The Town House (42 page)

Alison and Madge were waiting for me and as we went up the stairs I said,

‘I am going to play Hare and Hounds with William and Henry in the Maze. You come too.’

‘God’s teeth,’ said Alison, who was fond of using grownup expressions, ‘on a day like this? A cold thaw. I thank you, no!’

When we reached our room I went and stood before our Dame and said,

‘I am going to play with Henry and William.’ I hoped that she, like Alison, might think a cold thaw a bad thing to brave. And that would let me out. But she only said that the fresh air would do me good, so long as I kept moving. So I fetched my cloak and looked for my thick shoes, and they had been taken away to be greased. So the bell must be rung and by the time it had been answered and the servant had been despatched for them, and had brought them, the brightness of the day had gone. In the Maze, I thought, it would soon be dusk.

However, I was sworn. So I ran out and joined the boys who were waiting impatiently.

The rules were that the Hare started first while the Hounds stood still and counted the fingers of both hands twice over. The Hare, as he ran, also counted twenty and when he had done cried,

‘Hee, hee, hee, you can’t catch me!’

The Hounds then replied, ‘Woof, Woof, Woof.’

Henry ran into the Maze and presently made his call. William and I ran in, crying ‘Woof’. It was already – for me – unpleasantly nearly dusk between the high hedges, so I stayed close to William; at one place where two paths met he said,

‘You take one, I’ll go the other way.’ But William was not, even in pretence, my liege lord, so I let him run along his path and then I followed.
At intervals Henry made the Hare call and we responded. Henry’s voice seemed to come from a different direction each time.

Presently William, as he ran, drew away from me. I tried to keep up, and when I couldn’t, gasped out a shameless, breathless appeal,

‘Wait for me.’ He threw back over his shoulder,

‘We’re not supposed to stay together; it spoils the game.’

At the next turn I found that I had lost him, one path went left, one right, and so far as I could see along either he was not there. This was the moment that I had dreaded ever since Henry had issued his command. I stopped running and stood still. I needn’t play any more; I could always say that I had tried to find them and failed. Had I had any sense at all, I thought, I should have fallen behind and turned back minutes ago, before I was far into the Maze.

Just before I turned I heard Henry’s call far away to the left, and William’s answering cry, to the right it seemed. To show that I hadn’t given up too easily I cried ‘Woof, Woof, Woof,’ too, but there was something about the sound of my voice that I didn’t like, it sounded lost and frightened, less like a hound than a little bleating lamb.

I turned right about and began to walk, hoping that by going in that direction and keeping on long enough I must emerge at the entry. As I walked I could hear Henry and William calling and counter-calling; once Henry sounded close at hand and I hoped the next turn would reveal him. It did not. Nor the entry. And the dusk was deepening every second. To be alone in the Maze in the dark would be as bad as being in the Long Gallery at midnight on the sixth of November, when a long dead Anne Astallon whose husband had killed her in a fit of rage, said to walk, weeping and wringing her hands.

I stood still and shouted, with all my strength,

‘Henry! Henry!’ There was no answer, and I thought, of course, he wouldn’t answer, he’d think I was cheating in the game. One call though – if he heard it, he was bound to answer, being my liege lord, as I his man.

‘A moi, Rancon! Aide! Aide!’

When that brought no response I knew I was out of earshot. I began to whimper and run any way, without trying to stick to one direction, and presently I found myself at the intersection of four paths and there was the big black stone.

I crossed myself and said, ‘God between me and all harm.’ I remembered what Dame Margery had said and tried to believe that it was placed there only to mark the centre; but Helen’s words were much
more powerful. It was still just light enough for me to see the chisel marks on the stone, deep in places, in others worn almost smooth.

I was extremely frightened, but with just sense enough left to know that what I feared was being alone in the dark, and that at such a place and such an hour even the most homely thing – a porridge bowl – could seem sinister. I didn’t even know what ‘Rune’ meant, so what happened next was not due to my imagination.

