Truth is, not much happens. The time when all the household staff left is more than twenty years ago by my reckoning, though I am not surely if that’s entirely correct. The only other thing that has happened out of the normal in all that
time, was a visitor to the great hall by another horseless carriage a few years ago. Not that they stayed long. Come to think on it, that was more or less when I began to see less and less of Lord Markham. Still see him though. Not very often, and never on the cinder path, but I still see him.
However, the first most unusual thing that has taken place around here was yesterday, and it was not just one unusual thing but lots of them. I don't think a lot of them make sense really, but I will tell you what happened because not much does around here, and it was all very odd, and it changed a lot of things for me. Listen up. Important, this is.
The Meadowbrook fields are about a mile up the hill. The cinder path passes them and there used to be cows in them fields. Not now, because there’s nobody to look after them, so they are empty. Still quite good pasture land though, and the fields are large and well, vacant. I was pushing my wheelbarrow full of hot cinders from the coal fire across the woods to the west and had just crossed onto the cinder path itself and began to head up the hill, the meadowbrooks on my left. It was a bright sunny day, hardly a cloud in the sky at all, and I seem to remember thinking that I had enough time to go and dig a worm or two and see if I could catch a fish from the lower ponds. I had caught a nice fresh fish there but a few weeks ago and I thought that I had acquired a taste for it now. Tasty it was. Juicy too.
But for now I had to lay these cinders a little further up the hill. I had noticed a small hole in the surface of the path a few days ago and today I was going to fix it. Course a lot of what I do is inspecting. It’s a long path and it doesn’t all fall apart all at once. Patching is what it needs, and so I walks the cinder path a lot I do, looking for holes and breaks in the cinders where perhaps the wind has got at it, ice in the winter, animals digging at it and so on. Once I find something that needs fixing I puts it in my head and fix it when I next can. As I say, I am not so good with words, and if I am telling the honest truth again then I would say my grasp of numbers isn’t quite as good as I am making it out to be, but once I see a hole in my path I never forget. Oh no. Not until it is mended. It’s like it burns a hole in my head, and I can’t rest until it’s all fixed and sorted.
Anyway. I was pushing the ‘barrow up the hill when all of a sudden I heard a loud popping sound off to my left and out of nowhere a woman falls from the sky and lands in the Meadowbrooks field on my left. Now when I say falls from the sky then that’s exactly what I mean. One second she was not there, the next she was. The strange thing I remember racking my brain about was how she had appeared up in the air. I think maybe thirty feet high. As big as Mister Pascoe’s hay barn anyway, and that is one very big barn! So there she was. Loud popping sound that seemed to echo around the field, woman appears around about thirty feet in the air and falls down onto the grass.
But she don’t fall over. Oh no. She just stands there hands on hips and looks up above her, before making a clucking sound with her mouth. I put the wheelbarrow down carefully. I didn’t want to be wasting those cinders. There was a very nasty hole forming just a little further up the path and it was important it got fixed good and proper right away. I walked across to the fence and climbed over into the field. Now this may sound strange to you but it’s the truth. She had her back to me, looking west over the rest of the field, but she knew I was there. I could tell by the way she held herself. Slowly she turned to face me as if suddenly appearing out of thin air was something she did all the time.
“Hello.” she said. “Can you tell me if there is a pond around here anywhere? I seem to have sprung a leak.”
Her voice was landed; but not over-so. She looked friendly enough and so I took off my cap. She was a handsome looking woman. Young, I would say, long blonde hair tied back on her head. She was wearing a very strange black suit, a wide belt about her waist and strange looking gloves and boots. Truth is, the word to describe her that first came into my head was, “exotic”. I don’t know what exotic means. Not really, but I think it applied to this woman. I don’t know why, but it just did.
“Lower Buck field.” I said, and she looked at me as if assessing me somehow. “No more than a mile down the hill.” I pointed in the right direction and she nodded. We were still some distance apart and she walked towards me, smiling again and holding out her hand.
“I am Victoria Neaves.” she said, and as she got up close I saw just how pretty she was, though I do seem to recall noticing that she had a slight scar over her right eye. I shook her hand anyway, spitting on it first in the time old way and as we shook she smiled. It was a good handshake. I am a bit out of practice, and there’s not much use for hand shaking for a life in path mending, but it felt good.
“You have sprung a leak?” I asked and she nodded.
“Yes. Very unfortunate. Around about ten miles away from home and the boiler completely de-pressurises. Still. Such is life.”
I looked at her cautiously. She had lost me at “unfortunate”, but I wasn’t going to be admitting that. She did seem friendly after all and I didn’t want to be frightening her away.
“What is it that’s leaking?” I asked, looking around the field. I couldn’t see any barrels, nor even a bucket. Nothing at all. Just me and her in fact.
“My ship.” she said, pointing upwards. “Zeppelin.”
“I see.” I said, not seeing at all. I was beginning to wonder if this lady had escaped from somewhere. What they call them again? Alarums I think, or something like that. “Your zeppelin?”
