Louisa put her fingertips to her lips and held her breath. “Oh, Talbot,” she said.
The sound of the creek echoed in the air as he waited for her response.
“You’re overcome. Understandably,” he said at last. He stood up and took her hands. She was trembling uncontrollably. He took a deep breath.
“Let’s go out,” he said, smiling. “You can put on something pretty and we’ll find the finest bottle of champagne that can be had and we’ll share it somewhere elegant. Don’t say a word. You’re clearly not yourself today.”
Louisa felt numb. Nothing made any sense. How could she possibly respond to his proposal? Everything was wrong and the world was spinning out of control.
Talbot watched the color drain from her face. He took her hand gently and led her back to the house and to her room where he sat her on the bed.
“Was my proposal that much of a surprise?” he asked, clearly confused.
“No,” she said. “It’s as you say, I’m not feeling myself right now. I suppose I am simply exhausted.”
“Very well,” he said. “Why don’t you retire? I’ll go into town to get a bite to eat and we can talk later.”
“Yes,” she said. “That would be fine. Thank you, Talbot.”
He kissed her forehead and closed the door quietly behind him.
Louisa sat on the bed stunned, and then ran to the bath to splash cold water on her face.
She knew where he was going. He’d head to the speakeasy and have a few drinks. She didn’t blame him. He was confined and restless at Stavewood and she had just rejected him. He would want to be off alone, of course. Louisa needed time to clear her own head as well.
She fell exhausted onto the cool sheets and let her shoes drop to the floor. She lay there, staring up at the paneled ceiling in the quiet room imagining Luc’s face in front of her. She thought about the ghost in the black poncho out on the meadow and of Talbot in the grass proposing on one knee. Louisa pulled the woolen sweater snug around her and found the wooden carp in the pocket. She held it in her hand reverently.
True love and everything she ever wanted had been right here at home, under her very nose. Now she had made a mess of things. She had broken Luc’s heart, and then Talbot’s, and now her own. Louisa rolled over, clutching the carp in her hand, buried her face in the thick down pillow and cried herself to sleep.
Thirty-Six
Louisa awoke in the dark of night and changed into her nightgown. She ventured up the stairs to Talbot’s room and tapped on the door quietly. He was still out. She tiptoed down to the kitchen and made herself something to eat. She recalled her mother asking her if she would be joining them for dinner and she had declined. But that had to have been part of a dream. Her parents were at the cottage helping James and Katie.
She poured herself a tall glass of fresh milk and tried to remember the nightmare that seemed to begin with her mother’s knock on the door.
In the dream Jude Thomas was there, just the way he had been described to her, touching and twisting his moustache conceitedly. Corissa was there too, dressed in a black, chiffon gown crying pitifully as she stood in the garden with Jude alongside her laughing. She sobbed into her hands and when she looked up her face was blank. Not because of her expression but because in the dream she had no features. It occurred to Louisa that she had no idea what Corissa looked like at all. She tried to remember if she had ever seen a photograph of her.
Back in her room she paced restlessly, the eerie dream still vivid in her mind. On the table was a picture of her mother holding her youngest brother, Jake, as an infant. Louisa remembered that it used to be a picture of little Phillip and before that it was her being held by her mother and before that… Louisa sucked in her breath.
She hurried down the stairs to her father’s study and lit the lamp, turning the wick up brightly. There on the desk was the old torn picture of her mother. She picked up the frame, turned it over and opened the velvet casing. The contents dropped out, falling in a neat stack with the simple black and white image of her mother on top. Louisa pushed it aside. Underneath was another photograph of a different woman standing next to a chestnut mare with a gleaming coat and a distinctive, white marking on its nose. Louisa recognized the horse immediately from the stories Mark had told her over the years. It was Corissa’s horse, Love, the one she had been riding the night she died.
Next to the mare stood a young Corissa Elgerson. Her face was beautiful, her countenance stalwart, as if she was posing but would rather have not. Pale hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. She was tall, Louisa noticed, like herself, a strong looking woman. She stood the way Mark did in every photograph Louisa had ever seen of him, holding his head upright self-consciously. The resemblance was very clear.
“Corissa,” she said softly, as she sat down in the big leather chair. Her father had slid the plain picture of a mail-order-bride he did not know in front of this one of his lost wife. Louisa sat back in the chair and her chest tightened. It was as though she was looking at yet another ghost.
Under the photograph was a folded sheet of letter paper. She opened it, held it up in the dim light and began to read. A lump rose in her throat.
Louisa’s hand with the letter fell to the desk in disbelief. Tears spilled over her cheeks and ran in cold runnels down her chest. Her father must have forgotten about the photograph of Corissa and no one else had ever known about it at all. Had anyone known they would have found this handwritten letter years ago and so many things would have been different. She wept quietly, alone in the big chair. Her heart broke for the woman in the picture and for all of those around her, especially her son.
