Lord Iverbrook's Heir (18 page)

The reading took a few seconds. It took him the better part of half an hour to decide what to do. He emerged from his chamber into a house as silent as a tomb and went in search of Lady Whitton.

Her ladyship was in her stillroom, not usual on the sabbath but the place to which she invariably escaped when troubled in spirit. Mr. Hastings had not previously penetrated this sanctum and he was startled to find his hostess enveloped in a stained apron, grinding something aromatic with her pestle and mortar in a way which suggested that she wished it was Iverbrook’s bones.

“Ahem,” said Mr. Hastings weakly.

She looked at him with uncharacteristic severity and went on grinding.

“Iverbrook’s letter,” he went on. “He said to tell you what I think fit.” She put down her pestle and, regarding this as encouragement, he continued. “I’ve known Iverbrook forever, ma’am, and I’ve never known him run sly. He wouldn’t have done it, I’d stake my last farthing on it. He seems to think he was drugged.”

“Drugged?” Lady Whitton was intrigued.

“In the brandy. He didn’t wake till morning, and the Merry Widow was there.”

“The Merry Widow?”

“Mrs. Parcott. That’s how she is known in town. She was Iverbrook’s light-o’-love.” Here Mr. Hastings paused, horrified to find that his unruly tongue had once again escaped his control. He rushed on. “But that’s all over now, of course. At least, it is as far as he is concerned, but she is fishing for a wedding band and a title and it’s my belief she’s caught on he's in love with your daughter.”

“Do you think so? I own I have suspected it.”

Mr. Hastings was relieved to find his unintentional revelation met with such composure. Perhaps my lady had suspected that too. He hurried to reassure her about his friend’s present feelings.

“Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. Positively mooning over her, I’d say. So Mrs. P. wants to put a spike in his wheel and it looks as if she’s succeeded!”

“He suspects her of drugging him? I wonder what she used. Though I find the whole story hard to credit, I confess.”

Mr. Hastings drew himself up in superb indignation.

“Iverbrook,” he stated flatly, “does not tell lies.” He spoiled the effect by adding, “I’m not saying he don't have his faults, mind, but I would take his word against any gentleman in the land.” He pondered. “Except my father. Have to take my father’s word, you know.”

“Of course. Thank you, Mr. Hastings, for being so frank with me. I shall have to consider what to tell Selena, for I cannot possibly reveal all that you have said. I think she had best await Hugh’s story from his own lips, since we know so little. She has misjudged Hugh by jumping to conclusions before now, so perhaps this time she will give him the benefit of the doubt. Only it does look so very damning, his running off to London like this.”

“He has done it for her!” Mr. Hastings placed his hand on his heart and declaimed, “‘I must go up to London to halt this devilish suit against Miss. W.’ His very words, ma’am.”

“I must suppose it was of the utmost urgency. He hopes to return on Tuesday, he says.”

“On Tuesday? Then I have a suggestion to take Miss Whitton’s mind off her griev. . . off her sorrows. I promised Miss Delia to get up an expedition to Abingdon Abbey so, if you do not object, we will go tomorrow. I do not think Hugh will regret missing the ruins.”

“You mean to invite the Russells?”

“I suppose Delia will expect me to,” sighed Mr. Hastings.

“Then you had best go and propose your outing at once, or it will be too late to warn them. In fact, I think it an excellent scheme, and I will come with you to support you. They are all in the drawing room, I believe.”

Delia greeted the scheme with delight, Sir Aubrey with a return of his extraordinary nervousness, and Selena with a listless refusal that she changed to a reluctant acceptance on meeting her mother’s eye.

Mr. Hastings penned a polite note to the Russells in which he begged the pleasure of their company on the morrow. Sir Aubrey, expressing a desire for exercise, offered to carry it down to the stables for Jem to take to Bracketts.

“I should not call the walk to the stables exercise,” said Delia scornfully, as soon as he shut the door behind him.

Judging by the excessive length of time that passed before the baronet returned, the distance was more than sufficient for him. Jem also was unusually dilatory, taking more than two hours to run the errand, but when they read Clive’s reply to the invitation Delia thought she knew the reason.

“Jane’s mama will not let her go!” she said in disappointment. “I expect Jem had to wait while they tried to persuade Lady Anne. I am glad that you are not such a fussbudget, Mama!”

