Black Rainbow (10 page)

After the
guests left, Megan found life rather dull. They had not been enjoyable company, but they had stimulated her, and their departure had not meant a return to the affectionate family relationships she had previously enjoyed. Edmund was busy, consulting with the lawyer and spending long hours at the mill, whose management he had assumed. Jane wandered aimlessly around the house, looking like a
tragic Muse, or sulked in her room. Lina behaved like an imp.

One morning, after the child had rudely refused to repeat a single one of the French phrases she was supposed to be learning, Megan had a flash of insight. No wonder Lina was behaving badly; she had always been the darling pet of the entire household, and now she had been abandoned by her Aunt Jane and her newfound "uncle." Nor, Megan thought guiltily, had her governess been particularly attentive.

"I know," she said. "Let us take a little holiday. Just the two of us. I think we deserve it, don't you?"

"1
do," Lina said.

"But you'll let me come with you, won't you?"

"Where?" Lina asked suspiciously.

"To the village. We might find some bits of lace or ribbon to refurbish Mademoiselle Mimi's wardrobe. She is very hard on her frocks, I must say."

Lina gurgled with amusement. "She is bad. I told her not to slide down the banister in her best frock, but she would do it. Let's go now. I will ride Robbie."

Megan was tempted to agree. Thanks to her father, who had been an excellent horseman, she had learned to ride at an early age, and took pride in her skill. Edmund had never seen her mounted; it was just possible that they might encounter him. But she reluctantly abandoned the idea. Lina's fat pony was too slow and lazy to go far, and Lina still had a deplorable tendency to roll gently out of the saddle whenever Robbie stopped or started or changed gait.

"We will take the pony cart," she said firmly. "We may have parcels to carry."

It was
a pleasant drive, along a narrow road lined with trees whose branches were entangled with ivy and wild roses. One of Jane's first acts had been to give Megan her first quarter's wages in advance, so she had money in her pocket and every intention of squandering some of it.

Not that the village had much to offer in the way of shops. It had expanded to some degree since the coming of the railway. Thanks to the influence of John Mandeville, who disliked progress in general, and the bellowing, belching iron engines in particular, the line passed as far from his park gates as the terrain allowed, a good half mile beyond what was then the boundary of the village. Enterprising merchants had built out to join it, and this extension, referred to as New Town, had already developed the ugly stigmata of an industrial region—rows of grimy tenements, cheap shops and warehouses. Jane refused to enter the area, and Megan had not seen it since the night of her arrival.

The saint whose name survived in that of St. Arca Underhill was so obscure that she was not to be found in any of the conventional lists, even the, at that time, suspiciously overcrowded Roman Catholic calendar. Formerly the church had borne the same name. It had survived the reforming zeal of bluff King Hal, erstwhile Defender of the Faith, because, whatever Arca might have been, she was most assuredly not a papal protegee, and also because the parish priest of that period was prompt to obey the royal edict. He had never believed in a celibate clergy anyhow, and was pleased to find out he had been right all along.

The church ran into difficulty during the Civil War. Like most of Warwickshire, the village went for the Parliament, and the then lord of the manor seized the opportunity to rededicate the church. He had always had doubts about Saint Arca. She sounded like some sort of heathen. His action was met with grumbling resentment from his
conservative tenants, and by the usual curses from the village witch. When he was killed at Naseby, everybody nodded with glum satisfaction and said it just went to show you.

St. Arca was mentioned in Domesday Book, but its actual age was unknown. A former vicar maintained that there had been a village on the spot in prehistoric times, and that the main road was originally of Roman construction. No one paid much attention to this theory because no one really cared.

When it reached the bottom of the hill, the quiet lane became a street, Bowerman Lane, and passed through another new section before reaching the village proper. John Mandeville had built the neat little houses for his mill workers. They were almost identical in size and design, with John's monogram over each door, but the differing tastes of the owners gave them individuality, particularly in the gardens. The main street seemed unusually quiet that day; there was no one to be seen, except a fat tabby sleeping in a bed of marigolds.

Megan slowed the horse to a walk as they entered the old section of St. Arca. She loved this part of the drive; the houses along the street were like an open-air museum of English history, from the intricate timbering of the Tudor period to the formal red brick balance of the Georgian. In the bright summer weather the gardens blazed with color—tall blue spikes of delphinium, scarlet poppies, and roses of every shade from snowy white to deep crimson.

The shop Jane usually patronized was near the Market Square, where Bowerman Lane met the road running north to the mill. Several hundred yards beyond stood the church, an ugly stone structure with which a generous but tasteless patron had replaced an earlier edifice destroyed by fire. A crowd had gathered before the church porch. Half the village seemed to be there.

Her curiosity aroused, Megan let the horse go on instead of stopping at the shop.

