Chapter 15
Emma came sharply awake with the sense that someone was watching her. She blinked, blinded by the light of a candle flickering next to the bed. When her vision cleared, she saw that someone was indeed watching her.
Looking like a solemn little ghost in a robe and tasseled nightcap, Henry silently stood by the bed with a candle, waiting for her to come fully awake.
The apple didn’t drop far from the Woodhouse tree in that regard.
When she was a little girl, Emma had done much the same with Isabella whenever she’d had a nightmare or struggled to sleep.
She would tiptoe from the nursery to Isabella’s room and stand by the bed, staring at her until she woke up.
The first few times, she’d scared Isabella out of her wits.
Soon, though, her sister had grown used to her nocturnal visitations and simply lifted the covers to let Emma slide in next to her.
Snuggled close to her big sister, Emma’s young self had invariably slipped back to sleep safe in the knowledge she was no longer alone.
However, she doubted that Henry was looking for snuggles. Something was clearly afoot.
George was sprawled on his stomach in a deep sleep, apparently worn out by the sedate revelries endured at Mr. and Mrs. Cole’s party. Emma took a moment to cover up his shoulders and then slipped out of bed.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered to Henry as she felt around for her slippers.
“I saw something,” he whispered back.
She finally got her feet into the dratted slippers and grabbed her wrapper from the foot of the bed. Belting it around her, she nodded at Henry to lead the way into the hall.
After carefully closing the door behind them, she eyed his thin, worried features.
“What did you see, dearest?” she asked.
“Lights in the back garden. And I heard something, too.”
Emma frowned. “What time is it?”
“Just past three o’clock.”
No one should be about at this hour, certainly not on Donwell’s grounds.
“What did you hear?”
“There were scraping noises, like … like something being dragged over the stones. That’s what woke me up. Then I looked out the window and saw lights in the garden.” Henry cast a nervous glance down the darkened hallway. “Do you think it might be a … a ghost? Her ghost?”
Emma gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Absolutely not. But shall we go to your bedroom and take a look?”
They crossed the hall to his bedroom. Since he’d pulled back the curtains, the room wasn’t entirely dark.
Emma followed him to the window and peered out into the garden.
There was no moon tonight, but the sky was clear and full of stars.
The snow-covered lawn gleamed like an ice-covered pond.
The bushes were misshapen blots against the white, with the trees stretching their bare limbs to the night sky.
It was a forbidding landscape, one entirely empty of life.
“Are you sure you saw lights?” she asked.
He pointed to the left, toward the kitchen and service rooms. “Yes. Just over there, then they disappeared.”
She thought for a moment. There was no harm in looking into what it might have been, more to reassure Henry than anything else. Perhaps one of the servants had been up late—a groom, possibly. Although what they would be doing tramping around the garden in the middle of the night was hard to fathom.
Emma took her nephew’s hand. “Why don’t we go down to the long gallery? We can see almost the entire garden from there.”
“Should we wake Uncle George?” he asked, sounding a trifle anxious.
“I don’t think so, dear. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”
Besides, if there were something amiss, she would send Henry running back to fetch George. But she felt confident they were perfectly safe within the strong walls of Donwell Abbey.
They made their way down the shadowed staircase lit by Henry’s flickering candle and crossed the great hall into the long gallery. There, the windows ran the entire length of one side of the gallery, affording a look into the garden.
They again saw under the starry canopy no evidence of life but for the tracks of a deer across the snow-crusted lawn.
“I don’t see anything,” Emma said.
He grabbed her arm and pointed. “Look, over there.”
Was that a flicker of light near the old footpath that ran across Donwell’s grounds?
Yes, it was, and it seemed to be moving away from the abbey.
Emma hurried down the gallery toward the kitchen to get a better view.
At the last window, she stretched up on her toes, trying to see over the shrubbery that partially blocked her sightline.
There it was again. Two lights if she wasn’t mistaken— lanterns most likely, and they were definitely near the old footpath.
“Do you see it now?” Henry whispered.
“I do. And I cannot imagine what they’re doing on Donwell lands at this hour.”
He tugged on her sleeve. “Perhaps we should get Uncle George now.”
“Drat,” she muttered.
Though the lights had moved out of sight, she might still be able to catch a glimpse of them again from the kitchen. Not that she had any intention of stumbling out into the snow, but if anyone had been near the house there would likely be tracks visible from the kitchen doorway.
“Auntie Emma?”
She flashed him a reassuring smile. “Everything’s fine, dear. I’m sure they’re quite far away by now, but I want to see if someone has come tromping around the back of the house. Then, if there’s any cause for concern, we’ll wake up Uncle George.”
Henry gave her a dubious glance but followed her down the service stairs to the kitchen.
“You’re only wearing slippers and a robe,” he said. “Your feet will get wet if you go out.”
“There are cloaks by the back door, and some clogs stored there as—”
“Mrs. Knightley?”
Emma practically leapt out of her slippers, and her heart did leap up into her throat. Slapping a hand to her chest, she spun around. Seeing their footman, she blew out an exasperated sigh.
“Harry, what are you doing?” she exclaimed.
Clad only in breeches, stockings, and a shirt hanging down over his thighs, Harry stood in the entrance to the pantry.
He held a lamp in one hand and a plate piled high with food— including a large slice of Serle’s special plum cake and a hefty piece of cheddar—in the other.
He gaped at her and Henry as if he’d just seen a ghost.
“Er …” he finally managed to stutter.
Emma eyed the plate in his hand. “Making a late-night raid on the pantry, are we?”
In the lantern light, his expression was comically dismayed. He came out from the pantry and carefully put the plate on the big table in the center of the kitchen.
“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Knightley. I was feeling a mite peckish, so I slipped down for a bite to eat. Mrs. H generally don’t mind if I have a little something, now and again.”
