Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 06] - The Noblest Frailty (26 page)

The child nodded. "Josie is sad. If Mr. Dev marriages you, you
won't never let him have me fer his—"

"Abigail?" Yolande inserted swiftly.

Devenish chuckled. "Perhaps Miss Drummond will let you be
her
abigail," he suggested, buoyant at the promise of a glowing future.

"She's got a abigail." Josie sighed. "I'll be all growed in a
year or two."

"Or ten," he qualified.

"Even when I be
that
old, Peattie might
not be dead."

"Good heavens!" gasped Yolande. "What things you do say!
Oh—see, Dev! There is Castle Tyndale!"

They had passed through a hilly area of lush pastures dotted
with black-faced sheep and threaded by the hurrying sparkle of the
river. Ahead, the hills fell back to reveal, far off, the wider sparkle
of the sea and a distant misty looming of islands. The skies were
threatening over the Firth of Clyde, creating a fitting background for
the castle that soared at the top of the cliffs. A tall structure, its
three conical topped towers up-thrusting stark and grim against the
clouds, its Gothic windows dark holes against the massive grey walls,
it presented, from this distance, a desolate picture of brooding power.

"Jupiter!" Devenish exclaimed. "Old Craig cannot mean to dwell
alone in
that
great pile?"

"It could be spectacular, were it brought up to style," mused
Yolande.

"Yes, but that would take a mountain of blunt, and—What's
wrong now, elf?"

Clinging to his jacket, Josie whimpered, "I don't like it!
It's a bad place! I don't want to go there!"

Devenish experienced a deepening of his own inner
apprehensions. Those were the battlements from which his youthful
father had plunged to his untimely death. Within those walls his
heart-broken mother had lost her babe and grieved herself into an early
grave. He shivered suddenly.

He was not alone in his apprehensions. Surveying his
birthright with troubled eyes, Craig was deeply shocked, not because it
looked so forbidding, but because it was so exactly as he had pictured
it. He had no sense of strangeness or unfamiliarity, but rather a
feeling of inevitability; of a homecoming that had been planned and
long awaited—not by himself, but by that great grey pile of stone and
mortar and memories. He turned to find Walter Donald's keen brown gaze
fixed upon him with so gravely speculative a look that he flushed and
was seized by the feeling that the gentleman knew more of the tragedy
at Castle Tyndale than he had said.

They still had several miles to drive before they came to the
heavy lodge gates and the winding drive that led up to the castle, and
with every mile Devenish's unease increased. When Tyndale dropped back
to ride beside the curricle, he said, "Well, there's your ancestral
pile, coz. What d'ye think of it?"

His face expressionless, Tyndale countered, "What do
you
think of it?"

"I don't like it!" whimpered Josie, holding tightly to
Yolande's hand. "I got a bad tummy about it!"

"It's—rather grim," said Devenish.

Tyndale nodded. "Certainly not Prince Charming's castle."

"Lord, no!" Devenish elaborated tactlessly, "More like
Bluebeard's demesne. I pity the poor princess who was carried in
through those doors!"

Yolande kept her eyes on the child. "Pity the poor princess,
indeed!" she thought.

They soon came to the gates, hanging rusted and broken upon
massive pillars. The lodge house was abandoned, the windows boarded up,
and a padlock upon the door.

"Small need of a lock!" the General snorted.

"None at all," Mr. Donald agreed, watching Tyndale.

Tyndale met that grave regard squarely. "Why?" he asked
curtly, his chin well up, and irritation gnawing at him. If this man
fancied he was ashamed, or held his father guilty, he was vastly
mistaken!

Donald smiled and said rather apologetically, "Your pardon,
but—it
is
said to be haunted, you know."

They passed through the gates and began to clatter up winding,
neglected drivepath.

The General declaimed his friend's fears as "gilliemaufrey
nonsense!" To which Mr. Donald responded by asking Sir Andrew if he had
ever been inside. "I have," he went on, "and I'll no deny it had me
shaking in me shoes, and I'm no a supairsteetious mon! Not," he went on
in purest Oxford accents, "that I mean to deter you, Tyndale."

"You would be wasting your time, sir," said the Canadian
determinedly.

The General grinned his approval. "And that gave you back your
own, Donald! Gad, it's no wee cottage, is it?"

