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Copyright © 2016 Amanda DeWees
Note: This story takes place shortly after the action of Nocturne for a Widow, book 1 in the Sybil Ingram Victorian mystery series.
A SINGLE WOMAN CAN be a terrible inconvenience. This unhappy realization made itself known to me when fire destroyed my lodgings and I was forced to seek another place to stay.
“I’m so sorry, Sybil,” said Arabel Keith, my closest friend. “But with my brother being a young bachelor as well as the village minister, it wouldn’t be proper for you to stay with us. People would talk if we had a young widow as our houseguest, especially...”
“Especially an actress.” I repressed a sigh. Even in this enlightened year of 1873, it seemed that American sensibilities were too delicate for me, and for a moment I was homesick for England. “The village inn refused me a room,” I pointed out. “I can only suppose that they believe having an actress on the premises would transform it into a brothel.”
Arabel blushed. She was still unmarried and had lived a sheltered life. “The neighbors are all quite sympathetic,” she said hurriedly, “but they are afraid of being involved in a scandal.”
If only my fiancé and I had been married already, we could have taken lodgings together. But the burning of Roderick’s family home had thrown our lives into confusion, and it was not a propitious time for a wedding.
“There is one possibility,” Arabel ventured. “It is far from ideal, and we may have to work hard to persuade her, but let us pay Deborah Sutton a call.”
In the wilds of the Hudson River Valley, paying a neighborly call was more involved than what I had been accustomed to in London. When we reached our destination after half an hour’s journey by sleigh over the snow-covered country roads, Mrs. Sutton received us in the high-ceilinged, airy parlor of a large Federal-style home. Unfortunately for me, she seemed just as reluctant as everyone else to take me in.
“We’re very crowded at the moment,” she objected after Arabel had explained my predicament. She looked to be close to fifty, with intelligent dark eyes and silver threads in her dark hair. “Our sons and their families are staying with us until spring, and of course my husband’s father lives with us—”
“I would be grateful for any room, even a cupboard,” I interrupted. “As far as I am concerned, the tiniest garret room would be as luxurious as a palace, no matter how many drafts, leaks, ghosts, and mice it may have.”
Her eyes came to rest thoughtfully on mine. “Truly?” she asked, in a low voice that made me think of a mourning dove. “Ghosts would not bother you?”
“Not a whit,” I said promptly.
“You don’t believe in them, do you mean? Many scoff at the idea.”
“I believe in them, but I don’t fear them.” Perhaps I was a bit too sure of myself, but I felt quite seasoned after my encounters with Brooke House’s resident ghost. It (or rather she) had even borrowed me as a vessel to speak through, which seemed like a badge of acceptance from the spirit world. Arabel had witnessed this, which might be why she had deemed the Suttons’ a suitable residence for me. But when I caught her eye and raised my eyebrow, she only smiled enigmatically.
“Perhaps it isn’t a good idea.” Doubt was drawing a furrow in Mrs. Sutton’s brow. “I try never to put anyone in the haun—in that room.”
“If you’re troubled by a spook, perhaps I can persuade it to leave,” I said recklessly. “I have some experience in these matters.”
At this, my hostess brightened. “That is most reassuring! Very well, then, if you’re certain you won’t be afraid.”
“What sort of haunt is it?” I inquired. Most likely it was not a ghost at all, merely a combination of folklore and overactive imaginations, but it was best to be forearmed.
She considered. “I don’t want to predispose you to see something that isn’t there,” she said at length. “But you should not go in unprepared, either. Let us say that an unhappy spirit has sometimes made itself felt in that room, starting from about half a century ago. You won’t come to harm, I feel certain—no one ever has—but it can be frightening.”
“You’ve seen it yourself, then?”
She gave a self-conscious laugh. “Not exactly. But I’ve heard it.”
