The Wrong Rite (4 page)

“Well, I’ll be darned. He must have been real.”

Or rather not real. Janet supposed she ought to feel scared; instead she was rather pleased. It would be something to tell at the dinner table.

Then again, maybe it wouldn’t. There was no sense in getting anybody all worked up over a perfectly harmless ghost. Whoever was sleeping at that end of the hall might be the nervous type. She’d better just mention the incident quietly to Madoc or Uncle Caradoc and see what they thought. In her own opinion, the ghost had picked a silly time and place to manifest itself. If it was looking to make an effect, why couldn’t it have skinned down to the dining hall and floated in behind the soup?

Downstairs, couples were being sorted out to go in to dinner, and it appeared that she was to be belle of the ball. Janet hurried to lay her hand on the arm that Uncle Caradoc had been reserving for her, noticing with some small relief that Madoc was taking his mother and not Iseult. Dafydd had been assigned to Lisa, as was right and proper considering that she’d been kind enough to offer him a place to sleep during his visit. It was Tom Feste who’d drawn the sumptuous redhead. Tom’s track record with actresses had so far been rather spectacularly unsuccessful, according to Silvestrine. He was said to be paying alimony to two or three. One might have thought he’d have developed an allergy by now, but he seemed pleased enough with his companion.

Lisa’s pretty daughter had been paired with the youngest mouse, Dai being the only male of suitable age in the party. Sir Emlyn had got stuck with Mary and the Beltane fires. That was all right, he’d rehearse some Handel oratorio or other in his head while she ran on. Neither would impinge on the other’s pleasure and both would leave the table with a sense of time well spent. That left Gwen the only unattached woman, with Reuel Williams and Bob the Blob left over. Far too wily to choose, she gave an arm to each and swept into the dining hall like a female privateer running her prizes into port.

Since his wife’s death eight years or so before, Sir Caradoc had got into the habit of asking his nephew’s wife to play hostess whenever she happened to be in residence. Lady Rhys took her place at the far end and got everybody seated to her satisfaction. Not entirely to theirs, perhaps, but when one had to cope with a man too many, one did the best one could.

Lady Rhys had done well by her daughter-in-law, anyway. Comfortable between Sir Caradoc and Sir Emlyn, Janet was mildly entertained to see Dafydd parked beside Mary the Fires and Iseult tucked away on the opposite side of the long banqueting board. She leaned back in her ancient but mercifully cushioned oaken chair and waited for Sir Caradoc to say grace and the footmen to start bringing around the soup, which old Iowerth the butler was serving from a vast silver tureen at the sideboard.

It was interesting to see how many liveried servitors could manifest themselves on formal occasions. Janet had not so far discovered where they went or what they did between dinnertimes. Stayed in their rooms and wrote poetry, perhaps. Or went out on the hillsides and sang to the sheep.

Actually there were only two waiting tonight beside the butler. Fifteen at table required no great retinue, this was rather a paltry turnout in a house where the old Welsh tradition of hospitality was scrupulously maintained.

Caradoc Rhys had been one of four. Born in 1902, he’d been too young to fight in the Great War that had taken his elder brother and left him in line to be fourteenth baronet. His parents and a sister had all died in the terrible influenza epidemic of 1918. Not yet of age, he’d found himself Sir Caradoc, lord of the manor and thrall to the countless cares and responsibilities of a large estate, some thousands of sheep, a tenantry who regarded him as their appointed guardian angel and fount of every blessing; along with a younger brother who showed great promise as a musician and none whatsoever as a farmer.

Caradoc had done his duty and done it well. There had been money enough, thanks to the chalice and his forbears’ good stewardship. His workers had been decently paid, his sheep well fed, his brother’s music lessons paid for. He’d married young and well, a girl from the county with a little money of her own and no great slew of relatives to add to the weight of his burdens. The late Lady Rhys hadn’t been everybody’s cup of tea, but she’d been Caradoc’s to love and to cherish, and she’d loved him and cherished him back.

Sir Caradoc’s brother had fulfilled his early promise, become a concert violinist, and married his accompanist. Emlyn had been their only child. During the war, as the blitz hotted up, they’d sent him for safety to the manor, where he’d have Caradoc’s son, Huw, also an only child and just a year or two older, as a companion. When one of Hitler’s buzz bombs had found the stage on which Emlyn’s parents had been performing, the new-made orphan had stayed on, regarding the manor as his home and Huw as more a brother than a cousin. In time, each had been best man at the other’s wedding. Huw and his Elen had wanted a big family, but they’d managed to produce just two, a boy and a girl.

