The Ghost and Lady Alice

by Marion Chesney

  “I'll never do it, that I won't,” sniveled Alice.

  “Stop that this instant!” snapped the ghost. “Here is a handkerchief. It is to be used for wiping your nose when you whimper and do not let me catch you wiping your nose on your sleeve again. Faugh!”

  “Oh, leave me alone!” wailed Alice, red with shame. “I'll never be a lady.”

  “Then get back to the kitchens where you belong, you spineless baggage,” he said heartlessly. “This is what comes of bestowing my distinguished time and attention on a sniveling...”

  “Stop!” cried Alice, covering her ears. “I'll do it!”

  “That's better,” he said looking at her coldly and Alice looked back and suddenly knew she would do anything just so long as he smiled at her again.

  She diligently struggled over the primers and because she had slept late, managed to stay up most of the night.

  As the days flew past and the north wind piled snow in great drifts up around the Hall, Alice and her ghost worked night after night on her French lessons.

  The Duke was amazed at the girl's quick progress. Provided he could get her to speak in English with a French accent, she would soon be ready. He coaxed her in how to walk, how to carry a shawl, how to flirt with a fan, how to make conversation and when to listen. She was taught the value of jewels and laces and how to wear colors best suited to her dark hair and increasingly white skin.

  All at once it was Christmas and the Duke arrived as soon as dark fell with the news that there was to be a great masked ball held in the Hall that very evening.

  “And we shall both go,” he said sternly, looking down at Alice. “First I must arrange your hair. Pah! I feel like a man-milliner. What days of rest are due to me after I rid myself of you!”

  He turned away to heat the curling tongs and therefore did not notice the tearful hurt on Alice's face.

  At last he declared himself ready and ordered her to undress to her petticoat until he arranged her toilette, and Alice did so meekly and with a queer little pang at her heart as she knew he would treat her as impersonally as any lady's maid.

  “We shall not be announced,” he went on, plying the curling tongs and filling the small room with the smell of hot hair. “We shall simply slide through the walls and mingle with the guests. Being a ghost has many advantages.”

  “You won't go off and leave me,” pleaded Alice. “I mean you won't go off with one of them pretty ladies?”

  “Don't cling,” snapped the ghost, pushing her head roughly forwards and applying the curling tongs to the hair at the back. “Now Agnes clung enough for a squadron of women.”

  At long last, he pronounced himself satisfied, tipped her face up and gave her a light, playful slap on the cheek.

  “Do not look so frenzied, my child,” he mocked. “Odd's Fish! What's to be so exercised over? A mere ball! And I shall not leave your side. There! I have made you smile at last. Your gown is on the bed. Wait for me. I must change.”

  With trembling fingers, Alice slipped on the dress. It was of pale blue gossamer silk worn over a white satin slip. It had a short train at the back and opened up in the front where it was tied with small bows of white satin ribbon. It had long sleeves of pale blue gossamer net, caught down on the outside of the arm with small pearl brooches. The tops of the sleeves and the bosom of the dress were bound with silver edging and trimmed with Valenciennes lace.

  The bottom of the skirt and train were edged with a silver edging, and trimmed with the same lace as on the bosom. There was a scarf of pale buff silk ornamented at the end with white silk tassels to go with it. There were also pearl earrings, shoes in pale buff satin and yellow kid gloves.

  How Alice longed for a looking glass. She felt very grand and splendid, but she had thought that before and her ghost had not seemed in the slightest impressed.

  All at once he was at her side and the pair surveyed each other curiously. Privately Alice thought he had never looked more handsome with his short locks cut in a Brutus crop and his splendid black evening coat and knee breeches. Diamond buckles blazed on his shoes and the lace at his throat and wrists was as fine as cobwebs.

  He carried a heavy iron box under one arm which he placed on the table and then stood farther away from her to get a better look at her.

  Her once thin face had become heart shaped and her eyes, he noticed were almost violet. The dusky clusters of ringlets accentuated her very white skin which had an almost alabaster pallor from Alice having been confined so long in the room. Her bosom was quite magnificent decided the Duke, putting up his quizzing glass to have a closer look. Alice flushed under his scrutiny and drew the scarf a little more closely about her shoulders.

  “You surprise me,” was all he would say, but the warmth in his voice made Alice suddenly feel deliriously happy.

  He turned from her and opened the strong box and Alice moved closer to him to see what the box contained.

  Poor Agnes's jewels blazed up with all the colors of Aladdin's cave.

  “Just where she had left them,” said the Duke, looking down at them with satisfaction. “Under the outer courtyard wall at the northeast corner. There is thine dowry, child. It pleases thee?”

  “It frightens me,” whispered Alice.

  “Then it is time you became accustomed to your possessions; I trust we will not have to sell them all.”

  He looked at her, his blond head tilted to one side. Then he scrabbled in the box and came up with a pearl and diamond necklace which he clasped about her neck.

  “Perfect,” he said, studying the effect. “Now I have taught you the dances I know. Let us hope they have not changed too much. You will need to dance with other partners, of course, but we will pretend to be a devoted married couple just for this evening.”

