Castle of Secrets

by Amanda Grange

  ‘You’ve gambled with me often enough to know that I don’t bluff,’ said Morton. ‘Besides —’ He pulled a second pistol from his cloak ‘ — I have two pistols. One for her, and one for you. So tell me, Simon, are you willing to let her die? If you are, say nothing. If not, then tell me where Anna is. I’ll let her go, and you will have saved your housekeeper’s life. You might save Anna’s life as well, if you can reach her before me. No one has to die here tonight.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Helena.

  Simon’s eyes turned to her, and she saw something in them she had not expected: she saw fear.

  ‘I cannot let him kill you,’ he said.

  There came the sound of another pistol cocking, and all three of them stopped in surprise. Helena turned her head in the direction of the sound and saw that, standing behind Morton and almost invisible in the shadows, was Miss Parkins. And Miss Parkins was holding a pistol to his head.

  ‘You will never have my lady’s child,’ she said, and her voice was as dead as a sepulchre.

  Morton recovered his composure.

  ‘If you pull the trigger, you will kill me, but not before I kill her,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think I care about her? A servant?’ said Miss Parkins. ‘I care about one thing, and one thing alone: the oath I swore to my lady. I promised her I would care for her children. It was I who nursed Miss Anna as she lay feverishly in the castle, brought low by your whippings, and when I saw what you had done to her, I swore that one day I would have the whipping of you.’

  She stood there like an avenging demon, and Morton faltered. Helena saw it, and without thinking she knocked the pistol out of his raised hand. He lifted his other hand, but Simon was upon him and wresting the second pistol from him, sending it hurtling to the floor.

  ‘Curse you!’ said Morton, as Simon held him fast.

  ‘There will be no bloodshed here,’ said Simon to Miss Parkins. ‘Give me your weapon.’

  She did not respond.

  ‘Anna is safe. Now give me the pistol.’

  Slowly Miss Parkins handed it to him, and he put it in his pocket.

  Helena breathed again. She was about to pick up the two dropped pistols when a voice came from the shadows: ‘Let him go.’

  It was Maria.

  Morton wrenched himself free of Simon and ran over to her. He was about to take the pistol she was holding out to him when there was a loud crack! and Helena turned to see that Miss Parkins was wielding a whip. The maid’s eyes were flaming and her expression was one of judgement. With one fluid movement, she unfurled the whip and sent it darting out like a demonic tongue. It wrapped itself around Maria’s wrist and Maria, shocked, jerked her hand in an attempt to break free. But the jerking motion caused the pistol to go off and everyone froze with shock.

  And then Morton’s hands rose to his chest as a look of surprise spread across his face. When he removed his hands, they were covered in blood.

  ‘No!’ cried Maria, as he began to fall.

  She caught him, and his weight dragged her to her knees.

  Helena looked on in horror as Morton’s blood seeped across the flagstones.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ said Maria.

  ‘Never thought . . . you . . . would be the one to kill me,’ he said to her in surprise.

  Then his eyes closed, and Maria began to cry.

  Helena stood rooted to the spot. It had all happened so quickly that she was still having difficulty in taking it in. It was only a few minutes since she had been sitting in the library, looking forward to Simons’ return, and now here she was in the hall, with Morton dead at her feet. Simon was rooted, too. But Miss Parkins was fully in command of herself.

  She had the whip all ready, thought Helena, recalling Miss Parkins’s words: “When I saw what you had done to her, I swore that one day I would have the whipping of you.” She must have seen Morton arrive, and come to the hall prepared to carry out her threat.

  ‘Something must be done,’ said Miss Parkins.

  Simon shook himself, as though clearing his head.

  ‘She must be charged with murder,’ said Miss Parkins, looking balefully at Maria.

  Maria did not even look up, but went on weeping.

  'No,’ said Simon, taking the whip from Miss Parkins and coiling it round his hand. ‘I will not have Anna’s name tainted with scandal, and so the true circumstances of the evening must never come out. Anna has a chance now to come home and to live in England, where she can raise George in peace and safety, and where, when he is older, he can claim his inheritance. I will not have his future ruined by this night’s work.'

  'What do you mean to do?' asked Helena, looking at him.

  ‘I don’t know. I have not decided yet. Say that Morton's death was an accident, perhaps.’

  'She will never let your sister live in peace,' said Miss Parkins, her eyes still on Maria.

