Of course Amanda could have become a mistress to one of the suitors who hounded her mother. There had been those offers, even a few of marriage. But she had seen too much of the unfaithfulness of husbands and the fickleness of wedlock to settle for that. Her romantic dreams had fled like summer butterflies years ago. She did not long for marriage. Wicklow would be all she needed for happiness.
Closing her eyes, Amanda pushed the reflections from her mind and sought the peace of sleep. She slept, though restlessly, making a tangle of the covers and casting one pillow from the bed. She dreamed she was being chased through the dim oppressive halls of Wicklow, anxiously pursued by someone who stayed always just far enough back that in frightful glances over her shoulder she could not tell who sought her.
The halls were endless, lengthening, it seemed, with each step, and the house filled with steep winding staircases that led nowhere. Amanda, a shimmer of perspiration on her skin, her heart thumping with trepidation, climbed and descended those phantom stairs at a frantic pace. Seeking escape, she ran through the rooms, finding them dark and filled with great black pools of shadows. Around her the air quivered and bore a strangely tainted smell. Just behind were the pursuing footsteps.
On and on she ran in a kind of madness to know who was there at Wicklow with her. At last, breathless, she turned into the main hallway, knowing with certainty she could not run another step and would be overtaken. But the threatening sound of the footsteps stopped. Her eyes went up to meet the relentless glass eyes of the Turkish King. She felt a strange emptiness.
It seemed then that she dragged her weary body up the slate stairs and back to her bed and had only a moment of respite before the footsteps started again. She sighed deeply in her sleep. But of course, the footsteps belonged to Jubal Wicklow. She thought it the moment she saw the figure, moving in a faint gray light, come quietly into her room.
The shadowy man whispered a woman’s name, not hers, and chanted a warning she couldn’t quite understand. She turned her head away from him, perhaps intuitively, because even in sleep she knew he did not truly exist. But the old patriarch of Wicklow would have none of her evasion and floated around her bed as if he were seeking to see her features.
She glimpsed his face as he looked down. It had an unreal quality and yet a disturbing familiarity that made her once again toss upon her pillow. The hair was red and he wore an odd cap that partially shielded his eyes from her. Amanda was instantly troubled that she had been wrong thinking him Jubal Wicklow, that he was indeed someone she knew and not someone conjured up from the depths of her imagination. She found that she desperately wanted to see his face clearly. Her eyes darted about anxiously beneath her closed lids. She tried to speak but only succeeded in uttering a few muted sounds.
Above her the man’s head dropped sadly, as if he had absorbed a portion of her distress. From the darkness his hand stretched out and touched her bare shoulder. The sensation was that of something cold and dry against her skin, but most remarkably comforting.
He spoke her name again and whispered a warning, quite softly but quite clearly. What a melodious voice he had, almost like a lullaby, but with the peculiar quality of waking one rather than lulling one to sleep.
She opened her eyes but the voice had separated itself from her dreams. Reluctantly she stirred and raised up on her elbows to listen. There was a thump from the hall, that loose shutter, and perhaps the wind making the queer sound that was amazingly like her name.
“Amandaaaa. . .” The low, calling whisper drifted again through the air, so faintly she couldn’t be sure if sound were real or imagined.
Thinking at last, as the fog of sleep cleared from her head, that Elizabeth had been awakened by the storm, Amanda rose quickly and flung the blanket around her. The windows were only slightly less dark than the rest of room. She found the candle at her bedside and lit it. Behind its trembling light, Amanda rushed to the front bedroom where Elizabeth slept.
Her hand was on the porcelain knob when she saw a dark stain on the white-painted door. It drew her eyes for no other reason than that she did not remember its having been there when she shut the door earlier in the night. She touched the spot.
“Oh, dear God,” Amanda cried out, frantically twisting the knob and flinging the door open. “Elizabeth, what’s happened to you?”
She blundered across the room to where Elizabeth’s still form lay beneath the covers. Amanda gasped, the raw taste of fear filling her mouth.
