The Lost History of Dreams

by Kris Waldherr

  “You are Ada, aren’t you? That’s why you’re avoiding the pilgrims. Because if they knew you still lived, they’d blame you for Hugh’s disappearance and death. They’d accuse you of breaking his heart when you abandoned him after Mathilde’s death. That’s why you want me to write your book—to get rid of the pilgrims. To free yourself of your past. From Hugh.”

  After a moment, she gave a little nod.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m Ada.”

  A strange smile overtook her lips. Somehow Robert found her eyes meeting his, just as he’d found himself clutching her hand. Her tongue, soft and pink, darted against her lips, as though they’d grown parched after a long night’s sleep. How full and ripe her mouth was. How welcoming.

  Their faces loomed closer until only a breath separated them. Now her scent of wine and soap mingled with moss and smoke. Her hand rose to caress his cheek. His stunned brain recited like a litany, We are going to kiss. I am going to kiss Ada de Bonne . . .

  A gasp caught his ears—a gasp Ada seemed not to hear. Robert pulled away as though he’d singed his hands. He knew whose gasp he’d heard. Sida’s.

  He whirled around the room. “Where are you?”

  Ada implored, “Who are you speaking to?”

  A ghost, Robert wanted to say. Like those you’ve been speaking of all these nights. Only mine is real. And I’ve betrayed her.

  “Where are you?” he begged. “Reveal yourself!”

  “Here.”

  The voice was more a drift of wind than breath. It emerged from behind Robert.

  He turned. The mirror above the fireplace. It reflected Sida standing beside Ada. Sida’s face was pale and mournful above that eternal bloodstained blue silk dress. Her eyes were wet. All of Robert’s love for her returned. All his guilt.

  “I’m sorry,” he cried, turning toward her. “So sorry!”

  Sida dissolved into the wall as unexpectedly as she’d appeared, a whoosh of damp air rustling in her wake, the scent of smoke too. “Come back!” Robert shouted. But before he could rush after his ghost wife, a glare of dazzling orange on the window caught his eye. It came from the direction of the stable house.

  Ada saw it also. “How strange,” she said just as the clock struck midnight and the dog began to bark. “Can that be the sunrise already?”

  The Ghost Bride

  Excerpted from The Weight of Air by Hugh de Bonne, published 1835 by Chapman & Hall, London.

  I walk solitary at midnight

  Though not alone. My Bride

  Follows with a tread so light

  Like Crows aft their Stygian guide.

  ‘Come with me,’ I shall cry.

  ‘Remain with me—or I will die.’

  Alone, I turn to find her thus :

  Her dark hair asunder with nested

  Sparrow. Her shoulders artless

  Yet garbed with Dove and Ibis.

  ‘Come with me,’ I did cry.

  ‘Remain with me—or I shall die.’

  Now my Bride walks before me in the night.

  Still—I fear she might take flight.

  *

  I.

  A beehive surrounded by briars will burn. A stable built of rotted wood and filled with hay will burn. A corpse embalmed in spirits of wine and arsenic will burn. But a house made of stone will not, especially if the wind is still. This was what Robert told himself as he watched the last of Hugh de Bonne become consumed by flames.

  By the time Robert realized what the orange glare on the window indicated, the stench of smoke was overwhelming and Virgil’s bark had grown into a howl that would have roused the dead from their graves.

  “The stable house,” Ada said. “It’s on fire.”

  Her voice was oddly flat. But then the spell broke, and a sob escaped her lips as she rushed from the library. Robert ran downstairs after her, fearful what she’d do when confronted with the coffin of her deceased husband ablaze. She and Hugh once loved each other. Created a child together. Buried that child. And then lost each other. No matter their history, for Ada to witness Hugh’s corpse destroyed in such a manner seemed a final cruelty. But he needn’t worried: she’d gone to locate Mrs. Chilvers, who was safe in her bed, and Owen and Grace, who’d returned from the village without the doctor.

  Outside the stable house, the flames shot even higher, for the hay loft caught fire. Robert covered Ada with his arms, protecting her from flying embers and fleeing cows and horses, who screeched as they scattered toward the woods. The air was thick with fog, which kept the flames from spreading to the main house. Shards of glass littered the walk; Robert recognized them as the broken remains of an oil lamp.

