Picture the Dead (Page 9)

“Miss Lovell!”

Everyone is looking at me.

I blink. Will is gone. I am slumped in my chair, my teacup has fallen, and its liquid has soaked the carpet.

Quinn has left his chair and is bent on one knee before me.

“Jennie?” he whispers softly. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I sit up. “I’m sorry.”

“Miss Lovell, are you unwell?” asks Geist.

“No, no, I’m sorry excuse me, I need air.” Quinn helps me to stand, but his hand, gripping bony at my elbow, is no comfort. I shrug him off, but then I am embarrassed, my palms lifted in protest for anyone to follow. I am careful not to look at Aunt Clara as I hasten out.

Alone in the hall, I untie my collar and fan my cheeks with my fingers. Though my fever ebbs, I have little doubt.

Will was here. He was in this house, in that room, if only for a moment. But it was as true a moment as I have ever lived.

On the front hall table rests a small, paper-wrapped package, twine-tied, inscribed with the name Harding. The package is approximately the same size as the plates Geist had inserted and removed from his camera.

A good spy is never afraid to transgress.

I look over my shoulder. Nobody is in the hall.

My heart could take wing, it’s beating so fast as my fingers unpick the twine. The knot gives too slowly. Then I slide a series of identical photos from their wrapping.

Backed and framed in a cardboard slip, a man sits as grim as a tombstone on the same ornate love seat of Geist’s parlor. Above him hovers a delicate, nearly transparent image. Dressed in gauze, a crown of holly leaves twisted through her pale, streaming hair, the angel appears otherworldly and is more exquisite than my most vivid imaginings.

For a moment I am struck paralyzed. Here is a real angel, caught and captured in all her radiant glory, for anyone to see.

Incredible, but true.

I hold it up to the fanlight for a closer look. There is something familiar in the angel’s profile. I decide to take one of the copies, sliding it into my pocket with the rest of my day’s loot before the family comes to collect me. I compose myself, avoiding Quinn’s eye, my own gaze intent on Aunt Clara’s enormous, bustling skirts.

In the carriage, when I dare to look across at Quinn, he ignores me with a cool indifference that makes me miss his brother all the more. How is it that Will even in spectral vision, if that’s what it was can appear more vital and vibrant to me than anyone else in the family?

I don’t look up again for the rest of the ride home, lest anyone see my suffering, which the Pritchetts would only dismiss as a weakness.

In my attic room the light is weak. I move to the window and spread my secreted photograph on the sill. White winter sky exposes the image. And now I can see the slight protrusion of the angel’s front teeth. I retrieve the other photos from my pocket.

The drape of Viviette’s Grecian toga makes a lovely angel’s cloak. I find the downcast eyes, that droplet nose, the bird bones of the neck and wrists, as the angel’s identity reveals herself to me. She is Viviette.

9.

“Maybe Mister Geist listed it as part of her daily chores!” Mavis snorts with amusement.

“Oh, certainly.” I tick off the duties on my fingers. “Lay the grates, polish the andirons, dress up in bedsheets and pose as an angel, dust the bookshelves…”

Mavis presses her knuckles to her mouth so that Aunt Clara won’t hear her giggling fits. We are standing outside Aunt’s bedroom waiting for Madame Broussard to finish taking orders and measurements.

In days past, after Madame has finished with Aunt Clara she attends to me, and so I am waiting on Mrs. Sullivan’s command. “Madame can’t leave this house without seeing to you, Miss Jennie. Hard to say if your frocks are more disrespectful to the living or the dead,” the housekeeper had clucked.

It’s the dismal truth. Both of my mourning dresses are threadbare at the elbow and discolored along the seams. Hardly any of my original buttons and neither of my original collars remain. It has been more than two years since I’ve owned anything new, and my old, black-dyed frocks strain against the predictable directions where I’ve filled out.

Mavis lingers. Madame Broussard is widely thought to be the handsomest woman in Brookline, and Mavis craves a glimpse of her. “That so-said spiritualist is swindling Mister Pritchett worse than a snake oil salesman,” she declares as she stoops to peer through the keyhole.

“I suppose.” I won’t confide to Mavis the details of my nearfainting spell and how Will had come to me. That entire morning seems unreal, especially in light of Geist’s housemaid hoax.

Mavis straightens. “Don’t pay him a penny when you go over tomorrow oh, bon jer, Madame.”

For the door has opened and now the striking dressmaker stands before us. Her jet hair is accessorized by tortoiseshell pins, and her dress is the color of claret. In contrast, I feel as shabby as a dormouse.

Mavis is unabashedly delighted by Madame, and for a moment, I, too, feel a shy desire to dip a curtsy. And yet it wasn’t very long ago that Madame Broussard had presented me with gown sketches for the annual Boston Cultural Society Dance, an event that Will and I had attended to celebrate his entrance to Harvard, and where I’d taken my first sips of champagne and danced my first waltz. How can my very own memories feel as if they don’t belong to me? They seem so extravagant and carefree. Who was that pampered girl in French silk who believed in only happy endings?

Madame nods and moves to step past.

“Please, Madame,” I falter. “If you’re not late for another appointment, I’m in some need…” I pluck at my skirt, which tells the sad story.

Her fine, dark eyes are guarded. “Mais, Mademoiselle Lovell, your aunt has made it clear to me that you won’t be fitted for anything new this season. When I asked, she gave me the impression that your present wardrobe is more than adequate.”

Though one look at my dress refutes this point. It’s hard to say who is more pained by the discomfit of the moment. “Yes, now I remember.” I hasten to fill the pause. “Excuse me. I’d forgotten that I’m having two dresses made over secondhand from Aunt.” I imagine Aunt Clara smirking from her chaise, and my face burns with shame and rage.

“Madame Pritchett has more than enough material to take in,” agrees Madame, too quickly. “So that is a fine solution. Très simple.”

I step back to let her pass.

She lingers a moment. “Ma chère,” she says. “My heart breaks for your tragedy. Your brother, and then Monsieur William… il est tout trop tragique.” The press of her hand to my cheek is more comfort than I have received from any of my kin. Her fingers stop to pick up the edge of my collar. “Such very delicate work.”