The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance Read online

  “One hundred rooms. How astonishing! What use could there be for so many?”

  “Four floors, we have, not counting the cellars.”

  Veronica finished her tea and followed Mrs. Twig into a large drawing room. Cozy chairs were grouped around an oversized marble fireplace. Paintings of all sizes hung in ornate frames on hunter green walls, the floor to ceiling windows were covered with heavy drapes. Flower arrangements, small sculptures, curio cabinets, and layers of Persian carpets gave the room a Continental atmosphere.

  “Most of the rooms are closed now, of course. There was a time when families such as the de Grimstons alleviated the isolation of rural life by inviting large parties of relatives and friends to stay.”

  “Of course.” They did that in Jane Eyre, with a large party of guests staying at Thornfield Hall. Veronica couldn't imagine having so many relatives and friends as to need one hundred rooms. Never mind feeding them all.

  Mrs. Twig led Veronica down a long hallway. They passed two dusky drawing rooms the perfect size for intimate gatherings on cold winter nights, and a large guest suite with a foyer opening out to a side garden. Sadly, but for curtains, carpets and tapestries, the rooms were almost empty of furnishings.

  Mrs. Twig chatted along the way.

  “We leave the doors open to let in the light and air. Some of the rooms are set off in strange little corners and mews. For instance, if you take the stairs at the end of the upstairs hall, you will find a door set in the corner of the landing where the stairs turn.”

  “Odd place for a door.”

  “Indeed! If you go inside, you will find a large tower room with windows at the back, and a room with no windows because it is inside the other room. Somewhere else, you may find a little corkscrew stair going up to a room with a window that looks out at the gardens, but cannot be seen from outside.”

  “How does that work?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “A room with no windows,” Veronica mused. “It must be very oppressive.”

  “I believe it was used as accommodation for young mothers with babies. A baby would have no need of a window, I suppose. I think these were safe rooms during war times. An old house like this has seen a great deal of history.”

  “Just think of all the souls who've spent time here!”

  Mrs. Twig stopped short, then pulled out her keys.

  “Here is the Great Hall. We only open it for special occasions... holidays, entertaining distinguished guests, the occasional ball.”

  “Ball! I’ve never been to a ball.”

  “Lady Sovay used to hold them once a year, in May, when the gardens are at their height. These doors have been closed ever since... she left us. Large rooms can be quite drafty, you know.”

  The double doors swung open into a vast, vaulted chamber with a long row of windows along the eastern wall. The fireplace took up one corner of the room with a hood of sculpted white marble tapering to the ceiling. There were three cobwebbed chandeliers, a polished oak floor covered with an Oriental carpet, and a long feasting table set with silver candle branches dulled by drips of hardened wax, and a dusty centerpiece of dead, dried flowers.

  “Of course, for a ball, the table would be set aside and the carpets taken up. This floor is magnificent for dancing,” Mrs. Twig said, lapsing into deep thought.

  Veronica could just picture the ladies in colorful gowns and silk slippers waltzing down the polished floor, carried along in the arms of ardent young gentlemen. Would she ever experience such a thing?

  Ms. Twig looked sadly up at the dusty chandeliers. “I'm sorry, Miss Everly. I have neglected to have Janet clean in here. It's been closed up for so long."

  Veronica couldn't help but empathize. "Of course, Mrs. Twig. I completely understand why you might want to avoid reminders of your terrible loss."

  "Thank you, Miss Everly." Mrs. Twig smiled as if to lighten the mood, yet her voice was wistful. "Its as dusty as Miss Havisham’s wedding table.”

  Veronica smiled at the comparison to an eccentric character in a work by Charles Dickens. “Not quite that bad,” she said.

  Mrs. Twig gave Veronica a quick look that reminded her of Sister Victorine sneaking the wine into her room.

  “Don’t tell anyone, Miss Everly, but when my duties are over for the day, I read novels.”

  “Oh, so do I.” Veronica whispered. “We are kindred spirits, you and I.”

  Mrs. Twig shot Veronica a glance that suggested she wouldn’t go that far. Feeling put in her place, Veronica sighed. “It is a lovely room, even with the dust.”

