Authors: Kristen Ashley
She’d been
shaking with fury and when she exited the room she nearly ran into
both Mrs. K and Veronika who, if she had thought about it at the
time, were more than likely listening at the door.
She wanted
someone to talk to (or more precisely someone to vent to) but Mrs.
K looked at her kindly and Veronika gave her a shaky smile and they
both scurried away as quickly as they could.
That meant,
obviously, both of them were out as confidants.
She would
normally call Patricia but her mother, she knew, would have lost
her mind and flown out on the next available plane.
In a moment of
temporary insanity, she considered calling Douglas.
Instead she
phoned Charlotte.
Charlotte listened and before Julia could relate the whole
story, her new friend interrupted with, “That woman is
vile
.”
For some
reason, this comment made Julia relax.
“
It was
like a scene out of a bad soap opera,” Julia told her and couldn’t
stop herself from laughing at the memory which, looking back,
seemed ridiculous and
exactly
like a scene out of a bad soap opera (unfortunately, it
wasn’t).
“
If
Douglas is away and you need a break, you just pack up those kids
and come to London. Ollie and I have
plenty
of room.”
“Charlie,”
Julia explained, still laughing and touched by this offer from her
new friend, “I can’t drive. I don’t have a car or a license
yet.”
“Then I’ll
come get you!” Charlotte declared.
Julia had to
decline. As much as she wanted to escape, it would mean taking the
kids out of school, shaking up their lives yet again and she
couldn’t do that.
No, she was
stuck and she had to do the best she could.
However,
sadly, Monique wasn’t nearly finished yet.
All sign of
sugar bowl, butter and jam was away the next morning at the
breakfast table. When Julia asked Mrs. K where it was, Mrs. K
explained that Lady Ashton had told her not to include it when
laying the table.
So Julia put
it on the table herself.
The next
morning, it was gone again.
So Julia put
it back.
And this went
on.
Evening meals
were the same struggle. Eventually, Julia commandeered Carter,
grabbed Ruby and went to the grocery store herself.
Mrs. K
continued to make healthy meals. Julia, with Ruby’s “help”, worked
alongside her adding buttery garlic bread and thick gravies and
making cakes and pies.
It was the
fourth night Monique was home, and the first night she deigned to
dine with them, when pecan pie with ice cream concluded the
dinner.
When Julia
brought in the dessert, Monique stared at it in disgust.
As Julia cut a
healthy piece for the still introverted Lizzie, Monique announced,
“You do that child no favours, she’s already fighting a weight
problem as it is.”
Lizzie’s
twelve year old girl ears registered this insult and she
stiffened.
Julia stared
at her niece, the girl’s eyes haunted, her cheeks hollow. Lizzie
had most likely lost ten pounds she couldn’t afford since her
parents died. She had no weight problem.
The courteous
thing to do was hold her tongue and have a word with Monique during
a private moment but Julia was too incensed for courtesy.
“
Monique, you may be under the ludicrous impression that
those Hollywood lollipop girls with their stick-thin bodies and
enormous heads are attractive but they… are…
not
. They look like aliens from another planet!
Lizzie needs to put
on
weight, not
take it off.”
Monique had
stared at her with murder in her eyes and, with no other option,
Julia simply stared back. All three children watched in stunned
silence but finally Julia broke the staring contest and carried on
serving dessert like nothing happened while Monique left the table
in icy silence.
After that
episode, she wanted to call Douglas again, which she knew was an
irrational idea. She was saved from doing that by Charlie calling
her.
She told her
friend about the lollipop girl comment and Charlie hooted with
laughter.
“
Forget
coming here, I’m coming to visit you.
This
I have to see.”
Julia laughed
with her but no matter how fun Charlie was making it seem, it was
anything but fun and the next day, it became worse.
When she
asked Carter to take her to the grocery store, he declined saying
that Lady Ashton told him that he could only take Julia somewhere
if
she
approved it,
personally.
