The Heir to Evercrest Hall

by Andrea M. Theobald

  I struggled to release myself out of all the blankets to rise out of my chair. “What is it, Millie? Tell me.”

  “Oh, Maria, someone has taken the baby,” she said between sobs.

  “Charlotte has him!”

  “No, it can’t be her. It is someone intent on doing the little one harm.”

  “What makes you say that?” I exclaimed.

  “They left a note in his crib. It read, ‘Sin must go where sin belongs.’”

  “Charlotte does have him!” I ran past the two women and out into the coolness of the morning.

  The ground was heavily sodden from the previous night’s rainfall, yet my feet carried me swiftly as if I were weightless. I came into view of the lake at a different aspect, and skirting its shore, I aimed toward the folly, when a flash of color caught my attention in the direction of the walls of the castle. There was no mistaking the blonde woman in a light green dress; she had clambered up from the other side of the moat and ran toward the castle’s entrance with a bundle in her arms.

  As I ran with all my might, I spotted something in the grass. I snatched it up without stopping when I identified it as Simeon’s toy rattle. Why was Charlotte going to the castle, and why was it just me pursuing her? Had the police come and gone because they were manipulated by Charlotte’s radiant gentlewomanly charms? However, she wouldn’t be able to dupe her nephew, yet somehow she had managed to escape the house, and now she disappeared between the castle walls.

  The depression in the ground loomed up, which I made sure to give a wide berth. I gave no thought to whether my mother’s murderer was still lying beneath or if the police had retrieved the body; my only concern in this world was that beautiful baby boy in the hands of that evil woman. I slid down into the moat on my backside, nearly coming to grief at an angle. Due to the heavy rainfall the night previously, the mud was now layered with a foot high of water.

  I battled across to the other side and exhaustively tugged my way up the moat slope to the sound of Simeon screaming. Stumbling along the wall, I looked toward the lone tower where the crying came out of the second row of slit windows. Going by the note she’d left in the crib, “Sin must go where sin belongs,” I feared what Charlotte was going to do next. What did she mean by the latter of those words, and why was she climbing to the tower’s roof? If she planned her death, why take the baby with her? Unless…

  Turning into the courtyard at speed, I lost my footing on some loose debris and fell onto the ground. I managed to pick myself up with a few aches and pains, but Simeon’s rattle had taken the full impact, spewing wooden marbles out from a large crack on one side of it. Without discarding his toy, I followed Simeon’s crying, barely audible as my heavy steps echoed up the spiraling stairs.

  At the first level of slit windows, I saw several people running along the lake and noticed some in black uniform. When I reached the second level, again I looked out the windows, the same group of people were now congregated at the moats edge, staring upward; there was no sign of Davenport.

  Charlotte’s voice rang down on the congregation. “If you dare cross over, I’ll throw you down a bundle of joy!” Manic laughter and baby crying ensued, spurring me up to the chamber at speed.

  I arrived at the stairs before the opening onto the tower roof. I heard Simeon whimpering. Charlotte’s voice sounded unusually uneven and high-pitched as she said, “You won’t have long, little one. Soon you will return to your maker the devil.” I caught a glance of her walking feverishly back and forth near the floor opening.

  She stopped to address her audience again. “Why am I up here? The reason being is that I hold a shameful secret.”

  I managed to tiptoe up into the open air behind her.

  She continued her rant. “It is not my secret, rather it is owned by a Davenport. What I am holding here, this thing that is crying and crying and crying, is the very work of the devil.” She cradled and swayed Simeon in a frantic pendulum momentum. All she had to do was release her hold and he would become airborne like a catapult charge.

  I said calmly, as I stood out from the last step of the recess, “Charlotte, please don’t do this.”

  Charlotte twirled about. Gone was the calm, cool, beauty that had served as her power. Her eyes were red and manic, her hair was disheveled, her dress was muddied up to the waist, and one shoe was missing.

