The Ghost and Jacob Moorhead
Page 23
“But Mary…”
Ah. Mary. I wonder if I should stick my finger into that pie…
“But what can you do?”
His is a culture that listens to its ancestors. I, as you know well, am an ancestor. He grinned.
“But can you communicate with any of them?”
Oh yes. The eldest is quite sensitive. He’s already aware of my existence. I merely need say what needs saying. Repeating it if he doesn’t immediately understand me. He tipped his head in thoughtful manner. Perhaps I will enter into one of the man’s dreams. That is their way, I believe…
“And what will you say?”
That the two, Rube and Mary, are to wed and go off on their adventures, of course.
“Will he understand you? He doesn’t speak English. Or at least he pretends he does not. I have sometimes suspected he knows more than he’ll say.”
Dreams are strange. He will understand.
“But what of Rube’s father?”
That an ancestor insists will satisfy him.
“You seem very certain…”
He grinned. There are advantages to being dead, Jenna. I can learn all sorts of things I need to know. Just by asking.
“Asking?”
He nodded. Just by asking. How do you think I know it is not yet your time? How do you think I knew that Verity and Jacob should wed? How… He made a movement as if to grab her hand with its raised finger but remembered in time that he would chill her to the point of pain. Enough?
“Quite enough.” She yawned. “Remind me tomorrow about the letter…” And she fell asleep in an instant.
The late earl settled himself at the end of her bed, leaning against nothing at all and watched his love as she slept deeply but not as restfully as he’d have liked. She’d still be tired when she woke in the morning…and there was no way he could help her. He hated that he could not help her.
* * * * *
“The letter. I forgot the letter,” fussed Jenna. She started to rise from her chair but, thinking her boiled egg would get cold if she left, settled back and picked up her spoon.
“Letter?” asked Verity, looking up from her tea and toast. She couldn’t find too much interest but wished to be polite. A long night of loving had left her feeling so good, so relaxed and at ease with the world, nothing but memories of the night just past and anticipation of that to come interested her at all. Still, her aunt seemed overly agitated and that wasn’t good. “Were you supposed to have written a letter and forgot?”
“No, no.” This time Jenna actually rose to her feet. “I must get the letter.”
Verity too pushed back from the table. “You tell me where it is and I’ll get it.”
Jenna thought of the slim bundle tied in red tape, each individual missive sealed with three splotches of red wax, each of three seals belonging to a different person. She reseated herself. “I’m being foolish, Verity. I’ll get it when next I’m upstairs.”
“It is important?”
“Well, yes, but not something needing instant attention. I should tell you,” she said, changing the subject, “that I am making plans to go to Brighton for a time. The sea air might help complete the cure all your good care has begun.”
Jacob, coming in and going straight to where Verity sat, leaned down and kissed the top of her head, bringing blushes to her cheeks. He smiled but then looked across the table at Jenna. “Brighton? Alone? I cannot like you traveling all that way alone.”
“Mary will soon return to her estate. I will travel that far with her. From there it is no more than a day’s journey to Brighton, I think.” She looked from her niece to Jacob. “On the other hand, perhaps—” She cut off what she was about the say, biting her lip and shaking her head. “No, until Jacob reads his letter, I cannot be certain…” She turned her attention back to her boiled egg and toast.
“Letter?” said Jacob.
“Ah. The letter,” said Verity and picked up her tea.
After breakfast we will all go and get the letter, said a voice in Jacob’s ear.
As usual he was startled, jerked and this time spilled tea all down the front of him. He jumped up from the table. “Blast it, that’s hot.” He glared at nothing at all.
“Did you burn yourself badly?” asked Jenna, rising, her napkin clutched in her fist.
“No, no.” Jacob pulled his trousers away from his thighs. “Not badly but, if your old friend does not stop startling me when I’m at the table, I swear I’ll…” But then Jacob grinned. “No, I can’t do that, can I? He’s already dead.”
