The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance (30 page)

*

Fifty-Seven

T
he
howling was everywhere
,
surrounding her, even from the sky. As she hurried toward the house, she heard them inside shouting, the sounds ascending to the tower.

Veronica barged in through the lower door of the tower, and pounded up the stairs. Before she reached the second turn, she heard them fighting.

“Let me go!” Jack screamed.

“You must do as I tell you. You must!” Mrs. Twig shouted back.

Banging sounds shook dust from the walls. Slams and cries of pain sent moths fluttering. Veronica ran up the stairs two at a time. She burst onto the landing in time to see Mrs. Twig holding Jacqueline in the vice grip in front of the open door of the tower.

"Go in. Now!" the housekeeper commanded, forcing Jacqueline into the torch-lit interior.

"NO!"

Snarling, snapping at the hands encircling her arms, Jacqueline seemed terrified of going into that pulsating darkness. Janet stood by, holding a large platter
with the dead hare lying on it. Her eyes were filled with tears. A branch of candles on the floor flared up, casting lurid light over the walls, making the doorway appear momentarily black as the mouth of Hell in a Mystery play.

“Please!” Jacqueline whimpered. "I can't go in there." The child's fingers were already long and pointed, white fur sprouting from her knuckles and wrists, even up the sides of her face.

Mrs. Twig's voice rasped out. “You know you have to go in. Just for tonight. There is a nice hare for your supper. Please now Jack. You
know
we have to do this.”

“But not alone. Not alone. I’ve never been locked in there alone,” Jacqueline whimpered.

Mrs. Twig looked around as if she sensed someone watching. Veronica stayed on the middle step, out of sight. What could she do? Her heart was torn by Jacqueline’s cries, but somehow she knew Mrs. Twig had no choice but to contain her the way the nuns had been forced to contain little Tala, and for similar reasons.

Mrs. Twig let out a weary sigh. “I’ll go in with you. How is that? You won’t have to be alone. I’ll be with you. You must just promise me that you won’t forget who I am.”

Jacqueline stopped struggling. "I won't."

Mrs. Twig pushed the child through the tower door and followed her in. Janet set the platter inside after them, and then picked up the candle branch and gave it to Mrs. Twig.

"Are you sure?" Janet asked.

Mrs. Twig nodded. “If you hear
me cry out in any way at all, let me out.”

"All right." Janet's eyes were wide with fear as she closed the door on whatever was to happen in the tower that night.

Veronica was astonished by the housekeeper’s courage. Now that she'd accepted the improbable, impossible facts, she was sure she would never have stood to be locked up with Jacqueline on a full moon night.

Janet sat on the bench and put her head in her hands. This gave Veronica the chance to slip silently and quickly down the stairs to the passage that led into Rafe’s rooms. Once inside, she locked the door behind her and, guided by the dim light flickering from the wall sconces, made her way out to the hallway that led to the classroom.

Remembering Rafe's instructions, she ran around the house locking all the doors and windows she could find. In a house with one hundred rooms, this was an impossible task, but she had to try. She concentrated on the ground floor, making sure every door and window was secure. All the while she pondered on the fate of Rafe de Grimston whose gruesome cries shattered the night.

Why wasn't
he
locked in the tower tonight? Why had he stayed out in the open?  Veronica staggered into the main drawing room as the answer stared her the face like a pair of fierce red eyes. She sank down in the nearest chair and allowed the words to surface:

He wanted her to shoot him.

She looked up at the ceiling with its garlands and crystal chandeliers. Embers winked in the fireplace. The fire was dying. It was awfully quiet outside. Too quiet.

She nee
ded to see Rafe, find out what was happening to him now. That meant going back up to the roof of the tower. Slipping softly upstairs, she hurried back to Rafe’s suite, and went silently out to the passage with its tall, gothic windows. In seconds, she was facing the tower door. Janet sat dutifully on the bench, staring at the great, black keyhole as if in shock. Her fixation gave Veronica the chance to slip up the curve of the tower stairs without being seen.

Up on the roof, the night sky, with its floating castles of clouds, moved over her.
The moon was large and close, washing the dark space between the horns of the cypress trees with light. Her gaze fell on the mist-filled archway of the chapel and stayed there.

