by Deryn Lake
‘Well, Miss, you are to have your hair put up. Mrs Weston’s orders. Who’ll be the grand lady, I wonder to myself. And who will be looking for a husband, I wonder to myself. And will poor old Dawkings be kept on then, I wonder to myself. Or will she be thrown out in the cold and not fit to wait upon the Belle of High Fashion with her flunkeys and her footmen?’
Sibella smiled her sprite-like smile.
‘I wonder to myself if poor old Dawkings might not find herself a husband before this Belle, and not wish to go with her anyway.’
Dawkings’s expression transformed.
‘Do you think so, Miss? Really?’
Sibella looked thoughtful.
‘Cross my palm and I’ll tell you.’
The maid stared in surprise.
‘Can you do that? Do you know the meaning of hands?’
‘Perhaps I do. Show me. No, not just the right hand. I want to see both of them.’
The maid crouched before her, thrusting her palms into Sibella’s lap. The girl bent her head over them and, as always, found that she did not so much read the lines as use them as a channel for her ancient gift.
‘Oh yes, there’s a husband,’ she said. ‘And a long life and a jolly little son.’
‘Only one?’
Sibella laughed.
‘Husband or child? No, only one of both I’m afraid.’
‘Can you tell me more?’
‘I could but I won’t or we’ll be here all the afternoon and my poor hair will hang like Rapunzel’s. Set to — or I’ll never be ready.’
And it was as well that they started when they did, for no sooner had Dawkings woven the last blue ribbon and white feather into place, than the door to Melior Mary’s room was flung open and she stood in the entrance, panting and dishevelled.
‘God’s life,’ she said, ‘I am late and now my maid declares she’s lame and I have sent her to bed. Dawkings, can you dress me? Sibella, have you finished with her? You look a vision.’ She paused and said more slowly. ‘Yes, you really do.’ Her pace quickened again. ‘Zounds and zlids, there are Father and Matthew returning. That means I’ll have an hour at the most. Please!’
Her voice had taken on a beseeching note and Sibella rose to her feet, her blue hooped gown swinging out over the taffeta petticoat.
‘Yes, yes, don’t worry so. Dawkings, will you help her? At least she’s not having her hair up.’
Melior Mary stuck out her tongue.
‘All right, grande dame. I shall have roses woven into mine. That’s what I’ve been doing, collecting them from the garden.’
And from behind her back she produced a bunch of buds of an unusual mauvish pink.
‘I hope you’ve thorned those,’ said Dawkings warningly.
‘I have — and pierced my thumb in the doing. Now can we get on?’
An hour later Elizabeth and Sibella left the small saloon — there being no signs of Melior Mary — and, wrapping their cloaks about them, sallied forth through the Middle Enter into the night air. They stood for a second till John joined them, resplendent in black velvet with a crimson waistcoat and very grand wig, listening to the sound of the coach being led round from the stables. Then, as it halted before them, Matthew Banister holding the leading rein, they negotiated the difficulties of getting two hooped skirts through the door and down onto the seats. John was squeezed into the corner with scarcely room to breathe.
‘You’re gaining weight,’ he said accusingly to Elizabeth and Sibella, unable to control herself, let out an audible giggle.
The black coach-horses pawed the ground, their harnesses like bells in the enclosed sound of the quadrangle; the ladies’ skirts creaked as they shifted impatiently and John Weston thumped on the carriage roof with his walking cane and called out, ‘Mellor Mary, come upon the instant.’
And then, suddenly, there she was, as vivid and as beautiful as a winter fairy with her lilac dress and silver petticoat enhancing the colour of her eyes and hair. The roses, woven into a fantastic garland by Dawkings, only served to give the impression of somebody not quite earthly, as she paused momentarily in the Middle Enter.
‘Well Matthew,’ she said quietly, ‘am I in good looks?’
For all her immense beauty she was not yet fifteen, still only a child, and when he shook his head her lips trembled.
