The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart Read online

  Jonathon’s cup rattled slightly. I imagined he had a lot to say about loss but couldn’t. We had to play nice. Complicit. It was sickening.

  So Samuel was losing Elsa, and Preston had lost a Laura, but what did that have to do with splitting soul from body? Would they seek to put their love’s souls into other bodies? Was that the bait that lured gifted doctors?

  “What news from the home front?” Preston asked Jonathon. “And the New York branch? Settled into their offices?”

  Jonathon chuckled low, a sound I didn’t like. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t been in touch. I’m in a brave new world, and I wanted to…explore New York to the fullest. I came west to…cool my heels. I was attracting attention I don’t think is proper at this stage.”

  Samuel looked at Jonathon with concern. Preston only looked at him blankly.

  “I know nothing about the wings of experimentation by the Master’s Society,” Preston replied. “Other than mine. But if you’re in touch with the London office, tell them that while my work may be slow, it’s sure. I won’t be pressured for results. I don’t want my careful work destroyed.” Preston turned to Samuel. “They seem to forget sometimes that we’re only human. Don’t you forget it.”

  Samuel furrowed his fair brow. “How can we forget our humanity, and the delicacy of it, when we face death nearly every day in our profession?”

  A flicker across Preston’s haunted face made him appear older than he was. “Because it’s easy to get lost in the work, my friend. It’s so important to us. My department has doctors working in three major cities questioning when a dead body is really dead, all of us prodigies under thirty. Our associates treasure the fire of youth as much as anything. But with fire, there’s smoke. And in the thick of smoke, one can lose his way…”

  Was this a warning or was Preston talking about himself? I sat watching the conversation, glad to be ignored because I wasn’t sure I’d manage to say the right thing. Occasionally Samuel stared at me as if I didn’t belong or something didn’t add up.

  “Why are you here?” Jonathon asked Preston coldly. “I won’t tolerate being followed.”

  “Calm yourself. My being here has nothing to do with you,” Preston scoffed. “The Mayo family brought me this direction. Then I found out that Samuel had left your London clinic and thought I’d seek him out since we’ve so much in common.”

  “I am sorry to hear about Elsa,” Jonathon said quietly. Samuel nodded.

  “Mayo,” Preston said in his uncanny whisper. “True luminary of our craft. That family may change the whole profession. I know genius when I see it. But when I return to New York, I shall be the one to prove that death will not be the last word…”

  I looked into my tea to hide my anxiety. Preston was based in New York? The Master’s Society had offices there?

  “So with that, I must be off.” Preston rose. “I dare not miss tonight’s presentation. I’ve much to learn about tissue in particular,” he said jauntily. “Now I just need to know how to keep it fresh after the spark of life has fled. Tend to your friends, Samuel. I’ll see myself out.”

  I saw Jonathon fighting the same shudder I fought. Samuel looked at Preston as if he held all the hope in the world, not as though he’d just said something terribly creepy.

  Preston bowed to each of us and exited the room. Mrs. Strasser stood in the hall with his hat and light cloak, holding them out far in her hand as if she didn’t want to be too close to him.

  I turned to see that Samuel had crossed the room to sit on the arm of Jonathon’s chair, turned away from me.

  “Jonathon, I don’t want your…friend to read my lips. Preston said you’d changed during your ordeal. What’s she doing here? Who is she? Since I’ve known you, you’ve been too busy with studies, the clinic, and duties of your station to have time for a girl. Let alone a ‘project.’ What the devil does that mean? What sort of consort—”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Jonathon muttered. He paused a moment and glanced at me. “It means she’s my ward. She has no one else. And in her condition, would you have left her to the work house or the brothel?”

  Samuel measured up his friend while I held back a wicked grin. I always wanted some sort of torrid Gothic-novel affair in which I was haplessly thrust upon some young lord’s mercies as his ward. And now I had it. But the thrill of a delicious guardian-ward intrigue was short-lived as I thought about all the lies… Jonathon didn’t have to play the demon to his friend, did he? But could he be honest?

