The Shape of Darkness

by Laura Purcell

  Myrtle lets go of her hand.

  Why can’t her sister understand? If Pearl could contact Mother, she’d have an ally, someone to protect her from the bad spirits and stop her getting sick like this. She longs to feel Mother’s cool hand on her burning brow.

  ‘I ain’t stopping you from talking to her,’ Myrtle says eventually. Her voice has gone gravelly and she’s got that puffy look, as if she’s about to cry.

  ‘But you are. I need a circle. I can’t do it alone. I never see ghosts when I’m on my own.’

  ‘No. I won’t do it, Pearl. Let her rest in peace.’

  Pearl slumps. She’s so exhausted and so hot, she hasn’t the strength to fight, but she must. This is the only thing that really matters to her.

  Mother’s the only one who can help now.

  ‘Please, Myrtle. Don’t you think she’d want to meet me? She can be my spirit guide.’

  ‘You don’t need one.’

  ‘But I never knew her!’ Pearl bleats.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Myrtle fires back. ‘So you never had to lose her. You can’t even imagine what it’s like. Every day …’ She glances away, trying to hide angry tears. ‘Nobody suffered like I did.’

  ‘Father lost her too.’

  Myrtle scoffs. ‘Right. Someone he was married to for a couple of years. That ain’t the same as having your Ma ripped from you. But what would you know?’

  Pearl can’t bear to have her father talked about like he doesn’t count. ‘He loved her,’ she whispers.

  ‘He killed her!’ Myrtle erupts. Her eyes aren’t beautiful now; they’re frightening. ‘If it wasn’t for him putting a baby in her belly, she’d still be alive. And look what he’s gone and done to himself. I told him we shouldn’t work in a match factory. Now here we are. I’m the mug, busting my guts to cure the man who murdered my own mother.’

  Pearl’s still hot, but she’s shaking, furious and heartbroken all at the same time. Maybe it’s true: maybe she’s the offspring of a feckless man and a mother who resents her every bit as much as Myrtle does. But Father didn’t mean for it to happen. He’d never hurt anyone on purpose, and if he’s done wrong, isn’t he paying for it now?

  She finds a thread of voice. ‘It’s not Father’s fault. You have to help him, Myrtle. Don’t take your anger out on him. Blame me instead.’

  Myrtle’s nostrils flare. She peers down at Pearl, still crumpled on the floor by the chamber pot. ‘D’you know what? Sometimes I do.’

  With that parting blow, she strides off and shuts herself in her bedroom.

  Pearl’s free hand grips at the carpet. It feels as though the floor is moving. She wants to cry, to really howl and weep, but her head’s just too painful.

  Everything hurts so much.

  For a moment she sits swaying, utterly hollowed out by her sister’s words.

  Then she’s sick again.

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘You should not be here!’ Agnes cries once more, but the lady is impossible.

  Her dome-shaped skirt takes up most of the studio. Wide, fringed sleeves send paintbrushes clattering to the floor as her busy hands explore every surface.

  Her daughter, about sixteen years old, lurks on the landing with her arms crossed. Her expression carries all the disdain Agnes feels, but must not show.

  ‘Is this where it happened? Where Mr Boyle sat?’ The lady tries the chair for herself. ‘And that young gentleman you found? Did you take his shade too?’

  ‘No,’ Agnes lies. ‘That was an entirely separate matter. Please, Mrs …’

  ‘Campbell. I already told you my name. I hope you observe better than you listen.’

  ‘And I have told you that you must leave this place, Mrs Campbell. It is not safe for you to be here.’

  The lady’s eyes twinkle. ‘Now, now, I know what you are about. I won’t pay more. Two shillings apiece is a fair price for a silhouette from the parlour of death.’

  ‘Please, stop calling it that!’

  A magpie cackles.

  Agnes had anticipated whispers and avoidance after the newspaper article, but not this. She had not reckoned on the ghoulish crawling out from their holes to revel in all the morbid detail.

  ‘Look, Lavinia!’ Mrs Campbell takes off, knocking over the chair she has just sat upon. ‘Look at the Etruscan pieces. So classical. I am minded to have one of them.’

