“I see,” he said, smiling. “How fortunate I am to have your advice and guidance before exploring on my own. May I add,” he went on in a lower tone, leaning towards me to speak words meant for me alone, “that I could wish that I might always enjoy that benefit.”
I was silent for a moment, waiting—we seemed close to a declaration and a formal proposal of marriage—but he said nothing further. I therefore responded demurely, “I am always pleased to be of service to a neighbor,” and continued, “Another such flooded pit lies quite close to the Screaming Stones. It is not safe to approach on foot or on horseback. Perhaps you could ride ahead and warn the others, before someone tumbles in.”
“Yes indeed,” he said, and urged his horse on to catch up with the others. It obeyed with alacrity, no doubt glad to break out into a trot, instead of the slow amble that Pegeen’s age and infirmities forced upon us.
The stones were now visible, standing up on the brow of a hill in relief against the sky, like the teeth of some monstrous carnivore. Tho’ we have become so enlightened and sophisticated in this modern age, the primitive monument still had the power to halt the whole party in its tracks, allowing me to catch them up.
At this moment a gust of wind blew across the moor and played amongst the monoliths, which were long boulders stood on end pointing skywards, an expression of pre-Christian religious beliefs. A high, piping sound began to be heard, which within moments deepened into a lugubrious wolf’s howl. The horses, independently of their riders’ direction, bunched together in a defensive position, their nostrils flaring, testing the wind for danger. Even my stepsisters fell silent.
“Egad,” said the Marquis, impressed. “D’you suppose the fellows that set these stones in place knew what a racket they would make?”
“I often think that they wanted to give the wind a voice,” said Mama softly.
“Well, dear lady, it appears that the wind has some beastly unpleasant things to say,” said the Marquis, laughing uneasily.
“It fair makes my skin crawl,” agreed Lord Boring. “What a singularly desolate place this is.”
As if in agreement, the pitch of the stones’ complaint rose into a scream. I was beginning to regret my suggestion that we make this destination our object. Certainly it was hardly the right atmosphere for romantic dalliance.
Prudence, evidently thinking it incumbent upon her to depress the spirits of the party still further, remarked, “I am always reminded by these awe-inspiring stones of the dreadful hand of Death”—Prudence could be reminded of the dreadful hand of Death by such varied events as a tradesman’s call, a broken fingernail, or a skylark singing out on the moor—“and of Horace’s lines: ‘Years, following years, steal something every day; / At last they steal us from ourselves away.’”
“Thank you, Prudence,” I said.
Mr. Fredericks, alone of the gentlemen, had said nothing, and I looked at him to observe his reaction. His eyes, I noted with foreboding, were alight with speculation and interest.
“I don’t know—it’s jolly interesting. I wonder how they raised those monstrous big stones up without a block and tackle,” he said. “And what keeps them up? If only one had brought a shovel . . .” and he urged his horse into a canter towards the circle of stones.
I gave Pegeen a good hard nudge and went after him with as much speed as she could muster.
“Mr. Fredericks!” I cried, when I was again in earshot, “Those stones have stood on this hill for several millennia, and the people hereabouts have strong feelings about them. I do not want to have to explain my carelessness in exposing them to your curiosity without exacting the strictest promise that you shall not be allowed to molest them or touch them in any way.”
“I? I promise not to molest them? I assure you, madam—”
“The only assurance I require, Mr. Fredericks, is that you will not lay a hand anywhere on even one of these stones,” I said in a steely tone. “Mr. Fredericks!” He was dismounting, gripping Alexander with one hand and the pommel of his saddle with the other. I gasped in alarm, but they were safely down. Jock trotted hastily up on his pony and took charge of the bay.
“Oh, very well, I shan’t,” Mr. Fredericks said sulkily. “I would just like to have tried . . .”
“Remember! You have given your word,” I said. Clutching Fido, I managed to dismount.
Mr. Fredericks heaved a loud sigh, held up his hands for my inspection, and then thrust them into his pockets.
“Ha! Fredericks, you have met your mistress!” said the Marquis as he climbed down and joined us.
