The Shrouded Walls

by Susan Howatch

  Ned slunk in a moment later. I thought Axel was going to censure him but he took no notice and after Ned had muttered a word of apology nothing further was said to him. I noticed, not for the first time, how his mother always ignored him entirely. During the meal she conversed with Vere and managed to draw Axel into the conversation while also taking pains to address a remark to me now and again. I was careful to smile and reply sweetly, suppressing any trace of the dislike I felt for her, but by the end of the meal I was wondering if there really was any chance of her taking a house in Rye. Perhaps now that she was at last free and her year of mourning was nearly over, she would find herself a suitable husband and remarry.

  I watched her, remembering what Ned had told me, remembering that she had been estranged from her husband for the twenty years before his death even though they had continued to live under the same roof. She must have hated him. What a relief it must have been for her, I thought, to have found herself a widow...

  Alice came back just as we were finishing dinner, and said she would eat in the nursery with Stephen and the other children. Presently, Esther, Mary and I withdrew to the drawing room and within ten minutes I excused myself from them on the pretense that I wanted to rest for an hour or so. Once I was safely in my apartments I changed from the gown I had worn for dinner, donned my thick traveling habit once more and tip-toed out of the house by the back stairs.

  No one saw me.

  Outside the fog was thickening and I was soon out of sight of the house. It was unnaturally quiet, the fog muffling all sound, and soon the stillness, the gathering gloom and the eerie loneliness of the Marsh road began to prey upon my imagination. I continually thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I stopped to listen there was nothing, just the thick heavy silence, and I came to the conclusion that the noise of my footsteps must in some strange way be re-echoing against the wall of mist to create an illusion of sound.

  I was never more relieved when after several minutes of very brisk walking I saw the first cottages on the outskirts of the village and then the tower of Haraldsford church looming mysteriously out of the mist like some ghostly castle in a fairytale. I hurried past it. The village street was empty and deserted, chinks of light showing through the shuttered windows of the cottages, a lamp burning by the doorway of the “Black Ram.” Everyone seemed to be indoors to escape the weather. Two minutes later I was by the door of Dame Joan’s cottage on the other side of the village and tapping nervously on the ancient weatherbeaten wood.

  There was no answer. I tapped again, the unreasoning panic rising within me, and then suddenly the door was opening and she was before me, broad and massive-boned, her curious eyes interested but not in the least astonished; behind her I could see a black cat washing his paws before a smoldering peat fire.

  “Come in, Mrs. George.” She sounded strangely businesslike, as if there was nothing strange about the mistress of Haraldsdyke paying a social call on her at four o’clock on a dark November afternoon. It occurred to me in a moment of macabre fantasy that she seemed almost to have been expecting me, and then I put the thought aside as ridiculous.

  “Thank you,” I said, crossing the threshold. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “No indeed.” She drew a wooden chair close to the fire for me and pushed the cat out of the way. I half-expected the cat to hiss and spit at this casual dismissal from the fireside but far from being incensed it rubbed itself against her skirts and purred lovingly. When she sat down opposite me a moment later it jumped up into her lap and she began to stroke it with her broad flat fingers.

  “Some herb tea, Mrs. George? Warm you after your walk.”

  “No—no, thank you very much.”

  She smiled. I suddenly noticed that the pupils of her strange eyes were no more than black dots. They were very odd eyes indeed.

  I felt unnerved suddenly, overcome by a gust of fright, and wished I had not come. I was just wondering how I could retreat without it seeming as if I were running away when she said: “Alice was here a little while past with my grandson. A beautiful child.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, indeed.”

  “You’ll be having children of your own soon, I’ve no doubt.”

  “I—” Words stuck in my throat.

  She nodded secretly and waited.

  My hands clutched the material of my habit in a hot moist grip. “I was very ill this summer,” I invented, and somehow I had the unpleasant suspicion that she would know I was lying. “My health is still delicate, and the doctors all said I should be careful. I am anxious to avoid pregnancy for a little while yet.”

  She nodded again. The firelight glinted in her eyes and gave them a strange reddish cast. Her lips were curved in a smile still and her teeth seemed sharp and predatory. I was by now quite speechless. For a moment there was a silence broken only by the purring of the cat in her lap. Then: “There’s an herb,” said the witch. “Very helpful, it is, if taken properly. I’ve made many a potion with pennyroyal.”

  “A potion?”

  “I have a jar now ready for Mary Oaks out at Tansedge Farm. Fourteen children in sixteen years and couldn’t take no more. I’ve been making the potion for her for three years now.”

  “And she hasn’t—during that time—”

  “Not even the ghost of a child, Mrs. George. For three years.”

  “I—see...”

  “Let me give you the jar I have ready for Mary Oaks and then I can make another potion for her tomorrow.”

  “If—if that’s possible ... I—have a sovereign here...”

  “Lord love you, Mrs. George, what would I be doing with gold sovereigns? Alice sees I don’t want for anything, and besides I never go to Rye to spend coin. Bring me a gift some time, if you like, but no sovereigns.”

