by M C Beaton
Servants came running out of the house and over from the stables.
“Take the body inside,” ordered Charles. “Miss Trumble, see to Rachel and the children.”
“I came to tell you Mrs. Kennedy called, but I cannot find her.”
He gave an exclamation and strode ahead of the governess into the house.
A weak voice from the landing sounded down to them, Mrs. Kennedy’s voice.
“I killed him,” she said. “I couldn’t help it.”
They were finally all gathered in the drawing-room to hear Mrs. Kennedy’s amazing story. The general slowed up the telling of it by demanding to hear all about the haunting first and asking why no one had thought to rouse him.
“The question now is,” said Miss Trumble quietly, “who employed him to do such a thing? And why did the housekeeper and that boy lie about him being present with the other servants when we were looking for the ghost of Judd?”
They were then interrupted by the arrival of Lady Beverley, and all the explanations had to be gone through again.
“Well, really,” bridled Lady Beverley, glaring at Miss Trumble, “I should have been roused. I am the one most qualified to deal with nervous children.”
“You went to bed complaining of illness,” said Miss Trumble, “and demanded not to be roused before noon, no matter what happened.”
“Miss Trumble and your daughter were a tower of strength,” put in Charles, but all that did was make Lady Beverley angrier than ever.
Charles rang the bell and asked for the housekeeper and the boy, Freddy, to be sent in.
Mrs. Jones came in after quite a long wait, dabbing at her eyes. “My apologies, sir,” she said in her hoarse voice. “I am so overset by the death of poor John.”
Barry entered the room and bowed low. “I have some news,” he said to Charles.
“Go on.”
“I took the liberty of examining the dead fellow’s head. There was a bump on it which I do not think was caused by the fall, for he fell on his left side and the blow I struck him—for I now know it must have been John—was on the right. The bump must have come up after you examined him, sir. Also in his quarters, I found this.” Barry held up a sandy wig.
Charles turned again to Mrs. Jones. “So what have you to say for yourself? You said he was standing beside you in the hall.”
“It was afterwards that John talked to me about me standing next to him and reminded me of what he had said.”
“But you must have remembered yourself whether he was there or not!”
“I was so frightened with all the fuss, and sleepy too, sir. And I never thought John, of all people, would do such a thing. He had nothing against you, sir, only the Beverleys.”
“That’s quite enough,” snapped Charles. “You, boy, what have you to say for yourself?”
Freddy twisted his apron and looked at him dumbly.
“Speak,” commanded the general.
“It were her,” blurted out the boy, jerking a thumb at the housekeeper. “Her told me I was to say I’d seen ‘im.”
“Were you in this plot with John?” demanded Charles wrathfully.
“Oh, no, no, no,” wailed the housekeeper.
Miss Trumble’s level voice sounded in the room. “I think the poor woman was drunk and could not remember much of what happened.”
“I swear I only had a little gin and hot to soothe my nerves, sir,” screeched the housekeeper. “It was John who told me all about standing next to me. I swear on my mother’s grave. He told me Freddy was there as well, so I told the boy what to say, him being not right in the head.”
She began to cry noisily and Charles looked at her with a sort of angry pity. “Go away and we will talk later,” he said.
When the housekeeper had made a noisy and lachrymose exit, followed by the boy, the company looked at one another.
“I think we should ask in Hedgefield whether John was seen talking to anyone,” said Charles. “I cannot believe a servant would go to such lengths on his own behalf.” He turned to Barry. “Perhaps you could ask around.”
Barry touched his forehead and left the room.
“This should put an end to the hauntings now that the wretched creature is dead,” said Minerva, stifling a yawn.
“Only if the malice was all his own,” retorted Miss Trumble.
“I think I will take the children outside again, if I may,” said Rachel.
“Such a good idea.” Minerva rose and smoothed down her skirts.
