Legends of Australian Fantasy

by Jack

  You never can go back and start again,

  Unless you hold Time’s keys within your hand

  That past and future flow to your command!’

  * * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  Remember as you rock your babe and sing your cradle-song,

  Trow gramarye is ancient as the hills, and thrice as strong.

  Wakefield and Laurelia had been admitted into the secret of the bargain with the trows. On the fateful night they insisted on staying at Kelmscott Hall with their friends, to provide what support they could.

  After calling the servants together Hawkmoor addressed them, saying, ‘Grave peril will surround Kelmscott Hall this night, so heed my instructions, for lives depend on your compliance. Until sunrise you must all remain indoors. Do not allow yourselves to be lured outside, no matter what occurs. Neither door nor gate nor window must be opened. Seal yourselves in! Stopper your ears and your mouths too, for you must speak no word during the dark hours and indeed, make no sound at all — not so much as a whisper or a sneeze. Nobody in the household should cry out, under any circumstances. Those of you who feel daunted by this prospect have my permission to depart from this house for the night and we will think no ill of them. Those who remain must swear to adhere to these directions.’

  Every member of the household staff vowed to comply, and sombrely went about their tasks.

  After an early supper Hawkmoor and Wakefield patrolled the premises with Goodwife Strood, the chatelaine, and the new Chief Steward, making certain that every door and window, large or small, was locked and barred — including the portals in the lonely wing where Lord Rivenhall sulked.

  ‘What if the old master calls out?’ asked Goodwife Strood. ‘He would do it, methinks, just out of spite, beggin’ your pardon, sir.’

  ‘Never fear,’ said Hawkmoor. ‘Every evening he demands one of the apothecary’s sleeping draughts, quaffs it to the last drop and snores till morning. His nurses will see to it that this night is no different.’

  At day’s end family and friends gathered in the drawing-room, prepared to keep vigil throughout the night. Footmen built up the fire and lit as many candles as possible, but no brightness could dispel the sense of disquiet charging the atmosphere. Outside in the western sky, clouds of scalding gold were melting in a flood of blazing rubies. One of the upper housemaids went about closing the shutters, blocking out the last glimpse of the sunset. To Mazarine it felt like being locked in a cell.

  Flames licked at the logs in the fireplace, throwing out wraith-like shadows that writhed curiously on the wall hangings. Up and down the solemn quietude of the great house, long corridors, cavernous galleries echoed every creak of contracting wood, every whisper of sifting dust. Those who waited in the deepening evening strained their senses in an effort to detect what was brewing, unseen, in the surrounding darkness. Out there, evening mists would be rising from the lake, curling in stealthy streamers through the shrubbery and around the house. From beyond the walls came no sound. All was as quiet and still as if the world had ceased to exist. No breeze blew, no night-owl called; no leaf rustled, no twig scratched on a windowpane.

  Only in the drawing-room was there any noise; the whisper of flames, the ticking of a clock, the low breathing of the people there assembled and the occasional sigh. When a log in the fireplace fell in with a crash, everyone jumped. A footman quietly added more fuel to the burning pile.

  Hours passed.

  Mazarine, in rose-pink silk, sat with Hawkmoor at the centre of a circle of salt thickly strewn upon the floor. They remained wide awake, every nerve stretched to its utmost. Bedecked with little charms of amber and rowan-wood, the child slept in his mother’s arms. The lace collar of his dove-white frock framed his apple-cheeked face, soft as velvet, abandoned to dreaming.

  At midnight there came a soft knock at the front door; rap-rap-rap.

  Those who had fallen asleep in their chairs awakened with a jolt. The child opened his eyes. Without a word Mazarine gently clasped him in a firmer embrace. Her husband encircled them both with his arms.

  ‘We are here for Richard Canty!’ The low-pitched, resonant command seemed to penetrate to the very foundations of the premises.

  The baby began to fret.

  ‘Bring oot Richard Canty! Richard Canty, come!’

  Those who stood guard in the drawing-room gave no answer. They listened, they waited, they scarcely drew breath. Their hearts hammered.

