The liquid rolls warm down my throat and erases the sticky tang of photographic chemicals that had been lingering in my nose and lungs.
Geist takes the tumbler of scotch and then settles deep into his wingback chair. As if he wants to surround himself in light and comfort before he lets his mind move backward into darker matters.
19.
I first learned of the Du Keating affair when I was living in Paris. I’d been studying photography back in the forties under the great Disderi,” begins Geist. “It was he who told me this tale of a wealthy Parisian couple whose young daughter, Marie-Claire, had come down with a fever that took a violent turn for the worse. When she died, she left her parents absolutely shocked and heartbroken.
“In this same family was an older brother, Aurelian, who could neither read nor write and was bereft of even the slightest social grace. Aurelian did not attend school, and his parents hardly bothered with him. He was, however, enormously interested in photography. Which in those days, Miss Lovell, was only a burgeoning scientific art, nothing like what it has become today.
“Aurelian du Keating had been close with his sister, and after her death he claimed that she haunted him. He began to suffer from violent night terrors. The story goes that as the boy mastered his hobby, he began to obsessively photograph his deceased sister’s empty bed. On days when there was no light and he could not work the camera, he curled up in her bed and slept.”
“Did he allow anyone to see his finished photographs?”
Geist shakes his head. “Not at first. As soon as he had developed a daguerreotype, the boy secreted it back to his rooms. Frankly, nobody was much interested in his activities. After all, where is the intrigue in photographing an empty bed? Or so they thought. But Aurelian’s nightmares became so tortured, and his habits so fanatical, that eventually his work was uncovered and brought forth. And what a horrible shock when they beheld it.”
A log splits, shooting a scatter of sparks up the flue and a tremor up my spine. No fire can warm me at this moment. “Faint at first, the image became clearer with each plate,” Geist continues. “There in the photograph was the image of Marie-Claire’s corpse. Not as she’d lain angelic on her pillow, but in a state of grotesque decomposition. It was,” he says with a sigh, “most horrific.”
I swallow. The back of my mouth is dry as dust. “What happened next?”
“The household went into an uproar. It was as much a proof of haunting as any had ever reckoned with. Most of the servants fled. Hex symbols were branded into the doors. There was a failed attempt to torch the Du Keating chateau. Cursed by the devil, they said it was. Better to burn it down.
“The girl’s body, which had been interred in the family crypt, was removed and reexamined. When the physician suspected foul play, young Aurelian confessed. Apparently he’d so believed in the magical power of photography that he’d prepared a solution of the same ingredients used to prepare the photographic plates and administered it to his sister. He had tried, as he most pitifully explained, to cure his beloved Marie-Claire of her fever.” Geist’s eyes search the firelight. “Instead, he had killed her.”
Horror twists inside me. “Mr. Geist, did you see any of these images?” Though I can see the answer in his face.
Almost imperceptibly Geist’s face hardens. “Unfortunately, I did. Disderi managed to obtain one,” he admits. “Poison had distorted the girl’s features, and her flesh was a paste over her skeleton. And her eyes. Stuck wide open.” Momentarily he closes his own. “Eternal in her last moments. Though I would do anything to not have seen it, from that moment I was a believer.”
“In what?”
“In Marie-Claire du Keating. And in William Pritchett. I believe in the spirit afterlife. The dead are here, all around us.”
A chilling thought. “Whatever happened to Aurelian?”
“His end is not so tragic. After his confession it was decided Du Keating needed special care, and he was placed in a monastery near Languedoc. It’s said he lives there, quite contentedly, to this day. His sister’s spirit did more good than harm. Which is as Marie-Claire would have wanted it and doubtless why she made contact. She loved her brother despite his terrible crime. She knew he was bedeviled by an unsound mind and that he needed more attention than what her parents could provide. She wanted him safe.”
I lean forward in my chair, my hands gripping the glass. “Mr. Geist, why do you think Will needs to contact me?”
The photographer sits back. “It could be any number of reasons.” He ticks them off with his fingers. “Perchance Pritchett wants to send a warning, or expose a truth, or make a confession. Or perhaps he simply needs to remind you of his pain and suffering.”
