Chapter 19
There was no end of gossip and speculation as to the nature of the disappearance of the coach’s rider and cargo.
Seldom had a missing case of brandy been such a subject of interest. Theories ranged from the mundane (such as George’s belief in an absconding driver) through to the wild (that the coachman had chanced upon a secret Napoleonic invasion force) and the supernatural.
Charlotte Wyndham was a young woman whose excellent amiability was matched by her tendency to leap to the most outlandish of explanations.
‘They say that the Night Mare only rides on the blue moon, a ghostly figure whose hooves are cursed to never quite touch the ground, and ridden by a pale rider with no head. It’s been abducting people in the district for centuries.
’ This she opined some days after the incident, when she and several ladies were engaged in collecting cherry blossoms for decoration.
Lucy was not given to flights of fantasy, least of all ones that were demonstrably and logically false.
While governed by politeness, she had been worn down by some of the other absurd theories offered.
The casual certainty with which Charlotte told her tale finally pressed her past the bounds of civil silence.
‘Are you quite sure about that, Charlotte?’
‘Oh, yes. My mother told me stories of the Night Mare when I was a child. Once I even heard it on the night of the full moon.’
‘You heard it?’
‘Yes. From my window.’
‘What did it sound like?’
‘Well, like clopping hooves of course.’
‘But you didn’t actually see it?’
‘Of course not. If you ever see the Night Mare then you will be swept away by it and never seen again. That’s what I think happened.’
‘So what does it look like?’ asked Sarah Mayhew, so enthralled by the tale that she had managed to get several blossoms tangled in her hair.
‘A headless white rider atop a huge white stallion, with eyes as dark as coals.’
‘A stallion?’ Lucy asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Then why is it called a Night Mare?’
‘Well …’ Charlotte paused, blushing. ‘That’s … just the name I heard.’
‘And if its hooves don’t touch the ground, why would it make the sound of clopping?’
‘I–I hadn’t really thought of that,’ Charlotte stammered.
‘Perhaps it’s a ghost sound?’ Sarah offered helpfully.
‘And if it whisks away anyone who sees it, how could anyone tell what it looked like?’ Lucy continued.
There was an uneasy pause as Wyndham fancy came to an embarrassing collision with Elliot reasoning.
‘In my experience,’ Margaret chipped in for the first time, ‘horses behave very differently around different people. I should imagine the same applies for ghost horses. It would be utterly tiresome to carry away every single person who chanced to see you. More likely it would only take those out at night for wicked purposes. Don’t you think so, Charlotte? ’
Sensing a lifeline, Charlotte grabbed it hastily. ‘Yes. I think that would make much more sense. Perhaps the driver was up to something illicit.’
Lucy almost replied, but a stern gaze from her sister suggested she should leave the topic for now, and the conversation was diverted by Anne Mayhew pitching her pet theory that the ‘brandy’ was really gold being transported to finance the war in Europe.
While Lucy found that improbable, it did not rise to the level that she felt a need to correct it, so the remainder of the outing did not see another uneasy contradiction.
Only once they returned home did Margaret take her aside.
‘Was it quite so necessary to treat Charlotte so ill, Lucy?’
‘Her story made no sense.’
‘It was the story of a ghost horse. Of course it made no sense. It was no more than a harmless tale she spun to amuse herself and her friends.’
‘It wasn’t even internally consistent.’
Margaret sighed. ‘There are times, Lucy, when I wonder how a young woman of such intellect and insight can be so detached from the feelings of her fellow man.’
The statement stung Lucy, who considered propriety and detail the most effective way to achieve contentment in herself and others. ‘I do not mean to be so.’
‘Could you not tell from the first time you poked a hole in the story that she was afraid of being humiliated?’
‘No!’ Lucy replied in frustration. ‘I could not. I had no intention to humiliate her.’
‘But humiliate her you did. Out of a desire to correct details that no one else in attendance cared for in the slightest.’ Seeing her younger sister shaken, Margaret took her hand softly.
‘Lucy, you are not unkind. Nor are you thoughtless. But your need to always be right and say right has consequences in a world where imperfection abounds.’
The polite correction stuck with Lucy for the rest of the day.
She had intended to prove Charlotte wrong, that she could not deny, but as to her motive, she was less certain.
The story had irritated her, clashed against her sensibility and her reason.
Was it not possible that she had spoken with frustration or spite and that logic was merely her justification?
Had there been a better way to speak? Different words to say? Cues she had missed?
Alone in her room, pondering this riddle deeper and deeper, she kept herself busy by taking her model coach apart and reconstructing it.
The pieces were familiar and easy. They went in the right places every time, in a way words and faces never seemed to.
By the time dinner arrived, she had dismantled and reassembled the coach on her floor almost as many times as she had dismantled and reassembled the conversation in her head.