It was not. And the closer they came, the larger loomed the
castle until they were in the dark shadow of it, as it towered above
them.

With a stirring of pride, Tyndale thought, "How grand it is!
The home of my ancestors! And it is mine now."

His thoughts taking a different direction, Devenish noted that
there were no small boys intrepidly exploring the great pile. And how
odd that a hush seemed to have fallen upon their own small party, even
the shrill titters from the chaise having been silenced.

The General pulled his mount to a halt beside the spread of
some great old trees, and swung from the saddle. "Shall we picnic
here?" he called with rather determined gaiety. "What d'ye say, ladies?"

Tyndale dismounted to hand Mrs. Fraser from the chaise. "It's
well enough," she allowed, her shrewd eyes flickering over the bulk of
the castle.

Following, Mrs. Drummond clutched nervously at Tyndale's arm.
"Oh, my!" she twittered. "I think I shall not awaken Socrates. The dear
little fellow would be petrified."

Mrs. Fraser threw a disdainful glance at the terrier, who
snored on the seat " 'Twould take a mighty fearsome bogle tae scare
that wee grouch!"

Innocently watching Arabella, the General asked if the ladies
would prefer that they picnicked inside.

Mrs. Drummond uttered a small squeak. Mrs. Fraser cast
disgusted eyes to heaven, and the General chuckled.

Yolande shook her head at him. "Wicked rascal!" She slipped
her arm around her aunt's trembling shoulders. "We will do nicely out
here. There is still plenty of blue sky, but if it begins to rain you
and the gentlemen may go inside and light a fire for us."

"May we?" the General said with an amused chuckle, "Well—let
us have the baskets down! I'm famished." The two footmen busying
themselves at once, Sir Andrew said that the ladies could supervise the
disposition of the picnic whilst the gentlemen took "our new property
owner to view his home, the noo." He and Devenish led the way. Walking
beside Mr. Donald, Tyndale asked softly, "Am I mistaken, sir, or do you
know something of my… background that causes you to hold me in
aversion?"

"Let us say rather that I have recently learned that which
causes me to believe Drummond will be vastly incensed when
he
hears it."

Tyndale drew a deep breath. "I see. I trust you will believe
me, sir, when I tell you that when I first arrived here, I thought
everyone knew the—the details."

"And when did you find your assumption to be incorrect?"

"Last night. Which decided me upon leaving this morning."

"You do not mean to return to Steep Drummond?"

"No, sir. My man was packing and is likely already following."

Donald nodded and said a judicial, "As well, perhaps."

Angered, Tyndale lifted his chin, and, noting that prideful
gesture, the older man said, "When the word gets out, you'll be cut—I
warn you."

"And I warn
you
, sir. Whatever you have
been told is not truth!"

A twinkle coining into his eyes, Donald said mildly, "If ye
dinna ken what I've heard, laddie, how can ye know it for a lie?"

Tyndale flushed, his mouth tightening.

Taking pity on him, Donald gripped his shoulder briefly. "I'll
tell ye what I
do
know, which is precious little.
I was acquainted with your sire. Oh, never look so hopeful, lad! Not
well acquainted. But enough to know that if Jonas brought about
Stuart's death, it was because of a blow dealt in anger. Not a
deliberate attempt at murder. Of that I am perfectly sure."

Mollified, Tyndale said, "Thank you, sir. But—may I ask who
told you of it? And when? Yolande thinks it a deep buried secret."

"Aye. It was, that. For four and twenty years. Who let the cat
oot o' the bag, I dinna ken. But oot it is! And—whisht! I'd as soon not
be nigh when Andy learns of 't!"

Before Craig could respond, the General called a testy
summons, and they hastened to join him atop the debris-strewn steps
before the main door. The castle rose from a veritable jungle of
overgrown shrubs and trees. Several window panes were broken, but it
did not now appear to be in as sorry a state as it had seemed at a
distance. It was perched at the very edge of the cliffs, and from below
came a steady booming as waves broke against the great rocks offshore
that rose as if to shield the bay from further inroads of the hungry
tide. Devenish gazed up at the soaring battlements. Donald glanced
meaningfully at Tyndale, who flushed darkly, drew from his pocket the
heavy key his solicitor had given him, and fitted it in the lock. He
had expected the door to prove recalcitrant, but it swung open smoothly
enough, and like guilty schoolboys, they did not at once enter, but all
stood at the top of the steps, peering inside.

