Elisabeth Fairchild (21 page)

“All except me and Rebecca,” Win said. “We decided to sneak down to the food for sugarplums
and gingerbread.”

“She had mistletoe in her hand,” Rebecca said.

“That’s right. I had forgotten.”

“She put a finger to her lips, as if to shush us.” Gerald demonstrated, a distant
look in his eyes, as if he could see it all over again in his mind’s eye.

“And then she was gone.” Anthony made a movement of his hand. “One moment there. The
next, gone.”

“Needless to say, we did not go down for the sugarplums.” Winifred laughed.

“Not past the spot where she had been standing,” Rebecca agreed.

“Came screeching into the game room, they did.” Anthony laughed.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“All right. All right. Watch your hook. You’ll put someone’s eyes out if you are not
careful.” Copeland caught at his line to still a wildly swinging hook with its poor,
desiccated worm.

When they settled, Copeland asked, “That was the last you saw of her?”

“Until the next Christmas.” Gerald said it so matter-of-factly that Copeland took
an abrupt breath.

“We all saw her again,” Robert said. “From the window.”

“It looks down over the fountain,” Robert piped up. Copeland knew the one he meant.

“The sun was going down. Birds settling in the trees.” Gerald painted the scene.

“She was feeding them. Hands out.” Little Robert put down his fishing pole to hold
out his arms in exactly the posture Copeland remembered. So uncannily familiar was
that stance, a chill ran the length of his spine.

“Just like that?” he asked.

“Yes. The birds were not in the least afraid,” Winifred assured him. “Ate straight
from her hands.”

Copeland rubbed his brow, astounded. He had never told a soul about the afternoon
by the fountain.

“Then she looked up at us in the window,” Rebecca said. “And suddenly the birds rose
in a flurry. And she was gone.”

Win nodded. “As if they took her with them.”

They all nodded, expressions very serious.

“Rather spooky,” Gerald admitted.

“Why did you not tell me this before?”

“Didn’t think you would believe us.” Anthony pulled in his line, and on it a wiggling
little fish, which was ceremoniously thrown back into the pond as soon as he had been
sufficiently admired, and looking rather less lively than before.

Copeland glanced up at the windows of Broomhill Hall and wondered with aching heart
why Belinda would show herself to the children and not to him.
Except in my dreams. Only in my dreams.

***

The following autumn, on a day when the wind seemed a living thing, ready to push
one along the lane, running breezy fingers through one’s hair, playfully snatching
one’s hat away, Copeland spoke again of his beautiful, beloved, much missed Belinda.

He was walking along the avenue of old oak trees with Marcus, the canopy of leaves
above shaken by a rude and pushing wind. Tossed about like a woman’s skirts, the oak
limbs seemed at times indecently exposed.

“Broomhill is beautiful this time of year.” His brother threw back his head as a sudden
gust poured a swirl of wine-colored leaves over them: burgundy and champagne.

“To think I once thought we were in danger of losing them, poor old oaks.” Copeland
clutched at his hat. He thought of a day in winter when it was not leaves but limbs
that had rained down into the lane. “Only see how the scars have healed.” He leaned
into a venerable old trunk, studying the spot where a limb had been cut away, running
gloved hand over new growth. “The bark grows over the damage. Such resilience. Such
fortitude.”

“And you, brother.” Marcus caught a golden leaf as it fell, delicately twirling it
between gloved fingers. “Are your scars healed?”

“My scars?” Copeland stood away from the tree with a suddenness that startled doves
from the branches above.

Marcus let the wind catch the leaf from his hand. He watched it blow away before he
went on. “Henrietta?”

“Hen?” Copeland smiled. This was not the scar he thought Marcus meant to address.
“Dear Hen.”

“I shall never forget that Christmas.” Marcus dusted off his gloves. “What a muddle.
We were to have a ghost hunt. Do you remember?”

Copeland felt the rush of memory, a frisson of feeling that ran the length of his
spine like the touch of a finger. “I shall never forget.”

Marcus glanced his way, as if a bit surprised by the fervor of his voice. “Did you
ever find them? Your ghosts?” His brows rose as the wind pushed at him, as it tugged
at his coattails and tossed hair into laughing eyes. “Is the place haunted?” He grinned
and bumped shoulders with Copeland, as he had when they were boys and he wanted to
tease. “Shall I warn my son to beware his inheritance?”

