CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Simone returned to sleep after a short time and did not wake again until morning. I remained with her, but did not sleep. My mind kept wandering into places I had no wish to know. William de Lindesey was reaching out for me and for those I loved. I had to stop him, but I did not know how.
Shortly after breakfast, I took Bertrand to school, then set out for Sidney Sussex again. Matthew Atherton had not returned to his rooms. He had missed a lecture he was due to deliver that morning, and there was general concern in college that something untoward had taken place.
I spent the rest of the day in my rooms at college, taking care of duties I had neglected for some weeks. But my mind was elsewhere, and as soon as I returned to Trumpington that evening, I started work on decoding the inscription around William de Lindesey’s tomb.
Atherton had clearly spent hours puzzling over it. Each of the dozens of sheets I had retrieved from his rooms was covered in scribbles, diagrams, and mathematical computations, in which he had attempted to reduce the inscription to some sort of code or cipher. He had written the letters down in columns, horizontally, vertically, and even diagonally, he had written them in reverse order, then in sequences like one, three, five or two, four, six. Nothing seemed to work in any of the three languages that would have been familiar to Abbot William: Latin, medieval French and English.
I went over his jottings carefully, in the hope he had missed something, but after hours of this I was no further forward. Nothing fitted, absolutely nothing. None of the combinations produced by my juggling of letters made even seeming sense in any conceivable language. Yet I could not believe that anyone had gone to such pains merely to inscribe random letters on a tomb.
I worked until dinner time, and again after that until well past midnight. I was the last to retire. The house was silent, and still unfamiliar to me. It had been built towards the end of the last century, and it had been altered very little since then. Gas had been installed a few years earlier, but only on the ground floor.
As I went upstairs, I cradled a candle as usual. My thoughts were crammed with strings of letters and glimmerings of half-finished words and phrases, and I scarcely noticed my surroundings. It was cold in the passageway. I had an odd sensation that the house was empty, that, while I had been working on my inscription, everyone else had gone, leaving me alone. It was an irrational thought, but it gripped me with unexpected force. I began to climb the stairs, wondering if I should find Simone waiting for me, or whether I would enter the bedroom to find it empty.
These fears began to crowd in on me, harder and harder until I could barely breathe. I told myself it was the purest nonsense, that the house was inhabited as it always was. But a sense of emptiness surrounded me, so great I had almost to struggle physically in order to mount the stairs.
I reached the top at last. The long dark passage leading to our bedroom stretched away from me, scarcely visible in the very little light my candle shed. Outside, a high wind had risen, and as I set foot on the landing, I could hear it more distinctly than before, howling past a skylight higher up. The mournful sounds it made in its passing accentuated my sense that all about me was bleak and empty. It was as if all winter and all winter’s sadness lay just outside the window, as if the house had been ripped from its foundations and set down among snow and ice in a deserted wilderness.
As I stepped into the passage, I heard, quite distinctly, another sound. It came from somewhere dead ahead of me, and I did not for a moment think it imagination or an echo of the wind above. Someone was standing in the darkness in front of me. The sound I had heard was a low cough.
“Who’s there?” I asked, frightened. No one replied.
“Mrs Lumley? . . . Mary? . . . Simone?”
I had no answer. A wind-torn silence held the house imprisoned.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward, holding the candle in front of me. No one. I went on to the end of the passage. It was empty. No door had been opened, there was nowhere else to go.
I opened the door of our bedroom. The gas-light was still lit. Simone was sitting up in bed, waiting for me. She smiled, and all my fears dropped from me. The wind was still roaring outside, but I knew the bed would be warm, a haven for the night at least.
In the morning, two letters arrived in a single envelope from René, one for Simone and one for myself. Simone’s contained news of all that happened in St Barthelemy since her departure—which, to be honest, was not very much at all. Mine, on the other hand, began with about a page of rather effusive reflections on his joy at my marriage to his beloved daughter, before moving on to the scholarly matters that had formed the substance of our regular correspondence over the years.
