The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance (31 page)

*

Fifty-Nine

I
n her dream, Rafe was chasing her through the forest. He was human; she was human. Then they both turned into beasts.

A blast of hot steam wafting over her face woke her. She was in the drawing room, curled up in the wing chair.

“Here Miss Everly. A nice cup of tea will revive you. We're a sorry sight in this house, we are. Such a sorry sight.”

Veronica had no memory of walking over the fields back to Belden House, no idea where she'd found the strength to carry a dead eight-year-old boy all that distance. She took the tea, sipped it. Her mouth was so dry. It took a few swallows before she was able to speak.

"Thank you, Janet."

Janet nodded and dropped down on the footstool.

“Poor Jacques,” Veronica said. “How is Jacqueline? All this time she said they were fighting.”

“She's in her room. I've had to lock her in. Such a fit she threw! I was afraid she'd hurt herself. But... Miss Everly. One more thing.”

“No.”

“Mrs. Twig wants to speak with you.”

The horror of the night before swept through Veronica's mind. "Is she all right?"

Janet bit her lip and looked away.

"Oh no. And Jacqueline? Is she really in her room?"

“Yes. Come on. You must hurry.”

It was painful to rise from the chair. But, pushing her tangled hair out of her face, Veronica forced herself to her feet and followed the maid up to the housekeeper’s rooms.

Only one candle burned in the dark. The smell was overpowering and made more awful by an overlay of camphor. The bed was against the far wall, swathed in purple curtains that billowed in the dark like clouds of smoke.

Mrs. Twig lay in her large bed, breathing heavily. Her neck and head were bandaged, and the hands on the coverlet were thick with bunting. She opened her eyes and looked at Veronica. Her face twisted into a smile.

Veronica sat on the chair beside the bed.

“Mrs. Twig, I saw you go into the tower last night. I am amazed at your courage. But now…”

The housekeeper’s voice was a hoarse whisper. Veronica had to lean close to hear her.

“I shall die of this wound. But I shall come back. As one of them….”

Veronica swallowed hard and thought of the task Rafe had given her. The task she didn’t want.

“I am not sure what Mr. Rafe told you…. Sovay… was a skin turner from the start. I knew it long before Mr. Rafe did.  Every month, another death… She used to sneak back in at dawn to wash the blood off. I could see her from the kitchen window, for I was up preparing breakfast at that hour… She came into the kitchen... swore me to secrecy. I had to obey or she’d kill me. Like this.” Tears sprang up in Mrs. Twig’s eyes.

Veronica, understanding all, filled in the blanks to spare Mrs. Twig the effort. “Mr. Rafe told me he saw wolves come into the yard. That he had to shoot one in self-defense. But it wasn’t a wolf at all. It was Lady Sovay.”

Mrs. Twig gasped for breath. “Yes… But he shot her with only an ordinary bullet. Not silver. So she comes back. She also bit him. I tended his wound. We had to cover up her death…. For the sake of the children. Held the funeral at home. Placed her in that tomb… with Sylvie….”

“Had Mr. Rafe known about Sylvie?”

“No. He was in India when that happened. I took care of her… Saw to her burial. Told Mr. Rafe… it was an accident.” Mrs. Twig stopped to lick her parched lips. “After Sovay was buried, I insisted Mr. Rafe go to France. Get away from here until the dust settled. Sovay was well known... in Society… would be missed. No one would believe she was what she was... so I let them think she'd returned to France... with him.”

Veronica took up the thread. “But he started having nightmares there, in France.  He told me. A lady in yellow calling to him, leading him on. He dreamed he was one of them. A wolf man,” Veronica whispered. She continued, faltering. “After he told me, I thought he was delusional with guilt over killing his wife. Even if it was in self-defense.”

“Now you know.”

“Yes.”

“He
is
one of them. As I will be.”

The housekeeper labored to breathe. She raised a hand as if to clutch Veronica’s arm, but it fell back weakly.

"Why do they kill? Why? Mrs. Twig?"

"For Satan, my dear. They vow... to wreak destruction... and bring souls... to him."

Veronica crossed herself. "Jesu Christe."

