The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker (6 page)

She felt a pang of recognition, too, that bothered her greatly. Percy would never have forgotten seeing such a man. And there was something in his personality, in his commanding presence, which was beyond the limits of mortality.

As the two other females in the room appeared wholly unaffected, Percy ordered her heart to stop racing; its intoxicated pace was alarming, and she chided herself for such a foolish, hasty spark. Nonetheless, her distaste for science suddenly seemed an extraordinary misfortune, as she hated the thought of doing poorly in a class taught by someone so breathtaking.

The newcomer wrote a name upon the board in scrawling script. His voice took hold of his audience, a richly resonant, unparalleled baritone. “I am Professor Rychman. Welcome to my class.”

He swept the room with his eyes, coolly evaluating his new students. When his gaze found Percy, it lingered. Caught in that stare, she shrank into her chair.

Though his eyes widened, she could see him make an effort to remain polite. After a moment, Percy realized his expression wasn’t one of disgust, mockery or even surprise; it was confusion. Odd.

He began a roll call, managing to steal just one more glance in her direction. Then he arrived at her name. “Miss P. Parker?”

“H-here, sir.” Percy raised her hand.

The professor looked up from his roster. All eyes were upon her. Percy squirmed. The professor nodded slowly, as if he were trying to decipher a riddle. Then he moved on to the next name, and Percy could breathe again.

Class began. Professor Rychman was ruthless with his subject matter, and he flew through what he considered background material and began scribbling unending sequences of letters and symbols in all manner of baffling arrangements. Percy attempted to take notes but was soon lost. Hypnotized by the stern yet melodic sound of his voice, she found herself swept away by the cadence of his speech. Every movement and sentence held impossible confidence. His eyes managed to stare down every student over the course of the lecture, and even when his back was turned, his presence gripped the room. And by the end…Percy had a page full of numbers, dashes and circles, but not a clue as to their meaning.

Over the course of his second class of the day, Alexi repeatedly found himself staring past the spirits that floated through his classroom, focusing instead on a living girl who looked like one of their number. He would never admit to his students that he saw spirits; it was not something a man of science or sanity admitted. Still, he could not help but think
Luminous
as he stared at Miss P. Parker, imagining her a body possessed, like little Emily. But this student seemed in no distress, other than her nerves, perhaps, and none of his internal alarms was raised.

He wondered at the age of this unmistakable Miss Parker, for while it was clear her smooth cheek was young, there was something that distinguished her from youth, her pallor notwithstanding. A timelessness.

It did not signify. The true Grand Work would not involve his students.

Percy and Marianna met again in the dining hall, a room with wooden rafters and low chandeliers with portraits of
dour men and women parading the paneled walls. Cliques of other young ladies sat chattering. Percy and Marianna sat near a bay window that looked out onto the courtyard, sharing their thoughts on various teachers and what they foresaw as potential strengths and difficulties. Marianna was particularly worried about a speech barrier in her last class, while Percy couldn’t forget Professor Rychman.

“I’m afraid I’ll be made a fool in mathematics, I’m dreadful at the subject. But, oh, the professor! He’s magnificent!” she breathed.

“Yes?”

“Oh, yes, Professor Rychman. I can’t say I’ve ever…”

“Ever what?”

Percy had to turn away and butter another piece of bread to hide her blush. “Seen anyone like him,” she finished, attempting to sound nonchalant.

Marianna leaned forward with a smile. “I would think he has never seen anyone like you, either.”

Percy bit her lip. Though she’d been tortured over Mr. Darcy as a girl, she was terribly unprepared for being smitten with a living man. A blazing bonfire deep inside now sent lightning flashes to wake dormant dragons all over her body at any moment she thought of him, pictured him or spoke his name. But she knew better than to relay this to her new friend, so she and Marianna finished dinner and returned to their respective rooms.

That evening, as Percy readied for bed, she was struck by a vision: a floating feather, something on fire, the flapping of great wings; herself running barefoot down a long and misty corridor…She could ignore it no longer. The visions were coming more rapidly than ever before in her life, perhaps once a week now rather than every few months. She thanked heaven that the images usually waited until she was alone.

