Chapter 22 #3
There was silence, then heavy footfalls. Lisan shrank away from the door and felt her way along the dim corridor, slipping
down the servants’ staircase just as Mason came out. Back in her room, she thought of Mason, his voice so rich and amiable
when he was out to charm. This time, that rich voice had been edged with anger and it made Lisan worry for Caroline. Did her
employer recognize the threat in his words?
It was the sobbing that woke Lisan. She had meant to close her eyes for a moment, but against her will, sleep had overtaken
her. And now it was as though she’d been jerked out of a hazy memory. Where was it coming from? Caroline was the only other
woman in the house. Lisan hesitated, then swung her legs out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown to walk along the hallway.
The lights in the hallway were off and she put her hand against the wall as she moved along the corridor toward the light
switch. The cries seemed softer, fading as she reached the main staircase, then stopped. Had she been imagining them? Oh,
she was truly going mad.
A chilling draft pushed its way through gaps in window and door frames, gusts from the north that bent the pointed tips of cypress trees and shook the weeping willows until their branches swayed like the unkempt locks of a woman in mourning.
She returned to her bedroom and fell asleep, the crying still echoing in her dreams.
Her legs ache from climbing the staircase. Someone’s hand grasps hers tightly, and now that she knows more, she wonders if
the hand belongs to one of her older sisters or her mother. But she is trapped in this dream and she can’t look up. Sounds
of gunfire echo just as she comes out of the stairwell.
And then she is climbing a different staircase. She recognizes that it’s the main staircase at Lennox Manor and the dream
pushes her along the hallway and she opens the door to the small parlor.
The room looks different, and after a moment she realizes why. Rosalie’s portrait hangs above the fireplace mantel. Why hadn’t
she realized before that the portrait was meant to hang above the fireplace? And now, she is seated in a chair across from
the fireplace, back rigid and stomach churning with dread. She looks down at her hands in wonder, at the gold ring on her
left hand, at the rubies on her wrists, at the dress she’s wearing, red silk. Charles likes her in red. A young man is pounding
his fists against the marble mantelpiece. He turns around, eyes blazing and unfocused, face unshaven. He grabs a pewter vase
from the mantel and smashes it on the marble.
A corner of the mantel falls to the floor. He drops the vase and stumbles to her, puts his head in her lap, begs forgiveness.
She watches madness take hold of Charles, feels her heart gripped by sorrow, recognition that her love for him is now submerged
beneath a crust of fear.
Lisan woke to the sound of window shutters rattling in the wind.
She lay stiffly under the covers waiting for terror to subside.
At long last, a faint glow of daylight crept through the curtains.
Morning arrived and sunshine brought sanity.
She pulled open the drapes and scolded herself for the absurd worries she’d entertained while lying in the dark.
She dressed and ran some cold water in the bathroom basin and splashed her face.
Her reflection in the mirror extinguished what little assurance she had managed to coax into being.
Haggard features looked back at her as she brushed her teeth, and the dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises.
She had lost weight in just the short time she’d been at Lennox Manor.
Rinsing a small facecloth in cold water, she returned to her room and lay down with the towel folded over her eyes.
Her nightmares were bleeding into each other. She couldn’t let the servants know what was plaguing her, for they’d take it
as evidence of evil spirits and they would flee, leaving the Stantons without staff. As for Yao, she desperately wanted to
confide in him, but he was so sensible; she couldn’t bear it if he thought she was being hysterical.
She would continue on, stand with a straight back and smiling lips, concentrate fiercely on the task at hand, whether it was
taking notes or writing out invitations in perfect penmanship or just listening to Caroline talk. And if there were dark circles
under her eyes, her expression would be alert, her movements precise. She wouldn’t let Caroline know, not when her husband
lay ill. She couldn’t let anyone think she was going mad.
In a week’s time she might not even be here anymore, she could be on a ship steaming across the Pacific.
Yet each time the thought of leaving Lennox Manor came to mind, a dreadful urgency pressed down on her.
Reading Rosalie’s diary had made things worse.
She wouldn’t do it anymore, she would not.
Yet even as she glanced at the clock and saw she had a half hour before going down to breakfast, she reached for the French dictionary, her hand moving as though compelled.
She forced herself away from the desk, then hurried to Caroline’s parlor. There was something she just had to know. She looked
at the corner of the pink marble mantel over the fireplace. It wasn’t broken. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned to leave,
then paused. She turned on the floor lamp beside the fireplace and looked more closely.
There was a crack visible in the pink marble where the corner had been mended.