As always when Lady Anne disapproved, Lady Whitton had qualms. After due consideration, however, she could see no harm in a party of young people lunching at a respectable hostelry and exploring ancient ruins. Though “fussbudget” was not precisely the phrase she would have chosen, Lady Anne Russell was undoubtedly a high stickler.

Clive was expected at eleven the following morning, but the half hour passed and there was no sign of him, nor had Sir Aubrey yet put in an appearance. Mr. Hastings requested Lady Whitton’s permission to go ahead in the barouche in order to arrange their luncheon.

“I had forgot that it is market day,” he pointed out. “The inns will be busy and I would not have my guests forced to wait, or worse, ill fed.”

Delia insisted on going with him, “to be sure he orders good things to eat.”

Mr. Hastings drove off with every intention of demonstrating his prowess as a first-rate whip.

When Clive arrived at last, it was plain to Selena that he was far from happy to find that half the party, or rather that particular half of the party, had already departed. He seemed to be in two minds whether it would be preferable to follow as fast as possible or to abandon the expedition, but he was by far too polite to suggest the latter course. Selena herself had no wish to go, though a long talk with her mother had left her feeling less despairing. However, she could not disappoint her sister and Mr. Hastings, and Sir Aubrey was anxious to go. They set out at noon and were soon enjoying a delectable repast in the coffee room of the Crown and Thistle.

Clive devoted himself to entertaining Selena, glancing now and then at Delia to see if she was aware of his defection. If she was, she gave no sign of it. She and Mr. Hastings were discussing the romances they had read in which sinister abbeys, ruined or otherwise, played a part. Neither Clive nor Selena had even heard of most of the titles they mentioned, and Sir Aubrey did not attempt to join in either conversation. He seemed to be trying to watch the door of the coffee room, no easy task as he was sitting with his back to it.

It was after two by the time Mr. Hastings called for the reckoning. While he paid the shot, the ladies donned their pelisses, bonnets, and gloves, for though sunny the day was distinctly chilly.

As they left the inn, they came face to face with Mrs. Parcott. Selena paled and nearly turned her back, then remembering what her mother had said about misunderstandings and premature judgments she nodded frigidly.

Mrs. Parcott was not in the least dismayed.

“What a charming surprise!” she cried gaily. “Are you walking down to the river? I will go with you, I vow, for I have finished my errands in the town and I cannot leave for some hours yet.”

Sir Aubrey was clearly delighted to see her; Clive was torn between disapproval and admiration; the others found it impossible to tell her outright that she was not welcome; so she accompanied them to the abbey.

They quickly discovered that the ruins were far more extensive than was visible from the road, stretching along the river bank for several hundred yards in various stages of dilapidation. Delia bemoaned the sunshine. A storm, she said, or a thick fog would provide a far more mysterious atmosphere. She and Mr. Hastings wandered off, deep in their literary discussion.

Clive watched them go, then turned and offered his arm to Mrs. Parcott. Selena declined to take Sir Aubrey’s arm.

“I prefer to trust to my own feet,” she said coldly, wishing with fervour that she had not come.

They strolled across the grass, among tumbledown walls. Clive, who had been there before, explained that the stones nearest the bridge had been used for building elsewhere in the town after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. He pointed out the area where the chapel had supposedly stood, and told a story of a young monk who, having been reprimanded for missing matins, had killed himself at the altar and whose ghost was said to haunt the place.

“Naughty boy!” exclaimed Amabel with a giggle. “I shall never be able to pass by at night without a shiver.”

“Come and see the monks’ cells,” he said. “They were in here, right on the river. They were tiny, and must have been fearfully cold and damp.”

They followed him into a building which seemed once to have had an upper story, of which little remained. The ground floor was in comparatively good condition, though well lit by holes in the ceiling. There was a wide, stone-flagged corridor running parallel to the river, with evenly spaced doorways along each side. In several places the remains of heavy oak doors still hung.

They picked their way around fallen beams, black with age, some of them leaning against the walls in a most precarious fashion.

“I wonder why the doors opened outwards,” said Selena, puzzled. “The monks must have all left their cells at once to proceed to services, and the doors would have blocked the corridors.”

