The Admiral's Daughter (23 page)

“Why, of course you must not,” declared Maggie. “I shall bear all the blame, and tell my cousin myself that I have seen his son.”

Sixteen

MAGGIE HAD EVERY
intention of doing so. She meant, besides simply informing Lord Ramblay that she had seen the child, and spoken to him, to let him know her own ideas about his treatment. She had never had a child of her own, but being fond of children in general, had observed their ways and considered herself amply prepared to give such an opinion. It was clear as daylight to her that the little boy, rather than improving from this surfeit of surgeons from London, had become so terrified of them that no medicine in the world would have had the power to cure him. Where the mind is closed, she had often observed, the body will not heal itself. Half an hour with James had sufficed to show her that the boy's greatest need was for naturalness. How could Lord Ramblay expect him to behave like a child, if he was not treated like one? To keep him closeted up in a suite of musty rooms, with only a nurse and a string of doctors for company, was as much like prophesying his eventual misery as anything she could imagine. How could the child
not
behave like a little old man, if he was treated as one? The warmth of her nature, and the impetuous tenderness she had felt for the child worked in her all the rest of that day, until by evening what had begun as a conviction of his basic health, had grown into outrage at her cousin's treatment of him. A dearth of any other distraction—for Mr. Wayland had soon gone away to attend to his own affairs—compounded the intensity of her feelings. By dinner time she had worked herself into such a tumult of emotion that she nearly broke her own promise to herself by mentioning her visit to the Viscountess and Fanny. Fortunately she did not, for Lady Ramblay already held such a low opinion of her that this new proof of the prodigal cousin's impertinence would surely have justified all her dislike. But after dinner,
when the others had gone to bed, Maggie sat up in her own apartment arguing silently with herself. At last she could no longer resist temptation. Ever since she had noticed the second wing of the castle—and still more after Lord Ramblay had mentioned that it was closed off—she had suspected it contained the answer to her perplexity. So much strangeness and secrecy surrounded her cousin's marriage that she could not believe there had not been some grave wrong attached to it. And now the sum total of the hints she had received—Captain Morrison's tale, the nurse's mention of his anger, Blanche Haversham's strange warning, and above all, Lord Ramblay's own secretiveness—convinced her of the fact. If she had needed further proof, little James's condition provided it, for how could she explain his sudden muteness upon his mother's death had not he been witness to some awful incident? Such an injury, evidently to both mind and body, must have been caused by a sight more terrible than she could imagine. The last traces of Maggie's hesitancy were now laid to rest. With the courage of a really outraged spirit, she determined to find her answer in that silent wing of the castle.

The ladies had retired for bed soon after dinner. Maggie waited until the castle was silent and all the candles extinguished, and then, taking up a candle from the mantle-piece and throwing her cloak about her shoulders for warmth, she opened her own door and stepped out onto the landing.

Maggie's bedchamber was situated at the end of a short corridor, one of several like it running off the main hallway, on the third floor of the castle. To reach the western side of the mansion, it was necessary to descend a flight of stairs, traverse the ancient apartments, and ascend again. To achieve the chief stairway, she must pass by Lady Ramblay's apartments, which lay directly at their head. But there was a rear passage she had seen the servants use, and she guessed this might lead to her objective with a greater chance of going unobserved. Opening the door as quietly as she could, she listened for a moment. There was no sound whatever save for the ticking of a great clock in the passageway and the natural creaking of an old house. Holding her breath, she slipped through the door and trod lightly down a flight of steps.

She was now in a sort of passageway bounded on both sides by closed doors. She supposed some of these must conceal linen closets and the like, and that the stairs leading downward on the left must descend into the kitchens. Coming to the head of the stairway, she paused a moment and listened again. The sound of a low laugh coming from below made her start, but the succeeding murmur of voices assured her that she had only overheard part of a conversation between a footman and a maid—no doubt they had taken advantage of the others' slumber to steal a flirtatious kiss. Maggie smiled to herself and passed along.

The passageway ended in another door, this one larger than the others; she hoped it hid another flight of steps. Holding her breath, she turned the knob; the door opened silently—it must be used often, she concluded. She had feared that any stairway leading into that forbidden part of the castle might be locked, but the joints were well oiled, and not even a creak sounded to give away her presence when she opened it.

She was now standing before a wider flight of steps than those she had just passed. They lay in pitch-black darkness, without even the faint flickering of candlelight reflected on the ceiling of the other passageway. Holding her candle up before her and raising her skirt, she commenced the climb. Her heart was pounding wildly now, and though she kept repeating to herself that she was not really doing any harm, she could not shake off a feeling of guilt. To be observed now, sneaking about the castle in the dark, would assure the hatred of her cousins. Well did she know what a risk she had taken in essaying this exploration, and the thought of what her cousin's expression might be like if he ever learned of it, was enough to make her increase her caution. But another moment reminded her of the insults she had already received from their hands—the Viscountess's treatment of her, Lord Ramblay's letter to her father, the posting house at Dartmoor—and her heart grew brave again.

Maggie was afraid she might have chosen the wrong way of going. The stairway might as easily lead to the servants' chambers as to the closed-off wing of the castle, but having come thus far, she could not turn back until she had seen for herself. In truth, she did hesitate for another reason, too—a sudden memory of Lord Ramblay's face when he
had been at his most amiable, and of that unhappy look that often crossed his face, made her instantly doubt that he was capable of any cruelty. But now she was so torn between a desire to think well of him and the great doubt that could not help but linger in her bosom, and all this was so much confused by her own emotions, which it seemed to her had never been so tangled up, that she really felt she
must
know the truth. With heart in hand, therefore, and a great feeling of guilt in her bosom, she continued up the stairs and saw, with some relief, that she had not emerged into the maids' rooms, but rather into a hallway exactly like the one on the other side of the castle.

