Moved, Anthea cried, “I promise to go there, as soon as I’m old enough! Only you’ll have to tell me where it is.”
“Would you really? Why, how good of you!” Sir Roderick didn’t mention that she probably wouldn’t have enough money to go to London, let alone to the battlefield, unless she married—in which case, she wasn’t likely to have the freedom. “Don’t go without an escort, though—these Scots are great rough hairy brutes, you know.”
“Oh, I understand they’ve improved recently—quite civilized, Papa says.” The reminder of her parents clouded her brow.
Sir Roderick noticed. “Bit of a rum show, eh? To have to leave London and come to this rambling old manor.”
“Yes, it’s really quite unpleasant! ... Oh, forgive me! I hadn’t meant any disrespect for your family home.”
“Yours, too, my dear, though you’ve only just found it—and it’s really quite all right. Windhaven is quite thoroughly run-down, I assure you—not what it used to be at all. Even at its best, though, I confess it did become a bit tedious after the first hundred years. I’ve taken the opportunity to travel to London with the family, you see, not to mention Bath and ...”
“London?” Anthea stared. “Was it really you, then, who made those odd noises in the night?”
“Quite so, and I’ve known you since you were an infant—charming, perfectly charming. I could have stayed with Trudy—your Aunt Gertrude, don’t you know—but I thought I’d better come along to the old manor, and see that you were well enough cared for.”
“Oh, but I’m not at all! Nanny died, and they hired this horrible, ignorant stranger in her stead, and the housekeeper and the rest of the staff are so tiresome, I could swear they hate children, and ... Her griefs came to mind again, and Anthea’s eyes swam in tears.
“Now, now, it’s not quite so bad as it might seem,” Sir Roderick murmured, reaching out an armored hand—but all Anthea felt was a chill on her cheek. “Life’s always worth living, don’t you know, if only because it might go better in times to come. There will be a troupe of young men dancing attendance on you some day, though you may feel no one pays attention to you now.”
“They don’t, they truly don’t!” Anthea cried. “Mama cares nothing for my feelings, and hardly ever sees me—indeed, at times I think she wishes I weren’t there!”
“Painful, bitterly painful,” the knight agreed. “Still, you mustn’t be too hard on your mother, little mademoiselle—she’s had a dreadful disappointment, you know.”
“Well, yes,” Anthea admitted, “but she doesn’t seem to have much time for anyone or anything except melancholy, at the moment.”
“Quite so,” Sir Roderick agreed, “though I thought she made it quite clear she cares inordinately about her social circle.”
“Oh yes, she does carry on so about the loss of her wonderful friends and gay parties!” They had been lost with the Goslings’ London house.
“She has cause to rail against the bitter fortune that has consigned her to the country life,” Sir Roderick pointed out.
“She would, if her own extravagances hadn’t been so great a part of that misfortune!” Anthea returned. She had come rather early to that age at which a girl can find any number of things wrong with her mother, especially one who had been so distant as her own. “And really, she shouldn’t call this wonderful house a ‘decaying old manse,’ or go on about its being so far from the lights and salons of London!”
It was in Kent, actually.
“Decaying old manse!” huffed Sir Roderick, offended. “Does she really? Well, well, it has been let go of recent years. Your father hasn’t truly cared very much about it.”
“Papa has taken it very badly,” Anthea stated. Indeed, Papa seemed to blame himself for Mama’s loss. Not that he needed to—she was blaming him quite enough for them both already.
“But it was he who paid all that money, and promised all those sums that he didn’t have,” Sir Roderick pointed out.
“Never mind that it was Mama who ran up all the bills with her modiste, and insisted on so many servants, and on redecorating the town house, and holding their share of parties and soirees!”
“Don’t mind it at all,” Sir Roderick returned, “for your father called in the tailor every month in his own right.”
“Yes, because Mama kept after him to keep his wardrobe up to the latest fashion, of course, and carried on so about being ashamed to be seen with him, if he didn’t.”
“There’s some truth in that,” Sir Roderick admitted, “but certainly no one had to urge your father to run up such enormous gambling debts, least of all your mother.”
“That is true,” Anthea conceded.
“True? The truth of it is that neither of them cared a fig for keeping an eye on their expenses, or to trouble themselves with concern that their expenditures might outstrip their income,” Sir Roderick said. “Not that I’m blaming them, mind you—I never much thought to look at the money myself. More concerned with honor and chivalry, don’t you know—but it’s for a man to provide for his wife and babes, eh wot?”
“The land does that,” Anthea muttered, but somewhat uncertainly.
“True enough, but you must take care of the land before it will take care of you—and not take out of it more than it has to give.”
Which was exactly what Papa had tried to do, of course—and the long and the short of it had been that they had had to sell the town house, and where could they live after that?
Only in the rambling old manor in which Grandpapa had grown up. And Papa hadn’t wished to be there for more than the occasional visit, and hadn’t tended to anything that fell into disrepair—so, now that they needed it, the big old house was dank and ramshackle.
“But the land has a great deal to give,” the ghost assured her. “Not just in corn and cabbage and tenants’ rents, but in the beauty of field and hill and woodlot.”
“I haven’t seen it,” Anthea said shortly.
“But you must!” the ghost said. “Not tonight, of course, for it’s raining, but on a bright and sunny morning, or in the glow of a summer’s evening. When you step into budding woods and find it thronged with birdsong, when you spy a fox peeking out from a covert, when you come upon a meadow filled with wildflowers, you will find the country is not so bad a place to be.”
“It sounds lovely,” Anthea said, caught up in his enthusiasm.
“That it is—but not on a gloomy day of rain and wind. Though that too has its charms, if you’re snug and dry, before a warm fire.”
Anthea made a face and gestured at the cold hearth. “Would I dare to light a fire there?”
“Of course, for the flue still draws well, and is reasonably clean for want of use—and the birds’ nests have fallen for the season, so there’s little chance of a chimney fire. If you’d set a log on, I’ll show you.”
Anthea was somewhat puzzled, but she did as Sir Roderick asked, slipping off the window seat and crossing to place a log between the andirons. The bark crumbled in her hands. “I wonder how long this has been here.”
“Well, if it’s a bit gone to rot, it will light all the sooner.”
The ghost clanked up beside her and knelt, holding its hands out over the logs.
Anthea followed its movements with her eyes. “How is it that you clank now, when you didn’t before? I thought ghosts had no substance.”
“We don’t, but I wouldn’t wish to startle you by coming up in total silence, then speaking at your shoulder.” A silver glow appeared around Sir Roderick’s gauntlets and spread out to envelop the log. It turned golden; then flames began to dance. Sir Roderick withdrew his hands, and the glow died—but the flicker of a burning log remained.