Page 9 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
Abaleful clanging rang out through the foggy morning silence, jolting me from my sleep. My body was accustomed to springing to action from the years I’d spent along the Western Front. But this time there were no explosions. No shouts. No wounded men needing to be loaded onto lorries and carried from the casualty clearing station farther from the front. Confused and cloudy, I tugged on my riding boots one at a time, hopping down the hall as I struggled with the laces.
All the while the bells tolled. I stumbled down the stairs seeking out the source of the commotion. Dressed in my wholly inadequate nightdress, I followed the infernal sound out the back door and toward the wood. But as far as I could ascertain, no one else was running. No one came. Something was dreadfully wrong.
A stillness passed through the thick air. The fog dampened every sound, every sensation, aside from the clang of the fire bell. Wet high grass, thick with dew, clung to the hem of my gown as I ran after the sound. A few late poppies dotted the grass in bloodlike splotches, unfurling the blossoms to the early-morning sun.
Faster and faster through the fields I ran, my lungs grateful for the clean air, until at last I found the source of the commotion. The fire bell was on the far side of the decaying stable block. The wooden siding had rotted clear through and the structure had a drunken lean to the south, making it appear that a stiff gale might send the whole thing toppling over in defeat. But still no smoke. No fire. Nothing except Mrs. Penrose, the housekeeper, stretching up on the tips of her toes to tug down on the old frayed rope, wholly unaware of my arrival. Her graying hair had come free of its confines and whipped around her face, giving her the selfsame windswept appearance of the fields beyond. A shotgun was propped up against the stone wall, alongside a tipped-over basket of blackberries spilling onto the grass.
She stopped and glanced past my shoulder to the house warily. Her eyes were haunted. “Where’s the mistress?”
“Asleep, I suspect. No one was stirring when I left. What’s happened?”
“It’s for the best, the poor dove.” Worried, she continued to watch the house. “Did you see anyone on your way out here? Anyone at all?”
I shook my head again, hugging myself to ward off the damp air, which cut through the thin fabric of my nightdress.
She paused, hands on her hips drawing my attention to her blue-gray skirt, which was smeared in myriad shades of reddish brown and green.
“I suppose you’ll have to do.” She clicked her tongue, turned, and grabbed the shotgun. She thrust the butt of it into my hands, along with a heavy waxcloth bag of cartridges. “If half the things she’s said of you are true, I’ll trust you know what to do with this.”
Hesitantly, I glanced from her to the weapon in my hands. Idid, but why I needed it escaped me. “Mrs. Penrose… Please tell me what’s happened.”
“The master’s been killed.”
My blood froze in my veins. The dream. It’d been so vivid. So real… I swallowed hard, shaking away the sensation that it had happened again. My dreams…
Mrs. Penrose’s voice broke through my troubled thoughts. “I don’t know what, beast or man, has done the deed. But the ravens have already been at him. I won’t have him any more disturbed than he already is. We need to keep them away until the constable comes or the Pellar.”
The Pellar?That was the second time I’d heard that word—but I was still focused upon the fact that Edward Chenowyth was—
“Dead,” I whispered.
“Dead. Aye, maid. That he is.” Her mouth took on the shape one does after biting into an unripe persimmon. A mirror to my own thoughts. “Come along then.” Mrs. Penrose turned on her heels, marching off toward the orchard as if finding a dead man happened every day.
And perhaps it did in Cornwall.
The grass along the center of the path was beaten down shorter than that along either side. It was only yesterday I saw Tamsyn out here picking wildflowers with her child, but that image seemed miles away now. My hands grew damp around the shotgun’s solid reassurance. It had been a dream. Just a dream.
With each step, the way remained stubbornly familiar to my mind. Something in the angle of the trees, the path, the gentle curving arc of the land tugged at the periphery of my memories. A wholly unsettling feeling considering my dream last night. Finally, as we reached the edge of the copse, the sensation grew too great to bear. I paused and turned back to the house.
And there on the third floor on the farthest corner was myroom. My window. My pulse sped as the memory of the night before came back in full force. The figure.
This was the spot. The very one in which I’d seen the ghost, or whatever it had been. My fingers rose to my aching neck hidden behind the high collar of my nightdress.
“What is it, maid?” Mrs. Penrose paused, huffing out her breath in annoyance, brushing the hair back from her damp brow.
What is it?What a preposterous question for the woman to ask after she’d thrust a shotgun in my arms and told me there’s a dead man in the woods that I may or may not have killed.
What isn’t the matter?I shook my head and turned back toward the path. “Nothing. Nothing.”
“It’s not a pretty sight. I’d warn you to keep your eyes away from him if you can.”
“Have you sent for a physician? The constable?”
“No physician’s going to help him now. One of the housemaids heard the bells straightaway and set off for the Pellar. He’ll know what to do.” She wrung her hands into her stained apron. Twisting then untwisting, my gaze locked on them. “Aye. He’ll know what’s to be done.”
I gave an unsteady nod, not liking the sound of her words.
Mrs. Penrose drew in a shaky breath before continuing. “The bells of Penryth Hall haven’t rung in thirty long years.” Her hands fell to her sides in defeat. “I’d hoped not to hear them again.”
