"Did Sir Alfred ever help with your education? With maintenance?"

Miss Earnshaw shrugged. "He died the year after we were born. He left us a small sum of money. Deborah used hers to help our half brother, Amos, buy the inn. I used mine to go to school. I wanted out of this village, away from the clacking tongues, the whispers behind our backs."

She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I always forget what it is like, how small, how dark, how closed. And then I come back, and it quite takes my breath away. I will come until Mam dies, and then I will not come again," she said with an air of finality.

A sudden thought struck me and I turned to her. "This Richard Earnshaw, he was a miner?"

A slow smile ripened on her lips. She knew precisely where I was leading with my question. "Yes. And he was killed when the mine collapsed. It was ten years after Sir Alfred died. Deborah and I were only eleven. It was a terrible blow. He never once treated us as though we were less than his own. He sang us songs of the Welsh hills and taught us to stand proudly, even when the gossips in the village were whispering our names."

"It must have been a tremendous loss to your family when he died," Portia put in.

"It was. Mam had the keeping of us, so she did anything she could to feed and clothe us. She went into service at Grimsgrave Hall as a chambermaid."

I stared at her. It was difficult to read her features through the deepening gloom. "That must have been a trifle awkward, with your mother working for Lady Allenby."

"Oh, I think it must have been why she was employed in the first place. Lady Allenby is a G.o.d-fearing woman. She would not let her husband's children starve, even if they were the fruits of sin."

I said nothing, but I wondered if Miss Earnshaw would be quite so quick to praise Lady Allenby if she knew what horrors she was capable of.

"Sir Alfred must have been rather young when he died," Portia put in suddenly.

"Just over forty," Miss Earnshaw corrected. "Not young, but not long past his prime."

"Was it sudden?" I do not know what prompted Portia's questions, but I was suddenly interested in the answers.

"Yes, rather. There was actually quite a bit of talk at the time. The villagers said he was cursed to death."

I stopped in my tracks. "Cursed?" I said, my voice barely audible.

"Yes. He was the local magistrate, as befitted his position as the largest landowner. He had bound over a Gypsy woman for trial, and when he did so, she cursed him. He was dead within a fortnight. It was all anyone could talk about for months. She cursed the chemist as well, and he died several months later, of fear, some said."

"What became of the Gypsy woman?" Portia asked.

Miss Earnshaw shrugged again. "She died as well, as soon as she delivered her curse. Never even made it to the trial, poor thing. Pity, she might well have been set free."

"Curious," Portia offered. "One would think the death of the Gypsy woman would have lifted the curse."

We had reached the path then that struck off toward Grimsgrave Hall. I put out my hand.

"It has been a pleasure, Miss Earnshaw," I said, my mind galloping ahead. "If you have a mind to call at Grimsgrave while we are visiting, we should so enjoy meeting you again."

Miss Earnshaw shook my hand soberly and gave a little shake of her head. "I think not, Lady Julia. I do not believe I would be comfortable in my father's house knowing that, but for a few words said in church and a bit of paper, it might have been my home."

"You do know that Lady Allenby is no longer in residence?" I asked, delicately skirting the issue of why.

Miss Earnshaw's expression did not vary. "Yes. It was a nine days' wonder when she left in the company of two nuns from Ireland. For a rest cure for her rheumatism, it seems. Folk said that one of the nuns looked very like her eldest daughter, Wilfreda, who eloped with a painter many years past."

"That is not the truth of it," I protested, but Miss Earnshaw merely smiled.

"This is Lesser Howlett, Lady Julia. The truth does not matter half so much as what people think is the truth."

"I quite understand," I said, inclining my head.

Portia made her goodbyes and we left Jerusha Earnshaw there, standing at the moor gate, smiling into the darkness.

THE TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER.

Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?

-William Shakespeare.

King Lear.

Portia and I made our way back to Grimsgrave Hall, chattering most of the journey.

