Spirit of Love

by Duncan, Alice

  Georgina didn’t understand and she was too overwhelmed to ask for enlightenment.

  Vernice evidently did understand and didn’t need enlightenment. “We’ve been through this before, Mr. O’Rourke. I have no influence over my mother. You know that. I never have had any influence over her. No one has. She’s an independent woman, always has been, always will be, and there’s no way our dear Georgina or I can alter her feelings about you an iota. You have no cause to haunt Georgina or me. Your quarrel is with Mother, and you should keep it there.”

  “Tut, the lass could help me if she wanted to.”

  Vernice shook her head. “Nonsense. Mother’s angry with you for dying, and for doing so without clearing up matters with her.”

  “What matters? Exactly what matters need to be cleared up?”

  Devlin sounded as frustrated as if he’d been a living man.

  Georgina considered this a bad sign, both because she was hearing a ghost, and because she’d always assumed before now that one’s problems vanished when life was as extinguished.

  Good heavens, she was behaving as if she actually believed this was happening.

  She shook her head, hard, and blinked at the two of them. It was difficult to get away from it: There they were, a real human being and a product of her fevered imagination, chatting together as if they both truly existed. She whispered, “Go away,” hoping in that way to dissipate the image of Devlin O’Rourke, but her words did no good. Rather, they drew his attention away from Vernice and to her. She wished she’d kept her big mouth shut.

  “I don’t aim to go away, child, until that grandmother of yours comes to her senses,” the figment of her imagination said, as if he were actually responding to her words, which he couldn’t possibly be, because he didn’t exist. Georgina wished she’d wake up soon. This was the worst nightmare she’d ever had.

  “It’s like this dearie,” the figment said coming—wafting, actually—closer to Georgina She drew back in the rocking chair and wished it didn’t have rockers; she felt awfully precarious.

  “Your grandmother and I loved each other for years and years. We lived together like man and wife for more years than she was married to that miserable old coot, Frederick Murphy.”

  “Miserable old coot? Grandfather?” Georgina couldn’t believe her ears. Why, Grandfather Murphy had been a wonderful man and a pillar of society, hadn’t he? She didn’t actually remember him, since he’d died when she was barely two, but she’d heard only good things about him.

  “Aye. Your grandfather.” Devlin O’Rourke shook his ghostly head, creating a blur that made Georgina blink and shake her own head. “He was a stinker, Frederick. As stuffy as a Christmas goose, he was. No sort of fellow for a free-spirited darling like my Maybelle to have married. But her family forced her into it, you see. She and I wanted to marry way back then, but they wouldn’t let us. They thought I was a wastrel.”

  “Oh.” Georgina stared at him, almost wanting him to be real. This conversation was so interesting. “And you weren’t? A wastrel, I mean.”

  Devlin snorted. It was a rather explosive snort, and it made Georgina give a start. “A wastrel? I should say not. Why, I’m as good an Irish lad as ever was.”

  Which, according to all the tales Georgina had heard about the Irish, didn’t necessarily negate his standing as a wastrel. She didn’t mention it.

  “As good a lying, good-for-nothing-bastard as ever was, you mean!”

  Georgina uttered a sharp scream and stood up so fast the chair skidded back, bumped into the wall, and commenced rocking wildly. When she whirled around to see from whence that strident declaration had come, she saw her grandmother, leaning heavily on a cane, standing in Vernice’s doorway. She was also scowling for all she was worth at Devlin O’Rourke.

  “Grandmother Murphy!” Georgina’s voice had been rattled into a whisper.

  “Yes, I’m Grandmother Murphy,” Maybelle said, her voice hard as rocks. “Murphy is the right word. I’m not Grandmother O’Rourke, and never have been.”

  “ ‘Tisn’t my fault,” cried Devlin. “ ‘Tis your own stubbornness that kept you a Murphy instead of an O’Rourke, Maybelle, and you know it!”

  “I don’t know it!” And with that Maybelle snatched a pretty ceramic pomander from the dressing table at her side and flung it at Devlin O’Rourke.

  “No!” Vernice, who had been silent during the past few minutes, leaped from her bed and made a wild grab for the pomander. “Don’t break that!”

