His hands fisted. He pounded the bed, an ineffectual revenge. But then a cool, moist breeze caressed his brow. He knew what this meant: Sida was there.
For the first time since he’d left London, his chest relaxed, his mouth spread into a grin. She’d never appeared to him outside London—but she’d come to him. She’d somehow found her way. They’d never be parted.
“Come to me,” he whispered into the shadows. “How I’ve missed you.”
He twisted toward the coolness, unable to make out his wife’s form. Yet. By now, Robert knew what to expect—he’d had plenty of time since Sida’s death to grow accustomed to her ways.
It had been four months after Robert’s dismissal from Oxford when he first sensed his wife’s return; he’d just begun working as a daguerreotypist, had settled in Clerkenwell far from anyone who might know him. One morning when he was shaving he’d glimpsed Sida reflected in the mirror behind him. The gradual manner in which her face emerged on the glass surface resembled how those corpses emerged from the daguerreotype after he’d exposed the plate to mercury.
“Don’t turn around,” she’d murmured against his ear, the air wet. “Remember, happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.” This had been the Ovid quote he’d used to convince her to marry him despite her uncle.
Robert had dropped his straight razor, nearly slicing his fingers. By the time he’d collected the razor off the floor, she was gone.
Afterward, he’d attributed his experience to being a product of his yearning and guilt, his reluctance to accept the finality of her death. The camera had nothing to do with his hallucination. It had only encouraged it. After all, hadn’t he become a daguerreotypist to better understand her death? To hold on to her? He considered whether his inability to write was a factor—he’d invested so many years, so much ambition into his Ovid biography for naught. In those days he was more dependent on morphia to sleep than he would have wished. He’d also become gaunt from a lack of appetite. He told himself his experience was a solitary phenomenon, never to be repeated.
He was wrong.
Three days later, Sida returned, taking on a greater presence that could not be excused as the product of an unstable mind. He’d feel her cool hand on his thigh as he slept. Her soft lips on his brow, murmuring how she cherished him. She was real—or as real as a ghost could be.
Once Robert understood Sida had found a new life beyond the grave, joy replaced grief. Even so, he struggled to understand the circumstances. Sometimes she’d appear within a crowd as he was leaving a job to walk home, only to vanish when he drew close. Other times she’d disappear for days; just as he despaired of her return, she’d show up beside him in their marital bed, her body clammy with ephemerality and yearning. He spent hours at the library researching ghosts and hallucinations, trying to decipher exactly what his wife had become. His studies in Oxford spoke of lives before death, but not of life after death. Had Sida’s soul continued on to another realm, leaving an etheric shell behind? Or was there something darker to blame, having to do with his sorrow that his camera had invoked? After much thought, Robert arrived at an equation a mathematician would appreciate: Love = Presence.
That evening in the stable house, Robert’s patience was rewarded. The air soon felt wet with a rain that never came. A moment later, the shadowy presence of his wife stood before him. She looked as she ever did. Beautiful. Kind. Cherished.
“I found my way here, my sweet. It was ever so hard.”
Robert pulled Sida onto the bed beside him, his chest releasing at last. He was careful not to embrace her too forcefully lest his arms pass through her. “All that matters is you’re here.”
“The more you love me, the more I live. You do, don’t you?”
“I do. More than anyone in the world.”
She gestured toward his temple. “You’re wounded. What happened?”
“ ’ Tis nothing. It’ll heal.” He brushed her ebony hair from her beloved face. Kissed her forehead. His lips met wet air.
Robert felt the clocks slow about them. A solitary candle flickered. Outside the stable house, a crow cawed on the roof beyond, its tone desperate. He sensed the bird’s wings fluttering like shadows into the dusk. A single black feather falling to the ground beneath it, like that feather he’d found in Hugh’s book.
He closed his eyes, yearning to will her into new life through the forces of love and memory. Several times he’d sworn he’d grown close. He’d felt her mouth become more than moisture beneath his lips. A subtle pulse when he’d kissed her jaw against the bluish veins that lined it. This time he couldn’t bear to try.
