Black Heather (6 page)

“But that’s where Miss Megan was found, months after the fire. Buried in the debris. She’d been struck on the head before the fire. There was still bloodstains.”

“Hush,” said Meg. “If you’d not had that Madeira, you’d not talk so free.”

“You mean”—I joggled poor Timothy, who meowed his protest—“Timothy found Megan Sedley’s body?”

They both shuddered.

“No, Miss; no!” Meg cried quickly. “That was found more than eleven years gone. But maybe some of her lace shawl is still in the cellar.”

Mrs. Famblechook nodded.

“Aye. And stained with the poor lady’s very own life’s blood. Fancy! After all the years. What will Sir Nicholas say? He loved her, Miss, but she married Master Patrick and lived to regret it.”

“Please, never mind that.” I stopped them before they went on with the harrowing details. I knew I would dream about them, in any case.

Meg shrugged. “Well then, Miss, there’s no more to it. Save only ... the haunts that folk do see of nights abovestairs at the Hag’s Head.”

CHAPTER FIVE

When I slept t
hat night for the first time in the charming little guest room of Sedley House, I was quite sure I should dream of ghastly murders and of odd noises haunting my bedchamber. But the truth is, I dreamed of attending an assembly ball at Bath and of dancing down the line with two faceless gentlemen—quite an unorthodox procedure, even in a dream. I remember, though, that I was hard put to choose between them for the second set. And when I awoke to an enchanting if cloudy autumn day, I still did not recognize the faces of my two gallants. It was most puzzling.

I was out upon the cobbled street of Maidenmoor at an early hour, delighted with the brisk, misty look of the place. The surrounding moors high above us that had, for me, the feel of a thick fur collar. There were some at home that had said I should hate the North Country and never, in any circumstances, wish to establish a school in “damp, forbidding Yorkshire.” Yet, had it not been for the suddenness of yesterday’s storm and my pursuit of mischievous little Timothy, I should have found the Heatherton Moor a thing of beauty even then. I liked the brisk challenge of the climate and the feeling of immensity in its space.

Before walking down through the village that bordered on its steep, narrow street, I looked behind the village, up across the limitless stretch of what the south of England called “wasteland” but which still had the last, faintly heathery glow upon it. My own West Country had such “wastes,” and I loved them. They were unconquerable, or so I thought, and like some of mankind, both forbidding and challenging. How much more glorious it was to me than the soft, crowded countryside I had passed through in the York Mail Coach!

When I stood on tiptoe, I fancied I could just barely see the rooftops of the Hag’s Head Inn, far away to the north and east. The inn was a haunting place to me, in several senses. I still could not believe that the innocuous gallant of the graveyard the night before had knocked his wife in the head and then set fire to the inn. And I could hardly believe that the dark, rude, handsome justice of the peace, Sir Nicholas Everett, who had so annoyed me yesterday, was still pining with love for the poor victim of that fire. He did not look like a man who pined for anything. More likely, he was a man who hated and punished. I should not like to be brought up before him in his capacity as magistrate of the countryside!

When I started down the hill that contained the single street of Maidenmoor, I nearly had a change of heart about its severe beauty. Primitive man and the primeval nature were all very well, but I had never seen such a precipitous hill in my life and was baffled at how little the local inhabitants were impeded by that hill. All those black-clad men went clumping down to their work across the valley at the new wool mills in noisy iron pateens. And the women in black shawls were beginning to sit down to their spinning, but they peered out at me through little windowpanes that glittered in the morning light. Each house was a decided step below the one to the north of it, and as I descended the street I felt that I must constantly pause and dig my toes into the cobbles for fear, of sliding the rest of the way.

There was a public house halfway down the street, the Owl of York. Even at this early hour, scarcely after dawn, it was open, with the taprail plainly in view beyond the long cold-looking passage that led in from the street. Several men and one or two women were there with steaming mugs, and the open doorway smelled of boiling rum. I could not blame them. It probably took hot rum to get them on their way up or down that hill on these brisk mornings. But it was invigorating, and I rather liked it.

I walked to the bottom of the hill and stood on the ancient stone bridge, watching the trickle of new water make its way through the rushes, carrying the debris of the summer after yesterday’s flashing storm. I thought of how disappointed I had been when we could find nothing suitable at home, and when not enough pupils had been interested in my school with Miss Higsby. Only after Mama complained of our local disinterest in education in an exchange of letters with Mrs. Sedley did we consider faraway Yorkshire. And now I was wondering if, perhaps, it had all been for the best.

I began to smile at my own perversity. Could it have been that odd, romantic dream last night, which had quite efficiently blurred my memory of Elspeth Sedley’s insulting remarks and the earlier uneasiness over my visit to the Hag’s Head Inn?

