Moonlight Mist

by Laura London

  “Nothing,” said Lynden at last. “I’m awfully sorry, Kyler. All I’ve found are old rent receipts and bills pilfered from Crant Castle. There’s a motley assortment of other collectibles, too. Look at this: an old Edwards copperplate that says it’s a picture of… a yellow water wagtail? The wagtail’s about to eat a moth, too. There is a letter to Lord Crant’s mother from a cousin who had emigrated to America, and it complains about the size of the stingbugs, the fashions being ten years out of date, and the woods being full of savages. Anyway, its motto reads Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor, and the letter is dated before you were born, Kyler. The only thing that is of the least use is this quarter page that Lady I. must have ripped from a ladies’ weekly. It recommends the scent of basil because it ‘taketh away melancholy and maketh a man meery and glad.’ I ought to have some right now.” She glumly tossed the last of her pile back into the casket.

  Kyler leaned over and patted her hand. “Don’t start tearing up, child. We’re not beat yet. I didn’t find anything relating to me, either, just a lot of dashed bills from merchants. The castle bailiff must have had a marvelous bad time keeping records, what with old Irmingarde stealing the tickets left and right. Damme if I don’t dislike looking at the things, too. I mean if it’s my money and Crant’s been up there for twenty-odd years wasting the ready on a lot of nonsensical gimcracks—here, listen to this: ‘paid to Thomas Fentham, carver guilder and frame maker 52 Strand: £30, for A very Large Rich Carv’d Frame Gilt in burnish’d Gold to your own Glass.’—my God, thirty pounds and you have to use your own glass!—and ‘A fine Looking Glass—91 by 57½, £160, April 1795.’ I don’t care how fine it is, one hundred sixty pounds is too much to pay for a deuced mirror which ain’t going to make you look any better than one for a twelver. Here’s another bill paid to Fricker and Henderson of New Bond Street, which is, mind you, a paperhanging warehouse. Crant’s paid the wretches two hundred and fifty pounds. Lord, for two hundred fifty pounds, you’d think the man could buy the entire warehouse!”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lynden. “Hangings can be expensive. I recall my aunt and uncle having an argument about it after she had the drawing room redone in puce and Aunt said the cost of good hangings had risen…”

  “Wait!” cried Lorraine, voice trembling. “Oh, look. Look! See this!”

  Lynden took the folded piece of paper from her, saying, “Good heavens, Raine, you sound like a reading primer. Let me see… what curious handwriting. I can barely make it out. It says: ‘Feb. 10th, 1794. Saved for baby of Charles, of Crant Castle.…’ ” She unfolded the paper, which was yellowed and stained with the patina of twenty-three years in a damp, tight enclosure. It contained a note written in the same bizarre, boiling script that had been on the outside; a churning design with letters growing from, and sometimes strangled by, idealized flowers, stamens, pistils, stems, and leaves. “It’s so strange, but I’ll try to read it. ‘Percy is… hot?’ Oh, no, ‘not.’ ‘Percy is not to be trusted… Find Baby’s mother’s papers… beneath the…’ What a queer letter. Is it a d or an s? No, it must be a p. This word must be an archaic spelling of poem: ‘pome of spring’s floral harbingers.’ ” Lynden read it through again, trying to concentrate, to block out her rising excitement. Find baby’s mother’s papers beneath the poem of spring’s floral harbingers. She stared into the fierce eyes of the sculptured angel hovering nearby.

  Kyler exhaled slowly, and shook his head. “Whatever the hell that means,” he said.

  Lorraine came to kneel beside him. “So we go on, following the path set before us by an eccentric lady twenty years dead. And yet as outlandish as all this seems, ’tis obvious she meant her leads to bring us somewhere, for we’ve followed them this far. This puzzle was meant to be solved.”

  “Of course it was,” said Lynden, surfacing from her abstraction. “A poem of spring’s floral harbingers. It must mean a poem about flowers contains the clue. Lorraine, you know plenty of those.”

