ISBN 1-59201-041-5
Books Unbound E-Publishing Co.
http://www.booksunbound.com
Publication March 2006
Cover Art by
Nicole Kaiser
The Angelus Ghost
K. R. W. Treanor
Copyright 2001
All Rights Reserved
For my sister Christin, who has suffered through the many rewrites of this book
and is still enthusiastic about it.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and occurrences are
either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental and not the goal of the author or
Books Unbound.
Chapter One
I looked into the gilt-framed
mirror and pinched my cheeks. The train trip and the long damp coach ride
halfway across Ireland had leached out most of my normal color; but it was
nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't fix.
I was wondering whether I
should go in search of my patient or wait until summoned, when a scream sliced
the gray silence of the great stone house. Dashing out of my room, I ran down
the corridor, throwing open doors, looking for the source of that chilling
sound. The third door on the right resisted me, but I put my shoulder to it
and on the second try, was catapulted into a bedroom only slightly smaller than
a church hall.
A pale woman sat upright in a
large, old-fashioned bed, watching with terror-filled eyes as flames crept up
the bed hangings. Without thinking, I ran across to the side table, seized a
water carafe and flung the contents on the burning curtains. It wasn't enough:
the flames sputtered, but didn't go out. I ran around to the other side of the
bed and yanked the curtains with all my strength. They were old and weak, and
came away in a dusty, burning heap. I flung them from me and called "Fire!" at
the top of my lungs.
That was the magic word: a
footman crashed through the door, followed by a collection of household staff,
who filled the room with an air of efficient hysteria. I left them to attend to
the smoldering draperies and went around to check my patient. She was crouched
in a corner of the great bed, barely visible against the one brocade curtain
that still hung unaffected by the fire. I took her pulse and felt her forehead
as I looked disapprovingly at the bed-hangings. Dusty, insanitary things I had
always thought; hardly necessary in these modern times when we have glassed-in
windows and proper fires, but some people will insist that a bed must have
curtains.
Someone stepped over to me as I
checked my patient. I snapped, "Get some brandy and hot water bottles; as many
as you can. At once!" The man went away and in a surprisingly short time
returned with the brandy. "The hot water bottles are on the way up," he said.
I did not stop to thank him. I'm not normally rude, but my concern for my
patient was growing by the second. Her pupils were dilated and she stared
blankly, not responding as I called her name.
"Get these people out of here!"
I said to the tall man who had brought the brandy. The maids and footmen who
were attending to the remnants of the fire damage were mostly standing about
gawking, which annoyed me and certainly wasn't doing any good for the patient.
"Meade, Meade! Come on, dear,
wake up. It's all right. Come on, Meade; be a good girl and we'll go for a
ride on Cassie. Come; drink this." I held the brandy to her lips and she drank
a little. The blank look slowly left her face and after a few minutes her
pulse stabilized and the cold sweat stopped pouring from her face. I tidied
her up and sat back on the edge of the bed. "There now, that's better." I
said the time-honored meaningless phrase that all nurses seem to pick up and
use as if it were a charm against evil.
Meade Castlereagan looked at
me, finally focusing for the first time since I had found her. "Tara...Tara!
Oh, how good it is to see you again!" She looked around, frowning slightly at
the signs of wreckage and fire in her beautiful room. "You saved me; I'd have
burned to a cinder."
"Piffle. You'd have saved
yourself pretty quickly if no one had come along," I said, going to the window
and throwing it wide to let in some fresh air. The green smell of Ireland's
West Country flowed in like a restorative, damp from the recent rain.
"No, no one would have come.
They all think I'm mad. And they're probably right." She gave a bitter little
laugh, and turned her face away. I was baffled: I'd never seen her like this.
She was a good ten pounds underweight, and her whole attitude seemed to reflect
a sort of hopelessness that I couldn't understand. The girl I once knew had
never been one to give up, yet this woman before me now was a classic picture
of complete despair. Her tone, her expression, everything about her exuded a
sort of helpless misery. I was shocked. What could have changed her so much
in the three short years since we had seen each other? True, she had lost a
baby, but that was a common enough event even in these enlightened times.
There was more here than my employer, Meade's husband, had told me of in his
letter.
At length I found my bag, which
someone had brought from my room, and gave Meade a sleeping medicine. She
drifted off to sleep mumbling "don't leave me alone..." I promised her I
wouldn't. When she was asleep, I disengaged my hand from her painfully tight
grip and went to sit at the fireside.
