The Ladies of Grace Adieu: And Other Stories (24 page)

And so nothing remains but to make a few observations upon the character of Lucius Winstanley. I dare say the reader will not be particularly surprized to learn that he was a most unusual person, quite extraordinarily handsome and possessed of a highly peculiar temper. He behaved more like Thoresby's king than its chief landowner and ruled over the townspeople with a mixture of unreliable charm, exhausting capriciousness and absolute tyranny which would have been entirely familiar to any one at all acquainted with Tom Brightwind.

He had besides some quite remarkable talents. In the journal of a clergyman we find an entry for the summer of 1806. It describes how he and his companion arrived at Thoresby Bridge (as the town was now called) on horseback and found the town so still, so eerily silent that they could only suppose that every creature in the place must be either dead or gone away. In the yard of The New Bridge Inn the clergyman found an ostler and asked him why the town was as quiet as any tomb.

"Oh!" said the ostler. "Speak more softly if you please sir. Lucius Winstanley, a very noble and learned gentleman - you may see his house just yonder - was drunk last night and has a head ach. On mornings after he has been drinking he forbids the birds to sing, the horses to bray and the dogs to bark. The pigs must eat quietly. The wind must take care not to rustle the leaves and the river must flow smoothly in its bed and not make a sound."

The English clergyman noted in his journal, ". . . the entire town seems possessed of the same strange mania. All the inhabitants go in awe of Mr Lucius Winstanley. They believe he can work wonders and does so almost every hour."
¹¹

But though the people of Thoresby Bridge were proud of Lucius, he made them uncomfortable. Around the middle of the nineteenth century they were forced to admit to themselves that there was something a little odd about him; although forty or so years had passed since his thirtieth birthday he did not appear to have aged a single day. As for Lucius himself it was inevitable that he should eventually get bored of Thoresby even if he did enliven it for himself by having great ladies fall in love with him, changing the weather to suit his moods and - as once he did making all the cats and dogs talk perfect English while the townspeople could only mew and bark at each other.

On a spring morning in 1852 Lucius got on his horse, rode on to his father's bridge and was never seen again.

1

Poor David Montefiore was entirely mortified to be discovered trespassing upon another gentleman's property and could scarcely apologise enough. He told Thomas Jefferson that they had heard so much of the beauty of Monticello that they had been entirely unable to resist coming to see it for themselves. This polite explanation went a good way towards pacifying the President (who was inclined to be angry). Unfortunately Tom Bright-wind immediately began to describe the many ways in which his own gardens were superior to Thomas Jefferson's. Thomas Jefferson promptly had them both turned off his property.

2 Fairy princes do not often trouble to seek out other fairy princes, and on the rare occasions that they do meet, it is surprizing with what regularity one of them will die - suddenly, mysteriously, and in great pain.

3

Fairies exceed even Christians and Jews in their enthusiasm for babies and young children, and think nothing of adding to their brood by stealing a pretty Christian child or two.

Yet in this, as in so many things, fairies rarely give much thought to the consequences of their actions. They procreate or steal other people's children, and twenty years later they are amazed to discover that they have a house full of grown men and women. The problem is how to provide for them all. Unlike the sons and daughters of Christians and Jews, fairy children do not live in confident expectation of one day inheriting all their parents' wealth, lands and power, since their parents are very unlikely ever to die.

It is a puzzle that few fairies manage to solve satisfactorily and it is unsurprizing that many of their children eventually rebel. For over seven centuries Tom Brightwind had been involved in a vicious and bloody war against his own firstborn son, a person called Prince Rialobran.

4

The
brugh
was for countless centuries the common habitation of the fairy race. It is the original of all the fairy palaces one reads of in folktales. Indeed the tendency of Christian writers to glamorize the
brugh
seems to have increased with the centuries. It has been described as a "fairy palace of gold and crystal, in the heart of the hill" (Lady
Wilde,
Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland,
Ward & Downey, London, 1887). Another chronicler of fairy history wrote of "a steep-sided grassy hill, round as a pudding-basin . . . A small lake on its summit had a crystal floor, which served as a skylight." (Sylvia Townsend Warner,
The Kingdoms of Elfin,
Chatto
&c
Windus, London, 1977).

The truth is that the
brugh
was a hole or series of interconnecting holes that was dug into a barrow, very like a rabbit's warren or badger's set. To paraphrase a writer of fanciful stories for children, this was not a comfortable hole, it was not even a dry, bare sandy hole; it was a nasty, dirty, wet hole.

Fairies, who are nothing if not resilient, were able to bear with equanimity the damp, the dark and the airlessness, but stolen Christian children brought to the
brugh
died, as often as not, of suffocation.

5 In the late eighteenth century a journey from London to Nottinghamshire might be expected to take two or three days. Tom and David seem to have arrived after a couple of hours: this presumably is one of the advantages of choosing as your travelling companion a powerful fairy prince.

6

Fairies born in the last eight centuries or so - sophisticated, literate and consorting all their lives with Christians - have no more difficulty than Christians themselves in distinguishing between the animate and the inanimate. But to members of older generations (such as Tom) the distinction is quite unintelligible.

Several magical theorists and commentators have noted that fairies who retain this old belief in the souls of stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds etc., are more adept at magic than the younger generation and their magic is generally much stronger.

