by Deryn Lake
‘Sibella.’
‘What a pretty word,’ said the Little Monk, and with that his face turned towards Heaven and he fainted like a sack at Garnet’s feet.
*
There had never been a more splendid day at Sutton Place; midsummer, June blazing, a house — built by a courtier for Kings to visit — happy that a royal Prince was dwelling within its walls. And outside in the glorious parkland, beyond the gardens where the summer peacocks stretched, the Lady of the Manor and her lover played at shepherd and shepherdess. A lutenist, hidden behind a clump of trees, plucked an air that could have been written for her ancestor Sir Francis; while a hound that might easily have belonged to Sir Richard the builder, snaffled up food idly thrown to it by a King’s son.
Melior Mary was arrayed in pink brocade, with beribboned lover’s knots upon her sleeves and shepherd’s crook. On her hat were pinned fresh roses and, round the base, she had woven the green willow to show that she loved truly. The Prince wore a shirt and breeches, that he might ride with her later in the day, and had taken one of her ribbons and tied it around his neck to show that he, too, was in love.
Their happiness had made them the two most beautiful and brave people upon the earth. At that moment Charles Edward would have forsworn liquor forever if she had so commanded; would have marched upon London with a hundred loyal Scots and stormed the citadel; was made young and strong, prepared to wrest round circumstance by her love for him. And she, in turn, was ready to sacrifice anything for him; anything that is, except the one thing that he was shortly to ask.
‘Shall we ride?’ he said. ‘Shall we go to this accursed well of yours and exorcise its evil with our love? Is that possible?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I know that good is stronger than bad, but that we could have such power I doubt.’
‘But I love you so much. You have brought back the courage that was in me once. I am on fire with ambition. I feel hope’s breath at my throat.’
She smiled.
‘Then I shall take you to the place. It is time my courage also came up.’
They were characters from fairy-tale as they trotted side-by-side through the dappled forest; Bo-Peep had found her shepherd, Daphnis his Chloe. All around them the sounds of June choralled in abundance, then grew suddenly silent at the point where the trees thinned away.
In front of Charles Edward and Melior Mary lay all that was left of the old manor house. To the right the ruins of the hunting lodge, beyond those a solitary cottage, before them the well of St Edward.
‘But I can see nothing,’ said the Young Pretender. ‘Just a stone lying on the ground.’
‘That covers the well. It was put there after a drowning.’
She had never spoken to him of Sibella’s death, of how they had found her with her hair floating out like a sea anemone.
‘And what’s that beyond?’
‘The old manor house, built in the reign of King John. I saw a ghost there once.’
She spoke without thinking but Charles Edward gave her a sharp look and said, ‘This is haunted land, Melior Mary. And Sutton Place is alive with night walkers. Did you hear Giles cry last evening? Is that not meant to herald disaster?’
‘So it’s said.’
He did not reply, giving her an unreadable glance from his heavy-lidded eyes, as he dismounted and walked the few paces to where the stone lay uncompromisingly before him.
‘I’m going to move it back.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘Nonsense.’
He turned to her and smiled and she saw, in that instant, how he must have appeared at the famous entrance into Hollyrood, when Edinburgh had bowed before him. His skin tanned by the winds of Scotland, his eyes bright and gazing warmly at James Hepburn of Keith — proud and respected old man — who had come out of the crowd, gone down on one knee, and tendered his drawn sword in homage.
‘Mo Phrionnsa,’ she said.
But he did not hear her, too preoccupied with removing the stone.
‘It’s very deep,’ he said as it shifted. ‘I cannot see the bottom.’
Slowly and reluctantly she walked to stand beside him; a tunnel of darkness dropped sheerly before her feet. Charles Edward tossed in a pebble and after a while they heard it splash in the darkness.
‘Melior Mary,’ he said without looking up at her. ‘I want you to leave this place and come away with me.’
Not understanding she answered, ‘But I thought you wanted to see it.’
