The Lady in Yellow

by Alyne de Winter

  “He is one of them. As I will be.”

  The housekeeper labored to breathe. She raised a hand as if to clutch Veronica’s arm, but it fell back weakly.

  “Miss. He never loved Sovay. Not like he loves you.”

  Her heart fluttering like wind-tossed leaves, Veronica stood up and paced away.

  “Me?” she said, breathlessly.

  “Sovay will never forgive him for denying her that love. And leaving her in her doom.” Mrs. Twig’s eyes suddenly flew open and blazed. “She won’t forgive you either.”

  Veronica looked wildly for Janet who lunged out of the shadows towards the bed. Mrs. Twig exhaled loudly, shouted for God, and died.

  ****

  Veronica put the pistol into its box, threw it on the bed, and began packing her bags. She couldn’t bear to stay at Belden House for one more minute. Never had so much darkness invaded her soul. She was expected to shoot Mrs. Twig now? Jack? Rafe? No.

  Janet and Peggy could take care of Mrs. Twig. Veronica, leaving the gun and the Bestiary conspicuously behind, stepped silently down the stairs carrying all of her things in two bags. The vicar from the de Grimston’s private family church had already pulled up in a black coach with red doors, giving Veronica just enough cover to slip down the lane unnoticed. It was just over three miles to the coach station, then on to the train. Her only problem was where to go. Back to Saint Mary’s? The thought of going backwards sickened her, but there was no place else.

  Chapter 12

  *

  The Mother Superior leaned back in her chair with a sour smile. Above a vase of Easter lilies, the Crucifix hanging on the wall behind her burned dark gold. The image of Saint Veronica displaying her veil marked with the face of Christ, gazed down from one of the, mostly blue, stained glass windows. Veronica sat with her hands folded prayerfully before her lips, comforted and humbled by the divine atmosphere of the place, fearful of what truth would come out of her mouth when Holy Mother began asking questions.

  “Girls don’t usually return to Saint Mary’s unless they have been called to join our order. To take the veil. You understand that don’t that don’t you, Miss Everly?”

  “Yes. I should like to take the veil,” Veronica stammered.

  She glanced at the round, placid face of Mother Superior, at her sharp, agate eyes that saw through everything, unsure of how to explain her situation. She was deeply in love with Rafe de Grimston. He was a monster. Already, at the age of twenty-one, she felt her future was defined. There was no other path for her except to become a nun.

  “I’m not entirely convinced that you have a calling. Rather you want to run away from something.”

  “To take refuge in Christ,” Veronica said. “For I have seen the Evil One.”

  Mother Superior raised an eyebrow at that. “Where?”

  “In the house of my last employer. Witchcraft I saw.”

  Veronica hoped she would not have to go further than to reveal what she saw Mrs. Twig doing in the kitchen that night. If she spoke of werewolves they would think her mad and the asylum was too close by.

  Mother Superior stood up. She was surprisingly short for a woman who loomed so large. She came close to Veronica and looked into her eyes.

  “You have had a fright, haven’t you? Something has struck at your very soul. You didn’t participate in that witchcraft, did you? Answer me truthfully, my child. You know I can’t be deceived.”

  “No. Of course I did not. But I was affected by it long before I discovered it.”

  Mother Superior went to the stained glass image of Saint Veronica and gazed at it, leaving wretched, pathetic, un-saintly, all too human Veronica to ponder how she would explain her love for a man who was possessed by the Devil. Did it show? Would loving him make her seem complicit in something ungodly?

  “You’re a deep one, Miss Everly. As you know there is a trial period for novices. I’ll give you three months to contemplate your decision. If you decide that your vocation is with us, then you will serve for a period of three years before you will be allowed to take your vows.” She turned to Veronica with one eyebrow raised. “Is that agreeable to you?”

  “Yes. Oh thank you Holy Mother. Shall I teach in the school?”

  “No. I want you scrubbing floors, washing dishes, cooking meals. We need help in the kitchen.”

  “Penance, then.”

  “Yes. I don’t know how or why, but you have acquired a stain upon your soul.”

