The Master of Phoenix Hall Read online

  “What do you want of us?” I asked.

  “Of you, nothing,” the man said. His voice was more normal now. I caught a cultivated accent that bespoke of education. This man was not a peasant. He carried himself too well. Even clothed all in black as he was, there was an unmistakable elegance about him.

  “We have no valuables!” Nan snapped.

  “Indeed you do,” he said with a tone that was very low, “but I am afraid we don’t have time for that.”

  I blanched. Nan called him a highly unflattering name. He laughed. The other men stood as silent as dolts.

  “We are not going to harm you,” he said. “All we want is that box tied to the top of the coach. You”—he turned to driver—“get it for me.”

  “You can’t take that box!” the driver cried, suddenly finding his voice. “It belongs to the Government!”

  The man moved very slowly. He stood in front of the driver, who cowered against the coach, his eyes rolling in fear. Quickly, almost too quickly for the eye to follow, the black gloved hand slammed across the driver’s face, then again, making two sharp, loud explosions as leather met skin with impact. The driver gasped. In the dim yellow light I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “Next time it will be with the butt of a pistol,” the man said quietly. “Now get me that box.”

  The driver clambered up to the top of the coach and unfastened the small metal box that had been secured there with some of our luggage. I watched his shoulders fall dejectedly as he tossed the box down at the feet of the man in black. The box split open. Several gold pieces rolled about our feet. The two silent brutes began to gather it all up quickly. The man in black stood watching them.

  “Government funds,” the driver said. “You’ll pay for this, just wait. You’ll get caught.”

  “Shut up, you.” His voice was low but much more deadly than it would have been had he yelled.

  The driver was suddenly brave, or perhaps just uncaring. “How did you know it was coming by passenger coach, instead of the regular way? How could you possibly have known it was on this coach?”

  The man did not reply. His men had gathered up all the money, and they put it in one of the saddle bags. They climbed onto their horses, waiting patiently for their leader. He turned to Nan and me, making a formal bow and taking off his hat.

  “Charmed,” he said. “I would have liked to meet you under more pleasant circumstances—” He hesitated. “Perhaps I shall yet. I hope you have a pleasant journey, Ladies.”

  He swung onto his horse and we heard them galloping away. It was very quiet. They had blown out the lantern and only the frosty light of the stars gave illumination to the scene. Then a cricket began a chirp and another followed suit. The night air was chill. But I felt a much stronger chill inside of me. It was not caused by the night air. It was caused by the tall, powerfully built man in black with a face covered with black hood and the voice and manners of a gentleman.

  The inn was rustic and very clean. I had a small room on the second floor and Nan’s was right next door. Both of us had bathed, and I stood at a mirror now, brushing my long brown hair. A candle was burning in its pewter candlestick, casting a warm orange light over the room. It had dull gray walls and a white ceiling. The furniture was plain, and the only touch of color was the large, brightly hued rug on the floor. After riding in the coach all day, the room seemed like unparalleled luxury to me. There was the tangy odor of an apple that someone had left behind, and the breeze, swelling the stiffly starched white curtains, brought in all the smells of the night. It seemed incredible that the highwayman’s holdup had taken place only two hours ago.

  Although I had been exhausted before, now I was vividly awake and all of the tiredness had vanished. The hot bath had refreshed me, and the excitement had stimulated me. It was not yet midnight, and the mistress of the inn was preparing a late supper for us. I did not think it would ever be possible for me to sleep.

  Nan came into the room, looking fresh in a faded pink cotton dress. It had a wide white sash and there was a white ribbon in her hair. She was aglow with excitement. Nan had never been outside London before, and this was all very thrilling to her. She was a strong, sturdy girl, had taught herself to read and write by sheer willpower, and she was prepared amply for any adventure that might occur. A mere holdup could not greatly disturb her.

  “Let me finish brushing your hair,” she said.

  I handed her the brush and sat down before the mirror.

