Page 18 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
“I don’t know for certain. I was brought up to the house to work, but there was no lady here when I arrived. I toiled for weeks preparing the rooms for her, waiting for her to arrive. The master had said she would return once matters were settled, but Sir Joseph was a secretive sort—he wouldn’t ever say what those matters were.”
I frowned.
“After Sir Joseph was found dead, I’d gone to spend some time with my sister in Dorset. I returned three days later and found the mistress dead.”
“Dead!” Well, that certainly explained why Tamsyn was so convinced of her own dire fate.
“That she was. Gutted and laid out in this room as her husband had been in the cowshed.”
My teacup clattered on the saucer as I glanced down to the fine carpets beneath my feet. “Here?”
“Lady Chenowyth doesn’t know. She thought it such a pretty room and I hadn’t the heart to tell her what happened. It’s been kept locked up for years because of… well, you see, don’t you?”
“She was murdered… here?” I repeated, staring at the rug.
“It was thirty years ago, maid. I doubt there’s a great housein this country without a death or twelve within its walls.” She drained her teacup and refilled it, topping off my own in the process. “You see, we hadn’t a Pellar then. They don’t spring up like mushrooms after a rain.”
I nearly snorted at the image her words conjured.
“Before young Mr. Kivell, we hadn’t had one here in some three hundred years. So the townsfolk sent off for the White Witch of Launceton. She was one of the old ones. A seer and a powerful witch too.” Her eyes took on a reverent expression and I found myself almost believing in her story. “Ruan was just a baby then.”
Mrs. Penrose’s once neatly kept graying hair had fallen slightly loose from the knot she wore it in, escaping her cap. Her face was flushed from having imbibed the better part of my flask on her own.
“Then did this woman get to the bottom of it?”
Mrs. Penrose made a sound of distress and shook her head. “We thought she had. She came and worked a charm that was to send the beast back from whence it’d come.”
“Thought?” My brows rose.
“Well, it’s back now, ain’t it?” she grumbled, settling herself into her chair. Her body loose as she ran a hand over her face and blew out a breath.
“I don’t see why everyone believes it’s a curse. It’s gruesome what happened to the previous baronet, yes, and there are similarities, but…”
Mrs. Penrose eyed my flask thoughtfully and then shook her head. “Because Sir Joseph wasn’t the first. Nor was he the last. If I remember the story, it started over two hundred years ago—when another Chenowyth heir made off with a girl from the village. A bal maiden.”
“Just like Sir Joseph and his wife, then.”
Mrs. Penrose pressed her lips into a tight line and gave mea curt nod. “The same. The young gentleman was intended to marry a wealthy wellborn maid from Devon. The young maid was furious for being cast off like rubbish, and for someone born so far beneath her? It was unthinkable. So she channeled her rage and went off to a local witch, begging the crone to bring her beloved’s heart back to her. The witch, they said, was a cruel and evil creature that dabbled in black magic, having long harbored an ill wish toward the Chenowyths.”
I furrowed my brow, enraptured by the story. It reminded me of the ones Tamsyn’s cook would tell us when we’d steal away to the kitchen for late-night puddings. “And then what happened?”
“The witch set a curse upon the Chenowyth line vowing revenge. She killed the faithless heir and his young bride, removing his inconstant heart and delivering it to his betrothed in a silver box.”
“I suppose that wasn’t what the jilted girl had intended.”
Mrs. Penrose let out a startled laugh and then straightened her features. “No, I imagine not, maid. Be it a lesson—always be careful in dealing with witches.”
I refrained from commenting on the fact she sent for the same herself to help in this very matter. A witch, the constable had called him.
“But Sir Edward’s heart wasn’t removed, was it?”
Mrs. Penrose wrinkled her nose. “To tell you the truth I didn’t have the stomach to look. Perhaps our Pellar knows.” She sighed heavily, the morning’s discovery weighing on her every movement. “I tell you true, my lover. If it weren’t for our Pellar, I’d pack my bags and be off myself. I haven’t the stomach to live through those dark days again, but I can’t bring myself to leave the poor babe alone out here.”
“Jori?”
She nodded. “He’s an innocent in all this.”
“As is Tamsyn,” I protested.
