The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite (The Northminster Mysteries Book 5)

by Harriet Smart

  He had thought Lord Rothborough would accompany him, but it seemed he was to face the lady alone.

  She was standing and staring down into the fire. Whatever Lord Rothborough had said, it seemed to have chastened her. There was a bow in her shoulders and she looked unhappy rather than angry as she turned and sat down.

  “You wished to talk to me, ma’am?” Felix ventured.

  “This is difficult for me,” she said, after a moment. “I hope you appreciate that.”

  “I do,” said Felix.

  “Eleanor is still so young,” she went on. “And her character is not entirely formed. We have lived quietly, as I think that suits her temperament. The glitter of society would not suit her, and I had decided that she should not be brought out as girls usually are. I had hoped that, two or three years hence, some suitable candidate would present himself to us. He would be a man of rank and solid fortune, who would bring assets equal to the enormous advantages she would bring him. I did not conceive of marrying her at seventeen to a man who has scarcely established himself in a profession I find distasteful, and who has nothing to recommend him except a small estate that he has come by only because of the peculiar circumstances of his birth.”

  “I agree, ma’am, I’m no catch,” said Felix. “But I love your daughter and she loves me. It is the most curious thing. It’s not what I intended. Ordinarily, I would never have presumed, but we have been thrown together, and it seems that it must be, that we must be. I am certain of that much. And I do not care about her fortune – in fact, I should rather she had nothing to her name!”

  “That is a pretty speech,” she said. “But I do not know you well enough yet, to know if you are sincere.”

  “I have friends, ma’am, who would speak for me. Major Vernon, my employer, for example –”

  She held up her hand to silence him.

  “But the fact remains that you stand to gain a great deal by such a marriage. It is often the case with natural sons of great men that they work to legitimize themselves by making brilliant marriages.”

  “I do not care about that! I never have. My relationship to Lord Rothborough is an entirely private one and I do not seek to get any advantage from it.”

  “So you say,” she said. “But to me your actions seem suspect. Pursuing my vulnerable daughter when she is under this roof, when its mistress is unhappily absent? Lady Rothborough, were she here, would not tolerate the freedom with which you treat this house. You have established yourself as an equal here. You have presumed to offer for a young woman who is far above you in rank and fortune.”

  “You may doubt my motives all you like, ma’am,” Felix said, “but nothing could be further from my mind. I have never presumed to be anything other than I am, and frankly, as far as I am concerned, your daughter’s position and fortune is an irritating inconvenience.”

  “Yet you behave as if you are the legitimate heir, as if you were indeed the Viscount Avonside and not mere Mr Carswell. And that, of course, is a name you may only bear because of the charity of your adopted parent. If it was charity, that is, and not due to my Lord’s ever-generous purse. Clerical households can be uncomfortably threadbare, especially in the wilds of North Britain, and even the greatest saints among us are not immune to temptation.”

  “That madam,” he said, “is a slander. My parents took nothing from Lord Rothborough. They refused absolutely. Now, you may insult me all you like, but I shall not allow you to insult them!”

  She stood up, and for a moment he thought she was about to terminate the interview.

  “Very spirited, and very proper,” she said instead, in a tone which he could not place as either sarcastic or sincere. It was impossible to read her. “Do you truly love my daughter, Mr Carswell?” she now said, looking hard at him. As she did, it was hard not to see the striking resemblance between her and Eleanor, and to imagine how Eleanor would look twenty years hence. There was a formidable power in that extraordinary cast of beauty that they shared. In Lady Blanchfort it had grown into something majestic, and if he were frank, for all her insults, she was still impressive.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “She will not be an easy wife, you do understand that?”

  “Why would any man want an easy wife?” he said.

  That produced a faint brief curl of her lips, suggestive of a smile.

  “Explain yourself,” she said.

