Ghosts by Gaslight (49 page)

“It is true,” I said. “I was initially fearful that my career would be damaged by our union, but as my thoughts on the subject evolved, I feared mainly for you. I did not want you to suffer the scorn that would be heaped upon you by the doyennes of polite society should your past be revealed. Now that we have reached this pass, however, I realize your strength is sufficient to withstand such treatment. You have endured far worse. And I must not allow the course of my career to be dependent on the views of people who belong to a world that is fast disappearing. If you wish to remain in London, remain we shall.”

“Perhaps that can be a subject for later discussion?”

“Of course.”

She glanced up into the elm leaves, as though attracted by some movement there. “Do you think you know me, Samuel? I have been honest with you concerning my past, but I have a great capacity for self-deception. I may have painted myself too much the victim so as to draw you in.”

“No one is immune to self-deception,” I said. “I doubt the human race would survive without it. As for knowing you, I cannot imagine that any two people at this stage of their lives know each other completely. They can only anticipate learning about the woman or the man they love.”

“I have one last question,” she said. “I know that your politics predisposes you to have an affection for the underprivileged. Am I to be, then, a kind of political proof, living evidence of that predisposition? A token of your political views, as it were?”

“Were I a creature of the type who populates the rolls of the Inventors’ Club, I would never have looked at you as other than an object of lust,” I said. “To that extent, politics
has
played a part in this—it has assisted me in perceiving you for the woman you are. But I swear, that is the only part it played.”

She drew a breath and released it slowly. “Then I will gladly be your wife, in London or in Wales. That is, if you still want me after all these quibbles and qualifications.”

We embraced, albeit not for long—prying eyes peered at us through the rear windows of the tearoom—and then left that place, that bench, and its overshadowing elm. I told Henry Bladge to drive us round Hyde Park. It was a rare lovely day, a high, blue day accented by puffs of cloud, and warm for the first week in March, with flights of swallows banking above Kensington Gardens and people taking their ease on the green lawns; but Jane and I hid ourselves behind the curtains of the coach, kissing and conjuring a future together that, for all its optimism and halcyon vision, had not the slightest chance of coming true.

R
ICHMOND BEGAN TO
install his new machine several days later and, as the two machines that cleansed the air had been shut down (the one that summoned Christine was not, its operation signaled by a throbbing hum, not the louder, steady rumbling of the others), I took the opportunity to climb up to the roof through a trapdoor accessible by means of a ladder and located in the ceiling close to the elevator. From my vantage on the western side of the roof, standing in a thick carpet of black dust, it seemed I was at the center of a choppy sea contrived of roof peaks and chimneys from which darkling smokes trickled upward to commingle with an overcast of much the same color. Four cylindrical sections had been cut out from the eastern side of the roof, and the machines had been set down in the holes thus created, approximately a third of their height hidden from the view of whoever might peer at then from the adjoining houses. The concentric silver rings (I say, silver, but that word refers merely to their color—I never ascertained the name of the metal from which they had been fashioned) that constituted their exterior rose some fifteen feet above the roof and were pitted and discolored; but the new machine was shiny and taller by half. Altogether they resembled Christmas trees of a futuristic design, three stubby and one attenuated, and appeared quite alien in contrast to the blackened bricks and tiles of their surround. I wondered why this bizarre construction atop Richmond’s house had not been paid more notice by the residents of Saint Nichol, especially considering the noise it produced; but then I recognized that most had little interest as to what happened in the heavens, their eyes being fixed upon the ground, their ears attuned to baser sounds.

