My cousin Edward was engaged, and a ball was held in his and his fiancée’s honor not three days after my receipt of Mr. Lovell’s letter. My family was invited. To my surprise, Papa agreed to go.
I thought not to ask the reason for his reversal, however, and simply prepared for it.
I didn’t have much by way of fashionable things and simply chose to put on my least faded, least weathered suit. Dorcas cut my hair after a good deal of arguing against my refusal to admit I looked quite wild with my hair growing over my ears.
I was ready before my parents and so spent the time waiting for them in my bedroom. I couldn’t read any of my books. My mind constantly wandered, and before long I’d pulled out Mr. Lovell’s letter from my bureau and reread it for the hundredth time since my receipt. It had become a guilt-ridden pleasure of mine to do that.
I was painfully aware nothing could come out of my attraction to him—my love for him. I was certain he knew it. We weren’t equals in any way. He had money, pedigree; I didn’t. Even if what I felt for him were protected, supported, or justified by the Bible, the disparity of our ranks simply wouldn’t allow such a foolhardy connection to happen.
Somewhere during my third perusal, my attention once again wandered. My gaze moved from the letter to rest on my wooden bowl and its collection of odd little treasures. The defaced miniature sat atop everything, and I picked it up without much thought, turning it over between my fingers as I’d done several times in the past.
“Such a strange thing you are,” I murmured idly. “And what curious luck it was that sent me to St. Bertram’s and—”
My words faded. I stared at the thing, this time turning thoughts over and over in my head. Little by little, like scattered bits of paper being collected and pasted back together, ideas began to form—ideas that followed a certain logic, a certain chain.
St. Bertram’s church—the widow praying—the miniature found—ghostly presences. I looked back at the recent past and tried to remember when the first haunting took place.
There on the island, on one of the footpaths? No—it was back in Liscombe—at Shepley Abbey. I remembered now. It was the day Mr. Lovell and I spent a few idle hours walking through the abbey ruins. The ghost was there, standing among trees at a distance. I saw it, but he didn’t.
The familiar sensation of my skin prickling and the hair on the back of my neck standing came over me again.
A lady. Over there. I think she knows you.
Oh? Is it Miss Thornber? Where is she?
In the trees over there.
Where?
She was there a moment ago. She must have hurried off when I caught her staring at you.
Was it Miss Thornber? Ah, never mind.
No. I don’t think so.
She knows me?
It appeared so. She was looking at you when I saw her—must have been watching you for some time before I turned around, but she did nothing—just stood there.
I swept my tongue over my dry lips as I fumbled around for those incidents that took place on the island.
The ruined face stared back at me with desecrated eyes. Yes, I took that vile, ghastly thing home with me.
The mystery of the miniature’s sudden appearance remained unsolved, and all I had to go by were fantastic suppositions—supernatural causes. I’d long grown tired of wading through the illogical web and learned to resign myself to the unknown.
What would the ghost’s connection be, then? The painting’s protector?
“That’s absurd!” I breathed, frowning at the violated image. “What would be protected here? Unless the widow truly owned this thing, and—and—”
I grappled with words, with thoughts. Logic betrayed me again, and what at first seemed to be so rational suddenly dissolved in a flood of superstitious nonsense.
Things of ill-omen. Harbingers of misfortune. Hetty had talked about banshees once upon a time, and I’d managed to raise something close to a discussion with Dorcas and Stephen that one afternoon. Dear God, it was all rubbish, and yet…
No, there had to be an explanation. Surely, there’d be something out there that would make me understand.
Then again, perhaps things ought to be left alone. Perhaps there were laws that simply defied reason. Perhaps—perhaps—some things simply happened for their own sake.
What of coincidence?
What else had happened since the miniature—and the ghost— had followed me home? My parents’ quarrels began because Papa had forbidden Mama from continuing her visits to Havenstreet. My mother also began her visits to her sick and dying friend, which, after a while, caused further friction between her and Papa. He’d already begun to voice his objections, at times forbidding her from visiting Mrs. Stanton. I’d also…
My face burned at the thought. “I’d also come to feel for Mr. Lovell,” I said under my breath. For all my confusion, however, I still felt a surge of indignation. “No,” I added, my voice steadying itself. “Why would I lower that to the level of superstition and ridiculous, nonsense things like ghosts?”
