by Deryn Lake
‘Do Thou, O Lord, enter graciously into the home that belongs to Thee,’ he whispered.
He took another pace forward and then stopped. In the silence he could hear her frightened breathing but had no mercy for her. The evil that used her as its instrument must be driven away completely, there was no room for scruple or pity.
His voice crescendoed from a murmur to a shout as he said ‘Construct for Thyself an abiding resting place in the heart of Thy faithful servant...’
He paused, one hand grasping the curtain, and as he threw it back he fixed her with eyes glittering in a face transformed by the power that was now flowing through him. She gasped and cowered back as he roared, ‘...Thy faithful servant Melior Mary Weston.’
His hand with the great ring was in the air above her head and three times he made the sign of the cross. Then so quickly that she did not even flinch he had caught her by the wrist and was forcing her to cross herself.
‘Thou art the servant of the Lord and no other,’ he said, ‘and that which comes through thee is bidden hence. Accursed demon I command thee, depart from this child. For it is I who call thee out and it is I that am God’s chosen instrument.’
Melior Mary had gone very pale and he said, ‘What is it? Is it here?’ She nodded — speechless with terror.
‘Be not afraid,’ he said. ‘The force of God is vested in me.’
And at that moment he had never felt stronger. Something about the child’s eyes, violet dark in the height of anguish, reminded him of that long-ago love, of that sweet night voice which called him. The Stalking Priest was ready to protect, to stare the Devil out.
‘Oh Lord God,’ he said as the curtains were suddenly seized and shaken as if by a hurricane, ‘grant that in this house called Sutton Place no wickedness or malicious spirits may ever hold sway.’
As soon as he said it he knew that something was wrong, that his voice was being drowned like that of a dwarf shouting into the wind. Yet the entity that was in his presence had recoiled. Of that he was sure. He said again, ‘Grant that no wickedness or malicious spirits may ever hold sway in Sutton Place.’ He felt the force surge up in him more violently than it ever had in his life before and his soul danced wildly. Beneath him it seemed that the floor began to lurch. He flung his arms out to shield the child, drenching her accidentally with holy water. He knew what he had to say.
‘God of Gods, drive out the malevolence that longs for this child.’
And with that he was falling down and down into unconsciousness aware that the entity was shrieking in the blackness.
*
In a tiny house in Islington Amelia FitzHoward put down the scuttle of coal that she was carrying and her thin claw hands went to her chest. The breath that rasped there had suddenly become indrawn on a weird gasping note. She realized at once that she had reached the end of her life, that the malaise she had been experiencing for the last few days had been the pointer to this moment. That the consumption which had emaciated her to a child’s delicacy was finally gnawing at her heart. She knew that she would be lucky even to drag herself as far as her writing desk and take out the two vital letters lying there in preparation for this very moment — one addressed to Mrs Weston of Sutton Place, one to her solicitor Mr Pennycuick. But she must, for the future welfare of two people depended on it — Sibella’s and...
She was breathless and blind, her life measuring out in seconds. And then she used that power which, so it was said, had always run in the FitzHowards. She spoke to Sibella with her thoughts.
‘My poor child, do not grieve for me. Go to Mr Pennycuick of Holborn and seek his help; then begin your new life with the Westons. Make sure that the lawyer posts both the letters. I shall always love you.’
She died beneath the open desk, unable to take another step. She was thirty years old but death had eased the ravaged face to the softness of a child’s and she was smiling when Sibella finally found her.
*
‘...there is still something amiss, madam. It is in the very atmosphere — and yet the malevolence that haunted Melior Mary has gone. I do not understand it.’
The Stalking Priest shook his head. He sat, out of place in Elizabeth’s elegant saloon, on the edge of a gilded chair. All around him the ruched velvet draperies, the soft colours of a woman’s private sitting room, were at odds with his stark black garb, his ascetic’s face. Even the soft light from the many silver candlesticks could not disguise his illness of ease, his longing to take to the road and find himself once more his own man beneath God’s firmament.
Elizabeth was gazing at him perplexed.
‘But Father what are you saying? The child is sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks. She told you herself that it was banished. You have seen the devil off.’
‘Apparently. But yet I have never encountered anything so powerful. It was as if an ancient and terrible wickedness reached out to claw my soul.’
Elizabeth shivered and out of the shadows John spoke.
‘There is something I must tell you, Father. Something that even my wife does not know. It is said that there is a curse upon this land and those who dwell here.’
In the candlelight Elizabeth’s astonished face turned towards her husband and, though the priest did not move at all, a muscle suddenly twitched in his cheek. Without thinking what he was doing he rubbed it with the back of his hand. For a moment or two there was stillness and then Elizabeth said, ‘What do you mean?’
As if her voice was a signal John shifted his large frame restlessly where he sat sprawled before the fire, one booted foot crossed over the other.
‘Simply that. There is a legend of an ancient curse which has dogged the Westons and the families that dwelt in Sutton before them.’
The Priest spoke.
‘And how has it manifested?’
‘Death usually. Or despair and madness.’
‘In recent times?’
