A Child Lost

by Michelle Cox

  Clive resisted the urge to look away.

  “I saw the wires,” he said. “Under the table. It’s how you make your ‘crystal ball’ glow, isn’t it?” he asked with an arched eyebrow and a condescending tilt of his head.

  Madame Pavlovsky merely peered at him.

  “And the trinkets? That’s a nice racket, too. They bring you mostly rubbish, but every once in a while, something decent shows up, doesn’t it?”

  Madame Pavlovsky’s lips curled up, and she let out a little laugh.

  “This isn’t a laughing matter,” Clive said sternly.

  “No, it is not,” she replied. “It is you that amuses me. You will not see the obvious in front of your eyes.”

  “Are you aware of the fact that I could take you in for questioning?” Clive asked severely.

  “You could,” she said with a shrug. “But it would do no good. I have no laws broken.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we could think of something. Theft. Impersonation.”

  “Impersonation?” she said with a loud bark of a laugh. “I am not impersonating anyone; I am exactly who I say.”

  “Assuming a false identity with the intent to defraud another,” Clive said matter-of-factly, rubbing his chin. “That’s the law’s definition of impersonation. And I think there’s enough evidence of that here to charge you.”

  “All right!” she said, throwing her hands up dramatically. “Yes, it is true I use wires and cheap tricks for this illumination during séance. That is more work of Sergei’s, though,” she said without any trace of worry in her voice. “And I am not ‘defrauding’ anyone, as you say. I do not want these rubbish things; I keep them not. Look around if you so like,” she said, gesturing widely. “You will find nothing.”

  “Most likely because you’ve sold it all by now.”

  “Is this still what you think, Detective? You saw yourself what they bring in. I tell them to bring something like personal, not of value. I will tell you truth. I do not need any of these rubbish to see the spirits.”

  “Then why tell them to bring anything at all?”

  “Because they need to. They want to. Everyone likes show. Candles . . . crystal ball. It is more real for them, more . . . how you say? Exciting? Convincing?”

  “Aha! My point exactly.”

  “But this does not make my gifts any less real, Detective. I am here to help people, believe it or no. And souls on other side. Sometimes they cannot go to eternal rest until they make peace with those left behind.”

  “So you’re a charity now,” Clive said. “You don’t charge for the séance, you don’t keep and resell their trinkets,” he said, ticking off his fingers. “How do you make your money? Pull it out of a magic hat?”

  “I charge for readings, if you must know,” she said, giving him a faint scowl, the first sign of real emotion she had yet revealed. “People come for private communication with loved one. It is good, very healing. For both.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Clive said. “I knew there had to be a catch.”

  “There is no ‘catch,’ Detective. As you say, I need to live somehow. I merely use my gifts—same as you use detective skills. Often you have—how you say? Hunch? That something is not right as should be? That is same for me. I give service like any other. Like doctor.”

  “A witch doctor, maybe,” Clive said wryly.

  “I am not doing anything wrong. Nothing against law.”

  Clive had to admit that she was unfortunately correct. He had no proof that she was stealing items, and he knew that the charge of impersonation was loose at best. He said it to scare her, but it obviously hadn’t worked. That or she was skilled in masking her fear. Well, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? Still, if people chose to pay her money to talk to their dead relatives, he, or any law enforcement body, couldn’t really do anything about it. But why did he feel so uneasy? He didn’t like being in her presence, he decided, but simultaneously chastised himself for it. What was he so afraid of?

  “Would you like me to do reading for you, Detective?” she asked in a throaty voice, completely taking him off guard as he stood contemplating what to do next. She was looking at him in a strange way, and though he tried to look away, he found he couldn’t. “No charge, of course. There is much I could tell you.”

  A small part of him was absurdly tempted . . .

  “No!” he exclaimed, instantly annoyed that he had said it so emphatically. “You’ve already told me that you saw my father and he loves me and all of that. Nice guess,” he managed to say aloofly. “That’s pretty vague and applicable to anyone, really.” He folded his arms across his chest.