“You’re right,” Lord Boring agreed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever known a lady who could make Fredericks mind his manners before. Or a gentleman either, save you and I, Bumbershook, on occasion. I am astounded.”
Mr. Fredericks paid no attention to this chaffing. He was still fascinated by the engineering feat presented by the stones, which were nearly seven feet in height. Keeping his hands in his pockets he circled one stone. He stopped, poked at the base with the toe of his boot, then slid his gaze over to judge the expression on my face.
“Mr. Fredericks,” I said. “I believe you agreed not to touch them in any way?”
He heaved another sigh. Alexander, who was growing bored with the stone circle, tugged at his arm. “Come on, Freddicks,” he said, and Mr. Fredericks allowed himself to be escorted away from the megaliths. I thankfully discarded the hateful hat and followed them.
9
WHILE JOCK BUSIED HIMSELF setting out the picnic nuncheon, we took a stroll around the area. The party broke up into groupings that I had not anticipated. Alexander was unwilling to relinquish the company of his friend Mr. Fredericks, and, as it seemed to me only proper that the gentleman who was responsible for Alexander’s presence should also be responsible for entertaining him, I was content with this pairing.
Prudence, who still cherished ambitions with regard to Mr. Fredericks, requested that he lend her an arm to guide her over the rough ground and, after one blank look, he complied gracefully enough. I must own that I admired her courage. I hoped she would neither find herself steered into a bog hole nor break an ankle falling into a badger’s sett.
The Marquis offered his arm to my mother, and I soon had the happiness of seeing them laughing and talking together quite like old friends. I looked around for Lord Boring, only to discover that Charity had swooped in and carried him off. They were already some distance away, His Lordship looking back over his shoulder and Charity tugging him along, setting quite a smart pace in her urgency to remove him from my vicinity.
In short, I was left alone and desolate. As the group included only three grown-up gentlemen and four ladies, it was inevitable that two ladies would have to share, but I had not anticipated having to make do with no gentleman at all. Rather chagrinned at this development after all my fine plans for the day, I decided to walk behind Mr. Fredericks and Prudence, the better to keep an eye on my brother. Though I knew that my mother would be watching as well, she was distracted by the attentions of the Marquis, and I reasoned that if I could not advance my own cause at present, I could at least allow her to enjoy a conversation with an intelligent, educated adult in peace.
Alexander had been most strongly warned against removing his shoes, dirtying his stockings, wandering off alone, climbing any of the few trees that dotted the landscape, and, with a good deal of emphasis, going anywhere near the flooded mine shaft. So far as the caution against the old tin mine went, I had warned him, Mama had warned him, and Lord Boring had warned him, all within Mr. Fredericks’s hearing. This being the case, I was not surprised to find that Mr. Fredericks and Alexander were making straight for it, ignoring Prudence’s pleas to pause for a moment to admire a large gorse bush in full flower.
I had expected this and forbore to comment, but waited while the two gentlemen, large and small, walked at a safe distance around the mine shaft thrice. Satisfied, they obediently returned to look at the gorse bush.
If
you have ever been on the English moors in early June you will be aware that a gorse plant in bloom, while a reasonably attractive object, is hardly a rarity. The moor does not offer a great deal of variety of flowering plants. Heather has a purple blossom; gorse has a yellow. When in bloom, nearly every vista that is not a vast sweep of purple is therefore a vast sweep of yellow, or an admixture of both.
The gorse bush is the taller of the two, and covered with a great many sharp green spikes. If you keep in mind that most of the flowers are, at any given moment, being visited by a variety of stinging insects in search of pollen, it will be clear to you that a gorse bush is an object to be treated with respect. It would not, for instance, be wise to begin reciting the gloomier poetry of Robert Herrick (“And this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying”) next to one, at least not if you insist on swinging your parasol rhythmically about by way of accompaniment to your lyrical effusions.
This is what Prudence did, however. The energetic, slashing movements of her arm disturbed not one but several bees, which expressed their disapproval either of her literary tastes or, more likely, her style of elocution, by stinging her all at once.
