The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance (24 page)

Forty-Seven

V
eronica raced down the hallway to the back of the house where a flight of stairs descended to a narrow corridor with closed doors on either side.  A door at the very end opened into the servants’ kitchen that looked out on vegetable garden and a weedy, scraggy dirt lane. Veronica put up her hood and stepped outside. Fighting the wind, feeling buffeted on all sides, she made her way down the lane to a row of spare, white hovels until she found the one marked
Pitchfork Cottage.

As she approached the door, she heard Mr. and Mrs. Croft shouting at each other. A baby was crying. Expecting a hostile reaction, Veronica knocked timidly. The door burst open and out wafted the strong smell of whiskey and the burly frame of Mr. Croft. Even in the house he wore his stovepipe hat.

“Well?”

“There are some problems at the house,” Veronica said. “We need you to secure the windows.”

"On a night like this?" a woman yelled from the depths of the cottage.

Mr. Croft called back to his wife. “Hold that thought, darling. I’ll be back shortly.”

“I’ll be here,” the woman’s rasping voice replied.

Veronica had all she could do to keep up with Mr. Croft as he strode down the lane toward Belden House. She couldn't believe that the wind didn't blow his hat off.

"All right, where is it you want me to go?"

"There's a
tower room on the third floor, with a row of three tall windows above a balcony. And a room with no windows."

"I know where it is. Its blasted high."

"I know." Veronica couldn't imagine how he was to get up there.

Putting a small cigar in his mouth, lighting it with a snap of tinder, Mr. Croft turned a corner, and headed toward a shed at the end of a small garden. He went in and came out with a heavy-looking ladder that he swung onto his shoulder as if it were weightles
s. Veronica followed him like a dog, not even thinking of going back into the house.

  When they reached the tower it was cloaked in moonlight, its sinister air increased by bright mists. Veronica slowed her pace and looked up at the topmost window, a narrow black slit clogged with red ivy.

Rafe was in there.

"Rafe!" she shouted, reaching up as if to hold him.

The ivy in the window rustled. A powerful force thrust against the bars hidden under the leaves, making the iron screech. A black arm waved out, then withdrew.

What was that?

"Rafe?" Veronica's voice squeaked.

Fingers circled the bars, tried to bend them, then shook them hard. Snarls poured down. It seemed two eyes looked out through the ivy leaves, sharp yet somehow blind, as if the soul that should have shone there, had been snuffed out.

"What...what is that?" Veronica muttered, squinting to see more clearly the black paws wrapped around the bars. Shaking, shaking...the bars were loosening...Stone crumbled, and a light cloud of mortar dust rained to the ground.

Veronica was transfixed.
What was in there with Rafe?

"Rafe!"
she screamed.

Whoever looked out of the tower was deeply silent, yet she felt its eyes upon her.

Was a lunatic housed in there? Chained with the stoutest iron, caged within a cage within a cage, never to escape? Was Rafe its caretaker?

A roar broke forth that shook her to her knees.

"Who are you? What are you?" Veronica's despair echoed out unbidden into the air.

Then, deep in the core of the tower, a wolf howled, its voice resounding through the tower, rattling the night. The sound faded. Silence rang. The creature's presence was darker than the night that held the moon above the trees.

The wolf roared, it voice ringing the tower like a great bell. It beat against the bars of the window. Shards of stone fell away. Veronica staggered to her feet. The tower seemed to grow red with the rage of the creature locked within. Stout as they were, would its walls hold? Or would they melt like wax and set the monster free?

Veronica ran down the lawn calling for Mr. Croft. As if in answer, a chorus of shrieks barked up from the woods and fields beyond the hedges.

They were coming!

"Mr. Croft! Where are you?"

Not finding him, she ran down the slope toward the back of the house.

A shout rang out as of a man falling from a great height. Veronica hurried toward the sound and found Mr. Croft lying in the grass. Her eyes quickly traveled up
the rungs of a long ladder to a balcony under three tall windows that glinted in the moonlight.

