by Laura Powell
Shortly before they were preparing to retire, the bell for Lord Charnly’s room began to ring, violently. Mr Stokes the valet muttered an oath. He had his sights set on a cup of tea and his own bed. But back up he must go.
After only a short interlude, Mr Stokes returned.
‘His lordship can’t sleep. Says there’s a bird squawking outside the window disturbing his rest. Nothing I can see or hear, but he’s convinced of it.’
After conferring with Mrs Robinson, it was agreed they should move Lord Charnly to a spare bedroom in another wing of the villa. Pattern, as the only housemaid still up, went to make the room ready with Mrs Robinson’s assistance.
While they were smoothing down the coverlet over the bed, Lord Charnly stamped in, resplendent in a dressing gown of scarlet silk, an ugly scowl on his face. Pattern reflected that the only time she had seen him truly cheerful was on the occasion he’d tormented the cats. Mr Stokes followed with his master’s luggage, assisted by Nate. Pattern and Mrs Robinson curtseyed, but he swept past them to the window without a glance.
‘Well, this is no use, is it? Either the damn bird’s followed me here, or else there’s a whole flock of ’em.’
‘I am very sorry, milord,’ said Mrs Robinson, ‘but . . . I confess I cannot hear anything.’
‘Then your ears are as deficient as your wits.’ He flung open the shutters with a crash. ‘There! Can’t you see? It’s hovering right outside. Fluttering and squawking and tapping its devilish beak against the masonry. Tap, tap, tap! Squawk, squawk, squawk!’
The servants exchanged looks. There was no bird to be seen or heard. The night outside the window was dark and silent, utterly serene.
Mrs Robinson tried again. ‘Perhaps, milord, we could move you to another bedroom. I regret that it will not be quite as comfortable, but—’
‘Enough. There is obviously a plague of these pests upon the house. Fortunately, I know how to put a stop to them. Hey, you –’ this was to Nate – ‘fetch me my fowling piece.’
When Nate wavered, the man bared his teeth in a snarl. ‘Good God, do I need to fire shots up your backside? Jump to it!’
Nate jumped to it. He ran to the gun room to fetch the fowling piece while Mr Stokes helped his master get back into his breeches and boots. From outside in the hall, Pattern and Mrs Robinson could hear Lord Charnly’s curses and complaints. It was a wonder the rest of the household was not raised from its beds, but a heavy slumber lay upon the place. Finally, Lord Charnly crashed open the door, snatched the shotgun from Nate’s hand and waved everyone back with an angry gesture. ‘You have already proved yourselves worse than useless. Out of my way, all of you.’
‘Get along to bed,’ Mrs Robinson told the others wearily, as soon as his lordship had stamped away down the hall. ‘There’s nothing more we can do. The gentleman has made it clear he wishes to be left to his own devices.’
Without exchanging a word, Pattern and Nate made for the back stairs, but instead of parting ways at the turning to the sleeping quarters, they hastened outside to the service yard. Here Pattern came to a halt.
‘Nate, wait – you need to take some of these snowdrops.’ By now, the flowers were wilting sadly, but rot had not yet set in. ‘They are unlikely to protect us from bullets, but it may be they have other defensive powers.’
Nate nodded. His face was set, but his eyes were bright. It was plain he knew as well as she that a phantom bird was very likely only the beginning of the night’s marvels. The air fizzed with dangerous possibility.
The sky was clear, so it was easy to make out Lord Charnly on the lawn, silk dressing gown billowing over his boots as he stalked back and forth, muttering oaths and shaking his fist at the heavens. Now and again he took aim with his weapon, though no shots had yet been fired. The villa loomed behind him, dark and silent, without any sign of life.
It was not long before Lord Charnly’s invisible prey drew him to the terrace at the end of lawn, and from there down into the formal garden below. The pebble paths and marble statuary glowed white in the moonlight. Pattern and Nate followed, taking cover behind a large piece of topiary hedge. At first Lord Charnly was so preoccupied with his invisible tormenter he did not notice he was being trailed. But then Nate’s tread caused a twig to snap underfoot, and the man pounced.