  ****

  Veronica wondered if Holy Mother thought she was a fallen woman. She was not dressed in the usual white habit of novices, but in robes of burnished autumnal brown. Her working clothes were made of blue ticking, her unruly chestnut hair held back in a dull blue head scarf. She worked hard, imagining with every scrub of the sponge on the flagstones or tiles, that she was erasing her love for Rafe de Grimston, with every sluice of rinse water that she was washing away the horrors that haunted her soul.

  When she was not laboring in the kitchen, Veronica wandered the large park-like grounds carrying her missal and the journal of Miss Blaylock that she had taken from Belden House. She had every intention of sending it back, but she needed it for a while. The writing in the journal was the only proof she had that what she’d experienced was real. That she was not mad. There was a garden in the Italian style with low walls, urns of autumn-yellowed flowers, myrtles, rows of cypress tress and a long reflecting pool. She often sat on one of the marble benches to meditate. She meant to focus solely on Christ and His protection, but she kept seeing the face of Rafe de Grimston instead, looking at her with eyes of such sorrow that her heart was wrenched away from Salvation. The forbidden desires she sought to exorcize welled up and flooded her every atom. She could only pray for it to stop. When it did not, she would remove her wimple and let her hair tumble down her back and walk among the scarlet trees, inhaling the scents of fallen leaves, bark and soil, startled by nothing more than squirrels, migrating birds, and the occasional black-robed nun from whom she fled.

  “Surely if Christ means to call me, he would not allow this haunting,” she mused. “I must indeed be lost.”

  Once a deer entered the park. It froze and held Veronica’s gaze for a long time. Perhaps they were alike, she thought, at the mercy of wolves and other predators.

  Soon the convent was swathed in heavy mists, and one day snow began to fall. Veronica was forced to stay in her tiny bedchamber where, exhausted by her work, she often fell asleep by the coal fire. With the approach of Advent, she was allowed to join the choir, and began singing Matins at dawn in a chapel heated by hundreds of candles and the melodic breaths of the nuns. Her voice was appraised beautiful enough to warrant special attention by the musical director, beautiful enough to perhaps, redeem her in the eyes of God.

  It was a day of bleak skies and ice when Mother Superior summoned Veronica to her office.

  “I have received a letter from your former employer, Mr. Rafe de Grimston. It seems he tracked you down through the governess agency who forwarded it on to us. He doesn’t know where you are. It is up to you whether or not to answer this letter. It will soon be time for you to decide your future, Sister Veronica.”

  Holy Mother’s gaze was steady, calm, as she handed the letter to Veronica. She was relieved to find that it had not been opened. It had been addressed to her by Rafe himself. At the sight of his handwriting, tears fell uncontrollably down her face. She bowed her head as if she could hide them.

  “He has a fine hand. Strong. Open. Go and read it and come back to me before Vespers,” Mother Superior said. “You are dismissed.”

  Veronica teetered to her feet. “I’m sorry, Holy Mother. I’m very confused. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. God has His ways. Give your struggle over to Him and don’t try to force the outcome. That is the only way.”

  With a racing heart, Veronica hurried out the door and opened the letter. The smell of the sealing wax as it broke; the whiff of good paper and ink reminded her pain
ful of Belden House. Her hands shook so that she had to sit down in the rosewood-paneled hallway to steady herself.

  Dear Miss Everly,

  I thought you might like news of us here at Belden House. Jack quite misses you. I miss you. Together we are two old fools reminiscing about the good old days. Mrs. Twig has recovered from her injuries and bustles about enough for both of you. Sadly we have lost one of the twins. He lies in a silver casket beside his older sister. Their mother is still at large. If only one could be freed of this evil! There is a remedy, but that I cannot disclose.

  I wish you well in your new post. I am sure it is happier than here.

  All the Best,

  Rafe de Grimston

  Veronica stood up, and looked around helplessly. They wanted her back. But how could she go when, in the end, she might be called upon to destroy them all, or choose to become like them and lose her soul entirely?

