Kirkland Revels

by Victoria Holt

  It had been a cry from the heart when I had wished at the well:

  Please, not Simon.

  I had now become aware of a change in the behaviour of everyone towards me. I intercepted exchanged glances; even Sir Matthew seemed what I can only call watchful.

  I was to discover the meaning of this through Sarah, and the discovery was more alarming than anything which had gone before.

  I went to her apartments one day and found her stitching at the christening robe.

  " I'm glad you've come," she greeted me. " You used to be interested in my tapestry."

  "I still am." I assured her.

  "I think it's lovely. What have you been doing lately?"

  She looked at me archly. " You would really like to see?"

  " Of course."

  She giggled, put aside the christening robe, and standing up, took my hand. Then she paused and her face puckered.

  "I'm keeping it a secret," she whispered. Then she added:

  " Until it's finished."

  " Then I mustn't pry. When will it be finished?"

  I thought she was going to burst into tears as she said:

  " How can I finish it when I don't know! I thought you would help me.

  You said he didn't kill himself. You said . "

  I waited tensely for her to go on but her mind had wandered. " There was a tear in me christening robe," she said quietly.

  " Was there? But tell me about the tapestry."

  " I didn't, want to show it to anyone until it was finished. It was Luke...."

  " Luke?" I cried, my heart beating faster.

  " Such a lovely baby. He cried when he was at the font, and he tore the robe. All that time it hasn't been mended But why should it be, until there's a new baby waiting for it?"

  " You'll mend it beautifully, I'm sure," I told hter, and she brightened.

  " It's you 1" she murmured. " I don't know where to put you. That's why ..."

  " You don't know where to put me," I repeated, puzzled.

  " I've got Gabriel ... and the dog. He was a dear little dog.

  Friday! It was a queer sort of name. "

  "Aunt Sarah." I demanded, "what do you know about Friday?"

  "Poor Friday 1 Such a good little dog. Such a. faithful dog. I suppose that was why ... Oh dear, I wonder if your baby will be good at the christening. But Rockwell babies are never good babies. I shall wash the robe myself."

  " What were you saying about Friday, Aunt Sarah? Please tell me."

  She looked at me with a certain concern. " He was your dog," she said.

  " You should know. But I ^shan't allow anyone to touch it. It's very difficult to iron. It has to be gophered in places. I did it for Luke's christening. I did it for Gabriel's."

  "Aunt Sarah," I said impulsively, "show me the tapestry you're working on."

  A light of mischief came into her eyes. " But it isn't finished, and I didn't want to show it to anyone ... until it is."

  " Why not? I saw you working on one before you'd finished it."

  " That was different. Then I knew ..."

  "You knew?"

  She nodded. " I don't know where to put you, you see."

  " But I'm here."

  She put her head on one side so that she looked like a bright-eyed bird.

  "To-day ... to-morrow ... next week, perhaps. After that where will you be?"

  I was determined to see the picture. " Please," I wheedled, " do show me."

  She was delighted by my interest which she knew was genuine.

  " Well, perhaps you," she said. " No one else."

  " I'll not tell anyone," I promised.

  " All right." She was like an eager child. " Come on."

  She went to the cupboard and brought out a canvas, and held the picture close to her body so that I couldn't see it.

  " Do let me see," I pleaded.

  Then she reversed it, still holding it against her. Depicted on the canvas was the south facade of the house; and lying on the stones in front of it was Gabriel's body. It was so vivid, so real, that I felt a sudden nausea as I looked at it. I stared, for there was something else. Lying beside Gabriel was my dog Friday, his little body stiff as it could only be in death. , It was horrible.

  I must have given a startled gasp, for Sarah chuckled. My horror was the best compliment I could have given her.

  S stammered: "It looks so ... real." 166 "Oh, it's real enough ... in a way," she said dreamily. " i saw him lying there, and that was how he looked. I went down before they could take him away, and saw him."

  " Gabriel ..." I heard myself murmur, for the sight of the tapestry had brought back so many tender memories, and I could picture him more clearly than I had since the first days of my bereavement.

  " I said to myself," Aunt Sarah continued, " that must be my next picture ... and it was."

  " And Friday?" I cried. " You saw him ... too?"

  She seemed as though she were trying to remember.

  " Did you. Aunt Sarah?" I persisted.

  " He was a faithful dog," she said. " He died for his faithfulness

  " Did you see him, dead ... as you saw Gabriel?"

  Again that puckered look came into her face. " It's there on the picture," she said at length.

