The only time Emily Wilkins had set foot inside a place as grand as Aysgarth House was when her mother had held the position of maid to a family in Islington. So, even now, standing in the kitchen as a ghost, looking down on her own bloodied body, she didn’t feel it would be right to venture beyond those rooms assigned to the servants. She found the sight of her dead self upsetting and was relieved when, at last, Hopkins returned with two police officers to remove the body.
Upon seeing the corpse the younger of the two policemen put his hand to his mouth and retched.
‘Just a street urchin by the looks of things,’ said the elder, who had white wispy whiskers sprouting untidily from his chin and neck. ‘Probably got into an argument with her boyfriend.’
‘Bit young for that kind of thing, isn’t she, sir?’ said the younger man, forcing himself to look.
‘You’d be surprised. I seen ’em younger than this walking the streets. Prettier too.’
‘Funny she should find her way into this house.’
‘Must have found the door open and stumbled in.’ The older man walked to the back door and eased it open with the side of his boot. ‘Yep, look. Blood on the handle.’
‘The cook swears she locked it at night,’ replied his colleague.
‘That hysterical old bird?’ snorted the other. ‘She’s worried about losing her position.’
‘But what if it is the truth?’
‘Listen to me, Sidmouth. How long have you been on the beat now?’
‘It’s coming up to three months now, sir.’
‘Three months? Twelve years is my tally. And when you’ve been patrolling these streets as long as I have you get a nose for these kind of things. You have to ask yourself what is more likely, a dappy old cook forgetting to lock a door or a street urchin with her throat cut picking a lock and breaking into a kitchen?’
‘Perhaps it was some kind of burglary gone awry, sir.’
The older man sighed and stepped onto the porch door. ‘You see how the blood leads to the house? You mark my words, this little one gets into some kind of dispute with her fella, has her throat cut, then stagger stagger stagger, plop, she drops dead on the kitchen floor. Come on now, wrap up the body and let’s get it out of here.’
The younger man knelt down next to the dead body. Emily floated down to his side, with the strangest feeling, as if she was paying her last respects to herself. The policeman closed her eyelids and set about wrapping up the body for removal. ‘So young,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘So young,’ repeated Emily.
She felt sorry for the distress she had caused Mrs Preston and for the upset her appearance had caused in the house. She wished she could leave, but the outside wall remained as solid as if she were still alive, so she remained in the kitchen.
After a few hours, her curiosity grew. Since she could not be seen, what harm was there in exploring the rest of the house? Emily stepped through the wall into the hallway, feeling the freedom of the realisation that the rules of the living no longer applied. She drifted up the stairs. The lightness of her new body was disconcerting. It felt as though the merest breeze could destroy her.
The dining room, with its matching green curtains and patterned wallpaper, was beautiful. She poked her head into the cabinets to admire the gleaming silver cutlery and white porcelain plates. She wondered if such objects actually made the food taste better. In the drawing room she wished she was able to enjoy the softness of the cushions. But her favourite room was Clara’s bedroom. In spite of her short hair and plain dresses Clara was the handsomest girl she had ever laid eyes on. Emily investigated her wardrobe and found far prettier dresses. She wondered why she chose the dowdier ones. And why did she sit writing at her desk instead of playing with the toys she had hidden away at the back of the cupboard or with the splendid toy theatre by the window?
Emily was sitting by the theatre, admiring its every detail, wishing she could move the pieces, when Clara’s gaze drifted up from her desk and she looked straight through her. Emily felt so unnerved by this that she turned to Ether Dust and drifted up to the attic window. She spent the rest of the day looking out on the Strand, thinking how all her life she had endured such squalor, with no possessions, no permanent home, no toys or pretty dresses. Only now in death could she observe what it would have been like to have been born into wealth.