Four hours later, Sybilla’s head was spinning, full of ghastly ghost stories, all interwoven with random pieces of information about the history of Greyscar Keep. Some of the tales were, indeed gruesome, and had made her shiver as she heard them. With all of those in her mind, she would startle at the old house creaking at night – she just knew it. They were wonderful fodder for her writing, but, Mrs Westby had, in the end, told them with such relish, that Sybilla felt afraid at times.
She wondered if they were all really stories that had been told in the district for years, or if Mrs Westby was making things up to try to scare her. But why on Earth might she do such a thing? That did not make sense, so the stories must truly be local legend. Intentional or not, she had succeeded in scaring Sybilla, at least a little.
Eventually, leaving Mrs Westby to get on with preparations for dinner, Sybilla took herself to the library to write. With all of the ghost stories in her head, she should be able to write well.
The last of the afternoon light fell at an angle across the escritoire, and she found that the words did flow well, although what she wrote was perhaps more darkly gothic than her work to date. The conversation had left her disturbed, and still with that sense that Mrs Westby had, once convinced to talk, rather relished making her uncomfortable. Again, she pushed that thought aside – the woman had no conceivable reason to do such a thing.
Perhaps it was just that it would be All Hallows’ Eve in a day or two, and she was letting that influence her thoughts.
All Hallows’ Eve dawned clear, with the wind still for once, and a crisp frost painting the land in shades of silver and grey, sparkling where the sun hit it, as it began to melt. With the air so clear, the view from the ridge was breath-taking.
They rode slowly, hardly talking, content to simply be with each other in the cool morning air. The horses’ hooves crunched on the frost stiffened grasses, and a thin mist hovered at ground level, like a translucent sea of milk, as the frost evaporated.
At moments like these the temptation was always there. The welcoming silence asked to be filled, should she wish it. She knew that he would listen, no matter what she said. But still, she was not brave enough. More than once, that morning, on the day when the doors between the worlds were supposed to be thinnest, and the dead closest to the living, she had opened her mouth, fully intending to speak, to tell him her dark secret. Yet each time, she had closed it again, the words unsaid.
She did not want to lose him. So she did not speak.
But she wondered. Here, in this place where everything seemed haunted, in one way or another, would her father’s and brother’s ghosts come to her, on this day? Would she dream, again, or would she see them, whilst she was still awake?
It seemed all too possible. She shivered, and Ghost faltered slightly, her stride uneven as she adjusted to Sybilla’s movement. She reached down and stroked the mare’s neck, an apology.
She watched as the morning sun sculpted Lord Barton’s face in sharp relief, enhancing features that had become familiar, and dear to her. He was relaxed, as he always was on a horse, up here, where the world was quiet. She wished that he could be so relaxed, down there, amongst other people, in daily life. He did not deserve to spend his life reliving the horrors of war.
They neared the path down through the trees, and she knew that, now, the chance was past. This was not the day when she would tell him of her guilt, and her shame. So, that was another day that she could continue to have his company. But she was certain that, soon, there would be a day when she would speak, and would watch, in the light of the morning sun on the ridge, his face express his horror, and his rejection. But not today.
~~~~~
Once the horses had been settled with the groom, they went to the library in search of Miss Millpost. She was perched on the rolling ladder, right in the back corner of the room, attempting to reach things on the very highest shelf.
“Miss Millpost.”
The ladder rocked as she turned towards them with a start.
“Oh! Really! Must you surprise me so?”
“I’m sorry Miss Millpost, I did not realise how deeply absorbed you were in your task.”
Miss Millpost fixed Sybilla with a stern glare.
“You know that I am always absorbed in my task. That this library was left in such a disgraceful state! It’s a crime. One that I fully intend to remedy. Hopefully you won’t finish that novel too soon, so that I will have time to complete this.”
Sybilla laughed.
“I am quite certain that I can simply make my story longer….”