Suddenly she was overcome by the first vision she remem
bered ever having, and as it presented itself once again Percy groaned. It
hurt.
There were…spirits in the sky. Hungry and searching for something. These spirits, smoky tendrils on the wind, were part angel. Beautiful yet dizzying, they darted helter-skelter under a bloodred canopy, their pelting forms a wonder. They descended rapaciously, looking, careening about the streets of London. One by one, they found new homes. A jolt shook her, a deafening thunder both outside Percy and within. Something was about to merge…

The vision faded and Percy collapsed onto her bed, gulping for air and drowning in yearning. It was times such as these when she needed to believe there was a God of love and comfort, a Being of peace and beauty who could one day offer meaning. Her body shook until sleep won out…but even in sleep there was no rest. Someone kept screaming her name, over and over, matching the rhythm of her heartbeat, and the person screaming was very, very angry. Just as Percy was looking for answers, someone else was looking for her. She prayed she found her truths before her pursuer found her.

Headmistress Rebecca Thompson owed Professor Alexi Rychman a very expensive bottle of sherry. Luckily, spirits—liquors as well as ghosts—were in ample supply at Café La Belle et La Bête.

The spectres came and went as they pleased, now and then troubling to adjust the glassware, to the owner Josephine’s unending irritation. One pair of Restoration wraiths kept to a corner, eternally interested in gossip divined from the liv
ing. One former army general never left his post at the end of the bar. And of course there were many, many others.

Everyone inside, living and dead, turned as the door opened and the scowling Rebecca entered.

“Good afternoon, my dear Miss Thompson!” hailed her jovial, rosy-cheeked friend in a modest suit, rising from a table by the window to press her hand. The other gentleman at the table, more finely dressed, waved a limp hand and resumed gazing out the window.

“Hello, Michael…Elijah,” Rebecca murmured with a curt nod.

Vicar Michael Carroll, maintaining his affable grin, pulled out a chair. “And what has you so flustered?”

“Alexi, of course,” she spat, taking a seat between them, removing her hat and gloves to replace stubborn locks of hair falling from her coiffure. She failed to notice Elijah roll his eyes.

“What now?” Michael asked, twirling his grey-peppered mustache.

Rebecca sighed, adjusting the gathered folds of her navy skirt with a pronounced rustle. “Do you recall the trouble at Fifty Berkeley Square?”

“What of it?”

“Alexi seemed to think I was outmatched. But as we often perform alone, I never dreamed—”

“Old Bloody Bones got the better of you, eh?” Michael grinned.

“Yes,” Rebecca muttered. “What a horrid sight. And stench. It wouldn’t stay still long enough to bind properly! I’m afraid I made a mess of it.”

“Alexi’s been hard on you, then? Did he come to your aid?”

“Yes, yes. He was right. It took the two of us to dispel the bloody devil.” Rebecca glowered. “So, as was our wager, I owe him a bottle of sherry. His absurdly expensive label, of course.”

“Ah! A bet against Alexi?” Michael shook his head. “While I admire your pluck, my dear, I must say I’d have foregone that temptation. Now he will be gloating and unbearable.”

Elijah sniggered against the window.

Rebecca turned. “Good afternoon to you, too, Lord Withersby. Your impeccable manners are always a balm.”

Elijah turned, as if he hadn’t yet noticed Rebecca or heard her previous greeting, and inclined his head in an exaggerated bow. “Miss Thompson. Delighted.”

Michael laughed. “You know, Elijah, you match the consumptive artwork Josephine has on these walls. You really should sit for Rosetti. Or…I suppose we could simply leave you in your seat and hand you a gold frame to hold over your face.”

Elijah pursed his thin lips in annoyance.

“Oh, is that a new one of Josephine’s?” Rebecca pointed to the opposite wall and rose to examine the indicated canvas. Michael followed, always eager to be near her side. Elijah remained seated…and held a peppermill over Michael’s tea.

A clatter of glasses above the polished oak bar brought the lovely, olive-skinned Josephine, cursing in French, out from a back room. Brandishing a wet towel, she waved it in the air with a few words that were not French but instead The Guard’s strange and ancient tongue. The towel passed straight through the portly body of that spirit in military uniform who was trying to unsuccessfully help himself to a glass of wine. Glumly, the general heard the odd words, felt the tickle of the towel and went again to sulk in his usual place.

It was good the four friends were the sole living occupants of the bar, Rebecca mused; the afternoon was shaping up to be a bit of a production unfit for outsiders. Improper familiarity across class lines was one thing, but blatant interaction with the dead was another.

“Ah, Rebecca!” Josephine, tucking one thin lock of silver hair behind her ear, moved to kiss her friend on both cheeks. She drew back, noticing Rebecca’s sour look, and her French accent made her words all the more provocative. “What, what is zat face you give me?”

Rebecca grimaced as she drew a stack of notes from her reticule. “Josie, would you fetch me bottle of sherry—your best, if you please? And tie a ribbon or something around it.”

“Ooh! And what might the occasion be?”

