Authors: Donna Lea Simpson
“Miss Stanwycke,” he said. “I am worried. Do these precious people appear all right to you?”
“What do you mean, sir?” she asked.
“Is something wrong?” he asked quietly, turning to her, his ovoid face shiny with perspiration from his efforts with the fire screen. “I have the terrible sense that all is not right with my dearest family.”
“Have… have you ever felt this way before?”
He shrewdly glanced at her and then back at the others. “Many times has this family suffered.
First, fifteen years ago, when so much tragedy…” He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. “But this last while, with poor, dear Gerta and Charlotte… both of them not well. Is it some family weakness, I ask myself? Or is there something else, something that haunts this whole family?”
He was so close to the truth, and she didn’t know if she most wished him to guess or not guess. She had sworn to take no one else into her confidence, but he was so close. “Do you…
are you postulating that the two things are connected, sir?”
His black eyes widened. “Connected? The tragedies of long ago and the young women of the household’s illness?”
She had said too much; she didn’t even know what she was guessing at herself and did not want to imply that she did. Shaking her head, she said, “No, that is far too great a chance, is it not? It is impossible to suppose.”
“I do not see why you would even consider such a thing,” he said, his eyes wide in wonder.
“Unless…” He leaned toward her. “Have you heard or seen anything? Have you learned something?”
“No, nothing at all,” she said, turning her gaze to him and meeting his eyes. “Not a thing.”
She was beginning to imagine conspiracies everywhere, she thought in despair, for she could have sworn she saw a hint of suspicion in his expression. Her wretched imagination was running wild.
The next few days passed easily enough. Charlotte was finally well enough to be up and around, but Elizabeth didn’t even attempt to resume their lessons. Instead she asked if Charlotte would like to go up and sit with the Countess Uta and Frau Liebner. The girl, still wan but with a sharper gleam in her eyes than Elizabeth thought had ever been present, said,
“Only if the old ladies will tell some of the ancient stories.”
“I think you might convince Countess Uta to divulge some tales if you ask prettily. You may think her a bloodthirsty old dame,” Elizabeth added, with a soft smile, “but she was very concerned for you when you were ill.”
Ignoring the last addition, Charlotte slowly rose and indicated her readiness to visit her great aunt, then said, “May we ask Meli to join us? She’s so worried for her father and the diversion may do her well.”
“I think that would be a lovely idea,” Elizabeth said, pleased to acknowledge such a kindness, although she knew that even in her time of worry Melisande Davidovich had not shunned her daily visits to the grand dame of the household.
And so they took tea with Countess Uta and Frau Liebner.
The elderly countess had been examining her old jewelry, heavy monstrosities in gold and silver, laden with dusty gems and enameled panels. “Much of dis will be yours someday, Charlotte,” she said, holding one particularly hideous piece up close to her eyes, pawing it with her crooked fingers.
“Thank you, aunt, but… but please feel able to give it away elsewhere.”
“I would not think of it. Family is all we haf, my girl.” She tossed the piece to Charlotte and said, “What do you think of dat, eh? What a wonderful piece of work!” , Charlotte held it up. “It is truly awful!”
“What is it?” Melisande asked, leaning forward.
“It is… a wolf’s head?” Charlotte said, grimacing.
“Of course,” Uta said. “It is family pin. We are descended from wolves and ravens, you see, from the animals of the forest and the air. And back to dem we shall go someday.”
“I am not going to be a dirty dog, nor a molting pigeon.”
Uta’s expression grew grim. “Disrespectful you may be, my girl, but dere was a time when the family history was not so, when dis family was about to perish, and it was only our ability to become other dan we are dat saved us.”
“What do you mean, ma’am?” Elizabeth asked, watching the interest sharpen on Melisande’s face and happy to see something other than worry there.
