The Coldstone

by Patricia Wentworth

  “You’re a wicked maid, Susan. Tell me true—that piece you said—was it from your father you got it?”

  “No, Gran, it wasn’t.”

  There was a pause. The black eyes looked searchingly into the blue ones. Then old Susan Bowyer spoke:

  “You’re my own flesh and blood—but I’ve a duty to the Colstones—and I promised Jervis—” Her voice died away.

  Susan leaned forward and touched her on the knee.

  “Gran, I shouldn’t ever do anything—to hurt the Colstones.”

  “You might, and you mightn’t,” said Mrs. Bowyer. “’Tisn’t always what we want to do, and ’tisn’t always what we think we’re doing—it just comes; but when you’ve spoke a word, there isn’t nothing and there isn’t nobody can take it back again.”

  Susan stayed still for a moment, so still that one of the honey-coloured bees dropped down on Mrs. Bowyer’s knee and clambered on to the forefinger of Susan’s hand. It crawled with sprawling eagerness, helping itself with a fanning of transparent wings. She took her hand back slowly, watching the bee, whilst Mrs. Bowyer watched her. She saw Susan touch the bee very gently with a soft finger-tip, stroking the pale fur on its back. It stayed quite still, the wings just quivering. When she lifted her finger it flew away.

  “You’ve a way with them,” said Mrs. Bowyer. Then she laughed. “I’d a deal sooner take a person’s character from the bees than from a parson. Whether it’s man or maid, bees know what’s in ’em, and if ’tisn’t sound and sweet, they can’t abide ’em, nor mischief-makers, nor quarrel-pickers, nor scolds, nor termerjans—they can’t abide none of ’em. Bees won’t thrive, ’cept where folks is peaceable. If there isn’t love and goodwill, they won’t thrive—not for anything you can do—’tis honey to ’em, and marrow to their bones, same as ’tis to childern.”

  Susan put her elbow on her knee, propped her chin in her hand, and looked down into the grass.

  “Gran, if I tell you something, will you let me just tell it, and not ask any questions at all—because I can’t tell you more than a bit of it.”

  She did not see the sharp flash of intelligence in Mrs. Bowyer’s eyes or the little nod which said, “I thought as much.” She was even too much taken up with her own thoughts to observe the dryness of Mrs. Bowyer’s voice as she said,

  “Say what you like, my dear.”

  Susan frowned at the grass.

  “It’s rather difficult to begin. I think I’d better tell you where I heard that bit about the stone that Merlin blessed—but I’m afraid you’ll be rather shocked.”

  “I’m not very easy shocked.”

  “Well, I went through the passage into Stonegate the night before last and—” She looked sideways, and then quickly down again. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Gran was laughing to herself. She felt a little ruffled. Gran ought to have been shocked; she had no business to be amused.

  And then all of a sudden she thought how funny it was, and a little bubble of laughter caught in her throat. She went on quickly:

  “It was the middle of the night, and there were burglars there.”

  Mrs. Bowyer’s hand fell on her shoulder.

  “Sakes alive! What are you talking about?”

  This was easier to cope with. Susan felt better.

  “Burglars, Gran. That’s to say, I suppose people are burglars when they break into a house in the middle of the night and throw chairs at the person it belongs to.”

  “Chairs?” said Mrs. Bowyer in a loud, vigorous voice.

  “Well, it was only one really, but it knocked him flat—‘and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.’”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Susan swung round and took Mrs. Bowyer’s hand in both of hers.

  “Midnight Meanderings, or The Indiscretions of Susan—a thriller of the first water.”

  “Burglars?” said Mrs. Bowyer.

  “Listen, Gran. It was awfully exciting, and I can’t tell you the whole of it, but I’ll tell you the bits that I can tell you. I went through the passage, and I was just coming out of the library, when two men with a dark lantern came oozing through the drawing-room door. I was petrified, but I crawled out of sight, and when they went down the passage to the baize door, I went after them.”

  “Eh?” said Mrs. Bowyer.

