The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance

by Alyne de Winter

  Jacqueline tugged Veronica’s hand. “Shall we go and light candles for Mamma? For All Souls’ een?”

  Veronica wasn’t sure. In a way she wanted to go there again, if only to make sure that the chapel was real and not something out of a nightmare. Part of her would not have been surprised to go up that path and find an empty clearing.

  She squeezed Jacqueline’s hand. “Let’s go to the village instead. Its still rather a long way.”

  “Three miles,” said Jacques. “It's three and a quarter miles from our house to the village.”

  “Well, we’d better get on then.”

  As they headed down the slope into the now rag-bare trees, the fog gave way to cool, dappled sunlight. After about 90 minutes, they arrived at two stone pillars crowned with lichen-cover balls that marked the entrance to the village.

  The cobbled High Street curved down between shops unchanged since medieval times, the jutting second story flats above them seeming ready to fall over into the road.

  “There’s the baker’s.” Jacqueline pointed at a black-trimmed window in a timber-framed cottage where cakes and rolls were displayed on paper doilies. Veronica could smell the fragrance of warm buns and delicious cakes on the crisp air.

  “We must go there and get something for Mrs. Twig,” she said. “But first, let’s explore.”

  The sidewalks were so narrow and buckled they were forced to walk single file to stay on course. Veronica marked the haberdasher’s, the dress shop, a milliner’s, and a book shop before they came out into the square and the market cross. From there, cobbled streets rayed out in three directions, the forth being occupied by a soaring Gothic cathedral.

  “It’s Church of England,” said Jacques. “Would you go there?”

  “I’m not sure,” Veronica said. Still, she could not take her eyes off the lofty lines of the building, the sculpture of Christ at the Last Judgment on the tympanum, the pillars of angels and saints. The cathedral had been standing there for centuries, had been Catholic long before Henry VIII came along with his heresies.

  “How about the antiques shop?” Jacqueline tugged Veronica's cloak, pointing the way.

  “Yes, let's try that.” Veronica said.

  Jacques was already running toward an oddly shaped building on the triangular corner occupying a Y in the road. Jacqueline followed him, laughing with delight.

  Veronica stood in a ray of sunshine and closed her eyes. The fog had burned off, leaving the day warm and lovely. She allowed the heat to sink into her limbs and heal her heart. If only things would go back the way they were before her drunken escapade. Perhaps this day would mark a fresh start, and the shock of Rafe’s unexplained coldness toward her would dissolve like the fog.

  A bell tinkled over the door as she entered the antiques shop, alerting a wizened old man who was shooing the twins away from the piles of books he had stacked on the floor. He looked up and crinkled his already wrinkled eyelids.

  “Are these your children?”

  “They’re in my charge. I’m very sorry if they’ve been upsetting you. They can be a bit excitable, but they are careful with things.”

  “Look! Miss Everly!”

  Jacques was pointing to a stuffed badger with fangs the size of straight razors.

  “Miss Everly!” It was Jacqueline this time. “Come see the dolls.”

  Indeed, there was miniature mansion filled with china dolls and bisque dolls and wooden dolls wearing clothes from the reign of Charles II, if they wore any clothes at all. Their myriad wide eyes and frozen limbs reminded Veronica of the girls at Saint Mary’s. Lack of love did that to people. Froze them like dolls.

  The piercing shriek of a tin whistle sent the old man scurrying toward Jacques. “No, no, no, no, no!” he cried, putting his hands over his ears as if the noise would kill him.

  “Miss Everly, may I have this penny whistle?” Jacques held up a narrow tube of silvery metal with a flat mouthpiece.

  “I don’t know,” Veronica said. She went close to the old man who glared at her from under his bushy eyebrows. “I’m sorry, sir. I promise he’ll be careful.”

  The old man rubbed his hands together and stared at Veronica like a hedgehog pleading with a fox.

  “It’s bad luck to play that in here,” he said, pointing a gnarled finger at the tin whistle. “Take the boy out and that sheaf of music with him." A folio of sheet music lay at the Jacques's feet. "Full of fairy ballads it is, songs about meetings with the Good People, the Gentry.”

