The Mistresses of Wistmere: A Neo-Gothic Novel

by Rachel Secor

  “I, too, thank you,” she turned and walked away.

  As David watched her leave, he couldn’t explain the uneasiness that suddenly filled his thoughts.

  Chapter Seven

  Katherine and May-Jewel started their investigation at the west side of the great hall, in what Alex called the formal parlor. Neglect was everywhere. The air in the closed room was permeated with the musty odor of a few pieces of antiquated furniture. They didn’t linger there long. Huge double doors opened from that room into a gallery lined with more portraits of the Craig men interspersed with racks of ancient weapons and rusted chain mail.

  “We should have started on the other side of the house,” Katherine remarked, shivering in her thin linen blouse. “Or waited a couple hours until the afternoon sun could lend a more cheerful atmosphere to these dreary rooms.”

  May-Jewel looked about in silence trying not to be pulled into the gloomy ambience of her surroundings. “The first thing I’m going to do is redecorate this mausoleum. That is, if Alex will let us have the money.”

  “May-Jewel!” Katherine rebuked. “Do you realize what you just said? Alexander Fleming is overseer of this estate only until we ourselves start handling it. He isn’t a part owner, and he has only one-third say in the Craig Shipping Lines, so he’ll never be in absolute control of anything. It’s our money and our manor. We’re in trouble if you start thinking that he has any power.” She took a deep breath. “Good Lord, you didn’t become so enamored of him last night that you signed anything, did you?”

  “No! Of course not! I’m not that stupid. I know the worth of what we have, and I’m not about to give it away. Don’t worry about that.” She turned away from Katherine to hide the blush that arose when she thought about how close she may have come to doing exactly that.

  “I’ve always been told what to do and how to think by any male including my employer,” Katherine said, “but you definitely are the subjugated one. That must be a perspective instilled in you by your mother.” She was immediately sorry she had said that. Of course May-Jewel was subjugated, considering her mother’s line of work, her submissiveness toward men. It would’ve been only natural for that mindset to have been passed onto May-Jewel. Katherine saw the pout that revealed her sister’s injured feelings.

  “I suppose that we do have to depend on Alexander a certain amount.” Katherine acquiesced, trying to erase the insult. “If for no other reason than to show us the books and explain the finances of the estate. Don’t you agree?”

  “I don’t know,” May-Jewel answered. “He said something about it last night. But when I didn’t reply, he changed the subject as if it wasn’t important.”

  “Oh, it’s important to him, all right. It’s obvious, to me at least, that he wants this estate, and as long as we don’t declare our independence of him, he’ll keep his hand in its affairs. I resent his self-proclaimed guardianship over us and what is ours. The longer that we let him run things, the harder it’ll be for us to take control. So far all he’s done is treat me with contempt and you like you’re a potential conquest. Perhaps that’s our fault. We’re so used to giving men the lead, and we haven’t approached him about the business yet. We should insist that he deal with us, not as women, but as the owners of this manor that he’s so freely living in.”

  May-Jewel nodded in agreement. Talk of business and property bored her. She was willing to let someone else handle the estate. Anyone else. Her thoughts shifted to Alex. Should she tell Katherine of his indiscreet visit? After a brief reflection on Katherine’s attitude toward him, she thought better of it. But, it won’t happen again.

  As there was nothing to be found in the gallery, they entered the wing’s north end, Katherine looked around. “There were times when I ached to see the inside of this house,” she said, “so much so that I would sneak through the bushes and peek into the windows.”

  “Why? Didn’t Robbie ever bring you inside?”

  Katherine’s expression became grim. “Sir Robert had little tolerance for me. Charles used to tell me how he hated children, especially me. I recall how Charles and Brice would visit mother and ramble on and on about how wonderful Lady Edythe, Robert’s wife, had been.”

  “Could it be,” May-Jewel interjected, “and I’m just thinking out loud, that it was Charles who hated children and you? I mean did Robbie ever harm you? Did he ever say he hated you? Perhaps Charles’ loyalty to Lady Edythe had something to do with his words to you. Maybe he said that to keep you away from the manor, and it wasn’t Robbie talking at all.”

