“Er, the back, I suppose.”

  A pretty maid let them in. Alethea stared at her until she colored pink and curtseyed, with a flourish of her skirts and a brassy, pert expression. She handed the girl her card, which was swiftly carried away after she showed them to a reception room off the hall, bidding them await the mistress, if they pleased.

  “That girl will be trouble for my friends,” Alethea said dourly, taking a seat near the fire and pulling off her gloves.

  “What do you mean?” Anne asked, sitting near her. “She seemed perfectly polite to me.”

  “You do not have the experience with maids that I do, engaging them and firing them,” Alethea said, staring at the door through which the maid had left the room. “She is the sort who is unhappy with her position and will find a means to change it.”

  “How is that bad? Shouldn’t she try to better herself?”

  “There is your society-leveling streak again. The means by which she will try to escape it will involve a man, flirtation, sex and money to keep her in style.”

  “You can’t know that.” Anne got up and strolled to the window overlooking the street, watching a man and woman walk by. Around her the house was active with the sounds of students moving about upstairs. A child cried somewhere. Serving staff in another room clanked and clattered, setting up luncheon, or clearing away. The place smelled of fish, floor polish and the indefinable scent of a score of girls and women.

  “Never mind my gloomy reflections,” Alethea said. “I apologize if I sound ill-tempered. I have been plagued by staff problems lately. The new house will require more servants, and it’s hard to find good staff when you are a pariah. You have been reticent since I told you our mission today, and of young Faithful’s tale of ghostly visitation.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Anne remarked, strolling away from the window, touching a pianoforte, admiring a painting mounted on a silk-covered wall. She turned to her friend. “It is an incredible tale, and I’m not sure what I am to say except, indeed? I have been ordered to eschew ridicule, and what else do I have in my arsenal of speech?”

  Alethea chuckled at her friend’s arch reply. “I didn’t say you could not be cutting to me, I merely suggested kindness toward Faithful.”

  “The girl was found on the roof outside of a skylight or window in the attic of the building and appeared about to jump to her death,” Anne mused aloud. “A disagreeable way to go, since I’m not convinced she would have died, merely maimed herself. When questioned, you tell me she said she had been led there by a ghost and told to jump. Are we sure she was not dreaming?”

  Alethea raised one brow.

  “I’m serious, my friend. Or sleepwalking? A clandestine meeting gone wrong? Mischief? I can think of a dozen explanations that don’t include ghosts, but that a girl might attempt to cover up with a wild ghost story.” Fixing her friend with a speculative gaze, she said, “Or she was looking for attention. Girls on occasion invent wild stories to make themselves stand out, or to cause a stir.”

  “Let us wait for Miss Lee.”

  There were voices outside the door, one low and melodious, one shrill and complaining. The melodious tone altered to commanding, and the shrill voice quieted and stopped. After a moment, a lady swept into the room.

  Anne had met Harriet Lee at the Drury Lane theater in London and they had struck up a friendship and correspondence, but had never met Sophia Lee. She examined a pretty lady of mature years, medium height, high arched brows over piercing eyes, and tidy figure. Her clothing was moderately fashionable, with a cinched waist emphasizing a high bosom concealed under a linen tucker. She bustled forward, hand outstretched, as she examined Anne minutely.

  “This is your friend, of whom I have heard much,” she exclaimed to Alethea. “I am to offer felicitations on your upcoming wedding, I understand.”

  “Thank you.” Anne took her hand and the two women examined each other. “I am acquainted with your sister Harriet.”

  “Harriet is closer to being your contemporary than I.” Miss Sophia Lee was her sister’s senior by seven years and had taken on the care of her siblings at thirty. Her duties had perhaps resulted in her manner, which was brusque, commanding, and confident. Anne liked her the better for it. “Our other sister Anne is almost exactly your age.”

  “A sister namesake to me! Where does Miss Anne Lee live?” Anne said with a smile.

  “Why here, of course. She’s about somewhere. We rely on her, for she is responsible for many details of the curricula. Sit, ladies, sit,” Miss Lee commanded, waving a hand over a grouping of chairs and a settee. “I have tea coming in a moment if the mindless girl remembers.”

  Sophia and Alethea sat on brocade chairs lined up to face each other like soldiers on parade. An upholstered settee created the bottom of a U-shaped seating arrangement. Anne took a seat there.

  “I know your friendship with Alethea and Bertie,” she said with a warm glance toward Anne’s friend. “I am grateful on their behalf. Good people should not be mistreated. And I watched from afar and applauded as you evicted the charlatan and her retinue from Bath,” she said of the mystic Anne had exposed. “When this current trouble occurred, I thought of you. I don’t mind saying this incident leaves us perplexed. My sisters and I have dealt with over-ardent girls, but Faithful … I had not expected this of her. She’s a Bristol girl, sensible, intelligent, not a silly dreamer like others her age. We’re not far from Bristol, of course, but with no mother resident, she goes to one of her classmate’s homes in the summer. One in particular has grandparents living in Bath and Faithful stayed there for a few weeks. We had her here last year with no problem, but this year something has changed. This fright, her almost … er, falling from the rooftop has alarmed me. At the very least, I would appreciate your advice on how to get through to this chit that there are no ghosts at our school, nor any such thing as ghosts.”