Charles, sharply anxious for the welfare of his children, who were looking frightened, suddenly could not bear them to be subjected to Minerva’s brand of “motherly” concern, and said, “Do go along with Mark and Beth, Miss Rachel. Miss Santerton and I have much to discuss.”
Minerva sat down again, a little triumphant smile on her lips.
“I will come with you, Rachel.” Miss Trumble headed for the door.
“Could do with some fresh air myself,” said the general.
Lady Beverley stood up. “Your arm, General. We will all go.”
“Sit down, Father, and Miss Trumble. We shall all discuss this affair,” said Charles and then added innocently, “but go along with your daughter by all means, Lady Beverley.”
“On second thoughts,” said Lady Beverley, “I feel perhaps my place is here.” She sat down again.
“Well, I’m bored with the whole thing,” drawled George Santerton. “Such a lot of fuss over a mere footman.”
“And, sure, I am shaken to the core of my poor old body,” complained Mrs. Kennedy. “I for one am going home.”
“You are a brave lady,” said the general. “What an experience! I will escort you out to your carriage.”
Miss Trumble, half-amused, half-exasperated, saw the sudden alarm and consternation on Lady Beverley’s face as the general tenderly escorted Mrs. Kennedy to the door.
Rachel had already gone. Minerva kept turning that intense blue gaze of hers on Charles. Miss Trumble wondered whether Minerva’s ambition to be mistress of Mannerling, for such an ambition was very obvious, would ever be fulfilled. But then, men were so silly when it came to pretty women.
Rachel walked with Mark and Beth towards the folly. She wondered what to say to them. They admittedly lived in violent times and there was death all about them on every gibbet they passed. But the sight of a body plummeting from the roof of Mannerling, to die at their feet, was enough to shake an adult, let alone two vulnerable children. Rachel was beginning to feel rather sick and shaken herself. It was not only the death of John but that he had been prompted by such evil malice. Even if someone had been paying him, it had been an evil thing to do to carry out such orders.
“We will take the boat out on the lake,” she said, “and we will talk a little bit about what has happened.”
The children, who normally would have treated such an offer with noisy joy, followed her silently down the grassy slope to the jetty. They sat side by side, facing her as she slotted the oars into the rowlocks and began to pull steadily away from the jetty.
“You are both very brave children,” began Rachel. “After we have spent some time on the water, we will return and have something to eat and then I think you should both go to bed. I am very shaken and tired myself.”
Beth began to cry and Mark put an arm round her. Tears welled up in his own eyes. Rachel shipped the oars, took out a handkerchief, and began to cry herself.
At last, she firmly dried her eyes and said with a shaky laugh, “Now I feel better. But think on it, Mark, I was going to play at pirates, but we don’t look very ferocious, any of us.”
With children’s lightning changes of mood, both stopped crying. “Real pirates?” asked Beth cautiously.
“Yes. I tell you what. If you want to be real pirates, you must learn to row. I know the oars are rather big, but you could take an oar each.”
She rowed back to the jetty. She changed places with the children. “Now, you are the wicked Turkish pirates
and I am your hostage.”
“You don’t look like a hostage,” pointed out Mark. “You should be bound and gagged.”
“I saw some string under a bench in the folly,” said Rachel.
She tied up the boat again. Soon she was bound with string and gagged with her scarf. The children gingerly rowed away from the jetty. At first they went round in circles because Mark was pulling more strongly than Beth, but they finally managed some sort of co-ordination.
Rachel was soon beginning to tire of playing the part of hostage, straining at her bonds and making gurgling noises from behind her scarf, but the children were so enraptured with this new skill of rowing that she did not have the heart to call an end to their play—which she very well could, for the scarf over her mouth was quite loosely tied.
And so that was how Charles Blackwood saw them as he paused in the folly and looked down on the lake. His children were uttering quite dreadful oaths and threats to the bound and gagged Rachel.
He strode out of the folly and down to the lake.
He hailed Mark, crying, “You’d best come ashore. The sky is darkening and I think it is going to rain.”
