like to see me long gone from here.”
“Yes, that’s quite true. You don’t belong here, not as my uncle Lawrence’s
nubile young wife, who sleeps alone in her own bedchamber while he sleeps alone
in the master’s suite.”
“It is none of your affair what either of us does.”
There was that flash of anger or violence in his dark eyes. I couldn’t miss it
this time, it was dark and intense and deep as a well, and I felt it like a blow.
“If I could,” he said, his voice low and savage as he turned to leave, “I would
throw you in a carriage and drive you to London right now. But you know, Andy, I
would never call you an abomination. Isn’t that what the old woman said?”
And then he was gone before I could say anything.
I turned back to the window. I don’t know how long I stood there, not really
thinking, just being there to absorb anything that might be in this strange room
when she called out to me from the doorway. For one instant, I believed it was
Caroline, come here now to find me in her room.
“I hope you are feeling well today, Andy.”
Naturally it wasn’t Caroline.
“Judith,” I said as I turned around. I was pleased to see her. There was no
guile, nothing at all hidden beneath her sweet girl’s face. “I am fine, thank
you.”
“I was worried about you, Andy. So was Miss Gillbank. She said what happened to
you was perfectly dreadful. She said she didn’t think she would have had the
courage to dash to the bedchamber door like you did.”
“I think all of us find we can do just about anything when we are forced into it.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“This was your mother’s music room, wasn’t it?”
Judith nodded and began walking around the empty room, touching her fingertips
to the wall here and there. “That’s what Mrs. Redbreast told me. She said my
mother played the harp so very beautifully. I don’t appear to have any of her
talent. Miss Gillbank says I should just keep practicing, but I know she
believes it’s hopeless. Andy, what happened last night, do you really believe
now that it was a nightmare?”
“Well, that’s what everyone else believes, so perhaps it is what really happened.”
“That was well said, but you didn’t say anything.”
It was not as easy to lie to her as I had to everyone else. “You will keep this
to yourself, Judith, all right?”
Her eyes grew larger, and she stepped right up to me. “What? I swear I’ll not
tell a soul.”
“The old woman last night was very real.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because George saw her. He saw her clearly because he barked his head off,
nearly leapt out of my arms to attack her. A dog doesn’t bark at someone else’s
nightmare.”
“Oh, goodness, you’re right. There is no doubt then. Did you tell Father that?”
“No, I didn’t. Listen to me, Judith. Adults don’t like to believe in things that
cannot be readily explained. It makes them nervous, uncertain. Even if I told
them about George, they wouldn’t like it. They would prefer to believe that I
made that up, too.”
“But you didn’t. Have you decided what you are going to do?”
“I smiled at her and managed to speak the truth at the same time. It was
difficult. “You mean, am I going to leave Devbridge Manor before I’m made to pay
for all of it?”
“That’s what the old woman said to you?”
“Yes, and a lot more besides.”
“What is it you are supposed to pay for?”
“I don’t know. But I remember that I am also the evil that revisits this house.
Does that make any sense at all to you?”
She shook her head. Perhaps I was speaking too frankly to her, but I felt she
deserved the truth. “I wish I could think of something,” she said then, and
walked to join me by the window. “I used to stand here and watch the gardeners
scythe the front lawn.
The sweet grass smells came right up through the open window. It was summer then,