Author: Megan Shepherd
Category: Young Adult
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/megan-shepherd/page,3,54767-a_cold_legacy.html
“Wait!” I cried. “We’re friends of Elizabeth!”
The manservant ignored me. “I found two pistols on ’em and this rifle. They’ve a man wrapped in chains in the carriage. A prisoner, most like. We should alert someone in Quick to telegram the police.”
My heart fluttered wildly.
“He’s not a prisoner!” My words were sharp enough to shock them. The man cocked his head toward me and I saw he was missing his left ear; there was only a jagged scar in its place. Lucy shrank closer to me.
“His name is Edward Prince and he’s gravely ill,” I continued. “We’ve only chained him so he doesn’t harm himself in his delirium. He isn’t a threat and neither are we, so you can lower that rifle and drop this talk about sending for the police.” I tore at my damp layers until I found Elizabeth’s letter and thrust it at the young woman. “It’s from Elizabeth. It says—”
“I can read,” she said coldly, opening the letter.
Lucy clung to my side. She was normally so much bolder than I, but she was mistress of the tearoom and salon. Here, in this last bastion of civilization before the upper wilds of Scotland, was the first time I’d ever seen her rendered speechless.
The woman finished the letter and exchanged a glance with the manservant. “It is as they say it is,” she said. I’d expected the letter to ease her suspicions, but if anything, her voice sounded even colder than before. Regardless, he lowered the rifle.
Montgomery took off his hat and wiped his wet hair back. “Balthazar, fetch Edward and our trunks, if you’d be so good.” Balthazar shuddered like a wet dog and turned to go. Thunder crashed outside and the chandelier dimmed, plunging the foyer into low light before the howling wind let up and the chandelier flickered back to full power.
“My name is Valentina,” the woman said curtly. “I’m second in charge after the housekeeper. This is Carlyle, the gamekeeper. We aren’t used to Elizabeth sending guests, certainly not wards.”
“Yes, well, here we are dripping all over your floors,” I said with an uneasy laugh. “Is there a place we might dry off and warm ourselves? I think we’re all nearly frozen through.” I couldn’t stop shivering, and it wasn’t just on account of the cold.
Valentina nodded toward the roaring grand fireplace. “Wait here. I’ll tell McKenna you’ve arrived.” She exchanged another glance with Carlyle, who followed her out of the foyer.
We were left alone in the silent hall. Watery old portraits hung high above our heads, looking down on us with eyes that seemed all too real. My skin rippled as if the house had eyes and ears, and all were trained on us.
At last Lucy broke her silence to stomp off toward the fire. “Would it kill them to offer us a towel?” she hissed under her breath. “Some tea? You’d think we were lepers.”
I was glad, at least, that she’d found her voice again. We huddled around the fireplace, holding our hands toward the flame. Montgomery hung his oilskin coat on a hook by the fire.
“Elizabeth warned me they were out of practice with polite society,” I offered.
Lucy scoffed. Behind her, a faded threadbare boar loomed in the heavy tapestry. “Out of practice? More like they were both raised by wolves. I can’t imagine, if Elizabeth were here, she’d tolerate their behavior. A rifle to Montgomery’s head!”
I rubbed my hands together in front of the fire and thought of the first time I’d met Elizabeth. She’d dragged me through a kitchen window and dumped me on a hard stone floor. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by our reception after all.
“Well, we are imposing on their goodwill,” I said. “I’m just grateful to be out of that carriage. Besides, Elizabeth should arrive in a few days—”
A door slammed again and Valentina returned, though without any sort of towel or blanket for us to dry ourselves. If she noticed that we were all soaked to the bone and shivering, it only seemed to give her perverse satisfaction. “Carlyle will help your associate unload the carriage and carry the sick gentleman upstairs. McKenna said to bring you down to meet the rest of the staff. You’ve arrived at an unfortunate time. We’re in the middle of a funeral.”
Lucy’s face went white. “Who died?”
