by Edith Layton
This was a problem to Miss Ludlow, for she very much wanted to revisit the earl; in fact, it was becoming clear she wouldn’t mind taking up residence with him. But to deny the story now was to make her motives look precisely like what they were. Yet to insist on hearing the tale anyway although he’d expressly said it might bar her from his home forever was perhaps to insult him. She was saved, fittingly enough, by the doctor. The young physician was oblivious of all the maneuverings within the room, and honestly fascinated by any stories he might try to disprove with science.
“Oh, marvelous,” he said, sitting down and gazing up at the earl very like Sally had done, only with great expectation, rather than trepidation, clearly showing in his large light blue eyes.
After a few pleased exclamations and a general shifting of attention and positions so that everyone was soon seated and gazing at their host as though he were headmaster and they his attentive students, a silence fell over the Yellow Salon. The earl stood in front of a great fireplace, silhouetted by the flames behind him, his dark hair and eyes taking on demon red glints from it. His voice was low but carrying, the faint susurration of his speech perfect for conveying the faint unease of any good ghost story.
“It is said,” he began quite seriously and very sadly, “that my ancestor the first Earl of Clune took to himself a beautiful young wife when he reached his middle years. His had been a misspent youth, and a riotously spent adulthood. In fact, the only good thing he’d ever done, in everyone’s opinion, was to build this great Hall. But once it had been built, he found it empty, even after he’d stocked it with treasures and hangers-on, and passed time in it with great dinners and orgies. He must have had some idea of the sort of fellow he was, so he determined to find himself a wife as opposite to himself as existed on the green earth.
“Her name, it is said, was Lady Ann, but no one can be sure, for no trace of her remains in our time, save for her poor unquiet spirit which they say still walks these halls by night.”
Here the earl paused and looked up at the stair, as though he saw something there, and though it was a cool summer’s night, with no thunder or lightning or howling wind outside to supplement his eerie tale, all of the company gazed up at the staircase as well, in some dread of what they might see there. A few flinched, and there was one muted cry of “Oh!” at some perceived movement of something white between the oak rails, and the earl said softly as he continued to gaze upward:
“You may remain there, although I’m not best pleased with your deception, but then, I likely would have done the same in my time, at your age. So stay where you are, since you’re no longer dressed for company, but only if you can promise me your sister is abed, with her door closed, and that you’ll not repeat this tale to her.”
“She is. I won’t. Cross my ’eart,” Alfie whispered fervently as Bobby echoed the same behind him from where they crouched together in their nightshirts high on the stair.
The guests shifted in their seats, both amused and a bit ashamed of their own gullibility. But, Victoria thought, looking back at the narrator, if he can make us this uneasy after only moments, how shall I ever get up to bed tonight when he is done?
“My ancestor was not an unhandsome man,” the earl went on. “How could he be? He was a Haverford, after all.” He waited until the relieved laughter was done before he continued, “He was extremely wealthy, since he was a warrior-knight who’d won many prizes for and from his king, but he was no longer young, he was not gentle, nor was he, from all accounts, in any way kind. The Lady Ann was not only surpassing lovely, she was, just as he’d wished, everything he was not, including very young. She was only fourteen on their wedding day. Which never means,” he added at once, to the company’s collective gasps, “that he was necessarily perverse. Such was the way of things in those bygone days, for people did not live very long and had to get on with life and the business of begetting life as soon as they were able.
“And Lady Ann behaved just as ought, being poor and lovely and obedient, for she bore her lord three children, all before she’d reached the age of one-and-twenty. Now, we might have no more ghosts here at the Hall than any village church, if it were not for the fact that the first earl was called away on his sovereign’s business in the spring of the year, seven years to the day after his wedding. I suppose,” the earl said softly, reflectively, “that if it had been the fashion, before he departed, my ancestor would have fitted his wife out with the sort of Italian contraption that ensures fidelity,” and here he smiled slightly and glanced upward, so that the company would know it was for the children’s sake he did not actually mention chastity belts, but after seeing the puzzled frowns that several of the ladies and a few of the gentlemen wore, and the bright grins he saw shining on the faces of the Johnson boys, the earl continued quickly.
