The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Paranormal Romance

Fourteen

A Persian carpet the color of spilled wine covered the floor of the classroom. With a fire in the grate, books on the shelves, full inkpots and fountain pens on the desks, the room was transformed into a cozy den. As twilight faded in, the atmosphere was truly beautiful, evoking the peaceful stillness of a library, perfect for study.

Veronica and the twins established a routine of five class days per week, beginning at nine, breaking for luncheon at eleven, and finishing at two. It helped her work immensely that they clearly enjoyed learning, were quick, and always amusing.

One morning, Veronica walked into the classroom to find the twins on the edges of their seats with barely suppressed excitement.

Arriving at her desk, she found a small, blue, coffin-shaped box. Inside, wrapped in a shroud of sheer silk and lying in a nest of rose petals, was a dead nightingale. Though the object seemed very old, and the mummified bird long dead, its feathers were glossy, its little toes curled like golden threads, its yellow beak slightly open as if it might still sing of love and death in some dusky, chivalric realm.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Nightingale," said Jacqueline.

"I see that. But..."

"They were given as love tokens in medieval France," said Jacques. "We present one to you, fair lady." He stood up and bowed in a courtly manner.

Veronica glanced from one child to the other. "Thank you. It's lovely."

Imagine giving a dead bird to a lover, she thought, its death symbolizing, perhaps, a passionate, true love, its song silenced forever by indifference or disdain.

"Mamma collected them," Jacques said, interrupting Veronica's thoughts. "Some are as old as our chateau."

"So, this nightingale reminds you of your mother?"

"Yes," they both said.

"Well, I'm very flattered that you would think to give me something so personal. Are you sure?"

The twins looked surprised, as if they hadn't considered how unusual it was to give a governess a memento of their mother.

"We just like things like that, I suppose." Jacqueline spoke softly, narrowing her eyes intently. "There is also, at our chateau, a lady's hand that, when the moon is full, turns into a wolf's paw."

"Oh, yes! And toads with jewels in their foreheads, and moths as large as swallows, with wings like silken cloaks," Jacques shouted. "Those are the best, though I suppose they are too much part of our chateau to be taken away from it."

These sounded like fairy tale things, magic and witchcraft.

Veronica masked her concern with a warm smile. "I should like to see your chateau some day. It sounds lovely."

"Oh, very!" they said together.

Veronica gazed down at the nightingale, touched its silken shroud. It was exquisitely embroidered, the little bird inside so perfectly preserved. There was something strangely romantic about it, in a poetic, French sort of way.

"I suppose the toads will be changed into Princes if you love them enough," she said in a rush.

The twins fell silent and glanced at each other as if she'd said something terribly sad.

***

That evening, Veronica headed for the roof of the tower. Since her employer was home, she could no longer easily slip through his private rooms to get there, but had to go outside and enter the tower through a little-used portal at the bottom. A dank, cobwebbed passage led to a stairway that curved up to the familiar landing at the tower door.