Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

Isolda brightened perceptibly. “My dear girl, I should be exceedingly glad if you endeavored to instill Dillian with some awareness of the niceties. I’ll warrant you will find it a prodigious chore.”

Loveday smiled, aware that her offer was precisely what Isolda had been angling for. “I promise you I shan’t allow myself to become overfatigued.”

“I hope your optimism may be justified, but I think that even you may be shocked by Dillian’s lack of restraint.” Isolda fell briefly silent. “I have always deprecated the mystery of Dillian’s birth, although I consider she has turned out as well as could be expected. I don’t suppose you could cast any light upon the matter?”

“I? How?”

“I keep forgetting your loss of memory. You must excuse me, child. Averil’s father and grandfather were arguing about Dillian’s parentage the night they died. You’ve heard of that tragedy, I suppose?”

Loveday nodded, distressed by the pain that was all too evident on Isolda’s face. “Mrs. Merryweather was on the coach with me. She mentioned the matter.”

“Ah, yes, our dear Mrs. Merryweather. How that woman’s tongue does babble and flap! I will not ask what scandalous tales she repeated, although it is my understanding that the villagers believe my son, Everard, to have killed his father, then himself.” Isolda sighed. “The circumstances surrounding the occurrences do, unfortunately, lend themselves to such a theory; there was a quarrel, the details of which are unimportant now.”

Loveday was rendered acutely uncomfortable by this glimpse into family history, and momentarily forgot her own perilous predicament. “Do not distress yourself, ma’am,” she protested.

Isolda might not have heard. “Timothy was a just man,” she continued, her gaze fixed upon the past, “and I cannot see that he could have properly acted other than he did. I, naturally, do not believe that my husband was slain by our son, but I am in the minority. Nor am I certain that Everard fathered Dillian. Everard’s wife believed so, and was driven mad as a result.” Isolda’s tone conveyed her opinion of so spineless a creature.

“Does she reside here also?” Loveday inquired, in an attempt to break the sudden silence.

“Ermyntrude?” Isolda huffed. “The graceless creature couldn’t face the scandal; she fled. I would have expected her to spare some thought for her son, but Averil has done quite well without her. The villagers would have it that she died here, and several claim to have seen her ghost.  If the castle truly possessed as many ghosts as the villagers claim for it, the human inhabitants would find themselves sorely cramped for room!” The shrewd eyes alit again on Loveday. “Can you clarify our mystery, child? I would give much to see my son’s name cleared.”

“But how could I be of help in this?”

“My dear Loveday,” Isolda said, with an expression of strained patience, “you were in the room the night they died. Mrs. Snugglebutt and I found you the next morning, huddled under a blanket on the window-seat. It is not inconceivable that you can identify our faceless murderer.”

Chapter 2

Loveday awakened to the sound of
breaking
china. A rough country voice bewailed the accident.

“You up and done it now. Prudence. The old crosspatch’ll right have your head for sure.” Loveday sat up to see a girl, presumably the soon-to-be-beheaded Prudence, drop to her knees and frantically snatch up scattered pieces of shattered crockery from the floor.

“Good morning,” Loveday said.  Prudence threw up her hands and shrieked.

“Lawks, miss, you gave me a fright!” she gasped, when Loveday had clambered out of her bed and knelt on the floor beside her, helping to retrieve the scattered china shards. The girl’s checked apron was liberally spattered with tea. “The old witch—beggin’ your pardon, miss, Mrs. Snugglebutt—says I should fetch you your tray, it bein’ your first day here and all, and what’d I do but go and drop it! She’ll fry me, she will! I’ll just go and fetch another pot.”

Prudence scurried out of the room, the evidence of her catastrophe piled high on her tray. Loveday could hear the girl’s murmured laments as she closed the door. Mrs. Snugglebutt apparently ruled her underlings with a firm hand.

Loveday stretched luxuriously, then got up and began to explore her room. She’d been too tired the night before to give it more than a cursory glance before she climbed into the huge, domed, canopy bed with its delicately carved and tapered mahogany posts, over-drapings of tasseled swaths, and furnishings and draperies of green damask. Loveday eyed the papered walls and green-tinged ceiling appreciatively, then moved to inspect a graceful square table with a pretty cupboard below, which opened to reveal wash-basins and adjustable toilet mirrors, and cylindrical compartments for copper water cans. Little buttons released mysterious springs that caused a mirror to rise or fall, and a secret compartment to appear from nowhere.

