The Victorian Gothic Collection: Volumes 1-3 Page 8

  “This house is cursed… but not by some ancient legend, or by whatever ghastly things inhabit that moor. This house is cursed by the pain we’ve all endured in it,” Warren continued. “Father wasn’t mad. He was just a bastard. He was cruel for the sake of it and for his own enjoyment and it was that cruelty that has made mother what she is today. If you stay here, you’re choosing to surround yourself with that, to mire yourself in it the same way I mired myself in drink to escape the misery of being married to Frances.”

  “I can’t just leave mother here,” he protested.

  “I don’t think you should,” Warren replied evenly. “She belongs in an asylum. Not one of those hellish ones where you pay a few pence to look at the lunatics! But a decent one with real doctors and real care. She might improve. That fellow in Vienna might be able to do something with her.”

  “This is more than any nervous condition, Warren, and I doubt even Dr. Freud is up to dealing with her. But I have made inquires about any clinics that might take her, there is one that I am considering… I agree that being far from this place might be better for her. Or it may well kill her. I can’t honestly say she wouldn’t be better off if it did.”

  It was a terrible thing to have uttered aloud, more terrible still that they were both in agreement on it. But her life was no life at present. Days on end of just blank stares and then sudden fits of anger and profound rage that had her shrieking down the rafters and assaulting the servants.

  Warren nodded and rose to his feet. “I know you’re doing what’s best for me. But as I could knock you in the head just to get my hands on that glass you were nursing so that I might attempt to find the last vestiges of brandy it held, I’m going back to my room. I don’t expect to emerge again until the worst of it has past. Make my apologies to your betrothed.”

  “You can make them yourself on Saturday, if the wedding goes on as planned. You are to be one of our witnesses.”

  Warren said nothing, just nodded in acknowledgement and shuffled from the room.

  Watching him go, Eldren was more consumed with hatred for Frances than ever before. A half dozen times, at the very least, Warren had come close to giving up drink. He’d gone without a drop of it for almost six months once and then Frances had tormented him with it, wafting it beneath his nose, pouring a glass of it and placing it before him and assuring him that just a little wouldn’t hurt. In short, she’d done everything she could to keep him a drunkard.

  It was his opinion that Frances was doing her damnedest to make herself a very young widow. For all he knew, she might have lovers already. But then again Frances and a passionate nature were not words one would typically associate with one another. Petty, spiteful, mean, colder than the Atlantic in January—those were descriptors that were more suited to her and far more frequently in use.

  Cursing her, he continued his rumination and wondered what sort of decision Adelaide might reach.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Adelaide had covered several sheets of paper with scratches and scribbles. She had tried to recall the words she’d heard whispered to her on the moor as clearly as possible. Even then, she knew that the random syllables she’d managed to jot down were garbled and wrong. But if she could get close enough that perhaps Dyllis might recognize the words and translate them for her.

  “Cartraffy drewg o fowen,” she read aloud. It made no sense to her. The Welsh language was indecipherable to her.

  The dressing gong sounded then and Dyllis arrived within seconds of it. If the maid thought her disheveled appearance odd, she said nothing of it. Instead, she simply grabbed up the hairbrush from the dressing table and began retrieving the regiment of pins lost in the tangled mess of it.

  “Dyllis. I heard something today but it was in Welsh. Can you tell me what it means?”

  “I might be able to, miss,” the maid said. “What did you hear?”

  Adelaide repeated the phrase as she’d written it.

  Dyllis frowned for a moment as she began twisting Adelaide’s long hair back up into the loose knot that she preferred. “Do you mean cartrefi drwg o fewn?”

  “Yes!” Adelaide said, seizing upon it. “That is what I heard. What does it mean?”

  “Were you near the village, miss? Were folks talking about Cysgod Lys and the earl? Ungrateful creatures they are! If it weren’t for him and the work he’s given to us all, we’d all be beggars by now!”

