Valley of Nightmares Page 7

  * * *

  I don’t know which of us most resembled a guilty schoolgirl as Ceri and I entered the parlour side by side at the appointed time. Gethin was standing with his back to the room, looking out over the primeval tangle of garden, but he turned as we entered. I had taken great care to look professional, and his eyes swept over my neat, high-collared blouse and low-heeled shoes. Ceri sat beside her uncle on a sofa and showed him her books, talking him through what we were doing in our lessons. I sat on a chair at an angle to them and wished, not for the first time, that I could read his expression.

  I was fortunate in my pupil. Ceri was a bright girl, and after our initial faltering start, she approached most tasks with enthusiasm. Her handwriting was exemplary, but she hated arithmetic with a passion and tried every trick in the book to wriggle out of it.

  “You appear to have made great progress with your written calculations,” Gethin commented, studying a neat page of columns.

  Ceri threw me a mischievous glance from under her demurely lowered lids. “That is because Lilly, I mean, Miss Divine, and I have struck a bargain.” They both looked my way, and I guiltily lowered the thumbnail on which I had been gnawing.

  I think he sighed. “Dare I ask?”

  Before I could answer, Ceri jumped in. “If I get all my sums right, we listen to The Children’s Hour on the radio before dinner.”

  “I’m surprised you get a signal out here.” It was all the comment he made.

  “It’s jolly hit-and-miss,” I agreed, throwing Ceri a warning glance.

  She ignored me. “The best place is your room, Uncle Gethin,” she informed him blithely, “so we moved the radio in there. We all go and curl up on your bed to listen to it.”

  I closed my eyes briefly. When I opened them again, Gethin was watching me with that unfathomable expression. “All?” he asked.

  “A figure of speech,” I said hurriedly, “Ceri means the two of us.” It was far too soon to introduce Shucky into the conversation. There had been a bit of an ugly scene earlier. The ungrateful, insubordinate creature had not taken kindly to being banished to Anika’s caravan.

  Ceri deflected Gethin’s attention but did my cause no favours by announcing, “Lilly has a boyfriend.” The smirk she cast in my direction was remarkably similar to Shucky’s expression a few days earlier when he had stolen the chicken Anika cooked for our dinner.

  “Does she now?” Gethin regarded me with chilly hauteur. “I hope I don’t have to mention that, er, entertaining your gentlemen friends here at Taran House is not something I am prepared to sanction, Miss Divine.” You could have cut diamonds on his tone.

  “Ceri is joking, sir.” I cast a stern look in that young lady’s direction. She chuckled naughtily at me with her hands over her mouth.

  “Nevertheless, I commend you on the speed with which you work, Miss Divine.” I knew a sudden impulse to slap that aristocratic face. “To have settled in so well at Taran House and enslaved one of the local populace so quickly must be a record, even for one as proficient in the art of flirtation as you.”

  He was being gratuitously nasty now, and abandoning caution, I opened my mouth to tell him so, but Ceri forestalled me. “Oh, he is not from around here,” she explained. “He is English. And his name is Matthew.”

  I decided we had endured enough confidences for the time being and swept her off to the schoolroom to put her books away, and get ready for supper.

  * * *

  Ceri had eaten and was reading in the kitchen when Gethin and I sat down to dinner. I didn’t think my reputation would stand any more of her artless disclosures. The long dining table was meticulously set, with a pristine white cloth and gleaming silverware. The whole room shone with the effects of polish and elbow grease. I had discovered some embroidered damask in a store cupboard and commenced making new covers for the chairs. I was a slow, steady seamstress, but I had plenty of time to myself when Ceri was in bed.

  “I must congratulate you on what you have managed to do with the place in so short a space of time, Miss Divine,” Gethin said later as he took a sip from his wine glass. The words were pleasant enough, but his expression was chilly.

  It was the moment of truth. “Ah, well, as to that…” I pleated the tablecloth nervously. Before I could say any more, Anika appeared carrying a soup tureen. Vidor followed her with a platter of homemade bread. Both of these items were accompanied by the delicious scent of home cooking. Gethin made no comment about the appearance of these two oddly dressed strangers in his dining room.

