by Deryn Lake
‘Oh help me,’ said Horatia. ‘Help me to wake up and escape this terrible nightmare.’
Once more she grasped the sphere and did the only thing possible; she raised it to her eye and stared into its heart. Rushing green, spirals, the end of existence. And then it was over.
Horatia Webbe Weston woke to find herself lying upon the ground, one correct ankle crossed upon the other, a silly schoolboy’s marble in her hand. In the distance the dogs were barking as they returned from the rabbit warren.
‘Gracious me!’ she said. ‘What am I doing down here?’ And with that she rose — and walked slowly back to Sutton Place.
25
Once before in the strange tale of the mansion house, the evil web woven by Sutton Place had caught the young Lady of the Manor in its mesh, twining round her until she gave up the hopeless struggle. When Melior Mary — the very last descendant of Sir Richard Weston — the builder — renounced love for the sake of the house and then regretted it bitterly, Sutton Place had never let her go again. There she had lived, growing madder and madder, hating her home and trying to destroy it with neglect, until death had finally released her from her imprisonment.
And now history was repeating itself. Horatia Webbe Weston — not of Weston blood but owner through the legacy of her husband — was trapped as well. For though it would have been easy enough to bid her stepfather farewell and return to Leamington to a happy, contented, aimless life, and leave him in solitary state in the great grim house, the look in his sad spaniel eyes was enough to keep her where she was.
And so the days after the death of Anne, the Dowager Countess Waldegrave, dragged by at stalemate until the weeks eventually turned into months. A miserable Christmas passed, during which the family — though not Catholic — prayed in the Chapel and Horatia thought she heard the sound of sobbing and felt it was the ghost of Giles the Fool.
Since that unnerving dream the previous year she had found herself thinking more and more about the curse and legends of Sutton Place. In fact, if she closed her eyes Horatia could still smell the pungent musk of the billowing incense, the sour unwashed bodies, the guttering tallow grease and, above all, the rain-soaked earth; the odours which had predominated the dream. But worse — far worse — she could, when her lids were closed, still see that tragic young Queen falling to the ground, grovelling in the mud, and uttering words that could have come only from demonic sources.
If Horatia Webbe Weston, twenty-nine years old and brought up as sensibly as possible in the erratic household of the late Earl Waldegrave, had thought such things possible, she might almost have believed she had travelled in time through the agency of a schoolboy’s marble and had been present at the actual laying of the curse of Sutton. But as every rational human being knew this kind of thing was absolutely impossible, she dismissed it. Almost ...
With the horrid solitary Christmas, not relieved by the presence of Francis, Caroline and their horde of children until New Year, finally over, spring showed its face once more in Sutton Park. The jade skies of winter, heavy with indigo clouds, gave way to forget-me-not heavens. There was rose in the dawnings and argent in the afternoons; the sun went down in a flurry of powder pink to show that tomorrow would be fine.
And then the miracle happened again with the year’s rebirth. Skeleton branches suddenly held thick determined buds, the river unfroze and a silver fish leapt up, lambs were born into snowdrifts but gamely held on to life.
And with all these signs of the regeneration of the earth’s cycle a fever came into Horatia’s blood that left her raw with misery. For it was now that she thought of love, of the melting of one body into another and the seed that could have been planted in the heat of such a rapturous midnight. She thought of the child that John Joseph might have given her; the living memorial to him that would have borne her up through all her present difficulties. A child that by its very presence could have banished the loneliness which stalked her day and night.
She had long since given up hope that John Wardlaw would ever come back, knew that Jay — mystic and powerful young man though he might be — had been mistaken. For what clairvoyant does not make an error, misinterpret a signal or sign? And such thoughts made her regret that she had turned down Mr Colquhoun and Cousin Francis — they would have been good enough to sire the longed-for infant if nothing more.
And then she was angry with herself for she knew in her heart that she could never have settled for a life without passion, an existence without love. It was a great puzzle to her: whether to be lonely or to compromise her feelings. But when she spoke of her worries to Mr Hicks he said, ‘I would marry again, Horatia, if I had the chance. Please do not think I could ever love anyone as well as I loved your mother — it is just that I so long for a companion.’
‘But, Algy, did I do wrong to refuse Francis Salvin?’
A grin — and some of his old style — returned to her stepfather’s face.
‘He turned you down, my dear. You would not relinquish your jointure if you remember. No, you did quite the right thing. But I wish you were not alone. It is such a pity that you and Ida Anna are really beyond the age for a season in London.’
‘Perhaps we should advertise ourselves in The Times — “Widower and his two mature stepdaughters available to receive proposals of marriage from respectable people willing to live in doomed manor house in Surrey. Previous experience not essential.”’
Mr Hicks looked slightly shocked. ‘You are not serious, Horatia?’
‘No, I am not serious. But, Algy ...’
‘Yes?’
