‘It’s alright, Hannah. Don’t worry… there’ll be time to get the doctor.’ Vincent Pengally was still disturbed by the recent scene in his lover’s cottage, and even though she was gone from this world, her hatred still clung to him like poisonous vapour. But for now, with his wife’s eyes on him, he smiled reassuringly, his sharp grey eyes taking stock of the situation. With a shock he suddenly realised that he was wrong – there would not be time to get a doctor. But then, out here in this isolated hamlet, their kind had little use for such luxuries. He was a blacksmith, and if he could deliver a foal or set an animal’s broken leg, what need did they have for anyone else?
‘Help me… get me to my bed!’ Hannah pleaded, frantically plucking at his coat sleeve. The pain was unbearable, and she felt her senses dimming.
‘There’s no time,’ her husband warned, a look of satisfaction creeping into his handsome face when he saw that she was no longer conscious. Gently, he removed the lower half of her blood-stained clothing, at the same time manipulating the leg that was horribly crooked. This he secured by means of two flat pieces of wood taken from a small crate and which he bound to the leg with strips of sacking.
The first child to be born was a girl, dark-haired like her father and perfect in every detail. ‘You are mine!’ Vincent murmured, holding the tiny infant high in his arms and seeming fascinated by her beauty. ‘Scarlet!’ he suddenly cried out. ‘I shall name you after your late grandmother, my own dear mother… Scarlet Pengally.’ His expression darkened when he added in a quiet voice, ‘Nothing will ever mar your beauty, I promise you that… and no man will ever violate your innocence!’
The second child born to Hannah was a boy, with the same dark hair as his sister and a loud lusty cry to herald his arrival. When Vincent Pengally saw the child’s deformed limbs and the twisted torso, he was shocked and repulsed. Recoiling in horror, he left the child where it lay, quickly going about the task of cleaning his wife and ensuring that the girl was warmly wrapped against the damp in the cellar. When, in due course, he had safely transported both daughter and wife upstairs to the bedroom, he stood at the top of the cellar steps and gazed down to where the infant was threshing its grotesque limbs in the air, its cries echoing round the damp walls and seeming more feeble in the half-light below.
For a long time he gazed down on that tiny deformed being, his piercing grey eyes devoid of any emotion. Only once did they flicker in astonishment when they were drawn by a slight movement over in the farthest corner and there, looking up with a bizarre expression on his face, was the boy. ‘You!… I’d forgotten about you,’ Vincent Pengally exclaimed with a devious smile. Then the smile became a frown. He looked once more on the newborn, then again on the boy. ‘She did this,’ he said, ‘your mother’s last curse!’ He saw that the boy was crying profusely, yet making no sobs and he found that strangely offensive. He snuffed out the lamp, plunging the boy into darkness, and then closed and bolted the door. As he did so it struck Vincent Pengally that, since seeing his mother die, and hearing her unnatural threat, the boy had not uttered a single word, yet he could speak, there was no doubt about that, because he himself had heard the boy speak!
For the next three days, Hannah and the baby thrived. Vincent Pengally, however, was plagued with doubts and haunted by nightmares. The twisted torso of his newborn son was alive in his mind. He recalled the promise which the dying woman had extracted from him, and he was afraid, wary of the unknown. He had promised to look after the boy, Silas, and if he were to allow him to die, then who knows what other terrible things might happen?
Unable to sleep or to rid himself of the most disturbing thoughts, Vincent Pengally got up from his bed on the morning of the fourth day and, with the most awful trepidation, he unlocked the cellar door and, lamp in hand, peered in. The boy was seated cross-legged at the foot of the steps, his eyes raised and blinking in the sudden rush of light. Coming slowly down the steps, Vincent Pengally was astonished by the eerie silence. He was struck rigid when his fearful gaze alighted on the spot where the unfortunate newborn child had been left. Now there was no sign of it… only the congealed dark stain on the floor where Hannah’s blood had been spilled… and a spattering of crimson spots on the bib of the boy’s shirt.
