by Dunn
But I love him, she thought in sudden panic. Don't I?
A rustling sound drew her attention. She peered towards the group of silver birches on her right in the corner of the garden. Their ghostly trunks stood out clear, making the shadows behind them the blacker.
It could be a hunting cat, perhaps a hedgehog or even a badger. A twig snapped with a sharp crack. An explosive sneeze followed, then what might have been a muffled curse.
“Who is there?” Amaryllis demanded. “Ned! Bertram!” She had no hope that they would hear her, but perhaps her shout would give the intruder pause.
A figure muffled in a dark cloak rushed towards her. As she stepped back, raising her hands protectively, a swinging arm caught her a glancing blow and knocked her sideways to the ground. Her assailant leaped over her prone body, dashed through the gateway, and disappeared into the night.
For a few moments Amaryllis lay perfectly still listening. All she heard was her own heart beating madly. She became aware of her bruised hip and arm and shoulder, and the dampness seeping through her cloak from the ground.
Cautiously she raised herself and looked around. On the path beside her was a white handkerchief. She picked it up, stood up, and put it in her pocket. Trying not to make a sound, she moved to the gate, looked both ways into the blackness of the lane, then carefully closed the gate making sure it did not click. Then her nerve broke and she fled up the path to the front door. Locking and bolting the door behind her, she rang for Daisy.
“I slipped on the path and fell,” she explained. “My cloak is all muddy. Can you clean it?"
“Oh miss, I hope you didn't hurt yoursel'!"
“No, I am just a little shaken. Pray do not mention it to anyone, for I do not want a fuss."
Taking the cloak and folding it over her arm, Daisy felt in the pockets. “Here's your handkercher, miss."
Amaryllis took it and put it in the pocket of her gown, then hurried up to the common-room, glad for the nonce of the reassuring presence of so many people.
When she went to bed, she looked at the handkerchief. It was certainly not one of her own, being a square of fine linen too large to belong to a lady. In one corner was an embroidered rose, crimson with green leaves and stem and vicious-looking thorns. She could not recall ever seeing the thorns represented in embroidery before.
She folded it and tucked it away in the back of her drawer. It seemed likely that the intruder had been the mysterious Spaniard. She would be more careful in future not to go out alone in the dark, but she saw no reason to further alarm Aunt Eugenia by reporting the incident. She would mention it to Bertram, though she could not think of anything he could do about it. Judging by the enormous sneeze, the man ought to take to his bed for a while anyway.
The sky turned cloudy overnight, but the weather continued mild and dry, if grey. On Wednesday afternoon, Miss Hartwell assembled her beginning history class and they set off for the castle. They crossed Falcon Square, made their way up Castle Lane and over Bailey Street, where once a wall protected the outer bailey of the castle. From here only the tower on the top of the keep was visible, the rest hidden by trees now gold, bronze, and russet in their autumnal glory.
In mediaeval times the hillside had been carefully cleared of any growth tall enough to hide a man. The hill was not high but it dominated the surrounding plain and an attacking army must have been visible miles away. Even before the invading Normans took it from its Saxon lord, in ancient British days this place had been defended by ditch and earthen wall.
As they walked up the steepening slope, Miss Hartwell described the scene as it must have appeared when King John besieged the castle. The Earl of Oxford's archers in coats of mail stood guard on the concentric walls circling the hill; men in armour, their surcoats emblazoned in red and blue and yellow, prepared for sorties, their weapons clashing, their shouts filling the air. In the fields below, where now cattle grazed, King John's soldiers rode among tents and pavilions bright with pennants.
“What were they fighting about, ma'am?” asked Louise Carfax. “They were all English, were they not? They ought to have been fighting the French.” She had frequently joined her brothers in refighting the battles of the Napoleonic Wars.
Miss Hartwell sighed and explained Magna Carta for the third or fourth time. “When King John took the castle,” she said, “the barons invited the Dauphin of France, the heir to the French throne, to help them win it back. More often than not, throughout history, England has been at war with France, but not quite all the time."