  “Then you are still the man I know,” Samuel said with quiet relief. He turned to me, and I made a show of focusing on his mouth. “You know, Miss Rose, the day I first visited the Denbury estate, Lady Denbury had just experienced quite the shock of finding three starving stray dogs sequestered in her son’s room.”

  Jonathon grinned, showing a warmth and fondness that I hadn’t seen on his face since we’d been sequestered in the private train compartment. “Those poor mutts.” He shrugged. “They were starving and sick. So I fed them and cleaned them up a bit, and they were on their way, my estate none the worse. I’d have done the same for a person—”

  “And you did. That was the point of the clinic. So here you are, Denbury, a guardian to this pretty young ward, and you remain the world’s knight in shining armor—”

  “Not exactly.” Jonathon’s warmth vanished. “Who I am in the world is terribly complex. Once we’re gone again, don’t say another word about me to Preston.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “You don’t remember him?”

  “No, why?”

  “He came to the clinic one night. I turned him away.”

  “Why?”

  “He was looking for resurrectionists, Sam. Burkes and Hares.”

  I shuddered. Earlier in the century, William Burke and William Hare had made headlines by murdering people, then selling the bodies to a doctor performing autopsies at Edinburgh College. Their names were most frequently used now to terrify young children into doing what they were told. Resurrectionists stole bodies out of graves, from morgues, or still alive from the street.

  “Preston mentioned experiments of a revolutionary kind,” Jonathon continued. “He spoke of a new age in the new world. It would seem this ‘new age’ has fine doctors in several cities and offices in New York,” he muttered. “True, the field of medicine is wide open and anything could happen. Let’s just try to keep our heads about it.”

  Samuel scratched his head. “Preston said his wife died in childbirth in London, and he quit his practice in grief. He was approached by an organization conducting experiments on tissue and the human spirit, and they sent him to New York. He told me he’d heard of us and that he could pay me a visit en route to see Mayo. When he found out about Elsa’s condition, he brought me into his confidence about new developments that might shock the comatose back to life.”

  “A coma is not death, Sam. What did he want with dead bodies?” Jonathon asked sharply.

  Samuel shrugged, honestly baffled. “I…don’t know.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed. Samuel broke it by turning to me, making sure I was looking at him before he spoke. “I am so sorry. We must appear so rude. Come, please let me give you a tour.”

  Samuel showed us the clinic at the rear of the house, a wide room full of windows and sick beds with a view of a rear garden and the rest of the town below. It was empty at present, Samuel proud that he was able to send his patients home recovering.

  “My family chose this area so that my work could be used to supplement my parents’ missionary work,” he said, sitting on a rear bay window. “I’m conflicted, though. They have their own faith, so why do they need another? Medicine, however, I believe in sharing. My parents only ask me to do what’s comfortable. And for that, I’m grateful.”

  “Many wouldn’t have given it such thought,” Jonathon replied.

  Samuel shrugged. “I’ve never suffered from a lack of thinking.” I nodded in commiser
ation. Overactive minds were something we all seemed to have in common. “How long are you staying?”

  “Just the night. I’ve affairs back in England to attend to.” Jonathon’s voice was hollow.

  Just tonight? Where were we going next? Was I going to England too?

  “That’s a shame, Miss Rose,” Samuel said. “I’d like you to have met a young patient of mine. He can’t speak either.”

  Teaching others appealed to me. Since I regained the gift of my voice, I felt a duty to help others communicate. I’d never forget how hard it was to speak. How hard it is. Every time I open my mouth I shove fear violently aside, every word an act of bravery. It’s exhausting. But never again will I return to silence. Except when playing a part.

  “Could you show me to a postal office?” Jonathon asked.

  Samuel readied for the trip downtown, showing us out onto a verandah as he disappeared into a rear carriage-house. It was a beautiful day outside, and the fine houses and promenade mall of green trees in bloom made the avenue a fairy-tale town. If only our situation mirrored the beautiful summer day. Jonathon edged me slightly into the shade, away from any windows, turning me to face him.

