Black Heather (11 page)

It seemed to me that something was emphatically wrong about this path. I should have reached the Heatherton High Road long before this. Overhead, the clouds had gathered so that they gradually absorbed the sun and the whole heather was gray with the look of an approaching storm. I groaned at my abominable luck and paused to make quite sure I was heading in the right direction. I had reached the highest plateau of the moors, and on the northern horizon loomed a series of buildings that appeared much too imposing for a moorland sheep farm. I wondered what they were but was too worried to speculate.

At the same time I heard a shrill sound like a whistle, and Timothy leaped from my arms in panic. I swung around, feeling excruciating pain upon my sore foot as I put my full weight upon it. The pain, however, abruptly ceased as I saw a pair of huge hunting dogs, lean and swift and doubtless, hungry, bounding over the dying heather, with me as their prey.

I started to run, turned on my injured foot, and, as the dogs leaped upon me, fell into a deep, all-encompassing blackness.

CHAPTER NINE

I cried out, “
Don’t let them eat me! Oh, please do not!” This preposterous plea was the first thing I heard upon recovering my senses, and it very naturally provoked an answer from a voice I recalled as being odiously right at all times.

“Don’t be ridiculous. No one is going to eat you.”

“Nor Timmy either!” I added, taking advantage of the absolute and godlike quality in this man’s voice.

“If you mean that detestable little bundle of fur who abandoned you in your extremity—”

“It is scarcely his fault that he is a cat,” I said indignantly, opening my eyes and finding, with an uneasy start, that my rescuer’s face, with its deep-set dark eyes and its stubborn, harshly beautiful mouth, was very close above my own.

“Well then,” he said as he saw me open my eyes, “the creature shall not be drowned in a rushy mere after all. Mind that, Jacob.”

“No! Indeed, no! Do not drown him. Please
...”
I began to stir around, discovering that Sir Nicholas, in hunting jacket and with a frightfully efficient-looking rifle tucked under one arm, had somehow made me comfortable against his body, and we were both settled on the windy heath, speckled by the first raindrops that heralded the coming storm. This was improper and embarrassing enough, but it was plain that it had all occurred under the interested eyes of Sir Nicholas’s loader, a grizzled fellow with a big grin and many teeth missing.

“Aye, mum, we be watchful of the bitty creature.”

“Well, I should hope so!” I said indignantly, trying to rise. But I was slapped back by something slippery and wet and warm across the lower half of my face. It proved to be a gigantic pink tongue.

“Down, Mealy!” thundered Sir Nicholas in that authoritative voice which instinctively touched off the battle light in my own nature.

“Let
him
be,” I said irritably. “He is merely being friendly.” And then I muttered, somewhat to my own surprise, “What a disagreeable man, to be sure!”

I did not understand why he laughed aloud at this. It seemed an odd thing at which to find amusement.

The great mastiff, however, did not share my feelings of conflict against his master. After Sir Nicholas’s command he came to heel, whining, a sound that I could only take for a compliment. I reached out and patted the good fellow, wondering how I could ever have been terrified of such a docile creature. His comrade, a smaller and leaner dog some distance away from us, was busy pawing, chewing, and growling over a huge mutton bone.

Sir Nicholas, who saw my sympathy toward the animals, explained, “Jacob gave him that bone to comfort him
...
”

“How nice of Jacob!”

I gave the big toothy loader my best smile, until Sir Nicholas added, “To comfort him when we could not let him chew upon Miss Bodmun.”

I felt that I had received a distinct setdown, and I sneaked one more look at the lean, growling dog, reflecting that but for Sir Nicholas and Jacob I would, at this moment, be in the same case as that wretched mutton bone which was audibly cracking under its teeth.

“I confess, I prefer the big monster beside me,” I said boldly.

But I was immediately caught up by Sir Nicholas’s sly remark, “My dear Miss Bodmun, not very flattering, to be sure.”