“But they’d become obsolete, and indeed, he’d scant reason to doubt her fidelity, unless he judged her by his own evil standards, since she was the most docile, humble little creature imaginable, or at least, so she is in all the stories that have come down to us. And so she might have remained until her life’s end, if she had not met her neighbor, young Sir Randall, yes, he whose family owned the castle that now lies in ruins not two leagues from here. He too was everything the first Earl of Clune was not, for he was radiantly beautiful to look upon, and young and noble and kind and good, and everything else the bards could get to rhyme in all their salutes to him.
“Of course, they met, and of course, they fell in love. Nothing could be more natural. And being the sort of young people they were, no more might have come from it but a great deal of frustration and bad poetry and a broken heart or two, if it were not for the fact that my ancestor liked his mission very well, and remained from home for a full two years, enjoying himself enormously with his royally sanctioned looting and rapine. And—terribly sorry, Vicar—but two years, and those two years passed alone together and yet not together, was, you may agree, far too long for even two such decent, noble young persons as the Lady Ann and Sir Randall were, to bear.”
The vicar “tut-tutted” and “harumphed,” but before he could think of a word to venture that was neither too sanctimonious nor liberal, the earl went on, suddenly more seriously and quietly, “Be that as it may, the fact is that when my ancestor at last sent notice of his imminent return, the two young lovers were faced with the reality of their predicament. And that reality was a newborn babe.”
There were several muted exclamations; the company stirred in their chairs, their faces, in the flickering firelight, troubled and dismayed, and focused entirely upon the speaker. Colin Haverford gave out an audible sigh and went on, “There was no hope for it. The two young lovers talked it round the clock, they called in their faithful retainers for consultation, but there was only one option open to them. They knew they must flee across the Channel and then further, and never return to their homeland, and certainly never to this great Hall. For the first Earl of Clune was a hard and violent man, and they feared his rage, the more because they feared he would be right in it.
“Lady Ann had a constant heart, despite her infidelity. She insisted on bringing all her children with her in her flight. Did Sir Randall object? Did he want only his own get and not those of my wicked ancestor? One could scarcely blame him, but did he then desert his lady because of it? The bards disagree on this. We only know that he left first, to secure passage for her and the children, some say, to free himself of the entanglement, others say. I cannot say. His ghost does not trouble us. He died in France many years later and doubtless burns in some other clime, that is, if he does not prowl some castle by the Seine for eternity, just as his love walks here.
“For she was not quick enough,” the earl said harshly, and several ladies and not a few gentlemen jumped at that. “She left it to the last, poor lass, and was out there, on the inland sea”—he pointed in an easterly direction at a tapestried wall, and some of the guests gazed in the direction of his outstretched finger as though the
y could see the shining water there—“on the estuary, in a small boat, headed for the true coast, when he, my dreadful ancestor, came thundering after her. He’d heard about the babe, he’d come with a company of rough men, he stopped at the water’s edge, and saw her in the boat and shouted. He shouted something at her, but the wind carried his words away. For there was a fierce wind blowing that evening.”
All the company remained silent, and it seemed as though they huddled together, though not one of them dared make a move as their host said softly, so softly they had to strain to hear him.
“What was it he cried to her? Did he threaten her as she’d feared he would? Or did he repent his cruelty, and fear her leaving more than his loss of honor? We, the living, shall never know. Some say he too haunts this place. But we all know she does. For she died that night.”
A gasp was heard, and no one turned to see who had reacted so, they were all so enthralled with the tale.
“Her boat overturned. And when they brought her home, here to the Hall, she lasted only until the dawn. But she lived long enough to know that all her children, all four, were brought back as well, but all cold, and all drowned.”
