The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Romance by Alyne de Winter

peaceful stillness of a library, perfect for study.
    Veronica and the twins established a routine of five class days per week, beginning at nine, breaking for luncheon at eleven, and finishing at two. It helped her work immensely that they clearly enjoyed learning, were quick, and always amusing.
    One morning, Veronica walked into the classroom to find the twins on the edges of their seats with barely suppressed excitement.
    Arriving at her desk, she found a small, blue, coffin-shaped box. Inside, wrapped in a shroud of sheer silk and lying in a nest of rose petals, was a dead nightingale. Though the object seemed very old, and the mummified bird long dead, its feathers were glossy, its little toes curled like golden threads, its yellow beak slightly open as if it might still sing of love and death in some dusky, chivalric realm.
    “What is this?” she asked.
    “Nightingale,” said Jacqueline.
    "I see that. But..."
    “They were given as love tokens in medieval France,” said Jacques. “We present one to you, fair lady.”  He stood up and bowed in a courtly manner.
    Veronica glanced from one child to the other. "Thank you. It's lovely."
    Imagine giving a dead bird to a lover, she thought, its death symbolizing, perhaps, a lost, or unrequited, love, its song of love silenced forever by indifference or disdain.
    “Mamma collected them,” Jacque s said, interrupting Veronica's thoughts. “Some are as old as our chateau.”
    "So, this nightingale reminds you of your mother?"
    "Yes," they both said.
    "Well, I'm very flattered that you would think to give me something so personal. Are you sure?"
    The twins looked surprised, as if they hadn't considered how unusual it was to give a governess a memento of their mother.
    "We just like things like that, I suppose." Jacqueline spoke softly, narrowing her eyes intently. “There is also, at our chateau, a lady’s hand that, when the moon is full, turns into a wolf’s paw."
    "Oh, yes! And toads with jewels in their foreheads, and moths as large as swallows, with wings like silken cloaks,” Jacques shouted. “Those are the best, though I suppose they are too much part of our chateau to be taken away from it.”
    These sounded like fairy tale things, magic and witchcraft.
    Veronica masked her concern with a warm smile. “I should like to see your chateau some day. It sounds very intriguing."
    “Oh, very!” they said together.
    Veronica gazed down at the nightingale, touched its silken shroud. It was exquisitely embroidered, the little bird inside so perfectly preserved. There was something strangely romantic about it, in a poetic, French sort of way.
    “I suppose the toads will be changed into Princes if you love them enough,” she said in a rush.
    The twins fell silent and glanced at each other as if she'd said something terribly sad.
    
    That evening, Veronica headed for the roof of the tower. Since her employer was home, she could no longer easily slip through his private rooms to get there, but had to go outside and enter the tower through a little-used portal at the bottom. A dank, cobwebbed passage led to a stairway that curved up to the familiar landing at the tower door.
    Veronica paused on that landing to gaze over at the three steps going down to the passage that led to Rafe's rooms. The tall, pointed windows cast patterns of light and shadow over the floor. Veronica fancied her tall, dark master pacing from shadow to dust-filled light, brooding, like Hamlet, on the mysteries of existence. It seemed funny that she saw him so melancholy when, on first impression, he'd seemed rather jovial.
    In a fey, distracted mood, she’d put the strange little love-token of the mummified nightingale in her pocket. Walking slowly up the stairs up to the roof, she let her fingers linger over the small coffin shape of the box. It was well to remember the fleetingness of life, the preciousness of time. Death always steals from us, she thought, destroying our homes, our