This was where the werewolves came out. It was a portal from one world to another. Rafe must pass through it again before dawn.

Veronica leaned against the battlements and listened to the sounds coming up from the chamber just below: the child’s tin whistle moans, the spatter of a woman's voice. She put her face in her hands, but could not weep. She wanted to tear her hair, but didn't have the strength.

She sank down on the bench and felt something roll under her skirts. The telescope! She picked it up and trained it on the moon, adjusting the focus on its marvelous craters and seas as if she could discover the source of its malefic power.

Then, like an arrow, she aimed the lens down at the ruined chapel and searched the shadows for the beast who was the man she loved, then, still seeking, focused into the birch grove.

There she saw a pale lady in a yellow gown
standing at the mouth of the tomb. And through the trees, pale and silvery in the moonlight, slipped the wolves. Soon the dark clearing was filled with them and their staring red eyes.

Crouched before Sovay
, snarling, seemingly mesmerized by the soft incantation of disembodied voices, was the black wolf. Rafe, who could slaughter a grown man with one swipe of his deadly claws, was frozen under the spell of the lady in yellow.

Veronica focused the telescope on the lady’s face; saw the proud beauty, the pale, tumbling hair, the red, hungry mouth. Then she focus
ed on the face of the black beast. The wolfish visage was faintly human, its eyes uncharacteristically blue and filled with despair.

Rafe clearly hated what he was, yet seemed powerless to free himself.

As if he sensed Veronica watching, Rafe looked toward the tower. His eyes met hers. Two points of red light flared up in their depths, and he let out a cry so harrowing that Veronica almost dropped the telescope. Propped up on the battlements, gripping the telescope with shivering hands, she watched him tear away from the lady in yellow, and melt into the dark.

Veronica fell onto the bench.
Rafe didn't want to be seen. He didn't want Veronica to
see
him like this. She was supposed to have shot him by now.

She
stood up and raised the telescope to her eyes again. The lady in yellow was moving toward the house, followed by her pack of wolves.

Just when Veronica thought she’d seen enough, Sovay vanished and a large white wolf appeared. It stood on the moon-dappled lawn looking up at the tower, keening a note so long and high that its breath rustled the trees, and blew the brown leaves down. No longer demonic, the white wolf had grown beautiful, powerful. It stood on the leaf-littered lawn looking up at Veronica, stretching out its paws, yowling as if to say
I'm winning this battle!
It seemed that ages passed before the wolf gave up mocking Veronica and loped toward the ruined chapel.

Shrouded in foggy moonlight, the
rest of the wolves swarmed after her.

Then, from below the floor of the roof, echoing up from inside the tower, came a scream.

Veronica’s throat seized up.

It was Mrs. Twig.

Dashing tears away with her sleeve, not caring if Janet heard her or not, Veronica ran down the tower stairs to the landing. The tower door was wide open and Janet was gone. The area stank. Blood pooled all over the floor, bloody tracks went down, not through Rafe’s room, but down the second flight of stairs that Veronica had seen Mrs. Twig vanish down before.

Veronica crept closer to the gaping entrance to the tower, listened, and heard nothing. She stepped inside.

The smell was awful. In the dark all she could see were two disheveled cots, a demolished rabbit, and a lot of blood.

Mrs. Twig was hurt.

And what of Jacqueline?

She dashed over to Rafe’s rooms.

The lights in the wall sconces had gone out, but she knew the room so well that it was easy to make her way out to the hallway. Mrs. Twig’s room was one floor down.

Janet was coming out of the housekeeper's rooms with bloody rags in her hands. Looking utterly distressed at the sight of Veronica, she stopped.

“What happened?” Veronica asked.

“Mrs. Twig is ill. I’m not sure she’ll last the night.”

“What’s wrong? Have you sent for the doctor?”

“No, Miss. We can’t have a doctor here. Not now. Me and Peggy will do the best we can to help her.” Janet stared at Veronica, silently pleading with her to stop asking questions.

