Crimson Peak: The Official Movie Novelization (8 page)

She thought to pursue the topic, but another patient was announced. And it was with some frustration, but more relief, that she took her leave.

* * *

In his grand boardroom, Carter Cushing had convened a group of geologists to observe Sir Thomas’s machine. The Englishman’s miniature was rattling away, and he had brought a topographical model of Allerdale Hall complete with hills and valleys, and crowned with a model of his house. The geologists were agog.

“The new deposits lie right beneath and around the house,” Sir Thomas elaborated, “in this stratum here—the reddest clay. The purest. And with enough ore in it to make it steel-hard after baking.”

Cushing watched as Sir Thomas managed the questions and took every opportunity to put forward his plans.

William Ferguson came up beside him and murmured, “I don’t know about you, but I am impressed.”

“I must say that so am I,” Cushing replied.
But not in the same way. Most definitely not.

Sir Thomas smiled at him, having overheard the exchange. Cushing decided to make the next move.

“Gentlemen, we should continue our discussions tonight at dinner. At my house,” he said warmly, returning Sharpe’s smile. But his mood was anything but warm; he felt positively glacial. “Who knows? We may have a toast to make.”

The group broke up and walked in twos and threes out of the room. His secretary drew him aside, and there he found Mr. Holly with the additional document he had asked him to acquire. He perused it. So. It was true.

“Well done, Sir Thomas,” Ferguson said to Sharpe as he passed by him on his way out. “Well done.”

Not so fast
, Cushing thought grimly.

G
UESTS MILLED
;
SERVANTS
bustled. Dinner at Cushing Manor was to be a grand affair. The fragrant scents of meat and wine tantalized Thomas’s senses as he and Lucille prepared to enter the dining room. The atmosphere was charged with the same excitement that had accompanied his demonstration this afternoon, and he knew that, at last, success was to be his.

Edith’s home was lovely, so different from their own. Yellow light gleamed from the candles; gas lamps shone through panels of stained glass. It was the palace of a fairy princess, and Thomas could well envision a younger Edith and her mother reading stories, blond heads knocked together as they pored over pictures embellished with all the colors of a butterfly’s wings.

We are going to get the funding from these good men of Buffalo
, Thomas thought.
There is no need to go elsewhere.

And then there she was, Edith, golden and glowing like the sun. Romeo had said the same of Juliet; that love had been doomed, but for them—

Beside him, Lucille murmured in his ear, “Give her the ring.”

The Sharpe garnet no longer graced his sister’s hand. He remembered how it had gleamed on her long slender finger when she had played the piano at the McMichaels’ ball. It had been meant for Eunice, but once he had met Edith, he had known in his soul that Eunice had not been the proper choice. He knew Lucille was not entirely convinced that Edith was better, and that she had only acquiesced because she loved him so much.

Now as his sister moved apart from him, he felt a twinge of guilt, for he had not been entirely honest with her. He would give the ring to Edith, oh, he would, but not in the manner they had imagined. Not for that reason. Life was new for him. The sun had come out at last, and all those years in darkness—

—those secrets—

were over.

Such a weight rose from his shoulders, it was almost as if he himself had wings.

Before he grew too nervous, he approached Edith.

“May I have a word?”

She looked from him to the throng of guests and back again. “Right now, Thomas?”

She has stopped using my title
, he thought, very pleased. He had asked her to do so, and at first she had demurred. To hear his name on her lips…

“Yes, now. I am afraid I can’t wait,” he replied. He sighed, genuinely twitchy, and fumbled in his pocket for the ring. She was waiting, attentive. He had to do this well.

“Miss Cushing… Edith,” he amended, “I really have no right to ask this, but…”

Then, of all times, Edith’s father suddenly appeared. Thomas put the ring back in his pocket.

“Sir Thomas, may I see you in my study? You and your sister? If you would be so kind as to fetch her?” Cushing asked. He turned to his daughter. “Child, please see that the guests are seated. We will join you shortly.”

The skin of Thomas’s face prickled. He watched Edith recede into the distance like the sun sinking beneath the horizon. And then he went to find Lucille, as Mr. Cushing had asked—no, more correctly,
ordered
—him to do.

* * *

I take no satisfaction in this
, Carter Cushing thought, as Sir Thomas and Lady Sharpe joined him in his study. But truth was, he did. He had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and each time he won out over any challenge, he felt a thrill of victory. Perhaps it was petty of him, but it was the truth.

“Now, Lady Sharpe, Sir Thomas.” He regarded them both. So pale and dark, the two of them, practically twins. “The first time we met, at my office—”

“I recall it, sir. Perfectly,” Sir Thomas assured him.

Cushing raised a brow. “I imagine it wasn’t hard for you to realize I didn’t like you.”

Sir Thomas took his frank statement manfully. “You made that plain enough, sir. But I had hoped that now, with time…”

“Your time, Sir Thomas, is up.”
And thank God for that.

“Could you speak plainly, Mr. Cushing?” Lady Sharpe cut in. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

He was astonished at her brass.

“Plain I will be, missy. Plainer than you might like to hear. I have no idea what your implication is in the matters at hand, but in the past few days, your brother has deemed it fine enough to mix business with pleasure by repeatedly engaging socially with my daughter. My
only
daughter,” he added for emphasis.

“Sir, I am aware that I have no position to offer,” the young man said. “But the fact is…”

He fumbled, and Cushing regained the upper hand.

“You love my daughter, is that it?” He restrained his anger. There was no point to it. He had an end game in mind, and the sooner there, the better.

Sir Thomas matched his gaze. “Yes, sir, it is.”