The wind caught his words and whirled them away—like the leaves that whispered as
they fell, tattered remnants of summer’s glory.

Copeland smiled, remembering a wintry sleigh ride, and the greatest gifts of any Christmas—his
life—his love. He could not jest when it came to ghosts, when it came to his nephew’s
inheritance of Broomhill Hall. “Haunted? Yes, Broomhill is most definitely haunted.
But no need to beware. There is nothing here to harm dear Gerald.” In an effort to
match his brother’s mood he said wryly, “Warn him he had best be good to the old house.
I mean to come back and keep an eye on the place. Three taps on the door knocker,
a whistle down the chimney at Christmas. You’ll know it’s me come to let you know
I am in a better place, a more peaceful place.”

“You believe in them, then? Broomhill’s ghosts?”

Copeland nodded, something wonderful in his brother’s asking, in this, his chance
to delve his secret of secrets. “Seeing is believing.”

Marcus grinned, still convinced this was but twisted humor. The grin faded briefly
as his brow knit, as he asked with mock seriousness, “Any word that our James is one
of them?”

Copeland bent to pick up a fallen acorn, and thought of the child who took people’s
hands in the upstairs gallery. In his bedchamber. He had never felt that ghostly hand.
He thought it better not to mention that particular ghost to Marcus.

That scar has never fully healed, has it? For either of us.

He pulled the cap from the acorn, tossed aside the nut, and holding the stemmed cap
to his lips he used it to whistle, as they had when they were lads, a piercing noise.
Loud enough to summon the dead.

Marcus made a face. “James used to do that.”

“Yes,” Copeland tossed aside the acorn cap and clasped his arms behind his back, and
in his head he heard distant echo of that piercing sound. “I believe he must be here.
Don’t you?”

“I think of him often,” Marcus said. “Imagine what might have become of him. I see
him in the lads at times. The turn of his head, the sound of his voice.”

“I know what you mean. Especially in young Rob.”

“Yes. Especially in Robert.” Marcus kicked aside a pile of leaves and asked tentatively,
“James is not one of your ghosts—is he?”

Copeland frowned. “Not that I know. Although I do see Uncle Cope now and again.”

“Bloody liar. You do not!”

Copeland laughed, removed his hat, let the wind’s ghostly hands play in his hair.
“I think it’s him. His footprints by the pond.”

Marcus gave his shoulder a shove. “You jest.”

“No. Really, Marcus. I’m serious. In a way, I think he’s trapped in that dreadful
moment. When he saved me. When he lost James.”

“I’ve heard the stories of footprints in the snow. Even the boys repeat them. But
I never took them as truth. Why have you never mentioned this before?”

“Knew you wouldn’t believe. Thought you probably did not want to remember that day.”

“No. I bloody well don’t. Sounds like a pack of lies.”

Copeland sighed, held tongue. Together they bent and picked up acorns, and made whistles,
and waited for the echoes to subside before Marcus said, “Well, go on. Best tell me
all.”

Copeland smiled at him, patient in explaining, knowing his brother would not believe.
“I look for them when it snows and when the dew is heavy. Footprints. Leading in,
never out.”

“Daft.” Marcus shook his head and tossed aside his acorn top with a trace of anger.
“You know this is absolutely daft?”

“Completely. But I am not the only one to have seen them.”

Marcus stretched his shoulders, and rubbed the back of his neck, and picking up a
stick swung it at the brush along the pathway. “Let me guess. The gardener?” Disbelief
weighed down his voice.

Copeland walked quietly beside him, listening to the
crash, crash, crash
of his stick. “And the footmen, and the stable lads,” he said evenly. When Marcus
turned with a look of surprise, Copeland said, “The staff are always giving me word
when he makes his mad dash.”

Marcus laughed, and winked, and leaned upon the stick. “Into the pond? Not out.”

“Mmm. Odd, isn’t it?”

“Very, since that is not how he died.” Marcus kicked at the stick, breaking the tip.

Copeland had had years to consider the oddness of it. “Probably his finest hour, the
pond.”

Marcus sniffed. “You would think that. He saved your hide, after all.”

Copeland sighed, and nodded, and set off walking again. “His finest, and his worst.
All in an instant. Poor fellow. Rotten luck. Perhaps he keeps trying to change that
moment.”

