Silent On The Moor Part 27

"Oh, be quiet, you b.l.o.o.d.y monsters. Can't you see I am doing you a favour?" she muttered.

"Miss Hilda, I should like a word," I told her.

She flicked a glance up at me but did not pause in her labours. "If it is about the proposal I have had from Valerius, it is none of your concern."

I smoothed my skirts. "Your impertinence notwithstanding, I quite agree. I have made my feelings known to Valerius. What he chooses to do is entirely his own affair."

She straightened, her thin upper lip curled. "Hardly an enthusiastic endors.e.m.e.nt."

I spread my hands. "Did you expect me to feel differently? You have scarcely uttered a civil word to me the entire time I have been here, and you have made your intentions to marry another man quite clear. Naturally I am concerned if the lady my brother plans to wed is motivated solely by mercenary interests."

"Mercenary?" She threw the pail to the ground. "Oh, I like that. Val has told me something of your past. Tell me, would you have married Edward Grey if he hadn't had tuppence to rub together?" she demanded.

"Of course not," I told her. Her expression of triumph faded to one of astonishment. "I married Edward because we were friends, because I wanted an establishment of my own, because I was tired of being a spinster and a laughingstock. If he had not had money, our paths would never have crossed. I moved then in rather more exclusive circles," I finished apologetically.

"Well, at least you are honest," she said, deflating a little.

"One ought to be, when speaking of such things," I replied. "And in perfect honesty, I do not wish you to marry my brother because I think you cannot make him happy, and I believe he would fail you as well. His intentions are of the very best sort, but he is a somewhat unhappy young man because he has no proper occupation for his time. Until he is settled within himself, he will be no sort of husband. That is my opinion, but I meant what I said. I have spoken to Val, and now I have spoken to you. I will say nothing further on the matter, and if you choose to marry, I will welcome you as a sister."

She curled her lip again, a singularly unattractive expression, and I longed to tell her so.

"Very well, believe me or don't. I do not care. I am more concerned about Miss Ailith."

Her eyes widened, but her gaze slid from mine. "Why?"

"I believe she is quite fragile at present," I said slowly. I did not know how much Hilda knew of her sister's ordeal, but it was not my place to disclose it. I must tread warily. "She has been in low spirits since your brother died. I think the departure of your mother has had a dampening effect upon her, and I detect signs of melancholia. I proposed to her a rest cure at the seaside. I would like you to come as well, as my guests, of course," I finished hastily lest she refuse on monetary grounds.

She stooped to retrieve her pail. "That is good of you," she said grudgingly. "But I think not. It would be best if Ailith stays here."

She drew an apple core from her pocket and tossed it to the hens, clucking softly at them.

"Hilda, I must disagree. Your sister seems changed, childlike. She must be looked after."

Hilda turned then and fixed me with a pitying stare. "Looked after? Ailith is more capable of looking after herself than anyone I have ever known. The devil himself could not stand against her."

I blinked. "You do not understand. I am not at liberty to reveal everything, but I can say that your sister suffered a tragedy when your brother was lost, and the recent upheavals in your family have not helped in her recovery. She needs gentle treatment and a rest cure if she is to be restored."

Hilda's little hands fisted at her sides. "The only treatment my sister needs is a hangman's noose."

She clamped her mouth shut as if to bite back the words. I moved toward her.

"What do you mean?"

She dropped her head, but I took her shoulders in my hands and shook her hard. "What do you mean?" I demanded again.

Hilda wrenched her arms from my grasp. "She was the one who attempted Brisbane's life, not Mama. She was the one who put the mushrooms onto his plate. She took a toadstool from the wood and sliced it up and mixed it with the mushrooms Mama bottled last year."

Blackness crept into the edge of my vision and I blinked it away. I felt terribly cold, as if I had just swum in a lake of icy black water.

"Why?" I whispered.

She shook her head, her expression mutinous. "I have said too much already. But you must go. Leave this place and make Brisbane go with you." Her voice broke on a sob. "I know I cannot marry Valerius. You will not want to have your brother connected to a murderess. I know her for what she is. I have always known her. She will not harm me, but she hates Brisbane. And you as well. I beg you, leave."

I pressed my temples to stop the roaring inside my head. "I cannot believe this. I thought her vulnerable-"

Hilda gave a ragged sob then, and to my surprise, she permitted me to embrace her. She cried like a child, great gasps of emotion that tore at my heart. There was so much raw feeling under that brusque exterior, it was like holding some newborn, quite awkward thing.

I held her until she stopped. She pulled back suddenly, wiping the moist places of her face on her sleeve.

"I am sorry," she said finally. "I do not know what came over me. I am not usually such a blubberboots."