Crouched amidst a clutter of tools (awls, hammers, and so on), Richmond and several workmen were busy bolting down the new machine to an iron plate—I could see the tops of their heads from the edge of the hole. The machine itself differed from the other three not only in height, but also in that various dials and switches occupied the interstices between certain of the concentric rings. I poked around the rooftop for a few minutes more, finding nothing to hold my interest and then, as I prepared to go back down through the trapdoor, I caught sight of an opaque, oblong shape, roughly the size of a man, hovering close by the fourth machine. It trembled, fluttering as would a leaf in a strong wind, and subsequently was drawn out into a thinner, scarflike shape that clung to one of the concentric rings, gliding along it, fitting itself to the ring as though it were a sleeve . . . and then it vanished. I had grown accustomed to ghosts during my stay at Richmond’s house, even to the point of being on speaking terms with one, and their formal apparitions, the images, fragmentary and otherwise, of the men and women they had been in life had almost no effect upon me; but this glimpse of the raw stuff of the spirit—that was how I countenanced it—left me petrified, my heart squeezed and stilled for an instant by cold, steely fingers, and made me fully aware of the depths of the pit into which I had lowered myself.

M
Y WORK WITH
Christine had reached an impasse. What I had seen on the roof made me reluctant to engage her, and I spent less time with her than I had, dallying with Jane instead. Richmond remained concentrated on the installation and, though I saw him each and every day, he spoke only in monosyllables and then in passing. He was oblivious to everything but the matter at hand and seemed to have lost interest in talking further about Christine. For once I was happy to accommodate him. However, on the day after the new machine had been activated, he invited me into his study and notified me that he had turned off the fourth machine and from now on, for the duration of my visit the new machine would be the only one functioning.

“You must do as you see fit,” I said. “But this is certain to impede my work.”

“On the contrary, my dear Samuel,” he said with gleeful satisfaction. “It will assist your work no end. Tomorrow or the next day, a window will be installed in the chamber beneath the new machine.”

I absorbed this. “So the purpose of this machine is not to purify the atmosphere?”

“It is intended to restore Christine. Not entirely—I don’t believe that is possible, though my notion of what is possible changes day by day. But by using the damaged settings on the fourth machine as a starting point, I have devised a means of strengthening her effect. At least that is my hope. This may serve to quicken her perceptions, broaden her range of interactions with our plane of existence, and thus enable her to assist materially in bringing her murderer to justice.”

“Materially? Are you suggesting that she may be able to give us conscious, clearly reasoned assistance?”

“That is a distinct possibility.”

“Yet when you say ‘strengthening her effect,’ I have the impression that what you have done is to create an amplification of effect and not a broadening.”

“As you yourself have said, you know nothing about this branch of science.”

“If you recall, I was speaking at the time about cleansing the air. The creation of the machine that enhanced Christine’s presence happened by accident, and I cannot think that you have a complete understanding of the process. Now you are certainly more proficient than I with regard to the technical aspects of your machine, but I have studied your sister for several months and I would hazard that you know less than I about her condition. You are playing a dangerous game, Richmond.”

“I’m not playing at anything!” he said. “I am desperate to gain Christine’s ear. I must know that she forgives me.”

“Is that truly the sum of your desires?” I asked. “At first you told me that you wanted to know who financed the brothel, and then it was a clue to the identity of Christine’s murderer. Now it is her forgiveness you want . . . and her restoration to a state of being similar to that she had in life. I infer from this progression that you may never be satisfied and will continue to elevate your expectations.”

He gave me an oddly bright look, the sort of look one observes on the faces of certain mental patients, seemingly alert yet too fixed to signal actual alertness.

“I would be remiss if I failed to warn you that you have embarked on a self-destructive course,” I said.

He was silent for such a long while that I began to worry.

“Richmond?” I said.

His head twitched. “I still haven’t been able to come up with a better name for the machines than ‘attractors.’ Do you have any thoughts on the subject?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“About my self-destructive course? Yes, I heard you. And I have moved on.” He leafed through some papers that had been lying on his desk. “Having witnessed the machines in operation, perhaps you can suggest a suitable name?”

Unsettled by this abrupt conversational shift, I told him that “attractors” struck me as eminently suitable, but that I would set my mind to the task. He appeared indifferent to my concerns, so I excused myself and went in search of Jane.

In the kitchen I found Dorothea seated at the counter, popping grapes into her mouth and gazing at the wall. I asked if she had encountered Jane that day.

“She was about earlier.” She winked at me. “Have you looked under your sheets?”

I sank onto a stool beside her and let my head hang.