  " But he's lying there beside Gabriel. It wasn't like that."

  "Wasn't it?" she asked.

  "They took him away, didn't they?"

  " Who took him away?"

  She looked at me questioningly. " Who did?" It was as though she were pleading with me to give her the answer.

  "You know, don't you. Aunt Sarah?"

  " Oh yes, I know," she answered blithely.

  " Then please ... please tell me. It's very important."

  "But you know too."

  " How I wish I did! You must tell me. Aunt Sarah. You see, it would help me."

  " I can't remember."

  " But you remember so much. You must remember some thing so important."

  Her face brightened.

  "I know, Catherine. It was the monk."

  She looked so innocent that I knew she would have helped if she could.

  I could not understand how much she had discovered. I was sure that she lived in two worlds that of reality and that of the imagination; and that the two became intermingled so that she could not be sure which was which. People in this house underrated her; they spoke their secrets before her, not understanding that she had a mind like a jackdaw, which seized on bright and glittering pieces of information and stored them away.

  I turned my attention to the canvas and. now that the 167 shock of seeing Gabriel and Friday lying dead was less acute, I noticed that the work had taken up only one side of the picture. The rest was blank.

  She read my thoughts immediately, which was a reminder that her speculations--if speculations they were were those of a woman who could be astute.

  " That's for you," she said; and in that moment she was like a seer from whom the future, of which the rest of us were utterly ignorant, was only separated by a semitransparent veil.

  As I did not speak she came close to me and gripped my arm; I could feel her hot fingers burning through my sleeve.

  " I can't finish," she said peevishly. " I don't know where to put you that's why." She turned the canvas round so that I could not see the picture and hugged it to herself. " You don't know. I don't know.

  But the monk knows. " She sighed. " Oh dear, we shall have to wait.

  Such a nuisance. I I can't start another until I finish this one. "

  ;

  She went to the cupboard," and put the canvas away. Then she came back to peer into my face.

  " You don't look well," she said. " Come and sit down. You'U be all right, won't you? Poor Claire! She died, you know. Having Gabriel killed her, you might say."

  I was trying to shake off the effects of seeing that picture, and I said absently: " But she had a weak heart. I'm strong and healthy."

  She put her head on
one side and looked quizzically at me.

  "Perhaps it's why we're friends ..." she began.

  " What is. Aunt Sarah?"

  "We are. friends. I felt it from the first. As soon as you came I said," I like Catherine. She understands Hie. " Now I suppose they say that's why ..."

  " Aunt Sarah, do tell me what you mean. Why should you and I understand each other better than other people in the house?"

  " They always said I am in my second childhood."

  A wild fear came into my mind. " And what do they say about me?"

  She was silent for a while, then she said: "I've always liked the minstrels' gallery."

  I felt impatient in my eagerness to discover what was going on in her muddled mind; then I saw that she was telling me and that the minstrels' gallery was connected with her discovery.

  " You were in the minstrels' gallery," I said quickly, " and you overheard someone talking."

  She nodded, her eyes wide, and she glanced over her shoulder as though she expected to find someone behind her. " You heard something about me?" She nodded; then shook her head.

  "I don't think we're going to have many Christmas decorations this year. It's all because of Gabriel. Perhaps there'll be a bit of holly."

  I felt frustrated but I knew that I must not frighten her. She had heard something which she was afraid to repeat because she knew she should not, and if she thought I was trying to find out she would be on her guard against telling me. I had to wheedle it out of her in some way, because I was sure that it was imperative that I should know.

  I forced myself to be calm and said: " Never mind. Next Christmas"

  "But who knows what'll have happened to us by next Christmas ... to me to you?"

  " I may well be here. Aunt Sarah, and my baby with me. If it's a boy they'll want it brought up here, won't they?"

  "They might take him away from you. They might put you ..."

  I pretended not to have noticed that. I said: "I should not want to be separated from my child. Aunt Sarah. Nobody could do that."

  " They could ... if the doctor said so." I lifted the christening robe and pretended to examine it, but to my horror my hands had begun to shake and I was afraid she would notice this. " Did the doctor say so?" I asked. " Oh yes. He was telling Ruth. He thought it might be necessary ... if you got worse ... and it might be a good idea before the baby was born."

  " You were in the minstrels' gallery."

  " They were in the hall. They didn't see me."

  " Did the doctor say I was ill?"

  " He said Mentally disturbed." He said something about It being a common thing to have hallucinations . and to do strange things and then think other people did them. He said it was a form of persecution mania or something like that. "

  " I see. And he said I had this?"