  “As silently as a worm,” said Susan. “They were in the housekeeper’s room—at least that’s what I suppose it was—first on the right through the door. And one of them was reading out that piece I said to you. And Anthony Colstone came along, and they threw a chair at him and knocked him out.”

  “Lord preserve us!” said Mrs. Bowyer “What next?”

  “They ran away.”

  “And well they might!”

  Susan dimpled.

  “It wasn’t because well they might—it was because of me appearing suddenly like a ghost in Patience Pleydell’s clothes and saying ‘No’ in a sort of hollow groan when they were going to bash Anthony with the poker.”

  Mrs. Bowyer pulled her hand away sharply.

  “Is this a true tale?”

  Susan nodded.

  “It’s not the whole truth, but it’s nothing but the truth.”

  “The impudent murdering villains! Was the lad hurt?”

  “All Colstones’ heads are as hard as the Coldstone—you’ve often told me that yourself.”

  “No thanks to them,” said Mrs. Bowyer. “You’re a hard-hearted maid, Susan—but if ’twas day before yesterday, I’ve seen him since, and he wasn’t none the worse.” She paused, frowning. “Say that piece to me again.”

  Susan said it over:

  “‘The second shield,

  The stone that Merlin blessed—’”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then went on:

  “‘To keep in safety

  The source of evil.’”

  “That’s all—and I want to know what it means.”

  “Ssh!” said Mrs. Bowyer quickly. “’Tisn’t a thing to name in an open place where the Lord knows who may be listening. I had ought to have stopped you before. Look over the fence, my dear, both sides, and see that there’s no one a-listening.”

  When Susan came back, Mrs. Bowyer had risen.

  “We’d best go where there are doors to shut.”

  “There’s no one, in either of the gardens, Gran.”

  “I’d sooner be in my own kitchen,” said Mrs. Bowyer firmly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The kitchen Seemed dark and cool. On the tall dresser Mrs. Bowyer’s old copper pans gleamed like the sun in a fog; the shadow was dark there, but the copper shone through it. Mrs. Bowyer sat herself down in a heavy oak chair by the hearth.

  “Shut the door, and shut the window,” she said—“and come you here to me.”

  Susan latched the window and came. The room seemed cold after that glowing sunshine outside. She knelt on the stone floor, and was aware that Mrs. Bowyer was trembling a little.

  “What does it mean, Gran?”

  “’Tis an old, old, ancient tale,” said Mrs. Bowyer rather breathlessly.

  Susan patted her.

  “Angel Gran, don’t get fussed—it’s all right. You’d better get it off your chest—you had really.”

  “I don’t rightly know—”

  “You’ll feel a whole lot better when you’ve told me.”

  A gleam came into the black eyes for a moment.

  “That’s one for me and two for yourself, my dear.”

  Susan patted her again, a little harder this time.

  “You wicked woman!” Then, coaxingly, “Tell me about the stone that Merlin blessed. Was it the Coldstone?”

  “Ssh!” said Mrs. Bowyer.

  “But was it?”

  There was a pause. The old wall-clock with the white face and the picture of Abraham sacrificing Isaac ticked its slow, heavy tick. Mrs. Bowyer folded her hands in her lap.

  “If I tell you, will you swear to me and promise
true you’ll not tell it again, not to man, nor maid, nor to no living soul, old nor young, rich nor poor, not for nothing that any can do for you, nor for gold, nor for your bare life, ’cept only to one that comes after you of your own flesh and blood, and to Anthony Colstone or to his lawful heirs after him?”

  Susan said, “I promise.”

  “It was my grandfather told it to me, sitting here same as I’m sitting, and me kneeling there same as you’re kneeling, and I was a maid fifteen years old, and he five years past his hundred, and he told it me same as he heard it from his grandfather that was older still. He told it to me same as it’d been told from one hundred years to another by an old, old, ancient man or an old, old, ancient woman to a young lad or a young maid, and every time it was told there was the promise given not to tell it to none ’cept Colstone and his lawful heirs—and my grandfather he made me put my hand on the Book and swear to it. But I’ll take your true promise for just as good. Them that’ll break their given word ’ll break what they’ve sworn on the Book. So I’ll take your true promise.”

  Susan nodded.

