by M C Beaton
“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 steadfastly 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 wearing a warm quilted gown and an ermine-lined pelisse and swansdown 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.
All at once they were in the midst of a choking, blinding cloud and Alice gasped for breath.
“Stap me vitals!” exclaimed the Duke. “A London fog. We shall descend, my dear, and try to look for landmarks.”
They sailed down, the Duke trying to keep toward the river, glimpses of which occasionally flashed up through the suffocating fog.
At last, “The Monument,” he said. “Not long now. Ah, there is St. Paul’s. We must float nearly at street level and hope that should anyone see us they will think themselves drunk!”
“Where are we bound?” asked Alice.
“To an hotel, my sweet. The Harland in St. James’s. It is as dull and respectable as ever it was. I am thine uncle, child. The Comte de Sous-Savaronne, tu comprends, hein? Uncle Gervase to you. Our baggage is already ensconced in our rooms. We shall dine, like the respectable couple we are and, then, while you sleep, I shall haunt the empty houses of the fashionable quarter so that we shall be prepared to rent a suitable establishment as soon as we have the money.
“Odd’s Fish, ’tis well the nights are long, or I should be hard put to do any business for you. Ah, we are here. At least, I hope we are. This cursed fog does alter things so. We descend now. At least in this murk we shall be able to land at the very door without occasioning comment.”
They landed gently on the pavement By the feeble lights of two parish lamps, Alice could dimly make out the brick facade of the Harland Hotel.
The Duke tucked her arm firmly in his own and together they made their entrance into the hushed foyer of the hotel.
A long looking glass on the wall faced them as they walked in and for one split second Alice did not recognize herself as the modish young lady reflected in the glass.
For some reason, the Duke did not assume a French accent, speaking in his usual impeccable drawling English and leaving the hotel staff to make what they would of it.
He was an imposing and commanding figure, and as he drew off his York tan gloves, his many rings fl
ashed in the candlelight. The manager of the hotel himself was there to conduct them to their suite on the first floor.
It consisted of a pretty sitting room decorated in apple-green and rose. A few bands of fog had managed to penetrate the room, but a large log fire crackled on the hearth with a table for two set in front of it. Two bedrooms led from the sitting room.
“As you see,” said the portly little manager, rubbing his hands, “I have Monsieur Le Comte and milady’s bags unpacked and your supper is to be served here as you requested.”
Alice nervously opened her mouth to gush forth her thanks but the Duke quelled her with a stern look and nodded pleasantly to the manager, requested his name, learned it was Mr. Perfect, looked mildly amused and firmly bid the manager good evening.
“Now we can be comfortable,” said the Duke, rubbing his hands in front of the fire.
“Take off thy mantle, child. Thou lookst frozen to the bone.”
Alice shyly removed her pelisse and bonnet, feeling unaccountably nervous at being alone with him in these strange surroundings.
Two footmen entered followed by Mr. Perfect, the manager. They laid several covered dishes on the table and then stood back. The Duke waved them away. “We will serve ourselves,” he said. “Do not come back until I send for you.”
“There is so much to arrange,” ventured Alice when the manager and servants had left.
“We will come about,” he said, smiling at her in a way that left her breathless.
It was a silent meal. The Duke, usually talkative, seemed strangely preoccupied. As soon as they had finished, he rang for the dishes to be cleared and, when that was achieved, started to shrug himself into his many-caped coat.
“Where are you going?” asked Alice in dismay.
“Out. Haunting. I must find you a house.”
“I shall come with you.”
“Ah, no, that you will not. You will stay here and warm yourself at the fire and then put yourself to bed.”
“It is only seven o’clock in the evening,” said Alice, but he was already rummaging through the box of jewels and selecting some of the finest pieces. “Mayhap, I shall find a sale for these at this hour,” he said, speaking more to himself than to Alice.
And then, quite suddenly, he was gone.
Alice looked wistfully at the spot where he had last been. Everything was being set in action—and so soon. She had hoped they might have at least one last evening together.
She began to consider what her life would be without him and felt filled with dread. She would have a household and an army of servants to rule. She would have some female companion to launch her into the terrifying society of London, a companion who might one day see beneath the thin disguise of French aristocrat, to the shivering scullery maid underneath.
And what if the ghost’s identity were discovered? Did they still burn witches?
Alice moved over to an easy chair beside the fire and tried to relax, but frightened thought after frightened thought chased around in her brain.
Fretting and anxious and worried, she waited until two in the morning, but still he did not return.
At last, tired out, she undressed and chose one of the bedrooms and wearily climbed into bed.
Outside lay smoky London, unknown, menacing… and lonely.
Chapter 4
“My dear Alice, you must be guided by me. Your uncle commanded me to mould your taste. How are we to impress the ton an you don’t do as I say?” said Miss Emily Snapper intensely.
