Silent On The Moor Part 32

"I am glad you have come," she said, and I believed her. "I wanted you to know that I am leaving tomorrow. Miss Earnshaw has offered me a post in her school. I am to live on the premises in Manchester and help her establish the curriculum. And when the pupils come, I am to teach modern languages and ancient history. Miss Earnshaw is not at all troubled by my lack of formal education," she finished, blushing hotly. "She says even though I am self-taught, I am well-suited to such a post."

"A very good fit, I think," I told her. "So you are leaving the moor at last."

She nodded. "I do hope Minna will see to my chickens," she said with a tiny smile.

"Perhaps you will have a flock at the school. You can teach the girls poultry-keeping skills," I suggested. "Every woman ought to have her own money, even if it is just a bit from the eggs."

Her smile broadened then. "Perhaps we will. It is a useful skill at that." She faltered then, and I could see that she was steeling herself for what she was about to say.

I spoke first. "Have you told him?"

"No, but I did write him a rather good letter. I even quoted a bit of Donne. He'll like that."

I nodded. "Yes, he will. My brothers all have a weakness for poetry, I'm afraid."

She looked up sharply then. "Do you think he will come after me?"

I thought a moment, then shook my head. "I think not. My brothers share a love of poetry, and a rather pliable character. They would all rather languish in their heartbreak than do anything useful about it. You've made rather a lucky escape, if you ask me. Valerius may take up writing sonnets, and that would be a tragedy indeed."

I spoke lightly, but I knew Valerius would feel the disappointment keenly. It was the first time in his life he had truly played the man, and I pitied him. He had so much compa.s.sion, so much tenderness to give. He had been badly thwarted in his choice of profession, and now he was to suffer yet another defeat.

Hilda straightened her shoulders then, and for the first time I saw the proud, stiff carriage of the Allenbys in her. "It would be too easy, you know. That's the trouble. If I married him, I would be safe and comfortable, and I would go on feeling as though I were wrapped in cotton wool. I am terrified of going to Manchester. I am terrified of living in a little room and making my tea on a spirit lamp. I am terrified of teaching. And that is why I must."

I knew only too well the feeling of being wrapped in cotton wool. I rose and offered my hand.

"Fear is how you know you are alive, my dear," I told her.

She took my hand and tipped her head to one side. She was actually rather pretty now that she wasn't scowling at me, and I understood why Val had thought her attractive. It was an interesting face, and one that promised great character.

"Are you afraid, Lady Julia?" she asked at length.

"Every day," I told her, thinking of a future without Brisbane. "Every day."

After I left Hilda, I set off amid lowering cloud to bid farewell to Rosalie and John-the-Baptist. Portia and I were almost completely packed and would be up before c.o.c.kcrow to make the long journey by road to the village with our trunks in time to catch the train to London. There was so much I wanted to thank Rosalie for, and I knew I would miss her terribly.

The rain was teeming down by the time I reached the cottage. Its lights glowed through the darkening gloom of the afternoon, beckoning with such homely warmth I nearly wept.

"Oh, don't be feeble," I told myself firmly. "You are merely tired and a little melancholy. A hot cup of tea and some good company, and you will be right as rain."

I set my shoulders against the wind and pressed on, nearly slipping over the flat rock at the turning of the path, and then almost falling against the door as a strong gust blew against my back.

"Lady Julia!" Rosalie exclaimed. She ushered me in, already rubbing at my hands and face with a towel. "You ought not to have come today. The storm grows stronger."

"I wanted to say goodbye," I explained, my voice m.u.f.fled by the towel.

She finished wiping my face and took my wet things. Only then did I realise she was not alone. I had expected John-the-Baptist, but not Brisbane. He was standing at the window, looking out at the moor, his back to the room. He must have seen me coming for some distance, time enough to school his reaction. He did not turn.

"Good afternoon, lady," John-the-Baptist said cordially. He rose and offered me his chair by the fire.

I held up a hand. "No, I cannot stay. I merely wanted to come and tell you both goodbye. I am leaving tomorrow, quite early."

Still there was no reaction from Brisbane. The set of his shoulders betrayed nothing. Was he angry I had come? Or was he as shattered as I by the idea of parting forever?

"I am sorry to hear it," John-the-Baptist said. "We will wish you a safe journey."

Rosalie went to the painted cupboard and returned, pressing a small silken bag into my hands. Like the first she had given me, it was lumpy and hard, and hung on a bit of velvet ribbon.

"Another charm, this one to keep you safe," she told me. "It is full of things which call down the protection of G.o.d, and it has been blessed by a powerful shuvani."

"You?" I asked, looping it about my neck.

She smiled and lifted her chin. "Of course."

