The Two Lords of Wealdhant Manor (14 page)

G
inevra hesitated
on the manor steps, her usual confidence flagging in the face of the gloomy and intimidating facade of Wealdhant. “What about the ghosts, Jasper?”

Smiling at his sister’s nerves, since he so rarely got to see Ginevra out of sorts, Jasper strode into the manor and beckoned to her. “The ghosts have never bothered me yet. And if it is true that we are Ruth’s descendants, then they are our ghosts.”

Stepping carefully over the threshold, Ginevra folded her hands and looked around the front hall of the manor. “But they aren’t our ghosts, Jasper. Or they won’t be for so long. Just as you’ve said, the railway will turn up another heir, or the lands will… will…”

“Escheat,” Jasper supplied, watching his sister’s reactions with interest. He’d only brought the older, more sensible Ginevra along to help him confirm his ideas and plans. Phoebe would be too easily transported by the adventure of it, and Jasper was not in the least certain that they would be able to remain in the manor. “To the Crown.”

“Bless you,” Ginevra said, gaping up at the tall ceiling and the ornamental figures of tiny satyrs and gargoyles carved into the upper corners of the hall. “What a wondrous place. There’s really quite a lot to do, isn’t there? Mr. Clarke did quite a bit, I’m certain—is that stair-tread new?—but my goodness. How would one dust the carvings along the ceiling? I suppose we’d need quite a ladder.”

“Yes. And it hardly matters unless we can keep the place.”

Ginevra spun about in surprise. “Can we?”

“That’s what I brought you here to speak about.”

Ginevra frowned. “Me, but not Phoebe?”

“I don’t want her setting her heart upon it and being disappointed, since it is very likely that our hopes
shall
be disappointed.”

“What hopes?” Ginevra asked, coming close and searching her brother’s face with earnest longing. “How can we keep the manor, Jasper? Do you mean it?”

“Don’t
you
set your heart upon it, Ginny.”

“Tell me,” she insisted, eyes shining.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Jasper said, and sighed at how he seemed to be eternally surrounded by adventurous optimists. “The old family story. If we’re descended from Ruth. If it’s true.”

“
If
it’s true, then we inherit the manor, is that it? Ruth was the eldest, so our claim supersedes anything by any other supposed heirs from Sarah or Tabitha.”

“If it’s true. We have to prove it.”

Ginevra’s face wrinkled in thought. “How?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we can. All we have is the old kerchief with her name embroidered upon it. It’s nothing alone, but if we can find a few other scraps of information.”

“But where shall we find such information?” Ginevra asked. Her eyes had widened and her gaze was unfocused as she applied her clever mind to the problem ahead of them. It only took a matter of moments before she looked about herself with a weighing glance. “Here?”

“Here.”

“But Ruth never returned here. Not after what happened. No one did.”

Jasper strolled further into the house, climbing up the first few steps on the main stairwell and taking a seat upon them. “What if she did?”

“What?” Ginevra blinked, coming over to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

“Tell me the old story. The way you remember it.”

Ginevra narrowed her eyes at him the way she did when she suspected he knew more than he was bothering to share with his sisters, but after a moment she sighed and folded her hands to recite. “The old Earl of Wealdhant Manor was a wicked, awful man, who raged and beat his servants when he was sober, and raged and beat his daughters when he was drunk.”

Jasper took off his hat and held it in his hands as she retold the story that they’d heard hundreds of hundreds of times as they’d grown up.

“The girls bore it for years, hoping that as soon as they came of age, they would be married off and escape from his clutches. But even when they came of age, he showed no inclination to marry them off, not trusting any of their suitors to take his place as the Lord of Wealdhant once he was dead. He was a wicked, jealous old man.”

Ginevra took a seat on the bottom stair, leaning back against the balustrade as she related the story.

“Sarah had fallen in love with one of the stable grooms, and wanted to run away with him. Ruth and Tabitha prepared to help her, packing a satchel and filling it with food, and in the middle of the night they snuck her down the stairs.

“But the old Earl had learned of their plan, and he caught them at it. He raged at them, and struck at Sarah. She fell down the stairs and broke her leg, and that was when Ruth snatched up her father’s hunting rifle from over the mantle.”

