The Lady in Yellow

by Alyne de Winter

  “Mrs. Twig, just to be safe,” Rafe said. He pulled an ancient oversized folio out of the satchel. “I brought the book.”

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” said Mrs. Twig. She took the dolls and the book from Rafe. “Are you…?”

  “I’ve had some bad dreams,” he said. “That’s why I had to leave----to hurry back.”

  "Oh!" Mrs. Twig' s hand flew to her heart. "How did you sneak up so quietly?"

  Veronica spun around.

  The twins were standing in the doorway.

  “Papa! Papa!” They shouted with one voice and ran to their father.

  He lunged towards them for an embrace.

  “My two dear Jacks,” Rafe said, and kissed the tops of their heads. “I’ve brought lots of presents. Some things you’ll remember from the chateau.”

  “Those books and things?” Jacques asked.

  "With the pictures?” asked Jacqueline. “We do love old books, Miss Everly. And dolls.”

  “Well, I’ve brought a troop of tin soldiers,” said Rafe. “And that telescope you so adore. Those little birds…and other things.”

  “Oh, yes! Thank you Papa,” they both said.

  Mrs. Twig held the dolls up so the children could see them. “Come now children, for luncheon. Give your father a rest.”

  Eyes fixated on the dolls, the twins followed Mrs. Twig out towards the kitchen.

  “Well, Miss Everly, I’m so glad you’re a gentle, attentive girl. The twins need someone like that after their mother….”

  He held Veronica’s eyes as he spoke, eyes so large and blue she swore she heard surf breaking on a shore.

  ****

  Veronica could not settle down that night. She paced her bedroom, periodically looking in on the twins who slept clutching their dolls. The dolls smelled of wild flowers, mostly lavender. The bodies must have been stuffed with flowers from the French countryside, a nice, rather nostalgic touch, she thought, to remind the children of their mother and her house in France.

  “Their mother....” Veronica suddenly felt superfluous, essentially homeless, an outsider, orphaned and destined always to be alone. She wondered if she would ever really bond with the twins, or know them.

  Sighing, she went out to her balcony to look at the full moon. Could it be, in that same moment, that Rafe de Grimston was standing on the tower with the telescope trained to his eye, gazing at the same bright moon, only able to see more deeply into its craters and seas, to penetrate more profoundly their mysteries?

  Moonlight washed the shadows of the branches over the grass like long leggity beasties. A darkness crouched in the lilies around the well, and growled.

  Chapter 4

  *

  October came in quietly. Veronica took long walks over the grounds, admiring the autumn colors, stopping to pick up the reddest of the fallen leaves. Her heart was on fire, and she could do nothing to control it except to avoid an encounter with Rafe de Grimston. When she saw him watching her from a downstairs window, her face burned hotter still. She was afraid to go back into the house where he might see her in such a state.

  Luckily, she'd found a side door and a back stairway she could take to the classroom.

  With a Persian carpet on the floor the color of spilled wine, a fire in the grate, and her own books on the shelves, the classroom was transformed into a cozy den that robbed the looming wall of yews in the windows of their oppressive influence. Veronica and the twins had established a routine of finishing their lessons before tea. They were very quick and always amusing. Their love of history extended to cultural oddities. One morning she’d walked into the classroom to find a blue, coffin-shaped jewel box sitting on her desk. Inside was a dead nightingale wrapped in a shroud of sheer silk, lying in a nest of rose petals. The twins looked at her with blank, unknowing stares, waiting for her response.

  “What is this?” was all she could think of to say.

  “They were given as love tokens in medieval France,” said Jacques. “We present one to you, fair lady.” He stood up and bowed in a courtly manner.

  “Oh, thank you.” Veronica couldn't help blushing. “I’m certainly glad you’re as fond of me as I am of you. It’s… lovely.

  “Mama collected them,” Jacqueline said. “Some are as old as our chateau. “There is also a lady’s hand that, when the moon is full, turns into a wolf’s paw. And toads with jewels in their foreheads.”

  It sounded like some sort of witchcraft.

