Katherine responded with a short laugh and a decisive shake of her head. “Thank you, but no. In fact, you needn’t trouble yourself any further on my account, Lord Charles. I am quite capable of descending a staircase, I assure you.”
“Ah, but it’s my staircase,” he reminded her. “And as your father, who had knowledge of the staircase, assuming it exists and is not a convenient fiction for a gothic novel, described it as ‘peculiar’, I don’t feel it would suit my responsibilities as householder to allow a guest under my roof to chance that staircase alone and unescorted.” He stopped and extended his hand to her. “Come, Miss Rose,” he said. “Let’s declare a partnership. We will seek out, open and descend this peculiar staircase together. Do we have a deal?”
After a moment, Katherine took his hand and shook it. “We have a deal,” she said, with a reluctant smile. Her smile faded into a frown and she turned and continued on toward the manor. “I hope Jack is all right,” she said.
“Tell me about this novel,” Charles suggested. He hoped to distract her concerns about her brother’s condition, which she could not as yet do anything about.
“Oh, it’s quite absurd,” Katherine said. “And yet I think it is entertaining. Our heroine is a rich and titled orphan in a faraway land. Castle Thunderclap is her property, you see. But a forged codicil to her father’s will gave her guardianship into the hands of the villainous Baron de la Tour. He hopes to marry her to gain access to her wealth and land, first by persuasion and then by compulsion. And she, the silly ninny, takes an unconscionable length of time to recognize the Baron’s villainy. I frequently felt the urge to abandon the silly goose to her fate, only then of course there would be no book to sell.”
“And that would never do,” Charles agreed.
“Fortunately,” Katherine continued, “there is a stalwart stable boy who is a prince in disguise, and after hair-raising adventures the villain receives his comeuppance and the hero and heroine declare their love for one another and presumably live happily ever after.”
“But of course they do,” Charles said.
They were approaching the house through the gardens, and Charles led them to the kitchen door. The kitchen was deserted, the staff being occupied with the picnic in the lower pasture. Katherine would have passed through to the front of the house, but Charles called her back.”Just a moment here,” he said.
Puzzled, Katherine waited, while Charles looked through cupboards. When he joined her at the door, she saw that he had a tinderbox and a bundle of candles. “If we do find this stair, it will be dark and the cave it leads to dark as well,” Charles said. “Best to be prepared.”
“Oh, good thinking!” she said approvingly.
“Where do we go next?” he asked.
“The long gallery,” Katherine said, leading the way. As they went up the broad stairs, she added, “Did you know it was a whispering gallery? I noticed that when we came to dinner.”
“No, I didn’t know,” Charles said. “No one told me that.”
“Perhaps they don’t know themselves,” Katherine suggested. “After all, the Purvises have the most tenure, and they’ve only been here twenty years.”
Charles smiled at that. Only twenty years. A rural way of thinking indeed.
They were at the long gallery now, walking the length of it toward the dining room. “Where is the entrance?” Charles asked.
“Shh!” said Katherine impatiently. She reached the door to the dining room, but rather than enter, she turned around and stood lost in thought.
Charles bore it patiently for a few moments, then asked, “What are we doing?”
“I don’t know what you are doing,” Katherine said, “but I am thinking.”
“Oh. Carry on.”
“Euphonia leaves the feast,” Katherine said, working her way through her memory of the plot. “The courier has just brought the news of the death of Prince Alfonso. He was a hero to his people and though they had never met, she felt a deep attachment to him. Heartsick, she can’t bear the sound of revelry and leaves her seat on the raised dais and goes out to the gallery.” Katherine pointed dramatically down the hall. “She hears the evil Baron making plans with his vile lackey and at last realizes the danger she is in!” She added in a more normal tone, “And not a moment too soon, the silly goose.”
Charles listened with a slight smile.
“Hist!” Katherine exclaimed. “The Baron comes this way! Euphonia darts into a handy niche.” She looked around and sure enough, a wall niche stood beside the dining room door. Katherine leaped into it.