  Shaking her head in disagreement, Katherine retorted, “But what about Sir Robert himself? If he did like…” she couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘love’, “if he did like me, why wasn’t he ever around? Why did he always send Charles to us? I can’t remember more than a few times I ever saw him even near the cottage.”

  “Well, it could be because Robbie was the Laird and had an image to maintain. He had no such image in Boston with me, and he was so different from the man you’ve described to me. He was always loving, bringing me presents and playing with me.”

  These admissions did nothing to soothe Katherine’s feelings of neglect. How could Robert ignore one daughter while doting on another? She decided she would have to think more on this later and then confront Charles about the truth. “Well… yes,” she finally said, her lips pursed and a frown on her face, “let’s forget about Sir Robert for the moment and move on.”

  With a sigh of resignation she made her way to the next room. Two large swivel chairs sat before two massive oak desks while before one wall was a floor to ceiling book shelf, empty except for the cobwebs that hung in the corners. “This appears to be the estate office or… it was. I wonder what became of the books, charts, and all the papers.” She moved to wipe a finger across the desk top which revealed a thick layer of dust.

  “Why not ask that old servant,” May-Jewel suggested. “He must know something about what goes on here.”

  “There’s a lot I’d like to ask him. But I doubt if he’ll remember much. I was then very young, and he is now very old. Babies’ and ancients’ memories are apt to be on the same level and both have been known to be faulty.”

  “Well it can’t hurt to ask him. That is if we can find him.”

  Katherine nodded in agreement.

  They left the office and followed the hallway along the back of the manor to find themselves suddenly in the kitchen. Like most kitchens it was cluttered, hot, and delightfully aromatic. A stone slab jetted out from the front of the huge fireplace creating a shelf on which an array of pots were stored. From the rafters hung an assortment of dried herbs and chunks of meat encased in yellowed cloth. A few loaves of just baked bread were cooling on the window sill, their yeasty fragrance filtering back into the kitchen on the breath of a gentle breeze. As they entered, the white-haired cook turned with a greeting.

  “Can I be gettin’ ye somethin’?” she asked, wiping flour from her hands.

  “No, thank you,” Katherine answered. “We were looking for Charles.”

  “Me name be Molly, mum. Charles be on an errand for Master Fleming.”

  Turning to May-Jewel, Katherine whispered, “Well, there goes any chance of questioning him, at least for the moment.”

  May-Jewel whispered back, “Why don’t you ask her about Selina?”

  Katherine nodded. She hadn’t thought about the maid since the event at the cottage. But if anyone was going to know about Selina, she hoped it would be the cook. “How long have you been employed at Wistmere, Molly?”

  “I were brought back aboot two weeks ago. I came an’ went as the Master came and went, on an’ off for aboot twenty years now.”

  “And the others? How long have they been here?”

  “Oh, Charles an’ Brice were here afore me. Charles were here even afore the late Master were born, an’ Brice, I dunna know but I think he were a wee one here, raised in the barn, he were, as his Da worked here also.”

>   Her heart racing with anticipation, Katherine drew in a silent breath and asked, “And what about the maid, Selina?”

  Molly’s eyebrows rose in question, “Mum?”

  “The maid, the small dark-haired one,” May-Jewel prodded further.

  “There be no other woman workin’ here,” the cook replied. “Nay since the Master left for India. He let all of us go, except Charles and Brice. An’ tis more the shame as they had to fend for themselves as the Master didna see fit to leave me to cook for them. But the Stag and the Hare found plenty of coin with them filling their bellies there every night.”

  Hearing this, Katherine was filled with dismay. She refused to believe that Selina was a product of her imagination and that Alex was right, that she was losing her mind. The denial of the existence of the maid and the idea that Alex might be right raised her ire.

  “Now that we’re here, Molly,” she snapped, “you’ll call Alexander Fleming, Mister Fleming. There’s no Master of Wistmere. And it’s Mistress Katherine and Mistress May-Jewel.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” the old cook agreed and hastily returned to pounding her dough.