‘What! Am I not?’
‘I cannot see you clearly,’ he answered. ‘Let me step back.’
He did so and stood staring at her, seeing the splendour of her for the first time. And he — who had come to live so mysteriously with her family and yet whose presence had never been properly explained by her parents, felt his heart-beat quicken then. ‘You are exquisite,’ he said.
‘And you are old!’ she answered, in that odd, abrupt way of hers.
‘No. Eighteen. Little more than yourself.’
‘Well you seem old.’
He smiled.
‘That is because I have had to fend for myself.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I have no parents. I was brought up by cousins — of a sort — in France.’
‘Who were they — your mother and father?’
The short-sighted eyes were fixed in her direction but she knew that, this time, he wasn’t really looking at her at all.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
In the sudden silence the thump of John Weston’s cane was almost shocking.
‘Melior Mary, if you are not within this carriage in one minute we leave without you. God damn all,’ he added for good measure.
But she still stood looking at Matthew.
‘Do you remember that day you rescued me? The flowers that were in your hat...?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were they?’
‘Hyacinths. Wild hyacinths.’
‘I shall call you that, for your eyes are the same colour. Exactly. And I shall think of you as my brother and that will make you love nobody else but me.’
Matthew laughed.
‘But I shall love many people. I am a young man and have my life to lead.’
Melior Mary’s jaw tightened determinedly.
‘There shall be no other love but mine.’
And she flung herself into the carriage without another word, her silk-lined cloak flying out in the night air.
‘Melior Mary ...’ he called out.
But the mighty horses had started up and he was left staring at the disappearing coach and Melior Mary’s frost-like profile, for only Sibella’s light eyes turned to look at him as they sped off into the darkness.
*
As Elizabeth slipped into unconsciousness it seemed to her closing eyes that Mrs Rackett’s extraordinary wig, topped by three gigantic plumes hung about with diamond bows and flashing winkers, resembled nothing so much as a flagship dressed overall. And as she recovered to the strong smell of salts, her hostess’s anxious face only an inch or two away from hers, the impression was redoubled.
‘Oh, my dear — oh, my dear,’ Mrs Rackett was saying frantically. ‘I should have spoken nothing. I should have held my peace. I really had no wish to upset you.’
They were alone in the hostess’s private saloon, Charles Rackett and John lingering over their port, Melior Mary and Sibella despatched to play cards.
‘No, I am much recovered, please don’t disturb yourself.’
‘Then pray take this sip of brandy. There, that’s better. The colour is coming back to your cheeks.’
Elizabeth struggled to a sitting position, leaning against a chair for support.
‘You say that Alexander was here?’
Mrs Rackett looked doubtful.
‘I am not sure that I should tell you again.’
‘Please — I want to know — I have a...fondness...for him still — in a sisterly way.’
‘Well, in that case...’ Mrs Rackett took a pull at the brandy flask to settle herself, ‘...I will. He arrived here on Sunday from Staines where he’d been at his usual tricks, vi
siting some poor woman — a Miss Griffin I believe — and keeping her away from church, so he boasted. Anyway he was very social and Colonel Butler called on him on Monday, and they were in wild sniggers over a letter for him which had been forwarded on here. Then John’s letter arrived asking to dine and he was off forthwith — most rude I thought it — saying that he wished John’s face was horned.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘Well my dear, you know how maddish and silly he is. I believe he meant that he desired John dead — and a horned devil in hell.’
Elizabeth leaned slightly harder against the chair.
‘He still bears a grudge after all this time?’
‘I feel sure of it.’ Mrs Rackett’s ugly face softened for a moment and she added, ‘But in charity Elizabeth, he must still care deeply for you. Why else should he run from a meeting like that? Poor Alexander, I pity him in so many ways.’
‘But what of his friend Lady Mary?’
‘A blue stocking, a woman of letters — or so she thinks herself. They will fall out, mark my words, and then there will be bitterness indeed.’
