Page 44 of Mesmerized

“Miss Olivia!” Tom Quick’s voice came from the opposite direction, and Olivia turned her head to see him sprinting toward them, his lantern swinging with every step. “I nearly dropped me light, I did, when I ’eard you call. I couldn’t picture wot ’ad ’appened to you.”

“Tom!” In her happiness, Olivia turned and gave him a quick hug, too. “I am so glad to see you.”

“We didn’t know wot was goin’ on, did we, guv’nor?” Tom went on, addressing Lord St. Leger, a grin splitting his face.

“I had no idea,” he admitted. “Mother was having hysterics and saying a ghost had gotten you. It took me ages to calm her down.”

He picked up the lantern, and they started walking back toward the main wing as they talked. His arm was still around Belinda, but Olivia had recovered her self-possession enough to stay at a discreet distance from him. Tom Quick strode off in front to light the way, turning back now and again to interject a comment as they explained how they had searched all through the house and had even combed the gardens before deciding to try the unused wing of the house.

“One of the maids said she thought she’d seen you two running up the back stairs to the servants’ floor, so we went up there. When we came upon an open door into the old wing, I realized that you must have gone in there.”

“It was awful!” Belinda told him. “It’s hopelessly confusing, and then it started to get dark, and by that time the crying was gone. Just vanished, and we were lost. We tried to get out the back door to the outside, but it was locked.”

“Crying? Who was crying? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t Lady St. Leger tell you?” Olivia asked.

“Nothing very useful. She said you had gone running after some ghost or other, and Madame Valenskaya kept nattering on about ‘lost souls’ and ‘lonely spirits.’ All I could think was that you had caught someone pulling a trick and were chasing him. I was afraid he might have hurt you. So I got Tom and some servants, and we started looking for you.”

“We heard someone crying,” Belinda explained. “But there was nobody in the hall or anywhere around. It sounded as if it were right there in the room. It gave me goose bumps, I’ll tell you. But Olivia said it was coming from the fireplace, and then she went tearing out of the room—”

“Of course!” Stephen exclaimed. “Mother said that you were sitting in the rose sitting room.”

“Yes, we were,” Olivia replied, looking puzzled.

By this time they had reached a set of double doors. Stephen opened one of them, and they found themselves once again in the main part of the house.

“We were so close!” Belinda cried.

“Yes. If we had started on the ground floor instead of the top, we’d have found you pretty quickly.”

They walked along the long gallery toward the front stairs. Olivia, her mind still on Stephen’s earlier comment, asked, “What did you mean by ‘of course’?”

“What? Oh. Just that you can hear things by the nursery fireplace that are said in the sitting room below. Roderick and I used to sit there and listen to Mother gossip with her friends. You have to take up a couple of the tiles there. They come off easily. No doubt the sound works the other way, too.”

“I knew it!” Olivia exclaimed triumphantly. “I knew someone was up there, pretending.”

“Why did I not know about that?” Belinda asked indignantly. “No one ever told me you could spy on people from the nursery.”

“Roderick and I were too much older than you. We were grown by the time you would have been interested in that knowledge. We only found out one day when we were trying to find a hiding place for some ‘treasure’ or other, and we realized that one of the tiles was loose. It came right off. No hiding place behind it, but we heard two of the maids talking in the sitting room below us.”

They reached the great hall and saw Lady St. Leger, Lady Pamela and Madame Valenskaya and her party all standing at the bottom of the stairs. Lady St. Leger was wringing her hands, and Madame Valenskaya was patting her arm soothingly, when Irina Valenskaya looked up and saw Olivia’s group.

“Mother! Lady St. Leger! Look!” Irina cried, pointing.

Lady St. Leger turned, saw them and began to cry, hurrying toward them with her arms outstretched. “Belinda! Sweetheart! Are you all right? I thought something horrible had happened to you. And Lady Olivia! Thank goodness you’re here.”

“Heavens!” Lady Pamela advanced toward them more slowly, her eyebrows raised sardonically. “You are both covered in dust. Where in the world have you been?”

For the first time Olivia thought of what she must look like, and her heart sank. She was, as Pamela had pointed out, covered in dust. It was on her skirts and hands; she could see that now, in the light. Worse, no doubt it was on her hair and face, as well. She remembered the cobweb that had settled over them and how she had scrubbed at her hair and face, trying to rid herself of it. She must look a fright, her hair all mussed and coated with dust and cobwebs, her face streaked. It was doubly mortifying to look so in front of the poised and beautiful Pamela.

Olivia curled her hands into fists, refusing to give Pamela the satisfaction of letting her hands fly to her unruly hair, as they wanted to. “We have been in the other wing of the house,” she said with a calm she was proud of. “I’m afraid it is rather dusty.”

“But, my dear, why ever did you want to go in there?” Lady St. Leger asked.

“We were chasing the crying, Mama,” Belinda said, adding, “did you know that sound travels between your sitting room and the nursery?”

“What?” Lady St. Leger looked confused. “I don’t understand. How could you ‘chase the crying’? It was some poor lost soul. It wasn’t something you could chase.”