Whispers at Midnight (2 page)

A coolness moved suddenly through his body.
Ahead he saw a bright golden glow through half-open eyes, and
crawled toward it.

“At last,” he whispered, believing he had
found the gold as he reached into the torch flame. But John Mott
did not feel the searing heat on his hand. He was dead.

***

Evelyn Wicklow walked to one corner of the
damp, dark cell where John Mott had imprisoned her. She pressed the
ruby heart to her lips, then let it fall softly against her breast.
Calmly she sank to the cold stone floor. She did not know or care
if the passing moments grew into hours or days. In time, Jubal
would find her. But she had no wish to live any longer while she
tarried.

“I will wait for you, Jubal,” she whispered
as her spirit gathered itself for flight. A moment later a pale
shadow passed through the door of darkness and Evelyn Wicklow
died.

July 1770

The darkness was damp and oppressive and hung
round the neglected grounds of Wicklow House like a shroud. Only a
few beams of moonlight illuminated the path as Amanda Fairfax
jumped down from the mud-spattered carriage that had brought her
and her companion on the twelve-mile trek from Williamsburg,
Virginia. The heavy blackness gave her the feeling of being at the
bottom of a dark pool with all the world up above. Nevertheless, in
an odd way it seemed exciting to arrive at this old house in the
dead of night when its bleak, wet surroundings seemed so
unnatural.

Was it her imagination that a nebulous glow
momentarily shone from the spires of the twin towers of Wicklow as
she turned about? If so, then there was no accounting for the
nervous movements of the horses, which by right should have been
too tired for the restlessness they suddenly displayed.

The house was no ordinary one, to be sure,
not stately, and lacking the grace of many of the homes she had
seen in Virginia since the vessel
Devon Gate
brought them up
the James River. Wicklow had a style that drew threads of terror
through the mind, the way it sprawled possessively over the hilltop
and sometimes looked as if it would swallow up any who came near.
Perhaps it was exactly that which made Wicklow repellent—that it
looked as if it were a house that owned its inhabitants rather than
the other way around.

Amanda’s lids fluttered over her green eyes
for a moment. Rumors abounded concerning Wicklow, and seeing it at
night—unlit and untended—she did not wonder at them. One claimed a
treasure of gold and other riches had been hidden and lost nearly
half a century ago when the first owner had been killed in a duel.
Another claimed Jubal Wicklow’s ghost haunted the house, guarding
the gold and warning away any who sought it. Others said the house
bore a curse and that no owner would live out a full life. That was
the rumor Amanda most wished she had not heard, for she sensed
there was some truth to it.

Jubal Wicklow, thin and tall, treads the
shadows of Wicklow’s halls.
The words brought her a degree of
apprehension and she wished the silly rhyme would not stick in her
mind like a tiny thorn. She hadn’t been able to forget the ditty
since a fellow traveler on the ship from England had recited it to
her. She laughed lightly. Jubal Wicklow must have been a frightful
character to have inspired such remembrances.

Pressing her lips together so that she
wouldn’t speak the rhyme aloud, Amanda lifted her skirts to avoid a
puddle and turned to help Elizabeth Slater from the carriage. She
knew from the expression on Elizabeth’s face that the rhyme was
running through her head as well.

The old woman sat placidly as her eyes
darted over the front of Wicklow, finally fastening on the big
oaken front doors crossed by black iron bands and with sharp studs
protruding from the heavy wood.

“It’s ugly and it’s evil.” Elizabeth’s
wrinkled old face bent into a frown. Reluctantly she allowed
herself to be helped down. Once out of the carriage, she shuddered
and drew a heavy shawl over her stooped shoulders. “Amanda, we
can’t stay here.” Her faded gray eyes looked pleadingly at the
bright-faced young woman standing impatiently beside her.

“Nonsense, Elizabeth, it’s my home now,”
Amanda said somewhat sharply, surprised that Elizabeth’s words had
suddenly stirred her sense of pride. And yet she was pleased that
they had, for despite the house’s look of inelegance, from the
moment she had set her feet to the ground she had become a part of
Wicklow and it of her. The feeling was a good one, and new. She
found herself growing anxious to step through the front doors and
into the shelter of her home.

