by Edith Layton
“What new economy is this?” he demanded. “Is this the bottom of a coal scuttle, or the entrance to my home?”
“We lit the lamps up as usual, my lord,” the butler said, appearing gothic as he stood in the gloom with a branch of candles in his hand. He continued, with a hint of distress in his voice, “We lit them at dusk, only to have the order countermanded, and then we put them out again. Thrice, my lord. Your mama wanted them on. But she went to bed and young Master Theo ordered them out. Up she rises,” the butler tried to explain, forgetting his hard-won accents in his attempt, “and on they come again. And so it’s gone on all night, my lord. We are glad to see you, indeed we are.”
“Then light them all, and see me,” the earl commanded as he strode into the grand salon, where he heard voices rising in dispute.
There were several people in front of the fire. His mama, Theo and two ungainly-looking young sprigs, one deranged-looking old gentleman in his night clothes, several servants, and Alfie and Bobby. But his gaze ran past them until he saw the one face he’d been seeing in his dreams, waking and sleeping, since he’d left her. She stared at him wide-eyed. She left off arguing with the elderly fellow to simply stand and look upon him as though he were a spirit himself. Alfie was at her side, with a jacket thrown over his nightshirt for propriety. When he saw the direction of his governess’s gaze, he took a step forward. The earl’s mama had been nearby to them, in heated debate with the truant Theo, but as she saw Alfie’s defection from her cause, she stopped, and then saw her son at the door. Those arguments having been silenced, the others turned to see what had happened. And then a great hush fell over the room.
“We saw a ghost,” Alfie explained to the newcomers.
“I am not one,” the earl said smoothly, “and I don’t believe in them.”
“There, then that’s settled it,” Alfie said with a sigh.
And then the echoes of a wild and eldritch laughter rang out through the room, around the room, and through the great hall, though all the while no living person in the room dared breathe, much less make a sound.
14
The company was served cakes and toast and chocolate, coffee, tea, and warm milk in the grand salon. This was not the common practice at any stately country home, especially not at two hours into the morning of a new day, but no one among them seemed inclined for sleep, and their host and his mama agreed that it was better to have them together than to have them roving singly about the Hall. Or, as the earl so succinctly put it, “Light every lamp, feed them and soothe them, and maybe they won’t go rattling around the house all night.”
The household had been wakeful and stirring even before the earl or the weird laughter that had greeted him had come. There had, in fact, been a hot debate raging. Theo had been planning on sitting up with the lights off, waiting for the Haverford ghost to show itself, some others that he had invited were all for only dimming the lights and holding a séance to speed matters along, and a minority opinion, held by the beleaguered Mrs. Haverford and her governess, wanted all the lights on, and all the guests in their beds.
The earl’s arrival had ended the discussion. Immediately after the wild burst of eerie laughter that came on the heels of his entrance had faded away, a search of the house, led by the earl, some of his staff, Theo and his spiritual twin, Mr. Colfax, his friend, Georgie Burton, and an elderly gentleman discovered to be father to that young exquisite, revealed nothing about the source of the infernal disturbance. It had been a vigorous effort, but much to the guests’ disappointment, it had revealed nothing to them but the excellence of the Hall’s housekeeping staff. It was such a well-run, well-organized household, in fact, that not even a dust ball was found behind the one curtain discovered to be swaying in the music room, and that movement, it transpired, had only been caused by a window left a fraction of an inch open by a zealous but forgetful housemaid who had cleaned it that afternoon. The scuffling in the corridor behind the search party was discovered to be caused by one of Bobby’s spaniels, going along on the ghost hunt in the proper spirit of adventure that a good gun dog ought to show, and the rattling in the upstairs rooms turned out to be Miss Comfort fumbling at her door to see what was amiss, her face pale beneath her nightcap, newly woken, as she then complained, from her slumbers by the very mortal sounds of the wild hunt passing along her corridor.
