Anne would have been unhappy as Captain Sir Reginald Gladstone Moore’s wife; he was dreadfully vain and had chosen her deliberately, she now understood, because of her plainness, so his dandified looks would always outshine hers. Five years after his death, as little as she thought of her late betrothed, she would never interfere with Lydia’s idealization of her brother as wonderful beyond words, and Anne as dying of love for him.
She turned over again and tried to sleep, but slumber was chased away by the awful memory of the evening’s events. That poor girl, Cecilia Wainwright. To think she had heard the young woman’s last cries and moans. And heard the footsteps of the perpetrator, whoever that was. Had she been out meeting a lover, as Lady Darkefell conjectured? And was that lover Mr. Osei Boatin, as seemed indicated by his highly emotional response to the news of her death? He had been out walking with her, he said, but his violent reaction to the news of her death meant he either had nothing to do with her murder or dissembled to appear innocent. The savagery of the attack, though, did not seem such as could be inflicted by a lover. And what creature had howled with such eerie wildness? With so much to wonder, she would never get to sleep. The house was dark and silent around her, and she stared up at the ceiling, feeling terribly alone.
But weariness won out, and she fell into Morpheus’s welcoming arms. When she next became conscious, it was morning, and a young woman was setting a tray on her bedside table. Anne spied a glimmer of tears in the girl’s red-rimmed eyes before she turned away to pull back the draperies.
“What’s your name?” Anne asked, propping herself up on one elbow and examining the contents of the mahogany tray: a pot of steaming chocolate and a plain white china cup, a damask napkin, and a hothouse rose in a crystal vase.
“Ellen, milady,” the girl said, turning away from the window and curtseying, her dull stuff gown silent, her neck and shoulders modestly wrapped in a neckerchief of snowy white. As with all good servants, she would not be heard arriving or departing and could move as a ghost through the house, unnoticed except when needed.
“Well, Ellen, in future could you ask Cook to send up a rack of toast with my chocolate? I’m often hungry first thing in the morning.” Anne blinked and gazed out at the sun, now ascending over the spring landscape. “And could it be an hour earlier? I’m generally an early riser. I slept past my usual rising this morning.”
“Yes’m,” the girl said, turning away.
“Excuse me, Ellen,” Anne said. When the girl turned back, her head hung, she continued gently, “I’m sure no one else has noticed that you’ve been weeping, and the tears still stand in your eyes. Were you close to the poor unfortunate who last night met her end?”
She nodded and snuffled.
“What was she like?”
The girl looked startled at her opinion being sought. “Milady?”
“What was Cecilia Wainwright like? If you are so deeply affected after presumably a short acquaintance, I must guess she was an engaging girl?”
Ellen nodded. “She were, milady.” A shaky sigh ended with a sob. “Cecilia would do anything for anyone.”
Anne examined the pretty, guileless face framed by blonde curls and a white lacy mob cap. The rosy cheeks were marred only by tear trails down them. “You mourn her, and yet you’ve known Cecilia only since she came here with Lady Bestwick?” That was a few short months before.
“Yes’m.” She sniffed back tears. “Before that it were only Lady Darkefell and Lord John Bestwick in this house, you know. When Lady John came and brought Cecilia… why, it was like the house became sunny.”
“So what was she like?” Anne repeated, swinging her feet out of bed and stretching.
“Cecilia? She were so very pretty and good-natured, not stuck on herself like Lady Darkefell’s French abigail, Therese. Cecilia even give me a silk wrap her ladyship didn’t want no more, and it only had two small rips in it!”
Anne sighed at such a vague answer. “Did she get along with the rest of the staff? Or did she put on airs?” A lady’s maid was a superior servant and often felt the difference between herself and the others most keenly; abigails and valets were next only to the butler and housekeeper in importance at the servants’ table. Divisions below stairs were as rigid as those above stairs.
“Oh, no, milady. Cecilia were pleasant to everyone.” Ellen looked uneasy and began to glance at the door.
“Did she have a sweetheart?” Anne asked.
