The Other Side

by J. D. Robb

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Dear Mr. Cleland,

  It is so unpleasant to speak of financial matters, is it not? Especially when the “product” one is discussing is a matter as abstract and precious as the Truth itself!

  And how dearly I wish it were in my power to come to terms with you in the matter of your quite reasonable request. But, tragically, it is not. Once again, I can only rely on your good nature, generosity, and the unquenchable intellectual and philosophical curiosity I am absolutely assured you possess, dear Mr. Cleland.

  One good thing—perhaps you don’t own a map?—Paulton is just over half a day’s train ride from Boston, thus very economical. You’ll also be happy to know that, upon inquiry, I have learned that freight charges for passengers traveling on weekdays are extremely reasonable.

  As to lodging, I’m sure you will find Mr. Smoak’s Boardinghouse for Gentlemen on Lexington Street will not overtax your pocketbook, especially for a man of such spartan tastes. It will be convenient also, being adjacent to my own rooms here in a similar establishment for ladies.

  Looking forward with hope and eagerness to our meeting, I remain

  Yours with great sincerity,

  Angiolina Darlington

  June 24, 1895

  Miss Darlington:

  Arrive 27 June, 1:28 p.m., on Boston train. Trust conveyance from station to Smoak’s won’t put you out.

  H. Cleland

  One

  Only Lexington Street and a hundred feet of lawn on either side of it separated Mr. Smoak’s Boardinghouse for Gentlemen and Mrs. Mortimer’s Boardinghouse for Ladies. One of the principal entertainments at each was observing the comings and goings of the occupants of the other, either from windows or their nearly identical front porches.

  Angiolina Darlington usually had better things to do, but today she’d been watching from the window seat of her cramped, second-floor bed/sitting room for nearly an hour when, at about three in the afternoon, a horse-drawn van pulled up in front of Mr. Smoak’s. The driver jumped down from one side, and a man in a checked coat and dark trousers jumped down from the other.

  Mr. Cleland, she presumed. She put on her glasses to see him better. He looked nothing like the man she’d been expecting. Vague as that was. What did a “spirit investigator” look like? No telling, but she’d been thinking of someone at least middle-aged. This gentleman looked hardly older than she (twenty-eight, not that that was young), and in addition, at least from this distance, he appeared . . . normal. Perfectly sane, which struck her as an even more interesting feature than his above-average good looks. Oughtn’t a man whose profession was “spirit investigator” to have a sort of mad scientist quality about him? At the very least he should look eccentric. He should look like—well, he should look like her grandfather.

  Oh, and he had a dog. Medium size, brown and white, some sort of terrier. He released it from a wicker hamper, and it ran around Smoak’s front yard in excited circles, relieving itself on the bushes.

  Heavens, Mr. Cleland did have a lot of luggage. She’d assumed he was exaggerating, to drive up his price. Well, this was embarrassing. She muffled an aghast laugh as he and the driver hauled out bag after box after crate after carton in the hot June sun and lugged it all into the house. Which box contained “Astra”? she wondered. The biggest one, no doubt; “Astra” must be a giant spirit telescope or some such thing.

  There, that was the last of his belongings. Mr. Cleland paid the driver in coins, not bills—that eased her conscience a bit. They tipped their hats to each other, he went inside, and the driver drove away.

  She should go across the street and greet him. She’d thought of waiting for him to come to her, but now it seemed the least she could do—make the first move.

  “Get up, Margaret,” she told the cat in her lap—named after Margaret Knight, inventor of the flat-bottom paper bag- making machine.

  At the wardrobe mirror, Angie decided she didn’t like what she was wearing anymore. It was fine this morning, when she’d thought Mr. Cleland would be white-haired and strange, but now . . . Oh, it was hopeless anyway. Since she’d spilled motor oil on her best blouse trying to silence the squeak in her grandfather’s automatic hat-tipping machine, she was down to three summer dresses and a handful of skirts and shirtwaists.

