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    The Beckoning
    The Beckoning
    The Beckoning
    Ebook335 pages6 hours

    The Beckoning

    By Virginia Coffman

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    About this ebook

    When Anne Wicklow is employed to care for a lonely girl in an castle set high on an Irish cliff, she little suspects that evil will walk beside her through the castle’s gloomy halls. To save her young charge, Anne must uncover a terrible secret—even if it means betraying the man she has come to love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCandlewood Books
    Release dateJul 11, 2012
    The Beckoning

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      Book preview

      The Beckoning - Virginia Coffman

      The Beckoning

      Written by Virginia Coffman

      Candlewood Books

      ****

      ISBN: 978-1-937211-32-5

      Published by Candlewood Books at Smashwords

      Copyright © 2012 by Candlewood Books, a Division of Harding House Publishing Service, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

      For

      Donnie Coffman Micciche

      with deepest love

      Chapter 1

      Along the wild, fog-hung westerly headlands of the Irish Coast there are still, as there were in my girlhood, lonely villages tugged between the gray Atlantic roaring at their front, and the emerald green bottomless bogs pulling stealthily at their back. Such appeared my birthplace upon my return to it in 1819, as a young widow of twenty-two. Rude and grim it was, a place to form a corpse—or a man. No timid boys, no fragile, wispy females educated above their stations were to be found there.

      As the Ballyglen mail coach jogged across the countryside, I watched the lovely open weather of Waterford and Limerick give way now to the misty fog of my mother’s birthplace, and I told myself that for the first time since my childhood I would be among a people and a race who saw me as one of them, not the foreign-born young housekeeper in an English academy for young females, or the loving, untutored wife of a French aristocrat. I was to be myself again, Anne Wicklow, one among my own kind. Or so I thought.

      My parents had met on this coast twenty-five years before, as servants in Conor House, which was now crumbling away on Kelper Head, a ragged finger of land that groped daringly out into the Atlantic mists. The headland was named for the Kelp Gatherers, half real, half phantom, who plied their trade along the coasts of Galway and County Mayo, and even as an infant I have a memory of my mother telling Papa and me how, in her youth, she had seen the ghostly Kelp Gatherers drifting along the headland, enchained by their long ropes of shining, jellylike kelp, and beckoning to her. An eerie thing it was, and chilling, to see the Kelp Gatherers; for they foretold of death to come, perhaps one’s own. I was like my Irish mother in that the dangers of the high road and the filthy warrens of a great city held for me fewer terrors than the possible sight of a floating apparition.

      On that late November day in 1819 when the Ballyglen stage set me down at the crossroads, I was minded of my mother’s visions as I gazed about me, quite alone in the clammy sheet of fog. A moment later I smiled at my own gullibility. Here before me was the road to Kelper Head, no King’s Highway to ring with the sound of horses’ hooves, but rather a series of muddy wagon ruts, mired by the footsteps of men and dog carts. Not a phantom within leagues on this God-forsaken place. What respectable ghost would lurk among such untidy scenes? Myself, I would prefer to haunt a salt-rimed beach, in the invigorating fury of an Atlantic gale.

      With these wry thoughts for company I started off along the bumpy, rutted path that would bring me to the sea, and to the village where I imagined my life would take the quiet turn that must come to a woman who is not like to meet a second great love in one lifetime.

      Something that occurred earlier today had been so curious I was beset by doubts that a quiet turn would come to me when I took this position as housekeeper at Conor House.

      Only this morning, shortly before my departure in the mail coach from Carrickmore to the Crossroads Gibbet, a sealed missive from my recent employer, Miss Nutting, had been put in my hand, and to my astonishment I read the brief letter, forwarded and franked by Miss Nutting from London, which told me my services were not required at Conor House after all, and that my long journey across England and Ireland had been for nothing.

      A change of plans, said the letter, due to the invalidism of the Master of the Household.

      I took out the letter and re-read it now as I walked, for my own intuition was shared by Miss Nutting who had added a footnote. She believed, as I did upon reflection, that the original summons to me was genuine, and only this second one, for some curious reason—perhaps a silly jest—was false:

      Miss Anne Wicklow is advised that, due to the invalidism of the Master of Conor House, her services will not be required at this time. I regret that I may have put you to some trouble, but am happy that this missive arrives in time to forestall what must, in such case, have been an intolerable and futile journey for you.

      And the signature, as in the first letter which hired me, was the large, flourishing, Maeve Conor.

