by Deryn Lake
Poor George — he rode on to his coronation banquet with his big face glum. Poor Charles Edward — he was helped into Garnet Gage’s carriage, his frame weakened by years of excessive drinking.
‘For you, sir,’ said Pernel, holding out the champion’s gauntlet.
He smiled at her.
‘We have taken up this challenge, haven’t we? He has not heard the last of us.’
‘No, sir.’
But he knew even as he spoke — as did Garnet and his daughter — that they were empty meaningless words. And Pernel, with her ancient gift, also knew that not only was the third Hanover George doomed to an agonizing life but that her Sovereign Prince would return to Europe and shut himself away as a recluse; that the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the pride and hope of all the Jacobites, were dead and gone forever.
‘To Dover, Highness?’ said Garnet.
‘Yes, yes.’
‘There is nobody you wish to see before you depart?’
Just for a moment the vision of the great Beauty he had once loved — the sparkling eyes of Melior Mary — flashed before Charles Stuart. Then he moved savagely in his seat.
‘No, nobody,’ he said. ‘Drive on.’
22
Over the unruffled surface of the River Wey a kingfisher skimmed effortlessly, passing over the head of a heron that stood one-legged in the shallows; in the fir trees of the autumn home park the October birds sang their crisp midday song; in the falling masonry of Sutton Place a departing swallow circled round the Gate House Tower, where he had built his summer nest, and then flew south. It was the end of a cycle, the fading of another year into mezzotint. Soon it would be 1778 and George III would have sat on the throne of England for seventeen years. Time was passing rapidly now for all those left from the long-ago drama of the great house.
And almost intrusively, for there had been no company there — except for an occasional tradesman or calling doctor — for twenty years, a carriage was slowly wending its way up the overgrown drive. Melior Mary Weston was to have a visitor at last.
‘All right, Miss Seward?’ shouted the driver as the horse stumbled over some bushes that were threatening to close the way off completely at that point.
And the poetess Anna Seward called back, ‘Yes, thank you,’ and peered out even more curiously to see what extraordinary forest they had ventured into through the huge and reluctant gates that bore the inscription Sutton Place, beside the emblem of a once-gilded Tudor rose.
Before her and overhead the trees grew so thickly that the glowing ember of the seasonal sun was blotted out and the carriage moved as if in a tunnel of shade. The only life came from the river which they had crossed by means of a rotting and precarious bridge and with the way ahead curving to nothing in front of them, the poetess — just for a moment — felt a slight tinge of fear. But she straightened her back resolutely. Anna Seward was not only a celebrated writer — a woman of letters as opposed to a bluestocking and literary entertainer — but she was also the daughter of a clergyman, the Canon Residentiary of Lichfield Cathedral. She had been brought up in a bishop’s palace amongst the gentle spires of the dreamy town, and her faith in the presence of God was unshakeable.
She was a beautiful looking woman. About thirty years old, her mental alertness shone in a small heart-like face dominated by a pair of large and serious grey eyes. She had earned herself the title of ‘Swan of Lichfield’ and was a friend of both Dr Johnson and Boswell. This, she considered modestly, was a reasonable achievement for one who lived in the cloisters of a cathedral town and rarely ventured forth to London.
But recently her romantic imagination had been fired by a poem about the rising of 1745 — and her research had turned up a curio. An elderly friend of Canon Seward’s — whose political leanings were quite definitely in sympathy with the Jacobite cause, though this was something never spoken of in the family — had said, ‘There’s one of them still alive, you know.’
‘One of what?’
‘One of the Prince’s mistresses — begging your pardon! It was kept very secret at the time, but there were rumours of course. They say she lives like a hermit in a crumbling ruin beyond Guildford.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Weston’s the name. Melior Mary Weston. However she must be very old now. It’s said that she’s completely mad.’
It had not been an encouraging picture but Miss Seward possessed that intrepid sense of determination, combined with English good sense, only to be found in gently raised daughters of clerics. She had donned a travelling cloak of plaid, packed a box with enough clothes for a few days journey, and set forth with no-one except her coachman as companion.
