The Wicked Widow Read online

  “To the Priest’s Hole,” Kyla said.

  “I have just been thinkin’ what you’ll want,” Nanny went on, “which will be a couple of blankets and two pillows and I’ll show you the little lantern that his Lordship has at all the entrances to the secret passages.”

  “What about food?” Terry asked.

  “You can take with you the box of biscuits in the cupboard,” Nanny said, “but, of course, I’ll bring you some food if you’re there long.”

  She looked at Kyla before she added,

  “I hope her Ladyship’ll only be droppin’ in for tea,” she commented.

  “If you can convince her that you have not seen us or know anything about our having disappeared,” Kyla answered, “I can see no reason why she should linger.”

  She thought for a few moments and then said,

  “His Lordship said, ‘tell Nanny a Lady Shenley is coming to see her.’ I think that means he cannot know her as a friend but just as an acquaintance.”

  “I just hopes you’re right,” Nanny said. “Now, come along, both of you. I’ve two extra blankets in my room in case it gets cold.”

  She gave Kyla one of the blankets to carry and took the other one herself, while Terry managed the two pillows.

  There was no one in the passage outside the nursery because the staff were all having their luncheon in the servants hall.

  They slipped into the big cupboard and Nanny turned the lock and opened the trap door after she had taken away the woollen rug.

  Then she bent down and took from the hook at the bottom of the steps a small lantern.

  It had a wick, which was soaked in oil and attached to it was a tinderbox by which they could light the wick.

  She showed them how it was done, saying as she did so that the Curator had explained it all to her.

  “You’ll not need it till it’s dark,” she told Kyla. “Be ever so careful not to drop it.”

  “I will be very careful,” Kyla promised.

  “I’ll carry it now,” Nanny said, starting to go down the ladder.

  When she reached the bottom, Kyla dropped the other blanket down and the two pillows.

  Then, when she and Terry had joined Nanny, they walked along the narrow passage until they reached the Priest’s Hole.

  “You’ll be safe here,” Nanny said. “If you take my advice, you’ll have a lie down and try to rest. ’Tis no use agitatin’ yourselves with what’s happenin’ outside.”

  “You will come to tell us as soon as she has gone?” Terry asked plaintively.

  “Of course I will,” Nanny answered. “And you must look after your sister and don’t let her get upset. You have got to be as brave as your father would have been.”

  “It wasn’t brave of Papa to marry her,” Terry said. “She is a wicked, wicked woman and he should have been clever enough to know how bad she was.”

  It was what Kyla thought herself, but there was no point in saying so.

  Nanny kissed Terry.

  “You are a big boy,” she said, “and we’re all goin’ to believe that everythin’ is goin’ to be all right.”

  “It will be as soon as Stepmama goes away,” Terry said forcefully.

  Nanny touched Kyla affectionately on the shoulder.

  “Now, don’t you upset yourself,” she said in a low voice. “It’ll all come right in the end. You mark my words.”

  “That is what I want to believe,” Kyla sighed.

  “I’ve left the biscuits in the cupboard,” Nanny exclaimed. “Now, come along, Terry, and fetch them from me. Then I’ll shut the trap door and no one’ll have any idea where you are.”

  She walked away as she did so.

  When she and Terry were gone in the dim light, Kyla spread one blanket on the mattress of the Priest’s bed.

  She hoped that she and Terry would not have to sleep on it for a long time.

  ‘I am sure that Stepmama will leave when she has seen Nanny and realises that we are not here,’ she told herself reassuringly.

  At the same time she knew that she was seriously afraid that something would go wrong.

  Terry came back with the biscuits.

  “Can I eat one now?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Kyla replied.

  Terry opened the box.

  Then he said,

  “Shall we explore the passages and see if we can peep through into any of the rooms?”

  “No, of course not,” Kyla replied. “Even if we took our shoes off, someone might hear us. We must just sit here or rather lie on this bed and only whisper because voices can carry.”

  Terry lay down on the bed and Kyla took one of the pillows and sat on the floor with her back to the wall.

  Neither of them spoke and, after a little while, Kyla realised that Terry had fallen asleep.

  It had been a strenuous morning and Kyla had the idea that, because he was so excited about riding the Earl’s horses, he had not gone to sleep for a long time last night.

  Quite suddenly she thought that perhaps his suggestion was not such a bad one.

  If they could peep into some of the other rooms in the house, she might then be aware of what was happening when her stepmother arrived.

  She took off her shoes and on stockinged feet she crept along the passage.

  It was the one they had come on when Nanny had opened the secret panel in the library.

  She had not gone at all far when she realised that there was what appeared to be a small door in the inner wall of the passage.

  She pulled at it very cautiously.

  Then she realised that it was a spyhole and she could see quite comfortably through it with one eye.

  It looked into one of the rooms that led off the wide corridor, which ended in the hall.

  There was no one in the room and Kyla could see, however, several beautiful pictures on the walls.

  Beneath them stood gilded furniture which she knew had been designed by Adam.

  She closed the small door and then moved on to the next one.

