‘The airs and graces Clara FitzBolton’s putting on, you’d think she was mistress of New Hall already!’ she said indignantly to Jessica, a couple of days after Robert had left for Devon. The sisters were sitting in the garden, the drowsy scents and sounds of a warm early June day about them. Not far away a young gardener clipped a box hedge, his dark eyes flickering with interested frequency to the seat where the two girls sat. Caroline, in soft lemon sprigged cotton and with a wide, ribboned sunhat shading her face, was showing elaborate unconcern at his presence; but Jessica, noticing the animation with which she spoke, the slight exaggeration of her gestures, the provocative tilt of her head, was not naive enough to suppose that the pretty performance was for her benefit. Caroline now lifted a slender arm to adjust, quite unnecessarily, the ribbons upon her hat. The young man stared, openly entranced, and then, catching Jessica’s caustic eye upon him, hastily turned back to his task.
‘I mean – for instance – why can’t she get married in St Mary’s like everyone else does? Why all this sudden interest in St Agatha’s? She’s just got to be different, hasn’t she? No common or garden village wedding for Madam FitzBolton—’
‘The church does belong to them. She has every right to get married there, I suppose.’ The conversation was of no interest at all to Jessica. She had collected Bran from the stables, where he lived, and he leaned now beside her. Absently she rubbed his head, watching as a sweeping skein of water birds flew overhead, gliding in a graceful ribbon of flight towards the still, summer waters of the lake.
‘She just wants to show off, that’s all. I think it’s a shame – putting poor old Sir Thomas to all that trouble – I mean, it would be different if they had two pennies to rub together—’ The young gardener had not glanced their way for several moments, and appeared now to be absorbed in his task. Caroline stood up, shaking out the folds of her skirt and laughing prettily. ‘Lord, just look! I do believe there’s a grass-stain on my dress! I must get Maisie to clean it for me—’ On pretence of examining what Jessica had no doubt was a nonexistent stain she lifted her skirt a little, displaying as she did so a slim ankle in a white silk stocking.
The young gardener’s eyes, warm and dark, showed every sign of renewed interest. Satisfied, Caroline shook her skirt straight and turned her back on him. ‘Shall we stroll down to the lake? We’ve time before luncheon—’
* * *
With Robert gone Jessica found that time hung heavily on her hands. Somehow, all the things she had planned for the summer – the rides, the exploration of the lake’s islands, the games, lost their savour when undertaken alone. She missed Robert – missed his companionship and his dry humour, his understanding, his occasional confidences – and, oddly and extremely irritatingly, she found that no matter how she tried she could not rid herself of the image of those Dresden-figure sisters. Before he had gone to Devon, and after Caroline’s apparently careless but nevertheless shrewd comments, she had watched him, and had been forced to the conclusion that her sister, for once, was probably right. Robert’s anticipation of this trip had held a suppressed excitement that led her to suspect more than simple pleasure at the thought of visiting a schoolfriend: and she had been surprised to discover how much the thought had pained her.
The weather, however, was fine and all that could be expected of June. Every free minute she could contrive was spent in the fields and woodlands of the park. She sat one day by the lakeside, her fingers rippling the water, trying hard to dismiss from her mind a vision of Robert, in equally idyllic surroundings, paying court to one – or perhaps both! – of the Aloway girls. And no doubt sparing not a thought for her, left here alone. Wallowing pleasantly in self-pity she pictured him, his neat dark head inclined to a diminutive, doll-like being with peaches-and-cream complexion, clean fingernails, spun gold hair and a lovely voice. She scowled at an inoffensive butterfly. That really was going too far – was it fair that the Dresden-creature could sing as well?