  Before he could inform Ada of what he’d found, Grace and Owen staggered from the rose garden, their faces grey with ash, followed by Tamsin Douglas and Missus Dido.

  “Oh sweet Jesus!” Tamsin screamed, her knees buckling. “Someone do something! Hugh’s in there!”

  She lurched toward the stable house, barely avoiding the falling embers. Missus Dido reached to stop her, but Tamsin slipped past her grasp, toward where the fire burned brightest.

  Grace leapt and wrestled Tamsin to the ground. “No! It’s too late, Mrs. Douglas!”

  “Let me go! You can’t possibly understand—”

  “I do understand.” Grace shook Tamsin’s shoulders. “He’s gone! Gone! Nothing can be done. You can’t bring him back!” Whether she was referring to Hugh or Mrs. Douglas’s son or husband, it didn’t matter, Robert decided. For Grace was right: nothing could be done.

  Soon after, Grace and Owen disappeared with the pilgrims. Robert and Ada watched in silence as the fire rose bright and hot. What more was there to say? He’d learned what he’d yearned to know; she’d confessed what she’d needed. As a result, Hugh was gone. So was Sida.

  Nothing to be done.

  Just after the fire reached its apex, they were joined by Mrs. Chilvers in her wrapper, who clutched her throat, and Owen and Grace, who clutched hands.

  “Where’d you take Mrs. Douglas and Missus Dido?” Robert asked.

  “The library,” Grace said, her eyes swollen from smoke. “Didn’t trust Mrs. Douglas alone. Had Missus Dido give her morphia to sleep. She’s with her now—she’ll keep her safe.” She avoided Ada’s gaze. “I fear Mrs. Douglas burned her hands when she fell. I’ll fetch the doctor.”

  “Yet you didn’t fetch the doctor earlier . . .” Robert addressed Owen, who was examining his cigarette. “It’s fortunate the horses and cows weren’t in the stable when the fire began.”

  Owen swallowed hard. “Nor was your camera box.”

  “I see. Where’d you take it?”

  “The kitchen.” He flicked his cigarette into a pile of leaves. “Well, you were leaving in the morning. ’ Twas a miracle that I’d remembered.”

  “A miracle,” Grace rejoined, whistling for the dog.

  “No miracle,” Ada said bitterly, hacking from the smoke.

  Nothing to be done, Robert thought again.

  The stable house smoldered through the night. Soon after dawn, the fog became a gentle rain that doused anything still burning. Once the embers settled, they crumbled to ash. By mid-afternoon, they’d dried enough that the wind carried them into the rose garden. The ashes were black as raven feathers.

  “Don’t play with those, Virgil!” Robert heard Grace scold. “Poison!”

  * * *

  Robert didn’t see Ada the following day, which she’d spent recovering in her room, if he was to believe Mrs. Chilvers. Before he left Weald House, he searched for Sida everywhere. He didn’t find her. Nor did he find her in Kent when he arrived at his family home.

  He even dared walk by her uncle’s cottage, in the unlikely case she’d returned there. In the ten days he’d been away, someone had hacked at the rose arbor and the fruit trees. They’d also torn out the herb and vegetable beds. The garden looked like a man who’d gone in for a haircut but ended up bald. The stench of horse manure and decaying leaves mingled with dam
p earth. “It’s what it should be,” Robert murmured. They were pruning and replanting for spring. Still, it was a shock, as though he’d come upon it gutted by flames.

  He stood there staring at the garden for some time, yearning for a glimpse of Sida. Her blue gown fluttering against her limbs. Her dark hair about her cheeks.

  She’ll be in London She’ll understand once I explain about Ada. She’ll remain with me.

  This time he didn’t believe it.

  II.

