“Well?” she prompted.
The only sound in the cart was her even breath punctuated by the patter of rain against the canvas roof.
“If . . . if you will hand me my trunk, I’ll be on my way. I’ll never trouble you again. I apologize for my behavior while a guest in your home.” His words felt thick in his mouth, his throat dry. How dare she!
He rose from his seat in the cart, struggling under the duress of his injuries. Isabelle grabbed his arm, drawing him back. He sank down in his seat. Her eyes locked with his. Try as he might, he couldn’t look away.
“I know all about you,” she said. “I was warned.”
“I’m uncertain what you mean, Miss Lowell.”
“Ah, but you do, Mr. Highstead. I know your wife, Cressida, died soon after your marriage. I know you haven’t been the same since—”
“That’s not true!”
“But it is true. Shall I explain?”
Robert’s will fell away as her grip tightened on his arm. His world shrank to two things: the cadence of her voice and the renewed weight of his grief. Her words fell on him as persistent as the rain against the roof.
“I know you blamed yourself for her death, though I’m uncertain why. I know this was the reason you left your position at Oxford, why you were cut off by your family—”
“I wasn’t cut off. Who told you all this? My brother?” To the best of his knowledge, she couldn’t have read about Sida’s death in a newspaper—John had done all he could to keep the loss private. No obituary. No articles.
“It matters not, Mr. Highstead. I know the truth.”
He choked out, “If you know the truth, why are you telling me this now?”
Isabelle smiled at last. “Because I want you to understand I’m not the fool you took me to be.” She released his arm. “Ah, here’s the coach at last. I’ll see to the cart.”
The air was filled with the stomping and whinnying of excited horses, the splatter of wheels in puddles. Robert swung his legs out from the chaise carriage toward the ground. Away from Isabelle. In the minutes since they’d come to a stop, the storm had grown harder still. His eyesight blurred as he stared out at the teeming rain; his grief felt keener than the edge of a knife. Yet what upset him most wasn’t her knowledge of Sida’s death. It was her accusation he’d gone mad. “I know you haven’t been the same since.” Who would be, after the loss of a beloved spouse? But his upset was more than this. Isabelle’s words had conjured his deepest terror: that he’d imagined Sida’s return from the dead.
You didn’t, he reassured. Her ghost is real.
Robert inhaled, willing his fears away. He stared down from the carriage. The muddy ground appeared almost as unwelcoming as Isabelle. The sooner I leave here the better. He imagined Sida alone in their rooms. Sida awaiting him.
He heard Isabelle grunt as she struggled with the chain for the cart bearing Hugh’s coffin. The rain was a sheet of water, cascading from her shoulders. He knew he should help her, to maintain some show of normalcy even if his ankle was sore, his hands shaking. But he’d be damned if he’d reveal his distress. He’d been so good, so righteous for so long, his life so filled with promise. None of it had mattered. His decency hadn’t protected his wife from death. Nor had it kept him at Oxford, or helped him write his damned second book. Neither had it obtained those daguerreotypes of Hugh reunited with Ada inside the glass chapel. It had only brought him to this water-logged place in the middle of a moor where a strange woman jeered him over his deceased wife while questioning his sanity.
Finally the coach stopped before them. A dark-hatted figure cried from the perch, “Coach to Shrewsbury. You here for it, madam?”
“The gentleman is,” Isabelle shouted over the rain. “He’ll need to change for the train to London. ’ Tis a complicated situation though.”
She explained quickly about the cart and the coffin as though she were discussing the transport of cattle, not a man’s body. They must have come to terms, for Isabelle nodded and handed him a stack of coins with an effusive “much appreciated, good sir.”
The coachman climbed down to take Robert’s equipment and fasten Hugh’s coffin cart. Once these were settled, Isabelle offered her hand.
“Come, Mr. Highstead,” she said. “Let me help you to the coach.”