“Alexi,” Rebecca muttered. “We wagered on a…spiritual matter, and I lost.”

Josephine clicked her tongue and shook her head, rolling back the sleeves of her blouse. “Someday we’ll find something he can’t master, and we’ll drink sherry on his remittance for a change.” She refilled Elijah’s cabernet, then set off to procure the prize.

“Where’s Jane?” Rebecca asked the assembly.

Michael shrugged. “Off on her own, as usual.”

“Never trust the Irish. Never know what they’re up to,” Elijah muttered.

Michael cleared his throat. “Rebecca, forgive my cold heart that I haven’t yet inquired. Did you and Alexi discover anything at that last Ripper site? Can we help?”

“I’d have preferred a waltz with Bloody Bones than to have seen that poor wretch…” Rebecca shuddered. “But, no. There’s nothing to do but wait and listen.”

Michael ignored this. “London’s terrified.”

“I know,” Rebecca replied. “And so am I. Such gruesome evil is usually within our control—is part of our Grand Work. But these murders on Buck’s Row and Hanbury Street…we had no warning, no feel of the supernatural. I’m worried about our school. What if one of our girls wanders out? They’re all so innocent—and my responsibility.”

“How was the start of term?” Michael asked, trying to ac
cess happier fare. He inched his hand toward Rebecca’s but at the last moment lost courage and withdrew.

“Only a few new students,” Rebecca replied, oblivious. She shifted uncomfortably, thinking of Miss Parker. “One girl is startlingly unique. Must have some sort of condition, poor thing. Deathly pale skin, the whole of her white as snow. Glasses shaded her pale eyes, which, through their glass, appeared almost violet.”

“You’re certain she’s mortal and not Luminous?” Michael asked, again twirling his mustache.

“You think I can’t tell the difference? Still, it is eerie to see a living girl so similar. And the spirits gaze at her so. Perhaps they are just as curious.”

“What do they call people without colour?” Michael scratched his head, ruffling a patch of grey-peppered hair and not bothering to comb it back into place.

“Albinos,” supplied Elijah.

Rebecca nodded and continued her musing. “Eerie, indeed. A timid girl, orphaned, raised in a Catholic convent. When asked if she considered herself gifted in any way, she replied that she had a strange manner of dreams. I tried to clarify whether these were dreams or visions, but she didn’t know or want to admit.”

Elijah snorted. “Damn Catholics. Don’t they all think they see things—Christ in a spoon or the Virgin in a crumpet? Delusional fanatics. God bless Mr. Darwin for setting us straight.”

Michael waggled his mustache. “Please, Elijah, your compassion is leaking onto the tablecloth, and it’s making an awful mess.”

Elijah’s hand hovered over a butter knife.

“No silverware duels today, gentlemen. Please,” Rebecca implored.

Michael leaned over the table, not to be dissuaded. “Mr. Darwin, Lord Withersby, was a man of God. As a scientist,
he believed in the sacred process of life designed by an omnipotent Creator. Men who lack imagination will say he’s not of God for their own purposes.” He turned away. “Now, what of this girl’s dreams, Rebecca?”

“I wasn’t at liberty to press her. Timid as she was, I doubt she’d have shared.”

“You are rather intimidating on the job,
Headmistress
Thompson,” Elijah mocked, though kindly. “You and Alexi, both—our resident gargoyles.”

Rebecca offered Elijah a cold, cautionary smile.

“Did Alexi think anything of the girl?” Michael asked.

Rebecca shook her head. “I’ve no idea. The students are simply our employment, and bless them for that. We decided long ago that we should bring none near our madness, and that has served us well. I therefore leave Alexi to his own impressions regarding her. The girl was nothing to bring to account, merely interesting, that’s all.” When Michael raised an eyebrow she added hastily, “But I do worry about a girl like her, and about all of my students in this increasingly dangerous city.”

There was a long period of silence as the three friends picked like birds at the dry biscuits before them.

“We’re overdue for a meeting. The air is sick with forces. There may yet be more murders,” Michael finally said. “Supernatural or no.”

“Two less harlots on the streets,” Elijah offered, his bony fingers toying with his fork.

“Sunshine, you are,” Michael replied. “A joy to all mankind.”

“I do my best,” laughed his friend.

Elijah punctuated his words by threading his dessert fork into the lace of Rebecca’s cuffs. She responded by tossing a piece of biscuit at his head. It bounced and hit the window, and a voice scolded suddenly in a thick French accent.