Ginevra’s eyes turned toward the fireplace in the great hall. There was no gun over the mantle, but there were hooks for one. Ginevra’s eyes widened, and she shivered.

“The old man advanced upon them,” Jasper prompted.

Shaking off the reverie, Ginevra nodded. “Furious with rage at their rebellion, he advanced upon delicate Sarah, who was weeping with pain, but Ruth stepped in front of him, and warned him off. She told him that they were done with his tyranny and wrath, and that they were all three leaving.”

She shuddered again, looking around the dark old manor hall where the long-ago scene had supposedly taken place. Her voice quieted, reverent and fearful. “He lunged for the rifle, and she knew… she knew that if he took the gun away from her, he would beat them all, probably worse than he ever had before. Sarah was weeping and Tabitha was screaming, and her finger tightened upon the trigger.”

“Ginevra,” Jasper said, concerned about how she was trembling.

“He… he!” Ginevra launched up, scrambling away from the stairwell and staring at the base of the stairs. “Oh, god! It happened here! It happened right here.”

“She shot him,” Jasper said, finishing the story. “And the three of them fled. Sarah with her stable groom, and Tabitha and Ruth went their own ways. The three of them never spoke again.”

“Ruth… Ruth,” Ginevra said. “Ruth was the last to leave. She sent away all the servants, forbidding them to touch the body or to tell anyone of what happened.”

“And it seems that none of them did,” Jasper said. “Out of fear and superstition for the old Earl and his ghost. None of them wanted to be involved, and no one was ever notified. The manor fell to ruin rather than returning to the crown, and none of the girls ever returned to claim the house.”

“Except that Ruth came back to the grounds. Ruth came back, with a baby whose father was never known. A baby who was our grandmother.”

“We don’t know it was Ruth who came back. Grandmother said as much—she didn’t even know if her mother was Ruth. Her mother was only ever ‘mama’ or ‘Mrs. Waltham,’ and Grandmother said that her mother was dead before she first suspected that the story she told—our story—was her own story.”

“How can we prove it?” Ginevra asked, returning to the foot of the stairs.

“I don’t know,” Jasper said. “Search the house. The library. The county records. Try and find any clue to Mrs. Waltham before she came to the grounds. It’s an odd name, Waltham.”

Ginevra’s eyes widened. “It is an odd name. It sounds—it sounds almost like
Wealdhant
, a bit shifted through the local accent.”

“You know what I’ve begun to wonder, Ginny?”

Fascinated, Ginevra came closer. “What?”

“What do you suppose happened to the body?”

Ginevra shivered. “Of the old earl?”

“Yes. The story doesn’t say. They left that night, Ruth left last, sent off all the servants and ran away. Nothing about what happened to the body.”

His sister’s eyes darted to the bottom of the stairs and she edged away from the treads.

“It wasn’t here when Algernon came,” Jasper clarified, remaining at his spot on the stairs. “If it had been simply left there would be at least a skeleton.”

“But there’s no skeleton. And no gravestone, or we should have found it on the grounds as children.”

“So what happened to the old earl?”

Ginevra folded her arms and frowned deeply in thought. After a few minutes she trod nervously forward and knelt on the rug at the bottom of the stairs, rolling it back.

Jasper got up and descended the stairs to join her.

“Lend me your pocket-knife, Jasper,” she said, peering closely at the boards under the rug.

Retrieving it from his pocket, he held it out.

Ginevra wedged it carefully between the boards, prying out some of the old dirt that had lain for decades in the grooves and remained untouched even when the floors had been cleaned by Algernon’s servants. “Here. Look. It looks—it could be old blood—dried between the floorboards even after the body was cleared away.”

Jasper knelt beside her, inspecting the dark rust colour of the grime upon the knife. “I think Ruth cleared away the body.”

“She could have, if she were the last to leave. If the rest of it is true.”

“I think it’s true that the old earl was murdered that night, and that his daughters fled,” Jasper said, cleaning off the blade and returning it to his pocket. “Whatever the details are, the bones of the story are true. But what if she came back later for the body? Years later.”

Ginevra gasped. “While she was living in the groundskeeper’s cottage! But we’ve never—none of us have ever crossed the threshold before. Everyone says that it hasn’t been entered for a hundred years.”