  “Go on, Gran.”

  Mrs. Bowyer dropped her voice to a singular low monotone; she seemed to be talking in to herself and not out to Susan.

  “My grandfather sat here, and I come close, and I listened, and I never forgot any word of what he said. ’Tis a very old tale.”

  “Yes, Gran?”

  “’Tis about the Stones. There was two rows of the Stones in those days—very old, ancient days, before folk began to fetch them away to build with, and long afore Stonegate was built—only there was some sort of a house there, and Colstones was there, but they hadn’t the name, not till afterwards.”

  “Yes, Gran?”

  “There was a black Trouble come.”

  “What was it?”

  Mrs. Bowyer looked over her shoulder. Her voice went down to a whisper.

  “’Twas a Trouble. I can’t tell you nearer than that. ’Twas a desperate black Trouble, and it come from meddling with the stone that’s called the Coldstone.”

  “Who meddled with it?”

  “I don’t rightly know, but ’twas meddled with, and That came up.”

  Susan felt a shiver all down her back.

  “Gran—what?”

  “That,” said Mrs. Bowyer. She looked over her other shoulder. The room was winter cold.

  “Gran! What on earth do you mean?”

  “There’s things that’s better not said, and there’s them that shouldn’t be named.”

  “But, Gran—”

  “Fire—and smoke—and brimstone—and That in the midst of it. Black smoke—and red flame—and the smell of brimstone—same as Sodom and Gomorrah. And That in the midst of it.”

  “Gran—”

  Mrs. Bowyer looked straight in front of her, but she did not see the window-ledge with her best pewter dish standing on it, or the neat latticed panes which were blue against the sky, and green against the lilac bushes. She saw a tilted field under a rolling canopy of smoke. She saw shooting flame and a red and wrathful glare. She smelt the reek of the Pit. Her eyes were fixed and, to the outward world, sightless.

  Susan touched her.

  “What happened?”

  “Folks were like frightened sheep, and the first of the Colstones he were like a shepherd a-standing ’twixt them and the mortal fear that was over them. ’Twas he sent word to Merlin, that was an old, wise, ancient man in those days. And when he come, he laid the Coldstone where it belongs, and he put a charm on it and a blessing to hold That down, and so long as ’tisn’t meddled with the blessing’ll stay.”

  Everything in the room was still except the clock. The stone floor was cold under Susan’s knees. She wanted to think clearly, but her thoughts tangled; she felt as if she had been running hard and was out of breath. You can’t think when you’re running. Something was puzzling her, and she couldn’t get it clear. She began to feel for it in the tangle of her thoughts.

  “What did he put on the Stone, Gran?”

  “A mark—to be a charm,” said Mrs. Bowyer.

  “What sort of a mark?”

  Mrs. Bowyer’s finger moved on the shiny black stuff of her apron. It traced a pattern there, and stopped.

  “’Tis a charm against evil,” she said in a whispering voice. “And ’tis there on the Stone to this living day. Wind nor weather won’t move it, nor running water nor standing water, nor sun nor shine, nor any mortal thing—there ’twill stay unless it be meddled with, until reckoning day comes.”

  Susan gazed at her with a puzzled frown; her eyes had an asking look. Mrs. Bowyer sat up a little straighter.

  “’Twas meddled with once,” she said, and caught her breath.

  “Who meddled with it?”

  “One that had ought to know better—one of the Colstones, my dear.”

  “And what happened?”

  “No one rightly knows. It was in Mr. Philip Colstone’s time—him that was killed fighting the Spanish Armada, and it was the same year and a little before. He’d been a journey out to the Indies, and he come home. He’d been five years gone, and when he come back again his wife was strange to him, and his son that he left a babe in the cradle was a child getting on six years old, and all the whole country was full of rumours of wars along of the Armada coming, and a beacon ready to light on the top of the hill up there, and folks mortal afraid and their hearts failing ’em for fear of the Spaniard a-coming to burn them all, same as in Bloody Mary’s time.”

  “And what happened?”

  Mrs. Bowyer moistened her lips.

  “They say Mr. Philip went about to raise that that was under the Stone—that’s what they say.”

