Whenever I close my eyes I can still see that dull fire. But every time I do so, it gets a little further away, diminishing, moving gradually towards some point where it will disappear altogether from view.
The endlessly burning house is nothing but somebody else’s memory. Soon it will not even be there. I am certain of this. I know it to be true.
I often wonder what Lisa sees when she closes her eyes.
I wonder, but I’m too afraid to ask in case she ever gives me an answer.
There are some things we don’t need to know, and everybody wears scars that should never be shown, even to those whom we claim to love the most.
THE BOOK AND THE RING
Reggie Oliver
The name Jeremiah Staveley (?1540-1595) is now becoming increasingly well known to lovers of early music as a composer of church motets in the Elizabethan period. I am not going to claim that he is up there with Tallis or Byrd, but he is a considerable figure and his remarkable forty part setting of Per Flumina Babylonis (“By the Waters of Babylon”) bears comparison with Tallis’ exquisite and justly famous Spem in Alium. Most visitors to Morchester Cathedral will remember seeing his rather bizarre tomb in the North Transept with its odd inscription.
Last year I was commissioned to write the sleeve notes for a CD devoted entirely to Staveley’s choral music, so I visited the library of Morchester Cathedral to do some research on his life. Besides unearthing some hitherto undiscovered manuscripts of his—anthems mostly, and one or two madrigals— I managed to work out an outline of his life.
Having been a chorister at the Chapel Royal during the reign of Bloody Mary, he had reverted to Anglican Protestantism when Elizabeth came to the throne and taken holy orders. Most of his best compositions come from the years 1590-1595 when he was a canon of Morchester Cathedral and the choir master. In various documents I came across scraps of legend about his life and sudden death which are very picturesque but not easy to substantiate. It is true however that he was buried, rather bizarrely, standing upright in the wall of the North transept according to his own instructions and self-penned epitaph to be seen on his tomb:
BEHINDE THESE SACRED STONES IN DEATH STAND I
FOR THAT IN LIFE MOST BASELY DID I LIE
IN WORD AND SINNE FORSAKING GOD HIS LAWE
I DANCED MY SOULE IN SATANN’S VERIE MAWE
WHEREFORE IN PENANCE I THIS VIGILL KEEPE
ENTOMBÉD UPRIGHT THUS WHERE I SHOULDE SLEEPE
WHEN DEAD RISE UP I’LL READYE BE IN PLACE
TO MEET MY JUDGE AND MAKER FACE TO FACE
STRANGER, REST NOT MY CORSE UNTIL THAT DAYE
LEST I TORMENT THEE WITH MY SORE DISMAYE
That is strange enough, but stranger still is the manuscript that I discovered in a box full of deeds and documents from the Elizabethan period. The fact that it was jumbled up with them may account for the fact that it has been hitherto unnoticed. I did not use any of its material in my sleeve notes for reasons that will become obvious.
The opening page has on it the following verses by Staveley and nothing more.
I wandered in ten thousand wayes
Seeking the gates of Life and Death
Through manye a desert, manye a maze
I journeyed till I scarce had breath
And when all hope had bene forsook
I found deliv’rence in a booke
It open’d on a path that led
Unto two portals fasten’d well
Before which stood the countless dead
The gates of Paradise and Hell
And those who know whereon they look
Have found their answer in that booke
Both gates are heavy, rude and dark
My booke hath said by what device
I might both open, learne and mark
The gates of Hell, and Paradise
So I a fearfull path have took
By reading of that curséd booke
Jeremiah Staveley anno 1595.
On the following and subsequent pages Staveley had written a kind of testament. It is penned in crabbed and tiny handwriting which I found very difficult to transcribe. I have preserved as much as I could the original spellings and have not tried to modernise any of its constructions apart from adding some modern punctuation. You may make of it what you will. Certainly it provides ample evidence of the weird psychology of the Elizabethan mind and that, to paraphrase L. P. Hartley, in the past they do things differently.
