"You have been in Redwall's room? Going through his things?"
"Yes, I had your mother's permission, of course. If you would like to see them, I would be happy—"
"You would be happy?" She stepped forward, and for one terrible moment, I truly believed she would strike me. I balled my fist behind my skirts and set my shoulders. If she did strike me, I would not be unprepared. "You would give me permission to look at what by rights belongs to me?"
Relieved, I put out a hand to placate her. "Miss Hilda, really, there is no need—"
"There is every need," she said, biting off each word sharply. "You are a meddlesome bitch, and the sooner you go back to London, the better."
She turned on her heel then and left me standing in the mud.
THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER
A great reckoning in a little room.
—William Shakespeare
As You Like It
After the high drama of my encounters with both Brisbane and Hilda, I lost my enthusiasm for a walk on the moor. I returned to Sir Redwall's study, determined to make some headway. I had forgot Bellmont's letter in the confusion of Portia's departure, but I retrieved it, wishing fervently that he had pledged his help. The news was not encouraging. I skimmed hastily through his lectures on my wilfulness, my stubbornness, my lack of femininity, until my eyes glazed and the words ran together on the page. It was not until the third page that he came to the point.
As to countenancing any sort of exhibition regarding Sir Redwall Allenby, I can only think that you are attempting to make a poor jest. His name is anathema in Egyptological circles, for reasons that do no credit to any scholar or gentleman. Of course, in the interests of scholarship and patrimony, the collection should be turned over at once to the British Museum, although this could well ignite a heated and insoluble round of debate regarding the provenance and current rights of ownership. The absolutely wrong thing to do would be to remove the collection in its entirety to London for appraisal and private sale before anyone can get wind of what you are about. I, naturally, would counsel against such action, particularly as any more scandal would not reflect well upon our family at this time. My eldest, Orlando, is proposing marriage to the daughter of the Duke of Driffield, and anything that could puncture his happiness is of course of the greatest concern to me.
I tossed the letter aside, vastly irritated. Bellmont had always been a pompous prig, but he usually managed to be helpful in the end. If he was busy helping Orlando court the Duke of Driffield's daughter, however, there would be no help from that quarter whatsoever. The Driffield title was an insignificant but old one, and Monty would be positively swooning at the idea of marrying his heir to Driffield's daughter. Any escapades on the part of any of the Marches at this point would be severely frowned upon. There were political hopes as well for Orlando, and I had no doubt Bellmont was keeping an eagle eye on all his wayward siblings at present.
There was nothing for it then, I decided. I would have to arrange the evaluation and sale myself, although I was vastly pleased Bellmont had dropped that little nugget of information about Redwall Allenby's disgrace in the Egyptological community. I would have to tread carefully to dispose of his collection without alerting the circles in which he had once travelled. As to what Redwall had done that was so ungentlemanly and unscholarly, I would simply have to add that question to the others tumbling in my mind.
I had just turned my hand to noting the condition of a pretty little chest painted with ibises when the door opened. I started, nearly dropping the chest. I knew Brisbane would find out soon enough what I was about, but I had been reluctant to tell him of my scheme to help the Allenby ladies. I needn't have feared. It was not Brisbane approaching softly through the gloom. It was Ailith, her slippered feet silent on the stone floor. Her expression was serene, her hands clasped loosely in front of her.
"Lady Julia. My mother told me I might find you here."
I cleared my throat and set down the little chest with infinite care. "Yes. I am cataloguing Sir Redwall's collection. Your mother is interested in placing it for sale." It seemed the most tactful way to phrase the matter.
She said nothing for a long moment, but looked around, taking in the dusty shrouds of furniture, the painted ceiling, the little notebook on my lap. She smiled then, a sad, vacant thing.
"You have one of Redwall's notebooks. He was never without one, always jotting notes, drawing little sketches in them." I said nothing and she hurried on, almost as though the words were being forced from her. "I have the others, you know."
"The others?"