The boy made no move as Vincent Pengally frantically searched the cellar, until the man turned to smile on him and to nod his head in approval. Then, like a shadow, the boy followed him up the steps and into the kitchen. When the sunlight streamed in through the window to settle on his face, it gave him almost an unearthly appearance. Only the violet eyes were untouched; darkly appealing they were, yet brilliant and hard as the most polished gems. Vincent Pengally was astonished at how handsome the boy was, more than any human had a right to be, he thought with some resentment.
5
‘Scarlet!… where are you, you little devil?… answer me this minute!’ Hannah Pengally’s thin angry voice carried on the gentle summer’s breeze. ‘Curse the girl!’ she muttered, not unkindly, as, scooping her hand into the bowl which was lodged in the crook of her arm, she brought out a fistful of corn and cast it in a wide arc into the chicken-pen, afterwards lingering for a moment to watch the mad scrambling antics of the fowls.
‘Ssh! Don’t move, Silas!’ In the darkest corner of the barn, the two small figures huddled together. It was the girl who issued a whispered warning, while the boy seemed agitated and would have fled from the barn, if only the warm closeness and the intoxicating smell of the girl had not kept him clasped tight in her arms. ‘Keep very very still,’ she whispered in his ear and, when her plump daring lips brushed softly against his skin, it was more than he could bear. All his boyish emotions became a tumult within him.
After a while they heard the slam of the kitchen door, as Hannah Pengally went back to her tiresome duties. At once the boy scrambled to his feet but, feeling his ankle tightly gripped, he bent his dark head to look upon the girl and, as always, his heart was filled with pain.
‘We can hide here for ever!’ she laughed softly, tugging mischievously at his leg. ‘For ever and ever!… You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Silas?’ Her voice was taunting, teasing him beyond endurance. He struggled to free himself, but she would not let him go. In the pitch black of that farthest corner, Silas could not see the girl’s face, but then he had no need to, for he knew every exquisite line of it. Her face was always in his mind’s eye, that lovely laughing face with its black eyes and long flowing hair the colour of a raven’s wing. No, he had no need to see Scarlet Pengally’s face, he knew her only too well, loved her and loathed her, and feared her ever-changing mood. ‘Why don’t you speak to me, Silas?’ The voice issued softly from the darkness. ‘Why don’t you ever speak to me?… I know you can if you want to.’ There was a sharpness in her voice, ‘You can speak!… I’ve heard you talking to the creatures on the moors!’ She dug her nails into his flesh until he felt the blood trickling down his leg.
Outside, the August sun shone relentlessly, the tree-tops swayed in the warm breeze and the birds sang for the joy of it. Inside the smithy, the age-old grime which covered the windows rendered the atmosphere dark and gloomy; the heat was oppressive as Vincent Pengally worked over the forge. He had heard his wife calling Scarlet and was agitated. ‘He’s been gone long enough!’ he muttered through clenched teeth, at once throwing down his hammer and storming towards the outer doors, snatching a leather harness from the wall as he went.
When the barn doors were flung open and the powerful frame of Vincent Pengally cast a formidable shadow over the ground, there was no escape route for the children. In a matter of minutes he had rooted them out, and swooped on them like a man demented. ‘You devil!’ He closed his fist about the boy’s head, gripping it like an eagle with its prey and screaming obscenities as, with the strength of a demon, he lashed the boy to a length of wooden railings, then, ripping the shirt from his young back, and laying bare his shoulders, he raised the leather harness high into the air, intending to crash it down and sp
lit the soft flesh asunder. But there came into his fevered mind an image of the boy’s mother, Evelyn, and of her dying vow. ‘If you harm him… ever… I swear I’ll come back and haunt you!’ Vincent Pengally feared no man on earth; he would challenge any mortal being, but he was always wary of the unknown. He lowered the harness and went on slow determined steps to the far corner of the barn.
Scarlet was a child of exceptional courage, and when, growling with rage, her father plucked her from her hidey-hole, she made no sound. And when she felt the broad leather stinging her legs and buttocks she bore the punishment silently. Once, when Silas twisted his neck round and their eyes met, Scarlet was strengthened by the love and encouragement she drew from him. Afterwards Scarlet was returned to the house, her body bruised and throbbing, but her spirit never broken. Hannah Pengally took the child. She comforted and bathed her, before confining her to the small attic room where she would remain without food for forty-eight hours.