  Madame Pavlovsky closed her eyes and remained silent for several seconds. “There is woman near you,” she began. “A young woman,” she continued, “holding baby—”

  “Yes, yes,” Clive interrupted dismissively, breathing a secret sigh of relief that it was again predictable, that it was nothing worse. “You’ve already told us all of this . . . the baby, it was a boy, Henrietta’s father is holding it . . . Nice touch, you know. I’ll give you that.”

  “Is not Henrietta. No. Another woman . . . ”

  No, Clive worried. Not this, he silently pleaded. Not Catherine. How could she possibly know about Catherine? He supposed she could have looked it up, he reasoned quickly. After all, it was public record.

  Madame Pavlovsky opened her eyes then and smiled. “She says to tell you that she does not blame you for her death and that you must not blame yourself anymore, too.”

  Clive’s breath caught in his throat. He wanted her to stop, and yet . . .

  “I am seeing strange scene now,” Madame Pavlovsky said, her eyes closed again. “It is same woman, only is when she is just young girl. There is bird, in snare.”

  Clive’s heart was beginning to beat unnaturally fast. “No—”

  “This girl says that when you freed this bird for her, this is when she first began to love you. She says thank you for returning her love for short time. She says she is happy, content. She wants you to be happy, too . . . ”

  Madame Pavlovsky abruptly stopped speaking, again opening her eyes wide in time to see Clive quickly wipe his own eyes with his thumb.

  “There is much light shining from her,” she went on. “She is very bright. Full of love. But she could stay no longer. The baby was yours, yes?”

  “Yes, they both died in childbirth,” Clive said absently and then became incredulous. “How do you know this? How could you possibly have known about the bird we found that day? We were only about twelve.”

  In short, he was stunned. There was no rational explanation, no way she could have known that. It was something only the two of them had known about. They had found a partridge trapped in a snare set by the groundskeeper on the Highbury estate. They thought at first that it was dead, but when Clive nudged it with his boot, it flapped its wings distressingly, trying to fly away. Catherine, startled, had let out a little scream and begged Clive to do something. Clive felt torn, as he knew that he would be in grave trouble if he released the trapped game, but, in truth, he felt pity for the creature just as much as Catherine did. He had not known what to do. Finally, at Catherine’s continued begging, he knelt and pried open the trap, the bird immediately flying free. Catherine had kissed him, then, on the cheek in thanks. He made her promise not to tell anyone, and she swore she would not. And he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt that, even with the evidence before him in the form of Madame Pavlovsky’s story, Catherine could not possibly have told anyone. It was completely against her nature. And even if she had, he argued with himself—that was over twenty years ago. An incident surely forgotten, even by him, he had to admit, until this very moment. He had not thought of it once since the day it happened. How could Madame Pavlovsky have known this? It sent chills up his spine.

  “I told you,” Madame Pavlovsky said in response to his questions. “I can speak with the dead.”

  Utterly shaken, Clive walked out and drove d
irectly to the Trophy Room to meet Davis, as he had previously arranged, resolving as he drove that he would say nothing of all of this; he would simply recommend they officially close the case. He wished to have nothing more to do with Madame Pavlovsky. Mr. Tobin would just have to be told that Madame Pavlovsky was not a danger to society, and that he should keep a better eye on his wife. After all, Mrs. Tobin had already explained what she was doing with all of her jewelry out and admitted that Madame Pavlovsky had not asked her to specifically bring jewelry, especially not the whole lot, but that a piece of jewelry was the only sentimental item of her mother’s she could think to bring.

  Upon hearing Clive’s report, Davis blessedly agreed with him, though he admitted he had been hoping for an excuse to run Madame Pavlovsky out of town. He didn’t like loose ends, and he felt for sure Madame Pavlovsky’s operation was as loose as they came.

  “Listen,” Clive said to him, his throat still dry no matter how much whiskey he knocked back. “You want to arrest her, you go out and get her. She’s a charlatan all right, but there’s nothing to charge her with,” he said uneasily, not meeting Davis’s eye. “At least not yet.”