  “Oh, yes,” said Jacques. “Those are the best, though I suppose they are too much part of our chateau to be taken away.”

  “Well, I should like to see your chateau some day. It sounds very intriguing,” Veronica said. There was something strangely romantic about the nightingale. As if it had materialized out of a fairy tale. “I suppose the toads will be changed into Princes if you love them enough.”

  The twins fell silent and glanced at each other grimly.

  ****

  Since Rafe was home, Veronica no longer had easy access to the rooftop, and had to take a dank stairway inside the bottom of the tower. The stairs led up to the familiar landing with the large, murky, iron-bound door. From there it was only a few steps to the bay of open stonework that led to Rafe's rooms. Veronica lingered there, wondering if he might come out to take the air, but he never did.

  A month after his arrival, Rafe left again. Veronica was shocked at his departure. How could he abandon them so soon? She put her head in her hands to calm herself. What was wrong with her?

  She was on the roof of the tower feeding a flock of doves the day a hearse, drawn by two black horses, pulled into the forecourt. Mrs. Twig screamed and ran out to meet it, calling “Mr. Rafe! Mr. Rafe!” The maids followed. Veronica’s heart stumbled. He couldn’t possibly be coming home in the back of a hearse, could he?

  As she watched from the battlements, tears started in Veronica’s eyes. Just as she was about to head downstairs, she saw Rafe de Grimston leap down from the cab of the hearse and hurry into the house. The groom, Mr. Cobb, was at the back of the carriage pulling the rear doors open. Veronica stared in a kind of aftershock as he slid a coffin out into the sunshine where it shone like a sheet of pure, bright silver. Two workmen came up behind Mr. Cobb. After a what sounded like a heated conversation, they lifted the coffin onto their shoulders, and marched like pall bearers down the lawn toward the tomb in the woods.

  “Where is Miss Everly?”

  Rafe’s voice boomed up from below the stairs. Veronica tore herself away from the sight of the silver coffin gleaming through the birch trees, and hurried down to the drawing room. There he was, waiting beside the fire, looking impatiently at her.

  “And where have you been?” he asked.

  “I was….class was over…I was in my room. I didn’t know you’d returned, Mr. de Grimston. I’m sorry,” Veronica said.

  “So. You didn’t miss me at all or you would have been watching out for me.”

  “Well, Sir, I….”

  “Never mind. I brought you something. A book.” Rafe pulled a large, wrapped parcel out of his satchel and handed it to her.

  It was rather musty smelling and so heavy that Veronica had to hold in both arms.

  "Why, thank you, Sir."

  Rafe looked her up and down and squinted. “Where did you get that dress?”

  “Sir?” Veronica was wearing her favorite day dress of clear, bright yellow muslin. The voluminous skirts were soft and the bodice perfectly cut to enhance her tiny waist and long neck. “Is something wrong with it?”

  “It’s yellow,” he said. “Are you sure that color suits you? Why not wear blue or green or something?”

  “Well, I…”

  “Never mind. That book-----I had it appraised in London. It’s quite authentic. I brought from our house in France especially for you.”

  “Why, thank you, Sir, but I can’t possibly accept it.”

  “Please do. I insist. Come on. Open up.”

  He leaned on the mantel, smiling
, his blue eyes commanding but kind.

  It was indeed a very old book. A Bestiary.

  “Inscribed and illuminated by monks in the twelfth century,” Rafe said. “It is filled with tales of strange creatures no longer thought to exist on earth.”

  Veronica flipped to a page with a picture of a mermaid in a sea of lapis blue and gold leaf. “How beautiful!” she said.

  On another page was horrible creature, a lion with a man’s head.

  “Manticore. Oh, that is alarming!”

  “Is it? I’m glad you like it. I want you to read it. The text is in Latin, but I’ve had it translated. Here.”

  Rafe handed Veronica a bundle of papers bound only by a leather strap.

  “The folklore and ancient songs of our ancestors should be known to all of us,” said Rafe. “They are all that we have left to help us to understand ourselves. Our origins.”

  “Well, thank you, Sir.”

  Rafe looked Veronica up and down. His face fell. He glanced away and seemed to struggle over something.

