Villainess [4]: Ellen and Arnold Share a Story

Red Pill [0]: Stories, Hauntings

Back in Janet’s dorm at Mariana House, her maids Susan Wilton and Marin Irvine had woken up an hour ago, scaring the spirits out of Ellen Levy and the sisters Diana and Niana Anderson sitting around the tea table telling ghost stories by their bedside. Of course, it didn’t help that the trio had seen Janet’s clones in the room, and it didn’t help that DeeDee’s lamp threw their shadows large on the walls, and it didn’t help that DeeDee had sworn them to secrecy about Janet’s nighttime escapade with her friends, and it didn’t help that they had followed their footfalls up the half-turn stairs only to find no trace of them on the second floor, and it didn’t help that they had been telling ghost stories just to keep up appearances while waiting for everyone’s return.

Worst of all, Ellen Levy had been narrating the climactic moment of a gruesome story, in which a woman’s corpse sat up in bed and looked at her ex-fiancé, who dropped his bloodstained knife on the floor—

When they heard the rustling of bedsheets.

At once, screaming ensued, and soon enough the two guards barged through the double doors asking them what was the matter. So they all said they were telling ghost stories. When they asked where the others were, they said they were having a test of courage upstairs, which the guards understood (as DeeDee had said they would). In the end, the guards just warned the maids to be mindful of their neighbors in the other dorms before going back to their posts. And so, the trio had Susan and Marin join their table, Susan doubling back out of the double doors and returning with a spare chair.

With everything set up, Ellen and the Anderson sisters informed Susan and Marin of the foregoing events. It amounted to a series of answers and questions and more answers about where Janet and the rest had gone off to, what they said they’d be doing, when they’ll come back, and what she and the other maids have been doing to pass the time in their absence. Susan and Marin seemed too surprised to ask anymore questions after all that, so Ellen said, “We’re just keeping up appearances, till they come back, okay?”

Susan and Marin deflated somewhat.

With that said, all five maids began telling each other ghost stories for the next hour.

But now that it was Ellen’s turn again, she shook her head and said, “Ugh, I’m all out of ghost stories!”

“Does it have to be ghost stories?” Susan said.

“No,” Ellen said. “They could be any kind, really. As long as they’re exciting enough, they’re fine.”

“Any that come to mind?”

“Okay, let me think,” Ellen said, combing her fingers through her long gray hair and coming up with Count Kessler’s coverage of a perennial topic in his newspaper that Lady Kessler would talk to her about during her breaks. “It’s not something I’d normally discuss without my Lady’s permission, but since it’s just us, I think it’s okay.”

“Is it sexy?” Diana and Niana said, their dark eyes flashing and their ears turning red.

“It’s nothing like that,” Ellen said.

The sister maids deflated, and Marin said, “What is it then?”

So Ellen said, “Have you read about those incognitos in Count Kessler’s Memory Times?”

Ellen’s companions said that they had, and Diana said she had heard from Lady Jean Drevis that Viscount Drevis was in talks with Count Kessler about them. When Ellen asked if they were preparing a collaborative article, Niana said she had heard from Lady Saraya Drevis that it’s been rumored amongst the editors at the Drevis Times for some time now.

“But aren’t the articles made up?” Marin said.

“They are,” Ellen said, “but that doesn’t mean there’s no kernel of truth.”

“What truth?” Susan said.

“Can’t you guess what that is?” Ellen said.

They all shook their heads.

“Lady Kessler and her parents are the only ones who know about this,” she said. “So please keep it a secret amongst the five of us. I don’t want to get fired for this.”

They all gulped and nodded their heads, crossing their hearts and swearing oaths to secrecy.

“Good,” Ellen said. “During the spring of this year at the Kessler residence, the Count returned late at around midnight, so he had a late meal alone with Countess Kessler, because Lady Kessler was already asleep at the time. Anyway, after I took the dishes to the kitchen for the kitchen staff, I overheard Countess Kessler asking the Count why it took him so long to get back from his trip overseeing his land. Count Kessler mentioned meeting a masked nun walking alone in the afternoon in the opposite direction of his house where he was headed, so he offered her a ride in his carriage to her destination. The nun asked to be taken to an orphanage at the border of the kingdom, so Countess Kessler asked questions, and he answered them. Long story short, it took his carriage almost nine hours to drop her off along the road at the border and come back home.”

