Emily's Ghost

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  After an hour's drive she found herself on the main street of Newarth, a mill town that had seen better days. Emily was vaguely familiar with Newarth's history: it had peaked in the late nineteenth century and then languished until the late twentieth, when the long-empty textile mills were converted one by one into discount outlets that attracted busloads of tourists. But there ended up being too many outlets and not enough busloads and lately Newarth had begun, once again, to languish.

  Emily drove through block after block of triple-decker tenements once filled with millworkers, searching for the downtown district. What she found was a mile of shabby, anonymous storefronts erected in the nineteen-fifties, no doubt replacing much more charming Victorian shops. She wondered whether she'd find any historical records at all: Newarth did not seem much in love with its past.

  The sun had been in a fitful mood during the drive from Boston, but it decided to come out for good just as Emily pulled up at the Newarth Library, a block or so off the downtown path. Blinking in the day's brilliance, she stared at an architectural gem, a small Gothic fantasy of turrets and slate and diamond-paned windows. The building was almost hidden behind towering lavender rhododendrons and flowering cherry trees that dropped their pink petals onto a tiny pond on which two white swans floated, serenely unaware that they were the highlight of a vision too pure to be true.

  A narrow brick path ended at a varnished door that opened into a chapel-like interior filled to the rafters with the sweet, musty smell of books. Emily was surprised and oddly distressed to see that except for an elderly man half-nodding over his morning paper, the library was deserted. Even the check-out desk was unattended. A door behind the desk was left open to the outside; Emily went up to it and spied a stocky old woman on her hands and knees, weeding a tulip bed.

  "Good morning," Emily called out pleasantly. "Can you tell me where I'll find the librarian?"

  The woman raised herself slowly, one knee at a time, and smiled through a wince of arthritic pain. "That'd be me, dear," she answered, brushing her hands clear of soil. She reached into the pocket of her denim apron and pulled out a rag to finish the cleanup.

  She was short and very stout. The flesh hung heavy and loose on her liver-spotted arms, and her legs sagged into a bow shape under her weight. Her grey hair had probably started the day tied back in a bun, but it wasn't there now. "How can I help you?" she asked pleasantly.

  "You manage all of this by yourself?" Emily remarked, impressed. "The library and the grounds?"

  "'Tisn't much to manage, dear," the old woman said as she pulled her apron over her head and dropped it on a hook inside the door. "Everything in here was published before the war -- that'd be the Great War, dear -- and I'm sorry to say there isn't much demand for any of it. A few years ago I began whiling away the hours outside. It started with a little weeding and now I've turned into a maniac. I'm Mrs. Gibbs," she added.

  Emily introduced herself and said, "It's all perfectly lovely. But ... Newarth has no books printed after 1914?"

  The librarian smiled. "Sure we do; they're in the Newarth Public Library. You're not from around here, I suppose."

  Emily shook her head, feeling stupid. It hadn't occurred to her to scan past "Newarth Library" in the white pages of the phone book.

  "This library was built by John Talbot. He was the owner of the biggest mill in town, and a philanthropist of course -- they all were, back then. Very concerned with the welfare of their towns. Still, things would be less confusing if he'd named this the Talbot Library. Anyway, the endowment dried to a trickle, the acquisitions stopped, and now we get by on a wing and a prayer ...."

  Emily wasn't hearing her any longer. The certainty that she'd been feeling all morning rushed in to overwhelm her. If there was a mill owner named John Talbot, then he had a daughter named Hessiah Talbot. Who was murdered.

  "So," the librarian was saying, "let me give you directions to the Newarth Public Library --"

  "No, no, I've come to the right place, I really have," Emily answered feverishly. "Do you have copies of the Newarth Sentinel in your archives?"

  "Oh, dear me, yes; almost every issue from l868 to 1914."

  "On microfiche?"

  The librarian laughed out loud; the old gentleman awoke from his doze, harrumphed, and snapped his morning paper back into position.

  "My dear, we have the crumbling originals. You'll have to help me get them out; the bindings are very heavy. Microfiche?" She laughed again.

