Bonfire Night

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Rather like dogs, I thought, but did not say. She gave her orders quickly and within moments we had been whisked up the wide staircase to the upper floor by a pair of housemaids. One showed Brisbane and me to our rooms while another attended to Plum and Portia. A third guided the nurses and children to the floor above, where the nurseries were located. It had been a long day, and we agreed that an early night would be best for all.

  After washing, we all trooped upstairs to kiss the children goodnight and then assembled into the hall for Mrs. Smith’s “light supper.” It was a magnificent meal, one of the best I had ever eaten, and as each course emerged from the kitchens, more succulent and delicious than the last, I found myself in a state of relaxation I had not known for some weeks.

  “I like it here,” I pronounced over my third glass of claret. “Very much.”

  “The wine cellar,” Plum began with unreserved delight, “is the envy of any in London. My God, Brisbane, a single bottle of this claret alone is worth more than the furnishings in this room.”

  “It is a rather fine vintage, is it not?” Brisbane asked in some satisfaction.

  “How is your room?” Portia prompted. “Mine is utterly superb. All blue satin with silver embroidery.”

  “Ours is Tudor—red velvet and a bed only just smaller than the Great Bed of Ware,” I told her, resisting the urge to blurt out that Brisbane and I had already explored its dimensions to delectable effect.

  “Mine is green damask with the softest pillows I have ever put my head to,” Plum pronounced.

  “Running water would have been lovely,” Portia put in. “But there were four watermen to carry up the hot water for my bath. Proper watermen,” she said with a nod of approval. “Of the sort Father hasn’t employed in thirty years. Now it’s all chambermaids struggling under the weight of the cans, but these were strapping lads who brought up two at a time. It quite takes me back to my childhood.”

  “There is something timeless about the place,” I agreed. “It almost feels like there is a strange sort of enchantment about it.”

  Brisbane slid the claret decanter from within my reach. “The wine has made you fanciful.”

  “Oh, it isn’t the wine,” I told him. “It’s the house. Did you know it’s the most haunted house in England?”

  Plum gave a squawk while Portia burst out laughing. “Of course it is. Only the pair of you would inherit a house and find it populated with ghosts.”

  Brisbane slanted me a smile. “How do you know this?”

  “The package from Mr. Sanderson. You told me to open it when you were having your bath. There was no letter, just a book, quite slender, on the history of Thorncross. I only had a moment to peruse it, but apparently it lays claim to more ghosts than any other property in the United Kingdom.”

  The housekeeper bustled in then, supervising the maids who whisked away the cod and laid the veal. “Is that true, Mrs. Smith?” asked Plum. “Is this the most haunted house in England?”

  “Of course it’s true,” she said briskly. “Now, I’ve a nice champagne jelly if you’d prefer that to the vanilla charlotte,” she began.

  “Bring them both,” Plum instructed before I could reply. “What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

  She dismissed the maids with a wave of her hand, and they scurried behind a tapestry and into the kitchen passage. “I mean that everyone knows Thorncross has more than its fair share of ghosts. None that will harm you, mind,” she added with a meaningful nod. “They’re friendly. And this time of year, they’ll all come calling.”

  “All?” Portia asked.

  “All,” came the firm reply. “It’s nearly All Hallow’s Eve. What sort of ghosts would they be if they didn’t make an appearance this time of year?”

  “And do they depart after that?” I asked politely.

  “Of course not,” she said, her expression aghast. “Not before poor Guy Fawkes Day.”

  “You mean they tarry until Bonfire Night?” Brisbane put in.

  “I mean they tarry until they’ve all had a chance to see his ghost,” she corrected. “His is the noisiest of the lot.”

  “Why, precisely is he the noisiest?” I inquired. Every schoolchild knew the story of Guy Fawkes. His plot to blow up the king and Parliament with gunpowder had been foiled, and for his troubles, the fellow had been tortured and sentenced to hang. Instead, he had jumped from the scaffold, breaking his own neck in the process and hastening his death.

