The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance Read online

  Bang!

  The upstairs door burst open.

  Snarls broke loose. Wolfgang barking. Dogs fighting. Flashes of white fur whirling on the stairs, growling and snapping so horribly that Veronica wanted to run, but didn't dare let go of the banister. She crouched low against the banister and let the wind try to make her fall.

  A wild shriek of pain shattered the dark, a vicious growl.

  Ah!

  She spun around in time to see a streak of white rush down the stairs followed by another. The bright reflections of two white wolves, one large and one small, glowed brightly in the mirror, then vanished.

  Dripping with sweat, her stomach heaving, Veronica almost fell down the stairs to the vestibule.

  “Mrs. Twig... Mrs. Twig," she cried. Her body heavy, as if she were dragging lead weights, she crossed the drawing room toward the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Twig. Oh, please. Be there."

  How her head spun! Just outside the pantry, she sat down and put her head between her legs. Fainting… fainting… No. I can’t.

  Noxious smells emanated from the kitchen. Black smoke seeped out of the crack between the closed double doors. Veronica wavered to her feet, pushed through them, and beheld a most abominable sight. Half naked, her red hair unfurled, Mrs. Twig was sweating over a brazier of smoldering coals, muttering under her breath. Like a witch.

  Belden House was mad. Everyone who lived here was mad.

  Heavy clouds of smoke reeking of wolf bane cloaked the room. The housekeeper was rubbing oil all over a doll of yellow wax, and muttering in French some freakish, incantatory rhyme. In the lurid haze of the fire and wavering shadows, she seemed possessed, her eyes rolled up in her head as if she were in the grip of a vision. Gyrating in place, Mrs. Twig held the doll in the smoke, eliciting a flurry of green flames. Then lifting the doll up to the smoke-obscured ceiling, she shouted: “It is finished!” and cast the doll into the blaze.

  Blasphemy! Outrage alone gave Veronica enough strength to remain standing.

  Groans thundered down from above, permeating every particle of the house, vibrating with such power that the utensils hanging on the wall, jangled and fell down. Veronica knew in her bones it was the beast in the tower. She had been in denial. He had asked to be locked in for a reason. Locked her in for a reason, knowing how reckless she could be and how dangerous he was.

  A beast was not a beast. It was Rafe.

  Fire flared in the hearth, bursting brightly; candle flames rose up straight and dangerously tall. Dishes rocked on their shelves. A candle stand fell over.

  On the table, a large book lay open, and the two white china dolls lay upon its pages. Smoke wove through the air to circle poisonously around Veronica. She began coughing, but half out of her mind, lost in the world of spirits, Mrs. Twig didn’t seem to hear her. She continued holding Jack’s dolls over the brazier, muttering, chanting in a tune that sounded familiar but somehow backwards. The dolls began writhing in the housekeeper's hands like souls in torment.

  Veronica backed out, shut the kitchen doors, and leaned against them until they stopped rattling.

  The wickedness! The evil! She must go. But what about the children? Were they to be left here, in this?

  The children... Sovay... Mr. Croft! He was lying out there with a pack of wolves on the rampage, wolves with flashing red-eyes and fangs of light.

  Veronica put her hands over her face, and contemplated the long walk to the village and the train. Mr. Croft was dead. They might all be dead by the time she got there... for what? A doctor? The police? It was no use.

  Outside, the racket of the wolves went up high and clear, mingling with the wind, blowing out into the night. Those inside the house howled back.

  The clock gonged the hour of four.

  Veronica raced through moving shadows of the house to the French doors and gazed out at the back yard. Barely visible in the darkness, an enormous black wolf loped across the grass, stopped as if it sensed her watching, and snarled.

  Veronica covered her ears. It was the most terrible sound in the world. Its eyes flashing fire, the wolf was sidling toward her.

  Looking up at the sky, she saw that the moon was down.

  The bell began its slow, monotonous tolling. The voices hummed. The black wolf paused to sniff the air with its long snout, then lowered its head and growled. The red of its eyes seemed to flow down its face like tears of blood.

