Peculiar Ground

by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

  ‘And your cousin, Miss Cecily? Is she returned?’

  ‘Returned? Has Cecily been away?’

  ‘I had thought she left Wychwood about the time I was last here.’

  ‘Oh yes, I had forgot. And came back again. You will see her.’

  He looked at me curiously, but he forbore to mock. My mind reeled.

  ‘We will have a celebration for the first eruption of the fountain. We have much to do, Mr Norris. I wish it to be a show of quite shocking prodigality.’

  It is a pleasure to work for Lord Woldingham. He has his freaks and he is not methodical, but his enthusiasm is a polished spur to those of us whom he charges to make his fancies real.

  *

  After dark the only sound to be heard along the road that ran through Wood Barton was the scuffling the dogs made as they nosed through dried leaves looking for scraps. Their search was disappointing. The villagers seldom had food to waste and, nowadays, what they could spare they kept to add to the pails full of edible stuff set out at dawn, beyond the bounds of the village, for the migrants. Meg Leafield came from the direction of the lodge, her gait made clumsy by the stiffness of her knees.

  She paused by the sign of the Plough, and then slipped along an alleyway and rapped on a shutter. A voice called softly. She murmured something. A door opened.

  She went into a room that smelt coldly of the earth of which its floor was made. The old man whom Norris had seen abandoned was lying on a straw bolster in a corner. There were sufficient covers to warm him, but he had cast them aside.

  A woman who had been lying beside him on the floor struggled to her feet.

  ‘Can you save him?’

  Meg knelt and ran her hands swiftly under the man’s arms, and along his scrawny flanks.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Come outside.’

  Outside the door the two women sat in silence, their backs against the wall of the house. Meg brought out a pipe and filled it with tobacco. They passed it back and forth, the whiteness of the clay visible when their brown fingers were not, so that it appeared to float between them. From within there came a gurgling sound, as of a drain unblocked. Meg laid aside the pipe and took the other woman’s hand. They muttered words in unison.

  Later they dragged a large bundle out of the house and down the village street, the dogs circling and sniffing, and went off with it into the woods. Three hours later they came out onto the road again, near to where the track led off towards Wychwood.

  Meg said, ‘Take what you need and go now. You can be dry and comfortable in the quarrymen’s hut. Their work is done. No one will disturb you. I come each night after sundown to where the wall curves around our burial place. I will bring food. If in a month you are still sound it will be safe to come home. I will see that your little ones are cared for.’

  The other woman was shaking. ‘He was a gentle old man, bewildered by age,’ she said, and her voice cracked.

  ‘Let us pray he has not caused your death.’

  ‘Or yours.’

  ‘I don’t know how it is,’ said Meg, ‘but these things do not touch me.’

  *

  Today I attended on Lady Woldingham, at her request.

  ‘We are under siege,’ she said, ‘and our besieger is invisible and invulnerable.’ I bowed.

  She said, ‘Everyone has a story to tell of a hearty fellow with no marks upon him, who sickened of a sudden, and died within hours.’

  I wondered, was she thinking of me. She sat with a table in front of her, a prayer book open upon it. The chair she had indicated I should sit upon was pulled well back. I thought, Fear is corroding her spirit. Her two remaining children had not been seen out of doors for a week.

  She sighed.

  ‘My husband will have told you his plans for the fountain?’

  ‘He has.’

  ‘I have asked my physician to search each of the guests’ bodies before I can think it safe for them to enter the house.’

  My surprise must have been evident.

  ‘Lord This, Lord That. They will all think great gentlemen like themselves should be exempt from such treatment. But when they find a bubo in groin or armpit their standing at court will help them not a jot.’

  ‘Very true, my Lady.’

  ‘And very banal, I know. I have become a bore.’

  How was I supposed to answer her? I said, ‘The plague is not an amusing topic.’

  She and my Lord are both of less than average height, but she is by far the smaller. In the great room, with its ceiling crowded with winged amori and Apollo’s rearing horses dragging the chariot of the sun across pink and golden clouds, she looked minute. Her face is pinched and lustreless, her dark eyes large, not as more showy beauties’ are, but as those of a starved child. I have heard gossips wonder how a human peacock like my Lord can consort with such a pale wisp of a wife.