“I see,” Julia
replied quietly as Carter wrung the cap in his hands either
nervously or angrily, she couldn’t tell as his face was carefully
blank but his lips were thinned. “That’s okay, Carter, it’s a
beautiful day. I’ll walk!”
It was
not a beautiful day. It was chilly and grey and threatening rain.
But that wasn’t going to stop her.
Nothing
was going to stop her.
There were
footpaths crisscrossing all over the United Kingdom, Gavin had
introduced her to them. She found a walking map in the library,
plotted her course, grabbed a couple of umbrellas and she and Ruby
went on an expedition. It was more than two miles there and back
and both of them were exhausted and drenched by the rain that came
in the last half mile but it didn’t matter. Ruby loved it and Julia
was determined that woman was not going to beat her. Monique was
not going to use the staff against her and Julia was not going to
allow the servants’ already unhappy existence to suffer for
anything Julia did.
Luckily, the
next day, her driving license came in the mail.
“Relief!” she
shouted as she opened her mail and Veronika, who was clearing away
the breakfast dishes jumped. Julia walked straight to her and
grabbed both her cheeks and kissed the girl on her forehead.
“Freedom!” she crowed to Mrs. K who had just walked in to witness
her exuberance and Julia waved the license at them and strode away
to e-mail her mother and call Charlie and Sam.
That evening,
just when she thought things would start swinging her way, she saw
the man behind the window. He was looking at her imploringly and
trying to reach through the glass toward her. The minute his hands
tried to push through the glass, he disappeared, the vision of him
shimmering and melting until he was gone.
Julia had
stifled a scream upon seeing him, stood staring at the space he was
in for moments after he was gone and then she slapped the draperies
shut. She spent the rest of the night trying (and failing) to talk
herself out of believing what she saw.
There were no
such things as ghosts.
Were
there?
The next day,
Monique thankfully left for a spa visit in London with no word on
when she would return and no good-byes.
With the
vision of the man still foremost in her mind (and seeing a ghost
was
not
a relief
from having Monique or Douglas’s bizarrely passionate kiss good-bye
(he’d
never
kissed
her, passionately or otherwise) being the things foremost in her
mind), Julia approached Mrs. K and Veronika in the afternoon while
they were in the kitchen.
Without
leading into it gently, she simply announced, “I saw a man outside
my window last night.”
Veronika, who
had spent the last week desperately attempting to be neither seen
nor heard, especially when Lady Ashton was around, let out a little
scream.
Mrs. K turned
from the stove where she was making a delicious-smelling stew,
taking advantage of Monique’s absence to fatten up the
children.
“Oh dear,” she
muttered.
“
Oh dear
is right,” Julia replied even though she felt
oh dear
was an understatement. “And Ruby sees him
too. She waves at him and I even saw her talking to him the other
day.”
Ruby was off
with Carter picking up Lizzie and Willie. Mrs. K looked at Veronika
who looked back at her, the young girl’s face pale and
frightened.
“All right,
there’s nothing for it. You two, yes, Veronika, the both of you,
sit down,” Mrs. K ordered, dipping her head to the kitchen
table.
Without
further coaxing, Veronika and Julia sat together at the big, wooden
kitchen table with its friendly yellow oil cloth. Mrs. K put the
lid on the stew and was about to turn to them when Mr. Kilpatrick
walked through the door.
Julia had only
met Roderick Kilpatrick a couple of times. According to Mrs. K, her
husband took care of the grounds, oversaw the gardeners, allowed or
disallowed hunters as the case may be and also maintained and
oversaw several other properties and farms that Douglas owned in
the vicinity. He had a wealth of coarse grey hair, a big, droopy
moustache and ruddy cheeks.
“Miss Julia.
Veronika,” he touched his cap to them and looked at his wife, “I’ll
come back later.”
“You’ll stay,
Roddy, she’s seen The Master.”