  And standing on the balcony, glowing in her yellow gown, was Sovay.

She seemed vividly alive. So pale she was, yet so bright, that even from the distance, her beauty cast a hypnotic spell. The incantation hummed in Veronica's mind, taking her over, altering her perceptions so that the world seemed altogether unreal.

Non, no, no!

Everything was too bright, objects a bit off kilter. Trying to adjust her vision Veronica blinked and blinked. In the midst of her blinking, it seemed that Sovay had drifted down from the balcony and was coming toward her over the grass. Slow and stately she walked; her face, with its crown of twigs entangling her pale golden hair, was as flawless as a mask, her stiff, yellow gown shimmering with little lights. The scent of lilies enveloped her. Veronica's entire being leaned toward Sovay, bowing down like a slave before a queen.

Sovay's eyes blazed. Her hatred flew like a blade into Veronica's heart.

"God, help us!”  Veronica fell on her knees beside the prone body of Mr. Croft, nursing the pain in her heart.

When she was able to lift her head, Veronica saw Sovay on the balcony again, passing through the windows into the room.

She was going for the twins!

Wild keening filled the woods, the wolves closer than before.

Veronica leaned over Mr. Croft, and slapped his face. “Mr. Croft, Mr. Croft! Are you all right?”  He didn’t answer. “Come on... Mr. Croft…  Please! Hurry! We must get out of here. Please wake up!”

She shook his heavy shoulder. He did not move. She laid her ear on his heart, felt for his pulse, and found nothing. Even his whiskey breath was gone. Utterly helpless, she glanced up at the windows where Sovay had passed into the house, then around at the shadowy, moonlit garden. What should she do?

“Help!” she shouted. “Mrs. Twig! Someone! Help!”

A white wolf leaped across the path of moonlight to the lawn, and fastened its eyes on Veronica. Another and another of its kind loped down the lawn to stare. Veronica started to her feet as more white canines rushed down, baying, to join the pack.

The wolves were staring at Veronica, their hanging tongues dripping with saliva.

Dizzy with terror, she sped for the house. Though their paws on the ground were silent, she could hear the wolves panting behind her. She dashed around a sharp corner for the servants' entrance, fumbled desperately with the latch until she got it open and wedged her way in just in time. Hands shaking uncontrollably, she shut the door hard, turned the lock, and backed away.

Barking and yowling, the wolves threw themselves at the door, clawed at the threshold. Their faces filled the windows, their tongues dripped on the glass. Growling, pushing, but unable to break through the door, they sauntered back, glaring at Veronica through the single window with glowing red eyes. Remembering her night in the oak tree, she grasped her skirts, pulled them close, and sped away down the corridor.

She heard the wolves everywhere. Their cries, sharp and piercing on the wind, bombarded the house from all sides as if it was giant pot and they were stirring it.

Seeing no one in the drawing room, Veronica slammed upstairs to her room. Wolfgang was whining. She hurried along the gallery to the third-floor stairs and saw him pawing at the door. Everything in her wanted to take him in to the twins, but Mrs. Twig's admonitions rang in her head:
Don't!

She gripped the banister.
"Mrs. Twig... Rafe... Somebody. Help!" The words came out in the barest whisper.

There was noise in the room upstairs. A high, childlike howl drifted down, echoed by another
and another. Wolfgang fired back with a volley of barking, beating his paws on the door. 

Veronica stared up at the door.

The twins howled again, long and steady, their voices reverberating in the empty room.

Soft as bees humming an ancient, falling tune, a third voice, a woman's voice, wove its way in.

Wolfgang went still, ears perked forward to listen.

“Hold on, Jack!” Veronica shouted. “I’m coming to get you!”

A blast of preternatural wind took Veronica's voice away, threw her against the banister, pinning her there so she couldn't move. Every spark of light in the house blew out. It was so dark, Veronica couldn't see. She wrapped her hands around the banister, desperately resisting the power of the wind to topple her over to the vestibule below.

Bang!

The upstairs door burst open.

Snarls broke loose. W
olfgang 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.