  “There should not be any dust.” Mrs. Twig closed the doors and locked them tight. “But it's my fault. Come upstairs, Miss Everly.”

  Wondering if she would ever be able to tell when Mrs. Twig was being serious or not, Veronica followed her up a side stair. At the top was a corridor rather darker than the one downstairs due to all the doors to the rooms being closed. The blue walls contributed to the dimness, giving off no light, but rather evoking the underwater atmosphere of a dream. A series of large portraits hung along the walls, of unusually good-looking ancestors posing in their carved and gilded frames like actors on a stage. The hallway curved to the left into a wide vestibule with an eight-pointed star configured in the tiles of the floor. Where was Mrs. Twig taking her?

  Veronica paused before a floor length window looking out at the tops of the trees. She was wondering how much higher they were going to go, when Mrs. Twig called out.

  “Here, Miss Everly.”

  Mrs. Twig was opening a carved wooden door in the far corner. Veronica hurried over.

  “Welcome to the library.”

  The doors opened into a lofty, medieval space. Bookshelves lined the walls, others stood freely in several rows across the floor. Books rested on tables, or were stacked on the floor as if the librarian had been called away from her sorting. Veronica moved through three separate alcoves, marveling at the white, domed ceilings, at the cast iron chandeliers hanging from each center. The windows were tall and narrow and bright.

  “This looks older than the rest of the house,” Veronica said.

  Mrs. Twig gazed lovingly around the rooms.

  “More ancestors on the walls, as well?” Veronica asked, indicating an enormous portrait of a gentleman in Tudor period garb.

  “Those are not Mr. Rafe’s ancestors. They came with the house. This room was added in fourteen hundred and something.”

  "Before the invention of the printing press?"

  "I suppose you're right. There are cabinets of handwritten manuscripts, illuminated Bibles, all sorts of antiquated volumes hiding away in here."

  Veronica began wandering down an aisle of books.

  There was a shelf crammed with large folios of sheet music. Turning around, Veronica was faced with spines of white leather embossed with red or purple titles and gold leaf. Most of the titles were in Latin, others in German or French. She tipped one out.

  Le Dragon Rouge

  “The Red Dragon,” she whispered. “Satan!" The subtitle: Ou l’art de commander les esprits Celeste curled below a flat, gold-rimmed picture of the Beast.

  "On the art of commanding Heavenly spirits," she whispered the translation. "Heavenly?"

  Touching her silver crucifix, Veronica pushed the book back into its place as if it burned her.

  “I see,” she breathed. “Quite astonishing.”

  She hoped the de Grimstons did not study such things. But why keep these books at all? Why allow them to stay in the house? Perhaps they were worth a lot of money. Still, such things should be destroyed lest devils come popping out from between the pages with their sulfurous fumes and seductions and false guises. Mother Superior would have had them burned.

  Quelling her distress, Veronica went back around the corner to find Mrs. Twig waiting at the door.

  “Who were they, Mrs. Twig? The family that stocked this library, I mean?”

  “You will have to discover that for yourself.
The library is full of records and family trees and such. Nothing as interesting as Mr. Dickens though, I’m afraid.”

  Veronica smiled. “Well, I can hardly be bothered venturing in then, can I?”

  Mrs. Twig wagged her finger. “Is that any way for a school mistress to talk? You should never cease learning, Miss Everly.”

  “Of course.”

  With a little bow, Mrs. Twig closed the library doors.

  "Come."

  Mrs. Twig took Veronica down two flights of stairs to a hallway that led back to a long gallery. Veronica ran her hands over the polished balustrade and looked down at the ground floor. There was the front door where she had first entered Belden House and the vestibule. Mrs. Twig had taken her full circle.

  "Was the library on the fourth floor, Mrs. Twig?" Veronica asked.

  "Yes. It's at the top of the old house. Of course, the tower is older and much higher."

  "My gracious. I thought Saint Mary's was large. We lived in every inch of it, you know. All the nuns and girls."