  The pomander flew right through Devlin O’Rourke’s transparent body and hit the wall with a loud bang before it fell to the floor. Vernice scrambled for it as it rolled under the bed, picked it up, eyed it with concern, sighed with relief, and hugged it to her meager bosom. “That was a gift from my father, and I’ll thank you to treat it with respect!”

  “Your father!” If Maybelle could sound any more contemptuous, Georgina hoped never to hear her. “That fussy old fiddlestick!”

  “Don’t you dare say such things about him!” Vernice cried. “He was my father, whatever you think of him! At least he didn’t run out on his children!”

  Shocked by this show of defiance in the aunt whom she’d begun to consider rather shy and retiring, Georgina pressed a hand to her cheek and sank back into the rocking chair. She hated listening to heated disputes. Her parents had always argued behind closed doors, and for the first time Georgina realized how right they’d been to do so. It was upsetting to hear people rip into each other the way Grandmother Murphy, Vernice, and Mr. O’Rourke were doing.

  “I didn’t run out on you!” Maybelle glowered at Vernice for a moment before honesty got the better of her, and her gaze slid sideways. “At least I waited until you were grown up and on your own before I took off,” she amended, not quite as defiantly.

  “That may be, but you still have no right to disparage my father,” Vernice said stoutly. “He might not have been intemperate enough to suit your unbridled passions, and you might have considered him too straight-laced, but he was a kind, patient, and generous man. Plus, he wasn’t plagued by wanderlust, the way some people were.”

  Maybelle shrugged. “Oh, very well. I’ll give him that. He was nice enough.”

  Vernice sniffed. “And he was stable.”

  “I’ll say he was.” It didn’t sound to Georgina as if her grandmother considered her late husband’s stability to be anything in his favor.

  Devlin snorted. Vernice turned on him with a vengeance. “Don’t you dare say another thing, Mr. O’Rourke. You just keep your mouth shut. You aren’t my father! You aren’t even my stepfather! You have no right to disparage him No right at all. My mother never married you because—because—because—I don’t know why, but she didn’t. So there!” Vernice flounced over to the dresser, placed the pomander back on its doily with reverence, and scowled at her mother and her mother’s dead lover’s ghost.

  “I wanted her to marry me,” Devlin grumbled. “The good Lord knows, I asked her often enough.”

  “Hal You silver-tongued devil, you! You never once asked me and meant it. I know it, and you know it. I wasn’t about to marry a man for whom marriage to me would be, at best, a perfunctory duty!”

  “It would not!” Devlin’s mustache bristled with indignation.

  “It would, too!” Maybelle shouted, bristling in her own right.

  “Oh, no, you don’t” Vernice, stormed over to the door and took her mother’s arm. “You’re not going to have another argument in my bedroom. I need my sleep, and I won’t have you flinging my personal belongings around. If you want to fling something, use your own things. And if you want to carry this argument on in your own room, please have the decency not to shout at each other. Georgina and I would actually like to get some sleep tonight.”

  Maybelle didn’t bother to answer, from which Georgina deduced that she didn’t much care what Georgina thought of them all. Oh, dear. This was so upsetting.

  “I don’t want to fight.” Devlin sounde
d miserable. “What I want is your mother to stop being angry with me.”

  “Ha! You’ll have yourself a damned long wait if that’s what you want.” Maybelle didn’t sound at all miserable. She sounded hot enough to catch fire. She also sounded as though she, unlike her daughter and granddaughter, relished a good fight.

  “Come along, Mother. I’ll help you back to your room. You shouldn’t be trying to walk on that ankle.”

  “Oh, bother my ankle!” Maybelle sounded extremely peevish.

  Georgina watched as Vernice helped her through the door. She still sat in the rocking chair, her hands folded in her lap because she was too overwhelmed to move. ‘Then she recalled Mr. O’Rourke and, hoping against hope that he’d left the room with her grandmother, she slowly turned her head to look where he’d been. Where he still was, rather.

  Botheration. Georgina sighed, discouraged.

  Devlin eyed her, looking gloomy. “You’ve not lost your mind, child. I’m a ghost, and you’re seeing me, but I won’t hurt you. I expect ‘tis disconcerting to encounter your first ghost, but it’s your grandmother’s fault, not mine.”