  Good thing I’m not vain, she thought, leaning in toward the freckled mirror to adjust her hair, pinch more color in her cheeks. Her grandmother’s onyx brooch made her look . . . like her grandmother. She took it off. Now she looked plain, “spartan,” as Mr. Cleland would say. She put the brooch back on. Scowled at herself. “To hell with it,” she said, and went out.

  Two

  Miss Angiolina Darlington didn’t look like the woman Henry Cleland had been expecting. Vague as that was, and not that he’d given it much thought: a paying customer was a paying customer. From the tone of her irritating letters, though, he’d thought she’d be older, and either big and boat-bosomed, like Mrs. Beckingham, or raisin-faced and stringy from pinching her precious pennies.

  Instead she was younger than he, and tiny, not much over five feet. But with a carriage so erect, the flat-topped straw hat on top of her dark, upswept hair stayed in constant parallel with the ground. Neat, inexpensive dress of a hyacinth color; polished shoes creased across the tops and worn at the heels; small purse in one gloved hand, closed parasol in the other.

  He took this all in from behind a porch pillar as she looked both ways, a gratuitous precaution on sleepy Lexington Street, and stepped out into the road. Astra, who had been sniffing at bees on a bush in the flower border, heard the light clip of her feet on the pavement and did something completely out of character: he went out to greet her. Henry, who would have liked a few more seconds of hidden appraisal, a little more time to size up his new patron, had no choice but to do the same.

  The thought crossed his mind that she could be anybody, not Angiolina Darlington at all. Too late now, though; he’d already lifted his hat and stuck out his hand. He admired her wide-set eyes, dubious and alert, and her soft, politely pursed mouth. She said, “Mr. Cleland,” and gave him the tips of her fingers, and he forgot his misgivings. Of course she was Angiolina Darlington. She could be no one else.

  “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am. I was just coming across to make your—Down, Astra. Down. This isn’t like him, he’s taken quite a—”

  “Astra?” Miss Darlington sank to her knees and laid purse and parasol on the grass. “His name is Astra?” Her laugh was a quick, bubbly outburst, unexpected and charming. Henry crouched down opposite, and they both petted the dog. He had to pull him away when Astra jumped on Miss Darlington’s knees and tried to lick her chin.

  “He’s not usually like this,” he said.

  “He smells Margaret.”

  “No, he likes you. He’s usually much more dignified. Margaret?”

  “My cat.” They stood up. “How was your trip, Mr. Cleland?”

  “Uneventful, thanks.”

  “And your room?”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “Not too . . . spartan?” Was that a twinkle in her eye? “I live there,” she said, pointing behind her. White clapboard, two stories, wide porch, seedy yard. Same as his. They didn’t bode well for his prospects, Miss Darlington’s narrow circumstances. And yet in spite of that, he warmed to her. They had poverty in common.

  “Shall we walk?” she invited, and they set off down Lexington Street, Astra forging ahead.

  “I was hoping I might see the house today,” Henry said, matching his pace to hers. After the train trip, it felt good to stretch his legs.

  “It’s not far, although in a completely different sort of neighborhood.” Not as run-down as this one, he took that to mean. “But let’s walk through town first. Paulton’s growing—more of a city than a town now, as you’ll see. Named, of course, after Paul Revere.”

  “Have you always lived here?” he asked.

  “No, only since I was seventeen. Before that,
I . . . visited from time to time.”

  “But now your grandparents have passed away?”

  She nodded. “A little over a year ago now.”

  “I’m sorry. How did it happen? I only ask because it may be relevant.”

  “Influenza. One caught it, then the other. They died within days of each other.”

  “How terrible.”

  “Actually, I doubt they’d have wanted it any other way.”

  “And . . . ” Always a delicate question. “You believe they’re haunting the house now?”

  The merry, surprised laugh bubbled up again. She cut it off quickly, putting on a sober face. “Oh, I think that’s highly unlikely. Although they did love the house. I can imagine them not wanting to leave it.”

  “Who, then?”

