Bonfire Night

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Brisbane shook his head as if to clear it. “I cannot believe you are actually excusing the perpetrator,” he said, shaking the box at me.

  “Because it is at worst a silly prank,” I said roundly. “Even if Portia or I had eaten the whole box, we would not have come to any harm. We would only have slept very deeply, and that’s hardly a crime. But to what purpose?” I mused. “And why not direct any efforts to you or to Plum?”

  Brisbane’s gaze fell upon the washstand. “Perhaps they did.” He rose and retrieved a bottle that had been placed there—a bottle of very fine single malt. He opened it and took a deep sniff.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing but peat.” Before I could stop him he upended the bottle, taking a generous swallow. “We’ll know soon enough, I suppose,” he said cheerfully. “I’m off to wash.”

  Before I could berate him for being so careless of his own health—just because the chocolates were only lightly tainted did not mean the whisky was not outright poisoned—he took himself off to his dressing room.

  My lady’s maid appeared then, looking a little haggard. “Good morning, Liddell. Did you sleep well?”

  Her gaze slid from mine. “No, my lady. I was up until all hours with the weeping and moaning.”

  “Oh, you heard it, too?”

  She nodded and went to the clothes press. “Which today, my lady?”

  “I think the violet tweed. A walk into the village would suit me very well,” I instructed.

  She dressed me quickly and competently, but her movements were a little nervous.

  “Are you all right?”

  She darted a glance at me, twisting her hands in her skirt. “Yes, my lady.”

  She was frightened of ghosts, I decided. But it would not do for her to indulge in missish humours. I took a firm line with her. “It was most probably the wind,” I said firmly, believing it not for a minute.

  “The wind doesn’t sound like rattling chains,” she pointed out coolly.

  “Oh, you heard that, as well? Never mind. I’m certain there’s a perfectly logical explanation. And you needn’t fear, Liddell. We will find it,” I promised her.

  “I wonder,” she said.

  * * *

  It was not until we went downstairs to breakfast that we realised Plum was missing.

  “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him,” Portia told Brisbane when he asked.

  Mrs. Smith had just entered the hall with a fresh pot of tea. “He did not answer when the waterman went to take up his hot water, either.”

  I dropped my fork. “And you said nothing until now? I should have thought that would be rather pertinent information, Mrs. Smith,” I chided.

  She pursed her lips. “What gentlemen get up to is none of my business. I’m a respectable widow,” she replied.

  Brisbane and Portia were already halfway up the stairs when I caught them. It took a good deal of hammering on Brisbane’s part, but Plum eventually opened the door looking as though he had slept a thousand years. “What is all that racket about? I say, it sounds as if you were taking the house apart over my head.”

  Brisbane pushed past him to the bedside table where he found a bottle of whisky. He held it up. “A glass gone.”

  “Well, of course there is a glass gone. You can’t expect a fellow to sleep through moans and chains without a bit of help,” Plum protested. “What’s all this about?”

  “We were forcibly sedated by nefarious means,” Portia informed him. “Isn’t it thrilling?”

  “Thrilling? I should think not,” Plum replied. “It’s damned impertinent.”

  I turned to Brisbane. “You had some of the whisky. How do you feel?”

  He lifted one muscular shoulder. “A little relaxed. Nothing more than a gentle lassitude. But I drank less than Plum and I have thirty pounds on him,” he reminded me. He looked at Plum. “Why don’t you come to breakfast now? Some strong coffee will do us both good, and we can think it all out.”

  Plum agreed, and by the time Mrs. Smith had brought in the coffee he was downstairs, his neckcloth a little askew and a nick on his cheek where he had cut himself shaving, but otherwise undamaged.

  As Mrs. Smith poured out the coffee, I ventured a question. “Mrs. Smith, we heard a series of curious noises last night. Moans, to begin with.”

  She tightened her mouth as if she had just sucked a lemon. “What married folk get up to is no concern of mine.”

  “It was not us!” I replied sharply. “It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. All of us heard it, even my maid upstairs. It sounded like a woman weeping.”

  “Ah, that,” she said, flapping a hand in dismissal. “You’ll not let the Weeping Woman bother you. She’s harmless.”

  “The Weeping Woman?” Portia asked.

  “Yes, my lady. She’s the ghost of a lady who was once mistress of this place. Lost a child. Or was it a lover? In any case, she pined away and still roams the house, wailing her loss. That’s why they call her the Wailing Lady.”

  “I thought you said she was the Weeping Lady,” I put in.

  “Weeping, wailing, it makes no difference,” she said, arranging the jam pots more neatly.

  “I heard a chain rattling, as well,” I continued.

  She brightened. “Oh, that is good news! It means the Bloody Knight is on the move. We haven’t seen him in ever so long. It will be like meeting an old friend.” She nodded towards the suits of armour arranged along the walls. “It’s one of those fellows there what has a chain.”

  All of the suits of armour were fixed with weapons—swords, halberds—and three had maces, great spiked balls of iron hanging from heavy chains.

  “And one of those knights walks?” Plum put in pleasantly.

