by Joan Smith
“I am happy to hear it. You might recall I fingered her as a malign influence the first time I met her.”
“So you did.” Merton nodded. He thought Wainwright could be a clever man if he would only let up on this hobbyhorse of his.
“And Old Ned?” Lewis asked. “The place will not seem the same without our hermit.”
“Perhaps he will become a true hermit,” Merton said. “We must wait and see how deeply he is involved in all of this. At the very least, my paintings will be returned and my wine cellar locked. My best claret!”
Charity tsked. “I think that bothers you more than the rest, Merton.”
“No, what they have done to Mama bothers me more.”
The terraced gardens, shining under the spring sun, seemed an unlikely place to be discussing the heinous goings-on at Keefer Hall. It was soon clear that Mr. Wainwright felt the call of his profession. He turned to look back at the cloisters.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, cupping his ear.
“I heard nothing,” Merton replied. Neither had Charity or Lewis.
“Surely you heard the mournful singing? It came from the cloisters. The singing nun! I must investigate.”
“I shall go with you,” Lewis said at once, and they hurried off together.
Merton offered Charity his arm. “Alone at last,” he said with a smile. They reached the allee and began walking toward the fountain.
“It was kind of you to let Papa investigate your bedchamber,” she said.
“If it is haunted, then it is best to remove the ghosts before ... before he leaves.”
“We shall be leaving soon. Once Lady Merton is satisfied that she has no ghost in her chamber, there will be no reason to remain.”
“Why, you are forgetting the singing nun, ma’am.”
“You do not believe in that. That is not why we were invited.”
“Have you forgotten I promised you a party?”
“It will be some time before you are able to dance, with that lame ankle,” she pointed out.
“True, you may have to remain a few weeks.”
“We seldom stay anywhere as long as that,” she said wistfully.
“I fancy your papa will stay awhile at least when I tell him what I have in mind.”
Charity felt a rush of blood to her head. “What—whatever do you mean, Merton?” she asked in a choked voice.
“I have sent a footman off to Lord Bath at Longleat, as your father mentioned an interest in visiting it. I extolled your papa’s powers and mentioned that he is in the neighborhood. Longleat is not so far from Keefer Hall. It seems a shame not to continue on to Wiltshire, while he is already halfway there.”
Her heart settled down to a dull, disappointed thud. “That was very kind of you. He will be aux anges to visit Lord Bath.”
“You, I think, do not share your father’s enthusiasm for this peripatetic life-style, Charity.”
“To tell the truth, I have become a little tired of it. It seems I no sooner get home than we are off again.”
“Perhaps it is time for you to settle down,” he said, watching for her reaction.
She just shook her head. “Tell that to Papa. While there is a haunted house in England, he will not settle down.”
“I shall speak to him,” was all he said.
“Oh, no! You must not. This is his whole life. He would sink into a slough of despond if he were deprived of his ghost hunting.”
“There is no reason he must stop, if it amuses him.”
Charity did not think her life would be very amusing at home alone with only the housekeeper and servants for company. She had never had time to make a close circle of friends. Their friends were really the members of the Society and their families. It seemed that she had once more lost out on a potential parti due to her father’s work. They would be off to Longleat to work with the Green Lady, and Lord Merton would eventually find himself a bride from among his own set.
She watched as the water splashed from the fountain. The individual droplets caught the sun and glowed prismatically as they fell into the basin below.
“They did not have such a lovely fountain at Radley Hall,” she said sadly. She sat on the edge of the basin and dabbled her fingers in the water, wishing she could stay on here for months—forever, with Merton.
Chapter Seventeen
Dinner was a somber meal, with Lady Merton looking daggers at her son. She showed not the least interest in Mr. Wainwright’s announcement that he had solved the mystery of the singing nun’s visits to Lord Merton’s bedchamber, which had been a monk’s cell when the nun was alive.
