Picture the Dead

Too high, too strong. In fact, Rosemary has broken her link through my elbow and drops pace so that our skirts no longer swish in tandem. “She is your guardian,” she murmurs, both arms crossed in the clutch of her Bible to her bosom. Flora’s teeth gnaw her thin bottom lip.

I have overstepped. These girls like to gossip but are easily cowed. Quickly I change the subject. “Is there news of your brother?”

The sisters’ words tumble over each other. “Silas is well ”

“And stationed in Franklin, Tennessee ”

“Quite far from the fray!”

Twenty minutes ago the congregation was voicing prayers for the Godspeed return of all our soldiers. My resentment of Silas Wortley’s safety is positively unchristian. “Well,” I say, fixing a smile to my face. “Thank heaven.”

“But tell us, Jennie. We hear from the servants that poor Quinn’s gone…off,” says Flora. “That he talks to himself and hides the family portraits, and that he roams the garden at unearthly hours!”

“They say he is addicted to opium…and that it makes him quite mad,” adds Rosemary, with a smug flourish.

“All nonsense.” I scoff, even as I feel my cheeks redden. “Quinn walks ’round the garden three times a day on the doctor’s orders, because he needs the fresh air. And yes, we’ve hung some crepe over the mirrors. Just like any other house in mourning. But I suppose that’s how these silly stories get started.”

The Wortleys nod, seeming to accept this, but I’ll have to speak with Mavis about being more careful about what she says to Betsey.

Because some of what they say is true. Only two days ago Quinn tore down the portrait of himself and Will that hung in the hall and flung it across the room, cracking the frame and smashing a wall sconce beyond repair. Nobody has dared to rehang it, and so I have wedged the damaged frame into the back of the guest room armoire and pasted the photograph in my book for safekeeping.

Rosemary speaks in a burst. “What are you going to do, Jennie, dear? Without Will to marry you, Mrs. Pritchett might just snap her fingers and force ”

“Hush, Rosemary!” Flora’s eyes shoot daggers at her younger sister. “I’m sure Mrs. Pritchett would never dare. Let’s speak of pleasanter things.”

I hesitate, then plunge. “Might I pay a call to your family next week?” A despairing edge grates my voice and embarrasses me, but I press on. “Say, Tuesday? I’d be so glad to steal away for a few hours.”

“Oh. Lovely.” But Rosemary gives care to her next words. “If you could arrange your carriage to arrive by half past two? For that’s when we’ll be finished with dinner.”

I am mute with mortification. Both girls know that Aunt Clara would never permit me use of the carriage for my own amusement. In the pause neither sister offers use of the Wortley coach yet of course they’d be priggishly aghast if I arrived at their doorstep, my hem muddy from walking.

“Or…if you don’t mind waiting until after the New Year for a visit, Jennie? Right now’s the height of the season. Simple as we’re keeping things, what with our boys away, we’ve got so many fittings and invitations. It’s been such a flurry,” Flora reminds.

Debutante season I’d forgotten. Of course, I am not coming out. Nor shall I assume the enviable role of the newly affianced, with all of its attendant teas, dinners, and parties. I am trapped at that house until such a day as Aunt sees fit to cast me off. My future is at the mercy of Aunt’s whim, and there’s not a soul in Brookline who doesn’t know it.

As tedious as it is to be pitied, it is positively frightening to be shunned. Worst of all, though, is to be forgotten. I must find a way to rescue myself. If there is only one thing I am certain of, it’s that.

7.

The Christmas rain lulls my scrambled mind to sleep. It is still sluicing when I’m jolted awake, gagging, panicked, unable to breathe.

The thin chain of my necklace is wound like whipcord around my throat. I clutch at it and hear a whisper fast in my ear. A rush of words just outside my reach.

“Stop it! Stop!”

I kick and thrash, struggling against the stranglehold, but it’s as if invisible hands clamp a vice round my neck. The whispering intensifies. The words seem purposefully distorted. I can’t make any sense of them. All I know is I need to get out of this room at once. Coughing, fighting to breathe, pulling up from the bed, unable even to see my own hands in front of my face, I stumble to the door, yanking it open, and I run into darkness.

At the landing I stop, bending double, heaving wretched gasps as my hands lock my knees. My throat feels crushed, my breath so dry it pains my lungs.

“Another nightmare,” I whisper hoarsely. My eyes roam, adjusting to pick out the outline of the furniture down the corridor the slipper chair, the console. “That’s all.” That whispering was no more than the hum of my own pulse. And that necklace is long lost, strewn and trampled into some bloody Southern field, or tucked into the fat purse of a grave robber.

This lingering sensation of being watched hangs heavy on me. My toes and fingertips are ice, my heart is pounding. But I won’t return to my bedroom. Not just yet.

I hasten down the corridor and the stairs. On the second floor, I follow the weak bar of light under the library door. I peek in. Uncle Henry is slumped in his armchair, staring into the dying embers. His decanter of whiskey is nearly finished. The flickering light scoops dark hollows into his eyes.

“Uncle?” I open the door.

His gaze shifts in my direction. “Amelia?” For a moment I’m confused, and then I remember.

“No, Uncle,” I say quickly. “It’s only Jennie.”

Little Amelia was Uncle’s and Aunt Clara’s daughter, who would have been nearly my age had she lived past her fragile cradle years. Once last summer, when Tobias and I were playing spies in the garden, we’d overheard Aunt and Uncle speaking of their phantom daughter as if Amelia had never died.

“It’s a game,” Toby had said, “to give themselves comfort.”

“A horrid, morbid game,” I’d asserted as we’d sprung like a pair of frightened grasshoppers back to the safety of the house.

“Jennie, your niece,” I prompt, for Uncle’s expression frightens me. Everything in me wants to turn my heel and run. Instead, I venture into the room.

Uncle has gained weight. His chin folds like dough over his neck, and his buttons strain his waistcoat. He is holding out Amelia’s memento mori. I suppress a shiver. Images of the dead provide not an ounce of comfort for me. The body present, stiff as an unlit candle, with the soul extracted from it.