I took up Mr. Lovell’s slightly crumpled letter and folded it before consigning it back to the shadows of my bureau. My pride refused to calm itself, and I continued to feel the sting of insult. My feelings weren’t superstition. By God, they weren’t! Neither were they objects of contempt among those whose feelings were marked for the opposite sex.
What I felt might be judged as wrong, but it was still real to me. I simply couldn’t deny it. Why would God give me the desire and yet condemn me for feeling it?
Dr. Sharpton had long judged me a fit and healthy boy—absolutely sound in mind and body. Surely, I thought, a respectable physician such as he couldn’t be wrong after all these years.
By that point in time, I’d also convinced myself the hauntings—the ghost and the miniature—followed a logic that was separate from the normal world. In brief, the hauntings had nothing to do with my mind or any threats to my sanity. I’d yet to understand what was happening, but I also knew I wasn’t at fault.
A knock on my door broke through my thoughts.
“Natty, are you ready?” Dorcas called, her voice muffled. “Your mother and father are waiting for you downstairs.”
“Yes, I’m coming!” I leapt up from my chair just as Dorcas slowly opened the door and peered in.
“Come along, dear. Your uncle sent his carriage for you, too. It’s an impressive thing—looks quite new.”
I hurried over to her, laughing off my earlier confusion. “And what a grand show we’ll make of things, with Uncle’s permission. What do you think, Dorcas? Am I genteel enough for his carriage, or do I deserve to walk to Havenstreet like the luckless peasant that I am?”
She chuckled and rolled her eyes as she stepped aside to let me pass. I forced encouraging thoughts to fill my head as I hurried to the stairs—fortified myself with reassurances that things, somehow, would work out in the end. That there was surely—as it often happened—a simple explanation for everything.
In the meantime, however, I ought to enjoy myself again—behave like an ordinary seventeen-year-old boy.
I’d hidden myself from the world and all its unpleasant surprises long enough. Hauntings or no, I couldn’t—I shouldn’t—be forced into hiding like a hunted criminal.
It was odd, but I felt somehow transformed by those few moments alone, struggling with questions that refused to be so easily answered. Faced by things that seemed to defy natural laws. My spirits had risen—even grown defiant. I also felt some anger and a fierce desire to defend my territory—that is, my heart and my senses, their capabilities, regardless of their nature. If I was meant to love other men, I was sure it was for a good reason. Since I was a child, Papa had always taught me that God allowed things to happen in order to strengthen one’s spirit, one’s character, and to find ultimate fulfillment and happiness once he embraced his trials as hidden blessings from heaven.
Mama fussed over me when I joined her and Papa near the front door.
“You could have chosen something more proper,” she said, sighing. Her hands flew up and down my body as she brushed off dust with her handkerchief. “Turn around.”
“We’ll have to send the boy to Newport,” Papa said.
“The better tailors are in London.”
“Newport, Cecily. Nothing farther.”
Mama said nothing to that—simply fluttered her hands against me, tickling my nose with the sharp, swift movements of her handkerchief on my jacket. It took me all I had to keep myself from sneezing. I frowned at her.
She exuded so much nervous energy I wondered if she were ill. Indeed, I even wondered if her fussing over me was nothing more than an attempt to hide her restlessness and agitation. Eventually—though it felt like forever—she stopped. She gave me one final critical inspection before muttering her reluctant approval. When she drew her hands away, I saw they trembled most dreadfully.
I also realized her eyes were red-rimmed and slightly swollen. She turned away before I could say something about them, however. A glance in Papa’s direction silenced me as well because he looked grim and distracted, not acknowledging Mama when she swept past him, his hands clenched at his sides.
They’d had another quarrel. I was sure of it. If not, perhaps one was about to happen.
We made a somewhat charming trio once inside my uncle’s carriage. My parents sat side-by-side, but their attention was pointedly directed outside the window closest to each of them. I sat across from their seat, occupying my time with silly hopes of seeing Mr. Lovell at the ball.