And if she had been anyone else other than Anna Seward she would have turned back as the carriage rounded the bend and the sight of a once magnificent mansion house, now rapidly falling into ruin and giving a most sinister impression outlined as it was against a blood-red sun, came into view. In fact, as she drew nearer, she stared in amazement. Four enormous poles — like battering rams — were propping up what must have once been a stately gate house and tower. If they had been pulled away, the entire façade would have come tumbling. Furthermore the arch of the tower had been boarded, only a small door in it giving access. The carriage could proceed no further.
‘I can’t get round the wall, Miss,’ said the coachman. ‘We’ll have to go on foot. Do you want me to come with you?’
‘Yes please, Thorne,’ she answered a fraction too quickly. ‘It doesn’t look very prepossessing.’
‘No!’
He was a thick-set man of about forty and, without realizing it, he squared his shoulders as he said this and grasped his whip more tightly in his heavily gloved hand. Miss Seward stretched out a timid knuckle and knocked nervously on the door. It swung open beneath her touch revealing a dim and shadowy courtyard.
‘Hallo!’ she called out. ‘Is there anybody there?’
Nothing stirred except for the startled beating of birds’ wings.
‘Oh Thorne, what shall we do?’
‘Go in, miss. She’s expecting you, isn’t she?’
Anna looked down at the tips of her shoes.
‘Well, I wrote — but she didn’t answer. But then she’s always in. She leads a solitary existence I believe.’
‘Then come on. We must at least try.’
What had once been a beautiful courtyard with terracotta brickwork decorated by the carved initials R.W. and the design of a tun, to say nothing of grinning amorini and fruit and flower mouldings, was now strewn with falling masonry and it took concentration to manoeuvre to the hugely arched front door.
‘This hasn’t been opened for years!’ said Miss Seward anxiously.
‘Look, miss. There’s another door to the right. Try that.’
A rotting bell pull snapped beneath the poetess’s grasp and Thorne was reduced to beating on the door with his whip handle.
‘Hullo,’ he called out loudly. ‘Miss Seward to see Miss Weston, if you please.’
There was a movement at one of the upstairs windows and, as they craned their necks, both of them had a glimpse of a wild-headed figure staring out for a second. ‘Oh dear,’ said the Swan of Lichfield. ‘What was that?’
‘I think we’d better go,’ answered Thorne.
But too late. The door had opened an inch or two to reveal a short, squat nose straddled by a broken pair of glasses.
‘Yes?’ said a man’s voice.
Anna cleared her throat.
‘Miss Anna Seward calling on Miss Melior Mary Weston. I did write.’
Rather surprisingly the door opened a foot or two to reveal a short, fat, anxious-faced priest.
‘I’m Father Gage,’ he said. ‘One of Miss Weston’s cousins and also her personal chaplain. Come in, come in! She is expecting you.’
Rather slowly the visitors stepped over the threshold. ‘I’ll see if she is ready,’ said the priest — and scampered off.
They found themselves stand
ing in a small entrance hall from which, through an archway slightly to her right, Anna could glimpse an enormous hall which — as she looked — was suddenly suffused with light, the afternoon sun being then at just the right angle in the courtyard. It was in such contrast to the gloom and rot all about her that, unbidden, the poetess went in. From a myriad of stained glass old escutcheons of ancestors long dead gleamed about her with the colour of ruby, of sapphire and of gold.
‘How beautiful,’ she said aloud and then jumped as a voice behind her said, ‘Look at the floor. See, they are little islands of colour.’
She wheeled round and stared in amazement. Arrayed in the splendid style of twenty years earlier, Melior Mary Weston stood before her. A large brimmed hat, from which feathers trailed almost to the ground, shaded a face quite skull-like in its thinness, whilst the frail body was robed in a hooped dress very much too large.
Anna Seward dropped a curtsey. ‘Miss Weston?’ she said.
Melior Mary laughed and, just for a second, the poetess saw it; saw the flash of vivid beauty that must once have been; saw the unusual colour of the eyes as they lit up with some long-ago gaiety.
