The Echoing Stones (19 page)

Gaunt and straight, and very, very old, there was no mistaking this figure with its wild white hair, though it was dressed now in a dark girdled garment that swept the floor instead of an ordinary rather shabby suit. It was the very same stranger who had approached Mildred on that other afternoon as she sat by the lake, had exchanged with her a few incomprehensible words and had then departed, equally incomprehensibly, into the wood, accompanied by Flora. They had seemed on good enough terms then, he and Flora; and so old as he was, surely he wouldn’t – couldn’t – have harmed the girl in any way? Well, of course he wouldn’t, he was trying to rescue her – but from whom? From what? Glancing here and there around the now brightly-lit chamber, Mildred could see no sign of her daughter. Was she hidden, then, somewhere out of sight, incarcerated in some secret chamber behind these massive walls? By whom? For what purpose?

Mildred now became aware that her strange
companion
was no longer looming above her, but was bowing deferentially … was falling on one knee before her and humbly addressing her, the need for silence apparently at an end:

“Pardon me, your Grace,” he was saying, “for my late discourteous handling of Your Majesty’s sacred person, but total silence was enjoined upon us, as your Highness will assuredly understand. The fair babe you erstwhile bore, our new Prince of all England, is in safe hiding in
the privy place you wot of” – here he gestured vaguely at the East Wall behind him – “and when night is fallen, holding him close to your breast, under cover of darkness, you will bring him to the woods, unaccompanied even by your ladies. There, in the deep of the wood, my men are waiting. The horses are ready, and before dawn we shall be at the castle, far above the sea, impregnable on all sides. From there we will rouse all England in defence of their new-born Prince, their future King.”

He was dotty, of course. Mildred now recalled that there was indeed a dotty old man on the estate, the senile father of Joyce, who sold tickets at the entrance. What with one thing and another, so busy and harrassed as she’d been, Mildred had been only dimly aware of the existence this old father, and had never actually seen him. Probably he was kept out of sight at home most of the time, not to cause trouble. Well, it would be common sense, wouldn’t it? Today he must have escaped somehow.

Mildred could have kicked herself for not having realised all this earlier, and thus saved herself a lot of mental agony. For, of course, the whole performance was nothing to do with Flora at all. Clearly, it was some fantasy child that he imagined himself to be rescuing – a baby, evidently, of whom he imagined Mildred to be the mother. At her age! Flattering, in a crazy sort of way. And it was only then, as she turned with a little smile on her lips to disabuse him of this misconception, that it occurred to her that there was still a problem, even now that her fears for Flora had been assuaged.
She
now knew that he was merely dotty – but
he
didn’t.
She
knew that there was no endangered baby, that the whole thing was mere fantasy – but
he
didn’t. What else might he now fantasise, down here in this awful place, with the rack, and that great spiked thing like a harrow casting grotesque shadows from the unshaded lights onto the ancient uneven floor?

So far, he had been imagining her to be a royal personage entitled to the utmost courtesy; but at any moment he could change, as madmen do, and could imagine her to be someone else entirely. A prisoner needing to be interrogated on the rack? The rack
did
work, after a fashion. She’d seen it working, as part of the guided tour; had watched those sinister rollers moving while the visitors crowded close and closer in shame-faced glee, and with occasional little cries of horror, feigned or genuine.

She must get out of here, fast, before his mood changed, and his fantasy-world changed with it.

“Excuse me,” she said hurriedly, uneasily aware that this was no way for a Queen to speak, “I’m afraid I must go now. I … I have an appointment,” she added, babbling wildly as she edged towards the door. And it was only as she began wrestling with the ice-cold metal ring which seemed to serve as a handle did she recall that grating sound of the key turning in the iron lock.

She was trapped. Locked in with a madman. A madman whose ire had surely been aroused by her failure to fit into his fantasy, and now by her evident wish to escape. The pale, shining eyes glittered, watching her, as she cowered against the locked door. He took a slow step forward, and once again the old, knobbly hand was fastening itself upon her wrist. Thus would a boa-constrictor slowly,
deliberately
fasten itself upon its prey in one of those Nature programmes. What wouldn’t she have given right now to hear that soothing music appropriate to being swallowed by a snake, not to mention David Attenborough’s cheery voice making you feel that it was all perfectly all right.

It wasn’t all right. And it couldn’t be switched off. She was right inside the programme, all alone, at the mercy of this awful creature. He was going to make her confess to something, here in this chamber of horrors, here in this very seat and centre of extorted confessions.

The only thing to do was to scream. Loudly. At the top of her voice.
Someone,
surely, would be passing outside and would hear her – would summon help – something?

*

Someone
was
passing, as it happened. Two people, in fact, almost the last of the visitors, hurrying to reach the Exit before closing-time.

