Elspeth had come around to the scullery and met us as Nicholas carried Mrs. Sedley through the kitchen. As he brushed by us, something touched me, cold as dead flesh, and both Elspeth and I saw that Mrs. Sedley’s feet were both bare. I felt Elspeth’s recoil but said nothing, hoping she had not noticed.
But she cried, “Her shoe! Her poor foot will be cold.”
“I must have dropped it,” Nicholas said as he maneuvered his burden out of the door. “Kathleen, would you bring it along?”
“Yes, of course.” I hurried back into the passage, anxious to be of use, to be away from Elspeth’s accusing eyes and her cold, judicial manner with Sir Nicholas.
I was feeling a trifle better now when I reflected that so far as anyone might ever know, Mrs. Sedley had wandered up to the Hag’s Head herself, despite her rheumatic condition, and there dragged herself to that bed and died of her exertions. Only I, and, of course, Sir Nicholas, knew of that dreadful expression, the awful thing her dying eyes must have witnessed in the last pitiful seconds of her life. And only I knew that her body, among the bed-clothing, had appeared to be carefully laid there by someone, which made me suspect that she had not died in that bed.
I felt very little fear of this old building now as I peered through the murky darkness trying to find that lost shoe, but I did feel the sadness of the place and wondered how it must have been all those years ago for the unhappy Megan Kelleher, knowing all the while that her husband was carrying on flirtations and worse under this very roof and with her own servants.
At the foot of the main staircase I found a little cloth rosette off Mrs. Sedley’s night robe and wondered again what terrible impetus had driven the painfully crippled woman to rush out of Everett Hall and across the moor to the Hag’s Head. Small wonder that her confrontation with Sir Nicholas in this house had killed her!
Having found the little rosette, I was more encouraged to mount the stairs without fear, carefully studying the floorboards themselves and expecting with every step to pick up Mrs. Sedley’s mud-encrusted shoe. Nevertheless, finding myself in the upper floor passage, I would have been greatly relieved to pick up the shoe and run out of the grim old house to join Sir Nicholas and Elspeth—if, of course, Elspeth had gone with Nicholas. As I made my way through the murky, dust-filled corridor, I wondered why such an idea had occurred to me. Elspeth had gone along immediately after Sir Nicholas. Before I could stop myself, I began to speculate upon the singular and horrid influence of these walls upon both Macrae and Mrs. Sedley. Had it actually been the presence of Sir Nicholas, perhaps in that mad disguise of the Hag, that caused Macrae to trip on the stairs and crack his head? And had Nicholas’s quarrel with Mrs. Sedley resulted in her death from shock? If she had seen the eerie Hag disguise it might have proved sufficient.
I had reached the bedchamber at the south end of the corridor before I saw Mrs. Sedley’s now dilapidated shoe, accidentally kicked aside, a little beyond the foot of the bed. Trying not to look at that bed or remember its burden, I stooped over to pick up the shoe and strike it against the nearest bedpost to remove some of the crusted mud. The sound of those vigorous slaps echoed through the j ancient walls, making the silence that followed even more pronounced.
It was during this silence, as I had my conscious thoughts upon the shoe, scratching off bits of mud and dust, that I recalled the “game” I had supposed Mrs. Sedley was playing with me scarcely half an hour ago, through these very halls. There had been those slight sounds overhead, among these rooms, punctuated by the tap-tap that I had supposed to be the cane she used. What was there to explain them, and why had I heard nothing since? It may have been scurrying rats, I told myself, or some loose shutter banging or other field animals in the attics close under the eaves. But now, since I had returned upstairs alone, there had been no sound at all except my hammering of the shoe against the bedpost.
There are moments in one’s life when the silence is so great that it seems as massive as a blanket laid over the world, and in the heart of that silence one is perfectly aware of being stared at. I knew this sensation vividly now and raised my head so slowly that I felt that the movement was dictated by my extreme apprehension. The musty darkness of the passage outside the bedchamber took form like a gathering of dust and as Mrs. Sedley’s shoe trembled in my fingers, I saw the Hag materialize before me in the doorway.
