by Jack Dann
He withdrew a pocket watch and flicked open the case. “I prefer not to color your opinion with my own.”
I objected to this, saying I needed every bit of information he had gathered in order to carry out an exacting investigation, but he deflected my arguments.
“It’s late and I am weary,” he said. “Let us go down. If you wish, I can offer you a bed and all the amenities. That prospect may have greater appeal than does a lengthy coach ride.”
MY ROOM ON the second floor was staid by contrast to the salon, having sensible oak furniture, a bed with a carved headboard and pineapple posts, logs in the fireplace, and only a pair of erotic lithographs on the wall to remind of the house’s former occupation. Recalling Richmond’s assertion that little had been changed, this led me to hypothesize that while Englishmen might relish an exotic façade, most preferred to take their pleasure in an atmosphere redolent of hearth and home. I had no means of lighting a fire, but just when it seemed I would have to sleep in a cold bed, there came a tapping at the door and Jane entered bearing a small bundle of kindling. Speaking in a northern accent partially scrubbed away by life in London, she said that she had been sent to prepare my room. Once the fire was going, filling the air with the aromatic scent of burning cedar, throwing shadows onto the wall, lending the room the atmosphere of a cozy cave, I sat by the hearth and watched her turn down the sheets, puzzling over the resemblance she and Richmond’s other assistant bore to Christine. This likeness, I realized, was not limited to her face, but extended to her body as well—long of limb, lissome yet full-breasted. Once she had finished with the bedding, she began to unbutton her tunic, doing so as though it were the most ordinary and expectable of actions. She had the garment halfway off before I regained my equilibrium and told her forcefully to desist. She covered herself and, with an air of bewilderment, asked if I would prefer that she send up Dorothea to entertain me.
“Entertainment of any sort will not be necessary,” I said. “But I should like a few words with you, if you please.”
She sat primly in the chair facing mine, hands clasped in her lap.
“My name is Samuel Prothero,” I said. “Your employer has asked that I assist him in an inquiry regarding the death of his sister.”
“So he told us.”
The fire popped and she gave a start.
“Prior to Christine’s death, how long were you in the house?”
“Roughly four years. I had my sixteenth birthday shortly after I arrived.”
“You knew her well, then?”
“As well as any. She was always lovely to us girls. Honest and kind. She had her peculiar ways, though. And her secrets.”
“I’m sure you learned some of them, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Well . . . ?”
“They were private matters. The sorts of things you might confide in a friend, but would never tell your mother.”
“And Mister Richmond? Does he also have secrets?”
“Everyone has secrets, Mister Prothero. I’m certain you have yours.”
“Why would you say that?”
“You’re not the first colleague of Mister Richmond’s to visit the house, but you are the first to reject my hospitality.” She tipped her head to the side, as if to see me more clearly. “You have a touch of the prude in you, but I believe your rejection was based on something else. Perhaps some tenet of your beliefs was involved . . . though not, I think, a religious principle.”
“You’re clever, aren’t you, Jane?”
“I know men,” she said. “Whether or not that demands cleverness is a topic for debate.”
“These men Richmond compelled you to sleep with, were . . .”
“I was not compelled. He asked me if I would lie with them. I could have refused.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“He needed my assistance.”
“How so?”
“I’ll let Mister Richmond decide whether or not to tell you about that.”
Fascinated by her poise and her obvious intelligence, I let a few moments slip past.
“You’re very loyal to Richmond,” I said. “Why is that?”
“I was loyal to Christine because she saved my life. She used me, it’s true, but then every human relationship is founded upon a bargain of some sort, and had she not taken me in, I would surely have come to a bad end. I’m loyal to Jeffrey, Mister Richmond, because I am now in his employ, and because I wish to help with his investigation.”
“And so, in order to gain information about them, you slept with men whom he believed might be guilty of the crime?”
She laughed. “You’ve found me out. Yes, for all the good it did.” After a pause, her voice acquired an edge. “I would have preferred to have been brought up in a decent home and lived an exemplary life, but though I regret my past I am not ashamed of it. I’ve done what I have in order to survive.”