  “Of course I do, there are many, many of them but I’m not sure that… oh well, I shall try, of course. The reference would have to be about spring flowers, wouldn’t it? Shelley wrote about the hyacinth: ‘And the hyacinth purple, and white and blue, which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew.’ I suppose that might have been a clue if only the castle had a bell tower. What about daffodils? They come in spring and Shakespeare writes admiringly of them in A Winter’s Tale: ‘Daffodils that come before the swallow dares/and take the winds of March with beauty.’ ”

  Lynden nodded. “Yes, and there’s a child’s verse about daffodils, also: ‘Daff a down dill has come to town,/In a yellow petticoat and green gown.’ ” She brought a finger to her mouth and chewed absently on the tip of her glove. “I can’t see the secret in any of those lines. Think on, Rainey.”

  Lorraine straightened and rested her hands on her knees. “Do you think spring’s floral harbinger might be an April-blooming primrose? ‘Through primrose tufts in that green bower,/The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; /And ’tis my faith that every flower/Enjoys the air it breathes.’ ”

  “Pretty lines,” said Lynden. “Still, I don’t think that could be what Lady Irmingarde meant in her note. Kyler, do you know anything to the purpose?”

  “Me? Lord, no! The only verses I know which speak of flowers are bawdy ones. ‘Now on the grass, where daisies spread,/And decked the spot around,/She clasped my waist, and then she placed/Me gently on the ground.’ ”

  “I don’t think Lady Irmingarde would have known that one!” said Lynden primly.

  “And daisies don’t blossom in spring,” added Lorraine, casting a tender smile at Kyler.

  He gazed back at her with equal warmth. “There’s an old song, then: ‘Rosemary is for remembrance,/Between us daie and nighe,/Wishing that I might alwaies have / You present in my sight.’ ”

  Lynden was staring intently at the paper in her hand. “Daisies aren’t spring flowers, and rosemary isn’t a flower at all! We’ll never get anywhere if the two of you intend to divert the poetry declamation into a flirtation.”

  “Pardon, Lynnie,” said her sister. “What about these lines frim Robert Burns? ‘As I stood by yon roofless tower, / Where the wallflower scents the dewy air.’ ”

  “That might be!” exclaimed Lynden. “Perhaps Lady Irmingarde thought of Crant Castle’s great tower as yon roofless tower!”

  “She might have,” agreed Kyler, grinning and pulling on his gloves. “Except if it was really roofless, even a cold-hearted dog like Sir Percy wouldn’t be living there. Even if we can accept that Lady I. managed to find some way of getting the documents beneath the Great Tower, I doubt if Uncle Percy would give his blessing to our tearing down the place brick by brick to find them.” Kyler rose to his feet and offered one hand to Lynden, one to Lorraine. “There’s nothing for it, children; it’s not a riddle that bears solving at this hour of the morning. We’ll work on it further, but not now. Let me walk you home before Melbrooke finds you missing.”

  Lynden took his hand and got up with a grimace of discomfort, rubbing her cold and cramped knees. “That’s one calamity we won’t have to face. He’ll think we’ve long since gone to bed.”

  Kyler gathered the parcels and papers, save the one Lynden held, and placed them in the box where they had lain undisturbed for twenty-three years. “Sometimes, hornet, your lack of forethought is a little frightening. He may decide to come to your room.”

  “Well, he won’t,” said Lynden shortly. She tucked the poem into the inside pocket of her cloak after examining the lining carefully for holes. “Because he doesn’t.” Lorraine studiously smoothed out the folds of her dress and fastened her cloak more tightly about her, then glanced sympathetically at her sister.

  “You’re not joking, are you?” said Kyler, looking at her sharply. He frowned. “I don’t care much for that.”

  Incensed, Lynden put her hands on her hips and tilted her face up to his. “Of all the self-righteous meddlers! What right have you t
o care for it or not care for it?”

  “Smooth your feathers, chick. I only meant if your marriage ship is foundering, and Melbrooke finds out about your connection with me, it may end up on the reef.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” retorted Lynden, embarrassed and defensive. “We have an agreement and it’s to the satisfaction of us both.”

  “Those kind of arrangements are to the satisfaction of neither.” Kyler lifted the box back into the crypt and pushed it shut, with a long screech of metal against stone. “You can’t twaddle me with that line, brown eyes. I’ll bet you put him off. Just the kind of thing that a hoydenish, green girl like you would do.”

  Lynden clenched her fist. She would have liked to deny his accusation, but honesty kept the words to her tongue. Instead, she said, “He doesn’t need me. He already has a mistress.”