Instead, husband and wife lay together as they usually did, Sida enveloped in his arms, Robert curled behind her, his breath the only sound in the room. Her chest was still as it ever was, her heart silent, her form clammy. Still, she was there, and that was all that mattered.
“Promise you’ll never leave?” he said.
* * *
When Robert’s ankle roused him in the middle of the night, Sida was gone. He didn’t despair—she’d return. His face hurt from smiling.
“The more I love you, the more you’ll live,” he murmured into the air.
He rolled back onto the bed and reached for the morphia.
The Window of the Soul
Excerpted from First Poems by Hugh de Bonne, published 1831 by Chapman & Hall, London.
‘We are so afraid of living
That we live as though dead,’
Fret the young Pilgrim whilst he tread
On step toward the Path unending
Ne’er denoting the Pain ensnaring
Whilst his solace went unfed
Subsumed toward a greater dread.
‘What is Death but time granting
Life new wings?’ proclaimed Queen Joan,
Great of age and crowned by Kings.
‘’ Tis the Window of the Soul
For those Lives are short of Springs.’
And so Pilgrim knelt to royal Crone,
His heart becalmed by sage Tidings.
*
I.
On the first night of Isabelle’s story, Grace fetched Robert from his stable room at the precise stroke of seven. “You know why I’m here,” she announced.
“I do,” Robert answered. With little to do all day but wait, he’d prepared himself for his encounter with Isabelle as much as he could. Despite the joy of Sida’s arrival, his anxiety rose at the prospect of writing another book, even if it was a dictated one.
To calm his uneasiness, he’d written John, explaining he’d injured himself; hence, daguerreotyping Hugh in the glass chapel would take close to a week. He considered asking whether he’d informed Isabelle of his wife’s death, but decided against it. He’d rather assume John had, for the other possibilities were too distressing. Robert also read further in the book of Hugh’s letters, and managed to obtain copies of Hugh’s books, including The Lost History of Dreams. If he was to write about Ada, it would help to know more about Hugh.
Once the clock drew close to six, Robert donned a second set of clothes Grace had brought to replace his mud-splattered ones. Though he hadn’t shaved, he’d combed and oiled his hair. His face appeared new beneath the thick fuzz covering his cheeks and neck. He appeared older too—several new white bristles dotted his chin. He’d never grown a beard before. It seemed lazy, unfashionable. Anyway, when Sida was alive, she complained if he went too long between shaving.
The clothes fit Robert as though made for him. Unlike the previous set, these had grey-checked trousers and a double-breasted frock coat lined in crimson satin. It was a fine coat, though à la mode from years earlier—the waist was cut narrow, the sleeves tighter.
“French seams, silk lining,” he imagined Sida announcing wryly if she’d been there. “These are the clothes of a man who is confident of his worth. He knows their cost, but doesn’t want to flaunt his wealth. It would be too vulgar. Thus their luxury is hidden wit
hin the lining, which cost more than most make in a year.”
Robert examined the label.
Couturier M. Courtois, aux Montagnes Russes, Paris.
The clothes had been Hugh’s—Robert was convinced of it. Though they shared no blood, his cousin had been tall like him. Lean like him. It had been difficult to tell from his corpse, but now he knew. He crammed the journal and pencils Isabelle left into his pocket. After a moment, he set Sida’s miniature beside them.
“Wish me luck,” he’d whispered into the air once Grace knocked. “Remember I love only you.”
* * *
“Come in!” Isabelle called from the other side of the door. At the sound of her voice, Robert’s muscles tensed. He forced himself to turn the knob.
Inside the library, the overbearing scent of beeswax assaulted Robert’s nose. A dozen candles lined the fireplace mantel, an extravagant abundance. In addition, two whale oil lamps were set on the long table where Isabelle took her meals. Robert had the sense she was overcompensating for the darkness that had left him stumbling during their first meeting two nights earlier.