  “You’re not afraid, are you?” Davis asked with a grin, taking a long drag of his cigarette. “Kind of seems like you are. She got you believin’ in ghosts now?”

  “Piss off, Davis.”

  All the way back to Highbury, Clive tried to stop himself from thinking anymore about Madame Pavlovsky or the supposed communication with Catherine—but it was useless. He couldn’t stop turning it over in his mind. He tried to find a hole in Madame Pavlovsky’s story, some rational explanation, but he could find none. Was it so hard to believe that ghosts were real? he finally asked himself. He had heard dozens of stories while on the beat of strange happenings and eerie sightings, but he always put them down to fanciful stories. But he believed in God, he confessed—an afterlife—so perhaps there were souls that still somehow roamed the earth. Who could really say for sure?

  Eventually these thoughts gave way to thoughts of Catherine herself. He had loved her, of course, but not exactly in the way a man should love his wife. He married her for duty before he shipped off to France, and when she and their baby died in childbirth, while he lay injured at the front, he could not stop thinking once he returned home that his misguided sense of duty to produce an heir for Highbury had been the ultimate cause of not only Catherine’s death, but that of a child—an innocent child. A little girl, it had been. Antonia had insisted that she be given a name, and when he had refused to, she named her Margaret Cornelia after her mother and informed Fr. Michaels so that it could be recorded, at least in the parish record, to mark her life, however short.

  Clive had never told another living soul about his terrible feelings of guilt, about his dark thoughts of reproach in the wee hours of the night that it was somehow all his fault. The nightmares had gone on for months, maybe years. And now here was Catherine, telling him she didn’t blame him—that she was happy and wanted him to be so, too. Emotion welled up in him as he eased the car toward Highbury. Well, damn it, he meant to be! he thought, suddenly pounding his fist against the steering wheel. He had been given another chance at happiness, and he wasn’t going to bungle it this time, he decided, as he gazed up at the massive structure in front of him. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice Albert approaching the car.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said, opening the door for him.

  Clive peered up at the servant in front of him and then listlessly got out of the car. “Park it, will you, Albert?”

  “Very good, sir.”

  As much as Clive was eager to go up and check on Henrietta, he felt unsteady and undone. He needed to collect his thoughts before going to her and found himself walking around to the back of the house. Lake Michigan was greenish and choppy today, the cold spring wind stirring it up. He stood there, his hands in his coat pockets, staring at the lake. Catherine had implored him to be happy, but, he thought, turning this over and over, his happiness depended wholly on Henrietta’s. And now she was worn down, anemic, and possibly depressed. She needed rest, the doctor had said . . .

  Gradually, then, an idea came to him as he stood gazing out at the lake—an idea he had actually proposed to Henrietta not but a couple of weeks ago. The more he thought about it now, the more it took hold, intriguing and even exciting him a little in its terrible rashness. Yes, he thought wildly . . . why not do it? What good was having all of this wealth if he couldn’t make his wife happy? She had been through some terrible shocks these past months, and he was determined to amend that. Yes, by God, he meant to make her happy! He knew his idea would not be popular with his mother or Bennett, most likely, but he didn’t care.

  He turned and walked swiftly back toward the front of the house and hurried up the stone stairs. Billings was there, as usual, to take his hat and coat. “How is Mrs. Howard?” he asked, adjusting his tie.

  “By that I assume you mean the younger Mrs. Howard?” Billings asked nasally.

  “Don’t be impudent, Billings.”

  “She is resting, I believe, sir.”

  “Did the flowers come?”

  “They did indeed, sir.”

  An unusual buoyancy overcame Clive, then, and he bounded up the stairs, two at a time, though he cautioned himself that Henrietta might still be sleeping, especially if Edna had given her one of the sleeping powders.