She looked at her hand and saw the stain on her fingers. Caught for a moment in fascinated horror, she could not move. At last the candle in her grasp began to shake. Its wild flame splayed an unsteady light on the bedroom door. The mark she had seen had been the print of a hand smeared in blood, still warm and dripping on the white panel of the door.
It was gone!
Chapter 2
Thunder abounded and lightning split the darkness with fierce flashes of white-hot light. Shivering violently, Amanda wet her dry lips. She felt the troubled pounding of her heart and it sounded as loud to her ears as the unbridled crash of the thunder. Elizabeth slept unharmed, undisturbed by the storm, the deeply etched lines of her face softened by peaceful slumber.
Amanda’s spasms of terror had ended. She watched quietly as Elizabeth’s chest rose and fell with the easy, natural rhythm of deep sleep. It was Amanda’s own breathing that was ragged and broken. Whoever had left the mark on the door, if it had ever been there at all, had not come into the bedroom.
Had she really felt the blood on her hand? Was it still there? Amanda tilted the candle down for a better look and in so doing doused the tiny, struggling flame with hot wax. She shuddered. Now she could see nothing at all. And without the candle’s warm circle of light, the darkness suddenly felt like great masses of hands groping at her.
With quick, nervous movements Amanda crossed the room and found the basin and pitcher of water she had left for Elizabeth. Whether it was real or imaginary, she felt an overpowering compulsion to wash away the stain. She poured water and frantically plunged her hands into the bowl, rinsing then drying them on a towel. It was only when she was sure her hands were clean that she could begin to think clearly. But even so, the thoughts that stumbled through her mind did not explain what she had heard and seen. Had she dreamed the whisper and the blood? Had she imagined the feel of it on her fingers? Or had it all been real?
Wearily she walked toward the open door and had the misfortune to stumble against a low footstool lost in the dim shadows. Though a host of loud thunderclaps had not roused her, Elizabeth stirred at that slight sound.
“Is it you, Amanda?” The old woman asked in her sleep-slurred voice.
“Yes, Elizabeth,” Amanda whispered. She mustn’t let Elizabeth know the cause of her alarm. “There is a storm and I came to see if you were frightened.” A flash of light lit the room. Amanda made her way to the bedside and gently touched Elizabeth’s frail shoulder. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
Mumbling, Elizabeth dropped her head to the pillow and once again her papery lids closed fast.
How easily sleep came to her, Amanda thought as she curled up on the cushions of a fat stuffed chair not far from the bed. Outside the wind was rising again, but the rain had ended and gone past. Amanda, her eyes shining catlike in the darkness, frowned. Elizabeth, who had feared Wicklow, slept without a care, while Amanda knew sleep would not come to her this night. She would stay with Elizabeth and keep watch for the first dawning rays of morning.
At first light they would dress and make the drive to Williamsburg. A driver had promised to come early so that Elizabeth could meet her coach for the journey to Philadelphia. Amanda would despair at seeing Elizabeth, the last of her mother’s entourage, go. But Elizabeth needed her own family now. Amanda had too many uncertainties in her future to offer Elizabeth the permanence and comfort a woman of her years needed.
Resolutely Amanda turned her thoughts from those things. The strain and shock of losing loved ones still
lingered heavily in her heart. More than she had realized. That deep, repressed sorrow had been the source of the nightmare. She had seen the fruit of tormenting dreams when nothing had really been there. She stirred slightly as a ticking sound rose to her ears. Was there a clock in the room? No, no, it was the heavy, troubled beat of her own heart.
***
They came at last, the chaste, pure golden rays of morning streaming in the windows that had withstood last night’s onslaught of rain. The world looked fresh and Wicklow bright and welcoming, all the sinister elements washed away by rain and sunlight.
Amanda could hear the flirtatious cooing and calling of birds in the high branches when she raised the windows. Whatever had intruded on her sanity last night and made her entertain thoughts of evil lurking in Wicklow? It was preposterous that this place, so bright and sunny by day, could harbor any dark mysteries.
Smiling at her foolishness, Amanda shook the wrinkles from her traveling clothes and donned them again. She hadn’t many clothes. Her mother’s wardrobe and her own had furnished the last bit of money she needed to pay her passage and put a few coins in her purse. But this dress would do for another day’s wear and she had to make a breakfast for Elizabeth before they left.