This was not a ghost, I reminded myself as I felt the beginning of that icy terror which stiffened my body so that I could not move. This was Sir Nicholas, or even Elspeth—someone masquerading. But it would not destroy me as it had destroyed two others in as many days as it brought about the sounds and the weird lights and all that made the Hag’s Head a haunt of legend and horror. I could not make it out clearly, for the cloak with its attached hood was such that it seemed to borrow the dense, murky look of the passage itself. But it was there, and it was real. All these thoughts steeled my courage. I had only to walk toward it, brave it out; and if the creature meant violence, I would scream. Either Nicholas or Elspeth must hear me, for they could not both be in on this scheme of terror.
“I know you,” I said, smiling such a smile as I must have looked like a grimacing mask to the Hag, whose garments swayed ever so slightly in the foul air of the passage. “Someone is waiting for me. You must let me pass or they will catch and unmask you.”
Still no sound from the Hag. I was closer now and could see the ancient, horribly wrinkled flesh that was the mask. I could scarcely believe that, somewhere within, eyes stared at me; yet I knew by the crawling sensation over my body that I was being watched, and from that dreadful face.
If it touches me, I thought, I shall snatch at the mask and see the creature for what she is—the real face, the smooth, clever, evil face of her beneath!
I was therefore prepared when the clawed fingers went out to me, as they had gone out last night in the bedchamber at Everett Hall—and perhaps later, in that locked room—ready to tear at my throat or to smother me. With all my strength I pushed my hands into that face, tearing at something that was papery, parchment, ancient flesh! This was what lay behind the mask. It was no mask, but the once-human flesh itself.
The hag was real!
I screamed ... and screamed ... and felt I the claws at my throat, which was raw with screaming, and tore myself away and stumbled along the passage, fighting my way against the gathering gloom, hearing now the tap-tap of a cane behind me. It seemed to my dazed fancy that the Hag took form everywhere, wherever there was any gathering of dirt and age and dust, and at last I fell as I reached the landing above the staircase. As I stared up at this monstrous thing looming over me, I saw it by the light from the partially open door far below me beyond the taproom. And I guessed in that awful moment what had happened.
I no longer recognized what had been my intense terror, for during those past seconds it had become a revulsion, an awakening to a truth more horrible, more sickening that anything I could have imagined, and in it was a shred of pity. I could whisper at last as the Hag bent over me, groping for my throat with those bony parchment hands.
“Please ... I understand. You are Megan Sedley. It was someone else they found in the cellars. Someone else who died...” And then, as my own shaking fingers tried to push her away, I knew what had driven Mrs. Sedley to run out of Everett Hall and up that long, incredible way to the Hag’s Head Inn and what, in the end, had given her face that terrible look. She had seen her daughter roaming through the corridors of Sir Nicholas’s house last night, and she had followed the wretched creature back to her lair in the Hag’s Head, where Megan Sedley lived, a prisoner of her own horror.
Out of the parchment mask that was no mask came the hoarse whisper from deep in the throat of Megan Sedley, “I killed you once, there in the cellar, when I caught you waiting for Patrick. Snug you were, with nothing but a candle to witness your obscene tricks with him ... You didn’t know, when I killed you, that I meant to kill Patrick when he came home. And then I could go to Nicholas. My own
Nicholas! ... But it wasn’t enough that the fire should start, and me trapped with you. You had to come back. First Elspeth, then you, and try for Nicholas’s love. He won’t love you, though ... He’ll never love anyone but Megan ... lovely Megan ... That is how he thinks of her...”
I felt the extremes of weakness born of my awful pity for her, a pity so great that it was all I could do to wrench her hands away from me while I crawled back, moving along under the balustrade high above the entrance hall.
“Don’t make me—hurt you,” I pleaded, unaware until now that my hands were wet with my own tears. There were sounds, as though the walls around us creaked with the changing currents of air, and the Hag kicked at me, driven to new fury by the sounds. Her physical power was dreadful, a pure hatred born of a dozen years of hiding, the while her own “murder” remained unsolved. I was forced to use all my strength to evade her. The dreadful Hag’s face was close to mine as she bent over me and tried to thrust me away from her, over the balustrade, but I steeled myself to withstand her, praying that I need not kill this poor, hideous, demented thing. But she was so strong, so terribly strong...
