by L C Kincaide
The wind-driven rain pelted against the windows and lightning flashed briefly. Ivy stepped away from it and crossed the room to stand closer to the entrance.
“Looks like we’re in for a storm.” Matthew remarked.
Thunder rumbled followed by another flash. He turned to John, and they began lighting the wax pillars in the floor candelabra. The two moved from one candelabrum to the next until all four were aglow.
“Not to worry,” Matthew reassured the gathering, “merely a precaution. One never knows with the storms here. It will probably pass in minutes.”
Elinor, still in her spot on the couch cast worried glances at the windows.
“This has never happened.” She muttered, her eyes watching the windows closely. “There’s never been a storm.”
“Now, mother, after all these years it was bound to happen.” Matthew tried to reassure her. “Don’t forget, we did have a perfect day.”
Another peal of thunder rattled the glass. Someone squealed.
John called over the din. “Ladies, you have nothing to worry about. We are perfectly safe!”
“I second that.” Robert raised his glass.
Wide-eyed, Emma cast urgent glances in Ivy’s direction.
The wind howled outside and the next blinding flash illuminated trees twisting helplessly, and leaves flew past the windows. Ivy glanced back at Emma. There was no leaving in this storm. They had already tried that once.
Thunder hammered on the house almost immediately, and the panes rattled.
Bolt upright, Elinor searched the room in alarm.
“It’s all right mom.” Matthew was now at his mother’s side. “This old house has weathered plenty a storm, and it still stands. It can take a few more.”
A crackle of white lightning flickered the lights, and someone squealed again. It was Carrie. She fled from the piano that was positioned too near the windows and cowered in the protection of her father’s arms like a baby bird.
The house seemed to shake with the next thunderclap. The power remained on, but the bulbs were flickering.
Ivy scanned the room. Emma wrung her hands by Robert’s side, he making good on his promise to protect the women, at least one of them by wrapping an arm around her. Despite the circumstances and her frame of mind, some part of her must have delighted in his protection. Sir Theo observed the situation from the drinks cabinet. George was back at the fireplace, calm and unconcerned. She didn’t see Mason, but sensed him nearby — how, she could not say.
The wind shrieked and the lights once again wavered on the verge of going out. From the corner of her eye, Ivy noticed Victoria had returned and was standing deathly still several feet away and staring at her coldly. No, Ivy reconsidered. It wasn’t coldness. She regarded her with undiluted hatred, and it make her skin creep.
The next thunderbolt took out the lights while thunder crashed. A second later, the windows burst open driving in the rain and debris from outside, and the women screaming in terror, shielded themselves from the sudden assault. As Matthew and Robert ran to close them, the gusting wind snuffed out the flames of the pillars. Pushed by a gust, the chandelier began to swing in a tinkling frenzy. Someone screamed as the massive light fixture gradually detached from the ceiling sending down a shower of plaster, dropped a couple of feet suspending precariously from its loosening mount, then crashed to the floor. The polished boards shook from the force of the impact beneath them. Its ornate chains broke apart, and a king’s ransom in crystals scattered in all directions.
Like everyone else, Ivy watched horrified. Another flash illuminated Victoria’s face that had transformed into a grotesque mask. A chill passed through her as dead leaves and cocktail napkins swirled around them. The ferocious wind howled inside the room and out.
“Oh, dear God!” Frances Ruskin shouted.
Ivy thought her life flashed before her eyes, but it was only more lightning. Something grazed her shoulder then a massive candelabrum fell over and crashed at her feet, the pillars flying off and breaking into chunks. A chair skidded across the floor and someone screamed and was quickly drowned out by the shrieking wind and pelting rain. Veins coursing with adrenaline, she blinked around her. Everyone seemed frozen in place as if waiting to see how it all turned out. Victoria wasn’t among them.
John rushed toward her. “Ivy! Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?” He shouted over the racket.
Ivy gingerly touched her shoulder, relieved the candelabrum had only grazed her, but she would be feeling it tomorrow. She shook her head, unable to form words yet. That was too close!
At last, the men forced the windows shut. Thankfully, the glass panes remained intact. Had they shattered, there could have been many serious injuries. As things stood, they counted themselves lucky that no one was hurt by the falling chandelier.
“Everyone!” John shouted over the din. “To the parlor!”
Matthew lit candles in the candlestick holders and gave one to John who guided her out, and the rest else followed. Nobody wanted to remain in the ballroom. The party was officially over.
The fire in the parlor hearth still burned, and the candles helped light it enough for them to find their way. John added another log just to make sure the flames didn’t go out.
“Who’s up for a Brandy?” Godfrey enquired, decanter in hand.
“Capital idea!” His friend and chess-mate concurred, his muttonchops quivering.
He handed the first snifter to Ivy.
John turned down his drink for the time being. “I’m going with Matthew to see about the genny first.” And the two men left amidst Elinor’s half-hearted protests.
The storm raged outside, but this east-facing room was sheltered from the worst of it. Ivy drained the snifter and shuddered. Drinking liquor was not something she indulged in on a regular basis. A glass of wine now and then, a sweet liqueur, but never the really hard stuff. Already, she had surpassed a lifetime’s worth of drinking Brandy over the course of this weekend. She held her glass for a refill. No one judged her for it. Everyone’s nerves were shot.