The girl shook her head but would not speak again.
“Does that mean you don’t know?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” she said, a remote expression on her tearstained face. “If that’s all?”
Anne sighed. Once a good servant had gone silent, there would be no opening her mouth until another emotional, vulnerable moment. “I shall need my portmanteaux retrieved from that unspeakable post-house. Until I have them, I must wear the traveling dress I wore yesterday. Has it been brushed?”
The young woman nodded. “Mrs. Hailey done it herself. She sponged it out, seeing as how… seeing… ” She trailed off and paled.
Anne nodded. “I understand,” she said. The sponging was necessary because blood had gotten on the skirts of the dress, though it had not been noticeable in the dim light of the previous evening. She turned her mind away from that dreadful thought. “Could you see that my dress is brought up to me and return to help me with it? I expect my abigail, Mary, to arrive some time tomorrow with my trunks, but until then I’ll need someone’s help. I don’t wish to trouble Lady John or Lady Darkefell. Perhaps, if you’re willing and Mrs. Hailey allows you enough time, you could try taming my hair,” she said, putting up one hand and feeling the tangled mass. “It needs a stern hand. And could you see that I get hot water immediately?”
Ellen agreed and quickly returned with the garment, as well as the traveling cloak and shawl, which she hung up in the wardrobe in the attached dressing room. A younger maid carrying a ewer of hot water accompanied her and filled the washing bowl on the dressing table. Anne washed, then dressed with Ellen’s help, and sat at the dressing table so the maid could do her hair. If Anne had her morning gown, a more relaxed style would have been appropriate, but with only her traveling attire, she couldn’t leave her hair down. It would be most unsuitable.
“Do you like your position here, Ellen?” Anne glanced up at her face in the dressing-table mirror.
The young woman was pale but composed and said, “I do, milady.”
Anne watched her in the mirror. The young woman frowned as she tugged at a recalcitrant lock of hair. It would probably have been better for her scalp’s sake to have borrowed the services of Lady Darkefell’s abigail, but that woman would have to help Lydia now, too, no doubt. She did have another purpose in retaining Ellen’s services, though; Anne had already made inroads with the maid, as far as trust was concerned, and was determined to learn more about what was worrying Lydia. “Has it always been safe hereabouts, Ellen?”
“Safe?”
“Yes, safe. Do you all feel secure walking the grounds?”
“D’you mean, are we scared of ending up like Cecilia?”
“No, I didn’t exactly mean that—I’m speaking of before last night.”
“Well… ” She sounded a little reluctant but then said, “Lately it’s been a little anxious. We been told not to go a’walkin’ out after dark.”
“By whom?”
“Mrs. Hailey.”
“Why is that?” Anne said, thinking that, considering what had happened, it seemed a prophetic instruction.
The young woman’s eyes were wide, with an excited gleam in them, the first emotion other than sadness that Anne had seen. “The werewolf, ma’am!” she whispered, meeting Anne’s reflected gaze.
Anne burst out laughing. “Werewolf?” Despite having been prepared by Lydia’s letter for the absurdity, the notion still struck her as humorous.
Affronted into silence, Ellen continued work on Anne’s hair, her lips prim
med into a straight line.
“I didn’t mean to laugh at you, but really, a werewolf? You’re an intelligent girl and surely don’t believe in such idiocy.”
“I seen it with my own two good eyes.” With a final tug, Ellen pronounced her task done. “How d’you like the style, milady? I never done hair before, but it seems passable good to me.”
Looking at her reflection, twisting her head this way and that, Anne had to admit it echoed a truly classic Grecian style, even mythic; Medusa was, after all, a Greek mythic creature, and Anne’s hair now resembled the snaky locks of the gorgon. “How interesting,” she said faintly and turned away from the mirror. A woman of humble appearance needed all the help a talented hairdresser could summon, so her image at that moment was shocking to Anne’s modest amour propre. However, she did have other things on her mind than her tortured hair. “You cannot make me believe that you saw a werewolf. What exactly did you see?”