I, Jeremiah Staveley do here faithfully sette downe my testament and confessioun, knowing that my mortall body approaches with dreadfull and unfaltering pace its finall dissolution, and my immortall soul stands on the very threshold of the pitt of everlastynge fire. I here sett downe that you may knowe and praye for my soule, limed and ensnared as it is in the net of sin, awaiting in terror the ravishment of that Great Beaste which stands yet silent on the borders of my waking minde and roars even now in my dreams, yet distant, as the cry of the wolf is heard in a lonely forest at midnight, heralding the inevitable and frightfull feaste. Oh, Christe Jesu, woulde that I had knowne! Yet knowe I did after a fashioun, and in this manner as I shall tell without further ado.
In the yeare 1590 I was appointed Canon in Ordinary to the Cathedrall of St Anselme’s in Morchester. Many thought my preferment long overdue for I was knowne for my skill and genius in Musick. Yet there were ever those who murmured against me and did utter all manner of wicked slander against my person, such as that my giftes were of the Devill and not of God, and suchlike foolishness and damned malice. Yet my merits, though they were conspicuous enough to overcome such calumnies, yet these mutterings ceased not. Notwithstanding, I applied myself most diligently and with much rigour, to improve the musickal capacity of the cathedrall choir such that men and women did stand amazed at my mastery of these arts.
Such being the way of the world, the more I excelled at my art, the more did certain folk of inferiour genius carp and cavill, and, seeking to bring me down from my exalted state above them, saw only that the most monstrous libels and slanders might effect it. Thus in deepe secrecy they did harbour dark designes against me, and I all unknowing stood in the light of innocence unsuspecting.
It was well known, for I made no secrett of it, that I was in the habit of wandering abroad in the countryside around Morchester, to visit the country folk and to extract from them memorialls of old tunes, songs and ditties that they, all unlearned in the higher arts, had taken from their rude forefathers before them. And many of these said tunes, roundes, catches and rhymes were reliques, as I suspect, of ancient rituals and superstitions that went back even to Pagann times before yet the light of the most true Gospel of Christ did shine upon our green hills and fair-flowered meadows.
On Midsummer’s Eve Anno 1592 I hearde an olde blinde fiddler playe a fine melodious tune (though somewhat melancholique) in a field. They that stoode bye called it the Dance of Damned Soules, and certaine, I did see some white figures in robes like grave cerements at the end of the field who did writhe and turne to his playing, but when I did approache they all vanish’d away like smoke in the summer dusk. And I did thinke, though t’was but my fancy and not to be regarded, that they were the dead or damned on holidaye for a brief sojourne from their infernall home
I sought these things, not merely for my owne curiose learning, but as a refreshment to my musickall genius and invencion. But being greene in the ways of the world, I heeded not that some of these songs were or might be seen as incantacions, summonings of the spirits or demons, spells, or yet curses and maledictions emanating from that prince of Demons, Satann no less.
There was one goodwyfe or beldame, Mother Durden was her name, from whom I acquired many of these cantrips and fancies. She dwelt in a cabin in the woods below Cutberrow Hill, and many were the tales told of her. The countryfolk round about would have it that she was possessed of demons, that a hare was her familiar; others told me that she could turn herself to a fox by anointing her body with the fat
from a hanged man’s corse. But for all their pratings these dolts would go to her for a salve if they had warts, or to cure a sick beaste. In my prudence I would visit her in secret and had from her many ancient sayings and incantations, many wise saws and prophesies, so that I was many hours in her company. Yet, for all the benefit she did impart to me, I had to summon all my forbearance to stay in her company, for her person was most noisome and stinking and her ancient face like an old misshapen rock that has stood too long in the rain scored with deep lines of bitterness and hatred. Her cabin, moreover, was dark and dank, o’er run with rats and other vermin, and when she spat into her fire—which was a habit of hers—it was green bile that sang in the embers and gave off a choking and most vile smoke.
This notwithstanding, I persisted with the old crone, for she had yet one secret, which she did call ‘the secret of her heart’ that she would have me know, but forebore to tell me, indicating that such a secret would be of great profit and encompass all desires. At length, seeing me growe impatient, she did impart it to me. She told me that from her mother she was of the ancient family of Cutbirth, of great note hereabouts since before the Conqueror, yet of ill repute to some. This mother of hers, she says, was gently born, but most ill-favoured, so that no gentleman would have her to wife, for all her fortune, and she would be condemned to live and die a maid. But one day a common ploughboy spied and wooed her and they lay together in the grass on Cutberrow Hill at Midsummer’s Eve, so that by Michaelmas she was seen to be big with child. Then the family of Cutbirth, which to this day remains over mindfull of the lustre of its ancient lineage, was incensed with her and cast her out. For a while she lived with her rustick swaine in a cabin in the woods—the same still occupied by Mother Durden—but, after the birth of their daughter, he wearied of her and deserted the unfortunate mother.
