by Kim Wright
“Abrams, are you there?” Trevor shouted into the void above him. “What in the name of God was that? It flew right past me. ”
“I’m fine, Welles,” said Rayley, hoping it was true. The whack to the head had made him dizzy and he hesitated to push to his feet. Not here, so high up in the darkness, with the yawning stairwell to the side. “I think it was Dorinda, and she wasn’t flying. She was clinging to a rope…a pulley she devised to lift water….I recognized that screeching sound.”
“What do you mean lift water?” Trevor shouted back in complete disorientation. “Where the devil did she go?”
But before Rayley could answer, the door at the top of the stairs wrenched open.
The garret was full of candles, as many as a shrine or chapel, and thus, when the door was pulled back, the stairs beneath it were suddenly flooded with light. Enough so that Rayley blinked, and turned toward Trevor below him. But Trevor was standing in open-mouthed wonder as LaRusse Chapman stumbled from the turret.
He was wild, incoherent, nearly foaming. He had been trapped there for hours, it would seem, held hostage by not only the lead toxins within the white paint but also by ceaseless images of the woman he had destroyed. For now that his eyes were adapting to the light, Rayley could see that the multiple images of Rose on the stairwell were only the beginning. A dozen other canvasses bearing her face were grouped around the small turret room, her eyes staring down at the men from every direction.
LaRusse staggered. He weaved. Rayley struggled to stand, still shaky from his blow to the head, and Trevor scrambled up the remaining steps. But they were both too late. LaRusse paused at the top stair, teetering on the edge of the abyss, and then, with a single step, he was gone. But this was no angelic flutter, no swirling ghost. It was the straight sharp fall of a mortal man and the slap at the bottom, below them in the darkness, was the sound of death.
Rayley and Trevor stumbled down the steps as best they could. The light at the top of the stairs was fading as they made their way to the bottom, but just as they reached the last step, a door opened from the dining room. John Paul coming in to investigate the sound of the crash, a torch in one hand and his beer mug in another, and his minions behind him.
Trevor left Rayley to confirm the inevitable – that LaRusse Chapman had instantaneously died upon hitting the stone floor – while he sprinted past the confused cluster of colonists and out the front door. She was still in sight, just as expected, running in the moonlight away from the castle and toward the open fields. Trevor was portly, a man too fond of his food and drink. But in times like this he had a low and efficient sort of run, and so, despite his arduous climb and rapid descent of the stairwell, he was able to close the distance between them within minutes. She was barely across the moat when his reaching hand found her trailing robe and he seized it, yanking her roughly.
The girl all but tumbled out of the white cape. She hit the ground inelegantly, knocked down with more force than Trevor had intended and instinctively he reached a hand to assist her. A gentleman to the end, he thought. Even when confronted with ghosts and angels and murderesses, what do I do? Apologize for my roughness, offer the assisting hand. They are right to tease me, for I am a fool. The ladies will be the ones who kill me in the end and I will go willingly, I suspect, with a gentleman’s obliging smile on my face.
His hand grasped hers. And when he felt the paint on her palms and fingertips, still wet, he at last understood it all. She offered one last spasm of resistance, made one final attempt to twist in his arms, but he held her firm.
“There is no need to struggle, Dorinda,” he said gently, looking up at the still night sky. “It is over. It is done.”
Chapter Eleven
“Let me make sure I understand,” said Emma. “Dorinda was the one who was painting Rose’s face each night on LaRusse’s paintings, changing them as he slept? She sought to drive him mad by making sure he was constantly confronted with her dead sister’s face and when that did not destroy him as quickly as she hoped, she blocked him in the turret room with an open bucket of lead paint and a whole host of paintings of Rose?”
“Precisely,” Rayley said, settling back on Geraldine’s couch. “The confusion was due to the fact that Dorinda and Rose had a strong sisterly resemblance. Or at least enough of one that when Anne saw Rose’s face, she thought that LaRusse was drawing Dorinda and the notion sent her into a jealous fury. I made the same mistake too, at first. Only Trevor saw the difference.”
“Anne is lucky to have such devoted family and friends. She might easily have followed in Rose’s footsteps.”
The two of them turned their heads to consider Anne Arborton, sitting across the parlor at her mother’s side. She had arrived for Geraldine’s annual Christmas luncheon in a loose smocked dress of the sort a child might wear, with her golden hair pulled back in a ribbon. Rayley marveled in the transformation the girl had gone through in merely hours, for there was little similarity between the young woman they had delivered on Tess’s doorstep yesterday morning and the one who sat before them now. Anne seemed to have lost five years in age overnight and judging by the sweet, docile way she greeted everyone at the party, she was more than happy to have her wild adventures behind her.
She is all contrition and submissiveness, Rayley thought. And she shall be the model daughter, at least for a while. But by spring I have no doubt that our little Anne shall have thought of an entirely new way to torment her mother.
“When I think on the matter long enough, I almost begin to feel sorry for LaRusse,” Rayley said aloud to Emma. “No matter how he would try to expunge the face of the girl who died bearing his child, she still greeted him anew every morning.”