  "Yes. Well, we are much reduced here and can only pray that the parts of the house we don't use any more are still standing."

  Veronica came away from the railing. At the end of the gallery was a large, full-length mirror, then a stairway going up to the third floor. She supposed she'd been taken around the parts of house that were open to her, and could only wonder at the rest.

  Mrs. Twig dangled her keys. “Its time to take you to your suite. I’ve set you up close to the twins’ rooms.”

  Veronica's heart quickened. She'd never had her own suite before.

  They stopped before a door near the top of the stairs that led down to the vestibule. As Mrs. Twig sorted through her keys, Veronica was relieved that she wasn’t being sequestered among the empty old chambers above, but would be allowed to remain among the living.

  “I hope you like it. Your quarters are part of a larger apartment that has never been fully renovated. For you, there's a bedchamber with a sitting area, a dressing room, and a balcony. You even have your own hipbath.”

  “Oh, that is quite a luxury.”

  "These were Lady Sovay's rooms. A kind of personal apartment. Her mother stayed here when she came to visit."

  Veronica smiled. That sounded interesting.

  “Just ignore the area under the archway. It’s meant to be the proper sitting room, but we've been using it to store the family treasures.” Mrs. Twig gave Veronica a strange, guarded look. “There are no other rooms in the house that would be suitable for you, Miss Everly. Your predecessor, Miss Blaylock's, suite is quite out of the question.”

  Veronica was about to ask why when Mrs. Twig swung the door open into the most fabulous room she’d ever seen.

  "You should be quite comfortable here."

  Spacious and rather grand, the décor was red and soft white, with touches of gold and dark green and blue. A four-poster bed with pillars of carved rosewood and hangings of warm red damask, jutted out from the under a carved wooden canopy. At what seemed to Veronica to be yards away, a set of French doors opened out onto a marble balcony that clearly overlooked the full sweep of the lawn and the birch grove.

  The fireplace was framed and hooded in white marble ornately festooned with acanthus leaves and disembodied faces that were also carved at the back of the chimney flue. The firedogs were remarkable for their being set between the heads of two snarling wolves. Before the hearth was a long creamy divan, and a thickly cushioned easy chair with a tasseled Ottoman that gave the impression of a great throne. The carpet was Persian, mostly red, and the great built-in wardrobes, the dressing table and chairs gleamed with the soft hue of rosewood. The walls were stenciled with foliate patterns reminiscent of the real flowers in the conservatory below.

  Veronica could never have dreamed such a magnificent bedchamber existed, let alone that she should stay in one. Being chosen as governess to Belden House seemed like a blessing now. Perhaps this was God’s reward for her endurance through so many trials and tribulations.

  Mrs. Twig nodded toward the other side of the suite. "There are our treasures, Miss Everly. It is an indication of my instinctive trust in you that I allow you such proximity to them. I hope I'm right that you will leave them be."

  "Of course. Thank you," Veronica said in a breath.

  The space beyond the archway was quite dark for having only one tall window, and that closed under heavy draperies. Only the gleam of an ornate Georgian mirror on the far wall brightened it.

  Veronica liked the idea of guarding the family heirlooms, secret histories hidden in trunks and curio cabinets, private things that should never be disturbed. She would make certain never to violate the housekeeper's trust.

  “I love these rooms, Mrs. Twig. Thank you so much.”

  "My pleasure." Mrs. Twig bustled toward the door. “Come, Miss Everly. One more thing.”

  They crossed the landing, then turned left down a narrow hallway with two doors facing.

  “Only these two rooms share this corridor. It ends down there, at that little round tower room."

  Sunlight streamed in through a pair of leaded windows flanking a door at the eastern end of the hallway. From where she was standing, Veronica could see, through one of the windows, the little tower room bowing out.

  "It was originally a lookout where they used to watch for enemies. Now it just looks out over a garden.”

  Veronica smiled. "It would be wonderful to fill it with flowers and plants."

  "It would, but Jack would never take care of them and they would die."

  Mrs. Twig turned back to the two doors that faced each other across the hallway and opened one.