“Why wouldn’t he appear to me in a dream?”
“A dream? Bah.” Geist flicks off my thought like water from his fingertips. “Dreams are nonsense, a cluttered attic of the unconscious. You see, Miss Lovell, while most spiritualist photography is bunk, it can be a portal. Whether through photographs or séances, this is the pact that we make in this trade as we go about our daily business. We must respect those moments when a soul from the other side decides to rap on the door.” Suddenly his fist knocks the underside of the mantelpiece.
I jump, hand to my heart. Then smile weakly. “Answering that door would frighten me.”
Geist thinks. “Not to answer would frighten me,” he parries, “for I am convinced that our beloved want the best for us.”
I mull on this. “Mr. Geist, aside from communication through a medium, is there any other way I could connect somehow with the departed?”
“Why, of course. The oldest way of all.” Geist rises from his chair and extends his hand to pull me to my feet. “If a soul has been accepted by God, then your prayer will be heard in His house.”
“In church, you mean?”
“I mean in any consecrated space.” He opens his arms. “Spiritualism is not just a trade. It is a religion. A vision of the Divine. Now, please excuse me. The hour is too late, and you must go. Let me paste a backing onto your print.”
Later, though, it is not the comfort of church but the image of Marie-Claire’s waxen face staring cave-eyed from her pillow that sears itself to my mind as I hurry along Aubrey Lane. The hackney that Geist had summoned and paid for has dropped me a little ways from Pritchett House so that I can steal home quietly on foot.
Last week, when I’d returned from the Black Iris, I’d been lucky that no one caught me slipping inside. Tonight, armed with the knowledge that Uncle Henry won’t be making a late night return and that Mavis will vouch that I was tucked up in my attic bed, I’m not all that worried, until I catch sight of the house itself.
What an ugly house it is. The architecture is pretentious for Brookline, where genteel folk prefer a quieter façade. Its windows are ornate and as heavy as a dowager aunt. Its many columns are obtrusive. When I’d thought I might be the next Mrs. Pritchett, its faults seemed insignificant compared with its offer of shelter and love. But that was then.
Once inside, in the pantry, I tuck a bit of tea cake into a napkin Geist and I had forgotten all about a proper supper but as I pass through to the kitchen, an obstacle.
Mrs. Sullivan, who’d been sleeping in her chair by the hearth, is awake all at once and snarling like a cur. “You, there! Where’ve you been?”
“Oh…” But she has stumbled to a stand and in the next moment is much too close, her stale ale breath in my face. I draw back.
“Jezebel!” She thumps her knuckles against my shoulder, knocking me back. “Not even out of weeds yet, and look at you! Rushing off into the city, arranging secret meetings. He’ll never do right by you, whoever he is, if that’s the shameful plan you’re hatching. Those sort of cads never ”
“Mrs. Sullivan, you’re wrong ”
“Don’t ever say I din’t warn you! And now I’ll have you know, tomorrow it’ll be my sunrise duty to tell the Missus.”
The very idea of being reported to Aunt for
a crime I didn’t commit infuriates me. My face burns and my hands clench, though my answering voice could cut glass. “Report all you like, Mrs. Sullivan. That’s all Aunt Clara needs to turn me out. But what will you do without me? You tell me to be a lady but does a lady beat carpets or polish silver? Does a lady sleep in a garret?”
In the next second I think Mrs. Sullivan might cuff my ear, a talent for which she is notorious. Instead, she glares, but then she steps back to let me pass. I keep my chin set proud, though I stiffen to feel her eyes following me.
Alone upstairs in my room, I turn the lock and sink to my knees. The fire I’d built earlier this evening has died, and my hands tremble so violently with anger and cold that it takes time to light a match. I hardly know why I bother. Warmth never holds in this room. It is as if the walls themselves prefer the chill.
At least tonight the atmosphere matches my mood. How vile to be accused especially by Mrs. Sullivan, whose dimpled face had been some comfort when Mother’s memory feels particularly faint or when Aunt is being loathsome.
The fire catches and blazes. And now I hear the housekeeper’s own lumpish foot on the stairs and the rusty hinges of her door as she retires.