Emma sniffed. “I would say he got no more than what he deserved.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Rayley said, “but it has always struck me that insanity is an especially cruel fate, far more terrifying than death.” He paused and gave a rueful chuckle. “Dorinda very nearly took Trevor and I down the road to madness along with them. If you could have seen her running about the countryside in the moonlight, wearing her sister’s white cape…Quite effective, I assure you, and that final night, when she descended from the turret using that same rope pulley she told me she had created for the water…my knees all but buckled in terror. She was a true actress, that one, capable of creating any effect she chose, and if the girl frightened two Scotland Yard detectives out of their wits, it was no trouble at all to dupe a man whose mind was already corrupted by lead and alcohol. Sometimes it is easy to imagine the presence of the supernatural, even though it seems a silly thing to confess in the light of day.”
“Indeed,” said Emma, gazing across the crowded room at Madame Renata, who was sedately seated on a divan. In honor of it being Christmas morning, she had left behind her turbans and jewels in lieu of more traditional dress and, in fact, blended in perfectly with the other ladies at Geraldine’s holiday brunch. She turned smilingly to accept a plate of tidbits from Fleanders, Geraldine’s crusty old beau, and then resumed her conversation with Michael Weaver, a rising young politician they had all befriended on a recent case in Bombay. Geraldine’s parties always seemed to bring together bizarre collections of people, for she moved among every stratum of London society with ease, and courted friends with varying political and religious views. Emma smiled, wondering what would happen if the famously conservative Weaver managed to engage the famously eccentric Madame Renata in genuine conversation. Or if the blustery Fleanders knew the true history of Michael’s sister Adelaide, who had now joined him on the window seat and was laughing heartily at one of his jokes. With one wrong word placed here or there, the peace of this Christmas morning might shatter as easily as the icicles dropping from the eaves outside.
“What will happen to Dorinda?” Emma said, turning back to Rayley, for her contemplation of Madame Renata reminded her that the mystic had been unable to muster an image of Dorinda’s fate. All darkness, is that what she had said?
&
nbsp; Rayley shrugged, although in truth his feelings on the subject were not as casual as the gesture implied. “The problem, of course, is that when you attempt to drive someone mad, you often go with them.”
“Shutting someone in a room with paint and a group of portraits is not the same thing as actively trying to kill them,” Emma pointed out. “It wasn’t as if she attacked LaRusse with a gun or knife. With good legal representation –“
Rayley nodded. “She won’t hang, if that is what you are asking. Her parents are wealthy enough to make sure she has that proper council and besides, the Edenbridge constable was open to the suggestion that LaRusse Chapman’s death might be called a suicide. Which I suppose it could be, although there on that stairwell, I must tell you that the lines between murder, accident, and suicide seemed rather blurred to me. But the local man, Brown by name, is primarily concerned with gathering enough evidence to bar the door to Hever Castle and claim the place is under investigation as a crime scene. If my read of the fellow is correct, he will make sure that this investigation moves as slowly as possible, concluding only in the spring, or whenever he is certain the colonists have abandoned the property and moved on.”
“So Dorinda will more likely be confined to an asylum than a jail.”
“More likely.”
A pall had fallen upon them both with this last conversational shift, so Rayley looked around the room for a subject to lighten the mood. There were plenty of possibilities, but he settled on Gage, who was circulating with a tray of champagne. He was in full livery for once, evidently in acknowledgement of the holiday season.
“You are the total lady of leisure this morning,” Rayley said. “I take it you no longer help Gage at Geraldine’s parties?”
“It would appear my leisure is to be extended,” Emma said. “For Gerry has at last taken the advice of Tess and her other friends and hired a maid.”
At that moment, as if on cue, Melly MacGraw entered the room with an empty tray, presumably to take away the plates and cups that had been set aside by the partygoers. The black dress and ruffled apron, which had sagged limply on Emma’s small frame, were entirely too tight for her, the apron straining over her bulging stomach.
“Heavens,” Rayley said. “Where did Geraldine find such a girl? She hardly seems a good candidate for long term engagement. What will happen when her child is born?”
“There are two theories on that score,” Emma said drily. “Melly’s is that the father of the baby, evidently the son of a moneyed household, will arrive in his velvet-trimmed carriage and whisk them both away. My theory is that she will stay on here, with all of us, and that Geraldine’s household will then have the one thing it needs to make our chaos complete – a newborn child.”
“Is the girl even trained for service?” Rayley said, with an indulgent chuckle, for Emma’s predictions were undoubtedly accurate. Geraldine’s huge heart would expand just a little more, broad enough to engulf this girl and her baby. They are a lucky pair, indeed, he mused. For they have stumbled their way into a circle of people who, while admittedly unconventional, are all well intended. The child will be born into a household full of love.
“Look there,” he added. “Gage will have his hands full training that one, for I don’t believe she’s ever even handled a tray. See, she has dropped a cup or something, there is a visible splash of water at her feet…”
“Oh dear,” Emma said, pushing to her feet. “I must tell Gage that our luncheon will be delayed after all. “
****
“So you hired the girl yesterday and she has gone into labor today?” Fleanders roared. “I say, Geraldine, are we ever to have peace and order in this household?”
