by June Calvin
With this, in spite of all her complaints, Agatha had to be content. But she insisted on clustering Delphinia, Allison, and James around her, so that they were, in effect, two dinner parties.
Allison told herself that she was glad not to have to interact with Thorne. Attempts to draw James into a conversation failed. He clearly had something on his mind and replied only in monosyllables. She was left to listen with half an ear to Agatha’s tirades and Delphinia’s attempts to soothe her. In this situation she began to review the day’s events in her mind, from the distasteful confrontation with Newcomb to the noisy battle with the geese. In recollection this event seemed more humorous than it had at the time, and she fought the impulse to giggle out loud at the image of Newcomb struggling to detach the gander from his inexpressibles.
A clap of thunder loud enough to penetrate to the dining room startled a shriek out of Agatha and awoke Allison from her reverie just as she had begun analyzing her encounter with the Silver Lady, which she had as yet not had even a second to contemplate.
“Oh, that poor woman,” Delphinia exclaimed, loudly enough to attract the attention of Thorne’s end of the table. James looked up, blinking like one just awakened from a nap.
“Who? Me? I am quite all right, I assure you.” Agatha ran her hands over her hair as if to reassure herself. “Not usually missish, you know. No danger indoors. Unless, of course, lightning should set fire to the building, and—”
“No fear of that, ma’am,” Mr. Smith had the temerity to say to her. “Thorne Hall is well protected. Every spire and comer has its own lightning rod to draw off the electrical fluid into the ground.”
“Fluid. Nonsense.” Agatha lifted her lorgnette to examine him as if he were a beetle. “Fire. Anyone can see that lightning is fire, coming down from heaven.”
“The American philosopher Benjamin Franklin, who designed the lightning rod, believes that electrical phenomena, from the Leyden jar to lightning, can be explained as the motion of two opposing types of fluid.” Mr. Swinton raised his hand as if waving a pointer in it. “Fascinating theory. I had the honor of hearing him explain it himself. You can read about it in the Transactions of the Royal Society, if you like. Thorne Hall boasts a complete set.”
“Americans. Bah.” Agatha interrupted ruthlessly to launch a tirade against England’s former colonies. “Rebels and traitors. They’ve a good deal to answer for. It is they who gave the French peasants the notion of revolting against the king the Deity appointed to rule over them. I would put no stock in any invention of theirs. Thorne.”
“However reprehensible the colonials may be, the fact is. Aunt, that since the rods were installed, neither Thorne Hall nor the castle has ever once been struck by lightning. Previously, estate records indicate as many as a dozen strikes per year, some with disastrous consequences.”
James’s face suddenly lit up. “Lud, yes. Remember when the cupola of the swinery was hit, Thorne? No fire at all, yet every pig in there was—”
“I don’t think the ladies would appreciate that particular reminiscence, James.” Thorne was smiling, in spite of the reproof. “Shall we discuss it after they have retired to the drawing room?”
Allison tensed. Reproving James in that fatherly way could only exacerbate their quarrels. Really, Thorne! Have you no sense at all? That's the wrong way to go about dealing with James.
As she expected, the younger man’s smile slid into a tight grimace. He nodded curtly. “Actually, I need to speak to you privately on a much more important matter, at your convenience.” He lifted his wineglass, which he had heretofore sipped from as anyone else would do at dinner, and drained it without pausing for breath. Then he stood and threw down his napkin.
“If you’ll excuse me, I am going to inquire of the servants if Miss Pollard has been found yet.”
“Well, what a rude young man,” Agatha sputtered.
For once, Thorne and Agatha were in agreement. He scowled and started to rise, intending to call James to book. Just then he noticed Allison shaking her head at him. Impatiently, he waited until
Agatha had partaken of every dessert offered and even asked a footman to crack a few nuts for her. When at last she rose to lead the ladies out, he rose too, telling Mr. Smith and Mr. Swinton to stay and avail themselves of his port. Then he went in search of James and found him in the foyer, listening to Sergeant Bean.