"I don't imagine you give way to emotion very often," I ventured.

"Not unless it is anger," she agreed. "It is so much easier that way. I am so tired, you see. So tired of being here, year after year of my life just unrolling behind me with nothing to show for it. I've no education, no career, no family or home of my own. Nothing to show that I have ever set foot on this earth. When I am gone, there will only be a stone to mark that I was here, and even that will crumble in time."

There was no pity for herself in her voice, only the flatness of resignation, and I realised she and Valerius shared precisely the same affliction. They both wanted desperately to matter in a world that took no notice of them. Perhaps they were better suited than I had thought.

But this was no time to worry about their romantic prospects. I needed to talk to Brisbane, and the sooner the better.

"I will go and find Brisbane," I told her. "He will know how to get to the bottom of-" I broke off as something in the tail of my eye caught my attention. "He must be out on the moor. I will find him. Go and close the door before the chickens get out." The door in the stone wall that led to the moor path was slowly swinging open in the wind.

Hilda went white to the lips. "I shut it myself. Someone has been listening to us."

She looked at me in horror. "Ailith," she whispered. "Julia, she will kill him. She means to, and now that she knows I have told you, she will stop at nothing." Her eyes rounded and she clutched at me. "Valerius is out on the moor. He went for a walk. If he thwarts her..."

I gave her no time to finish the thought. I was through the door and on the moor path before she finished speaking. She was hard behind me, urging me faster.

We broke into a run, and I cursed my stays as they bit into my sides. But every minute counted now, and I was determined to keep pace with Hilda as we raced over the moor, mindful of the boggy mud and the low th.o.r.n.y bushes s.n.a.t.c.hing at our skirts. She led the way, hurtling along like a modern Atalanta.

From time to time as we ran I looked up toward Thorn Crag, but I could see no one. I thought I saw a flash of movement just once, but it might have been a trick of the light. The clouds were lowering over the moor, weather that Yorks.h.i.+re folk call wuthering. A moor mist was rising, and I blessed it, for if it shrouded the top of Thorn Crag, it hid our approach as well. We climbed as quickly as we dared, hoping the descending fog would m.u.f.fle our movements.

It was very dark now, the afternoon sun blotted out by the thunderous black ma.s.s of cloud that hung low and threatening. The rain started to fall as we ascended the crag, making the rocks slippery and dangerous and more than once we fell heavily. Hilda was bleeding from her hands and I from a particularly nasty cut above my cheek, but we did not stop, nor did we slacken our pace. We forged on, wiping blood and rain from our faces. We climbed on our hands and knees in some places, clinging to the steep path only through force of will.

I smothered a scream when I put out my hand and felt a face. It was Valerius, unconscious, his complexion deathly pale, bleeding freely from a wound to his temple. There was a rock next to him, jagged and blood-stained.

"You must stay with him," I told Hilda. "Bind the wound, and hold it fast."

It is to her everlasting credit that she did not argue. She knelt swiftly as I stepped past him, sending up a desperate, incoherent prayer as I did so. He was in G.o.d's hands now, and Hilda's, and there was nothing more I could do for him.

I looked up the path, das.h.i.+ng the rain from my face. There was one more ledge to climb, and I did so, peering around the last boulder, steeling myself for what I would find when I reached the top.

It was unthinkable. Ailith was perched on the very edge of the crag, her cloak whipping behind her on the wind. She was sobbing, her hair streaming wildly, like a maenad's, and she clutched a dagger in her hand, the obsidian blade of the Egyptian embalmer, taken from her brother's collection, doubtless s.n.a.t.c.hed up before she left Grimsgrave. Brisbane was perhaps ten paces from her, his back safely to the rock, his hand held out in front of him as if to push her. Blood was streaming from a cut to his brow, and I realised she must have landed at least one blow with her blade.

"You are a monster," she shrieked, her voice carrying on the wind. "You deserve to die for what you have done," she cried, edging farther away from him. She trembled on the very rim of the drop now. "Do not come closer!"

Brisbane advanced purposefully, stealthy as a lion. He put out his hand. "I want to watch you die, Ailith," he said, in a voice I had never heard him use before, cold and commanding. I had underestimated his hatred for the Allenbys, I realised. Here before me was the proof of it, Ailith pleading for her life and Brisbane, coolly preparing to deprive her of it.

At that moment I stepped from behind the rock. Brisbane's head jerked toward me, his eyes locked with mine. He said nothing, but I understood him perfectly. In the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat, I made my choice.

I rushed at Ailith, throwing wide my arms to embrace her and twisting as we fell so that we landed hard upon the ledge.