‘So they say. Francis Weston executed, his son Henry disgraced by Queen Elizabeth, the next heir dying of a wasting disease.’
‘And after that?’
John poured himself French brandy from the decanter that stood by a table by his side.
‘After that Sir Richard the third denounced in the Civil War as an obstinate delinquent and recusant, his sons — who bore arms for the King — arrested and imprisoned.’
Elizabeth spoke.
‘But they escaped — for the elder was your grandfather!’
‘Aye, he lived but it was no escape to happiness. My grandmother suffered with a wildness of the brain which passed itself on to my aunt.’
‘Your father’s sister? The one who stabbed herself as a girl?’
‘Yes.’
John hunched his shoulders and the room darkened in shadow. There was another silence and then the priest spoke.
‘And there has been more I believe, sir. You have told us just the bare tale.’
‘There have been infant mortalities — the heir is always at risk — too frequent to be deemed normal.’
‘And a child that screamed its way to dying?’
John looked at him curiously.
‘How do you know?’
‘He left something of himself about the place.’
‘Who was he?’
It was Elizabeth speaking.
‘Lord Charles Howard — grandson of the fourth Duke of Norfolk. I am kin to them through Henry Weston’s marriage with Dorothy Arundel.’
The name Howard brought Amelia vividly into Elizabeth’s mind and, alongside the thought of how often the Westons and the Howards had crossed each other’s paths during the passing of the years, came a premonition that all was not well with her friend. Not that she had seen her since the encounter at Malvern but somehow she knew that the light had gone out on that fragile life.
The priest spoke again.
‘How did the boy die?’
‘In agony. Some vital organ ruptured within. Dr William Harvey was sent for from London but it
was too late.’
There was yet another uncomfortable pause and then Elizabeth said, ‘Why did you not tell me of this before?’
‘Because I did not believe it.’ John rose from his chair and began to pace before the fire. ‘Because I am a man who knows what he can see or hear or touch and that’s an end to it. And it seemed to me then that a string of coincidences had been put together and made a whole.’
The priest moved very slightly.
‘It is rather difficult to be a believer, Mr Weston. In truth the simplest way is to dismiss phenomena out of hand.’
Elizabeth said quietly, ‘But what of Melior Mary? If it is the heir to Sutton who is at risk, what of her?’
‘Perhaps,’ John answered, ‘this haunting was her taste of the curse. Perhaps it is done, Father?’
Remembering the spiral of power that had forced him downwards, whirling and whirring round him till he thought the drums of his ears would split, the priest answered hesitantly.
‘I could not say. But I would be careful with her.’
‘Should there be another exorcism?’
‘No. Whatever it is — was — should have gone. I bade all evil leave this house.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘But perhaps it is not in this house as such. Where was the curse laid? Do you know, Mr Weston?’
‘No. My father only spoke of it once — and I laughed in his face for the fool that I am.’
The Stalking Priest stood up. He was suddenly very tired. Though only forty-two years of age he gave so much of himself in his dalliance with the Devil that he sometimes felt double that. He wished that his call to God had been easier, that his rigid preoccupation with duty had been less of a rod for his back, that he could have been an ordinary priest walking beneath the soaring roof of York Minster, listening to the sound of the choir mingling with the stone as old as time.
‘I will call for a blessing upon this house and upon the child,’ he said. ‘I must spend the night in solitary vigil in your chapel.’
‘And on the morrow?’
‘I will depart.’ He added rather pathetically, ‘I have done my best.’
But he was not at ease when the next morning his spindly horse picked its way over the cobbles of the courtyard, past the ruined Gate House and away from Sutton Place. Looking over his shoulder the house seemed to him to have almost a desolate air, enhanced by the falling masonry from what had once been a splendid and lofty tower. Yet his task was done. Melior Mary had been up and about when he had left, awaiting the appearance of an orphaned girl from London who was to follow almost immediately upon the letter which had arrived an hour before his departure.
He had said, ‘I believe this to be a God-send, Mrs Weston. In every sense.’
Elizabeth had looked at him and smiled a little sadly. ‘Yes, Melior Mary has been very lonely.’
‘But your ward will put an end to that.’
‘I hope so.’
‘They will be like sisters. Our prayers have been answered.’
And now a carriage was indeed coming into sight, the black leather work a testimony to the hours of polishing and care given by the lads from the stables of John Weston. And as the priest pulled his horse into the verge so that the carriage might sweep past him he saw the occupants distinctly — Clopper the maid and the girl she had just collected from the London stagecoach.
The child — little more than twelve or thirteen years old — turned to look at him and for a moment their gaze held. She was wearing a velvet feathered hat rather too large for her and looking, as it probably had, as if it once belonged to her mother. Into it she had thrust all her hair, so that only one escaping lock showed him that it was the colour of morning, a pinkness mixed with the gold that he had never seen before. The face itself was quite pointed with firm cheek bones and a small chin, but at the moment it was made sadly comic by the fact that she had cried and dirt from the dusty road had become the river bed of dried out tears. To make this situation worse she had rubbed the back of her hand across her face so that she looked as smudged as a brindle pup. But the eyes themselves were cool and clear, the light green of water. And in their depths was an expression which he recognized as that of the true mystic.
