A Mysterious Season

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  She gave him a thin-lipped smile. “It means the ghosts have decided to welcome you to Thorncross.”

  * * *

  “The woman is mad enough to be related to us,” Plum said when she had gone.

  “I think it’s great fun,” I pronounced. “Anyone can have a plain country house. We have one with ghosts.”

  “Rather more than your fair share,” Portia pointed out.

  Brisbane was silent a moment, but I recognised this as a pondering silence. At length he ventured a question, half to himself. “What sort of ghost needs to drug the living?”

  “The vengeful sort,” Plum replied in a sepulchral tone.

  “Don’t be an ass,” I told him. I turned to my husband. “Clearly, they don’t. So, we have a human enemy.”

  “Would we call it an enemy?” Portia asked. “After all, Plum and I were the only ones affected, and if I’m honest, I’ve seldom had a better night’s sleep. A true enemy would have bashed our heads in with the likes of one of those maces,” she finished with a nod to the armour.

  “But still a human acting against us,” Brisbane stressed. “Why and to what purpose?”

  “We are the new owners of the estate. We are an unknown quantity,” I told him. “The village must rely upon the house for much of its welfare. Without knowing us, the local folk cannot be certain we mean to keep employing them and continue the traditions of the area.”

  “So they attack us?” Plum asked, a little affronted.

  I shrugged. “Such a thing could send us packing if we were nervous types.”

  “I rather think the opposite,” Brisbane said slowly.

  “What do you mean, dearest?”

  But he merely waved a hand. “Nothing. It’s murky yet and I’ve not enough information to theorise. What have you planned today?”

  I looked around the table. “I think we ought to go to the village. We shall divide and conquer. Each of us will take a local institution—the church, the pub, the post office, the smithy—and we will make ourselves known.”

  Plum snorted. “Julia, it is hardly done for the children of an earl to call upon the village blacksmith.”

  “All the more reason,” I said, fixing him with a look that told him I would brook no refusal. “But first, to the nursery.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When I entered the nursery, Little Jack was just finishing his breakfast and Morag wiped his chin. “That’s my fair wee lad,” she crooned. “Eating up all your porridge to grow strong as your papa.”

  Papa. I knew she meant Brisbane and not the man who had actually fathered him, Black Jack Brisbane. It was odd to think of Little Jack as Brisbane’s half-brother, but the resemblance between them was marked in spite of the difference of their years. Brisbane might bear his Gypsy mother’s black eyes, but he and the boy shared their father’s ebony hair and strong features. Even blurred by the softness of babyhood, Little Jack’s face was a handsome one. He would grow to be a credit to his family, I swore for the thousandth time. And he would be happy, as his own parents could never make him.

  As soon as he caught sight of me he waved his plump little arms. “Mumumumumum,” he chanted. Whether that would soon turn to “Mama” was anyone’s guess. But his rosy cheeks were wreathed in smiles as he reached for me. I took him up and cuddled him close.

  “Good morning, darling boy. Have you been good for Morag?”

  “Mumumumumumum,” he answered, shoving my knuckles into his mouth.

  “He’ll be working a tooth soon,” Morag said with a sage nod.

  “I should think so,” I agreed, although the intricacies of infant dentistry eluded me. He dropped his head onto my neck, rubbing his downy hair against my skin.

  “Mumumumumum,” he babbled again.

  “Morag,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “you might hear a bit of talk from the village servants,” I began.

  “About the ghosts?” she asked, her eyes narrowed. “They can keep well clear of my nursery,” she said, drawing herself up. “I’ll not have anyone disturbing the little master, dead or otherwise.”

  I smiled. “I know he is in excellent hands.”

  “Better than yours,” she muttered. “Look out before you drop him.”

  Wriggly as an otter, he had managed to turn himself entirely around and nearly flung himself to the floor. I tightened my grip and he began to howl. Morag lifted him swiftly out of my arms. “He doesn’t like to be squeezed.”

