Massaging her temples with elegant fingers, Rose let out a long breath. “Caleb, I don’t doubt that losing your father has been difficult, but this isn’t like you. You could hardly stomach being in the same room as your father when he was alive.” She paused, a vulnerable edge creeping into her voice that made him feel like the worst kind of scoundrel. “You promised me you would be here today to set a date for the wedding, and you made me look a fool waiting with my parents.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Truly, Rose. It’s just...” he trailed off. He was a terrible scoundrel. It was one thing to indulge in such follies while in the bloom of adolescence, but for God’s sake, he was nearly a twenty-eight-year-old man. In front of him sat the most beautiful, kind, and God knew, patient woman he had ever known, and all he could think about was someone he had met a handful of times, and in a cemetery no less. He gave a deep sigh, raking his hand through his hair. “The truth is, I was late because I was... I was with a young lady. It was a mistake,” he hastened to explain. “It meant nothing.” Though even as he said the words, they left a sour taste in his mouth.
Rose’s silence was a censure, her stillness a weapon. What the hell had made him say that? She wasn’t a priest, and she couldn’t absolve him of his sins, and as the pain spread across her face, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake. The best course of action would have been to say nothing, to never do it again, and endeavor to be a better man. But it was too late now, and the damage was done. Who had said that honesty was the best policy? He’d wanted to be truthful, to make a clean breast of it, but as she sat there, radiating anger, he realized he had wounded her deeply. And was it any wonder?
Her face deepened three shades of red, and without so much as moving a muscle made Caleb melt into his boots with shame. “You were what?” she ground out.
“I’m so sorry, Rose. I—”
Standing up, she stopped him with a swift outstretched palm. “Don’t, Caleb. I’m not so naive as to think that my husband would not have his dalliances before our marriage, but we have been engaged these six months without a wedding date in sight. To admit that you are still...” she trailed off, shaking her head, as if it were too terrible to even put words to his indiscretions. “Well, it is beyond the pale. And I certainly do not want to hear about them. What if someone saw you? What if they gave the story to the papers? Do you know who would pay the price of your indiscretion? It would be me! The competing papers would love nothing more than to paint the daughter of Boston’s premier newspaper owner as a fallen woman. At the very least I deserve respect, and that means honoring our engagements and presenting a unified front.”
“No one saw, I swear it.” He could at least assure her of that much. There had been no one in the cemetery aside from him and Tabby. “And I do respect you.”
“No. You. DON’T!” She slammed her fist down onto a side table, sending a vase of anemones crashing to the floor. “If you respected me you wouldn’t go about cavorting with other women while you were supposedly visiting the grave of your dead father! If you respected me you wouldn’t then tell me about it.” She lifted a trembling hand to her temples and closed her eyes. “My God, Caleb.”
She was right. Everything she said was right. He pulled at his necktie, sweat beading down his back. The gold medallions on the wallpaper swam and bled together. Why was it so bloody hot in here? “Rose, please—”
“I think you should leave now. I won’t call off the engagement because it would break my parents’ hearts, but I need time. Just, go.”
Caleb opened his mouth to argue but clamped it shut just as quickly. There was nothing he could say to make it better, not right now anyway. He’d already irrevocably damaged the trust between them. Besides, he needed some air. The whole room was close and stuffy and hot. Standing, he nodded. “Send for me when you’re ready,” he said, but Rose had moved to the far side of the room, staring out the large window into the dusk. He threw one last hopeful look at her before placing his hand on the doorknob.
It was the last time he would ever see her alive.
7
IN WHICH THE VEIL IS BREACHED.
THE LAMPS WERE low on oil, and the small room where Tabby and Eli took their meals hung in flickering shadows. For an extra two dollars in rent, they could have dined downstairs with the landlady and other boarders, but Mrs. Hodge watered down her soup and served only the fattiest cuts of meat, so it was salted cod and potatoes made in the warming pan for them. When they were finished, Tabby would take out her embroidery, and Eli his whittling, and they would work together, heads bent low, close to the dim lamp. Sometimes Eli might sing a song, his velvet baritone filling the room. It was a comforting routine, and Tabby looked forward to it every day.
“You look worn down,” Tabby said as she spooned out the last of the potatoes onto Eli’s plate. She had never seen him so weary and stooped, and was afraid that the events of the other night were weighing heavily on him. Eli took his charge as caretaker seriously, and it couldn’t be easy to lose someone to whom he was tasked with providing eternal rest.
For her part, Tabby was still rattled from their luncheon at Miss Suze’s. We will give you no peace until we have peace. If she had been under any illusion about the possibility of a normal life, that afternoon’s events had swept them clean away. The look of terror on Ella’s face alone was enough to convince her she could never have a family of her own. She had always known she would not have a normal life, but now it seemed she would not have a peaceful one, either. How was she supposed to help those poor souls? How could she care for a child when she could not control her own strange powers?
Sighing, Eli drew his hand over his face, as if trying to sweep away his troubles. “The police have been to Harvard and the hospitals, but they say it’s unlikely they’ll be able to find the remains. I thought we were done with this after the last time.” He pushed the plate of potatoes away, and shook his head. “Boston prides itself as being a city of progress, but sometimes it feels like we’re going backward.”
Even if their bodies were used for the greater good and led to scientific advancements, it was hard to think about the dissections that took place in the sterile medical theaters for audiences of students and anyone else who could pay the five cents admission. It was usually the bodies of the poor, the insane, the unloved, that found themselves on a cold marble slab, and while Mr. Bishop certainly did not deserve such indignity, there was a sort of irony that for all his wealth and status, he had met the same fate. Like death, it seemed that the grave robbers did not discriminate when it came to reaping their grim harvest.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts and her stomach tightened. They’d been a little late with the rent, but Mrs. Hodge had accepted their money without complaint; could she really be back for more already?
“Stay,” she ordered Eli when she saw him moving to get up, and answered the door.