The Bride Of Windermere. Margo Maguire

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СКАЧАТЬ that much Kit understood. The old earl was Clarence, and Agatha claimed she had been his countess. If that were true, why did the old lady bobble around in the night, appearing and disappearing out of thin air, and babbling riddles like a madwoman? What self-respecting earl would allow his mother to go about in coarse rags, pestering the castle guests?

      Kit opened the shutters to see that it was just barely dawn. It seemed a pleasant spring day, the rain having let up sometime during the night. It was still overcast, but the haziness only made the tree trunks seem blacker and the leaves more green. Even the grasses in the distance were more vibrant than Kit remembered. It was a beautiful land with neatly tilled rows on the hills and a good-sized town in the distance.

      She poured water into the basin and began washing, when she saw a tiny gray mouse skitter across the room and disappear under a huge tapestry which hung from ceiling to floor. Kit hadn’t paid much attention to it before, for the cloth was darkened and obscured with age, making the details unintelligible.

      Wondering about the mouse hole, and thinking to block it up, Kit went over and pulled the tapestry aside enough to search for the crack. Instead, she found more than a mere crack. The tapestry covered a false stone wall, which concealed a door hanging on hidden hinges. A small round hole, just big enough for two fingers was carved into the stone door. Kit put her fingers in, and the catch turned noiselessly. The door swung in heavily.

      It was too dark to see into the dank, musty passageway, so Kit lit the candelabra, threw a blanket around her shoulders and went through. She found that the passage was small, only large enough for a narrow spiral staircase, which she began to ascend. Just when Kit was certain the steps would go on forever, the stairs finally ended at a stone door identical to the one in her own chambers. She turned the catch and found herself standing behind a large tapestry. Peeking round it, careful to remain silent, Kit perused what was obviously the bedchamber of Lady Agatha.

      The old woman was snoring loudly in her bed which was as heavily draped as the bed in Kit’s own chamber where Bridget now slept. The room was dark as well, with Kit’s candelabra casting long darting shadows along the floor and walls. As she moved into the room, Kit began to reconsider the prudence of breaching the chamber of a sleeping madwoman.

      Before she was able to withdraw, however, Agatha’s dark eyes opened and focused on Kit. “Well, well.”

      “Yes, well, I...I wondered how you got into my room...” Kit said awkwardly. She felt like an intruder yet the old woman had intruded into Kit’s room only the night before.

      “I waited for you.”

      “For me?”

      Agatha sat up in the bed and crouched her head down into her shoulders. She smiled, displaying more pink gum line than teeth. “For you. Of course.”

      She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid down to the floor. Nodding her head, she hobbled over to the window. Drawing the shutters aside, Agatha looked down into the courtyard three stories below and satisfied herself that no one was about. While Kit stood watching, Lady Agatha went across the room to a little wooden footstool and carried it back to the window. She turned and winked at Kit, then stepped up, reached out of the window and struggled to pull a loose chunk of granite free of the outside wall.

      “I can’t do it. You’ll have to get it out.”

      “What?”

      “The stone!” she cried impatiently. “The stone! What he needs to—ach! Here, reach thus.” She got Kit to stand on the footstool, and now the old woman was making her reach outside the window. “Pull and tug gently. Your fingers will find the prize.”

      Agatha’s antics were beginning to annoy Kit, and she wished she had never come up to the old lady’s room. To humor the old woman, Kit played along, although she couldn’t help but wonder where this game would lead. Then, as she was about to pull her arm back inside, her hand happened upon the loose brick.

      Carefully, Kit pulled the stone away and turned around to hand the heavy piece to Agatha.

      “That’s it! That’s it! The rooster will broil for lunch!”

      Kit reached back outside and put her fingers into the gap. There, she felt a canvas cloth holding something solid, heavy and metal, about the size of a large coin. She pulled it out to see that it was a large, ornate ring: a seal on which was engraved a peacock, its feathers fully extended.

      “Whose signet is this?”

      “’Tis the seal of Bartholomew Colston, once lost, once stolen, only to be made anew and different, too.”

      “Your riddles baffle me, good woman. Can you not speak plainer?”

      “Show it only to the wolf and no other, else harm will come to you.”

      Exasperation finally overcame her efforts at good will. “Well, I think I’ll just leave this little treasure here,” Kit said as she returned the seal to the niche in the wall. Why the woman was hiding it from Philip was no concern of hers, and she didn’t want to get involved in their dispute.

      “No!” Agatha hissed. “You must take it! Conceal it and show it to no one but the wolf.”

      “Please, Lady Agatha,” Kit said even as she reluctantly retrieved the seal again. “I have no wish to enter into your personal affairs with your son. I—”

      “Do not call that vulture my son! He is not of my blood!”

      “Well, whoever he is, perhaps you ought to give him back his seal, if that’s what this is.” Kit tried to hand it to the woman, but she closed Kit’s fingers around it.

      “Why do you refuse to understand?” Agatha demanded in frustration. “Take it! Hide it! The wolf will know what to do with it!”

      Kit sighed. She took the iron seal, picked up the candelabra and wrapped herself again in the blanket. “All right, Lady Agatha,” Kit said reluctantly. “I’ll do it.” Returning to the hidden door, Kit turned back to Lady Agatha, who appeared satisfied.

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