“Have you found her?” Thorne asked, interrupting them.
“Not yet, my lord. Seems to have just disappeared. I hoped we would before the storm broke. Don’t see how she could have made it to the coaching road, but...”
Thorne could see that Bean was deeply concerned about the missing woman. “Have you let the geese out? If she is hidden around the castle, they will likely find her.”
Bean shook his head vehemently. “ ’Twas what Mr. Betterton suggested, too, but...”
“She was terrified of them,” James explained. “Climbed all over me trying to get away from them and turned us both over in the process.”
Thorne pulled his hand over his mouth to stop a grin at the mental picture suggested by James’s words. “Still, better than her spending the night outdoors. Though it looks to be another of those storms that promise much and deliver nothing.” He looked up at the sky. The intense part of the storm had already passed overhead. To the north the sky was beginning to clear.
“Just a bit of a sprinkle, my lord. Enough to settle the dust.” Bean looked down self-consciously at his dusty clothing and boots.
“But not enough to do the fields any good,” Thorne responded ruefully. “Set the geese free. Sergeant. Newcomb may try to return, and I’ve had quite enough of ghost hunters for one day.”
“Aye, sir.’’ Bean turned and, leaning heavily on his cane, limped down the steps toward his gig.
“Perhaps I ought to help them search,” James said. “After all, my fault she’s in this situation.”
“I thought you wanted to talk to me privately.”
James frowned. “It’ll keep. Mimmings, have my horse brought around.”
Thorne watched his cousin turn away, and not for the first time resented his uncle for giving him control of the young man who once had been like a brother to him.
Thorne spent the next two hours listening to Aunt Agatha complaining and Allison playing the piano. She played in a desultory manner quite unlike her usual self, and Thorne winced more than once at obviously wrong notes. He was not unhappy when Del- phinia suggested that he accompany her while she sang something for them.
Allison had a lovely voice. He was sorry when she quit after the third song. It was Tom Moore’s ballad, “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” and he heard a slight break in her voice as she sang “… the heart that has truly lov’d never forgets,/But as truly loves on to the close....” When the last chord died away on the piano, he lifted his eyes reluctantly, afraid that she might be crying. She avoided looking at him by standing to curtsy in acknowledgement of the applause of her small audience.
“I think I shall turn in,” Agatha announced, struggling out of an overstuffed leather sofa. “It has been a draining day. Allison, Del- phinia, you would be well advised to do the same.”
Apparently of one mind on the subject, the three women withdrew, leaving him to make polite conversation with Mr. Swinton and Mr. Smith. They soon decided upon a game of chess, though, which left him to his own uncomfortable thoughts. Was it Charles she thought of as she sang, he wondered, or me? Have I hurt her so much? The thought made him miserable.
Why not marry her? His internal dialogue erupted in open warfare. You love her.
Do I? All the more reason to run the other way.
Coward!
If I marry, it must be for an heir. To escape his unhappy ruminations, he walked up to the library and searched for a book that would hold his attention.
Night had completely taken hold of the land when he lifted his head from Nightmare Alley because he heard a commotion downstairs.
He was glad of an interruption, for he found the supposedly humorous novel sadly flat. He descended in time to see James and Sergeant Bean helping a half-conscious woman into the entryway.
Chapter Eleven
“'This is the missing maid, I take it?” Thorne took Bean’s place and helped James half carry, half drag Marie into the Tudor room, a small drawing room on the ground floor in which Thorne usually received tradesmen and other visitors not of his social class.
“Some brandy,” James snapped to the room at large, and Thorne acted as manservant, since Mimmings was too occupied in scolding Sergeant Bean for bringing “such a person” into the front hall.
“ ’Tis the servant’s entrance for the likes of her. And you, for that matter,” Mimmings complained. Bean ignored him, however, to hover around the maid.
The brandy restored Marie to coherent speech, though the men might have been excused for wishing it had not. She began weeping hysterically and begging them not to force her to look for the treasure. Speaking mostly in French, she repeated over and over that “its ne me permetient a vous dis! Laissez moi seule.”