Victoria was naturally a most sympathetic person, but unlike the other ladies, she didn’t sob or catch her breath at this utterance, because something in the way the narrator pronounced it, drawing out the “cold” and lingering on the rolling R in “drowned,” alerted her to the fact that he was enjoying ravishing his listeners with the tale almost as much as his wicked ancestor was supposed to have done with his ravaging the countryside. A glance to his mama’s bemused face confirmed this, and so Victoria continued to listen to him with as much attention but with far less susceptibility than the others.
“We do not know,” the earl continued ominously, “what he said to her in his grief and anger and anguish as she lay dying, although we can imagine it, since we who live in the Hall can never forget what she said to him. For it is said that with her last breath, she whispered”—and here he dropped his voice so low, all present actually bent forward to catch his soft words—“‘There will be no peace for you, my lord Earl of Clune, and all your kind, no, never, not until you love a bastard child with all your heart and bring him to your bosom to let him lie in the heart of this accursed Hall.’
“Well!” the earl said abruptly, returning everyone from that ancient death watch at the lady’s bedside to the present, although it was only that he used his natural voice again. “He never did any such thing, of course, which is why she still roams the place. He wed again, actually, producing another litter of Haverfords, from which all subsequent Earls of Clune, even I, descend. So there you have it, Miss Charlotte, our ghost. Lady Ann is the one who troubles our nights. For she is said to walk the length of the house and back each night before dawn, more often than that on rainy nights, grieving for her lost children, cursing her perfidious lover, reviling my ancestor, and making a general nuisance of herself. It’s said she’s doomed to walk until her own curse is lifted. Which should keep her trotting about, I should imagine, until the end of eternity. She doesn’t bother ladies much, unless they’re Haverfords, of course. And children”—and here it was to his credit, Victoria thought approvingly, that he never once flicked an eyelid up to where the boys sat as he said it—“are never bothered by her in the least, for it is said that, quite naturally, she quite likes them.”
“Ah, well then,” Miss Charlotte said with a forced laugh, and in shaken tones, “as neither a Haverford nor a man, I’ve nothing to fear then, have I?”
“Oh,” the earl replied thoughtfully, “I don’t know. She’s only our primary ghost. It seems that once you’ve gotten yourself a haunting, it makes it that much easier for other spirts to crowd in. Something on the order of misery, even ghostly misery, loving company. Either that, or it may be that once there’s a rip in the stuff of reality, there’s an opportunity for a great many odd things to come crowding through. Many houses have multiple spirits, you know, and here at the Hall we’ve Lady Ann, of course, but the thumping in the attics is said to be the first earl by some, or a murdered footman, by others. Lady Ann’s faithful dog is said to walk the Hall too, after he comes in from his nightly search of the shore, eternally looking for his mistress and the children. They claim it’s because he was left behind, being too large to fit in the boat, and that he drowned attempting to save them.”
The earl paused, and then Victoria did see his momentary glance up at the stair before he went on blandly, “But though disturbing, these are harmless spirits, causing more unease than actual hurt. We’ve others, less benign, of course. There’s said to be an outraged governess who rules the midnight nursery, who swells to twice her size in fury, and a phantom coachman, and even another ancestor who creeps across floors catching on to living ankles.”
Here Victoria could see that some of the gentlemen surreptitiously jogged their legs a few times, and many of the ladies drew their knees together as they picked their slippered feet up a fraction from the carpet, even as she heard muted stifled giggles from the vicinity of the stairs.
“But enough of that,” the earl said heartily. “We don’t wish to be recluses here, after all. I’ll not utter another word about our unquiet visitors, or I fear we’ll never have another living one to grace our salon. Come, Miss Charlotte, enough chatter about devilish things. Your mama tells me you have an angel’s voice. Would you be so kind as to favor us with a song to lighten all our spirits?”