This intriguing statement preoccupied me as my hostess introduced me to the remainder of the family. Her husband, Mr. Amos Sutton, was a hearty and unimaginative man who seemed to find nothing odd in the idea of inviting me to stay in the unused back bedroom that, he said, was the subject of a curious prejudice among his children and servants. The house seemed surprisingly new for a haunting to have taken root there, for the date painted over the parlor mantel was 1822. Moreover, the atmosphere of conviviality seemed ill suited to ghosts; I was warmly greeted by one cheerful family member after another.
The eldest member of the household was Mr. Sutton’s father, a grizzled old sinner of seventy-five, who leered at me in a way that was all too familiar. My blonde hair tended to attract a great deal of masculine attention, not all of it welcome.
“Father Jonas, this is Mrs. Sybil Ingram Lammle,” my hostess said. “She’s the actress from England who was living in Brooke House until it burned down. She’ll be staying with us for a while.”
“An actress, hey?” he exclaimed, his close-set eyes brightening. “Come sit by me, missy. I could do with a few poetical speeches murmured into my ear.”
“Have you an ear trumpet?” I inquired brightly. “If so, I shall be happy to oblige.”
Suspecting that I was mocking him, he narrowed his eyes at me and chewed on the stem of his pipe while surveying my figure again. I resolved not to get within arm’s length of the man.
Mrs. Sutton apologized for not having my room ready for me when it came time to retire, “but the servants simply refuse to enter it anymore.” I helped her make the bed—a homely domestic task that I was unaccustomed to—while taking a good look at my surroundings. The room appeared to be furnished with odds and ends, as if Mrs. Sutton had made a gesture toward treating it as a normal bedroom but did not actually expect anyone to use it—at least, no one whose opinion mattered. It was the kind of room where one might stow an unimportant spinster great-aunt.
Because all of my belongings had been burnt along with Brooke House, Mrs. Sutton also provided me with a nightdress, sheepskin slippers, and nightcap. I could not suppress a smile as I regarded the last item. Roderick had once poked fun at me for wearing a serviceable flannel nightgown instead of something more alluring, and I could only imagine with what hilarity he would have greeted me had I worn a ruffled bonnet that tied under the chin. Still, I knew it would keep me warm, and even in this room well furnished with rugs and heavy draperies, warmth was elusive.
After the emotional strain of the last two days, I was more than ready for sleep when I climbed into the tester bed—so much so that thoughts of the ghost had actually receded from my mind. The feather mattress was soft, the quilt was warm, and my mind had drifted into a hazy place near sleep when a clatter sounded somewhere in the room.
Sitting bolt upright, I groped for the safety matches on the bureau and struck a light. From where I sat nothing looked amiss, but I lit a candle and rose from the bed to investigate.
The light of the candle glinted on a metallic surface on the floor just inside the threshold, where the floorboards were not covered by a rug. To my mystification, a silver dinner fork lay there, still vibrating slightly as if from having been dropped.
When I knelt to pick it up, I found that it seemed to be an ordinary piece of tableware, though considerably tarnished. The simple pattern suggested that it dated from an earlier era, since the current fashion for such household objects was to be highly ornamented.
But that was all I learned from it. Though I examined the doorway and lintel, there was no place where the fork could have been hidden or where it could have fallen from.
The darting candlelight revealed nothing else out of the ordinary in the room, so I placed the fork on the bureau, blew out the candle, and returned to bed. All inclination toward sleep, however, had fled. I had seen objects materialize out of nothingness before, but it was still an unsettling thing to observe.
It was only a few minutes before the next occurrence. This time the sound was a muted thwop, and I felt something strike the bedclothes near my feet.
Instinctively I yanked my feet away. With my heart beating more quickly now that the intrusive presence was so close to home, I lit the candle again. A tarnished silver snuff box lay at the foot of the bed just inches from where my feet had been.
I swallowed. Even though I did not sense hostility, it was unnerving that some presence was summoning these objects out of thin air to rain down in my room. I picked up the small rectangular box with its old-fashioned scrollwork and opened it. Not even the scent of tobacco remained.