The kitchen was set back from the house but joined by a long, narrow hall of brick. It had an outside door that opened into a vegetable and herb garden that had been maintained far better than the hedgerows and flower beds. What she could see of the grounds appeared to have been untended for quite some time, and if not trimmed and weeded soon, would be past redeeming. The sorry state of the grounds surprised Amanda. The lovely gardens at Wicklow had been a source of great pride for Aunt Elise.
She reached the kitchen half-expecting to find Gussie at work, but instead found a room that appeared to have been unused for several days. There was cheese in a cupboard and a loaf of nearly stale bread that she decided would have to serve as a meal. She cut thick slices of each and looked about for tea.
She found a tin in the pantry and a kettle hanging on a rod in the fireplace. It would have been wiser, she surmised, to have started a fire first. There was wood cut and stacked beside the fireplace, but the ashes on the stone hearth were cold and it did not appear there had been a fire in some time. Amanda managed to get a blaze started and the kettle going before Elizabeth joined her for their simple breakfast.
She hadn’t time to think further about why Gussie was not about before the driver arrived and had them under way to Williamsburg. Perhaps she could find out in town if the old woman had left Wicklow permanently or was only away for a few days. But for now her thoughts went to Elizabeth, who had begun to perk up after her cup of tea but was having some difficulty tying her bonnet. Amanda caught the ribbons and looped them into a snug bow.
“You slept well at Wicklow,” she said to Elizabeth as the carriage turned onto the road that led to town.
“Sound as a babe.” Elizabeth chuckled. “A peaceful place. I’ll not worry over you now.” Elizabeth took Amanda’s hand and squeezed it gently, her matronly face rested and softened. A tender smile curved her pale lips. “But for that monstrosity in the hall, it’s a lovely house. You’ll be happy there, Amanda. I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, I will,” Amanda responded, but even as she reassured Elizabeth, a doubt sprang into her mind. Had last night’s events truly been a product of fatigue? Or was it true that Jubal Wicklow would not let his house belong to anyone other than himself?
Amanda shed no tears as Elizabeth drove away in the coach that would take her to board a schooner to Philadelphia. There had been enough tears in the months since her mother died. So with a last wave to Elizabeth, she said good-bye to that remnant of her life that had belonged solely to Sarah Fairfax. It was ended and a new, promising stage beginning, even if it was fraught with questions.
Amanda dropped her hand as the coach rumbled away in the dust. With a purposeful tilt of her head, she turned toward a silversmith’s shop on Duke of Gloucester Street to ask directions. Here on the bright streets of Williamsburg the memory of last night’s puzzling dreams once more faded quickly from her mind. She needed to find the man who had sent her a letter informing her of the terms of her inheritance.
Cecil Baldwin, Elise’s lawyer, had written that she must see him immediately upon her arrival in Williamsburg. She learned from the silversmith that Cecil Baldwin was both a solicitor and an agent who dealt in the trade of tobacco and other goods. His office was on the same street and not too far distant to walk.
In a short while she had reached the white clapboard building where Cecil Baldwin’s name was posted on a wooden sign beside the door. The small building was set to one side of a handsome residence, a house with the same grayed shingles and dark shutters as the Baldwin office.
“Amanda Fairfax to see Mr. Baldwin, please,” she said to a short, wiry-haired clerk in the outer office. “He is not expecting me but I do believe he will want to see me,” she added when the portly man hesitated a few moments to gape before acknowledging her presence.
“Yes, Miss Fairfax. He’ll want to see you. To be sure.” The fellow pushed back his chair and rose clumsily. “Please do be seated while I tell Mr. Baldwin you are here.” He smiled and motioned toward an armchair covered in a light green damask.
Amanda contented herself with appreciative looks at the furnishings as she waited what seemed an indescribably long time. The walls were cream-colored, the wainscoting painted a light green. Beside her chair was a round three-footed pedestal table of polished walnut and on it a bowl of fragrant white roses. The scent reminded her of Aunt Elise’s rose-essence perfume.