She wanted to tell Mrs. Twig about finding Jacques where Jacqueline had hidden him a month ago. To ask why the housekeeper had covered up the fact that one of the twins had been missing all this time. But Mrs. Twig was losing consciousness.

And the farm woman killed last night... had Rafe been involved? Sick with despair, all Veronica had left to her was weeping.

The housekeeper’s voice rasped from the bed.

“Miss Everly. He never loved Sovay. Not like he loves you.”

Her heart fluttering like wind-tossed leaves, Veronica stood up and paced away.

“Me?” she said, breathlessly. She ran her hands over her arms as if she were cold. What good was it anyway? Love with Rafe was impossible.

Mrs. Twig continued talking, her voice weak with fever. “Sovay never forgave him for denying her that love. And leaving her in her doom.” Mrs. Twig’s eyes suddenly flew open and blazed at Veronica. “She won’t forgive you, either.”

Veronica looked wildly for Janet. The maid lunged out of the shadows toward the bed.

Mrs. Twig exhaled loudly, shouted for God, and died.

*

Sixty

T
he screams emanating from Jacque's bedroom were awful. Wolfgang barked, whining dismally when he failed to stop the cries. Knocks battered about the room like a contained whirlwind, a poltergeist unleashed. The door was locked. Veronica banged on it.

“Jacqueline! Jacqueline! Let me in!”

Another scream erupted.

Janet sorted quickly through her keys. Finally, heaving a sigh, she found the right one and opened the door for Veronica.

Jacqueline was lying on the floor below Jacques' bed, pounding her heels and fists into the floor. She was so blind with tears and rage that she didn’t seem to notice Veronica and Janet coming into the room.

Jacques was laid out on his bed. Stiff and gleaming, he looked (Veronica loathed the obvious comparison that crept into her mind) like an oversized china doll.

She knelt down beside Jacqueline, and opened her arms. “Jacqueline? Come.”

“Miss Everly.” The child rushed to her arms and buried her face in Veronica's neck.

“I'm so sorry, Jacqueline. It’s all so… unreal... but then it’s not. How I wish this was just a long, terrible nightmare.”

“Why did this have to happen?” Jacqueline sobbed like her heart was breaking. “We weren't bad. We only wanted to play at being wolves. You know that, don't you, Miss Everly?”

Veronica thought of the transformations she had seen. She stroked the child's hair, so pale, so white. “Where did you learn that? Where did you learn to play wolves?” she asked.

“Mamma taught us. We all played Hunt the Hare together. On the full moon. It was fun. At first.”

What about the horrific death of Mrs. Twig? Had Jacqueline been playing then? Veronica bit her tongue and stroked the little girl’s back to sooth the spasms of her sobbing.

“There, there. We must give it all up to God. Put it in His hands.”

Veronica felt the child tense. Her voice was barely audible.

“Jacque's not dead, you know. Not really. He's with Sylvie now. And the others. And Mrs. Twig. And Mamma. But I am alone.”

Veronica shuddered. No, Jacques was not dead, nor alive. He was indeed with Sylvie and Sovay, werewolves and soul stealers.  Soul devourers. Vampyres.

She remembered something from the night, a mark on Jacqueline's brow.

"Let me see you," Veronica said, lifting Jacqueline's face to hers. The shape of the symbol was erased, but a reddish tinge remained on the skin, evidence of a badge of honor given for what she'd done to Mrs. Twig.

With a sinking heart, Veronica rocked Jacqueline asleep. Candles winked out around them, the fire burned low. Once she was sure the child was at peace, Veronica carried her across the hall and put her to bed. Then she returned alone to look at Jacques.

Lying there so white and still, Jacques looked like a house with the lights out. If he wasn’t really dead, what were they supposed to do with his body? Would a Christian burial save him? But even so, how could they bury him beneath the ground if he wasn’t really dead… but undead,
damned
… Damned to walk the earth forever doing the Devil's biddings. No! It couldn’t be. Surely God would save a child, would enfold that child and restore his divine connection.

Perhaps he would go to Limbo.

She went to her room and sank into her chair beside the fireplace. What next? She couldn't manage alone. Everything had gone far beyond her realm of experience, her knowledge----beyond madness, in fact. She wished Mrs. Twig wasn’t dead, or whatever she was. Veronica needed her badly.

