Warned by a Ghost Read online

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  The fireworks finally came to an end and all the spectators clapped and cheered.

  On the other side of the lake the Marquis thought that it was a very happy sound.

  He knew that his party had been a great success and that it would give everybody a great deal to talk about for a long time to come.

  When he came back to where his guests were sitting, they all congratulated him.

  At the same time their carriages were being brought round from the stables as by now most people were anxious to get home. It had been a satisfactory but very long day and the elderly were clearly tired.

  The Marquis was aware that Esther was determined to talk to him alone.

  And he was equally determined she should not do so.

  At last the guests who had arrived in carriages had almost all departed.

  There was just one carriage left and he knew that it belonged to Esther.

  A few minutes earlier she had been hovering behind him while he was saying ‘goodbye’ to the Lord Lieutenant and his wife.

  Now he was aware that she had gone into the drawing room and she was chatting to those of his relations who had not yet gone to bed.

  “A lovely evening, Ivan,” one of his aunts said as he entered the room. “I have never known people enjoy a party more and it is certainly something you must do again.”

  “Not for several years,” the Marquis demurred.

  His aunt laughed.

  “I am sure that we will all be begging you this time next year to have a circus again and a fireworks display at the same time.”.

  She gave a little laugh before she added,

  “Although I have enjoyed it, I must admit I am now very tired.”

  “Go to bed, dear aunt,” the Marquis said. “It is what I now intend to do myself.”

  He was about to cross the room to say ‘goodnight’ to another relative when Lady Esther stopped him.

  “I want to talk to you, Ivan,” she said softly.

  “We have nothing to say to each other, Esther,” he replied firmly.

  “I have a great deal to say,” she replied in the seductive voice he knew so well.

  As she spoke, she put out her hand and laid it on his arm, raising her face to his in a gesture that he had once found irresistible.

  The Marquis gazed at her.

  Quite suddenly he knew that any feelings of affection that he had ever had for her had completely evaporated.

  She might be beautiful, but he was no longer moved by her beauty.

  He did not even admire her and tt seemed a strange and somewhat banal thing to say, but she left him cold.

  It was the falling of the curtain.

  The shutting down of everything that had once been between them and for the moment he could hardly believe it himself.

  He knew if he was honest that he had been afraid of meeting her.

  Afraid that her allure, which he had found so fascinating, would tempt him into forgiving her.

  Now he knew there was no question of that.

  No question of her ever again troubling him in any way, whether by arousing his anger or any other feeling.

  Whatever there had been between them was now dead.

  He was free.

  He looked down at her and there was no expression on his face except one of complete unconcern.

  “Goodnight, Esther,” he said, “and goodbye.”

  He turned away from her as he spoke, not angrily or impatiently, but merely indifferently.

  It was as if he could no longer be bothered to think about her.

  As he walked across the room, she knew without his having to say so that she was defeated.

  He was no longer thinking of her.

  There was still, however, a flicker of hope in her mind when she remembered that Roger Bayford would be waiting for her at the end of the drive.

  She would pick him up and on their way back to London he would be able to tell her that at least his part in their cleverly constructed plan had been successful.

  The Marquis then said ‘goodnight’ to the rest of his relatives who were staying in the house.

  Only as the last one went upstairs did he wonder what had happened to Sedela.

  He had a feeling that she might be outside with the villagers and the tenants and, of course, it would be so like her to be with the children.

  He walked to the front door and found that two footmen were closing it.

  “Everyone’s now gone ’ome my Lord,” one of them said.

  He looked out of a window and saw that there was no light to be seen except that of the moon.

  He walked towards the stairs.

  Then as he went up to the first floor he saw somebody waiting there.

  It was Nanny.

  “You are not waiting up for me, Nanny?” he asked. “I am sure it is time you had your beauty sleep!”

  Nanny came nearer to him.

  “Where’s Miss Sedela?” she asked.

  The Marquis stared at her.

  “I thought that she would be with you or had gone to bed some time ago.”

  “She’s not upstairs,” Nanny said, “and one of the footmen was tellin’ me somethin’ strange that he saw.”

  “What was that?” the Marquis asked.

  “He was saying downstairs and laughin’ about it that, as he was lookin’ for a cup or somethin’ as was missin’ on the lawn, he sees a man carryin’ a woman in his arms just beyond the rhododendron bushes.”

  “Did he see who it was?” the Marquis asked.

  Nanny shook her head.

  “No, but he said the woman had on a white gown.”

  Nanny paused before she added,

  “Miss Sedela was wearin’ a white gown and there’s no sign of her. And I feel worried about her, I really do!”

  “By the rhododendron bushes,” the Marquis repeated as if to himself.

  He supposed that two of his guests might have gone there if they wanted to kiss and cuddle each other.

  But he could not imagine that Sedela would want to do anything like that.