It was a very large house, and there was an enthusiastic band of volunteer detectives, but nothing was found, and by the time they straggled back to the grand drawing room, the refreshments awaited them and were fallen on with the same enthusiasm that the missing phantom might have been. Now the warmth given off by the beverages, light, and company seemed to thaw the last of the terror from the marrow of the most fearful among them, and since there hadn’t been one ghostly intervention since that single screech of laughter, even the timid became bold enough to join in the discussion of the phenomenon. Indeed, it was become, as young Lord Malverne was heard to declare around his mouthful of saffron cake, “actually a jolly good way to spend a night. Great fun!”
This estimate of the evening’s activities won him a sour look from his mama, and he subsided. But his young guests silently agreed with him. It was an informal group that congregated in the salon; almost every guest and member of the household was there in various stages of disarray. Some were still formally dressed for dinner, and some looked as though they’d been roused from their beds by the disturbance caused by the earl’s dramatic arrival. Miss Dawkins, the earl noted with some regret, was dressed quite completely, her proper gray gown buttoned up to the neck as befitted a governess. But she looked as weary as he felt.
Baby and little Sally were not present, for as Nurse and Miss Dawkins reported after peeking in at them, those two were lost in the easy innocent sleep of childhood. Nurse lumbered back to the nursery floor soon after making her announcement, her own sleep, she declared, being far more important than any ghost’s wakefulness. And though there might be some who envied or disparaged her unfeeling response to the spectral visitation, all would agree that it would be a very bold spirit indeed who dared to interrupt that good woman’s slumbers.
“Actually,” commented the spindly old gent, Lord Burton, who was wrapped round in a voluminous night robe, his white hair standing on end as though he’d just seen a spirit, although it was only that it was disarranged after having been lifted from his pillow so quickly, “there are some persons, you know, who would not notice if a troop of ghosts frolicked upon their bed. There are others, of course, who are rather like lightning rods. They receive the slightest of vibrations from any psychic emanations, willy-nilly, want to or not. It’s a question of sensitivity, you see,” he explained expansively.
The old gentleman had been pleased to introduce himself to the earl as they’d gone about the house together searching for clues to the disturbance. He was parent to a young blade Theo had summoned when he’d begun his flight to investigate what was happening at High Wyvern Hall. Old Lord Burton had packed on the instant and scrambled into Theo’s carriage after notifying some of his cronies as to his destination, so that they could envy him. For he and they were members of a select gentlemen’s club, and one of their fondest avocations was the investigation of ectoplasmic manifestations, or “ghosts,” as he’d condescended to explain to his unwitting, unwilling host.
“Aye, and no wonder,” Alfie had whispered to the earl, and he was close enough to do so, as he’d never left that nobleman’s side since he’d appeared, wraithlike himself, in the doorway to the salon, “since the old gent’s like to be one of them any ’our ’isself. No wonder ’e’s so keen to find one.”
“Hush,” the earl had said. “Uncharitable stuff, lad.”
“Aye,” Alfie had grumbled, “but ’e’s a selfish old puffed-up thing, my lord, ’e is. You ’aven’t passed time with ’im, thank your lucky stars. Wants to find ’is bugbear, ’e does, and don’t care if ’e scares everyone else to pieces going about it. Asked Sally questions ’ad her
eyes crossing until Miss Dawkins shooed ’im off and barred the door to ’im. And ’e thinks ’e’s smarter than anything that ever drew breath, ’e does. I’d like to ’ave Lady Ann meet ’im all right, and take ’im ’ome wiv ’er, too. Only likely, being a lady, she’d ’ave better taste than that.”
It hadn’t taken long for the earl to agree, albeit silently, with Alfie’s estimation of Lord Burton. But the fact was that he’d come home to find his house littered with people he’d like to have dismissed on the spot. His mother had begged forbearance, it being neither correct nor kind to fling persons from one’s home in the middle of the night. And as two were also persons from society, Lady Malverne added in a firm undervoice, having edged close to the earl and his mama’s whispered conference, it would be politic to let them stay the entire week, invited or not. Then, after a glance at the earl’s face, she’d sighed and opined that as they’d not been asked to High Wyvern Hall by its owner, she supposed it would be enough to let them stay long enough to catch their breath before they were hinted to, then flatly asked to go on their way. Perhaps just one more day then, she finally offered, though from her it sounded more like pleading, and then the earl nodded terse agreement.
