Shades of the Past (23 page)

"As you wish, but I really have little appetite.  Why don't we bring the food with us?"

»«

"Ten, nine, eight . . ." 

Vanessa counted off the remaining seconds then transferred the negative plate from the fixer to the wash and lit the ruby lamp. 

As Adrian moved off the stool to join her, she quickly washed her hands then began gently agitating the pan to remove the last traces of solution from the negative.  In the lamp's ruddy glow, they stared at the image on the plate through the wavering water. 

"Adrian, there's something here." 

Lifting the plate from the water, Vanessa drained off the liquid then examined it more carefully. 

"There is definitely a misted form standing before the tower entrance.  Can you see it—these dark crystals here?  This is a reverse image, of course, and the dark areas will print out light and the light ones dark.  Unfortunately, the negative is underexposed.  Much of the detail in the shadows will be lost when the image is printed out."

"Is there anything you can do to recover it?"  Adrian studied the plate intently.

"The detail in the shadows?  No.  But, this misted form which appears to be a woman is more important.  I intend to use the platinum-treated paper that I acquired in Hereford for printing out the photographs.  With its long tonal scale, hopefully it will reveal sufficient detail to identify our spectral lady."

"Then perhaps we should begin."

"We can't.  It's not a chemical process.  We'll need to expose the negative onto the Platinotype in strong sunlight.  However, we still have another plate to develop."  She smiled.

Dousing the light again, Vanessa proceeded to remove the second negative plate from its holder and take it through the development process, step-by-step.  Submersing the plate in metol for the prescribed time, she next shifted it to the chemical bath, then to the basin of fixer to remove the silver salts, and finally to the wash.

 Adrian waited on the stool, out of the way of the chemicals, as Vanessa requested. 

"No one can deny Sherringham's being haunted now," he observed to her dryly in the dark, though she discerned a smile in his voice.  "Who would have guessed, love, that you have a special gift for spirit photographs?"

"Very amusing, Adrian, but you know we must not let others know of the haunting just yet.  The specter hasn't finished telling us what it wants."

After re-lighting the lamp and washing the traces of solution from her hands, Vanessa gave her attention to the new plate in the wash bath and lifted it out.

"Adrian"—she swallowed deeply—"I think you better see this."

  Without hesitation, he came to her side.

"Is that a figure on the stairs?" he wondered aloud.

"Yes.  It appears to be a woman, lying head downward on the bottom steps."

"Look at the angle of her head."  Adrian pointed to its awkward position.

Vanessa's stomach slowly rolled over.  "Adrian, I have a terrible feeling about this.  What if the ghost wants us to know that she—or some other woman—died on these steps?" 

She set the negative plate on the table and quickly turned to face Adrian.

"Don't you see?  I felt no malice when the specter pushed me on the steps.  Perhaps, it simply didn't know its own strength and was only trying to convey how it—she—died.  Now that we know, hopefully, the specter can rest."

Adrian considered her words, then shook his head. 

"I confess, I'm mystified.  I know Sherringham's history thoroughly—or so I thought.  There are no accounts of anyone dying in the west wing.  On the other hand, if some woman did meet her death there, that would preclude Olivia.  She died in the carriage accident at Devil's Hairpin.  Lawrence witnessed it from the tower."

"Then who is the woman in the picture with the broken neck?  And who is the specter that has been leading me all about?"

No sooner did the words leave her lips than the temperature dropped around them.  Adrian pulled Vanessa into the protection of his arms. 

"My God, Vanessa, what's happening?  The room has gone frigid." 

She wrapped her arms tight around him and felt him shudder against her.

"Adrian, it's her—the phantom in the photograph."

At Vanessa's urging, Adrian stretched forth his hands and explored the frosty air surrounding them. 

Initially, it seemed the entire room had turned to an icy cell.  But he quickly discerned a limit to the chilly expanse—a bitter-cold rim and, beyond that, the room's warmer temperature.  The phenomenon possessed a spherical form, as Vanessa had described.  At the moment, however, it held them at its center, no matter where they moved. 

As intriguing as Adrian found the phenomenon, he distrusted it completely.  The phantasm had wrought harm on Vanessa only yesterday.  Perhaps its intent now was simply to freeze them to death. 

Vanessa shivered with cold beside him, but she did not appear in the least frightened or intimidated by the anomaly.  In truth, her composure amazed him.  As for himself, a shot of good Scotch whiskey would be most welcome right now—for warmth as well as nerves.

Adrian reached for Vanessa, intending to enclose her in the heat of his arms.  But she stepped from his side before he could stop her. 

"I found what you were trying to show me."  Vanessa addressed the entity as she turned in a slow circle.  "The exposure I made of the staircase shows a woman sprawled over the bottom steps, her neck apparently broken.  That is what you wish to be known, is it not?  A woman died in the tower study.  You, perhaps?"

