Chapter 4: The Living and the Dead

That same day, in the middle hours of the evening, there came a knock on the Van Dort family's front door.

When Victor opened the door, an elderly rail-thin gentleman with bushy white mutton-chop whiskers and a white captain's hat was standing on his doorstep.

"Ah, you must be the Captain Barrett that Emily's been telling me so much about," Victor said. "Come in, come in."

The old man nodded and entered the house. "Are you alone?" he said.

Victor looked towards the stairs and nodded. "My wife has retired early. You were fortunate to catch me still up."

The men adjourned to Victor's study and made themselves comfortable. "What can I do for you tonight?" Victor asked the Captain.

The older man pulled out a brown leather folder, which he then opened. From it he carefully drew a sheet of paper, which he handed to Victor.

It was Emily's blue-pencil sketch.

"Your daughter gave me this today," Walter said.

Victor looked it over carefully, then handed it back and began to apologize. "I'm sorry if she offended you, sir. She didn't mean…"

The Captain cut him off. "No, no. It's perfectly all right. You don't know how much this picture means to me … it's the only one of her that I have."

Victor nodded cautiously, but said nothing.

The Captain raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem at all surprised to see this - do you know who the girl in the picture is?"

"Of course," came the reply. "And you know the circumstances…"

"Indeed, I do," said Captain Barrett. "I know the story quite well. But I never had a good reason to talk to you about it." He motioned at the drawing. "Until now..."

"What do you want to know?"

"How is it that young Emily has come to know my daughter's face so well?" the Captain asked. "Did you perchance draw my daughter and the lass copied your work?"

Victor shook his head. "I used to draw a bit, it's true, but I never made any drawings of your Emily."

Captain Barrett waited, and Victor took a deep breath.

"She's been appearing in my daughter's dreams," Victor said. "For quite a while, apparently. My wife found that out the time Emily got sick and we almost lost her. At the height of her fever, she kept talking to someone, somebody who helped her through the worst of the crisis. From the description my wife got, it could only be your daughter. And this picture confirms it."

"You never talked to the child about this yourself?" the Captain asked.

"You have to understand, Captain Barrett, that my wife is - sensitive - about the subject. I made her a promise many years ago not to talk to our children about your Emily or about her own 'marriage' to that other man. And it is a promise that I have kept these many years."

"But your daughter ought to know," Walter objected.

"Maybe," Victor agreed. "But I did make that promise …"

"An unwise one in my opinion," the Captain grumbled.

There was an awkward silence.

"I could talk to Emily," Victor said. "And see to it that she doesn't bother you again. I can assure you, sir, she didn't mean to be hurtful in any way."

"No, please don't," the old man said quickly. "There's no need ... I enjoy her visits ... it lightens my days, you see."

Victor relaxed. "It seems to mean a lot to her, too," he said.

"You're not spending much time with the lass these days," the Captain observed.

Victor shrugged. "The business has been keeping me occupied. It's been hard to get away."

"I can understand that," said the Captain. "I know all about the need to tend to one's business. But if you could allow an old man to make a personal observation…"

"Go on," said Victor.

"It would be this: I had a child of my own once ... and I let my own business get betwixt us. And later on I lost her forever. And now I would give anything to have her back, even for a minute. Don't make the same mistake I did."

"I'll keep that in mind, sir" Victor said quietly.

Another awkward silence passed between the two men, but eventually Victor spoke.

"You wanted me to tell you the full story of how I came to know your daughter," he said.

Captain Barrett nodded. "I got some of it from the Crier, but the rest of it only you can tell."

"True enough," Victor agreed. "And for her sake I'd be happy to tell it to you..."

And so he shared with the old man everything he could remember of his time with the elder Emily and, in return, the Captain told Victor her life story. About how he had been gone a lot, and had returned from one trip to find his eighteen-year old daughter – his only child - to be in love with a scoundrel, a brute who had killed her and left her body in the woods. And how he had had her buried hastily, still in her mother's wedding dress, while he left to pursue the killer.