  “You were saying?” he prompted, after they had deposited the food on the table and departed. “I confess, I am eager to hear all about it. After all, when I left you here—less than one month ago, if my memory serves me correctly—the place had a housekeeper. Not a particularly effective one, I’ll admit. But might I be permitted to enquire exactly what you have done with Mrs. Price? And perhaps, at the same time, you could enlighten me as to how the north field appears to have become a refuge for Romanies?”

  So, with much hand waving and verbal sidestepping, I poured out the whole story. His face was, as always, hard to read, but he heard me in silence. At the end of my convoluted discourse, he said, “And perhaps you could also explain my niece’s question about how much money she could expect to earn for taking her clothes off?” I groaned and put my head in my hands. “I suspect,” he continued blandly, “that she has begun to view bath time in a new and decidedly lucrative light.”

  I bit my lip, watching his face anxiously. Two weeks ago I could not have imagined wanting to stay in this great tumbledown mausoleum with its unique, mercurial personality. But with a fierceness that took me by surprise, I knew that I would fight him if he tried to get rid of me now. I loved Taran House. I had no idea why, but I wanted to stay. And I was not—absolutely not—prepared to leave Ceri. She needed me, and in that strange, symbiotic way that was exclusive to us, I needed her too. Gethin said nothing, and we resumed our meal. I took his silence to be a reprieve, and eventually I stopped holding my breath.

  After I had seen Ceri—who was distinctly quieter as a result of her uncle’s presence—to bed, my mood was oddly flat. In my room, I couldn’t settle to read a book or sew cushion covers. I stood at the window and gazed out at the valley, nestling under the protective wing of the mountain. I drew the curtains, obscuring the suffocating blackness from sight. As I turned away, my foot caught on an object, and I stumbled slightly. With a frown, I bent to pick up the shoe that was protruding from beneath the bed. These black, high-heeled pumps with their asymmetrical silver trim were a memory of a wild indulgence. I had fallen in love with them on a trip to Petticoat Lane Market and gone without a proper meal for a week in order to pay for them. I could not bear to part with them, even though I was highly unlikely to ever wear them in my new profession. I had placed them at the back of my wardrobe when I arrived at Taran House and had not moved them since. This was the left shoe, and I turned it over in my hand. Its companion was nowhere to be seen. When I opened the wardrobe, the right shoe was exactly where I had placed it on that first night. Someone had been into my room and into my wardrobe.

  There might be a number of explanations; my mind slipped instantly into reasoning mode. The shoes were gorgeous. Perhaps Gwladys had opened the wardrobe for some reason—what reason?—seen them, and been unable to resist trying them on? Or Ceri could have taken our dressing-up game a step further? There was absolutely no reason to succumb to the crawling, fearful apprehension that began to unfurl, like a flag, inside my mind.

  It was close to midnight when a knock on my bedroom door, just as I was about to tumble into bed, made me jump nervously. I was in my nightgown, and I threw an old shawl about my shoulders before tiptoeing to the door. Gethin was leaning against the jamb, a brooding look in his brown eyes. He had removed his jacket and tie, and his white shirt was half-unbuttoned to reveal a tantalising glimpse of dark c
hest hair. I chewed my lip apprehensively. Was he about to proposition me? I wasn’t sure how I would respond if he did.

  “Miss Divine,” he said formally, “would you do me the courtesy of coming to my room?”

  I gazed up at him, feeling an insistent little flicker of desire starting to thrum deep down within me. Since I’ve always been one for acting first and thinking later, I followed him along the landing with my bare feet padding on the floorboards.

  He held the door to his own room wide and stepped aside so that I could see in. “Since today has been a veritable festival of explanations, I wonder if you would be so kind as to enlighten me about this?” Shucky was sprawled diagonally across the bed. He looked up as I entered, rolled his eyes at me and gave a delighted bark of welcome. Muttering a furious apology, I attempted to haul him off the bed. Since Shucky decided it was a great game and strenuously resisted me, my efforts quickly degenerated into the realms of slapstick. In the end, Gethin came to my aid and between us we evicted the interloper. By the time we had finished, the bed resembled a war zone.