  “Why?”

  “Did you never hear tell of folks that thought they could get good for themselves by that like of black sinfulness?”

  “What did he do?”

  “That’s what no one never knew but himself. There was Bowyers here then same as there is now, and this house was new-built, a matter fifty years maybe, and the old bit of Stonegate a standing same as ’tis standing now. And the Bowyer that was here he was a William Bowyer, same as my William and same as my father.” He was rose up from his bed by the sound of a rushing, roaring noise, and he looked out from the window of the room as you sleep in, and he could see a light in the sky and he could hear the roaring of fire. And he put on his breeches to be decent, and he ran out into the street—and there was every man, woman and child from the whole village thinking no less than that ’twas the King of Spain and all his army that had come to land, and that the beacon had been fired—though I dunno who they thought had fired it, seeing as they were all woke up together and in a maze of fear. And William he runs to the end of the street and he sees the top of the hill all dark, black dark and cold, and everything as quiet as ’tis when one clap of thunder’s gone and another to come, and he goes a little further to the turn of the road and he sees a red light low down amidst of the Stones, and a cold fright got hold of him so that he couldn’t move—so there he stood and watched.”

  “What did he see?”

  “He saw the light get red and small, and then all of a sudden he saw it shoot up till it was as tall as a tree. And what he saw he wouldn’t never rightly say, only he smelt a burning that wasn’t like nothing on this lawful earth. And presently ’twas gone again, and he ran back along the way he come and went clattering at the door of Stonegate, because he was in mortal fear. And after a bit a serving man opened and let him in. He come into the house and he asked for the Master, and there wasn’t no one could tell him where he was—they were all in a sweat of fear, and some said ’twas the Spaniard, and some said ’twas worse, and there wasn’t one of them with as much courage in him as a maid that’s scared of a mouse. It was in William’s mind that they should go, three or four of them together, up the hill, because it come to him that Mr. Philip was there—but they wouldn’t none of them go, so then William went out by himself. He went through the kitc
hen, and into the yard, and up by the garden way, and it was all as black as coal, and rain beginning to fall. And when he come to where the fields began, his feet were like two cold stones and he couldn’t hardly lift them. And he tried to call out, but his voice came back into his throat like as if the wind was blowing it back—only there wasn’t any wind. And he stood there and he couldn’t move, and it might have been a minute, or it might have been an hour, or it might have been the half of the night—he couldn’t tell. He was afraid like death, and ’twas mortal, mortal still, and rain coming down cold as ice. The first sound that he heard was far away, but, so afraid as he’d been before, he was ten times more afraid when he heard it.” A shiver went over Mrs. Bowyer and she stopped.

  “What was it?” said Susan in a whisper.

  Mrs. Bowyer shivered again.

  “It wasn’t what anyone would have looked for—no, that it wasn’t.”

  “What was it?”

  “Someone laughing,” said Mrs. Bowyer very low. “And it came nearer, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. And it came nearer still. William he thought about a many things he’d done as he wished he hadn’t, and he tried to say his prayers. There was that voice a-laughing in the dark and the rain—and there was William a-thinking about his sins, and what a pious man he’d be ever after, if he could get another chance. And with that, he could move again. He began to run, but he caught his foot and come down. And then he heard Mr. Philip call, ‘William,’ and he says, ‘How d’you know as it’s William?’ Mr. Philip said ’twas bound to be Will Bowyer and no one else, because no Bowyer never left any Colstone when there was danger about, and he claps him on the shoulder and he says, ‘Were you scared, man?’ And William says nothing, because he don’t know what to say. Mr. Philip says, ‘I’ve been raising the devil, Will,’ and he laughs and asks, ‘Did you see him?’ And William says, ‘Lord forgive you, Mr. Philip! What ha’ you been meddling with?’ Mr. Philip says, ‘The devil’s under the Stone again, and there he may stay. There’s no one here,’ he says, ‘’ll want to raise him after to-night. Where the shield’s set, the devil’s safe. Mind you that, William,’ he says. And so they goes down through the garden together. And the smell of burning was on him, plain as plain.”