  Emily spent the next two hours in the large, dry cellar of the Newarth Library, pouring over yellowed and brittle newsprint. She'd gone directly to the first issue to be printed after the day of the murder on August 12, 1887 and confirmed what she already knew: that she was not insane. There it all was, in old-fashioned black and white. Shocking Murder of Textile Heiress. Robbery the Motive.

  Ah, well, she thought with a jittery sigh. At least I've saved myself the cost of a shrink.

  She read through the next few issues. Every detail was there, just as Fergus O'Malley had described it: the frenzied hunt, door to door, for the murderer; the discovery of a silver spoon emblazoned with a "T" near the front door of O'Malley's flat; his sensational arrest and parade past jeering, rock-throwing citizens. After that, the trial itself -- swift and, by all accounts, impartial. Soon after came the sentencing, and finally, the hanging.

  The hanging. It came like a blow to the stomach, knocking away the fascination she'd been feeling and leaving her dizzy with nausea. She was thrown back bodily into her nightmare as she read the account: "The murderer, bound and blindfolded, lashed out with his legs twice, and then he was still. Justice has been done, and a terrorized town will sleep more safely tonight."

  She stopped reading for a little while, then brought herself under control and forced herself to continue, taking constant notes.

  At the bottom of page four she found a postscript to the hanging: an eleven-year old crippled boy had tried to attack the hangman and was bound over to a home for wayward youth just outside of Newarth. The boy refused to give his name to the authorities, and no one had come forward to identify him.

  "Ah, Fergus," Emily murmured, overcome with sadness. "Your little brother really did love you."

  She closed her eyes, reflecting on it all. Then it occurred to her that Fergus had never said a thing about his brother being crippled; she'd only dreamed it.

  So how did she know? Had Fergus somehow been able to penetrate her nightmare? Was she remembering Fergus's past because it was really her own past? Was she Fergus? Reincarnated? Oh, God, she thought wearily. Could it possibly get any worse? She folded her arms across the pile of Sentinels and buried her head there.

  After a while she sighed and lifted her head--and there he was, with his arms folded against his chest, leaning on a file cabinet marked "Retired - A to H". Same clothes, same arrogance, same glint in his eye.

  She felt a kind of triumphant shock at the apparition. "Fergus! What are you doing here?"

  "Reliving old times," he said dryly.

  He looked as incredibly real as ever. But her latest speculations had left her muddled; what if he was a kind of alter ego, a throwback to an earlier life of hers? "You shouldn't be here," she said, stalling for time. "You said you'd let me do the research on my own."

  "And so I planned. But there seems to be a limit to how far apart we can be." He pointed to the crystal that hung around her neck and added, "About the time ye hit the shopping district, I found myself being yanked out of yer place. Which is just as well. You'll be needing me help."

  In a barely controlled voice she said, "Are you telling me we cannot get farther than forty-five miles apart without your popping up?"

  He shrugged. "It appears."

  "I will not be joined at the hip to you, Fergus!" she cried, exploding with frustration. "You can't be here, dammit! Someone is bound to find out!"

  "Keep up the shoutin' and someone will."

  Right on cue the librarian called down, "Is everyt
hing all right down there?"

  "Ahh ... yes, m'am," Emily called back. "I was just reading aloud."

  She heard the librarian murmur to someone, "What a strange young thing she is," and then walk away from the stairwell. Emily lowered her voice to a hiss. "Where have you been, anyway?"

  "Watchin' ye make a bloody fool of yerself--when I wasn't watchin' your picture box."

  "What? You were in my condo the whole time?"

  "Not the whole time. The folks below you was havin' a shindig and I slipped in to see what the noise was about. They are fond of their drink, them university types. And the language. Migod."

  "What did you see, Fergus?"

  "Not much," he answered with a shrug. "A lot of back-slappin' and belchin'. One of 'em juggled three beer bottles. Then two young ladies --"

  "Not down there, you jerk! In my apartment!"

  "Oh. There." He blushed a deep, deep red. "Nothing."

  Emily was absolutely scandalized. "You saw us together," she whispered, devastated. "I can't believe this." A vivid mental picture presented itself of Lee Alden and her, locked in passion. She looked away, then shook her head. Tears stung her eyes. "Have you no sense of shame?"