  Nan began to brush my hair with firm, gentle strokes. I closed my eyes and relaxed. Nan would have waited on me hand and foot if I allowed her to. Servitude was in her nature. Her mother had been a wash woman, and her mother’s mother had been an indentured servant.

  “I wasn’t a bit afraid.” She had talked of nothing but the holdup. She fancied herself something of a heroine and tended to exaggerate her bravery. I could see the story growing in her mind. In retelling it to a stranger she would no doubt add dramatic embellishments.

  “You were very brave,” I agreed.

  “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a bandit close up, although I saw a pickpocket in Picadilly one time. Do you think he will get away?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “The stable boy—I talked to him while you came on upstairs—told me this black highwayman has been operating in this part of the country a long time, almost two years. They haven’t been able to trap him. He has a secret hideout where he keeps his loot, and he only goes out three or four times a year, when there is a large amount of money being sent. He must be a clever devil.”

  It all sounded fantastic to me, too much like an adventure tale. In the clean, calm room with the soft candlelight, it seemed hard to believe that it had actually happened.

  “He’s not an ordinary bandit,” Nan continued. “The boy says he’s a resident of these parts, probably very respectable, with access to information about the money shipments. That makes it all the more exciting, don’t you think, Miss Angel?”

  “They’ll catch him, Nan. Without your help,” I added.

  “I’d like to be there when they take his hood off.”

  “Stop prattling,” I said. “We must hurry. The meal will be cold.”

  She laid the brush aside and arranged my hair, fastening it with my silver hairpins.

  I was wearing a blue and brown checked dress with a dark brown bodice. The long skirts rustled as I moved across the room. We went down the narrow wooden staircase and stepped into the warm atmosphere of the public room. It was very large, with dull red walls and sawdust over the rough stone floor. A fire was roaring in the large stone fireplace, and the flames cast reflections on the copper pots and pans that hung on the walls. Rough wooden tables and chairs were arranged comfortably. There was the smell of hot sausage and the not unpleasing odor of stale beer.

  The mistress brought up hot rolls and sausage and a dish of hashed potatoes. Like everyone else, she had been excited by the holdup, and she lingered at our table while Nan related for the tenth time what had happened, adding the expected embellishments. The woman’s brown eyes grew large and Nan told of her defiance of the bandit. She called Nan a brave girl and patted her hand before leaving the table.

  The driver was sitting at a table in the corner, surrounded by a group of men who were talking quietly. A local constable had already arrived and he came over to our table and asked us to make statements. We told him what had taken place and he listened gravely. The mistress came in with an apple pie and thick cream. We finished our meal in silence, both of us beginning to grow a little weary after the hot food. I was ready to go back to my room when the innkeeper approached us.

  “You’re a brave pair,” he said, putting his beefy hands on his hips. He wore a leather apron and his sleeves were rolled up. He had a typically peasant face, large, open, weathered, with strong features. Honesty was apparent in every line.

  “Going to the Coast?” he asked.

  “Yes, near Penzance,
” I replied.

  “Rough weather there,” he said, “rough country for two young women alone. Going to join your family, Miss?” His questions were not rude. They were merely the questions of a simple, straightforward man who was genuinely interested. This was a lonely part of the country. I could understand why he liked to talk to anyone who stopped at his inn. I told him our exact destination and that I had inherited a house there on the Mellory estate.

  “The Mellorys of Phoenix Hall?” he asked.

  I nodded. His eyes grew dark with concern.

  “The worst spot in Cornwall,” he told me. “I fancy you won’t be staying there too long, Miss. It’s a rowdy county, and there is much dislike for those Mellorys—at least for the Master. He closed down the granite quarries and put a lot of people out of work. I wouldn’t be anywhere near Phoenix Hall, not on your life.”