“Probably not,” Geraldine said sweetly, patting his wrinkled cheek. “Now, Melly is in bed and seems to be faring well, but someone must go for a doctor.”
“Richard,” Marjorie said, and her husband sprang to his feet with the ease of a man accustomed to following feminine orders. “You remember where the physician on Baker Street lives…” And the young man had his coat and hat on in a flash, pulling them from the hands of Gage who bore a saintlike expression of forbearance.
“Oh Gage, yes,” Geraldine said vaguely, as Richard sprinted out on his errand. “Perhaps we should just serve it all up as sort of picnic on a table?” She looked around the room. Tess, and Madame Renata were already upstairs with Melly, who had been shown to Geraldine’s own fine bed. Marjorie was making her way up the steps to join them. Michael and Fleanders had begun pacing with an almost comical intensity, while Adelaide and Anne were seated on the rug before the fire, playing with Marjorie’s twins.
“Where is Trevor?” Geraldine said, turning to Rayley. “And Emma?”
“They have stepped out into the garden,” Rayley said, giving her a conspiratorial wink as he took her arm.
“The garden?” Geraldine said in surprise, glancing out the window at the sleet which had been clicking relentlessly against the windows all morning. “Whatever for?”
“I believe he may have brought her a holiday gift back from Hever.”
“Wonderful,” she said, attempting to wink herself, although Geraldine had never been particularly skilled at winking and the effort gave her the rollicking look of a drunken sailor. Just then a shriek from upstairs caused everyone in the room to startle.
“Geraldine,” said Fleanders, wiping his brow with a shaky hand, “are we to be subject to such noises all morning?”
“Most likely through the afternoon and evening as well, dear,” she answered. “It is my understanding that first babies rarely come quickly.”
“Good God,” sputtered Fleanders. “All the day and into the night, you say? We may as well open the brandy now.”
“An excellent suggestion,” said Geraldine, and she snatched the heavy glass bottle from the bar before heading back up the stairs. “And darlings,” she said over her shoulder as she paused on the landing, “the minute that Richard is back with the doctor, send him up straightaway. Can you believe we are to have a Christmas baby? Such an arrival means good fortune, I can feel it in my bones.” She bounded up the remaining stairs with impressive vigor for a woman of her age and size, leaving the little group below in contemplation.
“I hate to cause more trouble,” Anne said timidly, pointing a finger toward the corner of the room. “But is that tree smoking?”
****
Rayley peeked out the breakfast room window into the small garden and saw Trevor standing alone, under an umbrella. While seizing one of his own from the stand in the corner, he overheard the sounds of Emma and Gage in the kitchen, conferring on how to best turn a formal luncheon into an indoor picnic. When Emma offered the practical notion of pulling the lamb from the bone for sandwiches, Gage agreed, but by his tone it was clear he found the idea abhorrent. Poor man, thought Rayley, he had a maid to help him for what…two hours? And he has labored on a formal meal for days, most likely, only to see all his efforts go to ruin.
Holding the umbrella against the icy shards of sleet, Rayley picked his cautious way toward Trevor in the garden. He found him staring down at the cuttings of the Christmas rose he had brought from the fields of Hever.
“How did it go?” Rayley asked, shouting a bit to compensate for the wind.
Trevor, who hadn’t heard his friend approaching, looked up in wry surprise. “Well, I botched it, of course I did. Was there ever any doubt? Tried to say that the rose reminded me of her because it looks delicate, but is actually able to withstand harsh forces, and I suspect it sounded as if I was comparing her to a soldier. Why didn’t I work out a proper speech on the train and make you listen as I practiced? And then of course, I felt compelled to further add that the plant was toxic, which made the comparison go even more wrong, and all the while Emma just stood there, patiently nodding, while I babbled on like an idiot. When Gage opened the door and called for her to help in the kitchen, it was a relief to us both, I should think.”
“I doubt it was as
bad as all that.”
“It was worse. How goes the delivery?”
“Slowly, most likely. There was a scream from upstairs and Geraldine took the brandy for the women and then the tree caught on fire and had to be extinguished with a shaken bottle of champagne. I fear that luncheon shall be no more than sandwiches and punch.”
Trevor sighed. “It was the wrong thing to give her. A snarl of brambles and thorns, wrapped in brown burlap.”
“Only for now. It will be something else entirely in the spring.”
“Do you think she knows that?”
“I suspect she understands that there is… potential.”
Trevor sighed again and the two turned toward the house. “Sandwiches for luncheon, you say? Pacing and waiting and cigars too, I should imagine, and if you’ll recall, I tried to warn everyone about that ridiculous tree. At the risk of sounding like Fleanders, do you think that we shall ever manage to have a normal day in this household?”
Rayley laughed and stomped his boots free of ice before stepping into the house. “Merry Christmas, Trevor.”
