The Right Hand of Evil

CHAPTER 21

Janet climbed down off the ladder and stepped back to survey her work. When it was finished, the mural would cover most of one wall of the dining room. When she first told Ted her idea of doing the trompe l'oeil, making the long dining room wall opposite the French doors appear to open out onto another, far more formal garden from a time long past, she confessed that she'd almost given up on it before she even started. And it hadn't been simply the vastness of the wall that deterred her. "It's a whole different technique," she'd explained. "You have to know everything about perspective, and lighting, and-"

"And mostly, you have to have the ability to put what you see on the canvas," Ted had interrupted. They'd been in her studio, where she'd shown him the first sketch she made of the imaginary garden from the past. "I might not know much about art," he'd gone on, "but even just in black and white I feel as if I could walk right into that garden."

She eyed the image on the canvas as objectively as she could, and knew he was right-it was good. But still, the task of expanding it to fill the dining room wall seemed all but impossible. What if she couldn't do it?

"The worst that can happen is that you make a mess, and we paint it over. What have you got to lose?"

"Time," she'd reminded him. Just that morning, she'd tried to make a list of everything that needed to be done in the house, but gave up when the job began to look so staggeringly huge that she didn't see how they could ever succeed. But Ted had had an answer for that, too.

"Time is the one thing we're not lacking. Don't forget-there isn't any deadline for opening the hotel. I'd love to be ready by spring, but if it doesn't happen, it's not going to kill us. All the trust says is that I have to be living here. It's my idea to turn it into a business. And there's plenty of money in the accounts to hire people if I need to. So why not give the mural a try?"

He'd taken her hand-something he hadn't done in years-and led her through the house to the cavernous dining room. He had stripped the walls of their peeling wallpaper only the day before. "Maybe it's just the way you did the drawing, but I keep seeing a night scene." His eyes left the wall and scanned the vast, empty room. "And I keep seeing this room done in white-with fresh flowers everywhere-on the tables, on the sideboards, everywhere. I want to make it really romantic, with lots of candles, and tables for two-maybe a few for four, but mostly deuces." His eyes shifted back to the huge blank wall. "And when people look at that wall, they'll see what it must have been like here a century ago, with all those perfect formal gardens no one can afford to keep up anymore. Maybe with a reflecting pool, and moonlight…" He stopped, and looked worried. "Am I biting off more than you can chew?"

Janet shook her head. "If I could do it right, and it were lit right, it could be gorgeous at night. But what about breakfast and lunch?"

"We build a breakfast room," Ted had told her, and for the next hour he led her from room to room, describing the visions in his head. As she listened, Janet, too, began to see the elegant little hotel he wanted to build.

"I don't know if I can do it," he admitted when they were back in the dining room. "But I figure I'll take it one step at a time, and when I come to something I can't do, I'll find someone to help me out. So how about it? What's wrong with you trying to do something wonderful with that wall?"

She started the next day, elaborating on that first sketch she'd made. She worked through the morning, and Ted stopped by now and then to look over her shoulder at the drawings. But he never said anything unless she asked him what he thought. By the end of the morning, she'd finished a drawing that he assured her was a perfect depiction of exactly what he'd had in mind.

And Janet, after studying the drawing as objectively as she possibly could, decided that whether or not Ted was simply humoring her, the drawing was good. Right after lunch, she set to work expanding it onto the huge expanse of the dining room wall.

Within a couple of days-after she'd transformed the wainscoting into a faux-marble balustrade-she realized that Ted was right. She could do it. Slowly, the image took form, and as she worked, new ideas came to her. The painting seemed to take on a life of its own.

Now, even though the mural was still far from complete, the illusion was starting to emerge. She moved from the base of the ladder to the double doors opening from the entry hall, and was trying to gauge the mural's overall effect when she heard Ted come up from the basement, where he'd been working most of the day on the plumbing. For a moment she felt all the automatic responses that had become almost instinctual in her over the years:

The flush of apprehension as she waited to see how much he'd had to drink.

The reflexive shrinking away from the alcohol on his breath, and the roughness of his touch.