Vanessa exchanged a glance with Adrian.  They perceived no response, excepting for the room's temperature, which felt increasingly bitter.

Adrian started to speak but Vanessa raised her hand, staying his words, as she appealed to the specter once more.

"I don't believe you meant to push me from the stairs.  I think you were only trying to demonstrate what happened to
you.
  Someone shoved you down the spiral staircase, didn't they, and as a result, you broke your neck?"

The frigid air continued to envelop them a moment longer, then suddenly withdrew.  Incredulously, the room warmed in an instant.  Adrian reached out his hands and tested the encompassing air. 

"I think she's gone." 

"Or only moved off." 

Vanessa likewise searched for evidence of the entity's continued presence.  Halting before the room's only door, she slid her hands over and around an illusionary spherical shape.

"She's over here, Adrian." 

He started toward Vanessa, watching her hands follow the movement of the invisible ball of cold as it rose upward, no less than a foot.  Suddenly, she pitched forward, her palms flattening against the wood of the door as she caught herself.  Vanessa cast a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder at Adrian as he hurried to join her. 

"She's gone through the door," Vanessa gasped.  "I think she wants us to follow her outside."

Adrian started to caution Vanessa, but just as he reached her, she snatched her shawl from the wall peg, flung open the door, and hurried out. 

Pivoting in place she darted back into the Photo House.  "Wait!  I'll need my camera." 

Adrian was uncertain whether she directed the comment to himself or the specter.  Glancing out the door, he noted the late afternoon light was already falling toward sunset.

"Are you sure there is enough light to make your exposures?"

Vanessa halted her movements and followed his gaze.  "No, you're right.  It will soon be dark."  Looping her arm through his, she pulled him with her, back out the door.  "Come, we must hurry.

Astonishingly, Vanessa was able to follow the movements of their ghostly companion, tracking its chilly mass of air.  When they reached the end of the courtyard, Adrian feared the entity meant to lure them into the tower once again.  This time, thankfully, he was present to protect Vanessa.

Unexpectedly, the icy sphere moved off again, leading them through a series of arched portals and adjoining courtyards, bringing them at last outside the complex itself and onto Sherringham's main drive.  From there, it directed them across the open fields in the direction of the mausoleum.  Adrian didn't wish to speculate on what the entity intended to show them in the house of the dead.  Again he gave thanks that he accompanied Vanessa on this uncertain venture.

"We could be in for a long walk, darling.  Are you up to it?"

She nodded, smiling though she was already somewhat breathless as she continued to locate and attempt to keep up with the specter's movements.  With Vanessa's guidance, Adrian took over the task and, together, they hastened over the grassy and uneven field, moving in a straight line.

Two-thirds of the way across, the sphere of cold veered sharply westward.  Adrian guessed the entity now led them on a course that would bring them out somewhere between the follies and to the narrow road that lay beyond.

The sun hung low in the sky when the Abbey Ruin came into sight.  They had not journeyed as far as he'd supposed, Adrian realized.  To both his and Vanessa's amazement, the spectral cold led them directly toward the folly itself, rather than around it to the road that lay on the other side.

The ruin jabbed at the fiery sky, its ancient ribs like a graveyard of so many forgotten bones left to molder through time.

As the entity continued to lead them among the stones, Vanessa reached out and touched Adrian's arm. 

"Is it safe to be here?"

Adrian raised a brow at the sudden concern in her voice.  "Of course, darling.  Unless you have some notion about climbing the stones."

Vanessa blinked at his jest, then dismissed it with a shake of her head.  "I understood the folly is in disrepair, crumbling, and that the children are not allowed to play here."

"That was long ago, when I myself was young."  When Vanessa continued to give him a questioning look, he reconsidered.  "I have been away awhile.  It could need new repairs, I suppose, but I would think someone would have mentioned it to me."

Vanessa did not respond as the sphere of cold moved rapidly ahead of them and they were forced to hasten on, in order to keep pace with it.

Passing beneath soaring Gothic arches, eroded by time, they came to stand in the heart of the abbey.  What existed of the structure stood roofless to a blood-red sky.  The windows, empty of their glass, stared like hollow eyes, and the floor was a coarse carpet, strangled with knee-deep weeds.

The light continued to fail as the sphere of cold led them to the rear of the ruin—to a sheltered portion which once would have formed the back of the sanctuary.  Two of the walls were largely intact, the third half tumbled down.

The entity brought them to a halt before the half-fallen wall which, Adrian noted, still stood taller than he.  Suddenly, the sphere of icy air began spinning, picking up speed and generating a furious wind. 

Adrian sheltered Vanessa in his arms as he squinted through the dust and debris caught up in the specter's wake.  As they watched, the gusting wind began to glow before the rough-hewn wall.

"D-do you see that?"  Vanessa pointed then grasped hold of his arm, her fingers digging in.

