The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance Page 26

  Veronica narrowed her eyes, taking in his handsome, undefended face. "What about you?"

  Rafe looked away. "I think you already know."

  

  Veronica wanted to be alone. Though she'd asked for it, Rafe’s confession was unbearable. Even if his wife was this werewolf creature, it didn't change the fact that he'd killed her.

  It was horrible.

  All his torment, his apparent suffering, was nothing more than a guilty conscience, his emotional clinging to Veronica’s understanding, a bid for validation in the world of the Good.

  “But she was a killer,” she said softly. "Going out as a wolf to do her deeds for the Devil." No wonder they'd sealed her in that coffin and raised that cross over her. They couldn't have imagined that the twins, missing their beloved Mamma, would set her free to kill again.

  Veronica couldn’t face teaching, but she had to check the classroom to see if the children were there. She also wanted to take another peek into Miss Blaylock’s journal.

  Jacqueline was sitting at her desk, alone. Veronica went to her.

  “Jacqueline! Where’s your other half?”

  “We’ve had a fight. I never want to see him again,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly. It will blow over by tomorrow.”

  “No it won’t. It never will.”

  “But your lessons. You must both be here for lessons.”

  “We shall switch days.”

  “That shan’t last long. Of course you’ll forgive each other. Why don’t we forget about class today? You go and make up with Jacques and we’ll begin again tomorrow.”

  Jacqueline gave Veronica a hard stare. “We shall never make it up, Miss Everly. Never again. Never.”

  Veronica stroked Jacqueline’s hair, then knelt down and looked into the child’s face. Close to tears, Jacqueline pushed Veronica away, got up, and stomped out of the room.

  *

  Fifty-One

  An ivory box lay on the bed. Inside was a small pistol with an ivory handle and four silver bullets nestled in a lining of scarlet silk. Veronica picked it up. Only four bullets. Yet she’d seen a whole pack of werewolves. It seemed by their howling, that there were thousands out there.

  Veronica took the gun to the mirror, held it up and looked down the barrel at her own dark twin manifesting in the glass.

  “Thou shalt not kill,” she whispered.

  She opened the bullet chamber, and was relieved to see that it was empty.

  The Book of Unholy Beasts lay on the chair next to the fire, along with its stack of translations. She put the gun away, sank down on the ottoman, and opened the book on its river of red silk to the page inscribed: Homini Lupus. There, clamped in the jaws of the wolf, was the lady in yellow. Though its fangs were long and sharp, the wolf’s bite did not kill the lady. He was simply carrying her off, transforming her, damning Beauty to possession by the Beast forever.

  Veronica turned the page. Latin flowed over the parchment in medieval script. And, on the facing page, was a vision of slant red eyes staring through flames. Veronica rifled through the translation until she found the corresponding document.

  There is only one way to save the soul of the Wolf Man. He must be shot with a silver bullet and the body thrown into the fire. If one attempts to slay the Wolf Man by any other means, he will not die, for his soul will not be at rest, and he will burn ever hotter for revenge. He will return from the grave to harass the living as a Soul Stealer, a Vampyre.

  A Vampyre is damned and therefore seeks to take the souls of others. The souls of those Christened in God’s Grace are protected under the cloak of Our Lady, but those who are not baptized are vulnerable to attack by the Vampyre. Therefore in Christendom, the monster’s appetite is insatiable, for it is difficult to appease.

  The Vampyre's main weapon is, therefore, seduction.

  He leaves the bodies of his victims intact, but the soul he devours through the blood. After which, all that is left of his victims, are empty shells that in time fade away, or become Vampyres themselves. Death cannot claim such beings, for neither Heaven nor Hell shall open to receive them.

  Thus is the insidious contamination of the Devil’s work.

  Veronica’s heart pulsed sharply. She stood up and went out onto the balcony. Clearly visible through the bare trees was the tomb, final resting place of Sovay de Grimston. Yet the grave could not hold her. Her spirit still roamed free: both werewolf and vampyre.

  The clock chimed nine. It was time for class. Veronica tore out of her thoughts and hurried to the classroom. She was anxious to see the twins, their two identical faces, and their pale green eyes looking up to her. She wanted to know more about Sylvie, and about their own transformations. Perhaps they could be saved.