  To me there is no mystery. I do not mean that she brought him a great fortune, and that her father is a man of influence: though both these things are true, and no doubt contribute to my Lord’s happiness in his marriage. But there is more to it. These washed-out women are precisely to some men’s tastes. My Lord is most scrupulously attentive to her. Her dresses are simple, but her jewels are fit for an empress. In her manner, too, she is imperious.

  She said, ‘I have neglected you, Mr Norris. Since Charles died, I have no fondness for waterworks.’

  I said, ‘I understand, though, that on the day of the festivities you will watch the fountain’s first eruption?’

  She shrugged. We were not met to talk about fountains. ‘Mr Norris, I asked you to come to me because I believe that you have been a good friend to our cousin Cecily.’

  I know that I blushed. It is an annoying tendency. I cannot master it.

  ‘I think you are a watchful man, but you are not a proficient spy like Mr Rose. He has been observing my Lord’s movements on behalf of the usurpers since he was barely more than a child.’

  I had not known this, but it came as no surprise to me that Rose had covert purposes beyond those of house-improver.

  ‘During the time of exile he sent reports back to Cromwell’s minions. We used to laugh at it. We knew there must be one such in our household and we were glad to know who it was. We would commit false indiscretions, and see how he savoured the chance to betray them. I do not know for certain to whom his loyalty is now due, but he still seizes on information as the goldfish seize on their crumbs. His eye is on Cecily too. He does not confide in me, but perhaps he talks to you. I hope that she does not have dangerous friendships. You understand me?’

  Only in part. I was to spy on the spy for her, and on Cecily as well. But to what end?

  ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘It is hard for those who lived here in the time of error to turn their back on those who were once their friends. I have hoped that Cecily might marry my brother. She is alone now that her mother is gone and it would be a good match for her.’

  ‘A surprising one, perhaps.’ I detest bigotry in others, but I admit that I have a dislike, rooted in some part of my mind beyond the reach of reason, for the Church of Rome.

  I asked, ‘Will Cecily, too, be required to submit to the physician’s inspection before being readmitted to your society?’ My tone was neutral, but my meaning was insolent.

  Lady Woldingham lifted her childish face and looked at me straight. ‘Our duty is to our household,’ she said. ‘If in protecting them we must seem discourteous towards others, then so be it. I am not afraid of opinion.’ And then, more measured, ‘I do not intend to lose another child.’

  *

  All afternoon it rained, but at dusk the sky cleared and Edward took his angle and went down to the third lake. A village-woman he recognised without knowing her name came towards him on the path. He called a greeting but she went hastily away into the undergrowth towards the quarry and he let her go.

  He stood on the dam, where his hook would not catch at branches as he cast it out. All around him the d
ark leaves let fall drops of rainwater, and the earth smelt of stinging nettles and of life. He could see the sunken causeway. He cast into its shadow. Pike lurked there and once he had hooked one, a long ugly creature with a protruding lower lip.

  Meg came and sat against the wall on the other side of the lake. He had known that she would. She came every night. She mourned for the communists who were buried within the wall. Edward didn’t care about them. Two years had added two handspans to his stature. He was a man. He was tired of memories. The meeting-house was just a building now. He wanted to go away again, and the plague was preventing him. Sometimes a calamity is also an inconvenience. He was sorry for those dying. He was not unkind, he hoped. But when ill luck penned him, then he must kick against the fence confining him.

  Meg always knew what he was thinking. She walked across the dam to him, midges dancing before her. He saw for the first time how very old she was. The skin of her arms was like bark. She said, ‘You will be needed one more time here, child. Then you can go.’

  *

  That which Mr Armstrong dreamed of has come to pass. Where once a single pair of pheasants strutted near his cottage, there are now many hundreds of the birds. My Lord intends to shoot them for his pleasure, as he believes the old emperors of China used to do. They are poor aeronauts. They scuttle on the ground. In order to persuade them to take wing, to make of themselves graceful targets for sportsmen, a little army of workmen must be recruited, to chase them into the air with banging of sticks and screeching of whistles.

