Of Midnight Born (7 page)

The ring handle of the door would not turn. He put all his strength into it, sweat coursing down his face. There were footsteps, slow and deliberate, coming up the stairs behind him.

He pounded on the door, screaming, “Mr. Leboff! Help me, God help me! Mr. Leboff!” He heard the rustle of cloth, a breath not his own stirring the air behind him, a chill like winter on his skin.

The door suddenly opened, and he fell forward onto Leb-off’s massive, solid frame.

“Dickie, what is it? What’s happened to you, lad?”

“Sss—” he tried. “Ssss—”

“Yes? Sss—?”

“Ssserena,” he yelped, regaining his feet and stumbling away from the open doorway.

Leboff peered down the dark stairwell, then turned to look him up and down, a frown on his face. “You’ve wet yourself. Best you clean yourself up before anyone sees you. And don’t be speaking a word of this!” Leboff warned, his expression dark. “There’s no need to be stirring up false rumors. I think someone has been playing a prank on you.”

Dickie looked down, away from Leboff’s eyes, aware now of the warm wetness of his trousers and the sharp smell that mixed with the beer on his shoes. “I dropped a cask,” he admitted. He knew it hadn’t been one of the other servants teasing him. It had been Serena who had come after him; he was sure of it.

“You can clean it up after you change,” the big cook said.
“When we find who spooked you, I’ll have Mr. Underhill take the cost out of his wages.”

“Yes, sir,” Dickie said, and went to fetch clean trousers, wondering how he’d ever be able to make himself return to that cellar.

Daniel Padgett rubbed beeswax onto the mahogany rail of the great staircase. He was tall, strong, and blond-haired, and he knew he looked as if he should be out plowing fields or hauling blocks of granite on his shoulder. Doing men’s work.

He took another dab of wax onto his cloth, rubbing the satiny rail, quietly pleased with the faint honey scent and the way the wood shone under his care. His title was footman, but he knew he was doing the work of a housemaid. Pride had urged him to protest when his duties were outlined for him, but prudence had kept his mouth shut. The wages here were better than anything to be had in a mill or on a farm, and he lacked the skills of a craftsman. If Mr. Woding wanted to pay him to sweep, dust, polish, and scrub, then sweep, dust, polish, and scrub Daniel would.

And besides, he rather liked being a maid and making things neat and orderly. Not that his mother would ever believe that, given the trails of mess he left behind at home. Somehow, though, here at the castle, it was different. Mr. Underhill showed him what to do, then left him to do it. There was no nagging, no correcting every minor flaw, no hurrying him along. As long as it was done by the end of the day, and done well, he was his own master.

Tomorrow Mr. Underhill was going to show him how to wash clothes, and give him as his helpers for the day John Flury, the gardener’s grandson who did odd jobs, and Dickie Chiles, the cook’s assistant. He had not decided yet how he felt about spending the day in the laundry, but it was worth trying. He hadn’t thought he’d find scrubbing the
bathtub bearable, and look how that had turned out. He had never really liked “men’s work,” anyway. Perhaps this was his calling.

He dropped his rag over the edge of his supply bucket, and with both hands checked the texture of the wood, admiring the way it reflected multicolored light from the rose window at the head of the stairs. It needed just a spot more wax.

He reached for his rag, fumbling along the edge of the pail for it. He turned to look. The rag was gone.

He peered in the pail. Nothing but clean, folded cloths. He lifted the pail. No, nothing. He turned in circles, thinking it must be beneath him, stuck to his shoe, tucked into the back of his pants—it had to be
somewhere.
He bent over the rail, looking down at the gray stone floor below. No.

He scratched at his shirtfront, frowning, turned back to the pail, and there it was, draped over the edge of the pail, exactly as he had left it.

Daniel picked the cloth up carefully, smelled it, looked around. Was he as daft as his mum had always said? He dabbed the rag into the wax and went to work again on the rail.

The next time he turned around, the pail had disappeared.

Jim Sommer, coachman, stableboy, and groom all rolled into one fifty-year-old, small, lumpish package of a man, did not like the winding tunnel that led from the castle down to the stables and the lower gate. It was dark, lit in day only by a few deep, narrow windows, and it spooked the horses. He didn’t blame them. Every step echoed in the confounded passage, as he should know—every time he wanted something to eat, he had to walk its length up to the castle kitchens.

He was not given to foolish fancies, but he trusted his
horses. If their instincts rebelled against a person or a place, he was inclined to think there was something wrong with that person or place.

He walked the passage now, grumbling to himself as his stomach grumbled to him. He’d like to give a piece of his mind to the idiot who’d designed the place. The sound of his own breathing bounced off the walls, sounding louder than it should.