  Again, only Jacqueline was at her desk, wearing a dress the color of midnight. It was a mourning dress. That could mean only one thing, but Veronica did not want to jump to conclusions. She'd been deceived by appearances before.

  Jacqueline had her head down as if she were asleep. Veronica entered quietly, and leaned over her shoulder. A large picture book was opened on the desk, hidden under her arms and head.

  “Good morning, Jacqueline,” said Veronica.

  "Morning, Miss Everly," Jacqueline mumbled.

  "Where is your brother?” Veronica said softly.

  Jacqueline lifted her head. Her face was wet with tears.

  “He’s still fighting with me. He’ll never stop. He’ll have to come by himself for lessons tomorrow. While I hide far away in my closet,” she said.

  Veronica smiled at the allusion to Ophelia’s ‘closet’ in Hamlet they’d just finished studying.

  "But isn't that a bit extreme? Surely you have no reason to take things so far…”

  Something in Jacqueline's eyes stopped her. A hard look she'd never seen before, a look that silenced her.

  Veronica looked down at the book. There was the picture of a poor, stricken lion in princely attire, with a young princess bending over him.

  “What are you reading?” Veronica asked.

  “Only Beauty and the Beast,” said Jacqueline. “It’s one of our favorites.”

  “Why don’t you come to my room? We shall read it together near the nice, warm fire. I’m not sure you’re in the right frame of mind for lessons.”

  Jacqueline went along to Veronica’s room.

  “Don’t you think Jacques would like to join us?” Veronica asked.

  “No!” Jacqueline shouted. Then she said softly. “I want to spend some time alone with you, Miss Everly. I’m always with him.”

  “Very well, then. Let’s sit together in the big wing chair.”

  Snug in the wing chair with Jacqueline cuddled against her, Veronica read Beauty and the Beast, the story of an innocent girl who is trapped in a castle with a savage beast.

  “And so the Beast was really a Prince suffering under enchantment until he found true love with a pure and beautiful virgin. The End.”

  Veronica closed the book. Jacqueline was staring at the flames in the fireplace as if she were lost in a dream.

  “Why do you like this story?” Veronica asked.

  “Because it tells us how to break curses.”

  “What of your mother? Did you see her last night?”

  “Her? No. Of course not. She is no longer with us, Miss Everly. If we saw her, it would be very bad.” The child gazed at Veronica with a look of terror and slid off her lap.

  “But you said you'd brought her back...”

  “She’s dead. Can I go now?’

  She was at the door, and out of it before Veronica could speak. Out in the hallway, the bedroom door slammed shut.

  She’ll be all right, Veronica thought, too exhausted to care.

  Flipping through the fairy tale book, she began reading. The stories gripped her with their strange magic, so much like witchcraft that she wondered how the good sisters of Saint Mary's had allowed the girls to read them. The Christian gloss was an obvio
us cover-up for frightening stories of destitute peasants forced to make sacrifices that people with cushioned lives could never imagine. For the well-off and secure, descriptions of poverty, premature death and abuse, the casting out of children to be preyed upon by witches or evil queens, never bit through the pious veneer crafted by the Brothers Grimm. But, having been poor, the true nature of the tales stared Veronica in the face. And like Hansel and Gretel with nowhere else to go, she, too, had gotten lost on the tangled pathways of the dark forest.

  She'd been so caught up in her thoughts that she couldn't believe it when the clock struck eleven.

  Jacqueline had been gone for two hours. Her room sounded awfully quiet. And where was Jacques? Veronica was about to get up and look in on the twins, when she heard the dog barking in the garden.

  She went out onto the balcony and saw Wolfgang hobbling, with a bandaged foot, over the lawn toward one of the walled gardens. Jacques ran out to greet him.

  A knock on the open door summoned her back into the room. It was Mrs. Twig. She avoided looking at Veronica, but rather stared at the carpet as if she’d spotted a stain.

  “Mr. Rafe would like you to meet with him in the Rock Garden after lessons. Luncheon is ready now, in the dining room.”

