Hannah joined them with the chief assistant gardener – the head gardener was no longer up to dancing, and was among the cronies along the wall, nearest the punch. That was the set complete, and the dance began.
Neither Murray nor Beatrix could have said afterwards how long the dance lasted. For Murray, trying not to touch Mrs. Bootham any more than was absolutely necessary, or to meet her eyes, it took an eternity. The very swirl of her skirts seemed designed to snare his feet. For Beatrix, it only seemed to last a mad, giddy minute. His eyes seemed always on her, and the warmth of his hand through her glove seemed to flow through her veins. The little voice in her head that told her, night after night, that he was married, was strangled now. She was alone with him in a magical instant, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Soon Lord and Lady Scoggie were politely returning the courtesies of their partners, and preparing to leave again. The Boothams, smiling at their spellbound partners, drifted back together again. Murray shook himself. He wished he had a bowl of cold water to splash on his face, and looking at Bea, he thought he ought perhaps to splash her, too. She was blindly following Lord and Lady Scoggie out of the barn, looking as if she were sleepwalking. It took Murray a moment to extract himself from the crowd to follow them to the door and wish them goodnight, and so they and the Boothams were some distance ahead of him, and for a moment he could not work out what was happening.
There was a lot of shouting, and some sound of running footsteps, and the crowd around the doorway suddenly ebbed and flowed as if some force had hit it hard. He pushed his way to the front, and found himself beside Lord Scoggie, staring at the Kinkell brothers.
‘Where’s my wife?’ Sandy was demanding. ‘Where’s Chrissie? Where’ve they got her?’
‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ Geordie Kinkell had his brother somewhat half-heartedly around the waist, pulling him back. ‘He’s had a bit of drink taken, and he misses the woman, dear help him.’
‘There’s no sign of her yet?’ Lord Scoggie was concerned. ‘I did tell them to return her.’
‘Hugh Farquhar’s missing, though, isn’t he?’ said Geordie, trying to sound reasonable. ‘They’re saying he’s dead. Maybe he forgot.’
‘No, no,’ said Lord Scoggie, trying to draw them away from the goggling crowd at the doorway. ‘I had Mr. Tibo go down to check that she had left. He assured me – Mr. Tibo? Where is the man?’
Mutters ran round the crowd, but no Mr. Tibo appeared. Murray relaxed a little, thinking that the Kinkells were no longer violent.
‘I haven’t seen Mr. Tibo all evening, my lord,’ said Naismyth helpfully, from two rows back in the mob.
‘Anyway, he said she had gone.’ Lord Scoggie cast an expert eye over Sandy. ‘I think it would be best if you took him home to rest tonight, Geordie,’ he suggested, with heavy emphasis. ‘In the morning we’ll all be in a better position to do something about it.’
But Sandy was not paying attention. He had caught sight of someone in the crowd, and was loping towards them.
‘I smell fish!’ he cried, pointing an offensive finger – straight at Grisell.
The crowd drew back, leaving Grisell standing in a small open space.
‘You’re Richie Shaw’s girl! I smell fish!’ Sandy lurched closer. Murray stepped to stop him, but she was looking round for help from a different quarter.
‘Andrew?’ she called. ‘Andrew? Where have you gone?’
Murray caught up with Sandy, and put a long hand across his chest. Sandy swung round, focussing with difficulty on Murray’s face.
‘Come on, now, Mr. Kinkell,’ said Murray softly. ‘It’s not the girl’s fault. Come along, now, and take a seat over here.’ He propelled Sandy gently, using the man’s own weight, and propped him on the side of the horse trough in the yard. ‘What’ll happen if he has another?’ he asked Geordie over his shoulder.
‘He’ll likely fall asleep, sir,’ said Geordie.
‘There’s a bowl of punch by the door, there. Fetch us a couple of glasses over here.’
‘You can manage all right, then, Mr. Murray?’ asked Lord Scoggie, pitching his voice so as not to disturb Sandy.
‘Yes, I think so, my lord.’ Geordie brought the punch, and he and Murray sat on either side of Sandy, propping him up.