  “I shall certainly do as you ask, Sir,” Veronica said. “I shall pass the lore on to the children…”

  “Oh, there’s no need of that. They could talk circles around anyone on those subjects. And please, Miss Everly. Call me Rafe.”

  They were interrupted by the loud voices of the workmen in the foyer.

  “The tomb is locked,” said one.

  “We’ve left the coffin there, but we need the key,” said the other.

  Mrs. Twig’s voice cut in. “Oh, yes, I forgot. We have to lock it against the children or they’d be in there all the time.” She seemed to catch herself and laughed. “They miss their mother so terribly, you see. Please wait here while I fetch the key.”

  “Please hurry up Ma’am. We don’t want to be meddling with the dead after sunset.”

  ****

  Veronica was reading on her balcony when a cold, thin rain began. She stood up and looked out at the garden just in time to see the workmen carrying another silver coffin into the woods. She watched them disappear into the misty birches, then went inside.

  She poked up the fire, sat in the wing chair and opened the Bestiary again. A swath of red silk that seemed to have been torn from something, marked the page bearing a depiction of a wolf-like creature. Lupus. On the facing page was an illuminated painting of a lady in a striking yellow gown in the jaws of a ravening wolf. Veronica looked at the English translation.

  “Lupus means Loup Garou in French, or Wolf Man. He certainly looks like one. Lycanthrope. A man that is cursed. When the moon is full, he transforms into a wolf. In such guise he goes forth to rape and kill for his Master.”

  Regarding the dreadful image of the lady in yellow was a note that seemed to be addressed to Veronica personally: This is a copy of a mural at my wife’s house, Chateau Villenueve. It shows the event that is the seed of all of our troubles.

  “A lady being carried away by a wolf, or a wolf-man… Wearing a yellow dress.”

  She plucked at the yellow folds of her skirt. Surely Rafe couldn’t connect her beautiful dress with that horror in the Bestiary!

  Veronica had to wonder what Rafe was thinking to give her such a gift. What interest would she have in such a catalog of abominations? She was reminded of Jacqueline’s talk of the lady’s hand…. All of it smacked of pure, devilish witchery. It had not occurred to Veronica that her solitary Sundays at the local Catholic church meant that the twins did not attend services at all. Mrs. Twig said they had their own church, and took them there every Sunday. Church of England, surely. The twins must have been baptized in full knowledge of Christ. They had to be. Everyone was. So how could they give any credence to all of these…superstitions, these heresies?

  She smoothed the frown away from her brow, turned the page, and saw the comforting image of a pure white unicorn.

  Unicorn. A creature that symbolizes Our Savior that is also a demon found in the Goetia of King Solomon.

  Suddenly agitated, Veronica slammed the book shut. What kind of man was Rafe de Grimston? What was he trying to tell her?

  Screams rang out. Men! Veronica leapt to the window expecting some strange creature to come crashing out of the woods, but saw only the two workmen stumbling over the lawn, shouting and cursing as they hurried towards the house.

  “What’s wrong?” It was Mrs. Twig’s voice echoing up from below.

  “We won’t say Ma’am. We don’t want to say.”

  “Did you put the child in the silver coffin as you were hired to do?

  “Yes, ma’am. Indeed we did. Just hurry now and find a Catholic priest.”

  “Yes. Those are the chaps’ll take care of it.”

  Veronica peered down through the trees, where the door of the tomb yawned open. Rain pattered down through the leaves. Rafe came out of the house and raced towards the woods. She shook herself. She did not want to notice that he was carrying a gun.

  The wind picked up. A dog howled. She waited for the sound of shots being fired but there were none. Rafe came walking back over the wet leaves back to the house, looking disheveled and distressed.

  “Mrs. Twig! Mrs. Twig!” She heard his voice just inside the door.

  “Yes, Mr. Rafe.”

  “Lock me into the tower tonight. We haven’t much time.”

  “What about the children?”

  “We’ll have to take our chances. Now hurry.”

  "I’ll put them in their rooms. Miss Everly will see to it that the doors stay locked.”

