Victoria Holt Page 16

  “We might be turned to stone. He might change us into one of those figures on the altar. I always think they look as though they were once people.”

  “Oh, Alice!” I scolded.

  She gave a nervous laugh. “I know I’m silly, but I should be so frightened.” She seemed to believe I was going myself for she caught my hand and cried: “Mrs. Verlaine, please don’t go there. Please…please!”

  I was gratified that she should be so concerned for me. I said gently: “But, Alice, this is the sort of thing that should be investigated. No one should be allowed to play tricks like this.”

  “Yes, but don’t go now, Mrs. Verlaine. Perhaps some of us could go with you. But not now…please.”

  “All right. But Alice I don’t accept this idea of a ghost, you know. I am certain that we shall find a perfectly logical explanation if we look for it.”

  “Do you really?”

  “I most certainly do.”

  “What a comfort.”

  “Now, Alice, I think you should forget about this light.”

  “Yes,” she sighed, “otherwise I shall think about it in bed tonight and I shan’t be able to sleep.”

  “Have you a good book to read?”

  She nodded. “It’s Evelina. It’s fascinating, Mrs. Verlaine. It’s all about a young lady’s adventures in society.”

  “Why, Alice, I believe you would like to be a young lady in society.”

  She smiled and I was pleased because I could see that the fear and the morbid imaginings engendered by the light in the chapel were already receding. “Well,” she said, “I can imagine it, Mrs. Verlaine, though it could never happen to me. Allegra is always reminding me that although I live in a big house and enjoy some of the privileges of the family, I am only the housekeeper’s daughter.”

  “Never mind, Alice. It is really what you are that counts.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I am sure of it. Now you get back to Evelina and don’t give another thought to that mysterious light which I’m determined shan’t be a mystery much longer.”

  “You don’t like mysteries, do you?”

  “Who doesn’t want to solve them?”

  “A lot of people don’t bother. Perhaps they’re like me and imagine what happened. But you want to know. Like what happened to Miss Brandon.”

  “I daresay a number of people want to know that.”

  “But they never will now, I suppose.”

  “One can never be sure what will be discovered.”

  “No.” She was thoughtful. Then she said: “That’s what makes it all so exciting, doesn’t it?”

  I agreed and went back to my room.

  ***

  I was not really as unconcerned about the mysterious light as I had led Alice to believe. There seemed no doubt that someone was playing tricks; it was someone who wanted to pretend the place was haunted, and keep alive the memory of Beaumont Stacy. As if that were necessary! No, that was hardly the answer. The haunting was meant to imply, I was sure, that the ghost of Beaumont was in revolt against Napier’s return.

  It was silly, childish, miserable and vengeful; and I was more angry than the situation warranted.

  Napier undoubtedly had his enemies—and that did not surprise me.

  Returning to my room I went to the window seat and looked out over the grounds. The moon had waned slightly since the night of my concert. I thought of the moonlit garden and of Napier who was trying to put the past behind him and I wondered who it was who was determined that he should not. Who would go to the copse and wave a light about in the hope that it would be believed his beautiful brother had returned because he was displeased. It was childish. And yet it was just the way to keep the story alive.

  I looked across the lawns to the copse. Alice was right, it was not so easy to make out the ruin here as it was higher up. In fact I could not see the chapel—only the dark smudge of firs which was the copse.

  The chapel had been destroyed by fire after Napier came back. Who had done that? Was it the same one who now “haunted it” by waving a light about after dark?

  I felt a desire to lay the ghost, to stop this childishness—and the reason was that I wanted to know what Napier would be like if he were no longer living in the shadow of the past. Much the same, was the answer to that. Just because of a few moments in that garden, when I was decidedly not my usual practical self, I was ready to endow him with all sorts of qualities which he undoubtedly did not possess.

  “The maternal instinct, dear Caro,” Pietro would have said. He had mocked that in me on one occasion when I was anxious because he had walked through the streets for hours in the rain contemplating some cadenza which had failed to please him.

  “Not that I want to discourage it, Caro. But it should be applied sparingly, and in secret. Worry about me, but don’t let me know it. Be unobtrusive. Little attentions should be performed subtly so that they go unnoticed. I should turn in disgust from a fussy possessive female.”

  Go away, Pietro. Leave me alone. Let me forget you. Let me escape.

  I could hear his voice mocking over the years. “Never, Caro. Never.”

  Then momentarily I forgot Pietro for I saw a dark figure emerge from the shrubbery. For a few seconds that figure was in moonlight and I recognized Allegra.

  She ran swiftly across the grass, keeping close to the hedge; then she disappeared into the house.

  Allegra? I asked myself. Was she the ghost who was haunting the chapel in the copse?

  ***

  I studied her closely while she stumbled painfully through the Czerny study.

  “Really, Allegra!” I sighed.

  She grinned at me and then frowned at the book, paused and proceeded.

  When she came to the end of the piece she sighed and put her hands in her lap. I sighed too. Then she burst out laughing.

  “I told you I’d never be a credit to you, Mrs. Verlaine.”

  “You don’t concentrate. Is it because you can’t or you won’t?”