  She stopped. They were at an intersection, Lexington and Concord Avenue; downtown Paulton lay before them. “Shall I tell you now, or would you rather see the house first?”

  Was it a trick question? Did she think he would know who haunted the house by looking at it? “It’s up to you,” he said judiciously.

  “Let’s wait, then. Tell me about yourself, Mr. Cleland. How did you get into your . . . line of work?”

  “I think of it as a calling, a vocation. An ideal match between my interests and my talents.”

  “Ah. And how did you—”

  “The Paulton Republic,” he read in the curtained window of a four-story brick building they were passing. “Any good?”

  “Excellent. It wins awards. And I’m not prejudiced, even if the owner is my good friend’s husband.”

  Walker Hersh, Editor and Publisher, Henry read to himself, walking backward. The name didn’t ring any bells. Good.

  Strolling along the elm-lined streets, passing a white-steepled church about every other block, Henry confirmed the impression of Paulton he’d formed from the train: tidy, pleasant, typical New England village. A bit prettier than most, a little more prosperous. It even had a college; Miss Darlington pointed it out as they passed the archway to a small but handsome enclave of stone buildings. All in all, a fine place to spend a week or two in the fullness of spring. Particularly since he had, at the moment, no other plans.

  “You were saying?” she reminded him. “How you came by your calling.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, actually, you might say it was passed down to me by blood. My great-grandfather, Baronet Spenser, was practically on speaking terms with the ghosts and spirits in his castle.”

  “His castle?”

  “Just a small one, in Derbyshire.”

  “So you’re a baronet, too?”

  He waved his fingers in the air dismissively. “Oh, technically, but I think of America as my home. The family moved to Philadelphia when I was quite small. Where was I?”

  “The castle in Derbyshire.”

  “Right. The gift skipped a couple of generations—my grandfather was busy shipbuilding, and my father, an amateur biologist, was too much of a natural skeptic to give credence to his own senses. But then it popped up in me.”

  “The gift?”

  “The gift.”

  “How exactly did it pop up?”

  “Intuition. Empathy. A mind open to the unexplained and the unexplainable.”

  “Aha.”

  “Also, I have a degree in engineering from the University of London, so I like to think my temperament embodied both essentials for the work I do: tolerance of the unknowable coupled with rigid adherence to the laws of science.”

  Hard to say what she made of all that. She had a way of pursing her lips that might mean she was thinking things over or might mean she was trying not to laugh.

  Miss Darlington was anything but conventionally attractive, but he liked the way she looked. Neat and tidy. She’d be the smart one, the kind of girl you’d want on your side in a contest or debate. Or a game. A small, feminine package of humor and intelligence.

  Just so she wasn’t too intelligent.

  “Your dog is awfully well behaved.” The words were barely out of her mouth when Astra took the opportunity to lift his leg and pee on a lamppost. Instead of blushing or looking away, Miss Darlington pressed down a smile. “A vital part of your investigations, you wrote. So he’s a sort of . . . ghost dog?”

  “Exactly. Enormously useful, has a kind of sixth sense about the supernatural. I got him in India.”

  “India.”

  “Bought him from a shaman in Calcutta.”

  “Really. I’m so ignorant—I thought shamanism was more of a northern Asian religion.”

  “Well, he wasn’t from Calcutta. He just happened to be in Calcutta.”

  “Of course. And you were there . . . ?”

  “Studying the occult. Researching.”

  She’d have pursued that, he could tell, but luckily they had arrived at their destination. “Here we are,” she said with a small flourish. “This is Willow House.”

  Again, not quite what he’d been expecting. In fact, not at all. Quirky Victorian architecture made for the best haunted houses, and ideally they were in isolated locales, preferably near cemeteries. This one was on an elderly but fairly lively street, set back from it by a stone wall and a spread of mature willow trees in full bloom. He admired the stately, Adam-style front, three stories of white-painted brick divided by tall, linteled windows, four up, four down, and two graceful gables on top. “It’s beautiful,” he said truthfully.