She shrieked, and in her haste to escape their attentions, tripped and fell into the bush. This annoyed the other bees and, while some chose a dignified retreat to other, less agitated gorse bushes, a goodly number mounted an offensive against poor Prudence, who was thrashing about, unable to flee, since her clothing was caught up on the thorns.
I hurried to Prudence’s side, commanding Mr. Fredericks, who was standing and gawking at the spectacle, to assist me at once. The sting of a bee, while painful, is usually not a serious matter. However, many stings all sustained at once might be of more concern, and I have heard that some unfortunate persons have an acute sensitivity to bee venom.
I will say for Mr. Fredericks that, once I demanded his assistance in no uncertain terms, he proved quick and efficient. He grasped Prudence without ceremony by the elbows and lifted. With several sharp twists that reminded me of the removal of a wine cork, he disengaged her skirt and pelisse from the green spines of the gorse bush, carried her some ten or fifteen feet away, and set her down.
Whereupon she fainted.
The rest of our party had been alerted to the mishap and converged upon the stricken lady with offers of hartshorn and wine to revive her. These had their effect, and soon she was propped up against my knee being fanned by her sister. The stings were beginning to swell, but Jock was able to supply some vinegar that had been meant as a dressing for the salad, and this soothed them somewhat.
After a passage of some minutes it was clear that Prudence was not one of those with an acute sensitivity to bee venom, and we all became more composed and started having thoughts about food. With the Baron’s assistance, Prudence even managed to rise from the ground and take a few tottering steps towards the vicinity where our meal had been laid out.
“Where is Alexander?”
It was my mother’s voice, and I looked about in sudden terror.
No small boy was anywhere in sight. Neither, I realized, was a small dog within view.
“Alexander! Fido! Where are you?” I cried.
My mother, whose face had turned snow-white, lifted her skirts and ran, calling out for my brother, with the Marquis close behind her. Prudence found herself abandoned, left to dab vinegar on her injuries in fretful solitude as the others scattered, searching. Some hastened to the other side of the hill, some to a copse of trees nearby, some went hunting amongst the standing stones, which chose that moment to resume their eerie, mournful song.
I stood still a moment, thinking. When I lifted my eyes they met Mr. Fredericks’s.
“The tin mine,” we said in unison.
Mr. Fredericks, unencumbered by skirts and delicate shoes, was the faster of the two of us, and I motioned him ahead. “Go. Go! Make haste!”
Oh, the sight that greeted us at the old tin mine! A pathetic pile of discarded clothing several feet off from the brink and a faint, a very, very faint disturbance in the waters.
Heedful of my warning about the fragility of the edges, Mr. Fredericks knelt down and crawled towards the pool on his hands and knees. Groping about with one hand while supporting himself with the other he succeeded in catching hold of something in the water. Yet no sooner had he grasped it than the ground beneath him crumbled and he too pitched into the mine headfirst.
After an agonizing moment, three heads—two human and one canine—appeared above the surface, gasped for air and then disappeared again.
“Oh!” I cried. “What shall I do?” Looking wildly about, my eyes fell on a tree branch of considerable size lying some distance off beside its parent tree. “Help me, help me,” I screamed as I began to drag the heavy, cumbersome thing towards the mine shaft. “Oh, will no one come?”
No one did come, for they were out of earshot. The baleful shriek of the stone circle drowned out my pleas for assistance; the old gods were seemingly hungry for a blood sacrifice. At last I managed to half-pull and half-roll the limb to the edge. I had learned by Mr. Fredericks’s mistake and did not approach closer than six feet until I had pushed the tree limb, first with my hands and then by sitting on the ground and kicking with my feet, into a position athwart the mine. Supported on two banks, it spanned a portion of the water.
A hand appeared above the water and grasped the branch. A head surfaced—it was Mr. Fredericks’s—and then another. Alexander! Both sputtered and coughed; both were indubitably alive.
“Fido!” I cried in despair. “My Fido!”
But my cry of grief was unnecessary, for there he was, crawling up onto Mr. Fredericks’s shoulder, attempting to bark with his lungs half full of water. Weeping with joy I fell to my knees.