I flushed red as a lobster and pretended not to have understood him. Then I fumbled to find another subject, reaching out and petting Mealy upon his huge, receptive head while Sir Nicholas prepared to move on. A protesting meow disturbed me, and I saw that Jacob, the loader, had Timothy in his big pocket, probably crouched uncomfortably upon a bed of bullets, and Jacob’s huge fingers were knuckling Timmy’s head in a friendly way.

“Would you truly have drowned him?” I asked, worried over what might have happened if I had not come to consciousness until later.

“Timmy is one of those creatures who will always land on their feet, like many a female I have known,” remarked Sir Nicholas drily as he handed his rifle to Jacob and reached under my waist in a manner I found much too familiar—though I should have known what he intended by his businesslike approach.

In any case, I started as if I had been stabbed, which was not only ungrateful of me, but naive, as I realized immediately by the faint, contemptuous curl of Sir Nicholas’s
li
ps.

“Be at ease, my dear girl. I am not the Kelleher lout. I assumed from the way you were rubbing your left foot that you had twisted your ankle and could not walk.”

I had the grace to mutter, “I beg your pardon,” but it was an effort. His cool, competent, ungracious handling of any emergency made my apologies to him sound quite unnecessary and, I supposed, unwelcome. I added by way of explanation, “It is not my ankle that gives me trouble, sir, but the arch of my foot. I believe I pulled a muscle in my foot when I was running across the stream to escape your dogs.”

“These infants,” he sighed, “with their blind exuberance
...
What stream was that?”

I did not have a chance to answer, for he was removing my shoe, and I became very conscious of my dirty, mud-encrusted white stocking. He pinched my foot at the instep, and I jumped, but more from the pressure of his fingers than from pain. He ran his thumb along the arch of my foot with a surgeon’s indifference to the pain of his patient, and this time there was no mistaking the root of the problem. I gave an enormous start and only kept from screaming by pressing my teeth hard into my lower lip.

“Young Miss seems tolerably pale, Yer Worship,” Jacob noted with some of his employer’s clinical curiosity.

“Yes. I think we have the seat of the problem,” said Sir Nicholas. “Put your arm around my neck, Miss Bodmun, and do your best not to choke me.”

Fiercely resenting the position in which my own clumsiness placed me, that of once again owing my comfort and even my safety to this odious aristocrat, I did as he commanded, reflecting that it was much easier to obey such intimate orders from a man I disliked than from a man for whom I might have had what Mrs. Sedley called a
tendresse.
He lifted me with the greatest ease, which would have surprised my father, who, upon my birthday three months earlier, had offered me the dubious compliment, “My little Kate’s become a strapping fine lass!” and then pretended to stagger as he raised me off the floor by his hands around my waist.

Mealy, the great mastiff with the tongue as wide as my face, conceived that when his master swung
me off the ground he was somehow borrowing Mealy’s prerogative, and he barked fiercely, jumping about in his excitement. But apparently he was too much in awe of Sir Nicholas to leap upon him, for which I was very grateful, though the baronet seemed to have no fears on that score. Mealy was joined in his barking by the vicious hound with the mutton bone, who, however, might be said merely to have barked between bites, for I could plainly hear the intermittent crunch of snapping, slivering bone, and I shuddered.

Each step Sir Nicholas took seemed to jar my entire body. But to give him his due, I do not think he meant to jar me, and I felt sure that when he spoke to me he intended, in his unromantic, matter-of-fact way, to take my mind off the pain.

“You said my dogs chased you into a beck. Where was this?”

I tried to explain, but it was a disjointed description, and the only clear point of the matter was that the little vale and the stream were heavily shadowed and not too far from the Hag’s Head.

“I know the place. A spinney where some of the local moorland lads take their lasses for sundry purposes. Megan and I used to meet there
...
in our younger days.”

Jacob, the loader, coughed to cover any disrespect and murmured, “Yer Worship, maybe the lass is a bit young for such facts, so to speak.”