Mother Durden’s parent, thus bereft, made strenuous effortes to reconcile herself with her family, but they would have none of it. They left her to rot in the utmost poverty. It was in these unhappy circumstances that her child (who bore the name Durden from her father) was brought up, schooled by her mother in many secret arts and in great bitterness against the family of Cutbirth. Her mother taught her many strange things about the family of Cutbirth, for they were a family long steeped in ancient lore.
One thing especially Mother Durden was told by her own mother and this concerned a certain booke. This volume has been called by many names, such as Booke of Shadows, Mysterium Arcanum, Booke of Secret Keyes, but it has been most vulgarly called the BOKE OF THE DIVILL. This booke, according to the most ancient tradition of the Cutbirth family, was taken or stolen from them by none other than Holy Anselme, founder of our Cathedrall and buried certaine fathoms deepe in the earthe where lay also her ancestor Cutbirth of Bartonstone.
It was Mother Durden’s most earnest wish, and that of her mother also before her, to recover this said booke, for she felte it hers by right, as ‘twere, of disinheritance. In recovering the booke, she would gaine power over her enemies, and especially over the family that had blighted her life.
She knew for certaine that this booke was buried in the cathedrall, somewhere in the crypte, and that she knew by what signes on the stone flags, one might finde the booke. But she herself might not enter the cathedrall, knowing her movements watched and suspect, and so it was only by some second party or Intermediary, she sayde, that she might discover that booke.
Then she made me a bargaine, and would to Christe I had not accepted it, yet I did never, as some may secretlie believe, sign aught; nor make a mark in my bloode upon a pact; nor kisse the Devill’s arse as a token of my allegiance; nor any suchlike foolish whim-wham. It was meerly this: I consented that I should endeavour to recover this said booke for her, having access to the cathedrall, and that if I did so, Mother Durden would grante me a share in the marvellous wisdome which, she assured me, it contained.
This I consented unto, yet for many dayes gave it no further thought. It seemed to me an idle plot, impossible of execution. Yet in my mind, the thought was never absent from me, for to tell truth, I received at that time many slights from my fellow clerks, and my great skills in musick were ever contemned by lesser minds. Some malicious worme of a Precentor reported me to the Dean for drunkennesse in a low ale-house which, when I came before him, I most vigorously denied, yet was I not believed and I was shamefully rebuked. My merits were despised, and my imagined vices bruited abroad by green-eyed jealousie. Such things festered in my hearte, so that I longed to strike down my unrighteous oppressors.
One evening, I had, to console myself, gone to a Maying at Great Bartonstone, to observe the dances, and take some note of the viol and hautboy tunes that were played. It was a fair evening, cloudless and still, as fine as any I have known, yet all was not well about my heart. There was dancing about the maypole and I saw some fine rumps of beef being roasted on spits. The laughter of children was all about me.
Then I saw one mother gather her two daughters into her skirts and hurry them indoors. I wondered what was to do until I saw at the edge of the village green a solitary figure in black looking upon the scene. It was Mother Durden. Some men who saw her were for taking up cudgels and driving her by force from the spot. But I restrained them, saying that I would see her on her way, and they, out of reverence for the clerical garb I had on, held back.
Mother Durden met my gaze as I advanced on her, but said nothing. Together and in silence we walked from the village and, as we did so, the villagers who had opened their doors to welcome in the evening sun, closed them as we passed by. At length when we were on the open cart track beyond the bounds of Great Bartonstone, Mother Durden spoke.
“Where is my booke?”
