Jane and the Ghosts of Netley jam-7 Page 13

  “Indeed, Martha, you wrong me.”

  “Wrong you?” She gazed at me in limpid astonishment. “I can think of no one more deserving than my beloved Jane. You cannot ignore your heart’s desire!

  You have played the dutiful daughter long enough. Do not throw away a chance at joy, my dear, from fearing to live too well. You will be three-and-thirty next month; and the world is so uncertain! For all of us, as well as the men we love—”

  She broke off, and turned her head resolutely towards the sea. It had been many years since I had suspected Martha of an attachment for my brother Fly — her junior by nine years, and the husband of a charming girl half her age. That she took an abiding interest in his welfare — that she feared for his safety whenever he should put to sea — could not be surprising in one who lived almost as another sister among his family; but I knew a deeper motive sharpened her anxiety.

  “I like your Lord Harold, Jane,” she said resolutely. “He is exceedingly solicitous for your welfare, and he appears to respect the liveliness of your mind — without which, any man should be intolerable. I hope — nay, I know—that you will be very happy.”

  “You presume too much, Martha! Indeed — you presume far more than I!”

  “Since his lordship arrived in Southampton, I have not spent above five minutes in your company.”

  Her tone and air were rallying. “I cannot account for the fact that you are at liberty this morning — but am happy to make use of what intervals of enjoyment fall in my way.”

  She could know nothing, of course, of my past errands at Netley Abbey — nothing of the intrigue that lurked among those tumbled stones. She should visit it this morning with the same delight as any small girl embarked on a pleasure party, little suspecting that if Lord Harold’s suspicions were correct, the fate of the war might be determined there. Though she valued my understanding, she must see in Lord Harold’s attentions nothing greater — and nothing less — than the most ardent courtship.

  I blushed from awkwardness, and would have disabused her if I could. Truth seemed the chief kindness I could offer my own wounded heart, as well as hers — but being sworn to a brutal silence, I merely kissed her cheek instead.

  We achieved the Itchen ferry in silence.

  Chapter 15

  The Ghost

  in the Abbey

  30 October 1808, cont.

  The chaise was visible from the turret stair: a sleek, black equipage emblazoned with the Trowbridge arms, coursing at a leisurely pace past the Abbey ruins in the direction of Netley Lodge. Orlando was not in evidence today — both his correct round hat and his elfin cloak were absent from the footman’s step. I stood among the ruins in the chill sunlight and watched the horses’ progress, never doubting that Lord Harold should turn into the gates, and pull up before the door, and force his notice upon a lady loath to receive him. Was Mr. Ord likewise dancing attendance?

  Should the three principals compare notes on their various travels — or theories of war?

  And if Martha and I had tarried a little on the road, and been overtaken by his lordship’s carriage as we toiled through West Woods, should he have halted the team and taken us up? Or would Jane have proved an impediment to the object of his morning?

  I beat the rough stone of the parapet with one gloved hand and turned away from the dazzling prospect. I disliked nothing so much as jealous, catlike women; and I was fast becoming the very picture of one. But I was too aware what Mrs. Challoner’s reception of Lord Harold should be to discern nothing singular in such a visit; and I knew, moreover, that if he truly suspected her of treason, his lordship’s best policy should be watchful silence, not pushing sociability. I must ask myself — and ask again: What irresistible force drew Lord Harold to Sophia Challoner?

  It could not, as he claimed, be hatred.

  Was it possible that my words of yesterday had jarred him to comprehend the truth? Had he lain awake long into the night, considering the justice of my sentiments — and apprehended that he had wronged the lady from an excess of bitter love? Perhaps he had come, even now, to throw himself at her feet and beg forgiveness.

  How did Mrs. Challoner appear this morning?

  What ravishing costume, complete with jewels, had she donned in respect of the Sabbath?

  I could not bear to contemplate two such figures contained in a single drawing-room — with or without the ingenuous Mr. Ord. Furious at my degree of sensibility, I set foot on the topmost stair, vowing never to think of the teazing man again.

  “Martha! Martha! The hour grows late, and we have three miles yet to walk!”