  Hugh’s funeral was a subdued Saturday morning affair attended only by John, Robert, and their immediate household. “Best to keep things private,” John said. Robert understood. At the last minute, John invited Hugh’s solicitor, who came down from London for the day, but insisted on staying overnight. Awkwardness upon awkwardness, Robert thought, especially after he explained how Hugh’s mortal remains had been incinerated during Robert’s attempt to fulfill his last wishes. “You didn’t have to take ‘ashes to ashes’ quite so literally, Mr. Highstead,” was the solicitor’s flabbergasted response. Still, John had managed to convince him to consider the terms of Hugh’s bequest fulfilled, for nothing more could be done.

  The pine box John had called into service for Hugh’s coffin was empty save for a pile of the poet’s books. Once John had learned the worst (“A stable fire! The house still stands? What the deuce, Robert . . .”), he’d rushed off to London, where he’d purchased every edition he could find of Hugh’s published works, from juvenilia to The Weight of Air to Cantos for Grown Children to The Lost History of Dreams.

  “The measure of a man’s life is in his work,” John explained.

  “The measure of a man’s life is in who he loves,” Robert countered.

  When John was busy fussing with his hounds, Robert slipped the journal bearing Ada’s story into the coffin.

  Still, some things remained as they had been before Robert’s journey to Shropshire. Though he’d yet to return to his employment, he arranged for a mute clad in full mourning to accompany Hugh’s coffin as they drove it to the family plot in Belvedere proper. He draped black crape over the mirrors to prevent Hugh’s soul from lingering. Without a corpse to daguerreotype, Robert set his tripod beside Hugh’s plot to record the funeral for history’s sake.

  Once the coffin had been lowered into the soil, and flowers dropped onto it, Robert settled himself behind his camera. Through the viewing glass, he saw his brother, who’d brought his dogs, and Hugh’s solicitor, who scowled as a result. The remainder of their household chose to remain outside the composition save for their housekeeper, Mary, whose bulk filled much of the frame.

  Once the composition was set, Robert took out the silver-coated copper plate that would become the daguerreotype. He’d already buffed it to a mirrorlike sheen. It was one of the plates he’d prepared to daguerreotype Hugh inside Ada’s Folly—a plate that was never used.

  A quick exposure to chemical fumes and the plate was ready. As Robert slid it inside the airtight box for exposure, his gaze wandered to the grave beside Hugh’s. Cressida Maya Highstead, the slender granite headstone said. Someone had thought to weed around it.

  Robert looked away. Best not to think of what was lost. But he did.

  Come back to me. Please.

  The camera mechanism felt to his hand like it usually did, yet somehow different. Colder. Stiffer. Perhaps it was his time away from it. He took off the lens cap with a flash of his palm. Though he’d carefully framed the composition, Sida’s grave stone intersected one corner.

  I love you. Only you.

  Just as he finished counting down the exposure time, his stomach clenched, his sight blurred. The sour taint of acid choked his throat.

  Before he could finish fixing the image, Robert packed everything away.

  “I have to leave,” he mouthed to John. “Now.”

  * * *

  Back at his family home, Robert only made it as far as John’s study, where he’d first encountered Hugh’s corpse ten days earlier. After he vomited inside a half-empty coal scuttle, he collapsed onto the chaise that had belonged to his mother.

  The memory of Sida’s headstone returned. She’s really gone.

  Once he trusted himself to move, he grabbed a bottle of brandy from a shelf and a glass. He gagged down as much as he could stand, welcoming the burn against his mouth—alcohol was better than the taint of bile. He shut his eyes, yearning to forget.

  Soon after, Robert felt a hand on his shoulder. John. He smelled vaguely of brandy himself.

  “You fell asleep, brother of mine.”

  “It’s been a long day.”

  “It’s not even ten o’clock.”

  “I’ve been up since five.” He eyed John warily. “Shouldn’t you be with our guests?”

  “You mean guest. Hugh’s solicitor left. I don’t think he appreciated our funeral service, but we did what we could,” John said. “If you have that daguerreotype, I’ll send it to him. It’ll make amends for immolating Hugh’s earthly remains.”

  Robert raised himself against the chaise, rubbing his brow. “I still need to varnish it. I’ll bring it to him in London.” I’ll find Sida there. I have to.

  “That reminds me. Did our Miss Isabelle Lowell ever explain why she wouldn’t let you daguerreotype Hugh inside the glass chapel?”

