Picture the Dead

“I apologize if he was curt.”

In Geist’s face I sense an apology reluctantly accepted. “Miss Lovell, I don’t mean to hurry you off, but I have a busy schedule today.” He raises his voice. “Viviette!”

As Mavis whisks around from the pantry now that I’m a lady again, I’m not allowed to travel unaccompanied a visibly pregnant Viviette hastens down the stairs.

Geist takes his leave as Viviette helps us with our bonnets and gloves. Opening the front door, she levels me in her anthracite gaze.

“That first time,” she hisses, her breath so close that my nostrils detect an odor of pickled herring, “when you all was here, I was visited, too, I was. An evil presence come into that room with you and your kin. Evil as evil is.”

“Stop it, Viviette. You’re just trying to scare me,” I tell her. “Though I don’t know why…”

She webs her bony fingers over her belly, guarding it. “I told my fright to Mister Geist, and next thing I did was leave this place at once. I feared the curse might be catched onto my unborn.”

“You talk of catching a curse as if it’s a pox,” I rebuke.

“I know what I know.” Viviette yanks up her chin as she bumps the side of her thumb repeatedly against her breastbone. “I got the sight. Nobody would deny it. When there’s a demon close, it infects me. When that same demon returns, it strikes me exactly the same.”

Surely I am not a demon in her eyes. What have I ever done to her? Why would she accuse me? My fingers fuss with my bonnet ribbon. “Viviette, I’ll thank you to keep your low opinion of me and my family to yourself.”

“An evil business you’re tangled in,” she continues doggedly. “It’s a shame you’re too close to see it proper.”

“Good day,” I manage, though I can’t mask that she’s shocked me.

Out on the street, my heart beats hard as a hammer even as I shrug it off. “Silly chit.” I sniff at Mavis. “I’d wager the most demonic thing Viviette has encountered lately is her own sourpickle breath.”

“Miss High ’n’ Mighty’s been posing as an angel too long,” Mavis agrees. “And a fine one she’d make these days, in her condition. Did you finish your business with Mister Geist?”

“No, but he’s finished with me,” I admit. “He thinks I’m full of nonsense.”

Mavis allows a pause. “If it’s any comfort, it’s not just you, Miss Jennie, who feels a…restlessness in Pritchett House. We talk about it sometimes, downstairs.”

Her declaration surprises me. I thought that my haunting was for me alone.

“Tell me what you mean, Mavis.”

She bites her lip. “Oh, it’s wee things, here and there. Like from the fairy stories my mum used to tell us. I can’t help but notice the drafts that get into a room. A fire blown out. A window pushed open on a cold day. A shadow flung ’cross a carpet, but not a body attached to it. And there’s been times, Miss, when I’ll look up from my dusting or making up a bed, and I know clear as church bells that I’m being watched by someone, or something.” Her eyes meet mine. “There’s talk that Mister Will got corrupted in the war. That he turned bad. Have y’ever thought, Miss, that it might be best not to try and make peace with his spirit?”

I am at a loss. “But what else is there? If not peace and forgiveness?”

“I agree to a point, Miss. But if there’s a demon, why, you’ve got to drive him out.” Her fist smacks her palm. “Before he is the unholy death of you. For there are ways.” I sense these thoughts have been thickening in Mavis’s head awhile, as she recites them. “A Bible in the windowsill should help. Or hang a crucifix. Or get a cat. A good Maine coon cat’ll shoo the devil from a house better than most people. P’raps you could ask Father Sheehan to come sprinkle every room with holy water.”

Her solutions are childish, but her emotions are fervent. I wonder how far and wide these tales of Pritchett House have spread.

The wind nearly blows us backward once we turn the corner onto Federal Street, where I’m greeted in the bank’s atrium by the spectacle of both Wortley sisters, overdressed in flourishes and furbelows. They are both on me at once.

“Jennie, what luck!” trills Flora.

“We were just having our spring hats trimmed at Mrs. Hawksby’s, and then we stepped in here to wait for our carriage!”

“Do tell us when we can call on you, Jennie, for we hear such delightful news ”

“Mama wrote all about your turn of fortune when we were in Concord visiting Aunt Sal last week. Didn’t you land feet-up in the butter! So Quinn isn’t gone mad, as most everyone thought. He’ll be working right here in this bank, and you’ll be the new Mrs. Pritchett. When Flora read the note, she nearly dropped out of her chair with envy! She’s been in love with Quincy Pritchett since she was in bloomers.”

“Hush, Rosemary, I am not but show us your ring!”

“Yes, let’s see!” Rosemary captures my hand, then flinches as her voice drops. “Why, my dear, that’s the very same, the diamond and garnets ”

Flora gapes. “Nooo…not Will’s ring!”

“The one your aunt yanked off ”

“Aunt Clara specially wanted me to have it back,” I fib, though I could curse the flush blooming in my face. “It’s a family piece, after all.”

“Certainly it would be a waste of an adequate stone.” Flora smirks, and I know she is burning to spread the gossip of my twiceused ring.

“Are you planning a big June wedding?” Rosemary asks. “Think of us, dear heart, when you’re choosing bridesmaids. Whatever you do, don’t make me wear chartreuse, for it drains all the color from my face. Peach or mint would do nicely, though.”

“Oooh, that reminds me will you serve ice cream?” Flora clasps her hands.

Rosemary giggles. “Flora, you’ll eat yourself to death before you find a husband!”

“Sister, you are too droll!” Flora grates a laugh, as she jabs Rosemary hard in the ribs. “There’s Mr. Jake now, waving for us. Here, take my card. I just had them done in the very latest design. And do you have one for me? No? Never mind, then. Good-bye, Jennie, darling.” They exit the bank in a babble.

“Jennie, darling! Did you hear that?” I turn to Mavis. “Everyone knows that family’s the worst kind of snobs. It was only two months ago they all but refused my friendship.”

“Oh, but Miss, this wedding’ll make you the belle of Brookline.” Mavis chuckles. “Both those sisters had set their caps tight for Mister Quinn ’fore he left for the war. My sister, Betsey, howled to watch ’em fuss and preen.”

I smile. “I’d forgotten.”

Mavis twinkles. “He was always tweaking one sister off t’other.

And never serious with neither. Oh, no man in his right mind would marry either of those two spoiled nobodies!”

But I’m not thinking of the plight of the charmless Wortley sisters. The echoes of too many voices hold my ear.

Didn’t you land feet up in the butter…

Isn’t gone mad, as most everyone thought…

A demon close. A bad business.

Quinn will only laugh it off and tell me that it’s the rare soul who’s truly happy for another’s good fortune. Especially not a fraudulent medium, or a family of social climbers, or a pregnant servant girl.

Still, I cringe from public speculation, so easily given and so bruising. I make up my mind to order some engraved calling cards just as soon as Quinn and I are wed.

“A June wedding would be beautiful,” I mention to Mavis on the ride back, quietly enough that Uncle Henry doesn’t hear. “But I’d prefer something modest. Anything extravagant might be dishonorable to Will’s memory.”

Mavis pulls on her agreeable face, though I know she thinks I ought to do just as I please and have as sumptuous a wedding as I want. Honor be damned.

I have to wonder if Will would have paid me the same courtesy.