“Is anyone there?” I asked aloud, and was proud that my voice did not shake. “Are you trying to communicate with me? You may speak through me if you wish.”
I saw nothing, heard nothing. My throat constricted, and for a moment I was certain I was about to speak with the spirit’s voice, to articulate what it wanted and needed, as the Brooke House ghost had done.
But instead my throat closed, and a feeling of choking rose in me. In moments I was gasping for air, and a fear not entirely my own washed over me like a cold tide. My hands flew to my neck to protect it, but my fingers encountered nothing. I was strangling from within.
“Stop,” I managed to croak, and the iron grip on my throat relaxed at once.
Panting for breath, I snatched up the candle again and shone the light into every nook and cranny where something might be concealed. Nothing was there. Or nothing that I could see. For when I had finally given up and stood still and helpless with defeat, I heard it.
A long, painful intake of breath. A choked rasp as if someone were desperately struggling to inhale...as if they were being strangled.
This time I did not extinguish the candle but wrapped myself in the quilt and sat wakeful in a chair through the rest of the night. The dying gasp did not come again, but the memory of that painful grip still lingered in my own throat and kept me from sleeping. Fear, pain, and the frustration of being unable to communicate—I felt them all, on my own behalf and on the visitant’s.
Despite my boastful confidence, I was at a loss. The terrible futility of my situation mocked me. How could I hope to give voice to a ghost that could not draw breath to speak?
* * *
AT LENGTH I DID FALL asleep, and I was almost surprised when I woke to find the fork and snuffbox still where I had placed them on the bureau. I had half believed them to be ghostly manifestations that would vanish in the light of day. When I showed them to my hosts at breakfast, however, the reaction startled me.
“Where did you get those?” old Mr. Jonas Sutton thundered.
“I merely found them in my room and wondered how they came to be there,” I said, wondering at his show of temper.
“You lying baggage.” His hand shot out to seize my wrist across the width of the dining table. “What are you playing at, girl?”
A surge of revulsion rose in me, and I flung off his hand with a violence that surprised me as much as his accusation. Collecting myself, I said more calmly, “I’ve no reason to lie. It’s as I told you—they were in my room.” Which was true as far as it went. With so many others present, including the children, I chose not to elaborate on just how the objects had come to be there.
Young Mr. Sutton prodded the fork. “That looks like something of my grandmother’s. Eh, father? We don’t use the old silver, though. Do we, Deborah?”
Mrs. Sutton shook her head. “There aren’t enough place settings for everyone, so I keep it locked up. It looks as though this was somehow separated from the rest.” Picking up the snuffbox, she regarded it thoughtfully. “Didn’t your father collect snuffboxes, Father Jonas?” she asked old Mr. Sutton.
“I don’t recall,” he said gruffly. Without warning he turned on the two chattering great-granddaughters next to him and barked, “Can’t a man have a bit of peace?” and the subject was dropped.
Later I was able to draw Mrs. Sutton aside for a few minutes to ask her for more details about the haunting.
“It’s believed to be a servant who ran off,” she said in a low voice, checking to be certain no little pitchers had brought their big ears to the linen closet where we stood. “The silver you found makes that seem quite likely. Eliza Southgate was a young maidservant who stole some of the family silver and ran away. She was never heard from again—at least, not in the flesh.”
“People have heard her struggling to breathe, you mean.”
“Yes, and once in a while she will return one of the silver objects she stole. That is why I believe she means no harm. Clearly it is her remorse that makes her haunt the house.”
“Why do you think she is gasping for breath?”
She straightened a stack of table linens. “I’ve had a good many years to mull that over, and I think it may be the force of her guilty conscience. By all accounts she was a loyal and sweet-natured girl, just a young thing, so whatever caprice impelled her to rob the family must have weighed heavily on her breast—perhaps to the point that the guilt became an almost physical weight.”
