Covering her morning gown with naught but a shawl, she ran into the meadow beyond the rose garden, her sparrow flying beside her, the anemones scattering from her hands. That last morning before love entered her life, Ada’s soft leather boots flew against the wet grass, so supple from melted snow, her heels slipping in a way that was vaguely pleasurable because of the unpredictability. Her limbs felt uncommonly strong for once. Yet as she ran, she had the sense she was running from the adulthood encroaching upon her, for Missus Dido’s lectures had wormed their way into her against her will.
Ada had scarcely settled in her usual seat, a grey stone bench beside a yew tree inside the rose garden, to toss seed to the sparrow. In many ways, she was still like a child despite her age. But that day her hand stilled for reasons she could not name.
A shiver traced her spine as she looked over her shoulder.
A man stood in the meadow she’d just run through. He was too far away for his features to be distinguishable. Regardless, she could tell he wasn’t from the village. The wasp waist of his coat and checker-patterned trousers looked of the city. (Ada had learned much from her suitors.) There was something about the man’s posture that suggested the taint of another place. He walked with his head cocked toward the sky, as though pulled by an invisible thread. His stride was quick though uneven. As he drew closer, Ada saw he bore a walking stick.
Ada pursed her lips. Another suitor. It had been some months since the last one. Well, she’d show him.
She straightened herself on the bench. She whistled to her sparrow. The bird settled on her shoulder, nipping at a strand of hair that had come loose from the plaits she slept in.
“Who’s there?” she shouted.
Silence. Perhaps the gentleman hadn’t heard, with his head in the clouds.
“Hello!” she tried again. “You’re strolling on private land, sir.”
Still no sign of acknowledgment. And then it happened, the moment that would change Ada’s life forever.
The gentleman’s head whirled toward her. “Shush.”
She stood, sending her sparrow into the air. “This is not a right of way, sir.”
“Shush,” he said again.
And then their eyes met across the garden just as he stepped toward her.
He wasn’t as old as she first judged, perhaps fifteen years her elder. His hair was the color of an oak in autumn, coiffed longer than worn in the village. It was softly waved about his brow. Though clean-shaven, his temples revealed a smattering of grey and a faint scar. He was harmonious enough of feature, though he bore sensitivity within his hazel eyes as well as a brash confidence. For some reason this infuriated Ada.
She cried, “How dare you—”
He waved her off, pointing at the sky. “Did you see that?”
She looked up. Light dazzled her eyes. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s beginning now.” The gentleman’s voice was honeyed, as though from a faraway land; again, she decided he didn’t seem quite of this world. Her stomach fluttered like it had been invaded by moths. “You’re fortunate to be here. This is a rare event.”
“How so?” Her anger cooled as her curiosity quickened.
He pointed upward. “That cloud? The grey one?”
She rolled her eyes, but the gesture felt half-hearted. “It’s going to rain.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said, grinning as though clutching a secret. “You’ll see soon.”
Despite her intentions otherwise—she’d thought to flounce inside for Missus Dido—Ada sank back on the bench. Her sparrow returned to her shoulder. She shifted when the gentleman sat beside her, his chest rising and falling in silent expectation.
How beautiful it all was! How alchemical! They sat there for some moments, watching the sky darken and the wind pitch as though the world was coming to an end in the most fantastical manner. Ada squinted into the distance, shivering. Yet she was not afraid. How could she be, with the trees quivering with subtle rhythms, the air pulsing with life? The handsome stranger seated beside her? She had the sense of waiting all her years for this impossible moment, that Fate had wrapped its fingers tight into her arm, and would drag her along whether she allowed or not.
“I’ve traveled miles to see this,” the gentleman said in a tone hushed with wonder. “It’s like watching souls in flight.”
“Souls?” Ada tightened her shawl. Her sparrow hopped to her lap.
He nodded solemnly. “Well, birds are the embodiments of souls.”
“This makes little sense.” Ada wasn’t fanciful in that way despite Wilhelm and his books.
