by M C Beaton
There was a great silence. Then a sea gull screamed overhead, and Susie began to shiver uncontrollably, climbing down from her horse and falling onto the ground, because her trembling legs could not support her.
After a time she gritted her teeth and, rising, made her way slowly and painfully down the steep sides of the gravel pit, her long skirts bunched over her arm.
There was no doubt about it—Lady Felicity was very much dead.
Susie began to laugh hysterically. Then she burst into stormy tears while a startled rabbit fled in fear from this peculiar human.
Susie sat down beside the still body and cried and cried, wrapping her head in her arms and rocking to and fro. This un-English manifestation of shock, this lack of stiff upper lip, was what kept her from having a complete breakdown.
Finally, after a long time she made her way slowly back to the castle on foot while Dobbin, now lazy and placid, strolled after her, accompanied by the other horse.
Chapter Six
A year had passed since the death of Lady Felicity. Susie had recovered a long time ago from her shock, but still remained much the same dreamy, immature girl as ever.
Giles had thrown himself into plans for modernizing the castle, and workmen seemed to be hammering upstairs and downstairs morning, noon, and night. He had not had the energy or the inclination to find a home for Susie and had, instead, invited an elderly aunt to stay as a kind of chaperon. His aunt, Lady Matilda Warden, was a fanatical knitter, tatter, and stitcher, and trailed cheerfully from room to room of the keep with long, different-colored threads and skeins of wool hanging from her workbasket. She was extremely kind to Susie; that is, when she happened to notice her, which was about once a month, and Susie, in return, was very fond of the old lady.
The servants now treated Susie with nervous respect. They had not forgotten that Lady Felicity had died mysteriously, just shortly after Lady Susie Blackhall had wished her dead. The servants had, of course, conveyed their suspicions to Giles’s valet, who in turn had told his master. But Giles had shrugged it off as gossip. He was too busy with his plans for the castle, and he did not mind Susie in the least so long as she did not get in his way.
Sometimes, however, he could not help wondering what there had been about Susie that had so attracted him and so repelled him at the same time on the night he had kissed her. Now, to him, she seemed like an ordinary girl—a bit vague and dreamy—but inoffensive for all that.
He had not even noticed that Susie, for all her vagueness, had taken on much of the direction that had once belonged to Lady Felicity. Susie must have been one of the few ladies of England in charge of a large staff who was not cheated in any way by the servants. They were too frightened of her to fiddle the books, and furthermore, she continued to turn a blind eye to their smuggling activities, at which they made a comfortable profit, Thomson taking the largest share, the housekeeper the next, and so on down to the little knife-boy, who had his meager wage augmented by a weekly smuggling bonus of three shillings.
Giles did not know anything of this. After all, he never went down to the cellars, and if he sometimes marveled at the excellence of the castle’s vintages and rare brandies, he gave full credit to Thomson for having secured an excellent wine merchant.
He only saw Susie infrequently and then usually at dinner. He was too absorbed in his plans and alterations to pay her much attention, and Susie was usually lost in one of her rambling dreams. Susie was, in fact, happier than she had ever been in her life. Her housekeeping duties kept her occupied, and there was no one to bully her or make her feel small, and no scheming parents around to try to marry her off.
Dr. and Mrs. Burke had made a few brief visits to the castle but had not stayed long. The servants had not forgiven Mrs. Burke for her first visit’s bullying and made life as uncomfortable for the Camberwell couple as they possibly could. Giles was always anxious to be rid of them as soon as possible, which he did by redesigning their rooms almost as soon as they had arrived, and Mrs. Burke’s sermons and Dr. Burke’s jolly platitudes and proverbs withered and died under a rain of plaster dust and an overwhelming odor of new paint.
Things might have drifted comfortably on like this for quite a long time, but that year, an early spring came to the Essex countryside. The air was full of birdsong, and the rich green of the fields was starred with wild flowers. Clumps of primroses shone in the dark shade of the hedgerows, and white and pink and red flowers foamed across the prickly hawthorn trees. On the gentler cliff slopes about half a mile from the castle, the soft haze of bluebells glowed gently under the tangled trees and bushes that scrambled their way down the rough surface of the cliffs to the edge of the sea.
