5th April, 1893 — Wellingtonshire

Sometimes he liked to follow strains of music when he heard them – and, unsurprisingly, the nicer parts of the village tended to have better performances on offer. Not that Barnaby burst in too often – he could lurk patiently outside a window or on the roof and listen to the chime of a pianoforte or a harp echoing out from the chimneys well enough. Sometimes he lodged himself, unseen, in the wall itself, or simply chanced to drift through a deserted adjoining room.

Today he had been bold enough to dip his head in for a glimpse, and had been shooed out right through the walls and into one of the neighbouring houses. This residence, at least, seemed perfectly quiet, so Barnaby indulged himself again and began to peer at the contents of their bookcase. All he could do was cock his head to the side and scan the titles, of course: there would be no pulling them from the shelves. There were a fair few French titles here...

But his luck soon ran out, and Barnaby heard a padding of feet behind him. Disinclined to be forced out unceremoniously twice in quick succession, he lingered there, determined to make a better impression. He turned on the spot (where he was hovering, a few feet off the ground) and inclined his head as if he were nothing less than a visitor come to call, and had been as good as invited.

“Good morrow,” Barnaby offered, and lifted his gaze only to narrow his eyes as he found he recognised the girl – young woman – before him, and was summarily distracted from his chosen course of politeness. She was the girl from the lake, wasn’t she? Who had had a sharp tongue, a wealth of questions, and an uncanny interest in The Great Beyond.

Yet to decide whether this was good fortune or bad, Barnaby hedged his bets for the moment, and remained where he was. “I do not recall that we were ever properly introduced,” he admitted, conversationally. “Barnaby Wye.”

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Adrienne Lestrange

  

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With her husband at work and her brother currently away from home, Adrienne had contented herself to a quiet day. She’d already gone over the meals for the day with Madame Baudelaire, so thought to get some reading done, or perhaps some embroidery. The two calls she had to pay today were for closer friends, and so she hardly felt the need to rush or fuss over her appearance too much beforehand. After making herself a cup of tea which proceeded to float just by her shoulder, Adrienne picked up her book and made her way into her sitting room.

Settling into their house at Wellingtonshire proved to be a much quieter place than she was used to. While sprawling, the Selwyn estate always seemed to be bustling with activity. There were times when she missed it, for it was within the chaos that the witch found she could usually disappear for a horseback ride with Aristide without anyone the wiser. Here in her own home there was no need for such antics, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the compulsion all the same.

So it was a surprise when she slipped into her sitting room that there was a figure waiting for her, and she blinked. A quiet rattle told her that her teacup had bumped into her shoulder as she came to a halt. For a moment’s hesitation, Adrienne stared at the floating man before recognition set in. “The ghost from the lake!” she recalled with some delight as she rediscovered her footing and drew forward. While she wasn’t sure she would have ever seen the ghost again, the last place she ever thought he would have ended up was here in her sitting room. It would have been better for her to call her maid to escort the ghost out; however much like in the lake, her curiosity got the better of her.

“Monsieur Wye, a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.” She peered up at him, surveying his clothes once more - obviously unchanged. “Adrienne Lestrange —” A thought occurred to her and she laughed. “If you’re the ghost from the lake, would that make me the Lady of the Lake?” Perhaps it wasn’t the best attempt at wordplay, however she’d quite enjoyed the venture into Arthurian legends that their last conversation had provided.

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   Barnaby Wye

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He had anticipated her shock, but what he hadn’t expected was her amiable greeting. A pleasant surprise indeed! It was almost as if he had been invited; this was a treasure to him already.

And he supposed these books, then, were hers.

Adrienne Lestrange, she said, which meant little enough to him – but her Lady of the Lake was a reference he understood, so he beamed at her. “Indeed it would,” Barnaby agreed and, happy to play along, bowed again more deeply as if it were even more an honour.

“Although,” he added, with a self-deprecating smile, “you must forgive me, Lady Lestrange of the Lake, if you find me already well equipped with swords today.”

Possessing a sword through his ribs was more than enough for his tastes already.

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In return to his bow, Adrienne curtseyed deeply, her hand plucking her skirt as a theatrical princess would in an opera, as she employed all the skills their etiquette professor had drilled into them in the early days. In the end, it was such a deep curtsey she ended up wobbling a little, preemptively dropped her skirt and placed a hand on the nearby bookshelf to prevent herself from falling. Rising from her position, she gazed at the sword protruding from the ghost’s abdomen before reminding herself it likely wasn’t polite to stare for too long. Ghosts tended to be a bit touchy if the means of their death was overly obvious; Monsieur Wye’s certainly was!

“Quite enough for both of us, I’d reckon,” She replied, though she couldn’t help but note the rapier was impeccably made. It wasn’t jewel-encrusted as far as she could see, but the filigree designs on it certainly mirrored the styles in paintings that she usually saw when she went to the museums. “Although I do have a ring!” She added, her left hand coming up by way of explanation. “Which I didn’t have when we last met, I believe.” Not this particular one at least; from time to time she did enjoy wearing a more simple signet ring she’d obtained back in France.