Finally able to view the library in full, his eyes trailed around the perimeter of the room in the same way a warrior takes in the lay of the land before a battle. The spinet piano was where he recalled, beside the door to his left; now Robert noticed the cheap varnish, the ruched black velvet covering the instrument’s legs from modest eyes. Beyond the piano, giving lie to the room’s name, was one solitary wall shelved with books, their leather bindings coarsened with either neglect or overuse. Above the fireplace, a large mirror bore the tattered visage of a crape bow. A last wall was hung with tapestries: thickly muscled satyrs chasing unicorns, and wimpled maidens peering out of the tails of their eyes while they drew water from meandering streams. These tapestries fluttered in the cool air, granting them the uncanny appearance of life.
Just beyond the tapestries, Isabelle was seated like a queen on a dais beside the fire, her white hair coiled about her temples. Whether it was the light or happiness at the prospect of Ada’s story being revealed at last, her expression was softer, less threatening, though Robert knew to distrust this impression. His cousin had also let off her half-mourning at last. She dressed in an indigo blue that made her sallow complexion appear to glow. Robert was surprised. Isabelle Lowell did not appear a harpy. However, neither did she appear a woman to be trifled with.
“Evening, Miss Lowell.” He wondered where she’d hidden his camera.
Isabelle tipped her head in greeting after taking in his clothes and walking stick without comment. “Is your ankle better?”
“It’s improved.” He gripped Hugh’s walking stick all the tighter, determined not to show any weakness. He’d let off the morphia, fearful of dulling his senses for Isabelle’s story.
To steady himself, he stared at a tall portrait of a young ebony-haired woman. The painting dominated the wall farthest from them. Her eyes were soulful and radiant. Her wide lace sleeves sloped off her shoulders, suggesting the fashions of some twenty years earlier. A nut-brown sparrow sat on her raised hand. She looked too pure-hearted for the world, like someone who’d give bread to the poor out of joy rather than obligation. An angel even. Viewing that portrait reminded him of the first time he’d seen Sida six years ago, that he’d encountered someone who was an extension of God’s inherent goodness. Robert stared. If the painting was of Ada de Bonne, it was difficult to see much resemblance to Isabelle beyond light eyes and broad cheek bones.
Robert tore his gaze from the portrait. “Is that your aunt?”
Isabelle nodded. “Painted in 1832, when she was eighteen, two years before she met Hugh. Four years before her death.”
And then Robert thought of Hugh’s corpse in the stable, the scent of almonds rising amid the flies buzzing and horse shit. The pilgrims circling Hugh’s legacy, unaware of his passing. Five nights Isabelle swore she’d take to tell Ada’s story—even if Hugh was embalmed, it was still a risky proposition. He should be buried beside Ada. Not resting in the company of horses and cows.
“Shall we begin, Miss Lowell?” The journal for her story felt bulky in his pocket beside Sida’s portrait.
“Sit, Mr. Highstead.”
She pointed to an olive-green chaise adjacent to her. Robert recognized the battered upholstered piece from the downstairs drawing room—she’d had it brought up for him. This kindness bothered him. It was easier to consider her an adversary.
Once he was arranged on the chaise, Isabelle took a sip of tea. No wine tonight.
“Before I start my story, I want to remind you of the terms of our contract. You are not to interrupt. You are not to contradict. You are not to comment. You are only to record what I say.” Her tone was brisk, though Robert sensed unease tingeing it.
“Understood.” He had little other choice.
“Did you bring something to write with?”
He pulled out the journal and one of the pencils she’d left him. Another tingle of nerves overtook him.
“Did you sign the contract?”
Robert drew the paper out from inside the journal. He’d smoothed the crinkled sheet to camouflage how much she’d upset him.
“Thank you,” Isabelle said mildly.
She folded the contract into quarters before placing it inside a silver box on the mantel. Like a shopkeeper with an exchange; Robert half expected her to give a ha’penny in change.
Once she settled back in her chair, she spoke.
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
Robert gave a little start. She couldn’t know. No one could see or hear Sida but him; the few times she’d shown in public, she’d drawn no notice.
