Crimson Peak: The Official Movie Novelization (9 page)

She could not have been more mortified than if he had spat in her face. What was he saying? How
could
he say such things in public? Humiliate her in her own house?

“I thank you for your frankness, sir,” she said tightly.

He took a step toward her, an act of aggression. “I am not done, child. You insist on describing the torments of love when you clearly know
nothing
about them.”

Why must he be so awful to her? Had her gestures of familiarity… of hope… embarrassed him? Was she… did he see her like Eunice, all misplaced presumption, beneath serious consideration for his affection?

“You’ve made yourself more than plain.” Was that her voice? Were those her words? She sounded like an ice princess, cold and hard and angry.

The guests were wandering in, attracted by the quarrel and now witnesses to her humiliation. He was relentless, approaching her, mocking her:

“…I advise you to return to your ghosts and fancies. The sooner the better, Edith. You know precious little of the human heart or the pains that come with it. You are nothing but a spoiled child playing with—”

That was as much as she could take.
She
knew nothing? At least she had a heart.

She slapped him hard; he flinched but took it.

She turned and fled.

* * *

Darkness. Her room. Tears.

The door handle moved, and Edith, lying in her bed, tensed.

Then it opened, and there stood her father. She longed to be comforted, but her feminine pride lay in tatters already. He had called her a child, and so had Thomas. But she was a grown woman who had endured an excruciating rejection, and her father was not the person to offer proper comfort at such a time. If there was anyone who could, which she doubted.

“I am not blind, Edith,” he said delicately. “I know you had feelings for him. But give it time. Perhaps you and I… we could go to the West Coast. You could write and I…” He trailed off, and she saw a future in which he was a widower and she was a spinster, and they kept each other company, and she could not bear it.

“I love you, Father. But can’t you see? The more you hold me, the more I am afraid.” She didn’t want to speak the words she was thinking. “I just don’t want to talk any further tonight. I just can’t.” Weariness overcame her. “Good night.”

He was sorrowful as she closed her door, shutting him out.

For now, anyway.

* * *

“My love is like a red, red rose…”

The next morning, the sweet old tune that had been his love song to his wife played on the phonograph. Cushing stood in the locker room of the gentlemen’s club in his robe, pensive and triumphant. Edith had been prevented from making the mistake of a lifetime. If Sir Thomas Sharpe had managed to pull off his loathsome scheme, Edith would not have
had
a life. The scandal would have ruined her.

That morning, Cushing felt especially close to his dear departed wife. When he gazed into the mirror at his gentlemen’s club, he could almost see her beautiful face. Not the horror that they had buried, but the sweet girl she had been when they’d wed.

I’ve kept our daughter safe all these years
, he silently told her.
She is still safe.

Edith was an heiress, and he supposed there would be other Sir Thomas Sharpes who would come sniffing after her money. He would do whatever it took to protect her. But he hoped he would never again plunge her into such pain and suffering.

Morosely, he prepared to shave. The attendant arrived with clean towels, making all ready for Cushing with a twist of the washroom basin’s hot water faucet.

“How’s the water today, Benton?” he asked with forced cheerfulness.

“Piping hot. Just the way you like it, sir,” Benton replied as he turned on one of the showers as well. The room began to steam up.

“Very well, then,” Cushing said. “Be kind enough to order me some ham and eggs. I’ll start with coffee, if it’s hot. And a sip of port.”

“Right away, sir. And the
Times
?”

“If you’d be so kind.” Perhaps there would be a short squib about the departure of Sir Thomas Sharpe, baronet, from the fair shores of America. And good riddance.

Mist clouded his vision as he prepared to disrobe. Then a shadow flitted behind him, startling him, and he turned to see if Benton had returned.

There was no one there.

But there had been someone. And he had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t alone. Any member would announce himself. It was curious and rather off-putting that they had not.

Perhaps it was his imagination.

And still…

Feeling rather silly, he checked the lockers. Of course they were empty.

Hot water was spilling over the basin; in his distraction he had let it run too long. His flat razor fell, the soap brick too. With a grunt, he bent to pick them up, nicking his finger. Clay-red blood swirled down the drain.

There it was, the shadow again. Then someone grabbed him by the cuff of his robe and the back of his head. Before he could react, his head was slammed down against the basin’s corner. There was no pain, only shock. He staggered, went down. The figure loomed over him, grabbed his head, and smashed it again and again against the porcelain. He heard his bones crush as his nose shattered.

Edith.

As his forehead fractured.

Again.

Edi
—

As gouts of scarlet blood gushed out of the ruin of his skull.

Again.

E
—

As he did not move, and the blood plumed into the clear, boiling water.

H
OW SHE HAD
managed to doze off, Edith had no idea. But she woke slowly to awareness sprawled on top of her sheets in her bedroom, still fully dressed. What a trite cliché; she had cried herself to sleep.

Annie was in her room, and she was holding a sheaf of papers that Edith recognized at once: the most recent chapter of her now-hated manuscript. Thomas had made good on his promise to return it, and the sight rekindled every bad feeling that had haunted her that night.

“What is it, Annie?” Edith murmured.

“This was delivered this morning, miss. But I didn’t want to wake you up any earlier.”

“It’s all the same, Annie, thank you.” She indicated the wastebasket, but the maid hesitated.

“The letter, too?” Annie asked.

