by Sean Munger
As for what Rachael had been doing in St. Augustine in the first place, Anine resolved, I’ll tell anyone who asks she came there to see me. No one will suspect anything otherwise—so long as I never tell.
She didn’t have to remind Clea to keep it to herself; she would know without being told. In the sad carriage ride back to the hotel Miss Wicks was at once comforting and businesslike. “I’m so sorry about Miss Rachael,” she said. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Miss Anine, you’re going to have to be back at this telegraph office again, prob’ly today. The Nortons are going to want you either to bring her body back up to New York or wait until they get here to bring her themselves.”
Anine nodded, staring out the window. “Yes. I suppose so.”
“We going back to New York no matter what. I’m sure of that.”
“Yes, I am too.”
When they reached Marshall House Anine passed Dr. Whipple in the lobby, just descending the stairs. The old man moved slowly and his eyes were ringed with dark greenish bags. The instant she saw the look on his face and the slow way he walked Anine knew that Rachael was dead. “I’m sorry, my dear,” said the doctor, touching her arm. “I gave her an extra dose of laudanum. She wasn’t conscious at the end. And in answer to your question, yes—you can count on me.”
Hot tears were coming to her eyes. She managed to say, “Please send me your bill” without sobbing, but could say nothing more.
The doctor, still touching her arm, shook his head politely. Then he walked slowly out of the lobby and out into the rain.
Upstairs in Rachael’s bedroom the gas lights were off and the lantern on the bedside table had gone out. The only illumination was the cold gray light coming through the window. Gertie Fitch sat on the chair that Anine had occupied, weeping into her sleeve. On the bed Rachael looked very peaceful, her eyes closed, her forehead and cheeks mopped clean of sweat and now seeming almost to be made of ivory.
“She’s with God now,” said Anine, taking Gertie’s hand. “Go get some rest. We’ll need you soon.”
Three days. Dead in three days. A week ago she was as strong and healthy as a horse. That’s how thin the tissue is that separates life from death.
It was left to Anine and Clea to tend Rachael’s body. After they closed the window blinds and re-lit the gas they set about the grim task without speaking. When they pulled back the bedclothes and began to pull off the sticky carmine-soaked nightgown in which Rachael had died, Anine winced as she noticed there was blood still oozing from her vagina. Even in death the grotesquerie was not yet finished.
Chapter Eighteen
The Invisible Bars
On Thursday, December 16, 1880, after ten days in Savannah, Anine Atherton and Clea Wicks finally boarded a train for the two-day journey back north to New York. On board the train were Mrs. Belgravia Norton and Daniel Wythe, both garbed appropriately in black. In the cargo car a polished walnut coffin contained the body of Rachael, swaddled in the wedding gown she’d never had a chance to wear in life.
Anine had spent several hundred dollars in the shops of Savannah on a mourning ensemble. Although she was not related to the Nortons by blood or marriage she felt it appropriate to appear in mourning for her friend she’d nursed through her final hours, and in joining the Nortons’ grief she felt perhaps the social ostracism of her might ease. Rachael, Anine was told, would be laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn next to two infant brothers who had preceded her in death. The whole thing was ghastly but Anine felt that she’d handled it as well as could be expected.
Just as she left the Marshall House hotel the clerk handed her an envelope sealed with wax and a highly recognizable stamp. “This came for you just this morning, Mrs. Atherton. I’m glad it arrived before you left for New York.” She opened and read it on the train just as it began to pull out of the Savannah depot.
My Dear Anine:
I hope this letter reaches you while still in Savannah. R.’s death is a horrid thing and I know you must be grieving. Fifth Avenue was already reeling from the attack on Mr. M., but now learning of R.’s untimely death has thrown everyone into a terrible funk.
I’m sure with all that happened with R. you have not had time to think on what we discussed in Savannah. I will not rush you for a decision, but do know this. The house has been calm and quiet without a hint of disturbance any night since my return, nor during the daylight. It may surprise you to know, but it is now positively cheerful. The dreary winter weather has broken and our parlors and chambers are filled with sunlight. All trace of what happened here seems to have faded.
Mrs. Hennessey is no longer with us. I have hired in her place another cook, Mrs. Viola Marshall. She is a Negress. She has quite positive City references and cooks well. Should you decide to return home I will welcome you. Should you decide otherwise, the suite at the Grand Central Hotel remains at my disposal.
Your loving husband, J.
Your loving husband. She thought that was a bit much, but the tone of the letter seemed sincere enough. She tried to imagine the rooms of the 38th Street house filled with sunlight and gaiety and could not quite do it. But the letter came as a relief. She began to believe that Julian was committed to making a new start for their marriage. Now that the stress of the spöke was removed she could sense through his words a glimmer of the charming young man she’d fallen in love with back in Sweden. Her doubts were not completely assuaged, but at least a few marks had gone down on the trust and sincerity side of the ledger, and that was something to build on.
