Thornyhold

by Mary Stewart

  ‘It seems I might have to. I’ve got two now. A second one came soon after I got here, with a message.’

  ‘A message?’ His mug went down on the table with a rattle, and some cocoa spilt over the rim. ‘Came here? What did it say?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  I had tucked it away in the inner pocket of my handbag. I fished the slip of flimsy out. ‘Here.’

  I suppose it was a stupid thing to do. The truth was that, in my need for a confidant, I had forgotten how much of a child William still was. In so many ways he had the sense and humour and tough outlook of a boy twice his age, and I had just made him free of my name as I might do a contemporary. So I handed him the message.

  He got up to take it. As he read it, I saw the healthy colour leave his face. His lips parted, quite bloodless.

  I said, with quick contrition: ‘Oh, William, I’m sorry! I should never have let you see it … Here, sit down. It’s all right. Whoever sent it, it couldn’t have been nicer or more welcome. It came just when it was needed. The pigeon must be—’

  ‘She can’t have sent it. She can’t be still alive. I was at the funeral. I went with Dad. I saw … I mean, she was buried. I saw it.’

  ‘William, William! Don’t! You make me feel terrible! I’d never have showed you the thing if I hadn’t wanted a friend’s advice. It was—’

  ‘Dad didn’t want me to go, but I – well, I liked her, and I wanted to be there. I didn’t go when Mummy died because he said I wasn’t old enough, but that was years ago, so he did let me go this time, and I saw it all.’

  ‘William—’

  He was not listening. He was as deep in his own shocked thoughts as I was. ‘Do you mean she was a witch? A real one? I know people said so, and she used to laugh. She said she sometimes saw the future a bit, and she would tease me about that, what was going to happen to me, but it was always funny, I mean just fun. Wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course it was.’

  ‘Was she really a witch?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if there are such people. I do know she had some sort of magic about her, and there are lots of people who can see “a bit into the future”. But whatever my cousin Geillis was, she was a good woman, William, and you were right to be fond of her. I only met her a few times, but I loved her. So stop worrying yourself about magic and spells. I don’t know whether such things exist or not, but if they do, then trust in God and they can’t hurt you. Okay?’

  ‘Okay. I’m all right, really. But you – what’s the matter, Miss Gilly? Gilly? Are you all right? You look kind of funny.’

  ‘Do I? It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Only – I thought – I must have got it wrong, but you told me your mother had run away and left you. That’s all. I was surprised when you said she had died. And sorry, of course. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So’m I. About telling a lie, I mean.’ He looked down into his empty mug. ‘I sort of made things up about it when it happened. It made it better in a way. But I shouldn’t have told a real lie about it.’

  ‘It’s all right. I understand. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It might have made it awkward with Dad.’

  ‘Well, yes, it might. But it didn’t.’

  There must have been something unconvincing in my tone. He glanced at me doubtfully, then left it alone. ‘Or if you’d talked about it to someone else who knew.’

  Agnes? Who assuredly knew, and who had failed to enlighten me. Why?

  That could wait, too. I said briskly: ‘Forget it, William. Now, about this message. We’ll forget magic, too, and work out how this could have happened, shall we? So let’s get back to pigeons.’

  He pushed up his mug aside. ‘Yes. Birds. With feathers, that say “coo”. What about them?’

  He was recovering fast. I poured more coffee for myself and sat down again. ‘I don’t know much about them. For instance, how fast do they fly?’

  ‘They can do about sixty, but of course it depends on the wind and weather.’

  ‘Sixty miles an hour? Good heavens! Do you know if my cousin’s birds were carriers?’

  ‘I don’t know. They were all homers, of course; you might say all pigeons are.’

  ‘But you never saw her send a message?’

  ‘No. But that’s not to say she didn’t. There was a lot she did that I was never allowed to know.’

  ‘Have you any idea what happened to her pigeons? Where they went?’

  ‘Someone came and took them away, that’s all. Mrs Trapp told me they’d gone, so I needn’t come to feed them any more.’

