Haunting Violet

  I yawned and dropped into one of the chairs, reaching for the teapot.

  “Violet,” she said. “Good. I need you both to work especially hard. This has to be our best performance yet.”

  Colin glanced at me, his dark hair tumbling over his forehead. There was something intimate between us now, a secret shared—but one that didn’t feel heavy or deceitful. One that didn’t have anything to do with my mother or murder.

  And I didn’t know why, but when our eyes met, I felt like blushing. Instead I stirred more sugar into my tea.

  “I can’t have you getting missish on me. Violet, are you paying attention?”

  “Yes, Maman.”

  I could tell she was nervous. Her fingers trembled slightly and she was fidgeting. She hated fidgeters. Marjorie had long since abandoned us; she fidgeted something awful when Mother was in a mood, and it never ended well. I drank more tea. “Mother, do you believe in spirits?”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “You don’t think some of the others really see and speak to ghosts?”

  She glared at me. We weren’t ever supposed to speak of fraudulent séances. That’s how mistakes were made, how secrets were discovered. It didn’t matter how secure or private you thought the conversation might be, there might always be someone else listening; thus there were no conversations at all.

  “No, I most certainly do not. Charlatans, the lot of them.”

  “Oh.” Colin and I exchanged looks. I knew better than to ask, but some part of me had hoped she could help me with my newfound, ill-approved talent. Colin shook his head at me, nearly imperceptible. Unlike me, he knew better than to open his big mouth. I drank more tea to keep myself occupied. At this rate, I’d have to slosh my way into the drawing room. Mother scrutinized me for a long moment before nodding her head.

  “You look very nice,” she said finally. “That dress is becoming on you.”

  I was wearing a dress with periwinkle and black stripes. I’d sewn silk violets along the neckline to make it more current. She leaned forward and pinched my cheeks.

  “Ouch!”

  “You need a few roses, a little color to entice your Mr. Trethewey. We can’t let all our hard work slip away now.”

  I’d forgotten all about him.

  “I’m very proud of you, darling. He’s got deep pockets, and a handsome face. You could hardly ask for better.”

  I squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable. Colin’s gaze burned over me but I refused to look over. Mother watched us both. “He’ll ask for your hand once we’re in London,” she continued smugly. “He’s already asked to pay us a call, and his mother is all kindness to you. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  The sun was setting behind the hills. It was almost time for us to go downstairs.

  “Colin, you go on ahead,” Mother told him. He stood and executed a very small bow but he aimed it mostly at me. When I rose to follow, Mother stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Don’t be a fool, Violet.”

  I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “He’s a good boy but he’s no better than he should be. You’d be an idiot to toss Mr. Trethewey and his very respectable family for a penniless orphan.”

  “I’m not tossing anybody,” I said hotly, jerking my arm away. “And Colin’s always done everything you’ve ever asked of him. How can you talk about him like that?”

  “It’s the truth,” she said with a negligent shrug. “You can love him, Violet, but you can’t marry him. What would you eat? Mud? Ash? He has no prospects.”

  “I don’t love Colin.” Did I? Surely not.

  “Then we have nothing to worry about, do we?”

  I shook my head sulkily. I wasn’t sure when marrying Colin had even become a possibility, or if it was one I would entertain, but I certainly didn’t like the implication that he wasn’t good enough. It made me feel decidedly cross and stubborn.

  “Can we go now?”

  She swept passed me toward the doorway.

  “Remember,” she said, as usual. “No mistakes.”

  The drawing room was quite crowded, the guests gossiping and chatting among themselves, sipping glasses of red wine or champagne. The gardens were dark and quiet behind the thick velvet curtains. There was no fire in the grate, but several oil lamps burned and a single candle sat on the mantel, as per my mother’s request. Colin was at his post by the door, watching carefully even though he appeared to everyone else to be staring at the wall like any good footman.

