That Silent Night (5 page)

“How did you know I'd be here?” she asked.

I thanked the boys for their service and told them to go find the priest. They argued all the way down the steps and were still at it when their voices faded in the distance.

“I understand you had hoped to be married in the abbey and thought it to be as good a place as any to search,” I said. “Your husband is beside himself with worry and combing London for you.”

“He is not with you?”

“No, he and Colin set off before I had the idea to come here,” I said. “Will you tell me what is troubling you?”

“There is nothing to speak of,” she said, and struggled to get to her feet. Corsets make the simplest movement difficult. I took her hand and assisted her. “I ought to return home.”

“Please, talk to me,” I said. “I want to help you.”

“No one can help me, Lady Emily,” she said. “No one sees the things I do.”

“You can't know that, Mrs. Leighton,” I said. “I have seen things—“

“Please, let me be. You must not force a confidence on me. I cannot bear it.” She did not speak again, not as we made our way out of the abbey, not as I thanked the priest and choristers for their assistance, not as we climbed into the waiting carriage outside. The gentlemen had not returned when we reached the Leightons' house, and I insisted on coming inside.

Back in the yellow sitting room, I plied Mrs. Leighton with tea, but still she refused to speak, and I began to see the wisdom in her husband's bringing in Dr. Holton. The silence between us bore down with the weight Atlas must have felt when shouldering the world. Then, as I sat, unsure of what to do, that chill feeling I now recognized all too well crept into the room, enveloping me. As it intensified, the cup and saucer in Mrs. Leighton's hand started to rattle. She trembled from head to toe, and her face had gone a ghastly shade of white.

“You feel it, too?” I asked, standing and going to the window, where I pulled back the curtains with a flourish. There, just as I expected, stood the eerie woman, in front of the park gate, holding the chain and moving it back and forth.

Mrs. Leighton emitted a hideous shriek and collapsed onto the floor.

A cursory examination told me she had fainted, but that nothing beyond that ailed her (at least physically), so without further delay, I raced out of the house and across the street, nearly knocking over the butler on my way. He called after me, but I had no time to reply.

The woman had disappeared again, of course, but this time her footprints remained. Colin's deduction that the wind had covered them with snow the previous night must have been sound. More important, however, she had dropped something. The gold glinted in the gaslight. I crouched down to retrieve the object, a small oval locket on a thin chain. She had been no ghostly apparition, and the chill that had overcome me must have come from nothing more than my own anxiety and expectations. Thinking about it, I could not be certain that I had felt it before the teacup started to rattle in Mrs. Leighton's hand.

“Emily?” Colin called to me from across the street, where he and Mr. Leighton had just alighted from a hansom cab. “What is going on?”

“I must return to Mrs. Leighton at once,” I said, running past them both back into the house. They followed, of course, catching me on the stoop as I waited for the butler to respond to my knock. “She is home and safe—I found her in Westminster Abbey—“

“You were to stay here and wait for her,” Colin said.

“That is of no consequence at present,” I said. “I saw the woman again, and so did Mrs. Leighton, but now I have proof that she is no ghost.” I held up the dainty necklace. “Will you please explain to Mr. Leighton? I need a moment alone with his wife.”

The butler, more confused than ever, had opened the door in the midst of my speech. I pushed past him, deciding my husband could handle him better than I. Colin sputtered something, and I heard Mr. Leighton calling after me, but I had every faith that my capable spouse would trust me enough to ensure I had time to speak to Mrs. Leighton in private.

She had not recovered from her faint when I returned to her, and I felt ever so slightly guilty at having left without sending at least a servant to her. I knelt beside her on the floor and tapped her cheeks with my hand.

“Mrs. Leighton,” I said. “You fainted. Please do come round as I have no smelling salts.” I looked around for something that might serve in their stead, but short of flinging cold tea on her, there was nothing to be done. I tapped her cheeks again, this time harder, and her eyelids fluttered.

“What—” She looked in dismay at the shattered remains of the teacup, a casualty of her faint, next to her.

