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ballroom with her fan. He was truly devoted to Anne,
and a lover’s instinct brought him up the stairs to this
tower room. He found it locked against him and,
fighting down a dreadful sense of foreboding, he
summoned up the strength of angels and battered his
way through the door. Picture, if you will, madam and
little miss, the anguish of Roger Belmonde when he
beheld
Edward
Haverfield
crooning
in
demented
fashion over the dead girl.”
“Oh, I wish Anne had loved him,” I said. “He
sounds ever so much nicer than the beastly Edward
and I expect was heaps more handsome.”
“Incensed with grief and rage Roger set upon the
other man,” Ned continued, “but the murderer fled the
tower to lose himself in the throng of dancers still
stepping daintily to the minuet. He escaped the house
by way of the secret passage, the location of which
Anne of the trusting heart had described to him. But
do not fear, madam and little miss”—Ned smiled wryly
down at my cross face—“Edward Haverfield did not
elude retribution. Anne Thornton’s brothers, I told you
she had five, rode out in a thundercloud of black
cloaks to hunt down her murderer, and when they
found him skulking in the hollow of a giant oak they
...”
“Yes?” Aunt Honoria’s shadow stiffened upon the
33
wall.
“They ...” Ned glanced from her to me and back
again. “In the manner of their times they made sure
Edward Haverfield would never shoot another arrow.
And afterward they bound him with cords, tossed him
facedown across the eldest brother’s saddle, and rode
back with him to Thornton Hall. There Edward was
handed over to the justice of the peace who, still
flushed with an evening’s worth of ale, promised a
swift trial and a slow hanging.”
“I think it would have been better if he had
languished in prison for a long time first,” I said
nastily.
“As it happened he did, because his father, being a
man of prominence, managed for some years to stay
the execution. And so, having made a short story
long”—Ned shepherded us out the door and onto the
stone staircase—“so ends the story of Anne Thornton
and Cupid’s arrow.”
“Very interesting.” Aunt Honoria tested the drop
between one step and the next with her cane. “You are
a fine teller of grim tales, Ned. No doubt Giselle here
will be afraid to close her eyes when she goes to bed
tonight.”
“No, I won’t!” I said as the walls spun me around in
ever-tightening circles. “It was awfully sad about Anne,
but not creepy the way it would be if Thornton Hall
was haunted because of what happened. I’d be scared
to meet a ghost”—I hesitated over where best to place my foot
on the narrow stair wedge—‘but at the same time it would be
rather exciting. And as Mother and Father say—every child should
be exposed to new experiences.”
“I suspect they meant that you should start
helping with the washing up,” Aunt Honoria breathed
fiercely down my neck. “Ah, almost at the bottom! Step
smartly, Giselle,” she said, following me into the light
blazing off the hallway walls in contrast to the gloom of
the stairwell. “This is the conclusion of the guided
tour, is it, Ned?”
“I’ll walk you back to Mrs. Perkins in the tea shop.”
He looked for the flicker of a second toward the
portrait of Anne Thornton before making his stooped
way to the main staircase.
“Not so fast,” Aunt Honoria caught up with him at
the banister rail. “Here”—she tucked her cane under
her arm, opened her handbag, and pulled out a black
34
coin purse—“I must give you a little something for your
trouble.”
“There’s no need of that.” He waved a hand at her,
but she pressed a two-shilling piece into the grimy
palm of his brass cleaning glove. And I saw a look pass
between them. I didn’t think it was one of mad
passionate love because I had decided when he was
telling the story that his crusty old heart belonged in
true
romantic
fashion
to
the
memory
of
Anne
Thornton. I sensed that the look was about tired feet
and reaching a place in time where the present, not
the past, becomes dim with age. Aunt Honoria
pocketed the coin with surprising meekness when Ned
returned it to her with the grunted suggestion that she
take me to the old church at the corner of the lane and
light a candle at St. Bartholomew’s altar.
“Is that where she is buried?” I asked, but before
he could answer Mrs. Perkins came panting up the
stairs to announce that several carloads of people had
arrived, half of them wanting tea and the rest wishing
to be shown around the house before closing hour.
“No rest for you, Ned honey!” She gave him a
harried smile, rippled a distracted hand through her
dark hair, and bustled down ahead of us into the main
hall and along to the tea shop, which was crammed
with
people
jostling
for
seats
at
the
yellow-and-white-checked tables or crowding around
the gift items on the shelves. When the place thinned
out by a dozen or more, Ned disappeared also. Mrs.
Perkins gave us a frazzled smile as Aunt Honoria
caught up with her at the cash register to pay for our
tour.
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