The footman assigned to the breakfast room dropped the platter of chops he was preparing to set on the buffet. It clattered against the highly polished mahogany sideboard. Everyone looked at him, saw he’d turned white and was staring bug-eyed at Jacob.
Jacob looked at Jenna and shrugged. Jenna sighed. “Henry,” she scolded the footman, “it is true we’ve a ghost but he’ll not hurt you. He’ll also be gone very soon—at least I think he will?” She looked toward the wall, where, much as he might have done when alive, her dead lover stood, his arms crossed, one knee bent and that foot pressing against the paneling behind him. Occasionally the shoe or perhaps his shoulder would fade a trifle into the wall and he’d jerk back into the seemingly relaxed position. “You will go with me, will you not?” she asked softly. And smiled when he nodded. She turned back to the footman who was now staring at the empty space to which Jenna had been speaking. “He says he’ll go when I go, so you needn’t concern yourself, Henry. Just carry on as you’ve always done.”
The footman’s mouth formed the word. “Ghost?” he asked silently…and slowly, gracefully, slumped to the floor.
“Oh dear,” said Jenna.
“Oh dear indeed,” said Verity a trifle crossly. She watched Jacob deal with the fallen man. “He’ll tell the whole household and we’ll have maids leaving and gardeners certain they’ve seen my grandfather’s ghost and the grooms convinced that every time a horse so much as jerks its head one way or another it has sensed him and…” She sighed. “We’ll never keep decent help again.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Jenna. “Perhaps if you pay him a goodly sum, Jacob, and ask Mary to give him a position, he’ll go away without saying anything?”
The footman, still a trifle woozy, said, “You certain he won’t hurt anyone?”
“He didn’t when alive, why would he when dead?” asked Jacob.
“And Mrs. Jennings talks to him? Sees him?”
“Yes.”
The footman took in a big breath and, with Jacob’s help, struggled to his feet. “Then…then if the…thing…will stay away from me, I’ll forget the whole bit. Specially if it’s going away soon.” He got a determined look to his jaw but his eyes still drifted here and there as if searching for something terrible.
“He’ll go when I go and that will be soon now,” promised Jenna.
“Very well.” The footman turned to the sideboard, saw that one chop had shifted almost off the platter, took up the serving piece and pushed it back where it belonged. Then he covered the tray with a silver cover and, with only a few glances here and there, stood at the end of the board, available if anyone wanted anything.
When they’d finished eating, Jenna asked Jacob and Verity to come with her to her room where she took Jacob’s letter from the packet and tucked the rest back into her cherry-wood writing desk, a gift many years previously from her lover who wanted her to write him whenever he must be away from home.
Jacob turned the missive over and over. He looked at the seals. “That’s your grandfather’s,” he said, pointing to the middle one at which Verity peered. “I don’t recognize the other two.” He looked up, his expression asking Jenna for information.
“The one on the left is the Tomlinsons’ solicitor’s. The other is the local magistrate’s.”
“Lord Balderton’s? Will he remember it, assuming he’s required to say something?” asked Jacob, rather fearful of what might be in th
e letter, which was addressed to him in his dead lordship’s handwriting.
“You mean testify? He has a copy. Or rather, his solicitor has a copy. Your grandfather, Verity, made certain of that. Open it, Jacob. I’m certain it is nothing you’ll find objectionable.”
Jacob hesitated half a moment more and then, gently, being careful not to break them, pulled the seals loose from where they closed the flap. He opened the page flat and laid it on the oval table by the window and motioned Verity to his side.
I’ve no notion who you’ve wed, Jacob, said the letter after a few words of greeting, but if you are reading this, you are married. I know you well and I know you’d not have done so if you hadn’t fallen deeply in love. Love is the cure for many ills. Those you suffered when you arrived here at High Moor will no longer affect you and you are, therefore, free of all restrictions as stated in my original will. You must take this letter and your marriage lines to our solicitor—it is very handy that we’ve the same one, is it not? He will arrange all so that you become heir to High Moor in all and every respect. You may come and go as you please, but I hope it will please you to spend large portions of each year here where you have always been happiest.
