“Aye. ’Tis a sore matter to Hardwicke. I thought he’d as lief do murder to Miss Megan and the other when he come home from the wars against Boney-pat, dragging a leg-like, and that cross to find his father’d left him naught but liquor debts. But we’ve a fair good life in Sir Nicholas’s service. Mayhap he’ll be forgetting, one day.” She rose from her knees with a satisfied air ill befitting the bitter story she related.
“Now, Miss, ye’ll be right as right, once ye’ve had a proper soaking of that foot.”
“You are very kind.” Then I added what concerned me more at the moment in this palatial manor house, which was so unknown and awe-inspiring to me, and in which I felt I could get lost and not be found for a fortnight. “Perhaps it would be better if your husband does not learn about my interest in the Hag’s Head. After all, I may not purchase. I do not know for sure, not having seen it all.”
“May be,” she said skeptically. “But Ezra has sharp ears, and he’s not above listening at keyholes.”
“And what, my love, am I not above listening to at keyholes—or even doorways?” asked an oily male voice in the open doorway behind us.
CHAPTER TEN
I started guiltily, wondering how dangerous Ezra Hardwicke could be if he heard such news in its worst possible aspect, by eavesdropping. Mrs. Hardwicke made me flinch with her brisk , indifference to the feelings of this dangerously embittered person.
“Get on with you, man. We are talking female talk. The lass was by way of being rescued out on heath by His Ludship.”
“Dear me, dear me,” murmured the man in the doorway, chuckling with such an evil sound as fairly curdled my blood. “Another of the little lambs, is it?” He came limping into the room dragging his right leg noticeably, for it appeared to be stiffened throughout the knee and calf region.
Everything his wife had suggested about Ezra Hardwicke seemed to be true, but in a curiously reverse manner. I had expected a huge, burly man, beetle-browed and ham-handed. This man, on the contrary, was a lean, cadaverous individual with lined face, curved back, and as malign a smile upon his bloodless lips as ever I saw. He looked as though the very marrow had been sipped from his bones and what remained was the mere dry carcass. Yet there was that smile, revealing small, gleaming white teeth.
His wife said briskly, “It’s a different ewe lamb from the others, Ezra. And one that deserves some respect, I’m thinking. Miss—what was your name, lass?”
“But my dear Sophy, what would it be except ‘Bodmun’? This is that very ewe lamb that’s come to hunt down and exorcize the ghost at the Hag’s Head.”
Mrs. Hardwicke looked vexed, and I was downright worried. He made a stiff little bow whose grotesque elegance even his black homespun stockings and his cobbler’s apron could not destroy. Once upon a time, I thought, his family had been gentry, and something of genteel old manners showed through the dry and mocking exterior. Though I felt a repulsion toward him based upon Mrs. Hardwicke’s unwifely warning, I felt sorry for him too, in an odd sort of way based partly upon a respect for what he had once been.
“I am Kathleen Bodmun, but it is not very imposing—or even a name of any genteel importance, sir, and I am surprised you know it so well,” I said. Then I added, as a sop to their good nature, “I’m very sorry to have put you to this trouble, but a pair of Sir Nicholas’s dogs chased me across the moor, and I turned my foot on a stone when I was crossing through a kind of wooded bottom.”
The Hardwickes exchanged glances. For the first time I wondered if each was deceiving me about the other. Perhaps her warning to me had been deliberate, for strange reasons each of them understood about the other.
“But surely, Miss,” said Ezra Hardwicke, his gray eyebrows raised, “You’re never saying you found dogs of this locality in Seven Spinney?”
“Is it possible you think I am lying about such a trivial thing?”
“A lie is easy,” said Hardwicke, inclining his head as one who has often taken such refuge, “but when you speak of Seven Spinney as a trivial thing, well ... that is quite another matter and worthy of comment throughout the length and breadth of the West Riding, We, all of us, know that Seven Spinney is a place shunned by our hunting dogs.” His voice was so full of scorn that even the oily surface did not cover it. I remembered suddenly that Sir Nicholas and his loader had behaved in the same way when I suggested that their dogs had first caught sight of me in the cope that they called Seven Spinney.