‘Yes, yes. I am she. What do you want with me? There’s nobody about any more, you know. They all went a long time ago. Only I live here now — and Father James Ambrose Gage.’
‘But it’s you I came to see. I rather hoped to talk over the old times. The days of the Young Pretender.’
A claw-like hand shot out and grabbed the poetess’s arm.
‘You’ve come from him? You have a message from the Prince?’ Her face changed to that of a forlorn robin, beady of eye and anxious. ‘Don’t tell him how I have decayed. He loved me once, you know. But I was a fool. I let him go that I might keep this accursed house. And I am alone as a result.’ Now she was an old vixen — cunning and wicked. ‘But I had my revenge. I have killed Sutton Place. Soon it will fall down into ruins and good riddance to it. But come — see for yourself what was once Sir Richard Weston’s pride.’
She took Anna by the elbow and led her up a staircase the walls of which were hung with damp and mouldering family portraits interspersed with those of a morbidly religious nature. Anna Seward stared in horror. The whole house was crumbling. The smell of decay was almost as powerful as that of the incense which clouded the atmosphere like a pall.
And dimly, at the top of the stairs, she could glimpse what had once been a magnificent Long Gallery turned now into a faintly lit chapel.
‘See,’ said Melior Mary, ‘all the old folly gone. Giles must cry to God these days.’
Anna had no idea what this meant but to her poetic eye the conversion of such a superb piece of Tudor architecture into a gloomy and miserable place of prayer went against her whole idea of glorifying the Creator.
‘It’s very dark,’ she ventured, staring at the windows which had been totally enclosed by ivy.
‘That’s how I want it. I don’t like the light on my face any more.’
‘But surely it is a tragedy to let such a glorious house disintegrate.’
Melior Mary threw Miss Seward an angry glance, her face a death’s head beneath the broad brimmed hat.
‘You don’t know what you are saying. Sutton Place is accursed — accursed by things evil and pagan. I have put on the armour of the Lord—’ she gazed round the terrible chapel with a kind of triumph, ‘—but there are others who have not. It is better that the place returns to the elements and is never lived in again.’
Anna Seward looked at her in pity. It was obvious that the old woman had totally lost her reason.
‘But who will it pass to? What of their wishes?’
Melior Mary put her finger to her lips.
‘Don’t speak too loudly. You see — it is always the heir that suffers. Death, madness and despair — that is what he or she must bear.’
‘But who is your heir?’
‘First it was my fat cousin William and his three little boys. But the house killed all of them, one after the other. So then I had a choice. Viscount Gage’s son or my aunt’s great-nephew John Webbe or — Garnet Gage.’ She gave a breathless little laugh. ‘But the Viscount is not a Catholic and Garnet — well, I could not inflict such a thing on him — so it is John Webbe. He means nothing to me. I have barely met him.’
She genuflected before the white and gilt altar.
‘I am at peace over that, Miss Seward. Webbe will pull down what remains of it — and that will be an end to the wretched place.’
The atmosphere in the chapel had grown suddenly cold and right behind Anna Seward — so near that logically she should have felt his breath upon her — a man sobbed in despair. She spun round but the dim — and somehow sinister — light revealed nothing. And then she heard a rattling — as if a stick was being run along the walls of the chapel. She turned enquiringly to Miss Weston but the old woman had either not heard the noise or was pretending ignorance.
‘So what is the message?’ she said, bowing again to the altar and turning back towards the staircase.
Startled, Anna said, ‘What message is that?’
‘From the Prince. That is why you came, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid not. Really I just wanted to talk about him.’
‘I see.’
The mistress of Sutton Place relapsed into silence as she led the poetess back down the stairs, past a carved and coloured wooden statue of the Virgin Mary.
‘I am powerfully protected,’ she said, nodding in its direction. And then she added quite inconsequentially, ‘Will you stay for a few days? We are very dull here and you have a beautiful face.’ She peered at Anna closely. ‘Are you sure you’re not the Prince’s daughter?’