“Silly barmaid! I nearly killed you last night. But there was always someone—something. And they must not see me. They would tell him. When you are gone, he will never know. There will never be anyone else for him but Megan Sedley...” I took tight hold of the balustrade, which shook under my hand, as I warded her off with the other hand. I began to feel that slow seeping away of strength that meant I could not long withstand her maniacal force.
Suddenly, as I felt the ancient balustrade begin to give away behind me with a cracking and splitting of wood, a man’s voice called out, with a shock and anguish I had never thought possible to the cold, calm Nicholas Everett. “Megan!”
Her scream will haunt me as long as I live. Then, before my eyes, the Hag drew back, raising the clawed fingers to ward off a sight from the foot of the stairs, and as I dragged myself out of the way of the balustrade, she rushed past me, thrust her hands at the breaking wood, and with enormous impetus, threw herself over the now unprotected landing to the floor far below.
I covered my face and tried to regain control of myself. All was silent below.
Gradually, I felt more myself, and I moved to the edge of the broken balustrade and looked over. Nicholas was kneeling where Megan Sedley had fallen. His dark head was bowed over the poor bundle of ancient rags that he cradled in his arms. She must have died instantly, and I felt that nothing remained of the fragile, hideous phantom but the memory of the other—the lost love of his youth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Elspeth Sedley and I left the burial service together at her suggestion, somewhat to my surprise. I had supposed that she would be preoccupied with the company of Patrick Kelleher, since Mrs. Sedley and her daughter were being buried in a common service, thus making Patrick and Elspeth the two chief mourners. However, Elspeth came out and walked back up to Sedley House with Meg Markham and me, the fourth member of the household, Mrs. Famblechook, being too overcome by grief and cooking sherry to appear at the church.
“Are we to wait for Mr. Kelleher?” I asked. And as Elspeth shook her head, I added, “I did not see Sir Nicholas at the service.” I was careful to make the remark light and casual, not wishing my companions to guess how much this mattered to me. But the truth was, I had not seen him since he took me back to Sedley House the day of Megan Sedley’s suicide, and now, within the next hour or so, my father would be arriving on the York Mail Coach to take me home to Cornwall. It was quite probable that I should never see Sir Nicholas again. This was a dampening reflection, so very much so that I felt I could understand Elspeth’s feeling for her Uncle Patrick and even sympathize with her, since it was growing obvious to me that a woman cannot always help falling in love, no matter how unsuitable the match may be. In any case, it was perfectly evident that Sir Nicholas regarded me as a “tiresome child.” He had called me that often enough.
Nonetheless, I had been building many dreams upon the fantasy that one day he might forget his tragic first love and learn to care for me. And he could scarcely do so if we never met again!
“You asked about Uncle Patrick,” Elspeth said , as we passed the graveyard with our heads averted and entered Sedley House. “I do not think I shall see him again.”
Meg Markham seemed to understand this perfectly, and she did not look surprised, but I could not imagine what had happened to provoke this | extraordinary change in Elspeth.
“I suppose Aunt Megan must have found him out too,” she remarked, closing her eyes for an instant, and I knew she was remembering the last twelve tragic years of the haunted and haunted woman. “I do not know why she made no effort to kill him when he was prowling about the inn, looking for her poor little horde of money.”
“Do you think anyone will ever find it?”
She laughed harshly. “Two hours after Nicholas brought the cart and took Aunt Megan away, Uncle Patrick got word of it in Heatherton and came hurrying back. That night he was in the Hag’s Head, roaming around the attics where the poor ... creature spent most of her time these past years. Frankly, I think he found the money. Not that it matters. Last night he asked me to come away with him. Said he thought he might have ‘a few guineas’ that would support us in great style in London. Doesn’t that sound as though he’d found the money?”
