‘We will begin tomorrow morning with Virgil, Master George. The passage that commences: “facilis descensus Averno”.’ Then he bowed to Sir Augustus and was gone.
‘I almost begin to like the fellow,’ said Sir Augustus. ‘Well, Master George, cut along! Cut along!’
Sir Augustus very rarely left the Abbey and, when he did, Hargreave was always particularly vigilant about George’s movements in the house. George fancied that this had stemmed from his discovery of the plaster statue of the slave. One day, however, Sir Augustus had to go to London. George, who still hankered after his old home, wondered if his uncle might take him with him. He even hinted as much at dinner the night before his uncle’s departure, but the suggestion was ignored. When Sir Augustus left the following morning he took Hargreave with him and offered no reason for his going.
George decided that this was an opportunity to make some discoveries about his uncle. He knew that the library would be locked, but he also knew that a spare key was kept on a hook in Hargeave’s pantry. This was not kept locked. Shortly after his lunch on the day of his uncle’s departure for London, he went into the pantry and removed the key.
Making sure that there was no one in the hall, he opened the door to the library and slipped inside. His first impression was one of discomfort and unease. This was easily explained. Whenever George had been in there before, a fire had always been burning in the grate, regardless of the weather. Sometimes Sir Augustus had actually had his window open while the fire burned. Today there was no fire and the room had a feeling of dampness about it as well as cold, despite the mild weather.
Once he was in the library, George had to decide exactly what he was looking for. He first studied the bookcases. Behind their glass the condition of the books was pristine, as if they had barely been touched. There were gilded calf-bound editions of Voltaire, Diderot, Racine and other French classics, besides Shakespeare and the poets. George delighted in their elegance, but felt no inclination to sample them.
The cupboards below the glass-fronted cases revealed volumes that were more to his taste. There were great folios of engravings lying on their side, heavy to lift out but wonderful to open. In them were pictures, often hand-coloured, of strange places, exotic beasts and birds, flowers and fruit, so vividly yet delicately painted you could almost smell their perfume.
Other, older and untinted volumes revealed even greater excitements. Here was Callot’s Les Miseres et Malheurs de la Guerre, full of exquisitely elegant depictions of battles, rapes, tortures, hangings and burnings at the stake, all done in the name of War. Another volume from two centuries before was entitled: Popish Abominations, or Sundrie Tortures and Murthers of the Inquisition Reveal’d. In it, the ingenuities of those who inflict pain and misery in the name of God were depicted in minutely etched detail. George could see from the roughened edges of the pages that this volume had been pored over.
He was particularly struck by one depiction of a Spanish street scene. A solemn procession of priests and monks is passing by, while, lying in the street, an emaciated woman with a sickly child clinging to one withered breast is stretching out her hand to them in supplication. Not one of the clerics is giving the woman so much as a glance. It was clear that the procession is going to an auto-da-fe because behind the priests you could just see a group of penitents, in their conical hats and sambenitos, roped together and on their way to execution, or worse. George felt a kind of guilty surprise at the fascination he felt.
A sound disturbed him. He looked up to find that the casement window had somehow opened itself and a sharp breeze had entered the room. He went over to the window and closed it. As he did so, George paused to look at the chessboard which as usual adorned one corner of Sir Augustus’s table. A game was in progress, both black and white had about seven or eight pieces left, but white had lost its Queen. George studied the situation intently for several minutes and concluded that black could mate in half a dozen moves. He then went to replace the albums of engravings in their cupboards.
As he was doing this, he noticed a slim folio bound in red leather that he had not looked into. On its spine in gilt lettering were the words ST MAUR. The book contained a dozen hand-painted sheets in watercolour, with a handwritten title page on which, in an elaborate rococo cartouche, was written:
Views of the Abbey of Tankerton and its park
executed in watercolour by Thomas Henry Graine
for Sir Augustus and Lady St Maur,
MDCCCIII
Mr Graine, whoever he may have been, was more than a mere journeyman painter. He had a feeling for the dramatic. His skies were not always serene, and he liked the effects of light and shade that a clouded sky could achieve. Though the views were clearly identifiable, they were not entirely realistic. There was something visionary about them, as if the painter were trying to represent Tankerton as a kind of rural paradise, but a paradise in which a snake lurked, half-hidden.
