Louise Allen - Moonlight And Mistletoe

Somehow he was holding their attention. No one spoke, although eyes were turning towards the Nugents, who sat like statues in the front row. ‘Their only hope was to force Miss Lattimer to leave, but she would not sell. She must be scared away, and so a new haunting of the Moon House began. They almost killed Miss Lattimer’s butler in the process, they terrified her companion and maidservant, they harassed her beyond what any lady might be expected to stand and they told a tale of tragedy and death walking, coming closer with the changing phases of the moon.’

He paused, counting heartbeats. One… two…three… four. ‘But they disturbed something with their blasphemous meddling, and now, it seems, Diana’s spirit has returned in truth. The moon is waning…’

As he spoke the room was suddenly filled with the scent of roses, as shocking as it was lovely, wreathing through the air like a summer’s evening in deepest December. Mrs Bunting gave a sudden gasp and all the candles but the branch by Guy’s side went out. His cue. Now. He started to his feet, ‘What the hell?’

A cold wind blew through the room, sending the candle flames guttering and the flames in the fire dancing, their reflection casting a devilish glow across frightened faces. Then the heavy curtains over the door at his side fluttered as though they were merely gauze and parted and a figure appeared. All in white, its long golden hair falling in ringlets around its shoulders, a great rope of pearls falling across its milky pale bosom, it turned slowly to face the audience and stretched out a hand.

The scream when it came wrenched Hester from her state of shock. By her side Sarah Nugent was on her feet, but it was not she who had uttered that ghastly noise, it was her brother. Sir Lewis had his hands thrown up to ward off the spectre, his face was contorted in the strange light, but everyone heard his voice.

‘You’re dead, you whore, you’re dead…get away from me…it’s ours, all the money’s ours, he bled the family dry for you, you whore. If she had only seen sense, only sold-’

The vicious slap his sister cracked across his cheek silenced him and he recoiled from her, his hands still to his face. Hester stared round the room; the audience was transfixed, the spectre of Diana had vanished as silently as it had appeared. ‘You fool!’ Sarah snarled. ‘Now get us out of this!’

She seized Hester’s arm, spinning her into Lewis’s arms and he grabbed hold of her with the strength of desperation. Hester struggled, then she was pushed away as a small figure hurtled into Sir Lewis like a terrier on a rabbit. There was a thump, a cry and the baronet was doubled up, retching and clutching his groin.

‘Are you all right, Miss Hester?’ Jethro caught her and held her. ‘I kicked him in the gingambobs, he won’t be going anywhere now.’

‘I know you did, Jethro. Well done. Thank you.’ Hester turned in his embrace and stared at the chaos that her kitchen had become.

A group of thickset men erupted from the cupboard where the ghost had come from and held the Nugents firmly between them while one repelled Mrs Bunting, who seemed intent on doing physical harm to both of her neighbours. ‘Wicked, wicked,’ she was repeating. Miss Redland had fainted neatly into the arms of the curate, but for once her mother was paying no attention, instead listening, as they all were, to Sir Jeremy Evelyn.

‘… powers invested in me as magistrate I arrest you, Lewis Nugent, and you. Sarah Nugent, for breaking and entering, assault, causing grievous bodily harm… yes, Vicar-?’ he broke off to listen to Mr Bunting’s agitated whisper ‘-theft and the improper disposal of human remains. These constables will take you to Aylesbury where you will await trial.’

‘I demand a lawyer.’ Sarah was not yielding one inch, although at her side her brother was sobbing now.

‘Certainly, ma’am.’ Mr Earle stepped forward. ‘I am at your disposal. You are going to need all the help you can get.’ His smile was not reassuring.

As they were bundled out of the door, Hester looked round for Guy and found him interrogating Mr Bunting. His face when he came over to her was stiff with anger. ‘Why did you not tell me about the hand?’

‘There was nothing you could do about it.’ She felt too tired now to explain.

‘It was in your bed?’

Why was he so angry with her? She had not put the sad, grisly relic there. ‘Yes, on the pillow. Guy, please, I am sorry to be ungrateful, but I wish you would just go away and take all these people with you.’

There was a long silence while he stood looking at her, the anger still hot in his eyes. ‘Very well, Hester. I will go away and leave you in peace.’ To her surprise he did not argue but did just that, taking Sir Jeremy and the remaining constable with him.

‘Oh.’ Hester sank down on her chair, prey to a feeling of complete anticlimax. Susan was lighting the candles again and Maria, showing far more firmness that usual, was ushering people out of the room and sending Jethro and the footmen to retrieve wraps and coats. ‘Such a shock for all of us, I know you will forgive us for ending the evening so abruptly.’

Her voice faded away as the door shut and Hester leaned back, blinking at the firelight. So it was all over now. The ghost laid, the Nugents routed and Guy at last ready to leave and forget her. She closed her lids; how foolish to stare into the glow like that, it had made her eyes water. I will feel better soon, she told herself, not so tired, better able to manage. This is just shock making me feel so dizzy.

Hester opened her eyes and found the ghost of Diana Parrish standing looking down at her. ‘Hello,’ said the ghost wearily, revealing herself to be Georgiana Broome. ‘Men are very good at this sort of drama, are they not? But not very expert at managing the aftermath. Has my brother gone?’

‘Yes.’ Hester gestured at the chair next to her, too disorientated to ask why Georgiana no longer appeared to think her a scarlet woman. ‘He is angry with me.’ She explained about the skeletal hand.