  So in the end it was all extraordinarily easy. After she had given me the potion I forced myself to stay a few minutes longer for politeness’ sake, and then I escaped as courteously as possible. As I stepped outside the relief seemed to strike me with an almost physical intensity. My legs were shaking and the palms of my hands were still moist with sweat.

  The guilt began to assail me as soon as I walked away from the cottage through the village to the church. I began to feel ashamed of myself, horror-stricken at what I had done. I had reduced myself to the level of a loose woman, sought medication which was undoubtedly sinful and wicked in the eyes of the church. If Axel were ever to find out...

  When I reached the church I was trembling in a wave of nervous reaction and remorse. I eased open the heavy oak door and slipped into the dark nave, my eyes blurred with tears, and stumbled to the Brandson pew where I retrieved my muff and sat down for a moment to think. I prayed for forgiveness for my wickedness and in a wave of emotional fervor which was entirely foreign to my usual passive acceptance of religion, I begged God to understand why I had acted so shamefully and promised to have children later in life when I was not so frightened or uncertain of myself and my husband.

  At last, my guilt assuaged to a degree where I could dry my eyes and pull myself together, I stood up, walked briskly down the nave and wrenched open the heavy door with a quick tug of the wrist.

  The shock I received then was like a dagger thrust beneath my ribs.

  For there, waiting for me in the shelter of the porch, was none other than my husband, Axel Brandson.

  My muff concealed the jar containing Dame Joan’s potion but I could feel the hot color rushing to my face to proclaim my guilty conscience. I gave a loud exclamation and then hastily exaggerated my reaction of surprise to conceal any trace of guilt.

  “How you startled me!” I gasped, leaning faintly against the doorpost. “Did you follow me here?”

  His face was very still; he was watching me closely. “I saw you go into the church. I had come from the house to look for you.”

  “Oh ... But how did you know I’d left the house?”

  “Esther said you’d gone to your room, but when I went to look
for you I only found your maid looking mystified since you appeared to have changed into your outdoor habit again.”

  “My muff was missing,” I said. “I realized I must have left it in church this morning.”

  “Why didn’t you send one of the servants to collect it? To venture beyond the walls of Haraldsdyke on an afternoon such as this was very foolish, not merely from the point of view of exposing yourself to such a chill, unhealthy mist, but also on account of the risk of meeting a stray peddler on the road.”

  “I—didn’t think of it.”

  “I was extremely worried.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said subdued. “I’m very sorry, Axel.”

  “Well, we’ll say no more about it but I trust you’ll be more sensible in future.”

  He made me feel like a child of six. However, so relieved was I that he had not seen me leave Dame Joan’s cottage that I was quite prepared to tolerate any reproof without complaint. Accordingly I stood before him meekly with downcast eyes and said that yes, I would be more sensible in the future, and presently we left the church and set off back through the heavy mist to Haraldsdyke.

  He scarcely spoke half a dozen words to me on the way home, and I knew he was still angry. I also had an unpleasant intuition that he was suspicious, although he gave no indication that he had disbelieved my story. We walked along the road as quickly as I could manage, and even while we walked the darkness was blurring the mist before us and making the gloom twice as obscure. By the time we reached the walls of Haraldsdyke it was scarcely possible to see anything which was not within a few feet of our eyes. The front door was unlocked. Axel opened it and we stepped into the hall.

  The house was curiously still. I was just about to remark on the unnatural silence which prevailed everywhere when there was the slam of a door from upstairs and the next moment Vere appeared on the landing and came swiftly down the stairs towards us. He was wearing his riding habit and his face was a shade more pale than usual.

  “Mary has just been taken ill,” he said “I’m riding to Winchelsea for Dr. Salter.”

  Alice was very distressed. “I left the nursery where I had had dinner with the children,” she said to me, “and went to the drawing room. You’d just left to go to your room. Mary was huddled around the fireplace and it was damp in the room despite the fire so I suggested we had some tea to warm us all. I went down to the kitchens to give the order myself—I always like to spare the servants as much as possible on Sundays. Presently George and Vere came up from the dining room where they had been sitting with their port, and Vere had the tray of tea with him—he’d met the maid in the hall and said he would take the tray up for her. George lingered for a while, handing around the tea as I poured it out, but after a few minutes he said he was going to look for you; however, everyone else, except Ned who had disappeared somewhere as usual, stayed and drank tea for a while.”

  We were outside the door of Mary’s room in the dark passage, I still wearing my traveling habit, Alice carrying a flickering candle, her hand on the latch of the door. Axel had gone out to the stables with Vere in an effort to dissuade him from attempting the ride to Winchelsea in the thick mist. “And when did Mary become ill?” I said uneasily.

  “Perhaps half an hour later. The maid had collected the tea-tray and taken it downstairs, and as the maid went out Mary suddenly said she felt very sick and was going to vomit.”

  “And—”

  “And she did, poor girl. All over the new rug. Esther—Vere’s mother—was most upset. About the rug, I mean. Then she saw Mary was really ill and became alarmed. We got Mary to bed and she was still ill and complaining of pains so Vere said he would ride at once to Winchelsea for Dr. Salter.”

  “The mist is very thick,” I said uncertainly. “And now that night has come it’s almost impossible to see anything.”