“Well, I can tell you’re in a fine fettle,” Dorothea said.

“I’m worn out.”

“Perhaps you need a tonic.”

“Perhaps.”

She chucked. “I’d rub your shoulders, but I don’t care to risk another beating.”

I sat mute and discouraged, and at length said, “I’m not physically fatigued. My weakness is purely spiritual.”

“I was having you on, referring to Jane taking after me with the broom the other morning.”

“Oh . . . right.”

She offered me the bunch of grapes and I took one.

“I think Richmond may be mad,” I said.

“Wouldn’t surprise me. We’re all a bit mad ’round here.”

“I wasn’t speaking in jest.”

“Nor was I. Living in Saint Nichol is enough to put a few twists in your noggin, and sharing your home with a ghostie . . .” She gave her head a violent shake. “Our ghostie has been at me all morning.”

“Christine?”

“If I’ve seen her once, I’ve seen her half a dozen times. She must have important business with someone.”

Richmond’s newest attractor, I thought. Doing its job.

“She’s not in a cheery mood,” Dorothea said.

“How do you mean? Was she wearing her chemise, all bloody?”

“No, but she wasn’t the least bit happy, even when I sang for her.”

I got to my feet, undecided whether or not to notify Richmond of this sudden increase in Christine’s manifestations.

“You might want to wait,” said Dorothea. “She’ll be dropping in again any minute.”

“I’m going up to the sixth,” I said. “Tell Jane where I’ll be, won’t you?”

“What about Miss Christine?” Dorothea asked as I went out. “Have you a message for her?”

T
HE SIXTH FLOOR
was deserted, silent except for the oscillating hum of the new attractor. Workmen had not yet come to replace the iron wall of the chamber beneath it with glass. Curious, I opened the sampling aperture and heard from within a far-off roaring like that made by the shadowy creature. I detected movement in the corner of my eye and saw Christine pacing in front of the fourth chamber, wearing her emerald-green corset. I approached her cautiously (Richmond’s admonition about her had not gone unheeded) and spoke as I might to a horse that required gentling. This tactic had no good effect, for she vanished before I could reach her. Turning back toward the elevator, I saw something that froze my blood. I had left the sampling aperture open and from it there projected a well-defined beam of black energy or light or some other immateriality I could not name. It was as though a black sun were contained within the chamber and its radiant stuff had shot forth from the aperture to touch the wall opposite . . . and upon that wall an irregular patch of darkness grew, developing into a vaguely anthropomorphic figure that had the shape and size of a small headless child. The roaring had increased in volume and it was this, the implication that somehow a monstrous, whirling shadow was being beamed onto our earthly plane . . . that spurred me to act. I sprang to the aperture and shut it, cutting off the beam. The dark shape on the wall began to dissolve in much the way a puddle of water evaporates under strong sunlight, albeit far more quickly. Once it had gone I sat at one of the benches and sought to analyze what had occurred, but the phenomenon beggared analysis and I was too rattled to think. After ten minutes of fruitless deliberation, it struck me that urgency was called for. Eschewing the elevator, I pelted down the stairs to the second floor, intending to collect my notes and alert the others. Upon entering my bedroom, I found Jane standing by the fireplace, gazing at the dead coals, wearing the tartan dress she wore on the day I asked for her hand. I was eager to tell her all that had happened and caught her by the arm. She looked up at me with Christine’s eyes, the hazel irises revolving a fraction of a turn and back again. Seen this close, they no longer reminded me of clockworks, but had the agitated motion of the tiny creatures I had studied under a microscope at university.

I stumbled back and sat down heavily on the bed, staring at her in disbelief. I had no doubt the woman before me was Jane. She had Jane’s height and delicacy of feature, yet her stony expression seemed less at home on her face than it had on Christine’s. And those eyes . . . I tried to picture the pattern of darks and brights in Jane’s hazel irises, but could not bring them to mind. She came toward me, paused a foot away, and uttered a peculiar fluting cry. It seemed that she had difficulty breathing, though in retrospect I believe that the fleshly mechanisms of speech were difficult to master for the spirit who had possessed my fiancée.