I’ve returned to my own room. The ghost is gone, if indeed he was ever present. In the room beyond, which reeks of her mint bonbons, the Allardyce sleeps, as always, the sleep of the just. One of the other guests, Mrs Corneille, was kind enough to offer me a brandy and, had I wanted it, the extra room of her suite. She’s a wonderful woman, but I knew that wherever I might be I shouldn’t sleep at all tonight, and so I returned here, determined to write to you and describe this fantasy that terrified me so. For a fantasy it must have been.
And yet, Evy, he seemed so very real! I can still hear his beastly cackle and the dreadful, filthy things he said. I can still taste the fear in my mouth, stale and slippery and bitter, like old pennies.
I’m babbling again. I shall do this properly.
Ah well. I’m afraid the ghost must wait. I hear something stirring next door. Either the Allardyce is awakening or a hippopotamus has wandered into her room in search of a place to wallow. If he spies the Allardyce, he will no doubt attempt to breed; the clamour will unnerve the entire household. In any event, I must go. I shall get this in the morning post, and I shall send its continuation to you this afternoon.
All my love, Jane
Chapter Seven
When I awoke the next morning, a bright bolt of sunlight lay across the room. Tiny motes of dust floated slowly through it like microscopic creatures drifting in a golden shaft of sea.
It was the first sunshine I had seen since we left Paris. I had started to think that I would never see it again.
I picked up my watch from the night table. A quarter to nine. Late.
I eased out of bed, climbed into my robe, padded to the Great Man’s door and knocked.
“Come in,” he called out.
He was wearing his gray socks and his gray pants, a shirt and a tie, an opened gray vest. He was sitting on top of the bedspread, his back against the tall dark wood headboard. There was a pen in his hand and a notebook on his lap.
“Good morning, Phil,” he said cheerfully.
“Morning, Harry. Why aren’t you downstairs?”
He smiled. It was an innocent smile, and his innocent smiles always made me nervous. “But, Phil,” he said. I am under orders not to leave without you, am I not?”
“Being under orders isn’t the same as taking them.”
“But for me it is, Phil. I gave my word.” He changed the subject. “Did you sleep well?”
“When I slept,” I said.
His face became thoughtful. “Do you know, I must have actually slept myself last night-for a time, at any rate-because I had a dream. It was a most curious dream. You were in it and you were wearing a pair of handcuffs. You asked me to remove them for you.
“That was no dream, Harry. That was my life.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You weren’t dreaming. I was wearing a pair of handcuffs last night, and I asked you to take them off.”
“They were made by Mueller and Kohl?”
“According to you. Spring-loaded, you said.”
“Amazing. Where did you get them?”
“They were a gift. From Cecily Fitzwilliam.”
“A gift? Why would Miss Fitzwilliam give you a gift? And why a pair of handcuffs?”
“They weren’t really for me. They were for you. Mind if I sit down?”
“No, no,” he said, and waved a hand toward the seat by the writing desk. “For me? What do you mean?”
I sat down. “Well, Harry, it looks to me like Miss Fitzwilliam is smitten.”
He frowned, puzzled. “Smitten? What are you saying, Phil?”
“She wanted to get to know you better. So she came to the room. She got me instead.”
“Better?” Suddenly he blushed. “You mean…? Miss Fitzwilliam?” His voice had risen slightly. “Phil- no. Her father is an English lord. ”
“Harry. Calm down.”
“But doesn’t she know that I’m a married man?”
“She’s just a kid, Harry. She only wanted to talk.”
He looked off, toward the window, and stared at it for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and slowly let it out in a kind of moaning sigh, long and low. He shook his head. “So it begins again,” he said.
“Again?” I said.
He looked at me sadly. “This has happened before, Phil. Many, many times. It is a terrible curse. Women of a certain… ah… animal nature, they inevitably find me irresistible. Perhaps my great physical strength attracts them. Or my virile demeanor. Perhaps it is merely the fact that Houdini is the most famous man alive.”
He shrugged sadly. “Who knows, Phil? Who can plumb the hearts of these women? Certainly I never encourage them, never give them reason to believe, even for a moment, that I would respond to their advances. You know that my darling wife is the light of my existence. She is my beacon in life’s storm-tossed sea, the only woman who has ever meant anything to me. Except, of course, for my dear departed mother. I would never betray Bess, Phil.”
He looked off again. “I suppose I must try to find it within me to forgive them, these women. They cannot help themselves, naturally.” He shook his head. “But I would never have believed that the daughter of an English lord…”
He looked back at me. “What shall we do about this, Phil? Shall we go to Lord Purleigh and ask him to keep a closer watch over this daughter of his?”
I smiled. “I don’t think so, Harry. Cecily won’t bother you again.”
He raised his dark eyebrows hopefully. “Really? What did you say to her?”
“All the stuff you just said. About Bess and all. The beacon in the storm-tossed sea. I explained everything. She understands.”
“Ah. Wonderful, Phil. A good thing that you are a man of the world, like myself.” He frowned suddenly. “But why on earth did she bring the handcuffs?”
“She wanted you to see them. They’re her grandfather’s. She thought you might be interested.”
“In an ancient pair of Mueller and Kohls?” Mildly indignant. “She didn’t know, Harry. She was only trying to be friendly. After she left, I was playing around with them and I accidentally locked myself up. Sorry I had to wake you up.”
He shook his head. “You did not actually awaken me. As you know, I have difficulty sleeping. I was merely resting.”
I nodded. “There’s one other thing you should know, though.”
He frowned. Worried, probably, about some other woman with an animal nature. “And what is that?”
“Looks like we had a ghost here last night.”
“A ghost?”
I told him about Miss Turner.
When I was finished, he asked me, “How did she seem to you, Phil? Miss Turner?”
“Like someone who’d just seen a ghost.”
“She was hysterical?”
“Not hysterical. Upset. Whatever she saw, she thought it was a ghost, and it scared her. But she seemed to be handling it fairly well.”
“Yes. From my brief meeting with her, I would say that she has a good head on her shoulders.”
And a good pair of shoulders under her head.
“As I may have told you, Phil, hauntings do not much interest me. If the accounts are true, ghosts seem to be completely unaware that they are actually dead. Which makes them, in my view, remarkably stupid creatures. What would be the point of communicating with them, even assuming that one could? But, you know, perhaps our Miss Turner is a sensitive. A natural medium. Unwittingly, without her own knowledge. I have heard of this, although never encountered it.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I shall speak with her.”
“Right.”
“Shall we go have breakfast?” he asked me.
I looked down at my bathrobe, looked back up at the Great Man. “I thought I’d get into some clothes first.”
“Excellent. I shall finish up this letter to Bess.”
Downstairs, another servant-one we hadn’t seen before- told us that breakfast was still available in the conservatory. We followed him along some more hallways.
The conservatory was a large sunny room. All around, lush ferns and squat palms spread lacy fans and plump shiny fronds. Bright saffron light streaming through the walls of glass warmed the smooth gray marble floor. Beyond the glass was a view as still and as perfectly composed as a landscape painting. Blue sky overhead, a few white puffs of cumulus hanging there. An expanse of green lawn sloping down to a broad formal garden neatly blocked with squares of red and yellow and purple.