The letter finished with a few conventional phrases and the bold unmistakable signature of the late earl. There was however a postscript. I wish like anything I could see the heir to my title’s face when he is informed you’ve fulfilled all demands and are heir in fact of High Moor!
“And so you will,” said Jacob, looking around. “He is here, is he not?”
Jenna smiled and moved her hand just a trifle nearer the chill that was her lover. “He is here.” She looked up to where he stood as close as he dared to where she sat by the window.
“Does this mean we can go to London and on to Brighton?” asked Jacob.
Jenna’s smile broadened. “Yes, it does. You must see your solicitor, of course, which takes you as far as London, unless you wish him to come here?”
Jacob, with a glance toward Verity, shook his head.
“Good. I would enjoy your company on to Brighton. I can stay with Mary while you go to London.”
* * * * *
Mary, meanwhile, was seated with Rube and his brothers. She looked from one to the other. “You see,” she said gently, “whatever our varying cultures say, Rube and I have fallen in love with each other. Shocking, of course—” She smiled a quick smile at Rube who sat, his features frozen that she’d reveal their secret. “But I cannot do without him. If this means my family will ostracize me—” She shrugged. “Well, I cannot care. I am in England infrequently in any case. Rube? Will you too chance the unforgivable? Will you wed me and we continue our adventures together as man and wife?”
Rube’s eldest brother spoke a few words. Softly, Rube translated, just in case Mary had not quite got the meaning. “His dreams. He says he has learned this will happen in his dreams.” Rube and Mary smiled at each other.
The man spoke again and this time sternly.
Mary’s mouth formed a line, the corners twitching and her eyes twinkling. “Of course we will come home with you and be married by your laws… But first we will be married here in England by ours.” She looked around. There were nods from the brothers, although the youngest grimaced. “You do not think we should wed by my laws?” asked Mary.
“Oh, it isn’t that. It’s just that marriage… Well, I just hope I never have to marry anyone.”
His elders chuckled and he turned a trifle red.
Rube ruffled his hair. “I felt much the same at your age. I’m afraid it is one of those things that happen to one as one gets older. One changes.”
The lad shook his head. “Not me,” he said and this time when his ears heated up, it was more from anger at his brothers’ teasing than embarrassment as it was the first time.
“So that is settled?” asked Mary.
The eldest gave another still longer speech in his and Rube’s language. The middle brother translated. The gist of it was that their father had hoped to bring Rube home before the two fell in love, but he’d feared it was already too late and, if it was, then he didn’t wish to lose a son and would welcome Mary to the family even if she were not exactly…
When the brother couldn’t find a proper word, Mary suggested, “Not exactly suitable?”
They all laughed and Mary and Rube, finally alone, made plans to go into York and apply to the archbishop for still another license. “He will think we’ve altogether given up banns in this household,” said Mary, laughing. “I’ll go tell the family and see how soon we may accomplish all so we can get on the road south. The sooner we’ve seen your father and received his blessing in person, the sooner we may be off to our former colonies in America and the sooner I can find a wise man or woman to teach me what is known in their culture of the healing arts.”
So. Still a third wedding entertained the neighbors who then had still more about which they could gossip. Lady Mary wedding that foreign prince… Well. Really! But there was some envy in the nubile breasts that Lady Mary had found herself such an exceedingly handsome husband—even if his complexion was an odd golden color.
Chapter Seventeen
London was hot and smelly. The river flowed sluggishly and the boatmen rowing Jacob and Verity from Mary’s estate to where they could easily reach the Inns of Court and the solicitor’s office were forced to work harder than usual even though they rowed with the water’s flow. The newlyweds didn’t much care how long it took. They were still far too involved with each other. The boatmen ignored the rustles, the giggles, the soft chuckles and other revealing sounds, leaving Jacob and Verity free to loll among the cushions in the bow of their transport.