At first they spun in circles, both children being anxious to show off their prowess to their father, but at last they managed to reach the jetty, just as Charles was joined by Miss Trumble.
“We were playing pirates,” said Mark, his voice squeaky with excitement, “and Rachel is our hostage.”
Rachel said plaintively from behind her scarf, “Would someone please untie me?”
Charles knelt down on the jetty and untied the scarf and then her hands, and Rachel untied her ankles.
Miss Trumble helped Mark and Beth out of the boat and said briskly, “Come along. You will eat and go to bed, and if you are very good, I will read a story to you.”
They went off with her, still chattering excitedly. Charles helped Rachel out.
“You are very good, Miss Rachel,” he said, beginning to walk with her.
“I like your children,” said Rachel. “We have all had a bad fright.”
A fat drop of rain struck the back of Charles’s hand. He looked at the sky and said, “Let us shelter in the folly for a little. I think it will only prove to be a shower.”
As they reached the folly, the heavens opened. They stood together, looking out, surrounded on all sides by a silvery curtain of rain. “The children will be soaked,” said Rachel.
Charles laughed. “Did you not notice the estimable Miss Trumble was carrying an umbrella?” Then he studied her thoughtfully.
“I do not want to distress you, Miss Rachel,” said Charles, “but you know the recent history of Mannerling. The house appears to take hold of people in a strange way. Can you think of anyone who would go to such lengths to scare me away, or do you think that footman was deranged?”
Rachel felt guilty. For who could know better about an obsession to gain Mannerling than the Beverleys?
“It is difficult for me to speculate on the subject,” she said in a low voice. “You must have heard the gossip about us. Mr. Judd was obsessed with the place, as was Harry Devers. But both are dead and I know of no others.”
He gave her a slanting look from those green eyes. “And the Beverleys are no longer obsessed?”
“No,” she said in a half-whisper.
“I am sorry to pain you, but it is all too evident that Lady Beverley is setting her cap at my father.”
Rachel felt immeasurably tired. She was intensely aware of his masculinity, of his attraction. But also that she did not stand a chance with such a man because of such a mother and such a reputation.
“Mama has not been quite…right…since the loss of Mannerling and is apt to be a trifle silly on the subject,” she said stiffly. “But Mama would never do anything to hurt your children, nor would I or my sisters.”
He gave a sigh. “It is all very strange. Mr. Cater seemed much taken with the house. What do you know of him?”
“Only what he has told me, that he is a sugar-plantation owner, here in England on a visit. Yes, he wishes to settle here. But just suppose he craved to get possession of Mannerling. How would he know that John out of all the other servants would prove such an easy tool?”
“Who told him of Mannerling?”
“A Lord Hexhamworth, an old friend of my father.”
“Mr. Cater resides at the Green Man in Hedgefield, I believe. How long does he plan to remain there?”
“I do not know. I will ask him, if you wish. He is a frequent caller.”
“Oho, and why is that?”
Rachel blushed.
“He is a good catch,” said Charles, looking at her with affectionate amusement.
There had still been a little spark of hope in Rachel’s heart until that last comment. Now there was no hope at all.
“It has stopped raining,” she said in a stifled voice.
“So it has, and look, over there, a rainbow.”
They walked back to the house together. He chatted easily of this and that, looking all the while curiously at her sad, averted face.
“I am sorry if I distressed you by seeming to accuse your family of being behind these hauntings. You must forgive me and realize I have been overset at what I see as a threat to my children. Come now, Miss Rachel, and smile at me. What would I have done without you to bring their plight to my attention?”
He stopped and looked down at her. She gave him a watery smile and then began to cry.
He took out his handkerchief and, tilting up her face, gently dried her tears. “I am the veriest brute to distress you so. We both need some tea and something to eat.”
He linked his arm in hers and Rachel walked beside him, feeling the strength of that arm, her body a tumult of mixed emotions.
