by M C Beaton
“I thought an old fool like you would be taken in by my title,” it sneered. “Odd’s Fish! Just look at your stupid faces. Do you really think I would marry this rabbit-faced quiz for her looks?”
Mr. Withers rang the bell so furiously that in no time at all three of his footmen had erupted into the room.
“But… but… but…” said Sir Peregrine.
“Throw him out,” screamed Mr. Withers, pointing a shaking finger at the hapless Sir Peregrine. “Throw him in the kennel where he belongs!”
And that is exactly what they did.
The Duke took his leave of Sir Peregrine’s now filthy body and floated up over the London streets. He had just one more job to do.
The Duke alighted some time later outside the gothic gates of a madhouse outside London and rang the bell.
At last he was admitted and demanded to see the principal.
“I am the Duke of Haversham,” said the ghost grandly, neglecting to say which one. “I believe you have a Miss Snapper confined here. I take leave to tell you she is sane.”
The principal, Mr. Jorry, bowed before the magnificent figure of the Duke but nonetheless hesitated. “Miss Snapper was confined here, Your Grace,” he said, “by the express command of the Earl of Markhampton. She screamed for weeks that she was sane but to tell the truth she seemed madder than anyone else here.”
“I assure you she is sane,” said the Duke firmly. “Are you going to dither there and maunder on about what a mere Earl said?”
This was argument enough for Mr. Jorry.
And that is how a bewildered and tearfully grateful Miss Snapper—fortunately still sane—found herself released by no less than the Duke of Haversham and furnished with references and a tidy sum of money to start her in life again.
The Duke cut short her paean of gratitude by remarking acidly, “If you ever bully anyone again, Miss Snapper, may the same fate befall you,” and it was only long afterward that Miss Snapper wondered over his marked resemblance to Alice’s Uncle Gervase and how he had come to know that she had been in the habit of bullying anyone at all.
The present Duke of Haversham bit his nails and looked sideways at the chilly face of his wife. “My dear,” he said tentatively, “do you believe in ghosts?”
“No I do not!” snapped the Duchess. “I believe in facts. I know you are a philanderer, sir, and that is a fact.”
“Indeed,” sneered the Duke. “I, of course, have not yet gone so far as to assault a bishop but no doubt I shall sink to your low standards one day.”
The angry couple glared at each other with hate. Their rage lasted many days and was only assuaged for a short time when they mutually agreed to fire the Groom of the Chambers who had become so meek and frightened that he was of no use at all.
Epilogue
Miss Fadden leaned back contentedly in her cane chair and watched a large red sun sinking slowly down into the blue of the Mediterranean.
Below her, the terraced gardens fell away in ordered beauty to a small curve of white sand. She stretched like an old tabby cat and picked up her knitting. Just a few more rows and it would be time to wake her mistress.
It was paradise, she reflected, this crumbling castle on the Sicilian coast. No one came to call, the few servants were paid well to be discreet, and the happiness of her master and mistress permeated every room.
Then she heard Alice’s light step and leaped guiltily to her feet. “The sun is not yet down, Your Grace,” she said. “I thought you would sleep longer.”
“He will soon be here,” said Alice, Eighth Duchess of Haversham, leaning her elbows on the warm balustrade and staring dreamily out over the sea.
Miss Fadden watched her with a doting smile, remembering their flight from the bitter cold of London, the uncertainty as to where to stay, the travel, the inns, the flying over strange towns and villages, and then finally the homecoming to this remote spot.
The sun disappeared into the water with a flash of green and one by one the first stars came out. Miss Fadden knew that the Duke would make his appearance below in the garden and come walking up the steps as he did every night so as not to alarm the servants by appearing suddenly, say, at the dinner table.
“What if he does not come?” whispered Alice suddenly. “What if he does not come?”
“He will come as he has done every night since we arrived here,” said Miss Fadden in a brisk voice.
“Every night is a miracle,” said Alice.
And all at once he was there, at the foot of the steps, smiling up at her and she looked down at him with all her heart in her eyes, holding out her arms as if to welcome him back from a long journey.
Miss Fadden tactfully removed herself to supervise the preparations for dinner. She was always relieved to see them together again but she was a sentimental soul and the sight of their happiness always made her cry.
The strange disappearance of the pretty French Comtesse caused some speculation in London circles, but by the beginning of the Season, everyone had found more interesting things to talk about.
Lord Harold Webb felt quite himself again. It had been a truly terrible winter. He had started and trembled at every sound. He had shunned the company of Harry Russell, feeling sure that it was that gentleman’s black soul which had brought the ghost upon him.
Once more he was feted and petted by matchmaking mamas. Once more debutantes fluttered their fans and eyelashes at him.
He leaned against a pillar under the musicians’ gallery at Almack’s and drew a slow breath of relief. The world had once again righted itself, the sun shone during the day and the flambeaux and candles of the rich blazed to banish the night.
Neil Gow’s fiddlers were sawing away at a new waltz tune but for the moment he was content to watch the gaily shifting throng and know again that he was one of the handsomest and most sought-after men at the Assembly.
One of his former flirts, now Mrs. Annabelle Delacey, paused to speak to him as she walked around on her husband’s arm.
She was a vivacious redhead with a rather piercing voice.
“Why, ’tis Harold Webb!” she cried. “My dear man, you look a ghost of your former self. A very ghost! What on earth have you been up to?”
“There are no such things as ghosts!” screamed Webb suddenly, drowning out the noise of the fiddles above his head, drowning out the chatter of voices of the throng.
Mrs. Delacey drew back a pace in alarm.
But Webb went on shouting and shouting, “There are no such things as ghosts!” until they led him away.
“Really,” said Mrs. Delacey, much agitated, to her husband, “What was all that about? How strange to become so exercised. After all, we all know there aren’t any ghosts.”
Do we… ?
