Listening at her bedroom door, she heard only the ever-present whistling of the wind through Ashthorne’s hallways. Without lamp or candle that might call attention to herself, she eased the door open and walked silently into the hall. One step after another took her to the landing, and she moved steadily down the south staircase and back up the north, straining her eyes at what looked like a light near the end of the hall.
As she moved closer, she was no longer in any doubt. A line of light shone from beneath a closed door at the end of the hall.
Rosa?
Hyacinth approached, ready to call out, but stopped short when she heard Lucas’s voice.
“You can’t speak to her either. It’s not safe.”
A raspy, crackling laugh followed. “Do you think I’m going to hurt her? I would never, even if I had the strength.”
Lucas made a sound of exasperation. “I meant it isn’t safe for you.”
“She will not hurt me. Besides, I spend all my time locked inside this room. How much danger could I be in?”
Hyacinth was startled to find that she was close to laughter. Her ghost was witty.
Now Lucas sighed. “Will you please trust me? Stay hidden. Do not wander inside the manor. Or out. And please, do not speak to her. I wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t important. I only want to protect you.” His voice became quiet, and Hyacinth leaned toward the door to hear better. “There’s so little I can do for you now.”
The dear man. He wanted Hyacinth to stay away from his cousin’s ghost. For protection. What bizarre idea must he hold about post-mortal relationships if he imagined Hyacinth a threat to Rosa’s spirit?
She did not hear Rosa’s reply, but she was sure Lucas would walk out of the room at any moment. It would never do for him to find her here. She considered running back to her room, but as the architecture of the hallway required her to go down and back up the stairs to get there, he surely would see her on the staircase. Almost without thinking, she pulled a pin from her hair and unlocked the room next door, entered, and silently closed the door behind her.
Her practice had made her adept, and even in her anxious state, she grinned to herself in the dark.
Falling to her knees behind the closed door, she lifted her eye to the keyhole and stared at the thin line of light that painted the carpeted hall. Would Lucas leave the room? At this strange angle, would she be able to tell? Would there be enough light for her to see anything at all?
Only a moment later, the light spilled into the hall in a wide swath, radiating outward from the now-open door. The light did not remain long. With a return to near-darkness, she heard the lock click, heard Lucas release a sigh. Then she saw the shape of him as he moved past the door where she knelt.
Forcing herself to wait, she counted to thirty. Was it long enough? Would Lucas be out of the hallway and down the stairs?
She counted to thirty again for good measure, then crept out of the room and tapped her finger against the next door. The line of light still shone at her feet.
“Rosa?” she whispered. “Will you please speak to me?”
What she heard in reply was not the wail of haunting but more like mortal sniffling and sobbing. Was this the ghost who had laughed at Lucas only moments ago?
“Rosa?” she whispered again. “Will you let me help you?”
The light shifted beneath the door, and Hyacinth wondered at the ability of a ghost to cast a shadow. How much more impossible was this than anything else she’d witnessed in this hallway?
“Please,” she said, her palm spread on the door as if to support the being on the other side. “May I come inside?”
This time an answering whisper came through the door. “I wish it was possible.”
Heartened, Hyacinth again pulled a pin from her hair. “It is. I can unlock the door.”
“You misunderstand,” the voice said. “I have a key. All the keys. But I cannot defy my brother’s wish.”
Brother?
She’d never heard of Rosa having a brother, had she? Did Mrs. Carter have another child?
Or did Hyacinth misunderstand yet again?
Hyacinth stopped, one hand on the door and the other holding a hairpin. In one of those familiar moments of rapid revelation, she felt her mind swirl, spinning out all that she thought she understood for closer examination.
“Your brother?” she repeated.
Rosa did not have a brother. Polly did.
This misinformation was harder to dislodge than any she’d yet tried. After a few moments of grasping and considering, Hyacinth began to piece together a new explanation.
Lucas told her his sister wanted to write to Hyacinth. So she wrote a letter which he delivered.
He told her Polly was in London.
No, she reminded herself. Lucas told her Polly was outside London. Cornwall was outside London. Technically true.
It was not true enough. He hid the fact that Polly was here, in Ashthorne, with them.