  Now he came to think about it he had not seen her since just after dinner and she had been helping his guests into their seats as he went across the lake to set off the fireworks.

  All he could remember was that Esther had been there.

  He had thought it shocking of her to intrude on his party in the way that she had.

  It now suddenly struck him as unlikely that Esther would have travelled down from London alone.

  She would have wanted somebody to talk to and that meant a man.

  He suspected that man would be Roger Bayford, but if he, or some other man, had come with her, no one had been aware of it.

  And if it had been he whom the footman had seen, why should he be carrying Sedela?

  “I’m frightened, Master Ivan,” Nanny was saying, “I’m frightened for Miss Sedela! There’s somethin’ wrong, I feels it in me bones!”

  She hesitated for a moment and then added,

  “Besides, and I know you’ll laugh at me, but I swear before God that while I was waitin’ for her I saw Lady Constance!”

  “You are frightening yourself, Nanny, and imagining things,” the Marquis responded quickly.

  “Have you ever known me tell a lie?” Nanny asked. “I tell you, Master Ivan, Miss Sedela’s in danger and you’ve got to save her!”

  The Marquis drew in his breath.

  Then he turned and ran down the stairs and ordered the footmen to open the front door.

  As he hurried out, he looked at the rows of empty chairs on the lawn but there was no sign of Sedela.

  He looked beyond the sloping lawn and the lake to where the circus tents had been pitched.

  There was no light from that direction.

  He had noticed that the big top had been dismantled immediately after the performance and now he thought, although he could not be sure, that all the people from the circus would have gone.

 
They had in fact told him that they intended to move as quickly as possible.

  He was, however, not interested in them, but in finding Sedela.

  He walked across the lawn and past the long herbaceous borders and reached the rhododendrons that formed the beginning of the shrubbery.

  The bushes were thick and the path between them narrow and winding.

  He wondered if the man who carried off the girl had found somewhere where they could sit and cuddle unnoticed.

  It was then he remembered his wooden house.

  It was years since he had last been in it, but he supposed that it was still standing.

  It would certainly be a convenient place for lovers, but in that case he knew that the girl would not have been Sedela.

  He was just about to go back again towards the house when he felt as if Sedela was calling him.

  Thinking it strange, he stood still.

  He thought he could hear her voice or perhaps it was something he heard with his heart rather than with his ears.

  ‘It is foolish,’ he chided himself, ‘but as I am here I might as well have a look at the wooden house.’

  He climbed up the path towards it.

  It was well hidden until he was suddenly aware of it just ahead of him.

  It seemed to him to blend in with the trees and there were a great number of saplings and small bushes that had grown up round it.

  As he reached it, he could see that the shutters were closed.

  He put his hand towards the door and as he did so he heard Sedela cry out,

  “Ivan, is that – you?”

  “Sedela!” he exclaimed. “Where are you? What is happening?”

  He grasped the handle of the door as he spoke and then, as he would have turned it. she screamed,

  “No, Ivan! Don’t – open the – door! Don’t – touch – it!”

  “What are you talking about?” the Marquis asked.

  He, however, obeyed her because she sounded so agitated.

  “There is – a cobra – a cobra inside here – with me – it has been put here to – k-kill me!”

  Chapter Seven

  For a moment the Marquis was unable to answer.

  He thought that what he was hearing could not be true.

  Then the unmistakable terror in Sedela’s voice made him say quickly,

  “Where is the snake and where are you?”

  “I am up on the – boards under the – roof,” Sedela replied, “but I am – very afraid he may – climb up the wall.”

  The Marquis’s brain began to work as swiftly as when he was on a battlefield in the War.

  “Stay where you are and keep very quiet,” he ordered.

  As he spoke, he turned and ran back to the house.

  He ran faster than he had ever done since leaving Eton where he had won a number of races for his house.

  He tore in through the garden door, knowing that it was much quicker that way to reach the gun room.

  He remembered that not only were guns kept there but there were also a number of candle-lanterns.

  He reached up to a lighted sconce and took the candle from it to light his way in the gun room and it gave enough light for him to be able to see what he was doing.

  He rapidly opened the glass-fronted cupboard where the pistols were kept.

  There were quite a number of them and they had been collected over the ages.

  There were smart duelling pistols that had been used by at least three or four members of the Windle family and special pistols that had been carried by coachmen on carriages for fear of highwaymen.

  There were also pistols similar to those that the Marquis had used himself in the war.

  He picked up one of these, found the bullets in a drawer and loaded it.

  He was working at a speed that made him feel breathless.

  He saw the candle-lanterns on top of a chest and there were three of them.

  He picked up one of them and lit it from his candle.

  Then, with his pistol in his other hand, he started back the way he had come.

  He dared not run quite as fast as he had on the way to the gun room for fear of extinguishing the candle.

  It was, however, still burning brightly when he reached the wooden house.

  “Are you there, Sedela?” he called out.

