Chapter 15

"You can't possibly be considering continuing this program."

Ivy was crouched in front of a shelf, replacing the returned books from the previous week and looking for new ones to bring. Behind her loomed the severe presence of Mrs. Hewitt.

"I'm not considering it," Ivy informed her. "I'm doing it." She examined the cover of a book of American poetry, then added it to her pile. Despite her determined tone, images of Harry Oliver and his swollen neck and panicked eyes the previous week spun through her head, the title of the dropped book an incessant ringing in her ears. But if she didn't throw herself back into the lending program, she would lose her nerve, and she couldn't let a ghastly coincidence put a stop to what was quickly becoming an institution in the village.

"I suppose you heard what happened to Mr. Oliver?" Mrs. Hewitt asked, though it was really not a question so much as a thinly veiled attempt to bait her.

"I was there," Ivy reminded her. "It was awful, but if you think to frighten me, you're mistaken."

"No, my lady. I mean, what happened to him afterward."

Ivy had been so preoccupied with the horror of the spectacle, she hadn't considered what had happened after the unfortunate man had been whisked away. Wondering if her guilt showed on her face, she paused in her work and rocked back on her heels. "Did he...did he die?"

"He is in quarantine," Mrs. Hewitt continued. "His diagnosis was such that it would be quite dangerous for him to be treated around other patients. I could tell you what it was, but something tells me you already know."

Ivy swallowed down the bile churning in her throat. "It was bubonic plague," she said from dry lips. She stood up, facing the housekeeper. "How did you know that I would know?" she asked.

Mrs. Hewitt's flinty eyes betrayed nothing.

"There's some connection between the books and what happened, isn't there?" Ivy asked. "That's why you don't want me to lend them out."

"You have an overactive imagination, my lady. I simply saw you had the book out," she said, gesturing to where the book in question lay. "But I cannot deny that the experiment of the lending program has failed. This is a village that thrives on normalcy. Do you know how many young men from Blackwood perished in the war? Near on fifty, and that from a village hardly big enough to boast a cricket club. People here crave familiarity, tradition. Then you come in, telling them that up is down and down is up, and disseminating who knows what sort of nonsense. Is it any wonder that trouble seems to follow you around? I daresay that—"

"Mrs. Hewitt!" Ivy's voice echoed off the ceiling beams. Pressure was building behind her eyes, and Mrs. Hewitt's demanding voice was grating her nerves. "Stop! I am going to continue, and that is the final word on that." Brushing past her stunned housekeeper, Ivy headed outside. Mrs. Hewitt might have been cold and aloof and even borderline rude on occasion, but to openly demand anything of Ivy was a bridge too far.

Once out in the cool, damp air, the headache subsided and Ivy was able to regain her bearings while Ralph silently helped her load the books into the car. He had brushed off any praise for his role in saving Mr. Oliver and he seemed unwilling to speak of the incident at all.

The crowd was more subdued this week—if the handful of people who came by could even be considered a crowd, but Ivy still made sure that each left with a book. She was just finishing updating her ledger, when a sleek sport coupe pulled up, and out hopped Arthur.

"Lady Hayworth," he said, doffing his driving cap. "Educating the masses?" Judging by the sardonic edge in his tone, he certainly hadn't warmed to the notion of her lending books to the townspeople since she'd first broached the idea to him.

She gave him a tight smile, still a little cross from her encounter with Mrs. Hewitt earlier. "What brings you to town today?"

"Why, you, of course," he said. "I stopped by the abbey but was told that you were out here with your books." He shot a glance at the blanket and the remaining books lying on them, his eyes momentarily darkening. "I thought I would make good on my promise and take you for a drive in the countryside," he said, all smiles again.

She was desperate for an excursion. Now that she was away from the abbey in the fresh air, some of the strangeness around the headaches and forgetfulness had fallen away, and she was eager to put them even further behind her. If only it was as easy to forget the image of Mr. Oliver's wild eyes, the weeping pustules on his neck, and his extraordinary diagnosis.

"I'll let Ralph know."

Ralph still insisted on waiting in the car during her trips to town, and he was parked across the road, resting with his cap pulled down. Ivy tapped on the glass and he startled, rolling down the window and looking at her expectantly.

"Sir Arthur is going to take me for a drive. He'll see I get home."

Ralph's hands tightened around the wheel. "If you say so, my lady."

Ralph certainly hadn't tried any harder to hide his feelings about Arthur. She gathered up the few unborrowed books, jotted down some notes in her ledger, and had Ralph load them into the car.