  A faint cry from below was my only answer. She must have ventured far into the Abbey. I eased my half-boots down the worn stone treads, one hand gripping the shattered supports, and thought fleetingly that a woman might fall to a bruising death in attempting this stair in haste. I had no more conceived the unpleasant notion than I achieved firm ground; but as I turned into the relative darkness of the south transept, a hand clutched at my elbow.

  “Good God!”

  My cry was met with an answering shriek. The voice was quite young — a mere girl’s, in fact — and when I peered through the dimness of the chancel ruins at the youthful face before me, I saw that it was not entirely unfamiliar.

  “Is that Flora?” I enquired. “Housemaid to Mrs. Challoner?”

  “Miss Austen?” She bobbed a curtsey. “Begging yer pardon, miss, but I never thought to find a living soul in this part of the ruin — thought you was a ghost, I did, when I laid my hand on yours—”

  “The discovery of a ghost, though unpleasant in fact, must form the substance of every young girl’s romantic sensibility; but I regret to say that I am very much alive. Are you well, Flora?”

  “Yes, miss — thank you, miss, and hoping your head is quite set to rights?”

  “Never better. I find that a knock or two, once in a great while, succeeds in ridding the brain of a good deal of nonsense. Have you happened to meet with another lady in these ruins? I am in search of my friend, Miss Lloyd.”

  The housemaid’s gaze fell to the stone floor. “I’ve seen no one, miss. I should not have come if I thought to find visitors.”

  “Are you absent from your work without Mrs. Challoner’s leave?” I enquired mildly.

  She glanced over her shoulder, and began to wring her hands in her apron. “She told me I might have an hour or two for my own, so that I might recover my senses after a fit of strong hysterics; tho’ indeed, I’d have said she wished to be rid of me!”

  This was so nearly incomprehensible a speech that I was determined to decipher it. “Has your mistress taken you in dislike, Flora? Or is the case otherwise ’round?”

  To my surprise, her great eyes of gentian blue swam with sudden tears, and she threw her apron over her face and sank down onto the stones, weeping.

  “There, there,” I murmured as I perched beside her. “It cannot be so very bad, I hope?”

  “You don’t know, miss, what it’s like,” she sobbed.

  “Living in that great moody house with the gusts blowing off the sea. Not like it is in ’ound, where I was raised, and the cottages all hunker companionablelike into the hillside — the Lodge is right out on the edge of the cliff, and the wind batters it like it means to have the house into the Solent, one o’ these days. The weather sets a body to thinking. It’s no wonder I’ve had nightmares. I’ve hardly slept a wink since I left my home.”

  “What sort of nightmares sent you running to the Abbey, Flora?”

  “The kind that come by day,” she replied darkly.

  “There’s evil work afoot at the Lodge, as I may attest — and my mistress is in the thick of it.”

  This so nearly approximated Lord Harold’s view of things that I did not know whether to furl my brow in consternation, or cry huzzah! in relief.

  “What possible evil may Mrs. Challoner do? You saw how kindly she treated me.”

  “Aye — but that was merely by way of
throwing dust in a body’s eyes,” Flora declared. “You will understand the truth of it when I tell you, miss, that she is a witch.”

  This conclusion was so unexpected that I nearly laughed aloud.

  “Incubus or succubus, Mrs. Challoner’s the one or t’other — except that I can never rightly recollect what the words mean.”

  “What can your mistress possibly have done, to inspire such terror?” I exclaimed. “You must know that witches are no very great moment in England. They were cast out years ago with all popish things, and went to live in Italy.”

  “It’s what comes of biding so hard by the Abbey,” the maid said with a wild look around the blasted chancel. “Ghosts do walk the cloister by night, miss, and I’ve seen their lanthorns bobbing in the darkness.”

  “Does a spirit require a taper to light its way?” I enquired in amusement. “Surely you mistake. You have glimpsed a pleasure party overtaken by nightfall, and given way to dire imaginings.”

  “I know the difference between a ghost and a pleasure-party,” Flora insisted stubbornly, “same’s I know the difference between dusk and midnight. It were past the witching hour and turning towards dawn when the lanthorn were raised Tuesday night.”

