Ghosts by Gaslight

by Jack Dann

  MY 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?”

  THE 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 tel
l 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.

  She opened her mouth again and this time, with considerable effort and in a voice that fluctuated between Jane’s firm contralto and Christine’s higher, frailer tones, she said, “Have you come to frolic? It is much too early. We risk being interrupted at our play.”

  This brief speech so horrified me that I remained half lying on the bed, propped up on my elbows, incapable of answering her.

  “Yet risk may add spice to our pleasure. Was that your thought? Naughty Jeffkins!” She turned her back and lifted her hair away from the nape of her neck. “Won’t you help me with my buttons?”

  I came to my feet and turned her to face me. “Jane!” I said, and shook her. “Jane!”

  She fought against me, but I shook her again and again, each time more violently, and continued to call her name. Suddenly she went limp and would have fallen to the floor in a swoon had I not supported her. I laid her down on the bed and patted her cheeks until her eyes fluttered open—her eyes, devoid of unnatural movement, and not Christine’s. She was at first confused, then angry when I told her about Christine, refusing to accept my version of events.

  “Do you remember me entering the room?” I asked her. “Or anything that was said?”

  “I . . .” She put a hand to her temple. “No, but . . .”

  “What is the last thing you recall?”

  “I was . . .” A look of consternation cut a line across her brow. “I was in my room. Reading, I think.”

  “You never wear this dress in the house. Not to my knowledge. Were you wearing it while reading?”

  She examined a fold of fabric that she pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “I had not finished dressing. I thought of a quotation—from Jane Austen—and I recall opening my book to search for it.”

  “Can we assume your lapse of memory encompassed a span of, say, ten minutes or thereabouts?”

  “I’m not sure. Everything’s cloudy.”

  She started up from the bed, but I held her down.

  “We must tell Jeffrey,” she said.

  “Do you feel up to it?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “All right. But you must promise that no matter how he reacts, you’ll leave with me at once.”

  “He may need our assistance.”

  “If you remain in the house, you will be at risk. This may not be the first time that Christine has possessed you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you may owe Dorothea an apology.”

  After a moment she said, “Oh, God! Is that possible?”

  We went downstairs, collected Dorothea, and bearded Richmond in his study, where I explained things to the best of my ability.

  “Well now. That should remove the sting from Samuel’s infidelity,” he said to Jane, bemused. “It would appear that he was unfaithful to you with you.”

  “I see no humor in this,” I said.

  “No?” His smile broadened. “Let it be noted that you are a particularly humorless young man.”

  “I can’t speak for Dorothea,” I said. “But Jane and I intend to leave before a tragedy occurs.”

  “Oh, you have my permission to speak for me,” Dorothea said. “I’m half out the door.”

  I leaned down to Richmond, resting my fists on his desk. “If you insist upon staying, a tragedy is inevitable. You are in grave danger.”

  “Nonsense! Christine is indifferent to me.”

  “Yet less than an hour ago, in a tone of voice I would describe as playfully seductive, she referred to you as ‘Naughty Jeffkins.’ Does that strike a chord?”

  “Did she say that? But this is wonderful, don’t you see?”

  “Damn it, Richmond! She’s confused me with you. Can you have forgotten what you told me? That she is a mad fraction of her former self with whom true communication was impossible?”

  “I may have been in error,” he said.

  “Jeffrey, please!” Jane laid a hand on his shoulder. “You must leave.”

  “All you have done is to strengthen that fraction,” I said. “And what of that shadowy creature? It seems you have strengthened it as well. Do you have any understanding of its potential?”

  “No, I do not,” Richmond said. “Nor do you. And because you do not understand, you are afraid.”

  “It’s conceivable that the entity is harmless . . . or inimical in a trifling way, like the ghost of a demonic house pet. But when dealing with something of so menacing an aspect, yes, I deem it wise to practice caution. As would any responsible person.”

  “Go then!” Enraged, Richmond jumped to his feet and pointed to the door. “Go and practice caution! Be responsible! Leave me to my researches.”

