Loving Julia (12 page)
“Was ’is lordship charged with murder?” Jewel’s mind boggled at the image of the aristocratic earl brought up before Old Bailey. Emily shook her head.
“There wasn’t enough evidence to bring a formal charge, they said. First, the boy who claimed he saw his lordship go into the church with milady was only eight years old. The magistrate at the inquest said that no jury would convict a man based on the testimony of a boy that age. And he said, just because a man and his wife had problems doesn’t make the man guilty of murder. And then there was the friar.” Emily paused importantly.
“What friar?” Jewel demanded as Emily had clearly intended she should.
“That’s just it. There wasn’t no friar. No real friar, that is. People say he’s the ghost of Friar Benedict, one of the white friars who lived in the old monastery more than three hundred years ago. He’s supposed to have been mortal enemies with the first earl, who was awarded all the land that used to belong to the monastery by Queen Elizabeth. Friar Benedict refused to leave the monastery when the first earl ordered them all out, and the earl ended up having him hung. And this house was built on the very spot where it happened. From that time on, the white friar has appeared to the people hereabouts whenever one of the Peyton family is about to die. They say that he comes to take his enemies with him into death. It’s been going on for almost three hundred years now without fail. Some people saw the white friar out at the old monastery before Master Edward was killed in that hunting accident, and some saw him before the old lord died. And some, including Martin, the first footman, saw him before milady died. Right here in this house, Miss Julia.” Emily paused, wide-eyed, obviously pleasurably frightened by her own story.
“So what do the so-called white friar ’ave to do with ’is lordship not killin’ ’is wife?”
Emily, who had leaned closer and rested her hands on the small table during her telling of the legend, straightened. “The magistrate, he said he didn’t believe in no ghost friar. He said if so many people saw him, then it was because somebody was dressing up like him. And until somebody could prove who was dressing up in a white robe and flitting around the old ruins and this house—his lordship could account for his whereabouts almost every time the friar appeared, though he said he was out riding alone when milady died—then he was danged if he was going to charge anybody with murder. So he said milady’s death was a misadventure. It made milady’s dad real mad, and he would never speak to his lordship after that. A lot of people think he’s the one who started saying that his lordship murdered milady. But old Mr. Tynesdale died last year, and a lot of the talk died with him. Though everybody remembers, of course.”
Jewel bit into the long spared roll, a frown fixed between her brows as she absorbed all she had been told. The part about the ghost of the white friar gave her the willies, but she could not by any stretch of the imagination picture the earl dressed up in a white monk’s robe and running around the neighborhood in it. It was such a ridiculous notion that she immediately felt better. Of course he had not done such a thing, nor had he thrown his wife off a tower. It was too silly to even contemplate. “Shall I help you dress, Miss Julia?” While Jewel had been thinking, Emily had put out her clothes for the day. The question was asked in a hopeful tone, but Jewel had no hesitation about shaking her head.
“I c’n manage, t’anks.” Then as Emily, looking disappointed, started to leave the room, Jewel called her back. “Which way is that monastery, Emily?” “You don’t want to go there, Miss Julia! It’s …” “I jest wan’ ter look at it. Admire the ruin, so to speak.” Emily looked skeptical, but she gave Jewel directions. Jewel dismissed her with another word of thanks, and got dressed. In less than half an hour she was walking over the heath toward the Wash.
The heath was still damp with dew, releasing a sweet, spicy fragrance every time her skirt brushed against a sturdy green bush. Thick clumps of rhododendron in colors ranging from deepest crimson to pink to white grew wild alongside the path that had been worn smooth by generations of wandering feet. Pine plantations rose against the horizon to the west, while to the east the ground dropped away to form the rocky cliffs that looked out over the Wash.
Jewel walked along the path at the cliffs’ edge, marveling at the fresh salt scent of the sea and the spectacular beauty of the waves breaking over the jagged rocks below. Gulls and terns wheeled in the bright blue sky overhead, adding their shrill cries to the roar of the sea. To a girl who had never before been outside of London, the magnificence of so much open space and natural beauty was dazzling.
