Descent into Dust

by Jacqueline Lepore

  Alyssa gasped and gave an exaggerated shiver. “How dreadful.”

  Hess smiled at her. “Our barrow is part of an avenue of standing stones that stretches all the way to West Kennett. What we call The Sanctuary is the other end of the line, where stones once stood in a circle. The West Kennett stones are still present and quite majestic.”

  Mrs. Bedford poured a second cup of tea for herself. “Who was that who studied the stones, Mr. Hess, who wrote that book to which you are always referring?”

  “It was William Stukely,” Hess replied, his enthusiasm growing. “He called it The Great Stone Serpent. The combination of the structures create the shape of a snake as it lies on the countryside. The complex almost certainly had to do with funerary purposes. The ancients were quite devoted to the dead, you know. It is noteworthy that the serpent, by virtue of its cycle of renewal in shedding its skin, is considered a symbol of eternal life.” He paused, and smiled sheepishly. “I am lecturing, am I not? I tend to do so. Forgive me.”

  “Not at all,” I rushed, for I wished very much to hear more.

  Alan sniffed and rolled his eyes. “I warn you from handing too much significance to the habits of these long-gone peoples. Weren’t they the ones who worshipped trees?”

  Alyssa joined him in a stifled snicker.

  I sat back, adding a small amount of sugar before taking my first sip of the tea, darting a sharp look at my brother-in-law. It would not do if Alan continued to mock Mr. Hess, whom I had decided I liked very much.

  “What a silly conversation,” Mary declared. “Worshipping trees, indeed. That is a stunning shawl, Alyssa. Is it Chinese?”

  The transition was expertly done. My sister grew more cheerful. “Oh, it was my grandmother’s. You know how that generation loved all things Oriental. The prince regent’s influence.” She smiled, rearranging the silk, obviously feeling very proud that she, too, could speak a word or two on history. I had to credit her—no one knew the history of clothing better.

  The conversation went the way of fashion plates and the merits of silk over taffeta for evening gowns. I sipped my tea, savoring the feeling of the heat on the back of my throat and closing my eyes against my returning headache. Placing two fingers against my temple, I rubbed gently.

  “Emma?” Roger’s tone was almost strident. “You are not unwell, are you?”

  My eyelids flew open to find everyone looking at me.

  “Roger, darling, that cannot affect us,” Mary chided in a strained voice that conveyed a meaning beyond her words. A tense silence fell.

  “Is something the matter?” Alyssa inquired suddenly.

  “No, dear. It is nothing. You mustn’t worry,” Mary said quickly.

  “There is an illness in the village,” Roger explained.

  “But that is among the farmers, darling,” Mary countered, her face growing florid.

  “Illness?” Alan said, his eyebrows rising slightly. On Alan, this was an expression of great alarm.

  “It is nothing to be concerned about.” Mary spoke with authority. She picked up the pot and refilled all of our cups without asking permission. “A family lost several children recently. It was very sad, their deaths coming as they did one right after the other. We sent food and blankets to them, of course.”

  “The house had to be quarantined—”

  “—which prevented the illness from spreading to the village,” Mary was quick to add. “So, it was only the one family affected.”

  “And the man outside town,” Roger added darkly. “He was found in the road, dead, apparently of the same wasting disease.”

  The band around my head constricted. Outside, the icy tap of a forceful rain began. It sounded like the light touch of sharpened nails on the old leaded glass windows. A maid moved quickly to draw the hangings, and the sound was muffled behind folds of green velvet.

  “It is nothing contagious,” Mary assured everyone.

  “We do not know the nature of the illness.” Roger was grave.

  Mary put the pot down with a resounding thud. The lid clat tered and the noise jerked all of our attention to her. “An unfortunate sickness of the local crofters is a sad story, to be sure, but it is of no consequence to any of us here. Illness occurs, Roger, we cannot become overset by it. Now, we are going to have a wonderful visit and put all thoughts of such unfortunate happenings out of our heads.”