“Who won’t allow what?”
James shook his head. “Not sure. Stop your caterwauling, madam. We mean you no harm.” But the tone of his voice only drove her to louder weeping. Between sobs she begged to speak to “the kind lady.”
“An excellent idea. Let’s get Allison down here, see if she can calm the creature down,” Thorne muttered between clenched teeth. “Mimmings, send for Mrs. Weatherby if you please. Tell her it’s urgent.”
Mimmings snapped his fingers at a footman who was gawking at the door. “Quickly, Murdoch, ask Mrs. Weatherby to step down here.”
Thus it was that Allison, who was pacing her room wrestling with whether or not to tell Thorne about seeing the ghost, found herself summoned to attend him immediately. Alarmed and annoyed by such a peremptory summons, she hesitated over her response. She searched her mind for some answer to send by the footman, for she felt the need to collect her thoughts before facing any more confrontations. Moreover, she did not trust herself to see Thorne alone, and yet had no wish to disturb her mother, who was sharing a room with the poison-tongued Agatha.
The footman nervously urged haste upon her. ‘They found that missing woman, ma’am, and she was wishful of speaking to you.”
Relieved to learn the reason for Thorne’s summons, Allison followed him, thankful that she had not yet changed out of her dinner dress. Marie’s piercing wail reached her ears before she was halfway down the stairs.
Gracious, what are they doing to her, she wondered, hurrying her steps. When she reached the Tudor room, Thorne was waiting for her and almost dragged her to the sofa where Marie sat, keening and rocking back and forth.
“My dear Miss Pollard,” Allison said, sitting beside her and putting an arm around her. “What is wrong? Have these men been beastly to you?”
Marie cast herself upon Allison’s bosom, which, since she outweighed Allison by several stone, almost tumbled them both off the sofa.
“Oh, madam,” she cried. “Thank you for coming. You will not let them force poor Marie to search for this treasure, will you?”
“Is that what they have been doing?” Allison glared at her relatives.
“No such thing,” James denied. Thorne only scowled at her and shook his head.
“Miss Pollard, you must calm yourself so that we can discuss this matter rationally.” But Marie began weeping again. Finally, in exasperation, Allison snapped out rudely but unambiguously, “Tais-toi! Ecoute-moi, tais-toi.”
Upon being ordered so firmly to shut up, Marie drew in a deep breath and held it until her face turned an alarming puce. Then she gulped and wiped at her eyes. Gradually, she returned to calm, and as she did so, realized the impropriety of her position. She straightened and sprang off the sofa, begging Allison’s pardon.
“It is quite all right, Miss Pollard. Do sit down and explain to us what has overset you so.”
Allison’s firm voice and imperious finger accomplished what Thorne and James could not. Marie sat down, her hands folded in her lap. “J’ai vu ... ”
“Please speak in English,” Allison insisted, out of consideration for Sergeant Bean.
“I haf seen the ghost of the lady, the sad lady. She tell me not to seek the treasure, that I am not entitled.”
“Where did you see her?” Allison demanded.
“In the donjon, madam. The ...”
“Keep?”
“Oui, madam. There I hid underneath a table. There the lady came to me, she and that fierce soldat...” Marie’s lower lip trembled. She bit it and struggled to keep her composure. “He stood behind her, glowering at me. She made the motion to me comme ci.” Marie demonstrated with an outward thrust of her hands. “She say I am not of the blood and must leave. I know there is great danger, madam. I run away. Run and run, until I fall. Next thing I know the so-kind gentleman is helping me up.” She turned adoring eyes toward Sergeant Bean. “He put me on his horse and take me home with him. He say I must speak to this m’lord.” Her eyes turned from Bean to Thorne. “You are he, I think?”
“I am. Oh, don’t get up. Go on with your story.”
“That is all. Then I see Mr. Betterton and know he will make me go back to the castle and follow the ghost.”