  “How else am I supposed to keep him from falling?” I asked, a touch waspishly.

  But Morag’s expression softened. “There’s some that has a way with babies, and some that doesn’t. When he’s walking and talking, when he can ask questions and needs the answers, you’ll be the finest mum a lad could have.”

  I felt a sharp stab of emotion and stifled it. “Do you really think so?”

  “Well, if not, we’re all buggered,” she replied.

  “Language!” I darted a glance at Little Jack, but he was too busy grasping his own toes to pay us any attention.

  She said nothing, but I knew from the thinning of her lips that she regretted her outburst. The fact that she had spent some twenty years as a prostitute before entering my Aunt Hermia’s reformatory meant that she occasionally lapsed into the language of the street. I had learnt to overlook her colourful vocabulary, but I would just as soon not have Little Jack adopting it.

  I gave her a repressive look and took my leave of them with a light heart. For all her faults, Morag was loyal unto death and would protect the baby even if it cost her life’s blood. Whatever was afoot, going bump in the night, it would never get the better of Morag.

  * * *

  We made a happy quartet as we trod the path to Narrow Wibberley. We might have taken a carriage, but the day was bright and crisp, the russet leaves rustling underfoot as we walked. Mrs. Smith had pointed out that the path to the village was the most direct route, taking a mile off from the main road, although of course she added a warning:

  “The path cuts right through the Haunted Wood,” she said, gesturing vaguely to the copse of trees sheltering the path. But I was in no mood to humour her dolourous whims. The path was well-marked and the little wood was nothing more than a stand of trees stretching from the edge of the Thorncross gardens to the village boundary. As we approached the village, we heard shrieks and screams of the most violent sort, but a quick appraisal of the situation revealed no more alarming event than some sort of brutal country game in progress on the green. A host of well-formed, enormous young men were taking part, pitting their strength and wiles against each other in a time-honoured contest.

  As we skirted the green, the lads touched their forelocks, reluctant to continue. We hurried on our way so as not to disrupt them, separating as we had planned. I was rather surprised to find anyone in the post office, but at the counter a stout middle-aged woman was busy counting out change to an elderly woman in rusty black.

  “Oh, my,” she said as I approached. “You’m with the new folk up the house,” she said with a friendly smile. I returned it.

  “Yes, I am Lady Julia Brisbane. My husband and I are the new owners of the manor.”

  The elderly woman bobbed a creaky curtsy and fled as if the seven devils of hell were after her, but the postmistress merely widened her smile. “And you’ve come to the village for your custom, have you? I call that neighbourly. Most folk would have kept to London ways. Will you be ordering from the shop?” she asked with a shrewd nod to the building next door. “Only it’s my sister’s and she could do with a bit of extra trade.”

  “Of course,” I assured her. “We mean to employ as many of the local folk as possible, and naturally we will do our ordering in the village.”

  She nodded. “That is indeed neighbourly. What might I do for you, my lady?�
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  I brandished a letter I had dashed off to Father for an excuse to call in at the post office.

  She glanced at the address and nearly dropped it. “I never touched a letter to an earl before.”

  “I imagine it costs the same as the others,” I ventured helpfully.

  She collected her wits and sold me a stamp, taking the letter away with a reverential air. When she returned, she took my money and counted out the change, making certain it was correct to the ha’penny.

  “You know, my lady, you’ve many of the village lads working up the manor. Any of them would bring your post down. There’s no need for a lady like yourself to call in person.”

  “But how else are we to meet the people who live in Narrow Wibberley if we do not come into the village?”

  This perplexed her. “Why should you want to meet us?”

  “Because my husband and I mean to make our country home at the manor. I know we could keep apart from the village, but that is not my father’s way at his home in the country, nor is it mine.”

  Her lips worked silently as she digested this morsel of information. I extended my hand. “I do not believe you told me your name.”

  She wiped her perfectly clean hand upon her skirt and took mine with deference. “It’s Mrs. Ninch, my lady.”