  This one looked into the drawing room and, by moving her head, she could see two fine crystal chandeliers and a picture that she thought must be by Van Dyck.

  She was just about to close the spyhole into the drawing room, when she heard a door opening.

  Then there was the butler’s voice saying,

  “I’ll tell his Lordship that you are here, my Lady.”

  Kyla drew in her breath.

  Then with her eye to the spyhole she saw her stepmother.

  She was very expensively gowned in a rustling silk and a bonnet trimmed with emerald-green ostrich feathers and there were diamonds that Kyla recognised had once belonged to her mother glittering in her ears.

  She had come.

  She was here!

  Now Kyla could only pray frantically that the Earl would not somehow give them away.

  Although they were supposed to have left The Castle, they could be found and captured.

  As their legal Guardian, Lady Shenley would claim them and they would have to go with her.

  ‘Please God – please let us be – safe,’ Kyla prayed.

  Then she heard the door open and the Earl came into the drawing room.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Shenley,” he started.

  “Oh, my Lord, I very much hope that I don’t disturb you,” Lady Shenley said in her most appealing voice. “I have been so looking forward to this moment and your Castle is even more splendid than I expected it to be.”

  “And, of course, I must show you some of it,” the Earl replied. “I think you also wanted to see the Nanny who is looking after my niece.”

  “I am sure that Nanny would be hurt if I visited here without doing so,” Lady Shenley answered.

  “Would you like to see her now or later?” the Earl enquired. “But first, of course, I must offer you some refreshment after your journey. Will you have a glass of champagne?”

  As he spoke, the butler came into the room.

 
; He was followed by a footman carrying a tray on which there were glasses and a bottle of champagne in an ice cooler.

  “How very kind,” Lady Shenley cooed. “I do find that driving in this hot weather rather exhausting.”

  “Who are you staying with in this part of the world?” the Earl asked.

  “Actually with nobody,” she replied, “but I am making a pilgrimage to the Churchyard at Dunlake.”

  The Earl knew that it was only a few miles from The Castle.

  As he looked surprised, Lady Shenley explained,

  “One of my dearest and most beloved friends is buried there. Every year I try to go when it is her birthday and put flowers on her grave.”

  Listening to her Kyla was quite certain that this was all completely untrue.

  She could not imagine her stepmother doing anything so sentimental.

  “I think it is very loyal of you,” the Earl said, “and, of course, it is quite a long journey from London.”

  “Too long,” Lady Shenley nodded, “and I hate staying in a Posting inn, as I am sure you do too, my Lord,”

  “I never do stay in them if I can help it,” the Earl said. “Fortunately I have a great friend who lives exactly halfway between The Castle and London, who is always delighted to see me. So I have a comfortable bed whatever time at night I may arrive.”

  “Oh, how lucky you are,” Lady Shenley exclaimed. “My bed last night could have been used by a Fakir as a bed of nails and I really felt that I was expiating all my sins on it.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I cannot believe there are very many.”

  “Quite enough if my bed was anything to judge by,” Lady Shenley replied.

  Although she could not see them, Kyla was sure that they were seated side by side on the sofa.

  She realised that her stepmother was trying to make the Earl invite her to stay and she hoped that he would not be beguiled into asking her to be his guest.

  ‘If he does,’ she thought frantically, ‘we shall just have to stay here in the dark until she leaves and perhaps it will be difficult for Nanny, whatever she may say, to bring us any food.’

  Her stepmother made a few more remarks about the discomfort of travelling in the hot weather.

  Then the Earl suggested,

  “If you have finished your champagne, shall we go upstairs to the nursery? I could send for Nanny, but I expect that you would prefer to see her in her own environment.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lady Shenley agreed. “How sensible of you to know that Nanny could never look in her right place except with a rocking horse, a doll’s house and, of course, all her children around her.”

  “That is indeed true,” the Earl said as he smiled, “and the rocking horse, I may tell you, is one I used myself when I was a child.”

  “Now I hear as well that your horses are the finest in England,” Lady Shenley said. “That is something else I would like to see while I am here.”

  Listening, Kyla thought despairingly that, judging by the way she was behaving and, if the Earl was taken in by it, she would be staying at The Castle for weeks.

  He had now risen to his feet and was moving under the chandelier towards the door.

  “I am afraid that there are two flights of stairs,” he said, “but that will be no difficulty for someone as young as yourself.”

  “Now you are flattering me,” she said. “Which is something I may tell your Lordship, I much enjoy.”

  She was talking in a flirtatious voice that Kyla had heard so often.

  Then, as they left the drawing room, she then closed the spyhole and tiptoed back to the Priest’s Hole.

  Terry was still fast asleep.

  She knelt down in front of the Altar.

  She closed her eyes and put her hands together.

  She prayed with an intensity that she had never known before that she and Terry would be saved from a terrible Fate.

  Chapter Six

  The Earl found it impossible to go to sleep.

  He was going over and over what had happened since Lady Shenley had called to see him.

  He had taken her upstairs himself to the nursery in the end.

  He was surprised when he entered to see that Nanny was alone with his niece.