He felt the hair slowly rising on the back of his neck as he approached the spot where the horses shied five times out of ten. There was an alcove in the wall, visible only as a darker shadow now that there were no torches lit. He did not take his eyes from that spot as he made a wide berth of it.

A sigh of pent-up breath escaped him as he rounded another turn and the alcove was out of sight, but before the last of the air left his lungs he tripped over something, sending it clanging on the stones as he stumbled, heart jumping into his throat. His knees hit the paving, his palms scraping stone as he broke his fall.

Sommer panted a moment, his mind checking through his body for injury. He was all right. His glance fell on the object he had tripped over, barely visible in the dim light: a pail, cleaning rags spilling from its mouth.

Sommer got angrily to his feet, grabbed the pail handle, and marched up the last winding curve of the tunnel, across the courtyard, and straight to the kitchens. When he got there, he stomped to the worktable that dominated the vaulted room, slammed the pail down on the wood, and turned a glaring eye to the others who were gathered there: Leboff, Daniel the housemaid, and Dickie the scullery wench.

“What fool,” he began, feeling his face flaming with anger, “what utter imbecile—no, what brainless spawn of a dung-eating maggot was stupid enough to leave his cleaning pail in the middle of the tunnel, where one of my horses could have stumbled into it and broken a leg?”

Daniel made a squeaking sound and fainted.

“Hey, ho!” Sommer said in surprise, as Dickie scrambled to catch his falling comrade, managing just barely to ease the tall man to the floor. “What’s wrong with him?” the coachman asked, his anger forgotten. “His bucket, was it? I wouldn’t have been that hard on him,” he said, pulling in his chin, frowning down disapprovingly at the man’s limp form. “Thought he had more backbone to him than that, for all that he makes beds for his wages.”

“Shut up,” Leboff ordered curtly. He dipped a cloth in water and lowered himself heavily to one knee, where he could dab at Daniel’s face.

Sommer shrugged and took an apple from the worktable, crunching into it as he watched the little drama on the floor.

“Sommer, make yourself useful,” Leboff ordered as Daniel came around. “Go find Mr. Underhill.”

“Eh? And tell him what?” he asked around a mouthful of apple.

“Tell him we have a prankster among us. And when we catch him, I’m going to break his miserable neck.”

Golden rays of late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the diamond panes of the dining room windows, sparkling on the wineglasses and the silver epergne that held an arrangement of fruit and flowers. The rays were doing a fair job of brightening the otherwise ridiculously gloomy chamber, Alex thought.

“I do so love this room,” Beth said, lifting her wineglass as young Dickie began to clear away the remaining dishes, preparatory to removing the top tablecloth and bringing in dessert.

“Good lord, you cannot be serious,” Rhys said to his wife. “With that…that…” he stammered, looking up at the wall behind Alex. “What is that thing, anyway?”

Alex knew without turning of what his cousin spoke. “I believe it is a caribou.”

“Caribou? Where did Briggs get a caribou?”

“Canada, I should imagine.”

“I think it’s clever,” Beth said, admiring the head and enormous rack protruding from high on the wall. Its missing body had been painted onto the plaster work, one hoof raised as if it were about to take a step.

“The damn thing is cross-eyed,” Rhys said.

“And I like the carving over the fireplace, as well,” she said, nodding toward the four-foot-tall, carved and painted woodwork coat of arms.

“Briggs probably stole it,” Rhys said.

“You have no imagination.”

“You have too much,” Rhys countered his wife.

“Alex, I insist you champion me in this,” Beth said, turning her soft blue-gray eyes to him. “Don’t you find that living here makes you want to don hose and doublet, and carry a sword at your side?”

He smiled crookedly. He rather liked Beth and her fancies. She was so sweetly sincere in her romanticism, it was hard to hold it against her. “I’m afraid that Briggs’s taste in furnishings is not mine, but I will not deny that the castle has something of an atmosphere to it. It seems to encourage one’s fancies to take flight.”

Dickie, replacing the epergne and placing dessert spoons on the clean cloth, made a small sound in his throat.

Rhys caught the sound, raising his eyebrows first to Dickie, then to Alex. “Have there been sightings of the dread Serena?”

“Oh, do tell!” Beth exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.

Dickie carelessly plunked down dishes of ice cream in front of each of the diners, barely nodded to Alex, and dashed from the room.

“Ice cream! Ghost stories and ice cream,” Beth sighed on a breath of pleasure.

“I think it is a mischievous staff member we have, not a ghost,” Alex said. “With the exception of Underhill and Sommer, the staff are all locals who have no doubt grown up with the legends of Maiden Castle. One of them seems to have taken it into his head to play the restless spirit: things go missing, only to turn up in the unlikeliest of places; footsteps are heard in the hallways and on stairs, strange thumpings heard in the middle of the night; doors appear to open and close on their own; and many complain of sudden cold chills. All of it, however, can be explained away by a mischievous human hand, drafts, and imagination.”