‘Oho, what’s this? A couple of dirty brats come to play hide-and-seek!’
With the gun tucked under his arm, he seized each by the ear and dragged them out into the moonlight.
‘We’re very sorry, sir.’ Nate tried not to squirm under the man’s pincer-like grip. ‘We only followed you in case – ow! – in case there might be anything your lordship needed.’
‘How excessively helpful of you. Well, seeing as you’re here, I’d best put you to use, then.’ Lord Charnly let go of their throbbing ears, but his smile was not a pleasant one. ‘You, boy – stand over there, by the cedar tree.’ And, when Nate hesitated, he fired the shotgun into the air, causing both children to cower. Lord Charnly laughed delightedly at the sight. He seemed to have forgotten all about the invisible bird now he had human quarry. Pattern, indeed, wondered if he might be possessed: there was a mad glint in his eye that she had not seen before.
‘That’s right, boy: back against the tree – tall and straight now. And you, missy – go fetch an orange or one of those lemons to put on your friend’s head. Now’s as good a time as any for some target practice, don’t you think?’
Pattern’s heart was hammering fit to burst. The fowling piece did not fire single bullets but a spray of shot; Nate was likely to be very badly wounded, if not outright killed. What use were magical snowdrops now? They offered no protection from a maniac shooting in the dark.
Nate looked very unhappy indeed, but he did as he was told and stood with his back against the cedar. Pattern pretended to go and look for fallen fruit among the moonlit paths, trying desperately to think of an escape plan in the meantime. So far, the best she could come up with was to dash a flower pot against his lordship’s head.
‘Stop dawdling,’ the man called out. ‘I can see an orange tree right over there, by that urn. That’s right, quick as you can . . . Now what’s the matter? Look alive, girl. You are goggle-eyed as a dead fish!’
Pattern was indeed frozen in shock. She was staring at two of the statues behind his lordship. They had begun to stir.
The first to move was a goddess wearing a crescent-moon headdress, with a quiver of arrows on her shoulder and a bow in her hand. She shook out her hair and wriggled her shoulders, as if waking from a refreshing nap. Then the figure of a centaur – a creature with the upper body of a man, and the lower body of a horse – pawed the ground with a stony hoof. The goddess raised her bow, and plucked its invisible string. Nate had seen what was happening too, and let out a yelp.
Lord Charnly turned at the noise. Pattern saw the instant his first flash of disbelief turned to naked terror. Still, he didn’t lack courage – she would grant him that. He aimed his gun, only slightly unsteadily, and shot the marble woman straight in the face. The shots bounced off the stone harmlessly.
There was a moment’s pause. Then he gave a strangled sort of cry and turned and fled.
He was stumbling out of the garden towards the olive groves. The two living statues did not immediately move after him, but surveyed the scene in a leisurely fashion. The goddess took a step towards where Nate was standing under the cedar. Jolted out of his stupor, he at once began to clamber up into the shelter of its branches. ‘Penny, run!’
Even as Pattern started to move towards the villa, the centaur was upon her, and scooped her up in his stony arms. As effortlessly as if she had been made of paper, he lifted her above his head and placed her on his back – the back of a horse, whose flesh and muscle and blood and bone were all solid marble. Then he put the horn slung across his chest to his lips, and blew three sharp, piercing cries.
The goddess lifted her arms. Her voice was like a cold wind blowing off a mountainside. ‘L
et the wild hunt begin!’
The lawn in front of the villa began to bubble.
The bubbles spread. Turf swelled and heaved. Formless lumps were hauling themselves out of the ground, twisting themselves into new shapes. The shapes solidified as grass and mud took on the texture of fur and the weight of flesh and bone. Animals were pulling themselves out of the ground and shaking the last scatters of earth from their ears: big cats, wolves and wild boar, and domestic beasts too. Pattern was sure she could see the donkey from the orchard, as well as the grey cat from the stables, and the marmalade one from the kitchen.
But even the domestic animals looked far from tame. Moonlight gleamed on teeth and fangs and claws, and the reflected glow of so many pairs of black and golden eyes had a reddish tinge. The night vibrated to the sound of snarls and growls and snapping jaws, rising to yelps and howls as the menagerie sniffed the air for the scent of their quarry.