Guilt had not been among the emotions I had felt last night, however. It seemed to me that something more desperate was preventing Eliza’s spirit, if indeed it was hers, from leaving the place that had been her home in life.
“What does your husband say about his family spook?” I asked.
She grimaced. “He doesn’t believe in such ‘foolishness,’ and my father-in-law refuses to listen to any discussion of the topic. In truth, it’s rather a relief to me to know that you have also experienced it and believe me.”
Eager for another chance to communicate with the spirit, I was restless and impatient for night to fall. The day did bring one happy interval, when Roderick stopped by on his way to oversee further salvage operations at the wreckage of Brooke House.
“So you’ve already found a new ghost to lay,” he said after greeting me with a kiss.
“Oh, you’ve heard about the Suttons’ haunting?”
“The innkeeper filled me in.” He flashed his devilish grin. Not for the first time I reflected that although Roderick’s crown of dark curls was rather like a halo, his demeanor tended to mitigate any angelic qualities. “You can never resist a challenge, can you?” he teased.
“You should know,” I said demurely, “being quite the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on.”
Conversation after that became more intimate and less verbal, and has little bearing on this account.
* * *
THAT NIGHT I DID NOT bother undressing or going to bed. Instead I sat fully dressed in a chair in the darkened room, illuminated only faintly by the fire banked behind the pierced metal screen, waiting for Eliza. There was little noise from the rest of the house; for such a large family, they seemed to settle down upon retiring with little fuss or delay. Only occasionally did the night cry of some wild creature penetrate the closed windows.
I first knew I was not alone when I felt a tightening at the back of my neck. So quickly I could not prepare myself, it moved to my throat. The familiar drawn-out rasp sounded as I dragged my next breath into my lungs, and I coughed with the effort.
“Eliza?” I whispered, relieved that I could still speak on my own behalf. “I want to help you. What is it you wish to tell me?”
My throat convulsed but no words came forth, only a hoarse gasp. Frustration rose in me. I was here to serve a purpose, but how? Surely it only needed a bit of imagination to determine how I could help.
“You can breathe through me,” I mused. “You move my lungs. Does that mean you can control the rest of my body? Can you lead me to something that will make clear what you want?” I had heard of automatic writing, though I had not attempted it. If the hapless spirit could guide my hand and put pencil to paper, we might be able to break through this barrier.
I felt a tentative hope brush across my mind. The idea was promising to her.
It seemed we had a plan. Taking a deep breath for courage, I stood, resisting the urge to reach for a candle. Eliza might be stronger in darkness. “Guide me, then,” I whispered. “I am your instrument in any honorable enterprise.”
How can I describe that bizarre nighttime journey? I could scarcely see, so I had to trust the spirit to know how and where to guide me. The sensation of my limbs being moved by another will would have awakened panic in me had I not experienced it before. Even so, it was a strange, off-balance sensation as first one foot, then the other, progressed toward the door, and in the dimness I saw my own hand reach out for the latch.
We traveled slowly through the dark and silent house. She made no sound any longer; perhaps moving my limbs took all of her strength. My booted feet noiselessly conducted us downstairs and then, to my astonishment, to the front door. My hands worked at the bolt, and then I drew open the door to a shockingly cold gust of night air.
The first real fear touched me then. How far was the ghost going to take me? What if our journey lasted for miles? I would risk dying of exposure or being set upon by whatever dangers lurked in the wilderness. Too late I wished that I had asked Mrs. Sutton to sit up with me to be a witness.
The spirit must have sensed my alarm, for in a peculiar gesture of reassurance she lifted my left hand from the door latch and clumsily patted my right hand.
Very well, I thought, I’ll trust you a bit further. But I was more confused than ever when after guiding my steps down the porch she took me around the side of the house.
The moonlight glowed eerily on the snow, and the rustle of wind in the treetops served only to remind me of how very isolated I was. Then I found myself approaching a low, arched structure of brick, and even as I recognized it as the entrance to a root cellar my hands were drawing the bolt and opening the door. Without even a moment to prepare myself I was propelled down a staircase that was invisible in the darkness. My footfalls struck hollow echoes from the wooden treads, but soon I stepped onto soundless packed earth.