  Helena looked at Maria and saw that she had become quieter. Her sobbing had all but ceased, and now she sat quietly on the floor, looking at the man in her arms.

  'I think she will,' said Helena. 'She has too much to lose if she tells the truth.'

  Simon nodded.

  'Maria,' he said.

  Maria turned red-rimmed eyes on him.

  'If you give me your word you will never return to Stormcrow Castle and that you will never harm any member of my family, then I will see to it that you go free.'

  She nodded dully.

  ‘You give me your word?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  'Very well,' said Simon. He thought. 'Then we will say this: that you were my house guest; that you expressed an interest in learning to shoot; that Morton said he would teach you; that your aim went wide, and that you shot him by mistake. Do you understand?'

  'I do.'

  'Good. Then I will send Eldridge for the undertaker. I will send for Sir Hugh Greer, too. I do not want anyone to suspect that anything is amiss.' He turned to Miss Parkins. 'I need you to get Maria out of the hall —’

  ‘You can put her in the housekeeper’s room,’ said Helena.

  Simon agreed. ‘And Morton’s body, too. We don’t want any of the servants coming upstairs and stumbling across it.’

  Miss Parkins inclined her head.

  He turned to Helena, and saying, 'Wait for me in the library. I would like to speak to you when I return,' he set off for the stables.

  Helena walked across the hall, her body feeling heavy. A reaction was starting to set in, and she felt cold. She went into the library, where the fire cast a mellow glow over the furniture and the clock ticked contentedly on the mantelpiece. To her surprise, she saw that only a quarter of an hour had passed since she had been sitting there last, waiting for Simon’s return.

  She went over to the fire and knelt down in front of it, feeling glad of its warmth. She thought over everything that had happened, until the jumble of images at last began to resolve themselves into an orderly pattern, and she felt her lethargy leave her.

  It was some time before Simon joined her. As he entered the library she could see there were lines of strain on his face. She stood up, lifting her hand to soothe them away, but then dropped it again, for she knew she must not touch him.

  ‘I have sent for Sir Hugh,’ he said.

  ‘How is Maria?’ she asked.

  ‘Still quiet.’

  ‘Do you trust her?’ asked Helena.

  ‘No. I think it possible that, once she recovers from Morton’s death, she will want revenge, so I propose to have her watched, to make sure she can do no more harm.’

  ‘What will happen now?’ asked Helena.

  'We will hold the funeral as soon as possible. Morton has no family, so I propose to bury him here. He is my brother-in-law, and it will not seem too strange that I should do so. The funeral will be a quiet affair. I doubt if many people will come, for my neighbours did not know him, and I do not intend to noise it abroad: the sooner it is dealt with, the better.'

  'I
understand.'

  There came the sound of voices from the hall, and the sound of footsteps: Sir Hugh Greer had arrived.

  ‘I must leave you,’ said Simon, stepping back.

  The door was thrown open and Sir Hugh strode into the room, blowing into his hands.

  ‘Now then, Pargeter, what’s all this? There’s been an accident, I understand.’

  ‘Yes.’

  'It’s a good thing your man found me on the road or he wouldn’t have got hold of me until tomorrow. I’m due at the Bancrofts’ in an hour, so you’ll have to be quick. What’s happened?'

  'Unfortunately, my brother-in-law has been shot. He was showing one of my guests, a lady, how to fire a pistol. She had never held one before, and although she did her best to follow his instructions, her aim went wide.'

  ‘Dead?’ asked Sir Hugh succinctly.

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Never put a gun into the hands of a woman,’ said Sir Hugh, shaking his head. ‘They mean well, bless ’em, but it’s asking for trouble.’

  As the two men talked, Helena resumed her role as the housekeeper and quietly withdrew.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was a cold, dreary day when Morton was buried. As Simon had foreseen, few people attended the funeral, and none of them accompanied him back to the castle afterwards, although he had been scrupulous about asking them. There had been a little gossip, but it had soon been overtaken as a subject of interest by news of Mrs Willis’s expectation of a happy event.

  ‘We all thought her husband was too old,’ said Mrs Beal to Helena at breakfast a few days later, ‘but there, she’ll be delighted, poor thing. Always wanted children, she did. “It must be awful to be alone in the world,” she said to me once. She was thinking of it even then. Two years married and not a sign of a child. But now . . . yes, it’s a happy event.’

