The abbey ghosts
I DID NOT MEET THE EIGHTH EARL OF ROLINGBROKE UNTIL HE was twelve years old. I was in some measure compensated for the lack of our acquaintance during those first dozen years of his life, not only by the deep friendship my stepbrother and I formed over the years we did have together, but also because I was occasionally allowed to spend time with him after his death.
His death had come unexpectedly, and before he attained his thirtieth year. That first evening after his funeral, I sat before the fire in the Abbey library, weary and yet certain that my grief for him would not allow me to sleep. Not many hours earlier, my late stepbrother had been laid to rest in the family crypt. Lucien’s body had been placed next to that of his wife-who had died five years before, shortly after giving birth to Charles, their only child.
Lucien’s orphaned son was much on my mind. I had looked in on Charles just before ten o’clock. The day’s events had been exhausting for him as well, and he slept, though his young face seemed sad even in repose.
I poured another glass of port as the mantel clock struck eleven. I had dismissed the servants for the evening, not able to bear their solicitude, nor their misery. They had loved Lucien as much as I, and the strain of this terrible day was telling on us all. I chose to spend the last few hours of it alone, thinking of Lucien and the years we had shared as brothers. How I would miss him!
I clearly recalled our first meeting.
Lucien’s father married my widowed mother, and my mother and I came to live at the Abbey. I had met the Seventh Earl of Rolingbroke, my new stepfather, on only two previous occasions-brief interviews which had put me quite in awe of that forceful man. I entered his home believing I was quite without a champion-my mother, for all her beauty and good-heartedness, was a timid soul, far more likely to suffer a fit of the vapors than to defend me.
The Abbey itself was daunting-a rambling structure, larger by far than the small estate where I had been raised, and very much older. I fully expected that a boy of my size might be lost within it, and even if his newly remarried mother should take the trouble to look for him, she might never discover which winding staircase or long gallery held his remains.
Not the least of my anxieties concerned my new stepbrother. I expected resentment from Lucien, then twelve, and two years my senior. My first impression of him led me to believe that he was a cool and distant fellow. As we entered the Abbey, he stood back from the others, regarding me lazily from his greater height. I was afraid, and trying not to show it-but I must have failed, for his father muttered something about “Master Quakeboots.”
Lucien’s expression changed then, and he welcomed me by bowing and murmuring for my ears only, “Lord Shivershanks, at your service.” I choked back a laugh, received his rare but charming smile in return, and like any recipient of that smile, knew all would be right with the world.
Lucien soon became both friend and brother, offering wise-beyond-his-years guidance and his seldom bestowed affection. He taught me how to get on well with my stepfather, protected me against a bully or two, and allowed me to accompany him in every lark imaginable. He taught me the ways and traditions of the Abbey. He also taught me how to find several secret passages within it, and told me stories of its past, thrilling me with tales of ghostly, headless monks haunting the north (and only remaining) tower, of hidden treasures and ancient curses.
“And we must not forget the Christmas Curse,” he whispered to me one chilly evening in late November-when, as usual, he had made use of a priest’s hole to come into my room and visit long after the servants believed him to be abed.
“Can there be such a thing?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said, with one of his mischievous smiles. “You, my dear Edward, have not had the felicity of meeting my Aunt and Uncle Bane and their pack of hellborn brats-Henry, William, and Fanny. Utter thatchgallows.”
“Thatchgallows!” I laughed.
“Shhh! Yes. Born to be hanged, every man Jack of them-and Fanny, too. We shall have to prepare for their arrival. They’ll try to harass you, of course, but don’t worry. Every time one of them behaves odiously, you are to remind yourself that soon we will be handing them a reckoning.”
He was not mistaken. Lord and Lady Bane brought their three interesting offspring to the Abbey not two weeks later. The servants had prepared for their visit by carefully removing the most treasured and fragile objects of the household from sight. From the moment they passed through the imposing entrance of the Abbey, our home was turned upside down. Henry and William, true to Lucien’s prediction, made it their business to make me suffer. Henry was my own age, William a year younger, but they were both taller and stronger than I. All three children favored their father, Lord Alfred Bane, who was both brother-in-law and cousin to the earl. Lord Bane was a red-haired man whose countenance could easily be brought to match it in color. His softest whisper was nothing less than a shout-and he seldom whispered.
His sons were equally loud, and seemed never to stand still for a moment. They contrived to poke, pinch, trip, and jostle me at every opportunity. By the end of their second day among us, I was quite bruised, but did not doubt for a moment that Lucien would come to my aid. In his quiet way, he often did so, surprisingly able to control them as no one else seemed able-giving a quelling look to Henry or William that always made them back off until they chanced to find me apart from him.
When those opportunities arose, any feeble attempt on my part to defend myself caused them to set up a caterwauling that served as a siren call to Lady Sophia Bane. This fond mother relished coming to their aid, and invariably boxed my ears as she rang a peal over my head. On these occasions, my own mother, who knew better than any general how to retreat in good order, would announce that she felt a spasm coming on, and-clutching her vinaigrette to her bosom-excuse herself from the battleground.
Lady Bane complained constantly, perceiving faults everywhere: The food was not to her liking. The servants were never to be found when needed. The room in which she sat was too chilly-when the fires were made larger, she was too warm, and protested that the chimneys smoked. The rooms into which they had been installed were uncomfortable for this reason or that.
“Not what we are accustomed to at Bane House!” was a refrain we soon wearied of hearing.
When she declared that their rooms were inconveniently located, my stepfather raised his brows. “But my dear Sophia! They are the very rooms you insisted upon after refusing the ones you had last year, when you thought I was trying to banish you to a far wing of the Abbey.”
It made no difference. Lucien later told me that his father and aunt had been raised separately-the earl spent most of his childhood at the Abbey, with Lucien’s grandfather. Lucien’s grandmother-who disliked life in the country nearly as much as she disliked her husband-lived in Town, with her daughter, Sophia.
I was grateful for these insights. However, Fanny constantly spied on Lucien and me, so we had little opportunity for private speech such as this. After several months of being almost constantly in his company, being unable to share confidences with Lucien made me experience a loneliness that surprised me. But then one evening, just as I was feeling quite sure this would be my most miserable Christmas ever, Lucien winked and smiled at me.
We had been engaged in playing Jackstraws, but Fanny’s governess, who had been overseeing our activities that evening, called the proceedings to a halt-perceiving, I suppose, that this was not the sort of game the Banes could play without violence. As she moved across the room to put the game away, Lucien turned to me and said, “Do you suppose the ghost will walk tonight?”