The only illumination was the faint glow of moonlight through the open door. My spine prickled uneasily as I realized that I could be surrounded by anything—anything at all—without knowing it. Surely Eliza’s restless spirit was leading me toward something that would expiate her crime, but what was good for her might not be good for me, a corporeal human, and I heartily disliked being unable to see my surroundings.
Five paces she took me, curling the fingers of my right hand toward my palm, one by one, to count them. Then she raised my hand to place it against what my fingers told me was a brick wall.
At the first touch of my fingertips against the rough surface, my mind was suddenly flooded with memories and images so horrible that I snatched my hand away with a cry. I backed toward the stairs, appalled. I knew now what had made Eliza restless all these years...and it was not a guilty conscience.
Gathering up my skirts, I stumbled up the stairs, not even pausing to close the cellar door behind me. I was already through the front door of the house before I realized that my body was my own again, no longer under Eliza’s guidance. But she had communicated what she needed me to know. The rest was up to me.
I hammered on the door of Mr. and Mrs. Sutton’s bedchamber until the man of the house opened the door a crack. When he saw me in the moonlight that fell through the window on the landing, he blinked drowsily. “Mrs. Lammle? Are you unwell?”
“This house is unwell,” I said recklessly. “Bring lights. Come at once.”
“What the devil? At this hour?”
“Do listen to her, Amos.” Mrs. Sutton joined him in the doorway, drawing on a dressing gown. “Mrs. Lammle would not disturb us were it not vital.”
Grumbling but compliant, her husband put on a dressing gown and lit a spirit lamp. In my agitated state he seemed to move with agonizing slowness. Sleepy faces appeared at other doors as we passed, and Mrs. Sutton spoke placatingly to send them back to bed, but even so our procession had gained a few more curious family members when we made our way to the root cellar.
Mr. Sutton glanced at me quizzically when he realized this was our destination, and I grabbed at his sleeve to hurry him. “We’ll need a pickaxe,” I said. “Or something of that nature, perhaps a mattock. Have you such a thing?”
To his credit, he did not dismiss my disjointed words as babbling, although when he replied “I’m certain we do,” his voice was the soothing tone one would use to placate someone out of her wits.
“I’ll fetch something,” said his elder son, to my relief, and departed on this errand. I was fortunate that curiosity was strong enough to overcome the natural human desire to dismiss me and return to bed.
Not until we stood at the place Eliza had led me, with the lamplight casting eerie shadows on the brick walls and arched ceiling, did I realize that old Mr. Jonas Sutton had joined us. “What in blazes is that actress woman up to?” he snapped. “This is pure nonsense, dragging us out of our beds in this fashion!”
“No one forced you to accompany us,” I said, “so I find it all the more significant that you did. But then, you are the only one besides me who knows the secret hidden in this cellar.”
“What secret is that?” asked his daughter-in-law, since the old man just glared at me without replying.
“Eliza Southgate’s final resting place,” I said. “She didn’t run off with the family silver after all. The burglary was just to lend her disappearance plausibility. Isn’t that right, Mr. Sutton?”
In the lamplight the old man’s features looked distorted, twisted by evil. But my new knowledge of him was coloring my perception; it was actually his inner being that was ugly and warped. His eyes narrowed at me, and a chill raced over my skin as I realized that had we been alone, he might have tried to kill me to keep me silent.
We were not alone, though—and evidently he felt it was not too late to protect himself from the truth. “Poppycock,” he said roughly. “I don’t have any special knowledge of the matter, Mrs. Lammle. I was a lad of scarcely eighteen when she ran off. I had nothing to do with it.”