The sea!
Susie stood one perfect day at a window high in the keep and looked wonderingly out at the infinity of blue and sparkling water. It turned and foamed and sparkled at the foot of the cliffs, and she suddenly felt as restless as the water such a long way beneath.
She went to her room and changed into an old skirt and a blouse and a pair of serviceable boots. She brushed out her long brown hair and then looked at the silk pads and bone pins and all the other impedimenta that she should put on her head and, instead, tied her hair back with a cherry-colored ribbon.
Hatless and feeling strangely free, she walked out of the shadowy hall of the keep and into the blazing sunshine of the inner courtyard. Then she went over the drawbridge, through the first portcullis—now never used—through the second courtyard, past the bailey, past the gatehouse, over the second drawbridge, where gardeners were working in the now-drained moat, spreading grass seed, and out over the green, green fields, where sheep placidly cropped the new grass and young lambs tottered and frolicked on legs as unsteady and as immature as Susie’s dreamy mind.
She walked and walked until she came to the dark, tangled bluebell wood, which sloped precipitously down to the foaming sea. Heedless of the thorns and briars tugging at her long skirts, she scrambled down until she was standing on a smooth boulder at the edge of the water.
Her feet were hot and sore in their heavy boots, and the cool water looked very inviting. Susie took a quick look around, but there was no one to be seen, and who else would want to come to this lonely spot? she thought.
She opened her reticule and, taking out a button hook, proceeded to unfasten her boots. She unclipped her stockings from their suspenders; then, pinning up her skirt and layers of petticoats above her ankles, she sat down on the rock and slowly let her naked feet slide into the cool water.
She sat there for a long time, the sun reddening her white face to an unfashionably healthy, rosy glow and placing gold highlights in the streaming masses of nut-brown hair, which blew and tugged at the confinement of the frivolous scarlet ribbon.
After awhile her feet began to feel cold, so she raised them out of the water and stuck them out in front of her to dry.
That is how Giles, reining in his horse at the top of the cliff and looking straight down a sort of gulley that formed a channel through the trees and undergrowth, became aware for the first time that Susie, Countess of Blackhall, was possessed of a very neat pair of ankles indeed.
Now, Giles had seen quite a number of naked women, but like most healthy young Englishmen, he had to admit to himself that there was nothing more seductive than the glimpse of a well-turned ankle. Susie raised her arms high above her head and stretched with a fluid, catlike motion.
He began to wonder what she thought about, whether she was happy, what she thought of him. He was not used to being completely ignored by women, particularly pretty young girls, and for the first time, he felt a certain twinge of pique at Susie’s undoubted lack of interest in him.
He debated whether to dismount and climb down the bank to join her. But then she would surely be embarrassed at being found in such a state of undress. He rode thoughtfully back toward the stables, beginning to wonder also about that rumor of murder. It was ridiculous, of course. But then two fatal accidents! It’s just a
s well she doesn’t covet the castle, he thought grimly, or I should begin to worry about my welfare.
He rubbed down his horse and was about to leave the cool darkness of the stables when a whinny from one of the loose boxes made him turn around. A horse with a long and unlovely face and a wicked eye was staring straight at him out of the gloom at the far end of the stables.
He called to the head groom. “Clifton! I say, Clifton!”
The bandy-legged figure of the groom came hurrying up. “What is that?” demanded Giles, pointing at the evil-looking horse.
The head groom shuffled his boots in the straw and then said reluctantly, “That be Dobbin, my lord.”
“Dobbin! Dobbin? You mean the horse that threw Lady Felicity? I thought he would have been shot as a matter of course!”
“Well, my lord,” said Clifton, “it be like this. Your lordship didn’t come back until three days after the death, just in time for the funeral. We had already asked Lady Susie what was to be done about the horse. My lady says, she says, ‘Don’t touch that there horse, Clifton. It ain’t his fault,’ she says. My lady do ride the beast often as she can, and I’ll say one thing for my lady, there ain’t a man or boy hereabouts could sit on that beast’s back. We was going to get rid of him long ago, but Lady Felicity says with that laugh of hers that Dobbin was perfect for Lady Susie.”
