by M C Beaton
“And you will be strong and ask for a new ball gown?”
“Yes, I will be strong.”
“Then, my chuck, as the ball will soon be upon us, I will meet you again here tomorrow night. But make sure you are not discovered!”
Frederica smiled at him. “I am very careful.”
She curtsied to him and moved away quickly through the trees. He waited for a few minutes beside the pool and then began to make his own way out of the wood.
He heard a twig crack behind him and swung around. A man detached himself from the shadow of a tree trunk at the edge of the wood.
“Who are you?” demanded the viscount harshly.
The man approached. “I be Jack Muir, my lord.”
“And what do you mean by creeping after me?”
“Reckon it would cause a bit of a scandal, my lord, if I were to tell ’em up at the Hall that you’d been meeting young miss from the rectory on the sly, like.”
Lord Granton stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed Jack. He could see his features clearly in the moonlight, the crafty eyes, the stubbled chin, the long coat with the large bulging pocket that he wore despite the warmth of the summer’s evening.
“It is all very simple, fellow,” drawled Lord Granton. “You tell them at the Hall about my innocent meetings and I will tell how you were found in these woods with your pocket bulging with dead rabbits. If you are lucky, you will only be transported, but you know the stringency of the game laws. You probably will be hanged.”
Jack began to back off. “I meant no harm. Look, my lord, I say nothing about you, and you don’t say nothing about me.”
“If I find you skulking about these woods again,” said Lord Granton, “then I may tell Sir Giles about you before I leave. Be off with you!”
Another twig cracked and Jack melted back into the shadows. Lord Granton walked around the edge of the field, where a light breeze moved through the wheat, which was silvery in the moonlight, like Frederica’s hair.
He felt naked and exposed and that the countryside was full of secret, watching eyes.
He should not meet her again. He would find an excuse to call at the rectory the following afternoon and convey to her that their pleasant, secret conversations were over.
Boredom like a black cloud settled round him. He gained the road and strode down it, looking every inch the devil he was reported to be.
To his relief, Annabelle proved to be suffering from a summer cold the following day, and not wanting Lord Granton to see her with red eyes and a running nose had kept to her room, so a planned expedition to the nearest town of Evesham to view the abbey was canceled.
To his hosts’ demands that they do something else to entertain their guests, he replied he would prefer to go out for a walk alone and think what to write in the next chapter.
He decided to walk to the rectory but regretted his decision when he reached the lodge at the west gate of the estate. The sun was fiercer than ever, and sad little yellow dried-up leaves pattered down from the trees over his head. The hot summer was producing an unnatural sort of autumn. Dried leaves crunched under his feet as he strode along the road. White dust rose about him. When he reached the village, he noticed that the level in the village pond had dropped considerably.
The golden Cotswold stone of the cottages seemed to absorb the sunlight into their already hot walls.
He pushed open the gate to the rectory and walked along the winding path to the low old door, which stood open. He pulled the bell. A little maid came running. “Oh, my lord,” she said, bobbing a curtsy, “Dr. Hadley is on his parish rounds, and the ladies are gone to Chipping Norton.”
So Frederica had succeeded in her desire for a dress. He nodded his thanks and turned away. But then he heard singing from abovestairs and turned back to where the maid still stood at the open door.
“Who is that singing?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s Miss Frederica.”
“I thought you said no one was at home!”
“I do beg your pardon, my lord. I forgot about Miss Frederica,” said the maid, Bessie, who had not forgotten at all, but did not rate Frederica as being important enough to receive the viscount.
“Then,” said Lord Granton patiently, “would you be so good as to tell Miss Frederica that I am called?”
“Yes, indeed, my lord.” The maid looked flustered. “Do step inside, my lord, and I will fetch her.”
She ushered Lord Granton into the rectory drawing room.
After a few minutes the door opened and Frederica came in. She was wearing an old gown, blue muslin this time, which was so short, it showed her ankles.
“If I had been warned you meant to call,” said Frederica crossly, “I would have put on another gown.”
“My apologies. Can we talk without being overheard?”
“I will fetch my bonnet. We will take a walk. In this old house there are so many chimneys and holes in the floors that one can hear everything.”
Frederica left and came back shortly with a wide shady bonnet on her head.
“I am going over to the church with Lord Granton, Bessie,” said Frederica. “He is anxious to view the crusader’s tomb.”
“Were you always such a liar?” he asked.
“I never think of it as lying,” said Frederica equably. “I have always considered it being diplomatic. The church might be a good idea after all, my lord. It is about the only cool place for miles around.”