"The notebooks. The ones he kept in Egypt. They might prove useful to you when you are cataloguing. He wrote about his acquisitions sometimes. Where he found them, the name of the dealer, that sort of thing."
"That would be a tremendous help. There is no provenance for many of these articles. If he kept a diary of sorts, it would at least give me a place to start."
"Come with me then, to my room. I will give them to you."
I laid aside my pencil and notebook and followed her upstairs. I had not yet seen her room, but as soon as I crossed the threshold, I realised I would have known it for hers out of any bedchamber in the house. The walls were painted a soft greyed blue, and the colour was repeated throughout the room. She had a four-poster bed hung with the same striking shade, the silk brittle and shredding. The walls were peeling in spots where the damp had seeped in, and the furniture, save a few small painted wooden pieces, was missing. It was a room that, like the lady herself, had once been extremely elegant and feminine. But time had taken its toll. I saw the fatigue here of watching the family fortunes dwindle, of isolation and loneliness. Only one object livened the room—a doll's house, large and imposing, and I realised it was the one she had told me about. Her description had been thoroughly accurate. It was a perfectly rendered replica of Grimsgrave itself.
"How lovely," I breathed, bending to see into the little rooms. It was beautifully furnished, down to the last detail, and I saw for the first time how stately the public rooms had once been with their oaken panelling and heavy carved furniture. There was even a tiny replica of the tapestry from the hall, and I squinted to make out the stitches.
"There are only flowers on the branches of the tree," Ailith explained. "The names would not fit." I noticed, though, that a crown of gold thread had been stitched at the top. Even in miniature, the royal lineage must not be forgot. I traced the branch where Ailith and her sibling had been commemorated. Three blossoms hung there and I thought at once of the unpicked place in the tapestry downstairs.
"You are clever, Lady Julia," Ailith told me. "That was my sister, Wilfreda. We do not speak of her, and I beg you not to ask Mama about her."
I stepped back, embarrassed to have caused her distress. "I am sorry. I did not mean to pry."
Ailith smiled her serene smile. "All families have skeletons in the cupboard. Some of them are bound to come tumbling out. I do not mind talking about her. The doll's house was hers, a gift from our father. When she left, I begged Mama for it. It is the only thing of hers that was not destroyed."
She paused and went to the writing table, opening the drawer. She extracted a few notebooks, identical to the one I had found in Redwall's study. "Here. I should like them back when you have done with them."
"Of course. I shall take excellent care of them, I promise."
She smiled again, this time indulgently, as an adult will to a precocious child. "I know you will. There is something else I should like you to see."
She reached into the drawer again and withdrew a photograph in a small leather frame, the sort of thing a traveller might carry. She put it into my hands and I stared at the photograph. It was of a man, dressed in travelling clothes, an exotic background behind him. It was Cairo, the minarets just visible through the latticed window. There were a few potted palms at his elbow, and a great stuffed crocodile at his feet. But it was not the props that had captured my attention. He was the most beautiful man I had
ever seen. There was an elegance, a perfection to his features that was unrivalled. The lips, beautifully moulded, were slightly curved into a smile of invitation to the viewer. The bones, carved with a master's hand, spoke of centuries of good breeding. His was the sort of face that would have been beautiful even in extreme old age. Even in death.
I turned to Ailith and she was not looking at the photograph. She was studying my reaction to it.
"A very handsome man. Your brother, I presume?" The question was unnecessary. The resemblance was profound. They might have been twins, the similarity was so great.
"That was taken in Egypt," she told me. "He had been gone from home almost thirteen years by then. He wanted us to see how he had changed. He ought to have cut his hair." I turned back to the photograph. True, his hair was overlong, curling at his collar and temples, but I understood why he had not cut it. It would have been heresy to spoil those silky locks.
"Was his colouring the same as yours?" I ventured.
"Oh, yes. The same gold hair and blue eyes. All Allenbys are the same, save for Hilda. Her colouring is so dull. You might have seen Redwall's portrait, had Mama not burned it. An excellent likeness, although I think this one is better."