‘Then I think it’s best if we just ...’ Lord Scoggie took his wife and his guests, and slid off to the front of the house. Grisell, white in the face, disappeared determinedly back into the crowd, and they were left alone like three crows on a fence.
By the time he had seen the Kinkells on their way home and managed to return to the dance, cold and annoyed, Murray had only time for one more set before the company were to sit down to supper. He escorted a farmer’s daughter to the supper table and saw to it that she had a full plate, then excused himself to go and see if the boys were settled.
Outside the air was fresh and crisp, the moonlight drenching the park’s smooth slopes as he came round the corner of the castle on to the drive. He paused for a moment, enjoying a few seconds of solitude, letting his gaze run over the silver trees, the steely lake in the hollow, smelling the sharp frost-scents of the night.
Suddenly he thought he caught a movement, down near the trees by the lake. He squinted hard, but it had gone. An owl, perhaps, he thought. He stopped, though, and watched for a moment. The cold bit at his face and hands. Then, out of nowhere, there was a figure near the trees. It left a patch of shadow, limping awkwardly, and stepped into the moonlight. A chill ran through him, as he thought of the boys’ ghostly expectations. The figure was dressed as a fisherman.
As soon as he had appeared, he vanished again.
Of course he should go down there: some fisherman prowling around the lake at this time of night was on no rightful business. It was his duty to go and see, to challenge the intruder. Somehow, though, he did not. He waited, but there was no further sign of the limping figure. There was no sound in the clean air, and it seemed like desecration when at last he stepped forward and crunched across the gravel to the front door. A little squeal came from nearby.
‘Who’s there?’ he demanded at once, trying not to sound as alarmed as he felt.
‘Is that you, Mr. Murray?’
It was Deborah, her shawl clutched around her, shivering.
‘Good heavens! Miss Deborah! Have you been out al this time? Since the end of supper?’
‘Yes. Please don’t tell my mother, will you, Mr. Murray?’
‘But you’ll come in now, won’t you?’
‘Oh, yes.’
He hurried her up to the front door and opened it for her. She nearly fell over the threshold, clutching at the doorpost for support, and pulled off her gloves. She fumbled at her bonnet strings with frozen fingers.
‘Here, let me, if you will,’ said Murray, and started to disentangle the strings. ‘I hope your headache is better.’
‘My headache? What do you – oh, yes, of course. So completely better, you see, that I had forgotten I ever had it.’ Her teeth were chattering: her lips looked blue. He undid the strings as quickly as he could, his own fingers cold, and she lifted the bonnet off, flinging it down clumsily on the hall table. ‘I must find a fire,’ she muttered, and headed for the stairs. He followed her into the parlour, and then into the drawing room, but both fires had been allowed to die down. They went back to the parlour.
‘I’ll try and chivvy some warmth back into this,’ said Murray, ‘if you will sit down and pull some more shawls around you.’ The parlour was full of odd shawls, used to fight off the castle’s perpetual chill. He knelt by the fireplace and found there was still a glow in the midst of the ashes. He set to to spread it.
‘Was I missed?’ she asked after a while.
‘I couldn’t say,’ said Murray diplomatically. ‘The dance was going well, though there was one distraction.’ He told her about the Kinkell brothers, and the missing wife.
‘And she has been gone all this time?’ she said, in an odd tone. ‘That’s
strange.’
‘Indeed. Particularly since Mr. Tibo has been down to see if she is still at the Farquhars, and she is not.’
‘Mr. Tibo seems to have been doing a great deal in the village recently.’
He sat back on his heels, letting a flame catch on some twigs.
‘It was to meet him that you went out this evening, wasn’t it?’ he said. She looked up in alarm. ‘I overheard you making the arrangement. The boys knew about it, too.’
‘Well, if you all know so much, maybe you can tell me where he is,’ she said bitterly. ‘Yes, I did go out to meet him, but I never found him. I’ve been waiting for over an hour.’
‘Well, he wasn’t at the dance. Do you want me to fetch you anything? The fire has caught, now.’ He stood up slowly.