“Do you have suspicions of who the culprit might be?” Rhys asked.

“Underhill is looking into it, but has not yet come to a conclusion. Ben Flury, the gardener, can be ruled out. He’s seventy if he’s a day, and goes home at night. That leaves Leboff and the three young men, two of whom claim to have had ghostly encounters, and one of whom, John, the gardener’s grandson, seems genuinely frightened by the stories. He will no longer spend the night at the castle, and refuses to work alone. I find it impossible to believe that Leboff could be the prankster: the man is as solid as granite.”

“Perhaps one of the others lied about his own ghostly encounter,” Rhys suggested. “Or maybe the two young men you haven’t eliminated are in it together.”

Beth spoke up. “Or maybe there really is a ghost. Everyone suspects that’s why Briggs left so quickly, despite the story he gave about his wife wanting to live closer to their eldest son and grandchildren. I hear he could not get a single night’s rest while he lived here.”

“Where did you hear that?” Rhys demanded. “I never heard that.”

“From Mrs. Rogers, who heard it from Mrs. Fields, who got it from her daughter, who sold eggs to one of the kitchen staff.”

“The usual reliable sources, I see.”

“I’d have thought you’d be siding with Beth on this,” Alex said to his cousin. “You were always all for blaming Serena for my accident.”

“Frankly, I can’t decide which is the more appealing of the two possibilities,” Rhys said. “Having a prankster to outwit, or knowing you’re being haunted by a medieval murderess.”

“Many thanks for your concern.”

“You’re welcome.”

A tingling awareness began to creep up Alex’s neck, one that he had not felt since that day he’d had the nightmare. He continued conversing with Rhys and Beth, his mind
only half on what he said as some internal sense tried to locate the source of his unease.

Serena came around the table, curiosity about Woding’s visitors having drawn her to the dining room, and now drawing her to Beth. She sat in the empty chair to the woman’s left, listening to her speak, the woman’s words so fast that Serena had trouble catching them. She leaned her elbow on the cloth, resting her chin in her hand, her tangled pale hair trailing over the table and the seat of the chair as she gazed at the young woman.

She was so pretty. Such smooth skin, unmarred, and dotted with a few faint freckles across her nose and cheeks. She was a creature from a different world from any Serena knew, and led a life she could only barely begin to imagine. She had an innocent, mischievous light in her eyes, and a playful affection when she looked at her husband. Her husband, in turn, looked to adore her.

Serena felt a sadness opening up inside her, a sense of loss for all that she had never had and never been. Why couldn’t she herself have led such a life? She reached out her hand to where she could almost touch the blush of Beth’s cheek, then touched instead one of the woman’s dark brown coils of hair, giving herself just enough substance to be able to feel the silkiness of a braid, and to touch the head of a pin holding it in place.

Beth turned slightly, her hand going to her hair, and Serena backed away, not wanting the woman to feel the chill of her presence and be frightened.

“Beth, what is it?” Woding asked sharply.

Serena saw that, once again, he was looking directly at her, his eyes trying to focus on what must look to him to be empty space.

Beth smiled, shivering slightly. “’Twas nothing. A loose pin. It felt almost—” Beth finally noticed that Woding was
staring intently to the left of her, not at her, and her eyes widened. “Almost like someone had touched my hair,” she finished on a whisper. “What do you see, Alex?”

Serena drifted away, not wanting to be detected by Woding, and feeling in no mood to cause a disturbance. Now was not the time to cause trouble, with an innocent such as Beth here. She shouldn’t have come to the dining room, shouldn’t have given in to her curiosity.

Alex felt the sense of someone
other
move away, and as it left the room he became aware of Rhys’s imploring voice and Beth’s concerned murmurs.

“Alex? Are you all right? Alex? Beth, pour him some wine. Alex?”

Alex blinked and looked at his cousin, who was half out of his seat and white faced. “I am perfectly fine, thank you, Rhys.” He smiled. “Lost in thought for a moment, that’s all. My apologies.”

Rhys sat back, letting out a shaky breath. “Good lord, you had me believing for a moment that Serena sat here at the table with us.”

“She did, I know it!” Beth said. “She touched me.”

“You said it was a loose pin,” Rhys said.

“It was her, and she wasn’t frightening at all. I got a very gentle sense of her, more of curiosity, or almost of sadness…yes, sadness. I do think she’s lonely. Perhaps, Alex, your servants should try talking to her when something goes missing. Perhaps she is only try to gain their attention. It must be very isolating, being a ghost.”