When the first chime of the grandfather clock in the central hall announced the hour, Ivy listened to it, perplexed. With everything that was happening, she had forgotten about Mason’s request and not until the third chime sounded did she rise to her feet.
“Ivy! No!” Emma called to her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Elinor grab her daughter by the arm and yank her back roughly.
“No, Emma! Don’t interfere! It has begun.”
Whatever that means! Emma stared wide-eyed.
Ivy continued into the central hall. It was full dark, and the rain hammered against the skylight. White afterimages from the repeated flashes of lightning danced before her, and the ancient grandfather clock chimed on. When she turned the corner, the staircase soaring just to her right, she found Mason standing off to the side and looking up at the landing of the open gallery. Moving slowly to stand before it, she followed his gaze to a woman in a wine-colored, beaded gown with garnets flashing at her throat and ears — exactly what she herself was wearing. One hand rested lightly on the acorn-shaped finial, and she smiled down at her husband, allowing him to enjoy her beauty while she admired his dashing form.
The clock chimed.
Lowering her gaze, Ivy regarded Mason in his black evening suit, just as she had seen him only thirty minutes ago. He even wore the same silk tie with the garnet tie tack. Yes, it was he, but it was not, for how can the man she knew be looking up at his ancestor’s wife, a woman dead for one hundred and fourteen years?
Radiant with love and admiration, he gazed upon her — how did I ever become so fortunate — his eyes spoke, a tender smile playing on his lips. Another chime sounded, but Ivy lost count. As Amelia lifted her foot to descend the stairs, a figure erupted from the darkened hallway behind her, f
ast and low, and on the next chime crashed into her. Amelia’s legs buckled, and her back arched ever so gracefully like a swan stretching about to take flight. Her face registered surprise, and the hand that had been resting on the finial flew up to match the other hand already in the air desperately trying for balance, but the force of the strike was too powerful, and she began to fall forward.
At the bottom, her husband watched horrified. There was nothing he could do from where he stood. He was too far away and too slow to stop this horror from unfolding as his precious Amelia tumbled down. In a ghastly flurry of wine-colored silk, pale skin and auburn hair, he detected a sparkle of garnets. How unseemly, he thought to himself, that they should glimmer thus, as his wife plummeted toward him, both helpless to intervene.
She bumped and rolled to the bottom in the space of two chimes of the clock, coming to a stop in a tangled heap of arms and legs and torn silk.
At the top of the stairs, a lone figure wailed under a cloud of white hair, hands fisted and pounding into her lap. Her eyes were enormous and wild, the mouth stretched to its limits in a ghastly grimace.
The final chime sounded.
Ivy watched the scene unfold before her, part of it, yet apart. The shock, fear, terror, and maddening helplessness was as much hers as it was theirs. At the foot of the stairs, Mason gathered Amelia in his arms, stroking her face wanting to reassure her that she will be all right, but neither believed in that outcome. Amelia cried out as a spasm clenched her belly and blood gushed forth.
Gripped by horror, Mason watched as a pool of blood seeped out from beneath her twisted gown.
Amelia whimpered. “I’m sorry.” Ivy mouthed the words along with her from where she watched. ”I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you tonight…” Tears rolled freely down her cheeks. With infinite tenderness, Mason wiped them away and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her lips.
“Shhh…” He whispered. “Hush, my love.” What else was there to say? What more was there for him to do?
The pool continued to spread, and she weakened and the seconds ticked on, measuring her last breaths. The old woman, also drained of spirit, mourned soundlessly above.
Clustered behind them, the rest of the family and friends, Everdons, Langstones and Ruskins, were frozen in horror. They too were paralyzed by what they had witnessed.
The crazy old woman should have been locked in! It wasn’t up to them. Someone should fetch a doctor, but in the storm it will take a long time to get help, if any help is to be had.
They knew what was coming. So much blood spreading on the pale marble.
It will never come out.
The clock ticked on, obscenely loud in the cavernous space. A flash of white from beyond the skylight laid bare the tableau in a lurid light, the widening pool appearing black.
Ivy watched the scene transfixed, unable to move or even blink. She knew Amelia’s agony and saw through her eyes. Her labored breathing was her own as was the incomparable pain in her belly and in her heart, the tears running down her own cheeks. There was nothing left; her loss was complete. As life drained from her body, Her suffering and grief transmuted into something else now, a hot rage that overtook her being in her last moments. Mason cradled her, willing her to stay with him. He would cry out for help, but it was useless, and he realized this. He’d never felt so helpless and suspected he never will, provided he ever feels anything again.
So weak, Amelia whispered something, and he strained to hear, but she didn’t have the strength for her voice to carry, even to his ear. It took everything she had, and it had not been enough. Her eyelids fluttered and closed.
A dreadful hush befell the central hall, only the storm raged outside. No one dared to speak. They huddled in a tight herd. Upstairs, the old woman slumped in her chair, only her heaving shoulders betraying her torment. The clock stopped ticking and in the awful silence, Mason lifted his head, and holding Amelia close to him, he roared toward the skylight.
