Read Online Stokers Shadow by Paul Butler - Free Book Online

turn.
    Carefully, he pushes the covers off his legs and turns so that his feet touch the rug. Then, shivering from the unexpected chill, he stands and takes a step towards the windows.
    â€œWhat,” Maud moans.
    William realizes he has miscalculated; she is waking. He feels trapped.
    â€œWhat!” she says louder.
    â€œIt’s … don’t worry, it’s just me,” he replies, not moving any closer to the window.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œAre you ill?”
    The moonlight catches her bare arm which reaches up to her forehead; her neck is raised from the pillow.
    â€œI’m just going to check the garden,” William says, too muddle-headed to think in terms that make any sense.
    â€œCheck the garden? You know I’m a light sleeper, William. I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
    â€œI’ve never done it before,” he replies, comically stranded on the rug, as though unable to continue without permission.
    â€œYou did it last night,” she replies sighing and banging the pillow behind her. “Why are you checking the garden? What’s wrong with it?”
    â€œThere’s a man standing in the middle of it.”
    â€œWhat?” she replies laying her head down again on the pillow. “You’re having a nightmare. Come back to bed.”
    He sighs, turns and climbs back into bed. He watches the curtains move slightly although the windows are closed.
    T HE SHINY PALE leaves and knotty clumps of oriental twigs and branches look incongruous to Mary’s eyes, especially beneath the sliced fruit cake. But it is as though nothing in England is English – at least not the china she has been polishing all morning. In the last hour, she has travelled the globe. She has encountered the curved, bronzed features of Indian princes with loose silken trousers and earrings. She has viewed the snow-ridged mountains of some unknown eastern highlands populated by men with huge furry hats and skinny moustaches. And now finally she is gazing at the sparse, decorous beauty of the Japanese court with single trees, waterfalls and beautiful white-faced women.
    â€œShall I take the tea in, Mrs. Davis?”
    Mrs. Davis glances up as she places the teapot on the tray. She smiles naturally, like one used to pleasing.
    â€œWell yes, Miss Manning, that would be a nice idea.”
    Mary wonders whether Mrs. Davis is as confused by Mary’s status as she is herself. “Miss Manning” seems wrong coming from a lady twenty years older than her. She has always been just Mary in Ireland. And here her elevation makes little sense. She does the chores of a servant most of the time. She lives in the servants’ quarters. Yet Mrs. Davis is almost deferential.
    Mrs. Davis opens the scullery door and Mary departs holding the tray tight, trying not to let the Japanese china clink so hard it may break.
    The tray wobbles as, one-handed, she opens the door. She remembers not to knock – knocking, she was told very early on by Mrs. Davis, is a faux pas. (Mary did not know what a faux pas was and Mrs. Davis had to explain it to her. From then on the puzzle has been less about strange customs and more about why the English constantly lapse into some foreign dialect when they feel threatened.)
    Within, Mrs. Stoker sits with the bald, bespectacled man to whom Mary had answered the door. Mary wants another look at this Mr. Thring who seems like a character from Dickens, all angular details, and delicate, thought-out movements. Neither Mrs. Stoker nor Mr. Thring look up as she enters and places the tea before them on the little mahogany table, but there is a silence and she assumes one of them is about to address her. But no; it’s just a lapse in the conversation.
    â€œWell, when your son came to see me yesterday, I realized that if I had any news at all – good or bad – I must take the golden opportunity to visit the famous Mrs.