"Who or what is Cassie?" asked
a voice. The tall man I had seen before stepped into the room and came to sit
in the chair opposite me. "I am Charles Castlereagan, and you must be the
nurse, Tara O'Neill."
"Oh, heavens; I was ordering
you about like a footman. I do apologize, Sir Charles," I said, wondering if I
should rise and deciding not to. "Cassie was an old farm horse. She belonged
to a neighbor, and Meade and I used to sneak rides on her. She was the ideal
mount: too broad to fall from and too slow to frighten the novice rider. We
used to feed her apples to entice her close to the fence, from which we were
able to clamber aboard. Meade once said that she never rode a horse afterwards
that was as much fun as riding Cassie."
Sir Charles was thoughtful for
a long moment. "Well, you'll find her a sadly changed girl from the one you
know before. She hasn't ridden anything in over a year now, not even Misty,
her favorite. I confess I was at my wits' end when the thought struck me to
write to you. I had heard much about you from Meade when we were first married
and it came to me that perhaps an old friend would be able to help where I
could not. God knows, Dr. Brown isn't getting anywhere with her; he keeps
saying it's nothing that time won't cure but she seems to be getting worse, not
better. I am quite alarmed at the change in her."
"Well, so you should be," I
said, a bit sharply. "She can't go on as she is or there will be grave
consequences. She's underweight, for one thing, even considering that she's
not a tall woman."
I was bewildered and angry and
had not yet got over my shock at seeing Meade as she was now. Sir Charles
overlooked my sharp tone. He said, "In a way, perhaps it's for the best that
you have had such a rude introduction to Angelus House. You will be able to
appreciate from the start that there is a serious problem here and that Meade
does need your help desperately. If you can't help her, I don't know what I
shall do. I wanted to take her to London to see a specialist, but every time I
suggest we leave the house she becomes so agitated that I fear for her sanity.
I never knew that brain fever could have such long-standing effects,"
"Sir Charles, I know a doctor
who says that there's no such thing as brain fever. He says that what the old
doctors termed brain fever is rather a matter of an illness of the mind. He's
had some remarkable successes with patients, and if you are agreeable, I will
contact him and tell him of your wife's medical history, in the hopes that he
might help us."
He was silent, so I added, "It
need not be stated who the patient is, I can convey the information without
using Meade's name. You needn't worry about unwanted publicity." This seemed
to reassure him and I took his nod for assent.
"Meanwhile, I prescribe a
regimen of food and friendship. Until and unless we have something better to
go on than Dr. Brown's suspicions, let us treat Meade as we would any other
woman who has had a long slow recovery from childbirth and the grief of losing
a baby. It's a mistake to over-treat, Sir Charles. If a patient is treated as
if she were sicker than she really is, after a while she will come to think she
actually
is
that sick. I'll have to study her more before I reach a conclusion, but what
struck me today more than anything else was her fear. I find that very
disturbing."
I waited for Sir Charles to
respond. He gave a long sigh and got up to stand by the window. "She has
nightmares. They seem to spill over into her waking life." He stood silent for
a moment, then said, "I do beg your pardon, Miss O'Neill. You've burned
yourself. We must get the doctor to attend you."
I glanced down at my hand. It
was red and soot-streaked from where I had grasped the burning curtains. "Oh,
it's nothing. I have some salve in my bag; please do not concern yourself with
it, Sir Charles." I rummaged in my bag and found a jar of soothing ointment.
"I'll just wash up a bit and then return to my patient." I took my bag and went
to my own room, where I attended to my slight burns and tidied myself.
Somehow, I'd got a large sooty smudge across my cheek, no doubt from playing
fireman.
The mirror showed a tall figure
in black and white with an overly large jaw. I made a face at myself and tried
to look calm and dignified. As a girl, how I had longed for one of those
tiny-featured heart-shaped faces. An artist had once told me that I would make
a handsome mature woman one day, but that had been little comfort to me at the
time. I had a distressing habit of speaking my mind and this, together with my
looks, had tended to frighten away suitors, which was why I was still a
spinster at twenty-five and likely to remain so, to the great unhappiness of my
Aunt Helen.