  “Only on special occasions,” Mrs. Smith informed him.

  “What is so special about this occasion?” he asked.

  Mrs. Smith drew herself up. “Well, it’s not every day the house gets a new family, is it? Besides, today is All Hallow’s Eve. They’ll all walk tonight.”

  She made to leave, but Brisbane detained her. “One thing more, Mrs. Smith. There were chocolates left for the ladies and whisky for Mr. March and myself. Who was responsible for the welcome gifts?”

  She gave him a blank look. “I couldn’t say, sir. I know nothing about them.”

  “You mean you accepted no packages from London? You did not place them in our rooms?”

  “Certainly not, sir,” she said stoutly. “But it’s a very good sign.”

  “How do you reckon this?”

  She gave him a thin-lipped smile. “It means the ghosts have decided to welcome you to Thorncross.”

  * * *

  “The woman is mad enough to be related to us,” Plum said when she had gone.

  “I think it’s great fun,” I pronounced. “Anyone can have a plain country house. We have one with ghosts.”

  “Rather more than your fair share,” Portia pointed out.

  Brisbane was silent a moment, but I recognised this as a pondering silence. At length he ventured a question, half to himself. “What sort of ghost needs to drug the living?”

  “The vengeful sort,” Plum replied in a sepulchral tone.

  “Don’t be an ass,” I told him. I turned to my husband. “Clearly, they don’t. So, we have a human enemy.”

  “Would we call it an enemy?” Portia asked. “After all, Plum and I were the only ones affected, and if I’m honest, I’ve seldom had a better night’s sleep. A true enemy would have bashed our heads in with the likes of one of those maces,” she finished with a nod to the armour.

  “But still a human acting against us,” Brisbane stressed. “Why and to what purpose?”

  “We are the new owners of the estate. We are an
unknown quantity,” I told him. “The village must rely upon the house for much of its welfare. Without knowing us, the local folk cannot be certain we mean to keep employing them and continue the traditions of the area.”

  “So they attack us?” Plum asked, a little affronted.

  I shrugged. “Such a thing could send us packing if we were nervous types.”

  “I rather think the opposite,” Brisbane said slowly.

  “What do you mean, dearest?”

  But he merely waved a hand. “Nothing. It’s murky yet and I’ve not enough information to theorise. What have you planned today?”

  I looked around the table. “I think we ought to go to the village. We shall divide and conquer. Each of us will take a local institution—the church, the pub, the post office, the smithy—and we will make ourselves known.”

  Plum snorted. “Julia, it is hardly done for the children of an earl to call upon the village blacksmith.”

  “All the more reason,” I said, fixing him with a look that told him I would brook no refusal. “But first, to the nursery.”

  Chapter Four

  When I entered the nursery, Little Jack was just finishing his breakfast and Morag wiped his chin. “That’s my fair wee lad,” she crooned. “Eating up all your porridge to grow strong as your papa.”

  Papa. I knew she meant Brisbane and not the man who had actually fathered him, Black Jack Brisbane. It was odd to think of Little Jack as Brisbane’s half-brother, but the resemblance between them was marked in spite of the difference of their years. Brisbane might bear his Gypsy mother’s black eyes, but he and the boy shared their father’s ebony hair and strong features. Even blurred by the softness of babyhood, Little Jack’s face was a handsome one. He would grow to be a credit to his family, I swore for the thousandth time. And he would be happy, as his own parents could never make him.

  As soon as he caught sight of me he waved his plump little arms. “Mumumumumum,” he chanted. Whether that would soon turn to “Mama” was anyone’s guess. But his rosy cheeks were wreathed in smiles as he reached for me. I took him up and cuddled him close.

  “Good morning, darling boy. Have you been good for Morag?”

  “Mumumumumumum,” he answered, shoving my knuckles into his mouth.

  “He’ll be working a tooth soon,” Morag said with a sage nod.

  “I should think so,” I agreed, although the intricacies of infant dentistry eluded me. He dropped his head onto my neck, rubbing his downy hair against my skin.

  “Mumumumumum,” he babbled again.

  “Morag,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “you might hear a bit of talk from the village servants,” I began.

  “About the ghosts?” she asked, her eyes narrowed. “They can keep well clear of my nursery,” she said, drawing herself up. “I’ll not have anyone disturbing the little master, dead or otherwise.”

  I smiled. “I know he is in excellent hands.”

  “Better than yours,” she muttered. “Look out before you drop him.”

  Wriggly as an otter, he had managed to turn himself entirely around and nearly flung himself to the floor. I tightened my grip and he began to howl. Morag lifted him swiftly out of my arms. “He doesn’t like to be squeezed.”

  “How else am I supposed to keep him from falling?” I asked, a touch waspishly.

  But Morag’s expression softened. “There’s some that has a way with babies, and some that doesn’t. When he’s walking and talking, when he can ask questions and needs the answers, you’ll be the finest mum a lad could have.”

  I felt a sharp stab of emotion and stifled it. “Do you really think so?”

  “Well, if not, we’re all buggered,” she replied.

