The Spiritualist

by Megan Chance

  I started at a sound, and looked down to find the pencil had fallen from my fingers to the floor. I was so tired, and I felt a bit woozy as well—no doubt due to the liqueur. Perhaps it was better to put the notebook aside, to try again for sleep. I picked up the pencil and glanced down to close the notebook—

  —and saw words upon the page.

  I bent closer, puzzled. The words were pale, as if written with a dull pencil, but pressed into the page so hard it dented the paper. But there had been no words there, pale or otherwise. I had turned to a blank page. Or had I? I was exhausted, after all, and the light was dim. There must have been words there already that I hadn’t seen. I slapped the book shut and rose to take it back to the desk, glancing at the clock as I did so.

  It read five o’clock.

  Impossible. It couldn’t be five o’clock. I had got the notebook at about three-forty. I’d been sitting here no more than ten minutes, if that. I looked again, thinking I must have made a mistake, but no, the hands were clear, there was no mistake. Where had the hour and twenty minutes gone?

  My skin prickled; I felt suddenly as if I were being watched, and I spun around, staring hard into the shadows about my bed. I saw nothing, but the dread that came upon me was inescapable. I was clutching the pencil, and this time I dropped it purposefully and kicked it away. It rolled across the floor until it caught against the leg of the desk. And then it was as if something outside of me took my hand; I felt an urge I couldn’t deny, directing me to open the notebook I still held. The leaves separated neatly, opening exactly to where I’d last been, to the pale but heavily penciled words.

  I moved closer to the fire, to the candle, and brought the book to the light to see. The penmanship was terrible, the words difficult to make out:

  You are not listning and you SHD. There are those in the material world who WLD keep you from us and those who WLD use decepton. Do not let them. Yer world is lies and DEATH. Secrets and danger suround you. Hear from those who know, who have felt the knife of betrayal. The way for you is dark and cold, but you must find the truth and soon or be damned. Can you hear us call? We ask for justis. We CNT affect it from here, so you must do so for us. To understand is to AXCEPT, to AXCEPT is to KNOW. Heed those who WLD warn you. DNT deny those who will come to you. Go further than you will and be satisfyd. The truth is there for you to find if you will but trust a guide.

  I stared at the words in bewilderment. I had no idea what they meant. But it seemed clear that they were meant for me. And what seemed clearer still was that I had written them. It was not my handwriting, but it was. I recognized the t, the little flourish I always put on the s. My handwriting, but I remembered nothing of writing it. Reluctantly, I thought of the newspaper articles I’d read, of invisible and mysterious hands guiding one who wrote, of obscure messages meant to show the way to God. I knew what the circle would call this: a message from the spirits.

  I didn’t believe that, but neither did I know how I could have been made to do this thing, and that frightened me. I thought of my mother, who had spent the last months of her life staring into space, drawn into herself by her addiction to laudanum. Her habituation had been painful to witness. She had tried to dispense with it many times, but to no avail. I remembered my father sitting over her in bed as she shook, feeble and sweating, screaming for relief. Finally, he had determined she was happier with the laudanum than without, and I supposed that was true, though I often found myself wondering what happiness she saw as she stared numbly into space, watching a world beyond the one I knew, one that had shaped itself into some fascinating story for her alone.

  I had wondered if it was the laudanum that caused her growing madness, or the other way around. Had the medicine been the cause—or the cure? She had claimed to hear otherworldly voices since I was small; how often had I been made to suffer some wretched and foul poultice because of her belief that it would banish the “bad spirits” she saw lingering about me? I’d been afraid of the things she heard and the nightmares that were as vivid as my own, and so I was relieved when her laudanum dosage began to dull them both—but the relief it offered from ennui and night-mares had come at too great a price. I’d hoped that by denying my nightmares, they would go away. I had refused to admit that perhaps I’d inherited her propensity, and I’d been relieved that at least voices did not speak to or through me.

  At least, they never had before.