On the last page, almost as an afterthought, he mentioned something of more immediate interest.
“I have not forgotten our delightful visit to the ruins of Thornham Abbey. You will remember that I already knew of Thornham as a daughter establishment of Fleury. Since my return, I have been reading all I can find about the relationship between the two foundations. There are some published records from Fleury itself, and I have had access to papers at the abbey of Ripoll near here, which was much influenced by Fleury in former times. When I have amassed enough of these, I shall send you copies of the most interesting.
“You will, however, be entertained by the following extract from a chronicle for the year 1349.
In the winter of this year there appeared at Fleury a certain Guillaume de Lindesey, who was Abbot of Thornham in England. He was accompanied by an English knight and his lady, whose names are not recorded. This Guillaume, it seems, had spent his noviciate here, and had returned to pray at the shrine of St Benedict. This followed the deaths of the greater part of his brethren in an outbreak of the plague, may God defend all Christian souls from its ravages.
Abbot Guillaume was thought at first to be a pious man, for his knowledge of the scriptures was unsurpassed, and he spent much of every day immersed in reading of the sacred text. But he had not been at Fleury above a month when a rumour began to circulate, namely that he and his companions had brought with them from England a demon of the plague. For several of the brothers fell ill at that time with fever, and within two months six of them had suffered terrible deaths. This was not the true plague, for none showed the signs of it. Neither the abbot nor the knight nor his lady at any time showed themselves infected, yet it was certain they had brought this illness with them, and that it was Satanic in origin.
That it was a demon or a cacodemon that they brought with them has been attested to by several of the brethren, some of them now living, among them Brother Gildas, Brother Hervey, who was then apothecary, Brother Junien, and our Father Abbot himself, Jacques du Mene-Bre. All these said they had at one time or another seen within the abbey a thing moving that was not a man, yet had the appearance of a man’s shadow, being very black and low against the ground, quick in movement, though not quite as a man should move.
Brother Junien has told me that he saw its face on one occasion, coming upon it by candlelight close by the cloister, and that he did not sleep afterwards for upwards of a year. And Brother Hervey says he was watching through the infirmary window one moonlit night and saw a long black creature creeping across the inner court. He said nothing of it at the time, thinking it an illusion, a trick of light. But later, when others began to speak of an apparition, he added his voice to theirs.
It was also rumoured that the English lady slept with her husband on one night and with Abbot Guillaume the next, though God knows if this is the truth or idle gossip. However that may be, our Father Abbot required the three to leave Fleury. It is said that, as they departed, Guillaume turned and recited a malediction against our abbey and its people. May God and His Son turn his curses upon his own head, now and for all eternity.Si Maldis soient ils quil soient ades en pestillence et en mechies de cuer et de corps. amen. Sy maldis soient ils que dieu envoye sur lour biens et sur leur terres feu et flemme en lieu de
pluye. et de rouzee. amen. Maldis excommenies entredis anathematysies soientils. amen. Sy maldis soient ils comme fuit dathan abyron quils pour leurs meffais furent transglutis de la terretous vis. amen.
René ended his letter with some amusing remarks about the malediction with which the chronicler had ended his account. I could not laugh at it. I knew how seriously it had been meant; and how ineffective it had been. William and, no doubt, his companions had returned to England and to Thornham, where he had somehow contrived to stay as abbot until his death some nine years later. What had been the fate of Hugh de Warenne and his accommodating lady was a matter for conjecture, but I suspected that they must have insinuated themselves somehow as patrons of Thornham Abbey or of its dower church at Thornham St Stephen. A little further digging in the archives would doubtless reveal the truth, or as much of it as might have been recorded.
It was that same afternoon that Mrs Lumley came to me while I was working in my study, an expression of the most lively consternation on her usually placid face.