As we fell, we rolled, so that Ailith was on top of me, the tip of her knife wedged firmly into my stays. She pushed herself up slowly, her eyes burning with rage.

She wrenched the dagger from my stays and brandished it just as Brisbane leapt. He had caught her by surprise. He could move as swiftly as a cat when he liked, but what he did to her was not graceful or lovely. It was brutal and almost faster than the eye could see. He snapped her wrist back, breaking the bone and forcing the dagger from her hand. She screamed and would have fallen to her knees but for Brisbane's grip. She cursed and spat, but he held her fast as I struggled to my feet, holding my side where the knife had dented my stays. I stood next to Brisbane, keeping a wary eye upon Ailith, who had gone suspiciously quiet.

"Are you hurt?" he asked me in a low voice, never taking his eyes from Ailith.

"Just a bruise, nothing more," I told him.

"Good." He tightened his grip upon Ailith's arm. "If you had hurt her, I would have thrown you off this crag and smiled as I did it. As it is, it will be my very great pleasure to watch you hang."

He paused and wiped the blood from his face with his free hand. "Ailith Allenby, I am holding you for the attempted murder of Valerius March," he said flatly.

"And yours," I told him, prodding him in the ribs. He winced a little, and noticed then the ever-widening red stain on his s.h.i.+rt. "It was she who poisoned you, not Lady Allenby."

"Yes, I did know that," he said. He spoke to me, but his gaze never wavered from her face. "That was why I sent her mother away. Lady Allenby was in as much danger from her as I."

Ailith laughed then, doubling over and screaming her mirth to the teeming skies. It echoed over the moor and rolled back to us. There was madness in that laughter, and I wondered I had not seen it in her before.

"You stupid man, even now you don't understand, do you? You're still the filthy ignorant Gypsy brat you always were. I am an Allenby, a daughter of kings. I am not subject to your laws," she told him, raising her chin high and staring at him with all the disdain of an empress.

She looked at me then and gave me a little smile, and I knew what she meant to do. I could not have stopped her, even if I had wished to. There was no time.

With her uninjured arm, she gave Brisbane an unexpected shove, catching him off guard and rocking him back on his heels. Then she straightened her back and simply stepped off the side of the crag. There was no mad laughter now. There was only the long, deathly drop and the faint tolling of the Grimswater bell through the soft, m.u.f.fling rain as Ailith Allenby fell to the rocks on the moor below.

THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER.

Be just, and fear not.

-William Shakespeare.

Henry VIII.

It was a difficult job getting Valerius off the crag. The wound to Brisbane's chest was shallow but bleeding freely, making rather a mess of things until I demanded a knife to cut my skirt hem to make a bandage. He handed me Ailith's knife and I felt my stomach churn at the sight of it. But I put my hand to the grip and sliced through the tweed, hacking off enough cloth to bind Brisbane's wound until he could be properly st.i.tched.

Brisbane hefted Val onto his shoulders, his teeth gritted against the pain that must have seared his ribs. But he held my brother steady and set his face against the rain and the wind to carry him to Rosalie's cottage as it was the nearest shelter. Hilda followed, her eyes red with unshed tears. She did not look back at the broken body of her sister.

Without speaking of it, we hurried as fast as we dared to the cottage. John-the-Baptist hastened out to help and he and Brisbane carried Val in between them. Rosalie bustled about, collecting what she would need to nurse them both and to attend to the rest of us.

I sat by the fire, bone-tired and drenched to the skin, pressing a cloth soaked in calendula water to my cheek. Rook the lurcher came to sit with me, putting his head onto my lap. He did not seem to mind when my tears dampened his fur, and I stroked him for what seemed like hours. I kept reliving that terrible moment when I had rounded the boulder on the crag and seen Brisbane, menacing and vengeful, and Ailith, teetering on the edge of the crag, giving every appearance of pleading for her life. It would have been so easy to have made the wrong choice, I reflected. It was only by the smallest chance I had not.

"Lady." I looked up and there was Rosalie, holding out a warm wrapper of bright scarlet cotton. "I have already made Miss Hilda change. You must get out of those wet things. You will catch your death. I have brewed a posset for you, and John-the-Baptist has hung a curtain. You can change there. Let me look at your cheek."

Gently, she pulled the cloth away, and peered closely at my face, then nodded. "It will not even swell. I will give you a salve of calendula and thyme. It will help you to heal. Use it often, and there will not even be a scar to remind you."

I did not think I should require a scar to remind me of the day's events, but I was too tired to argue.

She coaxed me to stand and I saw that Val had been settled into her little bed, his head neatly bandaged, his tanned face still too white and unnaturally still.