  There was an awkward silence, ended when Mrs. Bedford said with pointed cheerfulness, “Well, I for one am looking forward to bowls tomorrow.” She turned to her husband. “I do hope the weather holds, for I love a good match of bowls, isn’t that right, dear?”

  Mary was happy to have a change of subject introduced and launched into a discussion of the activities she had planned, but I could see Roger’s brow remained furrowed. His disquiet sat heavy with me, for I felt a strange mood hovering over me as well, a sense of something not right. But I did not yet imagine what it was.

  Chapter Two

  I awoke early the following day, startled out of sleep by some unremembered dream. The skies had cleared during the night, parting the veil of mists which had shrouded Dulwich’s grounds yesterday and splashing them with the lemony sunlight of morning. The cheerfulness of the day invited me outdoors.

  I required no more than fifteen minutes to make a quick toilette and don sturdy boots. I slipped out of the house unseen, for no one was yet awake, and set off on a brisk walk toward Overton, my intention to travel the short distance to the ancient monument of standing stones described last night.

  The headache was still with me, although sleep had done it good. I wondered if Alyssa would thaw enough for us to have a serious conversation or if she was bent on punishing me for the duration of the visit. My strides were long and quick, my energy fueled by the memory of the arguments, many and futile, that had driven this wedge between us over time.

  Alyssa and I were simply too different. She adored everything I despised and disapproved of everything that enchanted me. It had always been so, all the way back to the time when we were children and my father had been alive. Alyssa had been his pet. She had but to enter the room and he’d break into a broad smile, beaming at her—prim and pretty in a ruffled dress, her blond hair shining like the sun. While he loved me—that was never in question—the specter of my mother always stood between us. Quite often I would notice how he looked at me: so quietly, so still, so wary.

  When I was old enough to understand why he gazed at me thus, I wanted to shout: “I am well. I am not like her.” I’d seen that careful scrutiny in the eyes of others; saw it still to this day. They look for the taint of my mother’s madness. What a frustrating impossibility it is to try to prove one’s self sane. No matter how I remained rational, calm, tractable, pleasant, there is always that small element of doubt that perhaps the demons which lived in my mother’s fragile mind had been passed on to me. No, no one would ever completely trust my mind. Not even I.

  I had not known her, my mother. I had no memory of her, for she died when I was a small child. Laura existed on as a mysterious figure whom I had heard spoken of only in whispers, more as a ghost than a parent.

  It did not take me long to find the avenue that stretched across the downs. The stones leaned drunkenly in some instances but were solid and surprisingly beautiful against the green and blue of the plain. I followed them away from the vil lage, up to the place on Overton Hill, which Mrs. Bedford and Mr. Hess had called The Sanctuary, to view where the circle of sarcen stones had stood long ago.

  The name intrigued me. A sanctuary was, of course, a place of shelter, of safety. I had never really had such a thing, even in my childhood home. Certainly not living under the watchful, worried gaze of my father, and not in the sights of my stepmother Judith’s stern eye.

  But those days were long past, and I was free. Simon had given me that freedom, I reflected as I crossed the empty circle. As a widow of independent means, I had no one telling me what to do. No father, no husband.

 
And yet, without those ties—not a single person whose regard I would strive for—I was left with one enormous emptiness. It was possible my existence in this world would have come and gone and in the end amount to nothing of much consequence. I had never strived for greatness, but one wishes to matter. To someone.

  I took note of a thorn tree as I passed it, a rather rangy mess of branches tangled around a slender trunk. Perhaps it was Alan’s snide comment about worshipping trees that made me notice it. That, and the way it stood all alone. Other trees clustered back in the hedgerows, a row of courtiers keeping respectful distance. Although the hawthorn wasn’t very large, the branches were dangerous arms laden with slender spikes, and that itself demanded respect.

  As I drew closer, I noticed something on the trunk, words carved in the rough bark. The Blood is the Life.

  I recognized the phrase from the Old Testament. It had to do with laws of keeping food clean. Or was it a New Testament reference to Holy Eucharist?

  I cannot remember now why I reached out my hand. I don’t suppose there was really any specific reason. I just wanted to touch those letters. I paused, my palm outstretched, not quite touching the bark, and suddenly I felt a tiny vibration where the lines creased my flesh.

