Slowly Rising, page 2
But before he ventured a step, a figure appeared, moving slowly between the grave markers. At last. Life.
Beautiful life.
Never before had he been so delighted to see another human being.
Relief swept his body, gave him a renewed surge of vitality. The sight of her was better, more recuperative, than a plate full of roast beef and gravy.
Although she may not appreciate the comparison, he mused.
Her gaze was bright and intelligent, her eyes dark brown and soulful— the first thing he noticed about her, as if everything else was created around those eyes; her other colors decided upon and formed after them. She dressed in grey, plain but very neat and tidy, her pale hair pinned up under a small bonnet.
How glad he was that this small, exquisite creature should be the one that came into his view. He was a lucky man. People had told him that before, actually, but always in a tone that suggested he'd come by his luck through some sly means and that it could never last, because he was undeserving of it.
Today, for the first time ever, he truly believed it himself. All of it. That he was lucky and undeserving.
Ah, she'd seen him. Just in time, for the rain quickened, as did his heart's thump.
With a shaky hand he reached for his hat. "Af'noon, miss."
Her reply was an uncertain, "Good afternoon."
Before she could move on, he called out again. "I seek a house called Slowly Rising. Do you know the place?"
"Slowly Rising?"
"Aye. There's no one else about to ask, and nobody answers their doors to strangers around here, it seems. Even the church doors are bolted against me." He gave her a sheepish smile. "They must have been warned I was coming."
She looked around, as if to confirm their isolation. Her expression was worried, troubled. Instantly he felt the need to reassure her that all would be well, that he meant her no harm— would never let anything hurt her. She was his savior and nothing, in that moment, meant more to him than her wellbeing.
How strange that he should suffer such an intensity of emotion for a woman he knew nothing about. But then his entire day had been odd so far.
Christ, his head hurt.
Again he thought that what he really needed was to sit down before he fell and could not get up again. He knew his mouth was moving, but he had no idea what he'd just said.
Neither had she, it seemed. "I beg your pardon?" she exclaimed.
The rain fell even harder now, but it washed him clean so he did not mind it. Perhaps he would look less fearsome to her without the dirt of his journey clinging to his skin and clothes.
"I thought you weren't real at first," he muttered, rain cooling his dry lips. "That you must be a lovely ghost driftin' among the gravestones."
She walked toward him— or was it he that moved? Gideon did not think his legs could manage it and her countenance was one of misgiving, but somehow she was closer now.
"The house is just that way," she said, pointing with a gloved finger at some trees in the distance. "Up the hill and through the copper beeches."
"Is it much farther?" He was sure his legs would not make it more than a few more steps and he was dizzy, his sight blurred, all the colors of her face merging now like a painting with tears spilled upon it.
"Not too far," she said.
"I've had a rough journey, you see. I...I'm hungry."
After a moment, during which he closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the cooling rain, he heard her say, in a brisk, no-nonsense tone, "I am on my way there now. I can take you, if you like."
And it was as if the sun came out, even through the rain.
There were few times in the life of Gideon Jones when he'd felt the desire to utter a prayer, but this was one of them and on this occasion it was not a plea for help, it was a cry of gratitude greater than anything he'd ever felt in his eight and twenty years.
He opened his eyes and smiled down at her. How lovely she was. And she did not know it.
She thought she knew everything; he could tell. He'd met the type before, although not quite so temptingly packaged.
But however clever and in charge she thought she was, she was truly in the dark about the most important things. Innocence and purity— and a certain degree of haughty confidence— rolled off her like mist from the sea. She was young, of course. All young people thought they had the world at their feet and usually they did not like to be told otherwise.
He was that way once himself.
She led him now to the shelter over the churchyard gate, walking quickly, chiding him as if he were an errant child in her care. "Make haste, or you'll catch your death."
Already the strength returned to his bones and his legs were better able to hold him upright. Good thing too or he would not have kept up with her pace. His journey here had taken the wind out of him and he'd needed every last ounce of his strength to get this far.