Alice turned slowly in front of the looking glass and stared at her reflection with resignation. “If you say so,” she rejoined in a dead voice. Privately Alice thought the lemon-colored sarsenet dress trimmed with a vast quantity of artificial roses and white lace drapery and fastened down the front with topaz snaps, too fussy and aging. Her once glossy black hair was teased and frizzled into a top-heavy style. But, as in all other things, she knew that her companion, Miss Snapper, would have the last word.
Alice was preparing to depart for the opening ball of the London Season, to be held at the Duchess of Courtland’s town house in Gloucester Square. For Alice, Comtesse de la Valle-Chenevix was accepted everywhere. The redoubtable Miss Snapper had seen to that.
Alice had hardly seen the Duke in the last seven days before he had disappeared for good. He had arranged the rental of a pretty house in Manchester Square, banked a great deal of money for her, arranged a man of business for her, servants were hired, furnishings bought and, finally, the formidable Miss Snapper hired as companion.
Miss Snapper was of the untitled aristocracy and came from an impoverished Surrey family which the Duke had known in their palmy days of the last century, and had felt obliged to supply a home to this last relic of the family. That she knew everyone and was acceptable everywhere, was beyond question. The Duke had in his whirlwind of activity failed to notice that she was too intense and managing a spinster to be companion to such a young and such a green girl.
To Alice, it seemed as if she were never allowed to be alone with him. Miss Snapper was always present. She was a thin, angular woman in her thirties with a bony chest, snapping black eyes, a thin mouth which covered a row of sharp little teeth, dusty red hair and a conversational style which consisted of a series of denouncements.
She adored the Duke with an almost embarrassing passion of which he was quite oblivious, and any time Alice shyly tried to hint that she might like to be alone with her uncle, Miss Snapper would bare her sharp little teeth and simper, “Why, Alice dear. You are so quiet, I declare I cannot hear a word you say. Now you must run along and leave us old people to discuss your future.”
And so, Alice’s timid and awkward farewell to her “uncle” was made under the avid stare of Miss Snapper. For nights, she had cried to him with all her mind to come back but as the shadows lengthened, no shimmering figure came through the wall, no light mocking drawl came to her ears, and her eyes grew dull and heavy with nights of crying.
There had been, at one time, a real Lady Alice de la Valle-Chenevix, that Alice knew, for the Duke had gone to great lengths to furnish her with an authentic background. The family had been wiped out in the terrors of the French Revolution, with the exception of a baby girl who had gone unaccountably missing. He had coached Alice well in the history of her “family,” and she had been prepared for all questions.
But the members of society she had so far met had accepted her at face value and were totally uninterested in her background. At first, she had found it hard to maintain a French accent morning, noon and night, but soon it became her natural speech and her accent was pronounced “charming” by the forgiving ton who had every reason to hate the French—for weren’t they at war with the monsters?
On the day the Duke had left, the news of Wellington’s victory at Ciudad Rodrigo had resounded through the streets. While Napoleon had turned his attention to Russia, the great Duke of Wellington had won this major battle, thereby kicking open the door into Spain which was held by Napoleon’s vast armies. England had gone mad with joy at the news. The mail coaches outside the General Post Office in Lombard Street had been decked with laurels and flowers, oak leaves and ribbons and had gone thundering out through the trunk roads of England to bear the glad news to every corner.
At Vauxhall, rousing songs like “Hearts of Oak” and “Scots Wha’ Hae” sounded in the night air. Napoleon no longer seemed the omnipotent ogre he had appeared in the years before when it had seemed at one time that he would surely land in England, and nurses had terrified the children to sleep, singing:
“Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush you squalling thing, I say;
Hush your squalling, or it may be
Bonaparte may pass this way.
“Baby, baby, he’s a giant,
Tall and black as Rouen steeple;
And he dines and sups, rely on’t,
Every day on naughty people.”
But Alice was as uninterested in the war as sh
e had been when she had toiled in the kitchens of the Hall. She read a great deal whenever she could and, then, in the evenings, dully allowed herself to be dressed like a doll by the energetic Miss Snapper and promenaded to breakfasts and fětes champětres and Venetian dinners and routs, each one seeming the same to Alice.
Her lack of interest in London society made her seem a very aloof little aristocrat. She was not besieged with admirers desirous of dancing with her as she sat meekly beside Miss Snapper and dreamed away the evenings thinking of her lost Duke.
Her skin had lost its translucence, and her step, its spring. She danced heavily, often treading on her partner’s toes and not even being aware she was doing so.
London cobbled, odoriferous, and yet the acme of ordered and mannered beauty, was the stage across which Alice numbly floated. Controlled since the Great Fire by Building Acts which laid down the ceiling heights, types of materials and numbers of stories to be used in every class of street, London spread out in street after street of exquisitely proportioned houses of brown and gray brick with their unadorned faces of freestone sash, the same neat white pillars on either side of their pedimented doors.