“Aren’t they realistic, those screams!” said one of them contentedly to the other. “It’s from the torture, chamber, you know, they
do
do it well, don’t they?” – and the two passed on, chatting idly about the various incidents of their afternoon, while Mildred screamed, and screamed again.

Mildred’s screams choked into silence. The bony hand still gripped her arm, but it was impatience now, and certainly not any kind of threat, that was conveyed by the reproving little shake he gave her.

“My dear Madam, calm yourself! You are upsetting the whole party! None of these implements has been in use for upwards of three hundred years, they are of historical interest only. Now, if I may be permitted to continue …” – and here he turned away from Mildred as from a piece of unfinished business, and seemed to be resuming an interrupted address to an imaginary crowd gathered around the rack.

“As I was saying, the metal framework by which this instrument was supported comes from the Staffordshire iron foundries, and dates from the latter half of the fifteenth century. The Staffordshire ironworks at that period were among the most advanced in Europe. We shall be seeing another fine example of their work when we move into the gardens. The ornamental iron gate leading into the Knot Garden was …”

It would not be accurate to say that Sir Humphrey’s wandering wits had been jerked by Mildred’s screaming out of the sixteenth century and back into the present time; for this was not the present time. This was the high noonday of his own career to which he had reverted; the era of his fame, the exciting years of discovery and restoration at his beloved Emerton Hall. Once again, he
was taking the early tourists round, showing off the glories that he himself had helped to identify and restore. No wonder he had no time for silly women throwing hysterical fits in the dungeon! If they didn’t want to explore the truths of the past, in all their light and shadow, then they shouldn’t have come on a guided tour at all, especially one that was intended for specialists and serious students rather than idle trippers.

Thus the imaginary tour of the dungeon continued, with Mildred padding uneasily, an audience of one, in Sir Humphrey’s wake as he explained and illustrated and harangued an imaginary throng of students and experts: most of them dead long since, these experts; and all their expert knowledge with them.

How sad! By now Mildred, her fears somewhat allayed, was feeling something akin to pity for the poor old man; but also a mounting sense of unease. How long was all this going on? What was going to happen? Sooner or later – surely? – it would dawn on him that his audience had melted away, and only Mildred was left. And then what?

Meantime, it seemed prudent to humour him, to go along with his delusions. No, something more than humouring him was involved, something more than
prudence
. In the presence of the mad, the sane person feels curiously at a disadvantage. He is an illegal immigrant in a foreign country, unable to speak the language. He is a layman caught up in a project whose purpose is beyond him; he is an employee attempting a skilled job for which he has no qualifications and has been given no training. It is the madman who is the expert in this situation. He is the one who knows what he is doing, and why, and what is going to happen next. The sane one can only stumble in his wake, doing what he is told.

Thus did Mildred stumble. She listened to a dissertation on the forging of steel in the sixteenth century, and the
new processes by which the razor-sharp blades of swords and cutlasses had been perfected. She watched as he unhooked a weapon from the display on the back wall, and ran his finger lovingly along the glittering blade, lightly, deftly,
just
not drawing blood. It was amazing – quite uncanny really – to watch those ancient knobbly fingers moving with such sureness, such skill, with never a tremor. She learned too – or rather failed to learn, for apprehension held her faculties rigid – about the quarrying and shaping of stone … about the shortage of oak, so much of England’s forests having been demolished for ship-building and for charcoal. And now about brass, or was it copper – Mildred watched the pointing finger, heard the voice, and took in absolutely nothing.

But now, at last, the phantom tour was beginning to flag. The old man’s sentences hung unfinished, the pauses between them grew longer. He seemed to be losing his thread; his glance began to wander, in a puzzled way; and Mildred found herself beginning to panic. In some irrational and quite ridiculous way, the crowd of non-existent fellow-tourists had been making her feel safe, and now she was desperate to prevent them melting away. Somehow, she must get the old man going again. Perhaps he could be drawn back into his rôle as lecturer if she, as a member of the audience, asked an intelligent question?

“Who wrote that?” she asked, pointing somewhat randomly at a sad little message scratched upon the stone, and illuminated now, four hundred years later, by a small ghostly-green spotlight all to itself:

“My trust is in the Lord that he will deliver me from my chains.”

As she read it out loud, she seemed to hear the words rippling in distant echoes round and around the ancient walls. She gave, for some reason, a nervous little giggle, though never had she found herself in a situation less
amusing; and when her mentor did not at once answer, she continued, talking compulsively:

“
Was
he delivered from his chains, whoever he was? I do hope so!”

She could actually watch the change in the old face, for it happened quite slowly. It took perhaps twenty seconds or so for Sir Humphrey to change from the twentieth century lecturer to the sixteenth century nobleman in the presence of his Queen.

