Dawn's Promise

by A. W. Exley

  Would it be too scandalous if she donned trousers for working in the garden? Some women wore long bloomers to ride bicycles. As long as no one saw her, she might be able to wear them. She should make a note to ask the earl’s permission.

  The beat in her chest became louder as her body pumped more blood to enable her to keep up with the young man. Elijah stopped at the top of the hill and looked around. He appeared to be admiring the view, but Dawn suspected he was giving her time to reach his side and catch her breath. Mouse tried to stick next to her, but even the wolfhound struggled with the footing and took to bounding forward over obstacles.

  At long last she made the top. Dawn looked around, trying to determine if there was an easier route to the hermitage. Georgian ladies would never have scrambled through the forest. They’d have either ridden their horses or taken a gentle stroll. Under all the undergrowth and composting leaves would be a wider and level path, they just had to find it.

  Dawn stood tall, arched her back to relieve an ache in her spine, and silently congratulated herself on ascending what was surely the tallest hill in Cumberland.

  Then the earth disappeared from under her feet.

  Mouse howled as a sense of weightlessness engulfed her. The sky seemed to soar away from her as she dropped into a void. Elijah’s eyes widened and in the next instant, the lad lunged for her.

  “No!” Dawn cried. Not a denial, but a warning to Elijah. She didn’t want her weight and momentum to pull him down into the hole with her. If they were both trapped – or worse, injured – who would raise the alarm? She had serious doubts about Mouse’s ability to fetch help or guard her.

  Elijah pounced faster than she could comprehend and snatched at her hand as the ground devoured her. He arrested her sudden fall with a wrench through her shoulder. Dawn dangled with nothing under her feet, but tree roots, earth and sharp rock closely surrounded her body. The ground had collapsed beneath her and dust drifted up from far below.

  Elijah grunted and almost pitched forward, and Dawn feared they would both fall down the hole. She flung out her free hand to grab a root or rock to steady herself.

  “Ow!” She scraped her wrist on something and it pierced her skin. She glanced around and spotted a length of vine, one sharp thorn now sporting a red tip.

  “Are you all right?” Elijah called down.

  “Yes. Just a scratch.” Dawn glared at the plant, then she reached upward again and her fingers curled around a rock near the edge of the hole. As she steadied herself and began to heave her weight up, she discovered her hand hold wasn’t a rock but the toe of Elijah’s boot. He had become part of the hill, his boots and lower leg hard stone as though he rooted himself to the spot to haul her back up.

  “I have you,” he squeezed out between gritted teeth as she emerged back into the light.

  As he hauled her up by her right hand, Dawn glanced at her left. While she scrabbled over the edge, the rock under her fingers turned back into hard boot leather. She lay on the rough earth and Elijah dropped beside her. Her heart raced with a wild beat from exertion and fear as she lay still, waiting for her body to calm.

  Dawn rolled to stare at Elijah’s feet, about to ask how he had become one with the outcrop, but saw only normal boots and trousers. She pressed a hand to her temple; she must have knocked herself swinging back and forth.

  Elijah blew out a deep breath. “I think you found the hermitage.”

  Dawn dared a glance at the gaping hole. What light made its way in illuminated a tangle of tree roots just inside. A thick one had a fresh break, as though something had snapped it off at a crucial point. The vine crossed from one side of the hole to the other with a missing segment.

  “You’re bleeding,” Elijah said.

  Dawn glanced to her wrist, where a thin trickle of blood ran toward her palm. Over her pulse point was a scratch about one inch long. “I’ll survive to fight another day.”

  Elijah pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and folded it into a long length. “It’s clean, I promise,” he said as he wound it around her wrist and tied the ends.

  “Thank you.” She sat up and urged her body to her feet. “The trees have undermined the rock. We should probably get off the roof before more of it collapses.”

