Chapter 4
CHAPTER
Four
The dispirited warmth of the Drowning House failed to soothe Jane’s shivering as she stepped into the foyer.
Rain and mud dripped off her in fat tears to paint the floor with earthy stains.
She winced at her mess and decided that she would offer to clean it for Mrs. Foster.
After removing her hat (and taking a moment to mourn how sadly the tinseled feathers drooped), she shook any remaining dampness from her hair.
From deeper within the house was the resounding opening and closing of a door, followed by a chorus of exasperated gasps and frightened murmuring. Jane hurried down the hall to join them.
When she entered the kitchen, Mrs. Foster, the cook Ms. Hudson, and Terence were huddled around Ruben, faces pale and worry etched into their brows.
The two women looked as though they were prepared to leave, draped in cloaks and gripping umbrellas.
If the seething hisses sharpening their whispers meant anything, they weren’t enthused that they couldn’t leave sooner—or rather at all.
Jane tapped a knuckle against the wooden chopping block in the kitchen’s center, and all whipped their attention to her so fiercely she swore she heard bones snap.
Whatever color remained in their faces leached away in an instant.
Silence echoed against the kitchen’s tiles, broken only by a rumbling chuckle of thunder outside.
She showed them her palms and flashed her teeth in a smile. “Easy, now, I’m no ghost,” she then made a rueful gesture to the mud trailing behind her. “If you’ll allow me a couple minutes I’ll clean this for you—”
Terence had crossed the room and took hold of her arm, not hard enough to bruise, but she knew she couldn’t break away even if she wanted to. “You must leave,” he said in a voice that creaked behind his teeth.
Jane popped her lips open to speak, but Ruben interjected with an exacerbated groan.
“And where to, Mr. Hayes? I already told you: the road was flooded,” he raised a hand toward a window blotted by the storm’s darkness before slapping it down against trousers thick with mud. “We were barely able to get Mistletoe freed and it’d be a miracle if the cab isn’t wholly drowned by now.”
“We nearly drowned ourselves,” Jane added pointedly. Clumps of mud started to crust in her hair, beneath her nails. “Do you expect me to trek all the way back to Wolf’s Run while your swamp of a yard is trying to eat me whole?”
“We will all need to stay the night,” Ruben muttered; Mrs. Foster and Ms. Hudson lost their pallor before exchanging more choked whimpers. “Roads are washed out, and we’ve no transport.”
Terence at last let go of Jane and raked a hand through his hair, inhaling deeply.
His lips were white as if he were on the verge of throwing up.
He looked to his staff with another shuddering sigh.
“You three know what to do, and I expect you to show Jane to a guest room, please,” he dismissed them with a curt nod. “Rest safely, all of you.”
Jane’s throat suddenly went dry and she squeezed her hands atop her chest. Know how to do what?
He waited for them all to clear out, and it was Mrs. Foster, still in a dark riding cloak, who replaced his grip on Jane’s arm, ushering her from the kitchen as he watched them go.
“What was that all about?” Jane whispered.
When Mrs. Foster failed to offer an immediate answer, instead choosing to fidget with the lace of her sleeves, Jane frowned.
The woman gnawed on her thin lip for a moment before finally speaking, “Mr. Hayes is just anxious about the storm. He cares for us deeply, as you can see, and would rather us not travel in the night and the rain. We’re the only family we have for one another, and he wants to do what’s best for our safety, Miss Sterling.
I know little of what superstitions you Americans hold but here in Wolf’s Run we fear the night—and all the things birthed in its darkness. ”
“Rightfully so.” Ms. Hudson sniffed as they made their way upstairs. Her auburn brow was settled in a glowering line.
“Georgianna!” Mrs. Foster seethed in warning.
“We got ourselves three rules around here for at night,” Ms. Hudson continued, looking at Jane.
“If you think you have heard something outside your window, draw the curtains and return to bed; do not look too deep into the darkness, for it will stare right back at you; and, most importantly, never, ever leave your room until you are certain that is daylight that spills across your bedspread.” She held up a thick finger as she listed each rule.
“I do not know what darkness you Americans know of, but here you must be afraid of the dark, respect whatever lives in the dark because the dark wants to hunt you, it wants to gut you—”
“Georgianna, that is enough!” Mrs. Foster hissed again, gripping Jane’s shoulders to steer her down the hall toward a washroom; the hallway was as soulless and sad as the rest of the house with its periwinkle wallpaper and absence of decor.