  The very earth seemed to shiver. Veronica moved back, hands over her ears to block out the howling.

  She had only to wait until dawn.

  Forty-Eight

  After what she’d seen in the kitchen, Veronica wanted nothing more to do with Mrs. Twig. She stayed in the classroom all day, praying she would not be disturbed.

  She sat at her desk and put her hands over her face, wanting to cry. That raging, frightening beast in the tower had escaped. It was a black wolf. It was Rafe.

  The man she'd fallen in love with, was something unspeakable.

  There was that diary in the desk drawer, the one she didn’t feel right about opening. Had her predecessor been witness such goings on? Well, discretion, be damned. Gulping down her tears, Veronica opened the drawer and looked underneath her missal and her class ledger, for the red cover of the diary.

  She took it out and opened it to a page near the middle.

  She’s so jealous of me, but for no reason. Mr. de Grimston could never prefer a plain girl like I am to a great beauty such as Lady Sovay, but I don’t know how much longer I can stand her barbarous attempts to hurt me.

  Was Sovay so jealous, then?

  Veronica turned to a further page. A newspaper cutting was stuck into the binding: an engraving of a wolf standing in a field. Below it was the headline:

  Farmer’s Lad Found Dead.

  It seemed his throat had been torn out. The governess had written with a trembling hand:

  A child from the village was found ravaged by a wolf during the night. But there are no wolves left in Britain. So they say. Yet, Janet told me that this is not an unusual occurrence. It has happened off and on for years….

  Chilled at the memory of her own near escapes, at the thought of the creature that was out there now, Veronica turned the page again.

  I should not write of this, but I must get it off my chest somehow.

  I caught Sylvie crouching over a dead hare in the classroom today. It was bleeding all over the carpet. When I shouted at her, she turned around and----I tremble to say it----I thought, for a brief moment, that she had the face of a wolf. But it’s not possible. Anyway she jumped up, ran at the door, slamming it shut in my face before I could get a really good look at her.

  Perhaps the tension in this house is getting to me. I can only pray I am not going mad.

  Then below:

  I had to tear the carpet up today. I had Mr. Croft take it out to the stables. It should be burned.

  I have an unspoken agreement with Sylvie that we shall never speak of the incident with the hare. Lady Sovay is on the verge of sacking me anyway. I can tell.

  Veronica flipped a few pages and found:

  The moon is full tonight. They shall all be gone. I will have some time alone in the house to decide what to do.

  Next:

  I know I should not commit this to paper, but I have discovered where the children get off to every full moon. Mrs. Twig locks them in the tower. I heard them howling like right lunatics. It must be a brain fever. Such is the legacy of aristocratic inbreeding. They can’t help it, poor things.

  Howling like lunatics…. Brain fever. How Veronica wished things were so logical. She swallowed hard, as if there was stone in her throat. Miss Blaylock hadn't the benefit of the Bestiary. Miss Blaylock, perhaps, hadn't been chased by a pack of wolves that were not really wolves, but wolf-men, people who had been killed by other wolf-men, dying, only to rise again from their graves a-cursed.

  It was like a pestilence how they multiplied. A contagion.

  Veronica had no
doubt that the de Grimstons were mad. Mrs. Twig, the twins… Rafe. He must have forgotten to watch the moon this time, to make sure he was "in France" when it happened. The secret was out now. And he knew it.

  How had he gotten out of the tower? The thought of a creature of such power and chaos escaping into the night shook her. And where had he----or it----gone?

  Biting a fingernail, Veronica flipped to the very last page that had any writing on it.

  Sylvie was shot by a farmer last night who swore he was aiming at a wolf. I can no longer stay here.

  Veronica shut the journal and shoved it back into the drawer.

  She was shaking. The classroom wasn’t cozy any more. The yews seemed to scream at her. She hurried out and stood on the landing, then crept out to the hallway. Light was streaming through the half-open side door to Rafe’s bedchamber.

  He called out to her. “Come in, Miss Everly.”

  She jumped.

