Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
CHAPTER 41
Eliza’s days and nights were now spent in torturous pacing. From the time she rose in the morning until late in the evening, she walked the labyrinthine maze of Havenwood’s halls, whispering to herself. The house heaved and groaned as true winter came in, cold and dank and mean. The days were gunmetal, the nights never-ending in their bleakness.
When she felt the first stirring of the child in her womb, as December stretched out its fingers toward Yule, Eliza imagined she was feeling the clawing of a demon.
What if?
Truly, Eliza had wondered what manner of man she had married.
Upon their return from London, she’d gone to a discreet apothecary for a consult, where the pharmacist had tried to be reassuring, but prepared her for the worst. Malcolm’s symptoms, as described, fit the criteria for syphilis. With sorrowful eyes, the apothecary told her their child might be born blind and deformed. Or dead. The best Eliza could do would be to rest, pray for the best outcome, and avoid intimate congress with her husband at all costs.
She had no need to worry on the last count. Malcolm no longer visited her chambers, and their interactions were mostly silent, although the clattering of the silverware against china and their careful politeness with one another gave the impression of domestic tranquility. Eliza still hadn’t uttered a word to Malcolm about Una’s revelation at the cemetery. How did one say I’ve discovered you fucked your own mother over dessert and wine? And what kind of mother would take such liberties with her son? No. It was monstrous. All of it. Better not to speak of such abominations. Better to pretend they’d never happened if she wanted to survive.
For his part, he’d mentioned nothing of the scandal sheets or Eastleigh. Eliza had no intention of raising the subject, though her reticence did nothing to allay her worries over what kind of retribution might be brewing in Malcolm’s addled mind. He knew. There was no way he couldn’t.
One night, after dinner, Malcolm went into the library to smoke and Eliza followed, unbidden. They sat by the fire and Eliza took up her needlework. She was embroidering twining willow branches on the hem of a pillowcase meant for the baby’s crib. She finished a line of stitches, broke her thread between her teeth to change it from green to brown, then rethreaded the needle and pushed it through the fabric. “I’m feeling restless, husband. Since we’re no longer going to Scotland, I need something to look forward to. Some purpose, other than my embroidery.”
“I had a thought this morning,” Malcolm said. “I believe I’ll give the staff the rest of the month off for the holiday. Send Mrs. Duncan to Aberdeen and Turner can, well . . . go wherever he’d like. Perhaps we’ll redo their rooms while they’re away. Like you wanted. That should keep you busy, shouldn’t it? Choosing new linens and furniture?”
“That sounds lovely. They do work so hard for us, after all. And then we’ll begin planning for the building of my stables?”
Malcolm heaved a weary sigh and rubbed at his forehead.
“Is there something wrong?” Eliza bit her lip. “I thought we were going to break ground in the spring. Isn’t that still your plan?”
“You’ll be great with child by then, Eliza. Exertions can lead to early labor and stillbirth. We don’t want that, do we?” There he went again, talking to her as if she were a child and telling her what she needed.
“I’m feeling much better. And times are changing. Women no longer need to take to their beds throughout their confinement. Besides, I won’t be the one doing the work and exerting myself. You promised we would start on the stables in March. We should start looking for workers now, given our past troubles.”
He uncrossed his legs and crossed them again, fidgeting with his pipe. “I suppose I can inquire after workers. Anything to please my little wife.” He folded his newspaper across his lap and peered at her through a scrim of smoke. “Now, there’s a smile. You look so lovely when you smile. Tell me, did you smile so coyly when you went about seducing Eastleigh at the opera?”
Eliza’s face fell. So here it came at last. Her punishment. A roil of words rose up in her throat and burned on her tongue, full of retribution for his hypocrisy. Only the gentle stirring of the baby kept her silent.
“You didn’t think I’d find out about your little kiss, did you?” He laughed. “It was all over the papers. But it’s all right, darling. I’ve forgiven you. It’s all right now.” There was a demented gleam in his eye as he rose and came toward her. His pupils blackened, nearly swallowing the green of his irises. He leaned forward, his hands gripping the arms of her chair, trapping her. His breath was rancid. Sour. He patted the subtle curve of her belly. “I had a happy thought. As soon as this one has popped free, I’ll be crawling upon you to make another, I suppose. You’re always keen for a poke and tumble, aren’t you, darling?”
Eliza cringed away from him, repulsed by the coarseness of his words. As he stood to go, she spied a faint pinkish rash along the skin above his high collar. “You’ve a bit of a rash on your neck. I think you may be taking ill.”
Malcolm put a hand to his throat, his nostrils flaring. “Most certainly not. That woman only uses the wrong kind of starch. How many times have I told her? Mrs. Duncan, you may not use alum in my collars!”
Eliza pulled in a shaky breath. “I’ll make sure I remind her.”
