Sons of the Wolf (24 page)

For this is the ultimate trap. Wolf son has read the letter; I found it already opened. This explains his hasty journey, to summon his confederate and explain the new development. It explains why I am now here, the object of such sinister concern. He knows that I, not Ada, am his designated prey.

I am trying very hard to be calm, but if my fingers were not clamped around this pen, I would be using them to tear at my face. It is almost diabolical, the way the whole affair has developed-almost as if some jeering Fate were taking every potential weapon and turning it against me. Even the timing of it . . .

At any other time I would have willingly changed places with Ada. I can imagine her agony of mind, loving another man, fearing convention and talk-and lacking what John Wolfson calls my "passionate nature." I could have confronted Wolfson and spat vulgarly in his face, as my mother would have done, and dared him to do his worst. He could not force me as he can force Ada. But he can force me through her.

If I refuse the marriage which will give Wolfson Grandmother's fortune ("A married woman has no property," says the law of benevolent England), he will simply destroy the second will and marry Ada to Julian. That plan will remain unaltered. The only difference is that, before, I could not save her. Now I can-by a simple Yes. It is her happiness against mine, one unspeakable marriage against another. Having the choice, I cannot condemn her to Julian's tender mercies.

Then there is Francis. Wolf does not know, yet, that his rebellious son is another weapon against me, in his hands. But he will find out. Those damnable ice-blue eyes can read my thoughts. And I think Julian knows. They will not hesitate to use Francis as they will use Ada.

I could do it. I would do it-if the money were his only goal. I am not afraid of Julian; his sort of viciousness on infuriates me, and he is not really moved by my questionable charms. If he ever tried to touch me, I would scratch his pretty pampered face to shreds. But it won't be Julian.

"It's a pity you aren't the heiress." I can hear Wolf saying it; I can see his face as he looked today, holding me. . . . The letter must have seemed to him like an answer to prayer. I wonder to whom-or what-he prays. It was bad enough then, but now . . .

I cannot, I cannot do it. Not with Francis ... Oh, God-the door—

I can hardly read those last frantic, scribbled words. But I will leave them as they stand.

It has been half an hour since I scrawled that desperate I passage. I was on the edge of a hysterical attack; the I alternatives that confronted me were equally impossible. It was like being given a choice between hanging or drowning. I thought, in my frenzy, that I heard his footsteps outside. I heard the dog bound forward, growling. I staggered to my feet, stiff with crouching, and dropped the pen on the page-it has left a great black blot-and ran across the room. Consciously I have no memory of my intent, but I found myself before the window, tearing at the wooden panels with hands that felt neither cut nor bruise. If it had been open . . .

I will never know what I would have done. For as the first plank gave way before my furious attack, a strange thing happened.

Everything in the room vanished. I saw only blackness and felt nothing, not even my own body. I was outside my body, floating naked and alone in a starless void. A fainting spell? Perhaps; but all at once, like a scene that springs on the vision when a shutter is flung open, I saw my grandmother. She was sitting in her chair, as I had so often seen her-a dumpy little woman in a frilled white cap, her black eyes snapping under furled, scanty brows, a smile of contempt on her withered lips. Her lips moved. I knew she was speaking to me, but I heard not a sound.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the vision was gone. The cold tower room again enclosed me. I was standing at the window, hands clenched upon the stone sill, and the pain in my bruised fingers made me cry aloud.

Was it the pain that brought me back from a simple fainting spell? I don't know. I only know that something had changed within me. I was still afraid-I am afraid now-but my fear is not the mindless panic that sent me running, like a trapped animal, to destroy myself. My mind is working clearly, my hands are steady. Whether that vision was sent to me from another place, or whether it came from the far recesses of my overstrained mind, it has served its purpose. I know her, as she knew me. She would not huddle, half fainting, while some villain overpowered her. She would not seek the sin of self-destruction as a means of escape-leaving others to face the consequences. She would have fought to the last breath in her body and the last cunning thought in her brain. . I am going to leave this room.

How? I don't know yet, but I must get out. The boards in the window were loose; they are now looser. My hands feel as if they had been flayed, but I can, if necessary, get through that window. It is forty feet above the ground. I cannot climb down, the stones are too even. However, I may have to try. A fall won't kill me; there are bushes-probably prickly ones-below. But it is a forlorn hope. I would probably break a limb and be unable to move. I shall try the window only if all else fails.

I have tested, again, all the stones of the wall and every plank of the floor. The only exit from this room is the door. Outside the door is the dog.

I am deathly afraid of that dog. He will not kill me; I am too valuable to be damaged. But he is big enough to hold me fast if I try to pass. I am not afraid of what the dog will do to me-I am just afraid of him.

Yet I must get him away from that door. Can I trick him? I think not. If I dropped something from the window it might lure him outside to investigate, but he would be after me before I had gotten ten feet from the tower. So I must kill him.

Brave words. But how? I have been through the contents of this room and through my scanty possessions,; looking for a weapon. It was folly, of course. Only with a pistol could I damage him without endangering myself, and there is no pistol here. There is not even a knife. I looked, knowing full well that the beast could disarm me in an instant. I have not even a pair of scissors in my reticule. The contents of the bag lie scattered on the floor beside me-handkerchief, smelling salts, coins, drops—

I should have thought of it earlier. There is so little time. . . . When will Wolf return? I have no idea how powerful the laudanum is or how much is required for an animal so big. I simply poured the whole bottle over the chunk of mutton which Julian left for my dinner. The hard part was opening the door. Despite my reasoning, I felt sure the beast would leap at my throat.