Valentina’s mouth quirked, the first flicker of emotion we’d seen other than sullenness. “The last group of strangers who came to this door.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
“Follow me,” she said. “The ground is frozen until spring thaw. We can’t bury our bodies until then, so we hold our funerals inside.”
I hesitated. “Inside? But where?”
Valentina met my eyes, and I realized that I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know where, exactly, the bodies were kept. Nor that Ballentyne Manor was anything like the safe haven I’d expected.
“You’ll see for yourself. I hope for your sake—if you truly are the mistress’s ward—you have as strong a constitution as she does, Miss Moreau.”
FOUR
VALENTINA LED THE WAY down the damp cellar stairs with a candle in one hand, despite the line of electric lights running alongside us.
“Best not to rely on the electricity,” she explained over her shoulder. “The lights have gone out on me too many times when I’m down here alone, and it’s blacker than the devil.”
The farther we descended, the colder the air grew. My breath fogged in the dim lights. No wonder they stored the bodies here—the temperature and sulfuric gases released from the bogs would preserve them in near perfect condition until the spring thaw, and the stone walls would keep away the vermin.
Montgomery was close behind me, but Lucy trailed at a distance, holding her hem high so as not to drag it on the slick stones of the spiral staircase. At last we reached the bottom, where the distant sound of a droning voice came from a room ahead that glowed faintly in the electric lights.
“It was the plague,” Valentina said.
“Plague?” Lucy asked.
“The ones that died. The plague killed them. Beggars following the winter fair circuit. Several women and children among them, too.”
She spoke casually enough, as though dead children were as common as the sheep dotting the landscape. Lucy gasped, but Valentina’s straightforward attitude didn’t bother me. Back in London, it was all high tea and polished silver. Very refined, very polite. At least these people, sullen though they were, didn’t deny the dangers around them.
Lucy lifted her skirts higher, as if the plague might be lurking in the damp stone underfoot, and Valentina smirked. We followed her through an open doorway into a chamber where a dozen or so servants, most of them young girls, gathered around a brass cross set on an altar.
“A chapel?” Lucy whispered to me. “In the cellar?”
I nodded. I’d heard about places like this. In such cold climates, when going outside was nearly impossible half the year, old households had built chapels indoors. Parts of this one, crumbled as it was, looked as though it dated back practically to the Middle Ages.
A few of the girls looked up when we slipped in, curiosity making them fidget. None were dressed as puritanically as Valentina, though all their clothes were rather dour and old-fashioned. It was a stark contrast to their bright eyes and red cheeks. Clearly they hadn’t known or cared about any of the deceased, because I caught a few excited whispers exchanged about Lucy’s and my elegant dresses, and Montgomery’s handsome looks.
Valentina shushed them and they snapped back to attention.
At the head of the room stood an older woman with a red braid shot through with white hairs, who wore a pair of men’s tweed trousers tucked into thick rubber boots. She was reading a few somber verses from a leather-bound volume in a heavy Scottish accent. She hadn’t yet noticed our presence.
On closer inspection, I realized all the servants were women, most of them barely more than children. Where was the rest of the male staff, besides the old gamekeeper?
Montgomery stood just in the doorway, as though it would be trespassing to go any
farther. When I met his eyes, he was frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “The bodies. I didn’t expect so many of them.”
The servant girls shifted, and I caught sight of the bodies he was talking about. A dozen of them were laid out on stone benches and the floor, covered with white sheets. My stomach knotted, reminding me of the King’s College autopsy room, where Edward’s victims had been laid out the same way. Dr. Hastings and the others I’d killed would have been laid there as well, after the massacre. Their wives and children would have come to identify the corpses. I suddenly felt sick.
Lucy drew in a breath and crossed herself.
“Don’t worry,” Montgomery whispered to her. “The germs will be long gone by now. There’s no danger of us catching it.”
Valentina walked among the servant girls, stepping unceremoniously over one of the bodies, and whispered to the older woman, whose eyes shot to us as she said a few final words. As soon as the brief service had concluded, the red-haired woman motioned for us to follow her into the hallway.
“Goodness me,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Strangers during such a storm? And to arrive during these poor souls’ funeral—you must never have suffered such shock. Look at you, frozen through and through. You must be starved.”