“
Mon Dieu!
No refinement! Even you, Rebecca, whom I hold to a higher standard than these heathens at your side.
You let them goad you into misbehaving?” Josephine strode toward them, cradling a bottle of fine sherry upon her arm.

“Josie, now, don’t curse your kin,” Rebecca replied, blowing the other a kiss.

Josephine glared, but the men at the table gasped. “Did you see, Josie?” Elijah exclaimed. “Her Arctic Highness just sent you a token of affection floating on an icy breeze! Come, a smile is due at least for such a novelty.”

“You give me no credit!” Rebecca cried. “I’m never as frigid as you all make me out to be.”

Michael clapped his hands to his arms and rubbed them furiously. “Elijah, what on earth could be causing that draft?”

Rebecca folded her arms and scowled.

“She simply awaits a man’s embrace,” Elijah blurted. “That alone will remedy her chill.”

Michael choked first on his biscuit, then, taking a drink of tea, choked once more—this time due to Elijah’s work with the peppermill.

Rebecca’s hand flew to her snug collar, her heart seizing. She masked her sudden wound with bluster. “If I wasn’t bound to you by damnable fate, if you were
proper
gentlemen, you might consider etiquette, for such talk surpasses scandal!” She rose from her chair, throwing down her napkin, trying to deter further scrutiny. “I’ll never know why you tease Alexi and I so, Elijah, when
you
are the impossible one!”

Elijah grinned, unrepentant. He looked innocently at his fellows. “Me? And what of me would you tease, when Alexi so much more deserves it?
I
do not stalk about like one of those gothic
vampir
onstage at the Royal. Nor do I brood with dramatic zeal, nor can I start fires of my own accord, nor daily dress as if in mourning. Nor do the first bars of Beethoven’s Fifth seem to burst forth each time I enter a room!”

“Shameful! All of you!” Josephine scolded, though she
fought back a smile. Removing her apron, she dusted the bottle in her hand briefly before sliding the white linen garment down the bar, where it passed through the head of the general whose transparent body was folded over, asleep.

“Poor Alexi,” Rebecca huffed, collapsing into a chair. “If he only knew how he was abused. To think that the serious boy of so many years ago—”

“If we didn’t know and love him, this would be cruel,” Elijah interrupted. “But as all of us adore his brilliance—in-sufferable though he is—and though he appears a dark thespian rather than a chemist, we gladly admit we’d fall apart without him.”

“Alexi Rychman, melancholy prince of Denmark!” Michael proclaimed, pounding his fist on the table in delight and raising his teacup to drink a toast. The others followed suit.

Through their laughter, they failed to hear the door open and click shut, and a tall, cloaked, formidable figure dressed all in black approached. His stoic features were offset only by his blazing eyes. Alexi Rychman stared down at his friends with a frown.

“Something amusing?” he asked.

At the sound of his low, rich voice, the group looked up and shrieked, delighted. Elijah cried out the first notes of Beethoven’s Fifth, unable to help himself. This did nothing for the others’ composure. In fact, Michael, head thrown back in a wail of laughter, lost balance and fell from his chair. No one bothered to stand and greet their leader properly.

“You really should have your own personal orchestra, Alexi!” Elijah gasped for breath.

“‘To be or not to be…!’” Michael wailed from the floor, waving an arm above him grandly.

“An appropriate theme for you, you must admit!” Elijah continued, offering Alexi a sharp-toothed grin.

Rebecca, flushed, stood with an uneven breath and handed Alexi the sherry bottle with its dusty ribbon tied
lopsided around the neck. “Professor, your prize. I acquiesce to your eminence and superiority—sir,” she stated with a curtsey. There was a hint of a smile as she did so, however, and Josephine masked a sputtering giggle with a cough.

Alexi snatched the sherry from Rebecca’s hand. “Whenever you heathens can regain a modicum of sense, it’s time for a meeting,” he stated coldly. This quieted the group enough for him to continue. “There now. Sanity has returned to La Belle et La Bête, but I’d best speak quickly as I fear its presence is fleeting. But before we begin…could someone go and remind our grey friend down the street not to push the actors into their places quite so hard? Since the discovery of his dead body during the renovations, his ghost has become increasingly meddlesome, causing many complaints.”

He waited a moment for one of his companions to volunteer for the routine policing of Drury Lane’s most infamous spectre. Then: “Fine, you lazy fools, I’ll go. Considering your present behaviour, I’d not trust one of you to admonish this spiritual hooligan. Clearly, I ought to do it myself. But I warn you: sharpen yourselves.” He turned and promptly exited, his long black cloak billowing behind him. Throughout his exodus, a few more bars of the Fifth Symphony were hummed.