Black Heather (22 page)

Out of the parchment mask that was no mask came the hoarse whisper from deep in the throat of Megan Sedley, “I killed you once, there in the cellar, when I caught you waiting for Patrick. Snug you were, with nothing but a candle to witness your obscene tricks with him
...
You didn’t know, when I killed you, that I meant to kill Patrick when he came home. And then I could go to Nicholas. My own Nicholas!
...
But it wasn’t enough that the fire should start, and me trapped with you. You had to come back. First Elspeth, then you, and try for Nicholas’s love. He won’t love you, though
...
He’ll never love anyone but Megan
...
lovely Megan
...
That is how he thinks of her
...
”

I
felt the extremes of weakness bo
rn
of my awful pity for her, a pity so great that it was all I could do to wrench her hands away from me while I crawled back, moving along under the balustrade high above the entrance hall.

“Don’t make me—hurt you,” I pleaded, unaware until now that my hands were wet with my own tears. There were sounds, as though the walls around us creaked with the changing currents of air, and the Hag kicked at me, driven to new fury by the sounds. Her physical power was dreadful, a pure hatred bo
rn
of a dozen years of hiding, the while her own “murder” remained unsolved. I
was forced to use all my strength to evade her. The dreadful Hag’s face was close to mine as she bent over me and tried to thrust me away from her, over the balustrade, but I steeled myself to withstand her, praying that I need not kill this poor, hideous, demented thing. But she was so strong, so terribly strong
...

“Silly barmaid! I nearly killed you last night. But there was always someone—something. And they must not see me. They would tell him. When you are gone, he will never know. There will never be anyone else for him but Megan Sedley
...
” I took tight hold of the balustrade, which shook under my hand, as I warded her off with the other hand. I began to feel that slow seeping away of strength that meant I could not long withstand her maniacal force.

Suddenly, as I felt the ancient balustrade begin to give away behind me with a cracking and splitting of wood, a man’s voice called out, with a shock and anguish I had never thought possible to the cold, calm Nicholas Everett. “Megan!”

Her scream will haunt me as long as I live. Then,
before my eyes, the Hag drew back, raising the clawed fingers to ward off a sight from the foot of
the stairs, and as I dragged myself out of the way of the balustrade, she rushed past me, thrust her hands at the breaking wood, and with enormous
impetus, threw herself over the now unprotected landing to the floor far below.

I covered my face and tried to regain control of myself. All was silent below.

Gradually, I felt more myself, and I moved to the edge of the broken balustrade and looked over. Nicholas was kneeling where Megan Sedley had fallen. His dark head was bowed over the poor bundle of ancient rags that he cradled in his arms. She must have died instantly, and I felt that nothing remained of the fragile, hideous phantom but the memory of the other—the lost love of his youth.

C
HAPTER TWENTY

Elspeth Sedley a
nd I left the burial service together at her suggestion, somewhat to my surprise. I had supposed that she would be preoccupied with the company of Patrick Kelleher, since Mrs. Sedley and her daughter were being buried in a common service, thus making Patrick and Elspeth the two chief mourners. However, Elspeth came out and walked back up to Sedley House with Meg Markham and me, the fourth member of the household, Mrs. Famblechook, being too overcome by grief and cooking sherry to appear at the church.

“Are we to wait for Mr. Kelleher?” I asked. And as Elspeth shook her head, I added, “I did not see Sir Nicholas at the service.” I was careful to make the remark light and casual, not wishing my companions to guess how much this mattered to me. But the truth was, I had not seen him since he took me back to Sedley House the day of Megan Sedley’s suicide, and now, within the next hour or so, my father would be arriving on the York Mail Coach to take me home to Cornwall. It was quite probable that I should never see Sir Nicholas again. This was a dampening reflection, so very much so that I felt I could understand Elspeth’s
feeling for her Uncle Patrick and even sympathize with her, since it was growing obvious to me that a woman cannot always help falling in love, no matter how unsuitable the match may be. In any case, it was perfectly evident that Sir Nicholas regarded me as a “tiresome child.” He had called me that often enough.

Nonetheless, I had been building many dreams upon the fantasy that one day he might forget his tragic first love and learn to care for me. And he could scarcely do so if we never met again!

“You asked about Uncle Patrick,” Elspeth said , as we passed the graveyard with our heads averted and entered Sedley House. “I do not think I shall see him again.”