I tolde her of the many and various obstacles which stood in the way of my achieving the volume, that I would consider a strategy and bring it to her in good time, but that at present I saw no chance of its fulfillment. In suchlike manner I excused my tardiness, talking in a most politic manner and with great subtletie, but she would heare none of it. Straightway she led me to her cabin and, having no inke, penne, or paper to hand, she tooke an old dried calf’s skin, and, cutting her arm with a paring knife she dipped one of her long finger nails in her blood and with it wrote upon the skin. In truth, her writing was very ill, for she was all but unlettered and her hands, withered and curled with age, looked with their great nails for all the world like the talons of some monstrous antique bird which, except she grasped one hand with the other to be steady, shook with the palsye.
Talking all the while, she drew upon the skin certain signes whereby the floor stones of the crypte were marked, and, in short, showed me where the booke had been laid to rest. Upon which I made many complaintes, videlicet: what if the booke were lost, or taken, or had rotted away in the damp of that ancient charnel house? But she would have none of it and told me to bring her the book by the next full moon.
Fool that I was, I now felt compelled to carry out her wishes: whether because of the vellum scratched with her blood, or the baleful glance of her eye, or by my own secret desire, I know not. Yet still I delayed like a coward, letting ‘I dare not’ o’erwhelm ‘I would’ like the cat in the old tale, till my dreams denied me rest. For in them I saw Mother Durden seated in a vast cave, yet like her cabin, dark and noisome, illumined only by the red embers of her fire, and surrounded by a vast concourse of foul things: demons, boggarts, sprites, chimaeras, headless men who spake through their bellies and other suchlike terrors. And all of them did crye with one voice: delay not! Hesitate and you are lost!
And so at last I did summon up my courage, if courage it may be called, and, one night, concealed my self in the organ loft after evening prayer with pick, spade and lantern. Then, the great doores of the cathedrall being locked, I tooke myself down into the crypte, using all carefullie, and there lit my lantern.
The crypte is at all times and in all seasons a most dismall place, and at night, lit only by a lanterne it is very dreadfull. Some bl
ast, damp and noisome, blew through it from I knew not where. Now and then my eare caught a faint scuttering, as it might be of rats, but I sawe none. Then, taking Mother Durden’s hide from my coat, I began to search among the tombs for the signs she had drawn in her blood. Many times I had to sweep away the dust to see what was scratched on the floore slabs, and it was long before I had satisfied myselfe that I had the very stone under which the booke was buryed.
It was a long stone of some whitish marble layed against the South wall in the far eastern corner of the crypte. I divined this to be the one, for it was carved very faintly with the head of a bearded man with hair all around him, like the image of the Sun God, Blad in Ancient Aquae Sulis, and this was also the blazon on the arms of Cutbirth to this day. And there were certain other carvings in ancient runic letters upon the stone by which, Mother Durden told me, I might know this was the stone to lift.
I had much to do, and yet I was assisted in that the mortar which bound the slab to its fellows was very old and had crumbled away in parts. At length I found my pick pierced through into a space beneath and, by dint of much leverage, I was able to lift out the stone slab and put my lamp in to see the space I had discovered.
There I found a pit, deeper than I had expected, about the height of a man, and at its bottom lay a man—or rather its skeleton—armed and richly bedight with gold and jewells, yet very strangely, not like the knights we see on tombs, but more resembling the Barbarians on Roman Monuments. His helmet was a mask of bronze, gilded, and the face of the mask was of a wild man, like the Green Man of the country folk. Through the gaps for its mouth and eyes I could see the eye sockets of the skull, dark as hell’s night, and a set of teeth that grinned at his owne fallen pomp. The bone hands were clasped across the breast and they held in their grip a dark thing like a boxe or bag of black leather: and this was the booke.
Then my heart rose and I was seized with a wild delight. Taking my lanterne I leaped into the grave, yet in my falle I let go the lanterne so that it smashed and fell and in no way could I find it, nor could I discover tinder and flint to ignite once more a flame. Now all was black, blinde black, and no single thread of light. Yet I despaired not, and groping about with my hands I first put my fingers through the mouth of the dead man and felt his teeth. All at once I recoiled and felt down further until I came upon the skeleton hand that held fast that thing of leather. I grasped it to prize it away from the dead man thinking them too feeble to resist, yet something in the sinews held it fast, so that I must exert all my strength to take it. And when I did it was as if something gave a great sigh and all the tombe breathed.
The Spectral Book of Horror Stories Page 9