Giles stood frowning. First he was shocked that Lady Felicity should have put an untrained girl up on the back of a notoriously wicked horse; secondly he was shocked that Susie should keep an animal that had been instrumental in the death of his great-aunt; and thirdly he experienced a reluctant feeling of admiration for Susie from Camberwell, who should have learned how to ride such a mount.
“Very well, Clifton,” he said, giving the groom a curt nod.
As Giles strode from the stables he wondered more and more about Susie. Surely that dreamy innocence must be a facade. Only a very tough girl could master a horse like that. He did not know that Susie had tamed Dobbin by kindness alone. Carrots and lump sugar and soft words and a soft hand caressing his nose had done what the lash of the whip, the curb of the bit, and the dig of the spur could not. Dobbin had been broken in by sentimental, middle-class kindness. He was, after all, a very common horse.
Thank goodness, thought Giles again, she does not covet the castle.
“One day this will all be yours, my son,” said Susie to the golden-haired dream child who was sitting beside her on the rock. She had given birth to the child five years ago, she decided, but her homely and manly young husband had not lived to see his child’s first birthday. He had died of—here Susie wrinkled her brow—typhoid. No, too humdrum. Blindness—“You are my eyes, Susie.” No, one didn’t die from blindness. Killed in action on the North-West Frontier! That was it! Yes, killed in action and awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously. TO HIS WEEPING WIDOW, said the dream headlines. Poor Harold—that was her late husband’s name—poor Harold, lying in a foreign grave under harsh blue skies while the vultures wheeled above, and his brave sepoys—were they sepoys? Must check Rudyard Kipling again—mourned his death. Now she was alone in the world with this beautiful child, who was sole heir to Blackhall Castle. Susie’s pretty brow wrinkled again. But Giles was the heir. And what if he should marry? “I shall just have to kill him off,” she said to herself.
Then she noticed that the sun was sinking in the sky and unless she hurried, she would be late for dinner.
Putting on her stockings and boots, picking up her reticule, and carrying her splendid dream with her, she hurried back to the castle.
Giles looked curiously at Susie across the dinner table. She was eating her food in a silent, absorbed kind of way. Lady Matilda had finished her plateful very quickly as usual and was engaged in knitting some peculiar lumpy wool garment in violent magenta. The fresh air and sunshine had given Susie’s face a healthy glow. Her hair, thanks to Carter, was exquisitely dressed, and she was wearing a lavender gown of half-mourning, which was cut low on the bosom.
She has a pretty neck as well as a good pair of ankles, he noticed with some surprise. In fact, she’s a deuced pretty girl all round.
“You are looking very beautiful this evening, Lady Susie,” he said in a light, charming voice.
“Oh, what? Did you speak to me?” said Susie, trying to focus on him and hold onto her dream at the same time.
“I said that you were looking very beautiful,” Giles repeated patiently.
“Thank you,” said Susie with a marked lack of interest.
“Do you like the improvements to the castle?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, DO YOU LIKE THE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE CASTLE?”
Susie twisted in her chair, noticing as if for the first time the pretty paper on the walls, the charming framed landscapes, the fresh curtains at the windows, and the new glittering Waterford chandelier, the crystals of which were reflected in the mahogany table.
“Oh, yes,” replied Susie, half in and half out of the dream. “I was thinking of turning my old rooms into a nursery.”
Giles dropped his fork with a clatter. “You don’t mean…I mean you aren’t…you can’t be…?”
“I mean I shall no doubt marry again,” said Susie dreamily, briefly resurrecting her husband from his Indian grave, burying him again, and accepting the Victoria Cross. “The heir to Blackhall Castle must have fitting accommodation.”
“The heir—Have you gone mad?” said Giles wrathfully. “If there is to be an heir, then I shall produce it, not you.”
