This miserable existence might have continued for ever, had not a party of visitors arrived to stay, bringing Phillip Revell with them. Although I did not put myself forward in any way, he seemed to well like my company and oft times joined me when I walked in the garden. This much displeased my uncle and his wife, who pointed out what I well knew: that a handsome man of comfortable means could have no serious intentions towards a penniless widow.
But when he professed his love for me and did offer marriage, they pressed me to agree to the match, seeing it would spare them the expense of keeping me. I was nothing loth, especially since he spoke with kindness to Lydia, who was then a very pretty child of twelve and said she would be as his own daughter.
‘Cinderella,’ I said, looking up. ‘Though sadly, the prince gets killed fairly soon afterwards, so they don’t live happily ever after for very long.’
‘That doesn’t exactly sound the stuff of confessions,’ Carey pointed out, before going on:
Mossby was a strange house, the main portion being in the old black and white style and, being built at the time of Catholic persecution, had many secret ways and chambers within the walls, for the family at that time were papist.
There had been earlier dwellings in that place, though little remained other than a stone tower. But various additions to the house had been made piecemeal, which had enlarged it without adding greatly to its convenience.
I had been allowed to bring with me Dorcas, the faithful maid who had been my prop and support throughout all my misfortunes. She was now of middle age and of severe manner, but sincerely attached both to myself and Lydia.
The other female servants at Mossby were none of them young and not overly friendly, so I was glad of Dorcas’ company. Phillip, however, was most attentive and kind and I hoped soon to form pleasant acquaintances among the other local families, especially those with daughters of an age with Lydia.
We had been married some months when I told my husband that I was with child. He expressed great delight at the thought of an heir, so that I worried that I might prove to be carrying another girl … but then, all men seem to desire a boy to carry on their line.
When I went to tell Lydia, she asked me if I was happy in my marriage, which I thought strange, but assured her I was. Then when I told her she was to have a little brother or sister, she kissed me and said she was glad, though I noted that she was very quiet thereafter.
My husband ceased to come to my bed, once he knew I was with child, though he continued to be kind and concerned for my good health. Dorcas, in whom I confided all, told me that many men were thus, but all would be well again after the baby’s arrival.
It was about this time that I noticed Lydia seemed to have taken my husband in sudden dislike, though he positively doted on her, and gave her many gifts including a fine grey pony. I thought perhaps he teased her too much, for she was a young lady of thirteen now and more conscious of her dignity. But I was engrossed with Phillip, my growing babe and my household duties, so that it was some time before I began to worry that something ailed her, for by then she had grown thin, pale and nervous.
Her antipathy towards Phillip grew and I could not understand it, especially when he was so kind to her, nor would she explain herself when asked.
How blinded by love I was!
‘I’m starting to have a bad feeling about where this is heading,’ I said. ‘It all started out so well, with Cinderella rescued by the handsome prince, but now …’
‘I know what you mean – though I’m hoping I’m wrong,’ Carey agreed.
There was increasing unrest and conflict in the country and while Phillip and my uncle had once both declared for the King, my uncle had now changed his mind and thrown in his lot with Cromwell. Many families were thus divided in loyalty during this time.
Phillip prepared to answer the King’s call to arms when it came – indeed he showed some relish for the thought of fighting – and said he would leave me in charge of Mossby when he should be absent. To this end, he showed me the way of opening those secret ways and passages in the house that could conceal any fugitive requiring concealment. Some valuable trinkets, including a fabulous jewel bestowed upon one of his ancestors by Queen Elizabeth, were hidden in one of them, the opening cunningly built into the carved head of my bed, which was in the chamber next to the old tower.
Another place of concealment and escape also opened from this room. On pressing a certain part of the panelling to the right side of the fireplace while twisting a carved boss above it, a door would open on to a narrow stair that led down to the cellar – and from thence, via a tunnel, to one of the lower terraces. But should the boss be turned to the left rather than the right, the topmost step would fall away, so that anyone standing there would be precipitated straight down to the cellar. When Phillip told me this, I shuddered.
