by Quenby Olson
"Don’t," I say, or I breathe, so distrustful of my convulsive throat that I dare not lend any strength to my voice. I could push him away, if I wanted. I do raise my hand, my fingers unfurled and ready to grasp his own hand and throw it away from me. But instead I step back, once, twice, and find myself pressed against the library door, the same door that Chissick must be standing on the other side of at this very moment. I imagine that if I put forth the effort, I would be able to sense his presence, to touch the fringe of his thoughts. But Ryall closes in, and I discover that it is his heightened energy, the blood racing through his limbs, lending a brightness to his face, his eyes, that overwhelms all else.
"You are not afraid of me? Not still?"
My wish is to hold off the pain that threatens to bombard my skull. I feel it now, hardly a pinprick, so small that it could be nothing more than my fear of it causing me to overreact at the slightest twinge beneath my skin. I close my eyes, my eyelids shuddering with the task of forcing out the distractions. I listen to Ryall’s breath, concentrating on that single thing until I’m able to sort through the whisperings that congregate in the corners of the room. They want to scream at me, but I’m able to hold them off, perhaps because I'm stronger today than I'm willing to admit, or—and what is more likely the truth—because provoking my sanity is not high on their list of interests this evening.
My tongue slides across my lips, seeking to moisten them, but my mouth is too dry, my breath too quick for the attempt to be met with any success. "I am not afraid of you," I say, my voice stronger now than a moment ago. "You were never worth my fear."
A blank look on his face before the barb strikes its target. His eyes widen, just for a second, before he staggers back. "You’re cruel." His hand, the same hand that touched my cheek, finds its way to his chest, his fingers splayed above his heart. "I loved you."
And he waits. He waits for his declaration to elicit some great reaction, but all I can give him is a sigh, followed by the slightest shake of my head. "Lovely words. Nothing more."
Pre-empting any response he can make, I reach back, my hand grasping for the doorknob, the sweat on my palm greasing the cool metal of the hardware before my fingers are able to work it properly.
Some part of me expects Chissick to tumble into the room as I make my departure, but he has stationed himself in the hallway, about three feet from the library door. The position of his arms and legs tells me that my sudden return interrupted him mid-stride, and except for the lack of a cigarette, I realise he is near to the exact position he was in when I found him upon my doorstep several days before.
"Oh," is all that he says. But even that is an exaggeration. For I don’t make out his voice, only the shape of his mouth as it mimics the vowel that I cannot hear.
Behind me—even without looking I know that he clings to the space I recently vacated—Ryall reaches out as if to halt my progress. His fingertips brush my sleeve, when he must see Chissick, and the hand falls away. A frisson of something travels up the length of his spine, stiffens his shoulders, realigns his neck, raises his chin. The plea that was about to be whispered for my ears alone dies before it is sounded. Ryall clears his throat and adjusts his collar. His return to the role of host is a reluctant one, and as he regards Chissick for the second time this evening, I assume it is nothing more than sheer force of will that revives the smile on his perspiring face.
It is clear that Ryall wants to be gone. One look at Chissick, and he assumes that his position in my life has been usurped. But still the desire is there, to cling to me, to win me back to his side with a soft crooning in my ear, his words of love, an ever-growing list of promises made to me, as if my renowned ability, the very power that attracted him, could not possibly know what his mind, what his very soul truly wanted.
"Ah, I’ve neglected my guests for too long," Ryall says, all reluctance to leave me again, to leave me with another man at my side. He moves forward with a glaring intention to take my hand, to grasp my arm, to claim possession of me, but he stops himself. His hand works through the air uselessly. A brief nod, a tug at his collapsed collar, and he turns away.
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
* * *
Though Ryall has taken his leave of us, I make no move to follow him back towards the main rooms. I hear the chatter of the guests, no single words or phrases discernible, only a laugh here or there, the clink of a glass, the opening and closing of the front door.
Chissick remains beside me. I have to give him some credit for not launching into an interrogation about my private dialogue with Ryall, though his curiosity has risen to such a palpable level that it radiates from every part of him, strong enough to make me blink.
"I am sorry," I say, for no other reason than it appears to set Chissick at ease.
He looks back, makes certain that Ryall is out of sight. "Is that what brought you here tonight? You needed to speak to him?"
"No, that was an unanticipated delay." I match the direction of Chissick’s glance, and when I’m sure that we’re alone, I reach out and touch his arm. "Are you ready?"
He nods once. Not a single word from his lips about what he needs to be ready for.
I walk forward, down the length of the narrow hall. The servants’ stairs are before me, and there's a brief hesitation while I decide whether to follow the path in front of me or to go through one of the doors that stand closed on either side. Noting the lack of a bannister, I place my hand on the wall and tug at my skirts, raising them enough so that I can move at speed without fear of tripping over my hem.
As I move briskly to the next floor, I give myself a moment to consider what Chissick's thoughts must be at this time. Perhaps he assumes that I know my way through the house because of a message obtained from one of the many spectres drawn towards me, but the truth is something much more banal. Though it's been years, I've traversed these stairs before. My hand slid over this same wall, and when I step onto the landing, even the sound of my heel striking the oak floor rings forgotten memories to life.
