.
    I must confess that I took great pleasure in his company, friendly and undemanding as it was. I guessed that it was my place to make conversation, and so I asked, “Are you also a professor of zoology, like Dr. Barker?”
    He laughed. “Someday, perhaps. With a great deal of luck. At present I’m merely a research fellow — a much less evolved species. But I work with Dr. Barker, and it was he who interested me in the Society for Psychical Research.”
    â€œAnd what is it exactly that the Society researches?”
    â€œWell, in the main, four areas: astral appearances, transportation of physical substances by occult means, precipitation of letters, and occult sounds and voices. So as you see, your Madame Blavatsky is a veritable motherlode of research material, since she claims to practise all four.”
    â€œAnd is she a fraud, as Dr. Barker says?”
    â€œAh, Miss Guthrie, on that question the jury is still out. I respect Professor Barker’s opinion as a scholar and a scientist. On the other hand, it’s always best to keep an open mind. This is why we continue to gather evidence.”
    And that of course was no answer at all, but I could see I would have to be content with it.
    â€œBut what of you, Miss Guthrie? Do you have plans for the future? Do you mean to stay on at Lansdowne Road?”
    â€œAs long as Madame Blavatsky has work for me. But once this enormous book of hers is published, I may no longer be needed.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    And then? It is a question I often ask myself, when Madame B. grows so impatient that she threatens to cast us all out into the street; or when she is so ill, and so in despair, that we cannot believe she will ever complete the work.
    â€œPerhaps . . . ” What could I tell him? “Perhaps I will find some work in a bookshop, or with a publisher . . . ”
    â€œAnd would you enjoy that sort of work?”
    â€œI think I might.” And then, because he was gazing at me so attentively, with such friendly interest, I grew bolder. “Once a long time ago I imagined I would like to write my own books, to be an author.”
    I feared he might laugh at that foolish notion, but instead, he said, “Only once a long time ago? Miss Guthrie, I hope you have not given up that ambition.”
    That threw me into confusion. “I don’t