Miss Seward smiled. ‘Yes, I’m quite sure. And I will take a dish of tea with you and then depart. I’m afraid that I cannot be your guest though it is kind of you to invite me.’
She had an overwhelming urge to quit the house immediately — only politeness forbade it. The noise in the Long Gallery — or the chapel as it had now become — had unnerved her. She knew that she must leave Sutton Place before nightfall if her courage was to hold out.
‘A pity,’ said Melior Mary, pulling a bell rope that had once been made of stiff and fine brocade. ‘I should have enjoyed your company. Now what shall we talk about?’
‘Prince Charles Edward Stuart,’ said Miss Seward firmly.
‘He too came from a cursed family.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Have you not heard of the curse on the House of Stuart? Do you believe in curses, Miss Seward?’
‘I am a Christian but I am also a poet — so I think that I do.’
‘If you were a Weston you would be sure. Now when you have drunk your tea I shall show you the rest of my mansion house.’
The emotions of fear and curiosity raged in the delicately nurtured breast of Miss Seward as — an hour later — she followed Melior Mary’s stalking form through room after room of decay. Rotting bedhangings festooned chambers in which the walls were springing damp and the curtains were strips of grime; ancient tapestries disintegrated above Tudor carving so encrusted with cobwebs and dust that it was no longer possible to see their shape; mullioned windows, that had once been thrown open to hear the laughter of Henry VIII’s Court in the gardens below, were sealed forever by interweaving tendrils and foliage.
Anna’s poetic soul was in torment. To her the house was being deserted, a victim to an old, mad woman’s notion that it had ruined her life. Yet she could not find it in her to dislike the wreck of humanity that had once been a Beauty of Bath and mistress to the Jacobite Prince. There was something about the gaunt face, the great hollow eyes, that held, still, a spark of their former splendour. The toss of the head with its strings of silver hair had, yet, an air that long ago would have raised every quizzing glass in the room. The writer in Miss Seward could see beneath the ravaged façade to the spirit of the storm bird that fluttered pitifully within.
And when it came to her fina
l glimpse of Melior Mary, standing in the archway of the great door that she had insisted on opening and which it had taken six servants — including Anna’s coachman Thorne — two hours to prise ajar, the poetess’s warm heart was rent. A skeletal hand waved a kerchief, the head in the huge and overbearing hat was tipped back, a smile played about lips that twitched involuntarily with old and forgotten griefs. The last of the Westons was a sad and crazy figure as the coach rounded the bend in the drive and was lost to view.
And that night, sitting in her room in The Angel in Guildford, Anna Seward wrote a verse for posterity:
Where lofty oak-trees form a lonely shade,
Where no sun gilds the solitary glade,
A castle rises to the curious eye,
And ruins speaks its former majesty.
The folding gates (on hinges loth to move),
Are seldom op’d and never op’d to Love.
Within, an aged pious lady dwells;
High walls her mansion and her form conceal.
With her no laughing Grace, no Pleasure strays,
Her youth long past, in age she reads and prays.
The Swan of Lichfield sighed deeply as she put down her pen, blew out her candle and included Melior Mary Weston’s immortal soul amongst her night-time prayers.
*
‘Oh damme, damme — mind out there! You’re disturbing me prinkum-prankum, so you are.’
Joseph’s long hand flapped in the air to where his two great-grandchildren ran about his feet, shouting for joy as they felt the sand of the beach beneath their toes. One either side of him, his twin grandsons, on whom he was leaning heavily, chuckled to themselves but Pernel, who walked behind him lest he should totter over backwards said, ‘Children, be quiet. This is Great Grandpapa’s outing as much as yours.’
He was ninety-four years old and, for this rare treat of a visit to the coast with the younger members of his family, he had put on a suit of fuchsia satin, a cravat of lace, a waistcoat of periwinkle blue and a full white wig. On his feet, adding to his difficulty in getting along, were shoes with pinchbeck heels and one of the two children carried his walking cane a-swirl with taffeta ribbons. The great rake was turned out in fine style for the occasion.