“King John was fighting the French,” Louise pointed out. “I beg your pardon, ma'am, but it's true, is it not?"
“But King John was a bad king!” said Isabel, shocked.
Foreseeing the beginning of another civil war, Miss Hartwell hastened through time to Henry VII. The then Earl of Oxford had aided Henry Tudor throughout the Wars of the Roses, enduring exile for the Lancastrian cause. Safe on his throne at last, King Henry graciously paid a visit to Hedingham Castle. The earl had gathered all his retainers and dressed them in his livery, red and yellow with white star and blue boar. To honour the king on his departure, they lined the route from the castle, that very track where they were now walking.
“My lord,” said the king, “I have heard much of your hospitality, but I see that it is greater than the speech. These handsome gentlemen and yeomen which I see on both sides of me are sure your menial servants?"
“If it may please your Grace,” answered the earl, “that were not for mine ease; they are most of them my retainers, that are come to do me service at such a time as this, and chiefly to see your Grace."
“By my faith, my lord,” said the king, “I thank you for your good cheer, but I may not have my laws broken in my sight. My attorney must speak with you."
“And he fined him fifteen thousand marks,” said Miss Hartwell, “which was a very large fortune then."
“That was not fair,” cried Isabel indignantly, “after the earl helped him win the throne!"
“You see, Henry Tudor had seen the private armies of the noblemen overthrow Richard III in his favour, and he had no intention of being deposed likewise. He made a law saying no one might have more than a certain number of armed followers in livery."
“Very sensible,” approved Louise. “Only think, they might have gone on fighting each other forever, instead of the French."
Miss Hartwell could not help but wonder what would happen when she taught these two about the Civil War between Parliament and the Royalists.
They had reached the brow of the hill. On their left, a beautiful brick bridge, built in Tudor times to replace the drawbridge, crossed the dry moat. On the right stood the mansion raised a mere century ago by Robert Ashurst, who bought the castle when the de Vere line died out.
As they approached, the front door opened and Lord Pomeroy emerged, swinging a bunch of keys in one hand.
“I saw you coming,” he explained as he joined them. “Mr. Majendie has been telling me some tales of the castle's history in preparation. Did you know that Henry VII..."
“...fined the earl fifteen thousand marks for having too many soldiers,” interrupted Louise. “Was not that famous, Uncle Bertram?"
“Brat,” said his lordship. “You have spoiled my best story."
“You can blame me,” Amaryllis confessed, laughing. “I had hoped to dispose of at least part of the history lesson before you joined us. At least that is one little bit of history Louise will not forget in a hurry."
She and Bertram led the way across the bridge past the brick gatehouse. The girls gasped as they caught their first unobstructed view of the keep. It was an impressive sight, the smooth grey stone rising sheer for seventy-five feet, broken only by a few narrow windows. Louise's attention was immediately drawn by the square indentations that pockmarked the wall at regular intervals.
“Cannonball holes!” she cried with ghoulish glee.
“I think they would be round,” frowned Isabel, “an
d not so ... so precise."
“They would have smashed the wall to bits,” agreed one of the older girls.
“Quite right,” approved Miss Hartwell. “The castle was never attacked after the invention of gunpowder, and those that were, were indeed ‘smashed to bits.’ Can anyone guess what the holes were for?"
Even Lord Pomeroy looked blank.
“Mr. Majendie did not tell me that,” he complained.
“They supported the scaffolding when the castle was built. Come, let us go round the other side to the entrance."
The keep stood near the centre of a roughly circular grassy area. Only overgrown hillocks showed where the other buildings of the inner bailey had been, and the once-proud curtain wall was now an encircling mound, easily crossed by the cattle that grazed where men-at-arms had gathered for war. A stone staircase rose from the ground to the keep's arched entrance door on the first floor. They climbed up it to a landing just outside the door. Below them was a square, walled enclosure, windowless and doorless.
“There was a tower here to protect the door,” Miss Hartwell explained. “Its ground floor, below us, was an oubliette."
