The Moor (3 page)

"I think he means the next one," Holmes said.

In the panel to the left was a woman clothed in orange garments flecked with a design of black splotches that looked alarmingly like huge ants. She had wings sprouting from her temples, and her right hand pointed at a flying white bird that might have been a dove, although it looked more like a goose. At her feet a small white pug-faced dog, tail erect, had its nose to the ground, snuffling busily. Above the wings the caption read,
Investigatio.
I turned to look at Baring-Gould, suspecting a breath of humour, but he was no longer paying attention to anything but his yard-long pipe. I ran the lamplight over a few more:
Valor
(this figure was a man, wearing a short tunic),
Harmonia
with a cello,
Vigilantia, Ars, Scientia
—a room of virtues.

"Daisy painted them. My daughter Margaret," he explained.

"Really? What was here before?" There must have been something, as the upper portion of wall was obviously designed for decorations. I wondered what Elizabethan treasure had been lost in this slightly clumsy restoration.

"Nothing. They are new. Not new, of course, but the walls were built since I came here, to my design."

I examined the walls more closely. They did look considerably fresher than the seventeenth century.

"Local craftsmen, my pattern based on a house nearby, my daughter's painting—I restored an Elizabethan house out of a small and frankly decrepit base."

"The ceilings too?"

"Nearly everything. I am particularly proud of the fireplace in the hall. It belongs to the reign of Elizabeth, without a doubt."

The idea of a heavily restored and adapted original explained the very slightly odd feel to the gallery ceiling upstairs—far too ornate for a country house, and much too new and strong for the age of its design.

"The ceilings are very beautiful," I said. "Does your daughter still live here with you?"

"No. Most of my children have scattered, making their way as far afield as Sarawak, where one of my sons is with the white rajah. Although one of my daughters lives just up the road in Dunsland, and my eldest son and his American wife have lived in this house for the last few years. I think they thought me too feeble to be alone." His glare dared me to argue. "At present they are in America, where Marion's mother is ill. I admit, I am enjoying my respite from the American régime."

"How many children have you?"

"I had fifteen. Thirteen still living. Twelve," he corrected himself, without elaboration.

His response brought me up short—not the numbers, which were common enough, so much as the vivid contrast it evoked, of this solitary house with its silent rooms compared to the vital place it must have been, a busy household throbbing with life, ringing with footsteps and voices and movement. I put the lamp back on the sideboard and took up the chair Holmes had pulled over to the fire for me. I accepted coffee, declined brandy, and waited with little patience while pipes were got going. Finally, Baring-Gould cleared his throat and began to speak, in the manner of a carefully thought out speech.

"My family has lived on this land since 1626. My name combines two families: the Crusader John Gold, or Gould, who in 1220 was granted an estate in Somerset for his part in the siege of Damietta, and that of the Baring family, whom you may know from their interests in banking. My grandfather brought the two names together at the end of the eighteenth century when he, a Baring, inherited Lew. After my birth we lived a few miles north of here, in Bratton Clovelly, but my father, who was an Indian Army officer invalided home, did not like living in one place for long, so when I was three years old he packed us and the family silver into a carriage and left for Europe. My entire childhood was spent moving from one city to another, pausing only long enough for the post to catch us up. My father was very fond of Dickens," he explained. "When his stories came out, I used occasionally to wish it might be a long one, so that we might be tied down for a longer period while we waited for the installments to reach us. Although I will admit that
Nicholas Nickelby
was a mixed blessing, as it found us in winter, in Cologne, living in tents.

"Still, it was an interesting childhood, and I scraped together enough education to enable me to hold my own at Clare in Cambridge. I took holy orders in 1864, and spent the next years doing parish work in Yorkshire and East Mersea.

"My father was the eldest son. His younger brother, as was the custom, had taken holy orders, and was the rector here at Lew Trenchard. It wasn't until he died in 1881 that I could come and take up the post, as squire as well as parson, for which I had been preparing myself.

