Kirkland Revels

by Виктория Холт

  It was very pleasant to be there on that bright December afternoon.

  There were few people about and as I looked at the gleaming river Nidd and those steep streets of houses with their red roofs, at the ruined castle with its fine old keep, I felt invigorated, and I wondered how I could such a short time ago have been so frightened.

  As I made my way to the river I heard a voice behind me calling, ” Mrs.

  Catherine,” and, turning, I saw Simon coming towards me.

  ” Hallo, have you finished your shopping?”

  ” Yes.”

  He took his watch from his pocket. ” Almost an hour before our rendezvous. What do you propose to do?”

  ” I was going to wander along the river bank.”

  ” Let’s do it together.”

  As he took my parcels and walked beside me, two things struck me one was the strength which radiated from him, the other was the loneliness of the river bank.

  ” I know what you want to do.” he said. ” You want to try your luck at the well.”

  “What well?”

  “Haven’t you heard of the famous well? Haven’t you ever visited Knaresborough before?”

  ” Once or twice with my father. We did not visit the well.”

  He clicked his tongue mockingly. ” Mrs. Catherine, your education has ‘been neglected.”

  ” Tell me about the well.”

  ” Let’s find it, shall we? If you hold your hand in the water, then wish and leave it to dry you will get your wish.”

  ” I am sure you do not believe such legends.”

  ” There’s a great deal you don’t know about me, Mrs. Catherine; although of course that’s something else you haven’t realised. “

  ” I am sure you are the most practical person and never wish for that which can’t reasonably be yours.”

  ” You once told me that I was an arrogant man. There for you, doubtless think I regard myself as omnipotent. In that case I might wish for anything and believe I have a. chance of getting it.”

  ” Even so you would realise that you had to work for what you wanted.”

  ” That might be so.”

  ” Then why bother to wish, when work would suffice?”

  ” Mrs. Catherine, you are in the wrong mood for the Dripping Well. Let us for once cast out common sense. Let us be gullible for once.”

  ” I should like to see the well.”

  ” And wish?”

  ” Yes. I should like to wish.”

  ” And will you tell me if it comes true?”

  ” Yes.”

  ” But don’t tell me what you have wished, until it comes true. That is one of those conditions. It has to be a secret between you and the powers of darkness … or light. I’m not sure which it is in this case. There’s the well, and there is Mother Shipton’s Cave. Did your father tell you the story of Old Mother Shipton?”

  ” He never told me stories. He talked to me very little.”

  ” Then it looks as though I must explain. Old Mother Shipton was a witch and she lived here … oh, about four hundred years ago. She was a love child, the result of union between a village girl and a stranger who persuaded her that he was a spirit possessed of supernatural powers. Before the child was born he deserted her, and little Ursula grew up to be a wise woman. She married a man named Shipton and so became Old Mother Shipton.”

  ” ” What an interesting story. I’ve often wondered who Old Mother Shipton was. “

  ” Some of her prophecies came true. It is said that she foretold the fall of Wolsey, the defeat of the Armada and the effect the Civil War would have on the West Riding. I used to remember some of her prophecies; there’s a rhyme about them.

  Around the -world thoughts shall fly In the twinkling of an eye . I used to know the whole thing and chant it to my grandmother’s cook until she chased me out of the kitchen. I made it sound like an evil prophecy intended for her alone. I remember:

  Under water men shall walk Shall ride shall sleep shall talk. In the air men shall be seen . and it ends:

  The world then to an end shall come In Nineteen hundred and Ninety-one.

  ” We have some years left to us then?” I said, and we were laughing together.

  Now we had reached the Dripping WelL ” It’s a magic well,” he said. “

  It’s known also as the Petrifying Well. Anything which is dropped in this well will eventually become petrified.”

  ” But why?”

  “It has nothing to do with Mother Shipton, although I don’t doubt some people would like to say it has. There’s magnesian limestone in the water. It’s actually in the soil and gets into the water which drips through and down into the well. You must let the water drip on to your hands and wish Will you go first or shall I?”

  “You first.”

  He leaned over the well and I watched the water, which was seeping through the sides of the well, drip on to his hands.

  He turned to me holding out a wet hand.

  ” I am wishing,” he said. ” If I leave this water to dry I cannot fail to get my wish. Now it’s your turn.”

  He was standing close to me as I took off my glove and leaned over the well.

  I was conscious of the silence all about us. I was alone in this spot and only Simon Redvers knew I was here. I leaned forward and the cold water I was sure it was the coldest water I had ever known dripped on to my hand.

  He was immediately behind me and there came to me then a moment of panic. In my mind’s eye I saw him not as he had been a few seconds before, but wrapped in a monk’s robe.

  Not Simon, I was saying to myself. It must not be Simon. And so vehement was my thought that I forgot any other wish than that.

  I could feel the warmth of his body, so close was he, and I held my breath. I was certain then that something was about to happen to me.

  Then I swung round. He stepped back a pace. He had been standing very near me. Why? I asked myself.

  ” Don’t forget,” he said. ” It’s got to dry. I can guess what you wished.”

  ” Can you?”

