Evermore (14 page)

"Isn't he already dead?"

"Jacob," I whispered, shutting them out.
"Jacob, we'll stop whoever it is. Trust me. We've made progress,
thanks to you. George and Theo are watching Mrs. White and we're
sure she'll lead us to the culprit."

He lifted his head to peer up at me. "I
know...must go...can't stay."

"Will someone please tell me what is
happening?" Louis said.

I touched Jacob's semi-transparent cheek and
he leaned into my palm. Then he was gone.

I fought back tears.
It's not goodbye, it's not
goodbye
. If I kept chanting that in my
head, perhaps I might believe it.

"Actually, Emily, I agree with Mr. Moreau,"
Celia said. "You must keep me informed. What is Mr. Beaufort
saying?"

"Nothing," I said. "He's gone."

"You believe this is all real, don't you?"
Louis said. I thought he was talking to me, but he was looking at
Celia.

"She can see spirits," Lucy said, puffing out
her considerable chest. She handed Louis a teacup and saucer. "She
talks to them all the time. Miss Cara too. But there's no need to
be afraid. Most are harmless. I used to be afraid, but not
anymore."

"Thank you, Lucy," Celia said. "You may
go."

Lucy bobbed a curtsey and left.

My sister picked up her cup. "If you spend
long enough with Emily or Cara, you will discover that it's not an
illusion."

"But it must be!"

Celia sighed. "Have you ever known me to be
prone to flights of fancy? If you say yes, then you don't know me
at all, Louis."

He watched her from beneath his thick, black
lashes for so long, I began to feel uncomfortable. Cara wriggled in
her seat, her cup of chocolate held close to her chest as if she
were protecting it.

"You called me Louis," he finally said.

"A slip of the tongue." Celia sipped.

"Cara and I can both communicate with
spirits," I said. I felt like I was intruding on something private,
but I couldn't put my finger on what. Celia and Louis weren't even
looking at each other. "It's a family trait," I added. "Inherited
from you and your father."

Louis whipped round to face me. "If that were
the case, then I should be able to see spirits too. Or Papa."

"Only the women can, but the men are the ones
who pass it along to their daughters. You don't have aunts on your
father's side, do you?"

"No. My father is an only child." He frowned.
"I think you need to tell me everything, Emily."

I did. I started with what I'd learned in
George's books about our ancestry. By the time I'd finished, I'd
told him all about Jacob's death, the shape-shifting demon,
Mortlock's possession, and the curse on the Waiting Area. I did not
tell him how my life had been in danger on numerous occasions. Not
even Celia was aware of everything I'd been up to in the past few
weeks.

He sat there, unblinking, saying nothing, and
we three did not push him. We sat and sipped and waited. At first I
was unsure if he'd believe me, but after several minutes I could
see he did. He would not look so worried if he did not.

Celia cracked first. "Well?" she asked,
shrilly. "Do you still think your own sister and daughter are
mad?"

"Celia, that's not fair," I said.

But Louis did not look offended. "If it
weren't for you, Celia, I might. I'm sorry, Emily, Cara, but I know
neither of you as well as I know Celia. As she said, she's not
prone to fanciful thoughts. If she says you can see ghosts, then I
must believe that you can."

Celia put her cup to her lips even though I
knew she'd finished her tea some time ago. Her eyelids were
lowered, so I could not see her eyes, but I distinctly heard her
sniff.

"Thank you," I said. My relief surprised me.
I hadn't thought I cared so much for his good opinion.

"Tell me what I can do to help," he said.
"This villain...the one cursing the Otherworld...he must be
stopped."

"Emily will stop him," Cara said.

"My friends, George and Theo, are watching
the house of a suspect tonight, "I said. "I'll see them in the
morning and find out if she went anywhere. There's little else to
do. But thank you."

"Friends...is that all these gentlemen are to
you?"

Celia clicked her tongue. "Honestly, Mr.
Moreau, it's a little late to be coming across as fatherly
now."

"Celia," I hissed. "Stop it."