  Tuesday night. The maid had observed a light on the ramparts only hours after I had first met Orlando, and learned of Sophia Challoner aboard the Windlass. Coincidence?

  “I remember the day,” Flora persisted, “on account of Wednesday’s fire, and that poor Mr. Dixon with his throat cut. ‘It’s the Devil’s work,’ I says to myself, making the sign against the Evil One as my grandfer taught me, ‘and the mistress is to blame.’ ”

  “Why should you think Mrs. Challoner has aught to do with lights at the Abbey? Surely she is asleep in her bed at such an hour?”

  “The mistress fairly haunts this place,” the maid insisted. “Rambles about the ruins at all times. And she’s a close one, she is — never tells a body nothing about her doings, or who to expect at the door. This very morning, I went to answer the bell and nearly stumbled over the mistress. Held out her hand, she did, as though to fend off a dog — and said, ‘Very well, Flora, I shall attend to it myself.’ Wouldn’t open the door before me, and stayed to watch that I was safely gone in the servants’ wing. But later, I saw who had come.”

  Lord Harold? But no. There had not been time enough since the chaise’s arrival for a fit of strong hysterics.

  “A great, tall man wrapped up in the black cloak,” Flora informed me impressively. “Nose as sharp as a blade, and eyes that glittered dark like a serpent’s. Not that I saw him to speak to — this was just a glimpse, like, through the pantry door. But the mistress was a perfect lamb when he was near — treated him like a prince, she did, with her head bowed and her voice low; and that Mr. Ord — he fair fell over himself with deference!”

  “Mr. Ord? He was present, too, at the Lodge this morning?”

  Flora nodded. “They all closeted themselves in the drawing-room, and that’s when the black arts was raised.”

  “Black arts?”

  “Mumbling in a foreign tongue, like spells — and the burning of some stuff, sweetly-sick and unnatural.”

  “But Mrs. Challoner is accustomed to speak Portuguese,” I said slowly, “and several of her servants, I believe, can speak nothing else. Can this be what you heard?”

  “This waren’t no Portugee,” Flora returned stoutly. “I’ve come to know the sound o’ that talk when I hear it — I know the French, too, as Eglantine uses. Not but what all foreign speech sounds the same — except this sort: the kind she and Mr. Ord and that man in the black cloak were muttering this morning. Sent chills down my spine, it did; and when I considered, miss, that I was all alone in the house — a respectable young maiden, such as might serve for a sacrifice if they found they were in need of one—”

  “You were alone in the house?” I interrupted.

  “Mrs. Challoner sent that Eglantine, and the housekeeper Mrs. Thripps, off to church with Zé the manservant — and it’s the scullery maid’s day off — and when I considered of my position, miss, and the prospect of maiden sacrifice — why, naturally I had strong hysterics!”

  “Naturally.”

  A cloaked figure, waiting in the Abbey ruins. I had observed Mr. Ord and Mrs. Challoner bow to him only a few days ago. But why conduct conspiracy in the Lodge itself? What caution — or abandonment of the same — had led to the shift in their meeting?

  And what in Heaven’s name was this gibberish about witchcraft?

  “... boxed my ears and told me that I was a stupid girl, and if I did not mean to set the whole of Hound on our backs, I must regain control of myself this instant! So I cried all the harder, and she declares as she can do nothing with me. Turned me out of the house to collect my wits — and now I find myself shrieking at you, miss! I expect I’ll learn I’ve lost my place, when I get back to the lodge,” she concluded mournfully.

  “Flora,” I said gently, “you must try to remember. Did you overhear the gentleman’s name — the man in the long black cloak?”

  She shook her head. “The mistress called ’im by his title. A French handle, it were — not like those spells they was parsing.’’

  “What did Mrs. Challoner call him?”

  “Mon seigneur.”

  My lord. The very words I had heard Sophia utter in the ruined refectory, as I stood below the tunnel hatch. It was something to tell him, I thought — that his spy was engaged in witchcraft. But perhaps the idea should not be news to Lord Harold. He had long been subject to her spell.