The woman had a motherly way about her that made me feel safe even standing among the dead, and an enormous weight shifted off my shoulders. At least someone was giving us a warm reception.
“Are you Mrs. McKenna?” I asked.
“I am, my dear. My family has helped the von Steins with the management of this household for generations; you’re in good hands, I promise, and if the mistress has sent you, then you’re more than welcome here.” She turned back toward the chapel. “Lily, Moira, you girls go make up the rooms on the second floor for our guests.”
Two of the older girls skipped off into the hallway, more than glad to escape the dreary funeral. Mrs. McKenna first took my hands, then Lucy’s, and even Montgomery’s big ones, rubbing them and tsking at the cold as if we were children. “Come with me, little mice. We shall get you warmed.”
I cast one final look back at the bodies. Mrs. McKenna pressed a hand against my shoulder, turning me away from the sight. “Aye, a shame. They took shelter here a fortnight ago—I could hardly turn them away, not with so many children among them. And the mistress would have wanted it. But they brought with them the plague, and it took all of them overnight. I doubt they have any relations who will be coming by to collect the bodies.”
“None of your staff caught the plague?” I asked, as we made our way back up the spiral stairs with Valentina wordlessly trailing behind us.
“No, thank heavens. The vagrants slept in the lambing barn while they were here. I had Carlyle burn it as a precaution, though in these parts, at this time of year, it’s too cold for diseases to spread easily in a house like this. We keep it well cleaned.”
Her knowledge of biology impressed me, but no more so than Valentina’s ability to read. It was rare for servants to be highly educated, especially in such rural parts.
We entered the kitchen, a cavernous room with a roaring fire and a pair of geese roasting on the spit. My stomach lurched with hunger. A thin girl attended to the roast, chewing her nail as she regarded us with round eyes. Mrs. McKenna opened a tin and handed Lucy, Montgomery, and me each a crusty scone.
“That’ll tide you over till supper. Let’s get you settled now, and tomorrow I’ll show you the manor and grounds, if the storm lets up. There are times it gets so bad the levees fail and the road to Quick floods for days. We can be completely cut off. Our own little island, of sorts.” She handed me the candelabrum from the table. “Take this. The electricity will likely go out if the wind continues. Follow Valentina—she’ll show you to your rooms. I’ll make sure my girls take care of your sickly friend. A fever, is that right?” She shook her head in sympathy. “How awful. We shall put him in a room with a fireplace to keep him warm.”
“That would be lovely—” Lucy began.
“No,” Montgomery interrupted. “No fire. No sharp objects either. And make sure the room has a strong lock. We’ll attend to him ourselves, not your girls.”
Mrs. McKenna’s eyebrows raised, and she exchanged a look with Valentina, but like any good servant, she didn’t probe. “No fire, then. And an extra lock on the door.” She paused. “Might I see that letter of introduction?”
I handed it to her, and she read Elizabeth’s letter, then looked up with a startled expression. Her gaze shifted between Montgomery and me.
“Engaged?” she asked.
Behind her, the thin little girl at the goose spit gasped.
“Yes,” I said, worried. “Is . . . is it a problem?” With their high-collared dresses and sleeves down to their wrists, they might be religious types who wouldn’t approve of Montgomery and me traveling together unwed.
“No, no, little mouse,” Mrs. McKenna said. She glanced at the thin girl at the spit, who now wore a bright smile that seemed out of place in the gloomy manor. “It’s only that, with the exception of old Carlyle, you’ve walked into a house of women. We haven’t had much occasion to celebrate things like engagements, not in a long time. The girls would so adore helping to arrange a wedding. Perhaps in the spring, after thaw, or midsummer when the flowers are in bloom. It’ll cheer them up so, especially after a harsh winter.”
I smiled. “We’d love their help. And spring sounds perfect.” The warm scone in my stomach, Montgomery at my side, girls tittering over wedding plans: it was starting to feel more like a home, and I told myself that the unsettled feeling I’d had when I first arrived was just nerves from the road.