  Lord Jasper came toward us, his cane thumping on the gleaming hardwood floor. He wore black tonight, as did most of the men, with a starched white shirt. “Mrs. Willoughby, we are all looking forward to a demonstration of your rare gifts.” He bowed. “And yours, Miss Willoughby, should you be so inclined.”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair, squirming awkwardly. Mother stared at me through narrowed eyes for a brief moment before smiling graciously at Lord Jasper. “The spirits are eager to join us,” she said.

  “I am delighted to hear it.”

  “Quite a crush, tonight,” Mother remarked, pleased.

  “You are quite a sensation, my dear. Shall we have a seat?”

  Mother nodded, taking his arm. “If I could have a quiet moment to open my senses?”

  “Of course.”

  Mother sat in a wide-backed chair at the round mahogany table in the center of the room. She looked like a queen, merely waiting for the courtiers to bend a knee to her. This quiet moment was part of the show; it showed her off to her best advantage, pale, beautiful, and unapproachable. Lord Marshall hovered nearby, his eyes smoldering as he drank from a glass of wine. I didn’t like him any more than I had before. Mr. Travis was staring, as always. This time he went back and forth between Tabitha and me. I turned slightly, not wanting to make eye contact. I was trying to find a way to keep an eye on him without making myself obtrusive when Elizabeth eased away from her mother and spoke quietly at my elbow.

  “Do you think Rowena will come?”

  I shrugged even though I knew the answer: most assuredly not. Or, if she did come, my mother wouldn’t notice. “How’s Tabitha? Mr. Travis is watching her, but she really doesn’t seem to know him.”

  “He’s in trade, don’t forget. She won’t speak to him unless absolutely necessary. She only flirts with Xavier to needle you. Besides, she’s had a row with Caroline and she isn’t speaking to anybody now, not even her uncle.”

  My stomach tilted nervously. This was worse than our usual small sittings, with the grieving widows and bored peers out for a thrill. There were so many more people here tonight; many had traveled all the way from London for the experience. And they were all watching and waiting for my mother to contact their beloved dead. My mother was pretending, but some of these people really were grieving. I felt awful, like a beetle about to be stepped on.

  Conversations shifted and retreated as guests took their seats. Because of the size of the crowd, only a dozen or so had chairs to sit on. The rest stood in a semicircle by the fireplace. I already felt warm and stifled, the air heavy with perfumes and colognes and the sharp sweetness of brandy. There was a chair with a curtain pulled around it for Mother’s more spectacular spirit-conversations. It was well known that a medium’s gifts were best accessed in private.

  Mother still had her eyes closed, breathing deeply. “My daughter will see to the lights.”

  I made a circle of the room, extinguishing the gas lights. Thick twilight eased slowly into the room. When I reached the last light, I looked up into the face of the man standing near it, our faces the last features glowing in a dark corner.

  It was like looking into a mirror.

  There was no denying that the man in the black suit, with his dark, curly hair and wide mouth, was a relation. A very close relation. The pause lengthened as we stared, startled, at each other. Voices swelled in fevered whispers, rose and fell, as if we were at the seaside listening to the waves. There was a gasp, a titter.

  I wasn’t sure w
hat to do.

  Mother opened her eyes and turned toward us. Her face went waxy. Her lips trembled. “You.” She hardly made a sound, but I could read the movement of her mouth.

  “That’s not Mr. Willoughby,” someone murmured with the thrill of gossip. “That’s Nigel St. Clair, the Earl of Thornwood.”

  The Earl of Thornwood from Wiltshire. Mother really had been seduced by a lord’s son in Wiltshire.

  Because this man was clearly my father.

  There was simply no arguing with the blue-violet eyes, the shape of his brows, the color of his hair. I felt as if my every limb was filled with air; I was light, floating, disoriented. Mother’s cultivated and genteel widowhood was crumbling, our entire livelihood was in very real danger of disintegrating. And I could only stand and gape, wondering if my father recognized me, if he realized what was happening. If he remembered my mother even a little bit.