Although, the earl thought, reconsidering, as Lord Burton discoursed at length about spirits to the company, now it might be better to let them stay until he had successfully routed the ghost, so that there’d be no more talk, and no more curiosity to bring more unwelcome visitors down upon the Hall. Even as the elderly gentleman described the known habits of haunts, the earl thought on who could be responsible for the incident. Because however convincing the old gentleman’s soliloquy, the earl nevertheless devoutly believed that the culprit would eventually be discovered to be among the living.
“Oh no, my boy,” old Lord Burton chortled, delighted that his son had just said something that he could correct, “many of the unfortunate beings are quite ordinary-looking. Why, a quite famous gray lady at Sudeley Castle is frequently taken for a housekeeper there, as indeed she must have been in life, for she always seems to disappear just when she’s asked for an extra towel,” and here he chuckled merrily, having displayed both his erudition and his opinion of servants in one statement, but before he could go on, young Mr. Colfax gasped.
“You mean, one might see them in the daytime?”
“Oh my, yes,” Lord Burton replied on a rich chortle. “What is time to a being who dwells outside of time? Some are always present, but like the planets, they are easier to see in the night. Others seem to manifest at particular hours, perhaps because they stubbornly cling to earthly habits. Most, however, are most frequently active between midnight, the witching hour, and the first hour of the new day.”
As some in his audience covertly consulted timepieces, the old gentleman continued happily, “Ah yes, and many are nondescript and so can appear at midmorning tea and be overlooked, and mistaken for servants if they’re not scrutinized too closely. The gentleman spirits as well, for the monk at Chingle Hall, the monks at Beaulieu Manor and Bolton Abbey, most of them in fact, are shortish, fattish little persons, nothing horrific in their aspect at all, even in the middle of the night.
“Actually,” he went on in condescending tones, misinterpreting the earl’s grimace, “there’s nothing to fear from the poor things at all, although I’ll grant some few are said to be fairly awesome-looking. For they can’t actually do anything to one, you know. My fellows and I are not such great heroes”—he smiled, as though denying what he was saying about his virtues—“for as we always say, they can impel, but not compell, us to dire things. No, they’re just poor lonely beings, cut off from heaven and hell, eternally alone. Most of them, except for some instances of monkish choirs I’ve heard of, are quite isolated, even though their domicile may contain several other different shades as well. But there’s no such thing as a fraternity of spirits, for they seem to go on, each haunting and walking its own well-worn road in perdition, never aware of each other’s presence at all. We believe they all exist on very different planes from each other, never mind us poor mortals. So there’s nothing for the dear ladies to fear.
“And speaking of the fair sex, few of their shades are exactly exquisite either, for they’re almost always described as ‘gray’ in their sustained manifestations. It takes a great deal of ectoplasmic energy to produce vivid color and shape, you know,” he said, as though someone had challenged him, although no one else had spoken, “and most of the poor things simply do not have it in them. Some are so deficient that they appear as half-persons, legless, headless, or even incomplete, like the one recently seen at Longleat. Energy, energy’s the key. Great love, or great grievance, might provide it. So this one here at High Wyvern Hall,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “is one we have high hopes of. It’s obviously malign, for one thing, as witness that maniacal laughter, and it’s very active, as well.”
“Suddenly very active,” the earl said wryly, and Alfie looked up at him at that, “which is quite all right for spirits, ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, “but as we are all mortal flesh, I believe it’s past our bedtimes. And as Lord Burton said ghosts are usually most active between midnight and one, our specter has by now doubtless tripped off into the crypt for a good long snooze. I suggest we all do the same. Only, not in the crypt of course,” he added, so that laughter might temper his dismissal of them.