“I’ll be off to bed, then,” Malcolm said, suddenly jaunty. “Can you have Turner cover the embers?”
“Of course.” He stalked out of the room, his gait swaying as he muttered to himself. Eliza picked up the tumbler from the table by his armchair and sniffed it. There was no trace of whisky. She pulled the bell rope and Turner came through. He knelt to rake ashes over the embers in the grate, tamping out the glowing coals with the back of the hearth shovel.
“Have you noticed anything off with his lordship lately, Turner?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, mum,” the butler said, brushing the ash from his livery as he stood. His eyes skittered past her own. Poor Turner hadn’t the hint of a poker face. He knew exactly what she meant.
“There was an incident on the train on the way back from Lord Eastleigh’s funeral. He took a fit and had to be sedated. And then tonight, he was in a strange mood. Haven’t you noticed him acting a bit nutty?”
“I suppose he has a lot on his mind. A man sometimes acts strange when he’s to be a father.”
“You’ve served this family for how many years, Turner?”
“Over thirty years.” The butler warily eyed her. “And a wonderful assignment it has been, mum.”
“Before Ada disappeared, did you ever hear her talk of another man? A man whose name started with M? Perhaps he was a Michael, or a Matthew?”
At the name “Matthew,” Turner blinked and cleared his throat, then bent to close the damper, fingertips fumbling. “No, mum. Never met or heard of any Michael or Matthew, apart from her ladyship’s father. Sir Matthew MacCulloch. He died when your husband was a boy.”
“It’s puzzling, you see. I’m being told different things by different people, and any clarity you could offer would be ever so helpful. I’ve a feeling you know more than you’re letting on.”
Turner heaved a sigh, as if defeated. He lowered his voice. “My lady, if I may say so, you are a right canny lass. This house has many shameful secrets. Some of those secrets were once perilous and needed to be kept for many, many years. That is no longer the case.” Turner gave a tremulous smile. “I’ll leave you with this: look about your chambers. Look closely. You will find the answers you’re seeking. And for your own good, the sooner you do so, the better.”
Eliza went to her room, clapping her hands over her ears to cut out the hissing of the gas jets in the hallway. All of her senses were heightened by her condition and it was beyond vexing. She closed her door and locked it, then turned the key to her overhead chandelier.
With her chambers fully lit, she set out with a methodical determination. She had no clue as to what she was looking for, but if this house had shown her anything, it was that it kept its most precious secrets well hidden. She moved across the room, palms flat against the velvet wallpaper, feeling for any abnormalities. When she came to the area across from her fireplace, she knocked, listening for any difference in the sound, just as she’d done with the other three walls. The surface bounced beneath her hand, as if there were nothing solid behind the wallpaper. Encouraged, she pushed harder. The fragile paper tore down its length, and Eliza nearly stumbled forward. Beyond the torn paper, a hollow had opened up. It was a hidden room.
Eliza lit her Tilley lantern, this time checking that its fuel chamber was full of paraffin. She slid her house slippers on over her stockings and went through the portal, her heart thudding. Inside, a kind of anteroom with a low ceiling led to a descending spiral of stone steps, the bottom obscured by a darkness deep as an oubliette.
“Old house, you are full of surprises.”
She picked her way down, counting as she went. There were thirty-three steps to the bottom, which meant she was probably beneath the main floor of the house. The basement. She was standing on a packed-dirt floor, in a passageway of sorts, the ceiling just a few inches above her head. The walls were made of dank, rough-hewn stone, and as she moved forward, the scent of loamy earth bloomed beneath her feet.
There were two directions she could go, both of them hidden in shadow.
She turned in a circle, holding the lantern at arm’s length. To her right, the hallway was lined with cobweb-shrouded wine racks, the necks of the bottles reaching out like blackened fingers. The other direction seemed barren apart from a few empty baskets and old fruit crates.
Beyond the wine cellar, the passageway continued, extending in a long, serpentine curve that canted slightly to the right the further she went. When she reached the end of the corridor, there was another spiral staircase—an identical twin to the other.
Eliza grasped the metal railing and went up, the rusty iron creaking under her hands, each step an exercise in anxiety. When she reached the top, she found a trapdoor closed with a hinged hasp. She set the lantern on the top step and, using both hands, rocked the hasp back and forth until the rust welding it to the peg flaked free. She pushed, fighting against an unseen obstruction. The hatch opened and fell back with a loud crash, kicking up a musty cloud that smelled of ashes.
“Oh my God.”
She was in the south wing, emerging into an empty room that was a mirror image of her own.