“Good. Now let me climb down. That corner will have to wait until the vicar’s next visit. He is taller than I, and can help me work out exactly what books have been crammed into that shelf.”
As Miss Millpost reached the floor, there was a token tap on the door, and the overseer of the workmen rushed in, shedding a small cloud of dust after him. Graves followed, eyeing the dust disapprovingly.
“My Lord!”
“Yes, Mr Hackett – what is it?”
“My Lord, we’ve just taken the panels off the wall in that closed in hallway like area – the one we think might have been a cloister in the original Abbey building. And under that panelling, we’ve found what seems to be a bricked-up door.”
“A door?”
“Yes, my Lady, there is an arched lintel shape of stones, just like around the other old doors, but it’s all bricked up, and had been panelled over, as if it was just a wall. The panels had a thick layer of plain old plaster behind them – it was so crumbly that it just fell off when we moved the panels. And there was the door.”
Bart was not at all sure that he liked this idea – what might be behind a door that had been bricked up for centuries? He shivered at the thought. Miss Millpost came forward to stand beside Sybilla.
“Then perhaps we should go and see what this looks like.”
Sybilla could almost feel Miss Millpost vibrating with curiosity.
“Yes, let us go and look, I want to see this.”
Bart looked at her, and accepted the inevitable.
“Mr Hackett, please show us this remarkable find.”
They followed Mr Hackett out through the halls to the oldest section of the building, and into the narrow hall section, which had, indeed, been a cloister in its earliest days. The outer wall of the hallway featured windows, but the inner wall was solid, running along the outside of the small family chapel attached to the house, and some rooms used for storage. At least they had thought it solid. Perhaps it was not.
“There!”
Mr Hackett pointed at a section of wall, along the hallway, at the furthest point where the panels had been removed so far. The floor around it was covered in a pile of crumbled lumps of plaster, layered with dust.
But revealed on the supposedly solid wall was what was definitely the outline of a door, filled with ancient bricks, which looked almost as crumbly as the plaster that had covered them.
“My Lord, can we ask Mr Hackett to have the bricks removed? I am most interested in discovering what might be behind there.”
Before Bart could answer, Miss Millpost spoke.
“Lady Sybilla, are you sure that is wise? Who knows what it might contain – there could be spiders and centuries of dust at best, and skeletons at worst.”
“I know! Perfect for helping me write a convincing scene in my book. I just have to know what’s behind there.”
Miss Millpost snorted, shaking her head at the folly of the young, and backed away a little. Bart smiled at Sybilla’s enthusiasm.
“Well, Mr Hackett, can we fulfil the Lady’s request? Let us see about the careful removal of those bricks.”
“Yes, my Lord, at once.”
They stepped back to give the workmen room, and watched as the bricks were chipped away. It did not take long before some bricks in the central section began to give up large chunks of themselves, and shortly thereafter, two whole bricks collapsed. There was a
distinct ‘whuff’ sound as the seal of many centuries was broken, and a puff of air rushed out, lifting the dust in swirls. Miss Millpost shuddered, wrinkling her nose.
“That smells like the grave” she intoned, in an almost accusatory voice.
“Perhaps it is.”
Sybilla glanced sidelong at Miss Millpost, and watched her shudder. It really was rather naughty of her to provoke poor Miss Millpost but…
Sybilla pressed forward, trying to see into the gap. Bart pulled her back gently. She froze as his hand touched her arm, feeling the warmth of him through the fabric of her sleeve, then allowed him to move her, all the while conscious of that warmth spreading throughout her body.
“Lady Sybilla, wait until they have cleared all of the bricks away. I most certainly wouldn’t want a brick to fall on your head!”
“Yes, you are right. But this is just so exciting. I really want to know what is in there.”
He moved his hand from her arm, and she felt its lack, acutely.
They waited as the workmen chipped out the bricks and carted them away. Initially, all that was revealed was darkness. It seemed almost ominous, like a doorway into nothing. Lady Sybilla might find it exciting, but Bart was not at all sure that he wanted to know what was there. Finally, it was done, and they edged forward cautiously, to peer into the darkness.