  There was a knock on her open door. Veronica turned to see Mrs. Twig standing there with the keys.

  “We shall be keeping the twins in their rooms tonight, Miss Everly. Once they’re in, lock the doors and, under no circumstances, unlock them. Even if you think all hell is breaking loose. Especially then.”

  “Of course. May I ask why?”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Twig.

  ****

  The twins were still out playing. Anxious to find them before the dreadful twilight settled in, Veronica pulled up the hood of her brown cloak, and slipped out into the wet garden.

  The door to one of the walled gardens was open. She heard the twins’ shouting inside and hurried in. Both of them were running around with that strange four-legged gait, so disturbingly, so horrifyingly un-human. A small deer trembled behind an apple tree, obviously cornered. The twins were snarling, laughing. One of them lunged at the deer. Veronica’s gorge rose, and she ran.

  ****

  Veronica paced up and down, up and down in front of her fireplace. Her thoughts whirled around the one central issue she could not face. The long twilight deepened to violet, and the grandfather clock gonged six times. The rain stopped. Veronica stepped out onto her balcony in time to see the twins walking upright and carrying the dead deer, hung by its hooves to a long branch, between them. With stately, ceremonial steps, the disappeared into the house.

  By the time the twins came up the stairs, Veronica was very much on edge. They wouldn’t look at her, nor at each other, but moved like automatons into their rooms and lay down on their beds. The dog followed them in, wagging its tail. There was blood on their clothes. Deer’s blood. Veronica locked them in without a word, then withdrew into the silence.

  She felt oppressed by a great melancholy. Fingering her keys, she went out onto her balcony and stood very still watching the night close in. Soon the sky was as clear and black as if the rain had never fallen; yet the damp lingered. Behind the ruined bell tower, two tall cypress trees rose up like horns above the woods. The white moon shone between them, large with mist, and cast a spell over the land. The old bell was tolling, slow and out of tune. A sense of longing filled her and of dread.

  From the tower, far above, an anguished roar rent the air followed by pitiful howls and curses.

  CHAPTER 5

  *

  Veronica was startled by shouts and something knocking hard against a wall. It was in the twins’ rooms. The dog was barking, snarlin
g, scrabbling over the floor. Veronica grabbed her keys and hurried out to the corridor. She knocked on Jacqueline's door.

  "Jack!"

  Something banged against the door so hard, it threw her back.

  “What’s going on in there?” she shouted. “I’m coming in Jack. Just a second.”

  Veronica fumbled the keys, dropped them.

  “Don’t, Miss Everly! Stop!” It was Mrs. Twig shouting up from below the stairs.

  The sounds of shutters banging against the outside walls told Veronica that Jacqueline's balcony windows had flown open.

  “Mrs. Twig, the balcony windows are open to the twins’ rooms. What’s the use of locking the doors?”

  “Oh my God,” said Mrs. Twig. “Come down! Please!”

  Just then a terrible noise, a pack of wolves howling, went up inside the house.

  “What is that? Mrs. Twig!”

  The howls grew ear-splittingly high, then trailed off to helpless wails. Throaty growls and scratching sounds, the creak of hinges, came from the children’s rooms.

  “The dog is trying to get out,” Veronica called. “It sounds mad.”

  “It’s perfectly safe, Miss Everly. Quickly now. Come down!”

  Veronica was suddenly freezing. She hurried back to her room to grab her cloak. The moon had risen higher between the cypress horns and in the light she saw a white dog run into the woods with long, loping strides. Its body was rather narrower and longer than the twins' dog. And it sniffed the air like a wild thing.

  “Wolves no longer exist in Britain,” she said to herself. “They’ve been eradicated long ago.”

  The Bestiary flashed up to her from the chair with its red silk tongue hanging out of the page scrawled Lupus.

  “There are no such things,” she shouted. “Not here. Not now.”

  A chorus of howls rose up again, one floating eerily out of the woods.

  Someone was pounding on the door downstairs.

  “Stay out! Stay out! You cannot come in!” Mrs. Twig was shouting.

  “But please, Madam Twig. I must see my children. You cannot stop me.”