Still, work was yet to be done and no one to do it but myself. From a supine position and placing most of my weight on the branch, I slowly and cautiously crept out until I could touch the sodden group. Fido got his claws on the branch and sprang up onto my back and hence onto the shore. He had pushed off with such vigor from Mr. Fredericks’s shoulder, however, that the remaining two were submerged again, tho’ briefly.
Coughing (Alexander) and cursing (Mr. Fredericks), they reappeared and, after catching their breaths, Mr. Fredericks proposed handing Alexander off to me. I reached out my arms for him. By rolling painfully on my side over the tree bough with the child in my arms, I at length deposited him on firm earth.
Alexander vomited up a good deal of water, and afterward we lay, panting, for some long moments.
“My apologies for interrupting your meditations, madam, but I am still awaiting my extraction from this pit, where, I might add, I find myself as a result of going to the rescue of your brother and dog.”
Even while behaving like a hero, Mr. Fredericks’s manners were detestable.
I gripped Alexander to my breast again and rolled some few feet further away from the mine shaft. This time he was recovered enough to complain that I was crushing him, but I paid no mind. I sat him down on a boulder and fetched his clothing.
“Put those on,” I ordered. “And if you, or Fido,” I fixed them both with my eye, “stir so much as an inch until I tell you that you may do so, you will be instantly turned to stone.”
I then turned my attention back to Mr. Fredericks.
“How long can you hold on, sir?” I enquired. “I fear I have not the strength to pull you out unaided.”
A loud, aggrieved sigh could be heard issuing from the pool.
“Oh, I imagine I can hang on as long as need be. Why you couldn’t pay enough attention to the lad to prevent this from occurring, I don’t know. However, if you will take these boots from me—they are confoundedly heavy. I feel as though they’re dragging me down to Hades.”
There came a great deal of thrashing around in the water as Mr. Fredericks struggled to get his boots off one-handed. I soon found myself receiving first one and then another large, waterlogged Hessian.
&nbs
p; “Be careful of those,” Mr. Fredericks instructed, having thrust the second boot square into my face. “They cost a monstrous sum of money. No, don’t throw them, you’ll scratch the leather.”
“Mr. Fredericks, I cannot imagine how you can worry about scratching the leather on a pair of boots at a moment like this!”
“I tell you they were dashed expensive,” he said. “Boring brought me to this little shop on Bond Street and you would not credit the price they demanded— Here, make that animal go away!”
A stray sheep, stimulated by this unexpected excitement in a normally placid life, had approached unobserved and was preparing to sniff at Mr. Fredericks’s head. I shooed it away before it could fall into the mine as well. Fido leapt to his feet with intent to give pursuit, but at a command from me sat down again.
“And why you, Fido,” I added, pursuing a grievance which had been weighing on my mind, “had to go and fall in on top of Alexander, I am quite at a loss to determine.”
“By heavens, you’re ungrateful!” said Mr. Fredericks. “The dog knows you’re fond of the boy and he was merely trying to fetch him back for you. He almost lost his life in the process.”
“I don’t see why he could not have barked. I—” Here our squabble was interrupted by the sound of my mother’s voice.
“Alexander!”
At last. I heaved a grateful sigh. We were discovered.
Mama snatched up my brother into a clasp so tight it made him cry out. The others soon followed, stories were recounted and methods for rescuing Mr. Fredericks debated. After listening to this for some minutes the gentleman himself began to issue orders.
“You, Mrs. Hrm . . . Alexander’s mother. You take the boy and get him to someplace warm and dry. Bumbershook, you’d better escort her. Then you, the one who fell into the gorse bush, and the other one, the sister, you go home, as you are of no use here. Your groom can look after you and make sure you don’t get lost. Boring can go to Allingham, or to the nearest farm, and get some rope and some farm hands with which to hoist me out. She”—he jerked his chin in my direction—“can stay here and feed me something sustaining whilst I am hanging here like a trussed chicken in a stockpot ready for the boiling.”
Keeping the Castle Page 8
