Wakenhyrst

by Michelle Paver

  And now that old age has come upon this creature, she has paid a friar to write down her tribulations in this her book. And she hopes that when people read it they will be encouraged not to resent their troubles, but to thank God meekly for them, knowing that their patience will be rewarded in Heaven. And everything in this book is true. And people should believe the words of this creature, for they are the words of God.

  ‘Wakenhyrst?’ exclaimed Maud. ‘But I thought Pyett lived in Bury.’

  ‘She did,’ Father said irritably. ‘Until her husband bought the mill off Prickwillow Road.’

  ‘So – they would have worshipped in St Guthlaf’s?’

  ‘Well of course.’

  She thought about that. ‘“Candlebeam”, isn’t that an old Suffolk word? I think I read somewhere that it means the panel on which the crucifix is mounted.’

  ‘What if it does?’

  ‘Well then perhaps the new candlebeam to which Pyett refers, that her husband paid for – perhaps that’s our very own Doom.’

  A muscle twitched beneath his eye. ‘Jumping to conclusions is the mark of an undisciplined mind, Maud.’

  ‘Yes, Father. Although the timing does fit. Doesn’t it?’

  But he was already heading back to his study.

  A hit, Maud thought, a palpable hit. It gave her a grim satisfaction to mention the Doom whenever she could, and watch her father flinch. Any opportunity to disturb his God-given peace.

  Loading a sheet of paper in her typewriter, she began to type.

  All these years he had acted as if he was God. Quoting the Bible, setting the rules at Wake’s End. And he had left his own sister to drown.

  It was nearly three months since Jubal had told her. Now when she looked at Father, she saw a different man from the one she had grown up fearing and loving. Others might excuse what he had done as the tragic blunder of a terrified boy. Not Maud. ‘Master Eddie’ had been twelve years old: only three years younger than she was. If she had been in the same position with Richard or Felix, she wouldn’t have run off and abandoned them merely to avoid a thrashing.

  And he’d had plenty of time to remedy his mistake. According to Jubal, while the men had been searching for Lily, the cook had fed Master Eddie jam tarts in the kitchen. Then his nurse had put him to bed, and next morning he’d had his breakfast and sat down to lessons with his governess. At any time he could have told them where to find Lily, but he’d chosen not to. He had never owned up. And now he thought he could atone for his sin simply by draining the fen.

  ‘And people should believe the words of this creature,’ typed Maud. ‘For they are the words of God.’

  Christmas was two days away. At morning prayers Father had been reading St Matthew’s Nativity. He read beautifully and he looked a pillar of rectitude: handsome and immaculately groomed, utterly in control. For years he had concealed his sin, and he meant to go on concealing it. That was what Maud couldn’t forgive. She was angry with him for disappointing her. She had always looked up to him, even after she’d learned to hate him; but now she couldn’t look up to him any more. Because he was a coward.

  And now she had this burden of knowledge. She didn’t know what to do with it. Three times since Jubal had told her he had sought her out again, wanting to know if she’d confronted the Master and got him to stop draining the fen. Jubal thought it would be easy. He thought that if they so much as threatened Father with exposure, the fen would be saved.

  Poor innocent, unworldly Jubal. He didn’t realise that that would never work for the simple reason that no one would believe him. It would be his word against Father’s; and who would credit a penniless drunk whose wits had been addled by years of poppyhead tea against the word of a gentleman landowner and a respected historian?

  But there must be something she could do.

  Once or twice she considered telling Clem: humbling her pride and seeking his help. But what if he suspected this was a pretext to get near him? What if he told Ivy and they laughed at her? Besides, what could Clem actually do?

  At other times Maud saw herself as a lone heroine like Joan of Arc, battling to save the fen. She would never give up until she’d found the way – and until she’d exposed Father for what he truly was.

  Then her lofty visions would come crashing down, and she would see herself as she really was: a fifteen-year-old girl whom no one would believe.

  And then too, a voice at the back of her mind would warn her to take care. If Father could do such a thing when he was a boy, what might he be capable of now?

