Mesmerized (23 page)

“A gold box?”

“Yes. It was about this big.” Olivia gestured with her hands. “And quite prettily engraved around the edges. It was so vivid in the dream! She set the box down on the bed and opened it. Inside it was some jewelry—gold chains and gold and silver bracelets, some rings. She took out a gold cross. It had a red stone in the center of the cross—” Olivia stopped abruptly and looked at him. “It was, well, I guess it was like the cross Madame Valenskaya was talking about, the one you told me was in the Martyrs’ treasure. Oh, of course! The gold box! You told me about the treasure box and the gold cross. That must have been why I dreamed about it.”

Olivia realized she felt strangely disappointed to think that her dream had had no significance but had simply been caused by things she had heard about the past few days.

“Did I tell you it was gold?” Stephen asked.

Olivia hesitated for a moment, thinking. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember your saying it. I was picturing it as a wooden box while you were talking. That is why I did not connect it at first. Is it gold?”

“Was there anything else in the box?” Stephen asked, sidestepping her question.

“Yes. She took out a necklace, as well. It was beautiful, made of gold beads, and the beads looked as if they had some kind of engraving on them.”
Olivia was gazing blankly out across the garden, recalling the dream in her head, and so she did not see Stephen stiffen at her words.

“She went to another trunk and took out a belt that was made of gold links, and in the center of the belt, where it fastened, there were stones like the one in the cross, three of them, one centered in each link. It was the belt she was wearing when we saw her.”

“I didn’t notice the belt,” Stephen said abstractedly. “But I—”

He stood, reaching down to take her hand and pull her up, too. “Come with me. There is something I want to show you.”

S
tephen whisked her back into the house and seated her in his study, then left. He had refused to answer any of her questions as they walked back through the garden, merely shaking his head and telling her to “wait and see.” By the time he reappeared at the study door, Olivia’s curiosity was at a fever pitch.

He stepped into the room, carrying a small bundle, and closed the door behind him. Olivia stood up as he carried the bundle over to his desk and set it down. Stephen carefully unwrapped the blue velvet covering from around the object, revealing it at last as a golden box about a foot long and over half as tall. Around the edges of the box were engravings, and in the front it fastened with a clasp that came down over a small bar, which then turned to open and close it.

Olivia stared, her hand going to her stomach. She felt as if someone had knocked the breath from her. The box before her on the desk was the same one she had seen in her dream last night.

“It’s the same,” she breathed, reaching out her hand toward it, then letting it fall, not touching it. “Oh, Stephen…it’s
exactly
the same.”

Her eyes began to water, and her stomach felt like a chunk of ice. She sat back down abruptly. “This is impossible.”

“I know. But when you began to describe it and its contents, I suspected you must have seen this casket.”

“But how—” She raised her gaze finally from the gleaming box and looked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. But I want you to look at what’s inside.” He opened the clasp and raised the lid. There was a pile of golden objects inside the little box, including a small dagger with a jeweled gold hilt. On top lay a large cross, also made of gold, about four or five inches long, and in the center lay a cabochon ruby.

Olivia stared at the cross. She had guessed that it would be in there, after seeing the gold casket, but even so, it made her stomach queasy to see the actual object, exactly like the one she had seen in her dream.

“I did not see the dagger,” she said.

“No? What about this?” Stephen pulled out a necklace, long oval gold beads strung together, each bead cunningly etched.

“That’s the necklace,” she said a little breathlessly. “It was in the box, too.”

“It’s not a necklace,” Stephen replied, holding it
closer to her. “It is a rosary. See, there are different shaped lozenges for the Pater Nosters and the Ave Marias. And each bead, if you’ll look, is carved with a biblical scene. It’s excellent craftsmanship.”

“It’s beautiful,” Olivia responded. “And the girdle she wore? The jeweled belt? Is it in there?”

“No. I have never seen anything like that. But there are some necklaces and rings and such. Do you recognize any of them?”

He held out the box to her, and Olivia stood up and took it in her hands. As she grasped it, she was suddenly swamped with a strange feeling. Her stomach roiled, and it was hard to breathe. The blood drained from her face, leaving her ashen.

In her mind Olivia saw the woman she had dreamed of the night before. Lady Alys was with the knight she loved. They were outside in a meadow, sitting beside a pond. It was, Olivia realized, the same pond where she and Stephen had gone the first day she was at Blackhope.