I wondered why she bothered to explain herself. “Were these men members of the Inventors’ Club?” I asked.
“Some, yes. Perhaps all of them were. I’m not certain.”
The idea that the men had availed themselves of illicit pleasure at Richmond’s invitation and then reviled him for it—it conformed to my notions of upper-class duplicity.
“And tonight,” I said. “Did he ask you to help with me?”
Her lips thinned. “I think you have pried deeply enough into the subject.”
I stirred the fire with a poker. “How would you explain the resemblance between you and Christine . . . and Dorothea?”
“Christine was ever on the lookout for girls who took after her. When Dorothea happened along, she was delighted—that was the year before she died. She had a client who favored our type. Sometimes he’d have the two of us together . . . and sometimes he’d pay for Christine to join us, though she came dear.”
“Who was this client?”
She shook her head. “I never knew his name. He wore a mask that covered his head from brow to chin, except for his eyes and mouth. Not even Christine knew him. He had money and came highly recommended—that was enough for her.”
“Recommended by whom?”
“Another client, I believe. That’s all I know.”
“Did he bear any marks on his body that might distinguish him.”
“I don’t recall anything in particular.” She suppressed a smile.
“What is it?” I said. “If you remember a wart, a mole, some aberrant behavior or character trait, anything at all, it could be of immense value.”
“Well, he did like tipping the velvet. He never prigged me proper until he was sure I was satisfied.”
I may have blushed, for she shot me a mischievous look. Flustered, I told her that I thought it time for me to retire. As she crossed to the door, another question sprang to mind, but I had been unsettled by her boldness.
“I trust you will be available tomorrow?” I said.
“I have errands to accomplish during the day.” She put a hand on the doorknob and smiled sweetly. “In the evening, however, I will be here to serve you however I can.”
I SLEPT FITFULLY, inflamed by Jane’s bold manner and the glimpse I’d had of her breasts, and troubled by dreams of which I could recall mere fragments. When I woke it was half-ten and I realized that I had missed my one scheduled appointment for the day. Folded atop the dresser was a change of clothing and fresh linens. I also found a note from Richmond stating that he would be gone until late that evening and perhaps overnight, doing some work at his factory. Dorothea would serve me breakfast in the kitchen and arrange for transportation whenever I decided to return home. If I chose to begin my researches immediately, and this was his hope, I was to consider the house my own.
Dorothea proved to be a bright, saucy Londoner, born and bred in Saint Nichol, much more indelicate in her speech than Jane and coarser of feature, more like Christine in this regard, though her eyes were cornflower blue, not hazel. She cooked me a sturdy breakfast that
I ate at the counter in the drafty, dingy kitchen, a room with a high ceiling, gray walls, an iron stove crouching on clawed feet, and a chimney covered in plaster. While she tidied up I asked her essentially the same questions I had asked of Jane. Her answers shed no new light on Christine’s death, but when I pressed her, she disclosed that Christine had tutored her in the art of pleasing a man, with particular attention paid to the pleasing of one man, the mysterious masked client.
“I think she fancied him,” Dorothea said. “Which was odd considering she was a bit of a Tom.”
“Christine was a lesbian?”
“She had her lady friends, let’s say, but now and again a man would catch her eye. And him with the mask—she’d ride him to Bristol and back if given the chance. When he paid for the three of us, often as not Jane and I did nothing more than lie about and coo in his ear for all the attention she paid him. Why, I recall this one—”
“I don’t think it necessary to explore specifics,” I said. “Why did you choose to remain in the house after her death?”
“Money,” she said, leaning on her broom. “What else? Mister Richmond sacked the rest of the girls, but he made Jane and me a most generous offer to stay. The work is easy—a few men and mostly none at all. I feel like a regular toffer and not some dollymop in a bordello. Of course . . .” She winked at me. “Now there’s you.”
“I doubt I shall be long in residence,” I said. “Certainly not long enough to establish the kind of relationship you imagine.”
“Oh, la!” She laughed and danced her broom around. “It don’t take that long to establish, believe me. And it’s not me who’s doing the imagining. It’s Jane. She fancies you, she does.”
“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.