The Spiritualist (19 page)

And then I heard Peter’s voice:
Find the truth
. I felt his hand on my shoulder.
You can’t stop looking, Evie. You must never stop. You can find the truth. I know you can.

I woke sweating and frightened in a strange room. It was a moment before I remembered where I was. And then I climbed from bed and went to the small desk near the door, rifling through it until I found some notepaper, a pen. I scrawled a note to Benjamin Rampling telling him of the circle tomorrow night—in that moment, I did not know if I could manage it without him.

When I was finished, I sealed the note and put it aside to wait for morning. But sleep eluded me, and when dawn broke, I was haggard and hollow-eyed.

I listened to the clanking through the heating vents as one of the servants stoked the furnace. I had no idea of the workings of this house, whether or not Dorothy truly stayed in bed all day, or what Michel did with his time. What I did know was that, after my haunting dream, I had no wish to find him soon, even though I knew that eventually I must.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Kitty peeked in. “Oh, ma’am, you’re awake already. D’you need me now?”

I was sitting at the dressing table, brushing out my hair, and I nodded. As she came in and closed the door behind her, I said, “How is the household? I hope they’ve made you comfortable.”

“Oh, as can be, ma’am.” She went to the armoire and began going through my gowns. “Will it be the serge today, ma’am? It’s cold out, that’s for sure.”

“The serge is fine. Where have they put you?”

“The servants’ quarters are upstairs, at the ends of the ballroom, which ain’t nothing but an empty room. I’ve never seen such a thing as that, and it’s kept that way but for a few nights a year.”

“Probably not even that, now,” I said.

“That’s what Mr. Lambert says. He says it’s been years since Mrs. Bennett used it, and it’s all full of cobwebs and such.”

I looked in the mirror, pausing midbrush. “What does Mr. Lambert say about Mrs. Bennett’s invalidism?”

“That it’s a pity, poor thing, and that she’s better than she thinks she is, if she’d only get up and walk about now and then.” Kitty pulled the serge from the armoire and laid it upon the bed before she turned to the bureau and took out my underthings. “What with all them boy nurses she has, I guess I’d stay abed too. That Charley, ain’t he a comely one? And sweet too.”

“You’d best keep your distance from that sort, Kitty.”

She flushed. “Oh, that’s not what I mean, ma’am. Truly. You know I got my own Sean, and I’d never—”

“What about Michel Jourdain?”

“Oh,
that
one,” Kitty said disapprovingly. “Well, they don’t say nothing of him but nice. The house runs so much smoother now he’s here. Miz Bennett is so happy… . But he’s too fair by half. Reminds me of my brother Conan—that boy could talk the wings off a butterfly and wouldn’t give no thought to smashing it after.” She shook her head. “Ah well, what do I know? The rest of the house like him well enough. Mr. Lambert even calls him the master.”

“The master? How odd.”

“They talk about him like he’s royal or something.” Kitty lifted my chemise. “Here now, ma’am.”

Obediently I came over to her, letting her slip my dressing gown from my shoulders and slide the chemise over my head. “Did they have anything to say about his habits?”

“His habits?” Kitty held out the corset for me. As I put it on and hooked the front fastenings, she said, “Well, I don’t know as to that. He takes to visiting Miz Bennett a couple times a day—always at least once, no matter how poorly she says she’s feeling. Can you hold in your breath a minute, ma’am?”

I did so, and she tightened the laces. Then she went on, “He’s a learned one too, he is. Spends most of his time in the library, I guess. Agnes—that’s the downstairs maid—says sometimes she sees him wandering alone in the yard. She thinks he’s lonely. They’re all glad you’re here to keep him company.”

“I’m hardly here for that.”

“Oh, that’s what I told them, ma’am. But I think they wish you would. They want him to be happy. No one wants him to leave—not on his account or Miz Bennett’s.”

I thought of Michel’s intimacy with Dorothy, her obvious infatuation. “Mrs. Bennett doesn’t keep him happy enough?”

“Well, she’s a sick old lady, ma’am.”

“Yes, but… is there any talk of… does anyone think their relationship odd?”

“Odd? Not that I’ve heard, ma’am.”