"Yes, I know," she said, as Lina indignantly pointed out
her error. "We'll go back; I only want to see what is happening."

The crowd began to disperse as she pulled up on the side of the road. Some of the women nodded and said "Good morning," but none stopped to volunteer information. Shading her eyes with her hand, Megan made out a white square on the church door. A notice of some kind, presumably—and one of great interest to the villagers.

Then she remembered having heard Edmund say something about posting his notice of intention to enclose. It was a law or custom, she could not recall which. Perhaps that was his notice. If so, he had been very prompt to take action.

The preliminary steps had indeed proceeded more rapidly than was customary. Edmund was efficient when he wanted something badly enough, and in this case he had had the wholehearted cooperation of the family lawyer. Mr. Trumbull sympathized with Jane's feelings, for he was fond of her, but he considered the enclosure long overdue.

Having found out what she wanted to know, Megan was about to leave when a man broke away from the group clustered around the church and walked toward the carriage. Lina stopped whining about the delay and cried eagerly, "It's Sam. Sam, here I am!"

Megan had seen Sam Freeman several times since her tour of the mill, but she had never exchanged more than a few words with him. Now he came straight to the pony cart, his hat in his hand and his dark plume of hair blowing in the warm breeze. Lina began to explore the pockets of his jacket, and Megan said with a smile, "Good morning. Are you playing truant this fine day?"

"Nay, Miss O'Neill, not I," Sam answered, with the blend of formal grammar and rustic accent that gave his speech an archaic, almost courtly, sound. " 'Twas said the notice would go up today. I wished to see it for myself and read it to the folk who lack that learning."

"And how are they taking it?"

"They'll wait and see. That's always their way."

"I suppose you do not approve," Megan said carelessly. She had not given much thought to what Sam's opinion might be; except when he was actually in her presence, she did not think of him at all. But knowing him to be a protege of Jane's, she took it for granted he would share her views.

Sam glanced at Lina, who let out a squeal of joy when she found a bright-green boiled sweet in his pocket. It was quite dusty, and Megan wondered whether she ought not take it away from the child. She didn't want to insult the giver. . . . Before she could decide, Lina popped the sweet into her mouth.

The distraction had made her forget her question, but Sam had every intention of answering it; he was simply giving his reply careful consideration.

"Nay, why should you think that?" he asked. "There could be good or bad in it, depending on how it's done."

"So, like the others, you will wait and see."

Sam grinned. "I will. It's not so bad a rule."

He seemed in no hurry to end the conversation, but Lina's repeated demands that they proceed finally gave Megan an excuse to get away. As they turned she saw that Sam had gone back to the church and was standing, hands in his pockets, staring at the notice.

Really, she thought with an inner smile, for all his superior education he was as bovine and slow-thinking as the other villagers. With his heavy shoulders hunched and his head lowered he reminded her of the big bull on the manor farm. Except when he smiled, his face had the same heavy sullenness. He was a kindhearted animal, though; Lina had counted on finding a sweet in his pocket, so he must carry a supply for any child he chanced to meet.

With this she promptly dismissed Sam from her mind. He would have been chagrined to know how briefly he had occupied it.

Initially Jane and Edmund were a trifle stiff with one another. They had had a violent argument the night before,
after Edmund had mentioned he had hired a new manager for the mill. The man replaced had been a friend and crony of Jane's father; she had taken on as if Edmund had sent the old fellow to the workhouse instead of allowing him to retire to a well-earned rest.

Megan had not been forced to resort to eavesdropping to find this out. Some of the servants had overheard the argument, and Megan had received the information and the description of Jane's "carrying on" from Lizzie. She had been cultivating Lizzie's friendship assiduously; the innocent old woman was flattered at the attention and glad to have someone of her own station with whom to gossip. Somewhat to Megan's surprise, Lizzie took Edmund's part.

"The old man is past the work," she explained, as the two conferred over cups of strong tea in the housekeeper's room. "He must be all of seventy; high time he left it to a younger man. Why, poor Miss Jane was always having to look over his books, he was so forgetful. Master Edmund can't be bothered with such stuff."

The tour had not gone on long before Jane's resentment melted in the warmth of Edmund's charm. He was hard to resist when he put himself out—thought one biased participant—and that morning he was in excellent spirits, laughing and teasing and recalling incidents from childhood. Every room had its memories. The wide oak banister of the central staircase was the one they had greased with butter stolen from the larder, so they could slide faster. The great Chinese vase in the drawing room was where one of the stable cats had had her litter. . . .

"And when Lizzie heard the kittens squeaking, she ran out of the room swearing the ghost was after her," Jane added with a laugh.