He might just as easily have said, “all the spirits,” Victoria thought in secret amusement, for she noted that Miss Charlotte was exceedingly careful, and glanced all about herself when she walked to the pianoforte in the corner as the assembled company urged her to do. But soon after, she relaxed and played and sang. Although Victoria thought any undead howling would be an improvement on the sounds issuing from the singer and the instrument, as did, she noted, the Johnson boys, who disappeared from the stair after the first note rang out, the company stayed and endured encores. The only other spirit shown that night was when the singer’s sister entered into competition with a recital of her own. But since Miss Sophrina’s offerings were not quite as good as her sibling’s, it wasn’t long before the assembled guests began offering all sorts of excuses for their departures, after having gazed jealously at the Hadleys, who, living furthest from the Hall, had, after all, the most valid reason for fleeing first.
She should have been weary when the night was over, Victoria thought. She’d bade the earl and Mrs. Haverford good night when all the company had left, and left the Yellow Salon herself to the servants’ attentions as they cleaned and cleared the room. But she lingered belowstairs, first on an errand to the kitchen to secure a tidbit she finally offered to one of Bobby’s hounds that had eluded the footmen, and then on a trip to the library to get a good book to pass the rest of the night with, and then on a trip back to the Yellow Salon to look for a lost handkerchief that she wasn’t even sure she’d brought down with her. It was only when she stood alone in the dim hallway on the first landing, dreading her necessary journey up another flight of stairs to her rooms, that she realized she’d been far more influenced by her host’s stories than she’d thought.
The tales had not only chased sleep from her mind, but she discovered she was peering into shadows and starting when the floors creaked; and when a footman belowstairs coughed, the echo of it, she was sure, caused all her hair to rise vertically from her scalp. She was chiding herself on being extremely childish, nonsensically foolish and craven to the point of idiocy, when she heard the distinctly real sound of footfalls right behind her, and then remembered that the last time she’d looked around, a scant second before, she’d been quite alone in the hallway.
She would not scream, she told herself weakly, and only hoped she could find enough voice to muster the whisper “Peace be with you, friend,” as she was rehearsing, when she heard a very mortal, somewhat shaken voice exclaim:
“Miss Dawkins! You ought not to s
tand in the dimmest reaches of the hallway, wearing diaphanous garments, after I’ve just passed the evening straining my imagination to the utmost inventing specters with which to frighten unwanted company away. You almost made me wonder if I’d actually conjured up Lady Ann.”
“It’s not diaphanous,” she replied at once, relieved but abrupt because she was shamed at being discovered terrified by her employer, the admitted perpetrator of the original hoaxing. “It’s velvet, not the stuff of shrouds. But did you make up Lady Ann entirely? I confess, I’m impressed, and,” she added in a grudging little voice, “I was frightened.… A bit. Oh, not then, not in the salon. But just now, when I was alone. I congratulate you.”
She could see him quite clearly now, for he’d come so close in order to see her better that she could make out every detail of his dark face glowing in the shadows, even to the deeper darkness of the small indentation at the bottom of his chin. But then she saw his even white teeth glinting in the half-light as he replied:
“Oh no. Sorry, but the Lady Ann is quite real, that is to say, she’s been documented, although I confess I’ve never met up with her. But I thought I saw your gown drifting like shifting spiderwebs up here in the hall, that’s why I crept up on you. Never say it’s velvet, but, yes,” he said, more softly, “you don’t lie, though my eyes did, for it is, isn’t it?”
He’d reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, to verify her claim, but once his fingers had met the short thick nap of the material, they lingered there and then spread out, almost of their own volition, to slide along her arm. She felt the warmth of his large hand dispel all the chill that had been in her mind and body, and when it widened its exploration to begin to stroke across her neck, now discovering the texture of her flesh as well as of her gown, she found she could not, or would not, think to say a thing to him, either to deny or encourage the strange encounter.