  “Good idea.” Elijah bounced to his feet and offered her a steadying hand as they climbed down the other side. Below, the hillock levelled off to a flat area, as though someone had cleared it to make a patio. A wide, winding path led off either side of the clearing, but both were obstructed by decades of fallen branches. The rotting trees then made the perfect growing environment for smaller shrubs and ferns.

  Mouse jumped down beside them and glared at the hill. A soft growl rolled off his tongue. Dawn glanced at the dog. “I don’t think it collapsed on purpose, boy.”

  Elijah gestured to one side, behind the wolfhound. “The path is completely obscured, no wonder you couldn’t find your way. The entrance is only visible if you climb over the roof and down.”

  Dawn turned to survey the hermitage. It was dug into the base of the hill. An oval door was the only indicator that anything was out of the ordinary. Even that looked ancient and weathered, as though it was part of the rock. A heavy, circular iron knocker was the only way in. She imagined ladies riding up the wide path on their placid ponies and waiting on the cleared area for the hermit to appear and quote poetry, or spout cryptic ravings.

  Elijah took hold of the ring in the middle of the door and hauled. To Dawn’s surprise, it swung open easily, as though someone had oiled the hinges or it saw regular use. They both peered into the hollowed out space. It now possessed a skylight some twenty feet overhead, and dust motes drifted on the stirred up air.

  Elijah walked in first. “Watch out for loose rock,” he called over his shoulder. Part of the roof now formed a pile under the hole.

  “Hard to imagine someone once lived here,” Dawn murmured as they stepped inside.

  She skirted the edges, looking only, too scared to touch anything in case a wall crumbled and fell upon them.

  Rough, ancient-looking furniture inhabited the space. There was a table and two chairs. A large bed with the tall posts still showing the bark so it appeared to be part of the forest. A fireplace was carved into the rock on one side, and Dawn wondered how well it drew up through the hill. Odd that it didn’t look abandoned. Apart from the recently disturbed rock, it almost seemed clean. The bedding looked fresh, yet she would have expected the linen to have rotted over the years.

  Was someone still living in the hermitage – unknown or unseen by the family?

  10

  “Does your uncle still keep a hermit?” Dawn asked, looking for other signs of recent occupation. A light layer of silt covered everything, but that seemed to have come from the disturbed earth rather than a build up of layers over the years.

  Elijah laughed. “I don’t think the estate has had a hermit since last century.”

  “Odd,” she murmured. The estate played tricks on her, and things were often not as they seemed. “We will need to find a way to cover the hole I created, or this place will fill with water when it rains.” If there was an occupant, they might not appreciate the new skylight once the weather turned.

  Her attention drifted to the bed and its linen. There was no sign of mould or decay on any of the fibres. When she slid a hand under the blanket, it seemed cool but not damp, as she would expect of something abandoned decades ago.

  Dawn stood close to the centre, or as close as she could get given the waist-high mound of rock and dirt, and looked upward. The fine silt was clearing and she could see the trees and sky above. She could also examine the sides of the hole, which were interlaced with a thick black vine.

  “How odd.” She tried to look closer but couldn’t without a ladder to stand upon.

  “What’s odd?” Elijah asked from where he was peering into a carved-out wall niche.

  “The vine that is covering most of the estate is present here, too.” Her nec
k ached from straining backward, and tiny bits of dust made her eyes water. The vine reminded her of something she had seen before, with the way it seemed to loop round. Then the image came to life in her mind – a snaked coiled in a similar fashion.

  She pulled out her notebook and wrote down the possibility of coming back with either a rope to examine the vine from above, or a ladder to do so from below. Seeing how it spread below the ground might give her clues as to how to tackle it above ground.

  As they explored the underground home, Dawn took advantage of the quiet to ask a question that had nagged in her mind. “What did you mean last night when you said that about life having a balance? I find it difficult to believe that any good could arise from the tragic demise of my parents.”

  Elijah frowned and stared at the hole in the ceiling. “Not a personal balance, but an overall one. A negative event in one person’s life is offset by a positive for another.”

