by John Burke
‘Because of some contentious point of religious usage?’
‘Some murmured blasphemy. Others of deviations which were best kept from all save the most incorruptible scholars.’
‘But you know where this missing material is.’
‘Some of it,’ said the canon reluctantly, ‘is in the hands of an eccentric living some miles away, outside Madley.’
‘An eccentric?’
‘Not a churchgoer.’ The austere condemnation rang above the rows of books and died away into their dusty bindings.
‘Then why should he wish to preserve such documents?’
‘They came into the hands of his family when, it has to be admitted, they might otherwise have been destroyed by some rather too fervent ascetics. In spite of repeated pleas for their lodgement in our safekeeping, they have not been offered to the library. And you’ll appreciate how difficult it is to make an issue of it, when, without that family’s intervention, they would probably not be in existence by now.’
‘What chance would there be of my inspecting these items?’
‘I would suggest, doctor, that you first study what we have in our own archives. Then you may decide how far you still wish to pursue the matter.’
Caspian kissed Bronwen. ‘lf I’m permitted, I can see myself busy here for a few hours. I’ll see you at the hotel later. And.…’
‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘I did hear you.’
She left him to walk on between the high bookcases with their dangling chains, each chain securing some priceless volume, while she went out again into the chill cloister and on into the fresh air.
There was ample time for her to collect her camera from the hotel and take a few pictures of the riverside, the bridge, and the cathedral precincts before the light became too insipid.
It was almost dark when Caspian returned. Clearly he had enjoyed himself tracking down references to the religious history of Mockblane, Ladygrove, and their valley. ‘But the gaps are formidable. Surviving records tell the story much as we’ve already heard it. But there are some odd references that die on one—like going along a lane, turning the corner, and finding that the lane has come to a dead end. Or, rather, that it peters out when you know that it ought to continue.’
‘So you’re going to see the eccentric at Madley tomorrow.’
‘How did you know?’
‘You have a mind,’ she said solemnly, ‘like an open book.’
‘All I can say at the moment is that I have a lot more books to open before I can establish the definitive text.’
‘And this eccentric character will open them to you?’
‘The question, too, is open. He may not even admit me. But Canon Westering has given me a few tips on how to worm my way into his good graces.’
‘A cunning fellow, your canon.’
‘Still not cunning enough to reclaim those records for his library.’
‘And what you’ve learnt so far…?’
‘I’ve told you—too many gaps.’
‘But the solid ground between the gaps must give you some idea of the terrain.’
Caspian hesitated, then said: ‘Enough to make me suspect some worrying truths behind the traditions. If Judith were still at Ladygrrove, I’d be much more worried.’
‘Because if she gave birth there—’
‘Then,’ said Caspian, ‘I believe the curse and the house and the Brobury line would at last have come together again.’
* * * *
The carriage drew up across the end of the lane. The coachman got down and opened the door, putting up a gloved hand to help his mistress step down. From the window on the stairs Judith watched Lady Brobury tug at a crumpled pleat in her skirt and then walk regally towards the house, seemingly hardly to need even a confirmatory glance at the other doors and numbers she passed.
Walking smartly in the opposite direction, Mrs. Rodden was setting off with a shopping basket of closely plaited straw.
Judith went downstairs, timing her descent so that she had reached the bottom step just as the doorbell rang.
Margaret crossed the narrow hall and opened the door.
‘Mother! I wasn’t expecting you. I thought perhaps—’
‘Perhaps it would be David?’ Lady Brobury walked in and nodded companionably at Judith, whom she had manifestly expected to find in exactly that position.
‘I did think it was time he got here.’ Margaret looked over her mother’s shoulder; but there was nobody following.
‘Oh dear. I’m afraid there has been…an incident.’
Judith felt a throb, a missed beat, and then somehow an extra beat, in her breast; and an answering throb in her stomach.