“Whatever’s the matter, Mrs Lumley?” I asked, putting down my pen and preparing myself for my first domestic tragedy. I knew she was reluctant to bring household matters to Simone on account of the language barrier between them.
“It’s Mary, sir.”
“Yes, what about her?”
“She’s packing her things, sir, and says she means to leave the house at once.”
“Whatever can have happened?”
Mrs Lumley spread her very ample hands in a gesture worthy of a Mediterranean matron.
“That I can’t say for the life of me, sir, except that she swears she will not spend another night under this roof.”
It was then that I remembered with sickening vividness my own experience of the night before. Had Mary too heard or seen something?
“Ask her to come here at once, Mrs Lumley. I’d like to have a word with her.”
“She says she won’t speak to anyone, sir. She doesn’t care about a reference, all she wants is to leave. I can’t make rhyme nor reason of it, that I can’t, sir.”
“All the same, ask her to come down. Tell her I’m not angry and I won’t stop her leaving. But I would like to speak with her, if she doesn’t mind.”
Mrs Lumley cast me a look at once quizzical and disapproving, as though she suspected me personally of being the cause of the maid’s precipitate departure. Clamping her mouth firmly shut on whatever remark she was about to make, she turned on her heels and hurried upstairs. A few minutes later, an abashed and nervous Mary appeared in the study. She appeared ashamed, frightened, and anxious, yet the look in her eyes was unmistakably one of resolution.
“Mrs Lumley tells me you wish to leave, Mary. Is that true?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir, but it is true.”
Her voice shook, but she forced the words out with a determination I could only admire.
“This is very sudden. Is there a reason? Has something happened?”
She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head, then, unable to hold out any longer, burst into tears.
“It’s all right, Mary, no one’s going to get angry with you. If you’re really set on leaving us, you may have your wages and a letter of recommendation. You’ve been a good girl, and we shall be sad to see you go. But I would like to know if anything has happened to bring you to such a sudden decision. Is it your family? Can we do anything to help?”
She calmed down slowly, affected, I think, by words of kindness she had little expected. Whipping out a handkerchief from the end of one sleeve, she wiped her eyes.
“It’s no good, sir, I’ve tried, truly I have, but it’s more than I can bear. If I don’t leave today, I know I’ll go mad. I can’t spend another night in that room, God knows I can’t.”
“I don’t understand, Mary. What’s more than you can bear? Is something the matter with your room?”
She nodded.
“That’s just it, sir. It’s not my room, for it’s a very nice room, and sorry I am to have to give it up, but it’s right next to the main attic, sir.”
The main attic was a large empty space beneath the roof, where we kept trunks and papers for which there was no room in my study. It was a draughty, echoing place, long unused, and filled with dust and cobwebs.
“Don’t you like that?”
“I didn’t mind it at first, sir. It’s only an attic, after all. But then . . .”
“Yes?”
“Then the noises started, sir.”
My heart ground to a halt, then started to beat again, slowly and unpleasantly.
“Noises?” I repeated.
“In the attic, sir. Like people talking, but low, so you can’t make nothing out. They’ve been there for nights, sir. I put up with them at first, thinking they might be what you call echoes, from underneath, perhaps. Sounds travel in big houses like this. There are pipes and that. But last night . . .”
Her voice trailed away, and when she looked at me I could see genuine fear in her eyes.
“Last night? What happened then?”
A very great reluctance came over her then, a manifest aversion to speak of whatever it was she had seen or heard.
“It’s all right, Mary. This is in confidence. I won’t tell a soul.”
“It’s not that, sir. I just don’t like to talk about it. You’ll think I’m making up stories.”
I shook my head.
“No, Mary, I won’t think anything of the sort. I believe you’re telling the truth.”
My mood somehow reached out to her, and I think she sensed I knew more than she had at first imagined.
“Well, sir, what it was last night, sir . . . I heard singing. In the attic, like before, only singing as it were, not talking.”