After perhaps twenty minutes of brisk walking, Jewel saw the old monastery. The two-story stone structure was blackened with age and covered with vines and moss. Obviously the Wash had moved inland considerably since it had been built because the monastery was perched right on the edge of the cliffs, its far wall long since tumbled down into the sea. Only the three-story bell tower remained intact on that far side, owing its survival no doubt to the fact that it rested on a small jut of rock.
Jewel felt a cold little finger trace its way down her spine as she reflected that the arched opening that must once have housed a large bell was the one from which Elizabeth fell to her death. Jewel shivered as she walked around the side of the ruin, stepping over the jagged piles of stones that had fallen from the relatively intact inland wall. There was an aura of cold about the place that had nothing to do with the temperature.
Behind the monastery, close again to the encroaching cliffs, was a tiny cemetery. There were only a few stones left to mark the graves, but Jewel guessed that many more must have been lost to time. The shadow of the bell tower slanted across the graves, and Jewel shivered again. The place both repelled and fascinated her.
Jewel had meant only to look at the ruin, but when she saw a small arched opening in the wall, she could not resist the impulse to go inside. Clambering over a pile of moss covered stones, she stood in the doorway looking around. Clearly this room had once been a chapel. The remains of arched windows opened both inland and toward the sea, and in the top of one remained a few shards of ruby glass. The sun slanting down through the glass cast a bright red beam toward an arched recess cut in the rough stone of an interior wall. From its location behind where the altar must once have been, she guessed it had once held a statue, probably of Jesus or Mother Mary.
The thought of centuries-dead monks kneeling in prayer in this chapel was faintly eerie, but worse was the realization that Elizabeth must have passed through this very room many times during her short life as a girl to explore, as a young lady to meet Sebastian, and as a woman to meet her death. It was a chilling thought, and Jewel was about to withdraw to the beckoning warmth of the sun when she heard the sound of someone crying. She stiffened, listening intently. The sound was muffled, barely audible, but it was unmistakable nevertheless: someone—or something—was sobbing its heart out.
Jewel felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. The sound came from somewhere above, and for an awful moment she had a vision of Elizabeth’s shade weeping in the bell tower from whence she had fallen to her death. But she dismissed the thought as ridiculous, of course, there was definitely someone up there, and whoever was up there was crying.
Drawn irresistibly forward, Jewel walked through a little door beside the arched recess and found herself inside the tower itself. Steps carved into the stone wound upwards. Jewel hesitated, her every instinct urging her to run outside into the sunlight, but the sound of the crying pulled her. It came unmistakably from the embrasure where the bell had once been, and it was as heartrending as before. Whoever was up there was hurt to the depths of her soul.
Jewel couldn’t help it. She had to know if it was Elizabeth’s ghost she heard, or a live, distressed lady. Because the sounds were unmistakably female. As she wound her way up, careful not to slip on the worn, moss covered steps, she felt her nerves creep into a hard knot in her belly.
A warm golden glow seemed to emanate from the bell room above. Jewel stared up wide-eyed at the bright light that spilled through what had once been a trap-door and was now merely a hole in the stone floor, wondering with a kind of fascinated horror if this was some kind of ghostly manifestation. Even as her heart began to climb into her throat, she realized that the glow was caused by sunlight streaming through the open embrasures through which the bell had once swung.
The crying was louder, more distinct. Jewel once again got the impression of heartrending grief. Then she cautiously thrust her head through the opening to see the sunlight glinting brightly off a small gilded head.
Chloe. It was Chloe who was huddled on the floor, curled into a fetal position with her head buried against her knees. The claret velvet cloak was wrapped around her like a blanket, and her small body shook with the force of her sobs.
Jewel felt her heart clench. The sight of the little girl crying in this place where her mother had died wrenched her soul. Quietly she pulled herself through the opening, then moved to crouch beside the sobbing child.
“Chloe,” she said softly, her hand moving to touch the little girl’s bright hair.
