The Tyrant

by Patricia Veryan

  Carruthers turned, speechless, to his ‘betrothed.’

  Phoebe fluttered her fan at him. “I had to brag of some of your accomplishments, sir,” she told him, “lest my mama think you have none.”

  His answering smile was rather tight.

  As he had feared, an hour after they resumed their journey, he was again obliged to detour, to the predictable indignation of his coachman, who scolded, “If we takes that ugly north road, Mr. Meredith, sir, we’ll be lucky do we get home ’fore dark!”

  The ‘ugliness’ he referred to was the condition of the surface. Phoebe, suspecting what Carruthers was about, did her best to placate her mother, who was not only becoming tired, but vowed she was black and blue. Sunset was painting the North Downs with a mellow pink glow, but dark clouds edged the horizon when Carruthers announced that they were now on his lands. He rode off to scan the countryside ahead, then cantered Percent to the following carriage and warned Sinclair in a low voice, “Trouble. Tell Lance to prepare to abandon ship at the curve of the road!”

  He stopped the lead coach at the top of the next hill, and assisted the weary ladies to alight. Phoebe was aghast when she realized Sinclair’s carriage did not follow, and her frightened eyes flew to Carruthers.

  He said easily, “I’m not surprised. Rather suspected the off leader had picked up a stone. I’ll go back and see how the coachman is managing.”

  Trying not to appear as scared as she felt, Phoebe put her arm about her wilting mother and walked with her to the rim of the hill. They looked over emerald valleys and darkly wooded slopes, with off to the east the roseate glitter of a large lake, reflecting the fiery skies. To the west rose the chimneys and Gothic church tower of a village, and here and there scattered cottages and farmhouses were shaded by venerable old trees and surrounded by tidy fields.

  “Oh,” Phoebe exclaimed, “but it really is lovely country, Mama.”

  Lady Eloise was thinking that it really was not very considerate of Mr. Carruthers to have subjected ladies to such an exhausting day. “I wonder how much longer we have to drive,” she said, failing to keep the weariness from her voice.

  Carruthers galloped up and dismounted. “The village you see is called Dewbury Prime,” he offered. “There is another on the estate, some five miles north, called Dewbury Minor.”

  “It reminds me of Southwind,” murmured Phoebe.

  He glanced at her. The warm lamps of sunset illumined her face and brightened the red-gold ringlets that she had not powdered today. She looked nostalgic, and, curious, he asked, “A similar estate, ma’am?”

  She gave a rather embarrassed laugh. “You will think me silly, but I once wrote a short story about a girl living on a country estate. This is almost exactly what I described. Does your home turn out to be a half-timbered Queen Anne with roses round the door, I shall be more than a little disconcerted, sir.”

  He did not reply, but the twinkle in his eyes was marked as he offered an arm to each lady.

  Lady Eloise asked, “Is it a Queen Anne, Mr. Carruthers?”

  “I mean to make you wait and see, ma’am,” he said teasingly. The second coach came up, and he called, “Why do you not ride with your family now, Ramsay? You surely must have completed whatever you were trying to accomplish today.”

  Sinclair replied brightly, “I believe I have, and I think it will not hurt to let it rest for a few hours, at least.”

  Sublimely unaware of these double entendres, Lady Eloise reached out to him fondly. “Such a passion for books has my clever son, Mr. Carruthers. Oh, dear! Only look, there are some more of those wretched dragoons! I suppose we are to be stopped and searched and asked all manner of stupid questions!”

  Leading them back to the waiting coach, Carruthers asked, “Do the dragoons alarm you, ma’am?”

  “I do not like to think of what they’re about, merely. What a nuisance this Rebellion has been, to be sure.”

  Above her head, Carruthers met Phoebe’s eyes. He said drily, “Nuisance is a mild word, ma’am.”

  A few minutes later they were surrounded by redcoats. The young Ensign in command had a round face and a sneering insolence. Carruthers waited through his first bullying, then interrupted coldly, “Under whose command are you, sir?”

  The Ensign was affronted and replied with curt resentment that his superior officer was Major Broadbent.

  “A fine soldier,” said Carruthers. “Hilary Broadbent and I served at Culloden together. You will please to tell him that Lieutenant Meredith Carruthers sends his compliments and he must come to the Hall and meet my betrothed.” He frowned as a trooper engaged in a blasphemous dispute with the already irritated coachman. “You should keep your men more in hand, Ensign.”