Again her pupils looked blank, but this time his lordship knew the answer.
“If you please, ma'am,” he said with a grin, “was that not a dungeon entered only by a trapdoor in the ceiling?"
The girls crowded to the rail and looked down with wide eyes. A heap of blown leaves covered half the floor, some dozen feet below. Over the centuries since the roof had gone, soil had accumulated and now supported a few straggling ragwort plants, their yellow heads bright in contradiction to the grim purpose of the rough walls.
“I'll wager ghosts frequent this spot,” said Lord Pomeroy with a grin.
“There are periodic reports of villagers seeing things, but no story of consistent haunting,” said Miss Hartwell with a shudder. “Let us go in.” Pausing in the doorway, she pointed out the slot in the twelve-foot-thick wall where the portcullis had been lowered from above as an extra precaution.
“I cannot imagine how King John ever captured the place,” exclaimed Louise.
They went down the wide spiral stair to the ground floor. Since there were no windows the only light came from the doorway, but to Louise's disappointment the gloom concealed only storage space. Back up they traipsed to the entrance floor, where the soldiers had lived. The windows were mere slits, enough to let in light and air and doubtless howling winter gales, but too narrow to admit missiles from outside. Miss Hartwell, expecting some pertinent comment from Louise, looked around to find she had disappeared, and Isabel with her.
“Drat the child!” she said, vexed. “Bertram ... My lord, where is your niece?"
“If I know Louise, she is back at the dungeon,” he said. “I'd wager on it. Do you go on upstairs, I shall fetch her."
The next floor, the Banqueting Hall, was two storeys high. A huge arch in the middle supported the timbered ceiling over twenty feet above. Double windows admitted enough light to see easily the richly carved stonework, the huge fireplace, and the minstrels’ gallery tunnelled into the thickness of the walls half way up between floor and ceiling.
It was in this magnificent chamber that Mr. Lewis Majendie continued the hospitable tradition of Christmas banquets and merrymaking.
Here Louise disappeared only as far as the gallery, which she declared to be “beyond anything great.” She wished Papa might be persuaded to put one in the dining-room at home.
“Can you imagine what she and her brothers would get up to?” asked Lord Pomeroy with a groan. “Fortunately there is not the least likelihood of such a thing, or I should never dine there again."
The top floor was dull in comparison. Here the de Vere family and their nobler guests had retired from the hubbub of the room below, to converse, to sleep, and probably to plot. The many curtained-off alcoves and niches provided private corners for the ladies. From the windows could be seen mile after mile of countryside, chequered green and brown, though much of the village was hidden by the nearby trees.
Turning from the view, Miss Hartwell discovered that Louise and Isabel were missing again.
“They went back to the dungeon,” reported one of the girls. “I heard them whispering."
Heaving a sigh, Miss Hartwell gathered the rest of her small flock. Lord Pomeroy gallantly offered his arm, and laying her hand upon it she started down the stair. By the time they reached the first floor, dizzy from going round and round the spiral, she was glad of the support. Only one small figure stood at the rail outside the door, leaning over in an attitude of alarm.
With an oath, his lordship strode to Isabel's side. “What the devil do you think you are doing?” he demanded of the pit, heedless of his feminine company. “Amaryllis, the little shatterbrain is down in the dungeon!"
Miss Hartwell giggled. “The very place,” she exclaimed. “I wonder I did not think, of it."
“I wanted to see what it was like,” explained Louise composedly from below. “It was easy. I just climbed over the rail and lowered myself and dropped. Only I cannot see how to climb out."
“That,” said her uncle wrathfully, “is the purpose of a dungeon!"
“What shall we do?” asked Isabel, frightened.
Miss Hartwell put her arm round the child's thin shoulders and hugged her. “Don't worry, goosecap. Lord Pomeroy will go and find one of Mr. Majendie's gardeners and bring a ladder."
“Lord Pomeroy may indeed do so,” said that gentleman. “However, Lord Pomeroy has a very good mind to take everyone else out to tea first."
