Barbara Michaels - The Wizard’s Daughter

"I know I should not have allowed the Duke to play on Sunday," she said apologetically. "But I did want to be friends with him, and he seemed at loose ends -"

"And that wretched Irishman sleeping off his overindulgence," the Duchess broke in. "Don't look so surprised, child; I am not incompetent yet! I began to question his influence over Henry last time I was here, and what I have seen on this visit confirms my feelings that he must be replaced. Don't apologize for breaking the Sabbath. You committed a minor sin in doing an act of kindness, which is much more important. Now tell me… Ah, here is Rose with our tea."

Marianne was happy to see that the tray the maid carried appeared to be heavily laden. She had worked up an appetite playing with Henry.

All at once the maid came to a dead stop, her eyes bulging. The cups and saucers on the tray rattled. Marianne jumped up and seized it as it tilted; she was just in time to prevent the contents from sliding off onto the floor.

She put the tray on a table. "What on earth is the matter. Rose?" she asked.

The maid tried to reply. The muscles of her throat bulged, but no sound came from her parted lips. Her staring eyes were fixed on some object behind Marianne.

Marianne turned, following the gaze, which was almost as explicit as a pointing finger.

The wall between the windows blazed with letters of fire. A large oil lamp on the table below them allowed her to read the message they spelled.

"The time is near. Come to me then."

The maid began to scream. Marianne swayed, not through faintness, but through indecision. She did not know whether to run to the Duchess, or silence the shrieking maid, or summon help, or seize the nearest cloth and wipe out the fiery letters… assuming they could be wiped out by something so ordinary as a cloth.

Before she could decide, the door burst open and Dr. Gruffstone appeared. She had never admired his quickness so much; a sudden bound took him to Rose; he slapped her briskly on the cheek. Her shrieks stopped. Then the doctor turned to his patient.

"It is all right, Horace," the Duchess said calmly. "I am happy. I am at peace."

Indeed she looked quite beautiful. Smiling, flushed, except for her snow-white hair she might have been a young girl.

Gruffstone turned to Marianne.

"Watch that fool woman," he snarled, gesturing at Rose. "She is about to swoon. Get her into the next room, don't let her talk to the others." As she spoke he pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and with one vicious sweeping gesture removed the first line of the glowing inscription. The second followed, just as a rush of footsteps heralded the arrival of Carlton.

"What in heaven's name -"

Rose proved the doctor a true prophet by collapsing into an untidy heap on the floor. Marianne bent over her.

"What -" Carlton began again.

"My smelling salts are in the cabinet," the Duchess said calmly. "Do what you can for her, Horace, and then please join me in a cup of tea."

The hour that followed was one Marianne would never forget. Drinking her tea, the Duchess contributed little; she sat smiling with dreamy detachment while the others argued about what had happened.

Rose had been given a sleeping draft and was snoring on a sofa in the boudoir.

"Though heaven knows it is only postponing the inevitable," the doctor groaned, running his hand through his wildly ruffled hair. "The moment the wretched woman wakes up she will tell every servant in the house what she saw."

"If you had not seen it too, I would think -" Carlton began. He broke off, with a sidelong look at the Duchess.

"There are enough witnesses," the doctor said gloomily.

"Then someone wrote it while the Duchess was asleep," Carlton said. "There was a period of time after you left, Gruffstone, and before Miss Ransom came in."

"I was outside the door the entire time," the doctor said.

"What about the secret passages?" Marianne asked. "The Duke said…" Then she remembered her promise to Henry and could say no more. "However," she went on, "the wall was unmarked when I lighted the lamps. I am sure of that, because one lamp, one of the largest, was on the table just below that section of the paneling."

A long discouraged silence followed, while they stared at one another. Marianne felt slightly sick. She knew the finger of suspicion pointed at her. She could have written the message in phosphorous paint, or some similar chemical, while the Duchess dozed. Only she knew she had not done so.

Finally the Duchess spoke. "You are all behaving very foolishly. There is nothing to be afraid of. Go down to dinner, all of you. I would like to be alone for a while. After you have dined, Roger, will you come up to me? I will not keep you long, I promise."

The dismissal could not be ignored. Carlton rose uncertainly, and Marianne followed suit. The doctor remained seated.

"Honoria," he began.

"Dear old friend." She held out her hand and the doctor took it in his. "I am perfectly well. I only want to think about… matters I have put off too long. You may come and say good night, later."

The doctor raised her hand to his lips. When he turned away Marianne saw his eyes held an unnatural shine, as if they were filled with tears.

Not until she glanced at herself in the mirror in her own room did Marianne realize she was still wearing the dusty, crumpled frock in which she had played with Henry. She dropped wearily into a chair. This latest and most bewildering phenomenon had exhausted her strength. She did not know what to make of it, and she was too tired to think.

If she had obeyed her own desires she would have remained in her room. However, the Duchess's command had been explicit, and besides, not to put too fine a face upon it, she was hungry.

Dinner could not be called a success. The doctor spoke but little; Carlton made inane comments at random, and several times Marianne caught him staring wildly at her, as if she had changed into a person he had never seen before. Not feeling in spirits enough for the finish of Wuthering Heights (she had peeked at the ending and read just enough to curdle her blood), she went to the library to find another book. Rejecting any work of fiction that smacked even slightly of the sensational, she selected a volume of

Carlyle's essays and went dispiritedly up to her room.

The volume did what she hoped it would do; it put her to sleep, in spite of a rising wind that made uncanny sounds behind the drawn draperies. And if a hand opened her door and a shadowed face looked in, Marianne was unaware of it.

The wind that had howled so drearily had not been an evil portent but the reverse. Not only did Marianne sleep through the night, but she awoke to find her room bright with sunlight. The lift to her spirits was tremendous. She dressed as quickly as she could and without waiting for breakfast put on her coat and ran outside.

The air was cold, and frost whitened the grass. Puddles of water had fringes of ice. It would have taken more than cold to discourage Marianne; she felt like an animal freed from a narrow cage. Swinging her arms and striding briskly, she set off down the driveway. As soon as she was out of sight of the house she broke into an undignified run, for the sheer joy of it. The distance from the front steps to the iron gates was a good mile.

Still exhilarated, she turned onto the footpath and walked toward the village.

The smoke of the cooking fires rose up into a cloudless sky. There were few people abroad; early as it was for the pampered upper classes, most of the villagers had been up for hours and had gone to their work. Marianne saw only a few housewives, baskets on their arms, on their way to market, and one gentleman enjoying his morning constitutional.