The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite (The Northminster Mysteries Book 5)

by Harriet Smart

  “I cannot begin to imagine myself a father,” said Felix. “It seems so –”

  “Being a parent is a condition that it is very difficult to imagine until one attains it. Even on the day my son was born I had no idea what was awaiting me. The theory is always very different from the practice.”

  “You are encouraging me to stay unmarried,” Felix said.

  “No, not at all,” said Mrs Maitland. “You will be an excellent papa, I am sure. You have all the right instincts.”

  “I don’t seem to have them when it comes to finding a wife,” he said. “And that is rather a prerequisite.”

  “You are still ridiculously young, Mr Carswell. There is plenty of time for you to find her, whoever she may be. Now, where is Major Vernon?”

  “Resting. He will not be joining us. He sends his apologies.”

  She frowned and said, “Oh dear, he’s not ill again?”

  “No, no. He’s just being sensible.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she said. “Oh, good evening, Miss Blanchfort.”

  Felix turned and saw that Miss Blanchfort had slithered into the room, as quietly as a cat. She was standing just inside the doorway, leaning against the wall. She was now wearing a black dress and someone had expertly replaced the linen sling he had provided with a square of red silk. “How striking you look! Did Patton do that for you? She is very good with slings.”

  “Yes,” said Miss Blanchfort. “I shouldn’t be wearing red, should I? But there was nothing else to hand.”

  “In the circumstances, no one could object,” said Mrs Maitland.

  Miss Blanchfort remained standing where she was, as if she were either using the wall to hold herself up, or as if she were paralysed by uncertainty.

  “Now where would you like us to sit, Mr Carswell?” Mrs Maitland said, reminding him of his duties as host. This was a responsibility he would have gladly delegated to her, for Miss Blanchfort’s manner was highly distracting. It was as if he were again drugged and in the woods. She continued to stand there, with the tapestry-covered wall behind her. In her ink-black dress, dull with crepe, the blood-red expanse of silk glistened across her chest, as if she was clutching an unfurled battle standard. Her hair had been piled up to make a glowing crown and it seemed to him that she might have stepped out of the tapestry itself: she was a creature made from dreams, fancy and desire.

  And he did desire her, just as he had that first time in the woods, when he had been astonished by her beauty. He felt it as they sat down to dinner, and with some force.

  Mrs Maitland mercifully talked of this and that, and directed Holt and Jacob, just as he should have done, for he felt struck dumb, as if there was poison again in the food he ate.

  He tried not to look at her, and concentrate instead on Mrs Maitland and respond to all the excellent sensible things she was saying. Yet he found himself stealing glances at her, like a boy in church bored by the sermon. When Mrs Maitland asked about the gardens and his plans for them, he attempted to punish himself by recalling conversations on that same subject with Sukey, so that he would feel again the wretchedness of his broken heart, and not be such a fool again. But he could not remember it as sharply as formerly. The sting was fading, the scars healed. It did not provide the necessary lesson.

  It was something of a relief when the dessert was finished and Mrs Maitland rose from the table, suggesting that Miss Blanchfort ought to go to bed again rather than sitting up in the drawing room.

  “I will be poor company for you,” she said. “And you will mend faster with plenty of rest. Yes, Mr Carswell?”

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “I am tired,” Miss Blanchfort admitted and went with Mrs Maitland to the door, before stopping and saying to him, “Will I have to go back tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. I think you will be more comfortable at Holbroke.”

  “I like it here,” she said, and with her uninjured hand, reached out and touched the tapestry.

  “It is a beautiful house, certainly,” said Mrs Maitland, passing into the great hall. “With many possibilities.”

  Felix followed them from the room. Miss Blanchfort then crossed the hall and went to stand in the great oriel window, looking out. The full moon of the night before had only just begun to wane and its eerie brightness supplemented the candlelight.

  “One would never know it was here,” Miss Blanchfort said. “Hidden away in its own forest. It is a wonderful secret of a place.”