She lifted her head in surprise, her train of thought broken. In the distance, clear and infectious, sweet as a bird, someone was whistling, a gay and cheerfully lilting tune she had never heard before. She stood, a warning finger on Bran’s muzzle, and turned her head, listening. The whistling stopped, and a man’s voice took up the melody, light and true, both the rhythm and the language of the song foreign to Jessica. Intrigued, the dog a shadow at her heels, she slipped through the trees towards the path. As she stepped on to it she was just in time to see the back of a man as he disappeared where the path curved into the trees. He was swinging along briskly to the time of his own singing. Her curiosity thoroughly aroused, she followed. By the time she reached the turn in the path he had gone, but she could hear him still ahead, alternately singing and whistling, his footsteps light in the woodland litter of the path. The glimpse she had caught of him had shown a young man dressed simply in shirt and breeches, tall and broad-shouldered, though slim, his bare head black as a gypsy’s. On his back he had carried a small sack. Pleased with this diversion she followed, Bran romping beside her. She would discover what right this assured young man had to walk through her father’s woodlands as if he owned them. Only when they reached the river-path and she heard the creaking of the lych-gate did a disappointingly obvious explanation for a stranger’s presence occur to her; surely, this must be the craftsman, or one of them, hired by Sir Robert to ready the church for Clara’s wedding? She slipped around the side of the church, and, having enjoined Bran in a fierce whisper and not with over-much confidence to sit and stay, climbed the ramshackle wall and scrambled through the overgrown churchyard. It was a game now, and an exciting one, to get close to him without his seeing her. He had gone into the church, no longer whistling, but humming still beneath his breath. Like a small shadow she followed, on quiet feet, sharp eyes probing the gloom.
The stranger had moved to the altar and stood with his back to her, his head flung back as he surveyed intently the faded wall paintings. She flattened herself against a pillar, peeped round it. He swung the bag he carried to the floor, then straightened, turning, and as he did so the light from the narrow stained glass window fell directly upon his face. Gleaming dark eyes, polished olive skin, proud bright bones and a long, sweetly chiselled mouth: Jessica had never, in life, seen such a face. The features were clear cut and sharp in the shadowed light. She stared, the bright lines of that still, intent face holding her spellbound. The young man dropped to one knee beside the carved altar rail and ran a long, none-too-clean finger over the wood. Then, still kneeling, he lifted his head to look up at the ancient, decaying statue of St Agnes that stood above the altar. Jessica swallowed, awkwardly. Something extremely disturbing appeared to be happening to her usually reliable insides. Her heart was racing as if she had run a long way and her stomach churned, oddly and uncomfortably. Forgetting secrecy she moved, and the rustle of it echoed in the stillness. The young man turned, surprised, coming to his feet in one fleet, graceful movement.
Without thought and for no good reason, Jessica took to her heels. Like a small, startled animal she fled, across the churchyard, over the wall and into the woods. Bran, seeing her coming, leapt to her side, tongue lolling, his great bony frame all but knocking her from her feet. The young man did not call after her, neither did he follow. She ran to the lake’s edge, close to the weir where Edward had lost his life. The stranger in the church must, she estimated, be about Edward’s age, and something of his build, too – tall and limber and long of leg. But there any resemblance ended, for the stranger was night-dark, and Edward had been fair as the day, and if Edward had been handsome then to Jessica’s dazzled eyes the young man in the church was something beyond that. In the library of Old Hall were books – books that had been collected by past generations of FitzBoltons at a time when such things were rare and precious – and often she and Robert had spent long afternoons poring over the treasures that those shelves contained. Her own favourite, to which she returned again and again, was an ancient, fancifully
hand-illustrated book of stories of the Crusades. And of all the illustrations the one that had always most fired her imagination was the last, a picture of Jerusalem, restored to Christendom and guarded by a fierce and fiery being, a dark-faced warrior angel, arrogantly beautiful. And now, today, in tiny St Agatha’s she had seen that face imbued with life; the young man in the church might have been the very model for that figure. A dark angel, fierce and sweet.
Thought of the stranger was never for the rest of the day far from her mind, and too the odd excitement he had aroused in her tingled strangely on the edge of her consciousness. He was her secret, the dark angel of Jerusalem come to St Agatha’s.