  I suggested that Flora might do well to visit her mother’s cottage in Hound, and take a tonic from exposure to her little brothers and sisters, before returning to her post in the servants’ wing. She was seized with the idea, and acted upon it immediately, being uncertain how much of liberty might remain to her.

  “I may never go back,” she told me defiantly; “but perhaps, when the mistress considers of the stories I might tell, she’ll make it worth my while to remain in her service. ’Twouldn’t do to have a tale of witchcraft whispered about the country, would it?”

  “Have a care, my dear. You would be well advised to make your apologies to Mrs. Challoner. I am certain you have allowed your young mind to run entirely away with you.”

  She smiled at that, but did not look convinced; and took herself off in the direction of Hound with a pretty air of unconcern. She had learned, at the very least, the endless utility of a fit of strong hysterics; but perhaps she had long employed that particular weapon in her arsenal.

  “What did she witness this morning, I wonder?”

  “Nothing she will not turn to advantage,” rejoined a wry voice at my back. “Pray God her mistress does not wring the girl’s neck on the strength of her hints.”

  “Orlando!” I swept round and detected his figure — woodland green from head to foot — taking its ease against the wall of the south transept. “You have the most uncanny method of materialising from thin air! How long have you overlistened my conversation?”

  “Long enough. The maid Flora is full young to possess so canny a brain — but such an one shall never suffer abuse in silence.”

  He knew her name, her business, and something of her character — all in the space of a few moments’ conversation. I remembered, of a sudden, Sophia Challoner’s description of the sprite: The valet is a thief and an intriguer; a man as familiar with picklocks as he is with blackmail. Could such an elf be so malign?

  He swept off his hat — a black tricorn with a single white feather — and bowed low. “Miss Austen. I hope I find you in good health?”

  “Thank you. I am very well.”

  “That is excellent news — because your walking companion, alas, is not. She has stumbled upon my bolt-hole in the refectory floor — and stumbled, I fear, to her injury. Her right foot will not bear weight; and in attempting to walk in search of you, she fell into a swoon.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I breathed. “Martha! And
I have been nattering with a housemaid, when she was every moment in agony—”

  “Not agony,” corrected Orlando as I hurried past him towards the refectory. “One is never in much pain, you know, when one is insensible. It was when I heard her fall so heavily to the stone floor that I deemed it safe to emerge from the tunnel hatch. I first made certain the lady was in no danger, and then went in search of her companions. Imagine my surprise in discovering her companion to be you, Miss Austen!”

  I paid scant heed to this chatter as he followed me through refectory, buttery, and kitchen itself, to find Martha propped with her back against a block of tumbled stone, and a blank expression of pain on her countenance.

  “My dear!” I cried, and sank down beside her. “I owe you an apology! I cannot think how we came to be separated. And you have turned an ankle!”

  “The right one,” she feebly replied. “I cannot stand, Jane. I do not know how we are to return to Southampton on foot. I have been sitting here considering of the problem — and I have decided that you shall have to fetch assistance. Much as I blush to require it—”

  “Orlando,” I said with decision, “pray go in search of your master. I must beg his indulgence for the use of his chaise — and his coachman, of course.”

  “His lordship himself being of not the slightest use in the world,” Orlando observed. “But I must observe, Miss Austen, that my appearance at Netley Lodge will cause considerable talk. I did not arrive with his lordship in the chaise.”

  Out of deference for Martha’s ignorance, he said nothing further; but I readily took the point. Orlando had been deputed to spend the morning — or the latest of several mornings — in attendance upon the tunnel hatch, in the vain hope that the cloaked mon seigneur might mutter sedition above it, and encompass Mrs. Challoner in his ruin. If Orlando were to petition at the Lodge for Lord Harold’s aid — or that of his coach — at Netley Abbey, Mrs. Challoner should immediately understand that his lordship’s valet had been despatched to the ruins while his master idled in her drawing-room. Our secrecy should be at an end. Martha’s injury, and my pressing need for assistance, should succeed in placing the French spies on the watch.