The Mask of the Enchantress (13 page)

As we were going in to dinner Joel arrived.

He took my hand and I felt a tremor of excitement run through me. We seemed to stand facing each other for longer than was customary in such circumstances, but perhaps that was my imagination.

so glad you came,he said.

hank you. I glad to be here.

Then we went in to dinner. I was seated beside him and I had rarely felt so excited in the whole of my life.

hope there were no complications,he said.

For a moment I was bemused and he went on: he fall. Your ankle your wrist

h no. None whatsoever.And then I thought: That not true. There were complications, but not the kind I could mention because I don think anything is ever going to be quite the same again.

He said to the rest of the company: he first time I met Miss Campion she was lying on the altar steps.

here is some significance in that surely,said David.

was surrounded by roses.

kind of sacrificial lamb?

ardly. I was wearing a big overall. You see, I was about to decorate the altar.

h, bent on good works.

or Jessamy wedding,I went on.

he flowers were lovely,cried Jessamy. l never forget the scent of those roses.

am sure they were most artistically arranged,said David.

hey were, but not by me. My talent in that direction is nil.

ut you are very good at falling down altar steps since you came through the ordeal without damage to ankle or wrist.

I could not understand David Mateland. That he was obviously interested in me was a fact which made me feel rather uncomfortable. He seemed eager to be friendly and yet at the same time there was something mocking in his attitude.

hope you will be comfortable in the castle,said Emerald.

am going to make sure of that,said Jessamy.

t a little drafty,Emerald remarked. ot so bad at this time of the year.

hey say that in the winter when the wind blows from the east you could sail a battleship through our corridors,added David.

t not quite as bad as that,Joel told me, leaning towards me and laying a hand lightly on my arm. oreover, it not winter yet.

remember when I first came here,said Emerald, thought it was quite bleak. I came from Cornwall, Anabel, which is a more benign climate.

ut damp,put in Elizabeth Larkham. prefer it here.

h, Elizabeth loves the place and everything connected with it.

just think I am lucky to be here,said Elizabeth to me. merald is so good to me. And it is such a relief to have my son here during school holidays.

ear Elizabeth,murmured Emerald.

The conversation went on in that vein during the meal. I was conscious of a certain tension in the atmosphere. The setting was so strange to me. To be dining in a room with tapestries on the walls and a suit of armor in the corner, to be in a medieval castle with strangers all except Jessamyt was certainly a new venue for me. But it was more than that. I had the feeling that these people were leading complicated lives which were not as they seemed to be.

There was Emerald in her chair, assiduously cared for by Elizabeth Larkham, who was almost catlike in her movements, with those strange eyes which seemed so sleepy and yet to take in all that was going on. Then there was David. I felt I understood him a little better than the others. It was clear that he was a man who liked the company of women. His glances were too bold for my comfort; and there was a hint of cruelty in his mouth and this, I think, showed itself in his conversation. There was a touch of asperity in his words, and I could believe that he derived a certain pleasure in saying wounding things. Perhaps it was wrong to make hasty judgments; but I had always done that. How many times had I been obliged to adjust my assessment of someone! He had an invalid wife and that must be a trial to a man of hisr so I imaginedensual nature. But foremost in my thoughts was Joel. Joel was an enigma. He betrayed little. He seemed apart from the others. He was a doctor and it seemed strange to find a doctor pursuing his profession in a place like this. He had his rooms in the town, which I gathered was about two miles from the castle. According to Jessamy, he was dedicated to his work, and sometimes he stayed in his place in the town. I could not quite understand why he had married Jessamy.

Again I was jumping to conclusions. Who can know what it is that attracts people to each other? That Jessamy adored him was plain and most men enjoy being adored. When he was present I found my attention was focused on him. I was conscious of every time he spoke to me, every time he looked my way; and I do not think I imagined that he did that rather often.

He excited me. I wanted to be near him. I wanted to attract his attention, to talk to him, to find out everything about him. I wanted to know what it had been like to have been born into a castle, to have lived one life in a place like this, to be brought up with brother David. I was obsessed by him.