He gazed at her over his shoulder from where he knelt. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean that I want you to give up Sutton Place and come to live with me in France.’
She stared at him wide-eyed and he stood up so that he could look down at her, his hands on her shoulders.
‘So many things are in my heart, Melior Mary. My crowding ambition, my love for you, my dread of things dark. But they all converge in one thing. I want you beside me, helping to win back my father’s crown. And it is not just for that reason that I ask you to renounce your manor. I believe that we both come from cursed lines and that if you cast free — make Sutton Place over in favour of your cousin and heir — the spell will be broken. Will you do it?’
His grip on her had tightened and she was unable to move as she answered, ‘Highness, I cannot. Sutton Place is part of me. Don’t you understand?’
‘No I don’t, by God! It is a house, a building. Nothing more.’
‘But it is my birthright.’
‘And the crown of England is mine! Would you let your Sovereign Prince lose his inheritance in order that you keep yours?’
‘No, no.’ She was frantic. ‘You can regain England without my giving up the Manor. I can be at your side without that.’
‘Can you? Can you dwell in France as my wife and also be the chatelaine of Sutton? I am the Pretender’s son. You will have to live according to my station.’
His well-known temper, notorious for appearing in drink, was beginning to flare without the spur of wine.
‘Well, madam? I am offering you my hand — albeit morganatically. Will you have me?’
‘But I was born for Sutton Place,’ she answered.
He brought his eyes down to a level with hers and she saw that the amber coronas were as fierce as those of a god of war.
‘Then keep it,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘May it keep you warm on a winter’s night when you have grown old — even as you must, Melior Mary, when your pact with the Devil to keep age at bay is at last played out!’
‘But, my Prince...’
‘Say nothing more. You have rejected me. That is enough. I bid you and your accursed house goodbye.’
He turned and ran for his horse. If he had stayed another minute he would have struck her. She was everything to him — beauty, love, his hope for the future — and she had thrown him aside in exchange for bricks and mortar. He would not look back, even in response to her pleading cries, but in his mind’s eye he could see her standing, the most perfect creature on whom he had ever gazed, defenceless and alone by the well at which she, and all who inherited Sutton Place, had been eternally damned.
*
‘I will do my very best of course,’ the doctor had said, ‘but frankly I can offer you little hope.’
He was one of the new breed of physician, trained at Glasgow by William Cullen, and come south to exercise his skill in clinical medicine because of his attachment to a Berkshire girl. He had married her and set up practice in Newbury and become quite celebrated thereabouts as the teaching of his revolutionary tutor had been put into action amongst the inhabitants.
‘If anyone can save his life it will be Dr McGregor,’ Brother Augustus had said to Garnet. ‘You’d better ride over and fetch him. None of the other monks can help.’
So Gage had gone immediately and two hours later Dr McGregor — who had been out calling — had arrived at Inglewood Priory.
The Little Monk had not really regained consciousness since
he had fallen at Garnet’s feet on the sunlit river bank. He had murmured a couple of times during the journey hack to the monastery — slung across Garnet’s shoulder like a child — and after they had put him to bed and removed the funny glasses, he had flicked his eyes open once, only to close them again immediately. But other than that there had been no sign of life in him. He appeared in a coma, the symptom of sweating — the dreaded thing that had almost drained the life from Garnet — soon starting its accompanying and relentless process.
‘Did he catch this from me?’ Garnet had asked.
‘Without a doubt.’ Dr McGregor’s voice had been flat. ‘He nursed you through a similar thing you say?’
‘Yes. I thought at the time it was a malarial condition.’
‘I think not. It seems to have all the sign of the old Sweating Sickness of the past. It is my guess that you contracted it in London.’
‘But I recovered!’
‘Yes, but you have youth on your side, sir. This poor fellow will have a far greater struggle.’
Garnet had looked down at the curling white hair on the pillow, on the beautiful nose and mouth, on the archangel’s face — dignified now without its spectacles — and said, ‘If he dies because of me I shall never forgive myself. He is a truly good man. A little saint really.’
