Picture the Dead (Page 10)

“It’s Miss Jennie did it herself,” Mavis bursts out. “She’s a grand talent with lace. She fashioned me a fancy collar, too, but I only wear it Sundays. I got a knack for mending, but Miss Jennie has such patience for the details.”

“Impressive,” says Madame, with a sincerity that makes me blush.

I accompany her to her carriage. Outside, Quinn strides along the garden wall. He is bundled into his overcoat and muffler, yet his face isn’t so obscured that I cannot see his lips move. Of the two brothers, Quinn had cut a finer figure in society, where his good looks and quick wit served him better than Will’s raw enthusiasm and tendency to speak his mind. But without a captive audience, Quinn is a lonely soul, and time has taught me that he never wants company on these garden walks.

The garden paths were Quinn’s retreats whenever he and his brother quarreled. Will, outspoken and fiery, never stayed at Pritchett House, but took his temper elsewhere, either into town or deep into the country, where I might find him skipping stones or rowing across Jamaica Pond, churning up its waters, exhausting himself.

In contrast, Quinn simply froze in place when he was angry. Housebound, he brooded in his room or haunted the grounds like a lost pup.

He is frozen still. Madame’s point of vision follows Quinn as he marches along, locked in battles from which his mind can’t escape.

“Poor boy,” she murmurs. “So the stories are true.”

“What do you mean?” I can hear my own voice strain.

Her glance at me is both sympathetic and faintly pitying.

And though I wish she wouldn’t, Madame continues to observe him through the window until her carriage rolls away.

10.

I’m late for the next afternoon’s appointment. Geist is waiting in the foyer, and he greets me with coltish energy. Viviette, eyes averted, collects my damp cloak. I’m annoyed to see her. If I don’t know the difference between one of heaven’s own angels and an ordinary housemaid, then how easily might I be fooled again?

“You don’t have to be so coy,” I tell her. “I recognize your face.”

In answer, she stares up at me with eyes hard and dark as coal, and I realize there’s nothing shy about Viviette at all.

“Miss Lovell,” says Geist. “At last.”

“Please excuse my delay,” I say. “Ice on the tracks put the trains off schedule.”

Geist shrugs. “At least you are here in one piece. This way, please. There is something I want you to see.”

“No, I can’t stay,” I protest. “I only want to pay the balance and to collect the photograph for my uncle.”

“A minute, a minute.” Geist pinches hold of my forearm, ushering me down the hall and into the same sitting room where we’d gathered two days before. He points to his ornate French mantel clock, its face adorned with sturdy pink and gold cherubs.

“Behold!” His voice trumpets.

I peer closer. “Yes, I see that your clock is wrong. It is stopped at half past twelve, when it must be nearly…three o’clock?”

He harrumphs. “Thirty two minutes past twelve. And ” He pivots me by both shoulders so that I’m staring into the opposite corner, up at the moon phases and dials of his grandfather clock.

“Thirty-two minutes past twelve,” I read.

“Precisely.”

“I’m not sure how this concerns ”

“ and I hadn’t noticed it, either, until you all had left. Think, Miss Lovell! Two days ago, at twelve thirty-two, in this very room, you experienced some sort of emotional chaos. It penetrated you so deeply, in fact, that you fainted.”

I turn from the clock. “You’re telling me that my fainting spell stopped time?”

“No, no, no.” Geist taps his fingertips together, urging my conclusion. “Twelve thirty-two. The very moment when William Pritchett made contact with you, yes?”

I freeze. “Sir, you are playing games with me,” I say. “You stopped these clocks yourself.”

“What?” He looks puzzled. “But why would I do that?”

“Why, because…because you know I took the Harding photograph. That I recognized your angel, Viviette, and you caught a change in my manner.” I rush on as his chicanery becomes clear to me. “Yes, you saw a change in me as soon as I reentered the room. You knew I’d seen the photograph. And now you’re scrabbling to make me a believer again.”

“A believer?” He looks baffled. “To what end?”

“Many of us have lost loved ones to this war. Photographing their so-called spirits makes for easy business. Your reputation is everything. You need to convince us of your worth so that you can run your shop.”

“Ah. I see.” Geist pulls at his beard. “That would be clever of me. But you are incorrect, Miss Lovell. I didn’t touch either of these clocks. At twelve thirty-two you received an impression of Corporal Pritchett, did you not?”

“I couldn’t confirm that time exactly,” I tell him. “And Will is always in my thoughts.”

“Tell me, how did you experience this… thought? In an ice-cold chill? As a bright burst of energy, or perhaps a flash of radiant ”

“Please, stop.” But Geist seems so certain, and I am so taken aback by his certainty, that I blurt out the very question that has been chasing itself around my head. “Mr. Geist, just say you might be correct. Why would Will’s spirit contact me in your home? A setting that was special to neither of us?” My voice is pained. “I’ve sat for hours in Will’s rooms, walked his paths, and paced the bridge we crossed nearly every summer day. He is nowhere. Nowhere but at rest.” I draw myself to my full height, which is not very much.

“A spirit cannot choose his domain,” says Geist.

“On that I think you’re wrong.”

His shaggy eyebrows lift. He’s listening. I wish my voice were more dependable. “My twin brother, Tobias, alters my perceptions daily. His spirit is folded into mine. He haunts me. I am his domain.”

I anticipate that Geist, a man who makes his living grasping for spectral signs, will be intrigued by my revelation. But the photographer is dismissive. “Miss Lovell, how did your brother pass?”

“Of dysentery, a few weeks after he’d joined up.”

“My sincere condolences.” Geist allows a moment. “But don’t you think you absorb Tobias’s identity because he is already so beloved by you? It’s not that he haunts you. It is that your memory won’t let him go. Simple as that.”