Amanda signaled the driver to set the trunk
and baggage beside the sheltered front door as she gave only a
passing glance to the timid Elizabeth.

The sight of Wicklow had raked all the
fatigue from her body and now she was fairly bursting with
excitement. She knew Elizabeth had been in a constant state of
terror since they left London and she had long since given up
trying to reassure the old woman. Dear old Elizabeth had been her
mother’s companion for years, had stayed with Sarah Fairfax out of
loyalty long after she should have put aside the strenuous demands
of attending a famous but temperamental actress.

Sarah Fairfax had promised Elizabeth a
tempting sum to stay on just a little longer. But at her death,
Sarah had left only a score of debts and now Elizabeth was as
disillusioned as Amanda to find herself penniless and alone in the
world. Poor creature, she had expected the bonanza Sarah promised
to see her through her waning years. But the money had simply been
all gone.

Amanda paid the driver from the few coins in
her purse, then climbed the slippery stone steps that led to the
entrance. She wasn’t expected in Williamsburg for some months yet,
and to her knowledge there was only Aunt Elise’s old housekeeper
staying at Wicklow. But as she glanced up quickly, she thought she
saw a shadow pass one of the three round windows set high above the
doors.

Amanda had the peculiar feeling someone had
been watching from that window and waiting for her carriage. Yet
when she stopped and peered up she saw only three blackened rounds
of glass laced over with ornate iron grillwork. There was no moving
shadow.

Forgetting Elizabeth for a moment, Amanda
pounded a tarnished brass knocker on the heavy-timbered door. As
she waited for a response, Wicklow commanded her full attention.
How strange that such a house could look as if it had thoughts and
feelings of its own. Wicklow tonight had a sad, blank look as if it
were in mourning. The woeful appearance disturbed Elizabeth.

Amanda, getting no answer to her knocking,
stepped down several steps until she could see the entire front of
the house once more. It was true Wicklow was foreboding, especially
now as the brick, wet from a day’s rain, shone blood-red in the
moonlight. The brass-covered onion domes atop the twin towers had
aged to an odious green. Water dripped from them in slow, twisting
streams. The towers seemed to spiral so high they menaced the heavy
gray clouds that rolled wildly above the roof line.

Below the towers a dense growth of ivy clung
to the front walls and had taken over too much of the house. The
thick mat of vines threatened to ensnare the front door, and one
would not be able to go in or out without feeling the touch of
trailing green tendrils.

Elizabeth, beside her, had begun to shiver
and was eyeing the front door nervously. Amanda gave her a
reassuring smile and started back up the stone steps, her thoughts
again on Jubal Wicklow, who had built the house fifty years ago. He
had taken great liberties in combining architectural styles. The
result was a miscreant mix of Irish manor house and Byzantine
castle that had resulted in a monstrous structure unequaled in its
oddities.

“Stop the carriage, Amanda!” Elizabeth, her
face frantic, waved to the driver, who at the same moment cracked
his whip over the team’s heads and pulled away from the house. “We
can find an inn at Williamsburg.” She shivered and turned her back
on the high red walls of Wicklow.

“Too late, Elizabeth, the carriage is gone.”
Amanda could hear the horses’ hooves splashing through puddles and
the laboring wheels cutting a path through a layer of mud in the
narrow lane that led to the town road. As the carriage disappeared,
it seemed to draw the faint moonlight with it and soon she and
Elizabeth were standing in a great gulf of blackness that pressed
down on them like the murky, secret depths of the ocean.

“Oh, my soul,” Elizabeth’s mournful voice
whined out in the darkness as she twisted the brass knobs on the
door. “We’re locked out.” Why hadn’t she left Amanda in
Williamsburg instead of coming to this awful place? The girl wasn’t
her responsibility anymore, not since Sarah Fairfax had died and
left them both nearly destitute. Still, she had not been able to
face traveling to the colonies alone and had felt it her duty to
see Amanda settled in her new home before she went on to her sister
in Philadelphia.

Elizabeth shivered more violently beneath
her shawl. Amanda deserved more than the handful of debts Sarah
Fairfax had left her. Poor, poor Sarah, Elizabeth thought, sealing
her eyes shut tight as she huddled close to Amanda. If only she had
possessed one-tenth the common sense of little Amanda, she’d have
been a wealthy woman instead of one who only gave the illusion of
wealth.