Adrian hugged her close as the luminous whirling mist hovered high above the ground.  Its shape transformed, assuming a funnel-like appearance, much like a whirlwind.  Abruptly as it began, it swirled into the face of the wall and disappeared.

Adrian stood stunned, his hold loosening on Vanessa.  She broke from his arms and ran to the wall, placing her hands on its stony surface.

"She's gone inside!  Feel for yourself, Adrian.  The stones are like boulders of ice.  Surely, she's trying to tell us something, but what?  I mean, she can't expect us to follow her through solid rock."

Adrian joined Vanessa, placing a hand to the stone, then drew it back.  The flesh of his palm stung with cold. 

"She doesn't expect us to go through solid rock.  This particular section is a mock wall.  It's no more than wire and plaster and cement, all cleverly painted up and made to look real.  My guess is the specter wants us to open the wall itself."

Vanessa turned huge eyes on Adrian.  "I'm not sure I want to know what is behind the wall, not after what we discovered about the tower study." 

She touched the wall's stony surface again. 

"You say it is a mock wall but it feels so solid."

"It's not exactly fragile.  It will take a pickax to break through the facade." 

Adrian tested the stonework to see if anything might be loose or easily give way beneath his fingers.  As he continued to pry at the wall's surface, horses' hooves sounded on the road nearby.  Adrian and Vanessa looked up in unison to discover Lawrence reining his horse to a halt.

"Ho, brother!" he called out, remaining mounted.  "I saw you both cross the field on foot, and it struck me as odd given that Vanessa is still recovering.  When you didn't return, I decided to ride out and assure all is well." 

Adrian strode toward Lawrence, glad to be able to draw on his help.  "I need pickaxes, brother, and some strong arms.  I intend to open this wall tonight."

"Are you mad, Adrian?  You propose to destroy this . . . this
monument
to our grandfather?  He had the Ruin moved here stone by stone and later improved it.  Why, Adrian?  Why would you purposely destroy his masterwork?  And to what end?"

"You will have to trust me in this for now, brother.  I will explain later.  
After
we open the wall."

"No, Adrian!  I'll not let you ruin grandfather's crowning work at Sherringham."

Adrian's anger boiled over at Lawrence’s challenge.  "Since I returned here, my authority has been ever challenged.  I shall remind you, brother,
I
am Viscount Marrable and Master of Sherringham, and I shall do as I will with
my
follies.  Now I intend to open this wall, and I shall repair it too at my own cost.  Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," Lawrence grit out, his nostrils flaring. "Being only a second son—though second only by minutes—I have no say over a brother destroying the Marrable legacy."

As Adrian and Lawrence continued to glare at one another, the hooves of horses and wheels of a carriage clamored over the road. 

Vanessa came swiftly to Adrian's side.  "It's Henry.  Cissy must have sent him out." 

"Good."  Adrian clipped out, his eyes still locked with his brother's.  "Maybe Henry will be more willing to lend his aid here."

"Do as you wish, brother.  Sometimes I fear what these past years have truly done to you."  Kicking into his horse, Lawrence rode off, back in the direction of the mansion.

A half-hour later, pickaxes in hand, Adrian and Henry struck into the wall, breaching the stonelike surface and opening the facade.  Vanessa and Cissy held up lanterns for the men, while Majel and Nigel observed from a safe distance in their carriages.

The iciness continued to dwell in the wall, confirming the specter's presence and guiding the men where to work.  Adrian pulled away thick chunks of plaster and cement, glad for the heavy work gloves his sister had thoughtfully provided. 

"There's something here," Henry called, working at a height in the wall chest-high to Adrian.

Adrian assisted him as they broke away another large chunk of wall and pried back the base of cooping wire inside. 

"Vanessa, the lantern." 

As she raised the light for him to better see, he started to reach into the hole then jumped back as a skeletal face gaped out at him—hollow-eyed, with high, bony cheekbones and a grotesque grin that made his blood run cold.

Adrian swallowed long and hard then turned to Vanessa and took the lantern from her. 

"Darling, you and Cissy should join Majel in the carriage.  You won't want to see this, believe me."

Vanessa stood her ground.  "Adrian Marrable, I appreciate your protecting my sensibilities."  She walked toward him and dropped her voice.  "But, it's my ghost too."

"Very well, but stand back." 

Cissy joined Vanessa as Adrian and Henry worked apace, breaking open the wall fully.  As they freed the last large block of cement, the skeleton spilled from the wall and onto the ground.

Adrian held the lantern close, bile rising in his throat as he spied the fiery red hair and familiar brocade gown with its stained and tattered lace.  A band of gold glinted on its bony finger. 

Adrian's breath congealed in his chest as he gazed on the wedding ring he'd wondered about so long.  It took him many moments longer before he could find his voice.  Even then, only a single word rose in his throat—"Olivia."