“How can you?” asked Susie as Lady Matilda’s needles click-click-clicked. “Only women can produce children, or so I believe.”
“Exactly,” said Giles grimly. “I hope my future wife will do the job for me.”
“Oh!” said Susie, wrinkling her brow. “But what if you die?”
Behind her, two footmen collided, and Thomson nervously dropped a wineglass.
“And just what is supposed to happen to me?” asked Giles in silky tones.
“I don’t know,” said Susie placidly. “I haven’t thought of anything yet.”
“More wine, my lord?” said Thomson in a quavering voice.
“Please, I need it,” said Giles, still staring at Susie.
“You sound as if you are planning my death,” he remarked, raising his glass.
Susie jerked her whole mind into the real world. “It’s just my silly dreaming,” she explained. “Pay no attention to me.”
But Giles felt that the future of his direct line had been threatened. If he did not marry, and Susie did, then it would indeed mean that her son would inherit. This Camberwell miss’s child would inherit all this, the home of his ancestors, his own name. Had he slaved and worked for a full year in order to supply some middle-class brat with a stately home? He had never before contemplated marrying again. Now he began to think he should get started on the project as soon as possible.
“I am going to give a ball,” he said abruptly.
“Aren’t all the rooms too small?” asked Susie.
“Yes, but I shall have marquees erected on the grounds.”
“It will be an awful lot of work,” said Susie doubtfully. “I suppose I had better hire extra servants.”
“What has it got to do with you?” asked Giles rudely. “This castle runs itself.”
“Oh, no it doesn’t,” said Lady Matilda, emerging from her knitting and surprising them both by springing to Susie’s defense.
“There’s no one to beat Susie at housekeeping, except perhaps the late Duchess of Strawn,” said Lady Matilda. “Place runs like clockwork; happy servants, good meals. Hadn’t you noticed, you silly boy?”
“I am sorry. I was not aware you had done so much,” said Giles stiffly. “But employ extra servants if you wish.”
Susie looked at him shyly. “Will I be allowed to dance? I mean, am I out of mourning?”
“Yes,” said Giles coldly. “That is, if you were ever in it.”
Susie gave him a hurt look. Was another bully about to rear its ugly head? All of a sudden she remembered how he had kissed her, and looked down at the table. She had not looked at him fully since that night, and she had forgotten how very handsome he was. She had forgotten how the strange tilt of his light-blue eyes gave his face a look of lazy sensuality. She turned to flee back into her dreams, but they would not let her in.
There was a long silence.
Giles studied Susie’s bent head. He wanted to hurt her, to make her look fully at him, to be aware of him. He decided the only way to do that was to spite her by getting married. He had also better go very carefully, just in case another accidental death should happen at Blackhall Castle!
The days leading up to the ball passed very quickly indeed, the inhabitants being secure and happily tucked away from the gossip of London society.
It quickly got about the fashionable drawing rooms that Giles, Earl of Blackhall, was looking for a wife. Anxious debutantes scanned the morning’s post, looking for the coveted invitation. Matchmaking mamas desperately cultivated Blackhall relatives, only to find to their disappointment that the relatives did not wish to have anything to do with Blackhall Castle since the old earl had insulted them all into a fury many years ago. At last the guest list was out and members of London’s prestigious clubs settled over their betting books to decide the favorite. Odds of seven to one were laid on Lady Sally Dukann, fourteen to one on Miss Cecily Winthrope, and twenty to one on Miss Harriet Blane-Tyre.
Susie’s days passed in a bustle of activity. Extra linen, extra towels, extra everything had to be ordered, which she did with an unfashionable eye for a bargain, using the shops in the local town and thereby creating a lot of goodwill and saving herself a lot of money. Susie had naively instructed the shops to send the bills to her man of business, instead of turning them all over to Giles.
Giles was busy as well, commanding his squads of workmen to prodigious efforts. There were so many guests to be housed. The large bailey in the outer courtyard had already been modernized and turned into suites of guest rooms, and now additional rooms were made in the large gatehouse.