Dr McGregor had washed his hands in a basin and said, ‘The day will undoubtedly come, Mr Gage, when medicine will be invented that will cure almost everything. But when that hoped-for event takes place I doubt that the transmitting of disease — one person to the other — will ever be curtailed. We should all have to walk round constantly clean and scarcely breathing. Think upon it. You may have killed six people already, quite innocently, by passing on illness to them. It is something that simply cannot be avoided.’
He had gone then and left Garnet alone with the figure that burned in an ever-growing pool of sweat. And it had seemed utterly right to hold the little man in his arms as he sponged cool the poor fevered body. He had been doing that for several hours when Brother Augustus had come and said, ‘Mr Gage, you must take some rest. You have only just recovered from the same illness. Go and see to yourself and I will sit with him.’
And so Garnet had left them and Brother Augustus — the old, hidden Jacobite — had sat beside the bed of his friend and said, ‘God — I haven’t been a very good monk as you well know. I used the monastery to hide-out and took the habit because it was expedient. But this little creature is good. Of course I have no idea what sort of life he led before he came here. He could have got up to anything. But if he did he has atoned for it. So please do your best for him. And, if it is impossible to save his life, let him know peace and happiness before he passes into your immense care.’
It wasn’t like the old warrior to weep but he had felt tears spurt then onto his cheeks. If he could have been said to feel affection for anyone at all it was the Little Monk. Augustus had had his head in his hands and had indulged in a fit of weeping when Garnet had come back into the room.
And now it was evening on the third day of the Little Monk’s illness and Dr McGregor was shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry — there is no hope left. I doubt if he will last till morning. You can give him this physic and he will feel nothing. Just let him slip out quietly.’
Garnet turned to stare out of the window. The late June sun was setting like a ball of blood behind the priory’s west face so that everywhere he looked was glowing crimson.
‘I feel that I’ve always known him,’ he said, without turning round. ‘This is unbearable. You are sure?’
‘Sure,’ said McGregor. He was already thinking about his next patient — a farmer’s wife with a complicated labour which he suspected might result in twins. ‘Where do you wish me to send my bill?’
‘I shall pay you now. I am leaving for Spain as soon as…’
‘Quite. That will be one guinea.’ He slipped the money into his waistcoat pocket. ‘Goodbye to you. I wish you a safe journey.’
‘Heartless wretch,’ said Brother Augustus as the door closed behind him.
‘That is the modern man. But they do good, you know. They pioneer.’
‘Urn! I suppose I should fetch the Father Abbot now. The prayers had better be started.’
He went out leaving Garnet alone to stare at the dying man. In the unusually bright evening he looked younger — his hair taking on a red tinge that reminded Garnet of his own. In fact his features were quite reminiscent of those that Garnet saw in the mirror each morning. A ridiculous fact but one that became more undeniable the greater Garnet thought about it.
He sat down beside the bed and put his arm round the Little Monk’s shoulders and to his surprise the eyes opened and gazed into his. Garnet had never seen them before, masked as they always were by those clown spectacles, and now he exclaimed out loud. A flash of blue, as vivid as his and dimmed only by the encroachment of age, was staring at him with an expression of adoration.
‘Garnet?’
It was a cloud that spoke, so light and vaporous was the sound.
‘Yes, Little Monk?’
‘Oh, my son, a wonderful thing has happened to me...’
The gasp died away as all about the room came the dreaded reverberation of the priory bell tolling out its requiem for the dying.
‘Garnet...’
The whisper was lost beneath the bell’s great voice and Garnet bent his ear to the pale lips, lifting the monk in his arms as he did so.
‘Yes?’
‘All the mist has cleared. Do you understand?’
Garnet shook his head and the blue eyes intensified in their loving stare.
‘While I slept I dreamed. And when I dreamed I knew the answer.’
Next to Garnet’s chest the heart beat was growing fainter. The inevitable parting could only be a second away.