I had my tea in Meade's room on
a tray, fearing to leave her while she slept. I looked at her in the huge bed,
so thin and pale, like a cardboard cutout of a woman. My protective instincts
rose in a wave. Something terrible had happened to her; something was worrying
her so badly that she had come to this sorry state. This was the little girl I
had taught to ride on old Cassie. This was my friend whom I had once cherished
as the sister I'd never had. I blamed myself for not keeping in touch with her
more closely. I never should have allowed her marriage to come between us,
although at the time I had felt that it was natural that she would marry and
leave behind the old simple pleasures.
It had been I who had allowed
the friendship to lapse. I now saw this had been inverted snobbery on my part.
A real friend would have maintained the ties until told otherwise; but I, in
my pride, had cut the threads and let Meade drift out of my life. I had been
the one to assume that, once married, she would not want to know anyone from
the village anymore. My accursed pride: how many times it had come between me
and something I loved? Pride had prevented my taking the post I was offered at
Cork Hospital when I graduated from St. Columba's in 1901. Tara O'Neill didn't
need to earn her living; she was a lady. So I had thought, but I had since
found what a small amount of money stood between a lady and a working girl.
When Uncle Mike had died, I'd had to go to work in earnest to support Aunt
Helen and myself. When the letter from Sir Charles had come, saying he
understood I was an old friend of his wife's and offering half again my salary
at the hospital for a private nursing job, I jumped at it without asking many
questions.
Meade slept fretfully. I
bathed her temples with cologne and prepared to sit beside her for the long
hours of the night. Seated as I was in a deep wing chair in the shadows, I was
not visible to the person who entered the room sometime after 8 p.m. Were it
not for the shadow passing in front of the dying fire, I should not have known
anyone had entered.
"Meade, Meade... are you
awake?" hissed a man's voice. I turned my head and saw a figure standing by
the bed. Giving the fire a poke so that the flames shot up I stood and said,
"Lady Castlereagan is ill. Kindly do not disturb her."
The man jumped as if stabbed
and demanded, "Who are you and what the devil are you doing here?"
I lit a candle and set it in a
bracket on the wall. "In the circumstances, I think it incumbent upon you to
identify yourself first. For whatever interest it maybe, I am the nurse, Tara
O'Neill."
The light revealed a man of
about 30 whose resemblance to Sir Charles was too pronounced for him to be
other than a close relative. However, the features which in Sir Charles were
merely aristocratically symmetrical were in this man handsome, though with a
wild cast that indicated the younger brother was not the stay-at-home man of
business that the elder was.
"Jeremy Castlereagan, at your
service, nurse," he said, making me a mocking bow as his eyes inventoried me.
"What has my sister-in-law done to herself this time?"
I gave him a brief recital of
the evening's events. He looked grave and said, "This isn't the first time
something like this has happened, you know. You'll have to be a dashed fine
nurse to get this patient back to health."
"We'll see what can be done
about that. Now, Sir Jeremy, I think it would be best if you leave. Lady
Castlereagan will sleep until morning." I opened the door for him and he had
the grace to leave with no further argument.
Returning to my chair by the
fire, I wondered over his words. Why had he assumed that Meade had done
something
to
herself'? And what were the things that had happened before?
Later, a stern-looking maid
came to the room and said "If you'd like, Miss, there's supper awaiting you in
the kitchen. Down the hall and there's a staircase on the left." Glad of a
chance to see a bit of this huge house, I left the maid watching Meade and
followed her directions. At the foot of the stairs, a dumpy little woman with
a strong Dublin accent bustled out and threw her arms about me. "Thank God
you're here," she said. "I know you'll be able to sort it all out; you always
were a sensible lass, Tara O'Neill."
"Mrs. Reilly! I didn't know
you'd stayed with Meade. You haven't changed a bit!" I lied happily,
returning the little woman's welcoming hug. "Tell me about Meade: what is it
that's wrong with her?"
Mrs. Reilly bustled me into a
comfortable chair by the kitchen fire and poured me a cup of tea before she
said, "Well, we don't know, really. There's some as thinks she's gone mad and
Dr. Brown claims it's nothing but needing another baby and as for Sir Charles,
I don't know what he thinks."
"Slow down and start from the
beginning," I said. Mrs. Reilly took a deep breath, folded her hands and began
to explain. Her love for Meade was obvious as she told the story, and I
remembered how she had always done her best to supply the warmth and affection
to the motherless girl that Mr. Ormonde was unable to give his daughters.