He is fearfully alert-almost human. I can understand the tales the villagers tell about Wolf and those beasts-and understand as well why I keep referring to them as "he" rather then "it." He was on his feet the moment I touched the door handle, and I opened the door to find his eyes glaring straight up into mine. His teeth were bared; those fangs looked a foot long. Still he did not utter a sound. I could almost fancy that the servants' tales were true and that I was confronting Wolf himself, in his animal shape.

I stood frozen for several seconds, meeting that feral stare. Then I pushed the meat through the crack and slammed the door. I was too cowardly to wait to see if he would eat it. That was fifteen minutes ago. Has he eaten? And if he has, will the drug have its effect? How long does it take to work? I will wait fifteen more minutes. I dare not wait longer. Wolf may come at any moment. I cannot think what has kept him so long. . . .

Perhaps the drug will not affect the dog. Perhaps, instead of putting him to sleep, it will drive him mad. . . .

Ten minutes longer. I will hide this diary before I go. Some day it may be found. If the worst happens, at least someone in the world will know what became of us. I feel an urgent need for some contact, however frail, with that outer world. This is such a lonely place. There is no light, no human sound, anywhere about.

Five minutes. How quickly the time goes. First I will look for Ada, try to set her free. Then Francis ... If he can move at all, I must get him hidden-some more sheltered place . . . Then I will start running. I should follow the road; it would be easy to lose myself on the moors in the darkness. The other dog must be with Wolf. Darkness will be no hindrance to its keen senses. If I cannot reach help before they arrive at the ruins, the dog can run me down. That dog or the other-if he wakes too soon-if he sleeps at all—

It is time now. I hear nothing outside the door. But there have been periods before when the beast was silent. . . .

Two minutes past the appointed hour. I am going now. God help me, and all other poor souls who must battle tonight against the powers of darkness.

April 17, 1860

Today, as I sat in the morning room pretending to sew, one of the workmen came to the door. I heard him from where I was, asking for "the mistress," and I heard William's cold correction: "Mrs. Wolfson." William, at least, has not changed. He was reluctant to let the man in, so finally the poor fellow had to hand over his find. William brought it in to me, holding it fastidiously between two fingers. It was dirty and grimy, defaced by mold and cobwebs; but I recognized my old diary.

I have scarcely thought of it since that night-can it be only six months ago? But then I have been-shall we say unwilling?-to remember anything about that night. No, let us be honest. The sight of any object that might recall that time has sent me into a ghastly state of panic-I, who prided myself on my control. They have all been absurdly considerate of my feelings. Sometimes it makes me angry when I see them whispering and looking anxious. But not very angry; I no longer have such strong feelings about anything.

William, being totally without imagination, did not connect the grimy little volume with my "nerves." He handed it over to me, bland as an icicle, and I took it-with, I hope, equal coolness. It was not until after he left the room that I began to tremble.

My husband would never have let me touch the diary, let alone read it. But then he never knew of its existence, or of its part in the insane events of six months ago, so he would have no reason to watch out for it-as he has watched out, successfully, for so many other "dangerous" objects. (I have seen him; he did not think I saw, but I did.)

So I sat in my comfortable chair, with my sewing-on which I do so little, day after day-fallen from my lap, holding a fat, dirty red book in shaking fingers. It had been hidden, all that time, on a ledge above the window of the tower room. Today the workmen must have been cleaning that room and so come upon it. My name-my former name-is on the cover, in gold.

The book smelled faintly of dust. It seems to have been rained upon, for there are spots of mold on the leather cover. The smell was more than a smell-it, and the very touch of the book, brought back that night so vividly that I could close my eyes and feel myself back in that dreadful room, with darkness thick outside and the fire dying. . . . Knowing that in less than sixty seconds I must open the door and discover whether I faced escape-probably only temporary-or a more immediate horror in the presence of the dog. I was there. I could feel it again, the silence, the cold, the terror. My mind seemed to hang, swaying, on the brink of a dark abyss.

And stepped back.

That is the only way I can describe it. It was as if I had faced the worst and found it endurable. I heard my own voice say aloud, "It is all over," and I knew I spoke the truth.

After a few minutes I rang for William and asked him to fetch a certain box from my room. The key to the diary was in it. I remembered, now, that I had flung the key into that box, where I kept old trinkets that were too broken to use and too cherished to throw away. For months I have forgotten the very existence of that key.

So I opened the diary and read it through, from start to finish. It has been a year since I wrote the first entry. Poor Grandmother and her sense of propriety. I did not even keep to a decent year of mourning for her. But there were other considerations which seemed more important than propriety.

I read it through to the last hysterical pages. I was certainly in a wild state then. "Poor thing," I thought, and smiled to remember that the poor thing was myself. I-wonder what I would have written and thought if I had known that, up till then, I had only the faintest taste of the real terror of that night.

It came to me then that I must finish the story. I could face my memories now, but I would never be completely purged of them until I had written them down-exorcised them-cleared my mind of the clouds of darkness that still fog certain regions. For the next few days literature, not fancy work, will be the morning occupation of the mistress of Abbey Manor. I can keep the diary hidden that long, I think.

I close my eyes again, letting my fingers rest on the hard leather surface of the diary, and again the scene returns with sound and touch and feeling complete. The tower room was almost dark, the fire a bed of cooling coals. I could hardly see the last words I wrote. I remember that I wanted to go on writing-to take any cowardly pretext for postponing the opening of the door. But the final sentence was-final. There was nothing more to be said after that. I closed the book and locked it, putting the key into the pocket of my skirt. I looked about the room for a safe hiding place.

As I fumbled at the objects on the table, I found something I had scarcely noticed, having no especial need of it-a candle, in a rough iron holder. There was barely enough heat in the graying coals to catch the wick, but then I had light, and the weak glow was heartening. Equally cheering was the conclusion I drew from the presence of the candle-they had not expected to return until after dark.