‘Lock the door and stay well away!’ instructed her husband, and he knew, weak woman that she was, Hannah Pengally would not disobey him.
‘Why d’you goad him so, lad?… will you and young Scarlet never learn your lesson?’ John Blackwood was a man in his thirties, a thin wiry fellow with a homely expression and a warm heart. He sighed when the boy gave no answer; then, dipping his cupped fist into the water bucket, he raised it to the boy’s parched lips, watching with satisfaction when he eagerly supped it. ‘That Pengally!’ he muttered low. ‘He can be a wicked bugger!’ He saw how the boy was trussed so cruelly to the timbers that the ropes were digging deep and causing the skin to erupt in angry swellings. His legs were splayed and his arms were raised. ‘The divil’s bloody near crucified you!’ he remarked under his breath, giving out a startled gasp when a trapped bird began fluttering in the eaves. ‘But I can’t let you loose, lad… you know that, don’t you?… if I was to do that, like as not he’d stretch me to a frame and leave me to rot!’ When he saw that the boy had taken his fill of the water and was looking at him with gratitude in his pained violet eyes, he nodded and gave a half-smile. ‘That’s it, lad! You be brave, young ’un… it’s been four days now… he’s bound to set you loose soon, on top o’ which it’s market tomorrow and I need you. But don’t you let on that I’ve been giving you water!’ he warned, before scuttling away at the sound of footsteps going by. ‘My God!’ he muttered as he slid away unobtrusively. ‘I wouldn’t treat a bloody dog like that… let alone a boy not yet twelve years old!’ As on many previous occasions, John Blackwood was made to wonder at the strange relationship between Vincent Pengally and that poor wretched creature who hadn’t spoken a word since the day he came to Greystone House some eight years back.
Inside the house, Hannah Pengally watched from the window as John Blackwood went about his daily tasks. When her nervous blue eyes flitted towards the barn door, her thoughts were much the same as the homely handyman’s; only she had questioned the boy’s right to live here at Greystone House, even though he had never been allowed to set foot through the door of the house itself. For a long time after giving birth to Scarlet, she had barely regained consciousness, and was at the mercy of her husband. Oh, he had cared for her, and he had taken tender loving care of their only child, but for some incomprehensible reason, since the day she got up from her sick-bed, Hannah Pengally had never really known a moment’s peace. There was always the deep-seated feeling that something was being kept from her, and, even after unexpectedly stumbling over the small ragged boy in the barn, and being told by Vincent Pengally that ‘he’s nobody… I found him wandering the moors… deserted by his parents, I reckon,’ the feeling persisted. Her own discreet enquiries revealed no more than her husband had already told her, and so she had to be satisfied with his explanation, yet she could not take to the boy and she was never sorry that he was confined to living in the barn. Vincent Pengally insisted that Silas would learn his station well and would become invaluable about the place. ‘He has the makings of a good strong frame and, though he prefers to be dumb, he’s no fool. I’ll train him as a blacksmith. He’ll cost no more than his food and board.’
Over the years, Vincent Pengally had been strict in his treatment of the boy. He had given him no better stabling than his own two horses, and he had dressed him in his own cast-off clothing, cut down and made to fit by Hannah. His food was the leftovers from the table, delivered by John Blackwood to the door of the barn twice a day. During his hard training in the duties of a blacksmith, the boy never complained, though he was often driven beyond endurance, and criticised for everything he did. Vincent Pengally’s instructions were always by way of example. He made no attempt to converse with the boy, and belittled him at every opportunity. The first occasion when he had taken to punishing him was three years ago, at Scarlet’s fifth birthday party. Silas was a fine strapping eight-year-old boy, his handsome physique and obvious strength belying the conditions of his pitiful existence, and owing much to the kindness of John Blackwood who, though he was careful not to incur the wrath of Vincent Pengally, kept an eye out for the boy.
