The Dark and What It Said

by Kennett, Rick

  "About the bike," I said.

  "Took your machine into town first thing, I did," said Keenen, "and Scudamore's workshop they be onto it promptly."

  "Meanwhile, Mr Pine is welcome to stay here," said Mrs Winton.

  "Are you sure?" I asked.

  Mrs Winton fluttered her hands. "Think no more of it. It's only right that we should put you up while you're off the road. Isn't that so, Keenen?" But before he could answer she continued, "And you won't be the only stranger at the Manor soon as there'll be outside contractors coming in tomorrow to see to the grounds. Now, sir, what did you think of our maze?"

  "A quiet place, isn't it," I said, trying to think of something nice to say about it. "Why is the centre closed. What's in there?"

  Keenen and Mrs Winton glanced at each other like parents desperately trying to put off explaining the facts of life to their pregnant daughter.

  "Well... it was built like that,” said Keenen, lamely at last.

  "The inner gate was locked and probably had been for a long time.”

  "It shouldn't have been," said Mrs Winton, and I caught her funny look at the gardener. "You were some time in the maze, Mr Pine. Nothing happened, did it? That is, did you lose your way?"

  "Only a couple of thousand times."

  "No singing?" said Keenen, looking down.

  "Pardon?"

  "I think there's a diagram of the maze in the library," said Mrs Winton. "Perhaps you'd like to have another go tomorrow?"

  "Isn't there rain forecast for tomorrow?"

  "Not until the evening. Well, I think it's about lunch time. You must be starved, Mr Pine. Afterwards we'll see if we can find the diagram of the maze."

  While Mrs Winton cut bread in the kitchen I asked, "By the way, what does this mean," and I read slowly from the back of the parking ticket: "'Retine quod aqua coercetur’?”

  "It means 'Keep that which is bound by water'," she replied without a moment's hesitation, as if the phrase had been in her thoughts all along.

  ***

  The library, like everything else in and about Woodthorpe Manor, daunted me. It wasn't that it was large (in fact it was much smaller than the average public library), it was that all these volumes -- five thousand, Mrs Winton told me, and some of them incredibly old and rare -- were a private collection.

  And there was that word again: Private. And here was I. It didn't add up.

  Mrs Winton made straight for one of the glass cabinets lining the walls, unlocked it and after a moment's search took from between two books a leather wallet. In this was the plan of the maze with its convoluted paths, its statuary, brooks and miniature gardens all plotted out. The middle, however, was blank.

  "What's in there?" I remembered asking this before without getting an answer.

  "I'm sure I don't know," Mrs Winton said. "It's been closed for many a year."

  I thought it odd that in all her time at the Manor she'd never once been curious enough to find out what was behind the wall and trees in the centre of the maze. Perhaps she had no interest in things outside her own sphere. Perhaps she had asked once and had been rebuffed. Perhaps she was lying.

  ***

  I was glad I didn't have to 'dress' for dinner, being as it was in the servants' hall. Wearing a tie is against my religion as a confirmed slouch.

  There was just Mrs Winton, Keenen and myself at table. The only other people on the estate at this time were those who lived in the lodge, the gatekeeper and his wife, and their two sons who served as groundsmen during the night.

  The talk got around (rather quickly, I thought) to the maze: Yes, I copied out the diagram... Perhaps I'll have another go at the maze tomorrow if it doesn't rain... Well, yes, I think it will rain tomorrow, Mrs Winton. I can smell it...

  Keenen kept pretty quiet during the meal, just picking at his food, though drinking steadily, making casualties of two bottles of rough red. 'Drinking with a purpose' was a phrase that came to mind. I got the impression he was sulking, probably after an argument with Mrs Winton which probably had me in it somewhere. This line of thought seemed to be confirmed when, during a lapse in the housekeeper's conversation about the various notables who had dined and slept at the Manor over the centuries, Keenen muttered, "And you're only the second Australian we've --"

  He jolted as though kicked. He glared at Mrs Winton in a half focused way. She continued her dinner as if nothing had happened. I would hate to have played poker with her.