“Janet, I know what’s going on. It’s not a secret any more. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Yes she has, Miss. But you don’t want to go in there. Like I said, she might not last the night.”

“Where is Jacqueline?”

Janet gave her a blank stare and a tiny shrug as if she didn’t know or care.

“I’ll find her,” Veronica said.

Crushed with exhaustion, Veronica dragged herself up the stairs to Jacqueline’s room. But for the moonlight streaming in through the windows, it was cold and empty and dark.

Sovay had Jacques and Sylvie. She would not stop until she had taken Jacqueline.

In a burst of rage, Veronica slammed the door shut, and locked it.

In her own room, she went out onto the balcony. The wind, high in the trees, was filled with the singing of the wolves. The bell was tolling, opening a space in her mind that seemed to see into another realm where Sovay and her wolves roamed the land, hunting for souls.

Leaping past every second step on the way downstairs, Veronica groped her way toward the larder where Mrs. Twig kept her ring of keys. She sorted quickly through them for the longest one, opened one of the French doors, and ran out to the night.

Keeping a sharp eye out for wolves, she hurried to the tower and locked the lower door. Now, the only opening was the window with the broken bars, and even Sovay needed a ladder to get that high.

Wolves howled close by. Veronica's hand flew into the pocket of her cloak for the gun. She grasped it and lurched around.

What was she doing? She'd left the French doors open!

She raced back into the house, and locked the doors behind her. Praying she’d secured every door and window on the first floor, and hadn't missed a single one, she ran up to her room. Once inside, she locked her door, then backed away from it, staring.

Don't let the lady in yellow come through. Don't let Rafe.
Pray God the door holds firm!

Sweat broke out on her upper lip as she lifted the gun.

"Oh Rafe! Don't make me shoot you."
*

Gun gripped in both hands and pointed at the door, Veronica sat down on the ottoman.

The whine of a lone wolf rose up from the yard. Gun still aimed at the entrance to her room, she got up and went out onto the balcony.

Down below, a small wolf of bright pallor emerged from the shadow of the tower, and dashed out over the lawn.

Veronica inhaled sharply.
Jacqueline
.
No!

In the archway of the ruined chapel, Sovay appe
ared. The image of Saint Lupine, she led her pack of wolves down the lawn toward Jacqueline. They converged around her, barking and yowling, tugging at her fur with their teeth, then ran in a ring around her, leaping and jumping, faster and faster, round and round.

Veronica pointed her gun at their frenzied dance and fired.

The wolves dissolved into mist.

When the mist cleared, Jacqueline was standing on the grass alone, a human child again. But, even from a distance, Veronica could see a mark on the child's brow: a symbol drawn in blood.

And up in the door of the ruined chapel was the lady in yellow watching, with red piercing eyes, Veronica's every move.

Veronica aimed the gun at her. "We're at war now. In earnest."

She grabbed Jacqueline's hand and pulled her back to the house.

*

Fifty-Eight

W
hen the clock gonged the hour of dawn, Veronica was on the balcony staring down at the empty yard. She’d lost all sense of time. The gun was cold in her hand, a reminder of the terrors of the night, of the very real danger she’d been in that seemed to have vanished like a dream.

She stole back into her room. The house was soaked in silence. She sank into her chair beside the dead fire, drew a woolen shawl around her shoulders, and gazed at the embers.

Someone was knocking on the downstairs door, ringing the doorbell, calling out for Mr. de Grimston. When it seemed nobody was going to answer it, she got up and, grumbling, went downstairs.

A policeman was at the door. An Officer Simms.

“We’ve found the remains of a child. We think he’s one of yours.”

Officer Simms’s flat face was grim, his chin sunk into its double as he waited on the doorstep for Veronica’s response. There was a farmer at the officer’s elbow, turning his hat in his hands, fretting.

Veronica struggled to take in what he’d just said. “What have you found?”

"About a month ago," the farmer broke in. “I didn’t know what it was. I mean… you know how it’s been the last few years. Wolves and all. That’s what it was, I swear. A white wolf heading for the sheep pens. A second didn’t pass before I had a shot off. I saw it limp away into the bushes. Left a lot of blood behind. Finished, I thought. But I wasn’t about to chase it further seeing as how it was wounded. I thought it went off and died, and that were the end of it."