Louis merely shrugged. He looked at his
teacup, which he'd set down on the tray. He hadn't touched it.
Perhaps he didn't drink tea. There was so much about my father I
was yet to learn. "I suppose it's my turn now." When none of us
spoke, he continued. "I went to New South Wales on a government
scheme. I didn't want to be assistant to my father forever, and
there aren't many opportunities for a man like me in England."

I could well imagine. My skin was light
compared to my father's. Whereas I was sometimes called exotic, he
would have been labeled much worse. We didn't press him for details
and he gave none.

"I wanted to prove I was worthy of your
mother," he said to me. "She was...very proper, you see. I
thought...I thought that if I couldn't be a gentleman here in
London, then I could be a wealthy man in another country. My plan
was to earn enough money in New South Wales then write to you both
and have you join me," he said to Celia.

"We...she...never wanted you to leave," Celia
said. "How can you expect us to uproot our lives to follow to the
other side of the world?"

"When you love someone, anything is possible.
But only if you truly want to be with them."

Celia turned away to stare at the
fireplace.

"What happened?" I asked. "Why didn't you
write?"

"Making my fortune proved more difficult than
I imagined. Work paid little. I could never save enough. I was
ashamed of my failure, so I didn't write. I didn't want anyone to
know that I'd amounted to precisely nothing. Especially her."

"You should have," I said. "She would not
have thought you a failure. Not if she loved you."

"Whether she did or not...it doesn't matter
now. As the years passed, I came to regret my decision of not
writing. Regret it deeply." He cast a glance at Celia, but she
didn't move, didn't look at him. She sat stiff and proud, staring
into the fireplace. "But I was young at the time, and I thought I'd
be a disappointment."

"Nonsense," I said. "Anyway, as it turned
out, you're quite successful. You said your shop is doing very
well."

"It is. Now. But I've only had it two
years."

"And before that you worked in low-paying
jobs?"

"At the beginning, for a year. It was around
that time that I'd decided I had to write to your mother regardless
of my poor state. I missed her. Missed her keenly," he said softly.
"I had never told her how much, and after so long without her, I
knew I needed to tell her how I felt and let her make up her own
mind."

"What happened to change your mind?" I asked.
"Why didn't you write then?"

"You met another woman," Celia said. "It's
understandable. You must have been lonely."

"There was no one else. Never, ever anyone
else."

Celia's breath hitched, but only I could have
heard it.

"I didn't write because my situation grew
worse. I went to prison."

"Prison!" Cara and I cried in unison.

Celia's cup fell to the floor. It was empty,
fortunately, but she did not move to retrieve it. I picked it up
and set it on the table. She'd gone quite pale.

"If I wasn't a failure before, then I was
certainly one then. How could I support a wife from prison? How
could I ever face her? I decided writing would have to wait.
Indeed, I admit that I lost all hope of ever seeing your mother
again. I was determined to give her up and I hoped she would forget
me in time. It was for the best."

"She never did," I said, but I wasn't sure
what was in my mother's heart. She'd never spoken of Louis. If
anything, she seemed more in love with Celia's father as the years
wore on. Poor Louis. Pining for a woman who did not care for him as
much as he cared for her. Such a tragedy and a waste.

"What did you do to be sent to prison?" I
asked.

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A riot started at a mine where I worked. Conditions were terrible
and the pay poor. Many resented it and some decided to take action
one night after drinking too much. They stormed the manager's
office, broke windows and furniture, and stole some of the gold.
Although I didn't participate, I was nearby when it happened, and
was identified."

"How could they identify you when you didn't
do anything?"

He shrugged. "That's the way it is when these
things happen. Whenever there's chaos, witnesses become
unreliable."

"Why didn't you fight the charge?" Celia
cried. Tears shone in her eyes, but I'd wager they were tears of
anger and frustration, because those were precisely the emotions
warring within me.

"How can you be so...so calm about it all?" I
asked.

Louis shrugged again.
"Sydney's justice system is worse than London's. The wheels grind
slowly, and a witness is a witness. I could not prove I
wasn't
there, so his
testimony stood. It's not his fault. He had no malicious intent. It
was an honest mistake and I've forgiven him for it. Especially
considering whom I met in jail. It wasn't all bad in the
end."