Mrs Rackett, heavy with prophecy, took another two nips at the flask.
‘But say no more of it, Elizabeth. I hear the husbands coming. Let me help you up.’
And Elizabeth was seated in the chair, albeit pale-cheeked, when John and Charles Rackett came into the room. The question as to whether to continue the evening with cards, or tell John a different version of his wife’s spell of faintness, hung about Mrs Rackett’s brow for a moment or two, but eventually she decided on the more sensible course.
‘Elizabeth has been quite unwell,’ she said, ‘even losing consciousness for a minute. I believe that you should take her home, John.’
He looked shocked.
‘But what was the cause?’
‘Goodness alone knows. Perhaps the heat.’
And further than that she would not go as John lifted Elizabeth into the coach and settled her against a cushion. But on the way home they had to stop once more, a feeling of nausea sweeping over Elizabeth, forcing her to dismount and breathe in the cool night air.
‘What ails Mama?’ said Melior Mary, staring out of the carriage window to where her mother stood, leaning against John, who mopped her brow with a handkerchief of white lawn.
‘Do you really want to know?’
The reply made Melior turn abruptly and say, ‘Of course I do.’
‘I believe she is with child.’
Melior Mary’s eyes widened.
‘Is it possible at her age?’
‘She is not yet forty. Of course it is.’
‘But if that were so I would no longer be the heir to Sutton.’
‘You would if it were another girl. Only a boy could usurp you.’
‘Zlife — it’s a strange thought.’
Melior Mary looked suddenly lost then, in a gesture typical of her, shrugged her shoulders. For the heiress adored Sutton Place. Her great inheritance meant as much to her as any brother or sister ever could.
‘And you know all this through your strange gift?’
‘Yes. But please say nothing. Let us see if my feeling is right.’
And it was. On John’s insistence the physician was called from Guildford the very next day, and spent half an hour closeted with Elizabeth in the privacy of her bedroom.
‘I believe it to be life’s change,’ she told him. ‘There has been no flux for...’
‘Twelve weeks?’
‘How did you know?’
He straightened up from his examination of her abdomen.
‘Because you are about that time with child, madam.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe it.’
Her eyes rolled to Heaven and she lay back on her bed in amazement.
‘It’s true enough. No period of change or cankerous growth could account for the fullness of your breasts nor the sickness you have felt. I congratulate you. The finest way to enter middle life, Mrs Weston, is to have a babe to tide you over.’
He stood up smiling to himself and wiping his hands on a towel.
‘Now all we have to do is take care that you carry the child to completion.’
Elizabeth laughed and wept.
‘It would be a wonderful thing for the Lord of the Manor to have a son,’ the doctor went on. ‘A real heir for Sutton Place.’
Elizabeth was glad that Melior Mary was nowhere at hand to overhear. Yet the girl appeared to receive the news well. And, after the evening meal was over, Elizabeth found herself escorted to her saloon as gently as if she were made of glass.
‘This will never last, tomorrow it will be “Mother, I cannot find my bonnet”, or “Where did you hide my paints?” ’
But the girls simply smiled at her and left her to read a book while they went off to their adjoining rooms to be private. However, as soon as the door was closed, Melior Mary’s face changed.
‘Sibella, will he want me to leave Sutton Place when he inherits? Will I be without a home? Will he love me?’
Her adopted sister did not answer because a cold feeling was beginning to creep over her — something was not right, something wicked stirred somewhere.
‘Sibella?’
‘Don’t speak of it, Melior Mary. He is as yet unborn. Leave him in peace I beg you.’
And in the master’s saloon John sat before the fire with Matthew Banister and said, ‘I feel like a man made young again. It is a wonderful thing after all this time.’ And then because he was in his cups, he said, ‘Matthew, I hope Elizabeth and I have done well by you. It was not easy to know what action to take in the circumstances. But there is no reason why you should not sleep in the house, you know. When I put you in charge of the horses I did not mean you to live in the stable quarters.’