  ” Not a difficult task. You whispered to yourself: I wish for a boy.”

  ” ” It has turned cold. “

  “That was the water. It is exceptionally cold. That has something to do with the lime, I think.”

  He was staring beyond me and I was conscious of a certain excitement in him. At that moment a man appeared close by, I had not noticed his approach, but perhaps Simon had.

  ” Ah, trying t’well,” said the man pleasantly.

  ” Who could pass by without doing so?” answered Simon.

  ” Folks come from far and wide to test t’well, and to see Mother Shipton’s Cave.”

  ” It’s very interesting,” I said.

  ” Oh, aye. Happen so.”

  Simon was gathering up my parcels. ” You must make sure the water has dried on your hand,” he told me; and I held it out before me as we walked along. He took my arm in a possessive manner and drew me away from the well into those steep streets which led to the castle.

  Luke and Damaris were waiting for us at the inn and we had a quick cup of tea and then drove home.

  It was dusk when we reached Kirkland Moorside. Simon dropped Damaris at the doctor’s house and then drove Luke ^ and myself on to the Revels, j I felt dejected when I entered my room. It was because | of these new suspicions which had come to me. I was fighting them, but they would not be dismissed. Why had I felt frightened at the side of the well?

  What had Simon been thinking as he stood beside me? Had he been planning some thing which the casual arrival of a stranger had prevented his carrying out?

  I really was astonished at myself. I might pretend to scorn the powers of the Dripping Well, but I had made my wish involuntarily and I fervently hoped it would come true.

  Please let it not be Simon.

  Why should I care whether it was Luke or Simon?

  But I did care. It was then that I began to suspect
the nature of my feelings for this man. I had no tenderness for him, but I found that I felt more alive in his company than I did in that of any other person.

  I might be angry with him I so often was but being angry with him was more exciting than being pleasant with anyone else. I cherished his opinion of my good sense and I was happy because he admired good sense more than any other quality.

  Each time I saw him my feelings towards him underwent a change, and I understood now that I was more and more under the spell of his personality.

  It was since he had loomed so large in my life that I had begun to understand what my feelings for Gabriel had been. I knew mat I had loved Gabriel without being in love with him. I had married Gabriel because I had sensed a need in him for protection, and I had wanted to give it; it had seemed so reasonable to marry him when I could give him comfort and he could provide me with an escape from a home which was beginning to affect me more than ever with its melancholy. That was why I had found it difficult to remember exactly what he looked like; that was why, although I had lost him, I could still look forward to the future with hopeful expectation. Simon and the child had helped to do that for me.

  It had been a cry from the heart when I had wished at the well:

  Please, not Simon.

  I had now become aware of a change in the behaviour of everyone towards me. I intercepted exchanged glances; even Sir Matthew seemed what I can only call watchful.

  I was to discover the meaning of this through Sarah, and the discovery was more alarming than anything which had gone before.

  I went to her apartments one day and found her stitching at the christening robe.

  ” I’m glad you’ve come,” she greeted me. ” You used to be interested in my tapestry.”

  “I still am.” I assured her.

  “I think it’s lovely. What have you been doing lately?”

  She looked at me archly. ” You would really like to see?”

  ” Of course.”

  She giggled, put aside the christening robe, and standing up, took my hand. Then she paused and her face puckered.

  “I’m keeping it a secret,” she whispered. Then she added:

  ” Until it’s finished.”

  ” Then I mustn’t pry. When will it be finished?”

  I thought she was going to burst into tears as she said:

  ” How can I finish it when I don’t know! I thought you would help me.

  You said he didn’t kill himself. You said . “

  I waited tensely for her to go on but her mind had wandered. ” There was a tear in me christening robe,” she said quietly.

  ” Was there? But tell me about the tapestry.”

  ” I didn’t, want to show it to anyone until it was finished. It was Luke….”

  ” Luke?” I cried, my heart beating faster.

  ” Such a lovely baby. He cried when he was at the font, and he tore the robe. All that time it hasn’t been mended But why should it be, until there’s a new baby waiting for it?”

  ” You’ll mend it beautifully, I’m sure,” I told her, and she brightened.

  ” It’s you !” she murmured. ” I don’t know where to put you. That’s why …”

  ” You don’t know where to put me,” I repeated, puzzled.

  ” I’ve got Gabriel … and the dog. He was a dear little dog.

  Friday! It was a queer sort of name. “

  “Aunt Sarah.” I demanded, “what do you know about Friday?”

  “Poor Friday ! Such a good little dog. Such a. faithful dog. I suppose that was why … Oh dear, I wonder if your baby will be good at the christening. But Rockwell babies are never good babies. I shall wash the robe myself.”

  ” What were you saying about Friday, Aunt Sarah? Please tell me.”

  She looked at me with a certain concern. ” He was your dog,” she said.

  ” You should know. But I ^shan’t allow anyone to touch it. It’s very difficult to iron. It has to be gophered in places. I did it for Luke’s christening. I did it for Gabriel’s.”

  “Aunt Sarah,” I said impulsively, “show me the tapestry you’re working on.”

