Property of a Lady(82)

In two days’ time shall I have finally slaked this burning desire that has constantly gnawed at my heart and my loins all these years?





17th November


It’s unlikely that anyone will ever read these pages, just as it’s unlikely anyone will ever know the part I played in what has happened. But just in case—

I set out for Mallow House shortly before midnight. With me I had the objects fashioned in the secret library – the dried hand, the candle. A tinder box so I could light the candle. And the chant that seemed to me, from my readings, to strengthen the spell.

(Have I just written those words? Have I really admitted to believing I created a spell . . . ? The words are imbued with madness. If I was mad on the night I made the decision to do all this, I was certainly mad last night.)

No one saw me slink through Marston Lacy, of that I am sure. It’s a quiet place in the main – that violent death in the Black Boar was a very exceptional case indeed. Once clear of the houses I turned into Blackberry Lane and, as I did so, I heard a church clock chiming. Midnight. The keystone of night’s black arch. The sound came clearly across the fields and, as the last chime faded, in a nearby tree an owl gave a soft hoot and I heard its wings beating on the air as it went in search of prey. Was the midnight chime the spring that had released it from a daylight spell?

As I drew level with what had been the carriageway to the old manor house, I was startled to hear soft sounds very close by. They unnerved me for a moment, then I thought it must be the wind sighing in the trees, or the owl again, or a fox – they sometimes give strange cries, foxes. But once past the ruined road to the old manor, I realized with a sick jolt that the sounds were of my own making. I was singing, very softly, the old Ingoldsby rhyme.

‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock . . .

Fly bolt, and bar, and band . . .

Nor move, nor swerve, joint, muscle or nerve,

At the spell of the dead man’s hand!’

The rhyme meant nothing, and it possessed no power. It was simply old Richard Barham’s mischievous version of the real spell. But I found it comforting to murmur the words and hum the cadences it seemed to form. It felt like having a companion, and midnight’s a desperate and lonely place when your mind is cloaked in madness.

No lights showed in Mallow House – I was glad of that. The gate made a faint rasp as I pushed it open – a scratchiness that sounded like a hoarse voice whispering. Beware. The gardens were silver and black from the moonlight, and the house itself was drained of all colour. I looked up at it, wondering which window was Elizabeth’s, then went round to the back. I did not know, not for sure, that there would be a garden door or a kitchen door, but a house of this size would not have just one entrance.

The paths were dry and soft, and my feet made no sound. Once something scuttled across my path, and I started back, and once I thought there was a movement at one of the downstairs windows, but it was only my own reflection in the glass.

The door I sought opened on to what looked like the sculleries. I felt for the handle and tried it. Locked, of course, and very firmly. My heart was beating so fast by this time that it would have been almost audible to anyone in earshot, but no one was there to hear. No one was there to see, either, when I drew the hand of glory from my pocket and set the candle in its wizened grasp. When I lit the taper it crackled sullenly, then finally flared into a thick, unpleasant-smelling light.

I took a deep breath, lifted the hand aloft, and very softly began to chant the spell. And now it was not Barham’s light, mocking parody I had sung in the lane, it was the real thing. The ancient, powerful sorcery from the time when the world was still cooling from the fires in which it had been forged. The language and the music of gods and daemons.

Sweat prickled my whole body, and for a moment it seemed that nothing was going to happen. Sick disappointment flooded me. The spell was an empty charm, a blown egg, the enchantment was husked dry, and the sorcery that was to have given me that precious hour with my lady had frayed to cobwebs and vanished.

And then there was a soft click, and then another, and the sound of a steel bar being drawn back. The door of Mallow House swung ajar.





TWENTY-SIX



As I stepped across the threshold, the smeary light from the candle fell across the stone flags of the scullery floor. I lifted it aloft, and the light washed over a large dresser set against the wall. There was a big range, faintly glowing with heat, and a rocking chair in one corner with a rag rug in front of it. It was a kitchen that might be found in any fair-sized house in any part of the country – but it was her kitchen. She would often be here, ordering meals, supervising household tasks. Somewhere over my head she would be lying in her bed. Sleeping? I wanted her to be asleep. I wanted them all to be asleep. I believed myself beyond sanity, but not so far that I wanted to inflict hurt on anyone.

I went out of the kitchen to the big oak-floored hall where William Lee had met me that morning. A copper jug filled with chrysanthemums and dahlias stood on a low chest, and I imagined Elizabeth picking the flowers and arranging them. My heartbeat increased to a painful intensity.

It was very quiet. Through the half-open door of the library I could see the dull glow of a fire with a guard in front of it. There was a faint scent of woodsmoke, and I remembered how Lee had told me he liked to sit in his library in the evenings. Was he there now? If he was not, my plan would crumble into nothing, for I would not dare enter Elizabeth’s bedroom with him there. I tiptoed forward. Let him be there, please let him be in his library, asleep over his books. It was only a little after midnight, not a late hour for scholars . . .