Where was Nate? Pattern could see no sign of him against the darkness of the tree. She dared not try to jump down from her mount, for she would fall straight into the jaws of the beasts that surged about below. She did not know if the centaur had put her on his back to protect her from the pack, or whether he had some other sinister plan in mind, but it seemed as if she was going to be carried off by the hunt regardless. She twisted and turned on her stony steed, and tried to fight a rising tide of panic.
At another blast from the centaur’s horn, the motley pack surged forward, and the two statues followed. The goddess ran ahead, stone feet striking against the pebble-strewn ground. The centaur followed at a trot, though Pattern still had to clutch at his carved upper body to keep her balance. The sudden chill that had taken hold of her did not help matters. It was making her feel oddly stiff, particularly in the legs.
‘Psst! Penny! Up here!’
She looked up. Nate had shimmied on his belly along one of the tree’s lower branches: the one that stretched over the path to the olive grove. As the centaur passed under the tree, Nate reached down to grab Pattern under the arms, lifting her off the statue’s back.
It was no easy task. The strange heaviness in her legs was dragging her down, and Nate grunted and grimaced under the strain of her weight. Fortunately, he did not have to hold her for long. Even if the centaur had noticed the loss of his rider, he did not stop or turn, but increased his pace from a trot to a gallop, as the goddess raced alongside.
Only a few moments after the last of the hunt left the garden, Nate was forced to relinquish his grip. Dropping heavily on to the ground beneath the tree, Pattern found herself bruised and shaken, but otherwise unharmed.
‘I owe you a deal of thanks,’ she said, with only the merest tremor in her voice, as soon as Nate had scrambled down the tree to join her.
‘What’s happened there?’
He was pointing at her feet. The soles of her shoes gleamed white in the moonlight. How heavy they felt! Her toes, too, were cold as ice. Pattern let out a gasp.
‘Oh heavens – I – I think . . . I think my shoes have turned to stone.’
‘Quick, let’s get ’em off you.’
Her hands were too much of atremble for her to untie the laces on her own, so Nate had to help. It took all Pattern’s self-control not to let out a sob with relief when she found her toes were just as they should be, although oddly chilly to the touch. For, sure enough, the soles of her shoes were solid marble.
‘We got you off that horse-man-creature just in time,’ Nate said. ‘A few minutes more, and who’s to say your feet wouldn’t have turned to stone along with your shoelaces? And I suppose the rest of you would have followed soon after . . .’
Relieved as she was at her escape, Pattern could not help but feel dismayed at the loss of her shoes. She only had the one pair. ‘Whatever am I to do? I can hardly spend the rest of our stay in my stockings.’
‘I got an idea.’ Nate pulled out the wilting snowdrops from his pocket. ‘Here goes nothing,’ he said as he rubbed the flowers energetically against the stone. ‘Ha! Look at that. I ain’t London’s best bootboy for nothing.’ Sure enough, the sap from the flowers had restored Pattern’s shoes to leather.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘the snowdrops may not have been much defence against bullets or magic beasts, but they have come to my rescue all the same.’
‘Speaking of bullets . . . what’s become of his lordship?’
With all the excitement, they had nearly forgotten about him. They got up from the grass and hurried to the edge of the garden. In the light of the moon, they could see that the hunt was already spreading out from the olive groves and into the hills, where the distant speck of Lord Charnly could just be seen, running for his life.
‘Those creatures look just as likely to tear him to pieces as turn him to stone,’ Nate said. His voice shook.
Pattern nodded. She did not trust herself to speak. The blue skies and warm scents of Cull had charmed her, in spite of herself, so that moonlit jigs and the phantom Miss Hawk had appeared as little more than magical mischief-making. Now she saw the evil of the island for what it was.
CHAPTER NINE
Quarrels are much more easily avoided than made up.
S. & S. Adams, The Complete Servant
Nobody remarked upon Lord Charnly’s disappearance the following morning. It was as if he had never been with them at all. His belongings had vanished, and there was no sign of his valet either.