But his hand was so cold, despite the sweat that lined his palm, and you wanted to pull away, but something in his touch, in the way he looked over his shoulder, in the way he looked at you, was enough to dispel your fears, for a time.
"You are such a lovely thing," he said. And again, there was his touch. Circling your wrist, over the smooth skin of your forearm, until his fingertips grazed your elbow, and then...
"Miss Hawes?"
I look around, unaware that I'd stopped moving. Chissick is in front of me now, and the stairs are so close that one step back, and there would be nothing to catch me before the fall.
"This way," I say, nodding to the left, towards the only door on that side of the landing.
Chissick allows me to lead the way. Every few seconds, I glance back to see his eyes narrow upon me, as if to reassure himself that I'm still there in the gloom, that the second set of footsteps tapping along the boards before him are indeed produced by a creature of flesh and bone, and nothing less substantial. A small smile touches my mouth, and I begin to think that maybe he's spent too much time in my company.
So much time that he knows when to draw up beside me, how much space to allow me as we move together, until the light of the hall is once again behind me and I face the outline of my own shadow upon the papered wall of Ryall's bedroom.
A quick survey of my surroundings and I realise that no one unaccustomed to Ryall’s habits would be able to recognise the room as belonging to a peer. The furniture is shabby and mismatched. The drapes are heavy things, laden with dust, or perhaps it is the detritus of their own slow decay. The untrimmed wick of an oil lamp sputters with the smoke of a weak blue flame. And even in the semi-darkness, there is no mistaking the hideous paper that decorates all four walls.
"Ryall never married," I say, as if that statement alone should explain the state of his private quarters.
"No children?"
I shake my head. "Well, noth
ing legitimate, at least. That, and he’s always been something of a child himself. For him to have a son or daughter of his own... I don’t think he’d relish the competition."
While Chissick seems to be involved with examining the door frame, I busy myself with the removal of my gloves, one finger at a time, finally tugging them free and folding them over each other before tucking them into the waistband of my skirt. The small chore is nothing more than a distraction, a way to divert my attention from the images currently tumbling over themselves behind my eyes, all the better to examine them without giving any one of them more attention than it deserves.
"He keeps the papers pertaining to his business matters in his study," I tell him as I move towards the nightstand. I flip through several books and newspapers before bending down to search through the drawers. "His secrets, however, he’s always preferred to keep here, in his bedroom."
I look back to see Chissick standing in the centre of the room, his arms at his sides, his expression blank. "And what particular secret are we currently looking to uncover?"
I abandon the nightstand for its twin on the other side of the bed. "To be honest, I am not sure." I’m distracted by a small book, sporting a cover of soft brown leather and pages that crinkle from heavy use as I flip through them. I recognise Ryall’s hand, and when I pause to scan a few lines of his own poorly composed poetry, I scoff and toss it back to where I found it. "Sissy sent us here. She sensed his connection with—" I glance up at Chissick and away again. "—the woman you took me to see. And when I was downstairs with him… Well, it was the strangest thing. It was as if a wall, a barricade had been constructed around some of his thoughts and memories. Of course, I’ve encountered something like it before. You," I say, and shift my full attention on to him as I make my way around from the other side of the bed. "There are things you don’t want me to know. Things you would rather keep private."
He says nothing to this, but I hear his breathing, more rapid now than it had been a few seconds before. And his eyes; those blue orbs are darting about rather quickly, as if testing the boundaries of my face without wishing to look completely away.
"And that’s nothing out of the ordinary," I assure him. "Most people are capable of such strength of will. But with Ryall, it was different. I am not even sure he was aware of it, and that’s what worries me most of all."
Chissick clears his throat and begins to speak, his voice stronger than before. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, someone doesn’t want me rattling around in Ryall’s head. Someone, whether with his permission or not, has effectively locked me out of a portion of his mind."
He blinks, as if startled. "Such a thing is possible?"
I nod. "Apparently so."
I leave him, a companion to his disbelief, as I begin to move about the rest of the room, not touching anything, but simply allowing my own thoughts to focus, to settle. The images return, flashing with a speed that renders me almost breathless. As the pain builds to a level that is just shy of intolerable, I pull back, the sounds, the colours fading to a mere flicker.
I let a final glimmer slip through, and I gesture to Chissick, leading him towards the fireplace.
"Over here," I say. "You’re blocking the light."
He obeys without question, and I sense his proximity as my fingers glide along the underside of the mantel, clearing away a fine layer of soot that floats down to the floor with all the weight of a feather. A small sound of triumph erupts from me when I come across an edge that is not quite flush with the rest of the woodwork, but it takes some effort to open the panel, so much that I rearrange my posture, bracing one foot on the grate while I heave until the stubborn, warped wood breaks free. The sudden release sends me staggering back, but there, sticking out of the corner of the mantelpiece, a small drawer, tilting towards the floor beneath the weight of its contents.