I said indignantly, “I know exactly what you are talking about.” It made me angry, for some inexpli
c
able reason, to learn of Sir Nicholas’s philandering with Megan Sedley before her marriage, despite what Mrs. Sedley had told me of their understanding, which had broken up because Nicholas had no expectations. How wrong Mrs. Sedley had been on that score!

Sir Nicholas cut short my speculation on the matter. “That is neither here nor there. The point is, my dogs have been nowhere near Seven Spinney today
...
Miss Bodmun, my neck, please. Not my cravat!”

I let go of his cravat with haste, noting guiltily that my dusty fingerprints were smudged upon its snowy surface, and I held on to his neck, feeling odd and rather shy. It was a strange sensation, entirely foreign to my experience at home, where my relationship with males was a friendly one, much as it had been in my childhood. I could not imagine myself being uneasy in the presence of the boys I had known in play or the fishermen and tinkers and townsmen I had known all my life.

“That’ll be an odd bit of news entirely, sir,” said Jacob. “About the dogs, I mean.”

I assumed that Sir Nicholas and Jacob must be confused as to where the dogs had been, perhaps not knowing exactly what time I had been at the spinney.

“But this was an hour gone by, I should think. And anyway, I did see it.”

“I’m sure you did. You need not be so defensive.”

Sir Nicholas turned his head, and I saw Jacob come up beside us and shrug. I could not understand their confusion about it and ventured further, “Perhaps it was before you were on the heath. It—it might have been earlier. But it wasn’t simply me, sir. It was Timothy also. He saw the dog and was frightened. That was how I first knew we were being followed.”

“Do you mean to tell me your cat saw some fancied animal and you ran so hard you hurt your foot?”

“It was
not
a fancied animal! Ask Tim—that is,” I amended hastily, “look at Timmy. He ran even faster than I did.”

Sir Nicholas had his usual sardonic look, which still managed to suggest maddeningly that though his exterior was perfectly serious, within he was laughing at me.

“I’m sure that he did. He looks a cowardly feline if ever I saw one. But the fact remains, none of my dogs have been near Seven Spinney today, and I doubt very much if anyone else’s dogs were either, unless it was a poacher, and they know they can be shot on sight. No dogs and no hunters are let to run upon this heath except mine.”

“Sir, do you call me a liar?”

“My dear Miss Bodmun, I have never called you anything but what you are, an inordinately tiresome child. I believe you saw something, though indeed, one can scarcely attest to the observations of your cat. But what you and your precious Tinny really did see arouses more interest in me.”

I began to be aware of a return to that cold terror I had first felt at the Hag’s Head when the wounded Macrae had pointed at the top of the staircase and screamed and died. What had Macrae really seen?

“I thought it must be a dog—a hound, perhaps—trailing us.”

“What precisely did you see—or think you saw? Tell me exactly; omit nothing.”

“Sir,” put in Jacob, “could it be the young lass was acomin’ from the Hag’s Head and the haunt give chase?”

“Oh!” I remembered suddenly the peculiar illusion I had had when looking back across the stream, my feeling that what I saw through the shadows of the little copse was the pale, masklike face of an old crone.

“Yes?” Sir Nicholas prompted me. It seemed almost as though he could read my very thoughts and did not find them so incredible after all. I explained quickly about my visit to the Hag’s Head with the wounded Macrae and how he had screamed and died. This aroused even the imperturbable Sir Nicholas.

“Good God! I should think the poor devil would die at such a sight! First getting struck upon the head, and then to be returned to the very place where it all happened—poor Macrae! So he saw
the Hag! He was ever an unlucky beggar. Loving greedy Jass
y
, who herself loved his property, the Owl of York, not Macrae. And then, to be taken back to the very place where he met his deathblow!”

“But it was no fault of mine. I was on my way to the Hag’s Head, and naturally I thought that was the inn he spoke of.” I looked around from my perch in the baronet’s arms, hoping to change this subject which came dangerously close to blaming me for Macrae’s death. “You cannot think I imagined the whole!”