  She shook her head. The only thing she learned was that life wasn’t fair. If it were, her parents would still be alive and she would have lived a normal healthy life. Perhaps in another world, by now she would be married with a child playing at her feet.

  Then the voice in her head pointed out that if life unfolded in the expected normal way, she would never have taken a position as a gardener on a remote estate and be poking around in a hermitage. “Is it selfish of me to want the pendulum to swing back within my life, not someone else’s?”

  When Elijah next spoke, his voice was a quiet whisper. “It made it easier for me. To think that as much as I suffered from losing my father before I knew him, that as balance, someone out there experienced a great joy.”

  Now Dawn felt guilty for her selfish thoughts. “That’s a very mature outlook.”

  When he turned, a sad smile touched his lips. “Losing a parent in tragic circumstances gives you lots of time to think about these things.”

  He seemed so much older than his sixteen or seventeen years. That was when it struck her. If his father died when he was a babe, and given that Lord Seton only looked to be in his late twenties, he must have been a lad himself when responsibility for the estate, village, and a baby settled upon him. No wonder he frowned so much. Life gave him little opportunity to be a carefree boy.

  “Uncle Jasper never complains,” Elijah said, as though reading her mind. “But I do think he is lonely.”

  “I’m sure there are many young ladies who would leap at the chance of being the lady of Ravenswing.” It was, after all, the sole aim of many well-bred ladies to find a suitor with a title, estate, and preferably the finances to support them.

  He shrugged as he examined a chiselled-out rectangle that seemed to serve the purpose of a cupboard. Plates were stacked inside, and he pulled out a pottery mug. “It’s very isolated out here, and Uncle Jasper doesn’t travel to London at all. He needs a partner in life who would be content with just him and the garden for company.”

  A partner in life. What an unusual turn of phrase. Most men would seek a wife, not a partner. Warmth spread through Dawn’s body as she pondered a life in the rural district with the darkly handsome earl. It sounded perfect to her, quiet companionship and an entire estate to nurture with no boring nobles demanding foolish entertainments. If only she had been born a lady. She glanced at her hands that spoke of her middle class, or now working class, station. Two nails were split and dirt was wedged under all of them from where she had scrambled over rocks and branches.

  She exhaled and set free the fanciful idea. What high-born man would want a woman with a weak heart and dirty hands? “Shall we head back? I’d like to see where the path originally ran so I can decide if it is salvageable.”

  She stepped back into the filtered sunlight and Elijah pulled the door shut behind him. Mouse still kept guard from outside, his top lip curled as he stared at the hill.

  Dawn patted his head and the wolfhound swallowed his growl. “Silly boy. The ground didn’t collapse on purpose.”

  They found a route over fallen trees and through ferns to rejoin the main path. Sure enough, it soon widened into something that would allow horses to pass. With each step, they drew closer to the lake and soon emerged on its serene banks.

  Dawn closed her eyes and drew in the peace and quiet.

  “Would you mind terribly if I left you here?” Elijah asked. “I still have some studies to complete, and I don’t want Uncle Jasper to discover I slipped out early.”

  “Of course, I have some notes to write up.”

  The lad scampered off through the trees. Mouse drank from the water and then retreated to a mossy patch under a tree. He turned three times before settling, his large head resting on his paws as he watched Dawn.

  Dawn sat at the bank end of the small jetty. She longed to paddle her feet in the cool water but worried what monsters lurked below the mirror-like surface and might nibble her toes. She pulled out her notebook and wrote her comments on the wildflower meadow, the overgrown paths, and the hermitage that now had a gaping hole in its roof.

  With her thoughts collected in an orderly fashion, woman and canine walked back to the cottage. She removed the handkerchief from her wrist to find the scratch an angry colour, but it had stopped bleeding. She would need to soak the hanky to remove the dirt and blood before she could return it.