  "Have I no sense of shame? I like that!" Fergus answered, turning indignant. "Do ye have any idea what yer behavior seems like to a man like me? In my day a woman -- even the poorest woman -- would never live alone, much less invite a man in alone, much less throw herself at 'im the way ye did. Not unless she was the worst kind of tramp."

  "But this isn't your day, is it?" she said, seething. "Men don't fool around with the town tramp and then propose to virgins any more. There are no virgins any more --"

  "The devil there aren't!"

  "Believe it, Fergus. The double standard has gone the way of the buggy whip. Society permits men and women to come together as equals --"

  "But what do they come together for, if not to marry?"

  She blinked. "Well -- for pleasure."

  "But that's what tramps are for!"

  "I told you, Fergus, there are no tramps any more. Well, that's not exactly true. I suppose there are, but -- oh, skip it. The point is, what the hell were you doing spying on me?"

  "What did ye expect?" he asked with dignity. "I'm a male."

  "You see?" she asked, throwing her hands up in the air. "That's my point about you. A female -- ghost or alive -- would never spy. She would have allowed us our ... moment of privacy."

  "I thought ye said men and women were equal. Ye talk as if the female is the superior sex today."

  "Not at all," Emily replied cooly. "I would expect a modern male to behave in exactly the same way." But a little voice inside her said, Uh-huh. Name one.

  "I see," said Fergus. "Well, then, accept me apology. I'll try to behave in the manner of a modern male. It's the least I can do."

  He watched her curiously. "Will ye be marryin' the man, then?"

  "Of course not!" she snapped. "He's a United States Senator."

  Fergus nodded sagely. "I understand. Above your station."

  "No, that's not it," she said irritably. "We don't marry according to station any more. Anyone can marry anyone."

  "Ah. He doesn't love you, then."

  "I didn't say that! I ... have no way of knowing," she added in an overly casual voice.

  "Sometimes men don't say," he agreed in a helpful way. "But ye told him ye loved him, of course."

  "I don't have the faintest idea whether I love him!"

  "Ye didn't do it for money, surely?" Fergus asked, shocked.

  "Of course not!"

  "Then--"

  "That doesn't mean I'm a tramp!" she shouted, slamming her hand on the table. "This is different! These are the nineties!"

  "If ye say so," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "No doubt it'll come clearer to me."

  Suddenly his head jerked up in the direction of the stairs. He began to more or less vaporize in front of her. ln a panic she hissed, "Wait -- don't disappear!" then turned in time to beam reassuringly at the approaching librarian.

  "I heard a crash," the old woman said, looking around.

  "That was me, stomping a bug," Emily improvised. "The shouting was me, too," she added. "Spiders terrify me."

  "They oughtn't to," the librarian said crisply. "They're quite helpful in the garden. Have you found what you need?"

  "Oh, yes. Actually, I'm doing a kind of historical piece on the murder of Hessiah Talbot. It's covered in great detail by the Sentinel."

  "You're interested in the Hessiah Talbot murder! How wonderful!" the librarian cried, clapping her hands together. Instantly she thawed and became friendly again. "Then you know that the publisher of the Sentinel was a good friend of John Talbot, which is one reason for the thorough coverage."

  Mrs. Gibbs lowered her battered weight into a chair opposite Emily at the long oak table and settled in for a chat. "It was an absolutely shocking event at the time. And of immense historical importance to the area.

  The Talbots had been the dominant force in Newarth for four generations," Mrs. Gibbs continued. "But after Hessiah Talbot was murdered, her family sold the mill and moved to California, setting the mill in motion on a downhill course. Talbot manor was allowed to fall into near-ruin as well, part of the curse that fell on Newarth and is with us still."

  "Not a curse, surely," Emily couldn't help arguing. "Just simple economics. Historical trends were already threatening the success of smaller textile mills. Concentration of labor, foreign competition--"

  "All irrelevant," the librarian snapped. "This town lies under a pall, plain and simple. The sad thing is," she said, bending over the table in a confidential whisper, "if it had been a more sensational crime, we could at least be making some money from it. Look at Fall River. Fall River has the legend of Lizzie Borden, and that makes all the difference."