“It was a love affair,” Wainwright announced. “She used to slip into her young man’s room via a rope ladder he let down from his window for her in the dead of night. I fear the lady was what we would describe as ‘no better than she should be.’ Her family sent her to a nunnery for her forwardness. She espied Brother Francis—that was her lover’s name—when he was working in the priory’s knot garden. By those little ruses a cunning lady can always contrive, she arranged to meet him at night, after the other nuns and brothers had retired. As autumn cooled to winter, the meetings moved to Brother Francis’s cell.
“The prioress happened to check on the nun’s bed one night and found it empty. She notified the clergyman in charge of the priory, who called the nun’s father. It was a local family. The father watched his daughter’s movements the next night from the shadows. He followed her to her lover’s cell. He drew his sword and made a lunge at Brother Francis. The nun leaped forward to protect him, thinking her father would not harm her. Too late; the steel found its mark. It was the nun who was killed. Hence the bloodstain on the ghost’s bodice. Brother Francis was given a harsh penalty. The story was hushed up to protect the girl’s father from a charge of murder.”
Wainwright had spent some time working his findings up into a dramatic presentation. He was disappointed with its lukewarm reception.
“Is that so?” Lady Merton asked in a distracted way, and immediately went on to inquire if he would like some more ragout.
It was only Lewis who listened with any genuine eagerness. “Who was she?” he asked.
“The nun’s name was Philomela. I did not get a family name. Philomela, of course, is a poetic name for the nightingale. ‘And Philomele her song with teares doth steepe.’ Spenser, I believe. Your unfortunate Philomela had some small fame in the priory for her charming voice. She has been steeping the cloister with her tearful tune all these years.”
“I wonder the chamber ain’t awash. What does she want?” Lewis asked.
Wainwright gave an indulgent smile. “Ghosts’ tears are dry. They have no physical substance. What Philomela wishes is only the privilege of remaining here, waiting for Brother Francis’s return.”
“She will have a long wait.” Lewis laughed.
“I’m sure no one is trying to stop her,” Lady Merton said.
Wainwright continued, not entirely happy with these intrusions into his soliloquy. “By day she walks the cloisters, singing, and by night she goes to Lord Merton’s room, which is still Brother Francis’s cell to her. It is not uncommon for ghosts to ignore renovations to the spot they haunt. She is by no means a malign ghost. Her spirit is fading. Another hundred years and I fancy you will be rid of her. Of course I darted to the library to look for confirmation of her tale as soon as she imparted it to me, but alas! I have found no proof.”
Merton was impressed with Wainwright’s inventiveness, if not his ghost-hunting ability or his veracity. “Very interesting,” he said. “And Philomela was active this afternoon, was she? I wonder what accounts for it.”
“Why, it would be the full moon,” Wainwright explained. “Ghosts are activated by the full moon. Of course midnight is their favored hour. At midnight tonight I fancy we will have all your ghosts up and about.”
Miss Monteith opened her lips to speak—an entirely new thing for her at the table. “The word loony comes from the F
rench for moon, la lune,” she said, smiling spitefully at Wainwright. Her intention was to imply that Wainwright was loony, but she was not much of a hand at satire.
He smiled tolerantly and went into a long dissertation on the effects of the full moon on the spirit world.
The ladies retired to the Blue Saloon after dinner. As Charity expected, her hostess and Miss Monteith left shortly after the gentlemen joined them. Lady Merton, putting her fingers to her head, mentioned a megrim.
“I shall get you a small draft of laudanum,” Miss Monteith said.
As soon as they had left, Merton said, “That laudanum will ensure that Mama sleeps well—and does not call for her companion over the next few hours. Monteith, I fancy, will not be at Mama’s disposal.”
“When do we go?” Lewis asked eagerly.
“Not for several hours yet. Shall we have a game of whist to pass the time? Monteith will be lurking about to keep an eye on us. We shall ostensibly retire at eleven.”
They played a few desultory hands of whist. No one’s mind was really on the game. Bagot slipped in to inform them, at ten-thirty, that Miss Monteith had just gone to the kitchen for a cup of cocoa. She had asked, en route, what the others were doing.