"I cannot believe Mrs. Earnshaw," Portia began once we were out of earshot of the woman's daughter. "So righteous and G.o.dly, and all the while, she's borne a pair of illegitimate daughters to Sir Alfred Allenby for all the world to see."

"She did not have much choice about the world seeing once they were born," I pointed out. "They are tall and blond with blue eyes. Anyone would have known them for Sir Alfred's daughters. I knew there was something familiar about Deborah, but I did not realise until just today it is because she is so very like Ailith Allenby."

"But more to the point, we now have proof the Allenbys run to twins."

I nodded. "Yes. Twin babies with blond hair, walled up in Grimsgrave Hall. There seems little room to doubt those children are Allenbys. The question remains, who is the father?"

"G.o.dwin or Redwall," Portia said promptly. "And I shall plump for G.o.dwin. He has an earthy sort of character. He's robust and always slightly flushed, as if he had just come from rogering the milkmaid in the haymow."

I gave her a little push. "There are no milkmaids at Grimsgrave. But I know what you mean. He is indeed earthy. From the impressions I have been given, Redwall seems an altogether different character. Studious, scholarly, more interested in his cold-blooded experiments than seducing the village maids."

"Besides which we have heard nothing of intemperate habits," Portia observed. "One teatime's conversation and we know that his father was a rogue. Wouldn't we have heard at least a whisper of scandal about Redwall if he'd been making free with the local maidens?"

"Just think of it," I said slowly. "Redwall embalming children that were actually related to him. Even if they were G.o.dwin's, they would still be a sort of cousin."

"How perfectly disgusting you are, Julia. It is frightful to think of Redwall embalming children of any variety, let alone family."

I stopped and put a hand to her sleeve. "So, let us work from the likeliest hypothesis-G.o.dwin Allenby fathered a pair of b.a.s.t.a.r.d twins upon some hapless girl, and then gave them to his own cousin to experiment upon."

We walked in silence awhile, each of us pondering the same thing, I think. G.o.dwin was a likeable fellow, and it was oddly painful to think him capable of such callous behaviour to his own children.

"Perhaps they were born dead," Portia put in hopefully. "Without a proper postmortem, there is no way of determining what really happened. You said Brisbane believes they were not killed by violence, and I want to believe it, too. Oh, Julia, the other possibility does not bear thinking about."

"He is a farmer," I said slowly. "Think how many times he must have laid a killing hand to a struggling lamb or a starveling calf. He would view it as a necessity, no different than culling the weakest of the litter if the children had no prospects of a good life."

"But why should they have no prospects?" Portia demanded. "If he lay with a village girl and got her with child, why should he not marry her? He is not so far above the local folk as all that."

"Isn't he? He is still an Allenby. Think of them, Portia. All of them, nursed on that overweening pride, not of the normal variety, but the mad sort. They've got their obsessions and their delusions, and they think they are so far above everyone else because their grandfather forty times over was a Saxon king. Do you honestly believe Lady Allenby would have sat idly by while G.o.dwin married an unlettered farmer's daughter? And who else is likely to have fallen victim to his seductions? Jerusha Earnshaw is, as far as I can see, the only properly educated young lady in the entire village and she fled it as soon as possible. If the Allenbys wished to preserve the exclusivity of their blood, they would never have permitted G.o.dwin to commingle his with the local folk."

"I suppose you are right," Portia said finally. "But what if the mother died in childbed? The birthing of twins can be difficult, particularly if it was her first pregnancy. If she died, her family would want the scandal quieted down, wouldn't they? And it would suit the Allenbys as well. Pay the girl's family a suitable sum to keep their silence and then dispose of the children themselves."

"Is it possible to keep such secrets in a village?" I wondered aloud. "We always knew everything that happened in Blessingstoke," I reminded her. "That is why we never dared misbehave in the village. The news would have reached Father before we'd even returned home."

Portia stumbled over a stone in the fitful moonlight and cursed. "Perhaps it isn't likely," she conceded. "But it is possible. And we've no theory as plausible as that one."

"I suppose. I still think if villagers were involved, there would be talk of it. You know the old saying, three can keep a secret if two are dead."