  “I do try,” she said looking at me mischievously.

  “Allegra,” I said, “do you ever go to the ruin in the copse after dark?”

  She looked startled and gave me a quick glance before she turned her head to stare down at the keyboard.

  “Oh, Mrs. Verlaine, I…I’d be scared. You know it’s haunted, don’t you?”

  “I know someone shows a light there.”

  “There is a light there sometimes. I’ve seen it.”

  “Do you know who is playing the trick?”

  “Oh…er…yes. I suppose so.”

  “Who is it, Allegra?”

  “They say it’s the ghost of Uncle Beau.”

  “They do? Who are they?”

  “Oh…almost everybody.”

  “But what do you say, Allegra?”

  “What should I?”

  “You might say it was someone playing a trick.”

  “Oh no, Mrs. Verlaine, I don’t say that.”

  “But you think it.”

  She looked at me truly alarmed. “I don’t understand you.”

  “There was a light in the chapel last night and Alice drew my attention to it. A little later I saw you coming into the house.”

  She bit her lip and cast down her eyes.

  “You do admit, Allegra, that you were out last evening.”

  She nodded.

  “Then…”

  “You can’t think that I—?”

  “What I think is that if anyone is playing a silly trick Sir William would be glad to hear of it.”

  She was alarmed. She said: “Mrs. Verlaine, I can tell you where I was. I borrowed Mrs. Lincroft’s scarf, then I left it at the vicarage and went back to get it. If Mrs. Lincroft had missed it she would have told my grandfather. So I wen
t out and got it.”

  “Did you see the vicar or Mr. Brown or Mrs. Rendall when you called?”

  “No, but I saw Sylvia.”

  “Why didn’t you leave it till the morning when you would be going over there?”

  “Mrs. Lincroft might have found out and she did say that if I borrowed anything else without asking she would tell my grandfather. It was scarlet,” she added ingratiatingly. “I love scarlet.”

  I turned over the leaves of Czerny’s Studies.

  “Let’s try this,” I said. I had made up my mind that I didn’t believe Allegra and I was going to watch her.

  ***

  I lost no time in speaking to Sylvia. Sylvia was the girl of whom I necessarily saw least. She seemed to me a little sly. I wasn’t quite sure what had given me this impression: perhaps it was because in her mother’s presence she was so demure and seemed to change subtly when Mrs. Rendall was not present. I was being unfair to her, I admonished myself. Poor child! Who would not be overawed by the formidable Mrs. Rendall, particularly one over whom she had as much control as her own daughter.

  Sylvia was a painstaking pupil and, I felt, did her best—a poor best, it was true, but all she was capable of.

  “Did you see Allegra last night?” I asked when she had thumped out her scales.

  “Allegra? Why…”

  “Did she come to see you?” I persisted. “Try to remember. I particularly want to know.”

  Sylvia looked down at her nails which I saw were bitten. She seemed as though she were desperately trying to work out what she must answer.

  “If you had seen her last night you would have remembered, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” said Sylvia. “She came to the vicarage.”

  “Does she often come in the evening?”

  “Er…no.”

  “What did your parents say when she came?”

  “They…they didn’t know.”

  “So it was a secret visit?”

  “Well, it—it was the scarf. You see, Allegra had borrowed it. It was one of Mrs. Lincroft’s, and she was afraid Mrs. Lincroft would find out and tell Sir William so she came over to get it and I let her in and no one knew she had come.”

  So it was true. The story fitted, and if Allegra had been at the vicarage she could not possibly have been at the chapel at the time when the light was there.

  I must look elsewhere for my practical joker.

  ***

  I had dined with Mrs. Lincroft and Alice, and the latter had left me with her mother.

  “Don’t go yet,” Mrs. Lincroft had said. “Stay and I’ll make some coffee.”

  I watched her making it. “I like to make it myself,” she said. “I’m rather particular about my tea and coffee.”

  I watched her move about the room—an elegant woman in one of the flowing skirts which she favored—gray this time—and the feminine chiffon blouse of the same color with the tiny pink decorative buttons. She moved silently, and with grace; and I thought what a beautiful girl she must have been. She was not old but just a little past her youth; I was deeply conscious of that slightly faded air and fell to wondering what the late Mr. Lincroft had been like.

  When the coffee was ready she brought the brass tray to a little table and sat down near me.

  “I trust this is to your liking, Mrs. Verlaine. No doubt you know what good coffee is, having lived in France. What an exciting life you and your husband must have had.”

  I admitted that that was so.

  “And to be widowed so young!”

  “You know what that means.”

  “Ah yes…” I hoped for confidences but they were not forthcoming. Mrs. Lincroft was one of the rare women who did not talk about herself. “You have been with us now for some weeks,” she went on. “I hope you are settling in.”

  “I think so.”

  “You begin to know something of the family now. By the way, how do you think Edith is looking?”

  “I think she looks well.”

  Mrs. Lincroft nodded. “There is a change in her. Have you noticed? But then…you did not see much of her before. I would say she is going to have a child.”

  “Oh.”

