“Oh! So this is my fault is it? Well, I’ll tell you why we are just now hearing of your ghost, my good fellow! Because some who’ve never been here before this year have invented tales. Outsiders!” She rounded on me, pointing. “It’s you!”
She received a chorus of approval from her offspring. I quailed before them, but then I felt the earl’s large hand on my shoulder. I winced a bit as he touched a bruise, and his hand shifted slightly. At that moment, I became aware that the room had fallen silent. Everyone was looking at the earl, whose face was a mask of cold fury.
“Are you assuming that my wife’s son has no place in our family?” he asked, icily. “I assure you, Sophia, he is not an outsider here. Lucien thinks of Edward as his brother, and I think of him as my son. Indeed, there are blood relations I would much liefer disown-and may.”
I could hardly believe my own ears, which were soon assaulted.
“No offense meant!” Lord Bane shouted.
He had spoken loudly enough, I was sure, to startle the villagers (including the deaf vicar) from their beds, several miles away. The earl, however, appeared not to have heard him. “Perhaps, Sophia, you would find Christmas in Town more to your liking.”
“La!” she said nervously, “how you do take one up! Bane is right-I meant no offense. Lucien’s lurid tale has quite overset me!”
With that, she snapped at her children, telling them it was long past time for them to be abed, remonstrated with the governess for not having seen to it, and said, “Bane!” in a commanding tone that had her husband soon bidding all a good night.
“You, too, should be in bed, Edward,” my mother said.
“Time we all were,” my stepfather said. “Go on up, if you like, my dear. I’d like a brief word with the boys before I retire for the evening.”
As soon as she had left, the earl turned to Lucien, and said in a lazy voice, “I trust we have yet to see Act III of your little drama?” Despite his tone, I could see the amusement in his eyes, and for the first time, I perceived a likeness between the earl and his son that went beyond Lucien’s physical resemblance to his father.
“Tomorrow evening, sir. Tonight would be too soon. They are Banes, and being such, need time to think.”
“You frighten me-far more than your telling of the legend did-though I credit you with an admirable performance.”
Lucien bowed again, and said, “I had an excellent teacher.”
The earl gave a sudden shout of laughter, then said, “Impossible boy!”
“Again, sir-”
“No, don’t say I taught you to be such an impudent hellion, for I’ll swear I did not!”
“Then I shall say nothing, sir-except-except-thank you, sir!”
The earl raised a hand in protest. “’Tis the other way ’round, I believe.” He turned back to me and gently lifted my chin. “I see I have been remiss in your education, Edward. Or perhaps-yes-Lucien, you must teach your brother to be handy with his fives.” He paused, then added, “Lady Rolingbroke need not be apprised of it.”
“Thank you, sir!” I said.
“Oh, I demand a high price! If you fail to rid me of the Banes, you and that makebait Lucien will be served gruel for Christmas dinner-by whatever headless monk I can find to take it to the dungeon!”
We were destined to eat a sumptuous feast. Before Lucien and I sought our beds, he enlisted my aid in creating a few hoofbeats along the secret passages near each of the Bane’s bedchambers. Henry had awakened to feel a ghostly presence in the form of a room that was suddenly terribly cold, not knowing that Lucien had merely left the entrance to one of the draftiest passages open for a time.
We left it at that. The next morning, of course, we denied hearing anything like hoofbeats. When Henry swore he had felt the ghost, and not even the other members of his family related similar tales, Lucien grew thoughtful, saying, “I wonder why he would single you out?”
This made Henry go very pale, and ask again if no one else had felt a bit chilly last night.
No one had, of course. The earl went so far as to say he had rarely slept so well.
Lady Bane was perhaps made suspicious by this remark, for she gave her husband a speaking look and asked him to accompany her into the village. Henry was rather quiet that day, if a little jumpy. William, owing to the increased watchfulness of several footmen and others, did not have any chances to harm me that morning. He later confided to us that Lord and Lady Bane had found the villagers ready to repeat all the salient points of the legend, and in many cases to enlarge upon it. After hearing something of this at luncheon, the earl strode up to Lucien and me as we were on our way to the stables. “Lucien, dear boy, I take it I am going to be generous to my tenants this Boxing Day?”
“Extremely, sir,” his unrepentant child replied. “But it should interest you to know that Aunt Sophia’s dresser has told Bogsley that she doesn’t expect the Banes to remain in this, er, ‘accursed place’ another night.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve enlisted my staid butler in these schemes? I would think it beneath Bogsley’s dignity.”
Lucien seemed to ponder before answering, “Perhaps, Father, it would be best not to inquire too closely on some matters.”
“Good God!” the earl declared, and walked away, seeming shaken.
The following night, I helped again with hoofbeats, and later to make howling sounds as Lucien-and Fibbens-contrived to swing a headless “apparition” past their windows. Bogsley had recommended the village seamstress who made the monk. Each of the Banes caught no more than a fleeting glimpse of this phantom, but judging from the pandemonium which broke loose, this glimpse was more effective than a full night’s haunting. The Banes, looking haggard, were on the road back to London before noon, swearing never to return to the Abbey.
The earl declared it the most delightful Christmas gift his son had ever bestowed upon him, causing my mother a great deal of puzzlement.
As we grew older, I learned how rare a gift I had found in Lucien’s affection for me, and saw how infrequently he troubled himself to form friendships. He nevertheless grew into a man who was invited everywhere-and while his fortune, breeding, and rank might have guaranteed that to him in any case, there was a vast difference between the welcome Lucien was given by leading members of the haut ton and that afforded to others. That I benefited from my connection to him is without doubt, and was a fact decried by Lord Henry Bane, Mr. William Bane, Miss Fanny Bane, and the Dowager Lady Sophia Bane, who made no less imposing a widow than a wife. Lucien’s aunt might complain all she liked about “persons who were no blood relation” enjoying “privileges above their station,” but she found few who paid heed to her.
Our parents died together in a carriage accident when Lucien was but twenty-two. He succeeded to his father’s dignities, and two years later, married well. His wife was a young beauty with a handsome dowry, although his own wealth precluded anyone from imagining him a fortune hunter. Lucien, unlike so many of our order, married for love.
I was myself by no means penniless, having come into an inheritance through my mother’s family. Not long after Lucien wed, feeling restless, I used some of my own fortune to buy colors, and left for the Peninsular War, to see what I could do to hamper Boney’s efforts in Portugal and Spain. Lucien and I exchanged letters, and although the mail was not always reliable, his correspondence made my soldier’s life easier to bear. Some made me long to be home, of course. Of all of these, the most heart-rending was the one in which he told me of both the death of his wife and of the birth of his son.
It was not his way to be effusive-neither in grief nor in joy-but in this letter he wrote a litany of all the small pleasures he would miss-hearing the soft rustle of her skirts as she entered the library while he read, watching her blush at an endearment, listening to her sing softly to herself as she walked through the Abbey gardens, unaware that he was near-and I came to a new understanding of how deeply he had cared for her. Beyond that one letter, he never wrote to me again of her, though even over the great distance between us, I could sense Lucien’s sadness.