‘I love you, Little Monk,’ said Garnet. ‘Go to God in peace, sweet man.’
‘Oh my son,’ came the answer. ‘You see you are...Oh, Garnet...my son.’
And with that he put his head against his boy’s shoulder, smiled up at him, and died.
He was buried two days later in the priory’s graveyard; row upon row of humble graves marked by tiny headstones. Above the Little Monk they erected one with the words ‘Brother Hyacinth’.
‘Was that his real name?’ said Garnet, as he knelt to say his final farewell.
‘No,’ said Augustus. ‘Nobody knows what that was. Hyacinth was what the old Abbot called him. He said he had eyes that reminded him of wild flowers — a foolish fancy, I suppose.’
‘Brother Hyacinth,’ Garnet smiled reflectively. ‘Do you know, I think he regained his memory before he died. He looked at me so earnestly — as if he had remembered something after all these years.’
‘Did he really? Well, well, well!’ Brother Augustus’s mind was already on what he would eat for supper that night — funerals had a terrible way of making him ravenous. ‘I hope it made him happy — he deserved that.’
‘Yes,’ said Garnet. He mounted his horse and turned it towards the priory entrance. ‘I wish I had known him longer. He was so easy to love.’
‘Indeed. Well, goodbye Mr Gage. I don’t suppose I shall see you again.’
‘No. It was fate not design that brought me here. I shan’t be returning. Goodbye, Brother.’
He nudged his horse’s sides and trotted towards the gates but at them he turned, waved his arm, shouted ‘Goodbye,’ and then added beneath his breath, ‘Farewell Brother Hyacinth.’
20
That was when she began to hate the house; the moment she stood by the windows at the far end of the Long Gallery and saw Charles Edward Stuart become a dot amongst the distant trees of the home park; the moment she skimmed, on lightning feet, down the staircase and out to the stables to find her horse, Thunder, unharnessed, but Tom’s mount ready to be ridden. Without pausing for a second she had clambered onto the mounting block and struggled into the unfamiliar saddle, transfo
rmed by despair — as wild and impetuous as she had always been.
She must have stood by the well, motionless, for five minutes after the Prince had ridden off — and then she had plunged after him, only to learn that he had returned to Sutton Place to collect his belongings but still she was too late. The view from the gallery had told her that she must go at full gallop to catch him up.
But now, having driven the beast without mercy and with the great iron gates in view she could see him ahead of her. He was calling to the lodge keeper to open up and the man was hurrying to obey. She watched in horror as the gates began to swing back.
‘Your Highness,’ she called. ‘Charles Edward. Don’t! I’ll come with you. Damn the house, damn everything. I’ll leave it all.’
But he could not hear her and the massive ironwork was opening wider and wider. She saw him kick his horse’s sides, where he had reined in while he waited.
‘No, no, no,’ she shouted in full voice. ‘I have changed my mind. I’m coming with you.’
He must have heard something because he glanced back over his shoulder but at that moment she was hidden by a tree. So fate played his trick on them both. The gates were open and Prince Charles Edward — the fated heir to the House of Stuart — cantered through them and to a life destined evermore to spiral downwards. The hero of the ’45 — the best and bravest of all that line of Kings — had lost his moment of hope.
Behind him the gates began to swing to again and, as Melior Mary hurled up to them, they finally shut in her face. She jumped from her horse, twisting her ankle as she did so, and wrenched at the bars with her bare hands.
‘Come back! Come back!’ she screamed.
But there was no sign of him. He was riding as if the Devil was in his soul.
‘Oh God help me!’ she said — and she sank to the ground sobbing. The gates loomed above her like the portcullis of a prison, the words ‘Sutton Place’ picked out above them, the Tudor rose emblazoned in gold.
‘God help me!’ she shouted again, regardless of the lodge keeper’s face staring at her in shock. ‘So house, you’ve shut me in have you? You’ve caught me at last! Well, we’ll see. If you can ruin my life I can ruin you. Be damned to you, Sutton Place.’