  “There are signs—I do hope so. This will make everyone so happy. If it’s a boy…I do hope it’s a boy…then Sir William will be reconciled.”

  “I am sure it would be a very happy state of events.”

  Mrs. Lincroft smiled. “It will change everything. The past will be forgotten.”

  I nodded.

  “I shall pray for a boy, and one who looks like Beaumont. I daresay Sir William would want the child called Beaumont. Why, if we had another Beaumont in the house the ghost would be completely laid.”

  “It’s a pity it was not laid long ago.”

  “Ah, but he was such a beloved boy. If he had been a little less handsome, a little less charming, it would have been so much easier. The only way to forgetfulness is to replace him, and that can be done by a grandchild.”

  “There is already Allegra.”

  “Napier’s natural daughter! But she only reminds Sir William of an unfortunate occurrence.”

  “It is scarcely her fault.”

  “No indeed. But her presence does nothing to make Sir William forget. In fact at one time I believe he was contemplating sending Allegra away.”

  “He seems fond of sending people away,” I blurted out.

  Mrs. Lincroft looked at me coldly. I could see that she thought it presumptuous of me to criticize Sir William.

  “You would understand that the presence of Allegra could be painful to him.”

  “It is sad for the girl if he gives that impression.”

  Again I appeared to be criticizing Sir William and she said rather shortly: “Allegra has always been a difficult child. Perhaps it would have been better if she had not been brought up here.”

  “It must have been hard for her. A mother who deserted her, a father she did not know, and a grandfather who resents her.”

  Mrs. Lincroft shrugged her shoulders. “I have done my best,” she said. “It’s not easy with a girl like Allegra. If she had been more like Alice…” She looked at me anxiously. “You find Alice…obedient?”

  “I find her a charming girl—intelligent and well mannered.”

  Mrs. Lincroft’s good humor was restored. “Ah,” she sighed. “I wish Allegra were more like her. That child is a little light-fingered, I fear.” I thought immediately of the scarf. “Oh, nothing criminal,” went on Mrs. Lincroft quickly, “but she is apt to think that other people’s property can be borrowed without first asking permission as long as she puts it back afterwards.”

  “She seems afraid of her grandfather.”

  “She is naturally in awe of him. So is Edith. But then she is so meek. Not that that is a fault in itself, but she is so nervous, nervous of everything. Frightened of thunder and lightning…frightened of giving offense. It will do her the world of good to produce a child.”

  I said: “What in your opinion is at the bottom of this talk about a mysterious light in the chapel?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “The servants are all discussing it. I think it’s a trick played by someone who wants to keep the past alive.”

  “But why?”

  “Someone who has a grudge against Napier, perhaps. Or it might be just for mischief.”

  “I suppose a ruin suggests a ghost.”

  The light was seen before the chapel was a ruin. As soon as Napier came back in fact. And then one night there was the blaze and since then the light has appeared again.”

  “What does Napier think about it?”

  She looked at me intently. “You, Mrs. Verlaine, would probably know that as well as I.”

  So this quiet enigmatical woman was aware that Napier was not ind
ifferent to me—nor I to him. I was uneasy and changed the subject. I mentioned the gardens and she was very ready to talk of flowers—which were a passion with her. Then the conversation flowed easily until I left her.

  ***

  It was just after dusk. I was suffering a painful session at the piano with Allegra when Alice came in.

  “I thought I would be ready when my turn came,” she said.

  She sat in the window seat while I finished the lesson with Allegra and suddenly she called out: “There it is again. I saw it.”

  Allegra got up from the piano and rushed to the window. I followed.

  “It’s the light again,” said Alice. “I saw it clearly. Wait a minute. Look! There it is again.”

  And sure enough the light was there. It flared up for a moment and remained steady like a light in a lighthouse and then all was dark.

  “You saw it, Mrs. Verlaine,” said Alice.

  “Yes I saw it.”

  “No one could say it wasn’t there, could they?”

  I shook my head, my eyes fixed on the dark copse. Then there it was again. It shone brightly through the darkness, lingered for a few seconds and was gone.

  I was aware of Allegra breathing deeply beside me. I felt I owed her an apology and I had suspected her of playing the trick with the light; and now she was completely exonerated.

  ***

  I had made up my mind that I was going to know the truth and one night at dark I slipped out of the house and made my way across the lawns to the copse.

  I hesitated on the borders of it and an almost irresistible impulse to turn back came to me; it was so eerie and however much one scorns ghostly happenings by daylight and in company one is inclined to be less bold alone in the dark. The idea of going to the chapel—which had been my first intention—and waiting there now seemed, alarming. I stopped under one of the trees and peered into the gloom.

  It would probably be a wasted effort, I told myself. Ghosts did not come to order. That was of course an excuse. Then I asked myself why I did not go back and suggest that Mrs. Lincroft or Alice accompany me. They might think I was overeager to prove that someone was playing a trick. I could not forget Mrs. Lincroft’s remark about Napier. A sudden thought struck me. What if Roma had wandered into the chapel one night? What if she had seen something which was not meant to be seen? The thought sent a shiver through me. I could well imagine Roma’s setting out skeptically determined to solve a mystery.