Huw’s daughter, an anthropologist, was in Africa with her husband and some other scientists; they were sorry to miss the party but would be home for Christmas. Her brother, Owain, Huw’s right hand and eventual heir, had never wanted to do anything other than the work he was born to. He’d done an agricultural course and married as soon as he decently could, a girl of Welsh descent whose forbears had emigrated to Argentina during the nineteenth century and joined the Welsh sheep-farming colony in Patagonia. Owain and his Mavis had lost no time building up the family stock, they and their four offspring were just now back from visiting Mavis’s relatives with a Patagonian niece and nephew along for ballast. The two young Patagonians spoke good English and Welsh, Sir Caradoc said, but with a Spanish accent. Janet would enjoy them.

Janet was sure she would. She thought she wouldn’t bring up her monk while Uncle Caradoc was so happy talking about his family. She waited till Silvestrine turned the table, and told Sir Emlyn instead.

It cannot be easy to upstage Handel, but Janet succeeded; her father-in-law was intrigued. “A monk in the west wing? Jenny, that’s most unusual. I don’t recall anybody’s ever seeing one except here in the dining hall or out among the ruins.”

“That’s what I’d have expected. He did seem terribly out of place up there among all that plush and mahogany. Some overstuffed Victorian who’d died of too many nine-course dinners would have been more in keeping, wouldn’t you say?” Janet couldn’t stop herself from glancing over at Bob the Blob, who was shoveling in lamb and new peas at double speed for fear a footman might snatch away his plate while there was still food to be had.

Sir Emlyn smiled. “Far more appropriate. You must have been startled.”

“Not really. I thought it was just somebody trying to be funny. I was all set to lay him out about not scaring Megan and waking the baby when he simply vanished. Then I realized I must have seen a ghost.”

Toward the other end of the table, Dafydd was behaving badly. Instead of turning to chat with Mary as etiquette demanded, he had not even pretended to listen when she’d ventured an opening remark or two, but applied himself in sullen silence to his glass and his food. Given the cold shoulder, Mary had no recourse but to eat her dinner in chilly isolation or to eavesdrop on Sir Emlyn and Janet. She eavesdropped; she gasped. She interrupted.

“You saw a
ghost?”

“That was my impression at the time,” replied Janet, wishing to goodness Mary wouldn’t talk so loud. “At first I thought it was somebody playing a trick, but then it vanished. All the bedroom doors were closed, and there was nowhere else it could have gone. But it was nothing to be scared of.”

“Scared? Oh no. No indeed. This is marvelous, simply marvelous! Bob! Bob, listen. Mrs. Madoc’s seen a ghost.”

Incredibly, Bob the Blob stopped eating. With the last forkful of peas halfway to his mouth, he sat for a moment rapt in what looked like catalepsy but turned out to be unalloyed rapture. When he uttered, his voice was surprisingly authoritarian. “A ghost? Describe it me, pray, Mrs. Madoc.”

By this time, the whole table and even the footmen were listening; Janet had no recourse but to start over from the beginning. The episode had been thin enough at the start; as she talked, it sounded thinner and sillier. Reuel Williams was sneering, Dai was trying to but hadn’t quite got the knack. Tib was agog, Gwen enraptured, Tom amused, Lisa taking it calmly. Iseult seemed annoyed, Lady Rhys just a tad alarmed, Sir Caradoc pleased as punch. Madoc pushed back his chair.

“If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just run up and have a look.”

“Let’s all go!” cried Tib.

Her grandfather raised a staying hand. “That would not do at all, Tib. Ghosts are tetchy creatures, and so is our Betty. She would take it greatly amiss if we raced out before the meal is over. Let me tell you about the first ghost I ever saw. It was right about where you are sitting now, and I was only ten years old.”

Sir Caradoc’s story had little more substance than Janet’s but he told it far better, keeping a tight hold on everybody’s attention until Madoc was back among them. He hadn’t run into anything in the supernatural line but had peeked in on the baby and was in a position to assure everyone, meaning principally Janet, that Dorothy was rapt in peaceful infant slumber. That was excellent news for her, now they could talk about something else.

But no, Bob was as tenacious of the subject as he’d been of his plate. “Sir Caradoc, what color was your ghost?”