From having several times been confused by the muddle of passages and doors near her own apartment, she had learned to find her way even in the dark. Still, she proceeded with caution, her candle held well in front of her, and her skirt still looped up to keep from tripping. This wing did not, as she thought it might, smell of must and disuse. There were no cobwebs anywhere that she could discern, the Turkey carpet under her slippers was as fine and clean as the one in the opposite hallway, and the doors on either side of her stood open. She peered into the first, and from a stream of moonlight coming in at the window, made out the shape of an ordinary room's furnishings—a sitting room, from the look of it, quite unextraordinary in any respect save that the chairs and sofas were covered up, as they might have been to prevent damage from dust while the house was closed up for a season. Pictures hung on either wall, and as she passed, Maggie held her candle aloft to glance at them. They were exactly like those hanging belowstairs in the drawing rooms and galleries. Here were a multitude of faces, old and young, in every sort of costume, and glaring dourly down upon her with the expression of disdain which nearly every rendering of an ancestor accords the observer. But one likeness struck her, only from glancing at it as she passed, and now she stepped back again to look more closely. The eyes and face and hair were almost exactly her own, and with a tremor, she realized she was staring up at the face of her own mother. The young woman returned her look with an artless, humorous glance. In the gently curved lips and smiling eyes, Maggie saw her own features reflected, and even more, her own spirit Hitherto Maggie had only seen likenesses of her
parent made after she had become Mrs. Trevor, and the years had done much to subdue the restlessness and passion of that glance. Maggie was struck by this quality, and stood for a moment staring with a sudden understanding of the woman who had been able to sacrifice her own family so easily for the affections of a young naval officer. A sudden feeling of kinship overcame Maggie, as if they had been sisters rather than mother and daughter. She felt instantly assured that Mrs. Trevor, had she been alive now, would have sympathized with her own plight. The idea gave her new resolution, and whispering a little farewell, she passed the portrait by.

Maggie was now in a smaller corridor, almost exactly like the one off her own bedchamber. Turning into it, she had been frozen momentarily by a glimmer of light coming from under a closed door. For a second she held in her breath, waiting, but there was not a sound. She supposed this must be where the child and his nurse lived—the light was faint enough to have been a single candle, kept alight to prevent his fearing the dark. Hesitating for a moment, she retraced her steps and walked a little farther down the main hallway to another corridor.

Almost at once she was struck by the difference of this passage from the others. Where before the doors had all stood open, here they were tightly shut. But even greater than this difference was the feeling in the air. It was as though a dozen souls were all breathing quietly; the very atmosphere was charged with life—or, as she thought in a moment, with a little shudder—death. Maggie stood for several minutes together without moving, aware of a coldness which had begun to grip her heart, unable to stir from the overpowering sensation of fear which overcame her. It was only the greatest resolution in the world that made her move forward at last, instead of turning and retracing her steps, as she longed to do. Speaking sternly to herself all the while, she stepped forward and rested a hand upon the knob of the first door.

Almost to her chagrin, the knob turned easily enough. Swinging the door open, she stood for a moment speechless before what she saw. She did not know at first whether to laugh or cry—for the flickering of the candle showed her not some untold horror, as she had expected, no trace of ghosts nor bloody sheets, but rather five neat shelves, all
heaped with housekeeping articles. On the uppermost was a pile of folded curtains, beside which rested two warming bricks and a flat iron. Coverlets and band boxes, an array of various ribbons and strings for securing them, a lady's traveling case, and two or three lap rugs made up the rest. So erect had Maggie been with apprehension, so taut with fear, that this mundane little spectacle almost made her burst into an hysterical laugh. She needed a moment to recover her wits, and made herself stare at the contents of the cupboard several moments longer before saying to herself, with a little frown,

“What an idiot you are, my dear, to be sure! What, had you expected to find the bloody dagger, dried up, no doubt, but still with traces of the murderous deed upon it? Well, and this is no more than you deserve—indeed, you ought to be laughed out of countenance for your imagination!” For in truth Maggie's mind had wandered in the last hour to thoughts of the most dreadful and lurid kind, which the silence and darkness, the echoing vastness of the castle, had only intensified.

With a great feeling of mortification and shame, she turned away, reaching out her hand to swing the door closed. A sudden feeling of weariness had overcome her all at once, and her senses, which had all been alive as a cat's in the last hour, grew numbed. Stifling a yawn, she hardly heard a little thud beside her.

She saw at once that an object had fallen off the shelf, and reaching down, saw with a little intake of breath that it was a miniature portrait. A second sufficed to hold the candle near enough to make it out. Out of the little gilt frame, embossed with pearls, stared up at her the face of a small child. Maggie just had time to recognize a younger version of the child she had seen that afternoon, before a voice sounded behind her.

Seventeen

“WHAT THE DEVIL?!”

Lord Ramblay stood stock-still in the passageway, his candle held aloft to illuminate the stooping figure before him. For several moments it did not budge, evidently from terror. He coughed, and essayed another tack.

“If I may be so bold, may I inquire what you are doing, Cousin?”

Maggie had hardly dared breathe at first. An initial rush of terror at being discovered thus had made her heart beat wildly, and when her thoughts were clear enough to recognize the sardonic tones of the Viscount, she was not much relieved. For a moment, she remained frozen as she was, half stooped over the miniature portrait on the rug, her thoughts rushing crazily along in the effort to seize upon some excuse for her strange behavior. At length, however, realizing that no excuse on earth could salvage her from her present embarrassment, she stood up slowly, and with a mortified expression, turned to face her cousin.

“I—I had not expected you to return so soon, Lord Ramblay!” she commenced rather lamely.