  The directness of her appeal to Anne was uncommon. Not many ladies were as straightforward. It was a novelty, and one Anne rather enjoyed. However, Miss Sophia’s pause before saying “falling” was telling. She was not sure what she was dealing with, and the uncertainty was unpleasant to her. “Are you sure there are no ghosts in your school?”

  Miss Lee stared at her as Alethea snickered. “I assume you jest.”

  “Not at all.” She watched the other lady for a moment, then elaborated. “I have been a witness to a ghost, you see. Or what was meant to be a ghost. Is it possible the girl is seeing or experiencing an illusion? She’s too young to be as cynical as I have become to what my eyes behold. What I saw was a machination, but there are other possible explanations. In short, she may not be lying or even imagining. She may have seen what appeared to be a ghost.”

  “Ah, I understand you now,” Miss Lee said. She glanced to Alethea. “Perhaps you should meet the girl and tell me what you think.”

  Two

  The maid brought a tea tray and set it down on a low table beside her employer. “Kate, will you fetch Miss Collier?” The girl curtseyed and flounced from the room as Miss Lee glared after her with a narrow squinting gaze Anne noted but did not comment on.

  The three women conversed over bowls of tea, Alethea asking questions about Sophia’s literary plans, until a pale girl entered the reception room. Slim and tall, Faithful Collier appeared surprisingly childlike despite being seventeen. Maybe it was her clothing, for she wore the unadorned white dress of a very young girl, and her hair was loose, curly and billowing exuberantly from a pale blue silk ribbon tied at the nape of her neck. Or maybe it was the wide guileless blue of her eyes, the pink bow of her mouth. The girl was pretty but carried herself with no self-conscious air. Anne had expected Faithful to be timid, frightened, even. Instead she appeared defiant, her mouth set in an obstinate line.

  Introductions made, Miss Sophia said to the girl, “Miss Collier, I’ve been concerned after the incident on the roof and your astonishing contention that you received ghostly visitations urging you to self-destruction. Lady Anne has experience with these matters and would like to speak with you.”

  There could hardly be a worse introduction, Anne thought. The girl stood mutely, hands folded behind her back, staring at a spot above Alethea’s head. She had been mishandled and would not trust easily, Anne thought, having been in similar situations. She cast a look at her friend.

  Alethea stood. “Sophia, could we speak in private?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Birkenhead. Let us repair to my study.”

  Once they were gone Anne said, “May I call you Faithful?”

  The girl stared. On closer inspection her enormous eyes were rimmed in red and underlined with dark circles. Her clothes were plain, with little in the way of ornamentation, and ill fitting, the overskirt drooping on her as if made for a heavier girl. She had recently lost weight. She nodded at Anne’s question.

  “Please sit.” The girl obeyed, perching on the edge of one of the chairs. “You say you were bidden by a ghost to leap from the rooftop. Is that true?”

  No response.

  “I will not ridicule you, Faithful, I promise it. My sole aim is to help you.” She didn’t move. Something must break the silence. “Come here. Sit beside me, please.”

  She did as she was told, her weight making barely any indentation on the sofa. Gentling her voice, Anne said, “Faithful, you can talk to me. I promise not to tease or ridicule you, no matter what you say. Were you told to go up to the roof to jump off?”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  “Who was it?”

  “A voice, at first. Then I saw a ghost in the mirror, you see, and it bid me follow. We climbed the stairs—”

  “We?”

  “The specter and I.”

  “You saw the specter and it moved with you?” The girl stiffened and clamped her mouth shut. “I am not making fun. I want to understand, Faithful,” Anne said. “Tell me what happened. You saw a ghostly apparition and it ascended with you.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Not exactly. A light preceded me up the stairs.”

  Mirrors, perhaps? Light reflected? “The stairs to the roof?”

  She shook her head. “There are no stairs to the roof, my lady. I was led to the servants’ floor.”

  “Had you been up there before?”

  “No, my lady. I did not know the way. The light led me to a door, and the stairs.”

  “Did you hear anything while this was happening?”

  “A voice, saying I must obey. Follow the light.” She shook her head, pressing her lips together in a firm line. Tears welled in her eyes. One spilled over and trailed down her cheek. She dashed it away impatiently.

  “Tell me, Faithful.” The girl shook her head. Anne thought she had likely learned that telling the truth led to mockery. “I vow I will not laugh.” The girl was silent. “I always keep my promises. You can tell me all.”

  There was a tension in the girl’s slim frame, an agitation in her very stillness. She burst out, “I … I started hearing a voice—”

  “Was the first time at home?”

  She shook her head. “Here. At school, a few weeks ago.”

  “Where did the voice come from?”

  “It was … oh, it was in the air. I cannot say where it came from: everywhere and nowhere.”

  “Was it clear, muffled, one voice or many?”

  “It was clear at times, and not at others. One voice, at first, but …” Faithful tilted her head and looked into herself. “Sometimes there was also a whisper.” She glanced at Anne. “And now you shall say I am imagining it. Or I am going mad.”