And then she smiled for the third time since Robert had made her acquaintance. This time her smile was wide enough to reveal her teeth, which were even and white. Within her smug, satisfied smile, Robert saw the whole of his past three years compressed into one long moment of loss. Somehow this released something in him—something he’d pushed aside in the wake of Sida’s return from the dead. Robert’s hands clenched into fists, his blood beat in his ears. He’d never felt so livid. But instead of being distressed by his anger, he was grateful. The relief of no longer feeling sorrow was intoxicating.
Isabelle’s smile slipped. “Are you well, Mr. Highstead?”
“Better than I’ve ever been, Miss Lowell.” And he truly meant this.
“Come,” she coaxed, her hand still extended. “Be careful, the ground is slippery. Wouldn’t do to have you fall again. Then you’d be trapped here with me.”
“Trapped here with me.” He stared anew at Isabelle. God knows he didn’t want that. Yet she seemed transfigured with an exceptional beauty, though this made no sense: grief had worked its weariness on her features just like it had on his.
The coachman called, “Is he coming or not? Weather’s getting worse. Running late already.”
“He’s coming,” Isabelle answered. Again, that smile—this time it appeared less certain. “Mr. Highstead, the coach shan’t wait forever.”
Robert swung his feet from the cart. His injured ankle dangled above the mud. So slippery, so dangerous . . .
“Trapped here with me.”
The coachman snapped his pocket watch shut. “With this rain, better I go without the coffin. I promise to return tomorrow for it, madam. This mud too—”
“No! The coffin must travel today. The gentleman too.” Isabelle’s grasp on Robert’s hand tightened. “Mr. Highstead, hurry! Have you gone mad again?”
Robert’s anger flared even brighter and hotter, turning his senses keen, his sight sharp. His path became clear.
He released Isabelle’s hand.
IV.
The coach for Shrewsbury left without Robert or Hugh’s corpse.
“You fell on purpose,” Isabelle accused, her face flushed with anger as she helped him from the mud. “Because I called you mad.”
Robert couldn’t argue. Once he’d let go of her hand, he’d taken a strange satisfaction as his leg twisted behind him, his shoulder slamming against the ground. The pain had seemed far away, along with its consequences for his return to London—Sida hadn’t even entered his considerations. As he’d fallen, he’d watched Isabelle drop to her knees. Saw rain pool about her skirts, Isabelle’s lips shift from that smug smile into a circle of dismay. And he’d been happy.
“I think I broke my ankle,” he said.
* * *
“The ankle doesn’t appear broken,” Mrs. Chilvers announced. “Just sprained. We should fetch the doctor to be sure.”
“No,” Isabelle said. “I’ll trust your judgment.”
An hour after he’d missed the coach, Robert lay once again in Owen’s bed in the stable house, the pain in his ankle softened by the morphia the housekeeper had given him. From the other side of the stable house, he heard the neighing of horses, the lowing of cows; they must have been brought in from the fields. Thanks to the morphia, Robert found he didn’t care about anything, not even about his camera; Owen had set his equipment next to the door where anyone could jostle it. Even his abandonment of Sida to remain at Weald House didn’t vex as it should. He supposed he could thank Isabelle for this—opiates were more powerful than anger.
“Since the ankle isn’t broken, he can leave,” Isabelle said; she’d been tapping her fingers against the door frame, as if
she could hurry Robert’s departure by a display of impatience.
Mrs. Chilvers frowned. “It’s not a serious injury, but he needs to remain off the ankle. It’ll take him at least three days until he can put weight on it. More if he doesn’t rest.”
“Three days!” Robert had never heard Isabelle so frustrated. “Are you certain?”
After Mrs. Chilvers left, Isabelle approached Robert.
“I was right about you,” she said. “Only a madman would injure himself purposefully over an insult.” Her face looked distorted, probably due to the morphia he’d ingested.
Morphia or no, Robert’s rage returned full force. “Why did you say that about my wife?”
Isabelle recoiled. “About her death? Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“That was unkind of you!”
“Unkind . . . I consider myself to be very kind considering you attempted to break into my aunt’s final resting place in the dead of night.” Her eyes flashed with indignation. “Here’s how I will be kind, Mr. Highstead. I will treat you as I would any stranger in need of aid. You will remain in this stable. You will be fed, nursed, and sheltered. Once you are sufficiently recovered in three days’ time, you will leave here with my uncle’s remains, which you can bury as you and your brother deem fit.”