  Georgina cleared her throat and decided there was no way around it. Perhaps if she spoke to the thing, it would go away. “Is that so?”

  “Aye, indeed it is. She won’t admit that she loves me, y’see, child, and it’s like to drive me wild, here on t’other side. I can’t go to my peace without her vow to rest me heart on.”

  “Er—why not?” If a vow would make him disappear, it might be worth talking to her grandmother about him. If Georgina begged, perhaps Maybelle would give the man a vow of love if only to get rid of him.

  ‘‘Y’see, dearie, t’would not be heaven unless I knew she’d be joinin’ me there when her own time came.”

  “Oh.” Georgina thought about that. The more she thought, the more perplexed she became. And irked. This sounded like a silly argument to her. “What I don’t understand—among other things—is how matters should have come to such a pass between the two of you in the first place. I mean, you lived together for twenty-five years, didn’t you? I should think that would be plenty long enough for two people to iron out these little difficulties. It sounds like poor planning to me.”

  Devlin snorted, something he seemed to do quite often, and of which Georgina did not approve. Snorting was common. On the other hand, ghosts weren’t. Oh, dear. She pressed a hand to her forehead and wondered if she was becoming feverish.

  “You don’t know your grandmother, dearie. She likes things done her way. You heard her.” Devlin pointed at the door. ‘You heard for yourself. You heard her claim I didn’t mean it when I asked her to marry me. Now, I ask you, would a man ask a woman to marry him if he didn’t mean it?”

  Never having thought about the matter, Georgina couldn’t come up with a definitive answer on the spur of the moment. She shook her head and hoped that would suffice.

  Devlin watched her for a second, much to her discomposure, then shook his own head. “Ah, child, you’ll never understand. You’re too far removed from it all. You’re not even Irish any longer.”

  He spoke as if not being Irish was worse than having consumption. Georgina didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed. Since she was about as far from laughter as she’d ever been in her life, and about as upset, she opted for annoyance. Surging from the rocking chair, she slammed her hands on her hips and glared at Devlin.

  “If you and grandmother are examples of how the Irish behave, I’m glad I’m not! I don’t even believe in you, for heaven’s sake, I’m not about to sit here while you belittle me.”

  “Aye, child, I’m not belittlin’—’’

  Georgina, who had never said a disrespectful word to an older person in her entire life, shouted at him. “I don’t care what you’re doing. You get out of my aunt’s room right this minute, whatever or whoever you are! Aunt Vernice doesn’t want you here, and neither do I.” She lifted her right hand and pointed at the door. Her finger didn’t even tremble, and she was proud of herself.

  With his head bowed and shaking mournfully back and forth, Devlin O’Rourke floated his way to the door. It was queer, being able to see furniture through him. Georgina also found it unsettling, the way his feet didn’t quite seem to touch the floor, giving him an odd, wafting gait. On the other hand, he was a figment. She’d never encountered a figment before, so she guessed nothing one of them did should be considered outlandish, since they didn’t exist.

  Vernice came through the door just as Devlin was exiting, and Georgina stared, agog, as Vernice walked right through him, then stopped, and shivered. She looked exasperated as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

  “Sorry,” muttered Devlin.

  Vernice frowned at him and returned no response. He wafted off down the hall toward Maybelle’s door. Vernice let out an aggravated huff. “I do wish that man would stop popping up where he isn’t wanted. And if he has to show up, I wish he’d stay in one place and not move about so that I don’t walk through him when I least expect it. His essence is freezing cold.”

  “It is?’’

  “It is.” Vernice stopped rubbing her arms and gazed at Georgina. “I’m sorry, dear. If I’d known about Mr. O’Rourke’s ghost before I wrote to your parents, I probably wouldn’t have been so concerned about Mother.”

  “You wouldn’t?” Georgina would never be impolite enough to argue with her aunt, but she couldn’t see offhand why a ghost should be less of a problem to Vernice than a mad mother.

  “Oh, dear, no.” Vernice walked to her bed, picked up a quilted comforter, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Once I realized that Mother wasn’t crazy, but only being haunted by that man’s ghost, I stopped being so worried about her.”