Once they reached the lych-gate, he knew he had to keep her still for a moment while he got his breath and his bearings back.
So he reached for her hand and held it tightly. In his desperate state this was the only way he could think of to make her stay still.
Her face turned to him, startled, her mouth ready to protest. Gideon wanted to tell her how beautiful she was. In the past he would have teased and flirted with her until she let down her guard and smiled at him. He knew he was not the most handsome fellow in the world— far from it— but he was always honest, cheerful, fearless and amusing. Women liked all that about him and he knew because a few of them had been bold enough to tell him so. "You've got a way about you, Gideon Jones," they would exclaim, laughing. "I don't know what it is, but 'tis something. Lucky for you, since you're no Prince Charming."
He looked down at this small, delicate woman whose hand he held, and he felt his heart skip sideways.
"Stay beside me," he managed, breathless.
"Kindly release my hand, sir."
He thought about arguing, but reluctantly let her fingers drop from his. "I forgot me manners, didn't I?" If he did not stop looking at her lips, he would probably forget his manners again, he thought wryly. His next misdemeanor might get him a slapped face and that couldn't do much for his looks.
"Christ, I'm fair parched," he growled, hastily turning his gaze away from her.
"You must have had a long journey."
Oh, she had no bloody idea. "Not so long as expected, but certainly more eventful."
"We can start off again now that the rain eases," she said. "Come along, sir. Follow me."
He bowed. "Ma'am."
"What is your name, sir? I suppose we must introduce ourselves, since there is nobody to do it for us."
"I'm Gideon Jones, miss, and you may as well get accustomed to your hand in mine, because I...I'm in love with you."
Why the deuce did he say that? What on earth was he thinking to sound like such a sap? He must have banged his head in the accident.
Fortunately she kept walking as if she didn't hear.
In fact, he hastily reminded himself, he was supposed to be sworn off the creatures, since he'd decided they were never anything but trouble.
But he was in love. He was swept away.
It was the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life and yet it was also the best.
"You'll be safe with me. I'm here to look after you," he told her. "It's my job."
"Where the devil have you been all this time then?" she shouted over her shoulder, not stopping. "A poor girl can die of helplessness, waiting for her knight in shining armor," she added sarcastically. "Thank goodness you're here! What would I have done without you? Now I am saved, for Gideon Jones has come. Let joy be unconfined." Muttering these and similar cynical remarks, apparently entertaining herself, she continued on her way.
Hat in hand, Gideon followed her along the lane. Keeping a cautious distance.
She might not take him seriously now, but she would.
Where the devil had he been? He could ask the same of her.
Reaching inside his coat, he took out an old, thin red book. Inside the cover, surrounded by charred edges, two words were written: For Emily.
His Emily. At last he'd found her. It took bloody long enough.
Chapter Two
Six Weeks Earlier
She had arrived at a gate with no walls attached— just two, tall stone posts and a little rubble— nothing to prevent the impressively designed wrought-iron from being by-passed on either side. Despite this strangely detached state, however, it felt impolite not to use the gate, especially since such trouble and craftsmanship had gone into the making of it.
When she tugged on the bell-pull that hung from the gate post, a small bell, designed to look like a drooping flower, rang atop the gate. But the sound was so light that it might have been mistaken for drops falling into a rain-catcher. Surely it would not reach the ears of anybody inside the house, the chimneys of which could only just be seen through the trees.
"Here we are then, Coquin," she muttered to the hessian bag that hung from her wrist. "Now behave yourself, or else."
Although a churlish protest of French curses and a flurry of bag shaking greeted this remark, at least the whistling of "Frere Jacques", over and over again from inside the sack, had finally ceased.
Looking around to be sure they were alone, she whispered, "If you embarrass me before my new mistress, I shall bury you in this good earth, where you should have been put to rest long, long ago. Then you will have to wait for somebody to dig you up by chance. If they ever do."