One night soon after he had showed me these things, I was awoken by a dreadful scream and started up, as did Dorcas who, since I had been feeling often sickly in the night had been asleep on a truckle bed in my chamber. I knew my child’s voice instantly and throwing on a bedrobe hurried to her room. A candlestick on the press inside showed me Phillip standing over the bed, my daughter hysterical and wide-eyed. He explained that he’d heard the scream and hurried hence, but thought it perhaps a nightmare and would leave Dorcas and I to calme her fears.
When I asked her why she had screamed, she said it had been a night horror and I took her to my bed for the rest of the night. Next day, Dorcas suggested she should continue in this until my time was near, which seemed meet to me.
Lydia has had no return of the night horrors, but is become like a small, nervous ghost of her former lively, cheerful self. My first husband was subject to fits of the melancholy, in which I hoped my child had not followed him and wished a doctor to see her, but Phillip said it was merely the megrims and would pass …
But Dorcas was as concerned as I, and watches over her as much as her duties allowed.
I wished our neighbours had been more willing to return my calls, for then Lydia might have had some young company to cheer her.
When Phillip received a messenger and told me he was off to fight the very next day, he seemed both excited and pleased. But my mind was filled with fear and turmoil, so that instead of resting in my chamber that afternoon, as he suggested, I persuaded Lydia to take a turn on the terrace with me.
The wind proved sharper than I expected and she went in to fetch a warm cloak for me – but when she did not immediately return, I followed her in – and thence, hearing a muffled cry and the sound of a struggle, to the muniment room, where a most terrible sight met my eyes.
Lydia, Phillip’s hand covering her mouth, was attempting to escape from what were clearly the vilest of intentions on my husband’s part. His face, thickened with lust, was one I had never seen before … The scales fell from my eyes in an instant and I realized that my husband was the vilest of monsters.
‘Phillip, what goes on here?’ I exclaimed, and on an instant he had let her go, his face changing to the bright, open expression I had known and loved so well.
‘Thank God you are come, my love,’ he said. ‘Lydia was faint, so I brought her in here and she began to cry out as she came round. I start to think she must be prone to fits where her wits are disordered and if so, we must keep this very quiet, if she is to find a husband.’
‘A husband of her own?’ I heard my voice say.
‘Mother’, cried Lydia, her face ashen, ‘I—’
‘Hush,’ I said, gathering my child into my arms, close against her unborn sibling … the child of this monster. ‘Come, we will go to my bedchamber.’
I didn’t look again at my husband, but late, when I left her in Dorcas’ care, Phillip did his utmost to persuade me I was the monster for imagining such terrible things. I was unmoved and at last he grew angry and declared that when he returned from the fight, he would know how to deal with me.
I felt then my helplessness: for
I was his wife, his chattel, and who was there to take my part?
I barred the chamber door against him and did not open it again until assured that he had ridden off to join the King’s army.
‘Unfortunately we weren’t wrong – poor Anne!’ I said. ‘And that poor child, too! It seems there were monsters even then.’
‘Yes – and now we know why the local gentry weren’t so keen to visit Mossby, or have their daughters become friendly with Lydia,’ Carey said grimly.
Dorcas tells me the servants, overhearing some of what went forward, now speak of what they have kept secret since our arrival: that my husband has a fancy for very young girls and no cottager’s child has been safe from him …
Lydia told me that, though fearful of being believed, she had meant to reveal to me what was happening on the morning when I had told her I was with child. I remembered then how she had asked me so strangely if I was happy in my marriage.
Love makes us blind, it seems … but no longer, and now I began to scheme to send her safely away. I had no other course than to write begging my uncle that she might make a visit to him for the air of Lancashire did not agree with her and also, she was missing the company of her sweet cousins.