Still, Elizabeth reasoned, illusion had been
Sarah Fairfax’s greatness and she had needed nothing more. It had
been Sarah’s way to draw strength and support from those around
her, like she had from Amanda. Sarah’s demands for attention and
devotion had all but denied Amanda any existence of her own.
Elizabeth wrung her hands. What was to become of Amanda now, when
all she had in the world was this ugly monster called Wicklow
House?

“I have a key, Elizabeth, but it seemed best
to knock first.” Elise had given her the key in London not long
before she died. As Elizabeth watched, she twisted it in the lock
and swung the heavy door open, surprised that it opened
soundlessly.

Amanda entered, then looked quickly back,
thinking Elizabeth had called her name. But when she asked,
Elizabeth shook her head negatively and Amanda was left wondering
if her mind had taken a flight of fancy. She had the peculiar
feeling that she had been expected after all, and yet it was
apparent from the dust covers over the furnishings and from those
which protected the chandeliers that no one was there.

A faint glimmer of light flickered from a
single candle that burned in the cavernous front hall. Amanda took
several more steps.

“No one is here,” Elizabeth said fearfully,
hesitating on the threshold.

“No. And I did not expect anyone. Though I
am sure old Gussie is in her rooms over the kitchen. She has stayed
on, I understand, since the house was closed.” Amanda bustled about
lighting more candles until the great hall was flooded with a
golden glow of light. “Aunt Elise told me about her. She keeps the
place.” Amanda seized Elizabeth by the arm and drew her inside,
shutting and locking the door behind her. “No doubt she’s sleeping.
We won’t give her a fright by waking her in the middle of the
night. We’ll go right upstairs and get you to bed.”

Elizabeth put her hands to her heart and
shook piteously.

“I won’t close my eyes with that thing in
the house,” she moaned, and stood transfixed to the floor, her eyes
directed to a huge wooden figure that rose fifteen feet from the
slate floor and ruled the space between the double staircases. But
for its size, it looked horribly real, the face dark and the large
glass eyes angrily reflecting the candlelight, the mouth set in a
dour line.

“The Turkish King,” Amanda said, admiring
the grim-faced statue with its painted robes of saffron and red and
the bright painted-on jewels of the turban. “Isn’t it
beautiful?”

“It’s hideous. This house is hideous.”
Elizabeth’s weary eyes roamed the great hall with its dark polished
teakwood walls and filigreed enamel panels in jewel colors. Black
urns, filled with peacock feathers fanned out to show their
glorious colors, sat in rows against the walls. Stairs of black
slate seemed to float in a graceful curve to the second floor.
Rails, braced over more of the filigreed panels, were lacquered in
bright scarlet. The hall had a sort of mystic beauty, Elizabeth
admitted, but it reminded her of a pagan temple. She imagined she
could feel evil seeping from every cranny and corner of the strange
house.

Trembling, Elizabeth half-expected to see a
swarm of turbaned priests step out of the shadows to sacrifice the
two of them to the wooden idol that glowered menacingly at
them.

Elizabeth’s voice wavered. “Amanda, you
can’t live here. Remember what the man on the ship said. The place
has ghosts. He said there was a curse and that something dreadful
has happened to everyone who owned this house.”

“That was only a lot of talk, Elizabeth,”
Amanda said gently. “You can’t believe in curses. There is always a
sensible explanation for everything. Ghosts are generally the
result of someone playing a prank or of a too-stimulated
imagination,” she said.

Amanda felt a touch of weariness and sighed.
How could two people look at the same things and feel so
differently about them? The very things about Wicklow that bothered
Elizabeth gave Amanda a sense of exhilaration. She should never
have let Elizabeth listen to the talk on the ship. The poor old
dear was really afraid.

Every old house had its legends, and
naturally Wicklow had more than its share because it was so
different. The stories of the ghost of Jubal Wicklow, who had been
killed in a duel, were to be expected, as were the tales of strange
whispers said to float unexpectedly through the dark halls. But
like most such stories, the tales had no basis.