Lady Alys was leaning against the knight, his arm curled around her, and they seemed to be lazily daydreaming in the sun. Alys looked up at the knight, her face soft with love. They were facing toward the pond, smiling and talking, absorbed in each other. They did not see, as Olivia saw, another man standing some distance from them, hidden among the trees at the edge of the meadow. His hair was black, as was his small pointed beard. A gold ring glinted on his finger, and the silk tunic he wore was richly embroi
dered with gold thread at the neck. He was watching the couple, his face stamped with a cold, fierce hatred.

An overpowering sense of evil swept Olivia, and her throat constricted. She could not breathe. She swayed, her eyes rolling up.

“Olivia!” Stephen jumped forward, his arm going around her waist as she slumped into a faint. With his other hand, he grasped the gold box.

He thrust the box onto the desk with one hand, his other arm lowering Olivia gently into her chair. Worriedly, he took her wrist and felt for her pulse.

“Olivia. Please, wake up.” Visions of her slipping into the same unconscious state as Babington played terrifyingly through his head. “Sweet Lord, wake up.”

He started to ring for smelling salts again, but just then Olivia’s eyelids fluttered, and she opened her eyes.

“Thank God.” Stephen let out a sigh of relief. “Are you all right?”

“I—I think so.” Olivia looked confused. “What happened?”

“You fainted. I’m not sure why. I handed you the Martyrs’ casket, and you looked very strange and fell into a faint.”

He slipped his hand behind her back and helped her straighten.

“Oh,” Olivia said, covering her eyes with her hand. She felt weak and a little sick to her stomach, as well. “I saw something. I’m sorry, I really can’t
explain it well. But as soon as I touched that casket, I saw Lady Alys.” She described the scene to him, along with the man in the concealing woods who watched the lovers.

“Do you think it was the lady’s husband?” Stephen asked.

“Sir Raymond? Yes, I think it was. Hatred poured from him. His eyes were glittering with anger and I was just flooded with this horrible sense of evil.”

“Evil?” He responded. “There are those who would say her husband was the injured party.”

“But you didn’t see this man. He was—I don’t know, the feeling of evil was so strong. It was more than jealousy or anger. I can’t explain it. But it made me feel quite ill.”

“I could see that.” Stephen moved away and leaned against his desk, stretching his legs out in front of him. He looked at Olivia, whose color was returning.

“All right,” he said. “What is happening?”

“I haven’t any idea,” Olivia replied. “I have never experienced anything like this in my life. What do these things mean that I keep seeing? And why am I seeing them? I would think I was going utterly mad if you had not seen some of them, as well.”

“But I have. And I am quite certain that you are not mad.” Stephen reached over and took her hand and squeezed it, gazing down into her eyes.

Olivia gave him a wobbly smile in return, her eyes unexpectedly filling with tears. Stephen pulled her to
her feet and into his arms, holding her lightly. “No. Don’t cry. None of this is worth your tears.”

Olivia leaned her head against his chest. It was amazing, she thought, how easy this was becoming. It felt so good to be near him, to let him encompass her with his strength. She was growing accustomed to their chats every evening in his study, to seeing him at breakfast and dinner, to walking with him in the garden or sharing tea with him.

It was foolish, she told herself, weak and foolish. Soon she would be leaving, and she would not see him again. She would return to her normal life, a life he did not share. She would be on her own again, pursuing her enthusiasms with the help of only Tom Quick. She would no longer discuss the happenings of the day with Stephen or see his smile…or feel the touch of his hand on hers.

She blinked away her tears, calling herself all kinds of a fool. She straightened and moved from him, turning her back and surreptitiously wiping away her tears. It was time to stop acting like a ninny.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice came out a little husky, and she cleared her throat. “I am afraid I have an abominable headache. It makes me a little weak. I do not usually give in to tears that way.”

“You have had a good number of shocks the past few days,” he said. “We all have.”

“I am having a bit of trouble,” she admitted. “What I seem to be seeing and feeling goes against everything I believe in. I cannot believe that these
visions are real, that these are
ghosts!
” She turned and looked at him, her eyes wide. “In all the investigations I’ve done, I have never seen a ghost. I have never had a dream like the ones I have had recently, or—or seen people who are not there. And not only that—I have felt so clearly what they were thinking and feeling.”

