The Dark Rider
DinahRidding had her first sight of Malvern by pressing one cheek against the carriage window—shewas not wearing her bonnet—and closing the eye thatcould see only the interior of the conveyance whilepeering straight ahead with the other. The house wascoming into sight around a bend of the tree-shadeddriveway. She realized that she was seeing it when itcould not possibly be at its best, it being late afternoon with heavy leaden skies bringing on an earlydusk. Nevertheless, she felt no doubt at all that it really was a haunted house, as Mama had said it was. Ithad the look of a haunted house.
“No, notthere,dearest,’’ Mama had said to Sir Anthony Wilkes, Dinah’s stepfather. “We must findDinah somewhere else more pleasant to go.”
Clinton, the youngest of the three children of Mama’s second marriage, had been laid low by the measles, a disease that Dinah had never had, and their nurse was quite convinced that the other two wouldinevitably contract it too. Mama and Sir Anthony wereanxious to return to the country to be near them,though they had been planning to spend a whole monthin town. But where was Dinah to go? London wasrather sparsely populated in the middle of October.Her Aunt Beatrice was in Bath and Sir Anthony’s brother and his wife had gone to Italy for the wintermonths. One did not like to impose upon mere friends,though doubtless there were several who would haveconsidered Dinah’s presence among them no imposition at all.
“She can go to Malvern,” Sir Anthony had said. “There will be no problem at all. Gloria will be delighted to have her.” Gloria Neville, Lady Asquith,was Sir Anthony’s sister.
That was when Mama had said, “No, notthere,dearest.” And when pressed by Sir Anthony, she hadflushed and looked uneasily at Dinah, who was alsowaiting for her answer, and said evasively. “Oh, well,it is large and cold and rather cheerless and ...” Shehad looked appealingly at her husband.
“And haunted,” he had said, grinning at her. “You believed all those stories, did you not, my love? Mrs.Knole should have been an actress instead of a housekeeper. She would have been a sensation on the stage.You believed everything she told you. But tell me—did you ever actually encounter a ghost or anythingresembling a ghost during the two weeks we spent atMalvern? Any wisp of white disappearing around adark comer? Anything that went bump in the night?”
“It pleases you to make fun of me,” Mama had said, on her dignity. “Ifeltit, Anthony.”
He had grinned again, set an arm about her shoulders, and hugged her to him. Mama, quiet, delicate, dreamy, had always insisted that some people weremore sensitive to the spirit world than others and thatshe was one of those people.
Dinah was another. People identify their world through the five senses, she had always maintained.But what if there were a sixth sense or a seventh or eighth that it had pleased a Supreme Being not to giftus with? How could we know for sure that there wasnot a great deal more to be experienced if only we hadthe sensual equipment? Perhaps the spirit world wasonly a touch away—except thattouchwas the wrongword to use because it was one of the five senses thatcould not locate the world beyond.
Dinah had often sensed her father’s nearness long after his death when she was eight. And her grandmother’s.
“Dinah,” Sir Anthony had asked, his arm still about Mama’s shoulders, the grin still on his face, “wouldit frighten you to go to Malvern until the children arespot-free and roaring with health again? Would you beafraid of being gobbled up by ghosts?”
“No,” Dinah had said. And she had spoken the truth. She accepted the existence of a world beyondthis natural one. She was not afraid of it as her motherwas.
And so as the carriage completed its turn about the bend in the driveway and Malvern came into full view,she gazed at the house with curiosity and some excitement, but with no dread at all. It was an old house,built in the fifteenth century close to the coast inHampshire, though several owners since then hadmade changes or additions in the styles then current.So there was an arched gateway set in a square tower,clearly leading through to a courtyard. And there werenumerous other towers and battlements and shapedgables and pinnacles. Certainly the house did not present a neat or classical facade or skyline. But it wasfascinating.
“It looks a right gloomy place to me, mum,” Dinah’s maid, Judy, said, peering out of the window with a frown.