The measuring of the anger he always carried with him, which increased in proportion to the number of drinks he'd consumed.

But since that morning six weeks ago when he rid the house of the alcohol he'd bought only the day before, all of that had changed. Slowly, Janet had lowered her guard. Now, as she felt him behind her, she found herself looking forward to his touch rather than dreading it. She snuggled back against his chest, her fingers stroking the thick curly hair on his forearms as he slipped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck with his lips.

"I must smell like a pig," he growled into her ear.

"You smell wonderful," Janet murmured, her whole body responding to the musky odor emanating from his skin.

"Where's Molly?"

"Sound asleep," Janet replied. "I put her down half an hour ago."

Ted's fingers gently caressed her breasts. "How long will she sleep?"

"Maybe an hour." Janet twisted in his arms, and put her own around his neck. "Think that'll be long enough?"

"Not by half," Ted whispered. His lips moved from her neck and ear to her mouth, and his arms tightened around her. "Want to go upstairs?" he asked when their lips parted again.

Janet thought of the paintbrushes she'd left on the tray at the top of the ladder.

She thought of the mess in the kitchen that she hadn't cleaned up since lunch.

She thought of the hundred other things that needed to be done.

"I can't think of anything I'd rather do," she said.

He swept her up in his arms and started across the foyer toward the stairs.

"What are you doing?" Janet cried. "Ted, for God's sake, put me down! You'll cripple yourself!"

"Quiet, woman!" he commanded. He started up the stairs, and Janet's struggles gave way to giggles.

"If you drop me, so help me I'll-"

The front door opened then, and they heard Kirn's voice. "Mom? Dad? What's wrong? How come you're carrying Mom?"

"Damn," Ted swore. Janet froze, waiting for the explosion. But when he spoke again, his voice was low enough that only she could hear him. "There goes a perfectly good ravaging. But just wait until later, when the children are locked in their rooms…" His voice trailed off seductively, then he kissed her and lowered her to the stairs. "Nothing's wrong," he told Kim, starting back down to the first floor. "How was school?"

Kim's face clouded. "Okay, I guess," she said, her voice giving the lie to her words.

"What happened?" Janet asked, also back in the foyer now.

Kim's eyes flicked from her mother to her father, then back to Janet. "Just Jared and Luke. They were acting like jerks."

"Anything special, or were they just being adolescent boys?" Ted asked.

Kim's gaze shifted uncertainly back to her father. It had been so long since he'd wanted to talk to either her or Jared that she still wasn't used to it. "Well, Sandy thought they were being jerks, too."

"Sounds like teenage boy stuff," Ted said.

The clouds in Kim's face turned stormy. "Why do you always defend him?" she demanded, glaring at her father. "What's going on around here? It seems like anything Jared wants to do is just fine with you, even when he's acting like an-"

"Hey, I'm sorry," he said with no trace of anger, holding up his hands as if to ward off Kim's attack. "I guess sometimes your old dad can still be a chauvinist pig. So what exactly did he do?" Kim hesitated, and Ted thought he knew what she was thinking. "Come on," he urged her gently. "I'm not going to bite your head off. And I promise I'll listen. Okay?"

Kim, mollified, first told them what had happened at the pizza parlor, then the aftermath in Sister Clarence's classroom. "I don't know what's going on with him," she finished. "But something's wrong. He's just not like himself. He-"

"He's growing up, honey," Ted told her. "Just like you are. Neither one of you is like you used to be. But that's not a bad thing. It's just-"

The phone rang, and he stopped as Janet picked it up. A moment later she mouthed Father Bernard at him. The conversation was brief.

"Father Bernard wants to see us," she said as she put the phone down. "Jared won't be home for a while."

Ted's brows rose. "What's he doing?"

"Cleaning the church," Janet said. "Father Bernard decided that if they didn't see fit to get to class on time, they might as well find out how they would enjoy being janitors, since, as he put it, 'that's about all either of them will be fit for if they don't straighten up.'"