  “A man who expects an easy wife might as well employ a good housekeeper and keep a mistress. When a man and a woman marry it ought to create something greater than two individuals can achieve as separate beings. They are equals joining in a great endeavour – in ideal circumstances, that is.”

  “And those ideal circumstances are –?”

  “When they choose each other for love and for temperament, without regard to worldly considerations.”

  “That is quite a philosophy,” she said.

  Felix was quite astonished by his own eloquence on the subject, but at the same time he was thoroughly enjoying his boldness. It was as if Eleanor’s admission of devotion had given him a sharp sword to defeat the dragons.

  She walked away to the window and stood looking out for a moment.

  “If I give my consent,” she said, “there will be conditions attached. Please understand that.”

  “Conditions, ma’am?”

  “Given that my daughter is so young and unformed, there are two ways that we may approach this. Either you wait to marry until she is of age, or if you marry now you will both live with me. When I think she has reached sufficient maturity and when I am sure of you, Mr Carswell, you may form your own establishment without me. That is your choice.”

  “Ma’am, I do not think –” he began, utterly confounded by this.

  “That is your choice,” she said again.

  “That is not consent,” he said, “That is –”

  At this moment there was a knock at the door, and a footman came in with a message for Felix. It was addressed in Major Vernon’s distinctive hand and the contents were, as usual, to the point.

  “Bickley has taken a turn for the worse. Peterson desires your immediate assistance at Marlingford.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Carswell had arrived at Marlingford, in the speedy comfort of Lord Rothborough’s travelling carriage drawn by four superb chestnut horses. Carswell went straight into the house, leaving Giles on the steps.

  “That must be a very important patient, sir,” remarked Forbuoys, the head coachman, to Giles. “I took my beauties faster than I should have liked, for this is a young team, which we have only just got under harness, but Mr Carswell insisted we get here as soon as we could.”

  “The stabling is more than adequate here,” said Giles. “You will find all you need, I trust.”

  Forbuoys led his magnificent equipage round to the stable yard, while Giles went back into the house.

  Carswell and Peterson were already deep in conference by the bed on which Bickley lay. He was now almost as pale as his mane of white hair. He lay staring up at his physicians, clearly too weak to speak.

  “I cannot staunch the bleeding,” Peterson said. “He is fading fast.”

  “There is something we might attempt,” Carswell said, when he had finished a brief examination. “A transfusion – you know Blundell’s work?”

  “I do, but I have not seen it done.”

  “I have – Mr Harper has had one or two notable successes with it and, although I have not yet performed it myself, I have bought the necessary instruments. I’ve been wondering when a situation might arise. It’s a most ingenious process, and I think Mr Harper may even have improved on Blundell’s technique. Hardly surprising, given how deft he is.”

  “He certainly is that,” said Peterson.

  Carswell had already thrown off his coat and was unpacking his bag.

  “I think this,” he said, holding up a narrow tube, “will become commonplace before long. This ensures the regulation of the strea
m from vein to vein. And this part here fixes on the patient’s forearm. The stream of blood from the donor enters the funnel with the regulating cock here, supported by this bracketed arm. Major Vernon, if I might ask you – could you lay that stool alongside our patient here, so I can put it in place?” Carswell then fixed the arm to one of the legs of the stool, and then used the arm to hold the silver-tube perpendicular to it. He then took up a scalpel and made an incision in Bickley’s forearm. Bickley groaned and protested, but Carswell went on regardless. He fixed a metal tourniquet-like cuff over the incision, and attached the silver tube to it. He then put the receiving funnel at the top of the tube.

  “All ready,” he said. “Blundell calls it a gravitator, because, as you can see, it uses gravity to send the blood in a steady flow into the patient.”

  “And who will be the donor? You?” said Peterson. Carswell had rolled up his right sleeve and was tapping at his veins in the crook of his arm with his fingertips.

  “Yes,” he said. “Can you make the incision for me, Peterson? Just there? Just as if it were a venesection.”

