The Gilded Cage (10 page)

The air in my room is close and sweltering, and I long for the cool of the unheated hallway. Stealing over to my door, I turn the knob.

It sticks. I rattle it, with increasing confusion but no effect. Stella wakes at the noise and joins me, whining and sticking her nose to the bottom seam of the door. When I crouch, peering through the keyhole, it's blocked.

Somebody has locked it from the outside.

I stand, prickling with gooseflesh, and retreat deeper into my room. The door seems suddenly malign, hovering and impassable in the dimness. I know I could call out, beat my palms on the door, but I'm struck with the sudden, vertiginous feeling of distrusting anyone who might hear me.

I go to the window and move the heavy curtain aside, looking out at the oddly bright night. When I close my eyes, I can still see the shape of the tree line imprinted on my eyelids, so vivid is the moonlight reflecting on snow. The forbidding boundary of the woods pulses in my sight, and I stare until my eyes start to blur. Then I blink, and in the same instant I think I see a figure moving, black on black, through the trees. But my head aches from the glare, and I can't be sure. The window frames me, exposing my form to the mysterious scrutiny of that snow-furred strip of trees. Quickly, I climb back into bed, whistling for Stella to join me.

My mind races as I clutch her furry body. Who locked me in? Surely not Elsie, unless she was instructed to do so—perhaps Grace has learned of my recent late-night wanderings. It could be I'm being protected, not from the dangers without, but from myself.

*   *   *

When I wake, the sun is high, and I wince at the light pouring in.

Elsie enters, her head down, carting a ewer full of hot water. My mouth is parched; I wish she'd brought something cool to drink. She still can't look me full in the face without her mouth beginning to tremble, and I find it exhausting—it's work enough managing my own grief.

Listlessly I sit up in bed, feeling as though my limbs have been filled with sand. “Elsie,” I say through dry lips, “why was my door locked from the outside last night?”

She keeps her attention on my toilette, her face bland. “It never was, Lady Katherine. Did you try to open it?”

“I did. Perhaps Mrs. Whiting locked it?”

“She couldn't have, Lady Katherine. I'm the one who tends to you; nobody else would have reason to be at your door.” She clasps her hands together, nervous. “Could the lock have caught a bit? Perhaps I am to blame.…”

“Don't trouble yourself,” I say quickly. “It's possible I was mistaken.” Was I still lost in a dream when I rattled the knob? I'm not inclined to pursue the question in the light of day.

Elsie still hovers before me, and I'm wearying of her solicitousness. “Please, I can do that myself.” I push her hand and its warm washcloth aside, as kindly as I can, not wanting to be touched. “Have Grace and Henry gone down yet?”

“Henry's gone out to walk the paths with John. They want to be sure they're clear for the shoot on Saturday.”

A hot confusion takes hold of me. “The shoot?”

“Yes, it's the annual winter shoot. The men come from miles away.…” She fades to silence, seeing my face.

“But surely they aren't going ahead with it—my brother is barely in the ground.”

“I don't know. Perhaps your cousins thought…”

“Never mind,” I say in a quieter tone. “I understand you have little to do with these things. Where is my lady cousin, then?”

“She's talking with Mrs. Whiting, arranging for the guests' rooms after the sport is over.”

I fall back limply. Is it not a disgrace for Walthingham Hall, a house in mourning, to accept guests? I feel myself unequal to speaking with anyone but Elsie and my own kin—and a dark anger nips at me, that my cousins have selfishly failed to cancel their plans.

Perhaps my maid has read my mind, or maybe my thoughts are written on my exhausted features. She moves to my side and finally looks me full in the face. “I think it's wrong, and … and
rotten
,” she says quietly, “that they should have a hunt here so soon. They should respect their dead better than that.”

She looks fearful already, at her own audaciousness, but I take her hand gratefully. “Thank you. That means more to me than you realize. I think I'd like to be alone for a few hours—why don't you take the morning to visit the stables?”

She turns quickly toward the door, as if to see whether Grace is nearby, as though my cousin could possibly pick up on my meaning. When she turns back to me, her eyes are bright. “Matt and I have never done anything
improper
,” she says in a pleading tone. “You'll not tell anyone, my lady?”