      Obviously, the message had not arrived in time to forestall my intolerable and futile journey, and Miss Nutting had sent it on to me, hoping to catch me on my journey, but with the addition which was so like the direct and ever honest Honoria Nutting:

      What do you make of this, Anne? The signature is Maeve to the last swirl. But I’ll go bail it is not Maeve’s letter. Keep to your present journey. It’s my belief someone is having a private joke, either at Maeve’s expense or your own. Have you made any enemies recently? Someone who wishes to keep you from Conor House? Watch yourself, my girl! Look behind you. The enemy lurks, and danger is afoot at every turn!

      The latter was Miss Nutting’s notion of humor. It was a silly form of humor, but the warning itself was foolish, if it was meant to be a joke. Who would wish to keep me from Conor House? I suspected it might be someone trying to cause difficulties for Lady Maeve Conor herself. It might even be her husband who was, as I had heard from Miss Nutting, an invalid. Perhaps he was in desperate mental straits and had sent me this note over his wife’s signature, out of some strange insanity of his own.

      In any case, I had come too far to return to England now, without hearing from Lady Maeve Conor’s own lips that she wished me gone from Conor House. But it was an uneasy thing to happen, all the same.

      Was it possible to have an enemy, and not to know it?

      I savored the feel of the mist pricking my face and sparkling my hair with droplets. I carried a bandbox and a portmanteau, some of whose contents I could never wear at Kelper Head. They had been chosen by my husband for my use in France, and I could not bear to part with them. But I did not find my baggage heavy. I had been orphaned at an early age, and hard, healthy work soon taught me I was not like to become a vaporish creature at twenty-two. If my husband had admired my form rather too extravagantly for truth, there was that unforgotten girlhood to thank for it, and for my excellent health.

      A crossroads gibbet, happily free of its swinging company, bore the weather-stained information that it was less than two leagues to Kelper Head, and not so far by half to the Ballyglen Bog, a dank and unpleasant fact that I would rather not know.

      My morocco slippers, which had served me faithfully in my journey across France and England after my husband’s death in a Bonapartist uprising, now sank with each step into the ooze of the cart tracks, and I prudently shifted over to the shoulder of the road where dark hummocks of turf-cuttings lined the path, feeling spongy underfoot. The fog had turned to a stubborn mizzle, which an occasional blade of light from the late afternoon sky seemed to pierce as if it cut through a shimmering curtain. The earth was now almost dark, but by the curious gleam of the rain and the light from the heavens, gigantic shadows huddled against the blue-black sky ahead and seemed to bend over me, as though peering down to read my face.

      I walked with greater care now, knowing from childhood memory what must appear along this road presently, after the green turf changed to little pools reflecting these odd sky shapes that hovered over the solitary walker. How often my mother had recounted tales of Ballyglen Bog! Beyond the pools I would soon be treading a pitifully narrow thread of highway, careful to avoid either side.

      The man-killing Bog of Ballyglen soon crept around me. At this time of evening a stranger might suppose the bog to be a great stretch of muddy turf with a frequent pool to give it variety, but sorry was the man or beast who ventured to cross Ballyglen Bog on that assumption. He was heard of no more save, of course, for his last stifled cries as the vile sucking thing drew its victim down to devour it. I had just entered onto the Bog region when I began to be aware of the difference in the sounds of the landscape. Before, there had been the light speckle of mist, the soughing of the wind. Now all this was gone, drowned in the repeated digesting of the sand, bubbling and sucking through each reedy mere. I peered ahead into the overcast and saw that I had come but half my way toward Kelper Head. There was no mistaking my fatigue at this moment. But something else to the right of me and across the Bog took my attention and my thoughts. Among the great, hunchbacked shadows that overhung the Bog, there was one in particular, smaller than its fellows, and quite unlike the clouds that formed the greater shadows. It appeared on the edge of my limited horizon, advancing toward the road like a loosely wrapped man walking over the Bog towards me; a feat manifestly impossible.

      My pace faltered an instant, then picked up. Whatever the creature was—and I confess my first thought was of my mother’s phantom Kelp Gatherers—I meant to attract no undue attention. But my hands were icily stiff within the shelter of my cloak and the shawl that partially covered my head and shoulders. I felt sick with apprehension yet ashamed at being so. The great Ballyglen Bog was silent as a tomb for several minutes. Then the familiar bubbling, sucking sounds began again, now hard by the road. Despite myself, I started in fright and ran a few steps, trying not to hear that faint, greedy sound as the Bog devoured some hapless creature close enough for me to touch.