“I mean in the old times, many years ago—three hundred, perhaps more—dis castle was under invasion from the barbarians from the east, near Berlin. Long ago the chief of dis place was Friedrich Jakob von Wolfram, but laying claim to the castle was one Arndt von Bruckstadt. And he brought his army and he lay siege in the depth of terrible winter, but Freidrich left the castle in the night through… through a secret way he knew, and he entered the forest where Bruckstadt’s men were sleeping, waiting for morning’s light, and as he ran, he donned a pelt, the pelt of a gray wolf, and he said a spell and became a wolf, for truly we are a family of wolves and ravens, powerful and swift.”
Elizabeth glanced at the girls and had to suppress a grin. So, it was old fairy stories that could capture their interest like nothing else. And there was no one who could tell a tale like Uta, her gritty, heavy accents perfect for relating tales of ancient enmities and dark lore.
“He became a wolf?” Charlotte whispered. “How is that so?”
Uta waited one long moment and then said, “Werewolf! Half human, half animal, a terrible state, but when his family was threatened, Freidrich had no choice but to become dat awful, soulless beast.”
Frau Liebner shook her head. “I heard this story first from your grandfather, Charlotte, but in his relation the hordes at the gate were from Poland and the siege occurred in summer.”
That deflated the mood of tension, and Elizabeth sighed as Melisande and Charlotte giggled.
“Imagine a man becoming a wolf!” Charlotte laughed, her blue eyes sparkling like sapphires.
“I once had a governess who believed all of the silly old tales, and she said I should be stolen away by imps if I did not do as I was told.”
“My mama told me that fairies had kissed me as I slept, and that was what the little freckles on my cheeks were from,” Melisande said, her smile fading, perhaps as she remembered her mother.
Charlotte squeezed her arm and laid her head on her friend’s shoulder. Elizabeth watched and saw a difference in her pupil. There was a clarity in her gaze and a buoyancy in her manner that had never, to her view, been present. She exchanged a glance with Frau Liebner, who was observing her niece, too.
Had Charlotte been systematically drugged for months? Was that the sole source of her lethargy? But if that was so, who had done it? And why?
After dinner that evening Elizabeth sat alone for a few minutes in her own room, trying to formulate a plan to protect both Gerta and Charlotte from some unseen and unknown enemy.
As many times as she had tried to come up with a reasonable theory that would explain the horrors that had befallen this family, she had failed. The serving staff she did not suspect.
Their movements were too circumscribed, and they just did not have enough freedom to do all that must have been done if one was to believe in some concerted plotting.
That left the family members and those guests who were present: Adele, Gerta, Nikolas, Bartol Liebner, Christoph, Charlotte, Melisande Davidovich, Count Delacroix, and Cesare Vitali. She curled up in the window seat and gazed out over the darkening landscape and tried to order her thoughts in a logical manner. Charlotte and Gerta, as victims, could be stricken from the list. Adele and Nikolas could have no possible motive that she could imagine, but if she was going strictly on possibilities it had to be admitted that both the siblings had full access to the house. So though she considered them unlikely, she could not strike them from the list of her suspected villains. If it was to be believed that the old tragedy of fifteen years before and the latest troubles were tied together, then Melisande was out of it, as was Christoph, too young at the time of the deaths to have had any part in them.
Who did that leave? Bartol Liebner, Cesare Vitali, and the Count Delacroix. Elizabeth yawned and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. She must go back down to the drawing room, she supposed, and soon. As she widened her eyes against the weariness she felt and gazed out her bedroom window, the sight she did not want to see was before her past the open curtains. The moon was almost full. Still uncertain of the source of Countess Gerta’s hallucinations, all they could do was protect her as well as they could until they figured it all out. Nikolas would surely be home the next day, or the one after that at the latest.
She was so tired, and she longed for Nikolas to come home and assume the burden of his family’s care once more. She laid her head on her arms and stared out over the blanket of snow. Nikolas. She had been so worried and busy the last week or so, and had not allowed her thoughts to drift to him, the feel of his arms around her, and the sense of him possessing her body and soul as he had the night they had made love so thoroughly.
Perhaps it was that Elizabeth was afraid to think of it, given her resolution to break free of her fierce need for him. His lack of ability to love her as she loved him frightened her, for it meant she had done the unthinkable and given herself once again to a man incapable of love… or at least incapable of loving
her
.
