The Countess (18 page)

He said from his great height, “I have told you that I would never hurt you. This fear of yours, it is something very dark and very deep inside you. Whatever it is, it's bad, it is corrosive. It is directing your life, not you. You have married an old man because of it.

“And me, madam? Just look what you do when you are around me. Jesus, it unmans me.” He shook his head. There was such pain on his face that I couldn't bear it. “This will stop, it must.” Then he kicked his boots into Tempest's sides, and rode away.

I didn't move for a very long time. It took me even a longer time to get my hair plaited and pinned, and the riding hat perched back on top.

It was a twenty-minute walk back to the Manor. I supposed the horse John had ridden to the stream had made its way back to the stables. I met with Mrs. Redbreast and discussed replacing linens that had been too many times mended. Then I met with Cook to plan the following week's menu. George and
I played with Judith, then we shared her geography lesson with her and I learned how to say good day in Mandarin Chinese.

For dinner that night, Miss Crislock joined the family, and I was so very pleased to see her. She was the only one there for me, only me. She'd known me forever. She loved me.

John wasn't there.

After my husband had lightly kissed my cheek, and left me at the door to my bedchamber, I fetched George, walked him for an hour until the dreadful cold finally drove us back into the house.

I slept horribly. George snored the night through.

T
he days passed swiftly. John was rarely at the Manor. I heard stories of Lady Appleby chasing him down and chaining him to their dining table so her daughter could bat her eyes at him. I hope he suffered. I wanted him to.

As for Thomas, he seemed back to himself. I found out that he'd fancied e had caught chicken pox from the children in the village. However, there was no chicken pox reported, and it turned out to be a small rash brought on, Amelia decided, by a particularly rough bit of wool that had scratched against his chest. She was now feeling, with her own hands, any material that would come into contact with her beloved's body.

I heard Lawrence speak of how John was learning everything he could, and he was learning it quickly. And that was why, he said one evening at dinner, that we saw him so rarely. He was busy. And I knew that was good that he wasn't often around, and I hated it, which made me an idiot.

Days would pass without my seeing him, and that
was good, too. I knew that. The other things that were also true that I didn't want to know, didn't want to explore, I locked firmly away.

The elegant little derringer that Mr. Forrester had fetched me himself from York was safe under my pillow, wrapped in one of my handkerchiefs. Grandfather had taught me to shoot. I went out only one afternoon to practice with my new gun.

A week later, Lawrence suggested that I invite Peter home for Christmas. I immediately wrote a letter, and Lawrence franked it. He was a splendid man, my husband. So very thoughtful. And I could never forget that. What John had said to me that day by the stream—that my fear of men had directed my life, had resulted in my marriage to his uncle. I knew it was true, but I didn't want to change anything, except in moments when I was lying in my bed at night, trying to sleep and John would slip into my mind and I felt a deep hard stroke of pain and regret that left emptiness. And, in the light of day, I remembered who and what he was. He was big and dangerous. If there was darkness deep inside me, as he had said there was, it was because of what he was, because of what every man was, that had put it there.

I myself was very busy, planning for the big ball. All of us were involved. The guest list was made up and refined, argued over, added to, and finally the invitations were sent out, many of them delivered by messenger. Lawrence was pleased about the preparations. The menu was selected. I asked if we could have the orchestra that had played for my coming-out ball two years previously. Lawrence, my very
kind husband, had Swanson, the estate manager, see to it.

So much to do, thank God. The Black Chamber and its malignant presence faded from my mind. I never went back there. As for the empty room that had once been Caroline's music room, I never went close to that, either. And I locked the door to The Blue Room, religiously, every night.

Three days before the ball, Amelia's parents arrived. Her father, Hobson Borland, Viscount Waverleigh, a man so preoccupied with his own thoughts and ideas and internal discussions on otherworldly phenomena, was so distracted, that within five minutes of meeting the family, he walked into a door, poured his tea in a lovely big potted plant just beside the settee where he was sitting beside his wife, Julia, and stared fixedly at the far corner of the drawing room.