  “It wasn’t… I didn’t hear it in the village, Dyllis,” Adelaide said, seeing how distressed the girl was at the notion that others were speaking ill of her employer. “But I don’t wish to tell you where I did hear it. You’ll think… that I’m overly imaginative,” she finished lamely, not wanting to use the word ‘mad’ given her current situation.

  “It means evil dwells here… or evil dwells within. But who would say such a thing?”

  Not a who. A what. Adelaide shivered as that thought occurred to her. And yet, though it made no sense at all, she could not shake the belief that her assessment was entirely accurate. Whatever contacted her on that moor, her first night and again that day, it wasn’t human. It might never have been human.

  “Tell me about the moor, Dyllis. What really happens there?”

  Dyllis’ eyes widened and she looked to be on the verge of tears. “No, miss. I won’t do it. And if you have me sacked or sent back to the kitchen, I don’t care. It’s forbidden to talk of that place and I won’t be gossiping about it and drawing its evil to me and mine! I won’t do it!”

  “You don’t have to, Dyllis,” Adelaide offered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. And you won’t be sacked or sent back to the kitchens. I’m terribly sorry! Really, I am.”

  The girl sniffed, but still seemed impossibly troubled as she finished pinning Adelaide’s hair back into place. When Dyllis had finished with her hair, Adelaide tried to smooth things over with the maid as best she could. “Thank you again, Dyllis. You’ve done wonders with my hair. I simply don’t know how I’ve ever managed without you.”

  “Yes, miss, Thank you, miss,” Dyllis said.

  As Adelaide dressed in a dinner gown of black velvet, Dyllis remained quiet. She would respond to any statements or questions with the barest minimum of words possible without being rude, but nothing more than that. Finally, Adelaide gave up. She opened her jewel box and selected a necklace of simple jet beads which she then fastened at her throat and matching ear bobs. They were inexpensive pieces, purchased when she’d obtained all of her mourning clothes. Muriel would have received the bill by then, but she had not refused to pay it. She’d taken care of the hotel, as well. If it came to it, Adelaide thought, she could go back to New York. Perhaps a doctor would give her enough laudanum to strike her dumb for the duration of the journey and she could beg mercy at her stepmother’s door.

  Even thinking it made her shudder. As terrified as she found herself at moments, as much as that little doubtful voice at the back of her mind suggested she might actually be going mad, that was preferable than taking Muriel’s charity. A loveless and chaste marriage in a house full of secrets and dark things she could not name, or bowing and scraping to Muriel while she was tossed into the path of every aging man with a title or a fortune—at least the former would be her choice and not someone else’s.

  Somehow, in the midst of Dyllis’ sullen and wounded silence, she’d made her decision. She would marry Eldren Llewellyn, Earl of Montkeith. But before she did, he would tell her the truth about the darkness that surrounded Cysgod Lys and why others demanded and guarded its secrets so fiercely.

  Determined, Adelaide draped a simple black shawl over her shoulders and exited her room with a softly uttered farewell to Dyllis. As she stepped into the hall, she bumped into a gentleman. Immediately, she knew it was not Eldren. There was something about this gentleman that was very different. He was softer, less certain in his stride. There was something about him that seemed frail, she thought, even though he towered over her.

  “Forgive me
. I was returning to my room and… what are you doing in my brother’s chamber?” the man asked, clearly realizing then which room she’d come from.

  “You must be Warren then,” Adelaide said. “I’m afraid there was some confusion the night of my arrival and an inappropriate room had been prepared for me. Your brother was kind enough to put me in his chamber instead as I was quite—well, it had been a difficult journey.”

  His eyes sparkled then and a smile tugged at his lips. There was a similarity between himself and his brother, but it was faint. It had less to do with their actual features, she supposed, than with the expressions they created to convey their feelings.

  “Yes, I’ve heard. All the servants are abuzz with it. No one crosses the moor,” he said. “No one. Half of them think you’re a saint and the bravest person in Christendom.”

  “And the other half?”