  Kyler leaned his broad shoulders back against the tombs and arched an eyebrow. “You’re a fighter. Cut her out.”

  Lynden looked sadly at Lorraine, and then returned her attention to Kyler. “I don’t believe I could. I’d end up as number two egg in the basket.”

  “Humdudgeon! Talking about Lady Silvia, aren’t you? I’ve seen the bushel bubby out riding. The woman’s all craft and catlap. Besides, the best way not to give her a challenge is by shouldering Melbrooke away when he’s home.”

  “It’s not so simple as you imagine,” said Lynden, glaring at him.

  “It’s not so hard as you imagine,” he returned. “What’s to stop you? Go into his room, tell him that you’re sorry and that you want to sleep in his bed from now on.”

  Lynden was struggling for a reply that would cut Kyler off at the knees, when Lorraine came to put her arms around her. “Oh, no, how could she? Though Melbrooke seems to be a man of great understanding, how could Lynden be sure he would receive so open an expression of her affection with a degree of tact necessary to save her from chagrin?”

  “If he didn’t respond properly to an offer like that, he’s the one who ought to be feeling the chagrin, not her! Tell you what, though, I won’t say another word because from the look of her, the hornet’s working up to bite me again. Once stung, twice shy.” Kyler pulled the hood closely around the curls of each twin in turn, and took a quick turn about the mausoleum to make sure everything was left as it had been when they entered. “Come along. Let’s beat dawn back to Fern Court.”

  They walked home through a fog which refracted with the pale moon to lend a deep, mineral-blue glow to the tall trees, rough grass, and craggy hillsides that framed the road. A fresh breeze came from the south, morning’s waking wind delicately touched with the scent of thawing turf. Lynden was silent, trudging along ruminatively, a few steps in front of the couple. Lorraine occasionally recited a further scrap of possibly relevant poetry to Kyler’s admiring audience of one. They came to the crest of the hill overlooking Fern Court and paused to see its long, low shape spread before them, black but for occasional bright pinpoints of night candles flickering behind the gauzy curtains like diamonds on jeweler’s velvet. A light burned yet in Melbrooke’s study.

  Lorraine suggested that they meet soon to further discuss the night’s new mysteries, but Kyler shook his head.

  “It can’t be for a few days. I promised some lads I’d meet ’em in Broughton tomorrow, so…”

  “But that’s on the sea, isn’t it?” asked Lorraine. “Are you to help with… I believe they call it a smuggling run? Oh, Kyler, must you go?”

  “I’m afraid so, although I don’t mind saying that I don’t want to leave, either. I have to honor a promise, though, and besides”—his voice was rueful—“I have to earn myself some spangle. If Old Scratch took me tonight, I’d leave nothing behind but my old boots. Anyway, I’ll be back by the sixteenth. I don’t want you to look for me at the cabin. God knows what kind of thorough-paced villains may be hanging about there! Can you meet me on the sixteenth? Good. Then do you think you could find your way to that copse of aspen and holly-hedge on the upward jut of land above the spot where you fell into Grasmere? That’s fine, children, then we’ll meet there at two o’clock. Go in now and get in your beds.”

  The girls had almost reached the side door when Lorraine, seized by an irresistible impulse, ran back to Kyler and, standing on tiptoe, leaned on his shoulders for balance and kissed his cheek. He held her close, then resolutely took her wrists from his shoulders and held her at arm’s length; they had a quick, murmured lover’s conversation while a barn owl gave a wheezy cry from the yew behind them. Then Kyler turned and, after a few quiet steps, disappeared into the darkness.

  Lorraine returned to Lynden and handed her a long, heavy metal piece; Lynden could feel its coldness through her glove. “The skeleton key,” said Lorraine. “He said he almost forgot to give it to you.”

  They slipped into the hall, pausing at the threshold to listen for sounds from the household; hearing none, Lynden carefully closed the door behind them and they removed their wet and muddy boots, wiping them clean on the hems of their cloaks to leave no drips in the hall. “Our cloaks will dry by morning and we can brush the dirt off then,” whispered Lynden optimistically. They tiptoed past Melbrooke’s study, conscious of the glimmering strip of light that lay at the bottom of his door, not daring to breathe lest he be within working on some wee-hours masterpiece. Then it was up the stairs, one by one, endeavoring to pass over each strip of wood without touching it more than necessary to obtain a steady purchase. At the top of the stairs, they stopped at the landing to listen again. All was quiet. The twins separated at Lorraine’s door with whispered good nights.