“Color? Why, no color, as far as I can remember. Whitish, or pale gray, I suppose. Cistercians were known as the Grey Monks or the White Monks, to differentiate them from the Cluny and other Black Monks.”

“But over the white habit, a Cistercian would have worn a black apron or scapular, the scapular being most probably a short cape or stole. Was there no black whatever about your ghost?”

“I really could not say, such a long time has passed. What about yours, Janet?”

“Oh, just ordinary ghost color, sort of like fog. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Bob.”

“But you do not disappoint me, Mrs. Madoc. On the contrary, you elate me. My hypothesis is confirmed. What you and our honored kinsman saw could have been no monk. That was, on the contrary, a Druid!”

Janet started to laugh. Bob’s pronouncement was just too pedantically bombastic. What possible difference could a ghost’s religion make?

Quite a lot, evidently. Mary was hooting like a stage whistle. “I knew it! I knew it! It’s the sickle. He’s come to take back his golden sickle!”

At last she’d caught Dafydd’s attention. He turned in his chair and looked down upon her with about the same kind of interest he’d have shown a worm in his salad. “Then what was he haunting the west wing for? The sickles are all down here.”

“Not the newest one. Sir Caradoc’s been carrying it around. The Druid must have followed him up to his room.”

“Then why didn’t it have sense enough to follow him back?” Janet argued. “Uncle Caradoc was in the drawing room when I saw the ghost.”

And so, come to think of it, was everybody else in the party. She’d been the last one down, they’d been lined up ready to come to the table. So if there had by any chance been a human agent behind that eerie manifestation, he or she couldn’t be anybody here.

Mary wasn’t ready to yield the floor. “Maybe it thought Sir Caradoc had left the sickle in his bedroom when he changed for dinner.”

“I did not,” Sir Caradoc assured her. “The sickle is in a safe place. You need not worry, we have a policeman in the house. Tomorrow Madoc will perhaps be kind enough to help me put it up there with the others.”

“Of course,” said Madoc. “Whenever you say. Ah, I see Betty’s done us proud.”

Nobody would expect to get out of Wales without having at least once eaten trifle. There are trifles and trifles: some of them are excellent, some of them are so-so, some of them are downright awful. Betty’s was no trifling matter. Its base was not the usual sponge cake but a delectable gateau soaked in Sir Caradoc’s best sherry. Its jelly was homemade currant, tart and firm and glowing like rubies. Its fruits were fresh and ripe, jazzed up with a drop of rum. Its custard was smooth and thick and just a touch nutmeggy. Its whipped cream was subtly flavored with Grand Marnier and piled up like summer clouds over Snowdon. Iowerth had an extra jug of heavy cream ready to pour on lest anybody find the trifle not quite rich enough already.

For Janet there was a special portion in a small glass bowl. “There is no spirits in this, ma’am,” the footman murmured as he set it before her. Clever Betty, she didn’t want Dorothy getting drunk any more than Janet did.

Suspecting that something like this might happen, Janet had gone easy on the lamb. She mustn’t hurt Betty’s feelings by not eating it all, God help her.

Orange juice on the gateau, a hint of lemon with the fruit. Lovely. Now if only Dai would quit staring across the table at her through those owl-eye glasses and Bob glancing up to make sure that she hadn’t got more trifle than he, and if Mary would ever quit harping on the Druid’s sickle! Driven to desperation, Janet gave each pesty mouse one of her looks and asked Sir Emlyn in a good, clear voice why Handel’s oratorios had continued to be performed so much oftener than his operas.

That perked even Dafydd up. The conversation became general and often heated. They gravitated in a bunch to the grand piano in the drawing room and wound up with everybody singing excerpts from the
Messiah, The Creation,
and a number of lesser-known works which of course everybody but Janet and Madoc had down cold. Dafydd was in wonderful voice, as was only expected. Surprisingly, so was Bob the Blob. Even when she could no longer stop her yawns, Janet hated to leave the party.

M
ADOC WOKE EARLY. REALLY
early, early enough to have beaten the sun by a good way. But not before the birds. They were having a high old time out there. Some of them, anyway. Tone-deaf as he was, he couldn’t make out their calls very well, but this racket could hardly be an exaltation of larks, much less a deception of lapwings. Uncle Caradoc had taught him the ancient terms ages ago; being Madoc, he’d remembered.