Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [53]
“In that, you differ from God, Brooks. Would you save a soul from hell if you could?”
“Who would not?”
“Millions. Extinguish the light and I shall show you how it may be done.”
“No, madam.” I shook my head.
“Then I must tell you, and that only. First, I must tell you that I seek to save my own life. You saw me in this very chamber not so long ago. Did you think me young and fair?”
“Very much so, Miss Landon.”
“So I will die, Brooks, save you prevent it.”
“And go to hell? Surely not!”
“Not I, but my murderer.” Her voice was fainter, yet still distinct. “Would you be blessed, Brooks? Blessed as the saints were? Would you join those who sit at the right hand of the Lord? Prevent my murder, and you shall. I swear it! Although I do not decide these things, I know how they are decided.”
“But, madam,” I began.
“Have you a knife? You need but—”
“Oh, Miss Landon! Do not speak of that, I beg you.” I wept then, and turning back to my bed buried my face in the sheet, but wept still.
“You bear the mark of Cain.” Her whisper was an icy caress. “I did not know it, but am cognizant of it now. I shall tell you how that mark may be expunged anon.”
I wept on until at length I felt the touch of a female hand; at it, my tears ceased, and I sat bolt upright, for it had not been the chill digits of the ghost I had felt upon my shoulder but the warm fingers of a living woman. One of the housemaids, hearing my sobs, had come in to enquire as to their cause.
“I am weeping for my sins,” I told her. “At times I wake in the night and am oppressed by them.”
“Are they many?” You may laugh at the naïveté of the question, but the sympathy it held touched me deeply.
“I hope not,” I said, “but there is one . . .” I could not complete the thought.
“You have repented of it.”
I nodded. “A hundred times over.”
“In that case, God has forgiven you, Mr. Brooks. You must come to forgive yourself.”
We talked longer, but I need not give it all. When we parted, I said, “There are spirits of evil abroad, Kate. Tonight I have learned that the angels of Heaven move among them.” I do not believe she grasped my meaning.
The great day arrived, and brought so many guests that every servant who could be made presentable was needed to wait upon them all; and, indeed, we might have made good use of a round dozen more. Eleven courses made the meal; and though I had scarcely a moment to take breath between serving and clearing, I had also many occasions to steal a glimpse at the living Miss Alice Landon. Her golden hair and wide blue eyes were her best features, and I verily believe that those alone might have made her fortune on the stage. If her complexion were blotched, as my master had alleged, its disfigurements were well concealed by powder. She was, possibly, some trifle too slim for fashionable beauty; but that was a fault the mere passage of time would likely mend.
I tried not to stare at her, yet ere long I realized that she was staring at me, and I thought her expression both wondering and puzzled. When I was clearing off the game, I saw her whisper to the young gentleman to her right; it seemed clear that she was enquiring about me, and had received a satisfactory answer, too, for she nodded at it. Her satisfaction, however, did not put an end to her stares.
Her ghost came again that night, not a moment after I had stretched my weary frame upon my bed. “This is the night,” she told me; her voice held a breathless urgency I had not heard before. “I will not speak of the mark you bear upon your immortal soul, nor seek to learn whom it was you killed—”
I sat up. “I must tell someone,” I exclaimed, “or else go mad. It was I who slew Mr. Bolter, third mate of the Jack Robinson.”
“We have not time—”
“You need me,” I whispered, “thus you shall listen as I speak, and for as long as it takes me to tell my tale. For if you do not listen, you shall surely die this night.”
She nodded a reluctant acquiescence.
“I had been in a fight in a low dive in Shanghai. It has never been my custom to frequent such places, but no others were available to