  “What do you mean?” Veronica asked the man. “Jacques?”

  The tin whistle screeched a melody vaguely recognizable as Thomas the Rhymer.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” The old man raced at Jacques as fast as he could, with his hands in the air. “Stop it!”

  "I'm so sorry..."

  Cool as a china plate, Jacques held up the infernal instrument for Veronica to see. “Can I have this, Miss Everly?”

  Veronica was sure Mrs. Twig would not appreciate it.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Jacques. You don’t know how to play.”

  “I can learn,” he said.

  “Why not let him have it, Miss? He’ll be playing tunes on it in no time, he will,” the old man begged. “It’s an easy instrument to learn.”

  Veronica arched an eyebrow at him. “If you don’t want it, what makes you think we should?”

  “You’re gentry yourselves, Miss. Already got an in with them.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. How much is it?”

  “He can have it for a farthing and that sheaf of music too as long as he takes them out of here.” The old man held out his hand for the coin. Veronica opened her purse and fished out a farthing.

  “Thank you, Miss Everly! Miss Everly, thank you!” Jacques whined an appreciative high note through penny whistle.

  The old man shuffled closer to him. “Take it out of here right now, lad. Take it outside and I wouldn’t play it out there on the street either lest the neighbors complain.”

  “May I have something as well?” Jacqueline called from behind a cabinet.

  “All right,” Veronica said. “I’m coming over.”

  Jacques stepped out onto the curb. Veronica smiled at the old man who looked about to pass out.

  “We’ll be finished shortly,” she said, and slipped between pieces of old furniture to find Jacqueline.

  The child was sitting in the midst of a pile of books, clutching a doll in her hands.

  “See? She looks like Mamma.” Jacqueline held up a figure of painted wood with a pale blonde wig and a voluminous gown of yellow silk trimmed with metallic embroidery. The doll's face was serene, the eyes set with green glass.

  The old man was edging toward them through the odds and ends of furniture. Soon his face appeared through a fan of peacock feathers at the top of a bureau. Veronica held up a finger to him.

  "We'll only be a moment."

  “I like this book as well,” Jacqueline said. “It’s got photos of children.”

  As Jacqueline flipped through a thick, black leather album, Veronica leaned in for a look. They were portraits of children, in their Sunday best, posed in chairs and on sofas, one in its bed, another under the etched glass lid of a coffin.

  “Jacqueline, there is something about you two that I shall never understand. The children in these tintypes are dead. Why are you drawn to such things?”

  Jacqueline fell silent, gazing at Veronica with her green topaz eyes. There were great depths in those eyes; they contained knowledge of mysteries too harrowing for one so young.

  “How much for the doll?” Veronica asked the old man.

  “Tuppence,” he said. “That’s got a lot of history, that one. Some say it belonged to Lady Anne. Some say to Empress Josephine.”

  “How would it get here, then?” Veronica asked.

  “The highways and byways of old things. You never know where you’ll end up, do you?”

  “No. I suppose not. Here
are your two pennies. Are you happy with that, Jacqueline?”

  “I love it. Thank you, Miss Everly. We need a present for Papa now.”

  Veronica couldn’t imagine what Rafe would want. He seemed to have everything. She didn’t want to do the choosing. She looked around at all the musty old things, feeling a sneeze coming on.

  “Would he like a book or something?” she asked Jacqueline.

  “I have a lovely book,” said the old man. “Poetry by Browning and Burns and Tennyson, et al. With engravings by Rossetti. With children such as these, a man might like to lose himself in such a book.”

  Veronica winced at the phrase children such as these as she watched the old man toddle over to a shelf and pull out a green volume with gilding on the spine.

  “Morris and Company exclusive. All I ask is a mere 3 shillings. I know that’s quite a lot for a book, but I’ve given you bargains for the other bits.”

  “All right.” Veronica paid the man. She could spare it. She hadn’t bought a thing since she’d received her first installment of wages. And it was a beautiful book. The engravings were mysterious, strange, and filled with a kind of numinous romance. She would love to be given such a book herself.

  “Mr. Rossetti must be a remarkable man,” she whispered.