“How do I explain this?” He shifted his walking stick from one hand to his other. “I’ve read Egyptian tombs were decorated with ibises to guide those who had passed into the next world. In ancient Rome, priests believed they could predict the will of the gods by watching birds in flight. Papists still consider the holy spirit to appear in the form of a dove.” He stared into the distance. “Perhaps it’s pagan of me, but I quite agree. Birds act as the eyes of the world. Like souls who see everything.” He stood, shaking his lame leg. “They’re nearly here.”
“Who is?” Ada had to shout to be heard over the gathering din. Her sparrow flew off, alarmed.
“Columba palumbus—wood pigeons. I’ve never seen them migrate in such a mass before. Come!”
The gentleman grabbed Ada’s hand and yanked her to her feet; she didn’t pull away. Shadows fell, heavy and relentless. The sky grew leached of light as though a solar eclipse was upon them. And then she saw what he’d spoken of: thousands upon thousands of pigeons, all far larger than her sparrow, who now seemed a puny vulnerable thing just as Ada felt herself to be, all gathered as a mass in the sky.
It was terrible. It was wonderful. Grey and ebony and striped of feather, the pigeons drew together then apart, amorphous of shape as they performed ever-shifting, ever-changing groupings. Ada felt the gentleman’s warm presence beside her. The press of his hand against her palm.
The wind from the pigeons’ flapping wings whipped Ada’s cotton skirts against her legs, her shawl from her shoulders. She could not see where her sparrow had flown to, but there was no time to look: the first pigeon dipped down, fluttering about her face, and then a second. Though they did not alight on her—the birds were far too plump for that—Ada flailed her arms in panic.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh!”
“They won’t harm you. I’d wager they’re going to land over there,” the gentleman hissed over the roar, pointing to a large oak with his stick. “Come! I’ll protect you.”
He set his arms around her shoulder, guiding her into the meadow in time to watch the birds’ arrival. The gentleman was right: the pigeons settled on the oak tree in clusters of ten and twenty, one above another and beside each other, cooing and clucking, their feathers shuddering like molten pewter as they shifted to make room for more. They appeared a shimmering mass of life, as unsettled in rest as they had been in flight. Now Ada saw there were dozens—no, hundreds—of pigeons on every branch. Her breath caught in something that went beyond wonder. How would the tree bear it?
The answer to this question came as abruptly as the birds’ arrival. A giant crack sounded. The thickest branch of the oak splintered off, overwhelmed by the weight of the wood pigeons. But the branch did not drop to the ground. Instead it did something far more astonishing. Ada watched, open-mouthed, as the branch lifted into the sky, pulled by an army of pigeons. Their claws dug into the bark. The branch flew higher, closer, darker. But even the valiant effort of seemingly thousands of wings could not defeat gravity. An unearthly cry spread across the moors as the branch crashed to the ground, crushing hundreds of birds beneath it.
* * *
The last thing Ada recalled was the echo of her scream. When she next opened her eyes, there was blue sky above her. Spots danced before her eyes, grey and black and white. They certainly weren’t wood pigeons. She was gasping for air.
“I’m so so
rry.” The gentleman—she’d recognize his plummy voice anywhere. “She seemed fine, and then . . . Well, it was a shock.” Who was he speaking to? Not her, that was for certain. “I feel quite terrible. I should have insisted she take shelter inside, knowing what was to occur.”
“Thank you for your concern, sir,” Missus Dido replied. Her tone was as supercilious as ever. “Your attendance is no longer required, Mr. . . .”
“Mr. de Bonne,” the gentleman said. “Hugh de Bonne.”
“You’re not from here.” Interest colored Missus Dido’s voice. “You’re French, aren’t you? An aristocrat perhaps?”
“French by birth. I’ve resided in England for most of my life, though I’ve no family of my own. I was on my way to Herne Bay.”
Missus Dido fluttered her lashes at him from behind her spectacles. “You’re awfully far off course. That’s all the way south in Kent.”
“I was following the pigeons as they returned from their migration. This lady is your daughter?”