  Her lips trembled. " Oh. Catherine," she whispered, " Fve 169 liked your being her . B don't want you to go away. I don't want you to go to Worstwhistle."

  The words sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell, my own funeral.

  If I were not very careful they would bury me alive.

  I could no longer remain in that room. I said: "Aunt Sarah, I'm supposed to be resting. You will excuse me if I go now?"

  I did not wait for her to answer. I stooped and kissed her cheek.

  Then I walked sedately to the door and, when I had closed it, ran to my own room, shut the door and stood leaning against it. I felt like an animal who sees the bars of a cage closing about him. I had to escape before I was completely shut in. But how?

  I very quickly made up my mind as to what I would do. I would go and see Dr. Smith and ask him what he meant by talking of me in such a way to Ruth. I might have to betray the' fact-that Sarah had overheard them, but I should do my utmost to keep her out of this. Yet it was too important a matter to consider such a trifle.

  They were saying, " She is mad." The words beat in my brain like the notes of a jungle drum. They were saying that I had hallucinations, that I had imagined I had seen a vision in my room; and then I had begun to do strange things-silly unreasoning things and imagined that someone else did them.

  They had convinced Dr. Smith of this--and I had to prove to him that he and they were wrong.

  I put on my blue cloak--the one which had been hung over the parapet--for it was the warmest of garments and the wind had turned very cold. But I was quite unaware of the weather as I made my way to the doctor's house.

  I knew where it was because we had dropped Damans there on our way back from Knaresborough. I myself had never been there before. I supposed that at some time the Rockwells had visited the Smiths, and that in view of Mrs. Smith's illness, such visits had not taken place while I was at the Revels.

  The house was set in grounds of about an acre. It was a tall, narrow house and the Venetian blinds at the windows reminded me of Glen House.

  There were fir trees in the front garden which had grown rather tall and straggly; they darkened the house considerably. 170 There was a brass plate on the door announcing that this was the doctor's house, and when I rang the bell the door was opened by a grey-haired maid in a very well starched cap and apron.

  " Good afternoon," I said. " Is the doctor at home?"

  " Please come in," answered the maid. " I'm afraid he is not at home at the moment. Perhaps I can give him a message."

  I thought that her face was like a mask, and remembered that I had thought the same of Damans. But I was so over wrought that everything seemed strange on that afternoon. [ felt I was not the same person who had awakened that morning. It was not that I believed I was anything but sane, but the evil seed had been sown in my mind, and I defy any woman to hear such an opinion of herself with equanimity.

  The hall seemed dark; there was a plant on a table and beside it a brass tray in which several cards lay. There was a writing-pad and pencil on the table. The maid took this and said: " Could I have your name, please?"

  " I am Mrs. Rockwell."

  " Oh!" The maid looked startled. " You wished the doctor to come to you?"

  " No, I want to see him here."

  " It may be an hour before he is here, I'm afraid."

  " I will wait for him."

  She bowed her head and opened a door, disclosing an impersonal room which I suposed was a waiting-room.

  Then I thought that I was after all more than a patient. The doctor had been a friend to me. I knew his daughter well.

  I said: " Is Miss Smith at home?"

  " She also is out, madam."

  " Then perhaps I could see Mrs. Smith."

  The maid looked somewhat taken aback, then she said:

  " I will tell Mrs. Smith you are here."

  She went away and in a few minutes returned with the information that Mrs. Smith would be pleased to see me. Would I follow her?

  I did so and we went up a flight of stairs to a small room. The blinds were drawn and there was a fire burning in a small grate. Near the fire was a sofa on which lay a woman. She was very pale and thin, but I knew at once that she was Damaris's mother, for the remains of great beauty were there 171 She was covered with a Paisley shawl and the hand which; lay on that shawl looked too frail to belong to a living human being.

  "S

  " Mrs. Rockwell of Kirkland Revels," she said as I came in. " How good of you to come to see me."

  I took the hand but relinquished it as soon as I could; it was cold and clammy.

  " As a matter of fact," I said, " I came to see the doctor. As he is not in I thought I would ask if you could see me."

  " I'm glad you did."

  " How are you today?"

  " Always the same, thank you. That is ... as you see me now.... I can only walk about this room and then only on my good days. The stairs are beyond me."

  I remembered that Ruth had said she was a hypochondriac and a great trial to the doctor. But that was real suffering 1 saw on her face and I believed that she was more interested in me than in herself.

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