“I wouldn't. Is he your beau, then?”

“He's my fiancé,” she says, marveling at the exotic word on her tongue. “We'll be married someday, when he's been promoted. Not that we assume a promotion! But we
hope
.”

I feel a discrediting prickle of envy, coveting the simple, unbroken state of my dressing maid's hopes. “I would that it happens just as you wish,” I say, smiling as best as I can.

 

CHAPTER 10

A
S SOON AS
Elsie is out of view, I dash from bed, button myself into the simplest of the new-smelling black mourning dresses Grace had made for me, and tiptoe into the hallway. My heart ticks uneasily when I reach for the doorknob, but it opens easily. Stella would most certainly whine if I left her behind, so I let her pad along beside me.

Undetected, I walk to George's chambers. I expect to be flooded with sadness when I open the door, but the room no longer holds any trace of him. It's as flat and indifferent as a stranger's lodgings, filled with the bright new things that he barely touched. Only the painting retains any trace of him, still sitting grimly on its easel in the center of the sitting room. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for here, but when I study the painting afresh, I find it.

There's something within its painted surface that I didn't see before: in the distance, on the left-hand side, the very edge of Walthingham's walls intrudes into the image. The dried paint feels grainy under my fingertips. I imagine George bending his head to his work, sketching in Walthingham, painting layers of gray over ghostly white branches. Did an approaching shadow fall over his canvas? Did someone call his name? A stranger, or someone he knew, someone he trusted? Using a dull painting knife, I slice the canvas raggedly from its frame.

Downstairs, now wrapped in my heavy cloak, I slip through a side door, clutching the rolled canvas and the painting knife—for protection or for luck, I'm not sure which. I hear the buzz of Grace and the housekeeper making their plans as I exit. “Please clear the flowers away, Mrs. Whiting,” says Grace in a tone of light regret. “We needn't ask our guests to dwell on the family's loss.”

Her words cut me. The elaborate mourning customs of English society dictate that I wear black for half a year—yet my heart, hidden beneath dark crepe, is expected to be a forgetful thing. I try to forgive Grace, who barely knew my brother, but I feel a grudge nesting its claws into my chest. She is already moving on, and means to move the house with her.

The air outside is silent but for occasional trills of birdsong, and I see neither John nor Henry. It's for the best, as I'm in no mood to keep my opinions to myself. Unfurling the canvas, I try to imagine George's last trek across Walthingham's grounds. I begin to walk counterclockwise around the house, keeping it always to the left of me, as the painting dictates. I give the west wing a wide berth, unwilling to go near its strange topography of uncut stone. An inviting footpath angles into the forest, and I take it on a whim. Low-hanging branches clumped together with ice give the path the appearance of a cool white tunnel.

Sure now that I'm beyond sight of prying eyes, I follow the path into the woods. My dog and I walk in silence, deeper into the trees. Black branches shudder against a nickel-colored sky, and my boots crunch on the ground. The cold is starting to seep through the soles already. Stella frisks at my heels, unbothered by the air; I envy her furry coat.

If I turned left, I'd soon reach the overgrown track once used to carry stone from Walthingham's quarry. To my right, the treacherous half-frozen lake is just visible through the trees. I continue down the path, passing through the sparser woods at the edge of the tree line. When I see in the distance a decrepit lodge hunched between two great oaks, it brings to mind the strange old gamekeeper—McAllister. I'm certain this must once have been his cabin, and I wonder why Henry never hired another to his post. If nothing else, it would serve to deter poachers.

I trudge in my ruined boots deeper into the trees, until the lodge stands between myself and open ground. Its roof slumps with snow and lack of patching, and several windowpanes are shattered into sparkling spiderwebs. My skin prickles as the trees overhead encroach on open sky, folding me in with their whip-thin arms. A thaw is coming: The air is fresh with the scent of wet wood, and the air rings with the musical pops and shifts that mark the melting of ice on branches. This chorus was one of George's favorite springtime sounds.

