The Ghost of Christmas Past (2 page)

Elizabeth
sighed. “I’m sure Midchester is the last place in which to find a murderer,
Miss Graves. Nothing exciting ever happens here.” It was only as she said it
that Elizabeth realised that she wished something exciting would happen. She
was happy enough in her life, but … well, she had to admit that sometimes she
wished for more than the daily chores at the vicarage and the inevitable Sunday
afternoons in the company of the sisters. She thought of Charles Hardacre and
his sister, Dora. They at least brought some glamour to Midchester. It was said
they were the nephew and niece of a famous Duke, though they were far too
discreet and principled to drop his name into conversations.

“Here
we are,” she said, with more relief than she intended. They had reached the
door of the sisters’ cottage. “Thank you for joining us today. Perhaps if you
are not too busy next Sunday, you could join us again.”

“We
will have to see, Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Chatterbucks. “One gets so many
invitations…” She left the rest unsaid, perhaps because it might have turned
into an even bigger lie. “But of course, you and the dear Reverend will always
come first with us.”

“Come
along, Samuel,” said Elizabeth, after she had said goodbye to the sisters. “It
will be dark soon, and we don’t want to be out too late.”

“Can
we go home past the pond, Elizabeth?”

She
was hoping he would forget. Despite her earlier wish for excitement, she
suddenly felt the urge to sit in front of the fire with a good book and a warm
blanket over her knees. Something made her feel uneasy. She could only link it
back to the dreadful scream they had heard. She pushed the thought away. They
lived in the countryside, where there were always sounds of animals and birds,
not to mention the occasional shotgun blast from poachers and gamekeepers. Why
today's noise should make her feel any different, she did not know.

“Very
well, but quickly, darling. It’s terribly cold out and you don’t want to catch
a chill.”

“No,”
said Samuel, affecting Miss Grave’s voice, “for then I might get ill and go to
my grave early. For one never knows when He will call you.”

Elizabeth
wanted to laugh, but a sudden and terrible sense of foreboding stopped her.
“Please don’t joke about such things, Sam.”

It
was only as they got nearer the pond, which was on the outskirts of the town,
just below a wooded copse, that she realised why she felt afraid. That was the
direction from which the scream had come. The sky was beginning to darken, and
the snow still fell. Her instinct was to turn back, but they had reached the
point whereby it was quicker to go home past the pond than it was to turn back
and take the other route.

“Oh
look,” said Samuel. “I think someone has built a snowman. I bet Johnny Fletcher
has already been out. Oh it is too bad. He might have asked me to join in.”

Sure
enough, ahead of them was a man made of snow, standing some three feet off the
ground. “It certainly looks like he beat you to it, dearest,” said Elizabeth.
But all the same something about the snowman unnerved her. He appeared to be in
a kneeling position, with his legs beneath him. She had never seen a snowman
built in such a way.

“Wait
there a moment,” she said to Samuel, putting her arm on his shoulder. “Don’t go
any nearer.” She moved towards the snowman and crouched down next to him. A
thick dark patch had seeped through the snow near to the snowman’s chest.
Tentatively, she put her gloved hand on the snowman’s leg, and pressed down. As
she did so she heard him groan.

“Samuel,”
she said, as calmly as she could, though her heart hammered in her chest and
she could see her quickened breath escaping from her mouth in clouds of steam.
“I want you to run and get Father. No, go to Doctor Wheston, then to Father. Oh
hurry, dearest.”

Samuel
stared for a moment, and then ran as if he had the hounds of hell chasing him.

She
brushed the snow from the man’s head, and he opened his eyes briefly.
“Lucinda,” he whispered.

“Please,
try not to speak, the doctor will be here soon.” She took off her coat, and put
it on the ground behind him, before helping him to lie down.

On
hearing footsteps in the snow, she looked up and saw a man approaching them. He
was dressed in a thick dark coat, and wore a wide-brimmed hat, so that in the
dim light she could not see his face properly. All she could make out was that
he was very tall, well over six feet, and had broad shoulders. There was
something about him that unnerved her, yet she had to admit that it was not an
unpleasant feeling.