Portia stopped suddenly and turned to face me, her complexion pale as the moonlight that shone upon it.

"What did you make of that tale Jerusha Earnshaw told us about Sir Alfred, dying by a Gypsy woman's curse?"

I kept walking, schooling my expression to serenity. "I think it proves my point about village gossip. They tell the most outlandish stories. I have no doubt that one in particular was embellished and embroidered in the retelling until it hardly resembles the truth anymore."

Portia hurried to keep pace with me. "I don't know. Jerusha Earnshaw struck me as an extremely sensible woman. I cannot imagine she would believe it if it were a faery story."

"Did she say she believed it?" I asked lightly. "I thought she was just repeating village tattle. Besides, she was a year old when Sir Alfred died, by her own admission. She would have hardly been in a position to know these things for herself."

"I suppose," Portia said at length. We topped a rise just then, and the moor stretched out ahead of us, silvery-white and rustling, like a wide ghostly sea. In the distance lay Grimsgrave Hall, black and hulking as a ship adrift on moonlit waves.

"It is horrible," Portia said. "And I do not know why it should be. It is actually quite a pretty house in broad daylight. But under that moon..."

"It is sinister," I agreed, steeling myself to return to it. Lady Allenby was gone, the danger to Brisbane was past. And yet knowing what G.o.dwin had likely done to his own children made me reluctant to stay there. I wondered what it would take for Brisbane to return to London and leave this place to its ghosts.

"Tuppence for your thoughts," Portia said at last.

I shook my head slowly. "I was just thinking of Brisbane, and why he feels compelled to stay here. It reminded me of something Father once told me when Bellmont was being difficult, just after I was widowed. He said Bellmont was turning forty, and it was a hard age for a man because that is the age when he looks at his life and realises whatever he is is all he will ever be."

"Why did you connect that thought with Brisbane?"

"He will be forty this year," I told her, arching my brow significantly. "Perhaps he has something to prove to himself." Or others, I thought privately.

"Speaking of Bellmont, I saw him in London," Portia said. "His family were just preparing to leave for an extended visit to the Duke of Driffield's country seat. Nothing formal has been announced between Driffield's girl and our nephew, Orlando, but matters are quite far advanced. Bellmont cherishes hopes that this visit will seal the match. Parliament is sitting, of course, so Bellmont could not accompany them, but he means to come up when he can," she finished.

I stared at her. "Driffield. His seat is in Yorkshire, in the East Riding. Do you mean to tell me-"

"Yes, dearest." She patted my hand. "Bellmont will be in Yorkshire very soon. And he means to call upon us here whilst he is in the north."

I let loose a stream of colourful language I had learned from my brother Bened.i.c.k.

"You have conjugated that particular word most incorrectly, but I quite agree," Portia told me. "If it is any consolation to you, I propose we put him in Lady Allenby's bedchamber for the duration of his stay. I will be quite happy to share with you again, and he can spend his nights being stared awake by a bleeding Jesus."

"I can think of no one more deserving," I said sharply. This was a new worry I did not need. Bellmont's presence at Grimsgrave would effectively end my involvement in the many mysteries I was ravelling out. He capitulated often enough when Father exerted his influence, but we were far from London, and if Brisbane wanted me gone, Bellmont was entirely capable of packing me off. There was no hope for it, I decided, lengthening my stride and taking in great lungsful of fresh moor wind. If I wanted to solve the mysteries that swirled around Grimsgrave Hall, I would have to do it myself, and before Bellmont came. There was no time to waste.

Brisbane had been irrationally pleased that Portia and I had gone to the village, and thoroughly annoyed when we returned.

"I had rather hoped you had both come to your senses and gone home," he commented nastily upon seeing us.

Portia merely put out her tongue at him and proceeded to instruct Mrs. b.u.t.ters to lay our supper. He retired to his room then, to sulk no doubt, which was just as well. I had much to think about, and Brisbane was frequently a distraction.