“No. I’m Miss Lowell’s guardian, Missus Dido Martin. She’s an orphan. Her parents—”
Breathless or no, Ada couldn’t listen to another recitation of her unfortunate past. Knowing Missus Dido’s salacious love of detail, she’d describe Adelaide and Lucian’s ill-fated love before inching her way to Ada’s present with details of every doomed guardian along the way.
“Excuse me,” Ada wheezed, fighting a fresh round of coughing. “H-help me.”
“She’s awake!” The gentleman, whom she now knew bore the aristocratic name of Hugh de Bonne, helped her upright, murmuring soothing sounds all the while. He handed her his handkerchief, which she used to cover her mouth as she coughed. Spots of blood blossomed against the fine white linen like anemones in the snow, but Ada barely paid mind. She recalled the tree limb, how enormous it looked when it rose into the sky. The darkness towering over her like a fist . . .
And then she looked into Hugh de Bonne’s eyes. She recognized something in him she knew in herself, though she did not know what it was called then.
This glimpse of familiarity was forgotten as she remembered.
“Where’s my bird?”
Missus Dido said, “Come, Miss Ada. Let us help you inside.”
“Where is it?” She whistled. The effort made her dizzy.
“Was it a sparrow?” Hugh asked, his eyes warm with sympathy. Later, he’d tell Ada that he’d never felt so protective of anyone as he did of her in that moment.
“Yes. I’d tamed it.” More coughing as she struggled for breath. “I’ve had it for several years. It’s the sweetest thing . . .”
Hugh’s eyes darted into the rose garden beyond the meadow. Toward the stiffened mass of bloodied brown feathers trapped inside the briars.
Ada howled, for she understood her oldest fear had come to light: her sparrow had left her, just as her parents had left her, and so on along with her guardians. Even if she married as Watkinson pressed, she’d always be alone.
“I’m sorry, Miss Lowell,” Hugh said. “So very sorry.” He took his handkerchief from her to wipe her tears.
He gave a start at the blood adorning the linen.
“She’s cut her mouth, Missus Dido. Let me bring her inside.”
Missus Dido whispered, “It’s not that, Mr. de Bonne . . .”
“What is it then?”
She shook her head. “I shan’t speak of it here. Once we’re inside, I’ll give her draughts. That’ll settle her.”
As Hugh and her guardian spoke, Ada felt very far away: there she was, lying in the crocus-covered grass on the first nice day of the year after seeing a marvel that was never to be repeated in her life. And now her sparrow was gone, and she could not stop sobbing or coughing.
“This is her residence?” Hugh asked Missus Dido. “I’ll carry her.”
“Yes, sir. There’s a door beyond the rose garden to her chamber.”
Once Hugh handed his walking stick to Missus Dido, he draped Ada over his shoulder. She felt his heart pulsing against hers, his arms resting along her spine. How warm he was! How welcoming! Without thinking, she curled her fingers with his for the first time, but not for the last.
Once she was in her bed, Ada didn’t refuse Missus Dido’s offering of laudanum. Hugh remained by her side. As the drug took hold, Hugh and her guardian’s conversation wove into a braid of buzzing too distant to unravel. Ada still wept for her sparrow, but something new came over her—something unexpected. She felt a kinship with Hugh de Bonne, mad as it was. It made little sense with all that occurred, but there it was. Lying there, she still sensed his touch radiating from where her body had pressed against his. He’d felt strong. Concerned. Ada already knew more than she wished of the world’s ways because of her inheritance. Her suitors had arrived bearing flowers and promises she knew to distrust. Even the kindest of her guardians was only there because of the per annum.
For the first time in her life, Ada sensed she’d met someone who’d give to her rather than take. The knowledge surprised her, like opening a door to a room she never knew existed.
A wild happiness grew within her, as tangible as water, and as warm as fire. It twisted up like a tree twining toward the heavens, the roots digging deep within her soul. She’d never felt such a thing before—not in all the years with her guardians, nor during the months where suitors had courted her for her fortune, or in the hours she’d spent alone with her sparrow at her piano. She loved.
But then Ada heard the words that made her realize complete happiness was not to be trusted. Try as she might, she could never avoid the ghosts surrounding her.