“Indeed not, Miss!” Jacob assured me, being thus appealed to. “There’ll be forever talk on that wicked ghost creature that takes its way about the Hag’s Head. Nor do ’is Ludship think it’s your imaginings. His Worship, the justice, that is.”

“Never mind, Jacob. You tire the young lady when you talk of such things as my titles. She would much prefer to title me that Dreadful Man, or even that Disagreeable Creature, either of which will do nicely and will not give me the setdown I so richly deserve. Is that the case, Miss Bodmun?” It was shameful to be reminded of my rudeness to him, but then, it was ungentlemanly of him to have noticed, and I was heartily glad when he said briskly, “I fear there is nothing for it but to take you to Everett Hall. My housekeeper will make you tolerably comfortable. But meanwhile
...
” As I prepared for some horrid quizzing, he boosted me up higher in his arms and smiled at
Jacob. “Whatever the danger to you, Jacob, keep friend Tinny safe!”

“Timmy,” I corrected him.

“You heard the lass, I trust, Jacob. Mind you, no throwing him in the pot to pace out the stew.”

“Aye, sir. But about the old Hag
...
Twas seen by me and by others, as Yer Worship knows. Are we to think we all saw mere phantasms? My mother saw the Hag many a time and oft, sir, beg
-
gin’ your pardon, sir.”

We had no “Lordships” in my part of Cornwall, and it was difficult for me to show deference to this haughty justice of the peace as his servant did. Such careful respect would have been considered fawning by the rough fisherfolk and townsmen where I lived; yet no one there was of a tougher fiber than these Yorkshiremen, so I felt there must be manners I had not yet learned—a thought that rather surprised me.

“Do not talk to me of hags!” said Sir Nicholas in a voice that made both the loader and me apprehensive. “If it comes to that, I may be forced to burn down the wreck myself. I am tired of these idiot visitors traipsing in and out across my own property to get there, fancying they see ghosts and the like, when all that lies within is the proof of Patrick Kelleher’s murderous design upon his wife. If I can but find it.”

“I am not an idiot visitor!” I reminded him proudly. “I am by way of making the purchase. What do you think of that?”

Sir Nicholas turned his head, which was so close to mine that our faces touched, and I felt a sensation of warmth and a quickened pulsebeat theretofore unknown to me. He did not seem in the least changed by the encounter, however, and was just as insufferable as ever.

“I think, in your present position, you would do well not to challenge your preserver. I may very easily drop you here on the heath for wild dogs and guytrashes to nibble at.”

“You came here by purest accident,” I reminded him.

“My child, I never hunt by purest accident. Nor do I act upon impulse. I have considered purchasing the Hag’s Head ever since Megan—Mrs. Kelleher—was murdered, but it did not seem necessary, as no one else was anxious to own it. But let me tell you this”—he shook me with a rather awesome power—“no little snipper of an outlander child is going to make purchase and develop it for prying visitors. And if there is more trouble there in the way of such tales, it shall be burned to the ground. It is unhealthy altogether.”

What absolute nonsense!
I thought.
Why in heaven’s name should I buy the Hag’s Head merely in order to show it to visitors? If he ever listened to my plans, he must know they have nothing to do with exhibiting it
.

His argument seemed more childish than any of my behavior—unless, of course, he was jealous of Patrick because of Patrick’s dead wife. But that
had been long before. I could not imagine myself being so bitter over something that had happened twelve years before, with the murderer undoubtedly long gone out of the county in the meanwhile. Why, twelve years ago, I had been not quite six years old!

There was one other thought that was rather insidious and extremely unpleasant in the circumstances, but I could not quite drown it. What if Sir Nicholas had murdered Megan Kelleher himself, when she would not run away with him, and now he wished to find, not evidence against Megan’s husband, but evidence against himself that had not been destroyed in the fire?

“I cannot imagine anything of less interest to me than the destruction of evidence,” I said with my chin in the air, then reverted to normal with a serious thought that needed preparation before I spoke it aloud. “I had a thought just now, but you must promise not to
think
me a fool.”