‘If one of us three should meet someone with whom marriage could be seriously considered, should we feel able to proceed?’
Mr Hicks looked guilty. ‘I feel I am standing in the way of you two girls. I have told you before you are quite free to go. Don’t worry about your old stepfather. I will be perfectly happy on my own.’
Horry went over and sat on his lap.
‘No you wouldn’t. You have your kicked dog expression. But, dearest Algy, won’t you think about letting Sutton Place to someone else? In that way we could all go away and have a jollier time.’
‘I promise I will soon — when I have recovered from your mother’s loss just a little more.’
As she left the room Horatia found her sister outside the door, obviously on the point of coming in but having stopped to listen through the crack.
Ida Anna said, ‘Selfish old brute. He is holding us back. And I think you are selfish too, Horatia.’
‘I? Good God, how?’
‘By refusing to leave him. I am twenty-eight this year and firmly on the shelf and you are doing nothing to help me at all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you would decide to go with me — for how could I set up on my own when that simply is not done? — I might stand a chance. But stuck in this hell hole I’ve as much hope of meeting eligibles as flying. I think you are thoroughly mean.’
Normally one of Ida Anna’s outbursts — which she had from time to time with her eyes snapping like chestnuts — would have passed straight over Horatia’s head. But this day, what with the wildness of spring upon her and thoughts of the baby she never had, Horatia found herself bursting straight into tears and running off across the Great Hall, up the West Stairs and into one of the guest bedrooms. Here she flung herself headlong upon the bed and wept her heart out.
It was one of the smaller rooms of Sutton Place, rather dark, and diminished even further in size by the presence of a huge mahogany wardrobe, the middle door of which consisted entirely of a full-length mirror. Peeping into this now as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve — most inelegant, but then Horatia had never cared too greatly for the niceties of good behaviour — she saw her reflection. The cloud of hair had fallen down and burst about her shoulders, while the storm of tears had wet the full, firm bosom — restored to its former splendour once more. And then she saw John Joseph. He was standing inside the wardrobe and looking out
at her — smiling.
She knew the expression ‘feet did not touch the ground’ — but hers actually did not as she crossed to the wardrobe door and pulled it fully open. Of course he was not really there at all. What she had seen was one of his uniforms — bright blue, frogging across the chest, buttons blazing — hanging where he must have left it when last at Sutton Place.
Impulsively she jumped in beside it, wrapping the sleeves around her. His ambience, his influence — the smell which was his quite individually and could be associated with no other person in the world — was all about her.
‘Oh, my darling,’ she said, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the jacket chest, ‘why did you have to die? Why did you have to leave me?’
Quite suddenly, without her opening her eyes or seeing anything at all, it was no longer an article of clothing hanging in a cupboard and forgotten long since. She felt it grow warm with life, felt the arms tighten about her, felt John Joseph’s lips brush her ear as he whispered, ‘Goodbye my darling. I have to leave you now.’
Still without daring to look she answered, ‘Why, why? Must I be utterly alone?’
‘We must both move on,’ said that voice from a thousand distances. ‘Have faith Horatia. When you hear Giles laugh — that will be the sign.’
He was gone. It was an old empty uniform once more that she held clasped in her arms. John Joseph Webbe Weston had slipped out of her life for ever. And she was alone — standing in a wardrobe like a child — and staring dismally out into the shadows of that little bleak room.
*
Everywhere the song of April: white birds arcing in an eggshell sky, daffodils flouncing gold as altar cups, trees in their splendid blazing green and hiding in their depths, no doubt, the Green Man himself; Spring incarnate, the creature whom legend was later to call Robin Hood.
The packet steamer that crossed to Dover from Calais came out of a shower-filled mist and into the sunshine, the passengers all gazing up in wonderment as a double rainbow broke the prism and sprang up over the great cliffs.
‘It must be an omen,’ said a jolly girl, clutching to her side an equally jolly little boy, but sadly minus a husband.
‘Yes,’ said the man who stood next to her at the ship’s rail. ‘It is. If we make a wish now I think it has every chance of being granted.’
She glanced at him curiously, her cheerful gaze taking in his dark, slightly greying, hair; his jewel eyes, much lined but still bright for all that; his weather-tanned skin.
He was not in the first flush of youth — probably nearing forty — but still had an attractive air.
So she gave him an extra special smile as she said, ‘Have you been away from England long?’
‘Too long,’ he answered. ‘But that’s not a mistake I’ll repeat again. My wandering days are over, thank God.’
‘Oh that’s nice.’ She gave him an even bigger smile. ‘I expect your family have missed you.’
‘They believe me to be dead,’ he answered, suddenly sad.
The jolly girl could think of no response to that, short of getting involved in long and deep conversation, and as her son needed attention to his nose and the ship’s gangplank was rattling down to be clamped on to the quay below, she contented herself with, ‘It will be such a lovely surprise for them, in that case, to find you are not,’ as she applied a handkerchief and collected her hand baggage all at once.
