by Edith Layton
*
Sally confessed her crime, first thing after breakfast in the morning. After the earl’s breakfast, that was, for, as her governess reported in a quick aside, the child hadn’t been able to consume a morsel of her own, she’d been so anxious about her coming interview with the earl. He’d hit upon the idea of summoning each child, in turn, in private, to his study so that he could speak to them alone, and so that they could answer without prompting or prejudice from any adult or each other. But then Sally’s quivering lip and her quick frightened glances about the huge book-lined room changed his mind.
“Come, lass,” he said then, rising from his chair and offering her his hand, “it’s a lovely morning. Most of the old London slugabeds haven’t woken yet. Let’s go for a walk in the gardens as we talk.”
Once there, in Sally’s favorite place, the rose garden, she sat herself upon a bench beneath an arbor, smoothed her skirts around her, and looking down into her hands in her lap, confessed.
“I was not in the nursery when I saw the ghost lady,” she said so quietly the humming of a nearby honeybee almost drowned out her soft voice, “and I wasn’t in my room neither…either, my lord. I was going to see Miss Victoria, so I went to her rooms. But she wasn’t there so I sat on her bed and waited. And then I seen…saw it. But I know I wasn’t s’posed to leave my room at night, and I did anyways. I’m sorry,” she said. “Truly.”
“Oh, Sally,” the earl said softly, gathering her up and sitting her on his lap, never minding how her tears were falling, splashing and leaving great wet spots upon his pristine dove-gray inexpressibles, only worrying that she would tear herself apart with her great gulping sobs. “Oh, Sally, Sally, my dear, why are you weeping?” he asked as he tried to wipe her eyes with his handkerchief. “Did Miss Victoria scold you? Has anyone scolded you for it?”
“No,” she wailed. “They were very n-nice. ’Cause I was so scairt, I ’spect,” she sniffed, subsiding a bit in order to explain, for she was a Johnson, and so though very young, still never a fool. “And o-only a beast would scold a little girl what’s…who’s crying,” she said, exhibiting an honesty that had long been her oldest brother’s despair. “But I wasn’t s’posed to go there by myself at night, no, I’m not ’lowed to leave the room by myself at night. And I’m very sorry,” she wept, going off into a new freshet of despair.
“Because you saw the ghost?” the earl asked, bewildered.
“No,” she cried. “Because I’m scairt you’ll be so mad I was bad that you’ll throw me out. Oh, my lord,” she begged, looking at him with huge damp violet-blue eyes whose power to melt a gentleman’s heart she’d not yet even imagined, having grown up with two strong-minded brothers, “please don’t throw me out.”
After the earl understood the heart-wrenching fact that her fear of being made to leave his household was a more profound terror than she could ever feel for any grave-grown specter that could confront her, the interview went much better. For he assured her that she could stay with him until she was so old she’d have to be pushed in a bath chair through the corridors of the Hall, that she could remain with him until she was so ancient that she frightened little girls herself, that she could live with him for so long as he lived and then stay on to comfort his own ghost, as well. He promised, he crossed his heart and kissed his little finger, and then he vowed to swear it on any Bible she cared to produce. Only then, reassured, comfortable, giggling, and dry-eyed again, did she tell him about that other specter that had haunted her, the Haverford ghost.
She had heard some moaning and rattling, and then she’d seen the ghost for only a moment before it vanished again into the wall from whence it had come. It was a female, because it had skirts and long snarly white hair, Sally said. It was tall, but then, the earl thought, who was not to Sally? And it was all gray and floaty. But she couldn’t see its face, for it was hooded. She did feel cold too, she offered, when she’d run out of details about the brief visitation to inform him of, but determined to be honest, she confided that she hadn’t realized it until later, when that old gentleman had asked her if she’d felt the sensation of a graveyard chill. But who would not, the earl pondered, meeting up with a ghost in the night?