  She went out into the cold garden. Snow was falling in heavy, wet flakes. The vista of white earth and bare trees was lonely. The crows hawking in the bare branches were like fragments of her personal darkness besmirching the purity of God’s Grace. The bells were ringing brightly the Third Hour, reminding her of that slow, out-of-tune tolling at Belden House that set the world askew, and of the high, clear howling of the wolves.

  Just before bed, she wrote back. It was not an easy decision, for though everything within her wanted to let Rafe know how to find her, she dreaded having to face the man she loved, especially after she abandoned him like a thief in the night.

  Dear Mr. de Grimston,

  Thank you for thinking of me and sending your news from Belden House, both happy and sad. I miss you as well, and the twins. Both of them. I can barely stand knowing that they are no longer a pair. I have news to share with you. I have decided to become a nun. To join the Order of Saint Mary’s where I can continue in my teaching profession. I shall keep you always in my prayers.

  Sincerely Yours,

  Sister Veronica

  There! she thought as she sealed the envelope. It was decided. From that day forth she would be Sister Veronica-Whatever. She would clear her name with Holy Mother and wear the white habit and the heavy rosary beads and sing and teach. Not such a bad life. Tears spilled on the envelope where it lay on her table. She tore the wimple from her head, tore at the neckline of her habit that strangled her, stood up, pulled her hair and stamped her feet. If she hadn’t gotten so used to silence, she would have screamed.

  ****

  She spent the winter praying in the Chapel of Our Lady, comforted by the stillness, warmed by the hundreds of candles that glowed wetly in the underwater light of the stained glass windows. The kind face of the Holy Virgin with her little Christ Child looked down. Why had she been denied the promise implied in that image? Why did God allow Satan to contaminate His Creation; to destroy it from within?

  It was a bright sunny day when Veronica stepped out of the chapel door to find Janet sitting under a dripping yew tree in the graveyard as if she’d been there forever.

  “Janet? What are you doing here?” Veronica asked. “How did you know I was in the chapel?

  “The head nun told me,” said Janet. She was flustered and kept looking at her wet shoes. “I came on behalf of Mr. Rafe.”

  “You must be freezing. Come on. Let’s go inside. There’s a small sitting room where we won’t be disturbed.”

  Veronica hurried Janet through the side door of the abbey and down the hallway to a cozy little room with a fire. They sat in opposite wing chairs. Veronica was amazingly happy to see Janet who kept smiling and finally laughing.

  “It’s so good to see you Miss. You do make a lovely nun, I must say, though Mr. Rafe was very upset that you’d done it.”

  “It’s not quite done yet,” Veronica said. “I still have a week before I commit to anything, and even then…” What was she saying? “What’s the latest news at Belden House?”

  Janet grew flustered again. “Miss, I…Could you?…Well. Mr. Rafe. I know it was wrong of me, but I read your letter. Though I don’t let on, I can read well enough. I found it blowing over the lawn where Mr. Rafe had dropped it, you see, before he stalked off into the woods like the doom was upon him. I was afraid of what he might do with that pistol of his. He doesn’t know I’ve come looking for you, Miss.”

  Veronica shifted in her seat, drew her shawl close around her shoulders. “Go on,” she said.

  “Mrs. Twig, well, she recovered quick enough, but…It were up to me, Miss, to lock them in the tower. Her and poor little Jack. I never know which one it is….I can’t bear it when they start howling. And Mr. Rafe, well, he’ll roam free. They can’t help what they do. Lady de Grimston, well…did you know that before she came to us, she lived in France and those same things were going on there? Children being attacked and such? Then she brought it here, to England. And those books----those Grand Alberts----very old they are Miss. That family of hers worshipped the Devil and that’s how it came to them, Miss. The curse now falls on us.” Janet looked around at the paintings of the saints on the walls. “I can see why you came here. To get away from it. But…Miss….there is a cure and I thought, if you don’t mind my saying, in that letter….well, when a woman tries to act so cold, you know there’s a burning heart underneath.”

  “What do you mean, Janet?”

  “If you could come back to us and speak your heart….”

  Veronica stood and walked to the window, squeezing the rosary beads between her sweaty fingers.