  Helena thought of Mrs Willis and the young man at the ball, and then she thought of Mrs Willis’s strange words when they had taken tea together: It was a pity she was all alone in the world, with no one to miss her when she was gone and knew now that Mrs Willis had not been thinking her aunt was an easy target for wrongdoing, as she had suspected at the time, but had simply been thinking of her own situation.

  Helena finished her breakfast and then went to the housekeeper’s room to start on the day’s work. As she went in, she saw Le Morte d’Arthur sitting on her desk, and she picked it up, meaning to return it to the library, for she had finished it. As she did so, she thought about the many forms love could take: the courtly love of her book, Maria’s love for Morton, Simon’s love for Anna, Anna’s love for her son.

  And then she thought about her own love: her love for her parents, her love for Caroline, her love for her aunt . . . and her love for Simon. She could no longer hide it from herself; she was in love with him.

  She was crossing the hall when she saw Miss Parkins coming down the stairs. Miss Parkins was dressed in her outdoor clothes, with a long grey cloak covering her bony body, and in her hand was a valise.

  ‘Are you going out?’ asked Helena in surprise.

  Miss Parkins turned calm eyes on her, and Helena was surprised at the change in them. They looked human at last. Her face had smoothed, as though she had been holding herself rigid for a long time and had finally allowed herself to relax.

  ‘My time here is done,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t mean you’re leaving?’ asked Helena in surprise.

  ‘I have done what I promised. I have looked after my lady’s children. Her oldest son I could not save; he was dead before I made my vow. But her remaining children will now be happy. Her daughter is rid of a monstrous brute, and her younger son . . . I blamed him for a time, but now all is forgiven. I have forgiven him, and he has forgiven himself.’ Miss Parkins walked towards the door, then turned and said: ‘I wish you well.’

  There was a flicker of a smile in her eyes and Helena saw in her a completely different person; not a terrifying, unnatural mannequin, but a devoted woman who had loved her mistress and who had loved her mistress’s children.

  It seemed strange to think she had been so frightened of Miss Parkins when she had arrived at the castle, for now she knew that, although Miss Parkins had been alarming, she had been dangerous only to those who had threatened the Pargeters, and had been dangerous to Helena only whilst she had thought that Helena was a threat.

  ‘And I you,’ said Helena. ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘To my sister. She lives in Dorset. It is where we grew up. I am looking forward to going home.’

  Simon stood on the landing, watching Miss Parkins through the window as she climbed into the carriage and set out on her journey. She had been a part of his life ever since he could remember. She had given him a sense of security in his childhood, for she had always been there, always the same . . . until the day his sister-in-law had died.

  He remembered how Miss Parkins had blamed him; not for the death of his sister-in-law, nor even the death of his brother, but for the way Richard’s death had killed his mother.

  But now Miss Parkins had forgiven him. And she was right, he thought, as he remembered the words he had overheard, he had forgiven himself. It was as though a great burden had been lifted from him, and now that it was gone, he could look to the future again. A future with Helena.

  He began to walk downstairs. He had been determined never to fall in love, because love led to loss, and loss led to pain. But something had happened to him when Morton had turned the pistol on Helena. He had known in that moment that it was impossible to avoid love, because love had found him anyway. But he had known something else, too: that, terrible though it would be to lose Helena, it would be better than never having loved her, because the joy and the pleasure of loving her had been worth any pain.

  And now he wanted to tell her so.

  Helena returned Le Morte d’Arthur to its place on the bookshelves and was about to leave the library when Simon walked in. He stopped and looked at her with such intensity that her hands clenched and unclenched themselves. He seemed about to speak, but then he closed his mouth and walked over to her until he was standing in front of her, so close that the front of his coat was touching the front of her dress. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheeks and she felt as though something momentous was about to happen.

  ‘Helena . . . there is so much I want to say to you . . . ’ he began.

  She turned up her face to his expectantly and saw the words die on his lips. His head came closer and her own tilted in response, and then he kissed her.

  And her heart quaked.

  ‘I suppose it is too much to hope that the villagers will stop calling you Stormcrow,’ she said, as they walked outside in the garden some hours later. Though the day was dull, it was fine, and it felt good to be out of doors.

  ‘It is. But it is not a bad name, and when our children are old enough, I will tell them so.’

  She looked at him and he took her hands in his.

  ‘Helena, I’m in love with you. Will you marry me?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Simon, I will.’