The Painted Room Page 9

Chapter 6

  A Night in the Castle

  Carlisle squinted as he immersed the end of a long strip of kindling wood in the fire. A candelabra from the side table of the dining room was in his other hand, and he lit the three tapers it held.

  The castle was pitch black now and colder than a dungeon. Both Sheila and May hugged their hands about their shoulders, and in the pathetic light of the candles, watched their breath turn into vapor before their eyes.

  Carlisle led the girls upstairs to the second floor where the bedrooms were. Sheila's ankle was still tender, and May helped her along, secretly glad for the excuse to stay close. She had no desire to be left out of the small circle of light that Carlisle was holding and sent into the unremitting blackness that existed all around them.

  On the landing of the stairs, Carlisle paused to retrieve a set of keys from a hook hidden behind a painting of two jousting knights. The light from the candelabra in his hand swept across a painting on the opposite wall. In it, May recognized Carlisle holding hands with a young woman. They seemed hardly more than children.

  "How young did you get married?" she sputtered.

  "Excuse me, Miss Taylor?" he said, turning around.

  "I'm just saying, you got married kind of young."

  "That's not my wife in that portrait, that's my cousin," he said.

  "Oh. Well it's just that you look kind of chummy together."

  He blinked several times but didn't respond.

  "Oh, I see," she said, nodding slowly, reading into his silence. "Then why didn't you marry her when you got older? I thought all you guys married your cousins back then."

  Carlisle said in a cool tone on the edge of huffiness, "Not all of us, Miss Taylor. Besides, we practically grew up together."

  "Oh, I see." Then after reflecting on the ambiguity of his answer, she said, "Wait. No, I don't see."

  "Look, Miss Taylor, do you usually approach people in this way?" he asked.

  "What way?"

  Sheila piped in, "Yes."

  "Well," said May defensively, aware she had breached some rule of etiquette known to everyone but her, "if you didn't want people to ask questions, you shouldn't have hung it here for everyone to see."

  "I didn't," he said. "That painting was here when I arrived. I don't even remember sitting for it when I was a lad." He turned to go up the stairs then said over his shoulder, "Are you coming?" It was more of a demand than a question. His tone said he was finished with the conversation.

  "Just one more thing," said May.

  "Frankly, Miss Taylor, that depends on what it is."

  "She died, didn't she? That's why you didn't marry her. What did she die of?"

  She felt Sheila hit her arm softly.

  After a few moments, he said quietly, "Measles. She died of measles."

  "How old was she?"

  "Twelve."

  "Did—?"

  "Are we done here?"

  May paused with her mouth open. "I suppose so."

  "Splendid," he said, going up the stairs.

  On the second floor, a musty smell came from the damp stone walls, and she gave out a small cough.

  "Stay close. It's pitch black up here and the corridor … " he scratched his head, " … well, it meanders a little," said Carlisle.

  Artwork and tapestries slid by on the walls as they made their way down the hallway. From out of the shadows, a suit of armor seemed to jump at them, and May suddenly understood what Carlisle had been trying to tell them. The hallway wasn't in a straight line at all, but made an unpredictable weaving path along the second floor.

  Hardly any of the doors to the rooms they passed were open. Of the few that were, May saw a vase of roses in one; a twisting design on a coat of arms in another; and a billowing, sheer white curtain in yet another. This was as much as the modest light from the candelabra and an occasional bolt of blue-tinged lightning revealed.

  From just behind them she heard a sharp bang ring out. Remembering the billowing curtain in the last room they passed, she said, "I think you've left a window open. You should close it or the rain will get in."

  "No, it won't," said Carlisle, not bothering to turn around.

  "Duh! Of course it will."

  She saw his back tense up. "Do you hear any?"

  May listened. There was only the creaking—almost silent, yet never completely silent—sounds of a building being buffeted by the wind and also, more felt than heard, waves smashing against the rocks far below. Another crack of thunder rumbled, this time, from farther away. She shook her head. "No, I guess not."

  "And you won't, either. It always threatens, but it never comes. Let's go."

  "Well, you should close it anyway. You can't just leave it like that."

  He turned around. "It bothers you that much?" he asked with his voice cracking, as though she had exceeded all reasonable limits of fussiness.

  The window slammed shut again, punctuating his sentence.

  "Yes. How am I going to get any sleep with that racket? If you won't do it, I will." She went back before he could stop her.

  The casement window banged again as she entered the room. The sheer curtain, glowing in the moonlight, was sucked smooth against the frame of the window for a moment, then released by the wind to billow inward again.

