Eliza Doolittle: The Life and Times of a Good Girl

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Ghost and Mr. Higgins or Family Reunion Part One

Author's Note: Here is the next volley of new chapters! I hope you enjoy... and also review if you did(or didn't).

"I haven't slept in days, you must be a figment."

The ethereal face of Catherine Higgins broke into a gentle smile, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. "Perhaps, Edward. I may be a mixture of guilt and sleep deprivation, or I may be an honest to goodness spirit. It doesn't matter, I suppose. What matters, is that you are staring me right in the face; I am here."

"If I close my eyes, you may disappear." Edward flinched when Catherine's cool hand came up to brush a stray strand of hair from his eyes. It felt like his forehead was being caressed by an ice cube.

"Oh, I don't know. I think I will disappear when I've given you a piece of my mind, that's what I think." Her fine features darkened. "You did a bad thing, Edward. My sweet, sweet boy. How could you?"

"I did it for you."

Catherine shook his head. "It was for me that you broke my child's heart?"

"You would have your daughter marry the man that had you turned out into the streets?"

Catherine could hit quite hard for a ghost that was lying on her side. "Is it for you to decide whether I would approve of such a thing? You are not me, nor are you Eliza's father!" Her features softened when Edward rubbed his sore cheek. "Darling, you know so little of your brother. I have been watching him for ages. He's apologized to me constantly in his sleep, his conscience has haunted him far more efficiently than I ever could."

"Yet, he did nothing to rectify the situation."

Catherine gave a frustrated sigh. "You fool. Did you know I conceived Eliza my first night with Alfred. Do you honestly think that your mother would keep on a pregnant ladies maid? Especially one whose choices were a husband that was an uneducated dustman or no husband at all? Either way, I would have been in disgrace. There was no way to rectify the situation."

"There are ways to take care of unwanted children, I've heard."

Catherine's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, how could you? Even after knowing my girl, you make such a suggestion! Would you have Jane destroy her babies?" Catherine slapped Edward's hand away when he tried to lay it on her shoulder. "I have made such a decision, and it killed me."

Edward watched in horror as the specter of Catherine continued to sob. "I thought it was a miscarriage that killed you."

"No. But, I swear, if you tell Eliza differently, I will haunt you until the day you die, and it shan't be pleasant!" A violent red color began to bleed over the blue in her eyes, and her complexion darkened to a grayish-black hue.

Edward nodded, fright seizing him. "I swear, Catherine! I won't speak a work on it." He sighed in relief when she returned to normal. "But why are you here? I am on my way to retrieve my brother as we speak. My wife lit into me like a fury and packed my bags."

Catherine smiled. "I just wanted you to understand fully, why you are doing this. I also wanted to tell you that I didn't appreciate the actions you made in the name of my honor. I was quite happy that Henry and Eliza found each other, both of them lost for so long. It is imperative that you bring them together once more."

"It would be easier if I knew where he was. But if you are indeed a figment, you would not have such an answer."

Catherine shrugged. "I suppose you will just have to go to the Grand Hotel Don Gregorio in Salamanca to see if I exist in only in your mind."

Edward swore under his breath. "I will have to alter my entire course on the words of a specter."

Catherine chuckled. "I am now a specter and not a mere figment?" She pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Believe me, or don't believe me, it is your choice." With that, she vanished.

If sleep eluded Edward before, it certainly would not come now.

"Oh, it's you."

"Indeed." Edward swayed on his feet, fatigued from his long journey.

"How did you get in?"

"You left the door unlocked. I swear, Henry, aren't you afraid of being murdered in your bed? You've never been good at keeping a domicile secure."

"What are you even doing here?" Henry was in no mood for small talk. His lapse in security was his own damn business.

"I've come to collect you," Edward replied through a yawn.

Henry's eyes widened in astonishment. "Oh really? On whose orders?"

"Jane's. Catherine's too, if you will believe it. I am only saying that because I've had no sleep in days, and I fear I've no filter between my brain and my mouth. So, get up, and pack your things. Quickly now, old boy."

"One moment please. You are telling me your wife, and a woman who has been dead for years, sent you to fetch me?"

"That's right."

Henry roared with laughter. "My god! How very amusing, Edward!" He sipped from a tumbler once his hysterics passed. "Have you been drinking, sir?"

"No, but I see you have."

"That's my business."

"Catherine forgives you, and Eliza is ill."

Henry jumped from his chair. "How dare you come in here after what you've done, and spout out such outrageous lies?"

"They are not lies. How do you suppose I found you, if not with aid from the beyond?"

"Jillian Webster, that old spider. She is probably bitter with me and to send someone equally so to taunt me."

"Think what you want. Only know that I am sorry for what I have done, sincerely sorry. I did not realize that such an action would hurt someone other than yourself. Eliza's grief quite mortified me. I thought she would die." He coughed. "She still might."

Henry felt a myriad of emotions rush over him, and it had a definite sobering effect. Another death on his conscience. Could he ever escape from his actions? "What is the matter with her?"

"She is having a difficult time with- Henry, she is with child, and the stress of the past few months has put her in a very precarious situation."

Henry sat down, and stared ahead numbly, suffocating under the weight of confirmed suspicions.

"She wants you back, even if she is too proud to admit it." Edward's eyes filled with tears. "If she dies, it will be my fault, brother. Please, just come back to England with me."

Henry lifted his head to meet his younger brother's eyes, and felt a long-forgotten surge of affection for Edward. They were both on the same page at last, on the verge of sharing guilt over the same crime. They both forgave each other of past actions without saying a word, and Henry began to pack. He was going back to his wife to throw himself at her skirts and plead for her forgiveness, utterly destroying the cold, indifferent picture of himself he had meticulously painted over the decades.

The truth would come after the baby was born, once Eliza was out of danger.

Jane Higgins was reading to Eliza from a forbidden copy of 'Moll Flanders', when the younger woman gently pulled the volume from Jane's hands and set it down.

"Jane, do you know anything of a photograph and a letter that was given to Edward, to be given to me?"