They looked into a great, flagged, baronial hall. About forty
feet distant, there was a gigantic fireplace, with beside it a steep
flight of stone stairs, leading to a railed balcony. To the left of the
fireplace an enormous door, half-open, offered a glimpse of a long
corridor, and in the right-hand wall was a similar door that they later
discovered led to the kitchens, servants quarters, and stableyard.
Several well-preserved bishop's chairs were grouped about the hearth,
and the walls were hung with occasional large and faded tapestries. At
the foot of the stairs, a suit of armour had toppled, and lay rather
pathetically strewn on the dusty flagstones.

Tyndale gathered his courage and walked inside. The General
and Mr. Donald followed, but Devenish stood as one frozen, making no
attempt to accompany them. He had never fancied himself to harbour a
belief in the occult, but now he was gripped by an all but overpowering
terror, so that it was literally impossible for him to put one foot
before the next. It was as much as he could do, in fact, not to dash
madly back down the steps.

"Jove," Tyndale murmured, considerably awed, "but it's big!"

"It was a bonnie sight when I was a lad," said the General. He
turned to Donald. "D'ye recollect when—" He stopped and, following his
friend's gaze, called, "Well, Devenish, d'ye not mean to come inside?"

Devenish wet his lips. Glancing at him, Tyndale said, "I fancy
the ladies are ready. We can leave this until later."

"Hoot-toot!" exclaimed Sir Andrew irascibly. "What ails the
boy? He's no afraid o' ghosties, I—"

Donald frowned and leaned to murmur something in his ear, and
Sir Andrew looked mortified. He said contritely, "My apologies,
Devenish. I must be getting daft in my dotage! I'd clean forgot that
both your parents died here."

"It was—just an odd sort of—feeling." Devenish gave a ghastly
grin. "I shall do very well now, thank you." Nonetheless, to make
himself walk forward was one of the most difficult things he'd ever had
to do, and it seemed an age before he stood beside Tyndale, who was
inspecting one of the tapestries.

"I would really as soon look over the castle by myself," the
Canadian muttered. "And I am sure you would rather be with Yolande, so—"

"Stuff! I mean to stay and lend you a hand. Besides, I want to
see—" The words ended in a yelp of shock as Socrates shot between his
legs and disappeared into the dimness beyond the half-open door.

"That imp o' Satan!" growled the General. And then,
brightening, "Happen a bogle'll get him!"

"I would never be forgiven," Craig said, going over to swing
the door wide. There was no sign of Socrates, but he went into a broad
corridor that gave onto several large rooms, some provided with heavy
doors, and others having only broad archways to afford entrance. The
first of these latter led into a formal dining hall that boasted two
modern chandeliers above a fine oak table lined with about thirty
ponderously carven chairs. There were fireplaces at both ends of this
large chamber, and daylight shone dimly through three sets of closed
curtains.

Devenish wandered in, remarked that the atmosphere in the room
was less frigid, but dashed gloomy, and went over to fling back the
draperies. He was at once enveloped in a dense cloud of dust, his
resultant explosion of sneezing amusing the General and Mr. Donald, who
mocked him gleefully.

Tyndale, however, paid no heed to his cousin's plight, but
stood staring down at the oaken table top, his brows drawn into a
thoughtful frown.

Clouds began to drift in from the sea while they were still
sitting around the luncheon cloth, but the sunshine, although not
constant, was sufficiently warm to take the chill off the air. The chef
had provided a varied and tempting repast, to which they all did
justice. Yolande was surprised to find herself hungry, despite the fact
that she was heavy-hearted. Josie was prey to no such affliction, and
soon forgot her initial fear of the castle. Not for as long as she
could remember had she eaten as well as during her travels with
Devenish, and she applied herself to the food with joyous appreciation,
yet with a mannerliness that brought curiosity to Sir Andrew's eyes.

"I'd give a few guineas to know where you hail from, Mistress
Storm," he said, waving a bannock at her.

"So would I, sir," she replied, serenely unafraid of this old
gentleman before whom grooms trembled and maids were tongue-tied.