Meade's sister Dierdre had married very young and when she had left her
father's house, Mrs. Reilly was Meade's only comfort. When Meade had married,
Mrs. Reilly had come along to Angelus House and had soon established herself as
housekeeper. She recounted the events of the past three years, occasionally
wandering from the path, but generally giving a concise history.
The trouble had begun when
Meade lost the child she was carrying about a year ago, Mrs. Reilly said.
Afterwards Meade had suffered what Dr. Brown diagnosed as 'brain fever.' She
had been found wandering in the family graveyard, barefoot, in her nightgown.
This had brought on pneumonia from which she had recovered slowly. Since then,
she had become thin and pale, suffering from nightmares, hallucinations, and
behaving very unlike herself.
I was amazed. Meade Ormonde
wasn't the sort of girl I would expect to act in this fashion. When I had
known her, she had been a strong-minded person who had enjoyed the vigorous
life of the country. When I'd heard she was to marry Sir Charles Castlereagan,
I'd thought how suitable a match it was.
He had a fine country house not
far from Galway and as far as I knew wasn't one of the young Anglo-Irish rakes
who made their wives' lives miserable by chasing other woman. Of course, no
outsider can really judge these things, but on the surface, Sir Charles had
sounded ideal. It was distressing to think that Meade, with whom I had once
been so close, had come to such a sad condition as Mrs. Reilly described.
"I thought you'd like to have a
quiet meal here where it's warm, until it's sorted out where you'll be eating,"
Mrs. Reilly said, putting a large plate of stew in front of me. "The other
staff have their own dining room, but you probably wouldn't want to be eating
there."
I had yet to really settle into
my new state of working woman, and from time to time it still pained to realize
that I was now on the same level as a governess--if that high.
Mrs. Reilly went on, "Sir
Charles modernized the whole place when he took over the estate after Sir James
died in 1901, same month as the Old Queen. He said he was not bringing a bride
to a damp pile of stones to have her cough her life away. All the fires were
done up modern and plumbing was put in, although Lady Arbella complained about
the expense. Which reminds me, there's a proper bathroom for the upper servants
off the landing; you passed it when you came downstairs. She's a terror, is
Sir Charles' mother. You'll meet her later; tongue like a fisherman's knife.
There will be towels in your room. Anyway, everything seemed to be going well
until my poor miss lost the baby. Since then, nothing is like it was, and I'm
so afraid that she's just going to wither away."
I listened to Mrs. Reilly's
chatter as I ate the substantial meal. Cutting off her story with apologies, I
explained I wanted to be with Meade when she awoke, and escaped up the stairs.
Meade woke briefly, had a half-cup of broth, and said she was still tired and
her head hurt. I mixed a mild sleeping draught and gave it to her, and in the
midst of reminiscences about our summers together in the old days, she slipped
off to sleep again. Still worried, I remained in the fireside chair, thinking.
I awoke cold and cramped in the
morning. As I stretched out my feet, I kicked a maid who squeaked in fright
and clutched the hearth brush to her sooty bosom, "Oh, excuse me, Miss. I
didn't mean to wake you," she blurted. I looked at my pocket watch and saw it
was 5:30." Good Lord, child, what time do you get up?" I asked, swallowing a
yawn.
"Four-thirty, Miss. I clean
out the fires and build new ones, so's the folk don't have to get up in the
cold," she said. For sure, there's none to do as much for you, I thought,
looking at the pinched features. She got on with the job and soon had a good
fire burning again. Her name was Sinead but she was called Jane, since that
was what second chambermaids were always called at Angelus House. She was 15
and came from the village about two miles distant. Her family consisted of
parents and two older brothers, one now in Australia seeking his fortune, and
four younger siblings, all still at home. This all came out in a squeaky
whisper as she cleaned the fireplace and laid new kindling.
When I went over to my patient,
she was waking. "Ah, Miss Nightingale," she said. "You kept your word. I knew
you would. I could feel you here with me all night." As Meade had been drugged
and slept like the dead, I found this unlikely, but smiled at her and nodded.
"I'm glad you slept well. I
like my patients to have faith in my abilities," I said. "Now let's see about
getting you up and around, shall we?"
