Ghosts by Gaslight (45 page)

“Indeed? Jane?”

“Yes, sir! She told me so herself.”

I pooh-poohed the notion.

“You’ll see,” she said. “Jane will be polishing your trinkets before you know they’re out in the air. You’ve heard what they say about girls from the north?”

“I don’t believe I have.”

“Give them an inch and they’ll take the whole yard.”

I felt myself blushing. “What do you know about Jane?”

“Oh, she’s nice enough. Very caring, she is. She was always looking out for the other girls.”

“I mean before she came to the house.”

“She never talks much about her past.” Dorothea idly swiped at the floor with her broom. “She did tell me that when she was a child, she and her sisters were the support of her family up in Newcastle. They worked in the theater, playing imps and angels and the like. Her father dosed them regular with gin, hoping to keep them small. So they could still do the job, you understand. But Jane sprouted up and he threw her out of the house when she were but nine. I’d have put a blade in his neck.” Dorothea swatted at a spiderweb that spanned between the stove and the wall. “Jane loves the theater. She and Christine would talk about it ’til all hours. I reckon that’s why they formed a stronger bond than what I did with her. Me, she trained for the bedroom, but with Jane she went the extra mile. She taught her etiquette, how to dress elegant and speak nice.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Was your childhood similar to Jane’s?”

“My mother whored, so you might say I was born to the trade. But thieving was my specialty . . . before my bubbies came in, that is. I’d dress as a boy and wander the streets between here and Bethnal Green. There wasn’t a pocket watch or a wallet safe from me.” She waggled her fingers and grinned. “These very fingers plucked the Duke of Buckingham’s watch.”

“What in the world was the Duke of Buckingham doing in Saint Nichol?”

“Inspecting his property. He must own half the houses on Boundary Road. Him and Sir Charles Mellor and some other toffs was strolling about, looking at this house and that house.”

Charles Mellor was a charter member of the Inventors’ Club—I asked Dorothea if she was certain it had been him.

“Oh, it was Charlie, all right. We’d see him down here right frequent. There must have been half a hundred children swarming around with their hands out, begging for pennies. So I sneaked in amongst them and nicked the duke’s watch. Didn’t get nothing for it, though. My mother took it to a pawnshop and got swindled proper.”

“Where is your mother now?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” She began sweeping in earnest, as if suddenly called to the task.

I left Dorothea to her chores and made my way to the sixth floor and pulled up a chair in front of the glass-walled chamber. Christine was nowhere in evidence, but from time to time a revenant would manifest in the chamber. In the main they were relics of the lower classes, those whose living cousins could be seen in the streets of Saint Nichol, a few dressed in the garments of another era; but there were also richly dressed men and well-appointed ladies. Many were in sharp focus, visible for a span ranging from scant seconds to a minute or two, and others were frayed and tattered like rotten lace, all but worn away—these last brought to mind the phantasmagorias I had delighted in as a boy, yet they exhibited a lifelike quality, a dimensionality, that those illusions had not. They neither spoke nor acknowledged my presence, though they came close enough to touch had there been no glass. Once something dark and whirling, a dervish shadow twice the mass of man that looked to be acquiring human form, materialized in the chamber and I heard above the noise of the machines a faint roaring, as from a distant crowd. This so alarmed me that I scrambled back from the glass, knocking over my chair. The figure was headless and armless, or else its head was tucked close in against its chest, giving the impression that it was surmounted by a massive torso and set of shoulders. It looked rather like a living pencil sketch, a black core encaged within a complexity of slightly less black lines that whirled rapidly about the central darkness, making it appear that the whole of the thing was in motion. Soon this apparition lapsed and I reclaimed my seat.

What most astonished me about the things I saw that day (and other days as well) was my reaction to them . . . or rather the lack thereof. I would not have believed that I could easily adapt to such a drastic shift in the way I perceived the world; yet there I sat, scribbling down observations concerning a subject whose existence I would have decried the day before, and doing so with a reasonable amount of aplomb. I mentioned this to Dorothea once and she replied that human beings were more resilient than most gave them credit for, putting this sentiment in the vernacular. “When a bloke tries to jam tackle the size of a cricket bat up your lolly, you’re afraid it’s never going to fit,” she said. “But once it’s in, it’s surprising how quickly you adjust to the situation.” She went on to say that ghosts no longer troubled her, even when they manifested outside of the chamber, in other portions of the house. I inquired of her about these manifestations and she told me that before Richmond had come to dwell in the house, she and others had encountered presences on the upper floors, notably an elderly woman who dragged her left leg as she walked; but Dorothea had not seen the old woman since Christine had died—it was as though she been evicted and Christine had taken her place.