I said hastily, “I saw the dog, across the little stream, what you call in these parts a beck. At least...” The first, preposterous idea of what I had seen there came back to me now. I hesitated to mention it, knowing how they would scoff at the idea. “At least, I thought it must be a dog, because it could not be what it looked to be.”
Mrs. Hardwicke and her husband spoke at the same time, she to interrupt, and he to ask with surprising excitement, “And what did this—thing—look to be?”
“The Hag,” said I.
Mrs. Hardwicke dropped my foot with a suddenness that made me wince, but her husband either did not have as much interest in the haunted old inn as she had thought or was a superb actor. He said with his rodent’s amiable and toothy look, “But what nonsense is this, Miss Bodmun? I must confess I am familiar with the peculiar attitude of the local hunting hounds over Seven Spinney. It is not that anything of great moment occurred there. A nest for lovers—”
“Ezra!” his wife interrupted, for all the world like my old governess, Miss Higsby.
His smile widened, and he shrugged. “Well, then, it is only that you are not the first to see the Hag. It was a legend among all the Hardwickes. And with the—the woman, Megan Kelleher, murdered at the inn, well, what have you? Who would possibly wish to dwell where such things take place? Everything in the vicinity is haunted, merely by suggestion.”
I tried to laugh, for I was sure he told me this in an attempt to frighten me, because of his vindictive hatred for anyone who expressed an interest in the Hag’s Head.
We heard Sir Nicholas’s steps in the gallery then, and I noticed the tension that gripped us all, including myself, as he looked in at us. “What, Sophy? Haven’t you got that lass into bed yet? At this rate of speed, she will not be awake for dinner.”
“I don’t mean to stay for dinner,” I put in calmly, very grown-up. “I shall be on my way as soon as I have soaked my foot for a few minutes. I do not intend to be a burden upon anyone.”
He looked at me quizzically. “I have ordered a syllabub and all manner of pretty desserts. That should sweeten your disposition. And you may imagine in what case I shall be with Cook if you refuse it now. What do you say, child?”
The sound of “syllabub and other sweets” was exceedingly good to hear, but for my pride I had to remind him, “If I were a child, as you seem to think, sir, that should set all aright. As it is, I am much more concerned about the peculiar thing that pursued Timothy and me out of Seven Spinney today.”
The Hardwickes were plainly upset by my persistence, but Sir Nicholas laughed.
“Sophy, do get the child to bed before she fancies ghosts in this house.” He gestured around him at the immensity of Everett Hall. “You would have quite a run if you fancied the Hag amid these walls!”
I did not like to confess, and would never have confessed to Sir Nicholas, that these hallowed and stately halls were enough to send anyone into the vapors, even a ghost like the Hag, and if I had never heard of such a creature, I should still imagine her or something very like her in such a distinguished house. She would roam those halls to make me feel my place, if for no other reason. In short, I did not feel at home here, any more than I should have in the Prince Regent’s apartments!
But by the time I would have found a suitable setdown for my host, he was gone, and Sophia Hardwicke put out her substantial black-clad arm.
“Lean upon this, mum. His Ludship’s right as right. We’ve no call keeping you from your rest. Else the porker is to be burnt to a cinder and the hous
ehold does not sup this night.”
“Dear me,” added Ezra Hardwicke in his suave way, suggesting to me all sorts of sly deviltry, “we must not, in any circumstances, let young Miss go hungry, or without rest. She will need all her strength if she means to challenge the Hag.”
“That’ll do, man!” said his wife as I shivered, and she and I moved in a gingerly way across the room and out into the gallery. I had hopped along during most of our progress, so when we started up the great curving staircase, I put my weight upon my toes and we managed very well.
I was almost too tired to pay much attention to my surroundings as we crossed the corridor on the floor above, but I knew how Mama would like a description of all this luxury, so I tried to make out some detail in my surroundings. But I was so tired that I made out only that it was decorated in the very height of elegance, although a trifle behind the latest fashion and, to judge by the little carved hall table we passed, in need of a good housewifely dusting.