“I’ve noticed your ward,” Hugh whispered to Missus Dido, “is a consumptive. Does she know?”
IV.
With this, Isabelle spoke no more. Robert looked up from his journal to find her seated just as she had been at the beginning of their audience: her white hair coiled about her head, the hem of her indigo blue dress draped along her feet. Her long hands trembled as she reached for her teacup, set beside her on a small round table. Finding the cup empty, she refilled it from a silver teapot that was probably a remnant from earlier days, when Weald House wasn’t overtaken by ghosts and loss. As she drank deeply, Robert sensed she yearned to contain her emotion.
He glanced up at the clock above the mantel: he’d been listening to her for just over an hour. More importantly, he’d been writing all that time. For some reason, once he’d snapped the pencil, something thawed in him. Though the words he’d set down had come from Isabelle’s mouth instead of his brain, he’d become lost in the transmittal of words to paper. He’d forgotten how it felt, how alluring the act of writing could be, how encompassing. While he was writing, he’d even forgotten the disappointment of his abandoned book.
While Isabelle had related Ada’s story, Robert had grown far from his injured ankle, Hugh’s corpse in the stable, his yearning for his ghost wife. Even the loss of his camera didn’t distress like it had. He’d sensed the years fall away, the rose garden at Weald House blooming anew with spring’s bounty, the birds fluttering like a storm. He’d even felt the presence of Ada as though her portrait across the room had become flesh and bone. Yet he was troubled. “Only a few houses offer ghost stories,” Isabelle had said. If he hadn’t known better, he’d think she was taunting him.
Four more nights to go. He was uncertain if he was exhilarated or uneasy.
Robert raised his gaze to Isabelle as she sipped her tea. Her silence felt charged. Volatile. He didn’t dare break it, remembering their contract.
Isabelle drained the teacup, set it down. She met Robert’s eyes with a frank sorrow that startled him; again, he was surprised by sympathy. He waited for her to speak, to give some sort of signal.
Was he to leave? Or had she more to say?
Without another word, Isabelle glided out of the library.
* * *
“Thank you for helping me downstairs,” Robert said to Owen a half hour after Isabelle’s abrupt departure;
Owen had come upon Robert still seated before the fire, uneasily rereading what he’d written of Ada’s story. Robert had smelled smoke, glanced up to find Owen leaning against the door clutching a book.
Robert added, “I supposed it appeared strange, finding me alone in the library.”
“Be careful,” Owen warned on the stairs, pointing to the darkened landing, his cigarette glowing like a firefly. “Not so strange. I’d seen Miss Isabelle in the rose garden, wondered if you’d gone back to the stable. I looked, saw you weren’t there. Anyway, I wanted the next volume of this.”
This time Owen was reading Francesca Carrara; Robert recalled his mother weeping over the novel as a child. He said, “I’m grateful you came. The stairs are tricky even with a walking stick.”
“I can imagine.” A long drag on his cigarette. “Have you seen Grace about?”
So that’s why Owen had gone to the stable to look for him. “Not since seven.”
“Oh.” Owen released Robert’s arm. “You make it on your own from here?”
Robert had no chance to answer before he was abandoned on the landing; he grabbed the balustrade, nearly losing his balance. Luckily, Mrs. Chilvers heard Robert’s uneasy shuffle. “Mr. Highstead! Come, I’ll help you downstairs, sir.”
Back in the stable house room, Robert was disappointed but not surprised Sida wasn’t there. “She’ll return,” he told himself. Hugh’s coffin remained amid the horses and cows, surrounded by a fresh supply of hay. However, a corpse wasn’t company; the hours of the night loomed ahead.
After spending the evening hearing Ada’s story, Hugh’s story called anew. Robert paged through The Collected Letters and Ephemera of Hugh de Bonne. No mention of Ada’s consumption. Nor was there of Isabelle, though that wasn’t surprising—as Isabelle was a relative of Ada’s, the editor had probably deemed her unworthy of inclusion in Hugh’s papers.
The Lost History of Dreams Page 13