  Frozen, I stood and let the current wash over me, galvanizing me to the soles of my sensible boots. My headache flared like a torch set alight, and I cried out from the pain. Tiny points of light danced on the periphery of my vision as the world blurred, swayed.

  Then I felt…something. Something inside me was tearing, like the parting of a veil. A flash, a dark memory illuminated for a moment in the manner of a match struck, flaring, then quickly snuffed. I heard the sound of someone crying. A woman. My heart seized in my chest as I thought: It is my mother!

  I dropped my hand and stumbled backward, fumbling for my footing. The feeling vanished, leaving me tingling and dazed. I struggled for composure. What had happened to me? What was that energy I had felt?

  Suddenly I was eager to be back to the house. I turned away from the hawthorn, my eyes searching for the manor. As I did so, my foot struck an object on the ground and I looked down. I saw shards of pottery underfoot, about five largish pieces.

  Curious, I stooped to pick them up, noting the clean break lines. They fit easily together, and I quickly assembled them all, laying them on the ground to make a plaque with a crude symbol painted on it. It took me a moment to recognize it. A fish, the simple sort used as a sign of the early Christian church.

  I gathered up the pieces and held them in my still-tingling palm. Stepping back, I surveyed the tree. A movement caught my attention in the meadow grass. Something red and black undulated in a strange, surging motion. My first thought was that it was a live thing in trouble, struggling, and I stepped toward it only to stop cold when it registered what it was I was seeing.

  I recoiled. The half-eaten carcass of an animal lay before me. What sort of animal was impossible to tell, for its flesh was nearly stripped, and it lay eviscerated on the soft green of the plain. On it, above it, and all around it were night-black crows, surging over one another, fighting for dominance as they furiously feasted.

  At first they paid me no mind, too intent were they to register an intruder. Their shining beaks snapped at the scarlet-stained flesh, at one another—viciously, frantic for each bite. Presiding over this scene, resting on a thorny branch, sat one very large crow. His cold, dead eyes glittered in the sunlight as he surveyed the grisly repast, appearing noble and comfortable in his position of power.

  He swiveled his obsidian head to look at me. And then, as if he’d uttered an unheard order, all the birds ceased their tearing and turned likewise, fixing me with calculated calm. Almost defiance.

  The macabre tableau froze us all for a moment, they staring at me and I at them. Everything around us went suddenly, icily still. In the silence, I heard some rhythmic sound. My own breathing. Steady, labored under the burden of my rising fear. It was silly to be frightened, but I couldn’t help it. They were just birds, I told myself. The scene I was witnessing, although gruesome, was ordinary enough.

  And then the sky exploded as the birds took flight. They launched themselves into the air madly, their wings beating a thunder into the sky, and I flinched, falling back in surprise. I felt more than saw the large avian body lift off the tree branch and dive into full flight over my head.

  As it swooped down, I threw myself to the ground, cringing as it shaved a low flight over me. I remained low, cradled in a moist clump of grass, even after he’d passed, covering my hair, my face, as the other birds careened in a bizarre dance of fury over my head. The cacophony of their shrieking calls reached a crescendo before they flew off at last, their cries fading into silence.

  I raised my head to watch them go. It took me a moment to realize they must have attacked because they thought I meant to vie for their ghastly prize. I waited until they were out of sight before standing. It was then I saw my hand was hurt. The shards of the pottery plaque I had been holding had scored a deep cut across my palm. Blood dripped from it, welling up quickly before falling onto the ground—a tiny splash of crimson against the verdant green grass of The Sanctuary.

  I entered the house through the kitchens, as I did not wish to run into any of the family in my present condition—not only was my appearance disheveled, but my thoughts were running wildly. The long room was crammed with servants. I attempted to skirt around the women at the scrubbed oak table, who were working bread dough or cutting pastries with deft strokes of flashing knives. A skinny lad of about ten, a sack of oat flour precariously perched on his slight shoulder, almost ran me down.