      By this time the evening had advanced so that I could barely see the Bog. It seemed part of the general darkness until I became aware that the shadow crossing the Bog in a Kelper’s fringed cloak was almost upon me. I stopped straight in my tracks and demanded as crisply and defiantly as my icy fright would allow:

      What is it then? What do you want of me?

      Phantoms, even Irish phantoms, are not the most garrulous of creatures, and I could not have been more surprised when a woman’s voice called out to me, If you please . . . are you for Ballyglen?

      I could have given her a slap for frightening me so, and a sound kick to myself for letting her frighten me; yet it was passing strange, this pretty, young female drifting across the Bog and onto the road, quite as though used to such goings-on. A gust of wind blew open the great red cloak which was too big for her, and she shivered. She was dressed in the height of Dublin fashion, obviously a lady, and her presence out here was nearly as mysterious as if she had, indeed, been a phantom Kelper.

      No, miss, I said, more gently than at first. I have a post to take at Kelper Head. The Ballyglen Road is more than a league behind me. Too far for you to be walking this night.

      I know where it is—nearly, she surprised me by saying. For then, why had she spoken to me, unless for the company of my voice. You see, I come from Kelper Head.

      She made her way to me across the mire of the road, careless of what it did to her dainty slippers and stockings. Close up to her like this, I saw that her face was older than her voice. She was very possibly older than I, in her middle or late twenties, but something about her, an extraordinary, childish sweetness in her voice, restored to me my first uneasiness. Was she, perhaps, a Natural? One of those unlucky creatures born mindless? A pity, for she appeared kind and gentle, and would have been a beauty had her manner and voice matched her face in maturity.

      Is all well with you, miss? I asked, supposing there must be a reasonable explanation for her appearance out here in the center of the infamous Bog. How did you come upon me? You must know the Bog very well to avoid the potholes and all the dangers.

      She said wisely, Oh no. There is a path to the east and north, if you read it right. But you have to be clever.

      She must be extraordinarily clever. I should not have chanced it myself, When in England I had been offered the position at Kelper Head in the very house where my mother and father once served, I was warned most strongly about the danger of the Bog and its many deceptive paths. I still carried Lady Maeve Conor’s first letter in which Her Ladyship advised me to be at the expense of hiring a dog cart in Ballyglen in order to avoid the Bog. Although I should not be my father’s frugal daughter if I paid out good coin for such luxuries as a dog cart, I had been sensible enough to keep to the road.

      Will you walk with me, miss? I ventured then. You may hire a cart tomorrow and get to Ballyglen in as great a hurry as you could wish.

      She wrapped the coarse wool cloak around her and hugged it tight, to warm herself. She appeared to be studying me.

      I lied to you. It was not Ballyglen Town I started for, but the Bog itself. An odd statement, surely, and at this hour of the afternoon. They talked of a housekeeper. Are you the woman Wicklow?

      I am for Conor House.

      She smiled again. It was not a happy smile, and it ill-suited her sweet, heart-shaped face. Once more I felt uneasy and almost wished I had not encountered her at all.

      I am from Conor House, Miss Wicklow. I was Maureen Conor, before my marriage.

      But then— I began.

      She interrupted sweetly. You still do not see. I like to run from Conor House, and from-them. When I stared at her, she added, You see, I must.

      What nonsense was this? We could not stand here the entire night, encompassed by the Bog, and our shoes sinking further into the mud every minute. I spoke roughly, hoping it would have a healthy effect upon her.

      I’ll be on my way, then, Miss. I have my work to do, my post to take from Lady Maeve. You had best come with me. She hesitated, saw me step onward with a vigor that let her know I was not joking. Then she hurried after me.

      I’ll stay the night, if you will. I always come back. But I am not mad, truly not. And I won’t be treated like a murderess; for I am not. It was the Kelper! They’ll be sorry, right enough. One day I will not come back. She took hold of my shawl and her fingers dug sharply into my forearm. Promise me, Miss Wicklow, you will not listen to them. You will believe me, won’t you?

      I could not but feel that they—whoever they might be—had reason on their side. Miss Maureen was not behaving like a rational creature. Nevertheless, her plea could scarcely be denied. My heart went out to the poor lady.

      Come along, said I as cheerfully as may be. We are two against Them. And they shan’t make us believe anything we don’t wish to believe about each other. It was in my thoughts that if Miss Maureen could stand up to the great Ballyglen Bog without a shudder, she could scarcely be in danger from the dwellers in Conor House.