“Maybe it was actually only ninety,” Jasper said, with a slight smile. “If Ruth came back, even if she shunned the old place, she could have returned and buried the body. Or she could have returned for other purposes.”

“Oh!” Ginevra said, understanding all at once. “And
if
she did, and
if
it really was Ruth, there might … well, there might be some clue, or some evidence.”

“It’s an unlikely chance,” Jasper warned. “It will take us time to search. If Algernon can solidify his claim and return, or if some other heir claims Wealdhant, we’ll have to keep our search a secret and they may prevent our efforts.”

“I understand, Jasper,” Ginevra said, nodding seriously up at him. “But it does mean—there’s a chance. That we might be the heirs. That you might be the true Lord of Wealdhant.”

“Shush,” Jasper said, laying a finger over her lips. “If we do this, it’s to protect Wilston from the railway and any other threats which might infringe upon it. Not for our own personal ambition.”

“And what of your … other interests with Mr. Clarke?”

Jasper scowled at her. “They are entirely irrelevant.”

Ginevra’s lips curled with mirth and she folded her hands. “Yes, my Lord Jasper.”

B
reathing
in the clear country air as he urged his horse up the hill outside of Cairkby, Algernon stopped at the summit to look around. The mottled grey and white clouds above poured down golden light through windows of blue, and they painted the wet, wintery moors in shades of honey and ochre.

Even the dark, lurking shape of Wealdhant seemed lighter. Sunlight winked off the windows and gathered on the corners of the roof. Algernon smiled at the sight of it, wondering if it might yet be beautiful in spring. He’d never seen the moors of Lincolnshire in the spring, but his heart felt light with hope and excitement that he could make a warm and welcoming home in this place: in Wealdhant, and perhaps with Jasper.

He’d engaged a horse in Cairkby, a high-stepping chestnut mare. His luggage would follow, along with Mr. Cullen and the retrieved or replaced staff from London. Algernon had no affairs left to settle in London, and he couldn’t bear to wait, so he would have to cope without servants or merely with whatever of the staff from Wilston could be re-engaged.

Where the lane branched between Wealdhant to the West and Wilston to the East, Algernon turned East. He looked back toward Wealdhant, feeling some part of his heart longing for the atmospheric old gothic manor. Smiling to himself at the knowledge that it was his and he was here to stay this time, he touched his heels to his horse’s sides, trotting toward Wilston and the sleepy village square.

“Mr. Clarke!”

Jasper’s sister Phoebe was carrying a basket and making her way West across the square. She waved to secure his attention, and Algernon dismounted. “Miss Waltham.”

“Mr. Clarke,” she said, dropping a small curtsey. “So you have returned after all. Jasper said you might.”

“Did he indeed?” Algernon asked, wondering what, exactly, Jasper had and hadn’t seen fit to mention to his sisters, particularly on the subject of Algernon’s return. To say nothing of the more intimate aspects of their relationship. “I have returned, and this time it will be to stay.”

“I am glad,” Phoebe said. “It is a pleasure, and Jasper has said that you are descended from Tabitha Allesbury. I suppose that makes us cousins!”

“Cousins!” Algernon exclaimed. “Because you and your siblings are descended from Ruth, you mean?”

“Yes, supposedly,” Phoebe agreed, and then pursed her lips in a frown. “Although we cannot prove it.”

“That is little enough matter,” Algernon said. “I believe it.”

Phoebe lit with pleasure at Algernon’s confidence. “Do you?”

“I do indeed. Let me see—if we share a great-grandfather… Tabitha and Ruth’s children would have been cousins, that would be my grandmother, and their children would have been second cousins, so that makes us third cousins.”

“I never supposed that I would be cousins with a…” Biting her lower lip, Phoebe’s eyes scanned over his face.

“Son of a Bharatiya of India,” Algernon said.

He could see her open her mouth to try the word and then think the better of it. “Yes,” she said, and smiled.

“It is only third cousins. Scientifically, you see, we only share—well, it would be a rather small percentage of the same blood, even though we are both from the Allesbury line.”

“Oh!” Phoebe gazed in awe. “Do you know quite a bit about bloodlines, Mr. Clarke?”

“I, ah, no,” he admitted, which had the unintended effect of introducing a lull into the conversation.