  The Ensign stammered and flushed, roared commands at his men to be done, and waved the carriages on.

  Sinclair chuckled, and said sotto voce, “Jolly well done, sir.”

  “An unpleasant young man,” said Lady Eloise. “Only suppose we had been obliged to fear him!”

  Phoebe asked uneasily, “In what way, Mama?”

  My lady answered, “I could not help but think, you know, watching him, only suppose we were a Jacobite family, trying to smuggle one of our loved ones to safety—a son, perhaps, and brother, who had fought for the Scottish Prince. How terrifying it would have been, instead of merely a nuisance. For instance, what if we’d hidden a fugitive—say, in your hamper, Sin my love.” She gave a shudder. “Just to think of it gives me chills! I cannot guess how people venture such deeds. It would not do for me. I declare I would die of fright!”

  There was an instant of rather heavy silence as three culprits avoided each other’s eyes. Then Carruthers was handing the ladies into the coach once more. “Just a little way, mesdames,” he assured them. “When we top the next rise, you will have your first clear view of Meredith Hall.”

  They began to follow a well-maintained drivepath that wound between lush slopes and meadows begemmed with daisies and Queen Anne’s lace. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers and quiet with the drowsy warmth of early evening.

  “There is the Hall,” said Carruthers. “Take it slowly now, Ferguson.”

  The carriage slowed. Phoebe peered ahead, and her eyes grew very round.

  She looked upon a collection more nearly resembling a miniature town than a residence. It was as though succeeding generations of Carrutherses, dissatisfied with the achievements of their ancestors, had added their own mite to the ongoing expansion, in the shape of a wing here, a conservatory there; a court, to be later enclosed by yet another wing. And the whole, blithely disregarding conformity, incorporating turrets, spires, graceful bay windows, balconies, grim archways, and waterless fountains, was sadly run down. Windows were cracked, paint hung, peeling, steps sagged crookedly. No two sections of the structure were the same shade of paint, and here and there tiles that had fallen from the roofs lay shattered upon the bricked or cobbled pathways.

  “Oh … my…!” murmured Phoebe.

  Carruthers’s lips tightened. He said curtly, “Had we been able to prepare for you, the gardens would have been weeded, of course.”

  Gazing upon lawns that more closely resembled abandoned hayfields, flower-beds in which weeds had long since claimed dominion, and hedges that rioted with wild abandon, Lady Ramsay whispered audibly, “What gardens?”

  Phoebe battled the urge to giggle, and was rescued when Sinclair exclaimed with incomprehensible enthusiasm, “Oh, I say! What a fascinating place!”

  Carruthers looked upon him with approval. “It—er, does need some renovations,” he admitted, with a guarded glance at the solemn-faced girl.

  A lady had come out onto a terrace at the middle of a gracefully curving central structure. Carruthers waved to her, and a warm smile illumined his face.

  ‘How glad he is to be home,’ thought Phoebe, and with an inward revulsion thought also how fortunate it was that, by no stretch of the imagination, would this monstrous collection of ruins ever become
home to her.

  IV

  As though determined that arriving guests should inspect each wing in turn, the drivepath first swung westward, then turned in a wide easterly loop around an enormous central lawn, in the middle of which a depressingly headless statue rose from a lopsided and dry fountain. Carruthers rode close to the carriage windows and with polite official-guide demeanour pointed out some features of each wing as they passed.

  The Elizabethan, erected in 1601, two-storeyed and half-timbered, with large mullioned windows, contained the state apartments, the chapel, and the larger dining room. The Tudor addition, four storeys high, narrow, red brick and white stucco, with graceful gables and tall intricate chimneys, housed the buttery and the suites of the immediate family, besides quarters for whichever relations chanced (by dint of great persuasive powers on the part of their host, thought Phoebe) to visit the old place. From behind this wing, which had been built in 1490, one could catch glimpses of a building of even greater antiquity that lurked behind the semicircular two-storey central structure, which appeared to have been thrown up in an effort to hide it; the massive towers, battlements, and a flagpole rearing up defiantly at the rear.

  Curious, Sinclair asked, “Why is it shut in, sir?”