Sobbing, brokenhearted, and filled with regret, Ivy could not move. She had seen everything, witnessed what no other person had since that night in 1903, not even poor Amelia, and from his vantage point, not Mason either.
The rain, now mixed with hail, crashed against the skylight, and lightning flashed violently immediately followed by a monstrous clap of thunder.
Ivy fell into a mercifully deep silence.
When she awoke, it was by the glow of a fire. Blinking, she took in her surroundings and was surprised to find herself lying down on the settee in the parlor. She tried to raise herself, but could not.
“Not so fast, Ivy.” Matthew’s hand was on her shoulder, restraining her. Her head was spinning. Outside, thunder rolled over the house. What happened? She wasn’t sure if she said this out loud or not.
“You fainted.” Emma’s voice replied close to her.
Everyone was in the room — every Ruskin, Langstone and Everdon. They were watching her, trying not to stare, and they averted their eyes now and then, but they kept returning to her, curious, yet wary. She squirmed uncomfortably under their watchful gazes.
“I what?” Ivy rubbed her head and slowly raised herself to a sitting position, dropping her feet to the floor.
“Someone get her a glass of water.” Emma sat down beside her. “You passed out in the hall.”
Oh, no! Not another seizure! Why now after all these years? Why could it not have waited until she got home? She put her face in her hands. Why is my face damp?
Emma handed her the glass. They watched her sip the water, and she marvelled how she avoided choking under their scrutiny.
“Why are they staring at me?” She whispered to Emma.
Emma glanced around to confirm what Ivy was asking.
“I’m taking Ivy to her room.” She took the glass from her and helped her to her feet. “Up you go, we’re getting out of here.”
Elinor rushed over, a strained, panicked look on her face. Ivy thought it may be a show of concern, but after tonight, she couldn’t tell what it was.
“Are you sure you can make it upstairs? Perhaps…” Elinor started fussing at her side, loath for her to leave their watch.
“We’ll be fine mum, she’s not an invalid.”
“I was only…”
Annoyed, Emma helped Ivy out of the room and into the darkened hall. A flash of white light briefly lit the way ahead, followed by a protracted rumble. Behind them, murmurs arose from the parlor, quiet and intense. Ivy just wanted to get away from them all.
Assured that she was going to be all right walking on her own, Emma released her. Ivy noticed her friend was not in much better shape than she. Emma had been drinking again, but hadn’t they all?
“Okey-dokey.” She announced once they were upstairs, and she escorted her to her door. “Here we are. Do you want me to stay?”
Ivy shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ll be okay.”
Emma looked her up and down, her brow wrinkled. “If you say so. But I’ll check on you. “
“Maybe I should check on you.”
Emma gave her a lopsided grin. “Funny!” And she made her way along the corridor.
Styles left candles burning in the candleholders and extra tapers and matches lay on the dressing table. A flash of lightning glowed briefly beyond the drawn curtains while the rain pattered on the few leaves clinging to the branches, and thunder growled like a living creature.
Ivy undid the dress. She didn’t want to be in it anymore. It took a while with all the buttons up the back, and finally, it was on the hanger inside the armoire. So beautiful earlier, it now repulsed her. She removed the earrings and unclasped the choker and stowed them in their velvet-lined box and closed the lid. She sat at the dressing table in her robe, and by the light of the candles pulled out the hairpins, the entire time wracking her memory for what happened. But
it would not come, only the tightness in her chest and abdomen, and a bitter aftertaste. Maybe there was nothing to remember. She was walking in the hall and blanked out. Simple as that.
And yet, there it was in the back of her mind urging her to recall. She struggled and searched and still drew a blank. Did it have to do with what someone said or something she saw? Why was she blocking whatever this was? Her mind returned to the party, and reflecting on it, it seemed more like an assembly of players who had learned their parts years ago and had reenacted the play one too many a performance. There was no joy in it, not for any of them which was plain to see. The elders went through the motions stoically, desperate to have it all finally resolved. Grace and Emma found solace in alcohol. Elinor was histrionic. Even Lucy had vanished.
And Mason — ah, Mason. He was there, giving her the impression he wanted more, and for some reason there was no more, and she didn’t understand why. What stood in the way? Not Victoria, she was nothing more than a relentless nuisance; it was obvious even to him. Then what was preventing them from being together? The room still held his gifts, the orchid being the only visible reminder. And tomorrow, she would leave that behind as well. Damn! Why can’t I remember?
A tap on her door nearly caused her to drop the hairbrush, and for a wild moment, she hoped it was Mason. When she answered, Emma stepped inside carrying a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. Gone was the Edwardian garb. She wore flannel pajamas; red hearts on pink, and fuzzy slippers. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders. She looked eighteen.
She plopped herself on the bed, crossed her legs as if to meditate and squirmed into a comfortable position.
“Do you have a couple of glasses, or do we pass it back and forth?”
Ivy brought a tumbler from the bathroom. Emma was already filling the one she found on the nightstand.
“Well, that was some party. I had a bad feeling about it.” Emma handed Ivy the glass and raised hers. “Here’s to never repeating it.”