“Wait, seriously?” Niana said. “He just dropped her off in the middle of the road just like that?”

Ellen nodded and said, “That’s what Countess Kessler said, too, but he said the woman knew the way there and got off. He said he watched the nun walk off down the side road to her destination.”

“The orphanage?” Diana said.

“Yeah,” Ellen said. “The next day, I told Lady Kessler about it. We made plans to go to the border but told her parents we were going to the market town to buy new supplies and bought more than we needed to cover for our escapade. But on our way back, we took a detour to the border where Count Kessler dropped off the nun and asked the coachman to wait for us while we went down the side road on foot.”

“Did you find the orphanage?” Susan said.

“We did,” Ellen said. “The orphanage stood right next to an abbey, but both buildings looked like they were abandoned with the rest of the village.”

“You’re kidding me!” Diana said.

“I’m not,” Ellen said. “It was creepy, too.”

“I bet it was,” Niana added. “If the place was abandoned, then where did that masked nun go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see her?” Marin asked.

“Nope,” Ellen said. “We didn’t stick around. We were spooked, so we footed it out of there and took the carriage back home that afternoon. When we arrived in the early evening, the Count and Countess were already waiting for us outside, so we had no choice but to tell them what we’d been up to.”

“What did they say?” Susan said.

“They told us to never go back there again,” Ellen said. “I’m telling you, after we told them what we saw, they were as spooked as we were. They didn’t want rumors of this getting out, so they changed it into something else.”

Niana and Diana covered their mouths, and Susan said, “So the Count wrote up articles of masked men in the Student Commons Town to steer away attention from their land?”

“Yep,” Ellen said. “They didn’t want their land stigmatized with a haunting, even the rumor of one.”

“Did the Countess pitch in to help?” Marin added.

She nodded. “With a new novel, yes.”

“About masked incognitos?”

“Yep,” she said as footfalls echoed in the hallway outside of the dorm.

Everybody froze.

“Did they finish?” Diana said.

“But it’s not midnight yet,” Niana said.

“And there’s only one pair of footsteps,” Susan said, getting up from her chair to listen. “I don’t think it’s them.”

So Ellen stood up and asked the others to remain seated. She then accompanied Susan to the double doors and imitated her, cupping her ear against the side of the door panel and listening to the echoes in the hallway. The footfalls grew heavier and more distinct, as if the walker was an older man in riding boots, not a male student of the Academy wearing loafers with a lighter footfall.

When the footfalls stopped before the double doors, there came three hard knocks, so they both pulled them open. What stood before Ellen was an exceptional specimen of an older man still in his prime, a tall man with a trim waist, wide shoulders, a very handsome face composed of thin lips, an aquiline nose, pale blond hair, and piercing red eyes. So great was her surprise that Ellen caught herself gaping and looked away, blushing like a schoolgirl.

Till Susan said, “M-my Lord Marquess, what are you doing here?”

“Good evening, Sue,” he said, looking over them into the room. “Where’s Janet? I don’t see her.”

“She’s out with her friends, my Lord,” Susan said.

“At this time of night?” the Marquess said. “When will they be back then?”

Susan paused at his question.

So Ellen said, “After midnight, my Lord.”

“Isn’t that after curfew?”

“It is, but there’s no need to worry,” said a pale-faced Susan. “Their club advisor is accompanying them.”

“A club advisor?” he said.

Susan nodded.

“Did Janet join a club?”

“This afternoon, yes,” Susan said.

“Good,” the Marquess said. “It’s best for her to be around friends right now. May I come in? I’ll wait for Janet to come back. I have to speak with her.”

So Susan said, “Is it urgent, my Lord?”

“Not urgent, per se,” he said, “but it’s important.”