The next day, as soon as she could escape, firmly suppressing her feelings of guilt at leaving the immoderately excitable Bran behind she slipped down to the church, and on finding it empty experienced a disappointment out of all proportion to its cause. Some days having passed since she had visited Robert’s parents, and with the ulterior motive that someone at Old Hall might know the whereabouts and identity of her dark young man, she took the path that led along the riverbank to the old house. A few hundred yards from the church she passed a row of all-but-derelict cottages that had stood empty for as long as she could remember; and there, with a strange, almost panic-stricken lurch of her heart, she saw him. He had drawn a bucket of water from the well in the overgrown front garden and, stripped to the waist, dark hair glossy and dripping, he was washing in it. Behind him the door of one of the cottages stood open. As she shrank back into the shadow of the trees he reached for his shirt, dried his face on it and rubbed his hair briskly before pulling the shirt over his head. Then, whistling again that same lilting tune she had heard yesterday he turned and walked into the house, stuffing his shirt tails carelessly into his breeches as he went. No angel this, in the bright light of day; on the contrary, even to her eyes he looked like nothing so much as a picturesque and rather disreputable young gypsy. From within the cottage she heard his voice lift again in song. Shamelessly curious she slipped through the overgrown garden and peeped in at the tiny window. In the dark little room, singing cheerfully to himself, he was busying himself as might any cottage housewife, arranging the few sticks of furniture to his own satisfaction, lighting the stove. She watched as he put the kettle on the hob and took a loaf of bread and some cheese from a cupboard. In the half-light of the room he moved like a shadow, quick and graceful, once again oddly mysterious, and again she felt that perturbing sensation, an excitement that quickened heart and pulse, as if at the approach of danger. A dauntless and confident rider she nevertheless knew the exhilarating fear of facing a risky jump, and was at an absolute loss to understand why the proximity of this total stranger should have much the same effect. She slipped away from the window and, uncommonly preoccupied, continued on her way to Old Hall.
* * *
Two days later – two days in which Jessica all but haunted both the church and the cottage in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of the intriguing stranger – John came home to New Hall. He had been visiting friends in Kent, and this was the first time he had been home since Easter. Jessica was glad to see him – if nothing else at least his presence ensured that the odd remark might be addressed to her at the luncheon table – John, it seemed to her, being the only one who ever bothered to include her in the general conversation. Approaching now his sixteenth birthday he was smaller and broader-built than either of his brothers, and his pleasant and honest face showed a calm maturity beyond his years. He was a quiet boy, not in the least given to the other Hawthorne children’s impetuous habit of speaking first and thinking later – a restraint he inherited from his mother, while his looks in the main came from his father. He had been destined for the Church more or less since birth, and since, coincidentally, his own inclinations followed his father’s wishes exactly the choice of career had been a happy one and his considerable strength of will, hidden as it was beneath an affable and kindly nature, had so far been used to further the family plans rather than oppose them. It would not have occurred to William Hawthorne to be thankful for this for, quite simply, it would not have occurred to him that any other course was open to the boy. John, quietly, knew differently. He was now already studying for the Ministry, and the plan was that he should follow in Edward’s footsteps to Cambridge University before being ordained. William Hawthorne was determined to have a bishop in the family: needless to say it occurred to no one to consult with John about that. Jessica had always liked him. The nearest to her in age, he had never aroused her resentment as the others so often had by treating her as some kind of half-witted inferior. In fact long before her age or understanding had justified it he had spoken to her as an equal, and if the bond between them was not as close as that she had for years shared with Robert FitzBolton, nevertheless she was fond of him, and he of her. Utterly trustworthy and always ready with a kind word, in him the easy, indolent warmth and charm of Edward had been transmuted to a rare and genuinely unselfish generosity. However not even her newly-returned brother’s account of his weeks in Canterbury could draw her from her absorption with the strange young man at St Agatha’s. Absently she picked at her luncheon, hardly hearing the conversation about her.