  ‘Well, the only explanation can be that my cousin left the message ready, with instructions for the bird to be released when I got to Thornyhold.’

  ‘Well, but that would mean she knew you’d be coming. Knew she was dying, I mean. She must have written the message before she was taken away, before they took the pigeons.’

  ‘She did know,’ I said gently. ‘That was one bit of the future she was sure about. Long before she was even taken ill she wrote me a letter, and gave it to her lawyers to post on a certain date, and it said: “When you get this, Thornyhold will be yours.” I think that knowing the future might be disturbing, but it can be good as well; knowing and not being frightened, having the time to make all one’s arrangements, and knowing that there are good hands waiting for the things and people one cares about. Don’t you think so?’

  He was silent, but the strain had gone from his face and he nodded. I set my cup down and got to my feet.

  ‘Well, this has been a pretty disturbing morning for both of us, all things considered. Let’s forget it all now, shall we, and just get on with the job in hand?’

  ‘Can I take a peep at him before I go?’ There was no doubt in William’s mind as to the job in hand.

  ‘Just a peep. Don’t wake him up.’

  ‘What are you going to call him?’

  ‘I once knew a collie called Rover. What do you think about that?’

  He wrinkled his nose. ‘A bit ordinary? What about Rags?’

  ‘I think you’re right. Never go back. Rags it is. Off you go then, William, and thank you for everything. Let me know what your father says.’

  I saw him to the back door. On his way down the path he turned. ‘Oh, I totally forgot. Dad said specially I was to ask if your hands were all right.’

  ‘They’re fine. Please thank him.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll be seeing you.’

  I watched him peer in through the toolshed window, then nod back at me, miming sleep. He waved, and went.

  I stared after him till he vanished into the woods, then my gaze lifted. Above the treetops the high clouds seemed to form themselves into a huge question mark.

  18

  I made myself some lunch, fed Hodge and the dog, and spent some time with the latter. He was more relaxed now, seemed pleased to see me, and managed to wag fully half his tail as he ate a mixture of brown bread and chicken scraps softened with chicken stock. When I let him out for a few minutes he showed no desire to run away, but did his business and then retreated into the safety of the shed. I locked the door on him again and went back into the house.

  I had promised to look for the ‘special’ recipe book, and if I could find it and hand it over to Agnes, it might keep the Trapps away, at least until I could get the dog temporarily out of the way. I suspected that what Agnes really wanted was not a recipe for something like bramble jelly – what could be special about that? – but the secrets of some of Cousin Geillis’s cures. As far as I was concerned, she could have them. One thing I was certain about, they would do no harm to anyone.

  I had locked the inventory, along with the copy of my cousin’s will, in the desk in the den. I got it out, took it into the drawing-room, and sat down to read it through.

  It was arranged room by room. I started by skimming quickly through the contents of the room I was in, furniture, soft goods, pictures, ornaments … As far as I could see without detailed checking, everyt
hing was there. Last came the contents of the big bookcase. This, if I was to be accurate, would require a detailed check, but for the moment a rapid glance down the list must suffice. When I had cleaned the room I had spent a long time over the shelves, and could more or less remember what was there. It was a rich collection; novels, one or two biographies (like me, she had little taste for them); a full collection of travel books, that is, travellers’ accounts of exotic countries. Books about animals; three full shelves on birds; another on butterflies and moths, and two on trees, flowers and grasses. But the main – and most attractive – section was on gardens and garden plants. I glanced at some of the latter; the books on plants were a gardener’s selection, not a herbalist’s. There was nothing here that could be called a recipe book.

  In any case Agnes Trapp had had access to these shelves, as to the cookery books in the kitchen and the few reference books in the den, so the still-room was really the only likely place.

  I leafed through the inventory and found it, ‘still-room contents’, a series of formidable lists; page after page of chemicals or distillations, all those bottles and jars named and in order. A mercifully short list of furnishings followed, then, finally, three full pages of books.

  But no trouble there; no trouble at all. The first title was underlined in red. The only one to be so distinguished. And its title made it sure.