Across the road, Arthur was leaning against the coupe, arms crossed as he waited for her, watching closely. Someone was always watching her. Whether it was the house staff, or the walls of the abbey. At least when she was on her bicycle, there was nothing but the indifferent moors and the endless winding road. She gave Arthur a smile; it wasn't his fault that she was on edge. He was doing something kind for her, something that she sorely needed.

"Ready?" He opened the door for her, and she climbed into the low seat, gathering her skirt around her knees.

"I've never been in one of these before," she said, her heart suddenly beating a little faster. The coupe was painted a splashy shade of red, and sat low down to the ground. It looked like the sort of contraption that required one to don goggles and an aviator scarf.

Arthur grinned as he tugged on his cap. "As long as you don't mind a little wind in your hair, you'll be fine."

Before she had a chance to respond, he was cranking the auto into gear and then they were off.

The countryside whizzed by in a dizzying blur of fields dotted with cows and stone cottages. Wind snapped through her hair and stung her eyes with tears. It was intoxicating; she'd never traveled so fast, felt so close to flying. Occasionally Arthur would point out some feature of the landscape, but his words were lost to the wind.

They pulled off onto a dirt overlook, the wind almost as brisk as it had been in the auto, and Arthur produced a basket from the back. "I thought we might have a little rest here. This is the best view in Yorkshire."

A patchwork of brown and green fields rolled into the distance, quiet except for the occasional bleating of a sheep. Clouds scudded across the sky, allowing for brief rays of sun to filter through. Even the dead heather had a dramatic sweep to it. It was vast and wild and full of possibilities, a landscape worthy of the Bront?s and poets of yore.

Arthur took Ivy's hand and led her to an outcrop of grass protected by a stone wall, where he spread a checkered blanket and laid out plates of cut meats and cheese, bread and cold sausages. Without the wind in her ears, it was peaceful and cozy, and felt like they were the only two people in the world. "You certainly came prepared," she said, eyeing the elaborate spread.

"A military man is always prepared." He uncorked a bottle. "Learned that from my father."

He poured her a glass of something cool and bubbly, which she wordlessly sipped as he assembled a plate for her. So, this was the life of leisure that the upper class enjoyed: impromptu picnics in the countryside, fast cars and expensive wines. It was certainly novel for someone like her, but what happened when the first thrill wore off? Was it a continual search for the next flush of excitement? Maybe if she threw herself into this lifestyle, she could rise above the strange happenings of her brief tenure at Blackwood Abbey. She had a new world laid at her feet, but all she could think about was her books, and the strange thread of coincidence between them and what had happened in Blackwood. When Ivy put down her glass, she realized Arthur had been studying her for some time.

"Something eating you?" he asked.

"I don't know. It's probably nothing."

Reclining on his elbow, he leveled his warm, dark gaze on her. "You can tell me. I promise to be impartial."

Against her better judgment, Ivy told Arthur about the books she had lent out, the rainstorm, bee attack, and Harry Oliver's gruesome display on the green. She even told him about the ghostly encounters and how she felt as if she was sharing the old house with someone—or something—that didn't want her there.

Arthur held her gaze while she spoke, but his expression was a blank mask, and she couldn't gauge how much he believed.

"Well, that's easy to explain," he said when she was done. "It only makes sense that strange weather or a brush with bees would lead people to seek more information from books."

She frowned. "But they took the books before those things happened."

"But their interests must have stemmed from somewhere, don't you see? The man with the bee book—"

"Mr. Bryson," she put in.

"Yes, him. He must have been interested in bees, perhaps had even started a hive and wanted more information."

She didn't bother telling him that Mr. Bryson had said he didn't have a hive. "And the storms?"

He gave her an indulgent look. "It's Yorkshire, darling, it rains. As for the unfortunate man with the boils, well, it only stands to reason that he contracted some concerning symptoms and thought to diagnose himself from a book. How do you know that he truly had the plague, and not just an unfortunate case of measles?"

"Mrs. Hewitt told me."

"Well, there you have it. I would not take the word of a gossipy servant, let alone one who clearly takes issue with her mistress."

Fiddling with a stem of heather, she gave a distracted nod. She wasn't wholly convinced, but then, what was the alternative? Mrs. Hewitt would have her believe that she was nothing more than a flighty girl with an overactive imagination, but perhaps there was a grain of truth to the idea, no matter how distasteful. Ivy was prone to take a rather romantic view of things. What else had she to do in the old house beside drown in her anxieties and read too much?