Ted's eyes flashed with the sudden fury of his drinking days. They cleared quickly, but when he spoke, his voice was harsh. "Well," he said, "I suppose Father knows best, doesn't he?"

Clean the church.

Clean the freakin' church!

What kind of crap was that? Jared wondered, though he was careful to say nothing out loud until he and Luke were safely out of the school building. So they'd been a few minutes late getting back from lunch. What was the big deal? It wasn't like they were going to miss out on learning the secret of life, for Christ's sake. So they didn't get to hear Sister Clarence discuss the proper use of the subjunctive tense, or whatever the hell she'd been talking about. Who cared? But the thing that had pissed Jared off most was that Father Bernard left them waiting outside his office all afternoon. It wasn't like he'd been doing anything important-Jared was sure that most of the time he'd just been sitting there, inside. But they'd had to stand and wait, with everyone else in the school staring at them during the breaks.

No one had spoken to them, as if they were afraid they might catch some dread disease.

Bunch of kiss-ups, that's all they were, he thought.

Then, when they'd finally been called into Father Bernard's office, the priest made them stand at attention, like they were in some kind of military academy or something! And he'd even given them the "this hurts me as much as it hurts you" line of crap, like he really cared what happened to either one of them.

The way the priest had spoken, Jared assumed they would be suspended, but in the end he told them they were going to have to clean the church. "Perhaps if you see what it's like to work as a janitor, you might appreciate your classes a bit more."

More likely it was free labor that Father Bernard wanted, Jared decided.

"I bet he finds some reason to make a kid clean the church every single week," he said when he and Luke left the school. Sometime during the afternoon the weather had shifted, and the heavy mugginess in the air made Jared wish he could just go home and maybe sprawl out and take a nap. "What do you 'spose he'd do if we ditch it?" he asked.

Luke scuffed at the sidewalk, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. "You can do whatever you want. But if I don't show, my mom'll find out, and she'll kill me."

Jared eyed the church that loomed across the street. The last time he'd been inside was for his aunt Cora's funeral. He remembered thinking it had been kind of pretty, with the light coming through the stained-glass windows. But now it seemed forbidding, and as he came to the steps, he suddenly didn't want to go inside.

But why should I want to? he wondered. Going inside meant spending the next three hours scrubbing the floors, polishing the brass railing in front of the altar, and cleaning all the statues. But even as he silently ticked off the list of chores Father Bernard had assigned them, he knew there was more to his reluctance to enter than just that.

As he stared at the high limestone facade of St. Ignatius, a deep anger took hold inside him.

"Come on," he growled. "Let's get it over with."

They walked into the vestibule, and Luke automatically dipped his fingers into the font of holy water that stood just outside the doors to the sanctuary, and genuflected.

Jared reached toward the water himself, then stopped. Why should I? he asked himself. I'm not here to pray. I'm here because I'm being punished. "Where do they keep the cleaning stuff?" he asked.

"Downstairs," Luke told him. "I know where it is."

He started up the aisle toward the altar, with Jared trailing after him. But halfway up the aisle, Jared felt a strange queasiness in his gut, as though he were getting the flu. He stopped. Now, he felt a cold sweat break out, his whole body feeling clammy, and a shiver passed through him. "Hey, Luke," he said. "Where's the bathroom?"

Luke spoke without turning around. "You either have to go next door to the parish hall, or use the one downstairs."

"What do you mean, downstairs? Where're we going?"

"Will you just come on?" Luke countered. "Jesus, what's wrong with you?"

"I-I just don't feel so good," Jared replied.

Luke turned to look at him, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Well, you don't look like anything's wrong," he said. "You trying to stick me with all the work?"

Jared glared at him. "I just need to use the can. No big deal."

As he followed Luke down the aisle, his queasiness getting worse, he prayed that he wouldn't puke or have an attack of diarrhea right here in the middle of the church. Luke would never let him forget that. Everything inside him was churning by the time they got to the sacristy, and when he saw the stairs at the back of the small chamber, he hurried down them. At the bottom, there were three storage closets and the rest room.