Susan traded a brief glance with Ellen, and she got the message: deal with the Marquess for her. So Ellen let the new visitor in and told him what they’ve been up to, while Susan went to fetch another chair from their maids’ quarters next door and came back with it. Susan placed the chair before the tea table, and Ellen had the other maids scoot their chairs over to accommodate their esteemed visitor. When the Marquess sat down, the other maids took their seats and asked if he knew any ghost stories, adding they’ve been occupying their time while waiting for the others’ return.

“Nothing that comes to mind,” he said. “What kind of ghost stories have you been telling?”

“Any kind, really,” Ellen said. “Now we’re telling true tales about hauntings or anything creepy. I just finished telling mine before you came in.”

The Marquess paused for a time, then said, “If you put it that way, then I know an interesting case. Just know that I can’t reveal certain names or current whereabouts. I don’t want rumors floating around. Is that okay with you?”

They all nodded that it was.

Again the Marquess paused, then took a deep breath and said, “This happened many years ago when I got married to Lady Rowena Bartleby. You’ve heard of her, right?”

They all nodded.

“We were looking for a boy at the time,” he continued. “After our marriage, Marchioness Fleming tracked down an orphanage in a town by this kingdom’s border but discovered from the abbess that the boy had run away, so we split up to look for him without any luck. With no other options, Rowena conducted a séance at the inn we were staying at, for she was a gifted medium. Even when she couldn’t see spirits, she could sense them, and during the séance, she channeled a spirit that knew of the boy’s whereabouts. As such, we widened the search to include the outskirts of the town, and Rowena and I and the rest of the search party started calling out to him in the meadows that afternoon and into the night, but we still couldn’t find him. Everyone was tired by then, so we retired to the inn to eat and sleep, but Rowena snuck out to continue the search for the rest of the night. Hence, when I woke up without her and heard a commotion downstairs, I dashed out looking for my wife. That’s when I found her sitting with a boy in the lobby, having breakfast, and that’s when I realized I was still in my underwear.”

Ellen and the other maids all laughed and blushed at the little punchline at the end of his tale.

The Marquess smiled.

And the maids blushed at the sight with Ellen, who averted her eyes from his dangerous smile, saying, “That’s quite a tale you’ve got there.”

But Marquess Fleming’s smile faded when he said, “I know, but finding him was half the battle. After taking him in, we noticed certain oddities happening around our house.”

Ellen traded looks with the other maids, and Susan said, “What kind of ‘oddities,’ my Lord?”

“Let’s see,” he said. “Knocks on the doors and walls, creaking floorboards, footfalls in the corridors, shadows looming on the walls, more shadows in the corners of your eyes dissipating as you look at them, and disembodied whispers, but nothing worse than that at first. But during his first week with us, the boy’s behavior exacerbated everything. Except for me and Rowena, he was suspicious of everyone else in the house and made a lot of trouble for the maids and manservants to the point where I thought I’d have to send for an exorcist, but Rowena had a different idea and told me her plan.

“That’s when we started sitting up with him in the front and back parlors of our house for four nights: I sat up with him on the first night in the back parlor; then Rowena sat up with him on the second night in the back parlor; then I sat up with him on the third night in the front parlor; and then Rowena sat up with him on the fourth night in the front parlor. On the fifth day, we shared our observations and noted that all of the oddities occurred around him in my presence in both parlors, but they ceased altogether in Rowena’s company. That’s when Rowena suspected what was agitating him, so we invited an esteemed father into our house and conducted a séance with him in the boy’s presence to communicate with whatever had been agitating the boy since we took him in. With Rowena acting as the medium, the father found out what was agitating the boy.”

The Marquess paused, breathing deep and exhaling and wiping the sweat from his brow and shaking his head.

“What did he find out?” Ellen said.