  These are the silhouettes where either the profile or the background has been worked in terracotta to resemble ancient pottery. Agnes always thought it was a cheerful colour; now she looks at the specimens hanging on her walls, and it seems as if they have been smeared with blood.

  ‘I will not do it!’ she repeats. ‘I cannot. I have reason to believe my customers are being persecuted and until I—’

  ‘But then the bronzing is charmingly quaint,’ Mrs Campbell rabbits on, moving to another frame. ‘A nice ethereal, ghostly quality, don’t you think?’

  Like Mr Boyle’s shade, these pieces are black profiles with little details, like the hair and the collar, sketched on in gold. Agnes remembers how these features glittered by candlelight in the house of mourning at Queen Square and her sense of foreboding deepens.

  ‘Really, I must insist—’

  Lavinia catches her eye from the doorway and shrugs her shoulders. ‘You had better do as my mother says,’ she tells her wearily.

  ‘Do you not understand the danger?’

  Mrs Campbell laughs. ‘And do you not understand four shillings, my good woman? Come, you could use them. I see that you could. Get inside the room, Lavinia, for heaven’s sake. Pick up that chair. Let the woman take your likeness with this nice machine here.’

  Four shillings. It is blood money, and yet … they would certainly prove useful. Agnes needs to buy tea, and to make up for that sixpence she spent at the séance.

  Can she in good conscience turn down four shillings, when poor Cedric has spent all morning complaining of hunger?

  Mrs Campbell is not a pleasant woman, anyhow …

  But the daughter. She sits where Ned sat, albeit far less eager. A pretty, sullen thing. Long, lace-trimmed bloomers show at her ankles and an innocent white ribbon threads through her hair.

  Young Lavinia does not deserve to come to harm.

  ‘I beg you to reconsider—’

  ‘Do it!’ Lavinia groans. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it if you do not.’

  Agnes hesitates. She sees it now: she is a coward. Has always been. She might put up a fight, but eventually she will let others’ actions control her own, just as she used to let Constance dictate their games.

  ‘Four shillings?’ she confirms.

  Mrs Campbell beams. ‘Let us say four and six if you sign them both nice and clear.’

  Everyone has a price. Agnes honestly thought hers would be higher.

  Hating herself, she loads the physiognotrace with paper.

  It is a very different experience to tracing Ned. There are no smiles or suppressed giggles. Agnes holds herself stiff, not savouring every dip and hollow this time but moving the pole mechanically, as grave as a torturer turning the handle of a rack.

  The abbey bells sound.

  Could the murderer be watching her do this?

  Working used to be a pleasure. Now some unknown person has found a way to turn it against her. It is as though they want her to have nothing of her own. Why? What threat could she, an impecunious spinster, pose to anyone?

  ‘Done,’ she announces shortly.

  Lavinia heaves a sigh and vacates the chair. She shows no interest in the results, but Mrs Campbell already has her fingers on the box, trying to unfasten the hatch.

  ‘Careful,’ Agnes warns. ‘Mind the pole. Let me—’

  ‘I wish to see it!’

  Agnes shoulders her out of the way. This lady might be paying twice what her art is worth, but by God she is making her earn it.

  ‘There will be little to see at present,’ she explains as she opens the instrument and reaches inside. T
he paper unclips easily. ‘I will need to enlarge it with a pantograph before—’

  She has barely withdrawn the sheet from the machine before Mrs Campbell snatches it.

  As she inspects the tiny sketch, her smile rapidly subsides to a frown.

  ‘Is there a … problem?’ Agnes ventures.

  Wings beat as the birds squabble on the roof.

  ‘It looks nothing like her.’

  ‘It will not, until I have—’

  ‘Really, it might be a different person altogether. Do it again.’

  She drops the page. Agnes lunges for it.

  ‘I’m sure it’s not so bad, Mamma,’ Lavinia says languidly.

  ‘It truly is. Look for yourself.’

  Agnes turns the paper over for the girl to see. Freezes.

  There is no mistake, small and faint as the profile is. Mrs Campbell was right: it is not Lavinia.

  The physiognotrace has drawn Constance.