“I can see you, you know,” Charles said.
“That’s because you don’t have large priceless Chinese porcelain vases in your niches,” Katherine said.
“Sorry.” He was enjoying this reenactment. It showed a side of Miss Rose that he’d had no notion of.
“The Baron walks by. Tromp tromp tromp,” Katherine said. “The coast is clear! Euphonia leaves the niche and hurries down the gallery. She passes one niche, and another and then another…”
She came to a halt between two niches. “Here!” she said with satisfaction.
“Okay, now what?” Charles asked.
Katherine looked over the wall, examining the wainscoting. She felt along the decorative detailing, counting with her fingers before sliding her fingers into a groove in the detail, and pressing down firmly. Then she kicked at the baseboard.
Charles almost laughed, but before he could do so there was a clicking sound and the section of wainscoting lifted up and inward, displaying a hatch of roughly a yard square.
Katherine gave a cry of delight just short of hysteria. “It’s here! It’s really here!” she exclaimed.
She pushed at the newly revealed door and peered into the darkness.
“Wait a moment,” Charles advised. “It’s time for candles now.” Quickly, he lit two candles and handed one to Katherine. “Now we can go.” He ducked down and entered the aperture, stepping onto a stone landing. Katherine joined him. Together, they held up their candles and looked around in wonder.
“I’ll never laugh about the implausibility of gothic novels ever again,” Katherine promised.
“We do seem to have stepped inside of one,” Charles agreed.
They stood on a stone landing surrounded by walls of stone. A worn stairway lead downward alongside the wall of the gallery.
“We go down?” Charles asked.
“We go down,” she confirmed.
Lord Charles leading, they proceeded down the staircase that descended to a landing, turned back on itself and went down to another landing, switching back and forth as it led down along one wall of the manor.
After descending several flights, with Katherine counting under her breath behind him, Charles said, “It is interesting to learn that I have a hidden staircase in my house, but I can’t say that I find it peculiar. In houses of this age, it was fairly common, what with the wars and unrest and perhaps requiring a secret bolt hole…”
“Wait!” said Katherine.
Charles turned and saw that she had stopped on the landing above him. She was facing the wall and counting off stones, first from the bottom and then from the corner. She counted to a specific stone and pushed heavily. There was a groaning sound and a segment of the wall moved back. Katherine pushed harder, and Charles ran up the stairs to assist her.
“What the devil?” he asked.
Katherine gestured down the staircase. “That stair leads to a large cellar with no outlet,” she said. “At least in the novel it does. THIS – “ gesturing through the newly revealed opening, “ this is the stair to the cave.”
“So the hidden staircase has a hidden staircase,” Charles marveled. “All right, I admit, that is peculiar.”
They eased their way through the new opening and stood on a landing of a stair that went straight down. The scent of soil wafted up to them. “Watch your step,” Charles said. “This stair seems more worn. I wonder why it’s here?”
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As they proceeded cautiously downward, Katherine said, “In the novel, the country was so turbulent that such hidden passages were only prudent. Greymere dates to the Tudor era, and I believe the original owner was in and out of favor with the crown.”
Charles nodded. “And that was a time when the country went from Catholic to Protestant, back to Catholic and then back to Protestant in the space of a few decades, with burning on tap for those who stubbornly held to the wrong faith.”
Finally the stairway came to an end. They found themselves in a tunnel, with rock walls and ancient wooden beams.
“A mine, sure enough,” Charles said.
“Jack!” Katherine called. “Jack, are you there? Can you hear me?”
She made is if to dart down the tunnel, but Charles held her back. “Wait a moment,” he cautioned. “Let’s leave a candle here. It won’t help Jack if we find him but lose our way back.”
Accordingly, they affixed a lit candle to the bottom step and then proceeded cautiously down the tunnel.