Margaret closed the door and said spikily: ‘You’re not going to say there has been another accident to the carriage, or the roof has collapsed with the beetle, or the church has been attacked again?’
‘There’s no use talking to David. He won’t listen. And now look what has happened.’
‘What has happened?’
‘His ankle. He got so angry, storming about the place rounding up those who had damaged the church, that he stepped into some hole or other and twisted his ankle. It will be days before he can move about properly. So I came in his place’—she smiled at Judith—‘to fetch you home.’
They went into a room overlooking the garden. Margaret paused in the doorway and called along the passage: ‘Mrs. Rodden!’
‘I saw her go out shopping,’ said Judith.
Lady Brobury settled herself in a chair by the window. ‘A not altogether disagreeable place, Margaret,’ she conceded. ‘But lacking any distinctive quality, wouldn’t you say?’
Margaret said: ‘Mother, I don’t think there’s any question of Judith going back to Ladygrove. I haven’t gone to all the trouble of bringing her here simply in order to despatch her back again.’
‘She should be with her husband.’
‘In her present condition, she can hardly wait on him. And I’m sure he wouldn’t expect it.’
Margaret’s brusqueness drew none of the plaintive retorts that might have been expected from her mother. Lady Brobury, wearing a mauve pleated skirt and pelisse mantle, her spoon bonnet garnished with opaque white beads like mistletoe berries, looked very calm and sure of herself. Her expression told Judith that all was well and they would not have to wait much longer.
Margaret glanced dubiously from one to the other.
Smoothly Judith asked: ‘And Mr. Goswell? Has he recovered from that outrage?’
‘Or has he twisted his ankle also?’ snapped Margaret scornfully.
Lady Brobury shrugged. ‘Quite incompetent, poor man. Quite unable to cope.’
Her gloved hand rose a mere fraction of an inch to sketch a |dismissive gesture. Mr. Goswell, it appeared, was discarded. He had served whatever purpose she had needed him for, and now was of no further significance.
She went on, with a slight, enquiring turn of her head: ‘And those strange friends of David’s—the Caspians? They caught their train in good time?’
‘I fancy they’re still here,’ said Margaret.
‘In Hereford?’ There was the faintest tautening of Lady Brobury’s neck muscles.
‘They decided to stay on a day or two and take a few photographs.’
‘A very irregular way of life. I confess I never took to the pair. I know they were acquaintances of David’s, but…upon my word, a stage conjuror with more time on his hands than seems good for him, and a young married woman playing about with those camera contraptions…! No, I was glad to see the back of them.’
‘They were a great help to me,’ Margaret reminded her.
‘Oh, that nonsense.’
‘David was going to have it out with that dreadful Morris man—’
‘David now has a dozen other things to deal with,’ said her mother, ‘and a twisted ankle into the bargain.’
Judith saw her mother-in-law tilt strangely sideways. The room shook, then spun round. She clutche
d the arm of her chair. From somewhere she heard Margaret’s voice. Then it was Lady Brobury’s: ‘Yes, I thought she must be very near her time.’ And then the room steadied, but pain lanced through her. She let go of the chair and pressed both hands on to her stomach.
‘It’s started?’
Margaret was on her feet.
‘I thought so,’ said Lady Brobury happily. ‘Now, there is plenty of time. It will take its own good time.’
Margaret turned to the door. ‘Mrs. Rodden.…’ She let out a gasp of exasperation. ‘There’s no telling how long she will take to get back.’
Her mother was smiling equably.
Judith felt pain recede like an ebbing tide, and longed to sing her thankfulness. But there was the consciousness of the waves building up again, far out; and even before they struck again she felt the tremor of their coming. Yet there was a long, long wait between the spasms. In that waiting period, Lady Brobury sat with her hands in her lap, watching her with an affection that Judith had not seen in her eyes before.