“What
is it?” the man asked. “What has happened?”

“This
man has been hurt,” said Elizabeth. “I think … I think he has been shot. Then
someone covered him with snow. I can hardly believe anyone would do such a
dreadful thing.”

“Let
me look at him.” His deep voice held the hint of an Irish accent. It was most
attractive.

“My
brother is fetching Doctor Wheston. He should be here soon.”

“I am
a doctor,” he said in calm, professional tones. “Let me see.” The stranger
crouched down on the other side of the stricken man. “Do you know this man?”
She could see the doctor’s face more clearly. She guessed that he was in his
early thirties, and unlike many of the men she knew, was clean shaven, with
short, dark hair.

“No,
I have never seen him before.” For the first time, Elizabeth looked at the
injured man properly. He was a man of middle age, portly, and with a fine set
of whiskers. “But he just said a name. Lucinda.”

The
stranger glanced up at her, whilst tending to the stricken man. “Do you know a
Lucinda?”

“No,
there is no one in Midchester of that name. At least not that I know of.”

“I
daresay that Midchester is the sort of town where everybody knows everybody
else.” He spoke wryly.

“Yes,
it is rather. It’s strange but I was only wishing today for some excitement.
Now…”

“You
would do better to wish for peaceful evenings and quiet nights, Miss…”

“Dearheart.”

“Dearheart?”
He smiled, and she felt her heart flip. “That’s a very appropriate name for you.
This poor man has been shot. I'm afraid the wound might be too near to the
heart.”

“Elizabeth!”
She heard her brother’s voice behind her. “I’ve brought Doctor Wheston.”

Doctor
Wheston approached them then stopped suddenly. It was not at the injured man he
looked, but at the stranger.

“Hello,
John,” said the stranger, standing up. “I warrant you did not expect to see
your old friend Liam Doubleday here.”

“Liam?
Of course.” He held out his hand, and took Liam’s. Their greeting was full of
intensity and unspoken words, making Elizabeth feel that she had arrived in the
middle of a conversation. “You should have told us you were coming. Amelia will
be … surprised. And absolutely delighted. What do we have here?”

Whatever
surprise Wheston might have felt on seeing his friend, his professionalism took
over.

“He’s
been shot in the chest,” said Liam. “I’ve done what I can to stem the flow of
blood, and thankfully the snow has helped, though whether his assailant thought
of that is another matter. But we need to get him out of the cold so we can
treat him properly. This young lady…” he looked at Elizabeth, “says that he
mentioned the name Lucinda. Do you know of a Lucinda in this area?”

Wheston
appeared to think about it very carefully. When Wheston replied, he spoke
guardedly. “No, there are no Lucindas here that I know of.”

At
this the man on the ground grasped Elizabeth’s hand and pulled her down to him.
“If not Lucinda, then her ghost,” he said. His eyes closed, and he was dead.

Chapter
Two

Over
the next few days the news of the stranger’s death spread through Midchester
faster than the snow, seeping under every door alongside the sharp winter winds.
Some said he was a spice trader from the West Indies, involved in shady deals.
Others said he was a government inspector who had been murdered to stop him
from reporting farmers who were less than honest about their taxes.

“It’s
so exciting,” said Mrs. Chatterbucks. Elizabeth had met the sisters on the way
to her aunt’s. Despite the extreme cold, they loitered in the town square,
desperate to discuss the murder with anyone, having gone over it between
themselves so many times already. “A real life murder in Midchester.”

“It’s
actually very sad,” said Elizabeth. “It was a horrid way to die.”

“Was
it dear?” asked Miss Graves, her eyes hungry for details. “Of course we don’t
know all the particulars, but is it true that he had been formed into a
snowman, complete with a carrot for a nose?”

“No,
that is not true,” said Elizabeth. She spoke politely but firmly. “At least not
the part about the carrot. I really don’t think I should talk about it. I told
Constable Hounds everything.”

“Oh,
well I suppose that’s for the best,” said Mrs. Chatterbucks, sighing with
disappointment.

