Bridesmaids Revisited (25 page)

Feeling like a first-class liar, I said that of course it couldn’t. I’d just been talking to help keep her mind off Ted. I was so uncomfortable, so eager to get out of the kitchen that I declined her offer of tea and said that I thought I would have a lie-down and perhaps read my book.

“You do that, Miss Ellie; I’m sure if you fall asleep, one of the ladies will wake you in time for the séance. I’m not one for dabbling in such things at the best of times, and with Ted just having passed on, it’s something I don’t even want to think about. But I’ll be out of here as soon as I’ve got dinner on the table.”

Edna again wiped her hands on her apron—a nervous gesture this time, I thought. And with a pang of pity for her, along with that mounting sense of being swept into a maelstrom, I went upstairs, only sparing one glance for the photo of Sophia at much the same age as I was when I lost my mother. It was ridiculous but I wanted something back from her. Some sense of communication that would give me courage. Her blood was in my veins, and, as I remembered unwillingly, so was that of William Fitzsimons. Reaching the first landing, I told myself that I was in this situation on my own. Sophia was a face imprisoned in a frame on a wall, just as she had once been a prisoner for weeks in her room. The only hope to be gained from her might be in the diary, and I didn’t have that with me, for which I felt grateful as I hurried across that landing beset by the creepy memory of the sprinkled confetti and the whispered singing of “Here Comes the Bride.”

It was a relief to reach my room and to know, if Thora had been telling the truth, that it hadn’t been Sophia’s. I was tired. And didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t want to wonder, amidst all the other horrors, whether there was any person in this house who wasn’t lying about something.

Now even I was doing it. I had lied to Richard and Arthur. And I’d done it to Edna just now. Everything that posed a question, anything that might form a piece of the puzzle, had to matter if I was ever to find out who had murdered my mother. The only thing I was sure of was that it all went back to Sophia and ... I stopped in my tracks ... that she had used the pages torn from the diary to write her notes to Hawthorn Lane. And somehow ... I didn’t know why ... that should be telling me something.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. But my mind wouldn’t un-fog. Overwhelmed by exhaustion, I climbed under the bedclothes and closed my eyes. At first I was afraid to sleep in case there should be a return of the hatefully whispering visitor. What was the point of locking my door when she had managed to get in despite that barrier last night? I would just lie still and try to relax. But after five or ten minutes when my nerves were still stretched as tight as the strings of a harp, I reached under my pillow for
Secrets of the Crypt.
Joining Phoebe on her journey through Cragstone Castle seemed preferable to staying trapped on my own dark page, so I flipped through until I found the place where I had left off.

Lord Rothbourne had again invited her to join him in the withdrawing room and was explaining to her that she must under no circumstances attempt to get past the black dog guarding the entrance to the tower room. There was nothing inside but his hunting trophies, he told her, looking fiendishly handsome despite the livid scar (which I didn’t remember being mentioned earlier) trammeling his left cheek. And, he conceded, there was also a stack of slashed portraits of his deranged wife. She had claimed that they gave her the vapors and had attempted to overdose on her smelling salts. But that was all of minor import. His main purpose in summoning Phoebe was to commend her on her plain face and mouselike demeanor and to invite her to take a spin with him out into the gardens in his wheelchair.

Once ensconced in the gazebo overlooking the lake where his twin brother had drowned himself in a fit of pique after losing at a game of snap with their grandmother, Lord Rothbourne ordered Phoebe to attend the annual masked ball. His housekeeper would have suggestions as to a costume. Perhaps one modeled after the one worn by his ancestress, the first Lady Rothbourne, whose portrait hung in the portrait gallery and who had laid a curse on all future governesses. Seemingly, she had been ticked off by the one who had seduced her husband, a gentleman who had previously claimed to have been reduced to a pathetic shadow of his formerly lascivious self by an injury received in the Napoleonic wars.

The complete details of the curse had been lost in the folds of time but Lord Rothbourne was able to relate the part which demanded that any woman hired to provide instruction to the young at Cragstone Castle must attain fluency in Latin and Greek. Phoebe was explaining that she already spoke both, in addition to fourteen other languages, including Arabic, Swahili, and Gaelic. And that while they were having this little chat she would like to request an afternoon off so that she could march for women’s rights, practice her hospital bandaging, and learn to ride a horse. At which point Lord Rothbourne winced at the memory of his hunting accident that hadn’t been mentioned in several pages and my eyes drifted shut.