  His gaze flicked from Mother to me and back again. I knew the whispers were growing louder, edged with palpable shock, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to make out the words.

  “Lord Thornwood,” Mother said.

  “Mar—”

  She cut him off with an abrupt turn and clap of her hands. “The spirits will not wait. Violet, the light.”

  I hastily put it out even though I was reluctant to look at anyone else but this man, my father.

  “Violet, sit.”

  I shook my head to clear it and threw myself into a chair. I knew as well as she did that the only way we might salvage this affair was by truly bewildering the chattering audience with Mother’s powers.

  The only other option was ruin and disgrace.

  CHAPTER 15

  We begin with a prayer,” Mother murmured. I couldn’t look at Elizabeth, who was trying to meet my gaze, or Colin by the door, or Xavier, sitting all concerned across from me. Tabitha was no doubt in the throes of glee at my imminent downfall. I took a deep breath. I had to focus myself.

  The sitters bent their heads for a moment. There was no one else, not a single spirit or ghost. Not even Rowena. We were truly on our own tonight.

  “If everyone will take hands? It helps to conduct the flow of energy.”

  Everyone joined hands. Mother’s grip was tight, grinding my finger bones together. The whispering hadn’t entirely died down. I had to fight the urge to turn and stare at Lord Thornwood, standing behind us. The back of my neck was all tingles and prickles. What was he doing here? Was he truly who I thought he was? And what did that mean for me, exactly?

  “Do you feel that?” someone murmured.

  There was a cold breath of air, one I knew had nothing to do with spirits. This one was too rhythmic, too predictable. I wasn’t sure where the bellows were or who was manning them, but I recognized the stale air. The table shivered.

  “Henry!” A woman gasped, huddling closer to her husband. Henry didn’t look any more inclined to bravery.

  The shiver turned to a shudder.

  “Are the spirits here?”

  Three distinct taps.

  “Yes,” Mother translated. “Three for yes, two for maybe, one for no.”

  “Grandfather?” a man asked tentatively. “I can smell your cologne.”

  Three more taps. The young man flushed happily. His eyes were very bright.

  “We are indeed blessed here tonight,” Mother declared.

  The séance was following the same standards they all did; there were just no ghosts to take part. The metal plate discreetly attached to the bottom of Mother’s left shoe was the reason for the resounding taps. Whispers again, but this time about ancestors and cold hands on the shoulder. Not about the startling resemblance between Lord Thornwood and me.

  Mother’s grip tightened painfully on mine. I felt under the table leg with the toe of my boot, slowly inching across the wood until I found the vial I’d secured there. I tilted it so that the liquid pooled onto the carpet, easily absorbed before the end of the night. A waft of heavy perfume, lilac, enveloped us. A woman sniffed delicately.

  “Lilac perfume! My mother’s favorite!”

  No one recalled that twenty years ago there had been quite a craze for lilac perfume. There were few drawing room sitters of a certain age who didn’t have an olfactory memory similar to this one. The woman wept openly. I felt horrid.

  “Maman always promised she would send me a sign.”

  My shoulders slumped. I had never wanted to run from a séance as much as I did now. If I could have chewed through my own wrists to tear my hands free, I would have leaped over the table toward the door. Mother often said she provided a service, a comfort to the grieving, no different from any priest, who, after all, couldn’t prove the existence of God any more than anyone could prove the existence of ghosts. I couldn’t help but feel it was a cruel hoax, but I was caught like a fly in a web. Mother rose gracefully to her feet.

  “I will retire to contact them more deeply. Let us sing to welcome them!”

  She eased behind the curtain, ostensibly to sit on the stool provided and open herself up to the spirits. I thought of the man at the pond. Perhaps it was for the best that Mother had no real talent for this work.

  After a long moment in the singing dark, a pale face emerged in the small parting of the curtains. The eyes were glassy, the expression eerie. Someone squeaked. A glass rattled on a side table when someone else took a surprised step backward.