  The thought that her madness might be in me was terrifying. There must be a logical reason for this, a rational cause. There had to be some trick in it. I sank into the chair before the fire and stared into the flames and tried to determine the ways. I couldn’t deny it was my handwriting. How had Michel manipulated me? Was he a mesmerist, could he put me in a trance and make me do this? And if he had, when? Had he drugged me? Had he put something in my food or drink—

  I looked at the decanter on the desk, glowing with an almost sinister incandescence in the faint light. I rose and went to it, pulling off the stopper, leaning down to breathe deeply of it. I knew the scent of laudanum very well, and I smelled nothing of it here. Only a clean scent, rather grassy, a little bitter, very smooth.

  I put the stopper back into place with a trembling hand and went back to the chair, staring down at the notebook I’d abandoned on the floor. I grabbed it up and closed it. I did not want to look at it again, and until I understood what it meant, or how it had happened, I would say nothing.

  I put the notebook beneath my bed, where I thought no one would find it, and then I settled myself in bed and looked to the window, waiting for the dawn.

  By the time Kitty came to dress me, I was well and truly afraid. I’d never anticipated that Michel might have the power to do such things to me. Ben was right; I must escape this house as quickly as I could. I was determined to do what I could to clear my name today.

  While Kitty did my hair, I said, “The house is so quiet this morning. Where is Mr. Jourdain?”

  With quick ease, she twisted my hair into a chignon. “I don’t know where he is just now, ma’am. But it’s nearly eleven, and he usually goes to see Miz Bennett around this time.”

  “Does he?”

  “Oh yes. And don’t the rest of ‘em just love him for it too. That Agnes never stops talking about it.” Her voice rose in imitation. “ ‘The way he takes care of Miz Bennett—why, he’s such a gentleman! We mayn’t ever fear for her with him around!’ ”

  I couldn’t help smiling at her mockery. I glanced at the clock. It was eleven now, and I found myself tensing, waiting for the sound of his boot steps along the hallway.

  Kitty finished my hair, and while she straightened up the dressing table, I rose, going as nonchalantly as I could to the door. Again, I looked at the clock. Ten minutes after eleven. Surely he would go there now. I listened, and then I heard the opening of his door, and, before I had time to talk myself out of it, I opened my own, stepping back as I saw him, putting my hand to my heart in feigned surprise.

  He stopped. “Madame Atherton. Good morning.”

  “To you as well, Mr. Jourdain. Do you go to breakfast?”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  I cursed myself inwardly. “Well, I—I’m afraid—”

  “As it happens, I’ve already eaten,” he said smoothly. “I was going to Dorothy.”

  I tried to hide my relief. “I would hate to disrupt her schedule.”

  “Perhaps you’d care to join me for tea this afternoon? I’ve some things to discuss with you.”

  “Of course,” I said, though the moment I said the words I began thinking of excuses.

  “Later then,” he said. I watched him go to Dorothy’s room, the quick knock, the entry without invitation, the quiet closing of the door. He did not look back at me.

  I took a deep breath and closed my own door behind me, and then I crossed the hall to his. The knob turned smoothly in my hands, and my mouth went dry with nervousness. I had expected the door to be locked, but it was open, and I had no choice b
ut to enter before someone spotted me. With a final look down the hall, I slipped inside.

  Where the guest room I inhabited was feminine with its delicate furniture, its blues and whites, his was its masculine counterpart. The dark green drapes were open to let in the overcast light of late morning, which glimmered darkly over the polished rose-wood furniture. The evidence of his inhabitance was everywhere—a frock coat on the back of the chair, a tangle of ribands on the bedside table, a shaving strop hung next to a small mirror over the washbasin. The room smelled of him—sweat and something else, an herbal scent that I realized I associated with him, though I’d barely been aware of it.

  As it had the other night in the parlor, the room seemed to pulse with his presence, and it made me so nervous that I stumbled in my haste. There was a desk near one wall, and instinctively I went there first. It was heavily decorated, inlaid with mosaics of what looked like ivory. Above it hung a painting of a couple caressing each other before a great bed—the woman had masses of curling hair, the youth was darkly handsome. A calla lily sprung tall and upright from a vase next to them. It was uncomfortably hedonistic, and I tried to ignore it.