I helped her sit up and move to the settee. “I don't suppose you have anything stronger than tea to drink in here?”

“No.” She was staring at the floor.

There was no viable teacup remaining save the one I had used, and I did not want us to be interrupted at present; she would have to wait for a restorative beverage. “I saw her, too,” I said. “She is not a ghost.”

“She must be a ghost,” Mrs. Leighton said, her voice shaking and small. “There is no other explanation.”

“I know she looks to you like your mother,” I said. “But I have seen her three times now, and can assure you that she is very much a living person.”

“My mother?” Mrs. Leighton crinkled her brow. “No, not my mother. My sister.”

“Sister?”

“Otherwise she would not have held the necklace.”

“This necklace?” I asked, holding up for her the object I had removed from the snow. I got no response, as Mrs. Leighton fainted again. I sighed. All this fainting was inconvenient, but one could hardly blame the poor thing. I opened the door to the room and called for my husband. He came without delay, Mr. Leighton and the butler close on his heels. “Have you any smelling salts?”

The butler went in search of them while Mr. Leighton all but flung me out of the way so that he could reach his wife. She had not fallen off the settee, but he gathered her in his arms nonetheless and spoke to her, trying to rouse her. Fortunately, the butler returned and handed me a small vial, which I waved under Mrs. Leighton's nose after persuading her spouse to return her to a supine position. She came to at once.

“Where is the necklace?” she asked. I handed it to her. “I have its twin,” she said, reaching behind her high net collar and pulling out an identical locket. Aunt Clara gave them to us both—Adelaide and me—after Mother…” Her voice trailed off.

“Don't try to talk, my dear,” Mr. Leighton said. “I shall send for Dr. Holton right away.”

“That won't be necessary,” I said. “Your wife has had a perfectly normal reaction to seeing someone she did not expect.”

“My wife's sister has been dead for five years, Lady Emily. She ought not be seeing her at all.”

“I saw her as well, and I can assure you the person standing outside was very much alive.”

“Then she cannot have been Adelaide.” Mrs. Leighton's eyes filled with tears. “Which, of course, I knew all along. She died at thirteen and ghosts don't age, do they? Yet how could someone else have her necklace?”

“May I see them both?” I asked. She gave them to me: two identical, gold oval lockets, which, when opened, each revealed a cutting of hair, tied with a thin black ribbon. “Mourning jewelry,” I said. “Your mother's hair?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Leighton said, dissolving into sobs.

“This is quite enough,” Mr. Leighton said. “I cannot let her get more upset. I am most grateful for your assistance, but must beg you to let us be now. She needs Dr. Holton.”

Colin and I had to do what he asked, although I must admit with some disappointment that my husband made it perfectly clear he thought this to be an excellent idea. He did, however, hang back a moment and say something to Mr. Leighton, who nodded in reply.

I did not speak until we had reached our own house. “We should have at least—“

“Got one of the necklaces?” he finished for me. “Leighton gave the one you found to me. I have it in my pocket.”

Davis opened the door before I could respond. “Port and whisky are already waiting in the library.”

“Thank you, Davis,” I said. “Cigars as well?”

“I have warned you before, madam, that you ought not push your luck. Should Mr. Hargreaves wish to enable your further corruption, he may give you a cigar, but I shall not be used as an instrument of destruction.”

“You are a good man, Davis,” Colin said, grinning and clapping him on the back. “I admire your strict adherence to your principles.”

Back in the library, Colin and I recounted for each other our search efforts. “Good thinking to try the abbey,” he said, “although it would be best if she never learns that you read her correspondence.”

“What choice did I have?” I asked. “It is so cold out, and we had no way of knowing what condition she was in. She might have fled without even a coat. I felt the situation to be urgent and, hence, it called for the employment of any method that might lead to finding her as quickly as possible.”

Colin nodded. “A wise decision, my dear. Leighton is devoted to her, but he found himself at a loss when it came to trying to find her. They have been married just two months. He can only know her so well, particularly given her affliction.”