  “Haunted, I expect,” Phoebe offered solemnly.

  “Oh, yes, all the wings are haunted,” Carruthers drawled, just as solemnly. “The old Keep, which is incidentally the original Castle Carruthers, was begun in 1249, and is rather falling away, unfortunately. It has not been occupied for two hundred years.”

  “But would it not have been simpler to tear it down?” asked my lady.

  “My ancestors decided against it, ma’am, and built adjacent, as you can see. The convex wing across the courtyard was originally designed to connect the newer structures directly, making it unnecessary to traverse the Keep. The wing beyond the Keep is Late Mediaeval, circa 1405, but since it was constructed during the period that the Lancasters ruled, we call it our Lancastrian wing.”

  Phoebe thought the old building quite charming, with its alternating courses of black-and-white flint and white stone. It housed, said Carruthers, the main ballroom and minstrels’ gallery, and the famed Hall of Mirrors, plus the servants’ quarters. The last of the structures Phoebe thought the most bizarre. Built of grey stone, it was comparatively modern, having been put up in 1659, yet it was remarkable for an abundance of griffins, gargoyles, eagles, and small elaborate towers. A large projecting bay, with decrepit latticed windows, appeared rather forlorn and out of place amid such Italianate extravagances, but Carruthers informed them that their most distinguished guests were invariably quartered there, and that he hoped they would find it comfortable.

  Each structure had its own entrance, but the carriage halted before the two great studded doors in the convex central wing, and Carruthers dismounted to assist the ladies to alight.

  Decidedly stunned, Lady Eloise murmured as he handed her down, “I fancy you must do a great deal of entertaining, sir.”

  “Oh, no. Very little,” he said in his brusque way. “Well, Mama, I have brought you some splendid company.”

  Lucille Carruthers came to the edge of the steps to meet them, the great skirts of her beige brocade Watteau gown swaying gracefully. Tiny and frail, she could scarcely wait for her son’s introductions before embracing first Lady Eloise and then Phoebe. She was, she proclaimed in a high-pitched, nervous little voice, “so thrilled! So surprised. Had no least notion! Oh, how very lovely the child is! However did you win her, Meredith? And so this is your son, ma’am? How charming! So good of you to come! No, not in the least trouble, we are only delighted!”

  Phoebe thought her bewitchingly lovely, with her great wistful blue eyes, delicate features, and the luxuriant hair, high-piled and powdered, that was, she guessed, several shades lighter than that of her dark son.

  The butler, whose name was Conditt, was made known to them. He was tall and emaciated-looking, with a gloomy expression and a magnificent carriage, and he ushered them into a wide hall that stretched off to left and right until it was concealed by the inward curve of the wing. Through the windows on the opposite wall, the courtyard of the great Keep could be seen, and the enormous room appeared to be a sort of weaponry, containing many finely preserved suits of armour, some so arranged as to hold great lances, and one splendid fellow in twelfth-century regalia brandishing a mighty two-edged sword. Axes, crossbows, maces, and other mediaeval weapons adorned the walls. Trailing behind her mother and Mrs. Lucille, who were chattering like old friends, Phoebe was brought up short by the sight of a knight on a rather moth-eaten-looking horse, mounted on a dais, and with a large black cat snoozing on his lap. Stunned, she halted to stare, and Carruthers murmured, “This is the Armour Hall, ma’am. We use it only to intimidate guests and are seldom in here, I assure you. The breathing addition to the exhibit is named Satan, and rightly so.”

  Hurrying to them, Sinclair exclaimed, “Jove, sir! What a place! I could spend a week in this room alone.”

  “Oh, no, you could not,” said Carruthers softly. “Unless I mistake it, my mama will have made many plans, and somehow we’ve to move our fugitive into the Cut.”

  Phoebe waited until they passed an apparently petrified lackey, then whispered, “‘The Cut’? What is that?”

  “Some of the land hereabouts is very uneven. To the north is a great gorge we call the Quarry, and leading from it for several miles is a fissure known as the Cut. Providentially, there is a small cave in the wall that will provide temporary shelter, at least.”

  “I’d think it would be the first place the army would search,” said Sinclair worriedly. “Poor Lascelles was in a bad way when I got him out of the hamper. I had to all but carry him to the little hollow he told me of, and could not have managed that had you not distracted the coachman, sir.”