I blinked at her. "Lady Allenby burned his portrait?"
Ailith retreated a little, stepping back and smoothing her cuffs. "It was an unhappy reminder to her. The artist who painted it is the man who ran away with my sister."
She had resumed her cool façade, and I knew the time for confidences was at an end. I rose and gathered up the notebooks.
To my surprise, she handed me the photograph. "You might like to keep this while you work on his things. Perhaps it will help you to remember that although he was not always a gentleman, he was always a great man."
If I was startled, I tried not to show it. The mysteries around Redwall Allenby continued to deepen, I thought as I slipped the photograph into my pocket. I moved to leave the room, then paused, my hand on the knob.
"I am truly sorry for your loss, Miss Allenby. I know what it is to love a brother, and I can only imagine how difficult this has been for you." As much thought as I had given to drowning my brothers when we were children, I would have been bereft at the loss of any of them. Even Bellmont.
She inclined her head, and did not reply.
* * *
Perhaps it was all the talk of loss and regret, but I felt the atmosphere of the house was thick with ghosts that afternoon, and I hurried from Grimsgrave and across the moor to the one place I knew could soothe my restlessness.
Rosalie opened the door as I smoothed my windblown skirts. She had tied a bright patchwork apron about her waist and was holding a spoon.
"I hope I have not disturbed you," I began.
She waved me inside. "I was working in my stillroom. Come, lady."
She beckoned me to follow her through a tiny door into a room no bigger than a pocket handkerchief. It was lined with shelves, each neatly stacked with dark glass bottles, closely stoppered and labelled with names like Syrup of Poppy and Remedy for a Toothache. There were jars of unpleasant-looking, desiccated things and bunches of herbs and grasses hanging in plaits from the beams, so low they brushed our shoulders as we moved.
There were cans of oils for making her embrocations, tins of powders, and a very fine set of scales. Bowls for mixing, various wooden implements, and a wickedly sharp knife marked with the initials RY were tidily arranged to be close at hand. The knife was a pretty thing, but no lady's trinket. I touched a finger to the carved initials and wondered what exotic second name her parents had given her. Yolanda? Yasmine? I moved on to peruse the rest of the shelves as Rosalie took down a bottle and a sturdy stoneware bowl. She retrieved a tin of goose fat, an assortment of bones and motioned for me to hand her a small, pointed silver spoon and the knife marked with her initials. She drew it from its sheath, exposing a long, sawlike blade. I pulled a face as I looked at the macabre collection.
"Today I am to mix St. Hildegard's ointment," she told me.
I leaned over her shoulder to watch her work.
"St. Hildegard's," she said, drawing me around to stand next to her. "This is an ointment for swollen joints. It soothes rheumatisms. The receipt is a very old one. It is from Germany, and it is very specific."
Through the course of the next half hour, she never referred to a book or scribbled bit of paper. The receipt had been committed to memory, and I watched carefully as she assembled the mixture. She measured by the palmful, four parts gin to two parts goose fat to two parts deer marrow. Extracting the marrow was the most tedious part, requiring patience and no small skill in order to keep the mixture free of bone slivers. It was messy work and the smell was appalling, but she seemed pleased with the salve she produced.
"Now, for this to work, it must be rubbed firmly into the swollen joints. The rheumatic must sit in front of an elmwood fire. Raw quince is the best food for drawing out the pain of rheumatism, but if that is not to taste, then a pudding or pie of quince or even quince wine will work as well."
She spooned the salve into a fresh jar and sealed it. Together we tidied up the stillroom and as we worked, I ventured a question.
"Rosalie, Miss Ailith has told me of the customs of the moor. Have you ever heard the bell that tolls under Grimswater?"
To my surprise, she smiled. "I would have thought you immune to village superstitions, Lady Julia."
I shrugged. "This superstition is not confined to the village. The folk at Grimsgrave claim to have heard it."