By the second day of the train journey home her mind was made up, but not by Julian’s letter or her burgeoning hopes that she would find something salvageable and positive back in New York. She was, quite simply, exhausted. It had now been six weeks since she’d slept in her own bed, however fitfully, and the thought of going to yet another hotel for an indeterminate period—and without any clear indication of how that would benefit her—was simply intolerable.
I can no longer live out of trunks and suitcases, flitting about from brunch to brunch or supper to supper—and certainly no longer from disaster to disaster. I was running from the doppelgänger and the turmoil it caused, but there’s no reason to run anymore.
She even began to understand Julian’s earlier intransigence at the idea of giving up the house, hateful as it was. It wasn’t that she shared his feeling, but at least 38th Street was home in a way that no place else was.
Thus she decided she would not go to the Grand Central Hotel. When the train reached the Jersey City terminal and she and Clea Wicks emerged into the cold December sunlight and saw Bryan Shoop standing outside a carriage lined up at the curb, Anine told him simply, “Thank you for coming to get us, Mr. Shoop. Take us home, please.”
Her heart was pounding as Shoop opened the front door for her and she stepped inside the gloomy old place, but she was surprised to find it far less oppressive than she imagined. It was a cold day but clear and crisp outside, and the velvet draperies on the windows were pulled aside to admit the beams of strong yellow sunlight. The mahogany of the balustrades on the staircase gleamed from fresh polish. Hearing her enter, Julian emerged from the Red Parlor. He was wearing a new suit, dark forest green with a cheerful periwinkle-blue waistcoat, more appropriate for spring or summer than December. He smiled as he approached.
“You’re back at last,” he said.
Anine felt awkward but did her best to smile back. “Yes. The ride from the Jersey City depot is much longer than it seems it should be.”
Finally he moved forward to embrace her. “I missed you. I was so happy you decided to come back.” As they parted he leaned close, his mouth inches from her ear, and whispered, “Everything is fine.”
She felt better. It wasn’t just his reassurance. The house felt different. As Clea and Bryan Shoop began loading the trunks through the front door Anine went into the Green Parlor and looked arou
nd. It was the same room—the same furniture, the same velvet draperies, the same carpet, the piano, the picture of St. James’s Park—but something about it was different. It positively shone in the sunlight coming through the window. Instead of being dark and gloomy it was bright and welcoming. The absence of the spöke was palpable.
Julian’s voice came from the entryway: “Mrs. Marshall has laid us some lunch in the dining room. You really must try her cooking. It’s wonderful.”
It was good to be home. As the afternoon bled into evening and the servants lit the gas lamps Anine became convinced that the feeling of peace Julian had spoken of in Savannah was neither a lie nor an attempt to manipulate her. She felt very much at ease, very warm and secure and content in a way she had never felt between these walls before. Julian was calm, well-mannered and charming. Over lunch he spoke of politics, but not in the hateful or vituperative way he’d done before, and he asked her innocuous questions about St. Augustine. They talked a little of Rachael’s funeral which would be in two days’ time at Greenwood Cemetery, but then turned to happier subjects. They were still chatting long after lunch ended, so they moved to the Red Parlor. The painting of Jefferson, marred by the wrath of the doppelgänger, had been replaced by one of Andrew Jackson. Anine felt completely at ease in her husband’s parlor, and all memory of the horror that happened there seemed to have passed.
That night they made love. She’d been dreading this too, fearing that it would remind her too much of the rape and Julian’s anger that terrible night, so she was surprised at how unlike that it was. As he kissed her neck, unstringing her corset, he whispered to her, “I missed you so terribly. I hope you can forgive me for the utter fool I’ve been.” She did not feel any real pleasure but at least it didn’t make her feel like she wanted to kill him. When it was over and he blew out the bedside lamp she felt at least a little ways toward being healed. It will take a long time, she knew, but we have to start somewhere.
With half an ear she listened in the dark for the spöke. Her last fear was that the peace and hope of this day would be ruined by the creak of a floorboard or the telltale giggle of Mrs. Quain’s apparition. She heard nothing. The ticking of the clock was soft and lulling. She slept and dreamed of Gamla stan, not with longing, but with pleasant nostalgia.
The weather began to change on the morning of Rachael’s funeral. A cold wind blew the remnants of autumn leaves across the lawns and pathways of Greenwood Cemetery and Anine shivered in her black dress and fur-lined dolman. She attended but Julian did not; they discussed it and decided it was still too early to take any action that could be misinterpreted by the New York ladies as brazen or offensive. But Anine didn’t think she seemed to be snubbed. Rachael’s weeping mother nodded and thanked her when Anine paid her respects, and a few of the other ladies, including Ava Kirklow, acknowledged her. She noticed that no one from the Minthorn family attended the funeral. They were still too bereaved by Lucius and Mrs. Quain’s deaths. She didn’t blame them.
