Haunting Violet (3 page)

“Violet, come along,” she said, scolding me. “Where on earth have you been?” The scolding was for everyone else's benefit. I knew full well she hadn't yet realized I had gone. “Inside now, and not another word.” Which meant she was afraid I would give her away.

I hadn't given her away in the last seven years, since that first visit to Mrs. Gordon, nor at any of the other sittings we provided. I didn't know why she thought I'd choose to do so on some train platform without a Spiritualist for miles. I found my seat as her giggle tinkled, like champagne flutes touching. Even one of the disapproving matrons in our car lifted her head, momentarily enchanted. Her scowl returned, dark as a thundercloud, when she spotted my mother stepping nimbly up the stair, wasp-waisted and beautiful.

Mother lowered herself gracefully into her seat. “I should have brought my own cushion,” she said, a trifle too loudly. “I can't think who might have used this one before me.”

The truth was, she loved the blue silk and would hide the cushion under her crinolines to keep, first chance she got. The warning whistle pierced through the steam and the train lurched into movement, jostling us. We left the station and the red roofs of the village, plunging once more into the green countryside. The sun glinted off a meandering creek as it set. There was something lulling about the motion of the train, once you got used to it.

I leaned my temple against the window, content to decipher shapes in the lilac-colored clouds above us and then the stars when it grew too dark to see anything else. We barely saw the stars in London, because of the coal smoke. We barely even saw the sky.

As we approached the village, the glass grew oddly misty, then abruptly bloomed with frost.

It was nearly the end of summer and far too warm for frost of any kind.

I glanced about but no one else seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Mother was resting her eyes so she wouldn't arrive with lines on her face. Most of the men were reading newspapers; one snored loudly. Two ladies bent over their embroidery hoops. Everyone else appeared to be dozing.

The frost traveled slowly, thickly. The lamplight made it look like lace, but it burned to touch. I snatched my fingers away, sitting up straight, my heart thumping loud and slow under my corset bones. Behind the thin ice, where the glass was still glass, the hills and hamlets that ought to have been dark glowed softly. It wasn't torchlight I was seeing, or candles in cottage windows. We weren't that near to the village yet; it was still all fields and oak groves. Otherwise I might have taken the lights for hundreds of candles, even though they flickered with a faintly blue glow, ghostly and cold.

The train cut through swarms of them, like giant fireflies, but not a single passenger noticed. I was the only one gaping at the scene outside. I'd read about corpse candles before, but I'd thought them idle superstition. A quaint folk tradition.

I did not credit them to be the terrifying unearthly light that now fell on my face and made me feel wretched and ill and shiver as if I were up to my neck in a snowdrift. I understood the warning not to follow will-o-the-wisps, to cast your eyes downward when you walked at night.

I thought I saw flashes of pale faces, pale hands, pale teeth.

And then, a face was suddenly there on the other side of the window.

Long translucent hair drifted as if the girl were underwater. There was a cloying scent in the still air, like lilies wilting by green water. She dripped as if it were raining, floated as if she were made of dandelion fluff. She wore a white dress layered with flounces.

Her eyes met mine, cold as starlight. I jerked backward, yelping.

My mother opened one eye crossly. “Violet, really.”

The girl faded, tattering like mist under a spear of strong sunlight.

The ghostly candles guttered and went out.

CHAPTER 2

I
t was past dinner by the time we were handed up into Lord Jasper's carriage, which he'd been kind enough to send for us; otherwise we'd have been crammed into a public coach next to some sweaty man who smelled like ham. Lord Jasper's coach had plush, velvet-covered, cushioned seats and gleaming lacquered wood. The windows even had little drapes. We didn't speak much as the carriage rolled down the narrow streets and onto the open lanes. The hills spread out all around, the road edged with wildflowers and tangled blackberry hedges. I wondered if highwaymen still roamed these parts, and if one might stop us, face covered with a black mask. He would demand our jewelry, but one look at my mother and he would fall in love and carry her away on his horse.

Or not.

The carriage rattled over the badly pockmarked road. After so much traveling my bottom was beginning to grow numb, and I was craving fresh air and sunlight. I envied Colin up on top with the driver, the warm summer wind on his face. I wished I could read one of my novels, but it always made my stomach uncertain to read in a moving vehicle.

I'd never been to a lord's country house before, of course, just as I'd never been on a train. I could imagine the wide gardens, the fat roses, and the thick, dark woods. Finally the lane curved gently and we were afforded our first view of Rosefield, Lord Jasper's country house. It sat in a veritable moat of roses, all red and white and scattering petals onto the grass, lit with torches in the gardens and along the lane and the walkways. The house itself was mostly pale gray stone with towers and turrets and a small section off to one side that clearly dated back to Queen Elizabeth's time.

Mother looked distinctly satisfied as she surveyed our surroundings. She was already imagining herself as the lady of the manor. Lord Jasper might be a widower, but he showed no particular affection or matrimonial intent toward her, which was a source of bewildered frustration for her. He truly seemed to honor her gifts, such as they were. It made me sad to think about it.

I turned my attention back to the tall, handsome footman who was waiting patiently for me to take his hand and descend out of the plush carriage. Colin looked at me blandly. I knew perfectly well that he was remembering last spring when I stumbled out of a hired hack and sprawled, rather spectacularly, into a muddy puddle. Rosefield's lane was dry and immaculately kept. No rain would dare fall on the first day of such a summer fete.

Rosefield's housekeeper, Mrs. Harris, was a dour-looking woman, tall and thin as a lamppost. Her gray hair was scraped mercilessly off her face. Even my mother's loveliest smile only engendered a narrowing of the eyes.