  A silence the length of a breath. In this silence, Robert felt the entirety of all that had occurred at Weald House before his departure.

  “No,” he said. He’d tell no one of Ada’s story. Not even John.

  Robert reached for his daguerreotype traveling case. It clattered like an alchemist’s laboratory as he dragged it toward the door.

  “I should leave. I’ve drunk enough of your brandy.”

  “So soon? I’d hoped you’d stay at least for lunch. I can arrange for a Bordeaux to compliment the brandy,” John said, his pleading gaze belying his flippant tone. “I thought we could talk about Oxford. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider your Ovid biography. Seems a shame to let it slide after your first book did so well. If you were to, I’ve something interesting. Letters Hugh wrote Father—Hugh’s solicitor had sent them to me, though God knows how he obtained them. I glanced through them, but it’s not the sort of thing I usually read. Perhaps they’d be useful for your book?”

  “What does this have to do with Ovid?”

  John shrugged. “Ovid disappeared. Hugh disappeared. Old is new and new is old.”

  “You surprise me.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes then.” John pulled the letters, which were tied in a thick black ribbon, from a drawer in his desk. “By the way you dropped something.”

  A glint of gold on the floor. The eye miniature. The one of Sida. It must have slipped from his pocket while he was packing his camera equipment.

  Robert’s stomach clenched anew. He pulled the eye minature into his fist, unable to look at it. Nevertheless, a deep shudder rose through his torso, starting from his stomach and rising to his throat. He felt as though he’d vomit again.

  He clutched the miniature against his palm and slid to the ground.

  “She’s gone. She’s really gone! Truly, utterly gone.”

  “Who?” John’s tone was more bewildered than concerned.

  “My wife. Sida.” Robert’s words came hard now. “I have no idea where she went. Only that I’ve lost her forever.”

  John said gently, “It’s been over three years.”

  “I know. I know! But she’s never left me. Not really—”

  “You mean you never left her, Robert. Isn’t that why you refused to speak to me? Abandoned your friends? Left Oxford?”

  “You don’t understand. I didn’t love her as I should. Protect her as I should. And now I’ve betrayed her . . .” Robert looked up from the miniature, his breath shallow. “There was another woman.”

  The memory of Ada just before they’d nearly kissed returned. Her eyes, wide and startled, as if she’d been surprised by desire as much as he’d been.

 
“Cressida’s dead. You’re alive. How can you betray someone by living in this world?”

  But there was more than this to Robert’s grief. In that moment, Robert felt his past catching up with him from these past three years. Guilt rose like bile as he recalled all those stillborn babies he’d daguerreotyped, all those dead children and mothers. Those mourning fathers and left-behind siblings he’d comforted during his employment. The money he’d made from their bereavement, the catharsis he’d gleaned by capturing their loss on a silvered plate, as though this act would restore his wife to life . . .

  “I never told you what happened the night she died, did I?”

  John turned ashen. “I know what happened. Her uncle beat her. He’d beaten her before. It’s an old story. A sad story. You did your best to stop him. There’s nothing more you could have done.”

  “You’re wrong. So very wrong.” Now the words wouldn’t stop coming no matter how Robert tried. “Her uncle found us together. In bed.”

  John’s eyes widened. “I assume you weren’t napping.”

  “We’d thought we were alone.”

  “Robert, you don’t need to tell me—”

  “But I do! I do! I want you to know the truth—no one else does. She’d thought he’d left with her aunt for the day—her aunt knew we’d planned to elope. There was no other way. Her uncle didn’t believe I intended to marry her. Sida had said that would happen, that he’d call her a whore. A slut. He’d send her back to India.”

  “I understand,” John said, taking Robert by his shoulders to calm him.

  “No, you don’t understand. You can’t understand . . .” But Robert could confess no more. It was too sordid. Too painful. They were just about to leave for London to elope. Sida had taken a last look around the cottage to see if she’d forgotten anything. “The only thing I’ll miss is the garden,” she’d said. “Should I leave my uncle a note?”

  “Instead of a note, I should piss on his bed,” Robert said. “He’ll understand the message.”