Meg Markham seemed to understand this perfectly, and she did not look surprised, but I could not imagine what had happened to provoke this | extraordinary change in Elspeth.

“I suppose Aunt Megan must have found him out too,” she remarked, closing her eyes for an instant, and I knew she was remembering the last twelve tragic years of the haunted and haunted woman. “I do not know why she made no effort to kill him when he was prowling about the inn, looking for her poor little horde of money.”

“Do you think anyone will ever find it?”

She laughed harshly. “Two hours after Nicholas brought the cart and took Aunt Megan away, Uncle Patrick got word of it in Heatherton and came hurrying back. That night he was in the
Hag’s Head, roaming around the attics where the poor
...
creature spent most of her time these past years. Frankly, I think he found the money. Not that it matters. Last night he asked me to come away with him. Said he thought he might have ‘a few guineas’ that would support us in great style in London. Doesn’t that sound as though he’d found the money?”

I thought it did, and like Elspeth, I thought it no longer mattered.

“When Papa comes for me, don’t you think you might go with us to Cornwall for a time? I am persuaded you would like it immensely. And anyone as pretty as you is sure to—” I thought I had better not suggest a new love when she had barely recovered from the old one, so I amended, “—sure to like the Cornish folk.”

“Not quite yet. Later though, perhaps.” She smiled at me faintly. “You are rather a dear. And clear as a looking glass.”

I did not know how to accept that but felt too sorry for her to make an issue of it. We went upstairs, I to finish packing and she to go across the little hall into her grandmother’s bed-sitting-room. It was not long before Mrs. Sedley’s little tiger-striped kitten raced up the stairs and paused ever so briefly between the two rooms. Elspeth looked around as I did. Timothy looked from one to the other of us, then darted into my room and curled up in my open portmanteau, his enormous gray-green eyes looking up at me expectedly.

Elspeth called to me, “Timothy is yours, Kate. Grandmother would have wished it.”

I was delighted, for if I could not have Nicholas Everett, I might at least give my affection to the little cat who had first brought us together. I was about to say as much, perhaps indirectly, when Meg Markham came and looked in upon Elspeth and me.

“Sir Nicholas and a
...
person from London wish to see Miss Bodmun.”

Elspeth and I looked at each other. “Person?” she echoed, but the mystery was more comprehensible when we saw the odd little man with a face like a friendly rodent, a suit of scarlet and brown, and the largest cravat, slightly soiled, that we had ever seen.

“Ladies, may I present Jemmy Pike, of the Bow Street runners,” said Sir Nicholas. “I fear I disturbed you both the morning I set out for Heatherton to send for a runner. When I returned I recall that you, and especially your friend Kelleher, seemed to regard me as the logical candidate for fiendish honors.”

I could not forget our manners to him that dreadful morning outside the stables of Everett Hall, and even earlier, when I had mistaken him for the Hag who had entered my bedchamber. It was extraordinary to me that I should not have guessed that more than one person might have his boots stained by the mud of Seven Spinney.

I was furiously jealous when Elspeth came to meet Sir Nicholas and offered him her hand, which he kissed as she said, “Nicholas, I should insult your understanding if I attempted to explain. I ask only that you forgive my stupidity.”

He smiled. It seemed to me that he looked a trifle older than I remembered, but no less exciting to me, and I thought I would become completely tongue-tied if he smiled at me in that tender and understanding fashion. I quite hated Elspeth for a moment or two!

“I could never think badly of Megan’s niece,” he said to her. Then he was cool and businesslike. “Now, Jemmy, Miss Bodmun will tell you whatever she recalls”—he hesitated only a second—“of whatever occurred after Miss Sedley and I left her at the inn.”

I tried to make my story as brief as possible, but I was conscious all the time of Elspeth and Sir Nicholas, talking in low tones, too low for me to hear them. As a result, I finished my story rather more quickly than I might have in other circumstances and aske
d
him, “Have you discovered yet who the original victim was, in the fire?”

The little man had been busily jotting down words now and then, which was a surprise in itself, for he did not look as though he had ever learned to read, much less to write. Sir Nicholas heard my question and came over to join us.

“It is assumed she was a onetime barmaid named
Hester Chawton. But nothing is certain except that the girl served at the inn briefly and was dismissed by Megan.”

I turned and continued my packing so I should not have to see his face when I spoke of the woman he must have loved through all these years of her living death.

“She told me that she found the girl in the cellar and killed her and intended to kill Mr. Kelleher when he returned. But the fire started. Over the candle, I suspect.”

