The Fourth Mistress

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Blood drained from Louise's face, her hands turning cold on seeing the fourth person in the portrait of the family painting. This was not possible, she thought in her mind. 

Emily, the maid who had been working in the manor, was the fourth wife of Graham?

Louise stared at the maid, who had an innocent-looking face in the painting. She had known and spoken to the girl since she had joined Reed's family in this manor.

She had spoken to the girl this very morning, and she was in living and breathing form.  So how could she be the fourth mistress?

Was there another wife after the fourth one, which no one knew about and was dead? But at the same time, Emily had never mentioned a word about being Graham's wife. Was her memory erased or suppressed like the rest of them? 

Her eyebrows furrowed when she remembered the night where the chandelier had fallen where the butler and the maid had been standing. 

"Did you know anything about this?" Louise questioned the butler, who stood in a state of shock and his eyebrows furrowed. 

"I...I think that I am having faint memories of it but they aren't clear," answered Gilbert, his eyes looking at the maid in the painting, who had been working in the manor for many years. "Do you want me to fetch her here?"

"No," Louise shook her head. "I will go and meet her myself. Bring this with you, Gilbert." She didn't want this painting to go missing. 

With the butler right behind her holding the painting, Louise stepped out of the room and then made her way down. They met one of the male servants on their way, and Gilbert asked him, "Where is Emily right now?"

"Maybe in the kitchen or the servant's quarters," answered the servant named Saul. 

Louise had a grim expression on her face as she made her way to the kitchen. On reaching the kitchen, she looked around and noticed the two maids, Meg and Camella, preparing food for dinner. 

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Noticing Louise look around, the maid named Meg asked, "Do you need something, milady?" 

"Where is Emily?" questioned Louise.

"Emily?" asked Meg with a small frown, not knowing if the fellow maid had done something she was not supposed to do. "I think she went to serve tea for Lady Viola, milady."

"Tea?" a deep frown appeared on Louise' face, and she shared looks with the butler. She asked them, "Where? Where is Lady Viola right now?"

"I think the lady is either in the drawing room or in her room, Lady Louise. Is everything alright?" asked the other maid.

But Louise didn't wait there for another second. She had been so occupied finding the fourth wife that she had forgotten to keep an eye on her mother-in-law. 

Gilbert, who was still holding the portrait in his hands, went to look for Lady Viola in the drawing-room while Louise made her way to Lady Viola's room. 

Louise's eyes searched for her mother-in-law because Lady Viola wasn't present in her room. Going through other rooms, she finally came near Lady Agatha's room and noticed the door was left slightly open. 

When Louise pushed the door, she caught sight of Emily and Lady Viola standing at the right side of the room. The maid held Lady Viola's neck and had pushed the older woman against the wall. And though the maid looked like them, when Louise's eyes fell on the dressing table's mirror, she finally caught the reflection of the deceased woman in it. 

The dull nightgown with the decayed hands and feet, which included the face which was greenish-brown.

Lady Viola struggled to get the ghost's hands off her neck as she was suffocating.

"Emily!" Louise shouted the maid's name.

The maid turned her head, her face seething with anger and nothing like Louise had ever seen before. The face has changed to the rotten and deceased one as if she was still decomposing.

Louise fished her dress pocket before pulling out the cross Father Edward had returned previously in the manor. The ghost opened its mouth and screamed before vanishing into thin air. 

Lady Viola placed her hands on her neck, and she coughed. 

"Are you alright, Lady Viola?" Louise came to stand in front of the woman, and she rubbed Lady Viola's back to soothe her from the suffocation she had felt. 

"I-" Lady Viola continued to cough, and Louise helped the lady to walk to the bed and have her sit on the edge of it. "I-I, need water."

Louise nodded her head and looked around the room for water, but the jug had not been filled and was empty as the room was not being used anymore. After hearing Louise's voice, Gilbert, who was searching for Lady Viola, ran up to where they were. 

"Bring a glass of water!" ordered Louise, and the butler left the place. She didn't want to leave Lady Viola all by herself because she looked rattled. 

"Oh God! Oh God!" Lady Viola started to panic, "She is not going to leave us alone! She is going to kill us all!" while looking around the room in pure terror. 

"Do you… remember her?" Louise asked Lady Viola. The woman slowly nodded her head. 

Louise finally realized what had happened the day when Lady Agatha had died. When they had found the woman, she was lying on the bed with her untied hair as if she had planned to comb it.

