Her blue eyes were hard, but I wasn’t certain whether her anger was all for me. “He said a female oughtn’t to exhibit herself before the public, and that spending your money meant we were just as guilty as you. But we needed it. I pressed him until he agreed that I could use it for food.” She mused for a moment on a memory that must have been unpleasant, to judge by the tension of her posture. “He took that as a sign that I was the source of your moral failings. He reproached me for not having done a better job raising you—for not having kept you on the strait and narrow path by example.”
“I’m sorry he holds you responsible,” I said slowly, “and I have no wish to upset him. But that doesn’t mean I can just stand by and let his prejudices confine Polly’s life.”
“What has Polly to do with it?”
It felt as though the time had come to be completely open about it. I drew her to the parlor so she could set down the soiled linen and we could sit down on the sofa.
“Polly wants to become an actress like me,” I said. “That’s why she sought me out, and that is one of the reasons I came home. I agreed to try to get Father’s permission.”
“Are you mad?” my mother exclaimed, staring at me as if she had never seen me before. “There’s not a prayer of his doing such a thing. Even if he didn’t believe actresses to be completely without morals, you are the very last person he would listen to.”
I was inclined to agree with her. “Nevertheless, I’m determined to do my best to smooth the way for her. Just because Father doesn’t approve of something doesn’t make it wrong.” I looked at her steadily. “But you know that already, or you wouldn’t have urged him to use the money I sent.”
She said nothing, but a struggle was going on behind her eyes.
“Even though you don’t approve yourself,” I said more gently, “please think about Polly. Forbidding her this could cause her to do something far more reckless. You know even better than I how contrary she is.”
Her hand found mine and clutched it hard. “At least wait a few days. Give him a chance to accustom himself to the idea of your presence first.”
This did not accord at all with my newfound resolve to come to grips with the matter. But I was transfixed by the urgency of her gaze. My mother was not a woman who begged for anything, especially not from her prodigal daughter. Nothing but the fiercest conviction—or desperation—could make her plead with me now.
“I can’t promise to wait for long,” I said warningly. Considering my father’s grave state of health, every day’s delay was a risk. “But unless things take a turn, I shall give him more time.”
She gave me a nod and released my hand. That was as close to thanks as I would get from her.
Since I had been thwarted in my desire to bring about one confrontation that made me nervous, I was all the more determined to have the conversation I had hitherto avoided having with my husband. When I let him in at the kitchen door that evening, I scarcely even took the time to greet him, so determined was I not to be derailed this time.
“Last night I said something that may have sounded shocking,” I began. “About not wanting children.”
The words didn’t seem to ruffle him. “I know you meant nothing by it,” he said.
“I may have spoken lightly, but it was the truth.” Quickly, before I could think better of it, I rushed on. “I hope you won’t think me a monster, but I don’t have any desire for children. I never have. Perhaps it’s because I spent so much of my girlhood looking after my younger sisters and brothers. For whatever reason, I relish the freedom you and I have, and don’t wish to change anything.” I was talking too much out of nervousness, and I made myself stop so that he could speak.
He had not recoiled in horror, which was some comfort; he regarded me steadily, without any sign that he was angry or disappointed—but likewise no sign that he was pleased. “I hadn’t realized you felt so strongly about it,” he said.
“I’m afraid I do.”
Still he showed no sign of what he was feeling, and I could have screamed in vexation. “Does this have anything to do with being home again?” he asked.
“It isn’t a new or fleeting idea, believe me. I wouldn’t speak so strongly if I hadn’t given the subject a great deal of thought ever since... well, ever since you proposed to me.”
That made him grin. “Oh, I proposed to you, did I?”
“Roderick, please.” This was not the time for what had become a long-standing playful disagreement between us. “How do you feel about children?”
He took his time answering, no doubt to give his answer due reflection, but it felt like hours before he spoke. When he did, though, the words could not have been more welcome.
“I feel just the same as you do,” he said, and my heart gave a floundering lurch of relief, not only at the words but also at the calm certainty with which he spoke them. “Our freedom is precious to me as well,” he added.
“Will it remain enough to you?” I pressed him. “Will you not begin to yearn to be a father?”
“Nothing could be more remote from my thoughts.” Then he smiled. “You really feared I’d think you monstrous? You are the furthest thing from it.”
With a great sigh of relief I flung my arms around him and held him tightly. “My mother says I’m less of a woman for not wanting children. That I am unnatural.”
Anger flared briefly in his eyes. “I can only imagine she lacks the imagination to conceive of other purposes to which a talented woman can put her life.” Then he took my face in his hands and gazed down at me, and there was no anger anymore in his hazel eyes, just warm and steadfast love. “How glad I am you had the courage to be honest about it!” he said. “I’ve been postponing bringing up the subject. I was certain you would think you married a scoundrel.”
That made me smile. “Well, I did marry a scoundrel,” I said, “but in this particular case we are of like mind.” I rose up on my tiptoes for a kiss.
“I miss you,” he said presently, and the huskiness of his voice was a caress. “My bed is damned empty without you.”
