The Wyvern Mystery
The story opens with the child Alice, newly orphaned and taken under the wing of Squire Fairfield unaware that he is the man responsible for her father's death. As she grows up to be a beautiful woman, Squire lusts after her and desires her to be his bride, but she is attracted to his older son, Charles. No sooner does he propose than the gallant Charles spirits Alice to a church for preemptory nuptials. Charles' brother, Harry, assists. The couple hide out in a family house Carwell Grange from Squire who pursues them, where life is bliss-notwithstanding the dispirited housekeeper, the wing with rooms painted entirely in black, and Charles' increasingly strange behavior and frequent reference to "old soldier" in whispered conversations with Harry. Soon Alice is pregnant and although fed up with having to hide away she is very much in love with her husband and she discovers and hidden and neglected part of the house with signs of a recent inhabitant, she becomes embroiled in the family's dark past and afflicted with nightmares. These become terrifying real one night when a madwoman bursts through the wall, threatens Alice with a knife, and then stabs Charles while claiming she is his wife.Alice, shocked into labor by the incident with the deranged Vrau, delivers a boy and takes him to the dying Charles to strengthen his will to live. A doctor advises that he be sent out of the house as Charles has developed a infectious fever, against Alice's protests. Harry arranged for his friend Claire Shaw to look after the baby and Alice nurses Charles, who unfortunately dies. At the same time she receive the devastating news that her baby has also died of an infection. At the time of the funeral Squire indicates to Harry that he regrets the death of his son and what has happened, Harry told Alice that his father was no friend to her father, but rather hastened his death, Alice turns on Squire when he tries to be reconciled and offer her a home, Alice is devastated, and, following a blistering confrontation with Squire, cuts off all ties with Wyvern Manor.Five years later, Alice quietly pays her annual visit to her baby's grave. Stopping briefly at her childhood home, she encounters Squire, a visibly broken man, murmuring incoherently. Shaken, she meets Harry, who now controls the family estates. She also encounters Claire Shaw and her suspicions are aroused when she and Harry deny that Claire ever had a child of her own, which they told her when she first met Claire. Alice does some investigating into Claire and into her son's death and suspects Harry of having murdered him. She find out more from the mad Vrau who is chained up and looked after in the house still. Vrau reveals that the boy is alive and lures Alice into unlocking her chains. Alice traces her son to the Archdales who been looking after the boy for payment. She runs off with him and confronts Harry, who mocks and sneers at her claims, but almost immediately after he is murderd by Vrau who has killed her keeper and escaped. Alice's son inherits Wyvern, which they let out and go to live in her first childhood home nearby.
insanity, revenge, gothic, murder, plot twist