"You see, when I was fifteen years old I came here, and my roots found their proper soil. I had known the moor before, of course, but on that visit I saw it, saw this house and the church, with the eyes of a young adult, and I knew what my future life was to be: I would restore the church, restore this house, and restore the spiritual life of my parish.

"It has taken me forty years, but I like to think that I have succeeded in two of those endeavors, and perhaps made inroads into the third.

"What I had not envisioned, at that tender age, was the extent to which Dartmoor would lay its hands on me, heart and mind and body. It is a singular place, wild and harsh in its beauty, but with air so clear and pure one can taste it, so filled with goodness that illness has no hold there, and ailing young men are cured of their infirmities. It is odd, but although no part of it falls within the bounds of my parish, nonetheless I feel a responsibility that goes beyond legal boundaries." He stopped and leant forward, looking first at Holmes and then, for a longer time, at me, to see if we understood, and indeed, there was no mistaking the man's passion for the moor. He eased himself back, not entirely satisfied but trusting to some degree in our goodwill. He shut his eyes for a moment, rallying his strength following the long speech, then opened them again with a sharp, accusing glance worthy of Holmes himself.

"There is something wrong on the moor," he said bluntly. "I want you to discover what it is, and stop it."

I looked sideways at Holmes, in time to see his automatic twitch of impatience slide into an expression of quiet amusement.

"Details, Gould," he murmured. The old man scowled at him, and then, to my surprise, there was a brief twinkle in the back of his keen eyes before he dropped his gaze to the fire, assembling his thoughts.

"You remember the problem we had with Stapleton and the hound? Perhaps I should explain," he interrupted himself, recalling my presence, and proceeded to retell the story known to most of the English-speaking world, and probably most of the non-English-speaking world as well.

"Some thirty years ago a young Canadian inherited a title and its manor up on the edge of the moor. The previous holder, old Sir Charles, had died of apparently natural causes (he had a bad heart) but under odd circumstances, circumstances that gave rise to a lot of rumours concerning an old family curse that involved a spectral black dog."

"The Hound of the Baskervilles."

"Yes, that's it, although the family name is not actually Baskerville. As I remember, Baskerville was the driver your friend Doyle used when he came up here, was it not?" he asked Holmes.

"I believe so," said Holmes drily, although
friend
was not the word I might have chosen to describe his relationship with Dr Watson's literary agent and collaborator. Baring-Gould went on.

"The moor is poor ground agriculturally, but rich in songs and stories and haunts aplenty: the jacky-twoad with his glowing head and the long-legged Old Stripe, the church grims and bahr-ghests that creep over the moor, seeking out the lone traveller, the troublesome pixies that lead one astray, and the dogs: the solitary black animals with glowing eyes or the pack of coal-black, fire-breathing hounds leading the dark huntsman and his silent mount. Of course, any student of folklore could tell you of a hundred sources of devil dogs, with or without glowing eyes. Heavens, I could fill a volume on spectral hounds alone—the dark huntsman, the Pad-foot, the wisht-hounds. In fact, in my youth I came across a particularly interesting Icelandic variation—"

"Perhaps another time, Gould," Holmes suggested firmly.

"What? Oh yes. The family curse of the Baskervilles. At any rate, old Sir Charles died, young Sir Henry came, and the mysterious happenings escalated. Holmes came out here to look things over, and he soon discovered that one of the Baskerville neighbours on the moor was an illegitimate descendant who had his eye on inheriting, and made use of the ghost stories, frightening the old man to death and attempting to harass the young baronet into a fatal accident. Stapleton was his name, a real throwback to the wicked seventeenth-century Baskerville who was the original source of the curse, for his maltreatment of a young girl. Stapleton even resembled the painting of old Baskerville, didn't he, Holmes? In fact, I meant to send you a chapter of my
Old Country Life
where I discuss inherited characteristics and atavistic traits."

"You did."

"Did I? Oh good."

"So what has the Stapleton case to do with Dartmoor now?" Holmes prodded.

"I do not know except—" He dropped his voice, as if someone, or something, might be listening at the window. "They tell me the Hound has been seen again, running free on the moor."