I felt the heathery, mist-scented breeze against my cheeks and turned a little, to breathe it full in the face. Greatly startled, I saw a man standing just under the further arch of the bridge, looking up at me. He was in worn hunting jacket, breeches, and boots, with a years-old sugar-loaf hat cocked jauntily on his sandy air. He had an extremely infectious grin, and although I was shocked at the ease with which a presumed murderer like Patrick Kelleher strolled about the village, I smiled back at him before I remembered.

“Ay, lass,” he called to me in that lighthearted way of his, “I’ve said it times without number, and I’ll be saying it more. For a warm bit of sheer loveliness, give me the Irish lass.”

Embarrassed, I looked away, wondering how one answered such extravagant and probably
often-repeated compliments. It made me impatient when I found myself the victim of his silly, overbearing charm.

“It is rather early in the day for such manners, sir,” I said coolly, hoping he would take the red of embarrassment in my face for the mere slap of the brisk, invigorating wind.

He laughed at me, not in the least rebuffed, and came out from under the bridge, climbing the bank with an amusingly boyish leap onto the road that wound beyond the bridge and over into a further valley, and then a valley after that. And always, as I remembered from my approach to Maidenmoor, it was a mere rusty thread between the wild, blackening heather that everywhere covered the restless heath.

Hating to appear foolish and at a disadvantage, I had a strong desire that he shouldn’t guess my cowardice. As he came up to me, I reminded him with a most indifferent shrug, “Your pretty manners are all wasted, Master Kelleher. My father and all Cornishmen would tell you there’s nothing Irish to equal the folk of Cornwall.”

“Your mother was Irish,” he guessed brightly.

“Somersetshire.”

“Grandmama?”

“And one grandfather—Somerset. Papa’s parents were from Bodmin. That’s in Cornwall.”

“You’re a pretty thing, even if you are no belle of County Meath.”

The Irish place name reminded me of Megan, his English wife, and I barely refrained from shuddering as he put his hand on my arm. For all his lighthearted gaiety, I felt the fleshy warmth of his fingers upon my cold arm underneath my shawl. I thought of those fingers tightening upon a weapon to strike Megan Sedley Kelleher. I knew it was unlikely that so irresponsible a man would ever rouse himself to a pitch of desperation or fury during which he would destroy a human being, but all the same, I disliked soft hands.

I once knew a boy with just such soft hands whom I caught drowning small animals. Thanks to the stick of broomstraws I carried at the time, neither the boy nor his hands was able to do anything lethal for weeks to come. When he drowned in a bog the next year in an attempt to do the same to his small brother, I did not mourn. I removed Patrick Kelleher’s hand from my person in a way that left no doubt of my sentiments.

“Come, acushla, you’ll be shaming the very tongue of my Irish mother, throwing me off like that, and me but helping you to mount the Hill of Maidenmoor.” Nonetheless, he understood my rebuff and behaved like a gentleman from there on as he persisted beside me. I compared his probable exaggerated attempts to match my stride up the steep cobblestones, with the typically aristocratic arrogance of Sir Nicholas Everett yesterday and found, to my surprise, that I had just the merest hint of a sneaking admiration for that detestable baronet. Sir Nicholas, as I recalled, strode along in his own way, lifting me over obstacles when necessary but never making a nuisance of himself by buzzing about me with pantomimed suggestions of my overpowering vigor. I could not but feel that I was behaving in a most unfeminine way. I detested being made to feel so, and I said as much when we approached the Owl of York tavern.

“Master Kelleher, think you would do well to fortify yourself with your friends in that public house. I am persuaded your County Meath ancestors would expect it of you.”

He made me a pitiful little grimace, begging my sympathy. “Not I, ma’am. And not alone, certainly. They’d have the scalp of me like the Red Indians. Shall I tell you why?”

“Please do not,” I said hastily. “I am aware of—of what is said.”

“And yet you allow me to share this little stroll in your company. You must be the only person in this benighted town beside my niece, Elspeth, who thinks me innocent.”

“Really, you are behaving absurdly. I am not responsible for those who share the street with me.” The lovely crispness of the morning, which I had admired a short while before, had crept in between the wide mesh of my shawl, and I was growing colder by the minute. I wanted to hurry on back to a warm breakfast at Sedley House, but I was less than halfway up the hill, and my pace had been so rapid that it would not be possible to continue with equal haste. At that propitious moment we came opposite the Owl of York, which was exuding its steamy warmth and camaraderie to all who passed.

“Do come in, pretty Kate. Be my protectress. Give me consequence by your company.”

What as Irish wheedler he was! But it was not flattering to be called the protectress of a suspected murderer who was surely of twice my proportions.

“I cannot possibly. I am awaited at Sedley House.” Even as I spoke, I thought of the cold, silent house as it had been when I left it a little while ago. Mrs. Sedley always slept late, because of her discomfort and broken slumber. As for her granddaughter, I had rather enter a lion’s den with Patrick Kelleher than sit at table with that rude young woman.

