Dark Splendor (31 page)

She was groggy, barely able to find her way
to the bedroom without stumbling against the furniture. The
wavering flame lit the face of the little enamel clock. It was past
two. She had slept for hours without meaning to. It was late but
the time would be right to start her search.

Minutes later, she had felt her way down the
dark marble staircase, pausing once or twice when she imagined she
heard soft footsteps behind her. By the time she reached the
library, her head spun dizzily and her eyes distortedly searched
the room. Still she would not give up her quest. Moving stealthily,
she lit candles but even then, to her addled brain, the room seemed
dim and dark with great looming shadows.

Not to be deterred, she explored the
bookcases first, running her hands over the panels and shelves and
finding nothing. Disappointed, she made a desperate little sound in
the darkness and shivered as she heard a shuffling noise behind
her. Turning, she saw one shadow come alive and step apart from the
statues.

“Have you joined the spirits in their
nightly escapades?” The purple-swathed shadow floated from against
the wall. In the candlelight it grew solid and stretched
taller.

Silvia’s hands flew over her mouth. It was
the same shadow she had seen once before in the library.

“I was looking...” she whispered
hollowly.

“For me?” The phantom voice came softly from
his hooded face. “Or for secrets?”

“Nooo,” she moaned, feeling her legs turn
pulpy as she knew suddenly and surely that her ghost was real. “For
the journal,” she answered woodenly. “If I can find the journal
they will believe me.”

He floated past her and she whirled to
follow his flight. “Who does not believe you?”

“Roman. None of them. They think I want to
steal their inheritance.” She sobbed. “When all I want is to leave
this horrible place.”

“And what prevents your leaving?”

“Wilhelm. He won’t let me.” She was
trembling, hardly able to stand, and her head ached as if it would
split. She barely knew what she was saying. A murkiness enveloped
her thoughts and at times she didn’t even realize she actually
spoke them. “What would happen to Willy if I left? Oh, no.” She
sobbed again. “I can never leave.”

He seemed to lift in the air and then he was
beside her. He enfolded her in the purple cloak, pulling her head
to his chest and soothing her with warm, comforting whispers.

For a moment she wondered if her fall from
the horse had weakened her brain. This ghost made no fiendish
threats, and strangely, she felt solaced and safe cosseted in his
arms. It was as if he above all others in this house meant her no
harm or malice. Here at last was a friend whom she could trust.
Only she felt so light-headed and weak, it was as if her blood had
been drained from her veins.

Then suddenly she went limp and it was her
consciousness that drained away. She would have slumped to the
floor had she not been held in his arms.

***

“Get dressed. It’s happened. He’s dead.”
There was a frenzied, slightly mad look to Vivien as she burst into
Silvia’s bedroom. Her hair, for once, was untidy and her long face
was pale.

“Dead? Who?” Silvia fought with the covers,
not waking fully and thinking herself still swathed in the dark,
ghostly folds of Siegfried’s cloak. The ghost she had seen last
night must have been Siegfried, for who else could it have been?
Who else would have carried her back to her bedroom? Or had she
truly never left? Could she have possibly dreamt the whole
incident? She must have.

In the center of her room Vivien waited,
looking pallid and strained. “Do get up quickly,” she said in a
thin, empty voice. “Mr. Schlange has died.”

Silvia thrust the covers to the foot of the
bed and sprang to her feet. The silk curtains at the windows swayed
in and out with a warm morning breeze. But she rubbed her arms and
shivered as a strange chill came from nowhere and wrapped her in
its invisible currents.

“I’ll be dressed in a moment.” Silvia found
her wrapper and slipped it on over her blue silk gown, her hands
freezing on the ties. Suddenly she remembered that she had worn the
silk wrapper hiding the gray dress last night.

Her lower lip dropped and quivered a little.
The gray dress lay crumpled on the floor beside her bed, and as she
stared at it, she absently brushed her fingers over the lacy collar
of the nightgown she wore. She forgot for a moment that Vivien was
in the room as she realized it was no longer possible to tell where
her dreams ended and reality began.

“He faded away in his sleep.”