  “Can you point me in the way of the stillroom?” I asked in a quavering voice. My hand was hurting me badly.

  He gestured to a corner and hurried off on his errand. I found the carefully labeled apothecary cabinet, which was managed by a maid named Betty. I explained what had happened and she saw to the cut, cleaning it none too gently while muttering words such as “infection,” and “blood poisoning,” effectively keeping my complaints to a minimum.

  Back in my room, I redressed my hair as best I could with my bandaged hand. I could not avoid wondering whether I’d imagined the strange circumstances this morning. It seemed the only explanation. The sensation in my hand as I reached toward the tree, the way the birds had flown at me as if in attack—none of it could be real, could it?

  I tried to convince myself of this as I stripped off my dress and donned a fresh one. As I washed my face with my good hand, I paused to examine my reflection. The silvering behind the glass had turned cloudy with age, so that looking into it was like seeing one’s self in the heart of a storm cloud. In that misty glass, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I looked older, more serious. My skin was bloodless, my eyes dark and as round as an owl’s.

  Was this the madness? Laura’s madness? Was this how it began?

  I turned away from the mirror. I was being quite reactionary, I decided. My goodness, everyone has moments of confusion. It was all a matter of not getting carried away with it.

  With this settled in my mind, I took the package I’d brought for Henrietta from my portmanteau and headed upstairs to the nurseries. The suite of sleeping chambers for the children of the house was attached to a small apartment for the nursemaid or governess. Those, along with a large schoolroom, took nearly the whole of the third floor. It was surprisingly shabby, a fact made apparent by the light flooding in from the row of tall, arched windows along the outside wall, which was in want of paint. The furniture was sturdy but chipped and otherwise ill-used.

  It was not inhospitable, however; Henrietta had made her mark. Toys and books were piled in the shelving. In the corner stood a dollhouse with tiny furniture and carved wooden miniatures scattered on a braided rug. On a nearby table, watercolors were laid out and several paintings were drying. Neither Henrietta nor her nurse was in sight.

  I saw there was another Latin inscription above the center window.
Tempest Fugit. I laughed softly, hoping Mary would be able to translate that one correctly.

  I spied Victoria, Henrietta’s favorite china doll, perched on a chair as regally as her royal namesake. “Hello, Victoria,” I murmured to the doll’s staring face. The hair, a bit wild from putting on and removing the lace-edged cap she wore out-of-doors, stuck out. I smoothed it down and untwisted the tiny cross that hung around her neck. The simple ornament had been a present from some relative of Roger’s to Henrietta, but she had insisted the doll had demanded it for herself. Henrietta liked to pretend Victoria whispered imperious instructions to her, which she repeated to all of us who were not privileged to hear from the doll directly.

  I smiled and reassured the china face, “Now you are as lovely as ever,” as I repositioned her in her chair.

  My hand throbbed. I held it aloft to keep the blood from rushing to it.

  “Henrietta, darling?” I called. “Are you here?”

  “Cousin Emma!” Henrietta burst from the doorway behind me leading in from the hall. I spun about as she ran to me, her small arms held out and her plaits flying behind her. I caught her in an embrace as she nearly knocked me over. “I knew you would come today. I told Victoria so.”

  “Look at how tall you’ve gotten!” I exclaimed, holding her out for inspection.

  Her eyes twinkled. “You said that last time, when we came to visit you after Cousin Simon died.” Her eyes clouded. “Oh. I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

  “It doesn’t make me sad. How can I be anything but happy to see you? Now, don’t you wish to see the present I’ve brought you?” I held out the package.

  “Yes, yes!” As she took the gift, her face puckered. “Oh! You’ve hurt your hand.”

  “It is nothing serious. An accident during my morning walk. The stillroom maid assured me it will be as good as new very soon.”

  Her eyes flickered to me, taking a moment to make certain this wasn’t one of those times adults told children things not wholly truthful. “Good.” She addressed herself to the package, lifting away the paper to reveal a box of paper dolls in the style of the queen, her prince consort, and several young princes and princesses. “Oh, thank you, Cousin Emma! They are lovely.”