One of the views was of the Abbey by moonlight with a full moon emerging from behind a cloud laced with silver. Some windows on the ground floor were alight - those of the library. The artist had shown a thin figure standing at one of the casements and looking out: it could only be Sir Augustus. There were views of the Temple of the Sphinx, by the lake, of the Palladian Bridge, the oak tree, and one of the curious Doric temple in the woods where George had encountered Jem Mace.
All the paintings contained at least one figure, human or animal, in them. A black spaniel, Dis perhaps, was snuffling round the oak; a gamekeeper with a cocked fowling piece who could have been Jem Mace was shown patrolling the woods. A Negro, wearing nothing but a pair of white breeches, was seated on the balustrade of the Palladian Bridge and fishing in the waters beneath it. In the painting of the Doric temple, much less thickly surrounded by undergrowth and trees than it now was, a child was shown, its back to the viewer, running away from the scene under a threatening sky. One of the bronze doors to the temple had opened a crack.
The final picture of the series was bathed in sunlight. It showed three figures standing on the crest of a hill looking down into the valley with the Abbey in the distance. Trees and wooded hills curled around it in a serene embrace. It seemed to George somewhat contrived, because he knew of no spot where such a view could be had. The three figures had their backs to the spectator, but the artist had managed to give them each an individual character. To the left was the Negro, shown in the picture of the Palladian Bridge, in his white breeches, carrying in his right hand what looked like a slender length of chain or a dog’s leash. To the right was the black spaniel, Dis, one front leg lifted off the ground as if he had just scented prey.
The most striking figure stood between these two. It was that of a fashionably dressed lady, her tallness and slenderness accentuated by the multicoloured turban topped by an ostrich feather that she wore on her head. George could only vaguely remember when they were fashionable. The lady’s arms and long, slender neck were a pale golden brown, the colour of satinwood. George had no doubt that he was staring at the back of the late Lady Circe St Maur. Down in the park in front of the Abbey the tiny figure of a gentleman leaning on a cane seemed to be staring up at them, returning their gaze.
George examined the scene for a long time. He felt that it was trying to tell him a story. He would have looked longer, only he was beginning to feel cold again. Had the window come open once more?
Just as he was turning around to confirm this, he heard a clatter and saw that one of the chess pieces, the white King, had fallen on its side and was swaying to and fro on the edge of its circular base. Standing close to it, as if over a defeated enemy, was the black Queen. The pieces had moved; black had mated.
George’s heart began to beat wildly; the blood buzzed in his head. With icy fingers he put the albums back into the cupboard and went to the door of the library. Looking out briefly to make sure he was unobserved, he left the library, locked the door behind him and returned the key to the pantry. The rest of the aftern
oon he spent studying Philidor on chess in the schoolroom.
*
VI
Sir Augustus returned one morning two days later. As Mr Vereker was finishing his session with George in the schoolroom, a footman entered to summon them both to the library. George was troubled. He felt guilty, even though he did not regard his explorations as a sin. The two of them could be going to see his uncle for a quite different reason, but George’s fears were confirmed when he saw, on entering the library, that the chess pieces had been arranged as for the beginning of a new game. George began to tremble uncontrollably.
Sir Augustus had his back to George and his tutor and before he turned he said, ‘And what, pray, have you been doing in my library, Nephew?’
George was silent. All his energies were vainly concentrated on preventing himself from shaking.
Sir Augustus turned and scrutinised him minutely. ‘And there is no need to deny it, sir. Mrs Mace saw you take the key from Hargreave’s pantry.’