"Start getting the stuff," Jared said. "I'll be out in a minute." Going into the rest room, he groped around until he found a light switch, turned it on, then closed and locked the door. As his guts continued to churn, he pulled down his pants and sat down on the toilet.

A plume of vomit spewed from his mouth, and as he turned to throw up the rest of the contents of his stomach into the toilet, the diarrhea struck.

Jared was drenched in a cold sweat and thought he was going to pass out. But a moment later the attack began to pass. His vision cleared, the pain in his stomach eased, and the chill that had seized his body released its grip. Easing himself back onto the toilet, he lowered his head between his knees.

There was a knock at the door, and Luke said, "Hey, Jared-you okay?"

"Yeah," Jared grunted. "I'll be out in a minute."

He sat up straight. The last of the queasiness had faded, and he didn't feel any different than he had before the attack had hit him. Using most of the roll of toilet paper that hung from the wall of the one stall, he cleaned himself up, then pulled up his pants. As he was washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror, and for a moment he didn't recognize his own face.

His complexion was chalk white, and his eyes were bloodshot and looked as if they'd sunk deeper into their sockets.

Dead, he thought. I look dead!

But then the color began to creep back into his face and his eyes cleared.

Still, he didn't look quite right. In some weird way he couldn't describe, he looked different.

On the other hand, why wouldn't he? Hadn't he just puked and shit his brains out? It was a wonder he could stand up at all!

Turning away from the mirror, he set to work with the paper towels he found on a shelf over the sink, cleaning up the mess on the floor. When he was done, he looked at himself in the mirror. He was still pale, but he thought he looked better.

"Jeez, Jared, what took you so long?" Luke asked when he finally came upstairs ten minutes later.

"The runs," Jared said. "Never had anything like that happen before."

"You still trying to get out of this?" Luke asked suspiciously.

Jared glowered at Luke. "Let's just get it done and get out of here, okay?" His eyes wandered over the church, and again he felt the sickness building inside him. "I think I'm starting to hate this place."

They worked steadily for the next two hours, alternately scrubbing, polishing, and dusting until at last there was nothing left to be done.

The brass gleamed; the statues shone.

Luke shook his head. "I never want to see another can of Brasso in my life."

Jared, though, said nothing, for while Luke was surveying their work, he'd been staring at something in one of the niches set into the sanctuary's walls. It was a shrine to one of the saints, the altar on which the statue stood constructed of ornately carved marble. Surrounding the statue were more than a dozen crosses of various sizes.

"What's the big deal with that one?" Jared asked, tipping his head toward the statue.

Cocking his head, Luke gazed at it. "I don't know. I guess maybe she was someone's favorite saint or something."

Jared moved closer to the statue, which now seemed to be looking straight at him.

Looking at him, and accusing him of something. "She looks like she thinks she's better than the rest of us," he said. His eyes swept over the rest of the figures that adorned the church. "They all do."

"So?" Luke countered. "They're saints. They were better than the rest of us. Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Jared smirked. "Oh, I've got a couple ideas." Stepping over to the altar on which the figure stood, he reached out and broke off one of the crosses.

"Jeez, Jared," Luke breathed. "What are you doing?"

Jared's eyes locked on Luke's. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking one of these things. There's so many of them, they'll never miss one. Bet they don't even notice it's gone."

"But what are you going to do with it?" Luke asked.

"Just wait," Jared said softly. "You'll see."

Monsignor Devlin rose slowly to his feet, his joints aching from the hours he'd spent sitting motionless within the confines of the tiny confessional. Although it had been years since he'd last heard any confession but Cora Conway's, the closeness of the partitioned booth still offered him a peace of spirit he found nowhere else. With the shutters to the grille closed against any penitent who might wander into the other side of the stall, he often sat the whole afternoon, following the wanderings of his mind wherever they led, knowing nothing would disturb his peace.

But today his peace had been disturbed. While he'd tried his best to close his consciousness to the sound of the two boys cleaning the church, their profanities destroyed his contemplation. Momentarily, he'd felt an urge to drive them from the sanctuary, but quickly thought better of it-a sanctuary from which two such obviously troubled souls could be driven was no sanctuary at all. In Monsignor Devlin's mind, the church should be as fully dedicated to the profane as to the devout, so he kept his silence, and quietly prayed for the boys' salvation.