Someone, perhaps the hapless Prudence, had already supplied hot water. As Loveday made prompt use of it, she searched her unreliable memory for some recollection of her earlier visit to the castle. There was nothing; her mind remained blank. Was it was possible, as Isolda had suggested, that she’d actually witnessed a double murder? Surely she’d remember such a thing! A knock on the door interrupted Loveday’s ablutions, and Mrs. Snugglebutt sailed into the room, bearing before her a fresh tray.

“That slubberdegullion of a girl lacks the sense of a newborn chick!”  The housekeeper deposited her tray on a small table with a resounding thwack. The table trembled wildly, and Loveday half-expected another accident, but even inanimate members of the household seemed to fear the countrywoman’s wrath. “Her and her sister both. I ain’t never seen such a pair for breakin’ things and makin’ messes. Spirits, she says! Flapdoodle! More like someone pinched the slyboots!” Without waiting for Loveday’s comment, Mrs. Snugglebutt moved across the room and threw open the windows. “Come here and sniff, miss. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. ‘Tain’t nothin’ like this in that there London town!”

Loveday moved obediently to the window, inhaled the crisp air. She hoped fervently that each day wasn’t to be begun with the housekeeper’s forceful presence. Loveday wasn’t accustomed to such boisterous enthusiasm so early in her day.

Mrs. Snugglebutt scrutinized Loveday. “You’re scrawny as a chick. Ne’er fear, we’ll put some meat on those scrawny bones!”

Loveday wondered, with amusement, why her appearance was of such concern. Perhaps Mrs. Snugglebutt planned to fatten her up for market—or for Averil. The duchess and her housekeeper might scheme to their heart’s content. It would be to no avail.  Loveday had no intention of entering into a marriage of convenience, even if it meant persuading Jasper Assheton to go along with a sham betrothal.

Jasper was sure to find her present fix vastly amusing. He had, after all, been rescuing Loveday from scrapes for years, even from her abortive schoolgirl elopement with the music master. Surely he wouldn’t mind helping her this one last time? She wondered how soon he’d return to his lodgings and find the note she’d left.

“Talking don’t pay toll,” Mrs. Snugglebutt remarked regretfully. Loveday realized guiltily that the woman had been speaking to her. “Reckon I’d better go see to things.”

Loveday promptly took her cue from the two cups that sat in plain view on the tray. “Oh, no,” she protested. “Stay and take tea with me.”

“Reckon I just might do that.” Mrs. Snugglebutt lowered herself into a comfortable chair and watched critically as Loveday poured the tea. “I always start
my
day with a nice glass of rum and new milk, but that wouldn’t do for a young lass like yourself.”

“Tell me about the castle.” Loveday reached for a slice of buttered bread. “Is it really haunted?”

“There’s ghosts, and then there’s ghosts!” Seemingly surprised at her own profundity, Mrs. Snugglebutt shook her head. “Ballerfast’s got one real ghost, and some others as ain’t really real, you understand, but as causes more grief than the dead ones. If you take my meanin’.” She pinned the bewildered Loveday with a steely gray eye. “You could maybe help, miss, if you’d make a push to remember what you know about that night.”

Loveday had no doubts as to what night the housekeeper meant. “I’ll try, but I don’t know what good it will do. I don’t seem to recall much.”

Mrs. Snugglebutt nodded. “You ain’t scairt of spirits, are you? I can fix you up a nice little batch of nettle and yarrow if need be.”

Loveday hastened to assure the woman that such measures wouldn’t be necessary, though she privately wondered if this were true. How did one know if one feared ghosts when one had never encountered one? In any case, she wasn’t convinced of the relative merits of yarrow and nettle. “Tell me about the ghost.”

“Ah, the tower lady.” Mrs. Snugglebutt unfolded her tale with relish. “ ‘Twas a long time ago, by all reckonings, maybe the fifteenth century or so.”

“Is the castle really that old?” Loveday asked, surprised. Her room certainly didn’t date back that far.

“Parts of it are, miss. As I was sayin’, the tower lady lived back then, and ‘tis the tower that she haunts. You’ll not be rememberin’ the tower?” Loveday shook her head. “Ah, well. Our lady wed a man old enough to be her grandfather, by all accounts, and he built the castle for her. A right proper nincompoop
he
was. Set hisself up as a mighty lord, he did, but his lady soon tired of all her fripperies and falderals, and soon enough she took herself a lover. ‘Twas some question as to whether the child she bore was her lord’s or no, but
he
didn’t suspect. Bamboozled him good, she did! Anyways, the master comes back unexpected-like one day and catches them together, in the very act you might say, and I reckon the fur flew! He shut his lady up in the tower, with no one to see her for the rest of her born days except the deaf-mute who served her. ‘Tis said her lord never looked on her again ‘til the very end.” Mrs. Snugglebutt heaved a great sigh for the vagaries of man, and poured herself another cup of tea.