  He might even be dangerous.

  That struck her as ludicrous. But once it had taken root, she couldn’t get it out of her head.

  From the Private Notebook of Edmund Stearne

  23rd December, 1912

  What Maud said this afternoon about the Doom reminded me of a passage in The Life of St Guthlaf. I’ve just looked it up, and it’s even worse than I thought. It has given me the most appalling idea.

  The translation isn’t of the best, but the Anglo-Saxon is there on the facing page, and there’s no escaping the meaning. ‘Flaxan mid deofol gefulde.’

  The timing fits. And if I’m right – if – then it explains why I’ve always felt such a violent antipathy towards the Doom. Because it isn’t merely a painting. It is far more than that.

  Later

  If I am right. That’s the question. I think I shall find the answer in Pyett. The parish records will probably help too. Pyett is downstairs. For the parish records I must wait until old Farrow arrives at the church. He’ll be early, as today is Christmas Eve. I’ve only a few hours to wait. I must pray for patience.

  Dear God, I hope I’m wrong.

  ON Christmas Eve, Father came downstairs looking unwell. He didn’t read the Bible at morning prayers and took nothing for breakfast but a cup of tea. Then he told Maud that he would be out all day, and left the house.

  As soon as he’d gone and the servants were busy elsewhere, she went to his dressing-room and took his notebook from its hiding place under his shirts.

  From the final entry she learned that some phrase in The Life of St Guthlaf had given him ‘the most appalling idea’. Whatever it was, it had something to do with the Doom, and she surmised that he’d gone to consult the parish records, to determine whether it was true. Beyond that she was none the wiser, as the phrase which had alarmed him was in Anglo-Saxon: flaxan mid deofol gefulde.

  She searched the house, but couldn’t find The Life of St Guthlaf; she guessed that Father had taken it with him to the church. She couldn’t find a dictionary of Anglo-Saxon either, so she was unable to work out what the phrase meant.

  Father returned shortly before noon and asked her with distant courtesy to vacate the library. He was in there for nearly three hours; then he went back to St Guthlaf’s. Maud was unable to ascertain which books he’d consulted, as he’d left no volumes out of place.

  Just before tea-time, she heard his footsteps on the gravel. She ran to the window. His face was grey but rigidly composed, and he walked with one shoulder higher than the other. Listening at the door, Maud heard him tell Ivy that he wanted neither tea nor dinner and would be in his study, not to be disturbed.

  Christmas at Wake’s End had scarcely been celebrated since Maman’s death, and this Christmas Eve was no exception; even the servants’ festivities in the back offices were muted. Richard was in Scotland staying with a schoolfriend, and as Maud had no desire to join Felix and Nurse in the nursery, she dined alone.

  Daisy put a few sprigs of holly on the picture frames in the dining-room, then left Maud to her solitary meal. She’d ordered things that she liked but that wouldn’t inconvenience Cook: a roast pheasant with bread sauce and carrots; damson pudding and custard, and ginger beer.

  When she’d finished, she raised the blinds and stared into the dark. It hadn’t snowed that winter, and in the orchard the leafless trees shivered in a sleety rain. She thought of Chatterpie swinging on the well-bucket. She rem
embered Clem’s brown throat, and the sunlight gilding the hairs on his forearms. Abruptly she turned from the window and went upstairs.

  At half past eleven she came downstairs again, put on her outdoor things, and waited with the rest of the household in the breakfast-room until Father emerged from his study. Then they all trudged off through the sleet for Midnight Mass.

  St Guthlaf’s was at its busiest, and Mr Broadstairs was perplexed and displeased when Father abruptly insisted on moving to a different pew.

  ‘But Father,’ whispered Maud. ‘We’ve always had this pew!’

  ‘Not any more,’ he muttered, shouldering past an astonished Miss Broadstairs and ignoring the startled glances of the congregation.

  He took a pew on the other side of the aisle, near the door to the tower which housed the Doom. During the service he remained impassive, although at times he stared fixedly at the door to the tower, or leafed through his Bible as if searching for something.