Emma frowned at another item on his pile. “Is that one of the orange scones that Serle sent over from Hartfield?”
He scrunched up his face. “Um … I guess it is.”
“Mrs. Hodges will have your head if she finds out you’ve been filching those. They’re intended for Mr. Knightley’s breakfast.”
His eyes popped with alarm. “They’re seven or eight left, so I was hoping Mrs. H wouldn’t miss one.” He grabbed up the scone. “But I’ll put it back right away.”
Emma finally cracked a smile. “As long as you left the rest, you might as well eat it.”
Besides, Harry’s hands looked slightly grubby at the moment, so best to let the matter rest.
He blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you, ma’am. And you won’t tell Mrs. H, will you?”
“Only if you keep calling her Mrs. H. Harry, how long have you been up?”
He squinted at her and Henry, as if finally registering how odd it was for them to appear in the kitchen in the middle of the night.
“About twenty minutes or so, ma’am. Is something wrong?”
“Henry thought he heard something in the garden, and we both saw lights out there—or, at least, I saw them. They were near the path that leads to Langham.”
He frowned. “Lights? Like lanterns?”
“Yes. I was just going to go out and see if there are footprints in the back garden.”
He shook his head. “You’ll catch your death, Mrs. Knightley. I’ll pop out and look for you.”
Harry hurried over to the door to the stable yard, slipped on a pair of wooden clogs, and then shrugged into a greatcoat that hung on a peg. When he opened the door, Emma moved her nephew away from the blast of cold air that rushed in.
“Should we go out, too?” the lad asked.
“No, Harry will tell us if he saw anything.”
The footman returned a few minutes later, clattering into the mudroom and slamming the door behind him.
“There’s no one out there now, Mrs. Knightley,” he said, coming down into the kitchen after divesting himself of his outerwear. “I walked past the stable and took a good look toward the path, and I didn’t see anything at all.”
That wasn’t entirely unexpected.
“Did you notice any tracks across the garden?” she asked.
Harry shook his head. “No, but I didn’t go round that side of the house. Why would someone be out in the garden at this time of night?”
Emma glanced at Henry, standing quietly by her side. “You’re sure you saw the lights in the garden?”
He nodded. “Yes. Farther out, between the stand of oaks and the strawberry beds.”
“Mayhap it was someone taking a shortcut home from Highbury to Donwell village,” Harry suggested. “Some lads who were visiting friends or at the Crown Inn.”
Emma shook her head. “It’s too late for the Crown. Besides, the lights were moving in the other direction, toward Langham. If it was someone coming from the village, they would have taken the other path, straight to Donwell Road.”
Harry thought about that for a few moments and then grimaced. “Could it be the poultry thief, Mrs. Knightley? I hear tell he’s at it again. Got into some coops over at Plumtree Manor, not three nights ago.”
Emma repressed the instinct to voice a most unladylike oath. The blasted poultry thief had been the bane of Highbury’s existence these past few years. If he were back in action, her father would have a fit.
“That is decidedly unpleasant news,” she said.
And if true, it could very well explain the lights. It made perfect sense that the varlet would utilize the old paths that were seldom used by anyone but the occasional local.
“Do you want me to go back out and check the coops?” Harry asked.
“I think you’d better. And while you’re out there, please look for any evidence that someone might have been in the garden.”
“Yes, ma’am. Do you want me to come knock on your bedroom door if that bloody—” He grimaced and then corrected himself. “If the thief got into the coops?”
There was little point in that, since the thief would be long gone.
“No,” she said. “Just secure the coops, and we’ll deal with it in the morning.”
“Let me fetch my boots, and I’ll have a proper look.”
“Thank you, Harry.” Emma turned to her nephew. “I think we should get you back to bed before you freeze. Your mother will have my head if you get chilblains.”
The boy smiled at her. “I’m fine, Auntie Emma. But Uncle George wouldn’t like it if you got cold, either.”
“Indeed he wouldn’t.”
She nodded good night to Harry, and then escorted her nephew out of the kitchen. Now truly starting to feel the chill, she hurried him through the silent abbey and up the stairs to their bedrooms.
“There you go,” she said as she tucked him into bed. “Now, with all this excitement you’re to sleep as late as you want. You can have breakfast whenever you get up.”
The small boy looked even smaller, and rather forlorn as he was almost swallowed up by all the pillows and blankets on the big bed. Emma studied him for a few seconds.
“Henry, is anything wrong?”
He stared at his hands, curled in a little ball over his chest, and then shrugged.
She hazarded a guess. “Do you miss your father, dearest? Do you miss London?”
“Yes,” he said in a small voice. “But I like it here, too,” he hastened to add. “You and Uncle George are fun.”
Emma felt a twinge of guilt. The children had never been away from their father for so long—and neither had Isabella, who was no doubt also missing John very much.
“Perhaps we can write to your Papa and persuade him to make a visit to Hartfield. And don’t forget we have a skating party to look forward to. Just a few more days and I think the pond will be properly good and frozen.”
As they’d been preparing to leave Mrs. Cole’s party this evening, their hostess had petitioned Emma for a skating party on Donwell’s pond.
Her daughters had recently acquired new skates and were pleading for the treat.
Emma had been happy to comply, since it would be a good distraction for Isabella and a lovely outing for all the children.
“Would you like me to stay for a few minutes, until you fall asleep?” Emma asked the boy.
“Yes, please,” he said with a shy smile.
She kissed him, and then plucked up a blanket from the back of a nearby chair, wrapping it around her shoulders.
Wandering over to the window, she stared out at the night-shrouded garden.
All was quiet, the scene a peaceful one under the glittering sky.
Whoever had been there was now long gone, taking their business—and yet another mystery—with them.