"Then the manor is haunted?" Megan asked. "Do tell me, Mr. Mandeville; I adore tales of mystery and terror. Father used to curdle my blood with recollections of the Connacht banshee."

"My dear Miss O'Neill, you needn't suppose that because
this house lacks some amenities, it is deficient in all respects. If anything, we have a superfluity of specters. There are almost too many to be convincing; it is as if every person who ever lived in the house conjured up his own ghost."

An odd little thrill ran through Megan's limbs. Edmund saw her shiver and exclaimed, "But I didn't mean to curdle your blood, Miss O'Neill; forgive me."

"It is nothing. What do the local people say?—'A goose walked over my grave.' I told you, Mr. Mandeville, I love bloodcurdling tales."

"Then I will tell you some of Grayhaven's ghost stories, on a more suitable occasion; a winter night is best, when the wind howls in the bare branches and the firelight is dim."

"Enough of that nonsense," Jane said impatiently. "I have other duties, Edmund, if you do not. Let's get on with it."

"To be sure. We have spent too much time in this part of the house as it is. I have already fixed on the changes I mean to make here. What I want to do this morning is investigate the other wings, especially the parts that have been shut up."

Megan had hoped to get some idea of the general plan of the house that morning, but the farther they went, the more confused she became. Grayhaven had no real plan; it was not shaped like an
E
or an
L
or any other letter of the alphabet. Apparently each builder had simply tacked on a wing or a group of rooms wherever it was most convenient, without removing or seriously altering previously standing structures. She was surprised at the sheer size of the house. It did not look so large from outside.

Edmund had a better notion of the plan, though he was constantly saying he had not been in this room or that since he was a child. According to him, the oldest parts of the house were the medieval gatehouse and entrance and the adjoining Great Hall. Only the facade of the gatehouse remained; the inner floors had been removed in some past age and the interior converted into the central hallway of the house, with stairs leading up to connect with the side wings.

The Great Hall was still used on formal occasions, but Jane admitted she did not like dining there. "I am always expecting something nasty to drop down into my soup," she remarked, glancing up at the beamed ceiling.

Edmund jeered at this; had he not had swarms of workmen up into the beams before his guests arrived, cleaning and checking for signs of decay? Medievalism was the latest style; some of his friends were tearing down their homes in order to erect sham castles with towers and battlements in the best Gothic manner. To be sure, the room needed further attention: stained glass in the high windows, perhaps, and better lighting. But that could wait. The apartments beyond the Great Hall were the ones he wanted to inspect.

"How long has it been since anyone looked into this part of the house?" he demanded, wrestling with the massive key that seemed reluctant to perform its function.

"Not more than a year," Jane replied, resenting the slur on her housekeeping. "Lizzie turns out all the rooms annually, even those that are not used."

Edmund's reply was a skeptical grunt. He finally persuaded the key to turn. Once she saw what lay beyond the door, Megan was also inclined to doubt that Lizzie's penchant for cleanliness had extended to this region. If she were one of the maids, she would be reluctant to set foot in the dim, dusty corridor.

"Perhaps it is time for another cleaning," Jane admitted, sneezing violently in the cloud of dust disturbed by their footsteps.

"At least," Edmund said. Fastidiously he scrubbed at the nearest window with his handkerchief. He managed to lighten one of the diamond-shaped panes. A feeble ray of sunlight struggled through and fell upon a painted face that leaped out of the shadows with startling effect—the swarthy, smiling face of a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with long plumes.

"So this is where the portraits are," Edmund said. "I wondered what had become of them."

"Father had them taken here," Jane said. "He said they were a gloomy lot, and he didn't care to be stared at by all the former owners."

"That man is the very imagine of King Charles the Second," Megan exclaimed. "Could it be a royal portrait?"

Edmund examined the edge of the heavy gold frame. "Here is the name. Rupert Leventhorpe. A former owner, as Jane said."

"It is like the museums in Florence," Megan said, as they walked on down the gallery. "Paintings covering every inch of the walls. Someday I would like to examine them in more detail."

"Not until after the place has been cleaned." Edmund's nose wrinkled fastidiously. "One can scarcely breathe, much less see, the dust is so thick. Jane, has my memory failed me? Is the chapel on this corridor?"

"At the far end."

"No doubt Father had it shut up, too," Edmund said. "It offended his religious prejudices—popish mummeries, and all that."

Jane gave Megan a quick apologetic glance, to which the latter replied with a smile and a shrug.

When in London, Megan had attended the Anglican church every Sunday. Her employers assumed that she would do so, and she never had the courage to object, though the thoughts that passed through her mind when she meekly bowed her head in prayer would have shocked the nuns who taught her the rudiments of her faith. They would have praised her for refusing to attend church and thereby risking a variety of martyrdom; but they would not have approved of bitterness and hate.