      We walked on rapidly. Miss Maureen surprised me by her swift movements, her ease in finding the best path through the muddy morass of the road. She did not seem in the least afraid of phantoms and ghosts and the general debilitation of the area. Perhaps she often took these late afternoon strolls over the Bog. But she was nervous. And I set this to her mental state. To be afraid of fellow human beings and yet not to be afraid of the netherworld was a thing I would never understand. One can stand up to one’s fellow men, but it is difficult to stand up to a floating apparition, and this was a wondrously perfect region for such folk tales.

      I fancy we must have been three-quarters of the way to Kelper Head when I began to hear sounds on the road ahead of us that did not come from the greedy digestion of the swamp. The squeak and rattle of badly fastened wheels, and then the snorting of an animal, probably a pony, relieved me of any apprehension that the sounds were ghostly. There came further proof in the storm lantern swinging from a hook above the right wheel, the light within casting a cheerful, blushing glow upon the immediate scene.

      I said aloud, Now, here’s luck, indeed, ma’am. Perhaps we can beg a ride back to the Head. Will the rider turn about, do you think?

      Miss Maureen clutched my arm again.

      Let them go by, she murmured in a hushed voice. They try to hide things from me. They speak in whispers when they think I do not hear. But it is about me. Always my name is in it.

      I began to understand better the persecution that this poor lady fancied herself suffering. But, miss, they are not truly cruel, not by deed, surely?

      She wrinkled her nose and raised her voice as though no longer caring that the approaching driver might hear. They were horrid cruel. No one would take me to the Fair at Carrickmore, and there was to be a high walker and dancing tinkers and a puppet show. So I said I should make them sorry. She pulled me closer. ‘Will they be sorry if I do it?

      This was foolish beyond permission. We could not help being seen. We were the only two creatures on the road and in a region where everyone must know everyone else by the very nature of its isolation. I did not want to make an enemy of one of the Conor House ladies, but this seemed a moment for common sense. As it happened there was no need of a choice between pleasing Miss Maureen and accosting the lone pony cart and rider. The squeaky cart slowed at the moment we came into sight, and the man on the rough board seat leaned forward and called to us: Is it you, Maury? What a-devil will you be doing here? Are you all right then?

      Despite the brusque words his voice attracted the hearer by its peculiar timbre and a kind of musical quality riot quite Gaelic yet neither was it the flat, broadly anglicized accent of my school employer. One felt concern behind his brief question, and Miss Maureen rushed forward to the man and the pony, obviously delighted to see them. The little pony pawed the mud tracks and made sounds of uneasiness in the midst of this great dark that looked even darker beyond the circle of lantern light. I felt heartily in sympathy with the poor animal’s feelings. The man at the reins, however, was competent to meet the situation.

      There, there, Boru. Quiet now. It’s only the bog. There’s the good lad you are. He swung down from the cart and opened his arms wide, receiving Miss Maureen in a warm embrace. He soothed her much as he had the pony.

      Maury, love! You had us upon the rack, girl. Nurse Kellinch is gone up the headlands making search.

      Oh, bother Miss Kellinch! Maureen cried in the querulous, childish voice of irresponsibility. Everyone’s been out of reason cross the whole day. And I’ll not be treated so. There’s a thing I can do, and hurt them all.

      I had walked up to the cart by this time and saw a sturdy young man of middle height and a Celtic look about him that was more grim and rugged than the Gaelic Irish with which I was familiar. He caressed her ruffled dark curls as he said calmly, with good sense, It’s for home like a good child. There’ll be hot tea and supper. What do you say? Hmm?

      He gazed over her lowered head at me. I liked his tender solicitude for her, which was a happy mingling of common sense and devotion. An odd combination of traits to find in a face like his, with its look of passions leashed, and his curious eyes, now a lively green, now brown and fathomless as a peat bog. Nor was I made more secure by my awareness that those expressive eyes studied my person from head to foot, their somber depths scarcely lighted by his smile.

      Thanks be to you, ma’am, for your help. My wife has not been well of late.

      Before I could respond, his wife raised her head with an abruptness that shook his hand off her.

      I’m quite well. I walked halfway to the crossroads gibbet. Then her rainbow of moods changed and she was all smiles. Be kind to her, for my sake, Jonathan. She’s the new housekeeper Maeve sent to England for.

      The man, not a gentleman perhaps, but a very masculine man surely, reached out one hand and took mine in a warm, gloved grasp, preventing me from an awkward curtsey that would have dipped my skirts in the mud.