At quarter past four that first afternoon, Christine appeared within the chamber. I was writing in my notebook and did not witness her entrance, but when I looked up from the page she was standing next to the glass, hands on hips, wearing undergarments obviously intended to arouse: a corset (of Parisian design, I believe) sheathed in emerald-green silk and lace that constricted her waist and exposed the plump upper curves of her breasts; and pantaloons of a filmy material that clung to her hips and thighs. Her hair was a complexity of curls piled high atop her head and framing her face, and her smile had a touch of disdain. She walked away from the glass, displaying her long legs and shapely derriere, glancing over her shoulder—a dram of poison had been added to her smile. I had the thought that she was replaying a scene from her life, showing herself to someone she despised, someone who could no longer afford her charms.

Placing my mouth close to the grille, I called out, not expecting an answer. In truth, I was uncertain whether she had the ability to hear—I had no idea how she perceived the world. After ten or fifteen seconds, as though my outcry had taken an inordinate amount of time to carry across the distance between us, she came toward the glass and pinned me with a stare so fierce and hostile, I had the urge to bolt. Despite Dorothea’s acclimation to the company of spirits, I was an interloper and placed no faith in their benevolent disposition. I spoke her name again and laid my palm flat on the glass, as Richmond had done. A confusion of emotions crossed her face. Her eyes grew teary and she became distraught, plucking at her hair, touching her face . . . and suddenly she was gone. I stood beside the chamber awhile, waiting for her to reappear. At last I turned to the bench upon which I had left my notebook and let out a squawk—Christine stood less than an arm’s length away. Not the high whore (the toffer, as Dorothea would have said) in her French frillies, but bloody Christine in her chemise, pallid and dead of eye. A distinct emanation of cold proceeded from her. She gave no sign that she saw me, but shuffled off to my right and back again. It seemed she felt some sort of attraction to the spot and yet had not the consciousness to understand it, but muddled about like a chicken habituated to being fed in one particular section of the barnyard. My heart racing, I slipped past her and reclaimed my notebook. She turned, but instead of facing me, she took a step or two toward the end of the corridor. I surmised that in this guise her perceptions might be clouded, her reactions to stimuli uncertain, more so, at any rate, than when appearing in her other aspects. She exhibited a terrible slowness and sluggishness, her fingers knotting in the folds of the chemise. Her irises looked to be revolving a few degrees backward and forward like clockworks, an uncanny thing to see. I wished that I could will her from the world, because while I had no real attachment to her, one could not see her so drained of life, possessed of that eerie glamour, and remain unmoved.

I
DREW THE
curtain after she had gone and sat at the bench writing until late in the evening, recording a detailed account of what I had seen and felt and thought during the day. On returning to my room I discovered a fire crackling in the hearth and half a roast chicken on a plate covered by a linen cloth, along with bread, cheese, water, and a bottle of Edradour. Apparently Jane had come and gone. I sat by the hearth, sipping the whiskey, made despondent by the dreary prospect that not seeing her presented, not in the least because Dorothea had said that she fancied me, but also because I had been immersed in death and its products for many hours, and I had been anticipating a visit, however perfunctory, from someone alive and vital. As a result I drank more than I should have in an attempt to ameliorate the morbid effects of dealing with Christine. If I felt this way after a day in her company, I wondered how much drink I would need after a week? A month? I had no doubt that the investigation would last at least that long. Truth be told, I thought I could make a career of this single case. Here was a ghost who could be counted upon to appear again and again with regularity—the light that she might shed on the nature of the physical universe, on the nature of life itself, was incalculable. I pictured myself gone gray and creaky, the author of a library of books about Christine Richmond, imprisoned by obsession, incapable of discussing any other topic.