“In short,” he said, “the father detected the presence of a spirit attached to the boy. Specifically, he said that all humans have two bodies in life, the physical body that we see and the etheric body that acts as an extension of the physical one. Based on our observations over the four nights we sat up with the boy, the father surmised that the spirit had attached itself to the boy’s etheric body, so his presence had caused all of the oddities in our house. Then he took us aside and added that Rowena’s presence with the boy calmed down the occurrence of these oddities, so he asked Rowena if she was expecting, but Rowena said she wouldn’t know until she misses her period for the month. With that, the father asked us to let him know via messenger bird soon after Rowena gets or misses her period, and we didn’t have to wait long.

“A week after that, Rowena found out she was pregnant, and we experienced no more oddities happening around the house, and the boy’s behavior began to improve. So I sent a messenger bird to the father relating these results, and the father returned and congratulated us and then questioned the boy and the maids and the manservants. After that, he told us that the cause of the oddities around the house had been absorbed into Rowena’s child upon conception, taking the boy’s temperamental behavior along with it. When we asked if the baby was going to be okay with this development, the father advised us to keep the boy out of trouble till the pregnancy was over, and he advised me to keep Rowena safe from any emotional disturbance that might cause a potential miscarriage.”

Then the Marquess paused again, breathing out a long sigh and saying, “Eight months later, we started hearing rumors about my wife’s supposed infidelity. I had to send the boy away to his grandparents to protect him, but I couldn’t protect my wife from getting slandered and accosted by our neighbors. A month later, I had to travel to inspect the land for my quarterly inspection, and I couldn’t bring Rowena along because of her condition in the last phase of her pregnancy. I asked the maids and servants to look after her, but Rowena was arrested while I was away. I’ll spare you the details of what had happened during and after that hideous debacle. Just know that my wife died in prison, but Janet survived.”

When the Marquess ended his tale, he leaned back in his chair and breathed out a sigh.

All the maids were silent after that, their hands cupped over their mouths, their eyes glistening with a film of unshed tears threatening to trail down their cheeks.

Ellen herself blinked back tears as she thought back to her clandestine outing with Lady Kessler at the abandoned town, asking herself if the orphanage he mentioned was the same as the abandoned orphanage she and Lady Kessler had visited in the spring. It couldn’t hurt to ask, so she said, “My Lord, my Lady and I visited the same orphanage at the border earlier this year, but it’s abandoned. Do you know its name?”

“I haven’t been there for a while,” he said, pausing for a time. “Ah, it’s St. Avalon’s Orphanage.”

Ellen just went with it and nodded her head, saying, “Do you know when it was abandoned?”

“I don’t know the exact details,” he said, “but I heard it was abandoned soon after the abbess of St. Avalon’s Abbey was murdered sometime during the case.”

“No way!” Ellen said.

“I know what you mean,” the Marquess said. “Of course, I couldn’t go there for weeks following my wife’s death because of the legal proceedings between the royal family and the Bartlebys at the time. Old Duke and Duchess Bartleby filed charges against Prince Conner Blaise for defaming their daughter when he broke his engagement with her, claiming it led to her false accusation and wrongful imprisonment and death. In response, King Sebastian Blaise counter-sued the Bartlebys, claiming they were using their daughter’s death to delegitimize the marriage between their Highnesses, Prince Conner Blaise and Princess Rubella Blaise. Soon the legal battle escalated into a duel between both houses, with me representing the Bartlebys and Captain Sydney representing the royal family. It was a close match, but I won. As such, I was in charge of conducting the joint investigation of my wife’s death in collaboration with Captain Sydney and Judge Kendrick Matthews from the High Court. So if you want an answer to your question, you’d have to ask Captain Rory Sydney, for he was in charge of questioning the people at the orphanage and the abbey at the time, but I doubt he would tell you anything about that.”

Ellen knew the term connected with such reticence, so she said, “Is that because of Lèse-majesté?”

The Marquess nodded, saying, “Hence, the secrecy, yes. Since the case is a matter of public record, I’ve told you as much as you’re legally entitled to know. Any more than that, and you’d have to swear on your lives to keep secrets. Are you all willing to shoulder that responsibility?”