It’s not entirely Mrs. Sullivan’s fault that she croaks and spits at me. The housekeeper uses the same coarse and casual manner not only with Mavis and Lotty, but also with the neighbors’ servants. And while I’m not paid a wage, there is no real distinction between the staff and me. Not anymore. My clothes are thread-worn. The strongest lye can’t rid the half-moons of garden dirt from under my nails or the stink of cod from my palms. My days are filled with chores. I don’t entertain, nor do I receive invitations to be entertained. I am not the lady of this house. Never was. Certainly never will be.
The cord of my purse strings has wound itself tight around my wrist, cutting into my flesh with a sudden fierce intensity, the way Toby and I used to pinch each other to stop ourselves from laughing in church.
But this is hardly humorous, for I can feel the welt rise on my skin.
Hurriedly, I work the strings loose and pull it open. The cry dies in my throat.
It is as if Will’s own hand has squeezed hold of my heart. And as if to confirm it, the fever is upon me at once, the memory of his rage so pure it strikes me to my marrow as I stare at the photograph.
20.
The full moon won’t lie. In a rush, I bring the print to the window.
My eyes aren’t playing tricks. The photograph has changed. Black ink is scratched at my breastbone. A crooked little heart. No prank, no forgery. The print has been in my bag since leaving the studio.
The fever of Will’s anger has passed through me and is gone, leaving me wilted. Despite the cold, my hairline beads with sweat. I crawl into a corner of the sill and offer my ignited cheeks, one and then the other, like hot kisses against the frosted pane, before I compose myself enough to return my gaze to the photograph.
I lick my fingers and rub. The ink is indelible. Furthermore, I know exactly what it means. “I believe in you,” I whisper to the darkness beyond. “I know you’ve come back to me.” And I do know it. Rarely have I been so sure of anything.
My breath has turned the glass opaque, and I wipe away the fog to stare outside, far across the lawn. The tree isn’t visible from my vantage point, and fresh snow is dropping, thick and fast as rain. I want to leave this instant, but I must be sure the house is asleep. The last thing I need is Mrs. Sullivan catching me again.
My bones seem to vibrate under my skin as I draw up my legs and twine my arms around my knees. I am so quiet that a mouse darts across the carpet and stakes its claim to a bit of tea cake crumb that had dropped from my napkin.
A spy must know when and how to turn to stone.
A thousand years pass before I hear snoring proof that Mrs. Sullivan is lost to the sleep of the overworked.
Creeping along the corridor, I freeze at the sound of Mavis muttering in her bed. But no, she’s only dreaming. It turns my heart imagining what rebuke had been meted at Mrs. Sullivan’s ready hand once she’d discovered I wasn’t home and that Mavis had been lying to her.
Dear Mavis, she’s lost half her hearing to Mrs. Sullivan’s punishing blows, and yet when I press her she’ll swear one more knock doesn’t matter. I’ll have to think of a way to make it up to her.
Outside, the snow sticks four inches deep and continues to fall. In seconds my head and shoulders and back are wet. Hesitant to use the lantern, I let the watery moonlight guide me down the lawn. Almost immediately I’m soaked from my slipping, skidding shoes. My feet are two numb chunks of ice wrapped in soggy wool, and there’s hardly any point in lifting my dragging hem, though it seems to catch on every twig. My dress is all but ruined, but nothing could turn me back now. My photograph has given me hope, and I will doggedly cast my last coin in its wishing well.
A spy advances on every opportunity.
The butternut tree marks an otherwise desolate part of the property. Its branches haven’t been climbed in many years. Its knotted rope swing is too frayed and thin to support a body. But it’s not the swing that interests me.
At the base of the tree I drop down to all fours. My blind hands search and find the nicks and grooves where we have carved our initials: T. P. L., Tobias Pritchett Lovell. W. F. P., William Franklin Pritchett. Q. E. P., Quincy Emory Pritchett. J. R. L., Jennie Rose Lovell.
And then, two summers ago, Will had taken his fishing knife and joined his initials with mine, fencing them together inside a single, exuberant heart. I see it now, cut thick like an artery into the wood’s black bark, shaped like a spade with a kited tail.