For a long moment they looked at each other — the priest who called out the Devil and the child in whose blood ran ancient wisdom and power. And in that look he realized that she was unaware of her gift, had no inkling that she was different from any other girl who stood on the threshold of womanhood and felt the changes within her. Involuntarily he blessed her, making the sign of the cross. She smiled at him for that and he saw her face transform into one of a beautiful sprite, yet still with that haunting air that would always set her apart. He wondered what she and Melior Mary would think of each other — would there be great love or great hate? And then it occurred to him that if anyone could keep Melior Mary’s torturing demon away it would be this girl. So God had answered his prayer more fully than he could possibly have expected. With his heart lightening within him he passed through the wrought iron gates and headed his horse to the north as Sibella Hart alighted from the carriage and looked for the first time at the Weston family — father, mother and child — who stood waiting to welcome her before the great door of Sutton Place.
5
It seemed to Melior Mary that — just as if it had life and personality of its own — Sutton Place took a liking to Sibella on sight. The rainbow glass of the Great Hall glinted flirtatiously, the Long Gallery made a little whisper of greeting, the Grand Staircase gleamed importantly in the sun. The stranger had been graciously accepted. And, because she was so close to her stately mansion, the heiress opened her heart in accord.
And it was not only she who was kind. John and Elizabeth granted to Sibella the status of daughter of the house. A new-found contentment was everywhere.
But this period of innocence was to be short-lived. At the end of 1714, with the twelve days of Christmas celebrated for the first time beneath the rule of a new King, Joseph Gage came again to Sutton Place. Where he had been for the last year nobody knew. His mysterious business took him as far afield as countries old and dark like Russia, and those of bustle and adventure such as the Colonies of America. And, between those points, he would vanish into Europe for months on end, with never a word to anyone.
Now he walked with a swaggering gait into John Weston’s saloon, throwing a fur cloak onto a chair and an Italian dress sword, a-glitter with turquoise, on top of it.
‘Damme, John,’ he said, ‘how goes it with you and Hanover George? I hear you’ve refused to take the oath of allegiance.’
John hunched his shoulders and darkened his eyes.
‘You hear too much for one who’s never in England. I’ll give you a toast, Joseph. To our true King — James III.’
Joseph took a sip of wine and looked at John through his golden lorgnette.
‘Careful, brother-in-law — remember the Riot Act. Don’t voice your opinions before strangers.’
‘You’re no stranger and you’re no traitor, albeit you’re the biggest dandy-rake in London.’
‘In England actually — or so they tell me!’ Joseph’s voice took on a harsh note totally at odds with his appearance. ‘But hearken to me. These are difficult times. Be careful that you do not end up a marked man.’
He lounged back in his chair, one silk clad knee crossed over the other, looking every inch the cream puff. But his eyes were alert and John knew that the rake had spoken truth. With the death of Queen Anne in the previous August, the country had divided into factions.
The mighty Whig party had backed George, the Elector of Hanover, as future King; the Tories were suspected of having Jacobite leanings, of supporting the cause of James II’s son, who lived in Rome and was now hailed by many as James III. But the Whigs had had their way. The Hanoverian sat on the English throne, unable to speak the language of the country which hailed him as monarch. And in his middle-aged uncouth wake came the dissension that had every true Catholic tur
ning their eyes towards the Pretender, and the unrest that had brought about the revival of the obsolete Riot Act. If as few as twelve people met together and refused to disperse on order, they could be forcibly arrested — even at the cost of lives.
‘Come to dinner, Joseph,’ said John. ‘Good food and good wine stop a man from thinking too much.’
So with the Negro bowing before them, the two men had descended the staircase and were just passing the side door that led into the Small Hall when it was flung open. Melior Mary and Sibella — their arms about each others’ waists and their faces flushed from running — stood in the entrance.
‘I knew you were here,’ said Melior Mary, flinging herself inelegantly at her uncle, ‘I saw your black coach being taken round. Where have you been? It seems so long. This is my adopted sister. Sibella, this is our Uncle Joseph.’
But it was no look of little girl to older relative that passed between Joseph Gage and Sibella Hart. He knew at once that he loved her, wanted her and would possess her one day. And she, though the moon cycle had not yet started in her twelve-year-old body, was aware of his passion and lowered her gaze to the floor. She dropped a little curtsey.
‘Charming,’ said Joseph and raised his lorgnette with a hand that shook so infinitesimally that only Sootface saw it — and knew at once its cause. Sibella raised her eyes again and gave Joseph a glance that said, ‘You will not hurt me, will you?’ And Joseph’s reply — though silent as hers — said, Not as long as I live.’
He adored the child consumingly at first sight.
That his fateful look lasted as much as a minute was doubtful but nonetheless something in it disturbed John for he said, rather too loudly, ‘Come Sibella, take your place beside me. Melior Mary, you shall sit next to Uncle Joseph.’