The following incident clearly shews how, given the right circumstances, fairies come to regard perfectly ordinary objects with a strange awe. In 1697 an attempt was made to kill the Old Man of the White Tower, one of the lesser princes of Faerie. The would-be assassin was a fairy called Broc (he had stripes of black and white fur upon his face). Broc had been greatly impressed by what he had heard of a wonderful new weapon which Christians had invented to kill each other. Consequently he forsook all magical means of killing the Old Man of the White Tower (which had some chance of success) and purchased instead a pistol and some shot (which had none). Poor Broc made his attempt, was captured and the Old Man of the White Tower locked him up in a windowless stone room deep in the earth. In the next room the Old Man imprisoned the pistol, and in a third room the shot. Broc died some time around the beginning of the twentieth century (after three centuries without a bite to eat, a drop to drink or a sight of the sun, even fairies grow weaker). The pistol and the shot, on the other hand, are still there, still considered by the Old Man as equally culpable, still deserving punishment for their wickedness. Several other fairies who wished to kill the Old Man of the White Tower have begun by devising elaborate plans to steal the pistol and the shot, which have attained a strange significance in the minds of the Old Man's enemies. It is well known to fairies that metal, stone and wood have stubborn natures; the gun and shot were set upon killing the Old Man in 1697 and it is quite inconceivable to the fairy mind that they could have wavered in the intervening centuries. To the Old Man's enemies it is quite clear that one day the gun and the shot will achieve their purpose.

7 Tom Brightwind was not the only member of his race who was passionately devoted to the memory of Julius Caesar. Many fairies claim descent from him and there was a medieval Christian legend that Oberon (the wholly fictitious king of the fairies) was Julius Caesar's son.

8 Thomas Brightwind made me, the year of our Lord 1780.

9 Despite Tom's low opinion of his offspring, some of his sons and daughters contrived to have quite successful careers without any help from him. A few years after the period of this tale, at more or less the same time, several scholarly gentlemen made a number of important discoveries about electricity. Among them was a shy, retiring sort of person who lived in the town of Dresden in Saxony. The name of this person was Prince Valentine Brightwind. Tom was most interested to learn that this person was his own son, born in 1511. T om told Miriam Montefiore (David's wife), "This is the first instance that I recall of any of my children doing any thing in the least remarkable. Several of them have spent remarkably large amounts of money and some of them have waged wars against me for remarkably long periods of time, but that is all. I could not be more delighted or surprized. Several people have tried to persuade me that I remember him - but I do not."

10 The language of the fairies of the
brugh.

11 Journals of the Reverend James Havers-Galsworthy, 1804-23.

IN THE SPRING of 1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, fearing the wrath of her subjects, crossed the border into England. Once arrived, she wrote a letter to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, explaining her predicament and begging for her protection. Elizabeth wrote back, expressing her shock that subjects should behave so wickedly towards their lawful and divinely appointed Prince. But privately she considered how Mary had often laid claim to the English throne. She also thought how Mary had had a most baleful influence upon her Scottish subjects, how she had been an instigator of civil wars and the cause of several murders.

With many regrets, Elizabeth cast the Queen of Scots into prison for the rest of her life.

The Queen of Scots was given into the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a quiet gentleman of moderate abilities who was remarkable for two things - his vast wealth and his wife, a lady who was greatly esteemed by Queen Elizabeth. The Earl brought the Queen of Scots to Tutbury Castle, an ancient grey tower on the borders of Derbyshire and Staffordshire.

From the roof of this castle she looked down. Once she had laid claim to three thrones; now her world was shrunk to this view of a muddy ditch and a dark hillside.

How had this happened? In the royal courts of Europe her fall had been a matter of common prediction for many years. Her decisions had been catastrophic, her love affairs scandalous. She had been a comet; and her blazing descent through dark skies had been plain for all to see. But the Queen herself was amazed at this sudden change in her fortunes - amazed and very much inclined to blame someone.

Elizabeth, she thought, had done this to her. Elizabeth and England. The Queen gazed about her at the gloomy winter landscape. The pallor of the sky seemed to her to be Elizabeth's white complexion. The chill wind on her cheek was Elizabeth's breath. The glint of a river seen through winter trees was the bright spark of malice in Elizabeth's eye.

The Queen of Scots felt she had dwindled, until she was nothing more than a flea upon Elizabeth's body or, at best, a mouse in the hem of her gown. With a wail the Queen cast herself down and began to weep and to beat her hands on the stones. The soldiers who guarded her were amazed to witness such behaviour, but her French and Scottish attendants were not much disturbed. They had seen it all before.

They carried her to her chamber and laid her upon the bed. Her lady-in-waiting, Mrs Seton, sat down beside her and tried to distract her with gossip.

Mrs Seton told her how the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, though both middle-aged, had not been married long. She said that the Countess had not been born into any great family, indeed that she was scarcely more than a farmer's daughter, but had achieved her present rank by marrying four husbands, each richer and greater than the one before.

"
Quatre maris!
" exclaimed the Queen of Scots, whose first language was French.
"Mais elle a des yeux de pourceauf"
(Four husbands! But she has piggy-eyes!)

Mrs Seton laughed in agreement.

Four husbands! thought the Queen of Scots. And the first three dying in so convenient a manner! - just when the farmer's daughter had grown into her new rank and might be wishing for a greater. The Queen of Scots's husbands had never consulted her convenience in their dying. Her first, the King of France, had died at the age of sixteen and so she had lost the French throne - a circumstance that had caused her great pain. Her second husband (whom she had hated and wished dead) had fallen ill in the most tantalising way, but had utterly failed to die - until some kind person had first blown him up and then strangled him.