My hands wandered over my jacket to smooth out the dull fabric, and I felt something hard and loose inside one of my pockets. I fumbled around and pulled it out. Anger and defiance flared in my breast again as I stared at the miniature in my hand. I couldn’t remember slipping that horrible thing in my pocket when Dorcas came to my room, but I did somehow. It had found its way back to me again.
“Damn you,” I hissed at it, and I meant every word.
Thank God for the carriage’s noise, which drowned out my curse—no, my challenge.
I’d have flung it out of the window even in my parents’ presence, but something held me back. I couldn’t understand what it was, but I was compelled to listen to its silent, forceful voice.
* * * *
All was glittering, golden, and garish at Northwode Hall. The size of the assembly amazed me because I never took the trouble of seeing—truly seeing—the circles in which my cousins moved. Each member of the family had his or her own list of guests, and each seemed determined to outdo the others in the extensiveness of their acquaintances.
When my family entered the great house, Papa hesitated by the door. His face paled as his gaze swept across the scene. His posture stiffened when Mama took him by the arm.
“It’s only a ball, Frederick,” she said with obviously forced gaiety. “You’re not about to be eaten alive.”
“Perhaps. My body might be safe, but God help my soul,” he retorted. A small group of shrill, chattering young ladies swept past us, and he frowned at them.
“Oh, come now. Surely you’d enjoyed these fêtes as a young man.”
“As a young man, and only as such,” Papa said.
Mama laughed, her nervous energy intensifying. “Your occupation has soured you, my dear,” she said. “Do be reasonable. I’m sure no sin attaches to you for living like an ordinary man who desires pleasure every so often.”
I watched Papa, whose face had lost all emotion. I could swear he was made of granite.
One of the servants took to leading us to one of the sitting rooms, where my uncle and aunt wished to see us. Along the way a tall, handsome gentleman with dark whiskers accosted my parents with cheerful cries of “Frederick! Cecily! Good God!”
He appeared to be the same age as Mama and Papa, but to whose friendship he aligned himself, I couldn’t say. He met them with equal expressions of familiarity and pleasure.
“Thank you, Harmon, I’ll show the lady and the gentleman to their hosts, myself,” he said, turning to the smartly uniformed servant who was sent by my aunt to escort us. The portly fellow took his duties quite seriously and seemed put off for being dismissed midway through his task. All the same, he bowed and walked off, his nose in the air.
“It’s a delight to see you again, Sir Joseph,” Mama declared with nervous pleasure, offering her hand. Papa echoed her sentiments with equal enthusiasm. It was not a comfortable scene by any means. Even with the bustle and the noise around us, I could feel an undercurrent of tension from all three adults.
It was an inconvenient place for a conversation as well because we all stood in the middle of a very busy hallway. Guests whirled past us. At times they forced me out of their way with a quick nudge of an elbow or a sharp and forceful push of a hand. Some thought to look at me with clear disdain as they took in my clothes with a bored sweep of their gaze. Some smirked, and some raised their brows. I stood behind my parents while they were engaged in conversation with the whiskered gentleman. It was all I could do to avoid being stepped on or pushed about, gazing around me like a misplaced urchin.
“So why did you stop your visits, Cecily?” Sir Joseph prodded.
“My duties at the vicarage,” Mama stammered, a tight smile forming. She appeared dreadfully pale, while Papa’s complexion turned red. “They were being neglected, I’m afraid.”
Sir Joseph smiled in return, inclining his head as he listened. “Yes, of course. Shall we look for your brother?”
Mama nodded and looked away, a pained expression shadowing her features as she held Papa’s arm.
Sir Joseph took his position beside her. I thought I saw him raise his arm as though to offer it to her, but it was such a quick and subtle gesture, I wasn’t even sure if I saw things correctly from where I stood, hovering behind them. Indeed, I didn’t even know if the defiant sneer that came with the gesture might have been a trick of the light because it was gone in half a second.
Sir Joseph lured my parents away from where they stood. They were so immersed in conversation—as well as the general hubbub of activity around them—they appeared not to notice me.
I didn’t care, however. I was bored, and standing like an ill-dressed blockhead in the middle of a busy hallway annoyed me. I allowed them to drift away before turning around to follow the music, where I suspected the dancing was held.