“I wish I had that problem,” I sighed. “My bed is much too full of people—and none of them you.” Then inspiration struck. “Come with me,” I said, and led him by the hand into the corridor.
The corridor was lit only by the gaslight of street lamps filtering in through the front window, and the shapes of furnishings bristled like a hostile forest in a fairy story. I opened the door to the smaller workshop and led Roderick inside.
“Mollie’s husband just brought in a fainting couch to re-upholster,” I said.
The significance of this did not strike him at once. “Are you in want of a fainting couch?” he asked, his voice perplexed. “Granted, the smell of turpentine and varnish down here is enough to make anyone dizzy.”
“That isn’t quite what I had in mind.” I closed the door behind us and drew his arms around my waist. In the workshop the darkness was nearly complete, and it somehow made things more intimate, perhaps because it created the illusion that we were the only two people in the world—an especially delicious sensation after being overrun with relations.
I slipped my arms around his neck. “Isn’t there something else in your immediate surroundings that makes you feel a bit lightheaded?” I whispered, and brushed my lips against his. “Anything that makes you wish to... recline for a bit?”
In the dimness his throaty chuckle sent a shiver of anticipation over my skin. Though I couldn’t see his expression, I could picture it: a marriage of desire and tender affection that I had never seen in any eyes but his. His hands stroked my back, their warmth penetrating through the fabric of my garments.
“That is an excellent idea,” he murmured, and lowered his head to nuzzle my throat. My hands clenched in his hair at the touch. “I’ve a feeling that you’re about to make my head spin.”
“Likewise, I’m sure—you rogue.” My voice was breathless. It was soon to become more so.
SOME TIME L
ATER I MADE my way up the stairs to the room I shared with the girls, treading as softly as I could so as not to draw attention. The last thing I wanted was for my mother to encounter me in my present state, with my dress and hair in disorder and, no doubt, a tremendous smile betraying my recent activities. I felt as if I must be radiating bliss like sunbeams from my skin, as if I were an angel in a stained-glass window... though an angel was a poor comparison after that decidedly fleshly tryst on the fainting couch.
Then I had to stifle a giggle at myself. Here I was, creeping surreptitiously up the steps, dreading the stern parental eye as if I were a girl still, not a woman grown and married. There was no reason for me to feel furtive or guilty. All the same, I was relieved when I reached my room without incident and unseen.
Well, almost unseen.
“Where did you and Roderick go?” Myrtle demanded as soon as I stepped over the threshold.
“None of your business, child. Go to sleep.”
“We heard your voices in the kitchen,” Violet said accusingly. “By the time we got there, you were gone.”
I breathed a silent prayer of thanks that the girls had not found us in the workroom. Then inspiration struck.
“Roderick disguises it well, but he is actually quite shy,” I said. “He undergoes torments in conversation with bright young ladies like you. He is far too polite to say so, but he is much happier to admire you from afar.”
Astonishingly, it seemed I had actually hit upon an idea that silenced my nieces. In the thoughtful quiet that followed, still bathed in the delicious afterglow of my visit with Roderick, I changed into my nightdress, climbed into bed, and fell asleep.
Chapter Five
I passed the next few days impatiently. I continued to work with Polly on her diction and delivery, up in the attic where she would not be heard projecting her voice.
I wanted to get the unavoidable conversation with my father over with, but my mother insisted that the time was not right. I saw him only for brief visits under her watchful eye, and to placate her I brought up no subject more controversial than the weather. Father eyed me bleakly and said little. If my mother expected him to soften and warm to my presence, he was doing nothing to further that expectation.
My expectation of seeing Atherton was also frustrated. He sent me a brief note apologizing for his absence, but when I responded with an invitation to call on me at my parents’ house, no reply came. I went so far as to consider going to the Crystal Palace on the hope of catching him during a rehearsal, but my pride rebelled at having to chase him down.
Each afternoon Roderick would fetch me and we would go for a drive or to visit a tourist attraction, since I had seen few enough of these in the city of my birth, and there were many he was eager to see, such as the Tower of London and Madame Tussaud’s. Sometimes we would simply go to his suite at the Langham for time alone together. I had difficulty thinking of it as our suite, though I still looked forward to becoming a resident. Indeed, I knew I must look furtive and self-conscious each time I appeared, fearing that most onlookers who saw me come and go with Roderick probably thought we were unmarried, or at least not married to each other.
Roderick, the rogue, was delighted when I voiced this worry and took to saying in a stage whisper as we crossed the lobby, “Quickly, my darling, before your husband discovers your absence!” Even if our planned activity was as innocent as Roderick playing part of his composition for me on the violin, I felt my cheeks burn whenever I caught someone looking in our direction.
“If you insist upon acting as though I’m a lady of the evening, the management will have me arrested and you thrown out of the hotel,” I warned one afternoon as we set out in a hackney carriage from my parents’ house, but he made a dismissive gesture.
“The staff all know who you are, and anyway I tip them so lavishly that they can turn a blind eye to our eccentricities.”