The path stops at the lodge, so from there I trudge along uneven ground, over buried roots and half-submerged stumps. My breath is smoke on the air. The forest covers several hectares, and after five minutes I look back and realize I can no longer see the house's wide lawn through the trees. The woods around me whisper with an icy wind, and a faraway branch cracks. My breath stops, ragged. Another crack, this one closer, and Stella speeds off toward the sound.

“Stella!” I cry, but it comes out like a croak.

I take a few steps after her, but she's gone.

“Dammit, Stella,” I growl.

I listen for the patter of her paws, but hear nothing.

Then, I feel the unmistakable weight of being watched, of somebody's eyes on the goose-bumped skin of my exposed neck. I turn in a slow circle and see nothing but trees.

I tug my coat tighter to my throat. It might just be the cold.

“Stella?” I say again, my voice a near whisper.

A crow caws in response, just behind me, and I nearly jump out of my cloak. It sits hunched on a low branch, its eyes black buttons. I wave my hands at it. “Stop watching me, you awful thing.”

The crow flaps lazily through the trees. I walk toward the place where Stella disappeared, calling her name. When I see prints in a patch of snow, they look too deep to belong to such a little dog—perhaps they were left by a fox or a deer; I can't tell. A voice in my mind, unbidden:
Just torn up, as if in spite.
“What nonsense,” I say aloud, and feel foolish. Then there's a single, urgent bark, sounding terribly faraway. I yell out to my dog, but when she barks again, it's muted by snow and seems to come from no particular direction at all.

The trees look identical, and snow paints the ground an eerie shade of blue. The sky is flat gray where I can see it through the trees, and I find no shadows by which to navigate.

Then I feel it again, the eyes on my neck. I hold myself perfectly still, counting to three, and then spin around.

A flash of dark movement, something retreating into the wood some yards away. In my shock I stumble backward, stepping on the hem of my cloak and falling to the ground. My breath catches in my throat as I strain to see through the trees, ignoring the freeze spreading through my backside. I daren't move. There's something there, standing motionless behind a tree. I can sense its shape, rising and falling, rising and falling, with slow, deliberate breaths. Then it shifts again, detaching itself from a trunk and slipping away.

Then I shriek as wet fingers graze my neck … until I realize that it's only Stella's cold nose. I let her snuff into my skin another moment, wondering what I just saw.
If
I saw anything at all.

“You're a menace,” I mutter to my dog, climbing to my feet and dusting off my cloak.

I press on into the trees, picking up a broken branch to use as a walking stick. And a childish part of me mutters,
just in case I need it
. The woods are dark and I'm beginning to doubt my path when I see a small hill rising out of the trees just ahead, covered in frost-stiffened brambles. I know that George could not resist such a vantage point. When I scramble to the top of it, dropping my makeshift stick in the snow, I see that I'm right. I lift the painting into place before me, and it becomes a surreal window onto bare painted branches, imposed over the snowy landscape. Just as it appears in the painting, only the upper portion of the house is visible, and I realize I've come a considerable distance. I know, with absolute certainty, that I am standing on the place where my brother spent his last hours. Tracing the vast, lonely landscape with my eyes, I say a silent prayer that the white birches were still in his sight when he died.

Stella is sniffing along the ground at my feet; suddenly she goes taut, giving out a low growl that raises goose bumps on my neck. I cast a quick glance into the trees, but she's worrying at the dirty snow.

“What have you found, love?” I whisper. My heart seizes as I spy a paintbrush, half-submerged in muck. I fall to my knees and reach a tentative finger out to touch it. The handle is dotted with clots of dried red.

Growing up on a farm, you instinctively know the look of blood, the close, metallic smell of it. Every animal we ate, my father first bled from the throat, and I've seen animals giving birth more times than I can count. This is not paint or dirt.

I gaze at the terrible proof in my hands and in the snow at my feet, weak with a strange mix of relief and horror. Pain, too, knowing that George must have suffered here, alone and scared.

Stella's growl rises in intensity, and I move to calm her. Then I see the gaunt, dark figure watching me silently from the other side of the rise.