  “I know—I wish he wouldn’t go, but I suppose he must. The poor girl’s so ill.”

  “Do you think it’s anything infectious?” I had had a morbid dread of illness since a childhood friend had died of cholera.

  “No, she often suffers from her stomach. No doubt she’s eaten something disagreeable to her.”

  I shivered a little. I could remember stories of people dying in twenty-four hours after being struck down with a violent sickness and a pain in the right side.

  “You’re cold,” said Alice, mistaking the cause of my shivering. “You shouldn’t be lingering here. Hurry to your room and change into something warm before you catch a chill.”

  I took her advice and knelt on the hearth of the sitting room for several minutes while I stretched out my hands towards the fire. Some time later when I had changed my clothes and had returned to sit by the fireside, Axel came into the room.

  “Vere insisted on going to Winchelsea,” he said abruptly. “I wish he hadn’t but I suppose it was the right thing to do. He should be all right if he keeps to the road, and the Marsh road at least is hard to wander from since it’s raised above the level of the surrounding land. It’s not as if he intended to cut across the Marsh as Rodric did.”

  There was a shadow in my mind suddenly, a strange shaft of uneasiness. Perhaps it was the recollection of how Rodric had died, or perhaps it was merely the mention of his name. It was as if Rodric was the center of an invisible whirlpool of dissonance, the unseen cause of all the trouble existing beneath the roof of Haraldsdyke. It was as if everything began and ended with Rodric. I thought of him then, as I had so often thought of him during the past week, and suddenly it seemed that his vivid personality had never been more real to me and that I knew every nuance of his turbulent personality, each new facet of his charm.

  “Mary was always so fond of Rodric,” I said aloud, but speaking more to myself.

  “Yes, she idolized him,” said Axel absently. “It’s quite a normal phase for a girl her age to go through, I believe.”

  And then suddenly I saw it all, saw Mary saying “I did see him—I know Rodric was alive after George told us he was dead,” saw everyone listening to her in the doorway, saw Axel’s impatient expression as he dismissed her memories as a past hallucination of no importance. “I swear I saw him,” Mary had said, and no one, not even I, had believed her—no one except perhaps one person who had at once realized Mary was in possession of a dangerous truth...

  I stood up.

  Axel glanced at me in surprise. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing ... I’m a little restless.” I went over to the window. My mouth was quite dry.

  Presently I said: “I wonder how Mary is.” My voice sounded as if my throat were parched.

  “Perhaps we should go and find out.” He was already moving to the door as if glad of the chance to accomplish something positive.

  I followed him, my heart bumping against my ribs.

  Esther came out of Mary’s room just as we were approaching it. She looked strangely uncomposed and worried.

  “George,” she said, ignoring me, “I think I’m going to give her some of my laudanum—Doctor Salter gave me a little, you know, to help me sleep after Robert’s death. Do you think that’s wise? Normally I would be reluctant to give laudanum to a child, but she’s in pain and Alice suggested we should use it to relieve the suffering...”

  “Let me see the laudanum.” He went with her into the bedroom and to my great relief turned to me on the threshold and said: “You’d better go back to our rooms, my dear. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do.”

  I went mutely back to our sitting room, but found myself unable to sit down for any length of time. I kept thinking of everyone drinking tea in the drawing room. Everyone had been there except Ned. Vere had brought the tray of tea upstairs. And Axel had handed around the cups...

  I began to pace restlessly about the room. I was being absurd, hysterical, over-imaginative. Mary had a weak digestion. Something had disagreed with her.

  Alice made toadstool poison for the mice in the cellar. Perhaps it was kept in jars in the
pantry. Perhaps anyone could go there and remove as much as was required. Perhaps...

  I went out into the corridor but the house was quiet and still, silent as a tomb, so I went back into the room again.

  If only my nerves were not already so over wrought, then perhaps melodramatic thoughts would be easier to avoid. As it was, my mind refused to be reasonable, even though I tried to tell myself that Vere would eventually arrive with the doctor, that the doctor would prescribe something to soothe the digestion, that tomorrow Mary would be weak but at least partially recovered.

  The evening dragged on.

  At length, unable to bear the suspense, I went to Mary’s room but there was no news, except that she was still very ill. Esther was sitting with her. I did not venture into the room itself. When I knocked on the door Alice came out of the room into the passage to talk to me again in a low voice.

  “George went downstairs to wait for Vere,” she said. “Pray God the doctor arrives soon.”

  But it was another hour before the doctor arrived, and even when he finally came he was too late.

  Mary died at one o’clock the following morning.

  Six

  For several hours I was too appalled to do anything. As if in a daze I heard the doctor cautiously diagnose the sickness of which I had heard before, the illness manifested by vomiting and a pain in the right side. I heard Esther talking of notifying Mary’s distant relatives, of making arrangements for the funeral. I heard Axel arranging for the doctor to stay the night so that he did not have to travel back to Winchelsea until the fog had cleared. I heard the clocks chime and doors close and footsteps come and go, and all I could think was that the nightmare was closing in on all sides of me, that Mary had died after she had revealed to everyone, not merely to Axel, how she had seen Rodric alive after his presumed death in the Marsh last Christmas Eve.