  Mrs. Smith gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Because he reenacts his own death right here every fifth of November. He jumps off the parapet of the West Tower just as he did all those years ago. You can’t see him, but you can hear him scream, and then a sort of gurgling sound.”

  Portia pushed her veal cutlet away, her complexion slightly green.

  “But why does he haunt this place?” I pressed. “What connection does he have with Thorncross?”

  Mrs. Smith pursed her lips. “And why would I know such a thing? It’s not for me to explain the ways of ghosts,” she said with lofty dismissal. She stalked from the room, whipping the tapestry aside in her annoyance.

  Plum fixed me with a gimlet eye. “If she forgets the champagne jelly, I shall never forgive you.”

  Portia tipped her head. “I don’t like it. Her name is Smith. I find that suspicious.”

  Brisbane roused himself. “Suspicious?”

  “Is anyone actually called Smith?”

  “Portia,” I said, striving for patience, “it is the commonest surname in Britain.”

  “All the more reason someone would choose it for a pseudonym,” she answered triumphantly.

  She fell silent at Mrs. Smith’s approach—thankfully with the champagne jelly borne behind her by yet another maid. When we had finished the meal and sent our compliments to the kitchens, we agreed upon an early night.

  “Best,” confirmed Mrs. Smith. “Good Christian folk ought to be tucked up in their beds before the dead begin to walk.”

  “But I’m not—” I trod on Plum’s foot heavily to stop him finishing the sentence. Mrs. Smith gave him a dark look and nodded towards the row of maids holding candelabra to light us upstairs.

  “Pleasant dreams and God keep you,” she said.

  We made our way upstairs, dismissing the maids and taking the candelabra for ourselves.

  Portia yawned broadly. “I don’t care about ghosts. I’m far too tired to bother even if one were to climb into the bed.”

  Plum resisted the urge to make a jest at her expense and turned to me. “Why did you stop me telling Mrs. Smith I’m no Christian?”

  “Because you are. You simply think it makes you more interesting to pretend not to be. And if Brisbane and I are to make our country home here, I should like to settle in before the local folk discover precisely how odd my family can be,” I informed him.

  Just then a clap of thunder sounded overhead and Plum gave a start of surprise. “I don’t think I much care for the notion of a haunted house.”

  “Fear not, Plum. Mrs. Smith told God to protect us. I should think the Almighty wouldn’t dare to cross Mrs. Smith,” Brisbane said lightly.

  Chapter Three

  Late in the night, long after Brisbane and I had slipped into slumber, I was awakened. I lay in the darkness, listening closely. I heard my own heartbeat, thundering in my ears from the suddenness of my waking. I could just make out Brisbane’s deep, slow breaths. It was a familiar and comforting sound, and I had just turned over to go to sleep again when I heard a noise. It was a sob—a long, mournful sob. Without hesitation I snatched up my dressing gown and flung it over my shoulders. I did not stop to trifle with slippers but went directly to the door and wrenched it open.

  There was nothing but stillness and silence in the long black corridor beyond. No candles had been left burnin
g here, for the risk of fire was too great, and it seemed Mrs. Smith was a careful housekeeper. But I would have given half my wealth for a light just then.

  I waited in the doorway, eyes and ears straining, but the sound did not come again.

  Suddenly, a heavy hand landed upon my shoulder and I whirled, stifling the shriek that rose in my throat. “What is it?” Brisbane demanded in a low whisper.

  “A sound that woke me. Like a sob,” I whispered back.

  “Is it the children?” he asked, and I felt a stab of inadequacy as I realised I had never considered it might be.

  “I think not. It wasn’t high like a child’s cry, and even if it were, we shouldn’t hear them from upstairs,” I told him. “No, this was low and terribly sad. A woman’s sob.”

  We listened together for a long moment, but nothing disturbed the long stillness of the night. Eventually Brisbane dropped his hand and I knew he meant to return to bed. I turned to follow, and just as I put my hand to the door, it came again—a long, low moan of despair.