  “Do you see? Do you see? She’s entranced!”

  “That isn’t her face!”

  “The eyes, you know. So different.”

  Everyone was more than eager to offer up their own brand of certainty. Mother’s face did indeed look otherworldly. She kept it frighteningly still before withdrawing. And then the tricky part: for full-spirit materialization, Mother had to emerge completely from the cabinet, with none the wiser.

  Tricky and yet simpler than you might imagine, if done properly.

  The audience was far too busy looking at the window, their attention redirected by Colin, who had subtly pulled the drapes. Marjorie was in the room directly overhead with a basket of distractions.

  “It’s snowing!”

  There was a general outcry of appreciation. Marjorie shook out the bits of shredded feathers Colin had gathered, just enough for a brief and bizarre fall of snow on a fine summer night. By morning, the wind would have carried the feathers away. Any that remained would be removed by Colin, who would spend the dark hours when everyone, including the servants, were abed, cleaning up any remaining evidence.

  Earlier, Colin had attached thread to the set of curtains at the other set of windows. Now, he gave it a tug. No one noticed. They were too busy pointing to the magically drifting drapes. Marjorie, knowing the routine, had run to the next set of overhanging windows and was now lowering a specially made wax hand to the edge of the casement. All we saw were pale fingertips scratching at the glass. A flutter of red rose petals dripped like blood.

  And then it was Mother’s turn.

  There was a bloodcurdling shriek and everyone jumped in their seats. Hands fluttered to pale throats, gasps ricocheted through the room.

  Alice Owen had arrived.

  Alice was always popular as she circled through the room in a white shift, careful not to touch anyone. The shift had been soaked in lavender water and worn damp under Mother’s corset. Released, the scent filled the room like another guest. Murmurs and whispers followed in its wake.

  “I am Alice,” she said, her voice quite altered. She sounded younger, her tone decidedly nasal. She stopped behind an old man’s chair. A dignified woman across the table squeaked. “She pinched me!”

  She was clearly out of arm’s reach from Mother. The pinch came from the small metal darning needle attached to a flexible rod in my boot. It was nothing to slip it out under the table and give the sitters a small poke. It always made them giggle, and I always chose the most disapproving matron or condescending young lord.

  “And me!” a young girl exclaimed with a loud chuck
le.

  I hadn’t even touched her.

  That happened rather frequently as well.

  Mother continued to drift throughout the room. The sitters seemed well and truly distracted, thoroughly entertained by the promise of scandalous gossip and the shiver of speaking to the dead. I was just as distracted, wondering what Lord Thornwood was thinking and if I would be able to speak to him. Even if I didn’t quite know what I was meant to say.

  It was my fault.

  I wasn’t paying attention.

  Actually, it was Rowena’s fault.

  The room tilted, the comfortable chair faded, and I became dead to the whispers of the guests around me. It was suddenly the middle of the night. I wore a thick wrapper against the chill and there was darkness all around me, even in the corridor just outside the half-opened door. I was in a library, kneeling on the hard stones in front of a fireplace. Only a single ember smoldered, flaring red when I dug through the ash. I pulled at the corner of a folded parchment letter, burned at the edges.

  I couldn’t make out the writing but I recognized it. Rowena recognized it. And it sent such a cold lance of fear through her stomach that she had to grab the side of the marble fireplace for support.

  Her secret was out.

  And she was doomed.

  I slammed back into my body when one of the gas lamps suddenly flamed high.

  I’d been trapped in Rowena’s memory and hadn’t seen Caroline move. Colin was across the room and too far away to stop her. She shot me a triumphant glance. The light was soft like honey, touching everything. It dripped over jet beads and diamond hairpins, over starched cravats, over the quivering ferns, and seemed to pool on mother’s discarded dress, peeking out from behind the curtain.

  Mother herself froze between the sitters and the row of guests standing behind them. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, her throat bare of its necklace. She wore only her linen shift. The light shone through it, revealing her limbs and illuminating every curve.