The Mysteries of Pendowar Hall (The Audacious Sisterhood of Smoke & Fire #1)

Chapter Fifteen

T he wind tugged at Diana’s bonnet as she made her way across the grounds. It was the second morning in a row that Miss Fallbrook hadn’t turned up on time for lessons. It was a bad habit and Diana would have to break her of it.

She had checked the riverbank first, thinking Miss Fallbrook might be digging for clay again, and was now on her way to investigate the beach. In all honesty, she could not blame her pupil for avoiding the schoolroom today. Their last reading lesson had ended with them both in tears.

Diana reached the edge of the bluffs and paused to take in the view, her bonnet ribbons flapping in the breeze. The air was so crisp and salty, she could taste it. The sea stretched to eternity, the vast blueness broken up here and there by rocky, black islets. Seagulls screeched over the foaming waves, which rushed up on the sandy beach. The scene felt vigorous and alive, a marked contrast to Diana’s inner anguish and doubt.

She zigzagged her way down the narrow path along the scrubby hillside. The tide was out. On the stretch of sand near the water’s edge, she noticed a trail of footprints disappearing around the cliffs at one side of the cove. Were they Miss Fallbrook’s?

Following the trail around the bend in the cliff, Diana found herself in a smaller, shallower cove. The beach here was only about a dozen feet deep. The footprints led to an immense cave cut into the rocky cliffside.

A shallow saltwater channel connected the cave with the sea. A ribbon of sand edged the channel, permitting entry to the cave. The footprints continued along it.

Diana entered the cave and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The interior was damp and gloomy, the wet, sandy floor strewn with rocks and pebbles. Moss clung to rocky walls. At high tide, Diana suspected, this part of the cave might fill with water. She moved further inward.

Rounding a bend, Diana found herself in a cavern that resembled a small indoor harbor at low tide. A sailboat that looked to be of recent vintage was beached and tethered to an iron post. Across the way, Diana spotted Miss Fallbrook on her knees, making a sand sculpture of a giant mermaid. So intent was she on her undertaking that she didn’t hear Diana’s approach.

Diana gently cleared her throat to announce her presence. Miss Fallbrook jumped and leapt to her feet. Her face flushed with guilt as she brushed sand from her skirts. “I’m sorry.” She seemed to be truly remorseful this time. “I got carried away and I guess I forgot the time.”

Diana felt bad now. It was a shame that her pupil had to sneak down here and sculpt in secret. “Your sand mermaid is lovely.”

“Thank you.” Miss Fallbrook smiled hopefully. “Unfortunately, she won’t last. When the tide comes in to Smuggler’s Cave, it will wash her away.”

“Smuggler’s Cave? Why is this called that?”

“Because smugglers used it years and years ago to import things from France.”

“Whose boat is that?”

“Ours.”

Diana suddenly understood why the sailboat looked so new. It would have replaced the one that had been destroyed three years ago, when Lady and Robert Fallbrook drowned. “Did the masters of Pendowar Hall know about the smuggling?”

“Oh, yes. They were part of it.” Apparently sensing that she wasn’t going to be chastised for her truancy, Miss Fallbrook warmed to her subject. “My great-great-I-don’t-know-how-many-greats-grandfathers all made lots of money off it, by allowing smugglers to unload their wares on our beach. But then the revenue men found out, so my ancestor arranged for the smugglers to drop off their goods in secret here and pick them up again when the coast was clear.”

“What an exciting piece of history.”

“It is rather. But that’s not the best part.”

“What is the best part?”

“There’s a secret passageway that leads from these caverns all the way up to the house.”

“A secret passageway?” Diana was fascinated.

“They carved a tunnel and masses of stairs right into the cliff. It starts over here.” Miss Fallbrook motioned for Diana to follow her to the back of the cave, where a shadowy opening yawned. “It ends at a hidden doorway near the green parlor on the ground floor of the house.”

Diana had read about such passageways but had never seen one in person. “Can we go up it?”

“We could, but we would need a torch.”