After a good deal of
vacillating, Meade put on a morning gown of good thick wool, by which time a
tea tray had arrived. "Shall I have Sir Charles told you're up and about?" I
asked conversationally, passing her a cup. A spasm passed over her features
and her hand jerked violently, spilling tea into the saucer. "Clumsy of me,"
she said, setting the cup down and mopping with her napkin. "No, please don't
bother him. Charles is bound to be busy with work; he's a very early riser.
I'm not sure I should be up at all--I really feel quite faint."
"No wonder, spending so much
time in bed. It's not good for you, Meade, and I'm surprised that you have
allowed yourself to fall into such habits," I said, a bit sharply.
"I haven't been well, Tara. I
lost my baby, you know and I was dreadfully sick. Brain fever they said, and
pneumonia." She answered almost petulantly.
"I know. I'm sorry to hear
about the baby and I only wished I had known; I'd have been here like a shot,"
I said, meaning it. "You drink your tea and see if you can't manage a muffin.
I'm just going to tidy myself a bit." I went to my own room, had a fast wash
and comb and went back to Meade's room via the nursery. I discovered I was
interrupting something and tried to enter, retreat and apologize all at the
same time as I saw Sir Charles standing beside his wife. "It's quite all right,
Tara. I just looked in to say good morning," said Sir Charles. "She already
looks better; I hope your tenure with us will see her cured completely."
Bowing slightly, he left the room.
"Here's Sinead with breakfast,"
I said to cover my confusion and embarrassment at having interrupted a private
moment. The little maid deposited a heavily laden tray and scuttled out again.
"Why do you call Jane Sinead?"
asked Meade, sitting down by the fire.
"It's her name. Sinead is the
Irish form of Jane, although few names translate exactly. Even a little tweeny
is entitled to her own name, don't you think?" I asked, filling Meade's plate
with what I thought a delicate patient should eat.
"I can't manage all that," she
protested, regarding the plate with amazement.
"Of course you can. Watch,
I'll show you." I started on my own plate.
"You Irish can always find a
place for food," she said, cutting into a poached egg as if she expected it to
give her a fight.
"We've had a lot of practice
for it by starving from time to time," I said, not without a bit of edge to my
voice. "Besides, you're Irish yourself."
"My father's people came here
in 1715," she said.
"Mine were here to greet
Strongbow, and Patrick before him," I returned. "Let's see who is more Irish:
there's a kidney and a chop remaining; which will you have?"
Meade laughed. "Oh, Tara, you
haven't changed a bit. You make me feel almost jolly." She stopped and fell
silent. I rose and checked her forehead and pulse. "Enough of this rowdy
Irish excitement, you must have a little nap now. Then later we'll have a walk
if the weather's good."
Meade settled down after making
me promise that I, too, would have a nap. This I was not loathe to do, for
sleeping in a chair does not give one much real rest. I went to my room, took
off my shoes and lay on my bed thinking about Meade. I would have loved to ask
her about yesterday's fire, but I dared not push and pry too much until I had
assessed her condition better.
Although I had known her for a
long time, I had not seen her for more than three years, and her experiences
since then had changed her greatly. In truth, I could not say we had been
intimate friends since I had left Kilmarr to begin my nursing training. I
would have to go carefully into this new relationship, for that was what it
was. She seemed a very different person from the one I had known before.
I dozed on my bed. Off and on,
I heard a baby crying. No doubt the child of a tenant, I thought, too tired to
get up and investigate.
Author's Biography
Born and raised just north of Boston, K R W Treanor spent eight years in
Southern Africa, five years of that time as a Peace Corps volunteer.
She has been writing most of her life. Her short stories have been published in
a variety of publications; most recently in
Mundaring Magazine
and the on-line magazines NewMysteryReader.com and Storeyhouse.org. She
reviews crime novels for
New Mystery Reader
and several major publishers.
As most writers do, Ms. Treanor has a varied CV: she has been a union
organizer, an advertising consultant, a television captioner, and presently
works as an electorate officer for a politician while running a children's book
publishing company,
Quenda Books,
on the side.
She now lives in the beautiful Hills area above Perth in Western Australia with
two Barnevelder hens, seven bandicoots, four bobtail lizards, three cats,
assorted uninvited arachnids, and a very tolerant husband.
Her first book,
Death in the Sea of Grass
, a murder mystery set in Southern Africa, was published by
Books Unbound
in 2004.
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