  “You’ve done no research! You built your machines and left the research to me. Research, I might add, that would be much further along had you been open with me from the outset.”

  I held out my hand to Jane, but she looked to Richmond instead. “Do you want us to stay, Jeffrey?”

  “I cannot ask it of you,” he said. “But yes, of course. A resolution is at hand and I would hope that you see me through it.”

  “Jane,” I said.

  “How long will this resolution take?” she asked.

  “Perhaps a few hours. A single night. Now that she is stronger, I doubt things will go unresolved for long. Yet I cannot be precise.”

  “I’ll be pushing along,” Dorothea said. “I’ve given you my all, as it were. Mister Richmond. All this talk of possession, though . . . it’s not a dance I care to do.”

  Jane turned to her. “We can spare him one more night, can’t we?”

  Dorothea said flatly, “I’m sorry.”

  “I won’t leave without you, Jane,” I said.

  “I swear to you, Samuel.” Richmond came out from behind his desk. “I will shut down the machine in the morning, whether or not . . .”

  “Why should we believe anything you have to say?” I stepped away as he made to approach me. “You’ve done nothing but lie and dissemble since the beginning. If a resolution of the problems between you and Christine is what you actually seek, how will our presence assist in that? It will achieve nothing other than placing us in peril.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’m frightened. I’m afraid of being alone with her. If you feel you must leave, I understand.”

  Judging by the sympathetic expression on Jane’s face, I recognized there was little hope of countering Richmond’s self-serving statement; but I tried nevertheless.

  “You are afraid, yet you wish us to stay,” I said. “And you care so little about our well-being, you expect us to join you in this dangerous folly. How noble!”

  Jane shot me a reproving look.

  “He’s manipulating you,” I said.

  “He’s right,” said Richmond with a hangdog expression. “You should leave.”

  “Good Christ!” I slammed the flat of my hand against the desk, making a loud report. “Now he’s feigning weakness to rouse your sympathy. Can’t you see?”

  Both Jane and Richmond regarded me sadly, as if they were aware of some nuance, some shading of the truth that
I had yet to comprehend.

  SCIENTIFIC CURIOSITY MAY have played a part in my decision to remain in the house. I was genuinely anxious for Jane, and I wanted to keep an eye on Richmond—I insisted that we wait out the night together, thinking that should Richmond begin to behave erratically or Christine attempt to possess Jane once again, I would take decisive action. But as we sat at a bench on the sixth floor, speaking minimally or not at all, I came to ponder my missed opportunities. Had I not become involved with Jane and focused the bulk of my attention on the ghosts that passed through the chamber, I might have arrived at some firm conclusions about the spirit world. As things stood, I could make only the most general of suppositions. I vowed to devote myself henceforth to uncovering material proofs pertaining to everything I had observed.

  Not until that night did I realize how unseemly a perdition the sixth floor was. With its mouse droppings, dusty spaces, and raw boards; its gray canvas curtain, iron walls, and benches laden with machine parts; and its ghosts and the vibration of the attractor, it had an ambiance that was part futuristic charnel house, part wizardly lair. I could not wait to relegate it to memory. My dislike for the place was augmented by Dorothea’s absence. Her pragmatism and humor had been necessary to the sustenance of the unusual family we had become during the past months, and I felt a corresponding disunity. Jane leafed through a book of poems, occasionally offering me a nervous smile. Now and then Richmond glanced at the ceiling. He may have been alerted by some aberrance in pitch of the attractor, though I detected none. During the initial hour of our vigil, Christine materialized in her several guises on fourteen separate occasions, never for more than seconds, but made no effort to possess Jane or to do anything other than look morose. After that she appeared no more. I was nonplussed by her withdrawal and Richmond’s manner grew funereal, sitting with his hands clasped and eyes downcast. Every so often he would blurt out a question such as “Where do you think she is?” or “Do you think we should move downstairs?” Our response to these and other questions was essentially the same: I don’t know. Another two hours passed in this fashion. Finally, during the fourth hour, he told us that he was going up to the roof.