  Holding her breath, she peered through the crack in the door and looked down the little archway. A shadowy figure, shoulders hunched against the light, reminded her of the black wolf. Inching closer, she saw it was Rafe. Clad only in a black dressing gown, his thick, black hair standing up, his hairy chest exposed, he was disheveled, as anyone would be who’d had a bad night. Yet, he seemed calm and in control.

  Glancing at Veronica, an amused look crossed his face. Was her trepidation so obvious?

  “How did you know I was here?” she whispered.

  “I heard you. I felt your presence. Haven’t you noticed how sounds carry in this house? And smells. You do smell lovely. Come all the way in, Miss Everly. You’re such a timid lass.”

  Rafe beckoned Veronica forward with a crook of his finger as one summoned a child. When she stepped into the room, she saw he was polishing the gun. She flinched back, staring at it as if it were about to go off.

  “What is that for, sir?”

  “Rafe.”

  “I mean, what is that for, Rafe?”

  “Have you been reading your Bestiary?”

  “A little. Terrible things were happening last night and I didn’t have much of a chance to read.”

  “Did you look on the page I had marked for you?”

  “Homini Lupus?”

  “Good. Do you see these bullets?” Rafe gave her a penetrating look as he loaded one into the chamber of the pistol.

  “Yes.”

  “They are made of silver.” He offered her the gun handle first. “I want you to have this pistol. I aim to teach you how to shoot. If you ever see a wolf on my property, I want you to kill it. Shoot it with these silver bullets.”

  “But, sir... I mean, Rafe, I’ve never killed anything in my life. I’m only a school mistress.”

  “I don’t want to hear it. I heard you'd been treed by a pack of them at Saint Lupine's. You'll have to learn to defend yourself."

  "How do you know about that?"

  "Here. Hold the gun.”

  Veronica grasped the handle with both hands and aimed it at the mirror. As before, a dramatic change came over her appearance, the effect increased by the intensity of Rafe's eyes upon her. She didn't look timid any more.

  Rafe grabbed her wrist. Veronica flinched at his touch. She could still close her eyes and see that long, black snout and those glowing red eyes.

  “You’re damned small-boned. We’ll try you firing it with two hands, but if it kicks too hard, I’ll have to find a smaller gun for you. A lady’s pistol. This one could break your arm.”

  Veronica drew away, grasping her arm with the opposite hand protectively.

  “All these wolves… where did they come from? Did you know Mr. Croft died?” Veronica said. She was too frightened to ask Rafe where he'd been last night.

  “Croft? Was he responsible for that blood in the grass?”

  “His body is gone. The wolves...."

  "Must have eaten him."

  Veronica caught her breath and stared at Rafe. He was so matter-of-fact about the murder of a man in his employ. He gazed intently into Veronica’s eyes, then looked away, closed his dressing gown, and tightened the sash.

  “Miss Everly. I have to make myself decent. Come back to my rooms in an hour. It seems I shall have to explain some things to you.”

  *Forty-Nine

  Veronica stepped through the French doors to the back yard. Though it was more then she could bear, she had to see for herself about Mr. Croft. She went around the tower and looked down the lawn to the place she’d left him that night, and saw, indeed, that his body was gone. The grass in that area was dark where he had fallen, the ground strewn with ragged bits of cloth. The breeze rolled his stovepipe rolled over the lawn toward her. Feeling sick, she backed away. Her foot fell on something hard. It was Mr. Croft's half smoked cigar. Fearing to step on a bone, or some other part left behind by the wolves, Veronica hastened away from that place.

  Veronica was running back to the house when she saw Jacqueline marching toward the woods. She was wearing a black dress and a black ribbon in her hair.

  Veronica checked an impulse to call out, and walked nonchalantly behind the curve of the tower to observe where the child went. There was that weird sense of a tap on the shoulder again. Hooking her fingers in the ivy for support, she leaned back and looked up the side of the tower.

  Directly above her, the window of the beast spilled over with darkness. She swallowed hard. Her stomach felt like lead. The bars had been twisted out. The window gaped open, the red ivy leaves ruffled around the hole like the ragged edges of a wound.