Strangely enough, or perhaps not, Amelia's father was every bit as beautiful as Thomas. The viscount was utterly immersed with the spirit world, and Thomas, his equal in male beauty, was absorbed with his health—as mysterious as the spirit world, some could argue.

It was also interesting that Amelia appeared to treat her father's eccentricities just as she did Thomas's, with love and tolerance and endless patience.

Viscountess Waverleigh said, after she managed to pull her husband's attention back to her, “Hobson, my dear, there are mysteries here for you to solve. Do you remember? Your daughter, Amelia, wrote to you about them. She said she needed you to solve otherworldly problems.”

“Amelia? Yes, yes, a lovely daughter that I
managed to bring into this magical world myself when the damned physician got himself thrown into a ditch and finally brought himself to see to you after three days, his arm broken.”

“Yes, and you did splendidly.”

“Am I not here because Amelia asked me to be?”

“Yes, Father. There are mysteries to solve, just as Mother said. There is also the Christmas ball.” She said to Lawrence, “My father is a splendid dancer as well. Like Thomas, he is so very graceful.”

“I like to dance,” the viscount said. “It passes the time between hauntings.” Then he pointed. “I am glad I do not have to dance at this moment because there is something over there, something interesting happened right over there in that corner. Do you feel it?”

This was said to me. I shook my head and said quickly while I still had his attention on me, “There are two chambers, however, that we would much appreciate you investigating for us, my lord.”

He immediately rose, stared around at all of us, and said, “Well? Where are these rooms? Are we to sit here all day doing nothing at all? But that corner, it is of interest to me as well. Julia, do write that down in your book to be investigated later.”

“Yes, my dear Hobson,” said Viscountess Waverleigh.

I didn't want to go back to the Black Chamber, but I did. John, whom I hadn't seen for a day and a half, showed himself when Amelia's parents had arrived. He accompanied Amelia and me and his lordship to the west wing. Lawrence excused himself, saying he himself had no liking for anything not of this world.

As for Thomas, he had just laughed, lightly patted
his wife's cheek, and said, “No falling asleep in any more rooms, my dear.”

She turned instantly pale, then managed to pull herself together enough to smile at him.

“Does anyone know what happened in this room?” the viscount asked. “Something violent?”

“Nothing,” I said. “No one even remembers why it was painted black. Amelia showed me the room, said one of the best stories was that a former countess had stabbed a lover, but there is nothing to prove it. It was only I who felt a malignancy, a dreadful sense that something evil is in there. I don't believe anyone else has felt anything out of the ordinary. Just me.”

“Hmmmm, we will see. Sensitive to this sort of thing, are you?”

“Not that I ever knew of.”

I couldn't bear to go back into that room. Amelia, since it was simply another room to her, went in first with John, then stepped aside for her father to enter, which he did very slowly, one short step at a time, sniffing, listening, so intent, that he nearly fell over a stool near the door.

Then he stopped cold. He stared in the exact corner that had felt so dreadfully cold to me. Lord Waverleigh, however, wasn't a coward. He walked right into the middle of where that dreadful cold had been. I took another step backward, into the corridor now.

“Can you feel it, sir?” I called to him. “It is just that one spot. It feels cold, the sort of cold that seeps right into your bones and soul, and there is menace to it, as if something evil happened right there.”

He said nothing at all. He simply stood there, and closed his eyes. No one said a word, just watched.
He opened his eyes, nodded to his daughter, and came back out into the corridor. He took my hands in his. “Listen to me, that is no spirit hanging about in that room, locked in there by some long-ago violence. I felt everything you felt, and more. Something violent did happen in that room, but the evil that is in there, that permeates the very air and space, it is not from the spirit world. It is from our world; it exists right here, with us now, in this house.” And then Amelia's father, closed his eyes and slid down the wall to the corridor floor.

Terrified, I dropped to my knees immediately.

“No, Andy, it's all right. Father always does this. I believe that what he feels, what he sees, exhausts him. John, could you carry him to his bedchamber? He will sleep for an hour or so and then be all right.”