An identically shaped heart has been inked into my photograph.
The heart that marks the spot.
My hands crawl at the patch of soft soil directly beneath the heart, at the wedge that divides the tree’s two largest exposed roots. I can feel that the earth has been turned over recently. My breath is short, my hands scrape like a dog, raw, burrowing. Grit flies into my eye. I wipe at it, streaking more wet dirt across my face and lips. It leaves an icy taste of mineral. Tomorrow it will be impossible to explain away the state of my clothes and shoes. But I cannot stop until I have found what William has intended me to find.
The physical sensation of pulling it up is not unlike the complicated pull on the tangle of a winter root loosing its grip in the ground. As if it, too, had been connected to the earth and sustained by it.
Even though I know what it is, a small sound escapes me, a euphoria trickling through the flood of my grief. A knowledge that calms me.
My frost-blunted fingers wind through the chain. My necklace, my locket. Returned.
21.
Snow has muffled the outside world, but sunshine eventually starts a gurgle down the drainpipe outside my window. I wake blinking and see that Mavis has already visited my room and taken my ruined dress to salvage. What’s more, the floorboards have been wiped clean of my footprints, my water pitcher is freshly filled. A washcloth hangs on its hook beneath the basin. Pleats knife-creased and collar starched, my Sunday dress is draped over my chair, and my boot buckles are shined and ready for church.
Back in my room last night, I’d tucked my locket beneath my mattress. This morning I pull it out and rinse off the encrusted grit before I dry the necklace link by link. Then I fasten the clasp around my neck and tuck both chain and locket inside my collar, out of sight.
Quinn must have brought home the necklace after all. Whatever his reasons for burying it, I need to find him. I have to hear his story whole, and not just in the pieces that I’ve stitched into a quilt of guesswork. No matter how much he wants to protect Will, his silence conjures up the worst of my imagination. Nothing Will had done could be so bad that I can’t endure it.
Mavis is clearing the breakfast things when I appear in the doorway of the empty dining room. “Where is Quinn? Where are my aunt and uncle?”
She freezes, a platter balanced in each hand. “Good morning, Mi
ss. I believe they decided to set off without you.”
“Services don’t start until a quarter past eight. Why’ve they gone already?”
“Oh, I can’t say, Miss.” But Mavis’s gaze drops.
“Was Mrs. Sullivan unkind to you last night?” I ask. “No, don’t answer, for I know she was. I’m very sorry, Mavis. I’m in your debt.”
“Wasn’t anything that hasn’t happened a hundred times before, Miss,” she murmurs. Somehow it is the routine of cruelty that seems a worse offense to me than the recent blow Mavis surely suffered at Mrs. Sullivan’s hand.
“Things will get better, I’m sure of it,” I promise.
Mavis nods. She looks more wobblingly upset than usual.
“What is it?”
With the barest of movements, she jerks her head toward the front door. “They are just leaving now, Miss,” she whispers. “Go catch ’em outright.”
A spy must retain at least one loyal alliance.
I tear down the hall and through the front door just in time to see the carriage turning. Without pausing to think, I dash out to step in front of it, slipping on the shoveled ice and bringing the driver to a cursing stop.
We exchange a look, and then he relents with a small nod, letting me run around to the side to jump onto the foot step and rap my fist against the carriage window. Uncle opens the door, allowing Aunt to lean across him so that she might make excuses for them both.
“Such a ruckus, Jennie!” Aunt’s face is so close that I see the ash of burnt match she uses to darken the gray in her brows and the talcum powder that cakes the pores of her nose and ringed crinkles of her neck. The lie of her smile tenses her lips.
“Why are you leaving for church without me?”
“I thought we’d discussed this.” Into my stony silence, she continues. “When all is said and done, Jennie, you aren’t Episcopalian.” Aunt sniffs, gaining confidence. “In fact, your father, if I recall correctly, was Universalist.” Aunt speaks this word as if she has called my father a heathen. “Mr. Pritchett and I thought you might want to join his old congregation today. It might be a sure fit, we hoped, with your background and beliefs.”
Picture the Dead Page 8