“I told you the cells are tiny,” Clive reminded. “There would have been no room at all for furniture if they had opened inwards.”

“Let us go into one with a door and close it,” suggested Amabel. “Then we will see how it felt to be a monk.”

“This door is very well preserved.” Clive paused in a doorway. “I wonder if it will move.” He pushed on it. The rusted iron hinges creaked but the door moved quite easily. He went in.

Selena went after him, but Amabel hung back and spoke softly to Sir Aubrey. Then she said aloud, “La, it makes me quite nervous. I suppose there are no skeletons in there?” She and Sir Aubrey joined the others inside.

The cell was crowded with four people in it. While Clive pulled the door shut, Selena and Sir Aubrey stood by the small high window. Sir Aubrey peered out, and remarked that the wall rose directly from the river, eight or ten feet below.

The ceiling of the closet-like room was unbroken, so with the door closed they were plunged into a dim twilight. Mrs. Parcott emitted a ladylike shriek and clutched at Clive’s arm.

“Let me out of here,” she moaned. “Open the door, quickly!”

Before it was half open she slipped out, pulling Clive after her. Selena would gladly have followed, but Sir Aubrey had embarked on an endless, stammering disquisition in which medieval building methods and religious liberty figured largely. He seemed to be equally uninformed on both subjects. When she stepped towards the doorway he said, “D-do you not agree, Cousin?” so she turned back and murmured in agreement, though far from sure what he had asked.

Pretending to listen, she leaned against the cold stone wall, gazed out at the river, and thought her own thoughts.

What was Iverbrook doing in London? He had left so suddenly, with no effort to explain. What had happened in Oxford on Saturday night? Mama said all was not as it seemed; she must not jump to conclusions but wait to hear what he had to tell. Which was all very well, only after Cousin Aubrey’s announcement at the ball, it was difficult to imagine how Iverbrook could vindicate his disappearance.

Cousin Aubrey’s announcement: she looked at him in sudden suspicion. If it were not for that, they might have gone in search of the viscount. Until that moment it had been a wonderful evening. Hugh had been charming, amusing, attentive. When they were apart she had felt his eyes on her, had believed that he longed to be at her side. Then Cousin Aubrey’s voice shattered her dream.

Cousin Aubrey’s voice was abruptly cut off as the door crashed shut. A loud thud followed, the heavy sound of wood striking wood. The monk’s cell suddenly seemed to shrink.

Selena reached the door in two strides and pushed, then threw her weight against it. It did not move.

Nor did Sir Aubrey.

“Come and help me!” she demanded.

He joined her and half-heartedly leaned against the solid wood, to no result.

“It’s stuck,” he said inanely. “The wind must have b-blown it.”

“It’s not windy.”

“I expect a beam f-fell against it. The ceiling is quite rotten in p-places.”

She looked up. “Not in here,” she noted, then shouted, “Clive, help!” No answer. “Clive! Mr. Hastings! Help, somebody!”

The dank stone absorbed the sound, giving in return only the gurgle of water outside and the distant quacking of ducks.

Selena went to the window. The thickness of the wall made it hard to see out except straight ahead, where only the wide, green-brown river and the far bank with its towpath were visible. Standing on tiptoe she could see further. It was not easy, for the opening was small. Too small, she thought, to squeeze through, even if the river did not wash the base of the wall, just as her cousin had described it.

Downstream the river divided, to flow on each side of a small island. One pier of the bridge rested on this island, and a tavern stood there, the Nag’s Head, the upper story of which opened directly onto the bridge. It blocked Selena’s view of the far end of the bridge, but she could see the near end. The current sped slickly under the arches with a violent swirl. Above, she could see a cart, a horseman, and two people on foot.

“Help!” she cried; none of them looked around, or even paused. “They are too far off. If we keep shouting, Clive and Mrs. Parcott, or Delia and Mr. Hastings, are bound to come. Even if they do not hear us, they will look for us when they are ready to leave. What an excessively ridiculous situation to be in!”

It was not only ridiculous, it was tedious. Sir Aubrey had no conversation beyond mere commonplaces, and she could not listen to his lecturing with any show of complaisance. Alternately pacing up and down, four steps one way and four steps back, or huddling in a corner, she shouted from time to time. No one answered.