“You play the part well.” An honest statement. “A few days ago, my daughter asked me why I didn’t like you. Honestly, at the time, I had no good answer. But now I do. I obtained some interesting records on you. English peerage, property records…”

He pulled out the envelope from Mr. Holly containing the documents he had paid an extra sum to acquire, and slid the contents across the table, toward the Sharpes. As he had anticipated, the corner of one piece in particular attracted Sir Thomas’s attention.

“But that document there, the Civil Registry, that’s the real find,” Cushing declared, nailing the coffin lid shut. A single glimpse of the seal was sufficient; the young man turned stark white.

“I believe that’s the first honest reaction I’ve seen from you.”

There was silence. Lady Sharpe was impossible to read, but Sir Thomas was a study in misery as he ground out, “Does she know?”

“No,” Cushing answered. “But I will tell her if that’s what it takes to send you on your way.”

Sharpe’s expression broke as he leaned forward, perhaps unconsciously. He said, “I am sure you won’t believe me, but—”

“You love her. You’re repeating yourself.” He opened his book of checks and wrote out the one on top. “Now you…” He held it out to Lady Sharpe. “You seem to be the more collected one, dear.”

Her eyes widened as she saw the amount. He took grim satisfaction in her avarice as it reinforced his very dim view of this nefarious pair.

“It’s more than generous, I know. But if you want that check to clear, there are two conditions.” He handed them two train tickets. “A train for New York City leaves first thing tomorrow morning. You and your brother better be on it. Do we understand each other?”

“We do.”

She was angry, and that made him angrier. She had no right to any emotion except shame. She took the check and the civil certificate. That damned, damning certificate. He was astonished at their arrogance, assuming that a foolish American from a backwater town wouldn’t think to check their credentials. Their days were not only numbered, they were over.

“What is the second condition?” she asked.

“That concerns my daughter.” He looked hard at the lecherous parasite that was her brother. “Tonight, you must thoroughly break her heart.”

* * *

The banquet was served, and Edith was busy ensuring the comfort of all her father’s guests. She had been the manor’s hostess ever since her mother’s death, and she was quite skilled at it. But tonight she was preoccupied, aware that Sir Thomas had begun to ask her a very important question—perhaps the most important question a woman was asked during the course of her entire lifetime—only to disappear with her father for a private discussion.

Which signified to her that she was correct about the nature of that question.

Her heart was fluttering in her chest; there were legions of butterflies in her stomach. She was unable to read Thomas’s expression as he and Lucille, seated as the two guests of honor, ate but little. If she
was
right, then Thomas had every prerogative to lack an appetite. According to her reading on the matter, men about to propose marriage tended to be very jittery. Could it be that his sister shared his anxiety because she wanted him to be happy? Edith had never had siblings, but had often wanted them. Lady Sharpe could be her sister, then. She was overjoyed at the prospect.

Stay calm, Edith
, she told herself, but the very air crackled around her.

Her father raised his glass.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have an unexpected announcement to make. Sir Thomas?”

Oh, God. Here it is. But he would speak to me first, yes? So am I wrong? Perhaps it’s not that at all. Perhaps the announcement is about their business partnership. I shouldn’t get my hopes up. It is too soon, and I am swooning like a foolish heroine in an Ann Radcliffe novel.

But no, he was looking straight at her and he raised his glass. Lingering on her face with those soulful blue eyes. He looked like a man about to announce a partnership of a far different kind.

“Thank you, Mr. Cushing,” he said. “When I came to America, my heart was brimming with a sense of adventure. Here the future actually seemed to mean something.”

She met his gaze. He was speaking of the future… their future?

“I have found warmth and friendship among you all. And for that, I am ceaselessly grateful.” He fell silent for a moment. Edith lived a lifetime in that pause.

His expression shifted, his gaze steady as before, but now it was sad. A tiny flash of alarm darted through her. Something was amiss.

“But for now, farewell. May we meet again. Perhaps on a different shore. My sister and I depart for England just in time for the winter.”

His little joke brought laughter and cheers around the table. But not from Edith. He was not proposing. He was
leaving.
Passing her by exactly as he had passed by poor Eunice.

But I thought… I thought he… loved…

Devastated, she murmured her excuses and escaped.

She did not know he had followed her until he spoke her name.

“Edith.”

She swallowed down her pain as she had on another snowy day, as true a death as this one visiting upon her breaking heart. She had thought… she had hoped…

“You are leaving us.” Each syllable was a struggle, but she betrayed nothing. Her voice was as steady as his gaze had been seconds before he delivered the killing blow.

“We must go back immediately, tend to our interests,” Thomas said. “The pit digging must commence before the depth of the winter.” There was another beat. “And with nothing to hold us in America…”

Could he be any crueler? Did he know that he was?

“I see.”

She had reached the stairs; she caught sight of her father hovering in the background. Her dear father, perhaps aware that this decision would cause her pain, was standing sentry in case he was needed. She was not unloved.

“Your novel,” Thomas said. “I read the new chapters. I will have them delivered in the morning.”

“That’s good of you.” Her mind spun back in time to their first encounter, his admiration of the as-yet-unknown author of her novel. There had been a connection between them, there
had.
The pain in her heart ratcheted up to agony.

“Would you still like to know what my thoughts are?” he asked.

She nodded, and he reacted with a bit of a start, and then took a breath, as if the entire conversation had become nothing more than an odious and perfunctory task.

“Very well. It is absurdly sentimental. The aches that you describe with such earnestness… the pain, the loss. But you have not lived at all. In fact, you seem to know only what other writers tell you.”