‘I didn’t touch the chessboard, Uncle,’ was all George could say. Sir Augustus’s pale face flushed red. ‘That’s a damned lie, sir! A damned lie!’ He almost shrieked the last two words. If George felt fear, then so for some reason did Sir Augustus; but it was small consolation. Sir Augustus went to a window seat, opened it, took out a riding crop and threw it at Mr Vereker.
‘Mr Vereker, I hope you know how to use one of these, for if you don’t you are out of gainful employment. Take the boy up to the schoolroom and flog the young devil for being a thief and a liar. And do your business thoroughly or I shall know of it. Go!’
George hoped that Mr Vereker might employ some restraint in the exercise of his task, but he did not. George could not see Mr Vereker’s face as he inflicted the punishment, but he heard him. The little curate seemed to be in a passion of tears and rage; he sobbed as he performed the act, but his strength was terrible. When the business was done, George did not wait. He immediately ran from the schoolroom and even though he vaguely heard Mr Vereker calling him back, he went on running out of the Abbey and into the grounds. Outside a wind was blowing; overhead a few heavy clouds spat at him as he ran.
He found himself going towards the little Doric temple in the woods. He did not quite know why, but as he ran, the certainty that this was the place to go grew on him. While he was being flogged, shame and rage had to some extent masked the pain that was being inflicted; now he was beginning to taste the physical agony in its fullness. Movement alleviated the pain slightly, but he felt a warm trickle of blood course down the back of his leg.
When he finally halted, panting, under the Doric portico, his cheeks were wet with tears, yet he refused to cry out. Looking up again at the inscription MORS IANVA MORTIS it occurred to him that the ‘temple’ in whose shelter he stood was most likely a mausoleum, a place perhaps where the St Maurs were buried, where he might lie some day when death claimed him. At that moment he could have been happy to die. He tried the bronze doors, but they were firmly shut.
Then he heard a whistle in the woods behind him. He whistled back and presently a lively liver-coloured spaniel came bounding up to him, followed presently by Jem Mace. In his overwrought state George made much of the spaniel, who began eagerly licking the salt tears from his face.
‘You made a friend,’ said Jem.
‘What’s he called?’
‘She is called Dido.’
‘After the Queen of Carthage?’
‘Don’t know about that, sir. The Lady Circe gave her to me as a pup a short while afore she died. She it was who named her.’
‘Did you know the Lady Circe well?’
Then Jem gave George the story. He was not a natural tale-teller. He tended to go backwards and forwards and from side to side, like a hound trying to pick up a scent, but George kept him to his subject by hints and gentle questioning.
Shortly after the death of Sir Hercules in 1798, his heir Sir Augustus had sailed to the West Indies to inspect his sugar plantations. There his eye was caught by the natural daughter of his estate manager by one of the slaves: she was a half-caste girl and her name was Circe. She was tall, slender, outstandingly beautiful, with a skin that shone like dark gold, but she had first attracted Sir Augustus’s attention because of her excellence at chess. Every evening she would come to him at the estate mansion and they would play well into the sultry West Indian night. Sir Augustus became infatuated and was determined to bring her back as his bride. She agreed, but insisted on taking her black half-brother Brutus with her to England. Brutus was a slave, but he must be given his liberty when they touched English soil.
So it was, and for the first few years Sir Augustus and the Lady Circe were happy. Brutus stayed at the Abbey, ostensibly as one of the servants, though he was allowed to do pretty much as he pleased, which not unnaturally caused some resentment among the other domestics.
The Lady Circe was a woman of exceptional charm and intelligence as well as beauty, but, in spite of this, she was never fully accepted as an equal by the surrounding gentry. This at first only irritated Sir Augustus who, in any case, wanted no company but hers, but in time he came to resent their ostracism from society and the anger he felt turned him in upon himself.
He began to be suspicious. He resented the way his wife could charm even his dog away from him. He heard his other servants’ complaints against Brutus. In his isolation he came to believe that even his wife was conspiring against him. He started to suspect her of illicit relations with her half-brother, and this was reinforced by the way that she would often wander about the park accompanied only by Brutus and Dis, the black spaniel. Some suspected that Sir Augustus was going mad with jealousy as he brooded in his library; but if it was madness, then it was madness of a very cold and calculating kind.