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Barnaby, pretend otherwise though he might, did sometimes read a person for their true feelings: and often, he could sense that his presence was being merely tolerated. (This was the peril of being dead in a living world – they liked to stick to their own kind, and morbid curiosity only went so far to bridge it.)

But not Miss – Mrs. – Lestrange, whose very curtsey was a spectacularly theatrical affair, and made him feel as if they were old friends, and he had indeed come to call on purpose. She had wobbled, even. That made him grin.

“Ah! A fine piece,” Barnaby said, floating over to examine the ring more closely. He might have taken her by the hand to better inspect it, if he only could have – as it was, he just hung in the air a foot or two from her, and admired it obligingly. “Then you are married, and newly so?” Barnaby concluded, in genuine interest. He remembered his own marriage only vaguely, but it was a circumstance that happened to most people, happily or no. “And how is marriage treating you thus far? Is it much to your liking?”

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She couldn’t help but feel grateful for his unexpected intrusion. She should have been scandalized (Olympe certainly would be when she told her maid later), but instead she found it quite a delightful change to her otherwise leisurely afternoon. “I am,” She confirmed, though she was still finding that fact a bit odd. It had been six months since she’d been married to Cash, and she couldn’t help but feel a shift in him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Of course this wasn’t something she should be telling a stranger, but she knew it was taking her too long to come up with an answer that would signal marital bliss.

Adrienne had never thought about what it would be like to fall in love; this proposal had dropped into her lap and by the grace of Merlin, had come at exactly the right time. Perhaps the fact that she knew she was keeping a disastrous secret from her husband that, if it got out, would mean social ruin for the both of them; that her uncle was in fact her father, and that she and her brother were unacknowledged bastards. Something twisted in her stomach, and she absentmindedly twisted the ring that she was supposed to be displaying to the ghost.

“It’s….quite nice,” She managed, finding that she suddenly wasn’t able to think of the English words to describe how she felt. In fact, she wasn’t able to think of any French words either. Her mind had gone blank. “He’s a wonderful man —” that was a fact, Cash was perfectly gentlemanly “—and he and I have quite a lot in common. Liking mystery books, for example…” It occurred to her that the reason why she might have been grateful for Mr. Wye’s impromptu company. In the past six months, it seemed as if she’d exhausted much of what was available to do around the house.

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Quite nice. Barnaby took too much care with his words to misread that, he thought. If that was the best that could be said, poor Mrs. Lestrange had not been swept off her feet in bliss. The way she twisted her ring, too, made her look altogether like a prisoner. And if all they had in common was... “Mystery books,” Barnaby echoed, deadpan. Mystery books were certainly not poetry. “Hm.”

The courtship was ordinarily the most thrilling part of the marrying endeavour – gifts and wooing – but he did hope Mrs. Lestrange was seeing some continued benefits of the situation, and was not merely cooped up in here like an ivory-towered Lady.

“And your conjugal education?” Barnaby asked without shame, deciding that in her solitude here and his transparency that this may as well be the scene of a confessional, and because he had no choice but to live through the marital activities of newlyweddeddom, as all things, vicariously. “Are you oft bestowed with nightly ecstasies?” Plenty of wives were bored by day and beloved by night, but it had to be a step up from maidenhood.

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“Yes, mystery books,” Adrienne affirmed, nodding and taking her teacup from hovering at her shoulder to sip it.

And then immediately choked.

She’d have been having a grand time talking to Mr. Wye, and rather thought it would be nice to invite him over on a regular basis - perhaps introduce him to Ari and Cash. But then the ghost posed his question, and Adrienne thought she must have heard wrong. English was her second language, after all, and yet there was no equivalent vocabulary that could be mistaken for the phrase ‘nightly ecstasies’. And still, propriety and her upbringing demanded she have absolute clarity before she even began to think of a coherent answer.

“I - I beg your pardon, Mr. Wye, I don’t know if I’ve heard you correctly.” She coughed through her request, her teacup rattling on the plate as she quivered on the spot. “Bestowed with...what?”

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   Barnaby Wye

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Oh, dear. “Nightly ecstasies,” Barnaby repeated, face pulling into an expression of concern.

“Come, madam,” he intoned mournfully. “If you do not know my meaning yet I must pity you with all my soul.” Barnaby gave a melodramatic sigh, hoping indeed he was mistaken, but just in case he was, he put it plainly. “Does your husband not satisfy you?”

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   Yarrow Macnair

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Never in her life had she been asked such a personal question. True, in her trainings with Nurse Moony, Adrienne may have been prompted to ask them, but they were hardly ever directed at her. But what was being uncouth to a ghost? And was she truly insulted by the question, or merely shocked? She hardly had time to ponder these questions because she now had to think back to her nights with Cash and…

She felt her shoulders tense as a zing of embarrassment shot up her spine. “He…” She knew what he’d meant, and yet it had hardly occurred to her that it was something that was supposed to happen. Cash’s nightly visits were a duty they had to perform, and nothing more. Adrienne knew that there could be passion; she had desires for a career in midwifery. And she was French! But was she truly that naïve enough to think perhaps it took time to build up to that? “Not…not yet.”