First I went back away, into the mouth of the path by which I had come; and I found that I couldn’t move. It was like one of those horrid nightmares when something pursues you and your feet are too heavy to run. My eyes were fixed on the stone, and I stood as fixed as it was. Then, in it, just level with my eyes, a light appeared, as though a small window had opened, with candles in the room within. The golden glow was faint at first, but it strengthened as I stared; and then out of the lighted square a face looked at me.

I did not, at that time, know what a Cardinal looked like, the nearest I had been to one was when I listened to speculations about Helen’s paternity, so I did not know what I was seeing. It was the face of the man that held my attention, not from any remarkable feature, but because his eyes, dark under heavy brows, looked straight at me in a very compelling, forceful way, as though he were using his will to beat mine down. I had no glimmer of a notion what he wanted of me, but I knew that whatever it was it was important to me; I knew also that I must not give in. As I thought that the face disappeared, the square glowed faintly for a moment and was gone.

By this time I was beyond fright. I knew I was about to die. I couldn’t draw breath. It was as though an iron hand were clenched round my throat. Fighting against it, just to pull in breath once more took all my strength and I was failing, just about to die when the most beautiful sound in all the world reached my ears; a human voice, calling in its homely Sussex speech,

‘Stay right where you be, little Lady. I’m coming for ye.’

The iron hand fell away and I drew in breath with the sound of a cloth being ripped. I began to shake all over.

‘Could ye give us a call for a bit of a guide?’

I tried, but my tongue was dry flannel between my chattering teeth.

‘Now, now,’ the voice said, a trifle crossly, ‘’tis no use pretending, or hiding from me. The game’s over now. You give us a shout!’

I tried and had just enough breath to make a small mew, like a kitten.

‘Hi there! Can ye hear me?’

I managed to cry, ‘Hi!’ and then, at the next try, ‘I’m by the stone.’

‘Stand still then.’

In no time at all he was with me, a little bent gnome of a man, carrying a lantern. He put my fear – I was shaking still – down to the fact that I had been lost.

‘That need never worr it you. We watch. We count ‘em in and we count ‘em out. Come on, now follow me.’

As we walked he told me that once, long ago, when his own father was ‘just a little gaffer’, some young people had gone into the Maze during the Christmas revels, and all come out but a young lady who was not missed until the next day, and was dead when found.

‘I should have died too, if you hadn’t found me.’

‘Oh no! ‘Tisn’t freezing tonight. Yon was a hard frost.’

‘I should have died of fear.’

‘There’s naught to be feart of. There’s two of us and one is always on the watch.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘No. We don’t make much of ourselves. People don’t like to think they’re overlooked.’

I don’t think I was any more pious than the next child. I performed my duties and observed the Holy Days of Obligation and the Fast days, but I seldom thought about religion. Now, however, I thought – That is like God, watching our comings and goings, Himself unseen but ready to help in time of need.

From that thought it was only a short step to be wondering whether the face I had seen in the Rune Stone was not really a heavenly vision and that what the man had been trying to convey to me was not to be frightened. The French girl, Jehan the Maid, had put visions and voices from Heaven in the forefront of everyone’s mind. And she, I remembered, had been burned for a witch.

Dame Margery, who had not, I think, noticed my absence because she was so busy with the three sick children, scolded me for giving her needless anxiety, and set me yards of hemming to do for a punishment. Henry and William said I had spoiled the game, they thought I had given up too soon. I said to Henry, ‘I gave you the Cry of Extremity and you did not aid me, that cancels all vows.’

I never mentioned my vision to anyone; and perhaps for that reason thought about it the more. Walter and I were born on St. Joseph’s Day,
and I thought it possible that the face I had seen had been that of the Saint. After that I had a special devotion to St. Joseph, and when, around Easter-tide a seller of statues and medallions came round I broke into one of my gold pieces and bought a medallion of St. Joseph and fastened it to one of the cords of my velvet purse.

When the next Christmas came round I did not expect to go home and felt no sorrow about it. The love which I had felt for my mother was now firmly fixed upon Melusine, who was just as pretty, and just as sweet-scented, and who never pushed me away. When Henry moved, with my Cousin Ralph, out of the Children’s Dorter at Easter he gave up his lessons, as I had known he would, but, as was the way at Beauclaire, a custom once established went on and on, and it would not surprise me if, in that house, one lady went on opening the Book Room and spending three evenings in it every week, with or without a pupil until the Wars of the Roses brought all those great houses to ruin.