  “I’m sorry to silence you. But I recognized Preston and light crackled around him, fiery, the aura of the demon. Samuel has no idea what he’s gotten involved with. We’ll return to New York by train tomorrow,” Jonathon whispered quickly. “Preston might come back here, and I can’t risk revealing I’ve ‘recovered’ from the curse. I must go back to England, and I dare not leave you here alone.” He raked his hand through his hair, anger and frustration flashing in eyes as blue as the sky.

  “I’ll come to England—”

  “No.”

  Our discussion was halted as Samuel came around the drive with a four-wheeled calash attached to a strong white mare. He tipped his top hat as he sat upon the driver’s bench, awaiting us in the street. Jonathon and I trotted down the walk, and he helped me up onto one of the leather cushions.

  We traveled across elegant Summit Avenue and down a sloping hill. Such picturesque scenery was hard to reconcile with the cool and subtle dangers we danced with. As we traveled into the center of town, the city spread out into a plain of cobblestone streets and a mixture of buildings. There were a few lanes for promenading and even a small circular park. But there was no bustling roar, hardly the glorious chaos of energy one found in New York City.

  Samuel dropped us at the post while he went on an errand at the pharmacy.

  The postmaster approached Jonathon with an odd look on his face. He glanced from Jonathon to me and back again. Oh, no. It was the Chicago station all over again.

  “I was hoping to ask if you could help me, but by that look on your face, can I help you?” Jonathon asked.

  “Well, someone has an odd way of knowing what company I’d keep today,” said the clerk, mopping his receding brow with a kerchief and inching his glasses up his nose. “I believe these telegraphs are for you.” He beckoned for us to come to the counter bordered by brass rails and slots marked “post.” He slid two envelopes across the counter.

  One said:

  To a young British stranger, absurdly handsome, black hair, blue eyes.

  The other said:

  To a young auburn-haired woman. Green eyes. Pretty.

  Jonathon nodded to the postman and eased me away from any listening ears and over to an alcove filled with pens, paper, and supplies. We each opened the envelopes and read the telegraphs typed therein. Mine read:

  THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY

  A friend of yours appeared. We must look after her. Again, you remain at center of mystery.

  And his:

  THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY

  London source confirms artist in permanent residence under your name at Highgate. Source awaits you.

  I took in the messages. “These have to be from Mrs. Northe,” I whispered. “But what does yours mean?”

  “Highgate is a cemetery in London,” he replied grimly. “There must be a dead body in my family plot, the man who painted my portrait. An artist in ‘permanent residence’ indeed…” He leaned in to me. “But Natalie, I didn’t tell Mrs. Northe we were coming to St. Paul! How could she have known? How could these have been waiting for us?!”

  I smiled amid his anxiety as the truth dawned on me. “She’s clairvoyant, my love. Terribly handy in a pinch.”

  “Oh. Right. Well.” He scratched his head, displacing one wavy black lock. “Unfortunate if I want to keep a secret.”

  “Thankfully she’s good at keeping them. Still, I’d have thought she’d have sent nicer notes.”

  “Natalie, at a dollar a word, a telegraph isn’t a medium for niceties, but speed.”

  I’d had no knowledge or need of telegraphs, even if our family could have afforded them. At such a price they were a convenience for the wealthy alone. A dollar could be a whole day’s pay for many New Yorkers. I tucked the telegraphs into the drawstring bag at my wrist as Denbury began writing telegraphs of his own in return. I used some of my remaining money to send a wire directly to Father, one that could not be mistaken.

  “Please give Mother my love with her usual bouquet of black-eyed Susans,” I wrote. We had a ritual of visiting her grave at Woodlawn in the Bronx, bringing a particular flower we bought from an old woman who’d seemed ancient for as many years as I could remember. Father would tell me how the flower symbolized my mother. I felt a pang for that old lady, those flowers, my father, that grave, and my city. New York City wasn’t paradise, but it was home. We sent our messages, nodding our thanks to the baffled clerk.