“Another time, perhaps. Let’s go home the usual way, shall we?”

Miss Fallbrook’s smile evaporated. “All right.” As they started back towards the mouth of the cave, she sighed. “Can we skip our reading lesson today?”

“We mustn’t.”

“I cannot bear to go over the alphabet again .”

The frustration in Miss Fallbrook’s eyes mirrored Diana’s own. If only there were a way, she thought, to transfer the girl’s delight in sculpting with sand to reading and writing…

An answer came to Diana like a bolt from the blue. “ Wait. I have an idea.”

“What?”

Diana crouched down and beckoned for her pupil to join her. “I want you to sculpt a letter out of sand.”

“Why?”

“Just try it.” Diana drew the letter S in the sand with her fingertip. “This is an S. Remember? Use the sand like you did with your mermaid sculpture and make the letter S.”

Miss Fallbrook hesitated. Then, biting her lip, she scooped up sand and molded it into the designated shape.

“Does the S shape remind you of anything? An animal, perhaps?”

Miss Fallbrook seemed to think about it. “A snake.”

“Yes! What sound does a snake make?”

“Sssss?”

“Exactly! As it happens, the letter S makes the same sound as a snake. Can you say it with me?”

They pronounced the sound aloud together.

“Good work, Miss Fallbrook. Make another S out of sand. This time, while you shape it, think of a snake and say the sound aloud.”

Miss Fallbrook repeated the sound as she molded another S out of sand. Diana employed a similar tactic for the letters A, N, and D, emphasizing the sounds of each letter, and comparing the shapes Emma molded to things she could visualize—an apple wedge for A, a noodle for N, and a dog’s snout for D.

“The marvelous thing about letters,” Diana enthused when her student had completed these exercises, “is that they not only represent individual sounds, but when the sounds are put together, they form words . The same words that you use and recognize in speech.” She moved to a fresh section of sand. “Now, I want you to mold these letters again, one at a time, in this order: S-A-N-D.”

The young lady performed the requested task. Diana told her to touch each molded letter in order from left to right, while pronouncing the sounds each letter made. Miss Fallbrook’s attempt was awkward. They were just four separate sounds to her.

Diana gently took her pupil’s hand in hers and coaxed her to scoop up a handful of sand. “What do you call this?”

Miss Fallbrook blew out a disgruntled breath. “ Sand . Obviously.”

“Yes, it’s sand. Sand is a thing. You can see it. You can touch it. Sand is also a word. Look at the letters you made, touch the letters you made, and read it .”

Miss Fallbrook stared at the letters she had molded out of sand. Hesitantly, she touched them and sounded them out again but did not yet seem to make the connection.

“Listen to the waves crashing on the beach,” Diana said with fervor. “Smell the salt in the air.” She scooped another clump of sand into her charge’s palm. “Feel the sand with your fingers. Now read the word again. What does it say?”

“Ssss-Aaaa-Nnnn-Dddd…” All at once, Miss Fallbrook’s face lit up with understanding. “Oh! Oh! Sand! Sand ! I see it. I feel it. The letters make the word sand !”

“Yes! Yes!” Diana exclaimed. They both leapt to their feet with excitement.

“I read it. I read it! Oh, Miss Taylor. I can’t believe it. I read a word!” Miss Fallbrook embraced Diana tightly.

Diana returned the hug, her heart swelling. “This is just the beginning, Miss Fallbrook. But now you have the key.”

*

Diana was thrilled by Miss Fallbrook’s sudden and significant advance. Why she had required such a unique methodology to make the reading connection was unclear to Diana. But if the young woman needed to visualize letters in three dimensions to grasp their meaning, then so be it. Since Miss Fallbrook’s first love of sculpting had begun with clay, Diana decided to utilize that medium to keep the momentum going.