Louisa folded the letter and slipped it into her notebook. She wiped her eyes and picked up the photograph of Corissa to put it back into the frame when she noticed there was something written on the back. She held it up to the light and read:
Red paint can.
3rd shelf.
Clockwise to 9.
Counter to 6.
Clockwise to 12.
Though she wasn’t sure of the purpose, these were obviously instructions. Part of it certainly was a lock combination. She copied it into a page in her notebook and slid the photograph back into the frame.
She turned down the lamp and set everything back onto the desk exactly as she had found it. She stood in the doorway looking back at it in the well-ordered room and imagined her father sitting there with his business forms and mill notes. She could see him as a young man opening an envelope from across the sea that contained a plain and damaged photograph of a woman it barely resembled. He had sat there once, his heart breaking, as he slid the picture of a stranger in front of the one of his lost love.
Louisa cried for him and for what she now knew was revealed in the one page of a simply written letter. Louisa Elgerson was realizing that all of the love in her home was hard won and that she was foolish to have cast it all away. The tragedy of it overwhelmed her. She climbed the stairs silently.
Thirty-Seven
Louisa held a glass of milk in the sewing room, oblivious to the beads of sweat running down the sides of the tall tumbler and pooling up between her fingers. She gulped down the cold milk thinking warming it might have helped calm her. Her heart ached and her mind raced.
She reread the notes she had copied from the back of Corinne’s photograph, trying to push the letter out of her mind.
“Red paint can,” she said to herself. She could picture one clearly in her mind. She realized she had seen one somewhere, dusty and rusting with paint dripped down its sides. She tried to imagine it in the stables but it would have been out of place and thrown out by the stablemen long ago. In her mind it was somewhere where things were left alone, somewhere damp and dark.
Louisa took another drink of the milk, and decided tea would have been a better choice. Suddenly she realized where she had seen the paint can. She had been in the cellar looking for tea.
Louisa pulled on her sweater, took
the Old Maid from the nightstand and flew silently down the stairs. In the kitchen she took a lamp from the counter and struck a match to it. Then she ventured down the stairs into the cellar. There, upon a dusty shelf, across from the imported tins of tea, was the paint can just as she had pictured it.
She set the lantern on an empty shelf and put the can on the floor. With a large screwdriver she set to prying it open. She cursed under her breath once, when the tool stabbed into the palm of her hand but she was determined.
The rusty lid finally gave way and she peeled it back. She found a large, steel skeleton key, six inches long, in the bottom of the old can.
“Alright, so where is the third shelf?” Louisa raised the lantern and walked along the stone wall, throwing long shadows onto row upon row of shelves. She worked her way around the edge of the massive cellar examining both the third shelf from the top and from the bottom on every rack. Finally, behind a box of saw blades, she found a square, metal lock set into the stone. Louisa pushed the massive key into the keyhole. It fit perfectly.
“Clockwise to nine,” she said aloud. Louisa turned the key clockwise and, as she reached the nine o’clock position, she heard a soft click. Nothing happened. She turned the key back to six o’clock, but this time there was no sound. She turned it back clockwise again straight up to twelve and heard the click again. Louisa tried to pull out the key and the wall moved. She cleared off the shelves, moved the rack aside and pulled the key again.
A large stone panel swung open. She continued to pull. On closer examination she could see that a heavy wooden panel had been assembled, faced with stone to match the cellar walls. The workmanship was rough, not like what she was used to seeing in the estate, but in the darkness of the cellar it would never have been noticed. Louisa held up the lantern and peered into the open passageway.
She pulled the panel as far as it would go and propped it open with several paint cans. Carefully, she stepped inside.
Stone walls lined either side of the narrow passage. Louisa could smell damp earth and fresh water. At her feet were crudely carved stairs set in stone. She took a step down. The stone was moss-covered and slick and she put a hand against the damp wall to steady herself. With the lantern held high, Louisa took another step.
She stopped and turned, looking back toward the cellar. The passageway was as black as ink. For a moment she considered returning in the morning light but realized it would do her no good. No outside light shone into the cellar or the staircase. The brightest day and the darkest night were the same in this underground space. She turned and took another step down. Louisa felt each step with the toe of her slipper. She made sure her footing was firm. There was the sound of rushing water just ahead in the corridor. She took another step and reached the bottom of the crude staircase.
Louisa held up her lantern and gasped. An underground stream ran ahead of her from right to left and she realized that Birget had told her about this. The sounds of water splashing and bubbling filled the darkness. She turned up her light and saw that the moisture had collected and dripped in short stalactites from the low ceiling. In the center of the passageway the creek rushed by her. Years of rain and slow erosion had carved the area into a constricted, narrow opening.