“It looks wonderful,” Dinah said. And she looked forward to meeting Lady Asquith, whom she had metand liked on a couple of occasions. Lord Asquith haddied a few years before. Dinah had never met the newbaron, Lady Asquith’s son. She did not know if he wasin residence or not.
Edgar Neville, Lord Asquith, was taking tea with his mother. But he had finished both eating and drinking and was standing at one of the long mullionedwindows of the drawing room, staring out onto a grayand gloomy late afternoon.
“If Uncle Anthony had to send the child here,” he said, “I do think he should have been more definiteabout the day. If I just knew for sure when to expecther, I could send some good stout men to accompanyher the last ten miles or so. I could even go myself.But it would have been far better if you had just madesome excuse, Mama.”
“Impossible,” Lady Asquith said. “Anthony’s request was most urgent. Besides, I will enjoy the female company. I am quite sure your worries must be groundless, Edgar. Surely there is no real danger toan ordinary traveler.” Her cup clinked against the saucer as she set it down. “And I am equally sure shewill be mortally offended if you refer to her as a child,Edgar. Girls of her age are usually sensitive about suchmatters.”
He turned to look at her in the late afternoon gloom. The lamps and candles had not yet been lit. “Forgoodness sake, Mama,” he said, “how old can shebe? Seven? Eight?”
“More like eighteen or nineteen,” his mother said with a laugh. “You were not really listening when Iread Anthony’s letter to you, were you, Edgar? Didyou imagine that it was Angela who was coming? Butshe is in quarantine with John while poor Clinton isall over spots.”
“He said the eldest daughter,” Lord Asquith said, looking at her blankly.
“The eldest daughter is Dinah,” his mother said. “Dinah Ridding. His stepdaughter, dear. He alwaysspeaks of her as if she were his real daughter. He andWinifred are absurdly fond of each other, you willrecall. Dinah must be nineteen. She made her come-out not this past spring but last year. It is a young ladywe are expecting, Edgar, not a child.”
“Damnation!” he said. “Pardon me, Mama. I pictured a child who would be spending her days in the nursery and the schoolroom. This changes everything.” He frowned.
“I will take her under my wing,” his mother assured him. “You need not concern yourself about her, Edgar. Though,” she added with a sigh, “it is hightime you concerned yourself with some young lady,dear. I am beginning to feel a hankering for somegrandchildren of my own. And you will be thirty before we know it.”
Lord Asquith frowned again. “In two and a half years’ time,” he said. But he was saved from havingto comment on the rest of what his mother had said.Sounds from outside caused him to turn sharply backto the window. “This must be her,” he said, watchinga strange carriage being drawn into the courtyard byfour horses. “And none too soon. It will be darkwithin the hour. We had better not say anything to her, Mama. Though she must be discouraged from going about alone. Damn, but I wish she were the child Iwas expecting.”
Lady Asquith got to her feet and left the room in order to greet her visitor in the great hall. Her sonstayed in the drawing room, hoping that his uncle’sstepdaughter would not turn out to be a bouncing andinquisitive young lady.
He was reassured immediately when she came into the room with his mother a few minutes later. She wasslightly below medium height and slender. At firstglance she looked little more than the child he hadbeen expecting, but she possessed appealing femininecurves he saw when his eyes moved over her. Her face,framed by wispy light brown curls beneath her bonnet,was rather too thin for classical beauty, but it was savedfrom plainness, saved even from ordinary prettiness,by large, dreamy, long-lashed eyes, which appeared inthe half-light to be a smoky gray. And she had a sweetrosebud of a mouth. A very kissable mouth.
She was not his first cousin, he thought suddenly. She was no blood relation at all. And she was just thesort of female who normally appealed to him. And justthe sort he had been hoping fervently for the past tenminutes that she would be. She looked sweet and shyand timid. The sort who would cling to his mother andwould always be where one expected her to be. Thesort he would not have to worry about. He breathed asigh of relief.
“Edgar,” his mother said, “this is Dinah Ridding. My son Edgar, dear. You have not met before, eventhough my brother has been married to your motherfor almost nine years.”