The next morning, Diana brought her pupil to the riverbank, where they dug up a quantity of natural clay. Miss Fallbrook wanted to hold their lesson there. Diana hesitated at first, thinking the classroom was best, but—recalling Mrs. Phillips’s advice—she gave in to her charge’s request. And right there on the grassy riverbank, beneath the autumn sky, Miss Fallbrook sculpted all twenty-six letters of the alphabet out of clay and sounded out the letters for each. For the first time, she conducted the exercise with enjoyment and a sparkle in her eyes, for she understood the purpose behind it.

And for the first time, the lessons began to stick.

The next few days flew by as they traded off working with clay and sand, returning one more time to the beach, and studying in the schoolroom when the weather demanded it. As Miss Fallbrook molded letters with her hands, she finally came to recognize them, and their sounds came readily to mind.

Since her student thrived on visualizing things in three dimensions, Diana devised new techniques in other subjects to emphasize the real rather than the abstract. Things that could be touched and felt, rather than imagined.

When the supplies for their sewing projects arrived, Miss Fallbrook was delighted to discover an activity so much more rewarding than embroidery. A flat bolt of fabric could be re-imagined, designed, cut, and sewn and into a three-dimensional object—a garment that could be worn and appreciated.

For science and nature, they searched for beetles under leaves, held ladybugs in their hands, and dug in the dirt for worms. To make mathematics problems more accessible, Diana employed sticks, pebbles, and reeds. One night, when a thunderstorm rattled the rafters, they shivered under the covers while Diana read aloud from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley .

They touched the old, stone walls and battlements of Pendowar Hall while discussing its ancient status and history. With lanterns in hand, they explored the passageway from Smuggler’s Cave all the way up to the house, marveling at the steps chiseled into the rock and dirt, all brought about by the Fallbrook ancestors’ ingenuity and cunning.

“Just think of all the riches brought up via this route and hidden in the house,” Miss Fallbrook told Diana when they arrived at the end of the tunnel, a seldom-used parlor on the ground floor, where a secret door had been fashioned to resemble a bookcase.

“Who knows about that passageway?” Diana asked her pupil.

“I don’t know. Everyone in the house, I expect. Cousin William said he used to play down there when he was visiting Pendowar Hall as a boy.”

Did anyone else know about it? Diana wondered. The passageway, she realized, would make it easy for someone to sneak into the house in the dead of night and get to the north tower without being noticed. She filed away that notion in her mind for later examination.

In the meantime, she focused on her pupil, who was flourishing in this new educational environment. Miss Fallbrook could hardly wait for each new study session to begin.

And Diana could hardly wait to tell the captain about it.

*

A heavy rain had been falling all day, but at last, the clouds parted slightly and a weak sun peeked out. Finished with their studies, Diana and Miss Fallbrook decided to take a walk.

Donning heavy cloaks, gloves, and boots, they strolled across the grounds, inhaling with pleasure the earthy fragrance of damp leaves and grass. It was cold but refreshingly so. They wandered along the cliff path, drinking in the sight of the sea. In time, they came to a place where the path diverged.

Diana knew that one direction led to a promontory with an impressive ocean view, while the other continued inland until the two forks met again some distance beyond. A sign was posted on the inland fork: PATH CLOSED .

“I wonder what’s wrong?” Miss Fallbrook remarked.

“It must be due to the rain,” Diana theorized. “Perhaps there’s a pothole or a muddy pool.”

They followed the outer fork to the edge of the cliff, where they paused to take in the scene. Waves crashed onto the rocks below, spouting billowy foam high into the air. A strong gust of wind blew up and blasted them full in the face, threatening to knock them off their feet.

“Let’s go!” Miss Fallbrook cried, rushing ahead.

Diana hurried after her. But the path was very narrow. As she rounded the bend, she stepped into a hole near the cliff’s edge, where the ground had crumbled away. Diana’s heart lurched in terror as she stumbled and wavered. Beside her lay a sheer, deadly drop. Somehow, she managed to direct her tumble onto the sturdy portion of the path, where she fell to her knees and dug her gloved hands into the mud and dirt.

“Miss Taylor!” Miss Fallbrook rushed back. “Are you all right?”