  Lady Shenley moved forward and said in what he realised was a very affected tone,

  “How delightful to see you, Nanny. I do hope you are well.”

  Nanny had risen to her feet and she responded in what was obviously a cold voice,

  “Very well thank you, my Lady.”

  Lady Shenley looked round the nursery.

  “What a charming room,” she said. “And I see that you have your bedroom opening out of it.”

  Without asking permission, she walked to one of the bedroom doors.

  She opened it and peeped inside.

  The Earl thought that it was strange behaviour and, turning to Nanny, he enquired,

  “Where are Gerald and Miss Taylor?”

  “A carriage came for Master Gerald,” Nanny replied, “from his grandmother, saying that she wished her sister, who is now somewhat better, to see him. As he was so reluctant to go, Miss Taylor accompanied him.”

  It was all that Nanny said.

  But what she did say sounded, the Earl felt, as if she had thought it all out in advance.

  He was about to say that it seemed a strange story.

  Then he was aware of a pleading look in the elderly woman’s eyes that he had not seen before.

  The words that he was about to speak died on his lips.

  As Lady Shenley came from the second room that she had opened, which was Jane’s, she said,

  “Do tell me, Nanny, have you seen dear little Terry and Miss Kyla lately?”

  “I heard from them both at Easter, my Lady,” Nanny answered.

  Lady Shenley was looking at her piercingly.

  “Are you quite certain that they have not been here?”

  “I would certainly know if they had,” Nanny replied in a somewhat hostile tone.

  “Well, it has been nice to see you,” Lady Shenley said, walking towards the door.

  The Earl followed her and they went downstairs in silence.

  Then he recalled that, as if she had suddenly made up her mind, she started to be very flirtatious.

  In fact she made it quite obvious that she wanted to stay in The Castle.

  He was, however, determined that she would not do so.

  She stayed and stayed until it was impossible not to ask her to have dinner with him.

  During the meal she deliberately, he thought, made it very clear to him that she found him attractive as a man.

  As soon as they had left the dining room, he ordered her carriage.

  She protested that it was going to be most uncomfortable in the Posting inn.

  Nevertheless he firmly escorted her to the front door and there was nothing else that she could do but leave.

  Now, as he thought over her behaviour, he found it more and more strange.

  He was also certain that, while she might genuinely welcome him as a lover, which he had no intention of being, there was some other reason for her anxiety to stay in The Castle.

  When he went upstairs to go to bed, Jenkins was waiting for him.

  “Was Lady Shenley’s coachman,” the Earl asked, “given something to eat?”

  “Yes, of course, my Lord,” Jenkins replied. “He ’ad supper with us and,’e tells us that he’s sick to death of this ’ere ’unt for ’er Ladyship’s stepchildren.”

  “What do you mean, a hunt?” the Earl enquired.

  “Apparently they’ve run away,” Jenkins answered, “and, from all I ’ears, no one could blame them for doin’ so. Her Ladyship be a real tartar.”

  The Earl was listening while he took off his evening clothes.

  “How old are the stepchildren?” he asked when Jenkins finally paused for breath.

  “I understands the young lady be nineteen and the boy be abou
t eight,” Jenkins replied.

  The Earl did not say anything more.

  But when he was in bed, he went over in his mind the conversation word by word.

  He thought everything was beginning to fit together like in a jigsaw puzzle.

  He remembered that Lady Shenley had mentioned the name ‘Miss Kyla’ and he thought that he had heard it before.

  Then he remembered that it was when he visited the nursery on the day he arrived home.

  Everything now fell into place.

  At the same time the conclusion appeared too far-fetched and too melodramatic.

  He thought that he must be telling himself a detective story.

  Was it possible that Miss Taylor was really Lady Shenley’s stepdaughter and the boy, who he had been told was the grandson of Lady Blessingham, her stepson?

  ‘I am imagining it,’ the Earl said to himself. ‘Of course I am.’

  He wished that he had asked Jenkins if Miss Taylor had returned to her home after taking young Gerald to visit his grandmother.

  Then he had a sudden idea.

  He rose from his bed and, lighting a candle, walked across the room to the fireplace.

  He pressed a secret catch on one of the carved panels and it opened.

  As he stepped through the aperture, he told himself that he was being ridiculous.

  How was it possible for Miss Taylor and Gerald to be hiding in the secret passages?

  No one in The Castle was supposed to know about them except for himself.

  Yet he had always had the suspicion that some of the older servants, such as Mrs. Field, knew where they were.

  Naturally, his Curator, who was away ill, and his secretary, Whitchurch, would be aware of their existence.

  With bare feet the Earl moved down the passage.

  He came to the flight of steps that led down to the Priest’s Hole.

  The passage went on farther along the front of the house.

  He then went towards the Priest’s Hole.

  If anyone wanted to hide, it was the one place in the labyrinth of passages in The Castle where they could be more or less comfortable.

  He had nearly reached the Priest’s Hole, when he realised that there was a light coming from it.

  He stopped, put down the candle he was carrying and went on without it.

  When he reached the Priest’s Hole, he moved very slowly and quietly.