      I am Dr. Jonathan Trumble, ma’am. You must be Miss Wicklow.

      Maureen said suddenly, Isn’t it odd, Maeve employing a pretty woman? Maeve will dislike it excessively when she spies you, Miss Wicklow.

      What a little silly you are! said the doctor with a directness that seemed to react favorably upon his childish wife. Lady Maeve is very like to be as pleased as you and me.

      You and I, said Miss Maureen complacently.

      This rude and public correction did not appear to disturb the rugged young doctor whose defense of me was pleasant to my ears. He was apparently well used to his wife’s whims and regarded this whole odd encounter as something in the everyday line. He swung her up onto the seat of the cart with great ease, offered me a place, and then, after a brisk lift-up to me, he walked beside the nervous little pony, turning the equipage around on the narrow road to face the coast and Kelper Head. As he did so, one of the rackety wheels only just missed a nasty sucking pothole that bordered the road. After that, we bobbed along in a fair style with Dr. Trumble walking beside us.

      I could not help wondering if Lady Maeve Conor would dislike my appearance excessively, as Maureen Trumble predicted. Unless, of course, she had actually written that strange second note, advising me not to come. I felt sure that my former employer, Miss Nutting, had said nothing to my disadvantage; for she was as near a mother to me as makes no matter. Nor did she speak out against the Irish offer of employment when I returned so suddenly from France. Lady Maeve had been one of her pupils twenty years gone and Miss Nutting had spoken about Lady Maeve’s offer with more than usual warmth. I decided that Miss Maureen’s remarks were but a symptom of an obvious mental state.

      I said to Dr. Trumble, A curious thing happened, sir. After I had departed for Ireland, another message came from Lady Maeve, asking me not to come. I received it only this morning. My late employer had the goodness to frank the letter as far as Carrickmore. It awaited me there. I have been visiting the coteen where I was born near Dublin Town, or I should have received it sooner.

      He raised his eyebrows. An odd thing, certainly. I expect it was a joke of some sort. Only last evening Maeve was deep in the frets for want of the new housekeeper. Our last one tipped the bottle.

      Maureen giggled. It was too funny. We never truly saw Mrs. Fergus tippling. She was a sly one. But we were forever finding her empty bottles and whisky mugs.

      Then perhaps she is my enemy, I suggested.

      That’s as may be, said the doctor indifferently. Fergus is in the North of Scotland and like to remain there.

      But why should it be anyone else? I asked. A silly, pointless joke, cheating me of a position and perhaps putting Her Ladyship to the trouble of hiring another woman in my place.

      Maureen looked wise. It’s very like Theo. He is my brother, Miss Anne. Theo might do something as deliciously absurd.

      Delicious, maybe, said Dr. Trumble, with a sardonic edge to his voice that made me suspect no love was lost between himself and his brother-in-law. But absurd, surely. It is apparent, Miss Wicklow, you are not wanted at Conor House—by someone. Is it, I wonder, because you’ll be proving too efficient? I only hope no further jests are played in that line, or you will be peeping about in dark places and starting at the drop of a pin.

      Good heavens! I said. You think there may be danger to me?

      For the barest fraction of time he hesitated. The lantern light showed me his face in quick-changing lights and shadows, illuminating several pock marks on his cheek that, curiously enough, gave his face one of its rugged attractions. Not if you are resolute, he replied.

      I did not like the reply.

      Perhaps someone thinks you will see too much of our lives, of what goes on at Conor, Maureen suggested surprisingly.

      That’ll be enough, love, her husband silenced her. I recognized then his use of the endearment that I had thought effusive for such a man. ·But though he gave it the same casual use I had often heard between Yorkshiremen of both sexes, it was lovely to see his wife’s flowering under his voice, even when he issued orders.

      Then you think I may safely apply tonight to Lady Maeve? I asked.

      Miss Wicklow, if you did not, it would be a sorry state altogether, and that’s my thought on it.

      Maureen raised her chin.

      I don’t know, Jono. It might be very amusing to think someone does not want Anne at Conor. Things are tiresome enough this past month.

      He reached over and took her hand. For an instant she looked at him with her heart in her eyes, as the saying is. Then he let her hand go, and she was very silent. He seemed to know exactly how to deal with her.

      Presently, when I thought the Bog must go on forever, we began to hear a great, distant roaring, and Dr. Trumble looked up at us and smiled, the expression of

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