  Once more the voice called out and received no reply. Presently, through the taut silence, the listeners could clearly hear the clatter of footsteps departing from the door, and straight away the dogs in the kennels began to howl and bark furiously, as if disturbed by an intruder. Their tether-chains rattled and cracked as they hurled themselves forward to their limits.

  Still nobody spoke.

  It was the child who broke the uncanny hush in the drawing-room. Suddenly he was squirming and writhing in his mother’s grasp, as if trying to wriggle free, wailing at the top of his lungs. Mazarine held him more tightly, with Hawkmoor’s strong arms encircling her.

  Creamy clouds of cooing arose all around, and a mighty flapping of wings from the courtyard, as flocks of birds erupted from the dovecote. Out in the stables the horses began to neigh. A series of crashes and loud bangs erupted as they pranced and plunged, trying to kick down the walls. Next came the whoosh of ignition and the roar of flames; evidence of an inferno being kindled in the stables. The horses shrieked, striking out with their hooves, as if endeavouring to escape a conflagration. At this, Hawkmoor closed his eyes and buried his face in his wife’s hair, for he loved his horses as his best friends, and it cost him dearly to refrain from rushing to the door.

  The child was struggling to wrench himself from his mother’s hold. He, alone of the company, gave voice. He cried and squirmed until he was red in the face, but Mazarine, tears streaming down her face, would neither speak nor let him go. Meanwhile, outside in the kennels and stables the tumult increased.

  All at once Mazarine felt herself seized by paralysis, as if crammed into a narrow iron coffin. With a scream of rending metal, every door and window in the house flew open.

  A deep voice bellowed, ‘Richard Canty!’ The awful summons was like the roar of measureless waters plunging through caverns that had never known the sun. ‘Comes da call, Richard Canty! No midder’s airms be Strang eno’ tae hold dee! Bearin’ wir mark, bald and toot’less, if dee canna traivle, krieckle tae wis!’

  Desperately, Mazarine held on to her child. The other watchers in the room were bound to the spot by the same invisible chains that constrained her. Nobody besides the infant could move. A powerful suction seemed to be dragging at the interior of the house, like the pull of a tidal wave; so intense that had they not been made as rigid as stone they could not have resisted it. Mazarine’s gown billowed as if blasted by a hurricane; her hair tumbled from its pins and whipped about her face. Her arms ached from holding so tightly to her precious bundle, and she felt her husband’s limbs tremble as he strove to keep his embrace intact. Minute by minute — or hour by hour, they strove against the terrible pressure.

  At last every door and window slammed shut simultaneously and immediately they were free to move again. The child ceased to wail. Total silence clamped over the house. The fire had gone out and even the clock had ceased to tick. Time hung in suspension.

  “Tis over,’ said Thrimby.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Mazarine, peering at him through her tangled locks, ‘yet I am more afraid than ever, now that we have tricked them of their fee. Their vengeance will be severe.’

  Hardly had she spoken when the eaves almost lifted off, and the house was rocked by a sudden gale, threaded by wild laughter. Boomed the voice, ‘Richard Canty bald and toot’less! Tae be oor servant in Trowland, ane life be as guid as another!’

  Thrimby rushed to the nearest window, reached up and threw open the shutters. ‘Look!’ he shouted.

  Save for Mazarine, who wou
ld not allow her child near any aperture, the company joined him at the fenestrations. Looking out across a landscape illumined by fading stars and the pale, waxing, predawn glow, they beheld none other than Lord Rivenhall himself, in his velvet robe, crawling and rolling down the lawns towards the shrubbery, where indefinable shapes milled in the dimness. Away went he, bald-headed without his wig of ringlets, shrieking indistinctly from his gummy mouth, his false teeth abandoned on the grass like the washed-up skeleton of some odd sea-creature. Despite all his effort and will, he was obeying the summons of the trows.