EIGHTEEN
Something was amiss. Mister Downey didn’t know what it was, but he had observed the little party heading off into the woods, and now he saw Goode and Flite return and approach other working men, whispering urgently to them. Flite said something to Blake the estate carpenter, who jumped to his feet and hurried off.
Flite followed, passing near Downey, who called to him, “Mister Flite.”
The workman halted, instinctively deferring to the vicar. “Yes, sir?” he said, removing his cap.
“What’s happening, man?” Downey asked.
“Oh, sir, it’s a cave-in!” said Flite. “Young Master Rose is trapped underground and that captain from Greymere is a-telling us how to dig him out.”
Downey’s eyes widened. “I see,” he said. “Don’t let me keep you.”
With a brief nod, Flite hurried off.
Mister Downey looked over the picnic grounds. He could see the exciting information spreading from table to table, amid exclamation and astonishment. Someone was needed to manage this situation before it got out of hand.
Looking around, he caught Miss Mason’s eye and gestured to her. She walked toward him, curious. “Mister Downey? What is going on?”
“There has been a cave-in and Jack Rose is trapped,” the vicar told her curtly.
Amanda clapped a hand to her mouth. “Gracious! What is to be done?”
“The task of extracting the lad is already underway and in more competent hands than ours,” he told her. “I feel it is up to us to manage the situation here. If left to their own devices, most of these good people would find their way to the site of the cave-in and get in the way of the rescue efforts; I will make it my task to keep them from doing that. You, if you would, might take charge of the Rose ladies, Miss Alice and Miss Helen. Miss Katherine is with the rescuers. If you could break the news to them and get them to a quiet place and soothe their natural anxiety…”
“What!” a voice exclaimed. “Jack!” It was Helen Rose.
Amanda grimaced. “Sounds as if breaking the news has already occurred, but I’ll do what I can.”
She sped away toward the Rose ladies, and Mister Downey looked over the scene. As he expected, there was a movement toward the woods in back of the pasture. Moving quickly, he placed himself in front of the moving crowd and held up his hands.
“Good people!” His pulpit-trained voice carried easily over the crowd, which gradually hushed to hear him. “I’m sure by now you’ve all heard that there is a rescue going on further out into these woods,” Mister Downey said. “Naturally, you wish to go and assist.”
Some in the crowd shuffled their feet, abashed. Their motives had been more to stare and exclaim than to assist.
Mister Downey continued, “But the rescue party is recruiting those with skills that will be useful, and the rest of you, well-intentioned though you undoubtedly are, would only serve to get in the way. I must ask you, therefore, to either remain here at the picnic grounds or return to your homes, but not to go to the site of the cave-in. If your expertise is needed, you will be sought out.”
For a moment, the matter hung in the balance. On the one hand, deferring to the guidance of Vicar was ingrained habit among the residents of Piddledean. But on the other hand, past him in the woods stirring events were taking place, the likes of which had not been seen in many a year, and a first-hand knowledge of those events would give one conversational fodder for years to come.
Then Ellis the innkeeper stepped up beside the vicar and turned around to face the crowd. “You heard Vicar,” he called out. “If ye’re needed, you’ll be asked. Stay out of them there woods.” Ellis gestured to a man in the crowd. “Hey there, Bob,” he called. “Take the cart back to the inn and bring us up another barrel, right?”
The prospect of free beer turned the tide. The crowd facing the vicar and the publican began to disperse. Ellis called out, “Bill, Geordy, you fellows wait.” The two men turned back and rejoined them. “Me and the lads will guard the pass here,” he said to Downey. “You can go see to those pore ladies.”
“Thank you!” the vicar said, shaking Ellis’ hand. “I’m not sure I could have held the crowd without your assistance.” He hurried off to find Miss Mason and the Roses.
Katherine and Charles made their way down the tunnel. Occasionally, a smaller tunnel would branch off from the main tunnel. The first time, they stopped and Charles examined the tunnel entrance. “No one has been here,” he concluded. Gesturing down the main way, he added, “And this is still moving in the direction of the outer entrance.”