I was silent as she continued to dress me, thinking of what she’d said. Surely, if his relationship with Dorothy was uncomfortably intimate, the servants would have spoken of it. It bordered on scandalous—Dorothy was in her late sixties, and Michel? Well, I had no idea how old he was, but certainly not much more than I. Perhaps I hadn’t seen what I thought I had.

Then again, perhaps the servants simply chose not to see it. Michel had so obviously charmed them—hadn’t I seen evidence of that last night at dinner? How easily he commanded them, how the maids nearly fell over themselves to serve him. Even so, the fact that Lambert referred to him as the master surprised me. Servants knew the true inner workings of a house. To call him master implied ownership—did they really think he would stay so long?

Kitty’s conversation did not answer any of my questions. The one thing I learned was that Michel spent most of his time simply lazing about the house. It would be difficult to avoid him. And, I supposed, if I meant to find answers, I must ask the questions.

It was an hour later, when I was fully dressed, as Kitty was putting the finishing touches on my chignon, that there was another knock on my door. I swallowed and summoned my courage. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Molly, the upstairs maid, peeked in, and I felt a moment of relief that it was not Michel. The moment was short-lived. She said, “There’s a Mrs. Burden downstairs, ma’am.”

Pamela. I should have known the Athertons would not be content to let me be. For a moment, I considered not seeing her, but my curiosity over what she might want won out, and I rose, bracing myself for what was sure to be an unpleasant encounter.

I went slowly down the stairs, making her wait, and when I saw her pacing the parlor impatiently, I felt a stab of satisfaction.

“Pamela,” I said.

She turned. “Evelyn.” She was as lovely and delicate as ever, the black she wore as unrelieved and flattering. But her voice was clipped and hard, and her eyes were little flints of blue stone. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. If you think Dorothy Bennett can save you from these accusations—”

“Have you come only to insult me, Pam? If so, I’ve other things to occupy me.”

“I’ve come to talk some sense into your patroness. And to tell you that I intend to do so. To take advantage of her the way you have—”

“She believes I had nothing to do with Peter’s death.”

“Oh, you’ve convinced her of it, I’ve no doubt, but I’ll soon put things right. You’d best start packing. John’s with Elisha Capron right now. I expect they’ll have you in the Tombs by nightfall.”

Elisha Capron was one of the police commissioners, and the mention of his name did shake me, as Pamela no doubt intended. But the Bennetts still held power in the city, and I didn’t think Judge Capron would dismiss that so easily.

“I don’t know what they would use as cause. I’ve fulfilled all their requirements. Bail’s been set. I haven’t left the city, and Dorothy’s lent her protection.”

“Yes,” Pam said with a smug smile. “But what would happen, do you suppose, if Dorothy were to withdraw?”

“She won’t,” I said, with more conviction than I felt; I didn’t underestimate Pam’s powers of persuasion.

“No? Come, Evelyn, can you really think the woman sane? She speaks to her dead sons.”

“I hardly think mocking a woman in her own home will do much to win her support, Pam.”

Pamela snorted a laugh. “How pious you sound. What have you done, Evelyn? Persuaded that poor deluded woman that you’re a rapper yourself? How clever of you. I suppose next you’ll be telling me you plan to talk to Peter’s spirit.”

“I think Dorothy intends to.”

Her look was piercing. “What will he say, do you think? Will he forgive you for killing him? You can’t think it will matter much to the police department. Or to my family, for that matter. I suppose I shouldn’t have put it past you to try to fool Dorothy, given how you fooled Peter, but don’t you dare think that the rest of us can be taken in so easily.”

Pamela glanced up suddenly, looking past me, and the meanness of her expression changed to bland politeness. The transformation was so complete and seamless that I stared at her for a moment before I thought to see who had caused it.

Then I heard the coughing, and I knew before I turned who it was. Michel was standing in the doorway, as elegant-looking as ever, clad in a silvery-gray frock coat that made his blue eyes seem paler—even strangely transparent—and a vest in a blue tartan. The sapphire and diamond pin sparkled in the folds of his dark blue necktie. He made a little bow and tucked the handkerchief away, smiling. “
Madame
Atherton, forgive me for intruding. I wasn’t aware you had a guest.”

“My sister-in-law,” I said brusquely. “Mrs. John Burden. Pamela, this is Michel Jourdain.”

“Peter’s sister?”

“You knew my brother, Mr. Jourdain?” Pamela asked.