"The men I had hired to bury her did a poor job, and I left before they were done - that's how my daughter's hand came to be out of the ground. But when I returned years later, the grave was nicely kept," the Captain said.

"My wife," Victor said. "For her own reasons it's been important to her to keep up the grave."

"And I appreciate that," replied the Captain. "Please thank her for me."

Hours passed and the men talked, and then the Captain remembered something else. "I have a further bit of business with you."

"What's that?" asked Victor.

The old man reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a piece of blue velvet cloth folded into a small square packet. "I brought this for your daughter."

Victor carefully unfolded it and examined the object inside.

"Oh ... a butterfly brooch," Victor said, admiring the detail work. "It's absolutely beautiful. But - those can't be real sapphires...?"

"... And diamonds? Oh yes … they are," the Captain answered. "I had that custom made as a wedding present for my daughter for when she eventually got married, but..."

Victor shook his head. "It's much too expensive a gift for a child. We can't take this... "

"Consider it a future wedding gift from her old friend the Captain. Give it to her when she gets married," Walter replied.

"In that case, you could give it to her at that time yourself," Victor suggested.

The Captain shook his head and laughed: it was not a pleasant laugh. "You have eyes in your head, Victor - it must be plain to you that I'm not long for this world?"

Victor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to..."

The old man interrupted. "Take it, son - it's a gift from my family to yours. I won't be having any more use for it and I am certain that my Emily would have wanted yours to have it."

"But..."

"No 'buts', Victor," the Captain insisted. "That girl of yours has done more for me than I could ever hope to repay. That drawing alone..."

Victor sighed. "I'm not going to win this argument, am I?"

The Captain smiled. "No, I'm afraid not – you're talking to a man who's accustomed to having his own way."

Victor smiled in response. "I can see that, Captain Barrett."

"Good - it's settled, then..."

Victor nodded.

The two men fell again into a comfortable conversation and only when the morning light arrived did either of them realize that the night had passed.

"I'm sorry, I have taken your entire night," the Captain apologized.

Victor smiled wearily. "It was well spent."

"And for me, as well," said Walter. He sighed. "Where were you when my daughter was looking for a man?"

"Pretty close to being born, I believe," Victor said dryly.

"A pity," Walter remarked. "You'd have made a fine son-in-law - it's too bad that she couldn't have waited another nineteen or twenty years ... the two of you would have made a fine pair, I'm sure."

"Do you really think so?" Victor asked.

"I have no doubt of it," the Captain smiled. "It's good to know that … in the end … she found someone who loved her for who she was."

Victor flinched. "Don't tell Victoria," he pleaded.

"I won't," promised Walter, "but being a good sensible woman, I'm sure that she's long since figured that out."

There was an awkward silence, which Victor finally broke. "For what it's worth, you would have made a good father-in-law. I'm glad to have finally met you, sir."

The Captain stood up. "And with that, my boy, it's time for me to go."

He glanced at the nearest window. Outside the sun had come up and the new day was brightening.

Victor saw him to the door. "Thank you for coming by. I enjoyed the visit." Then he held out his hand.

The older man took it and shook it vigorously. "Likewise - thank you for having me." And he left.

Young Emily Van Dort liked it when her 'dream friend' came to visit. Like with the Captain, it was good to have somebody who could - and did - listen to her, and tell her all kinds of interesting things.

But, unlike the Captain, she had never revealed anything about herself: even her name was still a mystery...

"Who are you?" Emily asked her once again that night.

The Bride smiled, but said nothing.

"Why won't you tell me who you are?" the child persisted.

Her friend shook her head. "I can't."

"But why not?"

"Your father knows why..."

"Papa knows you?" Emily asked. "But how?"

The Bride smiled again. "Ask your father," she said.

Then Emily woke up.