He may not have lied outright, but he had deceived her. He was still deceiving her.
With a physical effort, Hyacinth shook her mind free of what she had once been sure was the truth, making room for new information.
“Polly?” she asked. “Is it you?”
In answer, the girl behind the door gave a shuddering breath and a humming of assent.
“What about Rosa?” Hyacinth wanted to ask more, to discover if all she had assumed about the ghost for the past few days was another misunderstanding.
“Rosa died.” The two simple words in that rasping whisper nearly broke Hyacinth’s heart.
She wanted to ask about Rosa’s ghost, to discover if the halls of Ashthorne were indeed haunted, but was sure this—whispering through the door in the dark of night—wasn’t the way.
“But you are well.” It wasn’t a question, but Hyacinth was not sure it was a true statement either. Was there something in between?
“I am ill, but I am surviving.”
Hyacinth put her forehead to the door. “Polly, will you let me in? Please, so we can speak properly?”
Another pause. “I will frighten you.”
Hyacinth would never laugh at the girl, but she was certain Polly would not scare her.
“I believe I can be brave,” she answered.
Polly was quiet for so long Hyacinth wondered if she had decided against speaking to her again.
Then a key scraped the lock and the knob turned. Hyacinth wanted to push through the door and take Polly into her arms in a hug, but she resisted. Even through the closed door, Hyacinth could hear Polly’s voice was full of emotions, and one of those feelings was undoubtedly fear.
Hyacinth would give her nothing more to be afraid of.
The door opened slowly, but only when Hyacinth was all the way in the room could she see the other woman.
As before, Polly wore a fluttering white dress, her face covered with a gauzy veil exactly like the one Hyacinth had found in the woods. Now, though, standing close in a room glowing with lamplight, Hyacinth noticed what she had not seen clearly in her stolen glances.
This was not a specter, floating and glowing and gliding through the halls. This was a woman as alive as herself.
Hands behind her back, clutching the doorknob, Polly Harding pressed herself into the door, giving Hyacinth as much space as the room allowed.
Hyacinth took a step forward.
Releasing the doorknob, Polly raised a hand and then lowered it. She repeated the movement twice again before her fingers touched the hem of the veil over her face. With an audible exhale, she removed the veil, and Hyacinth saw Polly’s face.
She did not speak. Could not move. Almost dared not breathe. The shock of seeing Polly so closely nearly turned Hyacinth to stone.
The damage was difficult to take in. Shocking. Dreadful. Only in photographs and illustrations accompanying newspaper articles about necrosis had Hyacinth seen anything like Polly’s ravaged cheek, her sunken jaw. No drawing could communicate the devastation of seeing such damage in person. No photograph, however detailed, could show every angle and element of the wreck of this face. A picture on paper did not live and breathe like the woman standing in front of her did.
Hyacinth wondered at the pain Polly must be feeling—must always feel. How was this woman even standing, let alone running through the hallways and grounds, gliding as if her feet barely touched the floors? She gazed at Polly’s cheek. Near the jaw, through puckered skin, bone decay was evident. How could such trauma not cause tremendous pain?
Hyacinth’s scientific mind allowed her to categorize and note the obvious damage to Polly’s face. Beneath her right eye rose a bulbous swelling. The jawbone on the left appeared to be disintegrating, causing an imbalanced appearance that looked excruciating and tender.
When Polly opened her mouth to speak, Hyacinth saw a slight glow emanating from her gums. It made her face shine with a ghastly, poisonous light.
“Hello, Hyacinth.”
No wonder she had assumed this was the face of a ghost.
Hyacinth felt grateful for her scientific training. Who might have guessed that years of making observations might lessen the horror of this first impression? As she stood only steps away from Polly, she knew what was important now.
Not crying out. Not mentioning the sores, the swellings. Not asking about the damage. Polly’s ravaged face only mattered in that it was Polly’s.
Hyacinth held out a hand, palm up. “I am so delighted to meet you,” she said.
Several long seconds passed before Polly lifted her hand and touched Hyacinth’s fingers with her own. For a moment, they stood facing each other, fingertips touching, searching each other’s eyes.