  Maud rather enjoyed the curious glances of the congregation. Whatever the ‘appalling idea’ Father had had last night, he richly deserved to be shaken out of his God-given peace.

  She was also conscious of a faint unease. She was beginning to wonder where all this might lead.

  On Boxing Day the weather turned colder and the Lode was filmed with ice. Father pressed on with his plans to drain the fen, dictating letters to his attorney and to Davies the engineer, which Maud typed.

  He also continued working on Pyett. Maud was now losing interest, as Alice’s account of her pilgrimage consisted of rambling exhortations to God. Father’s translations arrived in disjointed fragments, sometimes breaking off mid-sentence. This was at odds with his extreme composure, which Maud was starting to find unsettling.

  Two days after Boxing Day he drove himself to the Rectory, returning a few hours later, vexed and irritable. The following afternoon Maud came downstairs to find Clem and a score of villagers stripping the ivy from the house. Father had given orders for every scrap to be removed, and for all shrubs within twenty feet of the house to be grubbed up. He was paying them handsomely to get the job done in a single day.

  Maud couldn’t ask him why he was doing this because he had driven to Wakenhyrst. When he came back he went straight to his study. From then on he had all his meals brought to him there.

  That night Maud sensed the old house shivering without its shaggy coat of ivy. She too felt exposed and unprotected. Next morning, instead of the soft green light that she’d loved, she woke to a strange flat glare. She thought of all the wild creatures who had made the ivy their home. When she was little she had believed that not even Father could get rid of them. She had been wrong.

  Cole could offer no explanation for Father’s orders, but he told Maud that a few days before, the Master had asked him all manner of odd questions about plants. He’d also given orders that one plant in the flowerbed by the library French windows should be spared. Its name meant nothing to Maud. It was Solomon’s Seal.

  Two days before New Year’s Eve, Daisy complained that she’d found salt all over the house.

  ‘Salt?’ said Maud. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  The old housemaid compressed her lips. ‘What I said, Miss Maud. Little piles of salt all over the place. Doorways, fireplaces, sills. He wun’t let me sweep it up, neither. And I found oil round the breakfast-room winders. Yes, Miss, salad oil. That’s what I smelled.’

  That afternoon, Maud was typing at her desk when she was startled by the crash of breaking glass. Putting her head into the passage, she met the equally startled glance of Cook at the other end. At the same moment they both noticed that the glass dome which housed Maud’s old friends the stuffed bats was missing from the side-table.

  The study doors opened and Father appeared. He frowned at Maud. ‘What do you want?’ he snapped.

  ‘I – heard a noise,’ she faltered.

  ‘Go back to your work,’ he said. Behind him the study was hazed with smoke, and she caught an acrid odour like scorched fur.

  The following morning Maud heard Daisy telling Cook that Father had indeed smashed the glass dome and burned the stuffed bats.

  ‘Made a proper mess of his grate,’ grumbled Daisy. ‘Took me an hour to get it clean. It’s not right!’

  ‘You mean he’s not right,’ muttered Cook.

  Daisy smothered a laugh.

  Quietly, Maud returned to the library and sat at her desk. First the ivy, now the bats. Both her childhood guardians gone in a matter of days.

  He’s not right, Cook had said.

  Maud sat very still. What Cook had said had given her an idea. For the first time since Father had decided to drain the fen, she knew how to stop him.

  She would need the help of someone in authority. That meant either Dr Grayson or Mr Broadstairs.

  The rector would be difficult, because since Maud’s confrontation in the vestry with Miss Broadstairs a slight coolness had arisen between the two households. Maud decided to tackle the doctor and sound him out indirectly. Only if he proved unwilling to help would she swallow her pride and apply to the rector.

  As it turned out, Father made things easy for her by announcing that he needed certain books in Ely and would be gone for two nights, returning on New Year’s Day. It was a crisp, frosty morning and he insisted on driving himself in the dog-cart, rather than taking the covered carriage. He left after breakfast, bundled up in his Astrakhan coat and a carriage cloak.