True to her word, Ailith had removed Portia's things to Lady Allenby's chamber, and I ought to have had a peaceful night's rest. Instead, a hundred questions tangled in my mind, keeping me wakeful long past midnight.

At length I fell into a long, pointless dream about picking mushrooms with Rosalie and Rook while G.o.dwin sat on a riverbank, playing mournful tunes on a flute and Ailith arranged furniture made of acorn caps and twigs in her dolls' house. Back and forth Brisbane strode on the horizon, never moving farther away, never coming closer. It was a maddening dream, and I felt oddly unsettled when I rose.

If nothing else, the dream suggested a visit to Rosalie might be in order, and I set off for the little cottage on the moor shortly after breakfast, leaving the rest of the inhabitants of Grimsgrave to their various occupations. Portia was reading-a thick, densely-written tome about India. Minna was stirring up a pudding under Mrs. b.u.t.ters' watchful eye whilst Jetty turned out the larder for a thorough scrubbing. Morag could not be shifted from her post with the pups, clucking over them like a doting mother hen. Valerius was busy hammering upon the new henhouse with his sore hands, watched closely by a nervous flock of chickens who seemed to disapprove of his plans. Ailith applied herself to her mending, and I kept to my plan and turned my steps to Rosalie's, bearing a basket with a fresh ham pie, courtesy of Minna's efforts in the kitchens.

But before I reached the moor, another notion struck me. The person most likely to illuminate Redwall Allenby's character was his sister. Not Ailith, she had been too fond of him. Her simple, sisterly affection may well have blinded her to his faults. No, it was an altogether more critical observation I wanted.

I found Hilda in the garden, tucked in the limbs of an apple tree, her feet dangling just above my head.

"I am reading," she told me without looking up from her book. "Leave me be."

"I would like to speak with you, Miss Hilda. Will you come down, or shall I come up?" I called pleasantly.

She regarded me suspiciously. "You would, wouldn't you?" She sighed and snapped the book closed, shoving it into her pocket. "Very well."

She scrambled down, neatly as a monkey, then stood in front of me, her shoulders rounded down, hands thrust into her pockets.

"Valerius is no carpenter, but he seems to be making quite good progress on the henhouse. I don't wonder it will be finished soon."

"The chickens were perfectly happy with the old house," she said flatly.

"Then why did you permit my brother to build them another?"

She gave shake of her head as an impatient pony will do. "Because I am humouring him. He has been kind to me and he wants to do this."

I was impressed in spite of myself. "You astonish me, Miss Hilda. Most people recognise the importance of giving. Few understand the importance of letting others give. Yes, Valerius is a bit of a fixer. Nothing gives him greater pleasure than to think he's been useful. It's a family failing," I mused, reflecting briefly how much satisfaction I had had in solving the little mysteries I had encountered.

Her gaze narrowed. "You have not come to discuss the chickens. What do you want of me?"

"I want to know about Redwall."

Emotion of some sort flickered over her face, but I could not read it. "Why?"

"Because I would like to understand his character," I temporised. "I have been fascinated to work on his collection, and I want to know more about the man who built it."

She put her head to the side, her cool gaze running over me from booted feet to the locks I had pinned into submission behind my ears. "You are untruthful, Lady Julia. But it doesn't matter. I will tell you all you need to know about Redwall. He was selfish and greedy, and whatever evil you can conceive, he was capable of its execution. Our father was cruel and amoral, and Redwall was his equal. He had no sense of duty or propriety, and I did not love him. I did not even like him."

She stopped then, her breath coming quite fast. It was a lengthy speech for her, and I gave her a moment to compose herself.

"Do you remember a coffin, an Egyptian lady's coffin, in his collection? I believe it was owned by your grandfather first," I said at last.

If the change of subject unbalanced her, she did not betray it. "Yes. It was the first piece in Redwall's collection. He unrolled the mummy without the slightest bit of scientific method, I am sorry to say. He quite destroyed it," she finished bitterly.

"When was the last time you saw the coffin?"