  Said Hawkmoor, his voice rough with mixed emotions, ‘Oh. It comes to me now. His name is Richard Canty. Had I known it was for this reason that Thrimby bade me pretend to name the child after his grandsire, I would not have done so with such blitheness.’

  On all fours the earl scrambled into the shrubbery, whereupon the laughter and the wild wind swirled once about the walls, then swept away towards the distance.

  ‘Thrimby, what have you done?’ Mazarine asked the servant-poet, who now stood before her hugging himself and rocking back and forth on his toes, as she rocked the child.

  ‘I took yer ‘andkerchief, as ‘twere some charm,’ he said he with a grin, ‘and rubbed the trow mark on the master’s palm.’

  Dumfounded, Mazarine grasped the full meaning of Thrimby’s deed. For the first time she permitted a spark of hope to awaken in her spirit. ‘Will they not be angry and seek vengeance for the substitution?’

  ‘Nay, I’ll warrant they will not wrathful be. They found it droll, and laughed full merrily!’

  ‘But what does it mean, ‘if dee canna traivle, krieckle tae wis’?’

  ‘It means if you cannot walk, then crawl!’ cackled Thrimby. ‘Aye, crawl like a babbie, or like the old master, on ‘is bony knees!’ He scowled. ‘That stingy wretch, that hairless grasping fop who primped and preened himself from toe to top, who laughed on Firgrove’s field, and felt no pain to think his heir, young Hawkmoor, would be slain. Bah!’

  Far off a rooster crowed. Behind the horizon the sky was paling.

  ‘Now comes the dawn-sun’s fiery brand,’ said Thrimby, ‘and trows must flee into their land beneath the ‘ills, else they’ll be bound on Er’th till sunset comes around.’

  Or perhaps someone else said it, for when Mazarine looked around, Thrimby was nowhere to be seen.

  The peaceful radiance of the springtime sun spread its blessing across the land. Everyone burst into conversation, exclaiming over the night’s events. The doors were unbarred, whereupon Hawkmoor accompanied by Wakefield and a retinue of household staff hastened outside to survey the damage to the premises. Others stepped out, their joy tempered with awe, to greet the new day. An under-housemaid re-kindled the fire while Mazarine paced around the chamber, too on edge to feel sleepy. In her arms, worn out but secure, the child slumbered.

  ‘What has happened to us on this strange night?’ Laurelia asked wonderingly, walking beside her friend. ‘I confess, I am bewildered.’

  ‘My darling boy’s true name,’ said Mazarine, ‘is not Richard but Westwood. We named him twice, as Thrimby advised — once in a secret ceremony at Creig-Ard, then in public, in case the trows had got wind of our whereabouts. It is the name first-bestowed that is the true one. By such tricks as this we tried to keep our son safe from the trows, but we could not guess that they would take Lord Rivenhall instead! Away in the east wing he was struggling, I daresay, against their summons as my darling was struggling in my arms — yet we could not know what was happening to him, and would have been powerless to prevent his leaving in any case.’

  ‘I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw the earl’s bald head!’ said Laurelia. ‘Now it is clear why he always wore those hats. I daresay the cap tied beneath his chin was holding his wig on.’

  ‘Bald?’ echoed Mazarine.

  ‘Indeed, and toothless, too, as bald and toothless as your bonny babe here, yet nobody ever knew, because the earl’s vanity would not let him admit to it!’

  Presently, a shout was heard from one of the courtyards. Soon afterwards Hawkmoor re-entered the room, followed by the stable-boy and the master of hounds, who was carrying what appeared to be a small log of wood.

  ‘All is well!’ Hawkmoor cried. “Twas all Glamour; neither beast nor fowl nor outbuilding has been harmed or damaged — but look here! We found this limb of moss-oak leaning against the wall of the kitchen gardens.’

  The wood had been cut to his son’s exact height, and crudely carved into the shape of an infant resembling him.

  ‘A trow-stock!’ exclaimed Hawkmoor in disgust, and he bade the servants fling the wightish effigy on the drawing-room fire, where it burned fiercely until it fell to ash.

