Chapter 24

It was strange, going back to St. Bertram’s the following morning. Everything was so different now. So many things had changed in that small span of time between visits. The day was much more dismal than when I first ventured out on my own, with nothing but Mr. Lovell’s instructions and untainted curiosity guiding my steps.

I also enjoyed the benefit of Mr. Lovell’s company this time. Dreadful weather didn’t threaten my spirits despite my strange purpose for returning to the church.

As we walked along the same footpaths I’d taken that fateful day, once upon a time, I told Mr. Lovell my reason for going back to the church. He listened patiently, his head bowed for a moment. Once I’d done, he looked at me in surprise—perhaps even worry.

“Nathaniel, do you really know what you’re doing?” he asked. He might have sounded incredulous, but I sensed no judgment in his manner.

“I do, yes.” I looked away and shrugged. “I don’t expect you to believe me. I never have. I just—you understand me. Far more than even my parents do, perhaps—perhaps far more than they ever can. I trust you because of that.”

“That’s too much of an honor you give me.”

“That’s all I could hope for, really—to be able to confide in you, and no more.” I avoided his gaze and kept mine fixed ahead. I could feel his eyes on me still. The subject had undergone a shift to one that left us both on very uncomfortable ground.

“You mean to tell me you’re willing to risk so much—for us.”

“I don’t see how confiding in you becomes a risk—”

His voice softened. “You’re exposing yourself to me—rendering yourself vulnerable to my judgments. Your secrets, your thoughts, your feelings—England doesn’t want these from her children, you know. By law, our nature’s an aberration.”

I felt my cheeks warm. “I understand the dangers, sir. It’s mad to risk my reputation and my freedom—”

“Over such a trifle.”

“It isn’t a trifle! You’re not, and neither am I!” I retorted, turning to him and stopping in my tracks. “Perhaps to you, yes, but you can’t presume to know my mind!”

He stopped as well and faced me. “Or your heart,” he added, his voice dropping again. “No, I can’t presume to know. I’m sorry.”

“There,” I said, feeling much more reckless now. “Do you still not regret knowing me?”

“You give me too many reasons not to,” he replied, a sheepish little smile forming. “You’ve disarmed me easily enough to use your Christian name on our first meeting. I’ve been so liberal with it since then, and yet you never checked me for my impertinence.”

“That’s because I never cared.” I almost added, in embarrassing detail, the pleasure I took in hearing him say my name. I opened my mouth, stopped myself, and merely dismissed everything with a rueful rubbing of a hand against the back of my neck. “We ought to move along.”

“Is that it, then?”

“I don’t understand.”

His confidence had wavered, and he looked as though he’d shed a few years from his age with his sudden doubt. I was speaking with another boy not a day older than I—and just as confused with our situation.

“Is this all we can say about us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“Do you think we could have been happy together?” he prodded gently, his complexion flushed.

“I do,” I replied without a moment’s hesitation and looked at him in challenge.

He nodded. “So do I.”

I expected as much. I knew, however, nothing else could come of this despite our confessions, and I was right. In another moment, Mr. Lovell was once again twenty-two—a gentleman well above me in rank, experience, and knowledge, set to claim the hand of a young lady who was quite likely his best match. I simply had no place in his life of wealth and obligation.

He leaned closer and kissed me—a light pressing of mouths this time, followed by a gentle brushing of his lips against my cheek. He didn’t look at me when he pulled away. He simply walked onward, and I nearly stumbled to keep abreast of him, my mind frozen in grief.

* * * *

No one was present in the church. I didn’t see the widow, but then I never expected her to be there. Something told me she never existed at all, and I shook off that wordless voice despite my inclination to believe it.

Mr. Lovell stood by the door and waited. I walked along the aisle, wondering if it mattered where I left the miniature. It was back within St. Bertram’s weathered stone walls. That ought to be enough.

I chose a pew a little past the midpoint and set the miniature on the floor. I regarded it for a moment before uttering a silent prayer for the dead. I asked for peace—both for the deceased and for me. Then I hurried to rejoin my companion, who idly scanned the church’s interior before taking me by my arm and leading me out.

We spoke very little on our way back to Shepley Abbey. Neither of us said a word about the ghost, but it didn’t matter to me.

It’s finally over, I kept thinking.

The winds had picked up. I pulled my coat more tightly around myself, and Mr. Lovell urged me to walk faster.

We hurried through the bluebell forests, the river Barle serving as our crystalline guide till we reached the Tarr Steps. Mr. Lovell walked ahead of me while I fell back a little, my attention momentarily taken hostage by the waters that flowed beneath our feet.

I stopped, contemplating the river. “Mr. Lovell, I was wondering if—” I looked up to find my companion standing still near the middle of the rocky bridge as though frozen. “Sir?” I moved forward and reached him. “Mr. Lovell, are—” My words died.

The ghost stood near the end of the Tarr Steps, blocking our way. It appeared as it had before. Silent and unmoving, this time ensuring Mr. Lovell was another witness to its ghastly existence.

“We should go back,” I said, my voice shaking.

“What on earth is that thing?” he presently asked. Then he blinked and turned to me, wide-eyed. “Is this—”

I nodded, my spirits withering in disbelief. I couldn’t be rid of it.

I couldn’t be rid of it.