***

I cannot deny that the old man's words brought a finger of primitive ice down my spine. A loose dog chasing sheep is a problem, but hardly reason for superstitious fears. However, the night, my fatigue, and the stark fact that this apparently sensible and undeniably intelligent old man was himself frightened, all came together to walk a goose over my grave. I shivered.

Fortunately, Holmes did not notice, because the words also had an effect on the man who had uttered them. He slumped into his chair, suddenly grey and exhausted, his eyes closed, his purplish lips slack. I stood in alarm, fearing he had suffered an attack of some kind, but Holmes went briskly out of the door, returning in a minute with the cheerful, rather stupid-looking woman who had brought our dinner. She laid a strong hand on Baring-Gould's arm, and he opened his eyes and smiled weakly.

"I'll be fine in a moment, Mrs Moore. Too much excitement."

"On top of everything else, the cold and the worry an' all. Mrs Elliott will never forgive me if I let you take ill. Best you go to bed now, Rector. I've laid a nice fire in your room, and tomorrow Mrs Elliott will be back and the heat'll be on." He began to protest, but she already had him on his feet and moving towards the door.

"Time enough tomorrow, Gould," Holmes called. We followed the sounds as the woman half-carried her easily bullied charge upstairs to his bed. A far-off door closed, and Holmes dropped back into his chair and took up his pipe.

"Twenty years ago that man could walk me into the ground," he said.

I took some split logs from the basket and tossed them onto the fire before returning to my own chair. "So I came all the way here to help you look for a dog," I said flatly.

"Don't be obtuse, Russell," he snapped. "I thought you of all people would see past the infirmities."

"To what? A superstitious old parson? A busybody who thinks the world is his parish—or rather, his manor?"

Holmes suddenly took his pipe out of his mouth, and said in pure East-End Cockney, " 'E didn't 'alf ruffle yer feathers, didn'e, missus?"

After a minute, reluctantly, I grinned back at him. "Very well, I admit I was peeved to begin with, and he didn't exactly endear himself."

"He never has been much of one for the politic untruth, and you did appear very bedraggled."

"I promise I'll behave myself when I meet him again. But only if you tell me why you brought me down here."

"Because I needed you."

Of all the clever, manipulative answers I had been braced to meet, I had not expected one of such complete simplicity. His transparent honesty made me deeply suspicious, but the real possibility that he was telling the unadorned truth swept the feet out from under my resolve to stand firm against him. My suspicions and thoughts chased each other around for a while, until eventually I simply burst out laughing.

"All right, Holmes, you win. I'm here. What do you want me to do?"

He rose and went to the sideboard to replenish his glass (not, I noticed, from the small stoneware jug that held the metheglin) and returned with a glass in his other hand as well, which he placed on the table next to my chair before moving over to stand in front of the fire. He took a deep draught from his drink, put it down on the floor beside his foot (as there was no mantelpiece), and took up his pipe. I sank down into the arms of the chair, growing more apprehensive by the minute: All of this delay meant either that he was trying to decide how best to get around the defences that I thought I had already let down, or that he was uncertain in his own mind about how to proceed. Either way, it was not a good sign.

He succeeded in getting his pipe to draw cleanly, retrieved his glass, and settled down in his chair, stretching his long legs towards the fire. Another slow draught half emptied the glass, and with his chin on his chest and his pipe in his hand, he looked into the fresh flames and began to speak.

"As Gould intimated, Dartmoor is a most peculiar place," he began. "Physically it comprises a high, wide bowl of granite, some three hundred and fifty square miles covered with a thin, peaty soil and scattered with outcrops of stone. It functions as a huge sponge, the peat storing its rain all winter to feed the Teign, the Dart, the Tavy, and all the other streams and rivers that are born here. The floor of the moor is a thousand feet above the surrounding Devonshire countryside, from which it rises abruptly. It is a thing apart, a place unconnected with the rest of the world, and it is not inappropriate that a very harsh prison was set in its midst. Indeed, to many, Dartmoor is synonymous with the prison, although that facility is but a bump on the broad face of the moor."