I squeezed Montgomery’s hand, but the troubled look he gave me said he wasn’t nearly as reassured as I was.
“THERE ARE THREE FLOORS, not including the basement,” Valentina said as she led us up the stairs, with Balthazar trailing behind carrying our three carpetbags over one shoulder. Two of the littlest servant girls walked alongside him with fresh linens in their arms, staring up at him. One had a limp that made her walk nearly as slowly as he did. Far from frightened, they seemed utterly transfixed by him.
“That doesn’t include the towers,” Valentina continued. “There’s one in the southern wing and one in the north. The north tower is the biggest. It’s where the mistress’s observatory is. I’m the only one with a key to it, on account of the delicate equipment. She’s taught me how to use most of the telescopes and refractors and star charts. In turn, I’m teaching the older girls. Education is often overlooked in female children; I’m determined to make sure the girls here have good heads on their shoulders.” She cast me a cold gaze. “Between McKenna and me, we manage quite well during Elizabeth’s absences. Though we’re all eager for her return, of course.”
The stairs creaked as we made our way to the second floor, which Valentina explained was mostly comprised of guest bedrooms and a library they used for breakfast. The regular servants’ rooms were on the third floor, and she and McKenna each had one of the larger corner rooms in the attic. Carlyle slept in an apartment above the barn.
She passed me a set of keys with her gloved hand. “One for your bedroom, and one for that of your ill friend. You’re welcome in any portion of the house that isn’t locked. Those are the observatory and the mistress’s private chambers.”
“And my dog?”
“Carlyle put him in the barn. There are plenty of rats for him to catch.”
Lucy gaped. “He’s supposed to eat rats?”
Valentina appraised Lucy’s fine city clothes with a withering look. “I didn’t realize he was canine royalty. Would he care for a feather bed and silver bowl, perhaps?”
Lucy drew in a sharp breath. I could practically see smoke coming from her ears. I doubt she’d ever been spoken to so boldly, by a maid or anyone else. I wrapped my arm around hers and held her back. “Rats will be fine,” I said.
Valentina smiled thinly and continued up the stairs.
We reached the landing, where a long hallway stretched into darkness broken only by flickering electric lights. Heavy curtains flanked the windows, with old portraits hanging between them.
“The Ballentyne family,” Valentina said, motioning to the portraits. “That one is the mistress’s great-grandfather. And that woman is her great-aunt.”
“But I thought the Franken—I mean, the von Stein family—owned the manor,” I said.
“Victor Frankenstein, you mean? You needn’t be so secretive, Miss Moreau. Elizabeth trusts us completely; she’s told us all about her family’s history. The Ballentynes were the original owners of the manor. The first Lord Ballentyne built it in 1663 overtop the ruins of previous structures. He was something of an eccentric. Went mad, they say.”
Montgomery stopped to give Balthazar time to catch up to us. The two little girls were hanging by his side, hiding smiles behind their hands. The one with the limp skipped ahead to Valentina and tugged on her skirt. Valentina bent down to hear the girl’s whisper.
“The girls say your quiet associate—Mr. Balthazar, is it?—belongs here.” She pointed a gloved finger at a small portrait beneath a flickering electric lamp. “They say he’s the spirit of Igor Zagoskin.” The portrait portrayed a large man in an old-fashioned suit, stooped with a hunchback, face covered by a hairy beard. Balthazar blinked at the painting in surprise. The resemblance was striking.
“Who is that man?” Montgomery asked.
“One of Lord Ballentyne’s most trusted servants, back in the 1660s. He was rumored to be a smart man, strong as an ox. He helped Ballentyne in his astronomical research.”
Balthazar blinked a few more times in surprise, then grinned at the girl with the limp. “Thank you, little miss. I like the look of him. I shall hope to carry on in his tradition.”
“Your room is through here, Miss Moreau.” Valentina opened a door into a bedroom that emitted the smell of mustiness and decades of disuse, but inside I found it freshly tidied. Balthazar set my bag on the soft carpet. Valentina handed me a smaller key.