Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

“I believe I was in the refectory. Are you suggesting that Orlan — that Mr. Smythe — employed this self-same passage?”

Lord Harold smiled. “Let us say that it appealed to his habits of stealth.”

“Have your agents bolt-holes all over England?”

“In every seaport accessible to the Channel, at least. Mr. Hawkins — I should like to land.”

“Land it is, guv’nor.”

The Bosun’s Mate thrust hard to port with his oar, and found purchase on the shallow bottom; in another instant the skiff scraped over gravel. Through the wisps of fog I could discern, now, the iron grill set into the limestone cliff, at about the height of a man’s waist; a narrow strip of shingle ten feet wide divided it from the sea.

Lord Harold stepped into the water, careless of top boots and pantaloons; but I had no wish to soil my fresh new bombazine. I began to gather my skirts about my knees, in an effort to spare as much of the cloth as possible. He turned back as though I had summoned him, and without a word of deference lifted me easily into his arms.

“Good God,” I gasped. “Put me down, sir!”

“In two feet of water? None of your missish airs, Jane, I beg.” He strode implacably towards the shore, and set me on my feet. “Mr. Hawkins, have you a lanthorn in that boat?”

“I have, my lord.”

“We require it.”

“Very good, my lord.”

The Bosun’s Mate was fairly falling over himself to do the gentleman’s bidding, I thought sourly. Was it the courtesy title that inspired such alacrity? Or the weight of his lordship’s purse? I ran my hands over my skirts, as though fearful of some permanent injury, but the performance was wasted on Lord Harold, who was already working at the drain’s mouth.

“Mr. Smythe, as usual, may be trusted to admiration. The stonework is free of dirt, and the grill has been recently oiled.”

Mr. Hawkins appeared with a glowing lanthorn. Lord Harold swung open the tunnel’s grate, and gestured inwards with infinite politesse. “Après-vous, mademoiselle.”

I peered into the passage. Beyond the narrow opening, it widened considerably. Mindful of my gown, I collected myself into as small a figure as possible, and found Lord Harold’s hand at my elbow. He hoisted me upwards to the tunnel’s sill. The glow of the lanthorn followed.

“There is room to walk abreast,” he observed in a whisper. “Thank heaven you are not a weighty woman, Jane.”

“In wit alone, my lord.”

“Hah.”

The pool of light eddied at my feet; I could feel him near me in the dark. The tunnel was utterly silent and somehow oppressive, as though we stood in a sealed chamber that no time or hope could ever liberate. Here was an adventure worthy of an abbey — or the romantic heroine of Susan ! She should have detected immediately a fluttering ghost, receding down the passage, and must have followed with pounding heart and fainting sensibilities!

My pulse throbbed loudly in my ears; I shared a little of my heroine’s trepidation. Had I been able to reach for Lord Harold’s hand — but I refused to exhibit weakness. Instead I stepped forward into the passage. It was lined in smooth, rounded cobblestones — the sort that served as ballast in seafaring ships — with sand in the crevices between.

The lowness of the ceiling forced us to walk as aged crones, our backs bent. The lanthorn light and my companion’s self-possession soon relieved me of uneasiness, but I could find no purpose in his researches: had he made this journey merely to exhibit the method by which his henchman had discovered me on Tuesday?

He stopped short and held the lanthorn close to the passage floor. “Footprints. You observe them?

There, and there, in the sand.”

“Orlando’s?”

He shook his head. “A man’s boot, certainly, but too large for his. Someone else has been here.”

I felt a chill along my spine. What if the creature awaited us even now, hidden by the unplumbed dark? I recollected the cloaked figure that had attended Mrs. Challoner and her American yesterday, at the head of the Abbey footpath. Then, I had thought his air sinister; in the isolation of the underground passage, the memory inspired mortal fear.

“Jane,” Lord Harold whispered, “lift your eyes from the ground and tell me what you see ahead.”

The shadows welled like living things, dancing away from my sight. I strained to pierce them. “Nothing but a division in the tunnel, my lord — a secondary passage, descending to the left.”

“The way to the fish ponds, I suspect. We shall continue to the right, until we achieve the passage mouth. There should be stairs debouching in the kitchen.”

“You are unfamiliar with this passage?”

“Entirely — but I apprehend its utility.” He laid a finger to my lips — a touch as glancing as a feather.

“Silence, Jane. We must endeavour not to disturb the Abbey’s ghosts.”

He stepped forward, and though I wished I might turn and flee back along the way we had come, I forced myself to put one foot before the other. My breathing was overly loud in my ears; the rustle of bombazine as clattering as grapeshot. Every movement must reverberate among the stones. Of a sudden the toe of my half-boot struck the edge of a cobble, and I stumbled forward, throwing out my hands to ward off a fall. I landed heavily on the passage floor. Lord Harold turned at the noise, his lanthorn making a wide arc; and as the light flared in the passage ahead of him, I glimpsed something — a spark of gold. I reached out and grasped it: an object the size of a door key, fashioned of metal.

“A cross,” I said as I held it to the light. “It looks to be made of gold.”

“A crucifix,” Lord Harold corrected. He assisted me to rise and took the thing when I offered it—

turning the gold under the lanthorn. “You found this even now, on the passage floor?”

“Perhaps a long-dead monk let it fall, centuries ago.”

“It is too well-polished, too delicately chased. Curious.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Will you keep it, Jane?”

“Should I not leave it here, in expectation that the owner might return?”

“It could prove useful. Place it in your reticule for safekeeping.”

I did as he bade me, feeling like a thief.

“You are not injured, I hope?” his lordship enquired.

“My gown will be soiled, if it is not already torn; but I am entirely out of temper with women’s apparel, and cannot lament the cost. You will be leaving me at home in future, and placing your trust in the stealthy Orlando.”

He grasped my hand by way of answer, and led me forward.

• • •

“It breaks my heart to see the old stones thus, despoiled of their marble. Only think what this place once was, in the days before King Henry worked his change on the land!”

The words filtered down through the rotting wood of the tunnel hatch, set into the stone a mere foot above our heads. We stood poised in the middle of the ascending stairs that led from passage to kitchen, and in another moment I am sure that Lord Harold should have thrust open the hatch-door, and we must have been discovered, but for the woman’s voice starting up in the midst of conversation. Heat and chill washed over me in waves, from a suspense at our situation; for the voice, I readily discerned, was Sophia Challoner’s.

“The mantelpiece, I imagine, now forms the center of some gentleman’s household?”

It could only be Mr. Ord who spoke; but the American’s tone was far more serious than the one he had adopted at his lady’s dining table.

“Everything that could be scavenged has been stripped from the place. The same is true throughout England — for Henry was accustomed to highway robbery, and liked to call it politics.”