“Just as you slept, Amelia?”

“Yes, just as I slept. I do have my father's blood, after all. But there is nothing in that room for me, except the ridiculous black paint. John?”

I watched John hoist Lord Waverleigh over his shoulder and carry him off down the corridor.

Lady Waverleigh merely nodded when told that her husband was sound asleep in his own bed. “My dearest Hobson will be just fine in a little while. Then he will drink three cups of very strong tea.” She sighed and smiled at me. “It is his way. I hope he was of help to you, Lady Devbridge?”

“Yes, ma'am.” I could think of nothing else to say besides that. Or should I say, evil was in this house, not a long-dead evil, but an evil that lives right here, in our midst, and what, pray tell, does that mean? But I knew it was here, I knew it was just waiting.

But for what?

*   *   *

The next morning at breakfast, I was listening to Lord Waverleigh speak of a castle in Cornwall, in ruins now, very close to Penzance, in which he had personally located twelve different spirits, all of them long dead and alert and in lively spirits, so to speak. “None of them wanted to leave, even though it was now a ruin and no one lived there. It suited them, they felt it clearly to me. They never bothered the local Cornish. But they very much enjoyed terrorizing any visiting Englishman who chanced upon the castle.”

I didn't want to believe him, but I did. He planned to visit the small room where Amelia had fallen asleep, Caroline's music room, just after breakfast. Lawrence had told me he wished to be a part of this visit when he had seen me to my room the previous night. He smiled down at me, gently laid his palm along my cheek. “You are doing so well here, Andy. I am very proud of you. I heard your praises loudly sung when I was in the village today. You also very wisely put some money in every shopkeeper's pocket. Well-done.” He kissed my cheek then, something I was used to now. I no longer pulled away, even in my mind. Progress, I thought, trust. He was a good man, and I promised myself yet one more time that I would never forget what he had done for me.

And what had he done for me?

He had made me the mistress of a beautiful home. He had given me the protection of his name. He had made no demands on me whatsoever. And I thought, what have I done for him?

I wasn't a clingy milksop, but how important was
that? I wasn't evil or malicious or ignorant. I amused him, so he told me often. I got along well with the family and the servants. I liked his daughter, and she seemed to like me. Surely that was to everyone's benefit.

But what I was, I knew now, and recognized it for the first time, was supremely arrogant. I had set everything up and assumed it would remain exactly as I wished it to.

One thing I was as well, I now freely admitted to myself—was stupid. I was a blockhead. I had made a huge mistake marrying Lawrence. But it was done. Never, never, would Lawrence know anything from me but all the affection I could muster, all the kindness that was in me, all the loyalty that I felt to my very bones.

That morning, just Lord and Lady Waverleigh were with me at the breakfast table—and George, of course. Lady Waverleigh had taken quite a fancy to George, and he was exploiting her shamelessly.

I had just buttered a piece of toast, fed George a piece of crispy bacon—which, if he weren't such a glutton, he would have refused, since Lady Waverleigh had already stuffed at least three slices down his gullet—when Brantley came into the dining room and brought me a silver salver. “A letter for you, my lady,” he said, and left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

“I know he was Moses in the Bible,” I said to my guests, smiling. In the next minute I was so excited I nearly ripped the paper. “It is from my cousin,” I said, then lowered my head to spread out the page. It was too soon to hear from him about coming for Christmas. Ah, but maybe he wished to make peace
with me and my marriage to Lawrence. There were two pages. I smoothed out the first.

 

November 25, 1817

Brussels, Belgium

 

My dearest Andy:

 

I will be with you as soon as I can leave Brussels. I ask you to read the enclosed letter from your father. He sent it to me because he feared you wouldn't read it if he posted it directly to you himself. Actually, I also believe he is afraid that it would be intercepted and not reach you at all. Although he doesn't state his reasons, I know he is nearly frantic to get to you.

Read it, Andy, for me, if not for any other reason. I will see you by Christmas. Please take care—

 

My love,

Peter