  Then she spent the remainder of the afternoon with books spread over the table in the cottage. Dawn made lists of tasks and then crossed out and reorganised items as she considered priorities. Mouse snored from the rug in front of the unlit fire.

  With so many men at her disposal, Dawn could tackle far more than clearing the entrance to the maze. Her mind ran away with her thinking how to employ them. It would be marvellous to clear the herbaceous borders, although far too late to replant with summer around the corner. Or they could tackle the beautifully laid out rose garden with its rangy, neglected shrubs. Or perhaps she could set them to start work on her proposed ladies’ walk and secret nook.

  But no, she would be practical. With a bit of hard work, the walled garden would feed the household. With spring drifting into summer, it was time to think of winter plantings.

  As the light began to fade, she was content with the main list of what she considered most urgent. A second list detailed tasks that needed to be undertaken eventually, like clearing the rampant vine that covered so much of the estate, recovering the path to the hermitage, and discovering if the rest of the hillock was sound or in danger of collapse.

  Then she curled up in the armchair in the parlour with The Flora of Alysblud and read of the local plants and trees, trying to find mention of either the invasive vine or Ravensblood tree. Odd that both the name of the tree and the village contained an ending that referenced blood. She wondered if it had a regional significance.

  A quiet knock on the door preceded Hector with dinner.

  “Lord Seton thought you might prefer dinner here, since you are busy working still.” He moved aside a pile of books and made a clear space for the tray. Mouse’s dinner was deposited on the floor by the door.

  Did Lord Seton have Hector peering in the windows, or was it the raven who reported her affairs? “Yes, I want to ensure I am ready for when the lads arrive tomorrow. I have never instructed a work force before.”

  Would they know she had no experience and had bluffed her way into the position? She didn’t even know what to say to them, but was preparing a few sentences in her notebook in case nerves froze both her mind and tongue.

  “You’ll do fine. The village lads are keen to do whatever will help the estate, and it’s honest coin for them to take home.” Hector nodded his head and left her to her dinner and contemplations.

  After dinner she went back to the book, flipping through pages as she tried to find the tree that bore such unusual leaves. After seeing the colour drawing in the library, she was convinced the leaf belonged to the tree and not the vine. It sat on the arm of the chair, so she could refer to the swoop of its shape when comparing images. At l
ong last her patience was rewarded.

  The Ravensblood tree is a very rare specimen. Only five specimens are known to exist in all of England, carefully guarded in private estates and gardens. The name comes from both the unusual shape of the leaves that resemble raven feathers and that it seems to attract nesting ravens. Under normal circumstances, the leaves are varying hues of red through to orange, said to resemble either fire or blood in certain lights. However, if the tree is distressed, the leaves turn black.

  The estate’s Ravensblood tree was distressed. That was why the leaf she found was turning black. But what caused the distress? Dawn wouldn’t know the source until she found the centre of the maze and could examine the tree. Part of her perked up at having a mystery to unravel, even if it was only surrounding a tree.

  Many thoughts ran through Dawn’s mind as she prepared for bed. Her life experience was limited, but she compensated with her green fingers and knowledge of plants. Was the sick tree evidence of a larger problem at the estate? Perhaps there was a deficiency in the soil that was allowing the vine to flourish while other plants sickened. Thinking of the vine made her wrist itch and she rubbed at the scratch. The line was dark red as though infection were brewing under her skin. She might have to show it to Nurse Hatton or Dr Day for a professional opinion.

  As she climbed into bed, Dawn mulled over her fragile health and how working in her parents’ small backyard saw her improve. And when she first stepped onto Ravenswing soil, that strange energy ran up through her legs. And despite the physical exertion, she was using less of her tonic than she expected. Curious.

  Kneeling on the quilt, she examined the books tucked in the shelves at either side of the window. Most were plant identification books, and the others worn and battered notebooks that contained the daily tasks and notes recorded by the gardener, such as she kept in her apron pocket.