‘No, no. I’ll be quite all right now. Thank you, Mr. Murray.’ She held her hands out to the fire, pulling her gloves off. At the hem of her gown he could see her toes wriggling in the heat. He smiled, and turned to go, when she spoke again. ‘You haven’t seen your father for some time, I believe.’
He was brought up abruptly.
‘No, I haven’t.’
She looked up at him.
‘Forgive me, Mr. Murray. That was an impertinent question. But please tell me, if you can: do you miss him?’
He thought for a moment, making sure that he was going to tell the truth. His father was bullying and opinionated, and never understood his interests.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said at last.
‘What an odd thing parents are, are they not?’ she said. ‘And after all, in the end what does it matter?’
‘I can’t see Lord Scoggie taking that point of view,’ he said lightly, and she laughed.
‘You’re quite right: he has a very firm opinion on the subject of parents and children. Firstborn sons, anyway.’ She stood up and pulled her chair closer to the fire. ‘Ah, well, never mind.’
She said no more, and feeling himself dismissed, Murray left the parlour.
Upstairs, all was quiet. He listened at the door of Robert’s room, then of Henry’s, then quietly turned the door handle. Henry’s bed was empty, and did not look as if it had been slept in, but it was possible that he had stayed with Robert after the ghost story. Murray grinned to himself. Then he tried the handle of Robert’s door.
Robert’s bed was also empty. Moonlight streamed across the tumbled bedclothes, and for a moment in its colourless light Murray did not realise a salient point: the blankets and eiderdown were there, but the bedsheets were not.
‘Oh, damnation!’
He took a quick look around the room, particularly behind the curtains, a favourite hiding place, but there was no sign of them. Then he checked each room in the corridor, the schoolroom, Henry’s room, and his own chamber, but without result.
The west tower was a strong possibility, he thought, hurrying back towards the gallery. The moonlight flooded it, and he stopped, uneasy, not liking the feel of the place. He listened. Halfway along the gallery he could hear Tippoo the dog scratching inside Keyes’ chamber door, but apart from that there was silence.
He made himself walk the length of the gallery, and up the little stairs to the tower room, but it was locked with the key on the outside, and even when he went in to check, thinking that each was quite capable of locking the other inside, it was empty. The door to the attics above the gallery rooms was also locked, and the dust on the key showed that it had not been used for a while.
They must have gone to the barn, he thought. They had felt left out of the party, and had probably decided to invite themselves. He went back down to the ground floor and out through the front door, and looked around at the ground, but the gravel showed no footprints even in the frost. He strode swiftly round the corner of the castle, back towards the barn.
The dancers were back on the floor again, the devastated supper tables pushed back against the walls, but fewer were standing now for each dance and the crowd of cronies along the sides of the dance floor was growing greater. Andrew was dancing with a laundrymaid with great red hands and a style of dancing that was very reminiscent of the washtub. The gardener’s boy could not believe his luck: Grisell was back as his partner, and very deliberately giving every sign of enjoying herself. The dance ended, and by chance the two couples met by the punch bowl.
‘Will you give me the next dance, then?’ Andrew asked her, not smiling.
‘Why should I? I have a good partner.’
‘That penny dog? He’s no worth dancing with. Does he have to stand on your feet, like a wee lad?’
‘I canna see anyone here who looks any better to me.’ She would not meet his eye.
‘Well, I’m no interested in dancing with a girl with no taste. You can keep your wee lad, if you fancy being a nursery maid.’
‘At least he’s here when I want him!’ she snapped, but Andrew had turned away, and was already asking another girl to dance. He spun away with her on to the floor, and Grisell watched, irresistibly, fighting back hot tears.
‘Grisell! Have you seen Robert and Henry?’ She turned to find Mr. Murray at the doorway.
‘No, I have not,’ she said. ‘Will you not dance with me, Mr. Murray?’
He gave an absent smile and a bow, looking urgently about the barn.
‘I’d be delighted, Miss Grisell, but I’m afraid I have to find the boys.’
‘Isn’t that them there?’
She pointed behind him. In the doorway were two small figures, almost entirely swathed in white sheets.