The fire burned low and I lit a lamp. A knock. Unsteadily, I went to the door and flung it open, expecting to find Richmond in the corridor. I was prepared to tell him that I did not have the stomach for this work and would be unable to satisfy his requirements, but it was Jane come to turn down my bed, wearing a crinoline night bonnet and a flannel dressing gown that covered her from neck to ankle. For all her matronly attire, she was no less beautiful than ever and I watched her intently, enlivened by the swell of a breast, the shape of a thigh as she bent to her task. However modestly dressed she was, her every movement was an article of seduction. She asked if there were anything further she might do for me and I bade her sit, saying that I had more questions. Yet I had none. Fuddled by drink, by the idea that I could have her, my mind emptied and, though I racked my brain, I managed to stammer a few phrases by way of preamble, yet nothing more. Once again I had the apprehension that she understood my predicament and was amused. At last I succeeded in dredging up a question that had not occurred to me before that moment . . . or if it had, I had pushed it to the back of my mental shelf.

“Christine’s resemblance to both you and Dorothea,” I said. “What part do you think it played in Richmond’s desire that you remain in the house?”

She seemed to withdraw from me. “He wanted us near to remind him of her.”

“I don’t doubt that, but there must be more to it. He makes love to you, does he not? To women who remind him of his sister?”

“It’s been more than two years since he last touched either of us. He . . . he changed. Our relationship changed. He became more like a cousin, an uncle. He cares for us now, and we for him. That is all.”

I was immoderately pleased to learn she had no current involvement with Richmond.

“That begs the issue,” I said. “He
did
make love to you. And he kept you here for that purpose. That he has since stopped this practice conjures other questions, but the fact remains that he chose two women who closely resemble his sister to serve as his concubines. Does this not seem a symptom of some tragic family circumstance?”

Jane frowned and spread her fingers on her knees, appearing to examine them for defect. “Dorothea has spoken to you about this?”

“I had a conversation with her earlier.”

“I . . .” She sighed and pressed the heel of one hand to her brow. “I will not speak ill of him.”

“Jane,” I said. “Men and women are often driven to extremes of behavior by emotional distress. In this life we are all at fault. None of us is simon pure, no matter how deeply we may wish it. Society may judge Richmond, but I make no judgments. If I am to determine what is going on, you must be straightforward with me. Anything you tell me will be kept in the strictest confidence.”

She searched my face and then lowered her eyes. “On occasion, with me and with Dorothea, he used her name instead of ours.”

“In passionate address?”

“Yes.” A plaintive quality expressed itself in her face and voice. “But as I said, it’s over two years since he last took either of us to bed.”

After an interval I asked, “What do you make of his use of Christine’s name in these instances?”

“I am not the doctor here,” she said firmly. “You will have to draw your own conclusions.”

“And I will. But my conclusions will be formed in large part by what you tell me.”

“Dorothea believes that . . .” She left the thought unfinished and, after an obvious internal struggle, she stood. “I’m sorry. I have chores to attend before I sleep.”

Had I not been drinking, I might have let that end the conversation, but I too stood, blocking her exit, and said, “I would like you to stay, Jane. We need speak no more about Richmond, but please . . . stay awhile with me.”

A blank mask aligned with her features and she put a hand to the sash of her dressing gown.

“I want you to stay, not because you feel compelled to do so,” I said. “But because it is your choice. Because . . .”

I began to sputter, blurting out the history of my day, the oppressive mood engendered by my encounter with Christine. I suggested that Jane stay until I fell asleep and that nothing more need happen—I did not want to take advantage of her. A lie. I wanted to take complete advantage, but I didn’t want her to believe that was my aim . . . and I may have told her as much. So eager was I to have her good opinion that honesty seemed the only course, unprecedented honesty, honesty divested of the slightest hint of subterfuge. Fortunately I do not recall every idiotic thing I said. While I was speaking she went to the bed, removed her dressing gown and bonnet, shook out her hair, and climbed beneath the covers, clad in her chemise. I made no immediate move to join her, immobilized by desire in conflict with an assortment of anxieties, amongst them the fear of looking more the fool than I already had. I might have stood there forever, but she released me from the thrall of my anxieties with the perfect counterspell.