  “Well, sainthood has not been mentioned from that quarter,” he teased. “But I must apologize on behalf of my wife, Mrs. Frances Llewellyn. It appears that the difficulties you faced in arriving here were orchestrated by her. I am terribly sorry for that.”

  “Is she sorry, do you think?” Adelaide asked.

  “Not in the least,” he replied honestly.

  Adelaide liked him. He didn’t have the same presence as his brother, the intensity and spark that Eldren possessed was not as evident in the man before her. She wondered if that was something his wife ought to apologize for as well. “Are you joining us for dinner tonight, Mr. Llewellyn?”

  “Please call me Warren. And it had not been my intent to do so, but now I find myself reconsidering. If you ask me once more, I shall surely have to say yes. Such delightful company is something I could never deny.”

  “Mr. Llewellyn, I do believe you are flirting with me,” she said, both flattered and concerned by it.

  “Harmlessly, I assure you. It’s a novel thing for me to be in the company of a woman who doesn’t detest the very ground beneath my feet. And I’m quite well aware that my brother has made you an offer… of course, it remains to be seen if you will accept it. Will you, Miss Hampton Parke?”

  Adelaide graced him with an arch look. “I believe that is a conversation I should have with your brother first, Warren. And since we are apparently quite familiar with one another, you must call me Adelaide.”

  “May I escort you down to dinner, Adelaide?”

  Adelaide accepted his proffered arm. He was pleasant to speak with and seemed to be far more forthcoming with information than anyone else she had encountered since her arrival. It was an opportunity not to be missed. “I will accept your offer of escort, Warren, if you will answer my questions.”

  “And what questions are those?”

  Adelaide allowed him to steer her toward the stairs. “Tell me about the moor. About the whispers.”

  He paused, his steps suddenly hesitant as he looked at her with concern. “You’ve heard them?”

  She sighed in relief, letting a breath escape her that she hadn’t even realized she held. A part of her had feared it was all simply her own wild imaginings. “Yes. The first night when I was making my way here… and then again this afternoon. Once on the terrace, but very faint, and then after I spoke with your brother, I climbed the fence and walked deeper into the moor and—.”

  “And what, Adelaide?” He asked with concern.

  “I suppose I issued a challenge,” she replied.

  His affable good nature and any hint of weakness in him disappeared immediately. “We must talk to Eldren… and you must leave here at once!”

  All traces of his charming insouciance had vanished. In its stead, she saw real fear. “What is it, Warren?”

  “A curse,” he answered. “The Llewellyn’s have been cursed for ages. But for any who can hear it, the end results are always worse!”

  “But I am not a Llewellyn. Not yet.”

  “Are you certain? Have you traced your family tree back through the ages? Perhaps there is some distant connection of which you are unaware! That was the case with our mother… she was some long removed cousin to our father by several generations. Yet the moment she stepped foot on this land, it called to her,” he insisted. “Between those damnable whispers and father it’s no wonder she went mad!”

  “How can a curse, if such a thing even exists, manifest itself in such a way?” Adelaide couldn’t quite fathom it.

  “Eldren knows the history of it. He will be resistant and will not want to tell you, but you must insist,” Warren said. “I will not join you for dinner after all. He might be more inclined to speak freely if it is only the two of you. Corner him in the library before dinner and make him tell you, Adelaide. It’s too dangerous for you to remain in ignorance.”

  With those cryptic words echoing behind him, Warren turned and vanished down the hall, leaving her at the top of the stairs to simply stare after his departing figure in confusion. Befuddled and feeling entirely out of her depth, Adelaide placed one hand on the banister and slowly descended to the main floor of the house. Tromley waiting for her to kindly point her in the direction of the dining room. She was not so lost in the house that she still needed direction to every room, but it was a generous gesture and she smiled in gratitude. “Is Lord Llewellyn still in his study, Tromley?”

  “I believe so, miss. Shall I ask him to join you in the drawing room?”

  “No, I’ll see him where he is if you could direct me.”