She opened her eyes wide and sat up, gazing around. The room was brilliantly lit; it was fully daylight! How had that happened? Fanny pushed into the room that moment carrying a tray.
She gazed at Elizabeth and dipped a curtsey.
“You are awake early, Miss Stanwycke. And dressed already!”
“What?” Elizabeth wiped sleep from her eyes and gazed out the window over a scene of reflected sunlight sparkling off a blanket of snow.
Fanny set the tray down and gazed at the bed, her face pale and her expression a mask of mystification. “Your bed, miss… it has not been disturbed.”
Cramped and aching, Elizabeth swung her feet over the edge of the window seat and stretched. “How embarrassing! I… I must have been so tired I fell asleep right here, in the window seat!”
She didn’t even remember laying down, nor falling asleep, Elizabeth thought, disturbed. She must have worried herself to exhaustion. But… how did it happen? She had come up to her room after dinner to sit for a moment before joining the others in the drawing room, and she had fallen asleep.
And had slept for… it must be ten hours! She never slept more than six. How very odd.
She went about her business that day, having to explain to several people why she did not join them in the drawing room as she had said she was going to. Bartol Liebner told her he had been concerned and had thought they ought to go up to her room and make sure she was all right, but the others had quashed the notion.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “I wish you had prevailed. It is so unlike me to fall asleep like that.”
He stared at her, worry in his dark eyes. He put one gentle hand on her arm and said, “If that ever happens again, Miss Stanwycke, I promise you I will insist.”
Touched by his concern, she thanked him. “Sir, it was almost as if I was…” She was about to say “drugged” but shook her head.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Just a foolish notion.”
Perhaps Nikolas would be home that day. She hoped so, for the moon was almost completely full that evening, and anything could happen.
WHY WAS Nikolas not home? He had been gone for weeks! Elizabeth paced from window to window that evening, as they all gathered in the drawing room. This night she had not gone up to her own room after dinner, even though she sorely needed a moment to think, but she had a superstitious dread of the same thing happening as had happened the night before.
“Elizabeth,” Frau Liebner said loudly, “come and sit by me and talk!”
She obeyed.
“Stop this incessant pacing,” the woman said in an undertone. “We must decide what to do this evening. Last night was very dangerous for Gerta. Though she did not leave the house, she wandered and was found by Bartol near the outside door. He came to me with great worry and said she did not seem herself. It is the full moon. Though Gerta seems lucid, she is fretful.”
“I know. She’s excited… agitated. I don’t like it.”
“What shall we do?”
“What excuse can we use to keep Mina in watch over her? It’s getting more difficult to contain her.” Elizabeth said and pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth. Nikolas’s last words, his plea for her to look after Gerta, nagged at her. Why wasn’t he home yet? He was the only one Gerta obeyed without question; he was the only one who had the authority to order her confined, if the need arose.
“Ladies,” Bartol Liebner said, bowing before them. “May I bring you some tea?”
“That would be wonderful, sir,” Elizabeth said.
“Do what you will,” Frau Liebner grumbled, waving him away as if he were a pesky fly.
“Why do you not like your brother-in-law?” Elizabeth asked. “He’s so eager to please, so desirous of helping wherever he can.”
“It is an old prejudice,” the woman said. “I do not expect to defeat it now.”
“But what was its genesis?”
Frau Liebner hesitated, grimly frowning, and then said, “Ah, just an old tale. Perhaps not true, perhaps true; I don’t know.”
Her damnable curiosity tugged at Elizabeth as she watched the older man making up their cups. He was slow and bent and took a while making them to the exact specification he had long memorized. It was one of his little courtesies that he liked to make up the ladies’ cups for them; he had done so even at dinner the night before, insisting on bringing her a special glass of blackberry cordial distilled by his own methods. He was something of a vintner, he had said modestly. “But what is it? What is it that turned you against him?” Elizabeth asked, turning her attention toward Frau Liebner.
“Viktor told me once that the reason his brother was sent from home was…” She stopped and shook her head.
“What?” Elizabeth prodded, feeling a frisson of alarm for some reason that she could not place.