In the lamplight she could make out a path that followed the channel heading downstream. She walked alongside the rushing water cautiously. At one point an iron girder lay across the stone floor, and the path crossed over the creek to the other side. She stepped out onto it carefully and continued on into the darkness. A short distance later the water dammed up against a stone wall and spiraled into a swift whirlpool, disappearing underneath the rock. Unsure of where to go, she leaned out over the swirl cautiously, watching the powerful, rushing water. Her foot slipped out from under her and she fell back hard onto the stone floor. In the water one of her pink slippers rode in the current, spinning down into the whirlpool faster and faster until it was sucked under and disappeared.
She sat in the blackness, with only the light of the lantern at her side and tried to calm her frightened breathing.
Louisa found the path again heading down an offshoot passage away from the water. She stood up and, with her lantern lifted high, ventured deeper into the darkness, limping on one shoe. The passageway turned hard to her right and, after a few steps, she couldn’t hear the water anymore.
Suddenly the corridor ended at a solid wall. It was deathly quiet, dark and ominous. In the dim light she could see rusted iron rings had been set into the rock evenly, one above the other and she realized they were meant to serve as a ladder. She took hold of one of them and could feel it was solidly anchored. Louisa set down her lantern, kicked off her remaining pink slipper and put her toe into the first ring. She grabbed hold of the next ring and pulled herself up. Above her she could see a smooth surface in the roof. She continued to climb.
Thirty-Eight
High on the top ring, Louisa could no longer hear the rushing water, but she was sure she heard deep voices above her. Reaching up in the darkness with one hand she could feel a smooth surface. And hinges. Louisa had found a door.
She held perfectly still there, perched on the rings and listened. These were men’s voices, angry and low. Louisa put her hand against the roof and pushed slowly. The door gave way silently. She held it open a few inches and peered out.
In the soft moonlight she could make out a crisscrossing of narrow wood slats and she realized she was under the gazebo looking out through the lattice. A man wearing boots walked to the stairs and put one foot onto the step. He was only visible from the knees down. She held perfectly still.
Suddenly there were loud footfalls above her and she caught her breath, nearly dropping the trap door over her head. Another man in heavy footwear was pacing on the gazebo deck.
“What about the goddamned passageway?” Louisa did not know the voice. It was deep and rough, likely that of an older man. For a brief second she thought he had seen her and was talking to her but then the other one replied.
“What about it?” This man was younger, she thought. More well-spoken, with a slight drawl, but she did not recognize his voice either.
“The diamonds could be hidden in the passageway just as well as inside the damned house,” the graveled voice said.
“Not likely,” the younger man replied. “That wasn’t Jude’s style.”
“You didn’t know Jude. I knew him, knew him well,” the older man said.
“You need to control yourself, old man.” The man above her stomped across the platform and Louisa cringed. “Every time you are out there and someone sees you it makes everyone suspicious. Next thing they’re watching for you and trying to find you and wonderin’ who you are. Too many people have seen you already. It needs to stop, goddammit, or you’re gonna ruin everything.”
Louisa was sure the man by the steps was the black rider she’d seen at the edge of the meadow watching the house. Jude’s ghost. Her arm began to shake but she dared not move or let the trap door fall.
“Really, Clayton. No one has seen me. Why, who do you think has seen me?”
Louisa knew no one named Clayton and had never heard the name before. Who were these men?
“The daughter has seen you. That guy she’s been with has seen you. Hell, I’ve even seen you myself!” Clayton growled.
“If I’m not out here watching for the goddamned signal, how the hell will I know when you find the diamonds?” the man in black asked.
“You’ll know, old man. I’ll find you. So stay the hell away from the house. This has got to stay secret. Got it?”
“Well, you know what old Ben Franklin said about keeping secrets, Clayton? He said three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Which one would you like me to start with?”
Louisa clung to the rings. Her arm burned from the effort of holding up the door and the terror in her heart.
“You threatenin’ me, old man?”
“No threat, Clayton. I’ll be watching every n
ight until I see the signal. You try to cheat me and I will kill you. That’s a promise.”
She could not bear it any longer. Louisa let the door close silently and scrambled down the ring ladder. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears, even more loudly than the water swirling and splashing in the passage. She slipped again dangerously close to the whirlpool, looked down at her bare feet and scowled. The cavern floor was slick and treacherous but she had actually slipped on something else. Several rotting canvas bags lay in a heap in the muck. She held up her lantern and could see the words Property of Billington City Bank clearly stamped across the molding fabric.
Louisa was terrified. She ran through the passageway back to the house as quickly and carefully as she could and clambered up the stone stairs.
Louisa examined the passageway door and searched frantically in the darkness for another key. She found nothing. She shoved the heavy door closed, put the key into the keyhole and turned it, stopping her panting long enough to hear the soft click. No one could use the passageway without the key and, as far as she knew, she had the only one. Besides, they would have to know the combination.
With her back to the door, she pulled the derringer from her robe pocket and held it tightly. She sat on the stone floor of the big cellar listening to her heart pounding in her head.
“What if they try to come in? How will I stop them?” she said aloud in the darkness. Louisa stumbled up the stairs to the kitchen and locked all the doors.
The Secret of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 4) Page 13