  Miss Darlington turned to him, her face transformed. “Yes. It is. That portico,” she said, pointing above the front door to a small balcony surrounded by a waist-high balustrade. “That’s where she dances.”

  “Who?”

  “The ghost.”

  Of course.

  “One of them,” she clarified. “Let’s go around to the back.”

  They went along a flagstone walk between yew hedges, past a swing hanging from the branch of another willow tree, past a stagnant lily pond. The hedges gave way, the vista opened, and they were in a rose garden.

  “This was my grandmother’s,” Miss Darlington said with a note of shy pride. “I’ve been trying to tend it since she passed away, but . . . ” She put her hands out and shrugged. “I’m not my grandmother.”

  “Gorgeous,” Henry said, truthfully again. He couldn’t imagine how this could have been more beautiful, no matter who was tending it. Roses everywhere, in clumps, on trellises, climbing over low stone walls. Bees made a constant, industrious buzz, and the smell was intoxicating.

  “We’ll have to go inside through the basement—that’s the only key I have.” She went down a mossy cement stairway to a padlocked metal door, which she unlocked with a key she took from her purse. “Watch your head. Be careful, wait until I . . . ” She moved away in the dimness, and presently a light came on. So the house was electrified. Henry saw that they were in a . . . he wasn’t sure what. A plant, a workshop, some sort of laboratory.

  “My grandfather did his work here. He was an inventor. William Darlington—you may have heard of him?”

  “I may have,” he temporized, eyeing a long center table laden with small machines and engines, jars, bottles, vises, tools, books, metal contraptions. She’d said her grandfather had been dead for months, but his workshop looked like he’d just gone upstairs for lunch. “What did he invent?”

  “Well . . . here’s a pocket ashtray. A gentleman clips it to his vest or coat pocket. You can even monogram it.”

  “A pocket ashtray. Say, that would be handy.”

  “And this is a compass you attach to your hat brim.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “A bottle opener that fits on the heel of your shoe.”

  “Ingenious. And this?”

  “Well . . . it was going to be a device to keep you awake. You wear this collar around your neck, and if you start to nod off, it activates an alarm.”

  “A-ha.”

  She looked at him levelly. “I know what you’re thinking. But don’t be fooled by the—the frivolity of these gad
gets, Mr. Cleland. My grandfather’s imagination could be a bit whimsical at times, but he was also a genius. And he never got credit for his greatest invention: the gramophone disk.”

  “Your grandfather invented the gramophone disk?”

  “Everyone thinks it was Emile Berliner, but Grampa thought of it first. But then he forgot to send in his patent application, so he never got credit. And it was revolutionary—it made the old cylinder technology obsolete.” She gave a quick headshake, as if she hadn’t intended to go into all that. “Anyway. Let’s go upstairs; I’ll show you the house.”

  The inside of Willow House was no spookier than the outside. What it was, was peculiar.

  “This used to be the library,” said Miss Darlington, standing in the middle of the kitchen. “My grandfather thought the kitchen ought to be closer to the dining room, so he moved it.”

  Henry was perfecting the art of the noncommittal hum. “Very sensible. That, uh, thing up there . . . ” He pointed to an overhead set of tracks or cables running along the ceiling.

  “A moving tray. It goes to the dining room first, then down the hall to the front parlor. For transporting food and drink. Well, anything—books, the newspaper . . . ”

  “Hm.”

  She looked a little defensive. “My grandmother had terrible arthritis, so he was always thinking of ways to try to make life easier for her.”

  One of the ways in which he’d made life easier for her was to ruin the symmetry of the entry hall by installing a wire cage in front of the center staircase. It rose and descended via a hand-cranked rope-and-pulley gizmo attached to the wall.

  “He called it the Elizavator,” said Miss Darlington, “because—”

  “Your grandmother was Elizabeth?”

  “Precisely. Are you getting a sense of anything, Mr. Cleland? Any psychic vibrations or connections yet?”

  He narrowed his eyes and allowed a dramatic pause. “There is something, yes. Definitely. Something. Too soon to speak of it, though.”