  Mr Armstrong and I have a good understanding. When I was first planning the park I consulted with him frequently. I thought this hunting of ungainly birds a silly fashion. Strange how the wealthy make an entertainment of something that the poor must do in order to live. They have servants to bring them any fowl they wish to eat, but it amuses them to act like those who must go out to catch food for their families. Nonetheless I am always ready to learn a new science. Tutored by Armstrong, I found that the lore of game-shooting afforded me a principle whereby to organise the spaces within my plan. Here a covert, there a valley where men might stand in line while birds flew high above them. Here a row of nutbushes behind which the sportsmen could conceal themselves, there a wide expanse of uninterrupted grass where beaters could pass noisily, putting lurking pheasants to flight.

  Why do I write about things that scarcely interest me. Birds and guns. Toys for men who regret the bloody business of killing in earnest. I do so to steady myself.

  I walked past Armstrong’s breeding grounds today, so much is true, and I thought a little about the differences between humankind and the lesser species. Why do we so prize a woman’s appearance, when for most of the natural world it is only the male who must flaunt his glossy colours? Is it because we are so wilfully blind to women’s innate worth that our poor sisters must tie themselves up with ribbons and strap themselves into bodices? The peahen is a drab creature, but gets her mate regardless.

  More evasion. Come, let me set down plainly how I passed this afternoon.

  My Lady has devised a system whereby we in the great house communicate with those without the walls. Children take it in turn to wait outside the gate, and for small coin carry verbal messages, or letters. I wrote to Cecily Rivers. I asked her to marry me. I handed my letter through the wrought-iron tracery. I waited three hours, in a kind of stupor, for a reply. It came. It was brief but entirely satisfactory. I have been like one dead these two years. Now I live again.

  *

  All those who worked within the park moved into the halls Lady Woldingham had had made. Those left without the wall shunned the village and took to sleeping in shacks they’d put up in a clearing near the upper lake. Some of them believed the water from the Cider Well was salutary. To sleep near to it was a comfort to them.

  The shacks formed a quadrangle. In the centre was a fire, and by it stood Goodyear, rocking on his heels. He was now master of the forest, and acknowledged guardian of all of Woldingham’s people left out in it. He was halfway through a tale. His eyes were narrowed to slits. His voice was penetrating and suave, quite unlike his everyday bark.

  ‘And the thorns of the hedge were as long as sickles, and as sharp as swords, and when the wind shook them, they made a sound like the gnashing of tremendous teeth. And the child lay sleeping in a chamber at the heart of the castle, a chamber all hung around with tapestries with just one high window. And the light of the moon shone down on the child, who sometimes smiled and sometimes whimpered, but never opened her eyes. And years went past.

  ‘Now one day there came a knight called Sir Perceforest, riding from the south. He came to the thorny hedge and he said to himself, “What can this be?” And the bird that was his companion said, “It is your fate.” The knight rode all around the thorny hedge, and he saw that it was as tall as a castle keep, and its wood was as cold and hard as the iron of his mace, and he said, “No man could pass through this.”

  ‘“You can pass with ease,” said the bird. “For a brave man the hedge is as flimsy as a curtain of rushes.”

  ‘“In time past,” said the knight, “I have boasted of my courage, but for me the hedge is formidable.”

  ‘“You have only to raise your hand,” said the bird, “and it will vanish like the mist.”

  ‘The knight raised his hand, and walked into the hedge. There was a clanging and a clanking and his armour was dented and his face was scratched and blood ran down his cheeks like tears.

  ‘“Try again,” said the bird.

  ‘The knight tried again, and this time the twigs of the hedge were pliable like whips, and they lashed at him.

  ‘“Try again,” said the bird.

  ‘The knight tried again, and the hedge was like ice, and his limbs shook and his gauntlets froze to his hands and his feet became numb so that he staggered and he fell back.

  ‘“Try again,” said the bird.