“The other guests don’t know I’m your wife,” I pointed out. “I doubt they like having you parade me beneath their noses.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “What do you suggest, then, you temptress? Carry our marriage license around with us to wave like a white flag in the face of hostility?”
“And to think that you chaffed me about my taste for the dramatic,” I said, ruffling his hair. “We can simply arrange to give one of the newspapers an interview, and hold it in one of the public rooms at the hotel. Then everyone will understand about you.”
“That I’m your husband?”
“That you are an irrepressible rascal.”
Laughing, he drew me onto his lap and kissed me, and that was the end of conversation for some time.
“Oughtn’t we to be there by now?” I asked at length, straightening my hat.
“Oh, but we aren’t going to the Langham,” he said, regarding with amusement my efforts to restore order to his necktie.
“We aren’t?” That was a particular disappointment now that he had, so to speak, aroused my interest in a visit to our private quarters. “Where are you taking me?”
“It’s a surprise.” He looked so pleased with himself that I had no choice but to dart at him and search all of his coat and waistcoat pockets for clues. Even though I found none, I knew that he was ticklish, and one way or another he would soon yield the answer I sought.
Fortunately for Roderick, the coach slowed and stopped before he laughed himself into asphyxiation. Peering from the window, I saw that we were in a quiet residential street lined with row houses of the Regency era, dignified and well-kept though not opulent. This was an area that my mother would have called respectable.
A small, tasteful placard in the window of the house where we were alighting announced:
The World-Renowned
Professor Martinus
Spirit Medium Extraordinaire
Private and Group Sittings
Authenticity Guaranteed
“Professor Martinus!” I exclaimed. “I have heard of him.” I realized at once why Roderick had brought me here. If we had been in the privacy of the carriage, I would have thrown my arms around him. “Dearest, how thoughtful of you.”
“I knew you’d wish to meet him during our stay,” he said, smiling at my pleasure. “Perhaps he’ll be able to give you some of the answers you seek.”
No matter how exasperating he might be sometimes, at moments like this Roderick always redeemed himself. Not only did he know that I had been feeling run down and in need of a change; he remembered how eager I was to meet more genuine spirit mediums like myself who might be able to teach me more about my peculiar gift.
“How I hope he isn’t a charlatan!” I murmured as we mounted the steps. It was nearly a prayer. So many so-called mediums were mere confidence tricksters, and I wanted badly to meet someone truly like myself.
Roderick took my hand and drew it through his arm. “I hope he is everything you wish him to be.”
When a dignified housekeeper ushered us into a darkened room, we found that we were the last of the group to arrive for the scheduled sitting. There were six of us at the round table, with an empty chair remaining, I supposed, for the medium. Perhaps he liked to enter last for dramatic effect—but there, I was already assuming he was a charlatan.
The only illumination was provided by a branched candelabrum in the center of the table. The other attendees were all women, all dressed in black—clearly in search of comforting news of the departed loved ones for whom they mourned. No one spoke; we merely nodded greetings at each other.
Then the candle flames guttered, and a man appeared behind the single empty chair at the table. From one glance at his face I felt certain he possessed the gift of communicating with the dead. There was so much weary sadness in his eyes, so much evidence of pain met with resignation in the lines of his brow. He had a high brow and deep-set eyes, and wore his hair down to his chin, rather like portraits of the late Frederic Chopin. Once completely dark, his hair bore startling streaks of pure white. His moustache and beard were
short. He wore all black except for his white shirt, which showed only at his throat and wrists; in the dark room it had the eerie effect of making his head and hands seem disembodied, floating in the darkness.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “Welcome. I am Professor Martinus.” His words, though quiet, resonated through the room. This man’s voice had been trained, I realized. But did that mean he was necessarily falsifying whatever spirit communications he received? Even a legitimate medium would probably find greater success if he enhanced his gift with some theatrical effects.
We returned his greeting, and he took his seat. “I hope I shall be able to help you all,” he said. “Of course, that is entirely dependent upon the spirits.”
This, too, smacked of a confidence trickster—preparing us in case he was unable to present any convincing signs of spirits. I fought against disappointment.
“My spirit guide is called Aurelia,” he continued, and at the sound of the name I suddenly felt a current of sadness, like a rushing stream flowing from him to me. This was so peculiar and new a sensation that I almost did not hear him add, “She had a tragic life, and I was privileged to know her briefly before she passed over. Let us hope she is in a sociable humor today.”
The medium had scarcely spoken the words when from behind him rose the head and shoulders of a woman, swimming up through the air as if surfacing from water. The hair that streamed about her face was as white as the rest of her, as white as snow. Two pale arms, clad in the vaporous hint of sleeves, slid around the man’s shoulders and chest, and I saw a shudder pass through him. The shock sent prickles over my scalp, and I drew back inadvertently when the phantom’s face turned toward me. Two tiny pinpricks of light were her eyes.
I had no reason to think she was hostile, but the eerie strangeness of her made me shiver. No matter how many spirits I encountered, I knew I would never stop feeling the breath-stopping wrongness of seeing the dead take form.
A Haunting Reprise Page 7