  When he reached their wing, he was surprised that Edna, or any servant, actually, was nowhere to be seen. He had given strict orders! With a fresh wave of irritation, he poked his head into the room, and his heart skipped a beat when he observed their bed to be empty! He opened the door wider, beginning to panic, when he saw Henrietta seated prettily at her little desk, writing. He was utterly relieved that she was at least still in the room, but what was she doing out of bed?

  He stepped inside, Edna giving a little gasp at the sight of him and halting her arrangement of a vase of roses. Guiltily she looked over at her mistress.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” Clive exclaimed to Henrietta, incredulous. “That will be all for now, Edna.” He inclined his head toward the door.

  “Yes, sir,” she said with a slight curtsey, which she was no longer required to do but forgot in times of extreme stress. Hurriedly, she scooted out of the room.

  “Please don’t intimidate my maid,” Henrietta said, not looking up from what she was writing. “Edna’s very sensitive, you know. And she’s terrified of you.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see someone is,” he said, striding toward her, still not knowing what to think. “Henrietta, why are you not in bed? Darling, please. This is madness. The doctor gave me quite serious instructions.”

  “Don’t be silly, Clive,” she said, looking up at him, the sight of dark circles under her eyes nearly crippling him with secret anguish.

  “Henrietta, I really must insist,” he said sternly. “Please, darling,” he begged. “Humor me.”

  “Honestly, Clive,” she said, her voice sounding unusually normal, “there’s absolutely no need to treat me this way.”

  “What way?” he asked, puzzled.

  “As if I were an invalid or a child . . . or unbalanced,” she said, setting down her pen.

  “Of course, you’re not unbalanced,” he said, though he did wonder about how the horrific recent events might have affected her. She seemed to have come through it remarkably strong, as always, but Clive knew from unfortunate experience that wounds of the mind were not always obvious from the outside. “But you are ill, darling. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. You promised me you would stay in bed.”

  “I did no such thing,” she said, casually folding her arms. “I may have promised to rest at some point last night. And there was something else, I think,” she mused, putting a finger to her chin. “Ah, yes. Not to leave you, but I thought that was meant in a broader sense. You made arrangements, I discovered, to prevent me from leaving the room. So much for trust,”
she quipped.

  “Darling, I know how you are. As it turns out, my precautions were apparently needed,” he said, gesturing at where she sat.

  “And so now I’m your prisoner?” she asked, shooting him an accusatory glance. “And you’re my jailer? Funny, you don’t look like Nurse Collins.” Her brow furrowed.

  Clive couldn’t help but let out a short burst of laughter, despite the situation. She was amazing, and if anything, he was her prisoner, his heart utterly hers. “Why are you so dammed difficult?”

  “I did try to warn you, you know. Several times, as I recall.”

  “Henrietta,” Clive sighed, “we’ve got to be serious. You really must stay in bed for a time, darling. Dr. Ferrington suspects that you’re anemic—”

  “Yes, so Edna informs me. Thanks for confiding that to me.”

  “Of course, I meant to, darling, it’s just that, well, we haven’t had time. And . . . and he suspects you’re not completely recovered from . . . from the miscarriage,” he said softly. “Henrietta, you must go easy.”

  “Clive, please stop fussing,” she said, standing up. “I’m fine. Honestly. You worry too much. You’re becoming an old mother hen,” she said, briskly patting his cheek.

  “Tell you what,” he said, ignoring her comment and instead taking her hand and raising it to his lips. “You be the damsel in distress, locked in the tower, and I will come rescue you.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  “I rather think I rescued myself this time,” she said with a wonderfully mischievous look in her eye, as she wrapped her arms around him and laced her fingers behind his neck. “Except at the end, of course.” She arched her neck and kissed him, tugging at his bottom lip and running her tongue along it. His response was instantaneous, and he pressed her to him, shocked by his swift arousal. He took a deep breath, then, remembering Dr. Ferrington’s advice against any excitement. Only a brute would make love to her right now, he chided himself, though she did seem to deliciously be suggesting it . . .

  “What was so urgent?” he asked, detaching her arms with great deliberation from around his neck, “that you had to leave your bed?” He held her hands and forced himself to breathe deeply.