“Beth, darling,” Rhys said. “The man was lost in thought. Serena did not touch your hair, and is not looking for a nice chat and cup of tea.” He had the sound of a man trying to convince himself more than others.

“You were ready enough to believe in her a moment ago,” Beth said. “You should have seen your face.”

“I am still not certain, Rhys,” Alex said, “of whether you actually believe those stories you are only too glad to tell on dark nights.”

Rhys gave a crooked smile and took a sip of wine. “Neither am I, cousin.”

It was a few hours later, as the sun began to lower toward the horizon, that Alex stood in the courtyard with Rhys and Beth as they made their good-nights, then climbed into the small, one-horse carriage that they would drive back to their large sheep farm in the valley.

“Come to dinner some evening soon,” Beth invited. “Studying stars is well and good, but I wouldn’t want to see you become a hermit.”

“Your list of eccentricities is long enough as it is,” Rhys said with a grin, flicking the reins. “We can’t have people saying my relatives are mad.”

“Good God, you don’t mean you’ve been telling people we’re related? I shall never live it down,” Alex said.

“Hush, the both of you,” Beth scolded. And to Alex, “Come to dinner.”

Alex watched as they drove off into the tunnel, where torches had been lit to light their way. He waited, listening, until he was sure they had safely passed the alcove Sommer insisted was haunted.

The evening air was soft, too pleasant to abandon for the Gothic gloom of the castle. He would take a stroll through the garden, then perhaps around the lower wall.

The gate swung easily under his hand, the hinges well oiled. The high walls of the garden cast much of it in shadow, but the espaliered fruit trees on the east wall still caught the light, and the top half of the old cherry tree as well.

Whoever had planned the garden had been careful to include flowers that bloomed at different times of the year, so there were many splashes of color among the dark green
foliage of summer. He followed the stone flags of the path in their circuit of the enclosed area, then stopped beside the cherry.

It looked harmless, not at all the frightful tree he recalled as a boy. It had leaves just like any other cherry, and he wondered now if the tree’s obvious age had had anything to do with its late blooming, or if it were simply an unusual variety. He would clip a branch of blossoms next summer and see if he could find their match in a book on botany. Perhaps he would ask Ben Flury about growing a new tree by seed—this one looked as though it had outlived its life expectancy.

He continued through the garden, then out onto the lower wall. When he got to the corner bastion he leaned upon the parapet, looking out over the countryside. For a moment his fancy took him, and he wondered, if he were a ghost, what would it have been like to have been trapped upon this hill for centuries, so far from living beings? Heaven, or hell?

Ghosts.
Serena.
Every strange occurrence at Maiden Castle since he had moved in could be explained away. Even his own occasional feeling of being watched could be dismissed as his imagination, and lingering fears from when he had nearly lost his life here as a boy.

He would not be swayed by thumps in the night or shivers on the back of the neck. There was that in him that wanted to believe Serena existed, that wanted to believe there was something beyond the life he knew, but he would not cheat himself by letting that desire sway his mind from the facts.

Intuition was for others. He needed proof.

In their open carriage, passing between the hedgerows of beech and hawthorn, Beth and Rhys rode in companionable silence, the soft clopping of their horse’s hooves punctuating the birdsong and distant
baa
ing of sheep.

“I’m worried about Alex,” Beth said into the country
quiet. “Did he not look weary to you, as if he had not been sleeping well?”

“He stays up all night looking at his stars. Of course he does not sleep well.”

“And the way he stopped and stared over dessert, as if transfixed. I have never known him to behave so.”

Rhys did not answer.

“It worried you, too.”

Rhys continued staring straight ahead, and Beth could see him working on what to say. “Tell me truthfully,” he said, turning to meet her eyes, “without putting into it wishful thinking or imagination. What was it you felt at the table? Was it a loose pin, or did something touch you?”

Beth touched her hair and the head of the pin, recreating the sensation. “It felt just like this,” she said, “like I am touching my hair now. You will have to make of it what you will, darling. I can tell you no more.”

Rhys sighed. “It would be just like Alex to get himself haunted. He never could live life the usual way.”

“I wonder what Sophie would make of this?” Beth mused aloud.

“For God’s sake, don’t tell her! The last thing Alex would want would be to have his little sister coming to stay, sprinkling holy water about the place and holding conversations with the dead.”

“I don’t understand what you have against her,” Beth said with a touch of affront. “If it hadn’t been for my friendship with Sophie, you and I would never have met.”

“She’s batty, and a bad influence on you.”

“As if I haven’t a mind of my own! And besides, she’s engaged to a vicar.”

“That does nothing to reassure me of her state of mind.”

“Such a typical man,” Beth said, looking skyward and shaking her head. “You have no romance.”