by Nancy Holder
And after Sir Thomas’s display at the McMichaels’ ball, he was even more sure that there was.
Unwelcome business, this, Carter Cushing thought as he detected the familiar footsteps of the odious man about to enter his employ once more. I wish I felt no reason to proceed.
As if on cue, the gaunt, young figure of Hezekiah Holly approached, gingerly making his way across the tiled floor in hopes of keeping his nice leather boots dry. He wore spats and imagined himself quite the dandy. He was not.
“Mr. Holly,” Cushing said. “I like the club first thing in the morning. I have it all to myself.”
“A great way to start the day, sir,” Holly replied officiously.
“Isn’t it? And perhaps a good time to end certain things, too.” He paused, but he had come to a decision, even if it might lead to crushing disappointment for his beloved daughter. “There is a young gentleman and his sister. Something’s not quite right about them.”
He handed Holly a slip of paper with Sir Thomas Sharpe, baronet and Lady Lucille Sharpe written on it. “These are their names. I need you to investigate for me. Spare no expense. I want results.” He handed Holly a check. “As soon as possible.”
No sense prolonging her agony, if that is what it comes to.
* * *
It was a brilliant day in Delaware Park, the most recent in a number of brilliant days Edith had spent in the company of the Sharpes. A band played; families picnicked. The weather was absolutely glorious. Edith strolled with Lady Lucille Sharpe, a parasol protecting their complexions from the bright sunlight. She wore her burnished gold skirt accessorized with the belt of two ivory hands clasped one over the other, a personal favorite because it reminded her of the illustrations in her cherished childhood copy of Beauty and the Beast. The Beast’s enchanted castle was populated by magical servants who did his bidding, and although they were supposed to be invisible, in the pictures, they were shown as spectral white hands outlined in black. When first they had read the story together, Edith had asked her mother if they were ghosts. Mama had replied that there were no such things, and if anyone—perhaps Cook, who was Irish and therefore superstitious—told her otherwise, she was not to listen.
The Sharpes were both dressed in deepest coal black, which reminded Edith of Dickens’ many descriptions of the impenetrable soot that hung over London. Lady Sharpe’s costume was punctuated with a large red flower at her breast and a lace collar and cuffs. Sir Thomas was a tall black shadow with a slice of white collar and a dangling silver watch chain. They both wore round black spectacles to shield their eyes from the sun.
Thomas sat a ways apart with Alan, Eunice, and a few of Eunice’s friends. Heads turned as Edith and Lady Sharpe promenaded; Edith’s head was buzzing with excitement, though she maintained a pleasant yet placid exterior. Lady Sharpe had come with tweezers and a specimen jar, and was busily collecting butterflies.
“Papilio androgeus epidaurus,” she announced, as she placed a pretty, fluttering insect into a jar.
“They’re dying,” Edith murmured, somewhat stricken.
“They are,” Lady Sharpe concurred. “They take their heat from the sun, and when it deserts them, they die.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Not sad, Edith,” Lady Sharpe riposted. “It’s nature. A savage world of things dying or eating each other right beneath our feet.”
Edith grimaced. “That is absolutely horrid.”
“Not all of it.” Sir Thomas’s sister plucked up a cocoon attached to a tree limb, and examined it.
“Look at this. Everything it needs is in there. A perfect world. If I keep it warm and dry, a pretty little thing will hatch. A dollop of sunshine with wings.” She smiled at Edith as she held it up. “Back home we have only black moths. Formidable creatures, to be sure, but without beauty. They thrive on the dark and the cold.”
She wrapped the cocoon in a handkerchief and folded it carefully.
“What do they feed on?” Edith queried.
“Butterflies, I’m afraid.” She sounded almost bored.
She was gazing down at something on the ground, and Edith followed her line of sight. An army of ants had pinned down a lovely butterfly; they were devouring it as it quivered. Edith was repulsed.
But Lady Sharpe watched avidly.
* * *
“The specter started to move in a hunched posture, as if in pain… and it was then that she realized, both with horror and relief, that the specter was that of her mother.”
Sir Thomas read aloud from Edith’s manuscript as she, Lucille, and Alan picnicked on the grass.
Lady Sharpe arched a perfectly shaped brow. “Ghosts? Really? I never imagined that’s what you wrote about.”
“Edith saw a ghost when she was a child,” Alan said, and the long-suppressed heat of embarrassment rushed up Edith’s neck and spread across her cheeks.
Lucille blinked. “Really?”
“But now she’s more interested in a love story,” Alan said, and Edith’s flush deepened. Was he teasing her?
“The ghosts are a metaphor,” she replied.
“They’ve always fascinated me,” Sir Thomas said, catching Edith’s eye.
“It seems to me the only people who witness such apparitions are those who feel themselves in need of consolation or reproach,” Lady Sharpe declared.
“I assume you’re beyond both,” Alan said, and she raised her chin as if looking at something in the distance. Soon the Sharpes moved away and were deep in conversation.
“Visit me, Edith. Come to my office,” Alan said. “I’m still setting up but I think you would find some of my theories quite interesting.”