  A light of mischief came into her eyes. ” But it isn’t finished, and I didn’t want to show it to anyone … until it is.”

  ” Why not? I saw you working on one before you’d finished it.”

  ” That was different. Then I knew …”

  “You knew?”

  She nodded. ” I don’t know where to put you, you see.”

  ” But I’m here.”

  She put her head on one side so that she looked like a bright-eyed bird.

  “To-day … to-morrow … next week, perhaps. After that where will you be?”

  I was determined to see the picture. ” Please,” I wheedled, ” do show me.”

  She was delighted by my interest which she knew was genuine.

  ” Well, perhaps you,” she said. ” No one else.”

  ” I’ll not tell anyone,” I promised.

  ” All right.” She was like an eager child. ” Come on.”

  She went to the cupboard and brought out a canvas, and held the picture close to her body so that I couldn’t see it.

  ” Do let me see,” I pleaded.

  Then she reversed it, still holding it against her. Depicted on the canvas was the south facade of the house; and lying on the stones in front of it was Gabriel’s body. It was so vivid, so real, that I felt a sudden nausea as I looked at it. I stared, for there was something else. Lying beside Gabriel was my dog Friday, his little body stiff as it could only be in death. , It was horrible.

  I must have given a startled gasp, for Sarah chuckled. My horror was the best compliment I could have given her.

  S stammered: “It looks so … real.” “Oh, it’s real enough … in a way,” she said dreamily. ” i saw him lying there, and that was how he looked. I went down before they could take him away, and saw him.”

  ” Gabriel …” I heard myself murmur, for the sight of the tapestry had brought back so many tender memories, and I could picture him more clearly than I had since the first days of my bereavement.

  ” I said to myself,” Aunt Sarah continued, ” that must be my next picture … and it was.”

  ” And Friday?” I cried. ” You saw him … too?”

  She seemed as though she were trying to remember.

  ” Did you. Aunt Sarah?” I persisted.

  ” He was a faithful dog,” she said. ” He died for his faithfulness

  ” Did you see him, dead … as you saw Gabriel?”

  Again that puckered look came into her face. ” It’s there on the picture,” she said at length.

  ” But he’s lying there beside Gabriel. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “They took him away, didn’t they?”

  ” Who took him away?”

  She looked at me questioningly. ” Who did?” It was as though she were pleading with me to give her the answer.

  “You know, don’t you. Aunt Sarah?”

  ” Oh yes, I know,” she answered blithely.

  ” Then please … please tell me. It’s very important.”

  “But you know too.”

  ” How I wish I did! You must tell me. Aunt Sarah. You see, it would help me.”

  ” I can’t remember.”

  ” But you remember so much. You must remember some thing so important.”

  Her face brightened.

  “I know, Catherine. It was the monk.”

  She looked so innocent that I knew she would have helped if she could.

  I could not understand how much she had discovered. I was sure that she lived in two worlds that of reality and that of the imagination; and that the two became intermingled so that she could not be sure which was which. People in this house underrated her; they spoke their secrets before her, not understanding that she had a mind like a jackdaw, which seized on bright and glittering pieces of information a
nd stored them away.

  I turned my attention to the canvas and. now that the shock of seeing Gabriel and Friday lying dead was less acute, I noticed that the work had taken up only one side of the picture. The rest was blank.

  She read my thoughts immediately, which was a reminder that her speculations—if speculations they were were those of a woman who could be astute.

  ” That’s for you,” she said; and in that moment she was like a seer from whom the future, of which the rest of us were utterly ignorant, was only separated by a semitransparent veil.

  As I did not speak she came close to me and gripped my arm; I could feel her hot fingers burning through my sleeve.

  ” I can’t finish,” she said peevishly. ” I don’t know where to put you that’s why.” She turned the canvas round so that I could not see the picture and hugged it to herself. ” You don’t know. I don’t know.

  But the monk knows. ” She sighed. ” Oh dear, we shall have to wait. Such a nuisance. I I can’t start another until I finish this one. “

  She went to the cupboard,” and put the canvas away. Then she came back to peer into my face.

  ” You don’t look well,” she said. ” Come and sit down. You’ll be all right, won’t you? Poor Claire! She died, you know. Having Gabriel killed her, you might say.”

  I was trying to shake off the effects of seeing that picture, and I said absently: ” But she had a weak heart. I’m strong and healthy.”

  She put her head on one side and looked quizzically at me.

  “Perhaps it’s why we’re friends …” she began.

  ” What is. Aunt Sarah?”

  “We are. friends. I felt it from the first. As soon as you came I said,” I like Catherine. She understands Hie. ” Now I suppose they say that’s why …”

  ” Aunt Sarah, do tell me what you mean. Why should you and I understand each other better than other people in the house?”

  ” They always said I am in my second childhood.”

  A wild fear came into my mind. ” And what do they say about me?”

  She was silent for a while, then she said: “I’ve always liked the minstrels’ gallery.”

  I felt impatient in my eagerness to discover what was going on in her muddled mind; then I saw that she was telling me and that the minstrels’ gallery was connected with her discovery.