Once, as he'd been silently repeating his rosary, he'd felt a draft seeping through the confessional's grillwork, and glanced up to see one of the boys passing his retreat.

Though he'd never seen the boy before, he recognized him at once-he had the features of all the Conways, so that even the tiny glimpse of the nephew reminded him of the great-uncle.

The great-uncle, and all the Conways who had gone before.

After Jared Conway passed his way, Monsignor Devlin was unable to concentrate on his devotions any longer, for no matter how hard he tried to keep his mind on his prayers, the words written in the Bible that Cora Conway had entrusted to him kept rising up from his memory, chilling his soul. After finishing Loretta Villiers Conway's last words, he'd put the Bible aside, feeling he'd somehow violated the privacy of the long-dead woman, never intending to open it again. Yet today, after glimpsing Cora Conway's great-nephew, he had come to realize that Cora must have wanted him to read the words her husband's ancestors had written, wanted him to understand something about her family. Why else would she have entrusted the family Bible to him?

Leaving the boys alone in the church and returning to the rectory, he climbed laboriously to his room on the top floor, opened Cora Conway's Bible, and set to work. The entry after Loretta Villiers Conway's was written in a hand so unsure it was barely legible. He had to decipher the words one at a time, but after an hour he was done. Rubbing his rheumy eyes and stretching against the pain that had settled into his back, the old priest reread the laboriously inscribed message, the text only slightly easier to decipher this second time. A date, almost obliterated by an ink blot, was scrawled at the top of the page…

August 22, 1912

Miz Loretta give me this Bible the day she died. I coud not reed or rite then, but I lernd some in the yeers sinst becuz this is the famly Bible and my girl Francy is part of the famly. It dont matter what Mister Frank says. My girl Lucy was part of it to, but she died birthin.

Anyways, that’s what Mister Frank said but I don’t beleeve him. I think maybe he kilt her. ifn he did, I hope he dies like Miz Loretta did! Anyway, I did not tell him about this like Miz Loretta said I should not. I guess this is just for the women folk.

BESSIE DELACOURT STARED AT THE WRITING SHE'D PUT IN THE BIBLE FOR SEVERAL LONG MINUTES. MAYBE SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID WHAT SHE DID ABOUT MISTER FRANK KILLING LUCY THE DAY SHE WAS BORN, BUT IN HER HEART, SHE KNEW IT WAS TRUE. BUT IF MISTER FRANK EVER SAW WHAT SHE'D WRITTEN, HE'D PROBABLY KILL HER, AND MAYBE FRANCY, TOO.

EVERY YEAR SINCE FRANCY WAS BORN, BESSIE HAD SWORN SHE WOULD TAKE HER LITTLE GIRL AND MOVE NORTH, BUT SHE NEVER HAD. SHE DIDN'T KNOW ANYONE OUTSIDE OF ST. ALBANS, AND WHEN IT CAME RIGHT DOWN TO IT, SHE WAS EVEN MORE SCARED OF GOING THAN SHE WAS OF STAYING. SO ALTHOUGH THE FLAME OF HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE BURNED LOWER WITH EVERY PASSING YEAR, IT STILL FLICKERED-MAYBE THEY'D LEAVE NEXT YEAR, WHEN FRANCY WAS FOURTEEN AND DIDN'T NEED SO MUCH TAKING CARE OF…