Isabelle rose from the chair, her purple bombazine skirts rustling. The sound seemed distorted and distant. Slow.
“Goodbye, Mr. Highstead. You won’t be seeing me again.”
“Wait!” Robert called out, his voice slurring as he gave way to the opiates flooding his blood. “You must tell me: Who told you about my wife’s death?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Robert was too drugged to protest. He sank into a thick sleep. It was dreamless.
* * *
The next thing Robert remembered was someone cooing, “Are you awake?”
The voice was soft, feminine. Lilting. Broad-accented. Her tone revealed an edge of fear accompanied by defiance. The conundrum of emotions was enough to lure Robert out of his drug-induced doze.
He forced his eyes open and focused on a blur of gold hair and blue eyes.
“Grace. What day is it?”
“It’s still Thursday. Twelfth of February,” she replied pertly. “About five in the afternoon.”
“Oh.” He’d only slept a few hours. The scent of horse shit overlaid with the tang of almond reminded him where he was. Hugh’s coffin. And then he remembered. Sida. London. Home. Three days until he could return. He wrapped his hands around his head. What had he done?
Grace sat in the same seat Isabelle had occupied earlier that day. She’d changed her clothes from the grey gown she’d donned for the study tour. Now wearing her maid’s frock, she looked a girl barely more than sixteen. Her hands were cupped in her lap. They were reddened from labor. Not as bad as his.
“Here’s clean clothes for you,” she said, pointing toward a stack of folded fabric on her lap. “I fear yours are quite muddy, far worse than when you fell off Ada’s Folly.”
Suddenly Robert recalled the glass dome shivering and cracking beneath his weight. He’d forgotten about it in the rush of his departure.
“Did I damage the chapel?”
“I wondered if you’d ask about that.” A quick smile. “Just a few cracks along the edge. Miss Isabelle said naught, so I doubt she noticed. Could have been far worse.” She handed him the clothes, which were of a rich blue wool save for a black damask waistcoat and cravat. “If you’ll give me your clothes, I’ll have them cleaned. You can change beneath the covers—I shan’t look.”
She turned toward the door. Once he’d exchanged one set of clothes for the other, he pulled himself into a seated position against the wall.
“You can turn around,” he announced.
“The clothes fit?”
He nodded.
“You feel better?”
“Somewhat.” His ribs still hurt when he breathed; he coughed, protesting the cold air inside the stable.
“If you need morphia, bottle’s over there on the mantel. I brought you a walking stick too. I thought you’d need it when nature calls.”
The walking stick was carved of mulberry wood and tipped in gold—she’d taken it from Hugh’s study. He didn’t dare ask whose clothes he was wearing.
“How long have you been here, Grace?”
“An hour or so. Miss Isabelle ordered me to watch you until you woke.”
“Like a guard?”
“Not exactly.” Grace giggled, wrapping a long gold curl about her forefinger. “Imagine me, a guard! She doesn’t want to risk you hurting yourself anew.”
“How kind of her,” Robert said dryly.
“Miss Isabelle is kind—you just don’t know it yet.” Grace released the curl. “You upset her.”
“Perhaps. Thank you for the clothing. I should also thank you for sending Owen to find me last night after I fell.”
“Pure luck.” Her tone was lighter than her expression.
Robert cocked his head. “I wouldn’t call that luck.”
A flush spread across her face. “I won’t insult you with a lie, Mr. Highstead—I know you followed me to Ada’s Folly last night. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Besides to guard me?”
“Besides to guard you.”
Grace rose and pulled a chair against the door knob, effectively locking the room from intruders. Robert now noticed her hair was unbound about her shoulders, cascading like a river of gold; she’d let it down. Before he could mull this significance, she advanced toward him and unbuttoned her grey merino bodice far enough to reveal her chemise. Her small breasts pressed against the muslin, her nipples erect from the cold. Robert averted his eyes.