“Oh God, help me!” She put her head in her hands, feeling as if she were sinking into the abyss.

And where was Rafe? Out there still? She was supposed to have shot him. She didn't. She couldn't. Did that make her in any way responsible for the death of the farm woman? Had Rafe done it?

Janet knocked on the doorsill.

“I've called the undertaker.”

Veronica looked at her askance. “Good.”

“We'll have to hold a wake for them here. I've sent Peggy for the priest.”

Veronica nodded. “I'm told they aren't really dead. Mrs. Twig told me. Herself.”

Janet slumped; her lips began to tremble.

“I don't know what to do, Miss. We can't have visitors, but everyone in the village will know about Jack. Word gets out fast about a thing like that. And poor Mr. Hodges. I shudder to think what he’ll go through.”

Veronica heard only half of Janet’s outburst. All she could think about was Jacques. She didn’t even try to keep the anger out of her voice.

“I say.... we hold the wake for Jacques in the drawing room. Clean Mrs. Twig up, and lay her on a nice, clean cot in the tower. Then let the master of the house take over. Whenever he gets back.”

Janet sighed and straightened up again.

“Right you are, Miss Everly. Leave it to Mr. Rafe. He’ll know what to do. He always knows what to do.”

Veronica wasn’t sure of that.

And where was Mr. Rafe? Everyone else was accounted for. How dare he abandon them at a time like this! Was he hiding? In that study of his under the stairs?



Veronica went down to the door under the stairs, pausing only a moment before she knocked.

“Rafe? Are you in there?”

Silence.

Unable to suppress her impatience, Veronica turned the handle and pushed the door open. The study was nothing more than a book-lined cave with a few easy chairs and a desk. Rafe wasn’t there.

Didn’t he care about his own children? About Mrs. Twig who’d served the family her entire life?

Her eyes fell on the desk and a stack of letters in lavender envelopes tied with a ribbon. Her stomach went queasy. Had he run off to France? To
her
? Was he completely depraved? Seeking comfort in his mistress's arms, leaving Janet and her to handle these horrors, these death rites, alone? Abandoning his last living child without a word?

She was suddenly drained of energy. Her head spun. She leaned against the desk, knocking the rather tall stack of letters to the floor.

Let them lie!

Fighting tears, she ran back up to her rooms and locked the door.



Veronica put the p
istol into its box with the three silver bullets she had left, threw it onto the bed, and began packing her bags. She couldn’t bear to stay one more minute at Belden House. Never had she been so disillusioned. Never had so much darkness invaded her mind and her heart. Never had she felt so betrayed, so destroyed. Why should she stay when the master of the house couldn't be bothered? It wasn't her family.

Was she expected to shoot Mrs. Twig now? Jacqueline? Had that been the plan all along? Of course! This way, any scandal, any forthcoming murder charges, would fall upon her, Veronica. Rafe would be let off the hook, not only for the deaths of Jacques and Mrs. Twig, but of Sovay.
Oh, he’d been in France at the time
. What an ingenious plan! Just like he’d
been in France
when he was riding his horse like a madman over the moor. Just like he was in France now, leaving Veronica in the lurch.

They were mad. All of them. Stark raving lunatics. Inbred. That’s what
they were. Unnatural, unhealthy inbreds.

Veronica threw the loathsome Bestiary on the bed next to the gun, and carrying everything she owned in two leather bags, stepped silently down the stairs.

The mortician had already pulled up in a black coach with red doors. He stepped out in his costly mourning coat and tall beaver hat. A priest in a long black cassock followed him down from the carriage. Veronica hid behind the horses to watch them cross the forecourt. The priest was Father Roche. Of course. Who else would it be? Who else would know what to do with the undead but the pastor of Saint Lupine’s?

Her heart ached for poor little Jacques. And for Jacqueline. But what could she do? She was only an employee. Not part of the family. The only sane one in the bunch. Their affairs were none of her business. She was perfectly correct to leave them to it and move on. Her only duty was to pray for their souls.

Hefting her bags, Veronica hastened down the drive and slipped through the open gates to the lane. It was just over three miles to the coach station in the village. Then on to the train. Her only problem was where to go. Back to Saint Mary’s? The thought of going backwards made her miserable, but there was no other choice.