  “Of course,” said Peterson.

  “This may work,” Carswell said, catching Giles eye as he stood on the far side of the bed, “or it may not.”

  He screwed up his face as Peterson made the incision, which seemed to cause a lively stream of blood. Carswell then moved and stood with his arm outstretched so that the blood fell into the little funnel at the top of the tube.

  “Open the cock when there is an inch or so in there,” said Carswell.

  “Extraordinary,” said Peterson. “And as you say, very ingenious.”

  “The funnel holds about two fluid ounces when it is full. I can stand to lose about twenty-four in the first instance.”

  “Twenty at most,” said Peterson, turning the cock.

  Silence fell as Carswell’s blood drained from his arm and into the funnel and then vanished down the tube to trickle into the veins of the dying man. Although he scarcely knew what he should be looking for, Giles found himself staring at Bickley who was gazing up at him, helpless, lost and confused. His hand clawed at the covers, and then after some minutes he opened his mouth as if attempting to speak. But no sound came out, only a dry sigh.

  “His pulse is improving,” said Peterson.

  “Excellent,” said Carswell.

  “And you are not feeling faint?” said Peterson.

  “Not yet,” said Carswell.

  At this point Bickley began to writhe, and threatened to unsettle the equipment, so Giles put his hands on his shoulders to still him. As he did, Bickley breathed hard into his ear and said, “Damn you –”

  “It is definitely having some effect,” said Peterson and at the same time, Carswell staggered back and fell to the floor in a dead faint. Peterson rushed round to attend to him, while Bickley, quite lively now, began to resist Giles’s restraint.

  “You shall not have the satisfaction –” he rasped. “You and your –” He hauled in lungfuls of breath. “I will not leave here alive.”

  “Tell me, then, did you order Matthew Jones’ murder?”

  “Yes, he was a dirty traitor.”

  “And Kate?”

  “She needed a beating.”

  “Ruthless even in death,” Giles said.

  “She was a traitor. She deserved it. Like my sister and bloody Merriam. And he killed my friend.”

  “You mean Colonel Parham?”

  “Aye, with the help of that little blaggard Mostyn!” Bickley went on, in a fearful, rasping tone that made his words practically unintelligible. But he seemed determined to say his piece. “I told him not to trust him, but he wouldn’t listen. Didn’t see what he was until it was too late. Didn’t keep him in check as he should. So make sure you hang him, Major! He’s a dirty, clever one, with his filthy mushrooms. You had a little taste of his tricks, I think.”

  “I think so,” said Giles.

  “His idea. I told the Colonel not to trust him. Poor fellow, poor –” He gazed up at Giles. “You look just like him. Never saw that before –” and then he seemed overcome by the pain completely and began to groan. At the same time he tried push away the transfusion apparatus. “Let me die!” he manged to say. “God in Heaven, just let me die!”

  He was gripped with the most fearful agitation, and went from deathly pale to a violent red, sweating profusely. At the same time he began screaming as if all the devils of hell were leaping upon him. For some five minutes this persisted, despite all Peterson’s efforts to calm and sedate him. Bickley was suffocating before their eyes, and a few minutes later, he expired.

  Carswell, who had managed to get back onto his feet for the final moments, was staring down at him, his teeth chattering and a bloody bandage pressed to his forearm.

  “So much for justice,” he said.

  “No one can say we did not try,” said Peterson, and began to disassemble the transfusion device.

  “Brandy,” said Carswell. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

  Giles followed him, for he looked most unsteady on his feet, and he had to be helped to a chair in the drawing room – the chair in which Miss Bickley had sat.

  “It was scarcely a pint,” he said.

  “Perhaps that is why you never recommend old-fashioned blood-letting,” Giles said. “You cannot stand it yourself.”