On the day of Scarlet’s birthday, when the special tea was over and her parents had resumed their respective duties, Scarlet remembered the little boy who lived in the barn and, clutching a small piece of her birthday cake, she went to him there, eager, in her childish innocence, to share her delight with him. At first Silas was shy and afraid, but he was soon won over by Scarlet’s engaging personality, and together they laughed and played. When Vincent Pengally found them so charmed with each other’s company, he was beside himself with fury. Although both children were severely punished after being made to feel like criminals and being assured that each was forbidden the other’s company, it was Hannah who was to blame. She was never forgiven and, in turn, she never forgave the boy, and went out of her way to warn Scarlet away from him.
Hannah Pengally was not the only one to watch from a window as John Blackwood harnessed the bay shire in between the shafts of the flat-wagon. Up in the highest reaches of the old grey house, Scarlet rose on tiptoes on the upturned apple crate to see out of the tiny attic window. The whole aperture jutted from the outer roof at a sharp angle with small lattice windows on all sides; consequently Scarlet was afforded a generous view of both the yard immediately below, and the heart of Dunster itself.
Nestling in a corner of Somerset, the small town of Dunster had changed very little since medieval times. The skyline was a delightful confusion of slated and thatched roofs, with chimneys of varying heights and diameter, while a number of houses were ancient and bent, the black timber beams warped with age and the roofs dropping down to the many bowed windows like sleepy eyelids propped ever open. There was much evidence of Elizabethan influence, epitomised by a Latin inscription etched into a wooden beam in one house, which read:
We are all worms-meat.
Remember death shall be the end.
God save our noble Queen Elizabeth.
Amen.
At one end of the High Street was situated the quaintly shaped medieval yarn-market, reminiscent of Dunster’s past woollen industry. And, looming high above the trees, looking out over Dunster like a watchful sentry, was the magnificent castle which had survived savage and feudal times, and had belonged to the Luttrell family for generations. Closer to Greystone House was the humpbacked Packhorse Bridge, which spanned the River Avill, too narrow for the passage of a horse and cart, yet built above a shallow and negotiable point of the river, where a heavily laden wagon could easily cross when the river was low.
Greystone House stood on a high point at the farthest edge of the town, while behind and from both sides of the stout grey stone building, with its high reaching gables and formidable appearance, the wild primitive stretches of Exmoor rolled away as far as the eye could see. The path from the town to Greystone House was well trodden by the hooves of horses being driven to Vincent Pengally’s blacksmith’s shop. He was not a liked man, but his was the only smithy for many miles around, and he
knew his own trade better than any man.
Scarlet followed John Blackwood’s every move, her dark eyes stricken with compassion as she recalled how her father had strapped the boy up so spitefully. She knew that he was still there in the barn, spread out on the rough timbers, like a hide stretched out to dry. At least she had not been subjected to such hard-hearted treatment and, if only she hadn’t foolishly taken to kicking at the door and screaming abuse, she might be freed herself! As it was, her father had issued instructions that she must stay ‘locked up until she learns who’s master!’ At least she was fed and watered, and provided with a slop-bucket which her mammy changed daily. But Hannah Pengally made no attempt to speak to her rebellious daughter. Instead, when Scarlet ventured to address her agitated mammy she was warned to ‘Keep your tongue between your teeth, child… or he’ll make us both rue the day!’
Up there in the attic, with the powerful roof-trusses pressing down so low overhead, Scarlet felt threatened, ensnared like the rabbits that foolishly wandered into John Blackwood’s traps. During these four long days when she had been entombed in that small airless space, where day and night had no beginning and no end, she had come to know every inch of every floorboard. She had counted the blocks of stone in the four walls and picked out the grey crumbling substance which oozed from between. She had studied the changing colours of the vast stretch of sky beyond the window, tracing the sun as it moved across her sight, and had been enchanted when the moon appeared in the shifting shadowy clouds like a strange glowing phantom.
Yet all the while there was something festering and growing in her heart, a kind of excitement which was mingled with fancy and fear. It was as though, in being so rigidly determined to suppress her mischievous spirit, Vincent Pengally had released a force within his daughter that was far more destructive and, like the most ominous storm whipped up by the elements, that same force would not be stilled until it had run its predestined course.
Scarlet Page 4