  Veronica had no desire to sit through luncheon with the housekeeper after that dreadful scene in the kitchen that night. “I’ll take my luncheon in here, if you don’t mind.”

  Mrs. Twig obviously felt their estrangement. She bowed her head. “I’ll send a tray up. Just make sure you meet with Mr. Rafe at half past two. He says it’s urgent.”

  Veronica waited for Mrs. Twig’s footsteps to fade away, then hurried down the hallway to Jacqueline’s room. The bed was disheveled. A black dress lay on the floor; the one Jacqueline had been wearing in class.

  And where was she?

  Veronica hurried across the hall to Jacques’s room. The bed was smooth and unrumpled, as if it had not been slept in at all.

  It was very odd for Jacqueline’s room to be so messy, especially at this hour. It might be Janet’s fault, but Veronica’s heart told her otherwise. She flung on her cloak, hurried downstairs, and went out into the back yard. She did not want anyone to see where she was going. Hopefully her brown cloak blended with the woods, as some dire intuition compelled her toward the tomb.

  The late autumn gloaming gave the tomb a shadowy, otherworldly presence. The angels on the four corners of the roof raised their eyes to Heaven as if they'd never seen death before, and could not bear it. The iron door was closed. Veronica pushed on it. It creaked opened. Dead leaves rustled in and blew across the floor as she tiptoed down the stairs. Beyond the iron grille, candles guttered low. She pulled the grille aside and stepped into the antechamber.

  In place of the two marble sarcophagi were two silver coffins, each lid embossed with a cross entwined with juniper and rose briars, each inscribed with the scrolled Name of Jesus Christ, and the command: Peace.

  Burning with apprehension, Veronica went to the smaller coffin and raised the lid.

  Inside was a girl of about eleven years old. Her white blonde hair was very long, her face beautiful, her skin smooth, her lips and cheeks rosy. She wore a fine gown of embroidered batiste with a heavy encrustation of tiny gold sequins over the bodice. The only hint of decay was in the dress: the tarnished sequins, and the age-yellowed fabric. In the girl’s crossed hands was a sheaf of fresh, white lilies.

  Veronica quickly shut the lid and moved away. Though dead for so long, Sylvie still looked alive. Whoever gave the lilies to her knew what she was, yet had left her alone.

  Rafe must not have had the heart to dispatch his own daughter. Now that Veronica knew about the efficacy of silver bullets, the silver coffins made sense. The Bestiary had taught her that silver was the only element on earth that could put an end to werewolves. Perhaps, Rafe thought that silver might also contain them, to thwart the evil, rather than destroy its vessels.

  Veronica had to see if Sovay was likewise interred. She sank almost to the ground with dread as she approached the larger coffin. From below, as if she could hide from its occupant, Veronica slowly lifted the lid, rising with it until she was able to see inside.

  The coffin was empty.

  *

  Fifty-Two

  Veronica dropped the coffin lid and ran out of the tomb. Daylight streaming through the trees dazzled her. She crashed through woods toward the house, coming out under the tower looming darkly against the silver sky.

  In a fit to anger, she stopped. "I hate you!" she muttered at the tower.

  She hated the tower with its burst open window. Hated the image of the black wolf, its eyes two pinpricks of red light in sockets of endless shadow staring out at her from a realm of violence and evil. Hated it because it had taken Rafe, because it was an unwanted intruder into his soul.

  He'd told her he'd buried Sovay in that tomb.

  But it was empty.

  Veronica shrank from the tower back into the woods as if, once out of its shadow, she could escape its horrifying influence. An overgrown path ran along the edge of the trees. She didn't care where she went, as long as it was far away. Maybe a woodland glade would open along the path, where she could fall into the grass and look at the sky and forget about Rafe and Belden House. She hurried along until she saw the old bell tower and the ruined chapel on the other side of the trees.

  There was desolate air about the place, with the cypress trees and the moon and the pale crumbling stones, the tower with its ominous black bell. The gloomy atmosphere seemed a small thing after the horrors of the night before. Everything at Belden House seemed gloomy now. But, there was supposed to be a garden inside, filled with flowers from France. She could already smell the lavender.