Chissick should be the first to move. He has only to lean forward and allow the light from the hall to illuminate the depths of the drawer and whatever secrets it contains. But, no. Instead, he douses whatever curiosity he may have and reaches out with his free hand to steady me, though I managed to regain my balance some seconds before. And yet his hand remains on my arm, a chivalrous gesture, if I'm inclined to be generous. But no word of thanks falls from my lips, and as if stung, he takes his hand away, bows his head, offers up an apology.
"Please," I say. Nothing but that single word, begging him, really. But for what, to do what, I can't say. So he steps back, and I return my attention to the drawer, or more accurately, to the objects hidden inside.
They are letters, mostly. Hundreds of them arranged into neat stacks, and beyond the letters, pushed back into the farthest recesses of the compartment, a pile of trinkets: a single satin glove, an earring, a thin ribbon tied around a lock of dark hair. A regular horde of trophies, collected from every lover, every paramour in Ryall's long history of relationships. The age of the letters is inconsequential. It's the emotions that still emanate from them, and I think should I hold onto them for too long, like a contagion, those feelings, those florid phrases and declarations of undying passion will infect my own person. So there is little eagerness on my part to search through the stacks of sonnet-ridden missives, but something pulls me on, something tucked away in here that I must find, an essence, faint and rapidly fading, that carried me all this way in the first place.
There's no ceremony, no yielding to etiquette as I give my skirts a shift and settle down in front of the cold fireplace, the pile of letters gathered in my lap like a prize, something I'm reluctant to part with. Above me now, Chissick hesitates before lowering himself to his haunches, then to his knees, his eyes darting towards the door as if he expects a battalion from Scotland Yard to discover our crime at any moment.
"Are you planning to read through all of those?" His nod takes in the papers now spilling out from the boundaries of my lap, and I glance at him before picking up the topmost letter, running my fingers over the edges of the envelope, and tossing it aside.
"No, I am not." Another letter discarded, another one snatched up from the collection. "At least, not at this moment."
"But you knew those letters were there."
I pause. At this rate, I'll still be combing through the overstuffed envelopes come next Christmas. "Well, I knew something was there."
Seeking for something with which to occupy his smothered curiosity, for a reason to remain where he is, Chissick picks up one of the discarded letters and, after unfolding the two closely-writ pages, begins to read. But he doesn't continue for more than a minute. A curse, or something very much like it is exhaled on a breath, and he refolds the letter, pitches it away with no little show of embarrassment. Yet give him a moment, perhaps two, and there! His arm extends again, his inquisitiveness piqued by that first missive, and soon, he is scanning the lines of another, enraptured by the most private declarations of love from a young woman to her beau.
Further through the stack, I come across an assortment of cards, calling cards, and a few portraits, as well. All of them are of young women, all of them reclining, doe-eyed, seemingly unaware that their skirts are arranged in such a way that a few inches of ankle is on display, or the soft curve of an upper arm. But these pictures are only an overture to what I find a moment later, a small stack of portraits, evenly-sized, as if all of them are part of a collection, and all of them shuffled together and tied round the middle with a frayed bit of string.
"Dear God," Chissick mutters once he recognises what it is I hold in my hands. For these are no portraits of fine ladies revealing a bit of ankle and shoulder, but girls clad in nothing more than the pins in their hair, the rings on their fingers, and the smooth, alabaster skin they've worn since the day they were brought into this world.
It isn't until I remove the piece of string from around the pictures that Chissick moves to take them from my grasp.
"I'm sorry," he says, his fingers closing around mine. "You shouldn't be looking at such..."<
br />
"Such what?" I ask, a question that is rapidly chased by another. "And why not?"
He glances down at the pictures, then tears his gaze away, dragging it back to my face. "Well, because it's improper, for one thing."
How cruel it would be of me to ask for a second thing, if only to watch him stumble and stammer while his gaze struggles not to dip down to those portraits a second time. "It may have escaped your notice at some point during our acquaintance, but I am a woman. And as shocking as it may be for you to believe, I have seen myself naked on more than one occasion, so you'll pardon me if I am not offended by anything these ladies have to offer."
If there is a blush in his cheeks, the lack of proper light hides it from view. Releasing my hand, he nods. A sign that I may continue, if I please.
Indeed, there's nothing here that I have not seen before. The curve of a buttock, the swell of a hip, an arm draped demurely, covering one breast and yet leaving the other completely bare. And none of the women make eye contact with the camera. They behave as if they're not even aware that their portrait is being taken: gazes downcast, cheeks turned so that their faces are almost in profile, their eyes—the only things that would prevent them from resembling little more than statues in a museum—curtained by eyelids, by eyelashes, by eyebrows plucked to perfection.
I shuffle through them as I would a deck of cards, until they're indistinguishable from one another. The backdrop for every picture nearly identical, and there is always a settee, cushions, layers of drapes that I imagine to be rich in colour, perhaps a deep burgundy or even a dark green. And the girls show little difference between one another, except for a few slight alterations in the shade of their hair, the trimness of their figures, they could all be products of the same bloodline. And they are all young. No longer children, but neither have they reached the fullness of womanhood. And, I must say, I'm surprised by the predominance of brunettes, making my brief appearance in Ryall's history almost something of an anomaly.