  Stunned, she turned away. Rafe would explain. He was going to explain. She prayed he would tell her that the beast that had raged in the tower was not him, that that black wolf in the garden was not homini lupus, not a wolf man, not him.

  A snatch of song floated over the air from the lilies around the well.

  Green grow the lilies, oh, bright among the bushes, oh…

  The voice had a sob in it.

  Veronica crept towards the woods and entered the trees. Jacqueline was sitting above the wishing well hanging one of the white china dolls from the birch branch that stretched out over the water. Veronica crept closer and hid behind a tall bush above the mossy hummock so she could see down into the well.

  The doll was reflected in the still surface of the pool. And below that, in the murky depths of the spring, other dolls floated like little drowned corpses, their white china faces staring up at the sky. The stones that dangled from their ankles had been heavy enough to sink them, but not out of sight. Like little lost souls they looked, souls of lost children, so many vulnerable orphans.

  Jacqueline leaned over and stared into her reflection. She passed her hand over the water, dripping beads of blood into the well from a cut in her palm.

  “Sylvie, Jacques is to join you now. He’s hidden in a leafy fort. I covered it with juniper limbs and rose briars. That way they can’t fetch him out and lock him away forever in a silver coffin like they’ve done to you.”

  Jacqueline stroked the dangling china doll with her finger. "Jacques, Miss Everly saw you with Mamma. That means Mamma's got you."

  Jacqueline's face was wet with tears and she lowered the doll to the rim of the well stones. Once its head was submerged, she bent toward the water and blew a kiss.

  “That’s for you, Jacques. The waters of the magic wellspring will wash the evil away.” She blew another kiss. “Bye-bye, Jacques and Sylvie. Bye-bye.” She began singing again. “One is buried under the stones, three are buried beneath the tree, seven are buried in the well, the well below the valley, oh…. Green grow the lilies oh, Bright among the bushes oh…”

  The spooky tune of the old folksong followed Veronica all the way back to the house, verse after verse, after verse.

  

  She had to find Jacques.

  As Veronica crossed into the forecourt she saw a big-boned, tearful woman with a baby in her arms staring at the front door as if it had been slammed in her face. Unable
to cope with Mrs. Croft’s grief, Veronica paused and waited until the woman walked away, carrying her crying infant toward the cottages.

  Coming in the door, Veronica ran straight into Mrs. Twig.

  “Did you find Mr. Croft?” Veronica asked.

  “No.” Mrs. Twig gave Veronica a beseeching look.

  “You look rather tidy and well rested considering the night you’ve had.” Veronica was surprised at her own bluntness.

  Mrs. Twig looked at the floor. “I am sorry, Miss Everly. I’m sure you had no idea what awaited you at Belden House."

  “That’s an understatement.” Veronica headed for the stairs. “I saw Lady Sovay get in last night. She knocked poor Mr. Croft off the ladder, and, brazen as you please, climbed right in through the window. Up there." Veronica pointed up toward the gallery and the stairs to the safe rooms.

  “But, Miss Everly, the children would never let her in. They have strict instructions…”

  “She passed through the glass,” Veronica said. “I saw her.”

  Mrs. Twig pressed her hands together. “Well, even if she did, she wasn't there this morning. When I went in for the twins, they were alone.”

  "Then what did I see, Mrs. Twig? An optical effect? Is it an optical effect that Mr. Croft is dead?" A memory flooded back like a nightmare, yet so vividly alive. "Was it an optical effect that I was chased by wolves? Again?"

  Mrs. Twig straightened her back, and gave Veronica a level gaze.

  "Those creatures are not natural, neither are they hallucinations. What are they, Mrs. Twig?" Veronica leaned toward the housekeeper, her voice rising. "You should know. You're a witch!"

  Mrs. Twig narrowed her eyes. "You saw Jacqueline at the well just now, didn't you? You heard her singing?"

  "Yes."

  "Then you know she's as right as rain."

  "Yes. But where is Jacques? She was babbling on about hiding him in a leafy fort."

  The housekeeper looked daggers at Veronica. “I'm sure he's playing somewhere, perfectly safe and sound."