“Mrs. Willoughby,” my mother introduced herself, steel lacing her tone. “And my daughter, Miss Violet Willoughby.”

The housekeeper met the declaration with her own steel. “A pleasure, ma'am. I am the housekeeper, Mrs. Harris. This way if you please.”

She led us past gleaming tables set with crystal vases full of roses, and up the carpeted staircase. Maids hurried up and down the hallway, which opened onto several chambers filled with chattering guests. Mrs. Harris marched into one of the open doorways and paused, waiting for us to catch up.

“Lord Jasper picked this suite especially for you, Mrs. Willoughby, and for your daughter.”

The sitting room was all pale pink silk and velvet, with plush chairs and damask curtains. The door to the left opened onto a bed chamber, also done in roses and cream, with flowers on every available surface. The other bedroom was slightly smaller, with walls papered in green silk and my valises already set by the wardrobe. It was easily three times the size of my room back home, with paintings, lush carpets, and my own mahogany writing desk.

“It's beautiful,” I murmured, excited. I wasn't sure but I thought Mrs. Harris might be trying to smile back.

“Lovely,” my mother agreed from the sitting room. “Quite suitable.”

I almost laughed. Our town house was decidedly sparse upstairs in the family rooms where no visitors went. We saved all of the best pieces for the parlor and the dining room, which, admittedly, looked well.

“Tea will be served shortly in the gardens,” Mrs. Harris announced. “Down the stairs and to your left, next to the conservatory.” Her boot heels clacked all the way down the hall.

Mother hugged me briefly, smelling of lavender water and sherry. “If we play our cards right, my girl, this week could change our lives.”

I knew what was behind that look she wore, smug as an alley cat with a bowl of cream. I smiled weakly and went to my room to change into a less-rumpled dress.

The gardens were immaculate, the flagstones swept clean and the potted flowers clipped neatly down. Women wore silk dresses and pearl brooches; men stood smartly by in their somber suits. Tea was served in china cups. Oil lamps burned on the tables and torches flamed at the edge of the lawns. It was like a fairy garden, and I was the changeling child. I tried not to look as nervous as I felt.

Mother pinched me. Hard.

Reverie broken, I curtsied to the guests who had just been introduced. I hadn't been paying attention and had no idea who they were. Mother sipped her tea demurely after declining an offer of wine or champagne. I ogled the cakes with the thick cream icing and the little sandwiches filled with ham or cucumbers next to bowls of watercress salad.

“I once fit five of those little egg things in my mouth at once,” someone declared quite proudly from my right.

I laughed and turned to hug Elizabeth, despite our mothers' disapproving glances. We should have clasped hands or curtsied, we should have been quiet and polite, but I would have been bereft and adrift in a sea of dull old people without Elizabeth. We had met only a handful of times at various séances and Spiritualist events but had since written dozens of long letters back and forth. She was Lord Jasper's goddaughter and the most amusing person I'd ever met, not to mention my only true friend, since I wasn't afforded many opportunities to meet girls my own age. I had never been away to school where girls became fast friends and learned how to pour tea. I couldn't bear to think of how lonely I might have been without Elizabeth. Even if I did have to keep our secrets from her as well.

She was still grinning at me over the egg sandwiches. Her plump body had been stuffed into a steel-boned corset by her mother's maid. She was pretty, in a wholesome, cheerful kind of way. “Have some of the watercress,” she said. “It's lovely.”

I knew how watercress was grown in London, in the sewage run off in Camden Place. “No, thank you.”

“Just as well. I can't wait another moment.” She took me abruptly by the hand, dragging me into the house. “I don't know what I would have done if you'd decided to have a rest. I'm turning blue as it is.”

“Where are we going?” I asked as she pulled me through several sitting rooms and down a long corridor. She'd spent enough summers here to know exactly where she was going, but she stopped so suddenly that I crashed into her. She grunted as we stumbled into a tidy room with a massive desk in the center and books lining the walls. This was the only room so far that didn't smell of roses. It was all ink and brandy.

“Oh, Lizzie,” I said, drinking in all the books.

“Yes, yes books,” she said, hardly impressed. “You should see the library. Anyway, who cares about that? Help me!” She spun around, frantically pointing to the back of her corset. “I feel like a bloody breakfast sausage,” she complained. “Untie me, won't you?”

I knew the routine. This wasn't the first time we'd been in this situation—in fact, the very first time I had ever met Elizabeth we had been at a tea dance, where she cornered me under a shadowy decorative palm and begged me to release her from “the dark chains that bound her,” her words exactly. It had taken me a moment to decipher what, precisely, she was asking me to do.

“Vi, stop daydreaming! I can't breathe. I'm joining the Rational Dress Society the very moment we are back in London, and I fully intend to leave their pamphlets under Mother's pillow and tucked into her corsets.” She claimed this in every one of her letters, in spite of, or rather because of, her mother's vociferous protests. Lady Ashford was petite, barely reaching my shoulder, and still in possession of a decidedly girlish figure. She couldn't understand how her daughter was plump as a cinnamon bun.

“Vi!”

“Sorry.” I hurried to loosen her stays, which required a rather ungenteel position with Elizabeth bending over a settee with the back of her skirts up over her head as I struggled to find my way through layers of lace and petticoats. I would have shed my own corset, if I'd dared.

“Stop squirming,” I muttered, spitting a silk ribbon out of my mouth.

“Well, hurry up.” Her voice was muffled. “Have you got it?”

“Almost.” I pushed aside more fabric. “Your petticoats weigh a blasted stone!”

“I know!” She wiggled again.

“Ahem.”

We both froze at the amused cough.