Diana’s pulse pounded and her limbs trembled with relief as she regained her equilibrium. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“I leapt over that hole—I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. I should have warned you!” Miss Fallbrook helped Diana rise, took her arm, and they returned to the safety of the gardens. “Do you think someone put the warning sign on the wrong side of the path?”

“It’s possible.” Diana’s heart thundered in her chest. I could have died just now.

Her cloak and gloves were soaked with mud. She looked forward to returning to the house and warming up by the fire, but it was quite a way off .

In a thickly wooded area, they came upon a small outbuilding, where dead leaves clustered wetly on the pitched roof. Diana had passed the structure before, but it had always been closed and dark. Now, a light burned in the mullioned windows and smoke billowed from the chimney.

“What building is this?” Diana asked.

“The shop.” Miss Fallbrook darted to the window. “Look! It’s William.”

Diana joined her, shivering, intending to draw the girl away. She paused upon observing Captain Fallbrook within. They’d had little contact since their unfortunate picnic over a fortnight ago, for the captain had been busy overseeing repairs to several tenant properties. He had never been far from her thoughts, though. She had often found herself wondering where he was, and how he was.

She took him in now as he stood, coatless and tieless, at an ancient, scarred workbench heaped with tools and wood, focused on something he was making. The sleeves of his linen shirt were rolled up to reveal muscular forearms, a sight pleasing to her feminine sensibilities. But it was the unexpected look on his face, when he glanced up and spotted them through the window, that caused butterflies to dance in Diana’s stomach.

His brows lifted with delight. His mouth widened in a smile. He made no disguise of his pleasure in seeing her. She was, she realized, equally glad to see him.

Covering whatever he was working on with a cloth, the captain crossed to the door. Although he still relied on his cane, Diana was pleased to observe that his limp had eased somewhat, and his injured leg appeared to give him less pain.

“Miss Taylor! Emma, good afternoon,” he called from the small front porch.

Diana and her charge moved in that direction and returned the salutation. He took in the state of Diana’s bedraggled cloak with alarm.

“What happened?”

“I fell on the cliff path.”

“It’s crumbled away at the outer fork,” Miss Fallbrook explained. Her shyness around her cousin seemed to be forgotten in the excitement of the moment.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll speak to Mr. Nankervis about it. Are you all right?” he asked Diana.

“No harm done, except to my pride—and my cloak and gloves.” Diana couldn’t repress another shiver.

“But you’re cold. And muddy. Both of you, please come in and warm yourselves by the fire.”

Diana was grateful for the invitation. “Thank you, Captain.” Before she could say more, her pupil dashed past them into the shop and disappeared.

Diana joined the captain on the porch, intending to follow Miss Fallbrook inside. But the captain moved in close, blocking her entry. He smelled delightfully of Pears soap and the faint fragrance of wood dust that rested on his clothes.

“Allow me to assist you with that.” He cradled the hook of his cane over one arm and gestured to Diana’s sodden, dirty cloak. “We can lay it by the hearth to dry.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

As Captain Fallbrook helped her to remove the garment, their faces nearly collided. Diana’s breath quickened and sped up even further when he took one of her gloved hands in his. “Your gloves?”

He assisted her to tug off first one wet glove and then the other. For a moment, their bare hands touched, sending a jolt like lightning through her.

“Welcome to my workshop, Miss Taylor,” the captain said softly, his blue eyes meeting hers before he released her hand and stepped back .

Diana’s pulse drummed in her ears. She couldn’t remember when she had ever experienced such a visceral physical reaction to a man.

Oh, yes, she could. It was the night she had been alone with the captain in the mermaid’s room in the north tower.

What was it Mrs. Trenowden had said?

“He’s got mistresses across the seven seas, is what I hear.”

Diana could see why. He was intensely charming when he wanted to be.

You have no business , Diana scolded herself, feeling jolts of lightning or anything similar for Captain Fallbrook. He was her employer. Besides, she was not interested in becoming involved with him or with any man.

She would definitely have to be on her guard around him.