  Much later, as the pale moonlight poured into my room, I thought about his words. Did no one have a good word for Phoenix Hall? Could Roderick Mellory, a man I had never seen, really be all that bad? Was this part of the country completely wild, with highwaymen and tensions and unrest among the common people? I had heard about the fierce coastal storms and the destructive gales, and I imagined that the emotional climate was equally as fierce. I tossed restlessly between the coarse, heavy linen sheets. They had been freshly washed and smelled of strong soap. I tried to sleep, but it was impossible.

  I felt I was in a state of suspension. London, and my life there for the past twenty-one years, was behind me, and ahead there was only the unknown. We would reach the village tomorrow at noon, and shortly thereafter I would be in Dower House, my new home. I wondered what awaited me there. I finally slept, and I dreamed wild, stormy dreams that might have been a prediction of what was going to take place soon.

  III

  THE AIR was glorious, strongly laced with salt, and even though we had not yet seen the sea there was the unmistakable sense of its nearness. I could feel it, an almost human presence over all the countryside. The coach was making a slow winding climb up a hill, through pine trees and scrubby oaks with blackish-green and rusty brown leaves. As we reached the top of the hill we saw the ocean for the first time, a surging blue-gray mass with a life all its own, moving out to a misty horizon. Dunes covered with the stubble of salt grass slanted down to the water and sea gulls circled aimlessly. I felt my heart leap with excitement as I saw this beauty unlike any I had ever seen before.

  “It’s marvelous, Nan,” I exclaimed.

  “Pretty,” she said, more restrained in her admiration.

  “Look at the water—and the gulls. The sun on their wings.”

  “Nice,” she agreed.

  Up in the distance a town was set on some rocky cliffs, and near at hand there was a sprinkling of farms and fishermen’s houses. They looked rough and raw, beaten by the sea wind, but their colors were bright in the harsh white sunlight. Plumes of smoke rose from the chimneys, and I saw tiny figures moving like toys. This was a Cornwall sun-bleached and peaceful, surely no place for violence.

  We rode along the ridge for a long time, passing many small towns, as lovely as the first, before turning inland into a heavily wooded area. It was cooler here in the shadows of the trees with pine needles making a soft floor for the wheels of the coach. We passed a man leading four cows with a long stick. He prodded them over to the side of the road and they stood watching with placid bovine faces as the coach joggled past. Later on I saw a little girl with bare feet, her yellow hair the color of straw, walking along the side of the road, surrounded by geese who honked loudly as she scattered bits of grain before her. Nestled in her arms was a tiny brown rabbit.

  “It looks so peaceful,” I told Nan. “I think I shall love it.”

  I meant it. I had never seen the country, my life having been confined to the city. This was a new world unfolding, and I found it enchanting. My whole body seemed to be tingling, as though my blood had been revitalized by the salt air and the fresh, sharp breezes. I leaned out the window, taking in everything with hungry eyes. The experiences of the night before, the highwayman, my chill, my apprehensions had all been temporarily forgotten.

  Four sturdy young men crossed the road, carrying farming implements on their shoulders. They were talking loudly and joking like all healthy young men. They stopped to watch the coach pass by, and one of them let out a raucous yell when he saw Nan perched forward with her golden curls clustered about her face. She waved to the men and settled back onto her seat with a sigh. After that she began to show a little more enthusiasm. As long as there was an ample supply of fine looking men, Nan could be happy anywhere.

  The coach finally reached Lockwood Village and we alighted. It was larger and greener and more congested than those villages directly on the coast. Most of the people earn their living working on small farms, but some of the men traveled thirty miles each day to work in the coal mines. The closing of the Mellory quarry had been a great blow to the local industry, but these people were strong, resilient, most of them living all their lives in this one spot, and they had the ability to make the best of what they had. If there was not wealth, there was fresh air, plenty of exercise and an abundance of milk and eggs and farm products. These gave the villagers a ruddy, healthy glow that I had never seen in London.