I thought it did, and like Elspeth, I thought it no longer mattered.
“When Papa comes for me, don’t you think you might go with us to Cornwall for a time? I am persuaded you would like it immensely. And anyone as pretty as you is sure to—” I thought I had better not suggest a new love when she had barely recovered from the old one, so I amended, “—sure to like the Cornish folk.”
“Not quite yet. Later though, perhaps.” She smiled at me faintly. “You are rather a dear. And clear as a looking glass.”
I did not know how to accept that but felt too sorry for her to make an issue of it. We went upstairs, I to finish packing and she to go across the little hall into her grandmother’s bed-sitting-room. It was not long before Mrs. Sedley’s little tiger-striped kitten raced up the stairs and paused ever so briefly between the two rooms. Elspeth looked around as I did. Timothy looked from one to the other of us, then darted into my room and curled up in my open portmanteau, his enormous gray-green eyes looking up at me expectedly.
Elspeth called to me, “Timothy is yours, Kate. Grandmother would have wished it.”
I was delighted, for if I could not have Nicholas Everett, I might at least give my affection to the little cat who had first brought us together. I was about to say as much, perhaps indirectly, when Meg Markham came and looked in upon Elspeth and me.
“Sir Nicholas and a ... person from London wish to see Miss Bodmun.”
Elspeth and I looked at each other. “Person?” she echoed, but the mystery was more comprehensible when we saw the odd little man with a face like a friendly rodent, a suit of scarlet and brown, and the largest cravat, slightly soiled, that we had ever seen.
“Ladies, may I present Jemmy Pike, of the Bow Street runners,” said Sir Nicholas. “I fear I disturbed you both the morning I set out for Heatherton to send for a runner. When I returned I recall that you, and especially your friend Kelleher, seemed to regard me as the logical candidate for fiendish honors.”
I could not forget our manners to him that dreadful morning outside the stables of Everett Hall, and even earlier, when I had mistaken him for the Hag who had entered my bedchamber. It was extraordinary to me that I should not have guessed that more than one person might have his boots stained by the mud of Seven Spinney.
I was furiously jealous when Elspeth came to meet Sir Nicholas and offered him her hand, which he kissed as she said, “Nicholas, I should insult your understanding if I attempted to explain. I ask only that you forgive my stupidity.”
He smiled. It seemed to me that he looked a trifle older than I remembered, but no less exciting to me, and I thought I
would become completely tongue-tied if he smiled at me in that tender and understanding fashion. I quite hated Elspeth for a moment or two!
“I could never think badly of Megan’s niece,” he said to her. Then he was cool and businesslike. “Now, Jemmy, Miss Bodmun will tell you whatever she recalls”—he hesitated only a second—“of whatever occurred after Miss Sedley and I left her at the inn.”
I tried to make my story as brief as possible, but I was conscious all the time of Elspeth and Sir Nicholas, talking in low tones, too low for me to hear them. As a result, I finished my story rather more quickly than I might have in other circumstances and asked him, “Have you discovered yet who the original victim was, in the fire?”
The little man had been busily jotting down words now and then, which was a surprise in itself, for he did not look as though he had ever learned to read, much less to write. Sir Nicholas heard my question and came over to join us.
“It is assumed she was a onetime barmaid named Hester Chawton. But nothing is certain except that the girl served at the inn briefly and was dismissed by Megan.”
I turned and continued my packing so I should not have to see his face when I spoke of the woman he must have loved through all these years of her living death.
“She told me that she found the girl in the cellar and killed her and intended to kill Mr. Kelleher when he returned. But the fire started. Over the candle, I suspect.”
“Aye. That’ll be the way of it,” Jemmy Pike agreed, nodding wisely. “Then, when the woman dragged herself out of the ruins, she must’ve knew she couldn’t never come to be thought alive, what with the dead barmaid and that. There’d be the murder charge right enough. Trapped in that old place by her crime and by her hurts, if I may say so. Horrible to think on. Aye! That’ll be it! And then the poor creature having to hide, and all, whenever folk come looking through the inn.”
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