The Widow's Walk

by Carole Ann Moleti

  Liz dug in her coat pocket for the gratuity. “What time should I expect you?”

  “Would nine be too early?” he asked. “ My first client needs a pickup at ten.”

  Liz glanced at her watch. It seemed like midnight but it was only 5 p.m. “Nine will be fine.” She handed him the wad of bills she’d been saving for dinner.

  “This is not necessary,” he protested. “Mr. Richardson . . .”

  “Paid for my transit here, not all your other efforts. And I insist on paying you tomorrow for your time. Please, Iman, this is a small token of my appreciation.”

  “All right, Mrs. Keeny. Good night, then.” He bowed and departed.

  James watched until he was gone. “Did this Mr. Richardson recommend us? If so, I’d like to send him a thank you.”

  “No, a relative of mine suggested it.” Liz imagined the wheels turning in his head. A woman traveling alone in a foreign country with a baby. In the middle of winter. Finding her way to this odd spot, with a limo driver paid for by a man. Mysterious comings and goings. She wouldn’t share any more details and embarrass, or implicate, poor Andrew in any of the craziness for which he bore no responsibility.

  James smiled. “Of course. I’ll get that cradle. Bath is there, on the left. Emma will be up shortly.” He exited down the main staircase.

  Liz took off their coats, changed Eddie’s diaper, used the lew. The tub beckoned, but Elisabeth wouldn’t let her rest.

  Go, now. I want to see the rest of the house. I want to see my rooms. I want to see my mother.

  She cuddled the baby in her arms and went down the front stairs, past locked doors that sealed their terrible secrets inside.

  While James and Emma rattled in the kitchen, Elisabeth led her straight to the portrait.

  This replaced the portrait of my father and mother. Look at the tart who took over before the Countess’ grave had gone cold and his only daughter was buried in a pine box in a tiny Massachusetts cemetery. What had he done with the portrait of his first family? Likely put his foot through it and had it tossed.

  Elisabeth quaked, and Liz’s knees shook.

  The only thing of Elisabeth and her mother that remained was a memory, and two unhappy women watching over a piano, playing a silent, anguished melody of deception, desperation, loss, and pain. Was the first Countess Baxter haunting these halls, wringing her hands, still haranguing the maids?

  It seemed right to take Eddie to the dining room to meet his grandmother, of sorts. “This is Edward’s and my son. Isn’t he beautiful?”

  Mama, I’m so sorry I left you with him, and that Papa treated you so badly. Elisabeth swirled out of the room like a whiff of smoke.

  The temperature in the cavernous room, even with the undraped glass windows went up enough to raise beads of perspiration on Liz’s forehead. Elisabeth’s ever present niggling had vanished, leaving in its place an empty feeling—like her guts had been removed leaving behind a big hole. Eddie’s cheeks flushed. What was the poor baby thinking and feeling? The ghosts might be gone, but would it be for good?

  Liz went to her room. Emma had left two meat pies under a metal cover to keep them warm, milk, a pot of tea, and scones. She and Eddie shared the hearty repast, and fortified, she bathed the grimy baby in the washstand. He drifted to sleep close to 9 p.m. as she rocked and sang him an off key version of Danny Boy.

  With the baby tucked into the crib, she left both the room and bathroom door open in the otherwise deserted wing in case he awoke and, at long last, soaked in the tub until the water got too cold. Her body cleansed, her muscles relaxed, but her thoughts muddled, Liz slipped between the sheets and sunk into the mattress. The feather pillow cradled her head, but failed to cushion the despair. She was far from her loved ones, of her own doing. Elisabeth had made her come back–only to find out how terrible things had become once she’d left. What would this do to the already restless spirit?

  Liz hugged the pillow, wishing for her husband’s warm, firm body to come to comfort her; to take away her sadness; to share her burden. But feet planted firmly in Elisabeth’s world, so intimately connected to her life and where she’d met Edward, it was hard to pinpoint exactly who she was.

  Which husband she wanted more, Edward, Jared, Mike, hell even Gerry, remained to be discovered. The expatriate fugitive, a woman with her feet in two lives, with four husbands, three of whom she’d outlived, cried herself into a deep, desperate sleep.

  Chapter 33

  “Elisabeth.”

  Liz stirred at the sound of the familiar whisper. It had been more than a year since Edward had come to her, drawn her back with him to a slice of time he wished to recreate in an act of contrition. She tensed, waited to feel him touch her face, kiss her neck, hold her close. But it didn’t happen.

  She opened her eyes, reluctant to break the spell. Dewy white light diffused through lace curtains. Her skin tingled. He was here, but she couldn’t see him, hear him.

  Elisabeth called out, desperate. Edward?

  No answer. Liz tossed back the quilt. Cold air flooded the warm spot she’d carved out for herself. Something drew her to the window, and like the night Edward last returned, the room spun, her vision blurred. Her thoughts, so under the ghost’s influence, were inseparable from Elisabeth’s. They were one, a soul reunited with a body, feeding off the living energy like a thirsty child sucking milk through a straw.