The child’s head whipped up, her eyes huge and teary, dazzled by the sun for a moment as she blinked at Jewel. There was an expression of such wild joy on her small face that Jewel immediately realized that for a brief moment Chloe thought that it was her mother kneeling down beside her. Then the child’s eyes narrowed against the sun, and her mouth contorted. She leapt to her feet, letting out an infuriated cry. When Jewel tried to catch her, to hold her and comfort her, she shoved her with such force that Jewel sat down hard on her behind.
“Chloe, wait!”
But it was too late. Before Jewel could even get to her feet, the little girl had vanished through the trap-door. Jewel could hear the quick patter of her slippered feet on the stairs as she ran away.
As the earl had threatened, a governess was engaged within the week. Mrs. Thomas was a middle-aged widow with a straight back and a long nose, and in no time at all she was looking down it at Jewel.
She had just been dismissed as governess to the daughters of a prosperous landowner in the neighboring county, not because of any fault of hers, Johnson said, but because the girls were now old enough to make a governess unnecessary. According to the registry office that had recommended her, Mrs. Thomas was all that could be desired: she was an impoverished gentlewoman, daughter of a country parson, with a wealth of experience in schooling young ladies. In addition, she had a reputation for not putting up with any nonsense from her charges. She seemed, Johnson told the earl, like the ideal person to have charge of Jewel’s education.
All of this Jewel had from Johnson. Although she had seen the earl on horseback twice from her window, she had not spoken to him since that disastrous conversation in the library. Like Chloe he seemed more a ghost than a tangible presence in the house.
Mrs. Thomas was given a room near the rear of the north wing, adjoining what used to be the schoolroom. Evidently Chloe was judged not yet ready for an education because it was obvious that the room had not been used in at least twenty years. But after Mrs. Johnson had set the maids to washing the walls and the floor and polishing the furniture, Mrs. Thomas allowed with a sniff that it would “do.” And thus did Jewel begin the unexpectedly arduous process of becoming a lady.
“Really, Miss Julia, ladies do not hunch over when they walk. Neither do they stride about like a man! Keep your back straight, and take small, gliding steps. Gliding, gliding! No, not like that! Like this!”
Over the next two weeks Mrs. Thomas ordered boards strapped to Jewel’s back during the hours she was in the schoolroom to teach her to sit, stand, and walk with a graceful posture. Whenever Jewel moved about the room, she was first supposed to place a book on her head. If the book fell off, she had to put it in place again and again until she could walk the entire circumference of the room without dislodging it. There were lessons in elocution that involved saying “h” into candles; there were lessons in manners and movements and dress. These lessons were repeated over and over and over until Jewel felt like screaming, or murdering Mrs. Thomas, or committing suicide by jumping out the schoolroom window herself.
Finally, after a particularly arduous session, Jewel rebelled. Mrs. Thomas had ordered her to bed without any dinner as if she were a naughty child simply because Jewel’s table manners failed to please. Red-faced with fury at having her dinner literally snatched from beneath her nose, Jewel’s eyes flamed as she slowly rose from the table, fists clenched at her sides. This was
the final straw! The old Gorgon had pushed her too far, and Jewel meant to respond with a roundhouse right that would knock that priggish lady flat on her back.
Mrs. Thomas must have read Jewel’s violent intentions in her eyes because her own steely gray ones widened to the circumference of saucers. She held up a hand as if to ward Jewel off while backing from the schoolroom with more speed than dignity. Once safely in the hallway her hand dropped, and she glared at Jewel with outrage.
“His lordship will hear of this!” she threatened before turning on her heel with such dispatch that her skirts swirled about her skinny shanks as she marched down the hall.
Seething, Jewel hurled a pithy epithet in the woman’s wake. But then she was left to face the probable consequences of her action. The old biddy would undoubtedly run straight to the great “my lord” with her tale. Jewel remembered how the earl looked when he was angry, the icy stare that seemed to freeze its victim to the spot, the soft, silky voice that was more rending than razor-sharp steel. She also remembered his violence in the library, the furious flaming of his eyes as he hurled his glass at the fire and growled at her to get out. The memory made her shiver.