Ghost Gum Valley (7 page)

Mounted on the ebony stallion ready to return to Sydney Town, Marmaduke turned to take a final look at the house of his childhood that was haunted by so many dark secrets.

The front doors flew open and Elise hurried down the steps. Running to his side she grabbed hold of his reins to detain him.

Marmaduke tried not to look at her. But as much as he held his father's mistress in contempt it was difficult to ignore her beauty – and her distress.

Her words came in broken phrases. ‘Marmaduke. You're leaving without saying goodbye? I need to talk to you. Alone. Only you can help me. Your father's mental state grows worse. I'm desperate.' She lowered her eyes. ‘I don't know how much longer I can do what he wants of me.'

As he unwound the fingers of the pale hand clinging to his reins he flinched to see the emerald ring his mother had worn for her portrait. It gave him no pleasure to see Elise's unnaturally pale complexion flush and her eyes fill with tears.

‘You'll manage, Elise. You're well trained for the role. He pays you handsomely, no doubt.'

Remaining in the saddle, Marmaduke swept his hat from his head and bowed low in imitation of the flamboyant flourish he had seen an actor perform on stage at the Comédie Française. Elise responded as she would to royalty with a curtsey so deep it revealed the curve of her breasts, a gesture he suspected was by design.

It would be almost worth bringing home that blue-blooded bride, just to see Elise's face when she realises she's been usurped as mistress of Bloodwood Hall.

Chapter 5

De Rolland Park, Gloucestershire, England, February 1833

Isabel pulled the old overcoat around her shoulders as she stood shivering on the castellated walkway on the roof of her ancestral home. Below her lay the expanse of countryside, bathed in a pale, uncertain light. She shivered at the sight of the ice on the lake that was beginning to thaw. That lake had nearly drowned her. She cut off the images, sounds, and the fear of water that she had learnt to push back into the dark recesses of her memory.

I'm alive. That's all that matters.

Isabel felt an odd unease. The temperature had dropped dramatically in the space of a few seconds. She was on the point of turning to the only exit on the roof when there was a loud metallic crash. The door was forced open as if by a powerful gust of wind.

She was no longer alone, but in the presence of a stranger. Isabel shrank back and concealed herself behind a stone pediment. The man at the far end of the narrow walkway stood with his back to her, unaware of her presence. Tall and heavily built, his age was uncertain because his head was covered by an elaborate periwig.

He took a commanding stance, legs planted wide, arms stretched out as if to encompass the entire countryside. His fine clothing proclaimed him a gentleman: an immaculately tailored dark green velvet tail coat worn over knee breeches, white silk stockings and silver buckled shoes. When he turned his head in profile the only jarring note was the crumpled neck linen that lay open at the throat.

The cold seemed of little concern to him. After removing a silver flask from a pocket he tossed the jacket aside to fall in a crumpled heap. She saw the glint of sunlight on the flask as he raised it high in a flamboyant toast.

‘To King and Country! Devil take them both!' His words echoed in her head as he drained the contents then wiped his fleshy lips with the back of his shirtsleeve, leaving a trace of wine like a bloodstain.
He was so close to her that Isabel could see the dark stubble on his jawline and despite his fine clothing he had the smell of a man who had been too busy carousing to bathe.

Isabel felt trapped, unable to reach the sole exit because the stranger had turned to face her and now stood blocking her flight. There was something strangely familiar about his smile and the odd expression in his eyes chilled her even more than the cold. Was this man one of Uncle Godfrey's wealthy, eccentric neighbours come to dine with her guardian in a return of hospitality?

She was appalled by her second thought.
Oh Lord, please don't tell me he's that older gentleman Uncle has invited here as a prospective suitor. This man is clearly in his cups! How I abhor drunkards.

Isabel cleared her throat and forced herself to address him. ‘Excuse me, sir, the cold is biting. I must return inside.'

The gentleman stood his ground. Isabel felt her throat tighten as she watched him in unwilling fascination. He turned his head towards a sun struggling to emerge from the grey mass of clouds – and let out an unnerving cry of ecstasy.

Isabel felt the hair prickle on the back of her neck. His blue eyes were unnaturally bright. His air of nobility disintegrated as he pressed his fingers to his lips in a childlike gesture of secrecy before chanting words in an alien tongue she could not recognise.

His sudden move caught her off guard. To her horror he was charging straight towards her, his arms extended sideways in the caricature of an embrace! His body passed so close to her she could smell the musty aroma of incense. She was overwhelmed by an impression of pure evil as he stepped up onto the edge of the parapet, laughing wildly into the face of the sun. Flapping his arms like the wings of a bird he chanted, ‘The Gods are with me. Watch me fly! I am immortal!'

Laughing, he leapt out into space.

Isabel struggled against the vertigo that terrified her as she tried to peer over the edge of the parapet. She heard the echo of his laughter end in a heavy thud out of sight below. She was almost overcome by an acute wave of nausea but knew she must not lose consciousness in case by some miracle he had survived the fall.

She struggled to wrench open the metal door and ran down the
stairs in search of someone, yelling that there had been an accident.

Charging headlong into Baker, an old family retainer, Isabel was almost incoherent but took the old man's hand and dragged him outside to the stretch of garden that lay directly beneath the line of the victim's fall.

She froze at the sight that lay before her. The pristine bed of rose bushes and shrubbery was intact. There was no sign of his body. Not a blade of grass seemed out of place.