There was, however, a new addition to the statue garden. Down among the pebble paths and topiary hedges, the nymphs and other mythical creatures had been joined by a very different figure. It was the carving of a man in a dressing gown, his face twisted in terror, as two monstrously fanged cats sank their teeth into his booted heel. By the look of it, the statue had been there for some time, patched with moss and stained by the weather. The toe of the right boot was somewhat chipped.
‘What a curious ornament!’ remarked the Dowager Duchess, as she strolled among the roses with Miss Blunt and Miss Smith after breakfast.
‘It is certainly a fine example of the sculptor’s art,’ replied Miss Blunt. ‘Yes,’ said Miss Smith. ‘The man’s features are excessively lifelike. One might almost suppose he is ready to speak – or, rather, scream.’
Pattern overheard this exchange because she was the other side of the hedge, on her way to harvest more snowdrops. The sight of Lord Charnly’s statue made her shudder. She would never forget the icy feeling in her toes, nor the numbing stiffness in her limbs, as the stone began to creep up her body. Unfortunately, it was too late for his lordship. Although a handful of snowdrops had been enough to save her shoes, releasing the gentleman from his marble prison would likely require a whole glade of flowers.
She still intended to equip herself and Nate with as many of the blooms as she could manage. The flowers had already come to her aid in unexpected ways. Who knew what other miracles they might perform?
Her other plan had been to cut the strings of Lady Hawk’s harp, since it was the evening concerts that kept people so dazed and docile. But when Pattern had crept into the music room with her sewing scissors, she found the instrument was locked away in a painted case. In any event, even if the harp was broken, Lady Hawk could still sing and, for all Pattern knew, it was her voice rather than the harp’s music that did the mischief.
For now, the snowdrops were her best defence. Pattern would have liked to think that Mr Grey’s warnings of snakes were simply to scare people away, but she had heard William boast to Alfred of his heroics in picking the posy for Jane. He swore that he had beaten off ‘a great black-and-yellow serpent’ with a gardening rake. Alfred had laughed, shaking his head. Pattern, however, was inclined to take the story more seriously. Accordingly, she had armed herself with a toasting fork and a poisonous concoction of cleaning products. She had spent a great deal of time perfecting the recipe, and was rather looking forward to testing its effects.
However, she had only got as far as the gate at the end of the garden, when Mr Grey appeared
. ‘And where might you be off to, missy?’ He was eying her basket with suspicion.
‘Well, my, ahem, throat has been rather sore, so I was going to pick some blackberry leaves to brew a tea. I heard there was a bramble bush by the wood . . .’
‘There are no brambles on this island. It is very unusual to fall ill here, for the air is remarkably healthful.’
‘None the less, sir,’ she said, as firmly as she dared, ‘my throat does hurt.’
‘Doubtless a consequence of excessive gossiping.’ His frown was a fearsome sight. ‘Never mind the blackberry leaves. You would do better to drink hot water with honey and lemon – and refrain from tittle-tattle.’
‘Thank you, sir. I will be sure to try that.’
He didn’t move. ‘Then you will find everything you require in the kitchens.’
Frustrated, Pattern had no choice but to make her way back to the house, Mr Grey following close behind. She found the servants’ hall in uproar.
‘Oh, Penny! What do you think,’ Elsie gabbled, ‘but Reverend Blunt has just insulted Mr Ladlaw, who has called him out in a duel!’
‘Great heavens! How can that be?’
‘Well, it began this morning when Mr Ladlaw read out a poem in praise of Miss Hawk’s eyes. The Reverend said its sentiments put him in mind of a Sunday School tract. Then Mr Ladlaw said the tedium of the Reverend’s sermons was enough to convert any Christian to devilry. So the Reverend—’
‘But how are they to fight? Is it to be pistols at dawn?’
‘No, they are to fence out on the lawn, and milady says that everyone may watch!’
Pattern hastened to join the servants clustering by the door and at the ground-floor windows. By wiggling to the front, she had a clear view of the ‘field of honour’. Captain Vyne was to be Mr Ladlaw’s second, and Mr Grey acted as the Reverend’s. It would be their responsibility to supervise the encounter.