Patrick read my thoughts rather neatly. “You’ll not be telling me you prefer the cool, cutting tongue of my niece, Elspeth?”

“She is your friend, sir. You had best be grateful.”

“Grateful to further orders, my lass. Do come. See? The hostess is beckoning to you.”

I peered in beyond the passage, to where a pair of china lamps burned at either end of the taproom, and saw how the light glinted off the red
-
gold hair of the tavern mistress. She was a short woman of thirty or so and must once have been beautiful. She was still exceedingly pretty. It did
not seem to me that she was beckoning, but she was certainly staring at me, and suddenly the street where I stood seemed to catch the full blast of the mist-laden wind off the moors.

Well,
I thought,
what harm can come of it?
I
will tell Father and Mama when I go home, and they will understand. Beside all else, I can demonstrate in this manner how competent I am to handle such awkward
occasions
.

I allowed myself to be ushered into the passage, which was so steamy after the brisk weather of the street that I found my nose and upper lip suddenly perspiring.

I soon saw and heard it clearly demonstrated—not that I was competent to care for myself, but, on the contrary, that Patrick Kelleher had lied to me when he had said that all the village and everyone in the public house believed him guilty of murder. Quite different was the truth. He seemed obviously a well-known and popular figure in here, at least with those who greeted him. Various black-clad men and women clapped
him
on the back, made as if to cuff him, and asked if he was going to drink them all under the rail.

“Jassy, set up a
rumfustian f
or the lad and his bonny lass,” commanded a big fellow, hammering on the rail for the attention of the red-haired woman. She glanced from Patrick to me, her tawny brows raised. I did not feel comfortable under that look or in my present situation. In the general greetings, I could see that I was presumed to be
some female whom the Irishman had acquired, heaven knew where!

This was bad enough, but I began to be increasingly sure that the red-haired tavern mistress was an intimate of Patrick Kelleher and, absurdly enough, as it seemed to me, was jealous of my arrival in his company. Yielding to his taunts and coaxing had been a bad mistake on my part. I must find a way out that would not place me in an even more invidious position.

“It really is growing late. I am expected elsewhere,” I lied, begging pardon of the big men who surrounded me and appeared to overpower me without intending to be more than friendly.

“Come, love. Here’s to your bonny dark eyes!” boasted one of the huge, grinning workmen as he took a swallow of some heavy brown spirits and smacked his lips. It was like seeing a huge pink cavern open up before me and then become sealed again, and I felt myself more and more uneasy. I knew their good intentions, b
u
t when they pressed upon me their own partially full goblets and mugs, commanding me to “drink and take the chill off,” I knew I must get out of here rapidly. However much I might observe in such a place, I must not drink any of the piratical potions. There would be no explaining that to Father!

“If you please, I must go. Please let me by.”

Teasingly, the men closed ranks as Patrick laughed at my plight, not understanding my lack of experience in such places.

“Jassy, where’s a warming pan for our pretty captive?” he called to the red-haired woman, who turned her back to us, then, a minute later, faced us, leaning over the taprail with a smoking mug. I could see that I should get nowhere by opposition, so I took the mug and made a furtive attempt to edge around the chief barriers to my departure. But there was more joking, in which I saw that the red-haired tavern mistress did not join.

I was growing more uneasy by the minute and tried to keep tight rein upon my nerves, for I knew that panic, a shameful emotion to me, would only precipitate gossip and might perhaps reflect upon my hostess, Mrs. Sedley, as well.

The crowd was milling about in such a way, and the room was so thick with smoke and steam and the smell of heated spices, that I had not yet looked behind me to see if there was an easier way to leave through the back of the room. I was envisioning disaster but not physically, for I suspected that at their worst these men and the scattering of females were only teasing, raising their own spirits before the long, hard working day ahead. But the gossip about this whole episode would make my presence impossible in Maidenmoor, not to mention what it would do to the opinion of me held by Mrs. Sedley, who would certainly pour out the whole story to Mama in a letter. Sir Nicholas Everett had said she was the busiest gossip in the riding.

Sir Nicholas! I shuddered to think how I should sink even lower in his haughty dark eyes. The thought of his cutting disapproval was so intense as to be painful, for I did not like to sink that low in anyone’s opinion, even that of the surly, authoritative aristocrat.

I turned, holding the untouched mug crushed against my bosom, and tried to see over the broad, black-clad shoulders of my noisy gallants. It was as if my fear of disgrace in the eyes of Mrs. Sedley or Sir Nicholas had magically conjured up the worst of my fears; for the man himself was gazing down at me, having quietly made way through the crowd, apparently after witnessing my humiliation, which I was sure he had enjoyed.