“Hackett, bring a lantern.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
The air that drifted from the darkness smelt musty, like things long stored in an attic, and earthy, like the scent of garden tools long stored in a shed. Or perhaps graves did smell like that?
Hackett came bustling back with a lantern, and handed it to Bart. He extended it into the darkness, and they gasped. For revealed was a narrow set of stairs, set at right angles to the doorway, and going down into the earth, inside the cavity of the thick stone wall.
“Oh my! This is amazing. A secret passage. Can we go down there?”
“You may do as you wish, Lady Sybilla, but I, for one, am not going in there. I am quite certain that there will be spiders, and dust, and for all we know there are graves or bones – it might well be haunted – if there are ghosts anywhere, this is the sort of place I could well imagine them!”
Miss Millpost actually looked pale, and her voice had shaken on the word ‘haunted’. Sybilla was surprised – she had never seen Miss Millpost hesitate at anything before. The workmen seemed to agree with her, for they had backed away, shaking their heads at the very idea of going into that dark hole.
“Pish tosh Miss Millpost. We all know that there are no ghosts. But I admit that there may be spiders, and that there will definitely be dust.”
As Sybilla decried the existence of ghosts, her father’s image rose in her mind, and she pushed it aside, suddenly feeling chilled, herself.
“Are you sure…?”
“Yes, Lord Barton, I am quite sure that I want to go down there.”
She reached for the lantern, impatient. He drew it back.
“Whilst manners suggest ladies first, in this instance, I believe that I should have that honour, for your sake.”
“For my sake?”
“Yes – unless you enjoy walking into spider webs?”
She took a step back, waving him ahead.
“You are quite right, I do not enjoy that concept at all.”
He stepped into the doorway, and the darkness wrapped itself around him, the lantern’s light seeming feeble in the face of it. The idea that there had been no light here for centuries made the darkness seem somehow stronger, deeper, almost palpable. He eased down the stairs, careful lest they crumble beneath his feet like the bricks that had sealed the door had crumbled.
But the stairs were blessedly solid, and, even better, there seemed to be no spider webs. Perhaps the spiders were all centuries dead, and crumbled into oneness with the dust. He could feel Lady Sybilla behind him, a warmth amongst the dark chill.
He felt ridiculous, as if playing the hero in a melodrama. Very ridiculous, given that, should anything untoward happen, he was probably more likely to end up curled up in a ball, screaming, than Lady Sybilla was.
After what felt like an hour, but was most likely minutes, the stairs ended in front of a door, of thick timbers banded in iron. He pushed it, tentatively and, with what sounded like a groan of agony, it opened.
The air that shifted the dust between their feet was colder, dry, and oddly metallic smelling.
He stepped forward, holding the lantern high. And stopped, gasping in awe.
“What is it?”
He was blocking the opening, and she could not see. He moved forward, and she came up beside him. And stopped, and gasped in awe.
“A crypt? But it’s enormous. Where shall we start?”
In the darkness, he grinned. Her determined enthusiasm washed away the creeping chill and uncertainty for the moment.
“Perhaps if we go along one side? From what I can see from here, there seem to be stone tombs with effigies, statues, piles of smaller boxes or chests of some kind, and other things.”
He moved forward and she followed, reaching out to lay her hand on his shoulder, to easier stay with him in the darkness. The heat of her touch flared through him, like no other warmth he had ever felt.
The space widened out around them and Sybilla moved to be more beside him. It was fascinating, and his hopes with respect to spiders were dashed when he saw some festoons of dusty webs hanging from parts of the beams that supported the building above them. Thoughts of the vicar’s words about Templar treasure flashed through his mind, as they edged around a stack of small chests. The floor was cluttered, between the large stone tombs, as if the things had been dumped here, messily, and in a hurry. The side walls appeared to have many niches – he hoped that they were not ossuary niches, but he could not see any bones.