The farmer hung his head like a small child trying to hold back tears. “I swear it was a wolf, Miss. I swear.”

Veronica’s eyes felt like cold mountainsides as she stared at the man.

“What has that got to do with us?” she asked, though her insides quaked with fear of the answer.

“The corpse is buried unde
r a bush," the policeman said. “It’s been there a while. A month, I'd wager." He cast a knowing glance over his shoulder at the farmer. "There were another death last night. A woman calling her dogs in. Attacked by a big one. Worse than any of the others.”

The farmer grimaced, nodded, and looked away.

“Seems there’s more wolves than ever out on the moors these days,” said Officer Simms. “It’s got recruits.”

Recruits?

“It’s all over the papers.” It was Janet. She’d just come in with the newspaper, and stood in the half-light holding it up.

Marauding Wolf Kills Farmer’s Wife.

Veronica looked wildly at Janet, whose face was like stone. Her eyes went to the policeman, the farmer.

“Is Mr. de Grimston at home? We need him to come down and identify the child's body," said Officer Simms.

The farmer nodded mournfully.

"No," Veronica whispered.

The officer went on. "Strangely, the child's body's not decayed. Animals haven’t gotten at it. Not even ants. You can tell who it was. A small tow-headed lad. About eight years old.”

Tears starting in her eyes, Veronica looked helplessly at Janet. She thought she was going to faint.

Officer Simms went on, “I wonder if that wolf survived the shot. Maybe Mr. Hodges here didn’t kill it after all. Crazed by its wound it was, perhaps, and attacked your boy.”

“Mr. Rafe is away,” said Janet. “The housekeeper is still a-bed.”

“Haven’t you been missing a child?” asked the policeman.

“Well, Jacques has been away with his father. Hasn’t he, Janet?”

Veronica looked to the maid as if she could save her from drowning.

“Yes. We saw them off to France about over a month ago,” Janet said. Lying made her blush.

Eyes narrowed with suspicion, Officer Simms shot a glance at Mr. Hodges who, in turn, cast a wary eye on Veronica.

“Its hard to mistake a child like that. I’m real sorry about what happened." Mr. Hodges tipped his hat. “I’ll be going."

Veronica's heart slammed against her ribs. She felt utterly unqualified to handle this. She didn't want to face it, but the look in Mr. Hodges face told her what he thought of her balking. Not much.

“Will you give Mr. de Grimston my card?” Officer Simms asked. He handed Veronica his calling card. “I expect to hear from him before the day is out.”

“Wait. Take me there. I want to see the child.”

Janet was about to say something, but Veronica swept past her and headed up the stairs to get her cloak. 



Officer Simms and Mr. Hodges were waiting in the forecourt.

“Come on, Miss. Its not far,” Mr. Hodges said.

Veronica lifted her hood.

“It’s just over the moor.”

As she followed the men over the rolling hills, climbing stiles over low stone walls, hurr
ying to keep up with them as they strode down the lanes, Veronica prepared herself for the sight of the leafy fort. They arrived at a clump of bushes covered with dried, brown juniper limbs and rose briars. It was just as Jacqueline had described it at the wishing well; the hiding place she'd made for her brother.

Officer Simms stood aside. Mr. Hodges parted the branches.

“There he is, Miss. In there.”

Indeed, there he was, the pale little form in white trousers and shirt. There was a red bloom on the shirt as if one of the roses had sprung to life, there, at his heart. Wiping the tears from her face, Veronica crawled into the fort.

“Jacques. It's time to come home.”

She gathered the dead child into her arms and brought him out into the morning sun.

“You see. Fresh as a daisy, he is,” said Mr. Hodges.

The farmer removed his hat and held it over his chest. Officer Simms removed his hat as well.

“Come, let me take him, Miss. I'll escort you home.”

Officer Simms moved to take Jacques from Veronica, but she moved away.

“No. I'll take him myself,” she said, looking the officer up and down as she if he were a thief.

She stumbled down the slope carrying Jacques, feeling the men watching her back all the way home.