He thanked her courteously, and sent her skipping off to fetch her brothers to him. For he discovered himself more comfortable in the rose garden than in the study, and decided there was little sense in interviewing those two rogues separately any longer, especially since they’d been together when they saw the ghost. He really had no need to question them at all, he thought, absently nodding approval at a butterfly’s taste in yellow roses as he awaited them, for his mama had been with them as well that night, and she had told him about the ghost over breakfast this morning with as much precision, as well as elaboration, as a man could wish for.
The thing had come sailing down the hall at them as she and the boys had gone to ask Miss Dawkins to join them in the kitchen for a stolen late-night snack, since no one could sleep anyway after the previous night’s happenings when Sally had seen the thing, his mama had explained, so absorbed in the tale she dripped honey off her toast into her coffee cup. It had been gray and shifting, and when it saw them, its cowled hood slipped down to its shoulders as though it were melting, and it shrieked. A long banshee yowl, in fact, she said with relish, stirring the honey into her coffee as though she intended it to be there. And yet, his mama had said at last, fixing her son with a long stare, it was mightily odd that a ghost would run from them as it had, for even as they shrank back, it did, until it disappeared at the top of the stair.
It mightn’t have been odd at all, he’d commented blandly, not if she’d had her hair up in curl papers as she was wont to, and certainly not if she still affected that tatty red robe he’d begged her to give to charity years before. He’d only escaped breakfast intact because his mama was a lady, and he smiled remembering it now.
No, he sighed, there was little need to ask the boys about the ghost; they’d chased it, he understood, but it had eluded them. No, he waited for them now because his interview with Sally had made him ashamed, and he knew it was necessary. So he wore a grim face when the boys presented themselves, and as they’d learned to watch adult expressions and be human weather vanes in order to survive in the past, though they’d come laughing up the path, they now stood still and sober before him.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “be seated.”
They sat on the bench beside him, quiet and calm, two pale fair-haired children with uncommonly knowing eyes, silent and white as two statues; all that was needed, as he told them, was a fountain for them to guard and he’d be glad to pay them by the hour to ornament his garden. But they did not smile at his weak jest, and so he rose from the bench and strode a few paces and then turned around to confront them.
“I’ve spoken with Sally,” he said, something shadowing his dark face further, and so making their own fair visages even paler, “and something she said disturbed me mightily. My lads,” he sighed, as they held their breath, each wondering what crime it was that he was about to accuse them of, each also beginning to wonder now—for they’d both always known that it could never last, hadn’t they?—how they would be able to manage to live in Tothill Fields again now that they’d dwelt in heaven, “our association began so oddly, so spontaneously, that I never had time to think it through. But obviously, it’s neither fair nor right of me to let things go on as they are. There’s too much indecision in it, I’m too precise a fellow, I cannot like it.
“When you came here,” the earl continued thoughtfully, “we put it about that you were being fostered by my estate manager and his wife, but we never formalized the scheme. It was all done to forestall gossip anyway. That was a foolishness.”
“Then you’re sending us off to live with them somewhere else, my lord? Why, that’s very kind of you, sir, and we’re grateful for it, never think we’re not, for the little ones need looking after,” Alfie blurted with false brightness the moment that the earl paus
ed, for although he shrank at being an object of pity, he still had his family to think of and was trying to secure something for them still, even from out of the ruins of everything. The gentleman might have become bored with them—he’d never doubted, he told himself fiercely, no, not ever, that it would come to this. For that was the way of the gentry, that was the way of the world. But if they could stay on in the country with some other family, there would be that, at least there would be something salvaged from this adventure.
So he went on, with such a determined look upon his face to prevent his smile from cracking, his features set so tight that the earl stared hard at him, “It was kind of you to take us from the slums, sir, and we’ll never forget you,” and he edged the shocked Bobby with his elbow until he too said, “Oh yes, sir, that’s true, sir, thank you.”
The earl narrowed his eyes and then he shook his head.