In the narrow space between the two front windows were three fine prints. Amanda’s eyes were on them when Cecil Baldwin himself appeared from behind the wide door of his office.
“Miss Fairfax, how delightful,” he commented in a soft, pleasant tone.
She liked his voice right away. It was friendly and welcoming and fit his merry eyes and surprisingly youthful face. Cecil Baldwin was a handsome man for his advanced years and despite the extra poundage that rounded his middle. His eyes, gray and circular as an owl’s, continued to twinkle as he came toward her. A snowy white wig capped his head. His skin had a slightly reddish hue and he bore one of the kindest smiles Amanda had ever seen.
Cecil ran his hand absently over the gold watch chain swinging from a pocket of a waistcoat of charcoal velvet that succeeded somewhat in camouflaging his thick middle. His linen shirt was as white as his wig and greatly ruffled at the neck. Cecil was quickly at Amanda’s side, taking her hand and greeting her as if she were his own daughter.
“Welcome to Williamsburg, Miss Fairfax. I’d have met your coach had I known you’d be arriving so soon.” He coughed and cleared his throat, flushing his cheeks to a cherry red as he did. “We did not expect you until mid-September.” He escorted Amanda into his private office as he chattered away. Once inside, he drew a chair up near his desk and held it for her to sit. A moment later Cecil Baldwin had taken his place in the mahogany chair behind the desk.
“It took less time than I thought to settle my business in London. I was able to book an earlier passage but there was no time to advise you of the change.”
Amanda glanced at her surroundings. Apparently Cecil Baldwin was a successful man. His office was even more luxurious than the outer one where she had waited. It was paneled in rich, shiny walnut, with row upon row of leather-bound volumes on the shelves behind his desk. The desk itself was of rubbed mahogany, a most carefully crafted piece of furniture. The chairs, like the one in which she sat, were Chippendale with green brocade seat coverings. The draperies, open to let in the light, were also of brocade in gold and green and had tasseled ties keeping them drawn to one side.
Amanda drew in her breath appraisingly. There was a look of pride and contentment on Cecil Baldwin’s face. He had surrounded himself with beautiful things. The candelabra and even the inkwell were of hammered silver. Behind his desk was a dark
oil painting, exquisitely done. Amanda knew if she could see the artist’s name it would be one well known. She smiled inwardly. It seemed a good businessman could be quite successful in the colonies.
Cecil laced his plump fingers together. “I see you appreciate beauty, Miss Fairfax.”
“Everyone does, Mr. Baldwin.” Amanda smiled sweetly. She did like Cecil Baldwin. He had good manners and a friendly disposition. After her meeting with Ryne Sullivan she greatly valued those qualities in a person.
“Perhaps not everyone, Miss Fairfax.” His wide smile was a jolly one. “If I had been alive to know Jubal Wicklow I would have questioned his taste in the finer things of life. He was a wealthy man, but Wicklow House is more a curiosity than a monument to good taste.”
Amanda laughed. “You are not calling Wicklow an eyesore, I trust.”
Cecil smiled warmly, his eyes glistening with gaiety. “I’ll not go as far as that. It is built of excellent material,” he said, rising and glancing at her as if he had been struck by an afterthought. “Can I offer you a glass of sherry, Miss Fairfax?”
“Thank you, no, Mr. Baldwin. It is early in the day for me. And please do call me Amanda. I prefer it.”
Cecil nodded and opened a decanter on his desk. He poured a glass of the sparkling liquid for himself. “You’ll want to see the house again, of course, before you decide what to do.” Cecil paused to sip his sherry. “Meanwhile, you will be a welcome guest in my home. An inn is no proper place for a lady.” He walked toward his desk. “I admit I was surprised when you wrote and said you would be coming to the colonies to see your inheritance.” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “It would have been simple for me to dispose of the estate and transfer the proceeds to you in London.” Pausing again, he finished the glass of sherry in one long swallow, then continued to stroll across the room. Cecil chatted as he went, his back to Amanda all the while. “But I understand that there may be personal mementos of Elise’s you would want to choose and keep.”
Whispers at Midnight Page 4