  Outside her own door Lynden made a swift, nervous glance up and down the corridor and put a hand on the latch, still carrying her boots in the other hand. Watchful, she opened the door and slid backward into the room. Safely inside, she rested her forehead against the cool, polished surface of the closed door and gave a long sigh of relief.

  “Thank God, no one knows,” she whispered.

  “Except, my love, for me.” The voice came from behind her. She gasped, dropped her boots, and whirled around.

  “Melbrooke!” He was standing in the threshold that connected their rooms. The low-flickering firelight glowed golden on the silk of his cravat, where it lay open against his snowy linen shirt, and harmonized artistically with his cream-colored fitted breeches. His shiny blond hair was slightly disheveled, an amber-toned lock fell forward. There was a vibrancy, a tension in the skin over his cheekbones; the gray in his eyes was dense and fluid as though to mask the intensity of his thoughts. Justin’s reserve, the sense Lynden had of his remoteness, had always been mitigated by a gentle tolerance; tonight that tolerance was absent, which frightened her more than any solitary walk in a graveyard. Neither was he remote; she felt a new involvement from him. It made him seem somehow more real than he ever had before, and infinitely more threatening. Here was no charming, friendly stranger to be readily handled and dismissed from her presence, if not her emotions. Melbrooke suddenly seemed younger, vividly masculine, and vaguely menacing.

  “You look cold,” he said. “Come closer to the fire” The words were solicitous. The tone was not. Lynden stayed where she was, watching him warily. He crossed the room, stood above her, encompassing her in a cool survey. His gaze never left her face as he reached out to open her cloak and draw it from her shoulders. She had a momentary, irrational fear that he was going to look in the pockets of her cloak, but he only draped it over the cresting rail of a ribbon-backed chair and then gestured her toward the fire.

  She walked before him to the fireplace and stretched her hands to its heat, looking at him over her shoulder.

  “I was in Lorraine’s room… talking.” She spoke tentatively, hoping he might at least pretend to accept her words.

  “Assuming I couldn’t see the muddy hem of your cloak, what of the moonlight mist that dresses your hair like pearls?” He followed the sinuous flow of a curl with one finger, and then lightly cupped her cheeks in his hands. “And th
e cold touch of the night air on your cheeks? Am I to ignore these things as well?”

  Unnerved by his languorous tone as much as by his touch, Lynden shivered under his fingers. He removed them from her face.

  “All right, then, if you must know,” said Lynden, somewhat intimidated, though managing an air of false candor. “I went out for a stroll. I take a special delight in walking in the fog.” He received this with no change in expression. The silence between them lengthened and Lynden began to feel absurdly self-conscious as she stood before him sheathed in the too-tight drape of her four-year-old willow-green satin walking dress. Her hair was indeed wet from the fog. She could feel a cold, damp lock tickling the back of her neck.

  After what seemed like an eternity to Lynden, Melbrooke spoke. “There are times, Lynden, when you lie so poorly that the effect is almost charming.”

  She lifted her chin fractionally, wishing that her appearance did not so closely resemble that of a puppy caught in a rainstorm. “If you are determined to despise me for every minor thing, then what can I do? You’re furious with me. Very well, you’ve made that known. I wish you would go away and allow me to retire! I’m sure I don’t know why you feel obliged to remain here staring at me in that utterly frigid manner!”

  He stepped back, continuing to regard her impassively. “I’m gratified to learn that I have some effect on you. I had been thinking that your scared schoolgirl look was merely due to a fear that I might beat you.”

  “That you might… Oh! How dare you! I’m not afraid of you and I’m not a schoolgirl!”

  “And it may be that one day you’ll do something to make me believe that,” returned Melbrooke, more tersely than she had ever heard him speak.

  “May bees don’t fly all year long!” said Lynden, through her teeth. “Believe as you like, then! I shan’t be nosed into being a spinny-ninny to suit anyone’s convenience!”