  ‘That’s adequate for me,’ Lavinia yawns. Her perfectly manicured fingers tug at the paper but it is a moment before Agnes can force herself to let go.

  What is happening? How is this possible?

  ‘I will enlarge it, cut it out—’ she starts but Lavinia waves her off.

  ‘Really. Do not trouble yourself.’

  Mrs Campbell sniffs. Her mouth has pinched, highlighting the wrinkles around it. ‘I did have something better in mind. I take it you will not be using that incompetent contraption for my own shade.’

  ‘No, no.’ Agnes hurriedly pushes the physiognotrace aside, disengaging the pole and propping it up in the corner. ‘I did not wish to use it in the first place. Please, have a seat. I will … Let us use paint! I will paint your silhouette onto plaster, how about that?’

  She hopes her hand will be steady enough. The prospect of four and six seems to be drifting further and further away.

  Why Constance?

  She cannot begin to comprehend how a machine, an actual machine, could make this error. Her own hand might cut something from memory, yes, if she lost concentration. But the physiognotrace? She is tempted to take the paper from Lavinia and pore over it, see whether her eyes were mistaken.

  It must be the séance – all that talk of ghosts is making her see them everywhere.

  Mrs Campbell spreads her skirts and descends upon the chair.

  Agnes gathers her apparatus: not really paint but India ink, water and soot blended together to make the perfect consistency of black, and a white oval of plaster for the background.

  Her trembling fingers select a round, soft brush. Then she begins to work.

  It is soothing. With scissors, she is forced to cut away from her body, but now she can pull the brush towards herself. The lines are soft, oily smears. There are two edges to her brushstroke and she focuses on the left, the clearer one, ignoring the other that encroaches into the white space she will later fill.

  Forehead, nose, mouth, chin.

  These are not Constance’s features. She makes sure of that. But the machine’s drawing still flashes before her. Impossible, as were the things she saw in Miss West’s parlour on Walcot Street.

  Perhaps this is what happens when you meddle with the natural order. She did not stop to fully consider the consequences before she called up spirits, but of course it makes sense: if one ghost can wander, surely they all may.

  Constance always wanted to be her only sitter.

  Agnes adds more water, makes the ink thinner and thinner as it reaches the back of Mrs Campbell’s head. The woman appears to be falling through an empty, white space. She picks up a needle, ready to scrape in some finer detail.

  ‘Are you nearly finished?’ Mrs Campbell complains.

  Maybe Constance has actually appeared to help defend her against this fussy customer. It amuses her to think of how icily her sister would have treated a woman like Mrs Campbell. Mamma once said: ‘If Constance loves anyone, it is you, Agnes.’ But she is not sure if that was true. She only remembers feeling tied to her little sister. As if she were a doll Constance wanted to carry about with her everywhere: something to own and control.

  On the day Montague left, Constance took her hand and said, ‘Now he will never part us.’ As if that were some kind of comfort.

  Well, death has parted them. And although her ghost might be trying, Constance cannot really get back to her now.

  Agnes is no spirit medium. She cannot be possessed.

  ‘Is it ready?’ Mrs Campbell persists.

  ‘Almost.’ Agnes lays the needle down and signs her work. It is charming, despite its subject. The painted woman is silent and without Mrs Campbell’s haughty expression; she has even managed to capture the wispy lace in her hair. ‘Here. Please be gentle with it. Some parts may still be wet.’

  Mrs Campbell comes over to the table and beams down at her shadow self. ‘Well! That is more like it. What do you think, Lavinia? Is not Mamma very handsome?’

  Lavinia just blinks.

  ‘A treasure,’ Mrs Campbell continues, scooping it up. ‘Wait until my friends see! An actual silhouette from the infamous Darken’s Parlour. I will be the envy of Laura Place.’

  Agnes grimaces. ‘Allow me to show you out.’

  When they gain the hallway, Mrs Campbell produces her purse. ‘Make yourself useful, Lavinia, hold the shade.’

  Her smooth, pale hands tell out the coins, four and six as promised, without the slightest demur about Lavinia’s failed portrait. How rich she must be, to fritter money away like that.

  Agnes closes her fist tight over the treasure.