I tried to stay awake or at least get up and lock the door, on the premise that a stable half-bolted was better than nothing, but I heard the book slide to the floor and felt my hand reach under the pillow. This time for my mother’s ballet slippers, and holding them close, I slept. There were no dreams this time, at least none that I remembered when I came back up to the surface after what seemed like hours. And the clock on the bedside table agreed with me. It was almost five. Instead of waking feeling warm and snuggly as I always did at Merlin’s Court, I was shivering with cold, and when I sat up and rubbed my arms, my teeth started to chatter.

A glance out the window showed that the sky had turned overcast and I was sure that rain would soon be pelting the windows. What I needed was to curl up under an extra blanket or two. It occurred to me that the coffin-sized chest in the bathroom might serve a purpose other than to reduce the remaining space to the barest minimum. So I climbed out of bed and went through the doorway to snap on the light. It had darkened considerably in the last few minutes as the rain had indeed started coming down, accompanied by rumbles of thunder. After removing my sponge bag I raised the pink lid decorated with butterflies. My heart stopped beating as I stared down in bewilderment. There were no blankets inside.

There was nothing inside. What was revealed was a flight of rough-hewn stone steps enclosed by a wall that looked as though it might have been whitewashed a century and a half ago. So this was how my nocturnal visitor had gained entry! I was halfway down those steps before I realized I had moved my feet. The light from above provided sufficient illumination, so I wasn’t in danger of stumbling. When I reached the bottom I was in an empty cellar.

Who would store anything in such a dank place? I could see an archway opening onto another staircase. It had to be the one leading up to the hall—the one I’d found when I was looking for the downstairs loo yesterday. And there was another door that I knew, even before I went and checked it out, must open onto the back garden. When I turned the knob, I met with a grunt of resistance but soon I was standing outside getting splattered with rain.

I went back up the stone steps faster than I had gone down them, closed the lid of the blanket chest, and peeled off my damp clothes. This staircase, I reflected, must have been put in so that the maids carrying up coal or firewood to the top floors wouldn’t have to haul their buckets through the hall. My discovery of the door into the garden didn’t add much, I told myself as I got into the shower, because all one of the bridesmaids had to do was take the stairs from the hall down to the cellar and the other ones up here. If my invader had been anyone else, Leonard Skinner for instance, that would have been a different matter. But why hadn’t it been locked? An oversight? The cellar wasn’t a place to invite frequent visits. While toweling off, I decided that tonight before going to sleep I would drag the trunk from the foot of the bed into the bathroom and put it on top of the blanket chest. That should put paid to another nighttime visit.

My thoughts refused to go further. I brushed my teeth, did my hair, decided against bothering with makeup, and got dressed in the first thing I could grab out of my case. I had just finished buttoning the front of the olive-green dress that the saleswoman had said was supposed to have a creased look, when a tap sounded at the door and Jane’s voice informed me that dinner would be ready in fifteen minutes.

“Thank you,” I called back and spent several of those minutes longing for the feel of Ben’s arms around me. It was time. I couldn’t put off going downstairs any longer.

Rosemary was waiting for me in the hall. At least I didn’t feel underdressed. Her skirt, blouse, and cardigan were the ones she had worn earlier in the day. It struck me that her hair was not as neatly combed as usual and that her octagonal glasses could have done with a polish.

“You look nice, Ellie. Green suits you, as it did your grandmother.” She led the way into the dining room with its pleasantly old-fashioned rose-patterned wallpaper and well-polished furniture. Jane and Thora were already seated across from each other at the long table. It was laid with a linen tablecloth that might well have turned Gwen Fiddler green with envy. The bone china dinner service was of a pleasing, fairly modern design but the solid silver cutlery looked old. In the center were a pair of Georgian candelabras, with their candles unlit.

“I thought we’d wait to light them until Edna has cleared away and Hope arrives.” Rosemary pulled out a chair for me next to Thora before taking her place beside Jane. “I imagine she will want us grouped around a table.”