John’s speech was beginning to slur very slightly and he sunk deeper into his chair, his booted feet stretched out to the blaze, his hands — holding his ruby-red glass — resting on his lap. He was always to remember that moment as one when he experienced pure contentment — something unknown to him before.
‘My clerk will want to retire soon and shall have a grace-and-favour on the estate. Would you take the job, Hyacinth? That’s what she calls you, doesn’t she? That funny wilful girl of mine.’
In the gloaming Matthew moved very slightly, and a log shifted in the hearth sending up a million sparking lights. The blue eyes stared intently as they focused John’s face into sharp outline.
‘The answer is yes, sir, to both counts. To work close to you and to speak of our true King, perhaps even to undertake missions for him, would be as good a post as I could ever wish for. And she does call me Hyacinth. I had picked flowers that day and put them in my hat. I don’t know why...’
His voice trailed off dreamily and John looked up sharply at him.
‘You’re fond of her, aren’t you?’
‘Yes — and of Sibella.’
Because John was the sort of man he was he did not question this, nor did he let his mind wander down any tortuous paths but unbidden, part of an ancient song came to him. ‘Three, three, the rivals; one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.’
He cleared his throat, shifting in his chair, and Hyacinth changing the subject asked, ‘Will our King come back to us?’
‘Who knows. He was badly routed two years ago. Yet I believe he is constantly planning a return.’ As if he couldn’t help himself John added, ‘They say there is a curse on the House of Stuart. Did you know that?’ He drank a glass of port down in one. ‘There is also supposedly a curse on the House of Weston.’
‘I thought it was on Sutton Place itself.’
‘How did you find out?’
The blue eyes looked suddenly vague and short-sighted and it crossed John’s mind, not for the first time, that Matthew had a fine habit of blurred vision when he did not want to see too much.
‘Well?’
‘Tavern gossip — the sort that a head stable lad would overhe
ar.’
He smiled disarmingly and John went ‘humph’.
‘You’ve very pretty manners when you want, I believe you could be a rogue, sir.’
‘I think we all could.’
John gave a sudden laugh.
‘Well, keep your tricks for the kitchen maids and away from my daughters, do you hear? They may have a brother to protect them one day soon.’
*
That December saw an early frost and every morning the earth was hard and white and the branches of the trees sparkling with rime. Melior Mary and Sibella wore cloaks over their riding habits and Matthew, whose job it was to accompany them daily on such excursions, crammed a hat made of rabbit fur down upon his eyebrows. Behind them, at a distance, rode Tom — he who had been saved from the streets by Alexander Pope — carrying a shotgun, for the haunts of the gentlemen of the road were not solely confined to the public highways. In the great stretch of the ice-beleaguered forest the iron hooves of the horses sparkled in the whiteness, and the three riders bent low in their saddles to avoid the scratching fingers of winter’s branches.
And, on just such a morning, with the first fine fall of snow crisping her cheeks, Melior Mary — whose fancy it was to ride slightly ahead on the great black horse she called Fiddle — set off in the direction of the old ruined manor house, built by the Bassett family in the Middle Ages. Her cloak was the colour of cloves, the fur of her hood had once adorned an arctic fox, and she looked over her shoulder and called, ‘Come on,’ to the two people she had made her family, as she set off to where the early sun glowed like an orange above the stark ruin.
As usual she was at full canter so that she was lost to view by the time Sibella and Hyacinth — followed by the ever-watchful Tom — had arrived at the place where the skeleton of the Bassetts’ house reared above a pile of stones that had once been the hunting lodge of a saint.
It was unearthly quiet. Not a mouse moved in the frozen grasses, the trees were bereft of birds. But the stillness was fraught — uneasy with a sense of watching and listening. Beneath his cambric shirt Hyacinth felt his spine tense, and, glancing sideways at Sibella, he saw that she too felt something, for she moved uneasily in her saddle, her long skirt trailing down to the frost-hard earth as she did so.