“It is?” Katherine asked in astonishment. “Are you sure? I have no notion which direction we’re going, the stairs turned so.”
“I have quite a good sense of direction,” Charles assured her. “A critical skill for a soldier when moving in the night. We’re about half a mile from the tunnel’s entrance.”
He looked back and added, “And we’re almost out of sight of our first candle, so here we should leave another one.” He suited action to words, and affixed another lit candle in their path to guide the way back.
Katherine shivered as they continued on their way. Charles said sympathetically, “Cold?” It was chilly underground.
“A bit,” Katherine admitted, “but more frightened, I think.”
“Too soon for that,” Charles said in a heartening voice. “Recall that Han heard Jack’s voice after the cave-in.” So he said, but to himself he admitted cause for concern. If Jack were bleeding, or there was a crushing wound… They’d deal with that when it came. Aloud, he asked Katherine about her father and the Mrs. Wilson novels. Keep her mind off her terrors, he thought.
Whether from nerves or from the relief of a long-held secret revealed, Katherine found herself babbling. The entire story came pouring out, from the old mystery of Papa’s Clever Investment that saved the family home, to Papa’s death and the mysterious income source, all about what Katherine discovered about Uncle Harry, and Grimey and Rosey and their scheme to create Mrs. Wilson.
Charles listened with astonishment. Finally he said, “And you told no one of all this.”
“No one,” Katherine admitted. “Perhaps that seems foolish to you. But it seemed to me that if I could manage on my own, there was no need to burden the others with information that would only serve to worry them.”
Charles thought for a moment and then said carefully, “Miss Rose, you are as brave as any soldier I’ve ever met. But no one soldier, however brave and capable, is by himself an entire army.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Katherine said. “And I know I must tell Helen and Aunt Alice sometime. This year’s novel is completed, but the excuse of curating Papa’s papers is wearing thin. Before I begin next year’s book, I must introduce them to Mrs. Wilson.”
“Next year’s book?” Charles asked.
“Yes,” Katherine said with a sigh. “I see no way around it. I must be Mrs. Wilson now.”
“Oh, but – “ Charles began.
He was interrupted. Katherine seized his arm. “Did you hear that?!” she said.
They both fell silent, listening intently. And then Charles thought he heard a faint voice in the distance.
“Yes!” he said. “This way!”
They hurried down the tunnel.
“Jack!” Katherine called.
Faintly, they heard an answer. “Kitty? Is that you?”
“It is!” she shouted. “We’re coming, Jack!”
She wanted to run, but Charles held her to a brisk walk. “If you sprain your ankle, I won’t be able to carry both of you,” he reminded her.
Jack’s voice told them they were getting nearer and finally the faint candle light showed them a crumbled object on the floor of the tunnel. The bundle moved and resolved itself into Katherine’s brother, covered with dust and looking woebegone.
“Jack!” Katherine raced to his side. “Are you hurt?”
“I can’t get up,” the boy said with a groan. “My leg. And my wrist.”
Charles joined them and knelt beside Jack. He examined the boy and said, “The leg is broken, that’s certain. The wrist might be a sprain. Put your good arm around my neck and I’ll carry you back.”
Now they were hurrying back the way they came. Jack was in a great deal of pain and moaned at the movement. “I’m sorry,” Charles said, “I know this must hurt but there’s no other way.”
After a few moments, the moans ceased. Katherine, hurrying at Charles’ side carrying the candles to light the way, said in alarm, “Jack?”
Charles said, “Hush. He’s fainted. It would be best if he didn’t come around until we were back in the house.”
Katherine nodded and held her peace. She feared that Jack’s injuries might be more severe than they realized. As they proceeded, she collected the candles they left to light their way and that seemed to assure her of progress, though the return through the darkened tunnel seemed to take forever.
Katherine, When She Smiled Page 19
