'Then I wish you good day, mistress,' he said slowly, nodding once more before replacing the hat on his head and turning the horse toward the village. 'Mind you take care on this road in future.'
I had the oddest impression that he was warning me against something other than being run down by a horse, but before I had time to fully register his words he was gone, and I was left standing in the middle of the path like a fool. Pulling myself together with an effort, I left the path and walked home across the fields, not wishing to chance another meeting with Richard de Mornay on the village street.
My uncle's house, viewed from the back across the roughened fields, was a dismal and unwelcoming sight. In the few days that I had spent there since my flight from London I had learned to dread the place, as I had in my childhood dreaded the forbidding sight of the Tower of London. Both, in their way, were prisons.
There was no rational basis for my impression, nor for my growing fear of my uncle. I had not been mistreated, I had been accepted without question into the daily life of the family, and Uncle Jabez's manner toward me was invariably courteous, if somewhat distant. But I had nonetheless begun to feel uneasy, like a child roaming the hallways of a strange house in the dead of night, expecting at every turn to encounter some indescribably hideous monster. Indeed, as the days passed, I became increasingly aware of this monster's presence; I could almost feel it, lurking beneath the facade of the daily routine, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And although I could not yet put a face to it, I was certain of its existence.
With dragging footsteps, I entered the house through the back door and found Rachel in the kitchen, up to her elbows in pastry. She looked up, smiling and streaked with flour.
'Did you have a good walk?' she asked, and then, as I nodded, 'I was beginning to worry for you, you were away so long.'
'I went to the churchyard, to see the grave of my grandfather,' I explained, my voice absent. 'Rachel, what do you know of a man named Richard de Mornay?'
She looked up sharply, hesitating, and her eyes slid past me, widening in sudden apprehension. I had not heard my uncle enter the room, but I felt him behind me before he spoke.
'Richard de Mornay,' he repeated, his voice lingering unpleasantly on the words. 'How do you know of him?’
'We passed on the road today,' I answered truthfully, 'and he spoke to me.'
'He ... spoke to you. And that is all?'
'Yes.'
'And yet you ask after him.'
The interrogation was grating sorely on my nerves, but I controlled my temper with an effort and kept my voice as even as I could. 'I asked after him because I was curious,' I said, raising my chin a little. 'His clothes were uncommonly fine, and he rode a lovely horse.' I swallowed, meeting my uncle's eyes. 'I was curious,' I said again.
Jabez Howard held my gaze for a long moment before he lowered his eyes and smiled, releasing me.
'Richard de Mornay,' he said, his tone conversational, 'is the young lord of Crofton Hall. He is of a noble family, and holds the rank of baronet from his father, who died five years ago. He is a man to be respected, but'—he caught my eyes again—'he is not a gentleman. The devil dwells in Richard de Mornay. You will not speak to him again.' He turned and walked into the dining room, leaving me standing by the hearth in a sudden chill. A strange noise penetrated the oppressive silence, a shrill and persistent ringing sound that grew steadily louder, coming in short, staccato bursts. The room wavered, shimmering like the horizon on a hot summer afternoon, and the walls and furniture reassembled themselves before coming into focus once more, clear and comfortingly solid.
I was standing in the pantry of my own house, facing the kitchen door, listening to the insistent ringing of the telephone in the front hall. I just let it go on ringing, staring dumbly at the open door, until the last vibration of sound had died away. Reality trickled back in slow, disjointed streams of conscious thought, and it seemed an eternity before I could summon the will to move from my spot by the pantry wall into the spacious, air-filled front hallway, where I stood looking down at the sleek black telephone as though it were a being from another planet.
And as I stood there, staring at it, with one hand partially outstretched, it began to ring again.
Twelve
The next day dawned Fair and warm, bringing with it the first faint hint of summer's approaching heat. By early afternoon the clouds that had been in evidence that morning had dwindled to insubstantial wisps of transparent white, barely discernible against the brilliant blue sky, and the sun hung like a great yellow jewel in their midst.
In the wide flowered borders that lined the gravel front drive of Crofton Hall, the bees were busily at work, single-mindedly unconcerned with the rather noisy and intrusive presence of the queue of tourists waiting in jostling, chatty good humor for the start of the one-fifteen tour.
Beside me, on the lawn, Geoff stopped walking and bent to retie his shoelace, casting a quick assessing glance at the gathering crowd.
'Saturday's always our best day,' he told me. 'We'd better give this lot a quarter of an hour's start so we don't get any stragglers joining in with our tour.' He stood, smiling. 'Care for a stroll round the rose garden?'
A week had not diminished the effect of that smile. A few curious eyes followed us as we made our way across the front lawn, but it was an idle curiosity and I doubted whether any of the tourists realized that the handsome young man, casual in denim jeans and bright-red polo shirt, was in fact the owner of Crofton Hall.