  “Get away from me,” she said with a snarl. “You are friends with that little slut. Yes, I’ve seen you with her, you two are in cahoots together. Well,” she laughed, throwing her head back, “I fixed her, but not the way I was initially intending to, because I fixed him, and now she can’t have him anymore, neither can you!”

  “I don’t understand what you mean. I’m only here to help you, milady. You look tired.” I extended my hand. “Come! Let us return to the house, so you can have a sleep.”

  “Sleep!” She snorted. Looking over her shoulder, Charlotte hollered down at her audience, “How can I sleep when everyone is out to get me!”

  “You have worked very hard,” I said. “You need a rest, milady. No one can do all the things you have done so efficiently and for such a long time while”—I had an idea—“your husband has abandoned you for his silly hobby.” Charlotte’s angry expression was swapped for surprise. I took one step toward her, with one hand extended, the other holding the rattle against my side. “I think he is selfish to leave you here instead of doing what he ought to be doing, looking after his mad nephew!” I made sure to shout the latter of my sentence for the rest of mankind to hear.

  Charlotte nodded and swayed the baby vigorously. “Yes…yes, you of all of them ought to understand. He did, he did abandon me, but he didn’t go to Egypt, you know.” She let out a high-pitched laugh, making Simeon squeal in the process. “He is underground where he deserves to be, and where he won’t find any more treasures.”

  “Never mind your husband. He can go on with his digging. I believe only you can control the running of Evercrest, that’s why the family need you, milady.”

  “Stop calling me ‘milady!’” shouted Charlotte, whose face contorted and reddened. Simeon had instantly stopped crying. “You never call me ‘aunt’ like I have always wanted you to do; you have always called me ‘Charlotte’ or a name I most abhor ‘Miss Nosey Parker;’ now you are calling me ‘milady,’ which I find most repugnant.”

  It occurred to me that she didn’t see me as the nursemaid anymore. At that precise moment, I felt large warm fingers enclose about my ankle; I daren’t look down into the floor recess. I continued to speak. “I promise you…Aunt, when we go back home, I’ll ring for the maid, and you and I can get cleaned up and put on our fine clothing, and then you can discuss the future of running this place. My brother is absolutely hopeless. He would only run this place aground.”

  “Right you are! He never could, he is not all there, you know.” Charlotte tapped the side of her temple. “You and he share the same trait, why I wasn’t surprised when you committed great evil.”

  “What was that?”

  “Come now, you know what you did to create this.” Charlotte glared down at Simeon.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt.” I bowed my head briefly, desiring for her tell me who it was that India had committed sin with.

  “Sorry?” Charlotte roared in laughter. “Should I tell the world what you did?” She turned to look down at the people below. “The mother of the child is sorry for what she did, sorry for what she did with her own flesh-and-blood…for interbreeding with her uncle!”

  I looked down at Davenport, who calmly placed his forefinger before his lip.

  Charlotte caught me looking downward. “Who is there?

  I did not answer her question. I blurted, “Your husband, Ewan Davenport, is a murderer!”

  “Ewan wouldn’t kill a flea.” She laughed.

  “Yes, he did because I saw him kill my mother.”

  “You silly girl, of course it wasn’t him who did that. He was a gutless wonder.” Charlotte lowered her
voice. “It was me who did the killing. When the governess picked up the weapon that I had used to kill your parents with, it just so happened that the servants walked in on her, and that was when I came out of my hidey hole and conveniently pointed the finger.” Charlotte sniggered. “The little whore was hanged for three counts of murder, murders she did not even commit.”

  “What about the ring? What about the ring that your husband wears with the golden beetle and the ruby?”

  “That ghastly thing?” Charlotte screwed up her expression and flapped her hand as if to dismiss the thought. “He won it in some silly card game not long after his cousin died. Why do you ask?”

  I was about to continue when a shadow appeared beside me.

  Charlotte’s face grew pale with fear. “You are alive! But…but you were supposed to be dead!”