“Did he say so?”
“No, madam, but that is why he and that so bad Captain Newcomb brought me here. And Mr. Newcomb say, after here we go to find a ghost in Scotland. Oh, madam, I cannot bear it. These revenant, they frighten me so.”
James abandoned his position by the fireplace to go sit by Marie and murmur soothingly, “I shan’t make you do anything you don’t wish, and Captain Newcomb is gone away.”
Marie’s eyes grew wide and hopeful. “He does not make me go with him?”
“He’d better not try!” This time it was Thorne who spoke. “Bean, will you ask Mr. Smith to spread the word on the estate that Newcomb is not welcome on the grounds. You will find Smith and Mr. Swinton dueling at chess in the Queen's drawing room.”
“And what about Miss Pollard?” Sergeant Bean looked anxiously at Marie.
Thorne caught Allison’s eye and winked as he said, “I will have the housekeeper take her in hand. Mimmings, will you escort Miss Pollard to Mrs. Grimes?”
“I expect Miss Pollard and Sergeant Bean would like something to eat,” Allison suggested as Marie hesitated to follow the butler. “Mimmings. you will ask Mrs. Grimes to see to that, please.”
“Thank you, madam. I indeed have great hunger.” Marie rose and curtsied respectfully to the three cousins before following the disapproving Mimmings out of the room, escorted by her self- appointed guardian.
“Well?” Thorne folded his arms and looked from Allison to James.
“Well, what?” James demanded irritably. “Nothing new there— she didn’t find the treasure, only said there was danger in looking for it. Newcomb could have saved himself—and me—the trouble.”
“And the hapless maid her distress,” Thorne snapped.
Allison worried her bottom lip. The maid had seen the Silver Lady, but instead of beckoning for her to follow, the spirit had warned her off. What did it signify?
“Allison?”
“I beg pardon, I wasn’t attending.”
“Do you think she saw a ghost, or is she merely an hysteric?”
“I don’t know. But it hardly matters. As James says, we haven’t learned anything new.”
“No.” Thorne looked searchingly at her, as if he was aware that she was leaving something unsaid. She avoided his eyes lest he see too much.
“I believe I will retire—again!” she said.
“Good night, then.” Thorne and James both stood. Bidding them good night, she climbed the stairs slowly, her mind agitated by Marie’s account. She had the feeling that important knowledge lay hidden just beneath the surface of the day’s events.
After she left, an uneasy silence reigned between the tw
o men for a long moment. James shuffled uneasily, and Thorne noticed that he was clenching and opening his hands.
“Are you going to deck me? If so, may I know why?”
“I may, yet. I want to talk to you about—”
“If we are to come to cuffs, let us find a rendezvous that gives a little more room to maneuver.”
James glanced around the cramped, unappealing salon disdainfully. “Lud, yes. This place is hardly conducive to lingering.”
“That was the intention. I receive nuisances here, mostly.” ‘Then I expect we had better stay, for I clearly belong to that category.” James thrust out his lower jaw.
Thorne shook his head as he started for the door. “Self-pity is a most unbecoming trait. Let us adjourn to the library.”
When they were seated amid a cozy grouping of sofa and chairs, a glass of brandy in their hands, James swirled his contemplatively.
“Thorne, I need you to be candid with me.”
“I usually am.”
“Why am I your heir?”
A frown line deepened between Thorne’s eyebrows. “You know the laws of inheritance as well as I.”
“But why have you not married long since? You who are always preaching responsibility—why have you not done your duty and got yourself an heir?”
Thorne tented his hands. “That is not so easily answered.”
“Try doing it without lying this time.”
Thorne jumped from his chair, furious. “You dare accuse me of such a thing? I had hoped for a rational discussion. If you are here to bait me into fisticuffs—”
James leapt to his feet, too, and they stood nose to nose when they heard Allison cry out.
“You two! Can’t I turn my back on you for an instant without your quarreling!”
“Allison, this is private, between James and myself. What the devil are you doing, spying on us?”