Grace sat beside him on the bed, her eyes warm with invitation.
“I need you to remain silent about what you saw at the chapel. Understand?”
Robert’s head slowed. “About . . . the roses on the door?”
She nodded. “It’s hard to explain. Nor am I allowed to. It’s just that someone pays me quite generously to place them there. If anyone were to find out . . .”
“Miss Isabelle would sack you.” This must have something to do with the pilgrims.
“Something like that.” She placed her right hand on his thigh. Inched it upward. Perhaps it was the aftermath of the morphia, but Robert couldn’t find the will to resist.
“If you help me”—her breath was warm against his ear—“I can help you. You want to look inside Ada’s Folly, don’t you? To daguerreotype it? I know someone who wants to go inside it too.”
Robert pulled away. “I can’t help you.”
“Are you certain?” She met his gaze meaningfully. “Where’s your camera?”
Robert pointed across the room. “Over there, next to the door. Inside the wood box.”
Her eyes widened. “I hadn’t realized how large it was. I can pose for you. Do you want me to set it up?”
“No! I’d prefer no one handle it but myself. It’s quite fragile. Expensive.”
“Very well. I’ll ready myself . . .”
Grace used her free hand to release the final two buttons of her bodice. She pulled at the frayed ribbon lacing on her stays.
He grabbed her hands. “That’s quite enough. I don’t do this.”
“Do what, Mr. Highstead? Don’t you want me to pose for you?”
His tone grew cold. “If you knew what I usually daguerreotype, I don’t think you’d care to.”
She crinkled her nose. “You only daguerreotype churches?”
“No. I daguerreotype the dead. Corpses.”
There. He’d said it without evading the truth—usually he used a euphemism such as “preserve a remembrance” or “secure their shadow.”
Grace’s mouth twisted into a grimace; Robert supposed she was too unworldly to have knowledge of his occupation.
“Why the hell would you do that?”
�
��Because Mr. de Bonne requested it. Because it brings comfort to those who have lost the ones they love. Because I’m skilled at it. Because it pays.”
But this wasn’t the complete truth, and in a day filled with falsehoods, Robert found himself craving honesty like air. Maybe it was the morphia, maybe it was a way to distract himself from Grace’s unexpected display, but in the end it mattered not: Robert found himself telling her the history of his occupation.
He told Grace how it all began one night in a public house in Leadenhall Market soon after he’d left Oxford. Robert had been seated in a dark corner, drinking a whisky, staring at his miniature of Sida’s eye. When a black-clad gentleman had laid a black-clad hand on his shoulder, Robert had welcomed him, wishing him to be Death himself. “Why so sad?” the gentleman asked, sloppy with drink. Robert answered with a passage from Ovid:
“As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind.”
“Strong words, my friend,” the gentleman replied. “Perhaps I can bring you comfort.” And then he’d drawn out his Catalogue of Possibilities. “These daguerreotypes preserve the past as memory, Mr. Highstead,” he’d explained. “They keep our loved ones close.” Robert had looked at the stillborn babies supported by black-cloaked figures, the alternate views of the departed, the family gathered around the corpse. Robert had seen such daguerreotypes before, but he’d thought them unnatural. This time though, instead of being repelled, he’d been intrigued. Not because he wanted to daguerreotype Sida—that narrow pine coffin had already been buried for some weeks—but for reasons he couldn’t yet name.
Robert invited the gentleman to sit. He ordered a bottle of whisky and two glasses. The two men spoke, Robert evasively of his marriage and exile from Oxford, the gentleman, with expansive drunkenness, of his business prospects. He’d brought out a deck of cards. “If you pull an ace, I’ll teach you how to use my camera; if not, you owe me a ha’crown. Deal?” When he’d splayed the cards across the table, Robert had felt a madness he couldn’t turn from. By closing time, the gentleman had lost his business to Robert. Later, Robert learned the business bore debts the gentleman had yearned to be rid of, but it mattered not. Robert had found his vocation.
The Lost History of Dreams Page 9