The cook only grumbled in response before trudging to one of the several doors lining the hallway.
What would happen if I felt like leaving my room at night? Jane wanted to ask out of defiance and to dampen the worried flame smoldering in her throat. Certainly, the world wouldn’t end, would it?
In the washroom was a claw-footed tub along a wall with large, arching windows facing the darkness of the marshes.
Lightning illuminated pale tiles that smelled of the same over-powering vinegar cleaning solution as in the entrance hall.
What looked to be rusted stains oozed down the linoleum in tails of dark brown, as if the walls had once bled.
“Wash up, quickly, and we will find night clothes for you, Miss Sterling,” Mrs. Foster said and started running water.
“But what of Ruben?” Jane asked, already undressing down to her chemise.
Urgency—along with anxiety inspired by Ms. Hudson’s warnings and everyone’s seemingly newfound panic—fueled her limbs, making every movement a fevered jerk.
“Shouldn’t he have a chance to clean and warm himself in the bath as well? ”
The smell of jasmine and clove permeated the air as Mrs. Foster added soap to the bath—too much of it, Jane decided, as the scents had come to be overpowering.
“There is no time—” (No time? Jane swallowed in a silent plea for answers.)“He will be alright, Miss Sterling, now wash up—quickly!” Mrs. Foster was swift in her departure once she, wordlessly, gathered Jane’s soiled clothing and left her to bathe.
Wind rattled the windows as Jane sank into the water, savoring the heat that burned her skin.
She thought about her mother, then, as she began to scrub away mud with her nails, and worried.
No one would have been able to inform Mrs. Sterling as to why Jane hadn’t returned to the hotel.
She hadn’t caught sight of or heard any signs of a telegraph or phone wired in the house.
Surely Mrs. Sterling wouldn’t mind her being gone for one night, and with respectable company, too.
The Sterlings weren’t as inclined to seeing men and women together—alone—and assuming some sort of scandal.
Scandal.
Jane’s fingers paused clawing away filth.
She wondered if whatever caused the sudden panic that’d gripped the house was something scandalous.
As much as she enjoyed the gossip of a good scandal, she refrained from ruminating on the idea for too long as she wasn’t quite ready to sour her image of Terence just yet and she wished to enjoy this bath, no matter how fleeting or strange its circumstances were.
By morning, the storm would be over and Jane would be brought back to Cambridge in one piece.
She tried to ignore the creeping sadness chilling the bathwater as she started to realize that this would be the first time she was to spend a night somewhere without any family.
No mother or father, no Meredith or Emmy, not even Mr. Thompson.
For the first time in her twenty-four years, she was utterly alone.
And, to her surprise, she hated it. As much as her sisters were competition and her mother an incessant whisper, they were comforting constants, they were her companions and family nonetheless.
It felt like only seconds passed before Mrs. Foster returned with a white nightgown draped in the crook of her arm.
“Out, Miss Sterling, out,” she shooed Jane along. Some strands of hair had come undone from her bonnet, giving her an even more frazzled appearance, as she assisted Jane out of the tub and into the awaiting nightgown.
“I’m not taking this from anyone, am I?” Jane asked as the dress hung loosely from her frame, so long that it trailed on the floor behind her. She held a heavy fistful of fabric to ensure she wouldn’t trip on the excess skirt. A mane of dusty lace made her throat and jawline itch.
“Oh, no, no. This house has seen a plethora of staff, and some things are bound to be left behind,” Mrs. Foster said a little too simply.
She led Jane to a circular, desolate room.
The wallpaper was the same lonely periwinkle-blue as the rest of the house, as were the sheets on the narrow bed.
Jane’s bag sat beside the nightstand, upon which was a single gas lamp.
There was no other furniture or decoration.
The air smelled of dust and melancholy. It was a sight more fitting to a sanitorium cell than an Englishman’s estate.
Not at all like her room back in Milwaukee, with its coral-colored wallpaper, plush pink bedspreads, and a view of Lake Michigan she could observe from a balcony she had decorated with roses and lilies in the summer months.
Jane resisted the urge to grimace. Her first night alone, and this was where she was expected to sleep?
“Right,” Mrs. Foster said, and she fumbled with the keys on her chatelaine. “I pray that you rest safely, Miss Sterling.”
Before Jane could even turn to thank Mrs. Foster for her kindness or to bid her a good-night, the door slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness, and the key turned in the lock with a resounding clank.