But then, had not I formed an instant opinion of her, too? And there was sorrow behind her words. Some personal pain.
He remembers she had said it was a relative who used Mr. Chow Li’s services. He can only imagine how terrible it must be for her—for a woman like her—to have to go to such a place. It is a measure of her character that she would undertake such a mission. She cut a striking figure, tall and elegant in her hooded cape. A point of restrained glamor amid the gray, brutal surroundings of Bluegate Fields. When he was introduced to her in Mangan’s studio he found himself awkward in her company. Disturbed by being so close to her. She has a presence that is not easily ignored. Later that same day, over black tea with no sugar, the children having eaten the last of it on bitter oranges from the leavings at Brewer Street market, Jane told him more about her. The daughter of a duke, born into one of the wealthiest families in London.
No use Bram from Yorkshire filling his head with thoughts of a member of the aristocracy.
He knows how these things work. He knows how society ladies like to amuse themselves with artists who are the talk of the town. And those artists are rarely too proud to undertake their commissions. Poverty has a way of taking the edge off principles. Hunger can blunt them altogether. Mangan is no different from the many creative men who have been required to bend their talents to suit the whim of a patron. Charlotte Pilkington-Adams’s parents will pay handsomely for the sculpture. Bram will strive to produce a portrait of her in the hope they will decide to purchase it, too. The young woman would enjoy the thrill of being a muse for a short while, and then the dalliance would be over. Perhaps Lady Lilith would accompany her, if only to make certain her friend is not led into some nefarious habits. She would no doubt be polite and take a modest interest in the process. But then the artwork would be completed, and the acquaintance would be at an end.
And our paths would be unlikely ever to cross again.
The thought causes an unexpected tightness in his chest, which in turn makes him feel annoyed at his own foolishness. He snatches up a rag and dips it in turpentine. He hesitates for a moment, his hand hovering above the surface of the canvas. The acrid smell of the turpentine brings him to his senses. With mounting irritation he rubs at the canvas, watching with some morbid satisfaction as the image blurs, the colors melt, and the shapes lose their definition as he works to erase the dismal painting.
* * *
The heat of summer fades and the year falls quietly into autumn. I find my grief for my father is also undergoing subtle transformations. The disbelief at his passing, the numbness of the early days, the gnawing ache as I adjust to life without him—all these phases come and go in such a short space of time I am only able to see them clearly with the crystal vision of hindsight. Now, just a few months after his death, and after so many mutations, my grieving has settled into a constant undertow of sadness that tugs at my mood and my thoughts seemingly without respite. The sorrow wearies me.
What must it be like for poor Mama? I am young enough to have a future to travel toward, whereas she is propelled only by her past now. Nor does she have the comfort of knowing, as I do, that dear Father is never far from us.
I cherish the all too brief moments I have been able to spend in the company of my father’s spirit. I was taught, many years ago, of the progression of the soul from the living world after a person dies. I understand that contact with a spirit in the Land of Night is easier, more vivid, more tangible almost, in those first precious weeks. Gradually the pull of the noncorporeal realm grows stronger, so that it is harder to keep that connection. And when it is possible to commune with the departed, the connection is increasingly distant, increasingly faint, increasingly tenuous.
As is my habit, once the household is abed for the night, I slip silently down the narrow wooden staircase and go out into the garden. The cool night soothes me. I am wearing a soft woolen shawl over my nightclothes and red brocade slippers, and my hair hangs in a heavy plait down my back. The night air has a freshness about it that suggests the first frost of the season might adorn the plants and lawns before morning. After such a long, airless summer in the city, I am glad of the shift in the weather. I follow the path past the now-bare magnolia tree and take a seat on the small patio in front of the summer house. From the other side of the walls that enclose the garden come sounds of London slumbering. A lone carriage makes its way around the square, the hoofbeats of the sprightly horse that pulls it dwindling as it heads east. Some ways off a dog barks a muffled warning. Through an open upstairs window of the neighboring residence drift the subsiding sobs of a new baby, shushed with a lullaby. I close my eyes. I often sit in the stillness of the night, relishing the peace, feeling the darkness easing my worries, letting my mind open and float as if in a waking dream. Father showed me that the dark was nothing to fear. It is what people imagine it hides that terrifies them. I know the shadows to be peopled with all manner of souls stepping through time, traveling lightly between this world and the next, either at their own bidding or while being summoned. This time, however, I feel apprehensive. Whereas ordinarily I am at ease calling the spirits to talk to me, I realize now that I am wary. Since the Dark Spirit began to stalk my mind and ambush my thoughts, I am loath to do anything that might reawaken him. If he is listening to me so much of the time, if he is so present, surely my communing with others from the Land of Night will provoke him into speaking once more.
Perhaps I should do just that. What manner of Lazarus witch am I if I allow such a spirit to make me a reluctant necromancer? Should I always step cautiously in fear of him? Might that not be the very thing the Sentinels want? No, better that I face him. Better that I make him see I will not be cowed. Not be frightened.