"What makes you think the Allenbys are any more sensible than the villagers? They have been here for too long. It is not good for the blood of a family to be unmixed. They have dwelt here on this moor, marrying their cousins and producing beautiful children for a thousand years. They ought to have travelled, married fresh blood and learned a little of the world."
"Sir Redwall travelled," I pointed out. "He went to Egypt."
She tipped her head, her bright gaze searching my face. Then she smiled. "No, lady. I do not mean only the travelling that takes a man into a new country. I mean the travelling that takes a man into a new place here." She touched her heart lightly. "Too many Englishmen go to a new country and bring with them the same clothes, the same tea, the same food, the same books. They try to bring England itself with them, and then they are dissatisfied when they are foreigners in a foreign land."
"True enough," I admitted, "but Gypsies marry their own and keep their own ways, in spite of their travels."
"When have your kind ever wanted to share our ways?" she asked without rancour.
"I suppose you are correct. I should be quite hopeless at that sort of thing. What I know of Sir Redwall suggests a man who would like his comforts. But I wonder what caused him to leave Grimsgrave and venture abroad when no one else in his family had ever done so. Was it purely the love of Egyptology?"
"Who can say? It was a difficult time in the village, and the Allenbys were not very popular just then."
"The village?" I prompted.
"Those who do not farm here used to work the mines. Lead mostly, a little silver. The last mine on Allenby land played out shortly before Sir Redwall left. Folk did not take it well when he closed the mine and refused to survey for another vein. He ought to have paid for someone to look properly, but he would not. He claimed he had no money, then left for Egypt, sending back a stream of expensive artefacts. He was not received warmly when he returned."
"What happened?"
"He were pelted with rotten eggs when he came, and folk chased him from the village clear out onto the moor, throwing stones and threatening him."
I stared at her, aghast. "Their own benefactor?" I could scarcely fathom it. The relationship between the largest house in the area and the country folk was a throwback to the feudal age, with protection in difficult times and opportunities for work provided by the big house, and strong backs and willing workers provided by the villagers. It was astonishing to me that the relationsh
ip could have broken down so completely at Grimsgrave, but then northerners had a reputation for the sort of independence southerners would never countenance.
She shrugged again. "He denied them work, took food from their children's mouths. He was no benefactor to them. When he closed the mine and refused to survey for another, it caused a great deal of suffering. The estate began to fail, and he sold off some of the farms. He turned out the farmhands, sending them back to their homes, and sent the maids home as well. Many of those young people had depended upon their wages at Grimsgrave Hall to sustain entire families with their fathers out of work and younger brothers and sisters to feed. But the Allenby fortunes were in decline. Sir Redwall had spent himself into oblivion, and when he realised what he had done, he turned his face to the wall and died."
I thought of the handsome, charismatic face in the photograph and shook my head. "It seems impossible," I murmured.
"Do not think a handsome face may not hide a weak will," Rosalie advised me. I thought of my late husband and was forced to agree.
"What of his sister?" I asked suddenly. "The one who eloped with the portrait painter? Miss Ailith told me of her this afternoon. She made her escape from here."
"Did she? No one knows what became of her. She simply disappeared one night. Yes, the painter left as well, but was he forced to leave? Did he abduct the girl? Or did either of them ever leave that house alive?"
I stared at her, not quite comprehending. "Are you suggesting there has been murder done at Grimsgrave Hall?"
She smiled her enigmatic smile. "I suggest nothing. But Grimsgrave Hall is a house of secrets, and there will be no peace there until every one of them is brought into the light of day."
* * *
It was late when I left her, the shadows lengthening on the moor, the sun sinking below the horizon in a blaze of red and gold. I watched the sunset for just a moment, tearing myself away from the magnificent display when I remembered how long a walk still lay before me across the chilly moor. I set off toward Grimsgrave Hall, but I had not gone more than a dozen steps before I turned back. I stood very still, uncertain of what I had heard. And then, as the brisk moor wind rose, I heard the unmistakable sound of a bell, tolling low and mournful beneath the black waves of Grimswater.
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