Isabel pointed up in confusion to the exact stone from which the stranger had taken his swallow dive. ‘He can't have survived that fall. No one could.'

She was suddenly aware of the frown that creased Baker's face.

‘Is this some kind of a jest, miss? Like April Fools' Day?'

‘Of course not. I tell you I saw him jump. He was as close to me as you are right now.'

Isabel tugged at his sleeve to detain him, as she blurted out the stranger's description, remembering the mock beauty spot on his cheek.

‘If you say so, miss,' Baker said warily. ‘I best go back to my duties.'

Isabel closed her eyes to blot out the realisation.
Oh dear God, that gentleman must have been ‘the Other'
.

Disregarding the servants' startled reactions, she raced up the staircase to the portrait gallery, her hair flying, her skirts bunched up so as not to impede her progress, to search the portraits in pursuit of one particular face she remembered – the one that bore no name.

Short of breath, she halted before the portrait of a young man dressed in extravagant Georgian style who bore a distinct resemblance to the older man she had just seen leap to his death.

‘That's you, isn't it?' she said aloud to the portrait in an attempt to restore a sense of reality to counter the vision she had been forced to witness.

‘I take it you've
seen
him, have you, Isabel?'

The voice behind her spoke in a tone somewhere between pacifying and mild mockery. She spun around to confront Cousin Silas.

‘Don't play with me, Cousin. Who is he?'

‘Don't you recognise the resemblance to us both? My father, Henri,
painted in his youth. Before he married my mother and later became enchanted by
your
mother, Alizon – the witch.'

Isabel chose to ignore the accusation. ‘He's not buried in the de Rolland family vault. How did he die?'

‘Suicide, a drunken accident or what you will. Father began meddling in the black arts. Came to believe he was greater than Icarus. Leapt off the parapet to prove
he
could fly and survive.' Silas shrugged. ‘He did
not.
'

Isabel felt the blood drain from her face.
Henri de Rolland – the man who accused my mother of being a witch. Yet he himself had met his own death – through practising witchcraft.

She had a sudden flash of insight but she baulked at the word ‘ghost'. ‘You have seen him yourself, haven't you?'

‘He repeats his final folly periodically.' His hand curved gracefully downwards in illustration of a swallow dive. ‘You see? We share the same gift,
my petite cousine
.'

Despite her protective instincts about her dead mother's reputation, Isabel could not hold back the words. ‘But Henri was your father. Can you feel no pity for him?'

‘Father was an amateur who dabbled in what he could not control. Where as I have
mastered
the black arts.' He reached out and stroked her hair. ‘That's why I am the one man who can protect you from yourself – my little witch.'

His smile was tender, but Isabel found herself trembling as she avoided his hand, dropped a curtsey and hurried away to her bedchamber.

Something inside her mind had changed irrevocably. Since childhood she had glimpsed misty, fragmentary visions of the Other in this house. Never before had she seen one who appeared to her to be the embodiment of a living person. The significance of that idea terrified her. She could no longer be sure. What was real and what was not?
It's true. I am a witch. I am cursed.

Needing to regain her grip on reality, she searched for old Agnes, who always had a calming effect on her. But she decided not to confide in the servant about her encounter with the ‘Icarus' ghost. Agnes would panic, believing it to be a sign of her returning illness.

Later that morning, as Isabel came back downstairs, she felt a new pulse of vitality inside the great house – as if it was a giant in a fairy-tale being roused from centuries of sleep. Isabel could feel the fresh surge of hope that filtered through to her from Agnes and the network of lives in service who were dependent on the fate of the de Rolland family.

But is my life being changed for better or for worse?

Through the windows she looked down on the carriageway. The old family carriage, its doors emblazoned with the ancient crest, stood waiting before the front portico in readiness for the master's imminent departure for London. It was whispered Uncle Godfrey had important business with the family lawyers that would put an end to the long threat of debtors' prison. Cousin Silas's new phaeton stood nearby, its beautiful white horses pawing the gravel as if eager to charge off to some neighbouring estate.

Winter was drawing to a close and Isabel had still not been given the date for her promised journey to London. As her most reliable source of information was eavesdropping, she managed to give Agnes the slip and planted herself in the garden. It was so chilly no one would think of looking for her there. One of the French windows was slightly ajar so Uncle Godfrey's King Charles spaniel could come and go at will and it now allowed her to hear her guardian's conversation with Cousin Silas.

It was soon clear to her that Silas was using every facet of persuasion to bring the old man around to his way of thinking.

‘There's no need to panic, Uncle. We must go on as if nothing untoward has happened. The local constable hasn't even bothered to call. Why should he? There's no reason to link Isabel with this grim discovery. Her weeks of amnesia and discovery in the woods all happened three years ago. She's been closeted so closely since then half the villagers wouldn't even be able to describe her.'

Uncle Godfrey's voice was so hushed Isabel strained to hear it. ‘But the infant's corpse has evidently been buried for some time. What if the child was hers? She's never denied the fact that she remembers smothering it the moment it was born. She wasn't responsible for her actions. It was her sleeping sickness, of course. It could hardly be called infanticide in the true sense. A fourteen-year-old
girl of good family would never have been gaoled under the circumstances. But it would only take one malicious gossip in that God-forsaken village to make our long negotiated marriage contract null and void.'