“I cannot explain it.”

“Nor I. Even though I do not believe it, let us suppose that Madame Valenskaya or one of the others is amazingly expert in the practice of mesmerism, or hypnotism. And let us even say that it is possible, if one is so expert, to make a person believe they see something that isn’t there, or to make them have dreams about a particular subject. And let us also imagine, since we are saying that they can do these other things, that they are able to implant in us the successful suggestion that we forget when and where and how we were hypnotized.”

“All right. Given all those unlikely things…”

“There are still logistical problems. When and where did they do this hypnotizing? You had your first dream about this couple in London, before Madame Valenskaya came here. Before you even met her. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes.”

“And since we have been here, there have generally been other people about, including the servants. I cannot see how anyone could have hypnotized me or you without someone else noticing. Unless they did
it in the dead of night. And there have been so many details to the dreams—words and feelings and the minutiae of the people’s appearance, what their clothes were, what the box and its contents looked like—and there have been so many visions. How could they have implanted all of that in both of us?”

“It stretches the limits of credibility,” Stephen agreed.

“But even if all that could somehow be explained away or believed, there is still this problem—How could I have known what the box looked like or what it contained or what any of the contents were? I had never seen it before, and neither has Madame Valenskaya or the other two. Yet I saw the box and its contents down to the last detail. I knew its size, and I knew that it had engraving around the edge. I knew exactly how the rosary looked, even though I didn’t know it was a rosary and thought it only a necklace. Madame Valenskaya could not have described it, because she has never seen it. There is no way she could have seen it before, is there—a drawing or anything?”

“No. She has never been in this house, and as far as I know, that box has never left it. I know my father never removed it, and I don’t think Roderick would have, either. As I said, it’s something of a superstition in the family. None of us would have risked losing it. And I have never heard of any drawings of the box or its contents. As far as I know, it is not even known outside this family.”

“Then I cannot believe these things could have been the product of hypnotism. And if it isn’t that, what is it?”

They looked at each other for a long moment, neither of them wanting to actually say it. Finally Stephen sighed and said, “Ghosts? I feel like an utter fool saying it, but I cannot see how any of this could have been engineered. The dreams…the visions…”

“Mr. Babington’s fit?” Olivia offered.

“Do you think it is part of this?”

“I don’t know. But it seems to me that we have two sets of events. On the one hand, we have Madame Valenskaya’s séances and the things she says—the idea of the lost souls, the Martyrs’ treasure, the music and raps and the supposed voice of your brother.”

“The monk in the garden. The crying in the sitting room,” Stephen added.

“Yes. All of those things can be explained, and they all pertain to the gold casket. Then we have had an entirely different set of things: the apparition of the medieval woman in the great hall and the dreams you and I have had about this woman and her lover and husband. All of those are disturbingly inexplicable by any rational means.”

“That would mean that we have Madame Valenskaya and her daughter and Mr. Babington and their tricks, none of which are real. And an entirely different set of ‘spirits,’ which do seem to be real. Completely disconnected,” Stephen said.

“Not completely, though. The gold casket figures
in both of them. And Mr. Babington at the séance the other night—his talking as if he were possessed, the seizure, the coma. That all seemed quite real, as well.”

“Yes. This casket.” Stephen walked over to the desk and stood for a moment looking down at it. “It was part of the Martyrs’ treasure. And that was in the sixteenth century. Yet you dreamed about the medieval woman holding the box and its contents. When you held the box, you saw a very clear vision of the woman and her husband and the strong sense that the husband was evil. And those people appear to be from four hundred years earlier than the Martyrs.”

Olivia was silent for a moment, thinking. “Perhaps the treasure that Lord Scorhill hid consisted of family heirlooms. Maybe the box and even the contents had been handed down for generations. They could have felt, as your family does, that they were more precious than even more expensive jewels.”

Stephen nodded thoughtfully. “That could have been why they hid them away so securely. They could have taken their other valuables or sent them to family or friends, but they wanted these oldest, most precious objects to stay here in Blackhope where they belonged, even if it meant that no one ever found them again.”

“What about the room where your family found the casket? Are you sure that the martyred Lord Scorhill built it?”