  The room echoed her rubber soled footsteps as she crossed the stone floor. At the window, she drew aside the silky curtain, leaned out and felt a warm burst of humid air. Out in the bay, moonlight shimmered on the waves and reflected upward, illuminating the undersides of the still pregnant storm clouds scudding away in the night sky.

  She heard Carlisle enter the room behind her. He took one sharp step over the threshold and stopped short, causing the keys in his hand to jingle loudly. "Be careful, Miss Taylor!" he breathed out urgently in a whisper.

  She sensed a gaping void beneath her and looked down. Here was another sheer drop—this time even worse than before. She saw the surf several hundred feet below, crashing against rocks which seemed to grow and shrink in turns as she watched them. Feeling suddenly ill, she swore under her breath and resisted the urge to pull back quickly and give Carlisle the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. She inhaled, steadied herself, caught the casement window as it flew back at her on the wind, then pulled it shut and secured the clasp.

  Her heart was pounding and she was dizzy, but she smiled as she turned into the room and said easily as she walked to the door, "There, that's better!"

  As she was dusting off her hands in the hallway, Carlisle reached behind her and slammed the door to the room.

  "What's his problem?" she said to Sheila, watching him walk away.

  He led them a little farther down the hall, then stopped at a small round table outside a door and set down the candelabra. He inspected the keys on the large brass ring in his hand one after the other in the candlelight. "I try to keep most of the doors open. It's a devilish nuisance having to unlock them when I need something, but I could swear the rooms lock themselves and move around on me. I'm not often up here. The truth of it is, it gives me the creeps. Usually sleep downstairs in the study." He held up a key and squinted at it. "It's this one I think."

  Placing the key in the lock of one of the doors nearby, he fumbled with the doorknob a few times, then pushed the door open. May caught a brief glimpse of a violet colored, gold fringed bedspread and matching canopy curtain before he pulled the door shut again.

  "That isn't right," he said, turning around with his eyes searching the darkness for another door. "Most unexpected. I could have sworn this one was across the hall. I seem to have misplaced a room. Most embarrassing. Well, over there then."

  He picked up the candelabra, darted across the hall and tried another door which opened easily. This time he thrust the candelabra inside and checked the room thoroughly before exclaiming, "Ah! This is it. I think we'll all find this chamber to be much more comfortable."

  Immediately on entering the room, Carlisle went to the hearth and set about
lighting a fire. And he was right, after the dampness was eclipsed by a roaring fire, the room was actually cozy.

  There were two small beds with pretty white coverlets for each of the girls. The walls were covered in pink and cream colored wallpaper. There was a huge rocking chair by the fireplace and several frosted glass oil lamps which gleamed painted pink roses when lit. Under different circumstances, May would have liked the room very much.

  Right now, she hated it.

  In one of the dressers were two linen nightgowns which had the lace and frill of a bygone era. Nothing was dusty or showed signs of disuse, but seemed to have been placed there just moments before.

  Carlisle bowed, turned to go then stopped suddenly at the door, staring down at his own hand on the doorknob. From where May was, she could see there was something bothering him, some internal debate making him hesitate, and her worst fears suspected what it was.

  He was deciding whether or not to lock the door.

  She said to him, "Oh sir, please don't lock it. We won't go anywhere, we promise. Please! It's too dark out there anyway, where would we go to? But don't lock us in here. I'm begging you, please don't."

  He didn't look up from his hand still on the knob. He shook his head and said, "I'm sorry." Then he left very quickly, and she heard the reluctant click of the lock as he turned the key on the far side of the door.

  May had never felt so wretched. Even Sheila, who up until that point had strongly defended Carlisle, viewed his actions through a dim glass.

  Later, when they had blown the lamps out; when only the orange glow of the fire remained, and she heard the regular breathing of Sheila asleep; only then did May allow herself to cry softly, her hand cupped over her mouth so that not a single sound might escape.

  She had tried everything to pick the lock, but it had been no use.

  May had never been so worried, so at a loss as to what to do next, so homesick, in her up-till-then humdrum life. She pictured her parents and her brother, confused at first by her not coming home at the correct hour, then worried, then perhaps frantic in their own reserved way.

  Were they concerned for her? Would they miss her? Would they always wonder what had happened to her? These questions haunted her until finally she fell into an exhausted sleep and woke again when it was still dark and only embers glowed in the hearth.

  Unable to sleep, and with the room regaining its earlier chill, she got out from under the warmth of the covers. Shivering, she crossed the room to place another piece of firewood into the hot coals.

  May sat in the large wooden rocking chair, hugging her legs over which she had pulled the nightgown for warmth. With her chin on her knees, she watched the new log ignite with a great puff of flame and burn fiercely.