“This is the first time I’ve ever known you to be entirely, completely, and absolutely wrong, Alfie,” he mused, and then he grinned and said, “and I’ll treasure the moment. I don’t think I’ll ever let you forget it. Doubtless it will serve me well in the years to come, since I don’t think you’ll ever be so wrongheaded again. Alfie, you dunderhead, I’d be angry at your estimate of me if I didn’t know why you had to have it. It’s my own fault for not speaking sooner. Here, lad, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather keep you chaps on for as long as you care to stay. The devil with gossip, is what I was about to say, before you so rudely tried to butter me up to my ears and bid me farewell. For I don’t worry about gossip any longer, whether it is me or my family that’s the target. Because this past month I at last held my breath and then immersed myself in society in London. And I learned that in polite society they’ll talk about every evil thing you’ve done, and if they don’t know of any, why, then they’ll make it up. But they’ll have you in to tea anyway, so long as they think you can afford not to have it.”
He smiled down at the two boys. “In short,” he said, “I’d like to live as I please, as I did before I became an earl. And I shall. So what I was about to propose was in the nature of a more permanent arrangement. I’ve had a word with my man-at-law. As I can’t see how I’ll ever be able to be shut of you, I believe it’s useless for me to try. So I’d like to make you my wards. My legal wards. Would you agree to this?”
Bobby looked to Alfie, as his elder brother slowly stood and faced the earl. He was staggered, he was dumbfounded, but he was Alfie Johnson, and he had learned how to fall on his feet.
“My lord,” he said steadily, for this was business, and business was something he could handle, even if it was likely the most important business he’d transact in all his life, and he knew it, “we would be pleased to become your wards.”
“Mind,” the earl warned, “please don’t be wounded, but I don’t offer adoption, because I might be moved to have children of my own someday. But if you were my wards, I’d be entirely responsible for you anyway, in every way.”
“I understand,” Alfie said proudly, and then for once spoke entirely truthfully. “And I wouldn’t say yes to adoption, my lord, or at least, I’d rather not. ’Cause then we’d be Haverfords. Which is a fine old name, and a proud one too. But we are Johnsons, my lord, and would like to remain so, if it’s all the same to you. But it would be a great honor to be your wards, indeed it would be.”
He put out his hand to the earl, and they shook hands just as well-brought-up English gentlemen should. But something in the earl’s face changed that, and it was as well for everyone’s dignity that there was no one else about to see the amount of hugging and sniffling and back-slapping and general carry-on there in the rose garden, before proper decorous order was restored once again.
“’Ere, what about the ghostie?” Alfie asked suddenly after the three of them had strolled along the paths on the grounds of the Hall in silent peace.
“I think we can put a stop to that tonight,” the earl said solemnly.
“Ah,” Alfie said, nodding wisely.
“Yes, I believe we’ll lure Lord Malverne and your favorite, Lord Burton, and their ghost-hunting cohorts into the west wing, to keep them nicely out of the way. Then you and I, my lad, will hunker down in the hall, where we’re likely to catch her—that is, if she’s still of a mind to walk tonight—and we’ll put an end to it.”
Alfie became sober-faced then, and he was about to speak again when the earl said, “But we’ll speak of it later. For now, I asked for a private word with your governess. Do you happen to know where she is?”
“She’s waiting in your study, my lord. I saw her there before we left the house,” Bobby volunteered.
“And where were our other three lovely ladies—my mama, Lady Malverne, and Miss Comfort—just then, would you know?” the earl inquired pensively.
“Mrs. Haverford and Lady Malverne were having a coze in the morning room, and old Comfort was lying doggo up in her room, trying to escape from Lord Burton. But it ain’t nothing irregular he’s after with her”—Alfie grinned—“it’s only any ghost stories she knows that he wants her to come across with for him.”
Alfie received a light cuff on the ear for the information, with the mild admonition, “Respect for ladies, my lad, whatever their age or station,” but then the earl grew more grave as they walked along.
“Then offer my apologies for the inconvenience, and then please fetch Miss Dawkins to me. I’ll be waiting near the boxwood maze. I’d rather speak to her somewhere far from the house,” the earl said seriously.