"Do you know what I think?" Arthur asked, breaking into her thoughts. "I think you're a clever woman stuck in a house by herself, with not enough to occupy her mind."

Just because she had been thinking as much, didn't mean that she appreciated the implication coming from him. Ivy opened her mouth but he stopped her before she could say anything. "This is why education for women is dangerous—you have all this knowledge and nothing to do with it. Come to the club. You'll meet some interesting people, have some lively discussions."

Ivy bit down on her tongue, hard. "I'm not sure I would fit in with that set."

"Oh, come now," he said, oblivious to her annoyance. "They will be utterly charmed by you, and I can show you off by my side."

She stared out at a kestrel hovering on the wing in the distance. How little it cared for the world around it, content to drift and let the wind take it where it may. "What is this club exactly?"

"Oh," Arthur said, gesturing vaguely, "a group of learned individuals committed to preserving the Blackwood library. We've been meeting for years. Never thought to come up with a name or anything like that, but my father has always referred to us as ‘the Sphinxes.'"

"Surely there are other libraries that warrant preservation?" It was strange to think of these people devoting their time to a library which, as far as she could tell, most of them had never stepped foot in.

"Well, yes, of course. But as I've told you Blackwood is special, and you yourself saw the state it was in."

The kestrel dove and disappeared from view. "What's so special about it?" she asked.

Giving a deep sigh, Arthur looked about as if they might be overheard by the sheep and the gathering clouds. "Can I trust you?" he asked, leaning in.

"Of course."

He regarded her for a long moment and then nodded. "I believe I can, and what's more, I like you, Ivy Radcliffe." Sitting up, he draped his arms across his knees. "What you don't realize about the Blackwood library, is that it's not an ordinary library. It's special, more special than you can possibly understand. It contains some of the most valuable and rare manuscripts on esoteric and occult subjects. Before the Dissolution, Blackwood was a center of monastic learning. Its collection was the destination for countless pilgrims and wise men, all seeking the answers to some of life's most unknowable truths. The sheer amount of knowledge in that library..." He broke off, shaking his head. "It's unfathomable."

He didn't mention that there was a curse, or some sort of spirit haunting it—Ivy almost wished he had so she had an explanation for the dust and footsteps she had seen. It was an important library, full of real history and rare books. Solid things, real things.

"If it's as simple as that, then why has no one told me that before? Mrs. Hewitt didn't even want me to go into the library."

Arthur gave her a sad smile. "That's just it, isn't it? There are those who would see it locked up. Not all of the Hayworth family has been happy to share their gem. That is where my club comes in...we exist with the mission to catalog and share the rare works found in Blackwood with the world."

Doubt still needled her, but it was gradually fading, secondary to her curiosity. Never had Ivy imagined that she was steward of such a diamond, one coveted by so many important people, no less. Suddenly Mrs. Hewitt's reticence began to make sense; if Blackwood was indeed as singular and important as Arthur claimed, then no wonder the housekeeper was nervous to see Ivy lending out the books. She had served the Hayworth family for decades, and probably saw the library as an extension of her service. Perhaps the housekeeper was planting seeds of doubt in Ivy's mind about the strange occurrences as a way to scare her off from her lending program.

"Do you see now?" Arthur's eyes were bright as he leaned forward and took her cold hands in his. "Let us help you, Ivy. We can restore the library to its former glory. Universities would send their faculty to study there. You could charge admission or reading fees. I know how expensive these old estates can be, and you wouldn't have to worry about selling any of your land or taking on tenants."

Ivy's heart quickened. It would be like her lending program, but with so much more reach. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, she needed the help. Simply keeping the library dusted was a Herculean task unto itself, never mind cataloging. While she didn't truly understand the finances of Blackwood, judging by the skeleton crew of staff she knew that they were nowhere what they used to be. Eventually she would have to make some hard decisions about the future of the estate.

"Have us over," he said, watching her emotions flicker across her face. "That's all I ask. If after meeting everyone you decide to decline our offer, that's your prerogative. But I truly think you will see how much good we could help you do."

A raindrop fell on Ivy's cheek, startling her from her visions of a restored library, humming with the activity of hungry readers. "I'll think about it," she told him as she shrugged further into her coat. She could only imagine the look on Mrs. Hewitt's face when she broached Arthur's proposal to her.

As Arthur hurriedly packed up their picnic and threw everything in the auto, Ivy turned his offer over and over in her head. Was it all true? Could she really be sitting on the eighth wonder of the world? After all, if his society was so concerned with the library, why hadn't the late Lord Hayworth taken them up on their offer?