  “Mrs. Ninch. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  From behind me came a male voice. “And another of the manor family graces us with her presence! This one even more charming than the other.” I turned to find an extremely handsome young man in clerical garb smiling down at me. “I am the vicar, Mr. Belton. I have just been making the acquaintance of your sister, I believe. Lady Bettiscombe?”

  “Yes,” I said, putting out my hand. “I am Lady Julia Brisbane. Lady Bettiscombe is indeed my sister. How do you do, Mr. Belton?”

  His hand lingered over mine. “Very well indeed,” he said, his voice warm and marked approval twinkling in his eyes. He glanced to the postmistress. “Now, Mrs. Ninch, I do hope you haven’t been filling Lady Julia’s head with superstitious nonsense about the local ghosts,” he said.

  She bristled. “I’ve not said a word to the lady of such things.”

  He gave a nod of approbation. “I am glad to hear it. There is far too much of such talk going around the village these days. And I am at fault myself,” he said with a confiding smile. “I believe I quite alarmed your sister with my silly tales.”

  “Then you do not know my sister,” I returned. He laughed, and I saw that he had very good teeth, even and white. His laughter was merry, and I found myself smiling.

  “I observed your party coming from the Haunted Wood,” he said, pitching his voice low. “I am particularly glad Mrs. Ninch said nothing to you of that place, for it is a most convenient shortcut from the manor to the village, and I shouldn’t like you to be made uncomfortable.”

  “But why should I be uncomfortable?” I ventured.

  He leaned closer, his posture one of intimacy, and I caught a whiff of expensive scent, a masculine concoction of bay rum and leather. It was deliciously heady stuff, and I very nearly asked him what it was so I could buy Brisbane a bottle. “Well, there are folk who say the wood is haunted by ghostly lights—the spirits of witches who used to hold their pagan rites within the shelter of those very trees before they were driven out and hanged on the village green.”

  Something about his familiarity grated in spite of his good looks.

  “Lights? Is that all?” I smiled sweetly. “I’m afraid your local ghosts will have to do a good deal better than that if they mean to frighten us.”

  I turned to Mrs. Ninch and inclined my head. “Good day, Mrs. Ninch. Vicar.” I gave him a quick nod as well and emerged from the post office into the warm autumn sunshine. And behind me, the vicar laughed.

  * * *

  Portia caught me up just as I stepped away from the post office. “Was that the vicar I saw you chatting with?” she asked. “Did he tell you about the plague cottages?”

  “Plague cottages? No, he said the Haunted Wood is home to ghostly lights—the remnants of witches hanged on the village green. What plague cottages?”

  Portia pointed to a narrow row of cottages at the edge of the village, hovering just at the end of the path through the wood. “Those. Haunted by the ghosts of folk who died of the plague. When they first fell ill, the rest of the villagers boarded them in without food or medical care to keep the contagion from spreading. They were too ill to break their way out and when the villagers eventually removed the boards, they found scratches on them where the victims had tried to claw their way free.”

  I shuddered. “I should haunt them too if they did such to me. So, you have plague cottages and I have ghostly lights. I wonder what tales our menfolk have collected?”

  As it happened, we did not have long to find out. Brisbane emerged from the smithy with a story about a phantom phaeton that drove across the village green with its lanterns hanging ghostly green fire, and Plum related from the publican the story of an enormous black dog that roamed the neighbourhood to presage an untimely death.

  “Mad as hatters,” Plum pronounced.

  “It isn’t a bad strategy,” Brisbane mused. “Folk love a good ghost story. This village is off the beaten path by miles. It might have been prosperous once, but the railway is the other side of the valley. The smith told me this village used to be called simply Wibberley and its twin across the valley was East Wibberley. When they came through to survey for the railway, they discovered this bit was simply too narrow, so they built on the other side, and East Wibberley began to grow so much they started calling themselves Greater Wibberley. The whole affair must have been a blow to this place,” he said, glancing around. “Look at the church. It’s entirely too large and too costly for the number of people who live here now. Fortunes have declined, and if the last owner of the manor was a reclusive old gentleman who entertained only a little, even their dependence on the manor would have left them in want. So they stir up their phantom stories in hopes word will get around and people will come and spend a coin or two. I cannot blame them,” he finished.