  “It is quite a curiosity,” said Mrs Maitland. “Do you know much of the history of it, Mr Carswell?”

  “No,” he said. “I am sorry to say I haven’t taken the trouble.”

  “You have been busy with your profession,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “I can’t even give you a ghost story for your collection,” he said, “because we think the ghosts we saw were induced by mushrooms.”

  Miss Blanchfort spun round.

  “You saw a ghost here?” she said.

  “I saw –” he hesitated. “I saw some projection of my imagination, created by the poison. The Colonel told us a ghost story to prepare the ground, and that, with the mushrooms, made me imagine it all.”

  “You did not imagine me, Mr Carswell,” said Miss Blanchfort, “when I found you raving in the woods.”

  “Goodness,” murmured Mrs Maitland.

  “So perhaps,” Miss Blanchfort went on, “you did not imagine your ghost. After all, I am quite real. I have breakable bones to attest to that.”

  “The two parts of the experience were quite distinct,” Felix said. “The part with the alleged phantom is imprecise in my recollection – sketchy, confused, like a dream, but my memory of seeing you is quite distinct.”

  “Just because it felt like a dream does not mean there might be no objective truth to it,” she said. “You still might have seen something, you do not know.”

  “I think it is most unlikely,” said Felix.

  “I take it you are a believer in spirits, Miss Blanchfort?” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Oh yes, definitely. And you, ma’am?”

  “I like stories of such things, but I don’t think I want to encounter such a thing in reality. So I choose not to believe for my own peace of mind.”

  “I should like to see a ghost,” said Miss Blanchfort. “Perhaps I shall tonight. After all, there has been a man hanged in the attic here, has there not?”

  “I hoped you had not heard of that,” Felix said.

  “Why?” she said. “Are you worried it might disturb me? Do you think I am so easily scared?”

  “It disturbs me,” said Mrs Maitland. “And he will be in my prayers tonight. In fact, we should all remember him, and hope that he is at rest, poor man.”

  Felix nodded. The thought of the Colonel as a ghost was deeply unsettling.

  “If he appears, I shall not be surprised,” Miss Blanchfort went on.

  “I think for Mr Carswell’s sake,” Mrs Maitland said, “you should not wish that on his house. It is quite interesting enough as it is. Now, perhaps we should go up?” she added, taking up one of the candlesticks and going towards the foot of the stairs.

  But Miss Blanchfort did not take the hint.

  “Do you know why he was hanged?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” said Felix. “It is proving very complicated. His wife may have had some part in it. He was not a good husband, certainly.”

  “He will be here,” she said, glancing around her. “I am sure of it.”

  “Miss Blanchfort, it is unwise –” Felix began, but she put her finger to her lips to silence him.

  “I saw my father, you know,” she said. “Two nights before you came to see me and told me he was dying. I woke in the night and saw him in my room. He did not speak, but it was him.”

  “That was a dream surely. And not uncommon, I think.”

  “He came to see me,” she said, coming a little closer to him. “I am certain of it. Can you explain that away? I think not.”
>
  She did not allow him to answer but swept past him and started climbing the stairs. Mrs Maitland gave him a bemused shrug and followed.

  Felix reached for his cheroot case. He went and sat down on the window seat to smoke, trying to steady himself. But it was as if her determined talk of spirits had lifted a veil, and all his own uncomfortable phantoms appeared to him, while at the same time his body ached for sensual release. A ghostly Sukey in her blue linen dress and straw hat, her lips stained with raspberry juice, taunted him with the memory of kisses, but at the same time, the girl in the black dress, standing by the tapestry, awoke in him a more urgent longing. Her bold stare and provoking manner left him hungry for more. He wanted to tussle and tangle with her, both with words and limbs, and then feel that struggle evolve into the sweetness of congress.

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stair. He looked up through his cloud of smoke and saw Major Vernon coming down in his dressing gown.