Surrender. That was the first thing—no, the only thing—that came to mind. I was defeated in a battle of wills for reasons I still didn’t know. It was a battle of wills into which I was forced without even understanding when, how, or why it had to be so.

“You see it, too,” I whispered, not once taking my eyes off it.

“I do.”

I felt Mr. Lovell take my hand and envelope it in warmth, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. My terror wavered, and I returned his touch. “Let’s go home,” I said and stepped forward, my teeth clenching. “This way.”

The battle of wills continued even as we walked closer and closer to the apparition. It refused to vanish, and neither did we choose to turn back. No, I told myself despite my heart’s desperate, wild thumping. No, you can’t win. You’re dead. Gone. You belong nowhere else but the past.

I was vaguely aware of Mr. Lovell’s hand slipping off my hold. I was just as vaguely aware of my pace increasing the closer I came to the end of the ancient stone bridge. Before long, I was lightly running toward the apparition—determined, angry, and defiant. Reckless. I could lose my footing and tumble into the river, but I allowed the vile figure to direct my steps down a safe line.

I saw its face from a frighteningly close distance. I fancied I saw the eyelashes that lined its shut lids. The narrow bridge of its nose. The faint—very faint—Cupid’s bow of its lips. For a brief, mad moment, I thought I recognized the dead, white face.

I pushed on and ran through it, forcing my eyes open the whole time. There was a dreadful iciness that wrapped around me as I ran onward—the remnants of a dead woman’s presence. It nearly tore me apart with its painful sting, but I knew, even then, only the present mattered, not the past. Only the living and the real, not the departed and the forgotten. I stumbled onto safe, solid ground again, nearly falling over on my knees but managing to stay upright.

I was shivering violently, my breaths coming and going in deep, wrenching gasps.

“Nathaniel, it’s gone,” Mr. Lovell panted, and I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders. He turned me around.

“My God. You’re cold.” He held my face between his hands and forced me to look at him. He was pale despite his exertions, his eyes wide as he observed me. “Here, wear this.” He released me and removed his coat, throwing it around my shoulders. “Let’s hurry.”

Leaning against him, I half-ran, half-stumbled all the way back to his home. Somewhere along the way, I nearly broke out in hysterical laughter.

I won, I crowed silently. I won.

* * * *

A blazing fire and a hot dinner were all I needed. Mr. Lovell’s fears remained unrealized, thank God, and despite his anxious watch, I showed no signs of illness or emotional shock. He said nothing to his family on our return back—only that I nearly fell ill.

“I warned you, didn’t I?” Lord Lovell sniffed. “But youngsters nowadays don’t care to listen. Go call the doctor if the boy needs him, Miles. I daresay the fellow knows how to give obstinate sorts a good talking-to.”

Mr. Lovell didn’t need to call the doctor. I showed him nothing but good health and a full recovery from my earlier terror. In fact, I tried to engage him in quiet conversation about it despite his reluctance to agitate my spirits.

After dinner, he and I confined ourselves in the drawing room, where we talked till well into the night. He insisted I sit as close to the fire as possible without burning up, and I indulged him. For the most part, I engaged him with my accounts of the hauntings—from start to end. He listened, speechless with amazement and worry.

“I must confess, I find all these too difficult to believe,” he said once I’d done. “Had it not been for what I saw—”

I waited for him to continue, but he seemed to be at a loss and merely shook his head in disbelief. So I prodded, “You sensed its presence—a few times, I think, while you were with me.”

“I did,” he echoed weakly, frowning at the fire. “Yes, yes—I remember. On the island—on one of the footpaths, I felt as though someone were following us.”

“Or watching.”

He nodded, still staring at the fire. “The figure in the trees—I dismissed it in my letter, didn’t I? My God.”

“At my cousin’s ball? You felt something, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” he turned a dazed glance in my direction. I briefly described the moment because it was still deeply etched in my mind. Mr. Lovell showed no signs of recognition.

“I—don’t remember. I’m sorry, Nathaniel. There were too many people, too much happening around me—the only things I do remember are my talk with you and with your cousins.”

I shook my head and tried to reassure him with a wan smile. “It doesn’t matter. We won. We showed how little it mattered.” I watched him look at me, still dazed, before nodding in vague agreement. “We conquered it,” I added.

We conquered it. Those words sounded so sweet to my ears. I relished them, repeated them in my mind over and over. Something in me had awakened. Something unexpected, different—perhaps another self, hopefully one that was stronger and wiser than the one that was slowly loosening its childish hold after so many years.

We fell silent after a while, lost in our thoughts as we absorbed the remarkable events of the day.

Outside, the rains began. Every so often thunder rolled.

I stood up to stretch my limbs and then, filled with burning curiosity, walked over to the window. My body felt quite relaxed—loose. All those hours following our harrowing confrontation had drained me of tension from head to toe. The warmth and comfort of the drawing room, Mr. Lovell’s company, and the onset of heavy rain outside threw me further into a state of delightful lethargy.

The windows in the drawing room faced the church ruins. I thought to take advantage of the wild weather to observe the picturesque collection of decaying stones.

Flashes of lightning ought to provide the area some dramatic illumination, I thought.

I walked up to one of the windows and took hold of the curtains. I drew them apart.

Outside the window, besieged by rain and outlined by a flash of lightning, the ghost stood about a foot away from the glass, facing me. I recognized the dead face again.