‘Good luck to you,’ she said, straightening from her son’s nostrils. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy.’ And with that she was gone down the gangplank, with only one backward glance at the attractive stranger whose gaze had gone beyond her to the shore.
*
‘It seems to me, Horatia,’ said Ida Anna, ‘that you spend all your time mooning round the Chapel these days. I can’t think what’s come over you. I declare you’re growing quite religious. You’re not thinking of taking the veil, are you?’
‘No,’ answered Horatia spiritedly. ‘I am not. But if I did I can assure you it would be to get away from you. You have been quite horrid since Mother died.’
The boot-button eyes relented a little. ‘I’m sorry. You know why it is. I hate being walled up in this mausoleum.’
‘Well we must accept it for the time being.’
‘For the time being? Do you have hope of getting away then?’
‘Yes,’ said her sister in a sudden confiding burst. ‘I am sure something is going to happen soon. Ida Anna, you are not to make fun — but I believe John Joseph has spoken to me. He said that when Giles laughed it would be the sign.’
‘The sign of what?’
‘That I don’t know.’
There was a pause and then Ida Anna said, whirling round to look Horatia straight in the face, ‘You don’t think Jackdaw is on his way back, do you? You don’t think that funny Jay Blanchard was right all along?’
‘Yes,’ answered Horatia, ‘no. I don’t know.’
‘Well, if he comes you are to go with him,’ said her sister firmly. ‘I will not want to hear any of this “poor Algy” business. I can take care of him. Until you are settled and can send for me, that is!’
‘Oh, you minx!’ said Horatia, hugging Ida Anna and crying a little.
‘But what about the curse of the manor? Can it stop you?’
‘Every day I pray that it cannot. That is what I am doing, partly sending up good thoughts — and partly listening for Giles.’
‘Oh, how splendid!’ Ida Anna clapped her hands together. ‘I shall come with you and add my strength to yours.’
And so, with the little pawns in place, it was time for the game to be played finally out. They had both of them — the queen and the knight — borne their hardships well; they had endured suffering, both physical and mental, without allowing themselves to be defeated. They had not been merely passengers on the voyage through the universe.
Great laws of action and reaction swung into final place at this; the wheel of fortune began to slow. It was time for the Lady of the Manor to escape the evil which haunted Sutton Place and all those unfortunate enough to be its owners.
And so it was, as Horatia and Ida Anna entered the Chapel on the following morning — the Chapel that had once been Sir Richard Weston’s Long Gallery and in which so much in the way of family gladness and despair had been played out in the three hundred years since it had been built — that they heard Giles. Sir Richard’s Fool, who had given his faithful heart to all the family, and died in Sutton Forest, had come to tell the Lady, his Lady, that she was to be saved from Queen Edith’s malediction.
How he laughed! How he jumped and rattled his stick along the wall. They could see nothing, of course, but the sisters knew. They knew that something wonderful and momentous would happen at any minute. So they danced and laughed with him, making a nonsense of time and its separations, as they shared his great and simple joy.
‘Quick,’ said Ida Anna, ‘quick Horry. You must go outside to see. I shall watch from the window.’
And that was how Jackdaw finally beheld his dear love again as his carriage came round the drive’s loop — running into the courtyard and on to the lawns, her arms flung wide, and her feet skimming over the dewy grass, her foxfire hair a nimbus about her head.
‘Horatia!’ he called out, as he jumped on to the gravel. ‘Horatia, it’s me — Jackdaw. I don’t suppose you’ll remember me ...’
But he stopped talking nonsense and rushed forward. For how could she ever forget him? She had known him for centuries and was his soul’s own mate.
‘Jackdaw,’ she cried. ‘Jackdaw! You’ve come. You’re alive. Oh Jackdaw.’
They saw so much love in each other’s eyes.
‘Horatia,’ he said as she ran into his arms. ‘There is no need to say anything, is there, except will you stay with me for ever?’
‘You know the answer to that,’ she replied, as she stepped up into the carriage beside him and it turned in the forecourt.
‘So at last,’ Horatia asked, s
nuggling against him, ‘the story of the doomed Manor of Sutton is ended?’
Knowing that she, at least, was safe, John Wardlaw, aware of old truths, answered, ‘Only time will tell that.’
But as the great gates of Sutton Place swung open to let them free, the water in St Edward’s Well gleamed like Viking gold.
Bibliography
A History of the British Army, J. W. Fortescue;
Annals of an old Manor House, Frederic Harrison;
The Early Victorians 1832-51, J. F. C. Harrison;
A History of Austro-Hungary, Louis Leger;
A History of London Life, R. J. Mitchell and M. D. R. Leys;
The Late Hungarian Campaign, J. W. Warre Tyndale.