“Oh,” she murmured, coming out of her trance
and turning to find Vivien staring critically at her.

“Odin found him so this morning.”

Could he really be dead? She had expected
the old man to linger forever.

“Mr. Schlange seemed stronger when I last
spoke with him.”

“He forced himself to be better in order to
see you.” Vivien looked up sharply. “The old fool. He wouldn’t have
you know how weak and ill he was.” She breathed deeply and dropped
her eyes. “Yet I think he would not have lasted so long had you not
been here. Mr. Schlange fed on the desire to have a grandson before
he died. It kept him alive.”

But in the end it had not kept him alive
long enough. “I’ll hurry.” Silvia sighed and started to the
dressing room.

“No. Wait.” Vivien waved a negligent hand at
her. “Yes?” Silvia stopped obediently but her fingers kept moving,
making bows of the ribbons that tied her wrapper.

“There must be a hundred things to do. Have
the others been told?”

“They know. The preparations have begun.”
Vivien looked pointedly at Silvia. “I advise you to wait before you
tell them about the child.”

“He told you?”

“Yes. And be advised that one blow is enough
for now. Give them time to grieve for their uncle before they learn
they would do better to curse his black soul.” The color had
returned to Vivien’s face and she regained the aloofness in her
voice. “Mr. Schlange knew he had little time, even though he would
have us believe otherwise. He prepared for his death. His
instructions will be carefully followed.”

“What do you mean, Vivien?” Silvia’s voice
was hard. “Who would care now that there is to be a child, or if I
were to stay or go? What is to keep me here now that Schlange is
dead? You will care for Willy as you always have. He is safe enough
with his father dead.” Vivien listened unmoved, and Silvia daringly
went on. “You must know of the threats his father made against him.
Surely you can see the danger died with him. Willy is safe and I am
free to leave.”

Vivien laughed an eerie, reproachful laugh.
Silvia shuddered to see that her eyes had become two hot, blazing
black suns.

“How foolish you are,” she said piteously.
“Do you think Wilhelm Schlange would let death weaken his grasp? He
has found a way to hold you from the grave.” She laughed again.
“All our lives rest on your staying and bearing the child you
carry. Who knows whom he has bribed or enlisted to obey him even in
death? Don’t you realize?” she said in her wintry voice. “Nothing
has changed.”

Black bunting draped the mantels in the front
drawing room, where the doors had been left standing open. It was a
hot, airless day and, inside the castle, too muggy and quiet. Even
the pink marble of the foyer had lost its cheerful brightness.
Silvia in her gown of heavy black silk felt as lifeless as the two
depressing funeral wreaths which had been hung outside on the front
doors.

The atmosphere of the house itself had
turned exceedingly dismal in the frenzied period of mourning.
Wilhelm Schlange’s death had been a shock to everyone, even though
he had been recently ill. Like Silvia, all had believed he would
even outlive many of them. Indeed it had caught the family by
surprise, and preparations for the burial had to be made hastily.
After some searching through Schlange’s papers and much consulting
among the nephews, it had been determined that the will could not
be read until Mr. Schlange’s lawyer arrived from a northern
colony.

Silvia had never imagined the event could
make her feel more isolated and alone than before. But it seemed,
as she sat quietly and deliberated on the matter, that her life was
shattered and ruined beyond mending.

She was so far away in thoughts of despair
that she didn’t hear Vivien come up behind her in the drawing
room.

“The minister has arrived.” Vivien, the thin
lips ashen in her long face, shook Silvia’s shoulder.

Reluctantly Silvia stirred from her
chair.

“Show him in, please.”

It had been left to her to greet the
Reverend Samuels, who had come from Fredericksburg, for Martha was
too distraught and was now resting. Business and the gathering of
crops would not wait for funeral plans to be completed, and the
nephews had been called out to attend to the urgencies of the
estate. No one among them doubted that Wilhelm Schlange himself
would despair if one working day were lost in the smooth running of
Schlange Island.

Later in the evening, Eric would finalize
the burial plans with the minister. But as a matter of courtesy,
Silvia had volunteered to meet the man when he arrived.