  ‘You should take a cab home,’ she advises. ‘The streets are filthy.’

  Opening the front door illustrates her point. Greyish-brown mush heaps the pavements. What was beautiful and snowy has melted into formlessness once more. It smells, too, possibly the effect of thaw water running down the drains.

  ‘Nothing like a walk for the constitution,’ Mrs Campbell announces, striding out without a backwards glance.

  Lavinia raises her eyes to heaven and mopes after her, still carrying the shade.

  Agnes watches them nervously from the threshold. She ought to shut the cold out, but how can she? She must see her customers safe, at least until they have turned the corner. She has a dreadful feeling that she has just signed their death warrant.

  Few people have ventured out into the dirt. The young girls stay firmly inside Mrs Box’s seminary, yet there are still servants carrying packages from the butchers, and clerks scurrying around the banks. Agnes hunches behind the door. Any one of them could be the killer, spying on her house.

  Mrs Campbell has nearly disappeared from sight but Lavinia dawdles, no doubt enjoying a respite from her mother’s company. She is drawing level with the abbey when Agnes glimpses something hurtling towards her from the opposite direction, throwing out spray as it goes.

  Agnes rubs her eyes. The object is too small to be a cart, but part of it does resemble a wheel …

  It is a wheel – or to be exact, a hoop, Cedric’s hoop, jouncing along while he dashes after it with his stick. In this slush! She represses a groan, foreseeing hours spent over the sink scrubbing his trousers.

  He pays no heed to where he runs. People seem to miraculously sidestep out of his path and he does not falter, not even when he is nearly upon Lavinia.

  The girl has not noticed him. Agnes raises a hand, lets it hover uselessly beside her mouth. She ought to call out but the last thing she wants to do is attract attention to her customer, to Cedric …

  Now it is too late.

  Cedric weaves, skims past Lavinia with barely an inch to spare. The girl gives a violent start and drops the shade.

  Even from this distance, Agnes can hear the crack of plaster splitting into a jigsaw.

  ‘Whoops,’ Lavinia says dispassionately.

  Agnes casts about wildly to see who observed the accident – did that lady, wrapped in fur? No, she only gave the merest twitch of her head, but what if the killer is out there somewhe
re, and this has drawn their eye … ?

  Cedric barrels in through the door. His clothes are wet against her skirts and she leaps back with a shriek.

  ‘Cedric! Careful, dear! What are you running away from?’

  ‘Have we got any food yet?’ He makes to push past her into the kitchen.

  ‘Wait just a moment, young man.’ She grabs hold of his shoulder and snaps the door shut. ‘You should have stopped to apologise to that lady in the street, and helped her pick up her parcel. You made her drop it and now it will be broken. It is not like you to forget your manners.’

  He blinks up at her from under his sandy fringe. ‘Sorry, Auntie Aggie.’

  ‘You really do need to be more careful, Cedric. Watch where you are going, at the very least. There are dangerous people about. I often worry that you will—’ She loses her train of thought, caught suddenly by the state of him. ‘Goodness me. What on earth have you done to your coat?’

  He looks down at his feet. They too are caked in grime. ‘I fell over. Tore it.’

  It must have been a prodigious fall. The material is blotched all over with dirt as if it has been trampled underfoot. One tear is a crescent shape and the other gapes wide at the shoulder; the sleeve is almost hanging off.

  Her anger flicks quickly to worry.

  ‘Darling! Are you hurt?’

  He glances up as if it is a foolish question.

  ‘Come here. Give me that. That’s it dear, take it off.’ She coaxes him out of the coat, both relieved and amazed that she cannot see any bruises on him. He is unharmed – that is the important part – but she cannot help grieving over the garment. She does not want to ask Simon to pay for another; she must sew it up as best she can.

  She drapes the ruined coat over her arm and places a hand upon his head. ‘This is precisely what I mean, my love. I do not scold to be cruel, but for your own good. Please be more careful. I do not know what I would do if something were to happen to you …’ A chilling possibility occurs to her. ‘It was a fall, Cedric? No one pushed you, did they?’

  He looks a little tearful. Her heart clenches. It is one thing for a killer to victimise her practice, but if they were to touch Cedric …