“But what happened to her?” Loveday asked, fascinated not so much by the tale as by Mrs. Snugglebutt’s dramatic narration.

“She died, poor soul, as will we all.” Mrs. Snugglebutt’s pious tone made Loveday shiver. “Cold, miss? No? Well, the lady took to walkin’ atop the tower—there was a staircase outside the tower itself then, but it’s long crumbled now. ‘Tis said she was lookin’ for her lover to come to her, not knowin’ that her lord had killed him in a particular nasty way.” She fixed Loveday with a ghoulish gaze. “Chopped off his manhood, he did, then let the dogs at him. Feel faint, miss? Shall I stop?”

“No,” Loveday said weakly. “Do finish it.”

Mrs. Snugglebutt shrugged. “ ‘Tisn’t much left to tell. His lordship was pretty smug, what with his lady locked in the tower, a-prayin’ away her days, and the boy growin’ up to be as much a devil as hisself. They was out ridin’ one day, he and the lad, and they came back by the tower. Happen the lady saw them, but she didn’t recognize the fine young man as her son. ‘Twas from a distance, after all. Reckon she thought it was her lover, hobnobbin’ with her lord while she wasted away from neglect. Whatever, she jumped right off and landed smack at their feet. Dead, o’ course, and as mangled as him who the lord set the dogs on. Well, the lord took a good look at his son, right then and there, and seen what he’d been a-hidin’ from hisself all those years: the boy was the spittin’ image of the other one. ‘Twas a broken man he was from that day, with his son hatin’ him—he’d told the lad his mother was dead—and him hatin’ the lad ‘cause he wasn’t his son after all. He died soon after his lady, and the lad had ‘em buried side by side.”

 Loveday thought she’d managed to follow all this. “And the lady walks.”

“Aye, the lady walks. Searchin’ still, I reckon, poor soul. She never leaves the tower. ‘Tis as if she’s still locked in.”

“Goodness,” said Loveday said, with appreciation of what she suspected was a creation of Mrs. Snugglebutt’s lurid imagination.

“Dillian’s talked with her, even.  Won’t tell what the lady said, though. That’s a sly puss, that is. You watch your step with her.”

“Dillian? The duchess mentioned her last night.”

“That one’s neither fish nor fowl,” Mrs. Snugglebutt remarked darkly, “and she knows things that’re best left alone. You’ll see.”

A pounding at the door interrupted them. “Dash it, Loveday!” Jem called. “The duchess has been waiting for you this past half-hour!”

Mrs. Snugglebutt started, a guilty expression on her face. “I clean forgot what I came here to tell you!”

“Never mind that now.” Loveday’s voice was muffled as she rummaged frantically in the tallboy where her clothes had been carefully hung.

“I do thank you for condescendin’ to share your tea with me,” Mrs. Snugglebutt said stiffly. “The Duchess of Chesshire is awaitin’ you in the mornin’ room.” She stalked from the room.

“Loveday!” Jem bellowed. “Do you have windmills in your head?”

“Just a minute!” Loveday surveyed her clothes critically. She felt she had to atone for her drabness of the day before. Her final choice was a round gown of clear lawn, with sash and edging of a bright cherry hue.

Loveday was accustomed to dressing herself, and even preferred to do so, so the absence of an abigail bothered her not at all. Pausing briefly in front of the mirror, she twisted her dusky curls into a coil on top of her head, allowing unruly ringlets to fall on either side of her face. Despite her careful efforts, the undisciplined curls refused to lie fashionably smooth. With a last grimace at her reflected image, Loveday opened her door.

The slight young man who lounged casually in the hallway shared Loveday’s dusky curls and amber eyes, his beautifully sculpted face now lit by an amused grin.  Impeccable riding clothes revealed a deceptive leanness that cloaked his wiry strength.

Jem bowed with a fine flourish, and offered Loveday his arm. “Do you come downstairs, ma’am,” he begged.

“Bid you a good day, sir,” Loveday returned, as she made him a fine curtsy. “Oh, Jem, I am particularly glad to see you! I must speak with you alone.”