Marcus walked silently beside him for a bit, swinging his broken stick through dancing
leaves. “Is he the only one?”

“What?” He turned. Marcus swung the stick like a pendulum, watching it as he did so.
“The only ghost you’ve seen evidence of? What about this gray lady I hear tell of?”

Copeland held his breath a moment watching the stick’s rhythmic sway. “White,” he
murmured. “Mistletoe white.”

Marcus tossed down the stick and wiped his hands on his jacket. “The bride’s chest
that would not open? I remember the tale.”

“Hide-and-seek,” Copeland said quietly, his mind on the past. He turned toward Broomhill.
One could see the rooftop, even from this distance, but only after the leaves had
fallen. “It was in the attic,” he said, and when Marcus stared at him confused, he
said, “The bride’s chest. Just as you remembered.”

“I remembered?” Marcus tipped his head, confused.

Copeland nodded toward the house. They set off together in that direction. “Yes. You
told me where to look, that Christmas, as they were carrying me to the house.”

Marcus shrugged. “Fancy that. I’ve no memory of it at all.”

“Stands at the foot of my bed, that chest.”

“Carved with centaurs?”

“Satyrs,” Copeland corrected him.

“Lord!” Marcus’s puzzled look cleared. “I do remember. Why would you want that in
the room with you?”

“Seemed appropriate.” Copeland chuckled.

Marcus made a face, and waved his fingers as if he meant to say, “Boo!” as he had
when they were children. “And does she pop out of it to frighten you, poor old girl?”

“Pops into my dreams.”

Marcus grinned, eyebrows waggling, ready to laugh again. “The minx.” He shoved at
Copeland’s shoulder again. “Go on! What does this ghostly bride do in your dreams?”

Copeland answered in the same lighthearted tone the question had been asked. “I think
she keeps me alive.”

“Say again.” Marcus slapped his thigh, enjoying the jest.

Copeland had to laugh. He had never before come this close to an opportunity to tell
anyone. After all, one could not casually drop into ordinary conversation the idea
that a ghost came to one every night in one’s dreams, could one? “I think she keeps
me alive,” he said again, less laughter in his voice this time, his eyes on the spot
in the lane where he and Belinda Walcott had once made snow angels.

He could hear her voice in his head shouting, “Live!” as birds flew. She stood by
the fountain hands outstretched, birds feeding from both hands. No! Above him. The
bird had flown above him, into the trees, into the arms of the trees. As he flew like
a bird into her arms every night—every blessed night.

He faced his brother squarely and said with a smile, “According to the doctors, I
should have been dead years ago.”

“Quacks!” Marcus chuckled heartily and pummeled his shoulder. “No trusting in that
diagnosis. Look at you, old man. Picture of health.”

Copeland smiled. “They might have been right, but for her.”

“Whatever are you on about? Do you seriously believe a ghost keeps you alive?” Marcus
looked amused, ready to be further amused, willing to play along. “How?”

Copeland felt embarrassed to admit it. Even to his brother. Especially to his brother.
He smiled uneasily and stared up into the linked fingers of the treetops. How to explain?

He took a deep breath, and admitted reluctantly, “She . . . well, she . . . holds
my heart in her hands.”

Marcus looked at him as if he were mad, and indeed, it did sound rather mad to hear
it voiced aloud. “Good Lord! How often do you have this dream?”

He hated to say it. The truth sounded so implausible, so impossible. Laughable, really.
Marcus would laugh. His voice shrank. “Every night.”

“
Every
night?” Marcus did laugh. Copeland walked quietly beside him, and allowed him his
glee. At last his brother stifled his amusement and asked, eyes still sparkling with
mirth, “You need a woman, Kirk. A live one. Rather desperately, I might add. How long
has this been going on?”

Marcus would only laugh again. He smiled at his brother, but kept his lip buttoned.

“A great while, is it?” Another nudge at his shoulder.

He had locked the truth, boxed it in his heart, a truth so amazing, so heart-soaringly
beautiful he had longed to announce it to the world, every morning for seven years.

“Do you remember my imaginary guest?”

Marcus blinked in disbelief, ran his hands through his hair, and laughed again, a
nervous laugh—disbelieving. “The one Bolton was on about?” Marcus nodded, then pulled
a face as though stifling more laughter. “That’s her then?”