“I’m sorry to be such a fright,” Polly said. She pointed at herself, gesturing to the general area of her chin. “It’s called phossy jaw.”
Hyacinth wanted to deny being afraid, but there was no way to ignore her unwitting reaction to seeing Polly. She knew what she was witnessing, for newspapers had been reporting instances of “phossy jaw” for several years.
But knowing and seeing landed in very distinct sections of Hyacinth’s brain. She gave herself a moment to formulate a true and honest response that was also thoughtful and kind.
She held Polly’s hand more firmly in her own and said, “And I apologize for assuming I knew what I was seeing and hearing. I hope my calling you by Rosa’s name did not make your sadness worse.”
Polly shook her head. “We do not often speak her name aloud anymore. It was good to hear it from you.”
Hyacinth could only imagine the ache behind Polly’s words. She thought of their brief, whispered conversations. Had Polly ever actually told Hyacinth she was Rosa? She thought not. Hyacinth had assumed, and Polly had not corrected her. There had been misunderstandings, but not lies.
As her shock lessened, she felt her face relax into a smile. “Polly, I am delighted that you and I are both here at Ashthorne and we can finally meet. I do hope we can be friends.”
She knew she was talking too much and wondered if she ought to give Polly a bit more space.
“Friends. Yes. I like that idea very much.” Polly wrapped her fingers more and more tightly around Hyacinth’s own and smiled. Her ruined face took on an impossibly painful beauty.
“Can we sit?” Polly asked. “I am rather tired.”
She gestured to a pair of chairs set beside the bedroom’s screened fireplace. Hyacinth nodded and followed her, taking a seat.
Hyacinth wanted to ask so many questions, wished to have her curiosity satisfied on every count. But she also knew that Polly was not well and would not want to be interrogated. She would let Polly lead their conversation.
“I suppose Lucas explained about me,” she said, and Hyacinth felt a wave of sadness. As though a person could be “explained” by the diagnosis of an illness. There was so much more to Polly than her deformity, than her pain, than her fear.
“He told me that you contracted an illness from your work in London. He did not say what it was—either the work or the illness. But before he told me that, he told me much more. For instance,” she continued, a grin spreading across her face, “he told me you never once let him win when you were playing tag or marbles as children.”
Polly’s answering laugh was gentle and ringing, like the soft sound of a bell. “That may be true, but he would cry when he lost, so I let him have all the best marbles.”
Hyacinth waited to see if Polly would speak again about the distant past or if she would offer information from her more recent history.
The young woman looked at her hands and then back at Hyacinth.
“When I followed Rosa to London, I had some money, but not enough to live comfortably for long. I could have saved money by staying and working in Suttonsbury, but I loved the idea of leading a completely different kind of life.
“The match factory hired mostly women, because our fingers were more delicate, or that’s what they told us. Compared to the other girls we worked with, Rosa and I had very comfortable lives and lodgings. Many of the factory girls were from impoverished circumstances and lived six or more to a room. Rosa and I might have come home at any time, but we came to the city with a bit of money, and we were having an adventure. We were the lucky ones there.
“We did our work. We collected our pay. We spent most of it again on board and food and clothing and entertainment. A play one week, a museum the next. Having work was in some ways a necessity and in others, a lark.”
Hyacinth did not reply, but she nodded to show Polly she was listening.
“It may be hard for you to believe, but I was strong then. Strong enough to stand hours every day in a factory, dipping matches in phosphorus, cutting sticks, and placing finished matches in boxes. When I think about it now, the whole experience seems impossible. How could it have seemed so simple to stand for so many hours, working alongside the others? Now I find myself exhausted by a walk over the path to Lucas’s cottage or a trip to the music room and back up the stairs. And how could I not realize the poisonous fumes of the chemicals were eating at my teeth and jaws? But I didn’t know. None of us understood what was happening right before our eyes.”
She tugged at the sleeves of her dress and went on.