We went into a small parlor to drink coffee. There was a great deal of talk. Tomorrow I was to be introduced to Grandfather Egmont and I should meet young Esmond. He was four years old and, I learned, had been born a year before Emerald accident.

At ten olock Jessamy said she would take me to my room. She said she was tired after the journey and she was sure I must be. Tomorrow she would show me the castle.

I said good night and Jessamy took me to my room, lighting me up the stairs with a candle in a brass candlestick.

I felt it was rather eerie walking up that staircase following Jessamy. Along the gallery we went. The pictures looked different in candlelight and one could imagine they were living people who looked down on us.

e couldn very well have gaslight in the castle,said Jessamy. t would be rather incongruous, wouldn it?

I agreed.

n some occasions we have flares in the main hall. I can tell you they look very fine.

am sure they do. Jessamy, you love your castle, don you?

es. Wouldn you?

believe I would,I replied.

We reached the room in the tower and she lighted two candles on the dressing table.

I did not want her to go yet. I knew I should not sleep well that night.

essamy,I said, o you like living here with all these people?

She opened her eyes wide. ut of course I like it. Joel is here.

ut it like sharing a home, isn it? There David and Emerald. It two households. You know what I mean.

amilies like this have always lived together. In the old days there were more of them. When Esmond grows up and marries hel live here with his family.

nd your children too, I suppose.

f course. It tradition.

nd you get on all right with David and Emerald?

She hesitated a moment. es yes of course. Why shouldn I?

ethinks you do protest too much. And why shouldn you, you say? I should think there is every reason why you shouldn. People don necessarily have to get on because they are forced to be together. In fact it is more likely that they don than that they do.

h, Anabel, that just like you. I can say that I exactly fond of Emerald. She is rather vague and wrapped up in herself. It being as she is. It so dreadful. She was always riding before. It can be very pleasant for her, can it? And David well, I don altogether understand him. He too clever for me. He says sharp things sometimes.

harp things?

ounding things. He and Joel don get on well. Brothers don always, do they? Sometimes I think David is jealous of Joel.

ealous! Why? Has he designs on you?

f course not. But there is something. And then Elizabeth.

he seems a very self-contained young woman.

he wonderful with Emerald. I think David is very grateful to her for what she does for Emerald. And she of course is so glad to be here. You see, she a widow with a son. He about eight four years or so older than Esmond. He away at school and she so grateful that he can come here for his holidays. It solves a big problem for her. Anabel, you do like Joel, don you?

es,I said quietly, do like him. I like him very much.

She put an arm round me.

am glad, Anabel,she said. o very glad.

The next morning Jessamy took me on a tour of the castle. She told me that Joel had already left for the town.

I was enchanted by everything I saw.

She said we should start at the bottom, which we did, descending a stone spiral staircase with a rope banister to which one had to hold firmly as the stairs were not very wide and narrowed almost to nothing on one side.

The dungeons were horrifying with their little cells, small and airless, many of them without even the tiny barred window.

Jessamy said: hate it down here. No one ever comes here except when we show people, that all. Every castle in the old days had its dungeons. There was one Mateland, in the time of Stephen, I believe, when the country was in a turmoil, who used to waylay travelers and hold them here to ransom. His son was even worse. He tortured them.

I shivered. et go and see the rest,I suggested.

agree with you. It horrible. I suggested having the dungeons walled up, but they won hear of it. Egmont goes purple in the face at the mere mention of it or any alteration to the castle.

can understand it in a way. But as for this place I should think what happened here is best forgotten.

We mounted the stairs with the aid of a rope banister and were in a stone hall.

his,explained Jessamy, s just below the main hall. You ascend that stone staircase and you are in a little passage, and there facing you would be the door to the main hall. This is a sort of crypt. When people die the coffin is kept here for a while.

t reeks of death,I said.

She nodded. ook how it is groined with blocks of hard chalk. And just feel these massive pillars.

mpressive,I said. his is the very ancient part of the castle, I am sure.

es, it part of the first structure.

ow grim it must have been to have lived in those days.

