Lace for Milady (11 page)

“I wasn’t sure he wasn’t another of your victims.”

“There has been only one victim.”

“So
far! One is one too many—to see that poor man crippled for life because you..."

“He fell into the..." he began suddenly, then stopped as suddenly, as if he disliked to do so, as if he wanted to say more, give some excuse for his behavior.

I had determined to bring the matter to Clavering’s attention and I had done it. It pretty effectually ruined the tea party, and I saw Slack was unhappy with me, but I was glad I had done it nevertheless. I would have felt morally negligent had I not.

“You are not at all interested in my project then?” he asked stiffly.

“It sounds an excellent project, but I suggest you find yourself another location.”

“I
mean,
as I think you realize, you will not sell Seaview to me?”

“Prove to me you really care about benefiting the community,” I suggested. “Remove the mantraps, and we’ll discuss the matter.”

“Impossible!” he said, without even giving it a moment’s thought.

One word revealed him for the hypocrite he was—the arrogant, overbearing, selfish hypocrite. He no more cared for truly benefiting the people than I cared for his old museum. He had a hobby that amused him for the present while. The choice of Seaview as its location told me it was for his personal pleasure. No thought to the convenience of the visitors occurred to him.

“Also impossible for me to sell my house, which, incidentally, I have called Willow Hall,” I said, and arose with a commanding look at Slack to accompany me. She said not a word in the hero’s defence, but looked disappointed in him. I had some hopes this incident would return her to her usual good sense.

“That is absurd! It is not a hall, and there isn’t a willow anywhere near it!” he answered angrily, but, of course, it wasn’t the new name that angered him so much as my daring not to do as he wished.

“You are mistaken. There is a beautiful willow tree in the back garden, and if I want to call it a hall, I will.”

He glared, the jaw working, and I went on politely, “Thank you for the tea, Your Grace, and the tour. Both very enjoyable. Do feel free to call on us at Willow Hall any time you are passing by.” This was pure irony, and of no very high calibre either, I realize, but he wasn’t the only one who was angry. Naturally he would not call again.

“You’re making a mistake, Miss Denver,” he said in a cold, hard voice that sounded strangely like a threat.

“Do you think so? Who knows, you may tire of collecting bits of broken old rubbish soon and will be happy I saved you the expense of buying them a home,” I answered in a honeyed voice.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he replied, then turned us over to the butler for showing out. While we were still in the hallway he was going up the stairs, showing us his back in a very underbred way. Slack didn’t say a word in his defence as I reviled him scathingly all the way home. As we dismounted she even went so far as to say, “I am disappointed in him."

“I’m not. It is no more than I expected from him.”

Chapter Seven

That night the grate took to jumping as it had not jumped before. I do not suggest it was in any way connected with Clavering’s veiled threat, except that the one followed the other.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Papa often pointed out to me the flaw in this sort of reasoning. Because a black cat crosses your path and you then break your leg is not to say the cat brought your misfortune to you, but it seems to me there is a cause-and-effect relationship as often as not in our affairs. In any case, he warned me I would be sorry, and then it happened. It did not just bump once as on the other occasions. It shook for a full minute, as though a giant hand were shaking the very wall. Then it stopped till we caught our breath, then it started again, four times in all, and quite frankly it was terrifying. Well, you can imagine how you would feel if it were to happen to you.

Slack and I stared at each other mutely. What was there to say? I called Wilkins, the butler, and he looked at it in alarm. I got him to accompany me to the cellar with lights, but there was nothing new to be seen. Slack remained in the saloon to listen for voices, but she heard none. By the time we got upstairs, Wilkins and I, it had stopped. I sent the two footboys out to look around for poachers, but they reported there was no one outside. It was a formality only. Poachers bent on concealment would never have made such a din. After the noise stopped and Wilkins left, I put my idea to Slack.

“I think Clavering had something to do with it,” I told her, reminding her of the threat.