  “This way, miss," Tromley said and led her past the drawing room and the entrance to the dining room and down a narrow hall that branched off the foyer. Recalling the exterior of the house, she knew that this was one of the newer parts of the house they were entering, a wing added on during the Tudor era.

  Tromley knocked on the door, waited to be bade enter, and then announced her presence as if she were a guest at a ball. Afterward, he departed and left her alone in the dark and very masculine enclave of her husband to be.

  “Good evening, Adelaide. You wished to speak with me privately, I take it?” he asked.

  Electing to simply dive headlong into the matter, Adelaide asked the very question that had plagued her since her walk that afternoon. “What does cartrefi drwg o fewn mean?”

  His face paled. “Where did you hear that? What have the servants been saying?”

  “I didn’t hear it from the servants!”

  “Well I certainly didn’t say it. There’s no way you could have heard—Who said that to you, Adelaide?” he demanded, his voice tight and angry.

  “I don’t think it’s a who at all. It’s a what… It was the moor. It whispered to me on the first night, and again today. What does it mean, Eldren?” she asked again and this time, her own voice was rising. Not with anger, but with fear.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eldren had not expected that. Most people were unnerved by the moor, they felt the power of that land and the ancient people who had occupied it. They were unnerved by the house itself and the pall that had been cast over it by the centuries long misery suffered by its inhabitants. But very few people ever reported hearing the whispered words. He had when he was younger. Warren had heard them as well to a smaller degree but had managed to dull the torment with drink. But for his elder brother and his sisters who had all passed, they had not been whispers at all. For them, that voice had shouted and railed, growing louder each day until it drove them as mad as their parents had been.

  “I should not have brought you here. I should pack you up and send you straight back to New York,” he said. But he knew even that wouldn’t be far enough. There was no corner of the earth where it would not follow her, where it would not invade her dreams and torment her in any quiet moment. It would drive her mad, mad to the point where she might even end her own life. She would certainly not be the first Llewellyn bride to do so.

  “What is it, Eldren? Can you please not be cryptic and vague now and answer the question!” she implored.

  “It’s the Llewellyn curse,” he replied. “It�
�s followed this family for centuries. One unscrupulous man has wrought centuries worth of misfortune on his descendants.”

  It was a simple statement, but it was not one she would simply accept. He had the feeling that his bride to be, if in fact she was that, would want every last detail. When she moved to the chair that faced his desk and seated herself there, folding her hands primly in her lap and staring up at him expectantly, he knew that had been an accurate prediction.

  With weariness and resignation, he moved to the bookshelf and retrieved a volume penned by one of his ancestors sometime in the seventeenth century. He placed it before her. “You may read that later if you wish. For now, I’ll give you the condensed version of our dark history… Ioan Llewellyn was a soldier of fortune, a mercenary. He fought in any war where he’d be paid the most. He came here to slaughter a small village, but he was taken with the land and with the castle that used to stand on this very spot, its stones now incorporated into the structure that is Cysgod Lys. So he laid siege to the castle first, and when he’d claimed it for his own, he ordered a celebration on that blasted moor, at midsummer’s eve. And then he killed them… all of them. He gathered every man, woman and child into the center and had his knights hold them there while he systematically and brutally murdered them. Except for one woman… Igrida. He took her to be his wife, unwillingly one can only presume.”

  “He killed them all? Her family and then forced her to be his wife?”

  Eldren heard the horror in her voice as she recoiled from that. “If that were all he’d done, it would be horrible enough. But there is infinitely more I’m afraid. He was a cruel man, vicious and brutal. He beat her. He raped her. He locked her away and he tormented her in any way he could. And when she gave birth to daughters, he murdered them. He refused to have a girl child because they would require dowries from him. He wanted only sons to inherit his lands and fill his ranks… In short, he drove her mad. The last child she bore was a son and he looked so much like her despised husband, that in her madness, Igrida cursed him and all who would come after him. She cursed him that the voices of the dead, slaughtered by his father, would torment him until he took his own life as would any of his descendants.”