FOR NOW, THOUGH, THERE WAS TOO MUCH TO DO TO WASTE TIME ON SOMETHING SO FLEETING AS HOPE. WITH MISTER FRANK GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW, THE HOUSE HAD TO BE CLEANED AND THE FEAST PREPARED. THE UPSTAIRS WAS ALREADY SWELTERING IN THE AUGUST HEAT, AND BESSIE WOULDN'T EVEN LET HERSELF THINK ABOUT WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE IN THE KITCHEN. AND OLD MONSIGNOR MELCHIOR-WHO DIDN'T LOOK ANY OLDER THAN MISTER FRANK, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS SEVENTY-EIGHT-HAD ORDERED ALL THE SILVER AND ALL THE CRYSTAL TO BE POLISHED FOR THE WEDDING, WHICH MEANT BESSIE AND FRANCY WOULD BE UP ALL NIGHT. BUT EVEN BEFORE SHE STARTED ALL THE WORK, THERE WAS ONE THING SHE HAD TO DO. CLOSING THE BIBLE-EVERY PAGE OF WHICH SHE'D FINALLY MANAGED TO READ IN THE YEARS SINCE MISS LORETTA HAD ENTRUSTED IT TO HER-BESSIE WRAPPED IT IN A TOWEL, THEN LISTENED FOR ANY SOUND OUTSIDE THE DOOR OF HER ROOM IN THE ATTIC'S EAVES.

SILENCE.

SHE STOLE OUT INTO THE NARROW CORRIDOR THAT LED TO THE BACK STAIRS, THEN MOVED ALONG THE MEZZANINE UNTIL SHE CAME TO THE ROOM IN WHICH MISTER FRANK'S BRIDE WAS STAYING. GLANCING AROUND ONCE MORE TO BE CERTAIN SHE WASN'T BEING WATCHED, BESSIE OPENED THE DOOR AND SLIPPED INSIDE.

THE ROOM'S OCCUPANT WAS LYING ON A CHAISE NEAR THE OPEN WINDOW, HER EYES CLOSED, A BOOK OPEN ON HER BREAST. BESSIE CROSSED THE ROOM AND BENT DOWN. "MISS ABIGAIL?" SHE ASKED. "MISS ABIGAIL, ARE YOU AWAKE?"

STARTLED OUT OF THE DOZE THE SOMNOLENT SUMMER AFTERNOON HAD BROUGHT HER, ABIGAIL SMITHERS SAT UP TOO QUICKLY AND THE VOLUME OF POETRY SHE'D BEEN READING FELL TO THE FLOOR. IN AN INSTANT, BESSIE SNATCHED IT UP AND RETURNED IT TO ITS OWNER.

"CAREFUL," THE MAID CAUTIONED. "BOOKS ARE VALUABLE."

"IT'S ONLY SOME VERSE," ABIGAIL SAID, SMILING AT BESSIE.

BESSIE'S EYES REMAINED SERIOUS. "ALL BOOKS ARE VALUABLE," SHE SAID. "ESPECIALLY THIS ONE." SHE UNWRAPPED THE BIBLE AND PLACED IT IN ABIGAIL SMITHERS'S HANDS. "I BEEN HOLDING THIS," SHE SAID. "I BEEN HOLDING IT FOR NEAR ON TO FOURTEEN YEARS. IT BE YOURS NOW."

HER BROW KNITTING IN PUZZLEMENT, ABIGAIL STARTED TO OPEN THE THICK VOLUME, BUT BESSIE LAID HER HAND GENTLY ON THE OTHER WOMAN'S, STAYING IT.

"IT'S FOR LATER," BESSIE SAID SOFTLY. "YOU DON'T WANT TO BE READING IT NOW, NOT THE DAY BEFORE YOUR WEDDING."

ABIGAIL'S EYES FIXED ON THE SERVANT. "THEN WHEN SHOULD I READ IT?" SHE ASKED.

BESSIE DELACOURT STRAIGHTENED UP. "YOU'LL KNOW," SHE SAID QUIETLY. "YOU'LL KNOW WHEN TO READ WHAT'S WRITTEN IN IT, AND YOU'LL KNOW WHEN TO WRITE IN IT YOURSELF. BUT IT BELONGS TO THE WOMEN OF THIS FAMILY. IT HOLDS ALL THE SECRETS. THE MEN DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT, AND THEY DON'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT!"

AS BESSIE DELACOURT LEFT THE ROOM, ABIGAIL SMITHERS GAZED APPREHENSIVELY AT THE BIBLE, HER FINGERS STROKING ITS ALREADY WORN LEATHER. SHOULD SHE OPEN IT?