  He got up and extinguished his cheroot, glad to have a distraction from such tormenting thoughts.

  “How are you feeling, sir? Did you sleep at all?”

  “Very well,” said the Major. “And I woke up with a few useful questions in mind. I wanted to look at the estate map. Have the ladies gone to bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Miss Blanchfort – all is well with her?”

  Felix hesitated.

  “There is no trouble about her wrist. That will be straightforward, if she takes care.”

  They went into the dining room, where the map was hanging. Holt was clearing the table.

  “Shall I leave the wine, sir?” he said to Felix.

  “Yes,” said Felix, taking up his own glass and refilling it.

  “And some tea, if you would, Holt,” said Major Vernon.

  “You won’t have a glass?” said Felix, when Holt had gone.

  “Half,” said Major already absorbed with the map.

  “I shall get some more candles,” said Felix, and went out into the hall to fetch some.

  He returned and set them down so that the map was properly illuminated. But even with the light, the dense complexity of the forest was evident.

  “‘A wonderful secret of a place,’” Felix said, quoting Miss Blanchfort.

  “And not easy to find your way through without local knowledge,” said Major Vernon, tracing routes with his fingertip. “Someone will have seen something. Tomorrow we will go to Hawksby and question the servants.”

  “And Miss Blanchfort will go back to Holbroke,” Felix said, sitting down at the table, his back to the fire.

  “That would be for the best, I think,” said Major Vernon. “If she is fit for travel?”

  “Yes, there is no difficulty in that.”

  “The sooner she is away the better,” Major Vernon said.

  Felix did not answer.

  “Surely?” Major Vernon said. “You said yourself she was dangerous.”

  “Lead us not into temptation!” Felix said. “Yes. And I suppose the same applies for her chaperone?”

  “Yes,” said Major Vernon, sitting down. “You might say that.”

  “Or then again, ‘marry or burn,’” Felix said refilling his glass and pushing the decanter towards Major Vernon who was still nursing his chaste half-glass.

  “That is no possibility of that,” said Major Vernon.

  “You could make her break with Fforde if you liked,” Felix said. “If that was what you wanted, I mean. She is, after all, rather an exceptional woman.”

  Major Vernon sipped his wine.

  “Did she say something to you?” he said after a moment. “About me?”

  “No. I was just considering the benefits of matrimony. It seems to be quite the fashion. Mrs Connolly is also to be married. O’Brien came and told me himself.”

  “That is good news, although it might not feel like it to you,” Major Vernon said. “And it was bound to happen sooner or later, for she is very marriageable –”

  “Like Mrs Maitland,” Felix put in.

  “Quite. Why else has Edward Fforde chosen her? She is –” he broke off and to Felix’s surprise poured out another inch of wine into his glass. “Not for the likes of me.” He raised his glass as if making a toast. “Ned Fforde! A better candidate entirely.” He put down his glass again without drinking from it. “So, this general thinking about the benefits of matrimony, are you sure it is so general?”

  “No,” said Felix, and pointed at the ceiling. “She is...”

  Major Vernon smiled. “A great temptation?” he said.

  Felix pulled at his cravat and loosened his collar.

  “It would be pleasant,” he said, “not to be alone at night. If you know what I mean.”

  “All too well,” said Major Vernon with a sigh.

  -o-

  Giles was making his way back to his room, candle in hand, when he came upon Emma Maitland in her nightgown. Wrapped in a dark shawl, her hair streaming down from beneath her night cap, she stopped at the sight of him, holding up her own candle.

  The fact of meeting her, in such a state, in the same state of undress, seemed to push aside the curtains of decorum that had been hanging between them. He was exhausted with being cool with her, with being rational and restrained. All he wanted in that moment was to pull her close to him and let the tantalizing possibilities become something tangible.

  She stood there, as if she could not take a step further, so he advanced on her.