He was in bad enough aroma with her that she was willing to give the idea space in her head, but neither of us could think of any means in which he could have accomplished it, and it remained a complete mystery. Furthermore, it happened again the next morning at half past ten. Giving the thing the importance of a fatal shot, we noted the time. On that occasion we were both seated by the grate. It was another dismal, rainy day. It was Sunday, but due to the weather we had stayed home from church. We had lit a small fire, for cheer rather than warmth. The grate heaved harder than before. I was half afraid the stones would topple from the wall and land in the middle of the floor. It shook for a minute and a half by the clock, then stopped, and I am willing to swear on a Bible that I heard the sound of echoing laughter coming from the chimney.

I went as close as I could get to the flue, (with a fire burning it was not very close, of course) and called, “Who’s there? Stop it at once! Do you hear?” It shook harder than ever, and I jumped back, frightened half out of my wits.

“It’s a ghost! It
is!”
Slack told me, and blessed herself.

"A ducal ghost,” I replied angrily.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“I’ll go to Pevensey tomorrow and get a builder to come out and look at the house,” I said. Till then, I could think of nothing to do.

Fortunately the shaking and the laughter stopped then, but to look at the grate, to enter the room even, was becoming an ordeal. I could not ride Juliette due to the weather. In the afternoon the rain abated but did not stop entirely. Lady Inglewood and George came to call and were treated not only to a telling of our trip to Belview but to an account of the stunts of the grate as well. There is surely no exercise in the world so depressing, so exasperating, so absolutely demoralizing as trying to make sane, sensible people believe the unbelievable. If I ever
see
a ghost, I won’t tell a soul. I shall keep it to myself, for I wouldn’t endure the superior smiles of my aunt or people like her again for any reason. Even with Slack there as my witness, to imitate for them the hollow laughter we had heard, Lady Ing didn’t believe it. Wilkins added his version, but still disbelief was writ on her face. George, I think, was more believing. His mother spoke reassuring words of winds and draughts and loose bricks. I could have throttled her.

She did not miss the opportunity of putting George forward as our protector. The poor man was sent scurrying from cellar to attic, but I knew he would find nothing, which is exactly what he found. I told Aunt Ethelberta that Clavering meant to set up a museum, which interested her very little. She said he had been riding this hobbyhorse forever but never did any more than talk about it. She was more curious to hear what we had to eat, and whether anyone else besides ourselves had been there. She was put out she had not been asked, too, but absolved him of insult by deciding he was angry with her for not offering Seaview to him first.

The only other item of interest that passed during the visit was for me to invite them for dinner the next week for Slack’s fifty-first birthday. My aunt and George would come to dine with us. I toyed with the idea of making it a larger party. I was rather eager to toss a real party, but Slack said grumpily it was little enough to celebrate, getting another year older, and she wanted no large party. It was true it was I who wanted a bigger do, so I would hold it later and not pretend it was in Slack’s honour.

We passed an utterly dreary day, the only thing of the least use that was accomplished was the beginning of my riding habit, and that I suppose ought not really to have been commenced on the Sabbath. We got it cut out. Several times during the evening Slack mentioned wishing we had something to read in the house, for with autumn coming on there would be many a long evening such as this one. We found a pile of old magazines, some of them not completely ancient, in the parson’s bench by the fireplace, but it became clear eventually that what Slack really wanted to read was books on Roman ruins in England. I leave it to you to conclude why this dull subject should interest her. I had thought she was over her infatuation for Clavering upon discovering him to be incurably selfish and cruel, but apparently not.

By the next morning the rain had stopped, but it was by no means a pleasant day. The sky was the colour of Slack’s oldest shawl. I don’t know whether it is grey or purple, but a very dull, ominous colour. We went to Pevensey to ask the builder to come and look over the chimney, but he was very busy and couldn’t come for a few days. At Slack’s insistence we also made a stop at the circulating library. They had exactly one book on Roman ruins, and it was a detailed description with drawings of the baths at Bath. Undaunted, she took it out, but I doubted she would get far in her courting of Clavering with it and suggested that if she was to set up as an expert on the ruins in Sussex, she would do better to order herself some more useful reference books. She baulked at the price, but I reminded her her birthday was approaching, and they would be my gift. What she
needed,
of course, was a new shawl, but then a birthday is no time to be giving a person a necessity. A gift ought to be a luxury, or it is not a real gift. I had a more luxurious luxury picked out for her, as well; Slack will not accept a penny more than she was paid when my parents were alive, despite my greatly enlarged fortune, and I had to use such ruses as this to reward her a little more adequately.