  “Come, Miss Everly. This is Jacques’s room."

  They entered a room of shining brocade pallor. The only windows were a set of casements in the end wall that corresponded with the tower room. Gazing into the open doorway across the hall, Veronica found Jacqueline's room so like her brother's that she had the brief sensation that she was looking into a mirror in which her reflection did not appear.

  “I’ve had your bags brought up," Mrs. Twig said, with a weary shake of her keys. Apparently this adventure had tired her out. "Why don’t you settle in while I oversee dinner?”

  “I shall love to, Mrs. Twig."

  "I do hope you'll be happy here, Miss Everly. We all hope the best for you and the twins. I sense it shall be a good match.”

  Veronica swallowed the last of her tension down. “Thank you, Mrs. Twig. Thank you very much. But, if I may ask, will I meet Mr. de Grimston tonight?”

  Mrs. Twig looked away.

  “He isn’t here. He’s often away on business. We never know when to expect him back. A place is always laid for him at table. He may burst in at any time. But not tonight. Certainly not tonight. Is there anything else?”

  “No. I’m fine. I shall unpack my bags and… settle in.”

  With a jaunty nod, Mrs. Twig went down the stairs, leaving Veronica alone between the twins’ rooms and their uncanny doorways.

  *Five

  Mrs. Twig sipped her soup while reading a newspaper. She seemed preoccupied. The twins, apparently practicing their disappearing act, were not there.

  Veronica appreciated the quiet. It gave her time to reflect, to digest the beauty as well as her, admittedly, unexpected impressions of her first day at Belden House.

  The dining room windows looked out on the orchard. The late summer twilight gave the trees a golden cast. Veronica fancied entering that twilight to gather up the apples and pears and nuts and whatever grew on brambles and trellises or fell into the long grass. She imagined putting on her brown cloak and going out into the gloaming to look for the twins, calling out, Jacques! Jacqueline! Where are you? her voice echoing back in the stillness… breezes whirling around her, lifting the hem of her cloak… a flock of birds circling overhead. She imagined unlatching the wicket gate, entering the orchard, calling out: Jacques? Jacqueline? Where are you? Where are you…? Floating down a path stre
wn with fallen red apples, out to the moor to wander under the light of a full, yellow moon.

  She was jarred out of this daydream by the hard scrape of Mrs. Twig pushing her chair back.

  “Miss Everly, take tomorrow off. I must bring the children out to the village. It will give you a chance to get acquainted with the house without us ordering you around. Pull your room together, relax, whatever. Classes can begin on Wednesday.”

  “Why, thank you, Mrs. Twig!” Veronica lit up. She wasn't used to having her needs considered.

  Mrs. Twig tucked her paper under her arm as if to hide the headline from view.

  “Good evening,” she said.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Twig." Veronica caught Mrs. Twig's glance. "The twins have missed dinner.”

  “They disappear sometimes. There is no reason to be alarmed. They will turn up. I always save plates for them.”

  eee

  On her way to her room, Veronica looked in on the twins. She found them on the floor of Jacqueline's room, a ring of china dolls laid out around them like spokes in a wheel. Candles in deep blue glass flickered among the dolls, creating a funereal atmosphere. One of the twins was writing in a black book with a quill, and the other seemed to be examining a doll and murmuring to the writer.

  In their white dressing gowns, it was impossible to tell them apart.

  Veronica sauntered in. “Do you want a bed time story?”

  They looked up, startled, and leaped to their feet.

  “Yes, Miss Everly,” they both shouted.

  “Come on, then. Blow the candles out. There’s a fire in my room.”

  Candles snuffed, dolls lying in the dark, the twins followed Veronica to her room.

  She had them sit on the divan by the hearth while she took her place in the throne-like chair. A large, blue book of fairy tales lay on the table beside her.

  “Sometimes, we swap rooms,” said Jacques. He was wearing a long white nightshirt under his dressing gown.

  “Just like we swap clothes,” said Jacqueline in her long white nightgown.

  “Then how can anyone tell you apart?” Veronica asked.

  “They can’t!” They both fell over with laughter.