I set my feet flatly on the ground, place my hands in my lap, palms up, bow my head forward, eyes still closed, and allow my mind to quiet and settle. My breathing slows and deepens. My pulse steadies and lightens. Slowly the earthly sounds about me grow fainter and more distant until they seem to come from some far-off place and have nothing whatever to do with me. My lips move as I silently recite the common prayer for calling those who have passed on to the Land of Night. I repeat the arcane words, which are as familiar to me as the Christian prayers I was taught to say by my nanny before bed. The rhythm builds to a chant, over and over and over, until my mind has entered an altered, meditative state. At last I stop, sitting motionless, listening, waiting. Within seconds there comes the familiar chill of the cool, airless breath of the deceased upon my neck.
So close! Who is there? Who has answered my call?
There is no reply, but I know beyond doubt that I am no longer alone. The simple request has brought forth a spirit willing to talk with me. It is not my father, of that I am sure, for I spoke with him only last night in the crypt and the frequency of our meetings has begun to tire him. He would not come unless I specifically asked for him.
Who are you?
When this spirit speaks the words have no sounds as such, but feel as if they are laid, one by one, directly onto my consciousness. I understand this to be an indication that the person is very long dead. Decades at the least. Centuries, maybe. The language the deceased has chosen to communicate in is an ancient English, peppered with phrases of Latin. I sense the presence is male. I focus on what I am being told. Although the presence is strong the words are indistinct and somewhat muddled.
The challenger? Can you tell me about the challenger, Gentle Spirit?
More words form and drift through my mind, seemingly unconnected, snippets of what appear to be archaic ritual mantras or creeds. Words referring to power and strength. Words that tell of great sorrow to come.
Sorrow for whom?
The message remains unclear, though its tone, its strength of feeling, are unmistakable. And now, suddenly, I feel someone else close, someone threatening. And I know it is the Dark Spirit.
You look to the wrong people for help, Daughter of the Night.
Won’t you tell
me who you are? Why you haunt me? Who is making you do this?
Your pretense at interest in me beyond what threat I pose is a thin disguise. I know all Lazarus witches dissemble when it suits them. Such sly creatures, afraid to show their true selves.
If you think that, then surely you must wish to reveal your identity to me?
A movement in the shadows startles me, making my heart leap. I am not alone, and whoever is with me in the garden now is not a visiting spirit.
“Who’s there?” I ask, my voice, though a whisper, sounding loud in the stillness that surrounds me. “Who is it?”
“Tis only I, darling sister,” says Freddie, stepping onto the patio beside me. Here the moonlight falls unimpeded by trees or foliage so that, while not strongly illuminated, my brother is plainly visible.
“What are you doing out here at this hour?” I demand, more abruptly than I had intended. My heart is still thudding from conversing with the Dark Spirit. However unnerving his presence, I need to challenge him, to show him I will not be threatened by him. To find out if he does truly act at the behest of the Sentinels. But now Freddie is here, and I must turn my attention to him.
“I might ask you the same question,” he replies, lowering himself onto a chair. “But then, I know better than to inquire after your … curious nighttime activities. Father taught me well. If I was not good enough to join your merry little band, the very least I could do was to keep its existence a secret.”
“It can’t have been easy for you,” I say, and I mean it. I myself hate the lies I have to tell to protect the coven. How much harder must such deceit be for one who feels excluded from it?
Freddie sighs and runs a hand through his sleek black hair. There are moments he so resembles Father. And yet, in truth, he is little like him. He looks heartbreakingly sad. And so very alone. What happened to that happy little boy who shared my childhood?
As if reading my thoughts, Freddie smiles suddenly. “Do you remember that very hot summer before I went off to Harrow? We spent every afternoon swimming in the lake.”
I soften at the memory. “The minute we could escape from the appalling Mr. Carstairs. Oh! Was there ever a more boring tutor?”
“Papa thought he would make us serious.”
“Mama thought his manners very fine, as I recall.”
“Plain fact is, we’d seen off so many tutors, it was hard to find one who’d take us on.”
“You’d seen them off. I was a ridiculously well-behaved child.”
Freddie grins. “If it pleases you to think so I won’t argue,” he says. “Let’s agree at least that you were a willing coconspirator in my adventures.”
“I certainly remember counting those dragging hours until we could escape to the lake that summer. You built a swing so we could drop into the deep water.”
“I was a particularly fine dropper, you’ll allow that. Some spectacular backward flips.”
“No one else could do it.”
“I was the unchallenged king of the flip. Even our wretched cousins couldn’t match me.”
“Partly because you kept putting them off with well-timed shouts about their ludicrous bathing costumes.”
“Well, they were ludicrous. They had only themselves to blame for presenting such easy targets.”
I laugh lightly, surprising myself with the unfamiliar sound. It has been a long time since I have laughed.
“We used to have fun, Freddie, didn’t we?”
He nods.
“It all seems an age ago,” I say.
“We were children.” He raises his hands in a gesture of hopeless acceptance. “And now we are adults and life is not allowed to be fun anymore.”
“Oh, Freddie.”
“I don’t think I make a very good adult at all,” he decided. “I should have stayed a child.”