  His desktop was clean, unlike that of any other man I’d known. There was a single ledger pushed beneath a row of cubbyholes beside an ink bottle and scattered pen nibs, a well-used penwipe, and a cloisonné box. On the shelf above was a decanter, very like the one in my room, and I lifted the stopper and realized it held the same liqueur. My suspicions about the drink solidified, and I put the stopper carefully into place, and approached the desktop again more zealously.

  First I lifted the lid of the cloisonné box. Inside was the diamond and sapphire pin I’d seen him wear, along with a pile of rings—different stones, different settings, all expensive—a jeweled watch chain, a single cuff link set with an opal, along with four other sets of different design, and two other brooches, one of garnets and one decorated with diamonds and blue topaz. A fortune in jewelry, but that alone was not evidence.

  The desk had two large drawers; I tried them both, but they were locked, and I pawed through the cubbyholes, searching for a key—there was one, but it didn’t fit, and it looked so old and rusty I doubted it had any use at all. I opened the ledger, a listing of accounts and expenses, and glanced over the numbers, looking for anything suspicious, though I was aware of the foolishness of this—how would I know? It looked like the usual things: payments to Madison Clothiers and Jacques Larouche, tailor; Ball, Black and Company; and a perfumer’s in Union Square. He obviously had a liking for fine things; beyond these, he had so few expenses, there was not much to see.

  But the amounts listed under income were impressive. Payments—gifts, no doubt—of five thousand dollars, another six, two of four—just in the last six months alone. I wondered angrily how much of it had come from Peter, but none were itemized; he was clever enough to explain nothing. Michel Jourdain was a wealthy man. In the last year he’d amassed an income of nearly fifty thousand dollars.

  I closed the ledger and shoved it back into its place, and then I glanced about the room for where he might have hidden a desk key. There was a nightstand with a drawer by the bed, but when I opened it I saw nothing but handkerchiefs, and I was just bending to go through them when I heard footsteps in the hallway.

  I froze, but the footsteps passed—the maid, thank God. I closed the nightstand drawer softly and took a deep breath to calm my nerves. I glanced toward the door, and as I did, my eye was caught by a flash of light. I turned back quickly, trying to find it again, and then saw the way the window light slanted across the nightstand, glancing across a half-drunk glass of water, shimmering on the ribands—how many colors he had! More than any woman…

  Then I saw what I hadn’t before. The flash of a jewel hidden beneath the ribands. I thrust my fingers into the silks until I grabbed what felt like a chain, and pulled it loose.

  My heart seemed to stop. It was a chain, a watch chain, and one I knew. It was made of fine gold, adorned with pale sapphires to match his eyes, dangling with a charm—a tiny fish, with scales made of the smallest diamonds—in answer to a joke he used to make about fishing for me in muddy waters. “Who knew there was such an exotic thing there among the eels?”

  Peter’s watch chain. A gift from me in the first year of our marriage. He’d worn it since, but it had not been found on him when he died. It had been taken, either in a robbery or in the semblance of one… .

  I dropped the chain into my palm, where it sent cats of light about the room. To have found this… to have found it here, where it should not have been, where it could not have been unless Michel Jourdain had taken it himself… I clasped the chain tightly. This was what I needed. It was not the adoption papers, but surely it was evidence enough. How ironic that it was to be something of Peter’s that would save me!

  Again I heard the footsteps of the maid. I looked toward the door, seeing her shadow pass beneath it. I knew I could not tarry. Michel’s appointment with Dorothy could not last that long, regardless of what he did there. I looked back at the watch chain pooled in my hand. I wanted to take it with me—it should be mine, now that Peter was gone, and it was so precious—but I knew I could not. Michel would know someone had been in his room, and I could not afford to keep something that might prove to be evidence in Peter’s murder. I must leave it here where I found it and tell Benjamin. He would know what to do about it.