“Pardon me, Madam, it is not fitting that your Grace should defile her royal lips with the words of the Evil One. Did your Grace fail to observe the date inscribed hereon – 1599? A date as yet forty years and more ahead of our time? The prisoner who will write these words has not yet been born. The Powers of Evil have been at work, probing the forbidden Future. This is necromancy – this is prophecy, and against the laws of your Majesty’s realm. Turn your eyes away, your Grace, evil spirits are abroad. Beware lest they bring us ill fortune in tonight’s great venture!”

Here he paused, and for several seconds stood
absolutely
still. Then:

“Listen! We have been betrayed! They are coming, can you not hear them? Listen!”

Mildred listened, but apart from the hiss of her
companion
’s indrawn breath and the ringing of her own ears, she could hear nothing. And yet
something
seemed to be on its way, she seemed to be aware of it through some sense other than those of sight and hearing. Even as Sir Humphrey snatched up the sword whose fine edge he had so recently been demonstrating, Mildred felt her own body tense and ready itself for battle, even though, in the course of her quiet suburban life, it had never done such a thing before. It was amazing that it knew how.

“Fear not, my lady!” he whispered. “Though they put
me to the torture, I will reveal nothing. The hiding-place of your sweet babe will remain secure. Step back, my lady, ere they break down the door! Back … Back! Fear not, I am with you to the death! With my last drop of blood I will defend your sacred person!”

No one had ever offered to protect Mildred with their last drop of blood before, and so she couldn’t think what to say. But she did step back, as instructed, into a convenient alcove, while Sir Humphrey stepped forward, facing the door, his sword at the ready. So straight he seemed to stand under the harsh lights, and preternaturally tall.

And now, cowering back into a shadowy alcove, Mildred became witness to what was surely the strangest battle ever waged within these dark and ancient walls. There was a flash of bright steel as Sir Humphrey lunged at his imaginary foe; his black cloak swung behind him as his sword cut the air, not once but again and again, blow after slanting blow aimed with such purpose and precision that Mildred seemed almost to see, amid the turmoil of flashing light and shade, the leaping shadow of an armed opponent.

But there was nothing, of course. Only the springing alternations of light and dark as the deluded swordsman slashed and swung.

So hypnotic, so riveting was this bewildering spectacle, it had the quality of a dream; and so it was some seconds – perhaps as much as a minute – before Mildred became aware that something else was happening in the great dim chamber, something new, and different, and right away from the fierce imaginary fight. From the East Wall there seemed to be a stir of movement, and as she swivelled her frightened gaze in this direction, it seemed to her in the half-light that the shadowed masonry was itself beginning to move, as if the very wall itself was melting away.

Which of course it couldn’t be. And so now she focused
her gaze on that long-disused door behind which (so she had once heard) the ruins of a stone stairway, too dangerous to use, spiralled upwards in the dark.

Was it an optical illusion, a momentary distortion of the senses under stress, or was this door really shaking a little, jerking and stirring within its oak frame? Was there really a creaking, a shuddering, a sound of rusty bolts groaning in their sockets? And now the sounds grew louder … an unfamiliar draught was playing about her temples; and Mildred, crouching motionless in her dark alcove watched incredulously as the door began showly to open. Inch by inch the crack widened to reveal the dark aperture through which the ghost of a tortured woman was rumoured to emerge at times of stress and disaster: the “wise woman”, the witch, who had met her death in this awful chamber and was wont to revisit the place of her execution to wreak vengeance on her executioners, and on their descendants.

Such was the tale. And of course Mildred, like any sensible woman, had never believed it. But the moment was coming when mere non-belief was going to avail her nothing. Wider and wider grew the opening; and now two pallid fingers appeared for a moment against the dark wood; gone almost at once, and then re-appearing, fingering the darkness, seeking perhaps a ghostly
hand-hold
, reaching and clutching at the heavy moving door.

Mildred could bear it no longer. Whatever might emerge from that dark aperture, the sight of it would be more than she could endure; and in a blind instinctive gesture her hands came over her face and her eyes closed tightly of their own accord.

How long she crouched there, too frightened to move, she could not afterwards recall. It might have been several minutes, or perhaps only seconds, before it was borne in upon her that silence had fallen. The door in the East Wall creaked and groaned no longer. The shuffling, thudding,
swishing sounds of imaginary combat had come to an end. Cautiously, as the silence continued, she moved her hands from her face and opened her eyes.

It was just the wrong time for opening them, for only seconds afterwards the lights went out. She had just caught a glimpse of Sir Humphrey’s body spread-eagled on the stone floor, its voluminous black cloak spread in a great semi-circle around it; had just drawn in her breath to scream, when everything was blotted out.

The darkness was total, and so was the silence. For long moments Mildred fancied that she must have died of fright; that this was indeed death, this total
darkness
, total silence, this paralysis of all her limbs, of her very voice.

But it wasn’t death. It was somehing else. For now, scratching at the silence, there came a new sound, a sound of someone – something – creeping slowly, purposefully, and very very cautiously, across the stone floor.

And now, at last, Mildred found herself able to scream.

And scream, and scream, and scream.