We forgot ceremony then. She embraced me, pressing me close to her heart. "Do not fear the road before you, my dear. Only those who step boldly tread the right path."

I smiled at her enigmatic words. A true Gypsy to the end, I thought with great affection. I shook hands with John-the-Baptist, who then bowed with a flourish.

"Safe journey, lady," he told me.

I hesitated, then held out my hand for my wet things. It was a struggle to put them on again, for they were cold and heavy now, but I managed, and gave them both a smile that was rather braver than I felt.

I left, but Brisbane had never even turned. He could watch my back then as I left, I thought angrily, striding firmly through the wicket gate and slamming it as I went. I was not watching my steps. Between my irritation at Brisbane and the flooding rain, it was difficult to see, and my toe caught the flat rock at the crossroads.

"Why doesn't someone move this b.l.o.o.d.y thing?" I demanded, kicking it hard.

I do not know if it was my petulant gesture that dislodged the stone, or if the ground was so sodden the merest touch would have caused it to crumble like cake, but it did. One moment I was standing on solid ground, the next, I was hurtling into the opened earth, my feet and arms flailing as I fell. My scrabbling hands caught at a root and I hung, suspended, feet dangling helplessly over an abyss. I dared not look down. I screamed for help, and before the echo of the word had even died away, there was Brisbane. He must have seen me fall. There was no other way he could have managed to reach me so quickly.

"Thank G.o.d," I sobbed. He lay flat on his stomach, doubtless tearing open the st.i.tches in his ribs, but he never gave the slightest hint he was in pain. He turned over his shoulder to shout something, and I fancied John-the-Baptist was anchoring his legs. He reached down with both arms, almost, but not quite reaching me.

He cursed soundly, then reached back with his left hand to secure a better grip. He stretched out his right hand and just caught my wrist, holding it fast.

"I cannot hold on, and you cannot lift me with one arm," I said, kicking my feet in a vain attempt to find some purchase on the wall of earth in front of me.

Brisbane gritted his teeth against what must have been a tearing pain in his shoulder. Rain dripped from his sleek black head and he held on to me with an iron grip.

"Trust me," he said, infusing his words with every emotion he felt but had never dared to say.

"I do," I told him, realising I trusted him more than any person I had ever known. My life was literally in his hands, I thought wonderingly, and yet I knew I would be perfectly safe.

And then he dropped me. Without preamble, without discussion, he merely opened his hand and let me fall. I was too startled even to scream. I landed with a thud some four or five feet below where I had been dangling.

"Well, I suppose I am well-served for not looking down," I thought sourly. There was some commotion above, and in a moment Brisbane descended smoothly by means of a rope, holding a lantern that threw wicked shadows across the planes of his face.

"You might have warned me," I told him with a peevish scowl.

"I didn't want you to have time to be frightened," he said simply, but his tone was distracted. He was circling slowly, raising the lantern to throw its feeble light along the earthen walls.

Suddenly, his expression turned grim and he put out his free arm. "Julia, I want you to move quickly but very carefully. Climb onto my back and hold on. We have very little time."

"Time for what?" I demanded, pushing myself up. It was only then that I realised I had landed on something rather firmer than the soft peat mud of the moor. "Brisbane, this is wood. Proper planking. What on earth was this doing below that flat stone at the crossroads?" I asked.

"Julia, now!" he ordered, and I obeyed. He whistled and there was a creaking groan from the ropes as we slowly began our ascent.

I pressed my face against the collar of his shirt. It smelled quite good, I thought idly. A whiff of something citrussy, perhaps bergamot.

We inched upward, at last coming to the rim of the hole. "Be careful here, the ground is not firm," he told me. I scrambled gracelessly over him and collapsed, feeling the firm turf beneath me. Rosalie darted forward, wrapping me in her arms and crooning over me. It seemed rather a big fuss over something that had in the end been so minor, but I let her. John-the-Baptist stood a few feet away, the rope harnessed firmly about his middle, stretching taut as he continued to haul Brisbane to the surface.

"What an extraordinarily strong man your husband is," I remarked to Rosalie.

Just then, the earth itself seemed to collapse. The hole where I had disappeared opened up, the walls crumbling inward with a great roar that sounded like the end of the world. Rosalie and I were knocked to the ground, and lay, clutching the sodden gra.s.s until the trembling of the earth subsided. John-the-Baptist had fallen flat upon his back, the rope snapped in half.

I screamed Brisbane's name and scrambled as close as I dared to the edge of the crater that now scarred the face of the moor. John-the-Baptist looped an arm around my waist and hoisted me backward. "It is not safe, lady. If there is a way out, he will find it."

I struggled against him, but by the time I kicked my way free, Brisbane had hefted himself over the edge, covered in peaty black mud, his expression dumbfounded.