Lady Broome sighed and sat down, extending a hand to the flames. ‘That cupboard is freezing. I wonder how long it will take the smell to go away-that was an entire bottle of rose essence which went on to the fire. Oh, let me give you these back.’ She lifted the pearls from round her neck and handed them to Hester.

‘Thank you, but I could not possibly take them, they are so valuable-and, in any case I rather think they are yours. You are her granddaughter, are you not?’

‘Yes.’ Georgiana continued to hold out the rope of milky orbs. ‘I insist, please take them. She would have liked you to have it, you have her sort of courage.’

‘What happened to her and her child?’ Hester took the pearls reluctantly and let them run through her fingers, thinking of the woman who had once owned them. It was strange to be sitting here at peace in a sort of exhausted truce with the woman who had crushed her hopes of love and happiness with a few words.

‘The child was our mother Allegra. Diana struggled to stay alive in London. Mama could remember very little of that, other than being cold and hungry and it always being noisy. Then, when Allegra was eight, Diana found employment in the home of Lady Theodora Westrope. She soon rose to become a trusted companion and Allegra was brought up with Theodora’s favourite nephew, our father, who in the fullness of time became the Earl of Buckland and married his childhood playmate.’

‘We knew nothing of this until my mother was dying, then she called us both to her and told us everything, gave us the papers Diana had left. Like a fool I wanted to leave things as they were, not admit to having an actress for a grandmother and a mother born out of wedlock, but Guy wanted the Moon House-I think as a sort of reparation for what had happened to Diana, to bring it back to the woman it was intended for.’

‘And he could not tell me why he wanted to buy it because it was your story too and he knew you would not want it known.’

The two women sat in silence for a while, then Georgiana said, ‘I am more sorry than I can say about blurting out the scandal of your position with Colonel Norton. Miss Prudhome came to see me and told me the truth.’

‘What?’ Hester was startled out of her exhaustion. ‘How dare she?’

‘She dared because she loves you,’ Lady Broome replied. ‘And she made me promise not to tell Guy. She said that my opinion did not matter provided I did not spread the rumour, but that if he did not come to disbelieve it of his own accord there was no hope for the two of you.’

That was true. How brave of Maria to dare her wrath and the scorn of the haughty Lady Broome. Who was apparently not so haughty after all. ‘Does he believe it?’

‘I think perhaps he must after all,’ Georgiana replied sadly. ‘Otherwise, why does he not come and speak to you about it?’

There was a scratch on the door and Jethro came in with a folded note on a salver. Hester recognised the bold, black handwriting and reached out her hand, but he shook his head. ‘For Lady Broome, Miss Hester.’

Politely Hester stood up and moved away, leaving Georgiana to read the message. ‘Have they all gone, Jethro? What were they saying?’ It was possible to carry on, even through a haze of shock and exhaustion, even if your heart was quite broken.

‘Yes, Miss Hester. They were all very shocked, of course, but I don’t believe, once they started thinking about it, that they were very surprised.’

There was an exclamation from Lady Broome who was holding two sheets of notepaper covered in Guy’s sprawling hand and looking at Hester with an expression she could not read. ‘He has gone to London.’ She looked down at the letter again and murmured, ‘Will there be enough time?’

‘For you to carry out the Christmas preparations in his absence? I am sure you can leave it all to Parrott,’ Hester assured her. ‘Parrott can manage anything.’ Did she imagine it, or did Lady Broome mutter, But not this?

The Moon House was easy enough to set to rights after the party, but local society was in a turmoil that apparently would not be calmed without endless repetition, and exaggeration, of the facts.

Hester, wanting nothing more than to sit and mourn Guy’s loss, found herself receiving one visitor after another, each intent on telling her how brave she had been and how they had never trusted the Nugents. Even the villagers had their own way of finding out what was going on and Ben Aston seemed to have no other work than to hang around chopping wood and bringing in kindling for Susan.

‘Christmas Eve tomorrow.’ Hester said brightly, far more brightly than she felt. She was no worse off than she had been before Guy Westrope had entered her life, she told herself robustly, o why was she feeling so very sorry for herself now when she was secure in her home and all danger was past? ‘We must wrap our presents and find a Yule log and do as much cooking as we can so that Christmas Day is a holiday.’

‘I did promise Lady Broome that I would spend some time with her tomorrow, if that is all right, Hester dear?’ Maria looked anxious and faintly agitated, and Hester had not the heart to point out there was plenty to keep her occupied at home. If this new friendship helped bring Maria out of her shell, so much the better. She had already spent several hours at the Old Manor. Hester had said nothing about her breach of confidence: much good had come from it and she had shown more perception than Hester had credited her with in not telling Guy the truth.

Oh, why was she thinking about him again? The entire village seemed empty without him, she felt lonely and abandoned, yet she knew where he was-in London, doubtless on important business-and his whereabouts should be of no concern to her now in any case.

Put it off as she might, bedtime came round with a horrible inevitability and Hester took herself upstairs reluctantly, knowing she was facing another night when sleep would prove elusive. Susan tucked her up, muttering something about some laundry she must set to soak overnight and Hester was left alone in the flickering light of the fire to watch the waning moon through her uncurtained window. I really must do something about the shutters and some curtains, she thought. That at least was a practical thing to occupy her mind as she lay awake in the dark. Repair the shutters, of course, but what about the curtains? Silk again, or would dimity be pretty?

The clock struck twelve. Had Susan gone to bed yet? She hadn’t heard her. Then the tread at the top of the stair creaked and she could hear footsteps along the landing. At last. Susan must be tired, she had worked so hard on the party, and then today, clearing up.