  As he spoke, he was desperately afraid that there would be no answer.

  He knew in that moment that he could not lose her.

  He felt as if a cold hand clutched at his heart until he heard her say,

  “Oh, Ivan – help me – I am so – terrified.”

  The Marquis held his pistol to the keyhole of the door and one shot was enough to smash the lock.

  He opened the door with one hand holding his smoking pistol with the other.

  He then bent and picked up the candle-lantern to hold it high above his head.

  A quick glance showed him that the cobra was on the chair.

  It was reaching up above the back of the chair as if it was trying to climb up to where Sedela was hiding.

  With a steady movement the Marquis brought his pistol down in aim on the snake.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The explosion echoed round the small house and it seemed almost to rock the walls.

  There was no question of the cobra still being alive.

  With the true aim of a first-class shot the Marquis had shattered its head.

  The snake’s body fell to the ground, the tail twitching until at last it was motionless.

  The Marquis put down his pistol and held up the lantern. He looked up to where he could see Sedela’s face peeping down at him.

  Only somebody as slim and small as she was could have wedged herself between the roof and the boards.

  “You are safe now,” he said quietly, “and it was brilliant of you to climb up there.”

  “I-I am not – certain how I can – get down,” Sedela whispered.

  “I will catch you.”

  He moved so that her feet were above his head and she pushed herself backwards until she was hanging directly above him.

  “Let yourself go now!” he called.

  He thought that she drew in her breath as if she was afraid.

  Then she let herself go.

  She was very light and she fell securely into the Marquis’s arms.

  He held her closely, taking only one step backwards to steady himself.

  Sedela felt his arms around her and, knowing that she need no longer be afraid, she burst into tumultuous tears.

  “Oh – Ivan,” she sobbed, “h-how could they – do that to me – and it was so – t-terrifying in the dark.”

  “I know,” the Marquis said soothingly, “but it is all over now. The cobra is dead and it is something that will never happen again.”

  “They were – trying to – hurt – you!”

  She looked up at him as she spoke.

  He could see the tears glistening on her cheeks and the anxiety in her eyes.

  He knew of no other woman who would think at this moment not of herself but of him.

  Without speaking he bent his head and found her lips.

  He felt Sedela stiffen in surprise.

  But, as his mouth took possession of hers, she melted into him and they were no longer two people but one.

  To Sedela it was as if she had been taken from the darkness of Hell into the glory of Heaven.

  She had been so certain until Ivan finally came to her that the snake would find some way of reaching her.

  Then she would die ignominiously.

  She would scream in terror, but no one would hear her.

  Perhaps when she was dead no one would find her for days if not weeks.

  But, when she heard Ivan’s voice, she had known that God had heard her prayers.

  In some miraculous way Ivan had come like the Archangel Michael to save her. Even the few words they spoke, however, must have alerted the snake.

  After Ivan left her,
Sedela had heard the cobra slithering round the floor and then climbing onto the chair.

  She thought that it would somehow creep up the wall.

  And then it would be twisting itself across the boards towards her.

  But Ivan had come back.

  He had killed the cobra and like a Knight in Shining Armour rescued her from certain death.

  Her love seemed to rise within her like a great wave.

  It was moving through her body into her breast and up to her lips.

  She had never been kissed before.

  Yet she knew that, as Ivan kissed her and went on kissing her, it was just how she imagined a kiss would be.

  Only far, far more wonderful.

  It was so perfect and so ecstatic that she thought if she died now she would have known this perfection of her life.

  Then she had no wish to die.

  She wanted to live and for Ivan to kiss her and go on kissing her forever.

  He raised his head.

  Sedela could not help saying incoherently,

  “I-I love you – oh, Ivan – I love you – I – love – you!”

  The rapture in her voice was very moving and the Marquis smiled before he kissed her again.

  “And I love you too, Sedela,” he sighed.

  It was a long kiss and a very demanding one.

  He then sounded breathless as he suggested,

  “Come, my precious, let’s get out of this place and go back to the house.”

  It was then that Sedela felt as if she had come back to earth from the sky.

  There was a little quiver in her voice as she asked,

  “H-has – everybody – g-gone?”

  “A long time ago,” the Marquis replied. “It was Nanny who told me that you were missing.”

  “I thought – perhaps she would be the – only person who was – likely to be aware that – something was – wrong.”

  “How could I have known and how could I have guessed,” the Marquis asked, “that those devils could do anything so evil and so inhuman, to you, my darling of all people!”

  He was drawing Sedela out of the wooden house as he spoke.

  Where she stood in the moonlight, he thought that no one could be lovelier and more ethereal.

  Their eyes met and for a moment it was hard to think of anything except themselves.

  Then the Marquis said quietly,

  “It would be a mistake for anyone to know what has happened here tonight. Are you brave enough to pretend that you hurt your ankle when you were in the garden? There was no one to help you until I found you and carried you back.”