Whispers at Midnight (5 page)

Her letter to Gardner had said she would
arrive in September, but it had taken only a few months to settle
her mother’s estate. She gave a brittle laugh that sounded lost in
the darkness. Settling the estate amounted to selling everything
she could find to cover bills and debts. Her mother’s extravagance
had been her greatest fault.

Not so with Aunt Elise; she had no such
faults, unless one could count generosity. Perhaps her mother had
known about Elise’s will, but Amanda had known nothing of her
inheritance until sometime after the funerals, when she had
received a letter from Aunt Elise’s solicitor. Perhaps Aunt Elise
had experienced a premonition of death and that was why she had
come to London for that last visit. But who could know? In any
event she had endeared herself to Amanda long years ago.
Consequently Amanda had lost in a single tragedy the two people who
meant most to her.

Aunt Elise had been in London less than a
fortnight when both she and Sarah were killed when their carriage
overturned. Witnesses to the tragedy had reported the carriage was
involved in a race with another to prove who had the better team.
Had the women not attended the house party at Lord Connington’s
estate, they might both be alive. Instead they had died on a dusty
road outside London. Elise’s body had been sent to Ireland for
burial. Sarah’s funeral had been a public affair in London. She had
been popular with theatergoers and most of the city.

Since then Sarah’s friends had dwindled away
and Amanda and Elizabeth had been left with barely enough money to
book two passages to Virginia. Thankfully Elizabeth had a sister in
Philadelphia who would welcome her.

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!

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?