BUT NO-BESSIE HAD SPECIFICALLY TOLD HER SHE SHOULDN'T READ IT NOW. AND SHE WAS CERTAIN SHE KNEW WHY. UNDOUBTEDLY, THE PAGES CHRONICLED ALL THE INEVITABLE TRAGEDIES THAT HAD BEFALLEN FRANK'S FAMILY OVER THE YEARS, AS WELL AS THE JOYS ALL FAMILIES SHARED, AND THE SERVANT DIDN'T WANT HER TO CLOUD THE HAPPINESS OF TOMORROW BY READING THE SAD PARTS TODAY.

CARRYING THE BIBLE TO THE TRUNK SHE'D BROUGHT WITH HER LAST WEEK FROM BATON ROUGE, SHE BURIED IT DEEP BENEATH THE LINENS AND LINGERIE THAT WERE HER TROUSSEAU.

THE SERVANT WAS PROBABLY RIGHT-SHE WOULD KNOW WHEN TO READ THE ENTRIES IN THE BIBLE, BUT IT CERTAINLY WAS NOT TODAY.

OR TOMORROW, EITHER.

BESSIE DELACOURT POLISHED THE LAST SMUDGE OFF THE LAST PENDANT OF THE IMMENSE CHANDELIER THAT HUNG OVER THE GREAT MAHOGANY TABLE IN THE DINING ROOM. THE CLOCK IN THE LIBRARY WAS TOLLING THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT, AND EVERY MUSCLE IN HER BODY PROTESTED AS SHE CLIMBED DOWN OFF THE LADDER.

BONE-WEARY, THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS.

JUST PLAIN BONE-WEARY.

BUT THE WORK WAS DONE-LEASTWAYS THE HARD WORK WAS. SHE AND FRANCY WOULD STILL BE UP UNTIL DAWN POLISHING THE SILVER, BUT THEY COULD DO THAT AT THE WORKTABLE IN THE KITCHEN, WHERE AT LEAST SHE WOULDN'T HAVE TO STRETCH HER BACK AND TWIST HER NECK EVERY WHICHWAY LIKE SHE'D HAD TO DO WHILE STRAINING TO GET A GOOD LOOK AT EVERY FACET OF THE CRYSTALS ON THE CHANDELIER.

SHE WAS JUST LEANING OVER TO PICK UP THE BUCKET WITH THE AMMONIA WATER SHE'D USED TO CLEAN THE CHANDELIER WHEN SHE HEARD THE VOICE.

"LEAVE IT!"

THE TWO WORDS STUNG BESSIE LIKE THE STING OF A WASP, AND SHE JERKED UPRIGHT, STARTLED. FRAMED BY THE DOUBLE DOORS THAT LED TO THE HOUSE'S CENTRAL HALL WAS FRANCIS CONWAY.

MISTER FRANK.

FRANCY'S FATHER.

"IT'S TIME," HE SAID AS THE LAST TOLL OF THE HOUR DIED AWAY. "COME WITH ME."

A COLD KNOT OF FEAR FORMED IN BESSIE'S BELLY, AND SHE WANTED MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD TO TURN AWAY FROM FRANK CONWAY, TO RUN AWAY FROM THIS HOUSE, TO TAKE FRANCY AND FLEE BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE.

BUT SHE KNEW SHE COULD NOT, BECAUSE THE MOMENT FRANK CONWAY HAD SPOKEN, BESSIE HAD LOOKED INTO HIS EYES.

SHE HADN'T MEANT TO.

SHE WISHED SHE HADN'T.

BUT SHE HAD, AND NOW, JUST AS THEY HAD SO MANY TIMES BEFORE, FRANK CONWAY'S BLUE EYES HELD HER. IT WAS LIKE THEY COULD JUST REACH OUT AND TAKE HOLD OF HER, MAKING HER DO THINGS SHE'D NEVER DO IF IT WAS LEFT UP TO HER.

THINGS SHE COULDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT, LET ALONE TELL ANYONE ABOUT.