  “What did you say that for?” May-Jewel asked as they withdrew from the kitchen.

  “Master isn’t Alex’s title, and the servants should know that they aren’t accountable to him but to us.”

  Molly hastened after them to say, “Mum–Mistress, I mean, did Charles tell ye that if ye be lookin’ aboot the manor to stay clear o’ the upper west wing? The floorin’ an’ stairs be rotten there.”

  “No, Molly, he didn’t,” Katherine responded more kindly, sorry for her biting tone a minute ago, “but thank you.”

  Nodding, Molly returned to the kitchen.

  “I don’t believe that the stairs and the floors in the west wing are bad. I think there are just too many rooms, and Molly and Charles didn’t want to clean them all,” May-Jewel whispered, laughing. “Decayed flooring indeed!”

  “Hmm, I hope you’re right. Let’s go.”

  They resumed their survey mechanically moving through the empty servant’s wing.

  “These look more like monk’s cells than actual living quarters,” May -Jewel tiredly concluded.

  They entered the back staircase that led to the upper west level.

  May-Jewel stomped on a few of the steps. “These stairs seem firm enough, and I’ll wager that the floor is sound too. Shall we go up?”

  But Katherine wasn’t thinking about the floor or its firmness. She was thinking about Selina. “You know,” she said as they started up, “it would be easy for one to come and go throughout the entire manor and not ever be seen. See, even the windows lining this corridor are so caked with dust that one couldn’t see in from the outside. Here, let’s open a few and let a little light and air in this mausoleum.”

  But their action did little to change the dreariness of the hallway.

  May-Jewel looked out one of the windows and remarked about parts of a stone foundation she saw in the distance. “Was that the old kitchen?”

  Following May-Jewel’s glance, Katherine nodded. “I suppose so. Let’s move on. There’s nothing interesting here.”

  They resumed their inspection by opening more doors.

  “I’m going to see personally that this house is scrubbed and scoured from the garret to the wine cellars, if there are any,” May-Jewel said, wiping her fingers clean from having touched a dusty cabinet. “And then I’ll invite enough people to stay here and fill all these rooms.”

  “You do that.” Katherine responded, opening every other window as she moved up the hall.

  Her sister ignored Katherine’s patronizing tone.

  Stopping before a set of double doors, May-Jewel pulled them both open. The light from the hall exposed a huge room. “Well, here’s one room that’s different. Perhaps this is another ballroom.”

  Some twenty feet further down the hall, Katherine opened a second set of double doors. A rush of air pushed against her as if an imprisoned ghost of a dancer had finally escaped its sealed doom. The eerie spaciousness of the barren room was uninviting, yet Katherine slowly walked in and stood stationary in the middle of its grayness. Air from the hall flowed in and swirled against the lacy cobwebbed walls before pirouetting over the dusty surface of the parquet floor.

  “Oooo!” May-Jewel squealed, waltzing around Katherine. “What grand dances could be held here! You can almost hear the music.”

  But Katherine didn’t hear any music. A cloud moved in front of the sun, and the light from the hallway suddenly diminished, holding her in an icy grip of darkness; she shivered. “Come on,” she said, pulling her sister back into the hall. “There are other rooms to investigate.”

  Not eager, but willing, May-Jewel exited the room and closed the doors.

  They followed the corridor toward the front of the manor. Each door opened onto an empty chamber. A few rooms were furnished with the same type of antiquated furniture found in the sisters’ rooms. But a few didn’t have any furniture at all. The two descended the main staircase. They walked over the mullioned pattern that the sun coming through the windows had etched on the floor.

  “I noticed that there was a door out in the back corridor, in that long span between the staircase and the kitchen that I’m curious about.”

  “What door?” Katherine asked. “I didn’t notice any door.”

  “You were too busy insulting me at the time.”

  Katherine ignored her remark. “Show me then.”