One last bounce for the sake of it and then the noise died away.
"Aha, better! Silence is golden, Coquin. Remember? Le silence est d'or."
This was what her long-suffering mother used to whisper. In the evenings, as she strained her eyes over the sewing she took in, and while her daughter toddled around the room in naughty circles, disturbing the peace, unwilling to sleep, that poor woman would beg for respite. Her pleas were rarely heeded and she was too genteel to raise her voice, even if circumstances required the raucous tones of a fishwife. She was too soft-natured to scold, too loyal and accepting to find fault even in those who disappointed. Or perhaps she was simply too tired.
Oh, how cruel that such a saintly, selfless woman had been burdened with such a wretched imp of a child.
Now, with the troublesome "Coquin" in her custody, bound to her against both their wills, Amalie McKenna understood something of her mother's trials, but she did not possess that good woman's patient temperament when dealing with them. Alas.
Above her head a sly zephyr moved among the clawing branches, causing a discontented rattle. It was as if something in the air, suffering a fit of jealousy, tried to loosen that glorious cladding of leaves and steal it away. All in vain, of course, for the verdigris coat was too strong with youthful vigor. The trees proudly fluttered and fluffed their festive plumage just to annoy the breeze even further.
"Hello?" she called out.
Finally, movement among the darker shadows. The bent figure of a man formed out of the woodland and slowly hobbled into her view between the bars of the gate. He was a short, twisted old fellow, dressed in the drab colors of a tree trunk. The large bundle of fallen branches he carried on his back completed his arboreal disguise.
"Pardon, sir," she called out.
Rather than turn his head, he stopped and then shuffled his entire crooked body around to look over at her, huffing and puffing loudly at the inconvenience as he did so. The shoulders of his shabby leather jerkin were darkened with rain, and a single crystal drop hung suspended from the end of his beaked nose. A few grey sprigs escaped from under his cap, stuck to his wet forehead, as if painted there. His eyebrows, lushly overgrown so that they were almost joined into one, and curling against his damp, wrinkled skin with the liveliness of summer foliage, rose and fell in mute question.
"I am the new lady's maid sent to Mrs. Wilding," she explained. "Would you be so kind as to take me to the house, please?"
His mouth moved before he spoke, as if he had to get his words aligned first. Or his few remaining teeth in likewise order. "Not another one," he croaked dourly. Then he raised his voice to a scratchy complaint, "Got two legs, two 'ands and one 'ole 'ead, en't ye?"
"Yes."
"Gate en't locked." With a sniff and a moist, gargling sound that she supposed was laughter at her expense, he added, "Or thee can go 'round, thee knows."
"Well, I didn't like to assume. Surely the gate is here for a reason."
Slowly he shook his head. "Bloody daft wenchy. Now you've just warned them you're comin'."
"Is that not the purpose of a bell? To rouse the residents of the house?"
"T'aint them what put the bell there."
"I beg your pardon?"
But he was already on his way again with that lurching gait, the sticks and branches on his back clattering together with every sway of his hunched spine. She could have sworn he muttered something about having dragons to feed and witches to bind.
Again, she heard her mother implore with a rapid, breathless whisper, "Regarde, Amalie! Regarde ce que tu fais!"
Look what you do.
A warning not to let that vivid imagination distract her. Not to get caught up in her daydreams and the fanciful beings that lived in her head. Her mother, of course, had thought that other world existed only in the girl's head; like most folk, she did not see and hear the things her daughter witnessed. Her advice, however, was still sound. No matter what happened, whatever strange creature tried to distract her, Amalie— the girl once so naughty and careless— had learned to keep her focus and concentrate on the work at hand. To do everything the right way and with caution was most important to her now.
Since the old man had pointed out that the gate was not locked, she lifted the iron latch and passed through. That was at least preferable to going around it; less ill-mannered, she thought. One ought to retain some decorum, whatever the circumstance, no matter how far she was from the civilized routine of a well-run house and polite society.