  That somehow was all that was needed to fuel Alice's already blazing happiness.

  “Come!” he said, holding out his hand. “It is time to go.”

  Timidly Alice put her hand on his arm. He led her straight toward the paneled wall.

  “I can't go that way,” giggled Alice. “I'm not a ghost!”

  “If I can take plates of food through walls,” he said severely, “then I can most certainly take you.”

  To Alice, all things were possible that evening and she trustingly allowed him to lead her.

  She seemed to melt through the walls as if they were water and then found herself floating gently downward through the building.

  “Now,” he said, coming to a stop in a small anteroom. On the other side of the door, Alice could hear the strains of a waltz.

  He drew a black velvet mask from his pocket and handed her a blue silk one. When they were masked, he took her firmly by the hand. He opened the door.

  Lights from hundreds of candles blazed down on them and on the jewels and silks and satins of the guests.

  Alice, Comtesse de la Velle-Chenevix had arrived in society.

  THREE

  It was as well the ghostly Duke did not immediately lead his partner into the dance. For Alice had begun to shake with fear. Her eyes darted from one liveried servant to the other, fearing recognition.

  The Duke felt her hand trembling in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We are masked, you know,” he said, reading her thoughts. “And were we not, no one would recognize my lady as Alice, the scullery maid. You are a beautiful woman. Come! Look at me and smile. Where are those stars that were in your eyes a bare moment ago?”

  He gazed down into her wide eyes, his own warm and reassuring, and Alice felt all her elation and courage flooding back.

  “Ah, we have a country dance. That we can do,” he said, leading her forward. Unreality took over. Nothing was alive to her but the pressure of this dead man's hand in her own.

  The Duke found that he was the one who was nervous as the opening chord struck up. But Alice danced lightly, performing her steps with grace. He was proud of her. Really proud. Through the slits of his mask, he took in the admiring glances cast in Alice's direc
tion. Tomorrow, he would take her to London. And soon he would be free to ... To do what?

  As the dance ended, Alice's hand was quickly claimed for the next by a masked young man. After that, she seemed to move from partner to partner. He contented himself by propping up a pillar and watching her and listening to the easy chatter of her assumed French accent which covered her still frequent mistakes in grammar.

  The ballroom at the Hall was much as he remembered it, although all the masked faces, with the exception of the present Duke and Duchess, were strange. He felt suddenly homesick for the old days. He had had little freedom since Agnes's death since he had only survived her by one month. It would have been delightful to have married again, someone young and charming.

  He became aware that he had been joined by Alice. “The next dance is a waltz and I do not know how to perform it,” she whispered.

  “We shall watch,” he answered, “and mayhap we shall learn.”

  After a few moments, he bent his head close to hers and murmured, “It is easy. We shall perform. This new dance pleases me. How it would have shocked my contemporaries.”

  He swept her into his arms and moved off with her across the floor while lights and colors and music swirled into one heady confection in Alice's bedazzled brain. All she knew was that he had his hand around her waist and now nothing could touch her, nothing could reach her.

  When the waltz finished, she stared up at him with eyes like drowned violets. He looked down at her, his own eyes hooded and enigmatic.

  “It is time to go, child,” he said. “The unmasking is about to begin.”

  “I say,” said Lord Harold Webb, a tall handsome buck to his weedy friend, Harry Russell, “tell me I'm seeing things. That damned pretty little French chit and that tall fellow with the yaller hair just walked through the wall behind those cursed palms.”

  “You're seeing things,” said Harry cheerfully. “Foxed again!”

  Back in the hidden room, Alice pirouetted round and round to the sound of the music in her head, watched by the Duke who was unloading the supper which he had stolen from the ball.

  “You are ready to fly the coop and test your wings,” commented the Duke.

  “When must I leave?” asked Alice, suddenly sad.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  “The sooner the better,” he said. “You must set up an establishment and find a respectable lady to live with you.”

  “Why can't you live with me?” Alice burst out.

  “It would not answer,” he said angrily, uncorking a bottle of champagne with a brisk pop. “Whoever heard of anyone ever living with a ghost?”

  “Whoever heard of a ghost?” said Alice gloomily. “I mean not the kind with chains and sheets, but a living ghost.”

  “No one, fortunately,” he said amiably. “Perhaps I shall stay quietly here and write my memoirs. Come! Eat your supper. You will not wish to cling to me after you have a few handsome beaux in your train. I am the only person you have to take care of you at the moment, but you will soon forget me.”

  “Never!” said Alice, her eyes bright with tears.

  “What a passionate child it is! Reserve your fervor for your husband. ‘Fore George, you are become emotional! It is hunger, nothing more.”

  “Don't you have any feelings,” said Alice with a watery smile.

  “Oh, yes,” he replied. “I did not leave anything at all behind me in the grave, it seems. I have come to the conclusion that I am a mistake of Time. For me, no angels sing or devils torment. Voices do not reach me from above or below. Eat your food, do! I went into the family church last night to pray. I felt afraid all of a sudden of the supernatural which is odd, considering I am supernatural myself. Well, no great light shone on my road to Damascus.