Margaret made up her mind. ‘I shall fetch the midwife. And let Dr. Hadfield know, in case we have to call on him. Very reliable man. Had him in to the children when we got here.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Lady Brobury. ‘Perhaps it would be wise. But don’t run about too wildly. There are hours to go yet.’
Judith braced herself for a pang that failed to come.
‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’ Margaret squeezed her shoulder, and hurried off.
When they heard the front door slam behind her, Lady Brobury shook her head gently. ‘Such a fuss. Hours to go, my dear. Hours. But I think we ought to be on our way.’
Judith looked full into that inviting, reassuring face. She had been expecting this and had known the hour must come, but still some other part of her struggled to deny it. There were surely other things, other people to take into account. There had been Sir Mortimer. You won’t bring yourselves to Ladygrove before the child is born. And David had been insistent on sending her away. Because he had been told to insist? She seemed, too, to hear an echo of Bronwen’s voice in the hall: I don’t think Judith ought to be left alone.…
But I am not alone.
Lady Brobury said: ‘The carriage is waiting. I knew we should soon need it.’
‘But Margaret will be coming back with the midwife. She’ll be expecting me to—’
‘You must come home.’
‘Perhaps if we wait, and explain to Margaret?’
‘What is there to explain,’ asked Lady Brobury mildly, ‘that she could possibly understand?’ She waited a moment, then leaned forward. The folds and creases of her face, the dewlap and the puckered lines, all seemed to have hardened and set into a stony mould; and her eyes were like glistening, inset stones. ‘Your child cannot be born here. This is nowhere.’
‘There’s no time for me to—’
‘There is time. Comfortable time. Nothing is prepared, here. At home, all is prepared. It has been fashioned over a long, long time, all for this day.’
There was a wrench inside which robbed Judith of breath. Soundlessly she opened her mouth wide. And Lady Brobury went on relentlessly:
‘It is better for you to face it now and lift the curse from the family. The men have no power to do it. It is for a woman—for the mother. The folly of the past was the Brobury flight from their ancestral home, not their presence in it. And the damage was done above all to their womenfolk, the women they married and who bore their children. And will be done again! It will happen again and again until one woman has the courage to bear her child at Ladygrove and offer him back.’
‘Offer him back—to what?’
Again Judith was tormented by the urge to draw away; but it was as vain as the attempt to retreat from the slow, pitiless waves of pain.
‘There will be more children, later. Children you may keep. But if your firstborn enters the world away from his rightful home, he will bring unhappiness to his women, and to his son and his son’s sons. Generation after generation will be plagued by the sins of the far past. So come home, my dear.’
Lady Brobury had risen from her chair and was holding out her right hand. Judith reached for it and allowed herself to be helped slowly up.
‘And afterwards?’ she said in a trance.
‘It will be ended and you will know true happiness. And for your son the thread will be snapped and he can never know unhappiness.’
‘A boy. It’s to be a boy?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Brobury, ‘tonight you will be delivered of a son.’
* * * *
Traffic at the junction of Broad Street and High Street had tangled itself to a standstill. Only a few smaller vehicles could edge round the corner, often running a wheel up along the kerb. Bronwen, coming away from an admiring inspection of the old butchers’ guildhall, made three attempts to cross the road between the muddle of vehicles, but was driven back by an erratically steered bicycle and then by two sprightly bays.
At last she could risk another attempt. She had reached the far side before something drew her attention to a brougham, which was beginning slowly to ease its way out of the confusion. There was something familiar about it. She had travelled in it. Startled, she raised her eyes in time to see a face drifting back from the window into the privacy of the interior. It had been Lady Brobury’s face: she was sure of it.
Bronwen tried to wave, to call out. She took one step back into the gutter, and narrowly escaped plunging under the wheels of an accelerating van.
It could have been nobody else but Lady Brobury.
Bronwen quickened her pace. Gathering up her skirts, she was almost running as she reached the entrance to the lane. She had to slow down in order to let two other women precede her; and saw that one of them was Margaret Henderson.
