Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [142]
“Maybe you’ll all dream of him tonight,” said Tollie.
“I certainly hope not,” said Eleanor. “Once in a lifetime is enough of Christopher Raven, I think.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Mary left early to catch the train, and Eleanor had a meeting with the Fundraising Committee. But I had time before I needed to be at the station, so Tollie and I walked through the garden, smelling the late roses and coming at last to his grave.
“Christopher Raven,” I said. “I would not have minded dreaming about him again, just for old times’ sake.”
“But you didn’t?” asked Tollie.
“No, of course not,” I said. “But I’ve been thinking about my next book—my publisher keeps asking whether I’m working on it, and of course I need the money. He wants another Modern Diana, but I think I’m going to write about Lady Collingswood. I think I’ll call it Adela; or Free Love. That ought to shock everyone.”
“Lucy, do you think Eleanor’s right? Do you think I haven’t changed?”
I looked at her carefully. “I think you’ve changed less than the three of us. Maybe it’s because you stayed at Collingswood.”
“No, it’s not just that. It’s something else.”
Something in her voice made me say, “Tollie, is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just that I didn’t want to tell the others. I still dream about him.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I still dream about him, every night. When I found that picture, I had it framed, and then I put it in my room, up on the third floor. And I started dreaming about him again. I thought if the three of you were here, sleeping in her room, under her picture, you would have the dreams too. But it was just me.” She paused for a moment, then knelt in front of the grave and traced the letters with her hand. “Maybe because I stayed here. I never married or had a child. I didn’t have the sort of life that you and Eleanor and Mary have. And the dreams came back. That’s what I have, a new set of students every year—and the dreams. Do you think that’s awful?”
“Some of your hair’s come down in back. Let me fix it for you.” I pinned her bun up again. I looked at her, kneeling there, with both pity and understanding. After a moment of silence, I said, “No, Tollie. I don’t think that’s awful at all. I think we have to take love where we can find it. That’s what I learned with Louis.”
“Thank you,” she said, standing again and feeling her hair, carefully. “I never can get it to stay up. You know, you always were my best friend.”
“You could have fooled me, the way you mooned after Eleanor Prescott!” I said. But I put my arm around her and kissed her cheek.
Later, as the cart bumped over the drive, I turned back to look at Collingswood House and waved to her, knowing that I might never see her again, knowing that I would probably never come back. I had a larger world to live in, a world that included grief and loss and loneliness, but also success and companionship. It included the cafés of London, and seeing my name on red leather in bookshop windows, and the Alps. I thought of Louie in Switzerland, coughing his lungs out and looking at me with the most beautiful eyes in the world, his father’s eyes. The world I lived in was more difficult, but I would not have traded it for hers.
Sometimes I would think of Tollie in her world of perpetual girlhood, dreaming of Christopher Raven, of poetry and burning kisses in the dark. And sometimes I would wish for the dreams myself. But I had a life to live, a book to write. I would always remember her this way, standing in front of Collingswood House and waving to me, under the ancient oaks.
Afterword to “Christopher Raven”
The hardest thing about writing “Christopher Raven” was finding the right voice. Finally, I started channeling Daphne du Maurier in Rebecca, and it started coming out right.
—THEODORA GOSS
Lucius Shepard
Lucius Shepard’s short fiction has won the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, among others, and has earned him Notable Book of the Year status from the New York Times. His acclaimed collections include The Jaguar Hunter, The Ends of the Earth,