The gate hinges creaked louder than the bell had rung, and the wet latch slipped from her gloved fingers to fall with a clatter that echoed through the woods. A great shadow suddenly rose up from the tree tops, before shattering like a ceiling of black glass, the shards spinning off and taking flight with an angry cawing.
Crows. She had not even noticed them there, until now. Huddled and concealed among the thick blanket of leaves, they must have been watching her.
What was the collective term? Oh, yes. A murder. A murder of crows. She'd learned that from Arjun Das, who knew almost everything worth knowing about birds. If he didn't know it, he would, most convincingly, make it up. Arjun, in fact, was a fount of information on many subjects, but one could never be sure if he teased, for he told his often outrageous tales very solemnly and in such a grand way that nobody dared question. When he and his gentleman, Mr. Volkov, first took up residency at number seventeen on Hanover Square, Arjun had pretended he was mute and could not understand a word of English. The other servants around the square had given the valet a wide, distrusting berth. But Amalie had felt a camaraderie with the fellow at once, even before he first decided to speak in her presence. Almost as if she could hear all his stories even without his voice to tell them, merely by looking into his eyes, which saw and understood her better than anybody ever did. At last she had met somebody like herself, another soul aware of that shadowy "other" world.
Before she left Hanover Square to take up her new post here, Arjun had emerged from number seventeen, despite the rain, to stand under a colorful, tasseled umbrella and advise her,
"Do not look down, little one. Always look to see which way the bubbles rise. They will show you the way to the surface, bravest of tiny, tiny woman creatures. If you look up, you will see and remember that there are no limits. Nothing is beyond you."
Amalie took Arjun's advice and used it whenever she felt overwhelmed or uncertain, looking up toward light, air and space, to find her path again.
Just as she did now.
Rain drops, nestled among the curled green leaves and now loosened by the agitation of bird flight, tumbled like pearls from a broken necklace, speckling her upturned face and hanging in her lashes. Ah, the kiss of warm rain. There was nothing like it. No wonder the trees tried to hold its power longer in their grasp, in the same way that people clung to memories, desperate to keep themselves from fading and their leaves from the inevitable passing of seasons.
She hoped there was rain in heaven.
Momentarily transfixed by the clamor of those birds flying off into a curdled milk sky, when she looked for the old man again he was gone, merging with the grizzled trunks and tree stumps, offering no further guidance. No matter. He was not particularly helpful in any case, and she could see the house clearer now, a scattered drift of stepping stones leading her toward it through the woods.
The gate's clanging echo faded, but the crows and that slumbering peaceful nonchalance with which the woods had previously greeted her arrival did not return. Something new was in the atmosphere now, awoken and unfurling. No, not new; perhaps that was the wrong word.
It was Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, a time of magic. As some called it.
She quickened her pace until the last quivering emerald shade was left behind and then she faced a grassy slope with stepping stones wending an unhurried, nonchalant— even accidental— path upward to the old house itself. She lifted her face again to admire the medieval gables and leaded windows, and found the house staring back with equal curiosity. And considerable menace.
Warned in advance that Slowly Rising was a very old house with a tragic history, she already assumed that its walls would hold memories, the vibrations of whispers, gasps and sobs breathed long ago. Some folk didn't— or wouldn't— believe in ghosts, but for her they were a part of nature; one around every corner, nothing to be afraid of. She'd encountered them in various states since she was a babe and felt quite at home among them now. Other folk might balk at the unknown, but all they need do was be ready to make its acquaintance, for once a subject was studied and understood, then it could no longer be cause for dread. It was all very straightforward in her mind. Apparently, it was not so uncomplicated for most people, who preferred to remain cocooned in their state of naiveté, their eyes and minds asleep, forever blind rather than adapting to the dark and other worlds beyond their own.