  Davenport was now standing by my side. I noticed he wore different attire to what he normally wore, more in keeping with his uncle. “My darling, you need bed rest. Come.” He stretched out his hand. “Let us return home this instant.”

  “I’m not going back to your bed; besides, you should be sleeping in the grave.” Charlotte burst into tears.

  “I have been longing for your company.” Davenport looked convincingly at me. “Let India take care of the baby, so that you and I can talk about the future of that mad nephew of ours.” Davenport narrowed his eyes my way. “And discuss his wedding plans.”

  “He told Mr. Dorchester that he refuses to marry his daughter. He wants to marry a peasant creature; how appalling!”

  Between watching Charlotte crying, and her nephew edging toward her and prompting me forward with his arm in the small of my back, I numbly thought of the day Albert had held Jenny in his arms. And why would he want to marry the peasant?—because she was beautiful, and because she was carrying his baby and not Billy Harris’.

  “You stay back, or else…” Charlotte was pressed against the wall. She raised the screaming baby high in a move to threaten releasing him over the edge.

  “Albert, stop,” I heard myself say without thinking, as my hand tugged at his coat so he wouldn’t step on the fragile flooring.

  “Please, darling,” Albert cried, “talk to me.”

  “I can’t talk with this screaming monster in my ear!”

  “He is upset because he has lost his rattle; that is all,” I said, raising the rattle without shaking it.

  As I’d hoped, Simeon quietened and tried reaching for his toy. I bent forward and extended my arm out to pass the rattle across to Charlotte. She in turn leaned her body forward, although she had to counterbalance her weight because of the baby. Just as her delicate fingers were about to grab hold of the toy, I snatched it away, and before Charlotte had time to straighten, I used all my might and threw the rattle at the woman’s eye so the broken side of the toy hit her.

  She looked dazed with shock as she touched her eye. When she saw the blood on her fingers, she let out a high-pitch scream and released her hold of Simeon. Without thinking, I caught the baby before he hit the ground, but Charlotte hooked her arms tightly about my throat.

  “Alby! Catch!” I yelled across at Davenport and tossed Simeon into his outstretched arms, when suddenly the floor gave out from beneath me.

  The last thing I remembered was hearing my name being screamed from above, I also remembered catching a glimpse of a beautiful golden glow reflecting off the lake’s surface, a view to die for, before feeling the sickening thud that advanced me into darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I awoke to the sound of someone hustling and bustling at the fireplace across from the foot of my bed. When the maid straightened, I cried, “Millie.”

  She turned about and jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Why, Maria, you are back with us. You have been asleep for five days. Now, now, don’t try getting up.” She hurried to my bed. “Your body has taken a big tumble, but thank the good Lord you didn’t break a thing.”

  “What happened, Millie? Where is Simeon…?” I wanted to say, “Where is Davenport?” too.

  Millie placed pillows behind my back to prop me up in a sitting position. As she helped me adjust myself, I felt every aching muscle in my body.

  “Master Simeon is happily sleeping in his crib, especially now that he has a rapport with the nurse from Sweden.”

  I felt my heart sink. I was not needed now.

  Millie added, “And thanks to Charlotte, you survived the fall.”

  “What do you mean, thanks to Charlotte?” I was aghast. Was that woman still manipulating people’s minds?

  “She cushioned your impact from the stones when you both fell down into the moat.” Millie fussed about at my blankets. “I would hate to have imagined the outcome if there had not been any water down there.”

  “So, where is she now? I suppose she is in her bedchamber, lording it over everyone, pretending that she is all innocent.”

  Millie straightened her back, and her eyes laughed despite her lips being pressed firmly together. “She won’t be able to lord over us if there is a small chance she’s up there.” Millie pointed at the ceiling. “And I doubt that he’ll want her to take over his job down there.” Millie pointed at the floorboards.”

  Suddenly, I burst out laughing at Millie’s black humor; my muscles firmly reminded me to stop it. “Millie, you had me in a state of panic for a moment.”