  “Others can. I have seen people relieved of twenty-four ounces without blenching. But scarcely a pint – to no effect. Well, hardly that, either, because he’s dead now, and it would be quite easy to point to my intervention as the cause. Not to mention my blood. Unless that is the problem.” He sat up a little, as if possessed by an idea. “Perhaps one man’s blood is not like another’s. Perhaps when the procedure works it is because there is a compatibility there that we do not yet understand. Perhaps my blood was a sort of poison for Bickley. Your blood or Peterson’s might have done the job better. We might have kept him alive.”

  “Try to postpone such speculation,” said Giles. “Recover yourself fully first, before you launch into an exhausting investigation. Here,” he said, handing a glass of wine to him. “Sherry, I’m afraid, not brandy.”

  Carswell swallowed down the contents of the glass in one gulp, and sank back in the chair.

  “What time is it?”

  Giles consulted his watch.

  “A little after seven.”

  “I should go back. I need to go back.”

  “It’s too dark now, and you have already exhausted those horses. Why do you need to return, anyway?”

  “Because –” Carswell broke off and gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “Because my fiancée will be waiting for me, and I have left her to do battle with her mother, and that I cannot allow. So you see, I must go.”

  “Congratulations,” said Giles. “I take it the lady in question is Miss Blanchfort?”

  “Yes,” said Carswell. “I have plunged into the great matrimonial ocean and caught my silver salmon. She fairly leapt into my arms, in fact!”

  “And naturally you want to go back. But I think you should allow Mr Peterson the last word on it.”

  “I fainted, that was all,” said Carswell, and attempted to get up from his chair, but he wavered badly as he did, and ended up sitting down again. “Well, perhaps I should not go anywhere quite yet.”

  Giles went and fetched Peterson, who bound up Carswell’s arm and told him he ought to lie down and rest.

  “Then you should eat a decent dinner,” he added.

  “We shall have to make the best of things here,” said Giles.

  When Carswell had gone to rest, Giles went back to the room where Bickley’s corpse lay. Peterson had covered him with a sheet, and Giles hesitated for a moment to draw it back and look at him. That he was dead and unable to do any more damage was in practical terms an excellent thing, but there remained the strange feeling that the old devil had cheated justice.

  -o-

  Felix did as he was bid, and was surprised to
find how easy it was to sleep. The old butler, Mr Stevens, woke him with a jug of hot water and the news that dinner would be served shortly. He had been asleep for nearly two hours, and he had developed an appetite.

  Major Vernon and Peterson were waiting for him in the dining room. The meal was by no means an extravagant one, but Miss Bickley’s handsome taste in china and silver made it elegant.

  “What will become of this house now, I wonder?” said Peterson.

  “Miss Bickley had a half-sister,” said Major Vernon. “She suffered somewhat at her hands, so there would be some justice if it came to her, perhaps.”

  Having taken a glass of wine, Peterson excused himself and went to bed, leaving Felix and Major Vernon at the table.

  “Perhaps we should we drink a toast?” Major Vernon said, having added a scant eighth of an inch to his glass, and then pushed the bottle towards Felix. “To the future Mrs Carswell.”

  “It may be some time before that becomes a reality,” Felix said, filling his own glass. “There are conditions. Either we must wait four years until she is of age, or her Ladyship lives with us until such time as she thinks it is appropriate to let us alone! And because your note came when it did, I have not had a chance to discuss this with Eleanor.”

  “I apologise, then.”

  “It is hardly your fault. No, I shall blame the late Bickley. He has caused us enough trouble, him and his wretched family!” Felix sipped his wine.

  “I still think a toast is in order, whatever you decide,” said Major Vernon, raising his glass. “It is good news. I hope you both will be extremely happy.”

  “So do I!” said Felix. “But with that woman in the house, I cannot begin to imagine – Eleanor is violently against her and for a host of very good reasons. But I do not think I can bear to wait, and I am sure Eleanor will not want to. For I could be dead in four years’ time. I nearly was the other night, after all.”

  “Only if you decide to keep in this line of work, of course.”