The icy rain began as Anine’s hired carriage took her back to Manhattan. The sky became ominously dark-gray, almost black, a curious shade for the heavens to display in winter. Hard bullets of sleet ticked against the carriage windows. I guess we’ll see if the house can stay cheerful during such depressing weather, she thought. But she was much less concerned than she had been the day she returned to the house. The last three nights had been pleasant, peaceful and quiet. For the astounding difference between the place now and the way it had been when the doppelgänger was still in residence, Anine may as well have been living in a completely different house.
“Weather’s getting bad, ma’am,” said Clea Wicks as she helped Anine off with her dolman in the entryway. Its black fur trim was speckled with silvery dots of melting ice. “The wind reminds me of a hurricane we had once in Louisiana.”
“Yes, it’s highly exceptional for this time of year. You’d better go make sure all the fireplaces in the house are lit and the bins stocked with plenty of wood. The temperature outside has gone down very fast, and in Sweden we couldn’t get through nights like this without the stoves going all night.”
Sweden. This had been on her mind much lately, and while riding home from the funeral Anine resolved she would write her mother a very long letter. After lunch she changed her dress and went to the Green Parlor whose fireplace Miss Wicks had stoked into a pleasantly roaring inferno. She brought a stack of paper and silver inkwell from the library. As the wind roared and howled Anine sat at the table where she usually played solitaire and struggled to put into words, Swedish words, what had happened to her. For some reason she thought her mother needed to know, though Solveig probably had no use for such information. Taking the pen in hand Anine realized she was writing the letter more for herself than her mother. Like Mrs. Quain’s restless spirit, she needed closure too.
First let me say, dear Mother, how sorry I am that I’ve not written a single letter to you since arriving in New York. There is a reason beyond mere neglect, of which I am also probably guilty. I have been through a very strange and frightening experience. It’s going to be difficult for me to write about it and difficult for you to read, but I need to tell you. There are many parts of it I don’t know and can’t explain. I can only tell you what happened to us, Julian and me. Only God knows the rest of the story.
It took a long time to relate, and writing the letter was surprisingly engrossing. She barely looked up from her work, pausing only briefly to set down the pen and massage her cramping hand. After writing for nearly two hours Anine had produced no less than nine pages, covered front and back with her loopy Swedish script. She still wasn’t done. The only part of the story she’d omitted was Julian’s assault, which she could never so long as she lived confess to her mother, or, she guessed, to anyone.
She struggled with how to explain to her mother her suspicions about Julian’s involvement in the attack against Lucius Minthorn and Mrs. Quain. This remained a cloudy subject in her mind, and the suggestion that perhaps the doppelgänger had caused it, or at least facilitated it, was an explanation that was not completely satisfying. Ultimately she decided to tell her mother that she simply wasn’t sure what happened. That was, after all, the truth.
Taking up the pen, about to begin the account of the robbers’ attack, Anine noticed that the lights in the parlor dimmed considerably, then brightened again. She looked up at the fixture hanging from the ceiling. The glass globes glowed orange-yellow as they always did. A few moments later the gas fluctuated again, almost plunging the room into darkness before returning to its normal intensity. This was puzzling. The lights sometimes varied or hiccupped, but never like that. Anine put down her pen, got up and rang the bell cord.
It was not Clea who appeared at the door of the parlor but Bryan Shoop. “Yes, ma’am?” Anine sensed the boy still detested her, but she no longer felt like he was actively taking Julian’s side against her. Perhaps there could be reconciliation with him too, but it would take longer.
“Mr. Shoop, have you noticed the gaslights dimming in other parts of the house, or is it just in here?”
“I have noticed it, ma’am. It happened in the kitchen too. Something to do with the storm, perhaps.”
She looked up at the light fixture. The gas mains are under the streets. How could the wind and sleet affect them?
“Is there something you need, ma’am?”
“Um…no. You may go.” He turned. “Wait!”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Where’s Mr. Atherton?”
“He’s upstairs playing billiards, ma’am.”
That room doesn’t get much use. She couldn’t remember the last time Julian had played billiards. “Thank you,” she said, and reached for her pen. Shoop withdrew, leaving the pocket doors open.
A particularly strong gust of wind blew a clattering welter of sleet pellets against the parlor windows. In the fireplace, a glowing log cracked
and collapsed. Anine shuddered. Something was different. The feeling in the room had suddenly changed. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but she definitely felt it. Her muscles were tenser than they were a moment ago. She could feel tiny fine hairs standing upright on the back of her neck.
Back to the letter.
She dipped her pen in the inkwell. As she touched the metal tip of the pen to paper a sudden skittering noise somewhere to her right startled her. She turned her head. At that instant something flew at her—something bronze-colored and very fast—and a short scream blasted from her throat. The thing landed on the writing desk, knocking over the inkwell, and scampered away. In a split-second it was gone.
Anine’s heart felt like it would seize in her chest. The thing that had flown at her was the Abyssinian cat. It left a single smeared paw-print in India ink on the edge of the final page of her letter, which was rapidly growing dark from the spilled ink spreading across the surface of the desk.