“I believe the only thing that haunts us are our regrets.” His tone was aloof.
She laughed softly. “That is an unsurprising sentiment coming from you. But I digress—I ask about ghosts because the story I’m about to tell is a ghost story.”
This Robert had not expected. “Because of your aunt?”
“No. Because I believe love stories are ghost stories in disguise.”
Robert folded his arms. “I don’t follow your logic.”
“It’s quite simple. In speaking of love, we speak of intangible things. Like ghosts.” Her tone turned uneasy. “Thus, that which we love haunts us with possibilities, with denied yearnings like a ghost. The closer we approach, the more they elude.”
Robert still didn’t understand, but he pressed his lips tight. He had no desire to prolong her story—under such circumstances, he could imagine her claiming to need more than five nights. Regardless, Isabelle fell into a silence so profound that he heard the wind rise outside, the shutters clang against the grey-stoned house. A flash of pain, of sorrow, colored her expression, unexpectedly softening her mien. Would she ever speak?
She raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a cough before reaching for her tea. Her throat was dry.
“Well then,” she said once she’d taken another sip of tea. “Shall we begin our ghost story? It starts in this very house.”
II.
The First Night’s Story
All houses have a story to tell, Isabelle began. Some houses are akin to fairy tales, as many claim of Ada’s Folly. Other houses are structured like poems, with rooms devoted to beauty but lacking in function. However, only a few houses offer ghost stories. They’re built to be trampled by sorrow and loss. And that’s what you’ll find deep within the very walls and doors of Weald House: a ghost story begun from love.
Our ghost story begins before the first time Hugh de Bonne came to Weald House, and found all the intangible desires of his life—yes, the ghosts he sought—take on flesh in the personage of my aunt Ada. It begins before Ada learned of the flaw in her history that signified true happiness could never be. Indeed, our ghost story goes all the way back to Ada’s parents, Lucian and Adelaide Lowell, whose lives prepared my aunt for the love Hugh would bring. You see, Lucian won Weald House in a hand of whist one cold night in Novembe
r 1809 after finessing what had been deemed an impossible trump off of Sir Walter Sloane, whose family had owned the estate for generations.
It mattered not Lucian was only a boy of nineteen. Nor did it matter he was only the gardener’s son. What mattered was that Sir Walter had underestimated Lucian, who was madly in love with Adelaide, the spinster daughter of the house ten years his senior; she’d made the mistake of brushing her lips against his downy cheek after she’d drunk too much wassail at Christmas four years earlier.
After that kiss, Lucian was despondent. Undereducated as he was, he was clever enough to know that gardeners’ sons didn’t marry the daughter of the house. The only property he owned was a hoe and a rake. The only knowledge he possessed was the planting times for Shropshire soil, and how to lure crows from trees. None of this stopped Lucian from yearning for Adelaide the way flowers yearn for rain.
He’d dally on the path between Weald House and his home, hoping to spy Adelaide driving her cart and pony. He stopped sleeping in on Sundays in favor of church. Instead of the mysteries of Christ, it was Adelaide he sought to worship. Lucian would arrive early to sit as close as he could to the Sloane family pew, praying to glimpse her bared wrist when she reached for her hymnal. When this grew insufficient, he’d feign faints to view the lace of her petticoats when she knelt in her devotions.
After six weeks of this, Lucian stopped plowing the field. After six months, Lucian grew thin as a shadow. And then one day he simply disappeared. No one questioned where he’d gone, for there was no time for it: because of the war with France, many had run off to seek their fortunes, leaving their loved ones behind to fulfill their duties.
Four years later, Adelaide had forgotten everything about the gardener’s boy she’d kissed save he reeked of apples. Therefore she did not recognize Lucian on that February night in question when he arrived at Weald House attired like Beau Brummell himself. After an embarrassed introduction, he claimed to have become lost in the countryside en route to Wellington. Adelaide simpered like a girl when he kissed her hand. She giggled when he revealed his copy of A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. (Unknown to Adelaide: Lucian possessed another pamphlet by the same author, this one on probability theory.)
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