AND NOW, THE NIGHT BEFORE HE WAS GOING TO MARRY THAT NICE MISS ABIGAIL FROM BATON ROUGE, HE WANTED TO DO IT AGAIN.

AND SHE KNEW SHE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO STOP HIM, NOT ANY MORE THAN SHE'D BEEN ABLE TO STOP HIM IN ALL THE YEARS THAT HAD GONE BEFORE.

NOW SHE FOLLOWED HIM THROUGH THE DOOR THAT LED TO THE BASEMENT STAIRS.

DOWN THE STAIRS.

THROUGH THE DOOR THAT WAS ALWAYS LOCKED, THAT ONLY MISTER FRANK AND MONSIGNOR MELCHIOR COULD OPEN.

INTO THE DARKNESS THAT WAS PIERCED ONLY BY THE LIGHT OF A FEW CANDLES…

BUT EVEN IN THE LIGHT OF THE CANDLES, BESSIE DELACOURT COULD SEE THE COUNTENANCE OF MONSIGNOR MELCHIOR GLOWERING AT HER.

AND SEE THE GLINT OF LIGHT THAT REFLECTED FROM THE BLADE OF THE KNIFE HE HELD IN HIS HANDS.

INSTINCTIVELY, BESSIE KNEW WHAT WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN TO HER.

THE SAME THING THAT HAD HAPPENED TO LITTLE LUCINDA-HER PRECIOUS LUCY, WHOM SHE'D BARELY SEEN BEFORE MISTER FRANK HAD TAKEN HER AWAY.

AS MISTER FRANK PICKED HER UP AND LAID HER ON THE TABLE BEHIND WHICH MONSIGNOR MELCHIOR STOOD, BESSIE FELT NO FEAR, FELT NO URGE TO SCREAM OUT.

BUT SHE KNEW, AS SHE WATCHED MONSIGNOR MELCHIOR RAISE THE KNIFE ABOVE HER, THAT SHE WOULD NOT RUN AWAY WITH FRANCY NEXT YEAR.

INSTEAD, SHE WOULD GO-THIS VERY MINUTE-TO JOIN LUCY.

AS THE KNIFE SANK INTO HER CHEST AND PIERCED HER HEART, BESSIE DELACOURT FELT A GREAT PEACEFULNESS COME OVER HER.

SHE, LIKE MISS LORETTA BEFORE HER, AT LAST WAS FREE OF THE CONWAY FAMILY.

Monsignor Devlin once again closed the Bible. Was it possible that Frank Conway could have killed his own child, as Bessie Delacourt said? But of course it was-a hundred years ago a child born of a servant in St. Albans was less valued than a hunting dog.

But even so…

The old priest flipped back, searching for an entry in the Bible that might have predated the one made by Loretta Villiers, but found none. Then, as he examined the ancient Bible more closely, he saw something: deep in the crevice between the two pages, cut so close to the binding as to be all but invisible, was the remainder of a page that had been removed from the volume.

Had Cora taken it out before giving him the Bible?

Or had it been someone else, someone who had gone before?

Sighing heavily, Monsignor Devlin put the Bible aside. Later, when his eyes were up to it, he would continue reading the rest of the entries made through the years by the women who had kept this strange journal of the family they had married into. But for now he turned to the histories of his own church-the parish of St. Albans-searching for some clue as to who this Monsignor Melchior could have been, this man who by the title associated with his name must once have been a priest.

A priest who had broken his vows and abandoned his vocation, yet kept his title?

Why?

He gazed dispiritedly at the thick journals filled with the scribblings of all the priests who had preceded him in St. Albans. Most of their hands were no more legible than that of the semiliterate servant, Bessie Delacourt. If he were truly going to find the answer to what might have been written on the pages that had been torn from the Conway family Bible, he would need help.

Father MacNeill!

Of course! He would talk to Father MacNeill, whose mind was much younger and sharper than his own.

Feeling as if a burden had been lifted from his back, Monsignor Devlin let his tired eyes close, and quickly drifted into the quiet of sleep.