“Well,” Ellen said, frowning and staring at the floor, “I were out walkin’—”
“Alone?”
“Yes… nooo… I was… uh…”
“Never mind with whom,” Anne said, watching the young woman’s pale complexion burn cherry red on her high cheeks. “You weren’t alone, but were out walking with a young man of the household. Have I guessed correctly?”
“Yes, milady,” Ellen said. “We was walkin’ near the tower—”
“The tower?”
“Yes’m. ’Twas built by the previous marquess when he was first raised up to be such. Before that he was the Earl of Staunby. The new title was given him after the trouble with Scotland.”
“After the Jacobite rebellion?”
“Yes’m.”
“About the time of Culloden Tower, then,” Anne said, naming the tower built near Richmond forty years before to celebrate the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion.
The girl shrugged and said, “We ain’t supposed to go near it, but…”
Anne eyed her with interest. “But it’s a shadowy spot, and one is able to cuddle with a young man, and no one the wiser.”
Ellen blushed and nodded, then looked away again. “Me an’ Jamey—he’s a groom, milady, one of the marquess’s men—we was walkin,’ when out of the bushes near the tower jumps this animal. On his hind legs! Never seen a dog do that!” She looked directly into Anne’s eyes and whispered, “I were terrified!”
“What time of day was this?”
“Just on twilight, milady.”
“How long ago did this take place?”
“Two months or more gone. ’Twas fearful cold, so we was seekin’ shelter to talk.”
“And what did you do when this creature jumped out at you?”
“I ran away,” she said. She picked up a brush and began to clean the hair from its bristles.
“And what did Jamey do?”
“Followed me.”
“Immediately?”
“Near enough,” Ellen said. “A minute or so later.”
“What delayed him?”
Ellen frowned and thumbed the brush, absently playing with the bristles. “I don’t know, milady.”
“What did he say when he caught up to you?”
She blushed and looked away, setting down the brush on the highly polished dressing table.
“I see. Probably nothing beyond some personal nonsense to comfort you.”
She nodded. Anne watched her for a minute, but was satisfied that the young woman was telling the truth such as she knew it. The fellow’s “comfort” was likely a few kisses and a cuddle. “You say it was an animal but that it stood on its hind legs.”
Ellen nodded but didn’t offer anything more.
“Did it growl or bark or make any other noise?”
“It howled, milady.”
“Howled.”
“Yes, the snout went up, kind of, and it howled. Jamey said since ’twas the night of the full moon, it must be a werewolf.”
Anne pondered that, remembering the eerie howling she had heard the previous night. “And that is all you saw before you ran?”
“Oh, yes, milady. I ran toward the back kitchen garden and through the gate.”
“And that’s where Jamey caught up with you?”
She nodded.
“Ellen, I no more believe you saw a werewolf than I believe that people can sprout wings and fly. Your young man and a confederate are in the business of frightening young women into their arms, no doubt, a shabby trick but meant just as a lark.”
“Oh, no, milady,” Ellen said, sitting down on a nearby stool. Such a breach of proper behavior seemed out of character for the reticent maid and spoke to her complete absorption in the topic. “Others since have seen the werewolf, milady, and for longer’n me.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Anne again considered the howling she had heard, a precursor to the young woman’s screams. “Ellen, tell me who else has—”
“Ellen!” A peremptory female voice from the hallway beyond the door harshly repeated the girl’s name.
The maid leaped to her feet and rushed out to the hallway, where two voices, hers and the authoritative woman, could be heard, Ellen murmuring apologies and the other scolding.
Anne marched to the door and flung it open.
A plump woman with protuberant eyes whirled and adjusted her expression from one of command to a more complaisant look. “Milady,” she said, softening her voice, “your portmanteaux have been brought to the lodge by a neighboring gentleman. Andrew will bring them upstairs momentarily.”