“I promise not to say you are a fool,” he amended in his grave voice whose true seriousness I was beginning to suspect. “Jacob, the gates, if you please. And as for you, Miss Bodmun, you will forget about hags and dead men for the moment and concentrate upon enjoying a decent meal and a bit of cosseting by Mrs. Hardwicke, my housekeeper.”

I began to be nervous. I had not thought beyond merely being rescued. I knew perfectly well that Mama would never understand this, my being a guest in a bachelor’s home
!
She would never understand either that I should be in absolutely no danger
of that sort
from Sir Nicholas, who, in all likelihood, despised me for an incurable rattle and an utter incompetent.

“I do not wish to put Mrs. Hardwicke to any trouble,” I objected meekly. “I’m sure if I could be set upon the road to Maidenmoor, perhaps in a vehicle of some sort, or even on horseback
...
”

“Be quiet. I must lift you over a stile. Here
,
Jacob, have you the maze-gate open? Ah, just so. Here we are. Now, as for Mrs. Hardwicke, I assure you, nothing would give her greater pleasure than to make a grand fuss about you. So mind you, make objections if she grows obnoxious.”

“Oh, never! It is too kind of her, really. I do not wish to cause inconvenience or anything of that sort.”

“Rubbish! How does your foot feel?”

I wiggled it and winced but became aware for the first time in the past fifteen or twenty minutes that I had been much more comfortable in Sir Nicholas’s arms than I would ever have been in anyone else’s care. I
h
ad to give him full honors for having argued with me so strenuously during this stiff walk, for I had not once noticed the pain of my strained foot muscles.

Then I looked around. So this was Everett Hall!

I could well understand Elspeth’s reluctance to exchange the charming, comfortable Sedley House for the cold grandeur of this estate. We approached by a side route, but I could see the estate road at the front of the long, rectangular stone building of four stories and a series of attic windows, besides innumerable outbuildings and a truly impressive and carefully trimmed maze. Even at the end of the season, as now, the park was green, the foliage and trees were elegant and well kept, and the entire state, as nearly as I could make out, had the look of a place on exhibition. I could not imagine that any children had ever played here or that any loving mother had spent time under the shade of these precise, mathematically designed trees and flowers. I could see a part of the kitchen garden, which seemed much more human, more likable, and I thought that if I had been reared here as had Sir Nicholas and his brother, I should certainly have spent all my time near the kitchens. But perhaps my family, being yeomen, gave me a clearer and more comfortable feeling with the company of the lower orders amid such stateliness.

I knew very little about architecture but assumed Everett Hall had been built after the Tudor period, perhaps in the late seventeenth century. It had a look of clean lines and great care, and I wondered how Sir Nicholas felt about it, having acceded to its dignities too late to win the one girl he had loved Did he feel that it was all hollow grandeur and worthless?

“Jacob, call Mrs. Hardwicke. I’ll take the child to the summer parlor until there is a bedchamber made suitable.”

“Don’t trouble, please. I’ll be leaving soon
...
”

“Hush!” said Sir Nicholas. “I can scarcely hear myself think.”

I gave over protesting and allowed myself to be taken through a long gallery whose elegant high ceilings, crystal lusters, and fabulous portraits of dead Everetts left me quite speechless. I was sure that Carlton House itself, and even the Royal Pavillion at Brighton, were simply nothing compared to the noble dignity of Everett Hall. And small wonder. Carlton House was the demesne of a mere German prince, and Everett Hall had been British since time out of mind. I was so fascinated by all the portraits that I was still looking back over Sir Nicholas’s shoulder and trying to get a good look at each of them in turn when he reached the open door of a bright, cheerful room that must have belonged to the womenfolk of the Hall. Even with the heavens overcast and the windows speckled by mist, the room was still a lovely, light place and just large enough so that I felt quite at home and not stifled by my surroundings. If this room had been deliberately chosen by Sir Nicholas for me, he had much more sensitivity than I had suspected in so proud and cold a man.