"Oh, thank G.o.d," I sobbed. I threw myself at him, heedless of the mud.

He held me tightly for a long moment, still clearly stunned by his experience.

"What is it?" I asked. "What did I land upon?"

"A coffin," he said.

He looked straight at his aunt and she gestured toward me. "We will talk inside. Lady Julia will take a chill."

Brisbane moved swiftly to cut her off, placing himself squarely in front of her.

"We will talk now," he said to Rosalie. "That is my mother's coffin."

Rosalie looked at John-the-Baptist, but he merely shrugged. Rosalie turned back to Brisbane, her expression inscrutable.

"Yes, that is where Mariah Young was buried. At the crossroads."

"A suicide," Brisbane said flatly. "You told me she died in gaol."

"She did. She hanged herself with her own petticoat," Rosalie said sadly. "And they buried her there, with a stake through her heart so that she would not walk."

Brisbane turned to walk off, but Rosalie caught his arm, leaving me standing some little distance apart.

"That is why I stayed. For my own penance. I had a hand in my sister's death, we all did. The chemist, those terrible children, Sir Alfred. When Mariah hanged herself, Sir Alfred believed the only way to break the curse she had laid upon him was to make amends to me. He let me have this cottage, and he had them lay her at this crossroads so I could always watch over her. And now the earth has moved, and she has spoken to us at last," she said, her eyes shining.

Brisbane stared at her. "Are you quite mad?"

Rosalie began to weep then, or to laugh. The sounds were very alike, and she rocked, holding herself. "Oh, my dear boy. Did you not even see that for what it is?"

She pointed at the hole, and I realised she was not mad. She was entirely, completely, beautifully sane.

"It's a mine!" I cried, stumbling toward the edge to peer down into it.

Brisbane caught me, an arm about my waist, and we looked in together. I could just see timbers, the beams heaved into place perhaps by the Romans themselves so many centuries ago. And through the thick soft black peat mud of the walls, I could see the rain cutting through the earth, exposing the dark metallic veins.

"Lead?" I guessed, hardly daring to hope.

"Silver," Brisbane corrected. He looked at me then, a slow smile spreading over his face. "A silver mine. On my land."

I threw myself at him for the second time in as many minutes. "Shall I get down on one knee?" he asked, after an extremely interesting interlude. I noticed Rosalie and John-the-Baptist had moved a little distance away to give us some privacy.

"You haven't asked Father yet," I reminded him.

"Oh, good G.o.d. I don't think I can face that."

"Let's just run away to Gretna Green," I said, pressing my lips to the enticing spot where his jaw met his neck.

"Absolutely not," he said roundly. "Your family would string me up from the nearest tree. No, if we are going to do this thing, we shall do it properly. At Bellmont Abbey or in London, I do not care. You arrange whatever you like and I will be there," he said, brushing the sodden hair away from my brow. "And we will go wherever you wish for our wedding journey," he said, his eyes lighting with sudden mischief. "Even to the ends of the earth with you in a white petticoat."

I poked him hard in the ribs. "You did hear me."

"Every word."

There followed another extremely interesting interlude during which I completely forgave him for hearing my impa.s.sioned plea when he was unconscious. And after it was concluded, I ventured a question.

"Would you really have let me go?"

He took my hands and tucked them into the pocket of his coat. "You are cold. We ought to get you inside."

I prodded him again. "Would you?"

He tipped his head to the side, his hair thoroughly soaked and sleek as a seal's. "Would you?"

I nibbled at my lip. "Well, I was planning a rather sizeable donation to Aunt Hermia's Reformatory for Penitent Women," I admitted.

"How sizeable?"

"A few hundred thousand pounds. Just enough to reduce me to the status of barely respectable widow. I might have even had to take employment," I told him.

"What are you fit for?"

"I thought perhaps I would make a very good partner in detection for a certain inquiry agent of my acquaintance," I said, running a finger along his underlip.

He grabbed at my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm. My knees felt suddenly weak and I think I may have clung to him a little harder. "Partner? I thought a.s.sistant."

I gave him a repressive look. "If we are going to do this thing," I said, deliberately turning his words back on him, "then let us have it clearly understood. We are equal partners. Both of us now have money to contribute, and both of us have rather unique talents. I think we would make admirable partners."

"We always have," he said, and that simple declaration meant far more to me than the one he made a moment later, which was a little more poetic and a great deal more private. He had just concluded this romantic little speech with an extremely expert kiss when we heard approaching hoof-beats, m.u.f.fled by the moor and the rain.

We looked up to find a small party approaching, and to my astonishment, I realised it was my brother Bellmont, accompanied by his eldest, Orlando, and a gentleman and young lady I did not know.

"Driffield," Brisbane called. The Duke of Driffield raised his hat in spite of the rain, smiling broadly.