The Elsingham Portrait

Twenty


Donner and Adrian Bart were eating dinner in the public room of the Elsingham Arms, Proprietor Jonas Tilley. They were being served by a tight-lipped Mistress Tilley, who had not yet come to terms with what had happened the night before at the vicarage. What with feeling anger at Elspeth Cameron for leading them all on a wild-goose chase, and shame that the Vicar had seen her in such raggletail company, Martha Tilley could not find an attitude to take which would give her exacerbated feelings any comfort. She was paying little attention to the rather unprepossessing guests she was serving until something the young man said startled her.

His voice was loud and his accent, Mistress Tilley thought, extremely common. “Are you sure it was really Nadine?”

The older woman hissed something at him and glanced warily around the room. Martha pretended to be very busy slicing the ham on the sideboard. The man muttered resentfully, “Who needs to be wary of these country bumpkins?”

The woman whispered something, and Bart’s voice rose.

“Of course I checked the stages! There were two in this metropolis—one, going south, the other, north. Nadine wasn’t on either of them.”

‘Nadine!’ Martha Tilley’s mind buzzed with conjecture. Rumors had filtered down from the servants at the Manor. As eighth generation tenants of the Elsingham estates, no villager was ignorant of the escapades of his lordship’s Irish wife. Could it be—?

Martha nodded her head decisively, left the room and sent the kitchen maid to serve the two guests in the public room. She threw a shawl over her shoulders, for once careless of her appearance in public, and hastened down the back lane to the cottage of Mistress Latchet, who had worked with the mysterious stranger in the vicarage. And had, thought Martha Tilley, resentfully, as good as sponsored her. All that talk about a dame’s school for their children! Maybe Elspeth Cameron was in the right of it! Martha, finding at last a satisfactory scapegoat for her own uncomfortable feelings, stepped out briskly for the house of a woman she had never really liked.

*****



Within half an hour she was back at the inn in company with a very disturbed Mistress Latchet. They were arguing as they entered the public room. Donner and Bart were still at the table, talking low-voiced. Martha Tilley marched up to their table.

“Are you the woman who has been seeking her daughter at Bennet Farm?” she asked abruptly.

Donner’s flat black eyes swiveled up at her. After a minute she smiled widely. “I can see you have found out my secret. I should have known a woman as wise as yourself, ma’am, could see through my little stratagem!”

Soothing words indeed to ruffled sensibilities! Had Martha Tilley been less angry and less ashamed, she might have noticed that this common woman had not answered her question, nor had she given any information, just flattery. Martha, scenting exoneration, pursued the matter grimly.

“This is Mistress Latchet, who has worked with the stranger at the vicarage. She says the woman is highly educated, dines every night with Vicar, talking to him in his own language. Like Quality.” Her eyes made disparaging comment on the lack of that commodity apparent in her customers. She drew an angry breath. “The woman claims she is a Mistress Radcliffe, a widow. You claim she is your daughter. But you spoke of her as Nadine.”

Donner’s smile was as wide as a wolf’s. “You are too clever for us, ma’am! I see we can no longer deceive you. But I must pray your indulgence for a poor madwoman—”

“ ‘Madwoman’!” The two good ladies echoed this dreadful word. Flushed with satisfaction, Mistress Tilley demanded, “Is she then Lady Nadine Elsingham, and not your daughter?”

Donner put on a manner in which admiration and sorrow were skillfully blended. “You’ve found out our dreadful secret! I only hope you keep silent for his lordship’s sake.”

“You said—a madwoman?” faltered poor Mistress Latchet. Then she rallied. “I can’t—I don’t believe you! So kind, so pleasant and lively she was—always friendly and well-spoken.”

Donner shook her head mournfully. “Aye, she’s Quality-trained, whatever she’s become. That’s the tragedy of it—and she little more than a girl. Ah, there’s black blood in the Brionnys, and dark things done in the old castle keep!”

The two women, birds to a snake, drew closer in horrified fascination. “—Dark things?” prompted Martha Tilley avidly.

Donner sighed. “His lordship was completely deceived. We in the village could have warned him, knowing the ugly history of her family, but fear of her spells kept us silent, alas!”

Adrian was staring at her with the same fascination the women showed. She was a devil’s daughter, with her smooth tongue and her fertile imagination. Donner’s flat black gaze was holding them all. She licked her lips.

“Sure an’ his lordship soon learned what he had wedded, but the dear man had mercy, and tried to send her quietly back to her father. In my care, she was, as she had been since a child. I,” announced Donner unctuously, “being the only one who could control her when she was in one of her murderous fits.”

“ ‘Fits’!” chorused the two women.

“Oh, it’s terrible, terrible! The poor girleen goes quite mad at the change of the moon!”

Doing it rather too brown, thought Adrian. Mrs. Latchet appeared to agree with him.

“I don’t believe you!” she said, weakly.

Martha Tilley snapped at her. “We’ve none of us known her for as long as a month. How do you know what’s to do when the moon changes?”