  “Language!” I darted a glance at Little Jack, but he was too busy grasping his own toes to pay us any attention.

  She said nothing, but I knew from the thinning of her lips that she regretted her outburst. The fact that she had spent some twenty years as a prostitute before entering my Aunt Hermia’s reformatory meant that she occasionally lapsed into the language of the street. I had learnt to overlook her colourful vocabulary, but I would just as soon not have Little Jack adopting it.

  I gave her a repressive look and took my leave of them with a light heart. For all her faults, Morag was loyal unto death and would protect the baby even if it cost her life’s blood. Whatever was afoot, going bump in the night, it would never get the better of Morag.

  * * *

  We made a happy quartet as we trod the path to Narrow Wibberley. We might have taken a carriage, but the day was bright and crisp, the russet leaves rustling underfoot as we walked. Mrs. Smith had pointed out that the path to the village was the most direct route, taking a mile off from the main road, although of course she added a warning:

  “The path cuts right through the Haunted Wood,” she said, gesturing vaguely to the copse of trees sheltering the path. But I was in no mood to humour her dolourous whims. The path was well-marked and the little wood was nothing more than a stand of trees stretching from the edge of the Thorncross gardens to the village boundary. As we approached the village, we heard shrieks and screams of the most violent sort, but a quick appraisal of the situation revealed no more alarming event than some sort of brutal country game in progress on the green. A host of well-formed, enormous young men were taking part, pitting their strength and wiles against each other in a time-honoured contest.

  As we skirted the green, the lads touched their forelocks, reluctant to continue. We hurried on our way so as not to disrupt them, separating as we had planned. I was rather surprised to find anyone in the post office, but at the counter a stout middle-aged woman was busy counting out change to an elderly woman in rusty black.

  “Oh, my,” she said as I approached. “You’m with the new folk up the house,” she said with a friendly smile. I returned it.

  “Yes, I am Lady Julia Brisbane. My husband and I are the new owners of the manor.”

  The elderly woman bobbed a creaky curtsy and fled as if the seven devils of hell were after her, but the postmistress merely widened her smile. “And you’ve come to the village for your custom, have you? I call that neighbourly. Most folk would have kept to London ways. Will you be ordering from the shop?” she asked with a shrewd nod to the building next door. “Only it’s my sister’s and she could do with a bit of extra trade.”

  “Of course,” I assured her. “We mean to employ as many of the local folk as possible, and naturally we will do our ordering in the village.”

  She nodded. “That is indeed neighbourly. What might I do for you, my lady?”

  I brandished a letter I had dashed off to Father for an excuse to call in at the post office.

  She glanced at the address and nearly dropped it. “I never touched a letter to an earl before.”

  “I imagine it costs the same as the others,” I ventured helpfully.

  She collected her wits and sold me a stamp, taking the letter away with a reverential air. When she returned, she took my money and counted out the change, making certain it was correct to the ha’penny.

  “You know, my lady, you’ve many of the village lads working up the manor. Any of them would bring your post down. There’s no need for a lady like yourself to call in person.”

  “But how else are we to meet the people who live in Narrow Wibberley if we do not come into the village?”

  This perplexed her. “Why should you want to meet us?”

  “Because my husband and I mean to make our country home at the manor. I know we could keep apart from the village, but that is not my father’s way at his home in the country, nor is it mine.”

  Her lips worked silently as she digested this morsel of information. I extended my hand. “I do not believe you told me your name.”

  She wiped her perfect
ly clean hand upon her skirt and took mine with deference. “It’s Mrs. Ninch, my lady.”

  “Mrs. Ninch. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  From behind me came a male voice. “And another of the manor family graces us with her presence! This one even more charming than the other.” I turned to find an extremely handsome young man in clerical garb smiling down at me. “I am the vicar, Mr. Belton. I have just been making the acquaintance of your sister, I believe. Lady Bettiscombe?”

  “Yes,” I said, putting out my hand. “I am Lady Julia Brisbane. Lady Bettiscombe is indeed my sister. How do you do, Mr. Belton?”

  His hand lingered over mine. “Very well indeed,” he said, his voice warm and marked approval twinkling in his eyes. He glanced to the postmistress. “Now, Mrs. Ninch, I do hope you haven’t been filling Lady Julia’s head with superstitious nonsense about the local ghosts,” he said.

  She bristled. “I’ve not said a word to the lady of such things.”

  He gave a nod of approbation. “I am glad to hear it. There is far too much of such talk going around the village these days. And I am at fault myself,” he said with a confiding smile. “I believe I quite alarmed your sister with my silly tales.”

  “Then you do not know my sister,” I returned. He laughed, and I saw that he had very good teeth, even and white. His laughter was merry, and I found myself smiling.

  “I observed your party coming from the Haunted Wood,” he said, pitching his voice low. “I am particularly glad Mrs. Ninch said nothing to you of that place, for it is a most convenient shortcut from the manor to the village, and I shouldn’t like you to be made uncomfortable.”

  “But why should I be uncomfortable?” I ventured.