That brought
Roddy up short and he swung his head toward Julia and then looked
like he’d try to make good an escape before he saw the severe look
his wife gave him. Upon seeing her look, he reluctantly entered the
room.
“Veronika,
have you seen him?” Mrs. K asked, her voice losing its wifely
authority and turning kind.
Veronika
nodded, her eyes wide.
“Nothing for
it, Rod,” Mrs. K said decisively, her eyes swinging back to
him.
Mr. Kilpatrick
sighed and both the Kilpatricks sat across from Julia and
Veronika.
“There’s
nothing to fear, lasses. Really there ain’t. He’s been around, and
so has his missus, for as long as this house has been standin’,”
Roddy Kilpatrick announced.
Julia glanced
at Veronika who returned her look, her dark eyes frightened.
“No one knows
the real story,” Mrs. K began. “Some say he killed her, some say
someone else killed them both. The truth is, they found his body
outside, dead from exposure and looking like he’d been trying to
get in. They found The Mistress in the house and she’d been
strangled.”
Veronika’s English may not have been the greatest but she
understood
that
and let out
a frightened peep.
“Nothing
missing, no forced entry, all the doors were locked from the inside
and no one knew of any enemies that would hate either of them
enough. No one knew, either, of any troubles they were having,” Mr.
Kilpatrick went on.
“Who were
they?” Julia asked.
“Lord and Lady
of this very house,” Roddy Kilpatrick explained. “He built it for
her, the biggest, grandest house in the county. He was rich, just
became the Baron on the death of his father, and everyone says he
loved her more than money or titles or anything. She was a
merchant’s daughter, not of his class but enough so that he could
court her. They said she loved him just the same. They lived in
this house for weeks, maybe a few months when it happened.”
“She left a
baby boy,” Mrs. K added. “He was raised by her mother and the line
was safe but, ever since, he’s been trying to get in and she, well
no one knows what she’s doin’.”
“She?” Julia
prompted.
“
Ever
feel a draught around yer ankles? Or hear any whispers? People say
sometimes that she screams,” Mr. Kilpatrick explained, Julia’s
mouth dropped open and Mr. Kilpatrick nodded. “Yep, that’s her. No
one ever sees her but they
feel
her. No one knows if she keeps him out or if she’s tryin’
to let him in.”
Mrs. K took
the story from there. “They say, and Lady Tamsin believed this,
that this house is cursed. That the curse will only lift when a
living Sommersgate baron finds a bride that he loves truly, and she
truly loves him in return, then The Old Master will be let in to
reunite with his bride and then they’ll be at peace and so will
Sommersgate.”
“But,” Julia
began, “this house is over a hundred years old. There has to have
been some baron that loved his wife in that time.”
The husband
and wife looked at each other and then looked at Julia, shaking
their heads.
“It wasn’t
often done in that class, my love,” Mrs. K explained.
“
But
now, these days it is… isn’t it?” Julia asked, wondering about
Monique and Maxwell (not that she could imagine Monique
loving
anyone
,
including her dead husband).
Julia received
more shaking of the heads.
It was then
the kids came home, crashing loudly into the kitchen and story time
was over.
But Julia
found a moment to search out Veronika before the girl left for the
day. When she did, Julia touched her arm.
“Are you
okay?” Julia asked. “With this, er… ghost business,” she went on to
explain.
“Sad,”
Veronika said, her eyes making that one word far more
expressive.
Julia nodded
and smiled and was about to walk away when Veronika stopped
her.
“You?” she
asked and then went on hesitantly. “Okay?” Julia nodded again but
Veronika forged on, looking scared but determined. “Not with
ghosts, with…” She let that hang and Julia knew exactly what she
meant.
Without
thinking, Julia pulled the girl into a hug and after a moment
Veronika returned it.
“I’m fine,”
Julia whispered. “Don’t worry about me. It’ll be okay for all of
us,” Julia stated with feeling. “I promise.”
This time,
Veronika nodded, pulled away, gave Julia a pretty but tentative
smile and then walked away.