  “The only one who will be lording over us from now on is Mister Albert Davenport.”

  I looked down at my hands and bit my lip. “So, has he asked about me?”

  “I haven’t seen him for several days. Not since all that drama unfolded about Wilson-Goldsmith, his so-called friend. Turns out he was the one responsible for a big cattle rustling operation.”

  “How did he get a confession from him?”

  “An officer high up in the navy had overheard a seaman called Spike Linklater, or something like that, boasting about his involvement with an aristocrat. When this Linklater saw this particular navy officer, he accused him of being the aristocrat who had set him up to do the thefts. The man who Linklater accused was a Wilson-Goldsmith, but he was the younger. Well, the police were notified, and they found out that Wilson-Goldsmith was staying here at Evercrest, and when the police arrived, Charlotte must have seen them, so she ran off with the baby.”

  “Did they catch him?”

  “No, he fled. The last time I saw him he was going in the direction of the castle; the same afternoon that you disappeared.”

  “So the two of them were not just sleeping together,” I whispered under my breath.

  “What was that, my dear?”

  “No, I was just saying, Mister Davenport must have been busy with that, why he hasn’t enquired of me.”

  Millie looked at me sideways. “You know? I only heard this morning that his lordship is not marrying Miss Dorchester now.”

  “It will suit him now that he is free to marry another,” I said with a huff.

  Millie smiled down at me with a sparkle in her gray eyes. “I can see by his mood that there is a special woman in his life. And she is a pretty thing too. Certainly, if she says ‘yes’ when he proposes, their babies will be gorgeous.”

  “Of course she’ll bloody say ‘yes’ Millie,” I cried. “And it will be in six months at least before her first one pops out.” I crossed my arms and looked toward one of the windows of the fancy chamber, only to turn back and see Millie’s face drained of all color.

  “I best go,” she said. “Just pull the cord if you need me, my dear.” Millie hurried out.

  Looking to my side, there was a set of bedside drawers with a vase of forget-me-knot flowers in it. There was a pulling at my heart, because I had remembered how lovingly I had sketched those flowers about the sketch of Davenport, only to later see the paper screwed up and discarded on his chamber floor.

  To take my mind off thoughts of him, I studied the room. It had a lofty ceiling, paneled walls, with long sweeping maroon curtain
s on two tall windows that matched the dressings hanging at the corners of my bed. There was a door that led off at right angles from the entrance door into the room, and it was somewhere behind it that I heard a shuffling, thudding sound. Was it a servant busying themselves, or was it one of Vera’s supposed ghosts?

  I shut my eyes, only to open them when I heard that particular door open. There standing in its doorway was Albert Davenport. With a sheepish smile, he quietly crossed the floor to me, and sat casually on my bed right at my side. “Good morning there, Miss Maria.”

  “You know men shouldn’t come into a young woman’s bedchamber. It is not the ‘done’ thing, nor sitting on her bed.” I folded my arms and looked coolly toward the window.

  “That is why I came through the secret passage, so as not to alert anyone to my etiquette violation. Actually, I have done so every night since you’ve been sleeping.”

  I suddenly felt uplifted only to be reminded of the new nurse and Jenny. Again, I looked out at the window. “I heard that you got yourself a nurse for your little cousin, if Simeon is your cousin, seeing he is not your son.”

  Davenport chuckled. “I suppose you could call him that as well as a half-nephew.”

  I felt my brow crease. “Do me the honor in explaining.”

  “India is my half-sister?”

  “And you knew all along?”

  “Yes, and at the ripe old age of seven years old. Charlotte had discovered my mother’s diary and learned the truth at around the same time as I did about who India’s real father was. With the knowledge that Charlotte possessed, and knowing how protective I was of my sister, she threatened to expose India’s history in order to keep me from telling the police that I saw her murder my parents.”

  I bowed my head in shame. “How terrible it must have been for you to witness your parents’ murders, and to have to tolerate that woman in your life for so long.”