  Mist rose above the grass and swirled like a flouncy skirt. Tiny golden orbs flickered in the ether. Memories filled in the details.

  Father, made the deal for my betrothal to Lord Thornlea, there, on the patio. Edward, an unwitting messenger, interrupted the pretentious Earl with a quickly conceived ruse as I was accosted in the garden. Mother, oh God, poor Mama who’d long since accepted her fate and only wished me to do the same. She pretended we'd live happily ever despite the constant threat of father’s verbal and physical abuse. There, over there, I met Edward in the gazebo to plan our escape late one moonlit night, with Katherine standing guard.

  The specters seemed to remember each moment that everything changed, when the dimensions shifted just enough to move them to another, ensnaring them in a web too sticky, too enmeshed for them to break free from. The gazebo emerged from the fog, like it had been dropped from the heavens.

  I’ll meet Edward there tonight and, once again, plan our escape. Elisabeth traced her finger across the frost on the window to clear it.

  Liz shook her head. Her vision returned enough that the blurred outline of furniture in the unfamiliar room appeared. A pounding, mind-numbing headache clutched her temples like a vise.

  Liz staggered toward the cradle, banging into a chair, a quilt rack and something else, the pain in her head so intense she could feel nothing else. The baby, nestled under a blanket, slept unperturbed and unaware of the goings on. She stumbled into the bed, but the warmth was gone, the comfort disrupted. Elisabeth expected Edward would save her, but there were far too many restless spirits here, unwilling to allow either of them to win eternal freedom while leaving the rest of them behind. Liz lay there as waves of nausea passed over her until rattling in the kitchen below signaled the beginning of the day.

  Eddie stirred, sat up and grinned, raising his arms to his mother. That smile could settle even the most cranky spirits. Edward’s son, the only remaining earthly vestige of his father, was the beacon. He was coming to meet his baby for the first time, and probably the last.

  To take me with him, Elisabeth protested. You can go, but Eddie and I must stay. Liz hurried to the cradle and hugged Eddie tight.

  Full sunlight banished the gloom. James set the table. Steam spiraled from the spout of a silver teapot.

  Emma brought out scones. “Good morning, Liz, Master Eddie. Breakfast will be ready in about a quarter hour. Some milk for the baby?”

  It
seemed like just another day. Like it had all been a dream. Maybe it had been. “No, he can wait.”

  The tot reached for a scone and frowned when it broke apart. He picked at the crumbs and smiled as the sweet morsels melted in his mouth.

  “What’s that?” Liz gestured toward an area in the meadow surrounded by a white iron fence.

  James peered over her shoulder. “The family cemetery. Consecrated when the first Countess Baxter died, and all the subsequent family members were interred there.” His voice, tinged with sadness, dropped an octave.

  No wonder the ghosts were dancing this morning. She’d have liked to see Her Grace stomping on the foot of her successor, graciously apologizing while His Lordship covered up the awkward moment with entitled bluster.

  “And is that a rose garden?” Hard to tell since the trellises were bare, with dead canes poking through.

  “Yes, the delight of my life in summer.” Emma poured tea. “I’m so looking forward to spring. But without a full-time gardener, the grounds are difficult to keep up with.”

  The horses. I want to see the horses.

  “Tell me, do you have a stable and horses?” Hopefully, this would settle the ghost.

  “Pity, no.” Emma went on. “There are antique carriages and tack, but we’ve no use for the horses and no money for a groomsman, blacksmith, or farrier.”

  No! what have they done with the horses? Elisabeth writhed.

  You'll have to be content with the ones we have in Brewster.

  Edward will put it right.

  James folded his arms across his chest. “Yes, the curse of inheriting property without the means to maintain it. But we could never let it pass to another family. Our son is at university now and will come home someday to assume control. In the meantime, we’re trying to establish it as a country retreat for those looking to recapture the spirit of the past. So far, we’ve been successful.”

  “It’s well worth preserving.” Now that Liz was aware of how thin the veil was between here and there, she’d never be able to look at an old house, an antique, an artifact without some measure of awe, of foreboding.

  “Breakfast.” Emma returned with a steaming skillet of eggs and sausages. They sat together, Eddie on Liz’s lap, happily munching, the jam sticky on his fingers and face. Liz sipped tea, and despite Elisabeth's ruminating, the headache subsided to a low level pressure behind her eyes.

  The Cape house was haunted, but this one was infested. Those unhappy during their lives remained, it seemed, trying in vain to get their way, not understanding that it wouldn’t work the second time either. Ghosts who didn’t have good memories, who had gained no insight, couldn’t learn from experience–and thus were trapped, doomed to eternal frustration.

  Elisabeth insisted, Edward will meet me tonight. He will take me with him. He will save me.

  Liz lingered, listening to the delightful stories her hosts had to share about life in Camberley, raising their son and daughter in the big house. But soon enough, the conversation drifted to dealing with cantankerous old granddad, who appeared to have taken after his very disagreeable father. So, it seemed Elisabeth’s half-brother followed in their father’s footsteps. Just thinking the phrase half-brother had the ghost pounding her fist inside Liz’s brain.