‘I trust the Hely-Browns were well?’ Maria Hawthorne, to be honest, often found herself forgetting this quiet, youngest son almost entirely in his absences, and was always mildly surprised upon seeing him again, though she was much too courteous to show it and would have been appalled had she realized that he knew it as well.
‘Very well, Mama, and send their regards.’
Jessica fidgeted. Her morning had been a disaster – French verbs, and a deportment and dancing lesson that, for the last thirty minutes of its duration had seen her standing in a corner in disgrace, a heavy book balanced upon her head. Her neck still ached. After luncheon – providing sneaky Mr Appleday her dancing teacher had not taken it upon himself to apprise MacKenzie, and hence Jessica’s mother, of what he had described as his pupil’s ‘scant o’ grace’ behaviour, an uncharitable trick that she would not for a moment think beyond him – she was free for the whole afternoon, and the sun shone sweetly beyond the tall windows, calling her. John was still speaking.
‘—asked me to do them a small favour, and so of course I agreed. They have some friends in Lavenham, to whom I am to deliver a small package. I thought I might ride out this afternoon.’
William Hawthorne nodded. ‘Good idea. Don’t suppose you’ve had much exercise at the Hely-Browns’, eh? Penned in the middle of Canterbury? They don’t even have a stables, do they?’
John smiled a little, and shook his head. ‘No, Sir. They don’t.’
‘Humph.’ The small, sharp sound indicated clearly William Hawthorne’s opinion of the bookish and theological Hely-Browns.
Maria rose gracefully. ‘Jessica – Caroline—?’
The two girls rose also and obediently followed their mother from the room. Within the folds of her skirt Jessica’s fingers were tightly crossed in superstitious defence against Mr Appleday’s malice. Her fears, however, were groundless. An hour later she was free and, giving poor Bran, confined in the stables, a quick kiss and a promise of atonement she ran towards the lake. It was a warm afternoon, and the sun shone from a clear sky, although a dark band of cloud, at the moment not much more than a smudge on the western horizon, threatened a break in the weather.
Reaching the church she paused first to catch her breath, then slipped into the gloom.
The building was empty.
Disappointed again, and about to turn away, she stopped: the dark young stranger might not be here, but evidence of his presence and of his craft lay neatly upon a small strong table beside the altar. The statue of St Agatha, crumbling with neglect, stood there, and beside it a malet, several chisels and some other implements she did not recognize, and a bowl of what looked like clay. A stone bottle of wine stood open beside the tools. Curious, she crept forward, touched a finger to the razor-sharp edge of one of
the chisels. The wooden handle was smooth and shiny with use and with the patina of age. She picked it up, appreciating even in her inexperience the lovely weight and balance of it.
From very far in the distance came the first muted grumble of thunder: and, closer, the sound of a light step upon the gravelled path.
Quick as thought she darted into the darkest corner of the nave and slipped into a box pew, its door hanging drunkenly on a broken hinge. She crouched on the floor, that was thick with dust and smelled villainously of dirt and decay.
He came from the light into the shadows, blinking. In one hand he carried a sheaf of papers, in the other candles, which he set into holders already gathered on the table and the altar, and lit. By their flickering light, his face absorbed, he studied the drawings he carried, his eyes moving now and again to the statue. Absently he reached a hand to the bottle, tilted his dark head and drank. Bottle still in hand he bent again to the drawings. Jessica watched with held breath. There in the glow of the candles once more was her dark angel, beautiful and for the moment tranquil, his face burnished by the light.
Thunder rumbled again, still distant, barely a breath of threat on the summer air.
The young man set down the bottle, lifted a hand to the statue, ran a long, gentle finger along the crumbling outlines of the saint’s draped garments. Then he picked up a soft brush and began to clean the figure of dust.
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 8