At eleven they abandoned the game and all but Lewis made a rather noisy retreat to their bedrooms. Within five minutes Lewis came scraping at Merton’s door to inform him that Monteith had just sneaked out by the kitchen door and was headed to the vicarage.
“Any sign of Ned?” Merton asked.
“No, very likely he went along earlier. I have got the outfit ready. Shall we go?”
“Give a light tap on Wainwright’s and Charity’s doors.”
The four conspirators met in the Blue Saloon, which was unlit but for a ray of lamplight from the hall. They were all dressed in dark clothing.
“We shall slip out by the library door in case they are having the house watched,” Merton said. “The yews around the little garden there will conceal the opening of the door.”
They did as he suggested. The full moon shone palely in a misty sky. Charity’s first impression was of a pearly fairyland, with fog beginning to form close to the ground, but as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she noticed that her vision was not seriously impeded. Merton rooted in the yew hedge for the sack containing damp wood and a flint box that Bagot had concealed there. Charity and Lewis also retrieved a bundle. They looked all about, and when they were assured that no one was watching, they stealthily made their way toward the graveyard, darting along in the shadows of tall, whispering trees.
Charity used Merton’s limp as an excuse to lend him her arm, but in fact he was hardly limping at all now. She felt he could dance sooner than the two weeks he had mentioned. Was the limp recovering so slowly as an excuse to keep her at Keefer Hall for the promised rout party? When his hand slid down her arm to seize her fingers, she knew he had forgotten all about his limp. He looked up at the diffused moonlight and said, “This seems too fine a night to waste on ghost hunting.”
“You do not want to let Papa hear you say that,” she said, smiling. “There is nothing better than ghost hunting in his world.”
He just looked at her, with the shadows flickering over his face and hiding his eyes. “His world is not necessarily our world, Charity.” His fingers tightened, but he said no more.
They soon reached the graveyard. By moonlight it was an eerie sight. Ghostly white monuments stood guard over the bodies of long-dead relatives. A spreading elm just beyond the burial ground stood out in stark silhouette against the silver sky. In such a place it was easy to believe in ghosts. In the distance a dog howled at the moon, causing a collective shiver to scuttle up their spines. The fence of dark yews provided concealment for Lewis’s transformation into the ghost of Meg Monteith.
“Have you got the doll?” he asked Charity.
She handed him her bundle: an ancient doll from the nursery, swaddled in a linen serviette.
“This demmed wool wig don’t flow like real hair,” he complained.
“Never mind. Just tie the bonnet under your chin so it does not fly off at the wrong moment. They will not get more than a glimpse of you from afar.”
“I don’t know how you ladies get about in these skirts. I shall fall flat on my face if they come chasing after me.”
Merton listened as he set up the damp wood near Meg’s grave, the fire to be concealed by a large block of wood placed in front of it. He silently watched the vicarage. At eleven-thirty the door opened and three figures skulked out.
“Who is the third? That ain’t Ned,” Lewis whispered.
“Yes, it is,” Merton replied. “He has changed his robe for a pair of trousers. The white robe would be too noticeable.”
The three conspirators—the vicar, Miss Monteith, and Old Ned—first looked all about, then began advancing toward the graveyard. It was noticed then that the two men were carrying shovels. Merton had expected Miss Monteith would be carrying a bag holding the bones of some long-dead animal wrapped in a perishing blanket, the whole to be placed in Meg’s arms. He could not see any such bag, however.
How did they hope to get away with such a foolish scheme? It would be obvious to the fellows who dug Meg up that the grave had been recently disturbed. Of course they could claim they were innocent. Someone else had done it. To remove the remains of the child? Was that it? Yes, that was actually more clever than to plant animal bones, which would be easily recognized as such. By beating the official exhumers to the disinterment, they would cloud the issue so that the truth could never be discovered.
Merton lit a twist of paper with the tinderbox, shielding it with his back, and then set the fire to the wax butts of candles in the damp wood. E’re long a small blaze caught and smoke began to rise from the fire.