“You had everything to do with it.” Emotion made my voice shake. “She was carrying your child, and you wanted to be rid of her. So you told her to meet you in secret with whatever silver she could carry to finance your new life together, saying you would take her away and marry her someplace where scandal wouldn’t follow. And that innocent girl believed you. Her heart was full of love for you right up to the moment when you wrapped your hands around her throat and strangled her.”
All eyes were on old Mr. Sutton now, and he licked his lips and glanced toward the stair as if gauging his chances of running. But his son stood between him and freedom. “Father, is that true?” he asked in astonishment.
“It’s rubbish, I tell you! The woman is mad. She’s simply trying to stir up trouble.” His face was venomous when he turned back to me. “I’m no murderer, you lying baggage.”
“You’re certainly not a very good one,” I said coldly. “You crushed her windpipe but did not kill her right away. So while you were walling her up here, where the cellar was still not quite finished, the poor girl was struggling to draw breath. You could hear her fighting to breathe, fighting to live, almost until you put the last brick in place.”
An appalled silence was broken when the old man burst into a storm of curses and imprecations. I let him rail at me as much as he wished, but when he made as if to strike me, his daughter-in-law placed herself in his path.
“You can’t believe this madwoman’s tales,” the old man expostulated. “She made this up out of the whole cloth.”
“So if we were to tear down this wall,” Mrs. Sutton said quietly, “we’d find nothing to support her story?”
The old man’s face went sickly white. “I don’t see why that should be necessary,” he stammered. “Why should you credit something so farfetched?”
“It’s easy enough to settle,” said the elder of his grandsons, producing a sledgehammer. “Give me a little space, and we shall soon see if this is nothing but a wicked slander.”
On that long-ago night when a young man walled up the body of his sweetheart, he had known precious little about bricklaying. So it was perhaps not greatly surprising that after just a few blows of the mighty hammer several bricks gave way, revealing a dark space...and a glimpse of bone and hair.
Mrs. Sutton’s hand flew to her mouth, and her husband and son fell back with exclamations of disgust. Then a choking gasp made us all look toward the old man.
Laboring to draw breath, he clutched at his throat as if to dislodge the grip of merciless hands. His eyes stared wildly as his face slowly turned purple. Then, with a last gasping rattle, he collapsed to the earth floor of the cellar.
* * *
“HEART FAILURE, DR. Carfax said,” I told Roderick the next day. “Evidently his heart gave out when he was faced with the evidence of his old crime.”
“I’m not surprised,” Roderick said, his hazel eyes grave. “Will Eliza get a proper burial now?”
“Yes, but they’re keeping old Mr. Sutton’s part in the matter secret.” Shuddering, I remembered how the girl’s body had gradually been revealed as the wall was taken apart, the skeletal hands still holding a moldy leather satchel containing the remainder of the missing silver. “As far as the world is concerned, he lived a righteous life and died in his bed. No one outside the family will ever know that he was a murderer.” I shook my head in disgust. “It scarcely seems like justice to me.”
Roderick laced his fingers through mine. We had the small back parlor to ourselves while the rest of the household busied itself with funeral preparations, so we could sit as close together on the settee as we wished, and that was very close indeed.
“But the family knows the truth, which they didn’t before,” he pointed out. “That poor girl’s spirit will be at peace now because of you. Just think if another fifty years had passed and no one came to help her—or no one with your empathy and courage.” Then a thought occurred to him that made him draw back and look searchingly into my face. “If the ghost had been male,” he said, “would you still have allowed it—allowed him—to take command of your body?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Being a medium is still new to me. I imagine I shall be making many decisions on the spur of the moment, depending on the circumstances.” I could see that this answer did not satisfy him, however. “Does it disturb you to think of my being under another man’s control?” I asked.
His piratical grin flashed. “I’m sure it would...if I thought there might somewhere be a man capable of controlling you.”
That made me laugh. “You don’t think you will be equal to the task?” I challenged.
Hearing the trap in my words, he leaned closer and wound a strand of my hair around his finger.
“I know better than to try,” he said.
* * *
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