Eventually, however, they reached their destination and, standing on the steps climbing up from the river, Jacob asked that the boatmen pick them up at a different set farther upriver about the time the moon rose that evening. “We’ll dine at the Redmond Hotel,” Jacob told Verity, “and return upstream when the sun is set and the temperatures are not so enervating.” He then led Verity to his solicitor’s rooms where, the man having been warned by letter of their arrival, Jacob was soon confirmed as heir to High Moor, all the proper papers signed and sealed and hands shaken all around.
“There is another thing,” said Jacob to his solicitor but turning a smile toward Verity. “It has been an exceedingly odd spring and early summer and I am afraid we married in something of a rush. There was no thought to settlements and wills and such legal necessities.”
He and the solicitor discussed Jacob’s wishes as Verity listened, her eyes widening more and more. “But that is too much,” she finally exclaimed.
“I’ll not have you or any children we produce suffering if something were to happen to me.” Jacob spoke in a firm no-nonsense tone and Verity subsided. “We’ll say no more on that head.”
The solicitor, however, had a great deal more to say but hesitated to state his objections to Jacob’s plans while Jacob’s new wife sat there listening. Still, after one or two glances at Verity, he did so.
Again Jacob shook his head. “Verity will learn what she does not know. She has already proven to me she is competent, that she has an excellent head on her shoulders and that she is sensible enough to ask for advice if there is something she needs to know but does not. I wish that she be, in case of my demise, fully in charge of High Moor.”
“But trustees…”
Jacob smiled. “Unnecessary so long as my wife survives me. On the other hand, if there are children… Verity, we must discuss who we would make guardian of any offspring. I’ve a suggestion or two…” He glanced at the solicitor. “We mean to return north from Brighton in a week or so and will stop here. Just leave space for names of guardians and trustees in the proper place in the documents and we’ll fill in what is needed. We’ll have made our decision by then.”
There was a little more discussion but soon Jacob and Verity departed and strolled along the Strand toward Piccadilly. “You�
��ll like the hotel where I mean us to dine. It is small and off the main streets, so very quiet. Mary reminded me of its existence. So…what would you like to do until it is time for dinner?”
“I’ve a few things I need to purchase…if that would be all right?” The discussion of allowances and settlements had left Verity in something like shock but, when she’d recovered, she realized she was rather excited by the notion she could order new clothes over and above what her aunt had purchased for her in York. Besides, there were things she still required. Most important was that she be measured for new shoes and slippers, something she needed badly. The thought was irresistible.
“You’ve never indulged yourself in the London shops, so you are in for a treat. Now let me think where we should begin…”
“And how do you know where I should shop?” she asked, a glint in her eye.
“Now, Verity,” he said, laughing at her teasing tone.
The laugh broke off sharply when a voice Jacob knew well shouted his name. Jacob rolled his eyes but stopped and turned to face the new Earl of Everston. “Good day to you, Mud. I’d like you to meet—”
He was rudely interrupted. “I knew you’d never stay in the northern wilds. I knew you’d leave and come south. I knew you’d fail to inherit. I knew…”
Verity, who had taken an instant dislike to the man, decided his lordship had gloated quite enough. “But you know nothing,” she said in a soft carrying voice. “We’ve just come from the solicitor. Jacob has been confirmed in his possession of High Moor.”
The earl’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged in an unhealthy manner. “I don’t know you,” he said. “You have nothing to do with this.” He turned back to Jacob, “Now I’ll just take myself off to my solicitor and inform him…”
Jacob too had no interest in prolonging the discussion. “You do that. You’ll find my wife did have something to do with this. Come, Verity. Let us proceed directly to a good warehouse and choose the fabric for your new gowns. Then we’ll stop in at Madame Justine’s for measurements and so that you can decide on styles. And, after that, we’ll have you measured for boots and the slippers you need and…” He walked off still listing all they had to do that day, leaving his cousin standing, open-mouthed, on the pavement behind them.