The three figures continued advancing, taking a straight course to Meg’s grave by the edge of the graveyard. It was Miss Monteith who first noticed the smoke. She stopped and pointed. “What is that?” she demanded.
A figure with long blond hair, wearing a woman’s nightdress that was just a little too small and carrying a doll swaddled in a serviette, rose eerily from behind the cloud of smoke and uttered a low moan that lifted the hair on Charity’s arms even though she knew it was only Lewis.
The ghostly apparition pointed a finger at the vicar and said in a warbling falsetto voice, “My son, do not do this wicked thing, or you will suffer for all eternity, as I, your poor mother, suffer.” The vicar dropped the shovel and stared, his mouth hanging open.
The apparition continued. It pointed at Ned next. “Ned, if you love me and our son, stop him from this dastardly deed.”
It was Ned who caved in first. “Meggie! Is it really you?” he asked in a hollow voice.
“Silence, you fool!” Miss Monteith ordered. “It is a trick. That demmed ghost hunter is behind this. They cannot possibly know the truth.”
“She’s right,” the vicar said in a quavering voice.
Ned began blubbering. “I’m scared, son. It ain’t worth the risk. We have done well enough off the Mertons all these years. It is wrong, what you made me do. I must see dear Meg one last time.” He began advancing toward Lewis, who disappeared behind the smoke cloud, coughing into his fist, and thence through the yews out of sight entirely.
Merton said in a low voice to Wainwright, “Take Charity home now. I shall meet you there shortly.” Then he stepped forth to speak to the conspirators. “I have three witnesses to your confession, folks. Shall we go into the vicarage and discuss your limited options?”
Lewis soon joined the Wainwrights. He was carrying the nightdress and the bonnet to which yellow wool had been attached. His eyes were watering from the smoke and he was still coughing. “By Jove! It worked like a charm. I was afraid I could not speak for the smoke in my throat, but it added a nice otherworldly edge to my voice. You are a genius, Wainwright. Let us go on into the vicar’s place to watch them grovel and apologize.”
“Merto
n will handle it,” Wainwright said. “He will meet us back at the Hall.”
“Just like him to keep the best part to himself. I’d best put out that fire first,” Lewis said. He stamped the smoldering faggots until they were extinguished.
Charity felt Merton’s wish for privacy had a kinder motive. He did not want to put the miscreants on public display, subject to Lewis’s outspoken gibes. She said, “Did I hear Ned call St. John ‘son’?”
“That you did,” Wainwright replied. “I had a chinwag with Merton late last night when he came to my room. We sorted it all out. Lady Merton mentioned her surprise that Meg had delivered the baby so soon. She had thought she still had a few months to go, yet she mentioned that Meg was very large.”
“I see what you are getting at,” Lewis said. “She was enceinte before she caught Papa’s eye. Ned was the culprit. They let on it was Papa’s work, to weasel things out of him. Old Ned got his ‘perkizzits,’ and Meg hoped to get Papa to support herself and Ned’s son in style.”
“Which he did,” Wainwright threw in. “Or the son at least.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if the trollop planned to carry on with Ned at his hermitage. I mean to say, why else was he so anxious to camp on her doorstep? We are fortunate she did not lumber so with a dozen brats.”
“Be that as it may,” Wainwright said, “their son is St. John.”
“You mean Old Ned is St. John’s real papa?” Charity said, still trying to absorb this new twist in the story.
“Certainly he is,” Wainwright said. “But old Lord Merton had no notion of it, which is why he got the St. Johns to adopt him, to keep him nearby.”
“And this is how they repay Papa!” Lewis stormed. “Upon my word, hanging is too good for them. They ought to be drawn and quartered.”
They continued discussing the affair over a glass of wine at the Hall until Merton returned nearly an hour later. He looked more disturbed than triumphant.
“That was a messy business,” he said, accepting a glass of claret. “But at least it is done with. I have a letter written by St. John and signed by them all, confessing to their crime. I shall give it to Mama tomorrow. She will not have to see any of them again.”