  ‘The knight tried again, and this time it was as the bird had promised him. The hedge parted around him, and its leaves felt like silken scarves caressing him, and his armour dropped away from him because he had no need of it, and he passed through into the hidden domain.’

  Goodyear’s listeners sighed. From this point on, they knew, the story would flow easily towards its resolution. Children lay curled into their mothers’ sides like puppies.

  ‘Sir Perceforest saw a moat, all choked with bulrushes. He crossed it on a narrow bridge, and the water began to ripple and shine. He pushed a rusty iron gate that was leaning awry, and it stood erect again. He stepped into a garden. It lay before him all veiled in weeds but as he sauntered there the thistles curled up and died, and the nettles wilted and the tangled ropes of old man’s beard dropped away and Sir Perceforest saw a bower on which roses were flowering, and herbs planted like the patterns on a rug, and there was a lawn as green as emerald and, as he watched, flowers sprang up there, primroses and harebells and tiny red pimpernel and star-of-Bethlehem.

  ‘Sir Perceforest stood before the doors of the hidden palace. Those doors were as tall as oak trees, and the planks of which they were made were as broad as a man’s two arms outstretched, and the iron studs upon them were as large as a baby’s head. They hung wide open, as though a guest was expected, and Sir Perceforest stepped right in.’

  Goodyear went on. The sleeping hens, the sleeping dogs, the King and Queen entranced upon their dusty thrones. Some of his listeners were snoring too. This story was a kind of lullaby. Goodyear brought his knight into the chamber where the slumbering princess lay, and in a voice sinking to a whisper he arrived at his climax. The kiss.

  ‘And there was a sound like a great sigh, and another sound like the snapping of a hundred fenceposts, and another sound like the crumpling of all the pages of a gigantic book. And the hedge fell upon its own roots, as a woman fainting sinks into her own skirts. And the light poured into the castle and flocks of birds came into that silent garden and flew about it like sparks flying up from a fire. And Sir Percefore
st saw his guide, the bird, leading the flock, and he watched as it flew higher and higher and all those other birds followed it up and spread across the sky, not shadowing the ground, but filling earth and air with colour and song. And the princess gazed at him with her eyes wide, not speaking yet. And the dogs and goats and hens shook themselves awake and scampered out into the wide world, and the rabbits and deer came to meet them, and they were as old companions. And Sir Perceforest and the princess took each other’s hands, and walked across the garden, their clothes catching on the new-sprung lilies, and they passed over the ruins of the hedge, and they went away. And as I’ve heard tell’ [here Goodyear’s voice slowed and deepened], ‘they were never seen again in that country evermore.’

  *

  The amphitheatre is to see its first performance. I have been fortunate that the people of the estate, who would normally at this season be all engaged in bringing in the harvest, are, many of them, confined to the park. Mr Slatter has recruited vagrants to supply their place so that, beyond the walls, those who, a week since, were shunned as though pestilential vapours rose as steam from their clothes, are now made useful, and becoming familiar in the fields. Meanwhile the rangers and gardeners have all become my assistants. And Mr Rose is lending me his craftsmen, lately idle on the completion of the house’s new staircase, for the contrivance of the stage. It is as yet two weeks until the appointed day.

  This morning, I left the park. I was furtive. I walked in clear view down to the lake. I thought I could feel my Lady’s eyes following me from the long windows of her salon, but when at last I turned, as though carelessly, to glance behind me, I saw her and her husband arm in arm, walking by the canal where the goldfish glide in long curvaceous lines back and forth, back and forth, perhaps looking for an exit while pretending, as I was doing, to move solely for the pleasure of the exercise. I walked along the lake. I paused by the cascade, my notebook in hand.

  The success of our plans here is most gratifying. I have told Mr Rose that I consider the water-gate is as elegant as anything Signor Palladio could have conjured up. The little pavilions housing the machinery are an especially happy touch. The water tumbles precisely as we intended it should, a roaring mass of wild energy transformed into fluid obedient silver. There is a most profound satisfaction to be had from finding actuality conformable to theory. I feel it whenever, in travelling, I arrive at a town or river appearing, pat, just where a map has told me that it should.