  “I won’t. Let us continue. There was one voice but whispering also.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Was it female or male?”

  “One voice, a girl’s.”

  “Did you recognize it?”

  She shook her head, but her eyes said there was more to be said.

  “What is it, Faithful?”

  “At times it sounded almost like my mother,” she whispered, her breath catching on a sob.

  Oh dear; the poor child. Girls could be cruel, even toward a motherless girl. “You lost your mother years ago, but you remember her voice. How would you describe it?”

  “It was soft, sweet, loving.” She smiled through tears. “She would call me her darling dove.”

  In other words, the voice sounded like any voice tempered to be sweet and loving when whispering phrases remembered through the mists of time. “I’m sorry, Faithful, truly. I’m sure it helps having friends to talk to about your mother. Do you talk about her often?” Anne asked.

  “I did at first.”

  And probably told her friends about what her mother called her, how her voice sounded. Anne started to see a pattern, how what Faithful had said in the late-night conversations girls have had been turned into a weapon with which to trick and torment her. But why? “What about the image in the mirror? Was it female, or male?”

  Female, Faithful said, as far as she could tell, and she only saw her once.

  “When? And where?”

  “In our room. It was evening, and the other girls were late going up. They lingered behind in the music room, where we had been working on an amateur theatrical we are planning. They were all whispering and laughing.” A thread of bewildered annoyance threaded through her tone, but there was a note of aloneness too. “I was tired, and I was finished with my work.”

  “You went up to the room alone. And then?”

  “I got my brush—”

  “Was that your habit?”

  She nodded. “Every night. I brush my hair one hundred strokes and braid it, tying a ribbon around the end.”

  “And … ?”

  “My brush was on top of the bureau. I glanced at the mirror and … and that’s when I saw it!”

  “Saw what?”

  “The face.” She was trembling all over. A sob caught her voice as she exclaimed, “It was horrible, a figure covered in a ghastly torn veil like a … like a shroud! She laughed and pointed at me—the hand was a skeleton’s hand—and said I was a fool. She said I would be visited by others. I must do as I was bid or I would d-die.”

  Someone was taking despicable advantage of this child. “And then?”

  “She disappeared, and I heard only a voice.”

  “Saying … ?”

  “Saying to beware. To tell no one or my family would be cursed.”

  “Your family would be cursed? You father and who else?”

  “My brother, my lady.”

  “Do you like your brother, Faithful? Do you see him much?”

  She shrugged in a way that revealed more than words. “I … I don’t see him much, though he has been in Bath a few times lately. The voice said they would suffer under a curse that would devastate them forever. My mother had been punished, the voice said, for being immoral, and I was headed down the same path to destruction.”

  Anne bit her lip to keep from exclaiming against such offensive humiliation.

  “I was to listen for instructions.” It finished, she said, with ghostly, mocking laughter.

  “Did the instructions come?”

  “Any time I was alone.”

  “What did the voice tell you to do?”

  Trembling, she looked like she would not answer. Finally she said, “It made me do awful things!”

  “Like what?”

  “One time it was to creep into the servants’ hall and put salt in the sugar cellars. The next time it told me to pour vinegar in Miss Dankworth’s bedside water glass.”

  Schoolgirlish pranks. “Was it always the same voice?”

  Faithful nodded.

  “You didn’t recognize it?” The girl shook her head. “Did you tell anyone about the voice?”

  “Alys Edisbury, my friend. I tell her everything. One of the other girls learned it and made fun of me. It was horrible. I can’t bear it!” Her voice had risen in tone, hysteria creeping in. She rocked, twisting her hands together in her lap.

  “Who was the girl who made fun of you?”

  She shook her head, unwilling to tattle. If another girl knew, it was likely because she was the guilty party hoaxing poor Faithful with a cruel joke, though it sounded to Anne like more than one girl was in on the hoax. “Faithful, where is the bureau where your brush is kept?”

  “Inside the bedroom, near the door.”

  “And the bedroom is where?”

  “Bedrooms are on the third floor by the staircase.”

  “Are there other rooms up there?”

  “Yes, my lady, the other student bedroom, the Misses Lee’s rooms, offices.”

  At the top of the stairs. The timing would have to be precise. Anne imagined the “ghost” was another girl dressed in a gray veil, glaring into the mirror, frightening Faithful to the point that she was frozen in place. Roommates know each other’s habits. The girls would have known that she brushed her hair in the mirror every evening the moment she went to their room. The trickster was able to flit out the door in a split second, as Faithful finally turned. “And when you turned, there was no one there.”

  “No, but there was this ghastly laughter, mocking, floating.” She shuddered. “After that, the voices haunted me whenever I was alone.”

  “And started making you do things to the staff and teachers?”

  She nodded. “The voices started saying other things, too. They taunted me.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I would go mad, like my mother did.”

  Startled, Anne said, “What do you mean, going mad as your mother had?”

  She turned away and rocked back and forth, choking on tears. “My mother had to go to a madhouse. She was going to hurt me.”