“But that’s not the worst.” Donner was warming to her work. “I’ve been given the drugs to calm her down—from her doctor in Ireland,” she hastened to add. “It’s when she’s this way—clear in her mind like now—that she’s most dangerous.” She paused. Three pairs of eyes were fixed, hypnotized, on hers. Donner delivered her clinching thrust. “When she’s like this, she practices witchcraft!”

The women cried out in fear. Martha turned on Mistress Latchet. “There’s the woman you wanted to have teach the children! A fine coven of young witches and warlocks we’d have, if we let that creature loose on them!”

Mrs. Latchet began to cry.

Donner spoke soothingly. “No harm’s done yet, ma’am, for I’m here with this strong young man to take her safe back to Ireland, and no one—child or adult—a penny the worse for it, if we get her away quick and quiet!” she added darkly.

“I’ll call the constable—” began Martha Tilley self-righteously.

“I’m sure Your Honor’s good sense and kindness will prevail,” interrupted Donner hastily. “We none of us want to bring any more trouble on Lord Elsingham, do we, now? Just take me to the poor creature and Mr. Bart and I will do what is needful.” She looked encouragingly at Martha Tilley.

That dame snorted angrily. “She’s sought sanctuary with the Vicar. The old man’s besotted with her.”

“Oh, no! The poor old man! He is the first victim of her evil spells. Now if some few of us could go quietly and take her away before she does more harm—”

“She isn’t there any longer,” announced Mistress Latchet, wiping her eyes. “Polly Bradley, who’s been her abigail, went home to her father’s farm this morning. She stopped by to see me. Crying she was, because her dear Mistress Radcliffe had gone away in the night.”

“Gone away!” Donner’s face was ugly with disappointment. “Does no one know where she is, then?”

Martha Tilley narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “If she hasn’t left the neighborhood—and the young man said he’d watched who got on both stagecoaches—then there’s one place left where she may be . . .”

“Where?” Donner controlled her impatience.

“At the Manor. If she’s Lady Nadine, that’s her own place, isn’t it?”

“Is Bennet there?” demanded Donner.

“Yes, she is. She got here two nights ago, on the late coach.”

“Then Nadine is there, in hiding!” announced Donner. “For, much though I hate to tell you this, ma’am, but I guess such a clever woman as yourself will soon figure it out. Nadine has had Bennet in her power for weeks. It was them practicing witchcraft in Lord John’s London house that started the whole thing. He caught them, Lady Nadine and Bennet, casting a spell in front of the new portrait.”

“The portrait!” gasped Martha. “But that came down last week from London, and one of the gardeners told us he helped a footman to hang it yesterday at Mistress Bennet’s orders!”

“God ha’ mercy!” ejaculated Donner, putting on a wide-eyed expression. “Then there’s no time to be lost, indeed. ¼Tis certain they’ll be at their wicked deeds this very night!”

“What shall we do?” faltered Martha. The whole thing was getting too alarming. “The Manor—his lordship—we can’t just break into the Manor—!”

Donner kept herself under tight control. “True, true, dear clever woman that you are! You’ve put your finger on it. We can’t break in, but I am Lady Nadine’s nurse and keeper, and his lordship has instructed me to convey her safely to Ireland, where the poor soul may have treatment in peace and quiet. And his lordship’s not at the Manor. He’s still in London.”

This latter intelligence removed most of Martha’s qualms.

Donner pursued her advantage. “Now you being such a sensible woman, and a leader in the village, as anyone can plainly see, will help me explain the problem to the men, and we’ll all go peacefully and find the poor mad girl. I have her medicine here—” she patted her leather reticule, “and as soon as she has it, she’ll come quiet as a lamb.”

Martha Tilley was remembering last night’s fiasco. “Perhaps it would be better, ma’am, if you was to go alone.”

Donner, still holding her smile, shook her head. “Bennet’s no better than her slave, and will do whatever the witch tells her. I may need help to get the medicine into her before she casts a spell on more honest folk. Like she has on little Polly,” Donner added, looking at Mistress Latchet.

That good woman’s face hardened. “Nothing must hurt Poll,” she said fiercely. “She’s like my own child, and her mother my best friend!”

“Then we’d better get the witch away,” advised Donner sternly, “or there’s no saying what dreadful things she’ll make innocent folk do. She’s already bewitched the Vicar and Bennet and Poll, that we know of.”

This was more than enough for the two women. Lady Nadine’s name was notorious, even in this small village so far from London, and the women were ready to believe the worst of ‘Kathryn Radcliffe,’ when they learned who she really was. They hurried off to get reinforcements, urging Donner to wait for them. She agreed, and when the two dames were out of earshot, she began to laugh.

“You devil!” said Adrian Bart, between admiration and revulsion. “Take care they don’t burn her at the stake!”

“Better that than having her escape me,” said Donner. She had ceased to laugh. She would never confide in any other human being, but there was something about this new Nadine which challenged and intimidated her, yet offered certain dazzling possibilities. What had happened, that night in Lord John’s town house? Had she really extended her powers through time and space? Donner’s lust for dominion raged like a fire. She had to regain control of whatever it was in Nadine’s body, and bend and break it to her, Donner’s, will.