  “A hollow, merely?” Phoebe put in, dismayed. “But Mr. Carruthers, he cannot be left there for long. Did you notice those big clouds? If we have rain, it will likely—”

  “Madam,” he interrupted, with an impatient toss of the head, “I can but do as I see fit.”

  “Fit! What is fit about a hollow, and a clammy cave for a man who is half dead already? What about that great crumbly Keep of yours? There surely must be a secret room, or a priest’s hole? Almost all old houses have—”

  Lucille Carruthers called, “Do come along, Meredith. Poor Miss Ramsay must be sadly in need of a quiet rest before dinner.” They hurried to catch up with her, and she went on in gentle chiding, “Why ever did you bring them by the north road? It really was rather thoughtless.”

  Carruthers said, “Miss Ramsay is much taken with our Armour Hall, Mama. And speaking of thoughtlessness—where is my brother?”

  All the animation left Lucille’s lovely face. She clasped her hands, regarding her tall son anxiously. “He was tired of waiting, so took Justice for a walk. I—I am sure he will return directly.”

  “One can but hope,” he muttered.

  His mother bit her lip, then hurried off with Lady Eloise.

  Phoebe thought in astonishment, ‘Brooks was right. The poor little creature is terrified of her own son! How disgraceful!’

  They reached the end of the Armour Hall at last, and a liveried footman swept open a connecting door. This, thought Phoebe, must be the Lancastrian wing.

  They entered an interminable hall, the occasional double doors on either side suggesting that the rooms were extremely large. Occasional side halls with recessed windows provided the only light, and it was a dim place, having an air of disuse. When they were safely alone, Carruthers said in a low and implacable voice, “I’ll not have a Jacobite traitor under my roof, Miss Ramsay, however good a friend he may be. Not unless there is no possible alternative.”

  Phoebe halted. “We had him in our house, and he was not even our friend.”

  He looked down at her coldly. “That was your decision. It is not mine.”

  Sinclair said, “I am most grateful
to Carruthers for what he has done, Phoebe. Only look at the pickle I have run him into.”

  “Him!” she flared with righteous indignation and, sticking her pretty nose into the air, she stalked into the vast Great Hall of the new wing, from the centre of which rose the majestic sweep of a mahogany staircase.

  “Thank the Lord,” muttered Carruthers, “for the carefree life of a bachelor!”

  He was, Phoebe told herself, gritting her teeth, an innocent victim. But it was all she could do not to retaliate with a fervent ‘Long may you enjoy it!’

  * * *

  Ada was waiting in the overpowering suite assigned them, and lost no time in informing her employer that she ‘could feel the ghostes!’ her manner implying that Meredith Hall fairly thronged with such apparitions. Phoebe laughed at her. She washed, changed into a wrapper, and enjoyed the tea and biscuits that were sent up. Her efforts to rest were useless, however, and she rang for Ada only half an hour after her handmaiden had departed, and was dressed for the evening, her hair restyled and powdered. She had chosen a new green taffeta gown with the flattened panniers now fashionable. Little lace frills were layered down the front opening of the skirt and repeated in a double line about the swooping neckline. Her only jewellery was the strand of pearls that had been her gift from Papa on the occasion of her come-out. She knew she looked well and, ignoring Ada’s horrified wails, ventured forth to explore a little before she went to find her mama and Sinclair.

  The passage stretched on and on. The glow from the lighted branches of candles or the wall sconces seemed to peter out ahead, and the air grew chill. Phoebe hesitated, but although Meredith Hall was a perfectly hideous collection of decrepitudes, she could not deny that she found it interesting, and eventually she went on again.

  After a few more minutes, however, she had to admit she was properly lost. Wherever she was now, the hallway was becoming wider, the ceiling buttressed by beautifully carved beams. She came to a railed balcony running around a squared well. Below was a huge, dimly seen apartment that must be the ballroom Carruthers had spoken of. At eye level, a gigantic inverted mushroom was suspended from the ceiling high above her. The chandelier protected by that holland cover must be vast. She could envision minstrels playing up here, and below, gentlemen in doublets and hose dancing sedate measures with ladies in huge farthingales. She smiled dreamily. Not fearsome ghosts, as Ada had sensed, but—