Michel came into the room, moving past me to take Pamela’s hand. “Yes,
Madame
. I miss him greatly.”

“As do we all.” Pamela gave him her best grief-struck smile.

I couldn’t keep from needling her. “Mr. Jourdain is Dorothy’s medium. You remember—I told you about him. She brought him from Boston to head the spirit circles.”

Pamela’s expression went politely rigid. “A medium?”

“Yes, indeed. It was Mr. Jourdain who contacted your mother’s spirit for Peter.”

“Your
maman
is as lovely a spirit in the spheres as her children are in the corporeal world,” Michel said. “You take after her,
Madame
Burden.”

The flattery only partially appeased Pamela. She obviously had no idea what to say. “Thank you.”

“Perhaps you’d care to attend a circle,
Madame
? To hear your
maman’s
voice for yourself?”

Pamela looked flabbergasted at the very idea. “I think not.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t?” I asked. “Mr. Jourdain is quite renowned. A miracle worker, some say.”

Pamela glared at me. Her lips pressed tightly together. Just then, Lambert appeared at the door. “Mrs. Bennett will see you now, Mrs. Burden.”

“At last,” Pamela said. She swept past me, saying, “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jourdain,” and then she was in the hallway, leaving nothing behind but the cloying scent of her rose perfume and a scornful distaste that seemed to linger in the air with it.

“She’s not much like her brother,” Michel noted. “Why’d she come?”

“She hopes to persuade Dorothy to withdraw her support. She’d like nothing better than to see me in the Tombs.”

“You’ve no worry on that score,” he told me. He went to the fire, spreading his hands before it, even though the parlor was so warm the barren trees outside seemed incongruous.

He spoke with such confidence, such assurance, and I remembered last night, my belief that he had somehow engineered my staying here, my sense that he wanted me here for some reason I did not yet understand.

“You seem so certain,” I said.

“
Oui
. I am.”

“How can you be?”

He turned to look over his shoulder, and his gaze was uncomfortably sharp, as if he could see through me. “Don’t question the fates,
Madame
Atherton, lest you tempt them to change their minds.”

It was a threat; I felt the danger in his words, and I stared at him in surprise. I remembered what Kitty had said about her brother:
“He could talk the wings off a butterfly and wouldn’t give no thought to smashing it after.”
Michel
was
like those men in my father’s office, with their magnetic attraction and vicious immorality, and suddenly I was afraid. I was here by his sufferance—yet he must realize I would try to save myself, and how I would do so. I had not fooled him for a moment. I heard Michel’s warning, and I understood: he would be watching me.

I didn’t see Pamela leave. Nor did I know how her meeting with Dorothy had gone. Not until later that afternoon, when Dorothy sent for me.

Dorothy’s room was large, divided by lacquered Japanese screens into a sitting room and bedroom. On the sitting room side was a long, low table crowded with bottles of amber and clear and green, holding powders or liquids, along with medicine cups, a pitcher of water, an empty hot water bottle and a well-used mortar and pestle. Beside it was a settee, where one nurse lounged reading the
Herald
while another organized towels on a shelf.

Beyond the screen was a large, lace-festooned bed, where Dorothy Bennett rested in a nest of satin and lace-edged pillows that were so plumped around her that she was sitting straight up. A bedside table was littered with bottles and spoons. The room smelled of laudanum and orris root and musty, unwashed skin, but the pale chintz drapes covering the window beyond were open, which was not what I would have expected from an invalid. The room was bright with overcast light from outside.

“Ah, Evelyn,” Dorothy said when she saw me. She motioned me to a chair beside the bed, and as I sat she said, “Your sister-in-law isn’t fond of you, child, that’s for sure.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “I suppose… not ever.”

“You know why she was here?”

“To tell you I’m a ruthless schemer, I imagine.”

“She expected me to be asylum bound. The way she talked! As if I were too addled to see what was in front of me. She’s convinced you murdered Peter and that you’re fooling me.”

I met her gaze. “What do you think?”

“That she wants you in prison and she thinks I’ll help send you there.”

“What did you tell her?”

“To stay the hell out of my business.” She sighed and reached for my hand. Her skin was dry and rough, as thin and frail as onionskin over her plumpness. Her nails were yellowed, too long, a little clawlike, and they dug into my fingers. “I told Pamela not to set foot again in my house. I told her to leave you be.”