Emily had taken the tray of tea for the now deceased lady. It was possible that the lady, who previously had no idea of what Emily had turned into, had seen the true appearance of the young maid's reflection in the mirror. 

It seemed like the memory that had been suppressed for so long had finally been set free after Lady Viola had seen Emily's rotten face. 

But it wasn't just Lady Viola who remembered everything. Louise remembered a memory that she had forgotten before her wedding to Graham. The memory was when she had gone to the centre town of Habsburg, where she had seen Graham meet a woman near his carriage. That day, at the same time, Louise had crashed into a young woman. It was her. 

It was Emily whom she had crashed into. 

That very person was the fourth mistress of Graham. But why was she back as a maid? Asked Louise to herself. 

When Gilbert arrived with a tray of glasses filled with water, Louise quickly took it from his hand and handed one glass to Lady Viola while not letting the glass go from her hand so that the woman wouldn't drop it. 

After drinking half a glass, Lady Viola turned her head away from it as if to say it was enough. She asked, "When is Graham returning home?" 

Louise pursed her lips before answering, "Not until tomorrow morning. He said he was going to meet some of the people and sign the papers to put a hold on the construction in Hungate. He said he would try to come back sooner than that. Morning was a worse case scenario."

"We are already in a worse situation. It isn't safe for him to stay by himself, he cannot be alone!" Lady Viola stood up too quickly that made her head turn dizzy. Louise and Gilbert caught hold of the woman and helped her sit again on the bed. 

"Please be careful," appeased Louise and then turned to the butler and said, "Send Harvey to Hungate to relay the information of what we have found out and let him tell Graham to return home as quickly as possible."

"Bring the priest with holy water! We need to purify this manor and get that thing out," said Lady Viola with her face twisting in disgust. The woman then turned to look at Louise, who gave her a nod.

"Go send someone immediately, and tell the maids and others to gather near the drawing room. We don't want them going missing,"  ordered Louise. Bowing his head, the butler stepped out of the room to complete the given order. "Let us go to the drawing room which is closer to the entrance door," suggested Louise, helping Lady Viola to stand on her feet, who looked pale and about to pass out. 

When Lady Viola left the side of the bed and started to make her way towards the room's door with Louise, her eyes fell on the painting that Gilbert had placed near the wall. She halted her feet, pointing her finger. In a shaky voice, she asked,

"How did you get that?"

Louise turned to look in the direction of the painting. Picking it up with both her hands, she said, "There was a small piece of painting that had come out near Graham's hand. It felt a little odd and I decided to scrape it. Is this the reason why you were feeling uncomfortable with these paintings?"

The woman nodded her head, staring at the portrait. 

Making their way to the drawing-room, Lady Viola took a seat on the couch while Louise let the painting lean against one of the walls, and she walked to the fireplace to put more logs of wood in it. The sky had already darkened. Both the women didn't speak to each other, staring into space because of the person they had seen in Lady Agatha's room. 

Emily, who had appeared to be innocent, was the ghost trying to kill Reed's family members. 

Louise watched the fireplace crackle with fire as the woods caught fire. Before Louise could ask anything, Lady Viola said in a dire tone, 

"Sometimes you think you have got rid of the bad memories and people from your family, only to realize it has been living with you all this time."

"Did you know about it? That it was her," Louise noticed Lady Viola not looking at her and instead, she appeared to look lost. 

Lady Viola shook her head, "Not until several minutes ago." A shuddered breath escaped from the woman's lips. "I was finding it hard to believe that Agatha isn't with us anymore. Just like Robert and Ernest. That I was losing members of the family one by one. So I went to visit Agatha's room, when she came." 

Louise noticed how Lady Viola stressed the word 'she' as if it was something forbidden.

"She told me, she brought me tea and stepped inside the room. She then asked me if I was missing the family members, then out of nowhere she caught hold of my neck," said Lady Viola, her hand touching her neck and rubbing the skin there. "That's when she revealed herself. Face that was half decomposed and patches on her face with dirt. How is this possible," she whispered in the end. "This is not supposed to happen."

"I don't understand," said Louise, wanting to get more clarification on what she meant. 

"Emily. She isn't supposed to be alive," said Lady Viola with her widened eyes, while meeting Louise's gaze.

Louise pursed her lips before asking, "Why do you say that?"

And then Lady Viola revealed something Louise had been doubting all these days. Lady Viola said, "Because I saw her die."