Hands clasped tightly together, she stood
solemnly by the mantel.

“Silvia, child,” he addressed her as Vivien
showed him in. Samuels was a short, plain-faced man with faded gray
eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. He bore a
surprisingly merry smile for a somber occasion. At Eric’s request
he had traveled by boat from Fredericksburg on the next island and
would stay at Serpent Tree Hall until the service was performed.
“You are all Mr. Schlange said you would be.” Samuels clasped her
hand ecstatically.

“He told you about me?”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Schlange wrote months ago
telling me of Willy’s upcoming marriage and how hopeful he was for
a grandson. Said as how it wasn’t possible for me to perform the
wedding, he hoped I’d agreed to do the christening of his first
grandchild.” Reverend Samuels took the chair beside Silvia and
directed a shrewd glance her way. “A grandchild was most important
to him, you know.” Samuels shook his head thoughtfully. “A terrible
shame he couldn’t have lasted long enough to see the dream
realized,” he added with a note of remorse. “And double the shame
that this sad event should occur so soon after your marriage.”
Silvia felt an uneasiness growing inside her those gray eyes had a
way of probing. “We have lost a fine man,” he added.

“His death was...” She paused abruptly and
looked into Reverend Samuels’ kindly face. Was he too a pawn in one
of Wilhelm Schlange’s evil plans? There was no way to know, and as
a matter of caution her words must be chosen carefully. “...an
untimely tragedy,” she continued. “And most unexpected, despite his
illness.”

She regarded Samuels gravely. She had
thought to appeal to the soft-spoken clergyman for assistance. He
was the first person she had met who could possibly help her leave
Schlange Island. But it seemed what Vivien had told her was true.
Schlange’s plans reached beyond the grave, for she had no way of
determining who was friend and who was foe. She remembered the
seemingly affable Captain Langham, who would have made her
available to the Tollers on board the
Eastwind
.

Any request for help might lead to
disastrous complications in an already insufferable problem. Again
she had to conclude that for the present she must stay at Serpent
Tree Hall and try to make her life and Willy’s as bearable as
possible.

“You must be brave, child.” Reverend Samuels
took her hand once more and patted it consolingly. “The future of
this family rests with you.”

Was that a warning she had best do as
Schlange had dictated?

Silvia couldn’t have told what was said in
much of the conversation that followed with the clergyman. She only
remembered thinking how astonishing it was that Wilhelm Schlange
had consorted with this religious man. The fact was totally
incongruous to her, but Reverend Samuels indicated Mr. Schlange had
visited his home in Fredericksburg frequently over the years. And
on one of those more recent occasions Schlange had outlined his
funeral plans.

“A remarkable man, Mr. Schlange. He was not
well these last few years. But like many stubborn and powerful men,
Wilhelm was late to see the inevitability of death. It has been
less than a year since he visited me and talked of dying. I believe
he had expected to live forever. There are some who do.” Samuels
clucked and then smiled warmly. “There is little for you to worry
over, child. Eric has seen to most of the funeral plans and I will
attend to the others.” He removed his spectacles and tucked them
into a pocket with one hand while he rubbed his eyes with the
other. “Now, child, if you can accommodate me, I would like to rest
in my room before I make the final preparations.”

“Thank you for coming so promptly, Reverend
Samuels.” Silvia smiled faintly, but even so, her hands gripped the
arms of the chair as if some strange force might try to pull her
from it. “Your presence will ease the strain for us all,” she said
meekly.

“It is little enough to do,” he responded,
eyeing her soberly. “Mr. Schlange was not a man of strong religious
conviction. He never attended my church, nor any other, to my
knowledge. But nevertheless, his contributions were generous and he
asked that I be the one to lay him to rest.” Samuels pulled his
lips tightly together for an instant. “I would prefer to have been
summoned for the christening,” he added wearily, rising.

Silvia got to her feet at the same time.
“You are very kind and surely tired from your trip. I’ll have Anna
show you to your room.” She hurried away to find the maid, her own
spirits falling rapidly. Since meeting Samuels, she felt more
apprehensive than ever.