"Don't keep us in suspense!" I said when he
didn't go on.

He smiled. "I met Harry in prison. He was the
man who would become my business partner. We became good friends,
perhaps because we were both innocent. Harry was wrongly convicted
of theft by his own brother-in-law. In his case, the witness was
malicious and deliberately gave false evidence. His brother-in-law
wanted Harry out of the way so he could manage their joint business
and reap all the profit. They had a large shop in the center of
Sydney where they sold all sorts of things from haberdashery to
groceries. When we both completed our jail terms, we decided to
leave Sydney and start a similar shop in Melbourne in the south.
That was two years ago and I return to London a prosperous man
now."

"And a free one," I said, grinning.
"Goodness, what a tale! Oh, what about the time you saved a man's
life? Was that Harry?"

"Ah, that," he said, turning gloomy. "There
was another prisoner with us who wasn't on good terms with anyone."
He glanced at Cara and I suspected he was tempering his story for
her sake. "Harry accidentally knocked the other prisoner's plate
over during mealtime. He set upon Harry and would have killed him
if I hadn't stepped in. The prisoner died some hours later in the
infirmary from his injuries." He lowered his head. "That's another
thing I've regretted every day since," he said quietly.

"But it was in self-defense."

"It still weighs heavily on my
conscience."

"I'm sure your friend is glad you were
there," Celia murmured. "You should not regret an action that saves
another, better man. Emily called you noble." She lifted her chin.
"I agree with her."

"Thank you. That means more to me
than...well, than most things."

"I have a very brave brother," Cara said.
"Tell me more about New South Wales. Is it very wild?"

"Much of it, yes. Victoria too. That's the
colony in the south where I live now. Melbourne is its main center
and a bustling, lively place it is these days. There is so much
vibrancy there, so much hope. You can see it in the new buildings
going up all over the place and in the eyes of the people too. I
would love you to see it. All of you."

"Can we go, Celia?" Cara said. "Can we?
Pleeeease."

"Absolutely not! The colonies are on the
other side of the world. The voyage alone could kill you."

"Celia," Louis said, "don't dampen her
enthusiasm. The voyage is not so bad if you can afford a decent
cabin on the ship. And I can afford it."

Celia stood and held her hand out to Cara.
"Don't be ridiculous. Our lives are here. No one is moving to the
end of the world. London suits us perfectly. We have a thriving
business of our own here and we cannot abandon it."

The strain in her voice was faint, but it was
there. I doubted Louis would have heard it, not knowing that our
business was in trouble. I certainly did, loud and clear.

"Come, girls, time for dinner. Good night,
Mr. Moreau."

I gave Louis an apologetic wince. "I tend to
agree with Celia," I said. "Our lives are here."

"There's nothing for us there." Celia might
as well have driven the point home with a blunt axe, so brutal were
her words.

I am there,
Louis might have said. But he did not. He stood
and gave a shallow bow. "I won't keep you from your dinner. Good
night, ladies." He let himself out.

Celia waited for the sound of the front door
closing then walked off, her strides long and purposeful. I thought
she'd gone to the dining room, but when Cara and I entered, she
wasn't there.

"Why won't she even think about going to New
South Wales or Victoria or wherever it is?" Cara asked. "She didn't
even let him tell us about his house or nothing!"

"I don't know." My sister was certainly not
herself to behave so rudely to a guest. "Perhaps she's still upset
on Mama's behalf. Louis did leave her behind, with no word, and now
she's gone he can never make amends."

Lucy entered carrying a tureen. "Mr. Moreau
didn't stay for dinner?"

"No."

"I wish he were my father," Cara said. "Then
I'd go with him to the colonies."

I kissed her forehead. "Then I would miss you
greatly, my little aunt."

***

It was difficult not to summon Jacob. I
desperately wanted to know if he was still in the Waiting Area. But
part of me was too afraid of discovering that he was not, and the
other part was afraid that summoning him would weaken him. I
couldn't bear it if I were the cause of further pain, yet I could
hardly bear not seeing him.