“Rosa and I loved being in the city, surrounded by new experiences and all those people. When Rosa fell ill, all the excitement drained away. I went to work, and then I came home and cared for Rosa. I watched the progression of her disease. I shared in her worry when her teeth began to fall out. I felt her horror at catching her reflection in a mirror. I heard her struggle for breath when a coughing fit gripped her. By the time she began experiencing seizures, she no longer worried about the swellings and the oddness of her appearance. You might think letting go of her worries was a good sign, but no. It was most horrible to see her drift into indifference. When she no longer cared, she no longer fought to live.”
Polly touched a knuckle to the corner of her eye, as if to stop a tear before it fell. “Then the symptoms began in me. First a toothache. There were rules—no complaints. If a match girl told the bosses her tooth hurt, she was instructed to get it removed. Any further complaints and the girl would be sacked. I suffered in silence. I did not want Rosa to see my pain, and I did not want to lose the work I could still do. Then came the muscle pain. Headaches. Stomach complaints. I stopped going to work; I had no choice. I sat by Rosa’s side, watching strength drain from her body and her spirit, knowing it would be my turn soon.”
With a glance at Hyacinth, Polly asked, “Does it hurt you to hear this?”
Reaching across the space between them, Hyacinth took hold of Polly’s hand. “I am honored to be trusted with your story.”
With Polly’s next blink, a tear rolled down her ravaged cheek.
“The company sent doctors to our home to examine Rosa. They wanted her to go into a sanitorium, somewhere they could watch her illness progress. She refused to spend the end of her life under examination, so she told them to go.”
Hyacinth wondered how the doctors reacted to a dismissal from a sick young woman. If the company wanted to watch the progress of Rosa’s disease, they must have resented anything getting in the way. And they must have understood the illness stemmed from the working conditions in the factory.
Polly continued her story. “When Rosa’s time was short, I wrote to Aunt Ellen, telling her she should come. But the end came faster than I thought it would. I held Rosa’s hand as she died.”
Polly’s voice was firm, but tears streamed down her face. “I hope Aunt Ellen can forgive me someday for not sending word to her sooner.”
Hyacinth wanted to comfort Polly, but nothing she could say would take away her pain. The two sat together in silence.
With a shuddering breath, Polly looked into Hyacinth’s eyes. “I have seen my death, and it is devastating. But it is not yet upon me. I want to live while I can.”
Through a lump in her throat, Hyacinth whispered, “I want that for you as well.”
Polly’s smile was enough to break Hyacinth’s heart. She understood every word Lucas had said about wanting to protect his sister. It was also Hyacinth’s wish now.
And in the same instant, she understood the threat the man James made in the hothouse. The sick girl. The company’s interest in her condition. For reasons she could not fathom, the matchstick factory owners and doctors wanted to watch Polly like they wanted to watch Rosa. And they were willing to send someone to menace her into compliance.
Hyacinth vowed within herself that she would prevent James from coming anywhere near Polly. If she had to bar every door herself and stand guard, she would keep him out.
Barred doors. Scraped locking mechanisms. Was James the one who had tossed the furniture in that locked bedroom? Had he left the note warning the reader of it to avoid speaking?
Hyacinth vowed that, beginning now, she would stop making quick assumptions. She would be diligent in questioning her conclusions and checking and double-checking her inferences. Test everything. Assume nothing.
Hyacinth realized she and Polly had been sitting in silence for some time. “Thank you for helping me understand you,” she said. “I appreciate your trust in me.”
“And thank you for listening,” Polly said. “I grow so tired of this illness, and yet it is always on my mind.”
She squeezed Polly’s hands again. “If it is agreeable to you, I propose we only discuss your health when you wish it and when I can be helpful to you. Otherwise, I think we can both agree that you are more interesting than any illness.”
Another trickle of tears fell from Polly’s eyes as she took in Hyacinth’s remark. She whispered, “You cannot possibly understand what that means to me. It seems like forever since I felt like any other part of my life held any interest at all.”
Hyacinth hoped she would be strong enough to support Polly when she needed her, but she was certain she could easily and regularly discuss nonmedical interests. She only hoped Polly would not grow tired of hearing about orchids.
Orchids. As soon as she had the thought, a ripple of fear ran over her shoulders. So much had happened since she had stepped away from the orchids that afternoon.
She needed to look in on the hothouse.