  I excused myself not long after that and wandered upstairs to the library. I paused halfway up, listening for the explosion I thought must erupt in the servants' hall. But all remained quiet. They probably were at each other again, but in a restrained way, which befitted this stately home.

  I'd noticed that the library had been catalogued on the Dewey decimal system and that the cabinet where the maze diagram was shelved was labelled 133, the listing for books on occult matters. I guessed it was a Woodthorpe family joke as 'occult' can also mean 'hidden'.

  Luckily the cabinet was still unlocked. That afternoon I'd seen a first edition of Elliot O'Donnell's Screaming Skulls with which I hoped to read myself to sleep. While looking for the O'Donnell I came across a folder bound in red buckram that had the appearance of a scrap book or diary. Conscience and curiosity tugged me in opposite directions. Curiosity won.

  The date on the first page was 26th July, 1823. The handwriting was crabbed, and for the most part illegible; a sure sign, my conscience took glee in reminding me, that it'd been meant for the writer's eyes only. I leafed over the pages, pausing here and there to attempt to decipher a passage, a sentence, or even just a word, usually without any luck. But part way down the second page was a word beginning with K, followed by something like Birdfellow. Whoever or whatever this may have been, both names were referred to several times throughout the diary. Another name that was repeated, though only in the last few pages, was 'Mother Gwynne'. She seemed somehow to be associated with that Latin phrase about being bound by water, as it was referred to (in semi-legible printing) on two separate pages immediately following her name. Around the middle of the diary I managed: "The Ground Keepers have communicated their distress in that there are Shapes abroad." Nowhere was the writer identified.

  Before I left the library I noticed in passing that the folder had been shelved tightly against Wentworth Day's Here Are Ghosts and Witches.

  ***

  I sat at my window for a long time, alternatively reading Screaming Skulls, trying to decipher more of the diary, and watching the long summer twilight come in, all English and still new to me. Nothing like sunset at home where night falls out of the afternoon sky like a black weight.

  In the distance were the tops of the trees standing inside that inner wall of the maze. Perhaps it was the fading light or my eyes tired from reading, but I could've sworn they were nodding and tossing although there wasn't a breath of wind anywhere.

  ***

  Next morning I woke up early and ragged, having had nightmares of screaming skulls half the night.

  A phone was ringing somewhere downstairs, and ten minutes later as I passed the drawing room door I heard Mrs Winton saying, "... booked a room, as per your instructions, My Lord...”

  I scratched up a bit of breakfast for myself, and was just cracking into a boiled egg when Mrs Winton entered the kitchen.

  She said, "Oh Mr Pine" and for several seconds more found nothing else to say. Then, "Have you been here long?"

  "Three minutes, unless your egg timer's slow." I wondered if she'd meant Did you overhear me on the telephone? I said, "Was that His Lordship?'"

  "Yes. It was." She made a pretence of looking out the window. "It's going to be a lovely day today. If you're going for a hike around the grounds I'll make you a packed lunch. What would you like?"

  Subtle, yes, in a sledgehammer way. Half an hour later I picked up a small hamper bag from the entrance hall table. It was heavier than a roast beef sandwich had a right to be, so I checked it out. Sandwiches.
Bottle of cordial. Binoculars.

  "All right," I muttered to myself. "All right, I'll play your silly game," and headed for the maze.

  ***

  Keenen was outside the stables, arming his contracted gardeners with hoes, rakes and other implements. He glanced my way as I passed, then turned back quickly to his charges. It was a sure-thing bet that he knew as much as Mrs Winton why I was being guested here at the Manor, against, as I was beginning to suppose, the Earl's instructions. It all had to do with the maze.

  I stopped at its entrance, remembering its complexity, feeling defeated, already lost. I didn't have much faith in my copy of the diagram. Still, I stepped through the gate -- straight into a sticky splash of whitewash. A few steps on was another splash, and another, and another. Soon I was following a trail of whitewash and the prints of gardeners' Wellingtons past the dead flower beds and dry ornate fountains, over dwarfish bridges and dusty ruts, in and out of wall gaps, past stone benches and statuary and a sundial that was an hour behind the times. Following this whitewash paper chase, it took me only ten minutes to reach the centre. Unsurprisingly, the ancient padlock was gone, the iron gate ajar.