  Stepping in, she found the chapel was no more than a shell. The walls of chiseled, sun-bleached stone were draped with ivy and wisteria. A flurry of white azaleas, peonies, blue brunnera, and lavender wafted around a circular fishpond that shone still as a mirror and full of clouds. And lying beside the pool, in the pose of a marble effigy, was Sovay.

  Her yellow gown was ornate, its design medieval. Her bosom was almost completely exposed in the style of a time and place long past, when kings and queens battled the peasants and sent armies against the infidels. The crown of birch twigs, black against the glowing white fire of her face, seemed utterly pagan. The long blonde hair glistened with the sheen of gold, the long-fingered hands, crossed over her heart, enfolded Jacqueline’s yellow-gowned, doll. Yet it was Sovay's face that fascinated Veronica. Finally able to see it up close, she found something repulsive in it. Beautiful, yes, perfectly so, but its aspect suggested carnality, the curve of her mouth, insatiable appetite.

  It seemed impossible that this lascivious creature could be the elegant and sophisticated Lady Sovay, yet the face and figure were identical to those in the portrait. As Rafe had explained in his translation of the Bestiary, Sovay must have allowed the Magical Personality of Saint Lupine to overshadow her completely.

  Veronica had no doubt that the figure before her was dead, yet she was not dead. Not actually alive, yet she was animated. Even in sleep, she seemed vividly awake.

  Sovay was here, would always be here, prowling through the night until Veronica stopped her.

  She glanced about breathlessly. Nothing stirred. She looked again at Sovay lying asleep, yet not breathing. From what she'd read, Veronica knew her to be, in this state, helpless and vulnerable to destruction.

  Thinking of the pistol with its silver bullets, Veronica's palms broke out in sweat. If she had it, what would she do? She didn't have the heart to use it. Yet, the Bestiary had taught her that the thing lying here was no longer human, but a werewolf. A vampyre.

  It was right to shoot such a creature.

  But, Veronica didn't have the gun. Perhaps there was another way to weaken the monster's power.

  An exposed stair went up inside the bell tower to the topmost spire. There, like a dark and heavy heart,
hung the bell. Strange symbols were incised around its rim, but from where she stood, Veronica could not see them clearly. She sensed they gave the bell power. Perhaps taking the clapper out so that the bell could not toll would keep Sovay from waking.

  Coming to the bottom of the corkscrew stairs, Veronica froze. It was a long, steep climb to the top. Some of the steps were broken. And there was something about the bell that put her off. A dark force seemed to emanate from it. Remembering what had happened to Mr. Croft, she backed away.

  Veronica stepped quietly back to the sleeping figure, reached down, and grasped the doll’s head.

  Sovay’s eyes flew open. Sparkling green, they fixed on Veronica.

  Unable to look away, Veronica groped for her silver crucifix and clung to it. A high-pitched wail rent the air. Sovay's form began dissolving into mist. Red eyes burned through the mist, staring at Veronica until only a thin white vapor remained.

  The doll lay on the ground, apparently too real to vanish.

  Veronica was halfway down the slope, gasping for breath, when she saw Rafe coming up the lawn carrying a pistol in each hand.

  “There you are,” he shouted. “It’s time for your shooting lesson.” Using a pistol as a pointer, he went on. “We’ll be going into the Rock Garden. It’s just over there.”

  “Oh. Is that what this meeting is for?” Veronica replied.

  “Didn’t Mrs. Twig tell you we had a meeting today?”

  “Yes, she did. She just didn’t say what it was for.”

  “Come on then.”

  Rafe waved a pistol in the direction of the juniper hedge. Pulling in her voluminous skirts so they wouldn't catch on the rough, sloe-scented needles, Veronica followed Rafe between the trees. They came to a walled garden she hadn't seen yet. Emotionally exhausted, she paused in the clearing while Rafe opened the door.

  Inside was a primeval landscape. In the midst was a low, green mound, and crowning the top was a circle of tall, narrow rocks as mysterious and potent as an ancient megalith. Inside the circle, facing out, was a life-sized painting of a white wolf.