He opened the heavy church door for her and they walked into the greenish gloom. “No stained glass,” he remarked. “Cromwell’s soldiers, I suppose.”
“Yes. Barton Sub Edge suffered just like everywhere else. I am glad I did not live then.”
“I am sure you would have enjoyed it all immensely, Miss Frederica, and would have hidden fleeing cavaliers in the basement of the rectory.”
She turned to face him. “Did you come to see me?”
He nodded. “Our meetings have been discovered.”
She turned quite pale.
“Do not look so frightened. It was only a poacher.”
“Jack Muir?”
“The same.” He told her of his meeting with Muir.
“I think he hoped to make money out of it,” said Lord Granton. “The silly fool forgot that although he might be able to create a scandal, I could get him hanged.”
“So we shall not meet again.” Frederica’s voice was very low, and he had to bend his head to hear her.
“Perhaps that would be wise.” He searched in a pocket of his coat and brought out a small book. “But here is the book giving the figures of all the dances that you wanted. You must teach yourself the rest.”
“Thank you.”
“And you will wear your new gown and your hair up and be the belle of the ball.”
“I am not to get a new gown, my lord.”
“Indeed! I assumed that was why your mama had gone to Chipping Norton.”
“No, my lord. I broached the subject and my suggestion was met with such fury. I do not know why it should have upset Mama so much. She said that Amy’s old ball gown was perfectly suitable. And so it is. But it is not mine, if you take my meaning.”
Not knowing that Frederica was not supposed to attend the ball, Lord Granton found himself becoming very angry indeed over what he considered Mrs. Hadley’s unnatural cruelty and parsimony.
Instead he remarked, “I shall miss our meetings.”
“As shall I.” Frederica bent her head so that the wide brim of her straw hat shaded her face. “It will somehow make it harder to go back to my quiet life. Is it because you fear Jack might talk after all?”
“No, I do not think he will dare. But I would always feel there was someone among the trees, spying and listening.”
“There are other places,” murmured Frederica.
He looked down at her disconsolate little figure. If he did not escape in the evenings to meet her anymore, he would be condemned to those long, stuffy, boring e
venings listening to Annabelle either prattle or play the harp.
He knew he should not reply, that he should simply bow and wish her well, promise her those two dances, and take his leave.
He found himself saying, “Where, for instance?”
“Come and I will show you. If we are surprised by any member of my family, it will not look odd. There is a pretty stream near here.”
“Then let us go and look at it.”
The sun struck down on them when they emerged from the church. As they walked through the village, Frederica nodded to various people, conscious of the speculative stares.
“Not causing too much comment, I hope?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I am not old enough or pretty enough to cause comment. They no doubt think I am taking you to see my father. We go this way, my lord.” She climbed nimbly over a stile without waiting for him and began to cross a meadow. He followed her, taking off his hat and coat and carrying them.
The field was carpeted in wildflowers. In front of him, Frederica’s fine, fair hair streamed down her back under the sunbonnet, and her gown was as blue as the sky above. He experienced a rare feeling of well-being, of comfort.
More woods lay ahead but not, he hoped, any watching poachers.
It was a fir wood, the trees, tall and scented, forming a pillared alley that twisted and turned its way toward the stream, which he could now hear rushing along.
He emerged from the trees to stand beside Frederica on an open space of green grass starred with daisies beside the stream, which foamed and tumbled over rocks at their feet.
“This doesn’t seem to have been affected by the heat,” he said.
“No,” agreed Frederica, taking off her hat and sitting down on the grass. “It is fed by springs and is the lifeline of the village.”
He sat down beside her and together they looked at the racing water. At last he said, “If I meet you here tonight, do you think anyone will come across us?”
“Not here,” she said seriously. “It is haunted.”
“By whom?”
“By Miss Abigail Bentley.”
“And who was Miss Abigail Bentley?”
“It is such a sad story,” said Frederica. “She was a spinster of this parish, quite old, about thirty-four, I believe. Oh, I am sorry, my lord, but it seems old to me. In any case, the story runs—this was about fifty years ago—that there was a certain Mr. Tarrant who came as a guest to Townley Hall. He was very fashionable. He wore the latest in powdered wigs, satin waistcoats, embroidered coats, and those shoes you see in old portraits of macaronis with high red heels. Miss Abigail was a gentlewoman who lived on a small allowance from a family trust. She did not receive enough to live comfortably but managed in a sort of genteel poverty. She was not reputed to be particularly pretty. The old people said her great beauty was in her hair, which was thick and glossy and brown.