  “I am glad to have caught you,” he said. “I wanted to apologise. This morning, I was –”

  She put her finger to her lips and pushed open the door to what was apparently her room. That she meant him to follow her was clear.

  She went in and set her candle down on a table, and he put his own beside it. Then she closed the door carefully behind her and stood there, wrapping her shawl around her.

  “I was very sharp with you,” he said.

  “Perhaps I deserved it.”

  “No,” he said. “You were struggling and I failed to understand it. Forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” she said, now coming into the room. “Won’t you sit down? There is some heat left.”

  And so they sat, on chairs on either side of the tiny glowing remnant of a fire, in awkward silence for a long moment as if they were a young couple left artfully alone for the first time by a scheming parent.

  Eventually he said, “Might I explain? I was harsh because you unnerved me. I had not expected you to have got so far in your thinking. I knew you had your doubts about your engagement, but to be thinking of breaking it –”

  “But you were right to be harsh. It would be wrong to break with him now. I must do as I promised, to the best of my ability –” She broke off shaking her head, her voice choking. “I made a promise to be his wife and I must –” She gave into her tears then, but covered her face and twisted away so he should not see.

  He could restrain himself no longer and crossed over to her, and knelt by her, attempting to take her into his arms. For a moment she resisted him, and then she fell against him, her wet face pressed to his chest.

  “But I don’t love him!” she managed to say, and again buried herself against him. “I thought I did, but I don’t.”

  She slithered from the chair and deeper into his embrace. They sat in an inglorious muddle on the floor, arms wound about the other, while she cried out her heart, and he felt his own tears leak from his eyes, as he kissed her forehead and felt her hands clutch at him.

  “I have nothing for you,” he said. “I cannot give you anything. I’m not a good man, and I’m not worth your tears.”

  “I would follow you barefoot around the world, Giles. I wouldn’t care if I had to sleep on the floor or if – I don’t care what you do, or don’t do. I don’t care even if you never love me! Only let me love you – that is all I want.”

  She had disentangled herself a little to say this, and he could see her face sticky with tears in the
dim light.

  “No, no, that I can’t have,” he managed to say. “If you give me your heart, I must give you mine in return.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Completely. That has been the trouble. You are already its keeper, that’s the truth of it.” He found her hand, and kissed her fingertips. “But that isn’t enough. You are getting a poor bargain with me. I’m a dirty wretch, Emma, and I’m not fit to be your husband, no matter how much I want to be.”

  “That is for me to judge,” she said. “And I believe you capable of redemption, as we all are. I absolve you of your sins.”

  “Without knowing what they are?”

  “That is the whole point, surely?” she said. “Love is an act of faith. You do not know my sins either, and yet you have given me your heart.” She swept her fingers across his hair and kissed him on the cheek. “I did not dream that you would say so much. I thought that –”

  “How could I not love you?” he said, and kissed her on the lips. “How?”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Felix was woken from his shameful and lascivious dreams by Jacob noisily entering his room. For a moment he was entirely confused as to where he was, for only moments ago he had been on the verge of seducing Eleanor Blanchfort on the rickety chaise in his mother’s drawing room. This had been occurring in the full knowledge that Sukey was waiting for him in the garden, talking to his mother about the apple harvest.

  “Rain all cleared away now, sir,” said Jacob. “Pleasant morning for a ride, I’d say. Major Vernon says that he’d like to be away by nine. I’ve polished your boots. Had to do them twice, as Mr Holt was being very particular.”

  Felix could not bring himself to respond to this cheerful chatter. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep and see where his dreams might take him. So he closed his eyes again and pulled the covers up a little.

  “And Miss Taylor, that’s Miss Blanchfort’s maid, asked me to tell you her mistress was asking for you.”

  “What did you say?” Felix said, sitting up.

  “Her mistress is asking for you,” said Jacob.

  “Urgently?” Felix said, climbing out of bed, at once concerned there had been some complication manifesting itself in the night.