  “Papa will adore it,” said Jacqueline. “You shall write your name in it. To Mr. Rafe, All my regards, Miss Everly.

  “Oh, you’re so silly, Jacqueline. That would be utterly inappropriate.”

  The old man angled a knowing gaze at her. “De Grimstons, are you?”

  Blushing, she knew not why, Veronica pressed three coins into the old man’s waiting hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thanks to you, Miss.” The shopkeeper held his hands over his heart as if Veronica had relieved him of a curse. “Its not every day one such as yourself comes in and makes a man feel alive again.”

  Veronica paused on the doorstep. What was that all about?

  They left the shop to find Jacques up on the High Street. Sitting on the curb with a sheet of music on his lap, he was practicing his penny whistle. A few children were gathered around. When they saw Veronica coming, they ran away. Jacques stopped playing, and watching them go, blew a loud blast at their backs.

  Jacqueline giggled. “Coward'y custards! Coward'y custards!” she shouted. “They’re frightened of the fairies, Jacques.”

  Jacques stood up and bowed deeply with a sweep of his free hand. Jacqueline applauded.

  Veronica had no idea what they were on about. “Now to the fabric shop, and then tea,” she said.

  Jacques turned to Veronica and put the penny whistle to his lips. A low, mournful howl came through the pipe, as if breathed from his very soul.

  “Stop! Stop!” Grimacing like the old man, Jacqueline put her hands over her ears and buried her face in Veronica’s skirt.

  Veronica shot the grinning Jacques a stern look, and then bent over to comfort Jacqueline, who was crying.

  “What on earth is the matter, Jacqueline?” she asked.

  “Don’t tell her,” Jacques said to his sister, narrowing his eyes at her.

  Jacqueline stopped crying. Glaring at her other half, she gripped Veronica’s hand and led her down the High Street toward the shops.

  Whatever that drama was about, Veronica was not in the mood to inquire. The twins had their own bewildering means of communicating with one another, an unspoken code between them to shut others out on a whim. Veronica was sure the truth would emerge when they wanted it to. Most likely during lessons.

  

  They left the village with baskets full of deep copper colored silk, blue poplin, and garnet worsted for Veronica’s new dresses, no yellow, the folio of sheet music, the poetry book, carefully wrapped in paper and tied with a silk ribbon, a bottle of cologne for Janet in pretty box, and some cakes and tarts for Mrs. Twig. Not realizing how heavy the baskets would become, Veronica had also spent extravagantly on beeswax candles, tinder, foodstuffs and staples they didn’t have at home or had run out of. As they labored up the incline toward home, Jacques played a quickly mastered Irish tune on the tin whistle, while Jacqueline danced with her new doll held up like a diminutive yellow parasol.

  It was dusk when they arrived at the two standing stones that flanked the path to Saint Lupine’s. Like white pillars they appeared to Veronica, pillars of salt. She couldn’t help but pause before them.

  She had to blink twice to be sure, but in the darkness between the stones, the white face of Father Roche suddenly appeared, the rest of him blending with the shadows like a dark spirit of the wood. The twins waved to him excitedly. As if his hand were lifted by a puppeteer's string, he waved back. Jacques whistled a refrain from The False Knight on the Road, and the good Father faded away.

  “Where did he go?” Veronica asked. She felt a strong urge to head up the path and find him.

  “He just stepped back,” said Jacqueline. “He wants us to visit him.”

  Heart hammering, Veronica considered whether to do that. Luckily, her mind cleared before she made the wrong decision. “No. Let’s go. I’m sorry to say this to you, but I don’t think Father Roche is a proper priest. He fled from that tune you were playing, Jacques, for who is the False Knight on the Road, but the Devil?”

  “The Devil?” Jacques said, holding the tin whistle to his breast. He looked so downcast that Veronica felt she’d just dashed his dreams to shards.

  “I'm sorry. I don’t mean Father Roche is the Devil, Jacques. I'm just afraid he knows an awfully lot about him.”

  Jacques looked at Jacqueline, his gaze charged with sarcasm.

  “Well, he’s meant to, isn’t he?"