I lean forward and take his hand. To see him so beaten by life when he is barely nineteen years old pulls at my heart.
“You were so happy at Radnor Hall,” I say, clearly picturing the bright-eyed boy he had been, scampering among the undulating gardens of our country estate, or urging his pony on at breakneck speed across the parkland, or climbing to the very top of the tallest tree in the orchard to reach the best apple. “Why don’t you go back there? Just for a while,” I race on as he slowly shakes his head. “Oh, think about it, Freddie, at least consider the idea.”
“I would shrivel up and die there.”
“But you love the place. You were so content there, so free…”
“I was a boy, Lil. I can’t go back to being seven.”
“You could shoot and hunt and fish. The air might put some color back in your cheeks.”
He smiles at me ruefully now, gently taking his hand from mine. “You and I both know my devilishly fashionable pallor has nothing whatever to do with a want of fresh air.”
“I can’t stand seeing you so unhappy. And nor can Mama. After losing Papa, it distresses her to see you unwell. And of course she cannot know the cause.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty you needn’t bother. I already hate myself quite sufficiently, thank you.”
“Freddie.” I snatch up both his hands this time. “I really do believe going home to Radnor Hall could help. There are not so many … distractions there.”
He gives a mirthless laugh. “Out of temptation’s way, you mean. No Mr. Chow Li to tend to my needs.”
“Perhaps it is too easy for you, living in London, too easy to…”
“My darling sister, I can assure you, nothing is easy for me.”
In the silence that follows I search desperately for the right words, for the words that would make him listen to me. The small clouds that have been partly obscuring the bright moon part briefly, allowing pearly moonbeams to fall upon Freddie’s face. The shadows beneath my brother’s eyes deepen, so that I feel I am gazing into the empty sockets of a skull. The image is so powerful it makes me gasp. As if sharing my vision, the Dark Spirit speaks again.
Your brother does not belong in the Land of Day!
Be gone! My brother has nothing to do with you.
Freddie notices my change in mood.
“You are cold,” he says. “Let’s go in.”
I try to remain in the moment with him, forcing myself to press him to go away. I will not let the wicked spirit come between me and my brother. “Is there nothing that would persuade you?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. Really, you don’t.”
“But what is there for you here? Apart from … I mean … you haven’t anybody to stay for…”
“That you disapprove of my friends comes as no surprise, Lil, but they are my friends. They … understand me.”
“They use you.” I cannot help speaking my mind. “I’ve seen how they take advantage of your good nature and your money.”
“Am I so very loathsome? Can I only buy friendship?”
“That is not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it? What use am I to you? Or to Mama? Or to anyone? At least my friends value me, in their own unedifying way.”
“We value you. I value you.”
“You can’t look at me without that dreadful pitying expression you seem to reserve solely for me. Do you know, it is precisely the way our dear late father used to look at me? Quite a legacy you have there, that disappointed look.”
I feel the familiar exasperation a conversation with Freddie often brings about. Taking a breath, I try hard not to sound as despairing of him as I feel. At last I say, “I miss you, Freddie. I miss the brother I had.”
“I’m sorry about that, sister dear, truly I am. To be honest, I quite miss me, too, sometimes. But there it is. The clock cannot be made to run backward. Time has shaped me into the person I am now, like it or not.” He takes a silver cigarette case from his inside pocket and selects a small Russian cigar. He lights it and inhales deeply, filling the air with the smell of dark, treacly tobacco. “Being in mourning doesn’t help a fellow, I
must say. Doesn’t help one bit. All this moping around, wearing black, having to turn down invitations endlessly.”
“It’s not for very long,” I say, though in my heart I agree with him.
“Feels like an age already, and Mama is determined we suffer this purgatory for a whole year. A year! I shall lose what little there is of my mind. Only this morning I overheard the Lindsay-Brown girls discussing a fabulous ball being planned for March and when I asked why I had not been invited I was told there was no point as I would still be unable to accept. March, Lilith. That’s next spring.” He smokes energetically, and his left leg has begun to jiggle. The thought takes hold in my mind that Freddie might actually be right. Being in mourning means he has even less to do than usual. He could not be persuaded to take an interest in Parliament, and he is a social outcast, and will continue to be so for months yet, because of the death of our father. An idea comes to me.
“I will strike a bargain with you,” I tell him. He raises an eyebrow and waits. “If you agree to spend the winter at Radnor Hall … no, hear me out.” I hold up a hand to fend off his interruption. “If you leave London and return home for the next four months, I will see to it that Mama agrees to have us officially out of mourning in time for the ball in March.”
“She’d never agree to it,” he scoffs.
“She will. I promise.”
He hesitates, clearly tempted by the idea.
“I’d have your word? I swear if you make me endure a winter of Radnorshire weather and all that dangerously fresh air for nothing I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
“If you go, and stay there, just until the end of February, I’ll accompany you to the wretched ball myself.” I watch his face closely. “Well? Do we have a deal, Your Grace?”
“Only if you promise never to call me that again. Makes me feel like a bally bishop,” he says, laughing as I throw my arms around his neck.
The Midnight Witch Page 12