  I stammered an apology and made a fumbled attempt to rectify the damage. All the while I was painfully aware of my shawl slipping off my shoulders, the flimsy material of my nightdress and those eyes that seemed to bore into my soul.

  Chapter Seven

  I sat in the large rocking chair that we had hauled down from the attic and placed beside the range. It was so capacious that Ceri was able to curl up next to me. Her head was tucked into my shoulder, and we had pulled a knitted patchwork quilt over our knees to keep out the chilly evening vapours that seeped under the door. Shucky rested his head on my feet, and I rocked the chair lightly as I read out loud. It was Heidi, a book that Ceri had chosen because of its setting. I decided that the chapter we had just begun was particularly apt.

  “For some days past Fraulein Rottenmeier had gone about rather silently and as if lost in thought. As twilight fell, and she passed from room to room, or along the long corridors, she was seen to look cautiously behind her, and into the dark corners, as if she thought someone was coming silently behind her and might unexpectedly give her dress a pull…”

  I glanced up as Gethin came into the kitchen and paused in the doorway, watching us. I smiled an involuntary welcome and was pleased to see the echoing expression that just touched his eyes. He motioned for me to continue and, instead of going away as I had expected, pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

  “Do the voices, Lilly,” Ceri ordered, her voice muffled because her face was pressed into my neck.

  Obligingly, I carried on in the gruff accents of the doctor. “So there is a sick person in the house, and one that has first to be caught?” Ceri chuckled and I changed my voice so that it had a high, falsetto pitch. “Much worse than that, doctor! A ghost in the house! My house is haunted!”

  “Lilly is good at doing voices,” Ceri informed Gethin, who continued to watch my face, a slight smile playing about his lips.

  “Lilly seems to be good at lots of things,” he commented dryly.

  There was one thing Lilly wasn’t very good at, I concluded, as I placed a bookmark in the page and closed the book. I was incapable of preventing even the slightest glimmer of a smile in Gethin Taran’s sable eyes from melting my insides.

  “I received a letter from Ceri’s old school,” he informed me, his businesslike tone contrasting oddly with my chaotic thoughts. He patted his pockets. “Damn, I’ve left it in the study…”

  “I’ll get it, Uncle Gethin.”

  I opened my mouth to protest at this blatant bedtime-delaying tactic, but Gethin had already said, “It’s on the mantelpiece,” and Ceri had skipped away before I could say anything.

  I found myself unaccountably conscious of my every movement as I rose from the rocking chair and folded the blanket. Why on earth couldn’t I think of anything to say? It wasn’t usually an affliction I suffered from.

  It was Gethin who broke the brief silence between us. “You seem to be getting on very—” He was interrupted by an almighty crash. We both ran to the study. My hand fluttered to cover my mouth. The huge mirror that had, until seconds ago, hung over the fire, had fallen onto the floor. A million dagger shards were flung in a brilliant display across the room.

  “Ceri?” I gasped, and with a tiny whimper, she appeared from behind the door. “Oh, thank God!” I swung her up into my arms, and she clung to me for dear life. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “I just pulled the letter down and the mirror fell.” She looked over at Gethin fearfully. “I didn’t do anything. I jumped back as it came down, but I didn’t do it…”

  “Of course you didn’t, darling,” I reassured her.

  Gethin went over to the remains of the mirror. “The string must have rotted,” he said, standing over the now-empty frame.

  “No, it hasn’t.” I pointed at the empty space above the fire. “The nails that held it in place have come out of the wall. Every single one of them.”

  * * *

  Shucky had developed a new and annoying habit of lying on the landing outside Gethin’s room throughout the night. He refused point-blank to move when I tried to tempt him away.

  “Whose virtue are you protecting?” I whispered, stroking his ears. “Mine from him, or his from me?” He thumped his heavy tail in reply but stubbornly stayed where he was. His bulky body was stretched partway across Gethin’s door, with his nose just touching the locked door to the clock tower. I left him to it and went down to the kitchen.