The guests straggled off to their rooms. Theo was happy to nip off with his cronies so that his mama might not stay him, but that lady was preoccupied and only too pleased to leave with Miss Comfort, so that as her room was being made up, she might be advised, firsthand, and in terms she would understand, as to the shocking state of affairs that held sway at the Hall. Mrs. Haverford kissed her son on the cheek, gave him heartfelt thanks for having come riding “like a knight to the rescue,” and on a relieved sigh, sought her own neglected bed.
Victoria tarried because the boys had seemed unwilling to leave, and she was very glad of that excuse so that she might have a chance to stay on a few more moments to look at the earl and hear his voice again. But now that there was only herself and the boys and the earl left in the salon, she lowered her gaze and said softly:
“Alfie, Bobby, please. Come to bed now. The earl must be weary and it’s shockingly late for you to be up.”
The earl stared at her until Alfie called his attention back if only by the stress the gentleman heard in the gruff young voice. “Yes, Miss Victoria. But I’ll not sleep a wink till I know… Here, my lord, I got to know. It’s not us you think’s up to nothing, is it? For I swear it ain’t. On my solemn word, sir.”
“And mine, sir,” Bobby echoed very earnestly, very unhappily, as he stood next to his brother, both now pale and regarding the earl with equal intensity.
“What’s this?” the earl asked, shaking his head after tearing his gaze from his governess. “I am weary, to be sure, possibly even exhausted, or else I don’t believe I’d think I was hearing such nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Alfie said stubbornly, “and well you know it, my lord. It’s clear you don’t believe in ghosts, and if you don’t, why, then you got to believe it’s someone living causing this mischief. And wherever there’s mischief, grown folks always think there’s kids, don’t they?”
“Not always,” the earl laughed. “There’s that business that occupied us for the last decade, you know, and I don’t believe Napoleon was a boy when he started that. No, lad”—he smiled, ruffling Alfie’s fair hair and putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder—“I never thought it was you, nor you, Bobby.”
“But I been thinking,” Alfie said earnestly, “and maybe it’s the work of someone wants it to look like it was us. So we’d get the blame and have to go. Or maybe it’s being done more clever-like, by someone wants to scare us into leaving this place. Maybe even it’s the exact opposite, maybe it’s no one wants us gone. Since it began when you left, maybe it’s someone wanted you back here again.”
“Why
, Miss Dawkins,” the earl said with a wicked little grin, addressing her for the first time since he’d returned, although he’d seldom ceased looking at her since then, “what a naughty scheme! But I confess, I’m flattered. Thank you.”
“It’s never her,” Alfie scoffed, “though I know you’re pulling her leg. Why, she was six shades of green after she saw it t’other night.”
“I apologize then for my conceit, though I regret your innocence, my dear,” the gentleman said, pausing a breath so that his comment could be taken both ways by her, his dark gaze regretting nothing but the distance between himself and the young woman he spoke with. “And I’d apologize for my ancestor’s lady as well, but I don’t think it was her at all.”
“Neither do we,” Alfie began eagerly, but the earl cut him off by laughing.
“Neither do I,” he agreed, “but in truth, I’m too tired to think of who it might be tonight. So please, chaps, do go to bed, and I’ll speak with you both tomorrow. I promise. And, Miss Dawkins,” he added, smiling now, the most alarming look in his eye, something between tenderness and threat, “I’d like a word with you then as well. Alone. Quite alone. Tomorrow.”
Then Alfie, showing where he’d recently lost a tooth, grinned as hugely as if he’d been given the answer to all his problems as he breathed, “So that’s the way of it!” to himself. And then hitting his brother on the shoulder, he ordered him off to bed.
But Miss Dawkins looked back at the earl once as she ushered the boys out of the salon, and saw him regarding her with an expression of deep thought upon his solemn face. And then it was no unquiet spirit but her very own that kept her awake for several more hours, as she lay in the dark, haunted by the question of whether, jest or not, he really suspected her of impersonating Lady Ann’s ghost herself.