  She took another swig of tea. “You’ve talked a lot about your grandfather and great-grandfather. What about his new wife? And your grandmother?”

  “Ahh,” James sighed, “society ladies more interested in fashion, parties and titles than anything else. Unconcerned with politics, business. And short lived. Both died young, but their tough old-bird husbands held onto life like mad dogs. You’d have thought that the genteel life would favor longevity.”

  Elisabeth chafed. Being beaten and verbally abused is far from genteel.

  Liz resisted the urge to comment. If James knew about the dark side of his ancestors he gave no indication. And she wasn’t going to be the one to raise the coffin lid and expose the truth.

  “I best get ready. I’m going to the William Morris Gallery today.” Liz cleaned Eddie’s sticky face the best she could with a dry linen napkin.

  He protested. She’d need to take him upstairs and set to work with a washcloth.

  “When do you expect to be back so I can plan dinner?” Emma began to clear the table.

  “It will depend upon Iman’s schedule. I’ll ask him when he arrives.” She carried the squirming tot up let him totter around the room to expend some energy.

  After she’d gotten him presentable, Liz bundled him up and went down and back through the breakfast room, out the glass doors onto the fieldstone patio. There was no trace of a ghost, not a whisper of mystery, just a cold wind.

  The grass crackled under her feet as she walked to the graveyard and peered over the fence. Rust bled through the white paint, but the stones stood upright, proud. A light coat of moss softened the granite’s patina.

  Liz pried open the gate and went into the square plot. She put Eddie down and let him totter from monument to monument–those of a half-brother, nieces and nephews, and the stepmother Elisabeth never knew, and about whom the ghost had just discovered, while she lived and died on another continent. From the years of birth and death listed on the stones, they had fared only a bit better, most having died in their late thirties or early forties. Victorian times were oft portrayed as romantic, but they were harsh, even for the well-off.

  Lord Baxter’s grave was impossible to miss: a monolith commemorating the resting place of the tyrant. She tread hard over him; contempt for the way he’d treated Elisabeth, her mother, and likely all the others, escaped the depths of her soul. No wonder he was unhappy and doomed to some hellish ether.

  Elisabeth’s sadness and tears flowed down Liz's cheeks upon reading the date on her mother’s stone: less than a year after she had departed. The second countess had survived long enough to see her legitimate heir mature enough to inherit his father’s seat, but died soon after.

  If the specters knew she was there, they seemed unconcerned as her footsteps echoed in their coffins. The gathering she’d seen this morning hadn’t been about Elisabeth, but rather their own struggle to break out, to do it over.

  Eddie slipped and bumped his chin on a headstone. Liz ran to him and soothed his frantic yelling. “You’re all right, champ.” She brushed the dirt off the blameless, innocent child. Like all the others, caught up in the intrigue and drama of their parent’s meaningless mistakes and misbehavior.

  “Let’s get going. Iman will be coming for us any minute now.”

  “No.” Elisabeth wanted to linger, but Liz insisted they leave the ghosts to their perpetual misery. She walked back to the house, through the breakfast room. Eddie banged the piano keys for a moment. The mother and daughter in the portrait, or their ghosts, didn’t cringe, didn’t smile, didn’t react–forever immortalized as stoic, unhappy.

  Pots clanged in the kitchen. A vacuum whirred. Liz went upstairs and collected Eddie’s diaper bag stuffed with his crayons, a sketch book, business cards, freshly sharpened colored pencils, and some stale snacks.

  A horn tooted. and she hurried down to find James welcoming Iman.

  “Ah, Mrs. Keeny, you look so much better rested today. And how is Master Edward?” He reached out and tickled Eddie.

  The baby squealed with delight.

  We must stay here, Elisabeth insisted.

  “Let’s go.” Liz hurried out the door. A growing sense of fear rose within her. During the day she could maintain control. What was the only living being among the ghosts going to do tonight?

  Chapter 34

  Mike would have been pissed off about the security, the wait, and the price of food in the restaurant, about the general annoyance of travel, but he was too desperate to get into the same time zone as his wife. Somewhere between the
awful food and funny tasting tea, the soft British accents, which reminded him of Elisabeth, he was transported even further from reality. As the cabin darkened and what was once 5 p.m., Boston-time turned to after-midnight London time, Mike succumbed to exhaustion.

  When the lights went on, and the pretty blond stewardess brushed his arm as she passed, Jared startled at the flight attendant’s accent that could have been his missing wife, but wasn’t.

  Mae was already awake. “I slept pretty good. How about you?”

  Mike stretched his pretzeled legs into the aisle. “Not bad.” He shook his head to clear the cobwebs of time.

  “The last time I was on a plane was when I visited my sister in Ireland. Fer granny’s funeral. Ten years ago. Swore to her it wouldn’t take another ten fer me to come visit again.” Her voice trailed off.