Haunting Violet
Page 3

“We’ll sing the traditional hymns now,” she said. She made us sing three of the longest songs in her repertoire until all of our throats were dry. Meanwhile, Colin had smothered the fire, just enough to let a chill creep over us. The old women reached for their cups, taking several deep, restorative swallows.
Mother had us hold hands. “Horace Gordon, we call on you, beloved dead, to speak to us.”
Mrs. Gordon’s fingers trembled. She looked eagerly around the room.
“Horace Gordon,” Mother called again, louder. We all reflexively looked at her. Colin seized the moment to toss a handkerchief packed with Epsom salts and table salt into the dying fire. It flared high, tinged with green and yellow, then burned white when the Epsom salts in the center of the bundle caught.
Mrs. Gordon caught her breath. Even Miss Hartington looked impressed.
And then the laudanum took effect. Their pupils dilated so that they really did look like sinister old witches. I cringed.
“He’s here!” Mrs. Gordon exclaimed. “Oh, Horace!”
Mother tilted her head as if she were listening to ghostly voices. I peered into the shadows, looking for a transparent foot or ectoplasmic cloak. Disappointed, I saw only Colin and a small fluttering ball of dust under one of the sofa legs.
“Mr. Gordon would like me to tell you that he is well,” Mother said. “He is happy on the other side and is with your Amelia.”
“I do smell his horrid cigars,” Miss Hartington admitted, stunned. She blinked several times, then yawned.
“I see him!” Mrs. Gordon wept. “I see him standing right there. Like he used to be, so handsome!”
She was looking over my shoulder. A chill crept over the back of my neck.
“And Amelia, dear Amelia.” She wiped her eyes. “Might I speak to her?”
“I can try,” Mother said, sounding exhausted. “I have a little strength left. Amelia? Amelia, dear?”
Mrs. Gordon was practically on her feet, staring into the space over the table where my mother’s gaze was focused.
“She’s here.” Mother’s arm lifted slowly, her white glove pale as moonlight. She extended her elbow with such concentrated energy, such purpose, that we were all arrested. We couldn’t look away.
She pointed right at me.
I stared back at her in horror, my dark ringlets bobbing at my temples.
Mrs. Gordon looked down at me, laudanum, grief, and desperation clouding her vision. “Oh, Amelia. My Amelia.”
She reached for me but I cringed back in my chair. Miss Hartington was smiling as though she’d drunk too much gin. Their fingers were knobbly and crooked, grasping at my hair and the mended ruffle on my pinafore.
“I don’t like this,” I whimpered.
Colin threw another handful of salts into the fire and it flared so high and hot that the weird green light burned the color from us all, until we were as pale as wilted celery. The ladies barely noticed. They wouldn’t stop reaching for me, looking so hopeful and pleased even as they wept.
Mother suddenly pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and gave a heartbreaking little sigh. “Alas, Amelia has left us,” she declared in a strong voice that was distinctly at odds with her drooping posture.
Mrs. Gordon blinked at her, then at me, her arms dropping suddenly to her side. The diamond ring on her hand hit the table with a crack. She looked even older than before.
“Amelia?”
“I’m sorry,” Mother said. “I am simply too tired to go on.” She paused delicately.
“Perhaps next week?”
CHAPTER 1
1872
A lady does not dance more than two dances with the same gentleman.
The daughter of an earl precedes the wife of the youngest son of a marquis but not the wife of the youngest son of a duke.
And I was the daughter of a Spiritualist medium lately from Cheapside.
I was used to simple rules: don’t get caught.
I went back to memorizing the many intricate and involved rules of the British aristocracy, because as convoluted and boring as they were, it was still preferable to talking to my mother.
A lady eats what she is served at dinner without comment.
I was usually hungry enough to eat what I was given without comment, but if the earl served boiled tongue or calves’ foot jelly, I fully intended to wrap it in my napkin and hide it in the nearest umbrella stand.
A well-bred lady always removes her gloves at dinner but never at a ball. She should also travel with two sets of silk gloves and one of kid.
Never mind that I had only two pairs of gloves to my name to begin with, I wasn’t a well-bred lady. I might look the part in my secondhand dresses with the added silk ruchings and delicate embroidery, but I’d done all that work myself, sewing until my fingers bled, to have them ready for this journey.
It was all a pretense.
And it might work well enough in our London parlor for an hour or two, but this trip was a different matter altogether. I’d never dined with earls or dowager countesses or even wealthy tradesmen. Frankly, I’d rather walk alone on the outskirts of Whitechapel. At least I knew what I was about there; I knew what the dangers were and how to avoid them.
An earl’s country estate might as well be deepest India.
When the train reached the next station, I slipped onto the platform before my mother could start another lecture on regal bearing under the cover of the noise of the crowds and the steam engine.
I knew I shouldn’t venture out into the crowd unaccompanied, but I needed a few moments away from my mother and the starched and proper aristocrats with whom we shared the car. They knew we didn’t belong there. I knew we didn’t belong there. Only my mother seemed determined to ignore that fact with sniffs of disdain and complaints about the violent rocking of the train and what it was doing to her delicate sensibilities.