  Mrs. Gibbs bounced her knuckles off the table in a gesture of supreme confidence. "A female ax-murderer is a number one draw, take my word for it: 'Lizzie Borden took an ax / And gave her mother forty whacks.' That's what we don't have: a simple, effective marketing device. The strangling of an heiress by a common burglar just can't compare," she said, sighing heavily.

  Emily stared at the sweet old librarian -- digger of tulips and defender of spiders -- and suppressed a scandalized smile. "I see your point. The Talbot Manor could have been a tourist attraction and the Library a museum."

  "Exactly. But instead, Talbot Manor struggles as a bed-and-breakfast and the Library needs a new roof. It's all so tragic," the librarian said, shaking her head over the injustice of it.

  "The Manor is operating as a B & B? Do you suppose they'd let me have a look around?"

  "I don't see why not," Mrs. Gibbs said, hauling her battered weight out of the creaking chair with an effort. "I'll call Maria Salva and let her know you'll be over. You won't learn much from Maria, though. She and her husband bought the place in spite of its history because it was dirt-cheap. I've told her she's missing a bet not promoting the crime; people love that kind of thing. She could host Murder-at-the-Manor weekends and do a booming business on Halloween if nothing else. She'd be willing, I know, but her husband is not adventurous. He's a plumber. Most of the rooms have individual baths now," Mrs. Gibbs added with a shrug, "but they're still empty."

  "It sounds like you should be running the Manor," Emily said, impressed with the woman's entrepreneurial spirit.

  "Probably," agreed Mrs. Gibbs, brushing a clump of earth from the hem of her dress. "But this place needs me more. Which reminds me. Someone just donated two dozen half-sprouted Asiatic lilies to the garden; if I don't get them in the ground the poor things are going to consume themselves. We may not have the biggest library in town, but we do have the prettiest garden. Come look at it, dear, before you set off."

  *****

  Talbot Manor was easy to find. Presiding over the highest hill in Newarth, the house was an imposing structure built in 1876 to replace a smaller one, put there by John Talbot's
grandfather, which had burned to the ground the year before. The new manor had a granite -- and fireproof -- tower on its southeast corner where John Talbot made his family sleep. The inside doors of the tower were lined with highest-grade asbestos, and fire escapes from every room were cut into the outside granite walls. This much Emily had learned from Mrs. Gibbs during their tour of the library garden.

  Emily parked her car at the bottom of the hill on a street called Stepstone Lane, because she wanted to get a better feel for the Manor's environs. Stepstone Lane wasn't the main access to the Manor -- Talbot Street was -- but Emily trekked up the winding, narrow lane anyway, drawn by its tattered charm. Once there had been cobblestones; she could see the edges of the stones peeping out through the asphalt every once in a while. The lane was a shabby little block, a hodgepodge of tiny cottages with peeling shingles and broken shutters shoehorned into impossibly narrow lots -- a kind of Nantucket in the rough.

  Emily didn't need a degree in sociology to recognize the pattern: A grand house falls down on its luck, the grounds are sold off, and humbler houses pop up like weeds all around it. When times get tough -- and in Newarth they had got very tough indeed -- the big house and all its weedy neighbors slide into ruin together. It seemed impossible that Talbot Manor could ever succeed, Murder Weekends or no, until the local economy turned around.

  Emily, a property owner now, was completely engrossed in such pragmatic thoughts when she suddenly stopped, held fast by a sharp sense of déjà vu. I know this place, she thought, looking around. She was in front of what had to be the oldest house on the block, a down-and-out shingled charmer with a crumbling brick chimney on its north side and the collapsed frame of a greenhouse still attached to its south side. Unlike the others, this house was set back from the street enough for an ancient apple tree, mauled and distorted from repeated pruning, to be almost able to fit.

  It was the gardener's cottage for the original Talbot Manor, Emily was sure of it. All the land around it must once have been cultivated -- herb, vegetable, and cutting gardens, and obviously an orchard. She drew nearer to the apple tree, the last remnant of an affluent time. Half of its few remaining limbs were not in leaf; it was very near the end of its life. She was wondering whether there was any way to save it when she saw a shadowy form at the base of the tree gradually assume the shape and depth of Fergus O'Malley. He was deep in sleep, his mouth slack, snoring noisily. He was, she realized, dead drunk.