  “Good God,” Brisbane said. “What the devil was that?”

  Just then Plum’s door opened and he emerged with tousled hair and a candle in his hand. He leapt back when he saw us, then scowled. “I say, if you’re going to go around playing at—well, whatever matrimonial games the pair of you get up to—it would be sporting of you not to wake the rest of us.”

  “It wasn’t us, idiot,” I told him. “The sound awakened us, as well.”

  Plum looked around. “Why isn’t Portia up and threatening to dismember us? She’s the most protective of the lot of us about her sleep.”

  We exchanged glances of some trepidation. We went directly to Portia’s room and I knocked briskly upon the door. She did not reply.

  I looked to my brother and my husband, who looked at each other.

  “Break down the door,” Plum ordered Brisbane.

  Brisbane’s expression was pained. “That’s rather drastic, don’t you think?”

  Plum’s hands curled into fists. “My sister is in peril and you would quibble over the trouble of breaking down the door? I took you for a gentleman, but I wonder if you aren’t a thorough villain.”

  I shoved Plum. “We don’t know she’s in peril. She has always been a deep sleeper. Let me pick the lock instead.” I reached into the pocket of my dressing gown for the set of tools Brisbane had thoughtfully given me when he had engaged to instruct me on the principles of lock-picking. “Bring the candle down to the level of my eyes,” I directed Plum.

  He bent to do so as I knelt in front of the door, and that was how Portia found us. She opened the door wearing a dressing gown of ivory damask that would not have looked amiss on a mediaeval queen. “What the devil are you doing on the floor, Julia? And, Plum, I have no wish ever to see you in your nightshirt. Go and put on trousers immediately.” She glanced at Brisbane’s lower appendages. “Yours are splendid, Brisbane,” she said, stifling a tremendous yawn. “You really ought to consider wearing a kilt.”

  I resisted the urge to shake her. “Are you quite all right? We were all wakened by the most frightful noise, and then we couldn’t rouse you when we knocked.”

  “So you thought you would pick the lock? How perfectly revolting. A lady ought to have some privacy,” she said with reproof, but she yawned again and blinked several times in succession as if to clear her vision. “I was awakened by the sound, as well. Sounded like a sob. And I heard you pounding, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to answer. So devilishly sleepy,” she finished, trailing off as her eyelids began to droop.

  “Brisbane,” I began, but before I could finish, he caught her neatly as she slipped back into sleep.

  Plum and I exchanged glances. “I know she’s a champion sleeper, but that’s a bit much, even for Portia,” he ventured.

  “Yes, it’s almost as if she’s been—”

  “Drugged,” Brisbane said cheerfully.

  He carried Portia to her bed and laid her down as gently as a leaf. I pulled the coverlet up to her chin and turned to face him. “What do you mean drugged?”

  He held open one of her eyes, raising a candle to watch the pupil as it contracted very slowly. She made a noise of protest and rolled over, snoring gently as she wrapped her arms about a pillow.

  “An opiate, I’d say. Nothing too strong or she’d not have been able to come to the door. She will sleep it off now and be right as rain tomorrow.”

  “I still do not understand,” Plum said. “Drugged how?”

  Brisbane shrugged. “She may have taken a powder to help her sleep. It’s a new house, strange bed, and she likes her rest.”

  I pondered this, then shook my head. “No, she was yawning heavily before we came upstairs. If she took anything, it was earlier.”

  “Well, you cannot ask her now,” Brisbane pointed out reasonably. “And the night is half gone. We should all be abed and we’ll discuss it in the morning.”

  I told Brisbane I would finish my sleep in Portia’s bed should she have need of anything in the night, and he agreed. He kissed me as I slipped under the coverlet, and as he pulled away, he gave me a sharp look.

  “Julia, why are you smiling?”

  “Because,” I told him happily, “it’s only our first night in this house and we already have two mysteries to solve. A most excellent beginning.”