I examined the necklace. “Mrs. Leighton said her aunt had the mourning necklaces made for the girls, but I cannot understand why she did not take in both of them. Was not losing their mother a cruel enough twist of fate? To separate them, at the height of their grief…”

“Are you certain she didn't give a home to both of them?”

“Yes,” I said. “Mrs. Leighton told me that after the day she went to live with her aunt, she never saw her sister—Adelaide—again.”

Colin shrugged. “It is dreadful, but not entirely unusual. People cannot always afford to take in all their orphaned relatives. What became of Adelaide? Was she sent to some other relative?”

“Yes, an uncle. Evidently he did not feel a need to keep the girl's necklace after her death,” I said. “He was her father's brother and may not have been well acquainted with his sister-in-law.”

“Extended families are not often close, particularly when the members do not live near one another,” Colin said. “I understand from Leighton that her father's family did not have much money.”

“I should like to know where this uncle lives,” I said. “Would Mr. Leighton know, do you think?”

“You may inquire tomorrow,” Colin said. “Knowing you would not leave this business alone, I have invited him to breakfast so that we may speak to him without his wife.”

“Need I tell you that I adore you?” I asked, and squeezed his hand.

“I never object to hearing it, my dear.”

*   *   *

When he arrived for breakfast, Mr. Leighton looked a shadow of the cheerful man we had seen before. His puffy, shadowed eyes showed evidence of the sleepless night he must have spent, and his manner was agitated and abrupt.

“I ought not stay long,” he said, warming his hands on his teacup. “I do not like to leave her alone. Dr. Holton came last night and is most concerned.”

“Do you know what happened to her sister?” I asked.

“Penelope's aunt was only able to take in one of the girls. Adelaide, I am afraid, wound up in the care of a bachelor uncle who died a few years later.”

“The poor child,” I said.

“Yes. Even more unfortunate, Aunt Clara did not learn of his death until after Adelaide had already been sent to an orphanage somewhere in London, where the girl succumbed to consumption, just like her mother. Penelope was never able to mourn properly.”

“Do you know which orphanage?” I asked. “I wonder if it would help your wife to be able to visit her sister's grave?”

“Her aunt had the same thought, but evidently the burials given to orphans are not…” Mr. Leighton sighed. “It is not clear where, precisely, the girl was interred. I do not think there is much point in further pursuing it. More important is to stop this wretched woman from standing outside and tormenting my wife.”

“Agreed,” Colin said. “And that should not prove too difficult. I can have a constable patrol the street with greater frequency and ,if you like, you and I can take watches until she turns up, although I would not be surprised if she stops the moment she takes note of any police presence.”

“Who do you think she is?” I asked.

“I have not the slightest interest,” Mr. Leighton said. “I just want her to go away.”

“There is nothing on the locket indicating its maker, so unless she knew Adelaide, it is unlikely that she could have connected the necklace to your wife. Perhaps her friendship with Adelaide—“

“Penelope does not need some down-on-her-luck street woman worming into her life. Forgive me if my words sound harsh, but her nerves—“

“I agree, Mr. Leighton,” I said. “Yet if this woman can speak to her about her sister, it might help your wife feel some sort of closure. Can you imagine the guilt that must plague her? To know that she was plucked away from the life that killed Adelaide? She lived in comfort while her sister wasted away in an orphanage.”

“She is not to blame for any of that,” he said.

“Of course not,” I said. “But I do not think your wife views it that way. She is consumed with—“

“You cannot know what is in her head,” Mr. Leighton said. “I am sorry, Lady Emily, I know you are only trying to help, and I do appreciate it, but my darling Pen has been through too much already. I think we shall quit England altogether and live abroad. No ghosts—real or imagined—will haunt her there.”

Colin shot me a meaningful look, and I excused myself, assuring Mr. Leighton that he had not offended me. When my husband came to me in the library nearly an hour later, frustration clouded his handsome features.