Theories? Edith wondered if she had missed something. About what? She replayed the conversation. Was he speaking of ghosts?
* * *
Shaded from the blazing American sunshine, Lucille said quietly to Thomas, “I don’t think she’s the right choice.”
He leaned closely toward her, murmuring, “You have to trust me.”
He was different; this was different; this was not what they had agreed on. It was too bright out; she could not think. Trust was so hard to come by in this world. But of course she trusted Thomas.
Who else was there?
* * *
Carter Cushing was an observant man; details were important in his line of work. And so, a few days later, as Mr. Holly approached him, he knew that the man had information for him, and that it boded ill.
Ah, child, I am sorry, he thought.
“It’s not often I am the bearer of bad news,” Mr. Holly said by way of greeting. “But when I am, I insist on bearing it myself.”
He was holding an envelope, which he extended to Cushing.
“Open it alone,” he advised.
More money changed hands, and Mr. Holly left.
* * *
Edith was so proud of Alan. Though his office was still half in boxes, he was consulting with an actual patient, and he moved with the authority of a trained scientist. In dimmed light, he was using a device to examine the eyes of an elderly gentleman, and Edith politely stayed on the sidelines. She recalled observing Sir Thomas showing off his mining machine to her father and her cheeks warmed. Occupying herself, she began to scan his bookcases and other belongings.
“You have not been using the drops regularly,” Alan said gently. “I must insist you do so.” He turned and saw Edith, and she smiled at him. He began to write on a pad of paper. “Take this to the druggist and ask him to prepare it exactly, then resume the dose.”
The man departed, and Alan turned his full attention to her. She beamed at him.
“What are you reading?” she asked him. “Morphology of the Optic Nerve. Principles of Optical Refraction. And…” She touched the spine of another book. “Arthur Conan Doyle? Alan? You fancy yourself a detective?”
He shook his head. “No, not really. But he is a doctor. An ophthalmologist, just like me.”
She smiled. “Just like you.”
“I met him, in England. I attended one of his lectures.”
“You did? How was he?”
“Fascinating. The lecture was not on fiction, but on spiritualism. Let me show you something that might interest you.”
Sitting, she watched as he arranged a wood-and-brass projecting device. The color of her dress with its mutton-chop sleeves matched the brass hue of the device’s fittings. Alan busied himself arranging a tray of photographic plates.
“Photographic work is simple,” he began. “The image is captured using a coating of silver salts and it stays there, waiting, invisible to the naked eye. It’s called a latent image. Then we use a developing agent: mercury vapors, say, to reveal it.”
He gestured to the glass plate before them. The primary image, darker, was of a little baby in a crib. Then Edith’s blood turned to ice as she spotted a blurry shape hovering above the baby: a stretched, eerie face with black holes for eyes and a mouth caught in a scream, whether in fury or agony or both, she did not know. She looked back down at the baby, and suppressed every impulse in her to snatch the child out of the crib, unreasonable as that was.
“It is my belief that houses—places—be it by the chemical compound in the earth or the minerals in the stone, can retain impressions, just like this plate. They can record an emotion or a person that is no longer alive. It’s called an ‘impregnation.’”
Can that be what has happened in our house? Edith thought anxiously. And what she had seen… twice… within its walls? They were not products of her imagination, but things that were actually present?
“But not everyone can see them,” she said quietly.
I did see them.
I saw her.
Her stomach clenched.
“Right.” Alan went on, unaware of her discomfiture. “That man that just left, amongst other ailments, is color blind.”
More of his collection of phantom images paraded before her—cloudy and half-formed, increasingly disturbing, elongated and unreal… Were they aware, these things? Were they memories, recordings? Did they have a reason to come back?
“He will never perceive the colors red or green,” Alan went on blithely. “He only accepts their existence because the majority around him does.”
Ghosts, did they exist? Were these images of real ghosts?
And in that picture, that one… did one just move?
“These… specters—” he used her word deliberately, favoring her with a quick nod “—may be all around us and only the ‘developing agent’—those with the specific aberration—can see them.”
“Or perhaps we only notice things when the time comes for us to pay attention to them. When they need us to see them,” she said. Then she realized how intently he was staring at her, and she colored and looked away. He had been her confidant, the one she had entrusted with her whispered secret that Mama’s ghost had appeared to her. He had been the witness to her humiliation at his sister’s hands when she had learned of it. And he had seen Sir Thomas relish every spine-tingling word of her manuscript, and beg for more.
“Conan Doyle spoke of an ‘offering,’” Alan continued. “A gesture—an invitation to communicate. ‘Knock once if you mean “yes,”’ or, ‘Touch my hand if you are here.’”
She was perplexed as to why he was bringing this up. She had not spoken a word of the most recent… appearance to anyone, so it seemed strange that he would revisit a past event that had proved so painful. But he had seen how interested Sir Thomas was in her ghost story. Could this be an attempt to draw her attention away from the Englishman in order to compete for her affections? Or had he realized that in the past, as her friend, he had not been particularly supportive of her work?
“You’ve never spoken to me about these interests of yours, Alan,” she said, and waited for his reply.