One day the Lady Circe went missing. For a few days nothing was really done about it because Sir Augustus was up in London and it was believed that his wife had gone up to join him, but on his return Sir Augustus instituted a search. Suspicion fell on Brutus, who had been acting strangely.
Then some time later the Lady Circe was found wandering in the grounds, half-distracted, in a terribly emaciated state. From what could be gathered from her distracted ramblings, she had been captured by an unknown masked assailant and taken to the Doric temple (which was indeed a mausoleum) and there locked in, without food or drink, gagged and shackled to Sir Hercules’ coffin. The chains by which she had been bound were the same that had once been the sign of Brutus’s slavery. He had brought his shackles to England and, after his manumission, had kept them as a grim memorial of his former state.
Every effort was made to restore the Lady Circe to health, but the combination of shock, starvation and dehydration had fatally damaged her system. She lived for only a few days more and then died. Sir Augustus mourned her loss with great pomp and had her coffin placed in the family mausoleum beside Sir Hercules.
Brutus was suspected of being complicit in the Lady Circe’s fate, despite the absence of motive and his strong protestations of innocence. He was taken off to Ipswich Gaol, but before he could be tried he hanged himself in his cell.
Shortly afterwards Jem Mace was dismissed from his post as gamekeeper, ostensibly for the misdemeanour of having sold in Beccles Market some hares shot on the estate without having had permission to do so. The real reason, he claimed, was the fact that he had been a favourite of the Lady Circe’s and had spoken up for Brutus when he fell under suspicion.
George listened carefully to Jem’s story and formed his own conclusion. That evening he dined alone with Sir Augustus. Part of him wanted to stay hidden in his room until the agony and shame of the flogging had subsided, but a combination of defiance and sheer hunger made him take his place at the dining table.
Most of the meal was consumed in silence, which George felt no inclination to break. At last, at the dessert stage, when Sir Augustus was already more than halfway through his decanter of port, he spoke.
‘No doubt you cons
ider yourself very illused, Nephew.’
George was silent; he flattered himself that this was the gentlemanly thing to do.
‘Do not imagine that I have forgiven you for your transgression. This world is not a forgiving place. We must learn its rules and forget any cant about justice. Some are born rich; others are born to be slaves; some are clever, most are fools. Do not blame human beings for that. If there is injustice in the world, then it is the injustice of God, not of man.’
There was a pause, then George said, ‘Will you play chess with me, Uncle Augustus?’
Sir Augustus’s pale face flushed red. A pulse at his temple began to quiver. He took a pull at his port. ‘Damn your impudence, sir,’ he said in a low trembling voice.
‘Very well then, Uncle. Set me another challenge. A puzzle. The last two were too easy.’
This time Sir Augustus did not look at him. He stared at his cut-glass decanter, and the red eye of light in its depths that winked in the candle’s glare.
‘Do you know what you are asking, boy?’
‘What will you do in return if I solve the puzzle?’
‘If you bring me this, then I will play you at chess. Is that enough?’
‘It is enough, Uncle Augustus.’
‘Very well. I have warned you, have I not?’
‘You have, sir.’
‘Good. Then—’ A long silence before ‘—find me the chain that binds beyond the gate of death. And now get out of my sight. Your very presence offends me.’
When he looked out of his bedroom window that evening George saw in the gathering dusk three shadowy figures: the Negro, the dog, and, between them a tall, slender woman with a plumed turban. Three times the feather nodded, but all else was motionless.
The following morning Mr Vereker conducted his lessons without looking at his pupil. George knew that his teacher must be ashamed of having lost control of himself the day before, but he made nothing of it and bided his time. Had not the great Philidor himself written in his manual on chess that Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important skill in this game, as in life, is to know when to forgo an advantage.
A Book of Horrors - [Anthology] Page 31