  Retine quod aqua coercetur.

  "I think those Indians are friendly, General Custer," I muttered, and pushed hard on the gate.

  It grated open onto a lawn run amok. The sight of all that long grass made me think instinctively of snakes. Then I remembered where I was and that Britain has just one poisonous snake whose track record is ten people in a hundred years. Hoping there wasn't an adder out there that could count to eleven, I waded in.

  It'd once been a sloping lawn, and what it sloped down to was a pond that was perhaps fifteen metres across. I stumbled down to the edge where the water was deep green with algae. With a long stick I tried to find the bottom, and couldn't. I looked out over the lake. It was utterly flat, undisturbed by fish or bird, and I began to wonder what I might see break the surface if I sat down to wait.

  But I didn't want to sit down. Instead I set off along the stone path running beside the lake, kicking moss pads into the water. At one place I almost joined them as I tripped over a rusty ring fixed into the stone. It sported a rag of rope, giving it the look of a mooring point, which I supposed it to be. But whatever, it'd been a hell of a time since anyone had taken a punt out here.

  Further along were the wooden remains of what may have been a small summer house half way up the slope. Once upon a time this had been a pleasure garden of the most stylish kind. Today all it had were its memories (whatever they were) and an air of ruined elegance. Why, with the rest of the grounds so carefully manicured, had this garden been forgotten?

  I spotted the island.

  It'd been hidden by the foliage. In an instant I had the binoculars out of the bag and up to my eyes.

  An island, a tiny island overgrown with grass and bushes. But here and there they were threaded through by pathways, and in a couple of places the weathered stone of some broken structure poked into view. Something moved.

  I joggled the glasses, trying to sharpen focus. I could've sworn something had flitted past a break in the bushes. But, no. Nothing out there moved now. Perhaps it'd been imagination, or maybe a bird flitting from one branch to another. If it had been a bird it was the only animal life I'd seen so far in this garden. The pond, if properly cleaned out, would've been ideally suited for ducks and carp; probably had been once, though that would've been long, long ago. I continued on, hoping to find a bridge to the island. Instead I found something else.

  It lay in the water ahead. Stencilled letters and numbers along one side of the rubber raft proclaimed it a navy surplus job, which put the kibosh on my "good fairies" theory. Obviously it was a set up, and it was obvious by who. Only the why of it all remained as murky as the pond. But here was the raft and over there was the island.

  Paddling slow, I did a circuit of the island, looking for a place to land. In a sort of little cove I found a jetty. But its fungus-covered poles, rotted boards and smell of decay kept me paddling. Finally I found a bit of pebbly beach and ran ashore there.

  A path of discoloured stones wound round and round, looking like a maze within a maze. The notion seemed to fit the landscape. But no other path crossed this one, so I supposed it led to a definite destination. I was right, and I came to it suddenly -- what had to have been the original for the white marble Second Pavilion out in the grounds. But this one was much smaller and a ruin. Its foundations had sunk, cracking the walls, toppling one of its columns and opening the roof. The interior was a green riot of weeds.

  I wandered around it, trying to find an answer to this garden's isolation. Not that I knew what I was looking for, nor was I sure it was here just because this was the middle of the maze. It just seemed a more likely place than any other.

  All I found was a bone, half buried in the dirt. Although I wasn't sure what sort of bone it was, I was fairly sure what sort of bone it wasn't. It wasn't human. Trying to remember my biology lessons I thought it might be the wing bone of some large bird. A swan seemed the likeliest. I dug into the dirt a bit deeper, but couldn't find any more of the beast.

  ***

  It was good to sit in the English sun, eating roast beef sandwiches and drinking orange cordial on that extraordinary within-a-maze island, my back propped against marble ruins. But soon clouds were scudding over from Cornwall, and before I was even through the inner gate heavy raindrops were pattering down.