Margaret recognized her in the same moment. ‘Oh, Mrs. Caspian.’ She did not pause, but talked over her shoulder as she approached her front door. ‘I’m afraid this is not a good time for visiting. Judith’s labour has begin.’
‘If I can help—’
‘Thank you no. You’ve been most kind, and I’m grateful for what you did for me, but I don’t think you should concern yourself further with us.’
‘I…has Lady Brobury been here today?’
‘She’s still here.’ Margaret opened the door. ‘Of that I’m sure.’
She hurried her companion in ahead of her, and was about to close the door when she saw the trouble in Bronwen’s face.
‘Really, Mrs. Caspian, I did say—’
‘Please,’ said Bronwen. ‘Let me see Judith. Just for a moment.’
‘There is absolutely no need—’
‘Which room, madam?’ The woman who had gone in, shedding her coat to disclose a crisp blue dress and starched collar, turned back across the hall.
‘That door on the left.’
‘There’s nobody in here, madam. I’ve just looked.’
‘Perhaps mother has helped her up to the bedroom.’ Margaret went to the foot of the stairs. ‘Mother? Judith?’ When the only answer was silence she began to climb.
Bronwen stepped inside the still open front door.
‘Don’t you realize,’ she cried, ‘that Judith has been taken back?’
‘Taken back where?’
‘To Ladygrove.’
‘What utter nonsense. Why on earth would…?’ Margaret looked up towards the landing. ‘Mother, are you there?’
‘I tell you they’re on their way to Ladygrove.’
Bronwen wanted to turn and run, to find Caspian, to set out in pursuit with him. But he was too far away. Desperately she opened her mind and tried to summon him, but among the thousand deafening noises that crowded in, there was no whisper of his voice. All she heard clearly was the sound of what he had said yesterday, more direct and ominous now.
The curse and the house and the Brobury line were at last coming together again.
PART THREE
THE OFFERING
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From the cloistered hush of Hereford’s chained library to the clutter of Mr. Enoch Vaughan’s study was a considerable leap, but Caspian found himself enjoying one setting as much as the other. They had in common an atmosphere of musty detachment, of erudition for erudition’s sake, which put all the turmoil of the everyday world into its correct and pitiable proportion. At such times Caspian was tempted to consider early retirement so that he might devote more time to academic pastimes: not a complete withdrawal, but at least a transfer from the mundane to the metaphysical. Nostalgically he remembered the pleasures of youthful scholastic application in London, Heidelberg, and Prague, when even the most gruelling academic tasks seemed to allow one all the time in the world and everything was new and exalting. There had been so much to read, so much to learn, so many concepts to fit together into philosophical unity, and so many golden moments of intellectual revelation. Now the days and years raced past too swiftly. There was no time for research or meditation. One had learnt too much, lived too fast, yet still knew too little.
And all the while, as men played verbal games with their religions and languages and superstitions, the unknowable was crawling. Through swamps of black sacrilege, awaiting the call to lift a foul head and engulf the damned, the foolish, and the unwary innocent.
Turning over Enoch Vaughan’s papers and trying to shut out most of Vaughan’s spasmodic bursts of monologue, Caspian smiled ruefully to himself. Of course he would never now adapt to the academic life. Even in those younger days he had, to be honest, spent comparatively little time in that cherished seclusion. Remembering books and dissertations, he remembered also the duels at Heidelberg, the horses and gambling at Pardubitz, and the sleight of hand that he had practised so assiduously until it became a flamboyant party piece and ultimately his profession. He would never be capable of abandoning the worldly, histrionic Count Caspar entirely for the earnest Dr. Caspian. The two were one and must work side by side. Offered a challenge in the unpredictable, untidy, ungovernable outside world, he would rarely be able to resist picking up the gauntlet—whether the challenge was that of discrediting mediumistic fakers or of confronting with his telepathic powers the threats of worldly and otherworldly chaos.