  Goody Gostelow’s own Home Remedies and Receipts. Goody Gostelow, the old lady who had lived here for seventy years, whose reputation as a witch had passed right on to Cousin Geillis and now, after a fashion, to me. Goody Gostelow, expert on magic, who had made Thornyhold into an enchanted stronghold to keep out evil and allow the good to grow and ripen. Whose Home Remedies for healing had presumably been studied and followed by my cousin.

  Whose recipes Agnes Trapp was so very anxious to see.

  I checked that the doors were locked, then took a duster and went upstairs.

  At first glance I could see nothing that might be Goody Gostelow’s book, but there were dozens of volumes, some of them much used, some even ragged with handling, and it would be easy to miss a small book tucked inside another. I set to work, methodically, to lift the books out in sections, examine them one by one, dust them, and return them to the shelves. It was heavy work. And it was slow, not only because I cleaned each book before returning it to its shelf, but because the books were fascinating, and I lingered over many of them. Of its kind, it seemed to be a comprehensive and probably a valuable collection. I was no judge of its completeness, but there seemed to be everything, from a kind of primer of homoeopathy to a tome, heavy with thick paper, woodcuts and small print, which seemed – it was in German Gothic – to be a treatise on botany. I found translations of Dioscorides and Galen, reprints of the herbals of Culpeper and Gerard and John Parkinson, at least half a dozen books on the planning and planting of herb gardens, and several on wild plants and their uses, side by side with exotics like Maori Medicines, and A Witch-doctor Remembers.

  And that was the crop. There were recipes in plenty, ranging from simple things like mint and comfrey tea to ‘wrap the kumaras in puriri leaves and bake slowly over hot stones, then dry in the sun for two weeks’, but no sign at all of Goody Gostelow. The only real find of the afternoon was on the top shelf, when I lifted out three volumes of somebody’s treatise on the edible and poisonous fungi of Europe.

  Behind the books, dusty but still gleaming, was the crystal globe that Cousin Geillis and I had looked into on that day by the River Eden.

  I stopped at four o’clock for a cup of tea and a visit to the toolshed, then got back to work. By the time I had finished, and the books were all back in place, it was growing dark, and my back and arms were aching. I had a bath, then fed the dog, and made supper for Hodge and myself in the kitchen. Afterwards, for the first time, I set a match to the drawing-room fire, and soon had a cheerful bright blaze, with the light dwelling on the pretty cretonnes and polished furniture and the glass of the bookcase.

  As I went to draw the curtains Hodge, who had followed me into the room, asked to be let out of the French windows. I obliged him, then, after a moment’s thought, followed him out and went round to the toolshed. This time the dog – I must try to think of him as Rags – met me just inside the door, and let me lead him round and back into the house. I sat down in one of the armchairs with a book I had noticed earlier, Pigeons, How to Keep and Care for Them, but kept my eyes on the dog. For a few minutes he wandered uneasily round the room, sniffing, exploring, with frequent glances back at me, and the tail ready to wave whenever he caught my eye.

  ‘Rags?’ I tried it, and he came, and was patted and soothed, and finally, with a sigh, he settled himself down beside my chair, nose on paws, blinking at the flames.

  It was a long, peaceful evening. The dog slept, only rousing when I got up to put a log on the fire. I could not guess whether he was used to a house and a hearthrug, but he certainly took to mine with no hesitation. Finally came the sound I had been waiting for, Hodge’s demand to be let in. I glanced at Rags. He raised his head, eyed the window and wagged his tail, but did not move. I crossed the room and opened the window. In came Hodge, stopped dead, blew himself up to a formidable size, and spat furiously. Rags lay still, wagging that ingratiating tail. The cat advanced. The dog shrank nearer to my chair, abasing himself.

  Watching the duel of wills, I was satisfied. The dog obviously knew cats and liked them; the cat, the dominant animal, would take time to get used to the dog’s presence, but knew himself to be in no danger. A week or two, and all would be well.