“Aye. That’ll be the way of it,” Jemmy Pike agreed, nodding wisely. “Then, when the woman dragged herself out of the ruins, she must’ve knew she couldn’t never come to be thought alive, what with the dead barmaid and that. There’d be the murder charge right enough. Trapped in that old place by her crime and by her hurts, if I may say so. Horrible to think on. Aye! That’ll be it! And then the poor creature having to hide, and all, whenever folk come looking through the inn.”

I did not look at Nicholas and went on busily with my packing, which was accomplished in my usual helter-skelter fashion.

“She
...
told me she had wished to kill me. I think it must have been she who followed me from the Hag’s Head to the Hall that day, and then I saw her again that night when the dogs were disturbed.” I was tremendously relieved when Nicholas agreed without showing any signs of emotional involvement. “I knew there was someone playing off rather unsavory tricks. But I thought it was Megan’s husband—her widower. I meant to catch him out. Apparently, I was unfair to the fellow.”

“No,” said Elspeth quietly. “I do not think you were unfair. I know I thought those tracks upon the carpeting in your house belonged to Patrick. And all the while—poor Aunt Megan.”

“Don’t!” said Nicholas curtly. He came across the room to where I had my portmanteau laid out and began to repack my things, neatly and with the skill of long practice.

These army officers!
I thought.
They are forever hearkening back to their precious “neatness”
!

Elspeth and the little Bow Street runner stepped into the bed-sitting-room across the hall, and I heard them discussing the crimes. As I watched Nicholas pack for me, feeling inadequate and yet oddly cross about it, my thoughts reverted to the times I had ventured into the Hag’s Head, the shadowy face, the sounds, the sight that had caused prowling Macrae to fall and crack his skull, the dreadful trek of Mrs. Sedley from the Hall to the inn, pursuing this monstrous apparition which she must have recognized as her unfortunate daughter. Small wonder the wretched woman had died of it!

“I must hurry,” I said, trying to change the direction of my thoughts. “Papa will be fetching me onto the York Mail as it passes, and there will be only a very short wait.”

“It is waiting now, with your Papa,” said Nicholas, with one dark eyebrow raised. “You are the most careless child imaginable. Don’t you know you will ruin your things if you treat them so?”

His indifference to my departure was so dreadful that I felt the first tickling of my nose, which meant that I was about to cry. I sniffed mightily and shrugged off his warning. “I do not in the least care, I assure you. In Cornwall we have less trivial thoughts.”

He did not argue with me but took up my portmanteau and my beribboned band box, upsetting Timothy.

Elspeth and I embraced briefly. I picked up Timothy, repeated my invitation to Elspeth, then shook hands with Meg Markham and gave her a friendly message for Mrs. Famblechook. There was time for no more, for Sir Nicholas had already gone ahead of me and was striding down the street with my luggage in one hand. I hurried after him. He reached for my fingers. I felt blissfully content w
i
th my hand in his while I hugged Timmy’s soft body to me during the walk to the bottom of the hill. There the York Mail Coach waited while the coachman and several male passengers drank their fill in the Owl of York.

Waiting at the foot of the hill was Father, and as I caught sight of him, massive and heavily wrapped against the sharp northern climate, Sir Nicholas let me go. I ran to Father and asked him why he had not come to Sedley House so I could see him sooner.

He looked over my head at Sir Nicholas and, surprisingly enough, smiled at him. “Ay, lass, but why would I be doing that when a great gentlemen like His Worship asked me to wait. Said he had somewhat to say to you.”

“Yes, but when did you meet him?”

“I assure you, Kathleen,” said Sir Nicholas, “the York Mail takes all manner of passengers, even magistrates. I simply ascended the York Mail in Heatherton and rode to Maidenmoor. Paying my sixpence-ha’penny, of course.”

I looked from one to the other of the men. They seemed to have a complete understanding.

“That he did, Kate,” said Father. “And what’s more, we’ve his luggage atop the coach, safe as may be. He goes to London Town and on to Cornwall with us!”

“Certainly,” Sir Nicholas went on in that infuriatingly calm, businesslike voice. “I tell you here and now, I do not intend to carry you off to marry you at Gretna Green like any bumpkin. I must make the acquaintance of your mother. For aught I know, she may be a wrecker’s child!”

“No, no,” I assured him hastily. “That was Grandmother Kathleen that was the wrecker’s daughter!”