The maids all looked away from the Marquess’s piercing red eyes, but Ellen kept thinking about that trip to the abandoned orphanage. Untold questions loomed over her mind as her fingers fiddled with the ends of her long gray locks. Come what may, she had to know more about the apparition of that masked woman, and so she shocked her peers.

“I’m willing, my Lord,” Ellen said.

Her peers just gaped and stared at her in wide-eyed amazement with Diana saying, “What the heck are you saying?”

And Niana added, “Are you crazy?”

Marquess Fleming smiled and said, “You’re very brave. May I ask why you’re so willing?”

And a blushing Ellen averted her eyes but said, “I have my reasons, my Lord. I just can’t say what they are.”

“Who are you, by the way?” he said.

“I’m Ellen Levy, my Lord.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Lady Mindy Kessler, my Lord.”

“Ah, it makes sense now,” the Marquess said.

Ellen looked up at him and said, “What makes sense?”

So the Marquess paused, then said, “I attended his Highness’s summons this afternoon to have his actions against my daughter redressed. Among the relevant issues mentioned were the eviction notices Lady Kessler and her friends received, as well as Lady Kessler getting beaten up by two other students earlier today. Are these true?”

“Yes, they are,” she said. “I saw Lady Felton giving Lady Kessler an eviction notice this morning. When I checked with Diana and Niana, they told me their ladyships had also received eviction notices. Then we spent the rest of the day packing up, so we could move from Guinevere House. But when I saw Lady Kessler this afternoon with bandages and bruises, I was furious. I would’ve stormed into Miss Edgeworth’s dorm if my friends hadn’t restrained me.”

Then he faced Ellen’s friends, saying, “And are you two the maids of Lady Kessler’s friends?”

Both sisters said yes: Diana Anderson introducing herself as the maid of Lady Jean Drevis, and Niana Anderson introducing herself as the maid of Lady Saraya Drevis.

“Did the Drevis Ladies see what happened to Lady Kessler?”

“Yeah, they did,” Diana said. “They said that they chased them off on seeing them.”

The Marquess paused for a long moment, long enough for Ellen to wonder what he was thinking, until he said, “What’s your opinion of Miss Edgeworth?”

“I don’t trust her,” Diana said.

He then turned to the others and said, “What about the rest of you? What are your opinions of her?”

The other maids all said the same thing.

“What about his Highness?” the Marquess said. “What are your opinions of him?”

“He’s complete trash,” Marin said.

“He’s head over heels for Miss Edgeworth,” Susan said. “His Highness has gone out of his way to defend her against Janet time and again like a fairytale prince. It’s beyond disgusting at this point.”

Then Ellen traded glances with Diana and Niana, who both nodded, so she said, “My Lord, we heard from Lady Kessler and the Ladies Drevis about what happened between Lady Fleming and Miss Edgeworth last Friday.”

“They were there at the scene?” he said.

Ellen nodded. “They said they saw everything.”

“Then why didn’t they come forward that day?” he said.

“They said it was because of his Highness,” Ellen said. “They said that since they were at the fountain, the Prince asked them what went down between Lady Fleming and Miss Edgeworth. So they told him what they saw and heard, but they said the Prince refused to believe them.”

The Marquess grimaced and said under his breath, “What’s gotten into that boy? All right then,” he added. “Keep this discussion to yourselves, okay?”

“We will,” they said.

“Good,” he said, then stared at Ellen, till she was blushing like a schoolgirl again. “Oh, and one more thing, Ms. Levy, before there’s any misunderstanding.”

So Ellen looked away again at the thought of such a handsome man going out of his way to acknowledge her and said, “What is it, my Lord?”

“It’s evident on your face,” he said. “I’m not looking for another Marchioness Fleming.”

Her reaction was immediate: Ellen’s face turned even redder than before, so she covered it in her hands and leaned over the table, thinking she was going to die right then and there. That’s when her peers burst out giggling like fellow schoolgirls, clamping hands to their mouths as if the fluffiest of fluffy jokes had been played upon their most emotionally ticklish friend.

End of Villainess [4]