Eliza craned her neck and hoisted herself through the trapdoor’s opening, listening. There was music, soft and low, with an occasional crackle interrupting the sweeping melody. It was a gramophone. Playing Chopin. “Hello?” she called, swinging the lantern in an arc as her voice echoed around her. Her footsteps sent up another cloud of black dust. The entire floor was covered with ash. She tilted her chin back and looked up, casting the arc of yellow-orange light from the lantern above her. Singed, bubbling wallpaper scarred the walls. There was no ceiling; only the attic rafters rose high above her head. Eliza wondered if the fire had started in this room and raged outward from it. Had this been Gabriel’s room? Or Lord Havenwood’s? She carefully picked her way forward, her feet sliding along the floor, following the muffled sound of the piano concerto.
“Hello?” she called again, projecting her voice. The music abruptly stopped, as if someone had heard her and lifted the stylus from the disc. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she held her breath to listen. Her eyes searched the room, seeking the source of the music. There was nothing.
Until there was.
Eliza heard the ghost before she saw it.
There was a gentle sweeping hiss from the corner of the room, as if the hem of a dress was being dragged across the floor. She froze as a shadow the color of the soot at her feet uncurled and floated before the window, its contours vaguely shaped like those of a woman. Ice ran along Eliza’s spine and every hair on her arms stood up at once.
The shade floated past the window, its movement setting the remnants of the fire-scalded drapes aflutter. The moonlight shining through the ragged fabric blinked as the ghost went past, as if a living person of flesh and blood had walked in front of her, blocking out the light.
The cold in the room became a void. Eliza whimpered and stepped backward. The ghost turned its countenance to her, amorphous in the dim light, dark hollows where eyes had once been, and extended its arm.
Eliza followed the ghost’s gesture, rooted to the spot, her breath coming in small, sharp pants. It was pointing to the adjoining parlor, where Eliza could see the yawning mouth of a fireplace.
“What is it?” she stammered. “Beatrice? What are you trying to tell me?”
The specter turned away from her with a lingering look. Sadness pierced Eliza, as if she could feel what the spirit was feeling . . . as if she’d lost someone dear to her. The tangy scent of birch leaves briefly wafted through the room. Then, as if it were ash dissolving in a dish of water, the spirit disintegrated, leaving Eliza’s heart in a gallop.
She pushed through her fear and dashed to the parlor, nearly stumbling over a toppled, broken chair, its upholstery ragged and torn. She went to the fireplace and peered into it. The damper was open, funneling cold air through its baffles, a rectangle of star-filled sky at its top. She ran her frantic fingers around the brick lining, feeling for anything out of the ordinary.
Ah-ha! One of the bricks above her head felt loose, its edge out of alignment with the rest. Eliza excitedly pried at the brick, rocking it from side to side. With a crumble of mortar, it came loose in her hand. She carefully laid it in the grate, then walked her fingers into the opening, expecting spiders and centipedes. Instead, she felt a smooth metal box. It was a cigarette tin. “Thank you, Beatrice,” she whispered.
Eliza hurriedly snatched the box free from the hollow and backed away from the fireplace. Too late, she remembered the decrepit chair was behind her, and she stumbled over it, her hip slamming into the floor. The lantern rolled to the other side of the room. Its molten paraffin sloshed from the globe and the flame within it turned from yellow to blue. Suddenly, a muffled shouting channeled through the chimney. Whoever—or whatever—it was had heard her.
Eliza breathed in and out, the tin clutched to her breast. The acrid fear of a prey animal sliced through her, souring her sweat. Should she run for the hatch? Remain still? With a final steadying breath, she crept toward the trapdoor on hands and knees, her fingers sinking into soot, not realizing until it was too late that the hem of her nightdress had caught on the splintered chair arm. A high-pitched screech came as the chair dragged on the floor behind her. Eliza winced, vowing to chop the wretched thing into kindling.
There was a creaking, then the slamming of a door downstairs—it was the main entrance to the south wing’s vestibule. Footsteps pounded, running now, the sound growing louder by the second. Malcolm. Eliza yanked her nightgown free and stumbled to her feet, raw fear propelling her forward. She seized the handle of the toppled lantern and shimmied down the spiral staircase. As her feet hit the ground, a menacing growl echoed from abovestairs.
Eliza took off at a run down the meandering passageway, ignoring the pain searing her bruised hip. What would he do, if he found her here? Poised, as he seemed to be, on the brink of madness? Eliza did not want to find out.
She raced up the groaning secret staircase that led to her room, comforted by the safety of warm light and familiar surroundings. She slammed the door and, with more strength than she realized she possessed, pushed her armoire across the floor to cover the hole in the wall. She piled anything else she could find—books, her dressing table, and even her washstand—in front of it. She stood perfectly still, holding her breath and listening. There was nothing but the incessant hiss of the gas jets and the clicking of a tree limb against her windowpane.
Eliza sat in her armchair to face the makeshift barricade, wielding a fireplace poker like a queen’s scepter. Though her eyes grew heavy and sleep threatened to steal her vigilance, she denied its temptation until dawn crept across the floor, blazing silver bright and cold.