  The driver set our luggage on the platform in front of the station, then he went off to find someone who would drive us to Dower House. I stood under the shade of the awning and looked at the village. There was a square with a weathered marble monument surrounded by newly green grass. Several ancient wagons were drawn up around the square and men were loading produce onto them. A group of shabbily dressed children stood watching, and a small black and white dog nipped at the heels of one of the men. There were several stores, a post office, a blacksmith’s shop with a glowing forge and many leather harnesses hanging on pegs. There was a fairly respectable looking tavern and near the outskirts of the village I could see the silver spire of a church and a large redstone building that may have been a school.

  I could smell the delicious aroma of baking bread, mixed with the odors of rotten vegetables and cattle. An old woman in a black dress sat in front of a shop, making lace with nimble fingertips. She did not look down at her handiwork, but I could see that the piece in her lap was delicate and lovely. Lace made by the women of Lockwood Village was quite famous and London ladies of fashion paid a good price for it.

  Although there were many people in town this afternoon, no one spoke to us. Indeed, they did not even look up, although I was sure that all of them observed us carefully and would discuss every last detail of our dress and appearance once we were gone. These people were taciturn, not at all friendly to strangers in their midst. Mr. Patterson had told me I would be quickly accepted after they found out I was my aunt’s niece, but of course the villagers could not know that yet.

  A boy named Billy Johnson came to drive us to Dower House. He had a large open wagon with one broad seat, and he began to pile the luggage in the back. Billy was twenty-three years old, strong, stocky and good natured. He wore a tight sleeveless leather jerkin that displayed his broad shoulders and muscular arms to good advantage, and his skin had been bronzed by the sun. He had an unruly mop of light brown hair and his eyes were the color of old pennies. He grinned at Nan and I knew that she had made her first conquest. Billy made his living doing any odd jobs that came along and by hiring himself out to the farmers when an extra hand was needed. He told us that he was saving for a cottage of his own where he could take his bride.

  “You’re married?” Nan asked, her mouth turning down in disappointment.

  “Not yet, Ma’am.”

  “You have a girl?”

  “Not a steady one. There’s Betty Bransten—”

  “Who is she?”

  “A girl not half so pretty as you, Ma’am.”

  Nan gave him an encouraging smile and he helped us up to the seat. The dappled-gray horse trotted briskly down the street, kicking
up a cloud of dust. Soon the village was behind us and we were driving on a tree-lined road that led through a thick woods. Billy talked pleasantly about himself and his ambitions and directed discrete questions towards Nan. She would not commit herself, but we were not a mile away from the village before it was firmly established that Billy would deliver all our groceries and supplies for us and be available any time we needed him.

  The country was rich and green and thick with trees. I saw dark, shadowy pathways beneath the boughs, leading to cool isolated forest clearings. Golden sunlight sifted through the leaves, making a hazy, golden veil. We soon entered what appeared to be a private park, the rugged wilderness giving way to a more orderly arrangement. We passed through a gateway made of old stone columns, the rusty iron door held back, and the drive beyond it was lined with elm trees. We drove for a long time before I saw the house in the distance.

  It could not properly be called a house. Castle, perhaps, would be a more suitable term. It was huge, sprawling over several acres of land, a vast pile of ugly stone adorned with turrets and wings and arches, brownish gray in color. There were hundreds of windows, and the sunlight glittered on the glass, throwing off silver reflections. It set far back from the road, but even from the distance I could see that it was in a poor state of repair. Wooden platforms had been put up outside one wing, and men were climbing over them, working on the house.

  “That’s Phoenix Hall,” Billy said. “And those men you see are doing repairs. Roderick Mellory brought them all in from Devon, would not give the work to the men of Lockwood.”

  “Do the workmen live at the house?” I asked.

  “They put up shacks in back—far away from the house. They stay there, when they’re not raising Hell in Lockwood. There is over fifty of them. Loud, crude fellows who seem to think that the maids of Lockwood were created especially for their pleasure. There’s been a lot of fights, even a knifing. The people blame Roderick Mellory for all of it, and rightly so.”