  “Oh.” That would put a new slant on things, Georgina guessed.

  Vernice sank down onto her bed and gazed up at Georgina her expression guilty. “I suppose I should have written that you no longer needed to come out here, dear, but I so wanted to meet you. I hope you aren’t angry with me.”

  “Angry with you? I should say not!” Georgina plopped herself down on the bed next to Vernice, put her arms around her, and gave her a big hug. She felt suddenly tender toward this dear, maiden aunt who was struggling valiantly against all odds—extremely strange odds, at that—to take care of a mother who didn’t want to be taken care of. “I’m glad I came. I’ve been wanting an adventure for my whole life.”

  Out of nowhere, the absurdity of her situation struck her, and she giggled. “And if meeting Grandmother Murphy and the ghost of Devlin O’Rourke isn’t an adventure, I’d like to know what is.”

  Vernice laughed, too, and hugged Georgina back. “I’m so glad you’re able to look at these things in the light of an adventure, Georgina. I’m afraid my sister Evelyn, your dear mother, would faint dead away if she knew what was going on out here.”

  Georgina sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right. She almost had a spasm when she had to tell me about. Grandmother and Mr. O’Rourke.”

  “I’m sure it must have been dreadful for her.” Vernice stood up, refolded the comforter, and laid it back at the foot of her bed. She was very precise about everything. Georgina admired that quality in her. There was nothing the least bit slapdash about Aunt Vernice.

  “Actually, I’d never even thought about it,” Georgina said after another moment of contemplation. “I suppose I was too young when Grandfather Murphy died to make anything of the fact that Grandmother didn’t live with him. It never even occurred to me to wonder why she should be writing to us from the territory while he lived right there in New York. I was only a little over two when he died, and I really don’t remember him at all I imagine that accounts for it.”

  Vernice sighed. “I suppose so. It was a most unpleasant episode, I can tell you. I was only twenty-three—your age—when Mother left home. Thank heavens Evelyn was already married. She’s so sensitive. I lived with your uncle Clarence until I decided to move to the territory to help Mo
ther.”

  “It must have been a shock to you.”

  “Not really.” Vernice pinched her lips up so that she appeared considerably puritanical. “I had an inkling as to what was going on. I thought I might have some influence on Mother. As if such a thing were possible.”

  “Yes. I can see that Grandmother is not a woman to be easily influenced.” Georgina smiled at the notion of anyone or anything influencing Maybelle Murphy.

  “You can say that again.”

  Georgina stood and cleared her throat. “Er, so ... well ...” She began fingering the fringes on a nearby lampshade as she tried to work up the courage to ask her next question. “I mean ... well ...” She sucked in a deep breath. “Does Devlin O’Rourke’s ghost really exist, Aunt Vernice?” She turned and faced her aunt, ready for the worst. “Does he really? Or are we all lunatics? I understand insanity runs in families. If we’re crazy, I think it would be best to face the matter squarely and not try to cover it up or pretend the problem doesn’t exist.”

  Vernice smiled tenderly at Georgina “Oh, my dear, of course we’re not crazy. I admit there are strange quirks and odd starts in the family—one needs to look no farther than my mother to prove that—but wildness and irresponsibility are a far cry from lunacy. Besides, we’re not all wild and irresponsible. Why, just look at you. Or me, for that matter.”

  Narrowing her eyes and furrowing her brow, Georgina thought about it. She tried to be objective; she didn’t want to sugarcoat any lunatic tendencies. She believed such things ought to be faced resolutely and realistically. If the entire Murphy-Witherspoon family had to be locked up in an insane asylum, at least they might be locked up together if they handled the matter properly.

  After a few moments of thought, her eyes opened again and her brow unfurrowed. Vernice was right. No matter which angle Georgina looked at the problem from, it didn’t add up to insanity. They all functioned too well for that. If they were crazy, they wouldn’t be able to get through their normal, everyday activities without someone noticing, would they? And no one had ever cast the slightest aspersion on a Murphy’s or a Witherspoon’s soundness of mind until now—and it was a Witherspoon doing the casting.