The room into which I was ushered had much the quality of that part of Everett Hall which I had already glimpsed—elegantly furnished but disused. I suspected that the used sections of the hall were those masculine quarters I had not yet seen, for this bedchamber was entirely feminine, like the summer room, and while flawlessly decorated, with windows opening wide upon the moor and sky, had the look of a room unchanged since before the turn of our nineteenth century.
I wondered that Sir Nicholas was not lonely here in this great house, which he must often have dreamed of sharing with the woman he had loved, Megan Sedley Kelleher. How he must hate Patrick for this wrecking of his life! And as for Mrs. Sedley, whose snobbery and ambition had brought about the tragedy, I no longer wondered at his dislike of her but only marveled that his feeling was not stronger.
Mrs. Hardwicke would have removed my clothing almost bodily, but I was used to doing for myself and only accepted gratefully a lavender-scented dressing sack from a lovely old carved chest at the foot of the four-poster bed. By the time she had established me on a flowered chaise, Ezra Hardwicke brought in a ewer of steaming hot water and set it beside my foot. I was relieved when they left me alone, though I could not deny their kindness. But beneath that kindness I could not help feeling undercurrents of watchful waiting. I remembered always that the Hag’s Head, which they thought I intended to purchase, might go back to them, its original owners, if no one else saw fit to buy it in the near future. They might even assume that any money they had laid away would purchase, just so long as I did not snatch it from them first. Certainly, the tales of the ghostly visitant lowered the asking price of the inn. I suspected that was Mrs. Sedley’s chief concern in selling so cheaply.
There were moments during this time when the two Hardwickes were fussing about me that I was ashamed of my thoughts. But then came such a remark as was made at their departure, to set me thinking again. I had been so busy observing the grand life of the nobility and wondering how they solved such practical matters as keeping foods hot though all these endless galleries, that I quite banished my worries about that ghostly Hag’s Head. Immediately after, as Mrs. Hardwicke was closing the door and nudging her husband out of the room, she stuck her head back in and said cheerfully, “Indeed, lass, you’ll find nothing to fret you in these halls. The Hag must get through those grounds out beneath that set of windows at your elbow, afore ever you’ll meet her within.”
“Has anyone ever met the Hag within these walls?” I asked ironically.
“But Miss,” put in Ezra Hardwicke softly, “how came Miss Elspeth to take Everett Hall so very much in dislike, eh? Something that followed in her very path, her very footsteps, all the way from the Hag’s Head! Still and all, Miss Elspeth is very likely given to strong imaginings; isn’t it so, Wife?”
“Come away!” said his wife severely.
I heard Ezra Hardwicke chuckle as the door closed, leaving me with no very pleasant thoughts.
Was any of this true, I asked myself, or was it a sort of backhand slap at me, to frighten me off the purchase? The more they tried by such scurvy means to alarm me, the more determined I became to have the Hag’s Head as my property. Putting my foot into the hot water, then jerking it out painfully, for the water was scalding, I considered what I would do if I ever did own the old inn. First of all, of course, I would have it cleaned in every corner, every cupboard, from eaves to basements. Then I would see that air and strong light reached into all shadowy corners. I had never yet encountered a legend about ghosts that did not consign them to shadows and unclean places.
Yes, but what if there was something—some odd phenomenon that did exist in fact, not in fancy? I had the evidence of my own eyes and the dying gaze of Macrae. And perhaps even more chilling, there was the strange imagined face in Seven Spinney that had so frightened Timothy and me. I relied very strongly upon the evidence of the little cat’s senses. Were not cats supposed to be, somehow, more aware of such apparitions?
Even Sir Nicholas and Jacob, his loader, insisted that no dogs were ever to be found in Seven Spinney. That was odd, but all of a piece with what had happened to me since the moment Timmy and I set foot inside the common room of the Hag’s Head Inn.