“It’s misted.” she said and I looked around at the bright blue sky. It was completely empty apart from a few grey clouds gathering off on the horizon to the east. Might be rain before nightfall I remember thinking, but coming back to the lady Victoria, there was no zeppelin there.
I knows what a zeppelin is though. Course I do. I remember Bill the stable hand telling me about one. An airship, he said, and I remember thinking maybe he had been sneaking into his lordship’s sherry cupboard, but he stuck to his guns, and so I had to believe him. Never seen one before, though.
“Misted?” I asked and she nodded, smiling again.
“Misted. Hidden.”
“I see.” I said, “Well that’s nice and handy is that, but I hope you don’t forget where you left it and what have you or you’ll be in a right old pickle.”
To my surprise she started laughing loudly. It was a nice sound. Don’t hear that often. Not on the cinder path. Just me there an if I start giggling to myself then heaven only knows where that would take me.
Just as I was about to ask her where this ship was then out of the air at the same height as before unfurled a long ladder made out what looked like rope and with a similar loud pop as before a second person appeared in mid-air. This time it looked like a man. He began to shin down the ladder, eventually reaching head height and then leaping down to the ground.
“Hello.” he said, looking first at lady Victoria and then looking at me, “Who’s this then?”
The man was a strange one. He seemed friendly enough, and his voice seemed to be quite well to do, but still had an edge of “staff” about it, if you see where I am headed. Young looking he was, and tall, his hair falling down over his eyes. He looked at me with an intensity that gave him an appearance of being older than he looked. I don’t know what I mean by that, and call me a silly old man if you wish, but it was how it felt.
“I am Jacob Marley.” I said, holding out my hand to the young man. “Not the Jacob Marley from that tale in the penny dreadfuls, because that would make a ghost of me, and as you can see I am no ghost. I am another Jacob Marley, and I tend the cinder path.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jacob.” said the young man, “I am Romney. I am Victoria’s assistant.”
“Have you sprung a leak too?” I
asked and he laughed aloud.
“No.” he said, “It’s just our ship that is leaking I am sorry to say.”
“Ah.” I said, “Your ship. Of course. It hides in a mist I believe.”
“I suppose you could say that.” the man who called himself Romney said and he clicked his fingers.
Above my head a zeppelin suddenly appeared, hovering above the three of us silently, hanging in the air in exactly the same way as wheelbarrows don’t.
It was magnificent. The ship itself was all brass and business with what may have been propellers and machinery about it. I think I may have actually gasped.
“Ah.” I managed to say after a while, “That ship.”
“Indeed.” said the lady Victoria, and as I watched I saw small drops of water falling down from the far end of it down into the Meadowbrook field.
“That will be the leak then.” I said and the pair of them nodded.
“Pond down the hill a mile or so.” said Lady Victoria and Romney nodded, looking me up and down as if deciding something. I got the feeling there was a conversation going on that I could not hear and was not part of, but I dismissed such a fancy idea as nonsense. Clearly that was not the case, and to carry on thinking that way I may as well take off my boots and go and sup with the fairies, and that’s the truth!
From across the fields in the woods I suddenly heard a whistle blown loudly and after that the sound of voices that carried on the wind.
“What’s that?” I asked, but I didn’t have to really. I had heard that noise before. The night the servants had all gone away in those strange little wagons was the first time. I had heard it then and I had never forgotten it. It was the same sound.
“I think it’s a refuge hunting party.” Said the lady Victoria, “Do you have a licence?”
“A licence?” I asked. I had no idea what she meant. “I just make sure the cinder path is all mended and ready for use. I don’t need a licence to do that.”
“Tell me, Jacob Marley who is not a ghost. How would you like to show me where this pond is rather than have me trying to find it so I can get home before dinner?”
“You mean…” I trailed away and looked up at the ship hovering above me. My stomach fair jumped over a fence at just the thought of getting into it, but that was what she meant I reckoned.
“Yes.” said Romney, “Perfectly safe and so much quicker.”
“Ah but I have a path to mend.” I said, looking over to the cinder path and the wheelbarrow I had left there. By now the cinders would be cold no doubt, but they would have to suffice.
As I looked in that direction I began to hear the sound of dogs; more whistles. They were coming from the direction of where I had set up my small lean-to, and a cold shiver ran down my back.
“I think it’s a grand idea.” I said suddenly, sense smacking me about the face at last.
“Up the ladder then.” she said, “Romney.” you help him up. I don’t think Mister Marley here has much experience of climbing rope ladders.”
Then she leapt into the air and with one leap reached the underneath of the airship and disappeared inside.
“My word.” I said as I struggled up the ladder. “Is she always like that?”
“Oh no.” said Romney assuringly, “Sometimes she shouts.”
“I see.” I said, and continued to climb up the ladder. To cut to the long and short of it I was soon inside.
I won’t tell you all of my travel over the hills and fields of my home, the pond visible in the lower fields, seeing Markham Hall from across the treetops. It was the most wonderful thing in my life ever. When we reached the pond they did something that they told me sucked the water up into the airship which I had never heard the like of before but they seemed to believe that was what had happened and that was good enough for me. Then they were ready to leave.