“The letter…?” Edith fished for her eyeglasses and looped the ends over her ears. Red wax in a coat of arms with a skull design sealed the flap of an envelope of thick parchment paper. Her name was written across the front in a bold but elegant hand. Edith didn’t know if she dared read it, but she ripped it open anyway. The room seemed to dim as she devoured the lines:

Dear Edith
,

By the time you read this, I will be gone. Your father made evident to me that, in my present economic condition, I was not in a position to provide for you. And to this I agreed. He also asked me to break your heart—to take the blame. And to this I agreed too. By this time, surely I have accomplished both tasks.

But know this: When I can prove to your father that all I ask of him is his consent—and nothing more—then, and then only, will I come back for you.

Yours
,   
Thomas

Elation surged through her; euphoria. He had not abandoned her, had not proven a heartless cad. But when had this been delivered? What time was his train?

Am I too late?

Frantically, she rushed for the stairs, shouting for Annie. She dashed out into the hall, crying, “Annie, my coat!”

Then through the streets, past so many monuments to her father’s pride, through traffic and crowds, fighting to get to the hotel where the Sharpes had been staying; dodging, weaving, then into the lobby and at last to the front desk.

“Thomas and Lucille Sharpe?” she asked breathlessly.

The manager studied the guest registry. “One-oh-seven and one-oh-eight,” he said, “but—”

Edith bolted, rushing past some guests and a porter; at last she reached the door to one hundred and seven, to find it ajar—

—and two young, dark-skinned maids inside a room devoid of luggage or personal belongings, making up the bed.

One of them said, “They checked out this morning, miss. In time for the early train.”

Edith stood stock-still, panting, defeated. No, it couldn’t be. To have found out, to
know
, and to have missed him… it was too cruel.

“Are you all right, miss? Miss?” the other maid asked.

Would she ever be all right again? Would she—

She became aware of another presence; someone standing close by. She turned her head.

It was Thomas.

Unimaginable joy blazed inside her. She managed to rein in her instinct to throw herself into his arms as his dear face sought understanding in hers. Forgiveness. Hope. Her heart thundered in the silence. Surely he could hear it.

“Lucille has gone,” he began, “but I could not. Your father bribed me. To leave.”

He reached into his pocket and produced what she recognized as a bank check. Then he tore it in half.

“But I cannot leave you, Edith. In fact, I find myself thinking of you at the most inopportune moments of the day. I feel as if a link, a thread, exists between your heart and mine. And that, should that link be broken by distance or time… well, I fear my heart would cease to beat and die. And you’d soon forget about me.”

Edith found breath to speak. “Never. I would never forget you.”

She looked in his eyes and melted. This was happening. This was real, a dream after the nightmare.

He pulled her close, and kissed her. Her world became Sir Thomas Sharpe. His arms, his wild heartbeat. The softness of his lips as they brushed her mouth, then pressed harder. Edith closed her eyes, waltzing again, her wish come true.

She felt his restraint, as if holding back; she was about to open her eyes to assure him that there were liberties that he could take now. He had broken her heart, and only he could mend it. Then he relaxed against her and gathered her up, and all was right, so very right, with this beautiful new world, this shining, golden day. Perhaps Ogilvie had been right to insist upon a love story. The endings were so wonderful.

But this is not the end of our story
, she thought.
It is only the beginning. He declared himself in his letter. He has asked me to marry him.

Arm in arm they took their leave of the room, and Edith couldn’t even care where they went, or what they did next. She supposed he would present himself to her father and they could begin again, on better terms. Surely Papa’s consent would be given once he saw that an honorable man stood before him. A man who could not be bought, and who prized her, Edith Cushing, above the wealth he required to fulfill his mining plans. He could have kept the check and made his way back to England where any number of young ladies were no doubt waiting in line to become Lady Sharpe. But he loved his American commoner with his whole heart. What father would not wish such a man on his only daughter?

I am so incredibly happy.

But as they crossed the lobby, she saw her father’s lawyer, Mr. Ferguson. And her maid, Annie, stood with him, pointing at her. She and Thomas slowed and her heart thudded so hard she felt her pulse in the soles of her feet. The agonized looks on their faces, wrenched, horror-stricken… hollow eyes, speaking of tragedy. She had seen that same expression on her father’s face when he had come to tell her that her mother’s suffering had ended.

Of her
death…

* * *

Of death.

Here was proof that a terrible mistake had been made: Her father, who so loved grandeur and elegance, could not possibly have been taken to such a filthy, disgusting place. The Buffalo City Morgue was more vile than a stable, anyone could see that. No one who knew him would have brought him here. And so… there had been an error and someone else’s poor father lay dead inside.

And though it would be a simple thing to enter and point out the blunder, she found she could not do it. Fear was drowning her denial: Mr. Ferguson would not make such an error; and in the lobby, Annie, who had been with them for three years, had burst into tears and embraced Edith as soon as she had come within arm’s length.

But this is my day of greatest happiness
.
It cannot be. It cannot.

Thomas and Mr. Ferguson stood with her, and she felt the warmth of Thomas’s body through the frozen block of terror encasing her.

There was a clatter of footsteps, someone catching up to the trio. It was Alan, quite out of breath, and his appearance gave weight to the reality she was fighting so hard against. She stared at him as if through a snowstorm, barely able to see. She couldn’t sense her feet on the ground. She began to feel as if she were dissolving, as insubstantial as one of the specters in Alan’s spirit photographs.

“I’m so sorry,” Alan said. “I came as soon as I heard.”

No, don’t say that
, she silently begged him. And then Thomas’s hand gave her substance again, and some modicum of courage. She must be here for her father. If a mistake had been made—