The water in the ewer now seemed a trifle less apt to scald the flesh off me, so I dipped my foot in, toe by toe as it were, and felt the ache gradually leave my foot until it seemed nearly normal. I spent these minutes looking around with great admiration at the furnishings of the room, as well as the room itself, all in the last style of elegance, its beautifully paneled light walls, its dainty bed with ruffle trim, and the curtains, similarly ruffled, which did not cut the light from the windows but rather expanded it.
This brought my thoughts to the weather outside and the fabulous view from my post on this comfortable chaise. I could see far across the rolling moor, and I fancied I could make out the chimney tops of the Hag’s Head and, somewhat nearer, the dark declivity in the moors where a little stream trickled along, eternally shadowed by a tangle of trees, the whole of it called Seven Spinney. How curious that I had seen that odd imaginary thing within the glade which my thoughts had twisted and shaped into the face of an old crone! I wondered now what it had really been. Probably similar to the fancies Elspeth Sedley had had when she paid her visit here, which produced in her such a dislike of Everett Hall.
It must be very dark in Seven Spinney at this hour of the late afternoon, with the whole moorland world lying under the uniformly gray skies, which dripped a mizzling rain. The colorless sky had an odd effect upon the world outside these windows, seeming to bring out the deep green of the copse called Seven Spinney, the mauve and dun color of the dying heather, and the enormous sea of green that was the moor itself, swarming with so much unseen animal and insect life, yet strangely still to the sight.
The sky at this time of day lulled me to a sleepiness not at all usual for me. Or perhaps it was caused by the monotonous rolling moors that I stared at, imagining all sorts of creatures alive and peopling the view before me; but it was singularly bereft of human signs. My eyes closed briefly. When I discovered this disgraceful weakness, I opened my eyes wide and stared intently at the view from my borrowed windows. I had one or two more near temptations to sleep, but I managed to fend them off by concentrating upon finding some live thing upon the moor.
And then I did find it. What a liar that insufferable Sir Nicholas was! Telling me first that no dog of his ever visited Seven Spinney, and second that no one else’s dogs were permitted upon the heath in that region; for I could dimly see some sort of dun-colored animal prowling across the moor, apparently unafraid of potholes and boggy patches. As I watched, I began to realize that the animal was headed toward Everett Hall. Worse and worse! Exactly what Sir Nicholas had said was not possible.
I blinked, trying to throw off sleep, and leaned forward to watch this curious animal whose habits were denied by everyone at Everett Hall. Its approach was slow, deliberate, not so much creeping along in canine or feline fashion, but huddled aga
inst the slap of rain and wind. There was an almost human look to the stature and movements of the creature. My eyes, which had closed in spite of all my good intentions, snapped open, and I felt the first nibble of a new fear when the sight of that peculiar, indistinct creature began to prey upon my senses. I told myself, This is no hunting dog, no vicious hound that snarls on the trail of a poor fox or a girl like Kathleen Bodmun.
No. It was something else, but I refused to name it. I only wondered why someone at the Hall did not see it and make some signal, go out to stable or corral or kennel the beast, for surely its approach was being watched by someone at the Hall other than myself.
I seemed to doze off as I watched, but this was so unusual that I wondered if I was truly ill and not merely relieving a pulled muscle in my foot. The chilling of the water in the ewer upon my foot aroused me. I dried my foot on the towel left by Mrs. Hardwicke, marveling at how much these older people Mama’s age knew about such simple cures for the sickening pain I had suffered an hour or two before.
When I had finished with my foot and folded the towel, I listened, amazed at the quietness in this great household. At home I would have heard a hundred different friendly, companionable noises both in the high road outside and within our household at this hour. But here in Everett Hall it was as though the whole world of the moors reached out to shroud the manor house in a silence I found abnormal.
Confused by the few minutes I had closed my eyes, I almost forgot to look out the windows upon the carefully formal garden and park of Everett Hall, then beyond to the endless rolling moors now blurring into obscurity in the sunless sunset, and once more to catch sight of that peculiar creature moving toward the Hall, much closer now and less like a great hound. I would have taken it for a human being, except that it moved so very bent over, huddled against the drizzling heavens and against old age. In short, an old crone, a witchlike hag!
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