“But surely . . . Was that so frightening?”
“Yes, sir, it was. Worse than anything, sir. It wasn’t quite singing. Not songs as such, sir.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
She hesitated, trying to find the right words for what she wanted to say.
“What it was like, sir, was a sort of hymn, only not the sort they sing in church. I have an aunt Beatrice, very proper and a bit stuck up, but awful religious. Aunt Bea doesn’t hold with ordinary churches, she’d rather travel miles for what she calls High Church. Incense and suchlike. She’s as near a Catholic as makes no difference, though she calls herself Church of England like the rest of us. Not that there’s anything wrong with Catholics, sir—your good lady being one, as I know.”
“Go on, Mary. What has your aunt Beatrice to do with all this?”
“Only this, sir. When I was small, she’d take me now and then to Walsingham, to the Shrine of Our Lady. There are two shrines, as you may know, sir, a Catholic shrine and one of our own. Mostly we’d go to our own shrine, but sometimes Aunt Beatrice would go to the Catholics and sit for a while. That’s where I heard that singing, sir. Singing that’s not really singing, just sort of up and down, and terrible solemn.”
“Plainsong.”
She nodded.
“That’s right, sir. That’s what my aunt called it. It was sung by monks. And that’s what I heard last night, sir. Someone all alone, singing to himself. It went on all night till I thought I’d go mad of it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I could not prevail on Mary to stay, nor did I feel it in my heart to try very hard. Given the chance, I should have packed all our bags and taken us from the house at once, were it not for the fact that I knew he would follow us wherever we went, that flight from him was impossible. Our only hope lay in his defeat, in his final, unequivocal destruction. And I still did not know how I was to accomplish that.
I explained to Simone that Mary had left on account of difficulties at home, where her services were required to nurse a sick relative. Mrs Lumley agreed to find another girl to take her place on Monday. In the meantime, Simone was perfectly happy to take care of Mary’s chores herself, or with Mrs Lumley’s assi
stance.
After lunch, she took Bertrand for a walk along the river, down to Byron’s Pool and across to Grantchester. I cried off, saying I had urgent work to do. Mrs Lumley would be busy in the kitchen, and young Ned had work in the garden, sweeping up mounds of fallen leaves. While they were both occupied, I intended to pay a visit to the attic, though what precisely I hoped or feared to find there I did not know.
It was still light when I closed the door of my study gently and headed upstairs. All the same, my memories of climbing those same stairs in the darkness not many hours before clung to me tenaciously and came close to driving me back down again. Only the thought of Simone and my fears for her safety lent me the resolution to proceed. But for Mrs Lumley, far out of hearing in her hot domain at the back of the house, the place was entirely empty now, just as I had imagined it the night before.
A single enclosed flight of uncarpeted stairs led up to the attic floor. I confess I stood at the bottom for a long time before mustering up the courage to go a step further. All the time I remained there I listened intently for the sound of chanting that Mary had described, but I could hear nothing but the occasional noises any old house makes as its timbers settle in the cooling of the day.
In the end, I could stand the waiting no longer. At the top of the stairs I lit the oil lamp I had brought with me and opened the door.
Soft light fell through a sloping window in the roof. My own light comforted me for all that. A short passage led to the main attic door. On either side were the rooms belonging to Mrs Lumley and, until today, Mary. The cook’s was the larger, extending into the eaves and connecting only narrowly with the attic proper. Mary’s, on my right, had all of its back wall and most of one side wall against the empty space beyond.
Mary had said that the sounds came from the long attic room that took up the remainder of the space beneath the roof. I went there now, opening the door quickly, knowing I would lose courage should I hesitate.
The skylights here were dirty, letting in very little illumination. I was more grateful than ever for the lamp I carried. The attic was a cobwebbed, dusty place, full of little muffled echoes. As I entered, I recited a prayer for protection from spiritual danger. In recent days, my unbelief had suffered heavy blows.
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