  Anika marched determinedly in through the door, carrying two slim books under her arm. Once we had made breakfast, she gestured for me to sit at the table with her. Her berry-black eyes were troubled. She turned to a page she had marked by folding down the corner and tapped her fingertip on it for me to read. It was a short article all about a legendary phantom dog. A huge hound, black as the portal of hell itself, with eyes that blazed gold fire, that was said to stalk the night. Only the pad-pad sound of his giant paws alerted the unwary to his ghostly presence. The creature was variously described as sinister or benign, depending on the individual experience of the eyewitnesses who recounted the tale of his appearance. Anika’s insistent finger drew my attention to the last sentence: “From the Anglo-Saxon word scuca (pronounced shucka), meaning demon, the black dog is one of Britain’s oldest spectres.”

  As I looked up and met Anika’s solemn dark eyes, Ceri and Shucky burst in through the door carrying a length of rope between them in their favourite, uneven game of tug of war. I surmised that, since Shucky had deserted his sentry post, Gethin must have left his room.

  “She said he looked like a ‘Shucky’,” I whispered.

  Anika tapped her finger on a crudely drawn sketch of a snarling dog. “He does,” she pointed out as Shucky chose that exact moment to gnash his teeth in mock ferocity. Ceri squealed with laughter, and the playful pair tumbled back out again to continue their game on the lawn.

  Anika opened the second book and again went straight to a marked passage. Bossily, she pointed to the page and, obediently, I read. “In the wake of the passing storm of wild huntsmen, a phantom black dog will be found wandering the earth. To remove it will need rites similar to those for removing changelings. If it is not removed by these means, it must be well cared for and allowed to live upon the family hearth.”

  “Do you know any rites for removing changelings?” I asked Anika hopefully.

  “Is not for joke,” she reproached me with her quiet dignity, and I hurriedly begged her pardon.

  * * *

  The garden around the house was a hayfield. Vidor had organised two young Romany lads who were tackling it with scythes, while he tried to start a bonfire and muttered dire Magyar retribution when it refused to catch light. Anika and I were energetically tackling the overgrown flowerbeds. Even Ceri, usually less than enthusiastic about manual labour, occupied herself by
removing chunks of rock from the lawn and piling them up at the side of the house. Anika nudged me and, with a jerk of her head toward her husband, whispered, “The name Vidor means ‘happy’ in my language.” We both giggled uncontrollably.

  It was into this scene of bustle and merriment that Gethin wandered in the late-morning sun. I was wearing a pair of black satin shorts, these scandalous items having been bestowed upon me by Fanny when I left the Felicia. She said—grudgingly—that I should have them because I had better legs than her. I had tied my cotton shirt up under my breasts and rolled up its long sleeves. I was aware, as soon as I saw Gethin watching me, not only of my unconventional attire, but also my red, shiny face and bare feet.

  To my surprise, he came over and joined me, pulling up a few of the more stubborn weeds that had resisted my efforts. In answer to my look of enquiry, he gave me a boyish grin, which was so irresistible that I couldn’t help but return it. It was an expression I had never seen on his face before. I decided he should definitely do it more often. We worked together side by side in companionable silence.

  “You really are the most redoubtable girl. Did you know that, Lilly Divine?” I liked how he said my name that way, as though it was an endearment. He swept an arm about him to indicate the house and grounds. “You’ve done more for this place in a month than anyone has done in decades.”

  I turned to look at him. Our faces were mere inches apart. He reached out a hand to remove a blade of grass from my hair, and unable to help myself, I leaned closer. His upper arm brushed against my breast and my nipple hardened painfully. I knew he felt it too. The look we exchanged could have started Vidor’s bonfire for him.

  “I don’t understand why your brother, even given his lengthy absences, kept Mrs. Price in her post. Or at least why he didn’t do something about her inability to look after the house,” I said, when my breathing had returned to normal. “Her only talent seems to have been for not doing anything! Ceri told me that she rarely left the kitchen and, consequently, had not set foot in many of the other rooms for years.” I looked at the house that slumbered contentedly in golden sunlight. “It still needs a lot of work, but much of the problem has been caused by sheer neglect. I just don’t understand how a housekeeper who turns a blind eye to everything could ever be considered a blessing!” I decided I had said quite enough and stopped abruptly.