Louise gazed at him in horror. “Uncle Bertram, you would not. You could not be so ... so inhuman! At the Falcon?"
“It is tempting. But Mr. Majendie's housekeeper has invited you all to tea at the house, so I believe after all I shall merely see the rest safely bestowed before I rescue you."
“And then I may have tea?"
His lordship looked at his erring niece with raised eyebrows.
“I'm very sorry, Miss Hartwell, to have caused so much trouble. Please may I have tea?” Louise begged and apologised in one breath.
“Please, ma'am?” Isabel added her voice.
Miss Hartwell laughed. “You would be very well served to have broke your leg,” she admonished, “but since you did not, I see no reason to starve you. Come, girls, let us get out of this cold wind."
“I shall wait here with Louise,” declared Isabel stoutly. “Please, ma'am?"
Amaryllis looked at her with surprised approval. Little Miss Winterborne was gaining self-confidence at last.
“If you will,” she said with a smile. “Though I beg you will not feel it necessary to join her in the dungeon to show your sympathy."
Chapter 9
Solemnly persevering, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, Isabel played the scale of C upon the pianoforte. Plink, plink, plink up the keyboard and plink, plink, plink back down to middle C. With a sigh of relief she raised her gaze to her teacher's face.
“Bravo,” said Miss Hartwell, clapping.
Isabel beamed. “My aunt will be happy to hear that I am learning to play,” she said.
“Your Papa mentioned that your aunt had advised him to send you to school.” Amaryllis seized the opening. “Is that his sister?"
“Yes, my Aunt Mary. Lady Mary Carrington. She comes to see us sometimes, but not very often. She told Papa that I must learn to be a lady, and he could not teach me himself because he is a gentleman. I heard her say that she would like to have me learn with my cousins, but Sir Archibald would not hear of it. Sir Archibald is Aunt Mary's husband."
“Perhaps your Papa had a disagreement with him. You told me once he had fallen out with all his relatives. I am glad that your aunt does not take offence."
“Yes, and Uncle George comes to visit us sometimes, too. More often than Aunt Mary. Only I should like to know my cousins, and my grandfather. Nearly all the girls here have Grandpapas, and cousins and brothers and sisters, an
d I have not even a Mama."
Amaryllis was ready to expire with curiosity about the missing Mama, but looking down at the doleful little face she realised that this was not the moment to enquire. With her arm around Isabel, she brushed aside the gingery curls and kissed her forehead.
“Your Papa loves you enough for any number of relatives,” she assured her. “And I am sure your uncle and aunt are fond of you."
“Uncle George sits me on his knee and gives me sugarplums to eat."
“Then I am perfectly certain that he holds you in great affection,” laughed Amaryllis, trying to reconcile that picture with the top-o'-the-trees Corinthian she had known. “Now back to work. I have a little tune for you to play to celebrate your scale of C."
The music lesson finished, she was on her way to her history class when Daisy called to her. Mr. Majendie's groom had delivered a note.
“'Tis from Lord Pomeroy, miss,” said the maid, suppressing a grin.
Amaryllis took it with a conscious look, impatiently thrust it into her pocket and hurried on. No doubt Bertram was proposing some quite ineligible rendezvous. Yesterday afternoon's junketing at the castle had been enough to give rise to any amount of gossip, and she could not afford to provide further food for speculation. He simply did not realise that a schoolmistress could not behave with the freedom of a viscount's daughter, nor how important the school was to her.
Pens sharpened, her pupils settled down to write an account of the history of Hedingham Castle. Judging by experience, Amaryllis knew a fascinating variety of misconceptions would surface, but for the moment all was peace. She took out Bertram's letter.
A messenger from London, from his father, had just arrived. A number of urgent matters needed attention at Tatenhill, and though the Queen's trial was in recess, the earl was not well enough to travel there and back. Bertram had already left for Tatenhill and did not know when he would be able to return. He begged her to believe that his sentiments remained unchanged, and that at a word from her he would send for her to come to Tatenhill where they might be married quietly at a moment's notice.