  “No great voice cried, ‘Repent!’ I am here and that is all I know. But I am a practical ghost. I shall simply accept it. Besides, just think of the benefits! We can speed to London through the night air. Think of what we shall save on tolls.”

  Alice ate her food, listening to him gravely, trying not to be frightened of the day so soon to arrive when he would no longer be with her.

  “I have been thinking,” he went on, “that it is dark in London at this time of year very early—by five o'clock at the latest. The jewelers’ establishments will still be open. I shall masquerade as a French émigré and sell the jewels for you. There! I shall have saved thee at least one ordeal. I shall stay with thee one week masquerading as thine uncle, so do dry thine eyes.”

  Alice, who had begun to cry, did as she was bid, feeling all at once much happier. He would be with her a further week. She would not think beyond then.

  She had a small but rich wardrobe of clothes, procured for her by the Duke, who stead fastly refused to say where he had come by them.

  “I have never thanked you properly for all this,” said Alice shyly, a small wave of her hand encompassing the room, the wardrobe of clothes, the books and magazines and the food and wine on the table.

  The Duke flushed slightly. “'Tis nothing, my child,” he said, his long fingers playing with the stem of his wine glass. “I'Faith, we grow sentimental. I am a selfish ghost. I am looking forward to sampling the modern delights of the ladies of London.”

  A shadow crossed Alice's expressive little face but either he did not notice, or would not.

  “What did you do with my old clothes?” asked Alice after she had managed to control a feeling of hurt which had threatened to make her cry again.

  “I put them at the edge of the cliffs along with a suicide note written in an illiterate scrawl. I remember you told me they were not aware of your education. And so ends the life of Alice, scullery maid.”

  “What if you disappear?” said Alice anxiously. “What would I do?”

  “I think I can manifest myself for another week,” he said, laughing. “In any case, you have the jewels.”

  “But you would not be there,” said Alice softly.

  He put down his glass with an impatient click and studied her for a while. She cast her eyes down and looked at her plate.

  “You are halfway to fancying yourself in love, my sweeting,” he said. “It will not do. This is unreality. I am unreal. Put me from thy mind, my child. Concentrate your whole being on securing a future for yourself, a home for yourself, a handsome husband and handsome children.

  “This unnatural proximity of ours has played tricks with your brain. You are tired and overwrought. You did very well this evening. And I was proud of you. Come! Smile, my Alice. Tomorrow in the clear light of day you will see things differently.”

  Alice finished her meal as best she could. She could sense that, this evening, he was anxious to be gone. She racked her brains for some topic of conversation to detain him, but could think of none.

  At last he stacked the dirty dishes and glasses neatly on the tray as if he had been a servant all his life instead of the master of many.

  “Goodnight, Alice,” he said formally. “Until tomorrow.”

  She half raised her hand to try to detain him, but he had already vanished noiselessly through the wall.

  “One week,” thought Alice. “At least I have one more week.”

  * * * *

  Alice spent the next day cleaning and tidying the secret room. She felt sad. She felt as if she were leaving the only home she had ever known. Her clothes had gone from the wardrobe, the trunks from the floor. To where he had spirited them she did not know. Surely they could not set about renting a house immediately.

  At times poor Alice wondered whether this extra week of his company were a good thing after all. Would it not be better to make a clean break? But surely he could not plan to desert her forever.

  Would he not miss her, just a little? And what would he do after he returned? Philander with the houseguests?

  She busied herself with her gloomy thoughts and small chores until the shadows lengthened across the floor. He would expect her to be ready. She was wea
ring a warm quilted gown and an ermine-lined pelisse and swans-down muff lay ready on the bed.

  His figure suddenly shimmered for a moment against the dark oak of the paneling and then materialized completely.

  “Do your powers never fail you?” asked Alice, trying to joke. “One of these days you might find yourself trapped in the wall.”

  “It is one of my many tricks,” said the Duke proudly. “I discovered I could do it by a simple matter of concentration. Are you ready?”

  Alice nodded dumbly and moved to the bed to put on the warm pelisse and tied a smart swansdown-edged bonnet over her curls.

  He was dressed in a long, many-caped driving coat and a curly brimmed beaver hat was tilted at a rakish angle on his fair hair.

  He waited until she was ready and held out his hand. She looked sadly around the little room for the last time. “At least I have had this,” she thought sadly. And then she felt the strength of his long fingers curl about her own.

  They melted through the outer wall and out over the grounds of the Hall. Alice gasped and looked down and clutched the Duke's hand tightly.

  “You have taken so much in your stride to this date, my sweeting,” mocked the ghost. “Do not, I beg you, fail me now. Don't look down.”

  Alice tried to do as she was bid and soon became a little accustomed to the great rate at which they seemed to be flying over the silent fields. Down below, pinpricks of candlelight from village cottages sparkled and winked in the darkness and, up above them, great stars blazed down in the frosty night.

  Villages gave way to larger towns and soon Alice saw the metallic curve of a river sliding below. The Thames, surely.

  Then up into the night sky seemed to loom a great black cloud and Alice clutched the ghost's hand tighter and they sped ever nearer toward it.