  The muted light in the back corridor made it difficult at first to find the door. It was recessed and concealed by the shadow of the stairs. May-Jewel opened the portal, and the women silently peered into the darkened void. Katherine’s mind was immediately filled with the terror of the night before. A stubborn refusal registered on her face. Before she could give utterance to a protest, May-Jewel confronted her.

  “Oh, yes, you are!” she exclaimed. “You’re going in there with me.” But the doubt in her sister’s eyed didn’t diminish. “Nothing can happen,” May-Jewel attempted to convince her, “if we stick together. Think of your mysterious maid. This could be where she’s hiding.”

  Katherine’s pained look turned to one of resignation. “All right,” she said, “but I’m bringing a light.”

  May-Jewel waited as Katherine ran back to the kitchen and secured a lit lantern.

  “Being Mistress does have some advantages. Molly retrieved the lantern for me but didn’t feel she had the right to ask me what I wanted it for.”

  May-Jewel smiled and said, “I think you’re going to like being the Mistress of Wistmere after all.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  They hadn’t gone but a few steps into the darkened hallway when they realized that the floor of it began to slope downward. The corridor was only about ten feet long and ended at the top of a set of stone steps.

  “I thought this passage simply led outside,” May-Jewel murmured, brushing cobwebs from her arm, “though I must confess that I had hoped it would lead to a hidden room!”

  Katherine held the lantern higher. The light’s inconsequential glow sank into a pool of darkness that swallowed all but the next few stairs. For a moment they stood staring below them. Bravely, Katherine started the slow descent. The further they descended, the louder her heartbeat seemed to become, until it seemed to drown out the hollow sound of her footsteps.

  “I don’t like this,” May-Jewel whispered. “This is an awful long flight of stairs, and we don’t know where we’ll end up.”

  Katherine agreed. “Well, there can’t be anything of interest to us anyhow. Let’s go back.”

  There was a long silent pause before there was a reply. “No. We’ll go on. Lift the light higher.”

  Raising the lantern above her head, Katherine asked, “Can you see anything down there?”

  “I can see what looks like a platform or floor five more steps down.”

  The skin on the back of Katherine’s neck began to crawl as an ic
y coldness came over her. The air in the unventilated stairwell was suffocating. “How much further? I feel as if something is about to ensnare us.” Her voice quivered. “Don’t you sense the evil?”

  “Oh, you’re still under the spell of your experience from last night. I can see the bottom step. We can’t stop now.”

  Their distorted shadows bounced about the stairwell like cavorting trolls. At last they stepped upon the level planking. Before them was a door. The light glistened on its damp wood. But as they reached for the handle, there suddenly came a flurry of movement on the planks between the door and the step. A huge rodent volleyed for escape amid the women’s slippers and their rustling skirts. Finally, it disappeared into a cavity in the wall.

  Shuddering, May-Jewel jumped back onto the step with her skirt gathered above her ankles. “Aagh!” she shrieked, “I hate rats!”

  In spite of the rodent and the remark, Katherine grasped the bottom portion of her skirt, wiped the viscous matter adhering on the door latch, and pushed the wooden barrier open. A belch of putrid air tore from the chamber, and its stench, like a repellent, drove her back against May-Jewel, who struggled to maintain her balance. The odor brought tears to their eyes.

  “Smells like something’s dead in there,” Katherine whispered, turning to leave.

  But instead of retreating, May-Jewel suddenly grabbed the lantern and pushed passed her, disappearing through the portal.

  “May-Jewel, what are you doing? Don’t go in there!” Fear impaled Katherine’s feet to the damp step. She couldn’t move. Suddenly a scream tore the silence.

  Katherine almost stopped breathing. “May-Jewel!” Gathering her courage and her skirt, she entered the room.

  The lantern created dingy mushrooms of light that rolled over the low ceiling and spread down the walls. May-Jewel was sitting on the damp dirt floor.

  “Don’t you ever do that again!” Katherine scolded, helping her to her feet.

  “Oh, Katherine,” May-Jewel chided, “the floor suddenly ended. Nothing happened other than I got a little dirty, that’s all.” She dusted a clump of dirt from her dress.