  * * *

  No sooner had I fallen asleep once more than the moaning began. This time it was accompanied by the rattling of chains. Portia stirred but did not waken, and I did not like to leave her. I lay awake for awhile listening to the mournful sobs and the chains. In desperation, I put the pillow over my ears and finally slept, waking only when Portia elbowed me sharply in the ribs.

  “What the devil are you doing in my bed?” she demanded. “Did you try something immodest with Brisbane and he turned you out?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I have yet to find anything Brisbane would consider immodest,” I informed her. “I stayed with you because you were drugged last night!”

  “Drugged!” She attempted to sit up, then collapsed against the pillows with a groan. “I think you may be right. I feel as if I’d been run down by a coach and six.”

  I fixed her with a firm look. “Did you take it yourself? A powder or something to help you sleep?”

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. “No, I did not. I sleep perfectly—you know that.”

  “Yes, but I did wonder...” I hesitated. The loss of her beloved partner was still fresh enough to sting. She had turned rather too often to drink in the months after Jane’s death, but I had thought those days were beginning to pass. If she thought to drug herself into oblivion, this was fresh trouble.

  She gave me a sad, sweet smile. “My dearest ninny, no. I will confess to enjoying my wine as much as the next fellow, but I have never had recourse to more exotic pursuits. Unlike your husband,” she added with a touch of asperity. She was not wrong. Brisbane’s fondness for the occasional pipe full of hashish was well-known to her. What was not generally known was my own appreciation for it. Still, it was a pleasure of which we partook only rarely, and I knew neither Brisbane nor I had packed any of the stuff for our trip into the country.

  “What was it, then?” I asked. “If you didn’t take it of your own volition and you did not drink more heavily than the rest, what did you take, and how was it given?”

  She thought a moment then shook her head. “There’s no way to know. I ate and drank everything the rest of you did, but several of the dishes were brought individually from the kitchens and all the wine was poured out of our sight. A simple sedative could have been slipped into any of the food or drink.”

  I glanced around the room, my eyes lighting on a beribboned box of chocolates sitting upon her dressing table. I rose and went to it. It was a generous box from a famous London confectioner.
An identical box had been left upon my dressing table, but I had yet to open it.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “They were on the dressing table when I arrived,” she answered with a yawn.

  I opened the box. Several of the chocolates were missing. “When did you eat these?”

  “Just before we went down to dinner. I was a little peckish after the journey.”

  “You must have been. Nearly half of these have been eaten!”

  I took out the nearest chocolate and inspected it carefully. There was nothing remarkable about it, but the next yielded better results. I showed Portia where the bottom of the chocolate bore the telltale prick of a needle. I looked over the rest of the chocolates, and of those left in the box, well over half of them had been handled, and all from the centre of the box.

  “But why?” Portia asked, mystified.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. But I mean to find out.”

  * * *

  I left Portia and went to rouse Brisbane. While he looked over Portia’s chocolates, I inspected my own. Half of those bore the same suspicious mark.

  “Filled with a sedative, too, no doubt,” I said, passing them to Brisbane. “But why in the centre of the box?”

  His voice was distracted. “Think of what happens when you go to choose a chocolate from a fresh box. Most people go directly to the centre.”

  “Yes, but why not adulterate them all just to be safe?”

  He considered this a minute. “Haste. If you only had a limited time to prepare them, you would inject the chocolates most likely to be chosen.”

  “Or,” I said slowly, “it was to safeguard us.”

  He quirked up one black brow. “You think the miscreant who did this meant to help?”

  “Yes, think of it. If you want to tamper with a box of chocolates to cause someone to sleep heavily, you put a sedative into them. But how can you know they will only eat a few? For most sedatives, too much taken at once is lethal. Whoever adulterated these chocolates had no way of knowing how many a single person would eat. The safest way to keep from accidentally killing one of us would be to ensure that not enough chocolates were tainted to cause death. It’s really rather thoughtful, when considered properly.”