His face softened. “I feel sometimes, Edith, as if you can only think of me as that childhood friend that climbed the orchard trees with you.”
She took that in. Was this something more than an invitation to see his new practice?
“Edith, I understand your fascination with the Sharpes, but…” He hesitated a moment and seemed to come to some kind of resolution. “In your own best interest, proceed with caution is all I ask.”
I am right, she thought, a little dazed. Alan has feelings for me.
“I can take care of myself, Alan. Don’t presume too much.” Did she sound defensive? “You’ve been gone a long time and now…” She tried to couch her words more gently. “I’ve managed somewhat.”
His face was unreadable. “You’re right, Edith. I am sorry. My deepest concern has always been for you. If you are happy, then I am happy.”
And you are a true friend, she thought, grateful that he cared enough to be concerned for her. He had certainly given her something to think about. She had assumed these… what could she call them—visitations? nightmares?—were the product of a creative imagination. But what if Mama really had been there?
Her blood ran cold.
Those pictures aren’t proof, she thought, perhaps a little desperately. The process of making the images could have been manipulated. And I don’t really know where Alan stands on the subject. He is a scientist of the eye, of vision, and the repair of distortion. He said that Conan Doyle believed, but he did not say that he did. For him, this may not be more than an interesting puzzle.
She thought to pursue the topic, but another patient was announced. And it was with some frustration, but more relief, that she took her leave.
* * *
In his grand boardroom, Carter Cushing had convened a group of geologists to observe Sir Thomas’s machine. The Englishman’s miniature was rattling away, and he had brought a topographical model of Allerdale Hall complete with hills and valleys, and crowned with a model of his house. The geologists were agog.
“The new deposits lie right beneath and around the house,” Sir Thomas elaborated, “in this stratum here—the reddest clay. The purest. And with enough ore in it to make it steel-hard after baking.”
Cushing watched as Sir Thomas managed the questions and took every opportunity to put forward his plans.
William Ferguson came up beside him and murmured, “I don’t know about you, but I am impressed.”
“I must say that so am I,” Cushing replied. But not in the same way. Most definitely not.
Sir Thomas smiled at him, having overheard the exchange. Cushing decided to make the next move.
“Gentlemen, we should continue our discussions tonight at dinner. At my house,” he said warmly, returning Sharpe’s smile. But his mood was anything but warm; he felt positively glacial. “Who knows? We may have a toast to make.”
The group broke up and walked in twos and threes out of the room. His secretary drew him aside, and there he found Mr. Holly with the additional document he had asked him to acquire. He perused it. So. It was true.
“Well done, Sir Thomas,” Ferguson said to Sharpe as he passed by him on his way out. “Well done.”
Not so fast, Cushing thought grimly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GUESTS MILLED; SERVANTS bustled. Dinner at Cushing Manor was to be a grand affair. The fragrant scents of meat and wine tantalized Thomas’s senses as he and Lucille prepared to enter the dining room. The atmosphere was charged with the same excitement that had accompanied his demonstration this afternoon, and he knew that, at last, success was to be his.
Edith’s home was lovely, so different from their own. Yellow light gleamed from the candles; gas lamps shone through panels of stained glass. It was the palace of a fairy princess, and Thomas could well envision a younger Edith and her mother reading stories, blond heads knocked together as they pored over pictures embellished with all the colors of a butterfly’s wings.
We are going to get the funding from these good men of Buffalo, Thomas thought. There is no need to go elsewhere.
And then there she was, Edith, golden and glowing like the sun. Romeo had said the same
of Juliet; that love had been doomed, but for them—
Beside him, Lucille murmured in his ear, “Give her the ring.”
The Sharpe garnet no longer graced his sister’s hand. He remembered how it had gleamed on her long slender finger when she had played the piano at the McMichaels’ ball. It had been meant for Eunice, but once he had met Edith, he had known in his soul that Eunice had not been the proper choice. He knew Lucille was not entirely convinced that Edith was better, and that she had only acquiesced because she loved him so much.
Now as his sister moved apart from him, he felt a twinge of guilt, for he had not been entirely honest with her. He would give the ring to Edith, oh, he would, but not in the manner they had imagined. Not for that reason. Life was new for him. The sun had come out at last, and all those years in darkness—
—those secrets—
were over.
Such a weight rose from his shoulders, it was almost as if he himself had wings.
Before he grew too nervous, he approached Edith.
“May I have a word?”
She looked from him to the throng of guests and back again. “Right now, Thomas?”
She has stopped using my title, he thought, very pleased. He had asked her to do so, and at first she had demurred. To hear his name on her lips…
“Yes, now. I am afraid I can’t wait,” he replied. He sighed, genuinely twitchy, and fumbled in his pocket for the ring. She was waiting, attentive. He had to do this well.
“Miss Cushing… Edith,” he amended, “I really have no right to ask this, but…”
Then, of all times, Edith’s father suddenly appeared. Thomas put the ring back in his pocket.
“Sir Thomas, may I see you in my study? You and your sister? If you would be so kind as to fetch her?” Cushing asked. He turned to his daughter. “Child, please see that the guests are seated. We will join you shortly.”