  The moment he’d gone, the whole household breathed more freely. The servants were jubilant because without him they could see in the New Year properly. Maud was relieved because she could summon Dr Grayson unobserved, and put her plan into effect.

  She also checked Father’s notebook. She was shocked to find that there were no new entries. He hadn’t written a word since the 23rd of December, when he’d mentioned his ‘appalling idea’. The last line was the one she’d read a week ago: ‘Dear God, I hope I’m wrong.’ The only change was that beneath it Father had ruled two straight black horizontal lines.

  The rest of the page – indeed the rest of the notebook – was blank. The inference was clear. Her access to his inner thoughts was at an end. He intended to write no more.

  He had finished with his notebook.

  IT was a joke among the female servants that Dr Grayson liked to get so close that you could count the bristles in his nostrils. When Maud was little, he used to take her on his lap and cup her buttocks in his palms.

  Since Maman’s death she had avoided him. If they did meet, an image would come to her of Maman lying on the divan with the doctor standing between her legs, his large freckled hands stained scarlet to the wrists. Maud knew she’d never actually witnessed this, but she saw it in her mind.

  When Dr Grayson sat down beside her on the drawing-room sofa, she tried to forget this by concentrating on his smell of unwashed tweed and stale cigars.

  ‘Now then, my dear. What seems to be the trouble?’ His smile was a trifle forced. It was New Year’s Eve and the sky was heavy with snow.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve brought you here on a pretext,’ she said in a rush. ‘You see, I’m not the one who is indisposed.’

  His bushy eyebrows rose. ‘Indeed?’

  She launched into her prepared account of Father’s odd behaviour: the sudden abandonment of the family pew, the burning of the stuffed bats, the oil and the salt.

  The doctor’s smile congealed. ‘And where is Dr Stearne now?’

  ‘In Ely, buying books. He’s not expected back till tomorrow.’

  ‘Books,’ said the doctor, pinching his nostrils between finger and thumb. ‘Well, now. Buying books is hardly cause for concern. Is it, my dear?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Nor is destroying an ornament one dislikes. Or deciding to worship in a different pew.’

  ‘What about scattering salt all over one’s house?’

  Again his eyebrows rose. ‘Surely you know better than to listen to servants’ tit
tle-tattle. Now if that’s all, my dear, I ought to be on my way.’

  Maud was on the point of telling him about Father’s fear of the Doom; but it occurred to her that he might tell Father, and then Father would know that she’d been reading his notebook. ‘Surely what I’ve told you is enough?’ she insisted.

  ‘Enough for what?’ said the doctor with a hint of irritation. ‘What do you wish me to do?’

  I wish you to declare him unhinged, she wanted to cry. I wish you to do whatever doctors do with people who act like this! Do anything, as long as you stop him draining the fen!

  But she could see that it was hopeless.

  ‘I gather you’re excessively fond of reading,’ said the doctor. Putting one heavy paw on her shoulder, he gave her a little shake. ‘Fewer books, my dear. That’s the ticket. We don’t want you depleting your nerve power.’

  ‘I am not the one who is unwell,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘You must allow me to be the judge of that. I shall do you a kindness and say no more about this nonsense—’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense!’

  ‘It most assuredly is. Why, nothing in what you’ve said about your father strikes me as irrational in the least. You, on the other hand, appear erratic and disturbed. Considerably disturbed. At best what you’ve told me is disloyal and unfilial; at worst it verges on hysteria – perhaps even neurasthenia.’

  ‘I am not hysterical!’ retorted Maud. ‘I’ve simply told you what he’s done!’

  The doctor did not reply. From his breast pocket he drew a notebook and scribbled a line, then tore off the sheet and handed it to her. His square face had gone stiff. His eyes were glassy. ‘Take this,’ he said without looking at her. ‘For the rest, I think we can trust to a milk diet and a twenty-minute walk every morning to set you right.’