  Getting wet wasn't my only problem. The whitewash marks on the path were blurring as the rain increased, and before long the best I could do was to look for white streaks on the stonework.

  I was pretty much a white streak myself as I splashed through the East Front and shook the water off like a dog. The smell of brewing coffee and a cheery crockery clatter did nothing for me at all. But I stopped outside the kitchen door in the hope of overhearing something.

  Keenen was saying, "It's come on to rain."

  Has it? I thought, and squelched upstairs to change.

  ***

  The distance to the local village of Harringford-in-the-Vale was longer than I thought. But the rain had gone, the afternoon sun was out, and I felt I needed a good long walk to anywhere away from Woodthorpe Manor.

  Coming down from changing I'd met Mrs Winton like a spectre on the stairs. "Went into the maze again?" she asked at once, a question I dodged with a few unpleasantries about English weather. She took the hint, but I knew she wouldn't let up for long. I could see now with the clarity of 20-20 hindsight that her curious behaviour had started the moment she'd clapped eyes on my ghost books, and was compounded by my blabbing about my ghost hunting experience. Yes, and how disappointed she'd looked when I voiced my attitude toward further ghost hunts. So now it was subterfuge and manipulation. And it all centred about the maze. The only thing that puzzled me was why she'd waited for a ghost hunter to fall accidentally into her clutches when Britain is the home of the ghost hunter. The only difference I could see was one of nationality, but I couldn't think how it would have a bearing on the matter. A ghost is a ghost is a ghost, no matter who hunts it.

  Perhaps I could’ve, perhaps I should’ve confronted Mrs Winton then and there on the stairs, ask her if she was having me look into a haunting without me knowing I was doing it. But then she would've just said, "How lovely, the sun's back out. Run along and play in the maze again." I could’ve threatened to leave, of course, but that seemed childish somehow and might've only made matters worse. Besides, I'd never find out what it'd been all about, and that would've driven me crazy. The only way to tackle the situation was to arm myself with some information, and the only place to get it was in town.

  Harringford-in-the-Vale was an inn, a church, a huddle of shops, a scatter of cottages along a main road or 'high street' that was neither as main nor as high as it had been before the advent of the motorway by-pass. But it did possess a side street, and at the end of this side street I found Scudamore's Engineering Workshop, a do-it-all
, fix-it place that repaired just about anything; a grand sort of name for what looked like a First World War aeroplane hangar. Fact is, I thought I could make out SOPWITH in faded paint over the doors.

  Asking about, I was told Mr Scudamore himself was working on the Norton. I found him off in a corner of the workshop, refitting the exhaust system, handling the machinery with an expertise that had me wondering if he'd learnt his engineering from James Landsdowne Norton personally. He seemed old enough. He said, “So you’re Ernie Pine. His Lordship telephoned, said he'd put you up at the inn, but when I called there they'd not heard of you.”

  "No. The last two days I've been staying at the Manor."

  He peered at me over the bike's petrol tank as if I'd just admitted to being Jack the Ripper. "Do what?"

  "The housekeeper and the head gardener have conspired to keep me at the Manor for as long as they can." I explained why, adding, "Is there any sort of story connected with the maze, particularly the garden and the island inside?"

  "Didn't know there was a garden and island inside it. That there maze been locked up for donkey's years, ever since some kids got in one night and came out screaming, not knowing why. They never was really right in the head after that. Grew up with a proper hate for crows and magpies, and didn't like hot winds, neither. Made 'em go mad, almost like a fit. Sorriest thing I ever saw, watching young Johnny Wilkes one hot summer day, crawling about and bawling his eyes out for no reason he could ever tell us.”

  "But there's no 'ghost story' to explain what happened to those kids in the maze?"

  "Not really. There's the legend of the blackamoor's ghost that run amok in the Manor until it got nailed down someway by a North Country witch woman, but that has naught to do with the maze.”

  "Her name wouldn't have been Mother Gwynne, would it?"