But then, they only had one lantern.
There – just ahead, there was what looked like a sword, lain across a stack of boxes. Lady Sybilla pushed forward, reaching towards it.
“Aaah….!”
She appeared to trip on something unseen, and began to fall. The sword fell from the boxes with a mighty clang, which echoed in the cavernous crypt. To Bart, it all happened in an odd slow suspension of time. He dropped the lantern onto the top of the nearest tomb, praying that it would stay standing, and made a desperate lunge to catch her. Time snapped back to its normal pace.
He held Lady Sybilla in his arms, crushed against him, supporting her as she found her feet again, turning herself towards him, still in the curve of his arms. Face to face, her lips were inches from his, a curl of her dark hair, escaped from her pins whilst they were riding, and never tidied, trailed across her cheek. Her eyes were wide in the glow of the lantern, and her breath brushed his lips like a ghostly touch. He could feel her heart beating wildly where her body touched his. She did not pull away.
Unable to help himself, he brought his lips to hers. She sighed against them, a sound of pleasure, almost, and returned the kiss – tentatively, exploring, their tongues discovering the shape of each other in the near dark. It was exquisite, and his body hardened, heat flushing through him. He groaned, and deepened the kiss. If this was all he ever had of her, it was worth it. This moment would be branded on his soul.
“Hellooooo? My Lord, is all well?”
The cry from above broke the spell, and they pulled apart, flushed, and both embarrassed and unsure. He steadied his breathing, and called out.
“All is well.”
Obviously, those above had heard the clatter of the sword falling.
“I… something rolled under my foot. The way it moved – silly of me, but I thought it was a bone…”
“Not silly at all – down here, it’s hardly surprising that you thought of bones.”
“Shall we continue?”
“Yes.”
He picked up the lantern, and moved forward again, lifting the fallen sword. It was magnificent – beautifully crafted, with a gem deco
rated hilt. The blade was dulled, with a thin coating of rust, but for a sword, centuries untouched, it was spectacular. The sort of thing that Geoffrey should see. There would be time for that. He laid it carefully aside.
They moved around, carefully avoiding the clutter, and the eeriness of the place began to unnerve him. Miss Millpost was right – here, one could imagine the ghosts of these buried men, haunting what remained of the Abbey, and the additional building that had been, no doubt sacrilegiously from their perspective, added on to the original consecrated buildings.
It was silent, save for the noises they made, and soft rustlings that could have been mice, in any other place. There was nothing more to be gained, by staying there. This would need time, many lanterns and many people.
It would need to be examined, and all of the items catalogued, the chests opened and the contents explored. The vicar would be ecstatic – this might keep him occupied for years.
Of one accord, they turned back towards the stairs, feeling as if the occupants of the ancient tombs watched them go, as the darkness closed in behind the retreating force of their one small lantern. He found that he needed to speak, to break the grip of his imagination.
“It occurs to me that this is consecrated ground – still, for above it is the family chapel, which I think was a chapel in the original Abbey. We must ask the vicar how best to deal with this – to catalogue what is here, to explore the history, whilst still respecting the burials correctly. It is odd to think that generations have lived in this house, with a tomb beneath their feet, and not known it.”
She felt the chill run over her, at his words.
“Most disconcerting, I agree.”
Her voice was thin and soft, barely heard, even in the silence. He shivered again, as they climbed the stairs to the light.
Miss Millpost turned to go deeper into the library, her mind already on what she would achieve that day, whilst Lady Sybilla and Lord Barton were out riding.
“Oh, Miss Millpost…” She turned back, raising an enquiring eyebrow. Lady Sybilla had already gone out into the hallway, when Lord Barton continued “If you happen to discover anything about the history and ownership of Gallowbridge House, whilst you are digging through the library, I’d appreciate it if you would put it aside for me.”
Healing Lord Barton: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance (His Majesty's Hounds Book 9) Page 5