  “If I were to do such a thing, to leave Saint Mary’s now, I could never come back again. I will not shoot Mrs. Twig and especially not a child. No, I will not. And I will not shoot Rafe de Grimston, even if he tears the entire world apart,” Veronica said. “Do you understand?”

  “But there’s no need to shoot.”

  “What of Lady de Grimston?”

  “She’s still out there….”

  “Making more like herself. Stealing souls. How can I do anything about it?”

  “Only you can, Miss. Only you. Don’t you see? Listen to your heart.” Janet held her gaze with a look of such despair that Veronica felt selfish and mean.

  “Oh, God in Heaven!” she cried.

  “Miss Everly!”

  Veronica crossed herself, “Please forgive me, Lord. Oh, God!”

  “Just come for a day, Miss. One day will do it. I’m frightened what Mr. Rafe will do to himself. I think the only thing keeping him from topping himself with that silver bullet is his hope that he might see you again. He’s afraid of losing the remaining twin to her as well, since those dolls let her in. Stuffed with the flowers of France, you see. Her native soil. That wicked part that’s in the children----was why they wanted those dolls. To let their mother in. Mr. Rafe is always so kind. He didn’t know….. But there’s no need for him to even think about suicide if only you’d come back with me. For one day. Just one little day. Please, Miss. As an act of charity. You must.”

  “All right. If I can obtain permission from Holy Mother, I’ll go back with you tomorrow. I’ll arrange for your stay tonight. But I’m returning before nightfall and that’s final.”

  CHAPTER 13

  *

  Veronica watched the winter landscape slip past the window of the train and tried to keep her anxiety at bay. When they arrived at Belden House, it was still morning; too early to see that they’d been followed by a bright, full moon.

  Belden House in the snow was a desolate sight. Icicles hung from the gargoyles and gutters, rooks hunched on the frost-encrusted rooftops, doves huddled in the windowsills. The wide garden was blasted hoar white, the bare trees frozen with every twig on end as the wind blustered against them.

  It was strange going back inside the house. One wasn’t meant to go backwards, Veronica thought. Life was a series of births, leaving womb after womb behind until one left the womb of the earth for Heaven or that other place she could not bear to name.

  “I think this may be bad timing,
Janet. I think the moon will be full tonight,” Veronica said. “I shall be forced to shoot him, won’t I? You’ve tricked me.”

  “No, Miss. No. It’s the perfect time to help Mr. Rafe and the others as well. If it’s any reassurance, I’ve hidden your gun. I had to hide all the guns.”

  “Well, you’ve got enough faith for army, haven’t you? Too much in me, I’m afraid. Where is he?”

  “Perhaps in his rooms, Miss. Do you want me to announce you?”

  “No. I’ll go on my own,” Veronica said. Sighing she went up the stairs.

  First she wanted to look in on Jack. The child’s bedroom was empty, so she went up to the schoolroom. Jacqueline was there, looking out at the yew hedge that was a wall of white tapers against a white sky. She was wearing a black dress; the white-blonde hair had grown long, to the middle of her back.

  “Jacqueline, it’s me, Miss Everly.”

  Jacqueline turned around. The pale green eyes were cold at first, then filled with tears at the sight of Veronica.

  “Miss Everly. You’ve come back,” she said and ran into Veronica’s arms.

  Veronica stroked the child’s hair. It was so soft. “I’ve missed you. All of you.”

  “We miss you as well. Please stay with us, Miss Everly. Please don’t leave us again.”

  Veronica thought it was best not tell Jacqueline her plans. “I must speak with your father, now. Go ahead and play and I shall see you later on. For tea.”

  “I can’t play. Not alone. There’s nothing to do and Papa says we can’t have another governess.”

  “Well, run along to the drawing room and I’ll read to you. Your pick. Beauty and the Beast or something. All right?” Veronica said brightly, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Everly! I shall wait for you. But don’t leave it too late. The light fades fast in winter. It’s nighttime by four o’clock. Mrs. Twig says.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Veronica rising to her feet. “I won’t be long.”