  I sat for a while longer, watchful over my book, while the dog went back to a wakeful doze and Hodge stalked, with great dignity, to the armchair on the other side of the fire and settled, with frequent pauses to glare at the dog, to washing himself.

  A movement on the table at my elbow caught my attention. The globe. I had set it down there and forgotten it, and the firelight was moving over it, light and shadow, colour and darkness.

  Black spirits and white, red spirits and grey,

  Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may!

  It was bad luck to quote from Macbeth, wasn’t it? But then that particular rhyme was not from Macbeth itself, but only quoted from some older witch-play …

  Hodge, the witch’s cat, with one leg still held rigidly upright, had stopped his washing and was staring at the globe. His eyes were wide and bright, but his fur lay sleek, newly licked and unruffled. He looked interested, no more.

  I picked it up, held it between my hands, and stared into it myself.

  They were still there, among the shadow and the flames; the flight of pigeons. It was like looking into one of those old paperweights, which, when shaken, loose a snow-storm. Flock after flock of pigeons wheeled and circled, then, while I watched, coalesced into one shimmering cloud of flight and sank slowly to rest.

  * * *

  Rags seemed happy to go back to his bed in the toolshed. I left him there with a biscuit and a bowl of fresh water, then set a saucer of milk in the kitchen for Hodge while I locked up. Hodge, still slightly edgy, but mollified by the dog’s banishment and the soothing ritual of bedtime, stalked ahead of me up the stairs and vanished into my bedroom.

  One part of the evening ritual remained. I filled the water-jug for the pigeons, and went upstairs to the attic.

  I believe I had expected it, but all the same I stood there for several seconds, while the superstitious flesh crept on my arms. There were three pigeons now, on perches side by side. They shuffled and cooed. Nothing could have looked more innocent than these birds of peace, these messengers of the dead.

  The new one was different yet again, blue-grey, its breast glimmering with iris. It regarded me placidly with garnet eyes as I reached out and lifted it from its perch.

  There was a message on its leg. Of course there was. Gently I removed this, put the bird back, put food down and poured fresh water into the trough before I unfolded the screw of paper. The birds fle
w down to the grain, and the newcomer dipped its head to drink.

  Standing directly under the unshaded electric bulb I unfolded the thin fragment of paper.

  It was different writing. A thin printing in capitals: WELCOME TO THORNYHOLD AND GOD BLESS YOUR SLEEP, it said, No signature.

  I crossed to the window, and stood for a long time looking out at the fading colours of the sky, where, on that extraordinary night, I had seen the owls and the beckoning light, and had flown through and over those high whispering trees. I had always been content to know that there was more in the living world than we could hope to understand. Now I found myself drifting on the peace of belief. Even if it meant that that ‘nightmare’ had been the truth, I thought I could accept it. God bless your sleep. Perhaps if I forgot the other long-past nightmares, and recalled the good things of my childhood and what I had been taught, He would.

  19

  I guessed that Agnes would not want to wait for me to take her the coveted book, and I was right. She came up soon after breakfast. Before the back door rattled and Hodge vanished upstairs, the toolshed window had been obscured, the dog fed and admonished to silence, the globe was locked away in the desk with the inventory, and I was in the kitchen washing pots for the bramble jelly.

  ‘Well, Miss Ramsey?’ was her greeting. She had been hurrying. She was breathless and her colour was high.

  I greeted her warmly. ‘Oh, Agnes, I’m so glad you’ve come! I was going to come down later, but I quite forgot to do this jelly yesterday, and I thought I’d better get on with it. Nearly two pints of juice – that’s not bad, is it? And now I wonder—’

  ‘You said you’d look out for that book.’ Sharp. Accusing.

  ‘Yes. That’s what made me forget the jelly. I found the inventory, and I’ve been through all the books in the place, along with the lists. It took ages. There is one that sounds exciting, and I wondered – but for the moment, can you tell me, please, about this jelly? I can’t find any special recipe, so I’m just going by the one I know. A pound of sugar to a pint of juice, and I did manage to find a few windfall apples in the orchard—’