For ruined they are. I have lived to see things change, and those great rambling houses where three hundred people would sit down to supper every evening, where any traveller of noble rank was welcomed like a brother, where everyone above the rank of knight had his own cook, and bloody battles – sometimes fatal – would be waged in the kitchens over who should use this hearth, this spit, they are gone. The wars between the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York are blamed for the change, but I sometimes think they were bound to end, those great establishments, out of their own unwieldiness and waste. And perhaps because, under all the glitter and splendour there was something rotten, something that made human beings of small account, and wealth of too much.

Helen Beaufort was older than I, and had already left the Children’s Dorter and joined the Ladies. This had two results for me. Although Helen welcomed the change and thought herself greatly superior to me now, she was lonely at first, and would seize opportunities to talk and tell me bits of gossip which I should not otherwise have heard. And, with her going I became the eldest in the Dorter, entrusted with certain duties and responsibilities and allowed, in return, certain small privileges. The one I valued most was to be allowed now and then, to go and
read in the Book Room after supper. Whenever I had that permission I would tell Melusine and sometimes she would say that if she could slip away too, she would come and join me.

One evening she
had
managed it and we were sitting close together on the bench, both reading from the same book, which was what I liked to do because it gave an excuse to press close to her. The writing of the book was poor and difficult to read, but the story was so interesting that we read on, taking turns to read a piece.

All at once the door flew open, and when we looked up, startled, it was to see Ella and two other young ladies with expressions of smiling mischief slowly changing to astonishment on their faces.

One of them, Millibrand, said, ‘Holy Mother of God! It is true. She
reads
,’

Melusine said, ‘What did you think I was doing?’ Her voice was cool, but her face was red-hot.

‘We couldn’t believe it,’ Philippa said, gazing round the small room.

‘There is a Welsh minstrel in the Long Gallery. To miss him, in order to brood over a book that smells of mould …’ She turned up her eyes, begging Heaven to witness the unlikelihood.

‘To miss him, in order to spy on me seems even poorer exchange,’ Melusine said.

‘Ah but–’ Ella began. Millibrand pulled her by the arm.

‘We are missing the music. Come along.’

They ran away, laughing and rustling their dresses.

I got up and closed the door which they had left open. As I sat down again Melusine put her arm around me and gave me a quick hug.

‘My good angel!’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Oh … well, if you had not been here they would have dragged me off with them.’

Now that I was learning something which I enjoyed, and seeing so much of Melusine, and had lost all trace of homesickness, I was happy at Beauclaire, and my eleventh birthday, bringing with it the thought that the coming summer would be my last, saddened me. I began wondering whether it would be possible for me to stay and in the end join the ladies in the WellYard Room, instead of being uprooted again and going to Clevely. It was plain to me that I wasn’t wanted at home, and so long as I stayed away I couldn’t see that it mattered to anyone but me, where I was. Walter and I had now become competitive about our writing and
sent letters to one another twice or three times a year; I would write to him, I thought, early in the summer, perhaps at Whitsun, and ask him to ask Mother if I might remain at Beauclaire. Walter was to me, now, hardly a memory; I had changed so much in these three years, I knew he must have, too; he had become somebody whose writing remained much neater and more stylish than mine, try how I would.

With the summer life at Beauclaire always became very gay; besides the big Tournament, regularly held on St. Barnabas’ Day, there were several smaller ones, and there were many unplanned entertainments, too; wandering players would come and perform their mysteries, jugglers their tricks, sword-swallowers and fire-eaters their seeming miracles. Most of these delights we children were allowed to share, increasingly so as we grew older. There had at one time been talk of two young children coming into the Dorter, but Dame Margery had argued against it; Constance was now ‘getting off her hands’ she said, and she herself too old to start all over again. So in that summer of my eleventh year, when even Constance could stay up late without yawning or falling asleep where she sat, we had more fun than ever before.