  “Nor can I,” I said firmly. “We must do whatever we can to help them. Perhaps after we’ve spent a haunted season here, we can spread the word amongst our fashionable friends. Surely we know someone interested in supernatural phenomena. We might get some Spiritualists down here, that sort of thing,” I said, warming to my theme.

  “Yes, and the first thing you ought to ask them is where did all the people go?” Plum put in. I looked about the village and realised he was entirely correct. Everyone in Narrow Wibberley had vanished.

  * * *

  We made our way back to the manor to change for luncheon, but instead we encountered our next bit of “spiritual” phenomena. In our bedchamber, the enormous four-poster Tudor bed had been moved across the room. I rang for Mrs. Smith.

  “Ghosts,” she pronounced smartly.

  “Ghosts,” I echoed. “You don’t think spirits would have anything better to do with their time than rearrange our furniture?”

  “The ways of the dead are mysterious,” she said. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be getting on with overseeing the preparations for luncheon.”

  She left and I looked to Brisbane, spreading my hands. “What do you make of that?”

  He shrugged. “Clearly it wasn’t ghosts who shifted the bed. There’s the mark of a footprint—a rather enormous boot by the look of it,” he noted, pointing to a gouge in the high polish of the floorboards.

  “So, someone came in and moved our bed for their own amusement?”

  “It’s the country,” he pointed out. “Country people have curious pastimes.”

  Before I could remonstrate with him, he grinned. “Julia, it’s clearly a scheme of some sort. They fill our heads with ludic
rous tales of phantoms and wraiths. They move things about to make us think we’re being haunted.”

  I blinked. “You think they’re all doing it?”

  “Well, it would certainly take more than Mrs. Smith to shift that bed,” he said reasonably. “And four different villagers talked to us of spectral happenings. I should think half the neighbourhood is involved, if not more.”

  I tipped my head thoughtfully. “I wonder if the lads from the village green disappeared because they knew we were away from the manor and it seemed a good time to move our bed?”

  “I shouldn’t wonder if they did.”

  I considered a moment. “If you think of it like that, there’s something almost endearing about it—everyone contributing a bit to haunting us. It’s quite sweet, really.”

  He grimaced. “Depending upon the motive.”

  “Surely you don’t suspect something nefarious!” I protested.

  “I don’t know what to think yet,” he temporised. “But for whatever reason these people have put their minds to creating an elaborate pretense of a haunted village for our benefit.”

  “Do you think they mean to drive us away? Perhaps they resent Londoners coming in, strangers who might upset the apple cart.”

  “No, I think it likelier they mean to keep us intrigued.” He smiled again. “Your reputation undoubtedly precedes you.”

  I bristled. “I am not that curious!”

  “You are curious as any cat, my love, and if you don’t mind, I think I’ll nap a bit before luncheon.”

  “Whatever for? Are you ailing?” I asked, a trifle anxiously. Brisbane had a robust sort of energy one usually associated with peasants or well-bred farm animals.

  “No, but I know my wife. And she will not let me sleep tonight when there are ghosts afoot on All Hallow’s Eve,” he said, dropping a kiss to my nose. And of course he was right.

  * * *

  I myself took a long nap after luncheon. I had not planned it, but between the excellence—and generous portions—of the meal, and a library stocked with my favourite titles and an exceedingly comfortable sofa, I whiled away the afternoon in slumber, rousing only for teatime. Mrs. Smith kept the household running so smoothly I had no need to lift the smallest of fingers. It left me free to write letters and read and play with Little Jack, and by the time we had dined and prepared ourselves for the evening’s entertainments, I was rested and relaxed as I had seldom been.