“You don’t think it’s ’er!” Alfie cried, aghast. “I thought you knew the way of it. I thought—”
“Lad!” The earl spoke sharply as Bobby looked up at them with amazement. “Whatever it is that you think you know, it would be best if you said nothing of it to anyone now. Anyone. If you value me at all, I ask you to trust me, I ask you to be patient…and I asked you to bring Miss Dawkins to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Alfie said very quietly, and, deflated, he went to do the earl’s bidding, dragging his confused younger brother with him. For he did value the Earl of Clune. But having learned in a hard school that trust is life’s most expensive commodity, he gave it stingily, out of a heart he’d schooled to be a miser’s, and so had less taste and more apprehension about his errand with every moment that passed.
15
The boxwood maze was a long way from the Hall itself. It might have been ordered so originally because it was more of an amusement than a decoration. But the bygone Earl of Clune who designed it had more reason for its placement than that; the Earls of Clune, after all, had always had hidden reasons for everything they did. This one had deliberately placed it so that his visitors would have to travel a long way through his extensive grounds before it was reached. In this fashion, the visitor, if he had eyes, could then be counted on to be so thoroughly awed by the grandeur of High Wyvern Hall before he ever attempted to discover the secret of the maze, that the earl would be assured of having him at an additional disadvantage. That way, no matter what the amount of the wager, it could easily be won by the owner of the Hall himself. Winning had ever been important to the Earls of Clune.
And the new earl, the eighth one, standing at the entrance to his great dark green evergreen maze, waited for Miss Dawkins as he saw her stepping down his crushed-shell walks, and hoped the ultimate secret of the maze, beyond that simple matter of where its dark heart lay, which was the secret knowledge that its owner always won, still held true.
She wore a simple green-and-white-striped percale frock, and the sun lingered at the tips of her hair, and as she stepped toward him he gazed at her in her entirety, from her graceful figure to her lovely face, and was again amazed to find he was more stirred by her here in the blatant morning light than he had ever been by any other woman in the dark of night in the dim, flattering shadows upon his sheets.
And she hurried forward as he came into clearer sight, so that he would find her breathlessness at their meeting qui
te explicable. He was dressed in dove gray and olive green, and the dark green background of the boxwood maze he was posed against swallowed up the morning light. So when she reached him and looked up from her curtsy to his black and searching eyes, it was as though it were still night to her, or at least still that night he had encountered her on the stair and thieved her heart away from her. She did not demand it back again, for even if she could she didn’t know what she would do with it any longer, so she only said, very softly, very properly, “My lord.”
“Come,” he said seriously, giving her his arm. “Please. We have to talk and not be overheard. Come into the maze. Never fear, I know my way out, and my responsibility to you, so I’d never desert you there, or harm you there, but there at least we can have privacy, for no one will find us.”
Once inside the maze, she understood his words, for looking about, she could only see a dark-sided tunnel, and as they walked, although they passed other entrances and exits, whichever one they took, they all seemed to lead to the same gravel path and high shorn boxwood walls. It was as if they walked nowhere, though they continued on for a long while, the only sound the gravel crunching beneath their feet. She’d been lost instantly, long before she’d ever entered the maze with him. So she said nothing, not knowing what she could say. Neither did he speak again until they at last reached a small circular clearing containing a pair of benches across from each other with a topiary boxwood sculpture of a female form between them, in the exact center.
“Please sit,” he said then, leading her to a bench. “We’ve come to the secret heart of the maze and won’t be heard or seen here.”
But he didn’t sit; instead he looked about them and said in lighter tones, “Again, I disappoint them, my poor illustrious forebears. Can’t you feel it? That sort of melancholy, that brooding sense of outrage? But since they haunt the house and not the grounds, there’s nothing they can do about it here. Still, how furious they must be, for I understand that they none of them would have allowed a beautiful young woman into the maze simply to lead her to safety and a comfortable chat. No, they much preferred to let the poor creatures try to flee from their embraces for as long as they pleased, while they sat here and laughed all the while, until at last they’d gather them up, like fallen leaves, spent and, I’d imagine, willing by then to do anything to obtain their freedom. Oh, it wasn’t so bad as all that, I suppose.” He smiled. “I’m just being gothic for effect. Most of them were willing and too bad for those who weren’t. Any female entering such a place with an Earl of Clune deserved what she got, don’t you think?” he asked, staring down at her.