  But I was reluctant to put it back. I curled my fingers around it, squeezing as if I could imprint it into my hand, and then I pressed it to my lips. Only then did I let it slide from my fingers, hiding it again in the pile of ribands where it coiled like a snake. Then I went to the door, pausing to listen before I opened it slowly. The hallway was empty. I eased out, closing the door tightly behind me.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Molly knocked on my door and said, “Mr. Jourdain’s waiting for you in the parlor, ma’am. He says you’re to have tea.”

  I had forgotten all about it, but finding Peter’s watch chain had removed my fear of Michel. Now that I knew he’d killed Peter, now that I knew he had manipulated me, I felt a hard triumph. And though I realized I must be cautious, I went into the parlor believing I had the advantage again.

  He was sitting with long-limbed elegance upon the settee, with the tea set before him, along with a platter of tiny lemon tarts and sandwiches of biscuits and thinly sliced ham.

  He rose when he saw me, and that set off a spate of coughing. I waited politely until it ended, and then I sat across from him in a silk-upholstered chair.

  He motioned toward the teapot and said, “Would you do the honors, Madame? I’m sure you’ve more grace than I.”

  I perched on the edge of my seat and poured, and handed him his cup, though I was careful not to do so much as brush his fingers when I gave it to him.

  “Would you care for a lemon tart? They’re Cook’s specialty, and my favorite.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I told him. “You have things to discuss with me?”

  “Ah, so this is how it’s to be? No friendly comment on the weather? Not even a ‘Will it be as cold today, d’you think?’ A pity. I’d so hoped for diversion. I’m sorely in need of it.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t oblige you. I find I’m not much in the mood to be diverting.” I looked down into my tea.

  He said, “Life’s a trial in itself, eh? Fortunately, you’ve one thing to look forward to.”

  I glanced up. “What would that be?”

  “Why, your development, of course.” Idly, he ran a finger around the rim of his cup, and I found myself drawn by the motion, almost mesmerized by it. “Dorothy’s quite insistent that I tutor you.”

  Now I heard the danger in his voice; my sense of having the advantage over him weakened. “What did you tell her?”

  “That I would, of course. I obey her every whim.”

  I thought I heard a slight mockery, even self-deprecation, but I wasn’t certain. “I release you from your duty,” I said, putting the
cup aside. “Especially as you seem so opposed to it.”

  “Ah, but I don’t have to be.” He too set down his cup, stretching out his legs, leaning forward. “I think you’ll find I can be very accommodating.”

  I rose abruptly, without thinking, wishing only to put space between us. I went to the window and pulled aside the drapes to look outside. “Mr. Jourdain, you made yourself perfectly clear. As I told Dorothy, I’ve no wish to inconvenience you.”

  “But you’ve inconvenienced me already, Madame.Whether you like it or no, I’m bound by my promise to Dorothy. She’d be unhappy if I ignored it.”

  “God forbid you make her unhappy.”

  “You’ve the grasp of it, it seems.”

  I heard the creak of the settee as he rose, and I focused on the scene outside—the watchman across the street, the muddy lawn, the last vestiges of snow in the lee of the house, the slushy, icy brown of it in the gutters. Still, I was sensitive to his every move. I made myself remember Peter’s watch chain tangled in with his ribands, and tried to raise anger; instead I felt only panic as Michel drew closer. Then I felt him standing behind me.

  “It’ll be spring soon,” he said casually. Then, softly, “You wear a distinctive perfume, Madame—what is it? Lily, I think, with something… ah, what is that? Something sharp—ginger, perhaps? Why, I think I’d know it anywhere. It lingers… even after you leave a room.”

  He knew.

  He leaned closer. “It’s quite unusual. Very like you.”

  “P-Peter chose it.”

  “Did he? That surprises me. I don’t believe he would’ve spent time choosing a scent for a woman he neglected.”

  It was meant to inflame me; I knew this, but I was unable to stop myself from reacting. “He did not neglect me.” I turned quickly to face him—only to find he was much closer than I’d thought. I stepped back and nearly lost my balance, and as I reached to regain it, he grabbed my elbow, steadying me and at the same time pulling me closer, so there was only the width of my skirts between us.