This time she sipped the tea forcefully, downing as much as she could to give her an excuse to not look in Mr. Wye’s direction.

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Any embarrassment on her side was lost in the vehement disapproval on Barnaby’s side. Tut. Men these days. “If I were –” of any use, I would rectify that for you myself, he had begun saying without thinking... but that was unhelpful on many levels, so he sufficed to throw her a look of utter, lingering sympathy.

“Do you know a poet by the name of Thomas Nashe?” Barnaby asked, quite unabashed by the candour of this conversation – although he did not mean did she know him personally; he had, of course, been a man of Barnaby’s time. “Perhaps you ought to obtain a copy of The Choise of Valentines* for your husband,” he suggested (unaware that said poem had fallen far out of publication by this point; he well remembered the original being passed around his friendship circles). “Nashe’s Dildo, you know. ‘Tis all too common a tale, but ‘tis only fair that you should seek your gratification one way or another.”

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*this poem

  

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“Thomas Nashe?” Her cheeks burned; she hadn’t heard of him but the way this conversation had started did not give Adrienne much hope that he would make a sudden departure from the current topic. The Choise of Valentines sounded a bit more familiar to her, but not by much. Perhaps it was only the word Valentines that Adrienne knew. She shook her head, still decidedly looking downward, examining his boots. It was a mistake to take another sip of tea just then.

The perfunctory tone combined with his suggestion of her seeking pleasure elsewhere - on her own - caused an involuntary gasp to whistle down her throat in a mixture of air and hot tea which then caused her to nearly double over as she coughed. “I - I beg your pardon,” She wheezed, hand over her mouth as tears stung her eyes. She was entirely at a loss as to what to say next. Mercifully; painfully; she continued to cough and had to settle on placing the teacup down before she clapped another hand over her mouth and turned three quarters away.

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His suggestion had perhaps not been as helpful as he had thought; perhaps it had been egregious to say, given it was hardly his place to... “My sincerest apologies,” Barnaby said uncertainly, as she turned away and started choking on her tea.

He drifted a little nearer her, helplessly; and might have outstretched a hand towards her back in some long-buried instinct to pat the cough out of her, though of course his touch would do nothing of the kind. Instead, encouragingly, he offered: “You mustn’t perish for that.” (Well. He wouldn’t mind if she did, but he hadn’t meant her to die of discomfort.)

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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“Please, it’s nothing…” Adrienne wheezed, waving her hand dismissively; it passed through the ghost’s outstretched hand and of course felt as if her hand had been dunked in a trough of ice cold water. “I apologize, I’m not used to such…frankness.” Tears in her eyes, she took a handkerchief and pressed it to the corner of one eye. “Are you this direct with others?”

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If Barnaby had had breath to catch, he would have caught his breath at the contact, he was sure. He, of course, felt nothing of her hand passing through him – felt nothing at all – but he was too used to the fact of seeing Livings shiver not to imagine how his touch would feel. He wished he could feel a flash of that warmth in reverse, a living body – he imagined even a faint brush of her hand would feel like a flame to him – but of course this kind of existence did not grant him even an echo of a feeling.

He had affronted her, he suspected, and he was sorry for it: he did not want to lose a chance of gaining a new friend by being too hasty or indecorous. “No, no, you must not beg my pardon,” Barnaby protested, newly contrite. “I am sure I never was so indecent to a lady while alive. It is only –” he sighed, and sought a way to explain himself, “when one is prevented from being direct in any other form – in having any contact with touch or smell or taste, with bodily sensation, with even the feel of the ground beneath one’s feet – a little directness in speech is all one has to offer.” He smiled, a little guiltily. “Being too free with my tongue is an unfortunate outcome of my death. I simply want my Living friends to – fully enjoy the fruits of life while they can.” Age and death may not have brought him wisdom, but they had certainly brought him candour in spades.

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Thankfully she’d recovered enough to return her attention to him as he offered an explanation. It was an explanation she knew she should balk at, though in her mind she’d exhibited the right amount of offensiveness at his last question. Perhaps she should have been more angry; if his intrusion wasn’t grounds for expulsion from the premises, his question certainly was. Still, Adrienne couldn’t help but sympathize. It stood to reason that when experiencing a lack of physical touch for so long that coaxing reactions from people in the extreme might be a way to compensate for it.

Her hand slipped to rest over her heart. It was quite touching, if a little odd, that he was so committed to making sure those in the land of the living didn’t miss out on experiencing life, that he risked his own public image to see that happen. For he was in the unfortunate position of getting to experience life but only just. Surely that had to be some unique torture in and of itself. And what did public image mean to someone who had lived decades? “I must say, Monsieur Wye while your methods are unconventional and perhaps quite risky, I can’t help but follow your logic on the matter.” She attempted to give him a half-smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of integrating oneself into the land of the living quite in that way before.”

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