  * * * *

  From that day forth the earl was never seen again — except, possibly, once. After seven years the laws of the land decreed that he was extinct, and his titles then passed to his heir. The new Lord and Lady Rivenhall enjoyed a long and happy life together with their seven children, but ever after, their first-born son Westwood Canty, Lord Fleetwood, was curiously drawn to the wild places.

  When he was eighteen years of age — tall and strapping, the very image of his father — Westwood was walking home along a sunken road one Summer’s evening when he sat down oh a milestone to rest. The last twinkle of the sun’s rays had just vanished below the tree-tops and an eerie afterglow suffused the landscape. The road clove between two hills, with steep, leafy banks rising on either side. Seated on the stone Westwood happened to glance up. He jumped to his feet, astonished at what he saw. On the other side of the road an opening ran into the hillside. He felt certain it had not been there a moment earlier. In that hollow place stood a speckled cow, and if he was not mistaken she was Southdale Farm’s very best milch-cow, which had died a year ago. Even more impossible was the figure that squatted on a three-legged stool, milking the cow into a wooden pail; a shrunken, shrivelled old man with a pushed-in mouth and a head as bald as an egg. A metal bar extended from one side of the opening to the other, as if to prevent his exit. This apparition, who was wearing fine clothes with a dirty lace collar and cuffs, looked up at young Westwood and grimaced, but cordially grunted something that might have been ‘Good evening’, had his lips not flapped indistinctly over toothless gums.

  Westwood bowed and wished him the same.

  The ancient gaffer seemed to be waiting for him to say something more, and Westwood thought about an old phrase his mother had taught him during his boyhood years, in case he ever chanced upon someone who was trow-bound, which seemed to be the case here. While he scratched his head and tried to recall the exact words the old man filled up a cup with frothy milk and offered it to him with a gummy smile. Westwood took the vessel, put it to his lips and was just about to drink when he remembered that those who eat or drink trow food become trapped in Trow-land forever. Aghast, he threw down the cup. As the contents splashed across the road the old man shrieked and the entire scene disappeared.

  Westwood hastened home without pausing until he reached his door. Afterwards he recalled the phrase his mother had taught him, but he was never sure whether what he had seen that evening had been real, or whether he had fallen into a doze, there on the milestone, and it had all been no more than a dream.

  * * * *

  Afterword

  ‘The Enchanted’ takes place in Erith, the setting for my Bitterbynde series. It was a joy to return to that fantastic yet familiar world after so long an absence — to the shang winds, the towers of the Relayers and the flying ships. Not least, it was a delight to revisit the myriad seelie and unseelie wights of Erith; in particular the trows, that interesting race from the folkloric traditions of the Orkney and Shetland islands.

  The idea for the story came to me some while ago. Whenever I have a story idea I jot it down for future reference, and wait until the time is right for it to become fully fledged. Kelmscott Hall is, of course, titled in honour of William Morris. The name ‘Mazarine’ simp
ly arrived with the protagonist, but it refers to a beautiful, deep shade of blue, one of my favourite colours.

  — Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  * * * *

  Notes on the text of ‘The Enchanted’

  The Shock appears in County Folk Lore Vol. I ‘Gloucestershire’, ed. ES Hartland 1892, ‘Suffolk’ ed. Lady EC Gurdon 1893, and Leicestershire and Rutland,, ed. CJ Billson 1895. It is also mentioned in The Bitterbynde Book I: The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Tor, 2001.

  The Tale of Katherine Fordyce is told in ‘The Home of a Naturalist’ by Edmonston and Saxby, in County Folk-Lore Vol. Ill, Orkney and Shetland Islands, pp. 23-5, Folklore Society County Publications, 1901.

  Trows, being creatures from the folklore of the Shetland Islands, speak a Shetland dialect.

  ‘Up horse, up hedik’ is based on an anecdote in Shetland Folk Book Vol. Ill ed. TA Robertson and John J Graham, Shetland Times Ltd., Lerwick, 1957. Also mentioned in The Bitterbynde Book 1: The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton, 2001.