I could not get the dungeons out of my mind. I was sure I should think of them even when I went upstairs to my luxurious room.

We went back to the hall where Jessamy pointed out the fine carved stonework and truly magnificent timbers in the vaulted roof. She showed me the exquisite linenfold which had been put in when Queen Elizabeth visited the castle and the intricate carvings at the foot of the minstrelsgallery which depicted scenes from the Bible. Then we went to the long gallery where I studied pictures of ancient and modern Matelands. It was interesting to see Grandfather Egmont there and to have some indication of the man I was to meet. He was remarkably like David. He had the same thick brows and penetrating eyes. There was a picture of Joel and one of David.

he little boy has not yet been painted,I said.

o. They are not painted until they are twenty-one.

ow exciting to be able to look back to your ancestors all those years. Oh, Jessamy, perhaps your descendants will inherit all this one day.

t hardly likely,she said. irst of all I have to have the child and then of course there Esmond. His children will inherit. David the elder.

uppose Esmond died or didn marry and therefore had no legitimate heirs.

h, don talk of Esmond dying! He the loveliest little boy.

She seemed eager to get out of the picture gallery.

We explored the rest of the house. There was the drawing room, the dining room in which we had eaten last night, the library, the armory, the gun room had never seen such a selection of gunshe Elizabeth room, the Adelaide roomoth queens had honored the castle with their presencend there were all the bedrooms. In fact I wondered how anyone ever learned to find his way about the castle.

Finally we came to the nursery and there I made the acquaintance of Esmond. He was, as Jessamy had said, a beautiful little boy. He was sitting in a window seat with Elizabeth Lark-ham and she was reading, pointing to the words with her finger as she did so.

He stood up as we entered. He came towards us and Jessamy said: his is Esmond. Esmond, this is Miss Campion.

He took my hand and kissed it. It was a charming gesture, and I thought how pretty he was with his dark hair and his fine dark eyes undoubtedly a Mateland.

oue Jessamy cousin,he stated.

I told him I was and that I was looking at the castle.

know,he told me.

Elizabeth laid a hand on his shoulder. smond has been asking about you,she said.

t nice of you to be interested,I said to the boy.

an you read?he asked. his story is about three bears.

believe I know it,I said. ho been sitting in my chair?ho been eating my stew?

t wasn stew. It was porridge,he corrected me solemnly.

dare say it changes with the years,I replied. tew or porridge, what does it matter?

t does matter,he insisted. tew not like porridge.

smond is a stickler for detail,said Elizabeth.

m I a stickler?asked Esmond. hat is a stickler?

Elizabeth said: l tell you another time. I was just going to take him out,she told us. t time for his midmorning walk.

ot yet,said Esmond.

She held him firmly by the hand.

oul have more time to talk to Miss Campion,she said.

ell, wel continue with our tour,Jessamy replied.

t a fantastic place, isn it?Elizabeth looked straight at me, and again I felt that she was summing me up.

I agreed that it was.

el go out to the battlements,Jessamy announced. want to show you the stone walk.

shall see you later then,I said to Esmond, who nodded and said rather sadly: t wasn stew.

Jessamy and I climbed the stone stairsnother of those tricky spiral onesnd were on the battlements.

smond is a very serious little boy,she said. e should be more with boys of his own age. It only when Garth and Malcolm are here that he sees other boys. And they are both older than he is.

e heard of Garth,I said. ho is Malcolm?

e a cousin of some sort. His grandfather was Egmont younger brother. You can work it out. I gather there was some feud between Egmont and his brother. They quarreled or something. Egmont has relented and Malcolm pays periodic visits. I think Egmont likes to regard him as an unlikely but possible heir to the castle. You see, if Esmond were to die and Joel and I had no children, I imagine Malcolm would be the next in line. Malcolm about Garth age sometimes we have them both here together. It good for Esmond. Elizabeth is of course devoted to him. I think she a bit jealous if he takes notice of anyone else.