Anne eyed Ellen, and then, noting the return of tears to the maid’s eyes, turned to the housekeeper. Levelly, she said, “You are the most excellent Mrs. Hailey, of whom I have heard so many good things. You were helpful to poor Lydia last night in her distress. Thank you for the loan of Ellen—I would not have been able to dress without her, and thank you for your own services in rendering my limited wardrobe wearable once again.” She waved down at the skirts of her traveling dress.
The housekeeper curtseyed and said, “You’re welcome, I’m sure, milady.” She fingered her chatelaine and added, eyeing Anne’s snaky hairstyle, “I was pleased to do it. I only hope Ellen has been helpful.”
“She has, thank you. Is Lady John better this morning?”
“Poor lamb,” the housekeeper said in a confidential tone as Ellen slipped away down the hall. “Still sleeping. Gave her another sleeping draught in the middle of the night, for she was having dreadful nightmares.”
“Let me know when she’s able to see me. Now, you say a neighbor has brought my portmanteaux to the house. May I express to this gentleman my personal gratitude?”
“Yes, milady—he’s in the morning parlor with Lady Darkefell.”
Anne found her way there and entered. It was an elegant room, the walls hung in yellow silk damask, and furnished in modern oriental style. The dowager marchioness was by a table in a bay window, earnestly speaking with a portly, jovial-appearing gentleman. “Good morning,” Anne said to announce her presence to the oblivious duo.
Lady Darkefell straightened and moved away from the man, who turned and bowed low.
“Lady Anne Addison?” he said, his voice pleasantly timbered and musical.
“Yes, but I don’t have the pleasure of your name, sir?”
The marchioness nodded to Anne. “Good morning. I hope you slept well.”
“Adequately.”
“Lady Anne Addison, may I introduce to you Mr. Hiram Grover?”
Anne nodded to the gentleman. “Thank you, sir, for bringing my baggage up to Ivy Lodge. How did you happen to find out from that villainous postmaster that they were to be delivered here?”
“I am the nearest neighbor to the lodge and the castle, and often bring the mail up—neighborly courtesy, you know. Jacob Landers, the postmaster, sent me the bags with a note, along with the mail for both myself and the castle.”
“What an easy method for the post employee to slough off r
esponsibility,” she commented.
“Lady Anne,” the marchioness said, “I had just invited Hiram to dine with us. Will you join us in the breakfast room?”
Nothing had been said of the awful murder, but Anne assumed that the marchioness had already filled in her neighbor. She was right. They removed to the breakfast room, a smaller octagonal room with cherry silk on the walls and various gilt-framed paintings of roses, and the servants had, at the marchioness’s request, left them to their meal.
Mr. Grover said, “I am horrified that you were subjected to such an experience last night, Lady Anne, as finding that poor, unfortunate girl. The fragility of a lady should never have been put to such a brutal test—as the Italians say, una signora dovrebbe essere protetta. I congratulate you on your hardiness, for I am in amazement that you should be on your feet and not prostrate.”
Anne eyed him while she chewed a mouthful of eggs with mushroom ketchup. He was a fleshy fellow, porcine in countenance, with friendly features and a perfectly coiffed wig on top of an egg-shaped head. His cheeks were ruddy, the redness like a rash, but not from the cold; rather, it appeared to be redness associated with good food and drink, too much of both. And a choleric disposition? He seemed pleasant enough, so perhaps not.
Despite his words, he likely considered it no compliment to note that she was well after such an occurrence, and no doubt felt that Lydia was more the ideal of feminine fragility for keeping to her bed. “I’m stronger than that, sir.”
“But to have stumbled over the bloodied body! It’s dreadful.” He shuddered delicately and bit into a forkful of ham. He chewed for a moment, while Lady Darkefell sipped a cup of tea and broke a piece of toast into bits on her plate. “Whatever possessed you to venture so far off the lane, my lady?” he asked.
“So far off the lane?”
“Why, you must have been quite a ways off the lane to have found the body, for I understand it was well concealed.”
“Who told you that?” she asked.
He bridled. “My lady,” he said, clearly insulted by her briskness, “I have heard all about it from Lady Darkefell.”
Lady Anne 01 - Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark Page 4