“There was a fair in the village and that was where Mr. Tarrant came across her. They fell into conversation and soon they began to be seen going for walks together. Miss Bentley is reported to have become briefly beautiful because she was so much in love. Then she was seen wearing a brand-new silk gown. The then rector, a Dr. Pierrepoint, became anxious for Miss Bentley’s reputation. He begged her to be careful, as Mr. Tarrant was only dallying with her, but she replied flatly that Mr. Tarrant was as much in love with her as she was with him and they were to be married.
“The good rector approached Mr. Tarrant. Mr. Tarrant became very haughty and said the rector ought to be horsewhipped for questioning him on a personal matter.
“That night one of the villagers saw Mr. Tarrant enter Miss Bentley’s cottage. In the morning he was gone: gone entirely from the Hall, gone from the village. But Miss Bentley still glowed with love, that was until a letter arrived for her a week later. What it said, no one ever knew, though they did know the letter had been delivered, and her neighbors heard a great rending scream.
“On the following morning she was found floating in the pool, just above here. She had thrown herself in. She left a note to say that Mr. Tarrant had betrayed her, that she was ruined.
“Poor Miss Bentley was buried at the cross-roads with a stake through her heart.”
There was a silence while both Frederica and Lord Granton contemplated the barbaric way that suicides were buried to stop their ghosts walking.
“And yet her ghost walks,” he said at last.
“So they say, but I have never seen her.”
“And are you not frightened to come here?”
“I have nothing to fear from the poor, lost ghost of Miss Bentley.”
“You have your own kind of courage, Frederica.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“You may call me Rupert, as we are friends.”
Frederica turned her face away to hide the sudden glow of happiness that shone there. And then, almost unbidden, came the thought of Miss Bentley. Had Mr. Tarrant praised her and flattered her and made some silly village woman think he might want to marry her? But Lord Granton had not made any advances to her, Frederica, nor had he flirted with her. In fact, he talked to her as he would to a young man.
The glow left her face and she stared at the rushing water.
“Why so quiet?” came his voice.
“I was thinking of Miss Bentley.”
“She is dead and gone, lady. Think of all the dead around this countryside, thousands and thousands.”
“You are right. I shall think of something pleasant. Will you teach me more dancing tonight?”
“I will try. But you seem to be an apt pupil. Perhaps I should leave now.”
“Yes, I think you should. For the news will surely have reached Papa now that you called, and he will be hunting everywhere.”
They both rose. He raised her hand to his lips.
“Good-bye, Frederica.”
“Good-bye, Rupert.”
She stood by the stream for a long time after he had gone, holding the hand he had kissed against her cheek, a dreamy smile on her lips.
When Frederica eventually entered her home it was to find it in an uproar. “What is this?” cried Mrs. Hadley. “Lord Granton called and none of us here?”
“I was here,” said Frederica calmly. “He wished to see the church and so I took him there.”
“But what did he say?” screamed Amy. “Did he talk of Annabelle? Did he ask for any of us?”
“No, he stayed but a few minutes, sent his regards to Papa, and went on his way.”
“How infuriating. Only you in that shabby gown,” complained Mrs. Hadley.
“Lord Granton is used to seeing me in shabby gowns,” said Frederica.
“As to that,” said Mrs. Hadley, “I bought two lengths of pretty sprigged muslin in Chipping Norton. Mrs. Pomfrey can make you up at least three new gowns.”
“Mrs. Pomfrey makes everything look fussy and provincial,” said Frederica.
“There’s gratitude for you!” said her mother, raising her eyes to heaven, and starting to cry.
“I am sorry,” said Frederica awkwardly. “I am indeed most ungrateful, and it is most kind of you, Mama.”
Mrs. Hadley swept off up the stairs, still crying. Frederica did not know that her mother was becoming increasingly plagued with guilt as the days before the ball slipped by. She had begun to dread telling Frederica she could not go.
Major Harry Delisle was waiting for his friend when Lord Granton returned.
“Where have you been? The family has been asking for you.”
“I went to look at the church.”
“But you saw it on Sunday.”
“I like looking at churches when they are empty.”
“You’ve changed. And what’s this rubbish about writing a book?”
Lord Granton gave his friend a limpid look. “On the contrary, it is not rubbish.”
“Well, it must be. I mean, based on Townley Hall! You have radiated boredom since we got here.”
“It i
s that very boredom which has prompted me to do something constructive.”
“And so you are really writing a book?”
“Yes, I am really writing a book. I find I can write only in the evenings, hence my abrupt departure from the dinner table.”
“I thought I knew you,” grumbled the major. “You were always gallant whether the lady bored you or not, and there’s Miss Annabelle with a cold and you have never sent her your regards.”