"Will he-" I did not want to ask it.

She patted me. "He will be fine, if G.o.d wills. We have done all that can be done."

Hilda was sitting perfectly still in a chair next to the bed. She was dressed in a bright green blouse and blue skirt, the colours incongruous against the moment. She did not look at me, nor did she speak. She simply sat, staring at Val's pale face.

I turned then to see Brisbane, stripped to the waist, sipping something that steamed in the cup, something bitter from the expression on his face. His uncle was plying a needle and thin silk thread, neatly st.i.tching up a long, shallow gash across his ribs.

I swallowed hard and Rosalie patted me again. "There is no one with a better hand to the needle than a Gypsy harness-maker," she told me firmly. She steered me behind the curtain, and when I made no move to lift my hands, she came with me, briskly undressing me and rubbing my skin with a rough towel. My skin was tingling by the time she had finished, and I was warm for the first time since I had seen Val lying broken on the crag. Rosalie helped me into the wrapper, knotting the sash snugly at my waist. She cleaned the gouges on my hands and cheek then, careful not to hurt me. Then she unbound my hair and brushed it until it crackled.

"There. Now for your posset," she said firmly. She seated me next to the fire again and gave me a steaming cup like the one Brisbane was drinking from. It was bitter, full of tea and herbs and something potently alcoholic. I felt energised and much the better after I drank it.

John-the-Baptist set the last st.i.tch and Rosalie handed Brisbane a pot of salve to daub onto the wound. He obeyed and she bound it neatly with clean strips of white linen while John-the-Baptist brought him a fresh s.h.i.+rt and cleaned the cut to his brow. We looked rather more reputable then, and Rosalie brewed tea and ladled out mugs of hot soup as John-the-Baptist departed to take a message to the Hall.

I had no appet.i.te for soup, but drank my tea, feeling a hundred years old and saying nothing. Hilda was finally persuaded to take some posset, but she drank less than half of it, letting the rest of it grow cold in the cup.

Brisbane did not speak either, and Rosalie asked no questions. She knew the answers would come soon enough, and I almost dreaded the arrival of my sister when we would have to explain what had happened on Thorn Crag.

Rosalie brewed tea for everyone and was just putting out new bread and b.u.t.ter when John-the-Baptist returned with Portia and Mrs. b.u.t.ters, Minna and G.o.dwin in tow.

I roused from my torpor. "Portia, dearest, why have you brought the entire household?"

She shrugged. "It hardly seems fair to keep them out of it now. It is a family affair, and G.o.dwin is an Allenby." She took a little stool next to me and dropped her voice. "And apparently G.o.dwin and Minna have an understanding," she told me, lifting her brows significantly. "We shall have to write her mother."

I thought of G.o.dwin standing before me on the moor path after he had helped me out of the boggy mud. I want you to think well of me, he had said. And I thought of how badly I had misinterpreted his interest in me. He might well have acted the part of the country gallant, but he did not want me; he wanted my approval of his match with Minna. I shook my head, wondering how many other things I had misunderstood since I had come to Grimsgrave.

Rosalie found low stools for Minna and G.o.dwin, while Mrs. b.u.t.ters took the last chair at Portia's insistence. John-the-Baptist stood a little distance apart, but Rosalie came to sit with the rest of us at the table. It was quite a snug fit for the cottage, but I felt comforted at having so many of us there, and I fancied the others felt the same.

It was Brisbane who spoke first. He looked from G.o.dwin to Mrs. b.u.t.ters as he addressed them.

"G.o.dwin, Mrs. b.u.t.ters," he said softly, "I am sorry to tell you Ailith Allenby is dead."

Mrs. b.u.t.ters said nothing for a long moment. Then she nodded toward the cut on his brow, a thin, wicked slash that only enhanced his resemblance to a pirate. "Is tha' her handiwork?"

Brisbane nodded.

"I am only sorry she harmed you before she died," Mrs. b.u.t.ters replied calmly. "I will not pray for her. The devil looks after his own, so the Scriptures tell us."

I blinked at her and Portia gave a little gasp which she covered with a cough, but not successfully. "I thought that was Shakespeare," she murmured to me.

Mrs. b.u.t.ters turned to her, her expression one of mild surprise. "Have I shocked you, Lady Bettis...o...b..? I am sorry for it. But Ailith Allenby was wicked, through and through. She always was, even as a child, and Redwall was just the same. It was bad blood, you know. A little weakness in a family is a small matter. A tendency to melancholia, or a love of drink, these may be overcome by fresh blood coming into the line. But the Allenbys seldom married outside of their own. They insisted upon maintaining the purest blood in Britain, and they paid for it."