The maid shook her head. “I didn’t see anything,” she moaned.
“It’s perfectly fine. In fact, you don’t have to tell me what you saw. No one will ever know what you saw. You only have to say, yes, or no. That’s all.”
Mary blinked. She seemed to reflect upon his words.
“Only yes or no, Mary. That is all you have to say. Do you think you can do that?”
Mary nodded.
Maurice heaved a sigh.
“Did…Miss Vera kill Calista Nightingale?”
His pulse quickened. Mary had cast her eyes down to the floor.
“Just yes or no, Mary.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Maurice stood. “Does Mrs. Cleary know what you saw, Mary?” If Mrs. Cleary knew Vera had killed her beloved Calista, then she would have wished to avenge her… Maurice held his breath. He watched Mary carefully.
A nod. Mary lifted her head, still nodding. “When I told her, she warned me not to speak of it. She…” Mary froze, unable to say anything further.
“What’s wrong, Mary?”
Up to this moment, Willy had sat beside the maid. Now he leapt up on its hind legs and barked at Maurice, fierce and loud.
Mary’s eyes widened. All the while, her mouth remained agape and Maurice thought she was choking.
Then he understood. The dog had not barked at him. Maurice took a step back.
He turned.
A violent blow struck him on the back of the skull. He collapsed to his knees; his head, a mindless cage, his vision blurred. Willy’s barks rose up, more furious than before, as Mary’s screams filled the parlour.
Maurice crawled to the nearby table, his limbs still shook from the pain. As he gasped, wrestling against the blackness, another sharp blow to the head felled him.
Images flashed before him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He sensed the floor rub against his body. He was being dragged to the entrance hall. Mary’s screaming had not ceased. He had a vision of a key inserted into the cellar door, then he saw the ornate door swing open. The dark folds of a long dress swished above him and a sinister voice rose over Willy’s frantic barks.
“Dear, dear, Mr. Wilson, do you wish to know what I’ve learnt? She’s a mad, mad woman, that one,” mimicked the voice, intimating that his letter to Mr. Wilson had been opened and its contents read. “Can’t have that, can we? Snooping in my private business. But no more, Mr. Leroux, no more.”
A firm grip seized his collar and he felt his body slide across the checkered tiles.
Then followed a repeated thud, as his heels banged across the stairs and a grip pulled his inanimate body into the underground chamber he dreaded.
Chapter 13
The Woman from Kassiopi
Alexandra Hall, January 1848
CALISTA lay on her bed, her head propped up on three lush pillows. Occasionally her body shook, seized with a bout of coughing. The physician would not arrive for a couple of days. She felt her pulse fade. The days succeeded one another, and while Vera had come, Calista remembered only pain from the cold look her sister-in-law had given her upon arriving at Alexandra Hall.
“I came as soon as I could,” began Vera as she took in the beauty of the room with a prick of envy. Responding to Calista’s invitation to sit, Vera found a cushioned armchair and sat beside the bed, already irked by the woman who had bewitched her brother and turned her own life upside down.
“My dear Vera, I am so glad you came.” Calista spoke from the heart but her voice was weak. In truth, her breath was laboured, crushed by a long illness which Aaron attributed to the foul air of the cellar.
“I suppose one must do one’s duty,” responded Vera, absent-mindedly. She removed her gloves.
“Did you read all my letter, Miss Vera?” came Calista’s anxious voice. The look of alarm in her tired eyes reflected the distress of not finding any sympathy from the woman she had long awaited.
“I certainly have,” sniffed Vera. “I understand you are quite ill, my dear. I have spoken to Aaron.”
“What…what… did you tell him?”
“Do not trouble yourself. My brother is most understanding of your condition.”
“Please, you must believe me. I can tell you everything.”
“I think you must rest,” said Vera, eyeing her coldly.
Beneath the covers, Calista shuddered. Her skin already so pale, had grown ashen with fear.
Vera examined Calista’s tired face. At thirty-three, the Greek woman remained as beautiful as she had looked upon her first arrival at Alexandra Hall, her thick hair, still long and dark, even in illness. As for Vera, she had withered. It was alarming how envy could devour one’s insides. If she had never married, it was Calista’s fault. Aaron could hardly help the man he was. Nor the brother he never was.
“My brother has vaguely spoken of your research in the cellar. He admits, he ought not have worked you so hard. He has expressed his wish that you rest, now.”
“But, I must tell you…” Calista’s voice trailed. She gazed at the tea she had finished a moment ago. She wondered what she had drunk. Her mind clouded.
Vera’s keen eye ran across the rose wallpaper where blooming rose bushes, in pink and salmon, neighboured leafy green foliage. Overhead, she took note of the golden motifs along the cornices. Each corner of the room depicted an elaborate bouquet of flowers and— as odd as it seemed, here in the country – shells. In the centre of this heavenly ceiling, was an oval alcove with a gilded frame that might have belonged in some Greek palace. The alcove’s artwork evoked floating clouds against a celestial blue sky. If Calista had stared above, she might have imagined her Greek homeland. Vera sighed, overwhelmed with disgust.
“What an ungrateful girl. Now,