“Do
you have any idea who he might have been?” asked Elizabeth.

“Why
no, dear,” said Mrs. Chatterbucks. “As if we would have anything to do with a
murdered man. The very thought is scandalous. If Mr. Chatterbucks were still
alive, he would say the same thing. Once, when we were first married, a man we
called friend was murdered by a vagabond. To think we invited him into our
house, and that he ate at our table.” Despite her pretended horror, Mrs. Chatterbucks
seemed to be relishing her connection with the dead man.

“I
hardly think it was the poor man’s fault he was murdered,” Elizabeth said,
sternly.

“Oh,
I don’t know about that,” said Miss Graves, gleefully. “Some people do rather
bring death upon themselves.”

“I
should really be getting on,” said Elizabeth, with a sigh. Why the sisters
should annoy her more than usual she did not know. It did not help that her
thoughts kept going back to Doctor Doubleday. Her normal restlessness, which
she managed to keep under control most of the time, had increased tenfold since
she met him. “My aunt is expecting me.”

“Do
give our best regards to Lady Bedlington,” said Mrs. Chatterbucks. “Of course,
we have never dined with her, but I hear she keeps a very good table.”

The
hint was a familiar one to Elizabeth. Bidding farewell to the sisters, she
continued on to Bedlington Hall.

#

“Is
that you, Elizabeth?” Her aunt lay in the centre of a large bed, in a darkened
boudoir, surrounded by various bottles, from which she partook regularly. She
said they were medicine, and that might have been true of some of them. Others
smelled distinctly alcoholic, and her aunt had a tendency to call them
embrocations. Elizabeth doubted they had ever been used as linaments.

Lady
Bedlington’s true age was a secret known only to herself. She looked ninety,
but as it was often said she had been born middle aged, she might only be
fifty. She was Elizabeth’s great aunt, the sister of her father’s mother.

“It
is, Aunt Arabella.”

“You
are late. I will not stand for lateness.”

“I
was talking to Mrs. Chatterbucks and Miss Graves.” Elizabeth unpacked the
basket of food she had brought for her aunt. She did not apologise, believing
that it only made her aunt feel more powerful.

“Oh
don’t mention those silly women to me. A couple of prattling idiots both of
them. I daresay they’ve tried to get an invitation to Bedlington Hall again.”

“Yes,
actually, they did. It would mean an awful lot to them, Aunt Arabella.”

“My
nerves could not bear it. I have not your patience, Elizabeth. Now tell me, is
it true what I hear? That there has been a murder.”

Given
her aunt’s hermit-like existence, it surprised Elizabeth that she knew anything
at all. She told her aunt the details, including a description of the dead man.

“That
sounds like George Sanderson. Goodness knows what he’s doing, getting himself
murdered. As if his family hasn’t enough problems.”

It
occurred to Elizabeth that the sisters and her aunt should get on rather well,
given that they all had a tendency to blame misfortune on the victims. “You
know him? Perhaps you should tell Constable Hounds.”

“I
most certainly will not. There will be no policeman in this house.”

“Surely
you want to see justice done.”

“It
has managed quite well without my interference for many years.”

Elizabeth
would have liked to disagree. All around her she saw injustices taking place,
particularly to those who could not afford to pay for proper counsel.

“Perhaps
you could tell me about Mr. Sanderson,” said Elizabeth. Her idea was that she
could go to Constable Hounds and tell him to check if Mr. Sanderson was the
dead man.

She
sat on the edge of the bed, having finished unpacking the delicacies. She could
have left them in the kitchen with the servants, but as her aunt didn’t trust
servants not to eat the best food, she insisted on seeing anything brought to
the house first. Elizabeth knew that when she left, Lady Bedlington would take
out a little notebook and make a list of it all. Then she would tick everything
off as it was served to her. It seemed to Elizabeth to be a sad way to live,
always worried that someone would steal from you. And given that Lady
Bedlington could afford enough food to feed the whole town for a year, it also
seemed somewhat miserly. Why should the servants not share in some of the pork
pie? Lady Bedlington had the appetite of a sparrow.