‘Robert! Henry! What on earth do you think you’re doing here?’
‘We were being ghosts –‘ said Robert, before Murray noticed that both their faces were white and even, he suddenly realised, tear-stained.
‘What’s the matter?’ he snapped.
‘Mr. Murray, we found something,’ said Henry, with a gulp.
‘What?’
Henry looked at Robert, and they moved a little closer to each other.
‘It’s the headless horseman,’ he said. ‘He must have been down by the lake. He’s got a victim.’
The lake? A memory of the mysterious fisherman flashed through his mind.
‘Who is it?’
Henry and Robert both bit their lips, then looked up at him.
‘It’s Mr. Tibo.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Aye, right,’ said Grisell sharply, but then she was not in a good mood. Murray, seeing the set of her arms, looked beyond her into the barn.
‘Mr. Naismyth!’ he called, trying to sound as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Would you mind? And Andrew, too, perhaps.’
‘Well, you’re welcome to him,’ said Grisell, in a tone that implied she was about to flounce off, but she stayed still.
‘Grisell, will you keep an eye on the boys for a moment while I have a word with Mr. Naismyth?’
Grisell swung round to them, arms still folded. Her stare was acid.
‘Aye. I’m used enough to looking after wee lads.’
When Robert did not even flinch at this description, Murray knew there was something wrong. Naismyth managed to extract himself, slowly as usual, from the crowd, and Murray gestured him over to one side of the doorway. Naismyth bent gently from the waist to angle his ear towards Murray’s mouth.
‘The boys say that something has happened to Mr. Tibo, down by the lake.’
Naismyth considered.
‘How would they know? As I understand his Lordship’s instructions, they are not permitted to play by the lake.’
‘Well, with little boys, ‘not permitted’ does not always mean ‘not able’. Anyway, I’m sure something has upset them. Will you come with me to look?’
Naismyth’s head tilted to one side, thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘And I think I shall summon Andrew.’
‘Here he is,’ said Murray. ‘He must have heard me before. Andrew?’
Andrew, however, was heading more towards Grisell and the boys
than towards them.
‘Look, Grisell,’ he was saying.
‘Why should I look at you? There’s not a thing about you that would be pleasing to my eye.’ She turned her back on him, pretending to be attending to the boys. Andrew pushed a hand through his golden hair, but the gesture lacked any of the self-confident flair he had once shown.
‘Please – there’s something I have to tell you –‘
‘I’m sure it’ll keep. Mr. Naismyth and Mr. Murray want you.’
Andrew turned, surprised to see them behind him.
‘Something seems to have happened down by the lake and we need to go and see,’ Murray explained quickly. ‘We should take lanterns. Will you fetch some?’ The night was starry bright, but by the lake the trees could cast long shadows. Andrew hurried off, with one longing glance at Grisell, and returned in a moment with three lanterns.
‘We cannot take those,’ said Naismyth, after a moment.’
‘They’re lanterns,’ said Murray reasonably.
‘They were the only ones handy,’ said Andrew. From his hands dangled three grinning neep lanterns.
‘Oh, come on: let’s see what we can do.’ Murray seized a lantern, and gathered the boys back from Grisell.
‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Andrew said urgently as he passed her.
‘I might not be here,’ she said, and turned with a swirl of her best skirts back into the barn.
The boys led the way back to the great dark front of the castle where not long since Murray had met Deborah. As they left the gravel of the drive, he could see her little footprints on the frosted grass, and the prints of the boys, but as the slope steepened down towards the lake the frost lessened its hold, and though they slithered in their hurry, he could see no distinct prints at all. The starlight showed the boys’ faces, pale and set, lips pressed hard and eyes wide as they showed where they had gone. The land flattened again a little as they neared the lake and the beginning of the woodland. The trees, stripped of their leaves by the storm, stretched glittering fingers up to snatch the stars, silver and grey and white, the skeletal ghosts of themselves. Beneath them, though, was darkness: dead, frosted leaves, the shadows of branches and thicket, the ground still half-damp, half-frozen, underfoot.
Knowledge of Sins Past (Murray of Letho Book 2) Page 21