We did not eat at the inn but brought home our dinner fresh from the fishermen at the wharf. I observed the “ship”
Nancy-Jane
was still dancing in the harbour but saw neither Lazy Louis nor lazy Officer Smith. The sullen skies had toned down to pearl grey by afternoon, and I had a little lesson on Juliette before going in to stitch up my new green riding habit. I half thought, to be truthful, that Slack would already have begun doing this for me, but I found her with her head in the book about Bath. She is not paid to be my seamstress but usually helps me out in my sewing, and in this case where there was some urgency in finishing my habit I would have welcomed her assistance.

“This is very interesting, Priscilla,” she told me. “‘Aquae Sulis,’ Bath used to be called. I know the Aquae means waters, and I expect the Sulis might refer to the sulphur. It was dedicated to Minerva. I didn’t know that, did you?”

“No, Slack, and have hobbled along very well all these years without knowing it, too. I think I’ll begin working on my riding habit.”

“The baths were used for medicinal purposes, of course. The water came out of the springs at one hundred twenty degrees. Fancy that.”

“There must have been some parboiled Romans at Aquae Sulis, I fancy. Well, I think I’ll start the jacket first.” I said, and picked up a sleeve, thinking she would offer to help me.

“The baths at Aquae Sulis are quite different from the baths they built elsewhere—larger and more impressive altogether. They actually had swimming baths there, Priscilla. Only think, the engineering feat. They still exist, just like our wall, one rectangular, the largest, with a lead floor, and two circular baths. I can hardly credit that we
lived
in Wiltshire for twenty-four years and never had the sense to go to Bath to see these Roman ruins."

“We had neither of us succumbed to gout or rheumatism or to the Duke of Clavering at the time,” I told her, a little sharply. She chose to ignore it.

“There is a museum there, too. How I should love to see it! You really must have a look at this book, Priscilla. I never read anything so interesting. They found many coins and even precious stones thrown into the springhead, and it is believed they were thrown in as offerings to the gods. To Minerva, I suppose, since it was dedicated to her. Isn’t it odd how we go about our lives without ever giving a thought to the past?”

“Some of us are becoming so immersed in it we never give a thought to the present. May I disturb your research to ask you for those venerable artifacts, the scissors?”

She felt about for them and passed them over without ever taking her eyes from the book. I worked alone on my riding habit till dinner. Slack read, aloud oftener than was pleasant, about chalybeate springs and other things that meant no more to me than they did to her. She discussed strange circles of stones found standing not far from Bath, apparently the remains of some temple, and hinted at least seven times that she would certainly like to go to Aquae Sulis for a visit. In a fit of pique, I suggested she move there, for it seemed her mind was rotting and the chalybeate waters might restore it. At this she finally took the hint and set the book aside, but it was time for dinner by then, and so I got no help in my sewing.

We had not seen either of the Inglewoods all day, and I was fairly sure George would come over in the evening: He did not, nor did anyone call. It was a long, dull evening. The next few days passed in much this same way. I, working alone at my riding habit, spent the better part of the week finishing it, for though I am not a despicable needlewoman, I had considerable trouble fitting the jacket all alone and had to rip it out twice. Slack had become a confirmed amateur historian, an instant expert on the subject of Aquae Sulis. I rode Juliette on the good days, and though I did not achieve Slack’s degree of competence with Bath, I got over my worst nervousness and could canter around the garden without mortal terror. The Inglewoods came a few times, and one day we took tea with them. Slack was given no opportunity to show off her newly acquired knowledge. Clavering stayed away. We met him once in the village, where we had gone to see if by chance the circulating library had had another book on Roman ruins returned during our absence, but it hadn’t.