Minerva stood at the window with her brother beside her and watched their approach.
“Pretty picture,” sneered George.
“What am I to do about that wretched girl?” demanded Minerva.
“Why do you always ask me what you are to do? You’re always accusing me of being stupid.”
“When you are not stupid in drink and all about in your upper chambers, brother dear, you have some ideas.”
“I did hear in Hedgefield that the Cater fellow was courting Rachel.”
Minerva brightened. “Perhaps that might be the answer.”
“Not if little Miss Rachel thinks she can get Charles and Mannerling as well.”
“A bribe to Cater might answer.”
George shrugged. “You can try, but the fellow’s supposed to be as rich as Croesus.”
“It has been my experience that no matter how much money people have, they are always ready to accept more.”
“You can try. I have had too much excitement for today. Do you join the others to dine?”
“And see Rachel making sheep’s eyes at Charles and the mother flirting grotesquely with the general? Not I. I think I will search out this Mr. Cater. Order the carriage for me.”
“Order it yourself,” complained her brother. “The house is full of servants. They didn’t all fall off the roof.”
Mr. Cater returned to the Green Man after a brisk ride across the local countryside to learn that a lady was waiting for him.
Minerva noticed the way his face fell when he saw her and experienced a spasm of irritation.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said. “I was somehow expecting to see Miss Rachel Beverley.”
Was every man besotted with that wretched girl? Minerva gave him a thin smile. “We met briefly, if you remember, Mr. Cater. At Mannerling.”
“Yes, indeed, Miss Santerton. And what is the reason for this very highly flattering call?”
“I thought we should have a comfortable coze about our ambitions.”
“I am a happy man. I do not think I have any ambitions at the moment.”
“Perhaps I am mistaken. Rumour has it you are courting Rachel Beverley.”
“If that be the case…,�
� he said gently, sitting down opposite her in the coffee-room. He signalled to the waiter and then ordered a glass of shrub. When the waiter had departed, he went on. “If that be the case, then it is not something I would discuss freely. It would be…er…my private business.”
A flash of irritation, quickly masked, crossed Minerva’s face. This was all going to be much more difficult than she had imagined. “I see I will have to put all my cards on the table.” She gave a little shrug. “Why not? I understand you to be interested in gaining the hand of Rachel Beverley and the ownership of Mannerling.”
The waiter put a glass of shrub at Mr. Cater’s elbow. Mr. Cater took a meditative sip.
“I can dream,” he said.
“But do you not see, it could be a reality?” Minerva leaned forward. “And I am the person to help you.”
“Why, Miss Santerton? You barely know me.”
“I am interested in securing Mr. Charles Blackwood for myself—in marriage.”
“And what is that to do with me?”
“Mr. Blackwood is becoming uncommonly interested in Rachel Beverley and he is the owner of Mannerling.”
“In which case, Miss Rachel would regain her old home without my help.”
She gave a little click of impatience. “You do not strike me as a stupid man, Mr. Cater.” She began to gather up her reticule and pull on her gloves.
“No, stay, you interest me, Miss Santerton. If I remove the affections of Miss Rachel away from Mr. Blackwood, how would that gain me Mannerling?”
“Without such competition, Charles would wed me and I would persuade him to remove from Mannerling. He is already upset about the place. I think the death of that footman might have been the last straw.”
“What footman?” demanded Mr. Cater sharply.
“I cannot remember his name. Mrs. Kennedy of Perival found a livery button on the roof and assumed that whoever had been haunting Mannerling was the owner of the button. This footman came up behind her and tried to seize it and she pushed him off the roof. Amazing! An old woman like that! Why, you are a trifle pale, Mr. Cater. It was only a footman.”
“I do not like to hear of any man’s death. There was really no reason for you to go to this trouble. I do not anticipate any difficulty over my courtship of Rachel Beverley. The family is in need of money and I gather she has little dowry to speak of, unless, of course…”