From here I now saw a small number of what looked like men with guns leading dogs straining on their leash up the cinder path to where I had been less than thirty minutes before.
“Don’t worry.” said lady Victoria. “They cannot see us.” And then she winked, “We are misted remember. The ladder is drawn up.”
“In a cloud, lady Victoria.” I said, ducking down as if the men could see me. They couldn’t though, for they passed right underneath us shortly after.
“In a cloud, yes.” she said, “And please. I am not a lady.”
“I’ll say.” smiled Romney and she gave him a strange look.
“Just Victoria will do.”
“Yes Victoria.” I said, “Can I go now?”
“Of course you can.” she said, “Romney here will help you down the rope. Be aware there will be a very loud popping sound when you leave the cloud.”
“Thank you.” I said, “I like your ship very much. The ride to the pond was… well.”
“No need to thank me.” she smiled and I checked my cap was still in my pocket and made my way to the hole in the floor to climb down.
“One thing.” she said, “Those men are looking for you, Jacob Marley. Probably someone has spotted you around the grounds or on the path you tend and set them on you. It could be smoke from a fire or just a trail you have left. Anything really. The people who tell the hunters they have seen you get a reward from the government if you are interred you see. ”
“Interred?” I asked, “That doesn’t sound like I would like that.”
“No.” she said, “You would not. When the government opened the internment centres any person or persons identified as belonging to the working class were sent to these places. They now work on the nationalised coal producers, manufacturing, weaving and the like.”
I couldn’t keep up with her. All that I knew was that it didn’t sound like I was going to like moving much, and so I decided I wouldn’t go. I would stay hidden in the woods and once they had gone I would start work on the cinder path once again.
“I will hide myself away until they go.” I said and she frowned.
“They have dogs, Jacob.”
“I will hide in the river then. Hides your scent you see.”
“You are too old to still be running.” she said, “perhaps it is time to retire quietly. I have a nice drive that needs some attention, It is not as long as your cinder path of course, but it is still quite large. There is also a nice big shed you can have to set up a home if you so desired.”
“Oh I cannot leave the cinder path.” I smiled. As nice as it sounded, it was true, the path was my life and it was there I would stay, men with dogs or not. Besides, my wheelbarrow was still on the path.
“I see.” said Romney, hovering by the open hole in the ship that showed the ground below, the ladder waving about underneath us. It felt to me that the ground was very far away. “Jacob. When those men catch you, and catch you they will, they will take you away. Away from the path, from the woods. Far away. They will catch you as they are not normal men. Their eyesight is better than any normal man's eyesight. Their hearing is greatly enhanced. Their sense of smell too. They are hunters, and they will not stop until they find you as they know you are here, and standing in a stream won't save you. They will take you away.”
“You make them sound like demons.” I said and Romney chuckled to himself.
“Oh I don’t think so.” he laughed, “Demons are much worse than glorified bloodhounds I would imagine.”
“Romney is right.” Victoria said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I would not be surprised if you did not even survive the journey to where they would take you. Not that they would care if you did or if you did not.”
It’s fair to say my head was spinning. Here I was up in the air and on the ground there were these things looking for me. I knew I wasn’t important. Not really. To the path perhaps, but that was all.
“Why are they looking for me then?” I said, “I’m not doing anyone any harm.”
“They are not looking for you.” said Victoria. She looked stern now and I wondered if I had angered her, but it seemed it
was more to do with what was in her head than anything else. “Who you are doesn’t matter. All that does matter to them is who you aren’t. You are not well connected, you are not rich or have friends in high places, nor did you attend the right schools, and so to them you don’t exist. They just want to clean you up and make sure they don’t have to look at you ever again.”
“They don’t care about the cinder path, do they?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Victoria shook her head sadly.
“They never have done.” She said, coming to me and placing a hand on my shoulder. “And they never will. Your work is exemplary, but it is over. Once you realise that the very minute they decided that to them you were worthless, is the moment in your head that you need to discover your own true worth.”
“Fancy words.” I said loudly. I did not want to upset her, I swear I didn’t, but I could not understand her. What she meant.
“I mean that path is not who you are. You are you, and any other path at all would be just as good as this one is because it would be you tending it. Your expertise counts tremendously, if you like”
“I see.” I said, “All that work for not even a single thank you.” I thought about this for a while. I am a simple man, you see. Not simple in the head as such, though many have reckoned me slow to catch up. I mean more simple in the sense that I never really ask for much. Perhaps it is why I have tended the cinder path for so long. It never demands anything from me other than the repairs that I make to it.
“Of course they would not thank you.” she smiled, “As far as they are concerned you are so insignificant to them then you may as well not exist at all. Your services are there merely to pander to their pathetic whims, and once done you are useless to them. I can quite confidently say however that you will not find me quite so cold hearted if you come to tend my path for me.”
I smiled and stood looking down below. On the ground underneath us the sound of the hunters was still near, snarling dogs looking for me. I meant them no harm, but they meant every harm to me.
The Complete Adventures of Victoria Neaves & Romney Page 19