Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy

CHAPTER 22

Eliza was planning an experiment. Tonight, if the ghost knocked again, she would answer. She’d refused to go downstairs for tea, even though Malcolm had lingered by her door for a ridiculous amount of time. Instead, she’d spent the better part of the afternoon coming up with a code and key she could use to commune with the spirit. Even though hunger gnawed at her stomach, she was determined to avoid the kitchens until the rest of the house was sleeping. She was being petty, and she knew it, but spending another tense hour across from her husband at dinner was not her idea of a pleasant evening.

She’d nearly finished reading Ada’s diary—the pages toward the end had been ripped from their binding, and there was a gap in entries from shortly before the twins’ third birthday to their twelfth year, as if Ada hadn’t cared to journal their childhood. Strange for an otherwise devoted mother. Eliza had begun a chronology of events within her notebook, carefully constructing a timeline from the evidence in Ada’s diary as well as the anecdotes she’d gathered from Shirley and Sarah.

The final entries were almost illegible. Ada’s messy handwriting was now a shaky scrawl that showed growing evidence of a tremor. Eliza scrutinized the words with her magnifying glass.

March 25th, 1887

My sons are growing into young men.

Malcolm is ever by my side. The old man says he is mollycoddled, but what am I to do? He’s a quiet lad, of delicate nature. I do my best to protect him from his father, but the old bastard persists on tormenting the boy as if he were a nuisance and not his first son and heir.

My Gabriel, on the other hand, is strong-willed and stubborn, though he hasn’t an ounce of guile—when I catch him at his boyish crimes, he confesses and never lies about having done them. Instead, he seems rather proud of how clever he is. He’s too much like me, that one.

What will I do once my wee ones are grown and gone away, and I’m left with old Havenwood? Miserable thought. I am most relieved he no longer attempts his poking. His staff will only rise to half-mast now, thanks be to God. I made the mistake of laughing. Once.

December 18th, 1887

Havenwood has betrothed Malcolm to a local girl—the middle daughter of George Moseley—and he’s gone behind my back to do so. I was furious when I found out. Moseley is a duplicitous and cunning shill, with a mind only for money. Una is to be wed to Malcolm when he turns twenty-one. I got myself into such a state upon hearing this news as to require a heavy dose of laudanum.

The old man is doing this to punish me. He’d a notion to start up his poking again after all these months of celibacy and found his way to my room the night before last. Malcolm had taken to my bed—the poor bairn had only had a night terror and wanted my comfort. Old Havenwood threw back the covers, and finding Malcolm there, pulled him down upon the floor and began to beat him as I watched. I climbed onto the old bastard’s back to try to pull him off—he struck me full across the face and tossed me across the room. I now bear a bruise under my eye that no amount of tincture or cosmetics will cover. I believe I’ve a broken rib as well. Each breath feels as if I’m being stabbed in the side by a hot poker. I am not allowed to see a physician, so who can know? I bind myself with my corsets and Beatrice makes cool poultices to soothe the pain. I must heal soon.

My papa is not well. He is plagued by returning tumors and fits of fatigue. I plan to journey to Scotland to care for him, as I believe he is not long for the world. I will take Malcolm and Gabriel with me and devise a plan to remedy the situation I now find myself in. I am wretched with it.

Eliza’s stomach turned. In this very room, where Malcolm made love to her, his own father had beaten him. And how many times had Ada felt Thomas’s unkind touch on the same bed in which Eliza slept? The thought sickened her and brought a newfound sympathy for her husband at the same time. Was it any wonder he sometimes struggled with showing affection and empathy? That his moods were as unpredictable as a storm at sea?

The final two pages, loosened by the threadbare binding supporting them, slid free onto the surface of her secretary. There was another long gap between entries. Ada’s handwriting trailed haphazardly across the pages, blots of ink scarring the paper.

January 5th, 1888

My poor papa has died. I was not allowed to travel to Brynmoor to see him during his illness. I’ve even been forbidden from going to his funeral. Old Havenwood found out about my plans to leave him. No doubt it was due to Galbraith’s snooping and prowling. How I hate that woman.

February 3rd, 1893

I am now locked within the south wing, day and night, with a set of keys that are never within my grasp. The chill creeps . . . as the wind pushes through the weak spots within the walls. Shadows whisper and taunt, crawling over the ceiling like insects. My mind is no longer sound, nor trustworthy. I have turned to my old friend laudanum, as its velvet comfort is the only way I can take rest.

May 1st, 1894

At long last, when I had found love—truest, purest love in spite of my captivity!—I am now left broken by it. I find myself desolate at my memories of such a brief, golden time. Now that I have tasted passion, I would give such riches to have it again! I partook of heaven—and knew what it meant to be whole and loved for who I am. But now, my kindred spirit has left me.

I wish that my husband would d . . . I pray for it. My fantasies concerning the painful and inventive ways it might happen are of great comfort. My own darkness frightens me.

Ada had taken a lover, it seemed. But who? Could it have been Beatrice, or someone else? And if so, what had happened to part them? Eliza opened her notebook and scratched, Took lover between February 1893 and May 1894.

Tap, tap, tap.

At the sound of the ghostly rapping, Eliza jumped from her desk, pushing Ada’s diary to the side. Her hands shook with excitement as she opened her chalk tablet. She’d transcribed the alphabet across its surface in a neat row, a series of dots beneath each letter. The sound came again, and Eliza answered, tapping on her blotter with her knuckles.

An echoing knock replied immediately.

“Hello there,” Eliza said. Her lips spread into a smile. “What would you like to tell me?”

Three hours later, her mattress was strewn with paper. Some of the communication had been successful; some of it had not. But one thing was certain: the spirit she’d been speaking with wasn’t malevolent old Havenwood, but a woman, and she had died in this house.