  They both fell silent and stayed that way until they got home to Belden House. By that time it was getting dark.

  Twenty-Five

  The moment they got to the front door, Jack began shouting for Mrs. Twig. The housekeeper came out looking slightly irritated until she saw Veronica sagging with the weight of two bulging baskets. Then she laughed.

  “Oh, my! What have you been doing?” she asked, relieving Veronica of her burdens.

  Veronica let them go gladly. “I didn’t think I could carry them much further without spilling things all over the road,” she said.

  “My goodness, what have we got here?” Mrs. Twig asked, prodding at the wrapped parcels for indications of their contents.

  “Surprises,” said Jacqueline. “For you!”

  "For me?" Mrs. Twig laid her hand on her heart.

  “Presents,” said Jacques.

  “We got a lovely book,” Veronica said. “For Mr. de Grimston.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets it. Come along, Jack.” Mrs. Twig bustled off to the drawing room with the twins in tow.

  Alone in the foyer, Veronica looked around for Rafe. She had a feeling he was outside, riding again. She went to the window that looked out toward the orchard, but saw only the peaks of a juniper hedge dim in the twilight. An apple tree, still heavy with unpicked fruit, leaned in the yard.

  Out there, past the orchard, the moor would be shrouded in deep twilight. She still had no memory of how she'd gotten lost out there, or why. She wondered if she had a death wish. Dying certainly ended one's troubles.

  Sitting below the window, on the side table where they always left the post, lay a single lilac-hued envelope. It was addressed to Monsieur Rafe de Grimston in the flowing script of a lady’s hand. The postage stamps were colorful, French, stamped with black wavy lines evoking the wild waves of the Channel the letter had crossed to get to Belden House. A whiff of perfume rose from the envelope, the scent provocatively feminine. Veronica felt the urge to pick the letter up, to turn it over and see the lady’s name, but drew her hand back. She didn’t dare touch it. Rather, she gazed down at that fragrant missive like a sparrow studying a swan, her own drab existence magnified by the poetic mystery of this obviously superior bird.

  Was there a lady in Rafe’s life? Was she the reason he spent so much ti
me in France? Was she the reason for his sudden coldness?

  The challenge of rivalry making her bold, Veronica picked the letter up, sniffed it, turned it over to see no name, but a waxen seal stamped with a fleur de lis. Veronica envisioned an elegant Frenchwoman of culture and beauty dabbing attar of roses and ambergris along her swan-like neck, writing with a graceful hand on lilac colored paper, lines of passion and romance, a lady of breeding, very rich, and thus able to offer a man like Rafe de Grimston so much more than a meager schoolmistress ever could.

  What a fool she'd been.

  Loosening her cloak, Veronica picked up her bundles of fabric and crossed the vestibule just as Rafe was coming out of his study. He was wearing a blousy white shirt, his hair was messy, his eyes dark as if he hadn't slept for days. For a moment, they held each other’s gaze. Caught off guard, Veronica felt the doors of her heart spring open, releasing all the feelings pent up inside. A pang of jealousy slammed the doors shut. Hot tears starting in her eyes, she looked down and away. How would she endure this?

  In Rafe’s hand was a book with green covers. He held it up as an explanation, and smiled in such a way that his entire being sparkled. “Thank you, Miss Everly,” he said.

  Startled at the sincerity in his voice, her head shot up; she met his eyes. “Oh... I was hoping you’d like it. The children said you would.”

  “It’s the most thoughtful gift I’ve received in a long while. I owned a painting by Rossetti once, but I had to sell it.”

  “Oh, how tragic...”

  “Yes. The model was a lady very much like you. She had ginger hair, but the spirituality of her countenance was much like yours, Miss Everly, though perhaps more fiery. Your magic is of nature, of the forest, the land, the flowers on the heath...”

  “Me? Magical? I wonder how you can put those two concepts together.” Veronica laughed partly from astonishment and partly from a flood of relief that she and Rafe were finally having an unguarded conversation.

  He opened the book, scanned the page and began reading.

  "I met a lady in the meads

  Full beautiful, a faery's child;