“The trouble is that this one is so big,” Jane demurred, “we’ll have to stand up and lean across it to hold hands in a circle if we’re to create the necessary emanations.”

“You and your emanations!” Thora grunted, her eyes startlingly dark this evening against her snow-white crop of hair.

“I can’t help the fact that I’m more in tune with the invisible forces than you are,” flared Jane.

“Cod’s wallop!” was the response she drew.

“Please, girls, no squabbling!” Rosemary pressed a hand to her brow. “Whatever will Ellie think of you?”

“It’s quite all right,” I said, staring down at my plate. “This is a stressful situation.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Thora’s dimples appeared fleetingly. “I’m rather hoping that Ted puts in an appearance along with Sophia, so that I can tell him just how little he’s going to be missed.”

“You do say the most obnoxious things!” Rosemary’s voice sounded depleted.

“I call it refusing to hide behind a load of sentimental claptrap.”

“He’s probably up there listening to every word you’re saying and plotting ways to get even.” Jane shivered and the black bow slid further down her neck. “Listen to that thunder! It doesn’t sound normal. It’s Ted, I tell you. Any minute now the windowpanes are going to crack from top to bottom and huge shards of glass are going to come hurtling into the room and we’ll be sliced to ribbons.”

“If Ted should put in an appearance we could ask him how the accident happened,” I said as casually as I could manage.

Rosemary pressed a finger to her lips, and with good reason. Before she could lower it, Edna entered the room with a couple of serving dishes to add to the ones already lined up on the sideboard. As if aware of the charged atmosphere, she went silently back and forth setting them on the table, placed a serving spoon beside each one and disappeared back into the kitchen. After that, apart from someone’s asking to have this or that passed, not more than the odd word or two was spoken during the course of the meal. It looked to be an excellent one of braised beef in a rich gravy, served with plenty of vegetables. But I for one was hardly aware of what I was eating. Nor did I manage more than a few mouthfuls of the treacle tart and custard that followed.

“Everything was excellent,” Rosemary told Edna when she returned with the coffeepot. “And it was good of you to stay late. Jane and Ellie can take their cups and saucers into the sitting room; Thora and I will join them after we’ve helped you clear away.”

“I’d as soon do it on my own,” Edna replied. “I need to keep busy and I’m always best left to myself. It goes quicker that way, Miss Maywood. More elbow room in the kitchen, but thanks for offering.”

“If you’re quite sure?” Rosemary got to her feet and Thora, Jane, and I followed her into the sitting room, where we
sat in silence listening to the ticking clock. It was half past six. At ten minutes to seven Edna, in coat and hat, stuck her head through the doorway to say that the washing-up was done, except for one saucepan that she’d had to leave soaking in the sink. She said she would be off now and we all bade her goodnight before turning our eyes back to the clock.

As it began to strike seven, the doorbell rang. Rosemary went out into the hall and returned, before the rest of us could finish exchanging glances, with Hope. The witch woman with the wild black and orange hair and the incredible green eyes.

“I’ve come,” she said, “but I don’t think I can go through with the séance. Not tonight. As I was coming up the path, before I had even set foot over the threshold, I felt that the emanations are not right.”

“Oh, but they are,” Jane exclaimed, “and now that you’re here I sense Sophia’s presence even more strongly. It’s as though she’s right here in this room waiting to step through the veil separating us from the great divide.”

“I don’t disagree with you, Mrs. Pettinger.” Hope hadn’t moved from where she stood just inside the doorway. “But there are other forces at work here. Deadly, diabolical ones, and I cannot risk ignoring them. The consequences might be too dreadful and irreversible. Something has changed in this house since I was last here. The darkness has returned.”

“It’s my patience that’s in peril at this minute.” Thora’s voice deepened into a growl. “I came round to this séance thing. Thought if nothing else it would make Rosemary feel she had done everything possible to prevent Sir Clifford from turning us out of this house. And, I’ve got to say, I was halfway convinced that you did have the sight or whatever it’s called. Now I’m wondering if you aren’t playing games with us. Hoping that if we have to beg and plead with you to go ahead you’ll hear a voice inaudible to the rest of us. One telling you that the only way you can safely call upon Sophia to make an appearance is if you extract a sizable sum of money from us. Cash up front. No checks. No credit cards.”