  “Everything all right?” Samuel asked from the carriage as the bell of the post-office door clanged shut behind us. I shrugged. Denbury offered a curt nod.

  As we went up the hill again toward Summit Avenue, Samuel took a different route, turning back to us to say, “I’ll show you our outlook. We’ve a park with many fine homes around it. It may not be as grand as your Central Park, but it’s ours…”

  A timber magnate owned an impressive estate alongside other industrialists, and the square of Irvine Park was lovely, replete with statuary. But it was the outlook between the mansions that was spectacular.

  The view was magnificent. New York City is a crowded, close place. The only time you’ve a sense of vastness is in Central Park or along the rivers, but even then, there’s so much smoke and traffic. From this height the bustle on the river was miniscule, the trains long insects, the Mississippi mighty and commanding. I held in a gasp. It was as if we were flying above it all. Rivers are the heart of civilization, and it was as if we gazed down on the veins of humankind at the mouth of the most famous waterway in our country. Here we were above the beginning. Jonathon’s hand squeezed mine.

  “Magnificent,” he said. I nodded.

  We ate a pleasant dinner, during which Samuel discussed cases with Jonathon and they spoke a different language of medical terms, medicines, chemicals, and physiology. It was impressive, and I took interest in the methods of deduction between symptoms and diagnosis, even if most of the terms were new to me. I resolved to examine a few medical texts so that I might keep up with such a conversation.

  “Before it grows too late,” Samuel said once we had finished dessert and coffee, “we must promenade along Summit. It’s beautiful at dusk.”

  The sky was spectacular with stars. The quiet of the town was profound in comparison to home, which hissed and rushed at all hours. I longed to be alone and unhindered in this peace with Jonathon. I’ve spent so much time being frightened for him that I wondered what just wandering like a normal young couple on a perfect summer night would be like. Samuel’s gaze was far away, and I wondered if he wished Elsa were here instead.

  “I wish you could have met Elsa,” Samuel broke the silence as we passed a grand home more darkened than the others, no lamps lit at the doors, no candles in windows. “She lived there.”

  “Lived?” Jonathon asked gently. “Isn’t
she still alive, friend?”

  “Only a shell. Sometimes I wonder if she was just a figment of my imagination that I dreamed up in the days when we played as children. Our falling in love seems lifetimes ago. Dr. Mayo believes it’s something to do with the spine. Tricky, the spine. I cling to hope, visit her, talk to her, take her hand as though everything is normal, yet I…feel her fading. That doesn’t sound very scientific. But I’m beginning to think I don’t really know anything. That I don’t know what I do or don’t believe.”

  “You don’t believe in the supernatural,” Jonathon stated.

  “Could the supernatural cure Elsa?” Desperation edged Samuel’s voice. “Is there a way I could know if she was all right? I lose sleep wondering if she suffers.”

  Jonathon glanced at me and spoke carefully. “In dealing with the supernatural, take care what…company you invite.”

  We were again at the doorstep. Seizing a paper and pencil on a small tray where calling cards might be placed, I wrote hastily: “In New York, I could direct you to someone who might try to contact Elsa’s spirit to answer you. But yes, be careful.”

  Samuel stared at me for a long moment. “Thank you.”

  As we were shown up to our rooms by Mrs. Strasser, I noted Jonathon’s room was just three doors down. Left alone in the hall, I thrilled at the possibilities, but Jonathon chilled me with business instead.

  “Natalie, nothing would make me happier than running away with you, forgetting everything terrible that’s happened. But there are clues back in London—this ‘Society’ Preston mentioned. I cannot sit idly by, not knowing what happened to my family, wondering what they wanted with me to begin with.” I opened my mouth, but he continued. “You gave me my freedom, Natalie. Release me again. I’ll return to you as soon as possible.”

  “Can’t I come with you?” I whispered.

  “What, and explain to your father that I absconded with you to another continent?” He took my hands in his. “Do you truly want him to kill me? No. Return to Mrs. Northe. She’s the only one we can trust—”