But I knew I must stay at Mossby and await events. My feelings of anguish over the possibility of my husband’s being injured or killed in battle had now turned to an earnest desire that he should perish, God forgive me – and him.
‘And he was, wasn’t he?’ I said, as Carey paused. ‘If all she had to confess was that she hoped he died, then that seems very natural to me!’
News came at length that there had been a great battle at Aughton Moor which had gone badly for the King’s side. I gave instructions that food and drink be given to any fleeing from the battlefield who might make their way hence, even though I heard rumours of bands of Parliamentarians in search of such fugitives. I was still firmly for the King’s cause … though that would not prevent me using my uncle’s high position with Cromwell to protect my household, if necessary.
I bethought me to show the way to open the hiding place in the Great Hall and the secret stairs in my bedchamber, to both Lydia and Dorcas, so they could succour or assist to escape any persons sheltered there, should I be indisposed. Lydia shuddered when I warned them to take care turning the carved boss to the right, not the left, or it would cause whoever stood on the topmost step to plunge to their deaths in the cellar below, but Dorcas was hardier.
There had been no word or sign from Phillip, but a gentleman of his acquaintance sent me word that he had seen my husband struck down during the battle at Aughton Moor, he thought mortally.
After a few more days, I dared to hope that it might be so …
‘Good,’ I said, as we reached the end of the first page and delicately turned the yellowed sheet over.
‘I feel there’s a bit more to come, somehow, Shrimp …’
‘Well, it can’t be any worse than what we’ve already read … can it?’
‘We’ll soon find out. And I can’t say I’m feeling exactly happy about having Revell blood running in my veins at this moment,’ he admitted. ‘But on we go.’
One evening, when I had retired to my bed early, feeling most unwell, I woke suddenly to find my husband standing over me in the act of shutting the secret cavity behind the bedhead, from which he had taken the bag of jewels. Beyond him, the panelling near the fireplace gaped open, showing how he had gained entrance.
He warned me not to cry out – and indeed, I was silent with horror to find him thus alive. He looked gaunt and wild, with one arm tucked into his coat and explained that he had been laid up in a hayloft, with a wounded shoulder and a raging fever, unable to get back before now. He feared there was a troop of Roundheads hard on his heels …
Then he sneered at my silence and ordered me to get up and fetch him some food and drink, telling me he would take the bag of jewels and had a passage arranged on a ship if he could get to Liverpool before dawn.
Just then, the sound of loud hammering at the door of the Great Hall silenced him.
Lydia came in hurriedly, saying, ‘Mother, there are men at the door demanding entrance though I have told them—’
At this moment she saw my husband and a look of horror appeared on her face. ‘I had hoped you were dead!’ she told him.
‘Ah, my loving daughter,’ he said with sarcasm.
There was a further clamour below and I heard Dorcas calling as she approached that the Parliamentarians were in the house and I must come at once.
Phillip was across the room and stepping back into the cavity by the fireplace, even as she entered. She stared at the unwelcome apparition, but he ignored her, solely addressing me.
‘You’ll have to close up the panel, Anne. I can’t manage it from this side with one hand. Then get down and get rid of them – and none of you need think of betraying me, or you will be sorry for it,’ he added.
He gave Lydia a leer. ‘You can come down and bring me food and clothes, when the coast is clear.’
I suppose he thought I was the only one with the secret of how to close the panelling, but as I reached up and pressed the top of the third section of linenfold carving, I heard hasty footsteps come up behind me and a hand reached over my shoulder and twisted the boss above it sharply to the left.
There was a dreadful cry – and then, as the panel shut … nothing.
I turned and looked at Dorcas, aghast, but then pulled myself together and told her to see to Lydia, who was now faint with horror, and make sure there was no trace that Phillip had ever been there, should the Parliamentarians search.
Then I put on a heavy robe and went downstairs …
Our eyes met in mutual horror.
‘Are you sure this is a real confession and not part of some Gothic novel, hidden away later?’ he asked.
‘It has to be real – look at it!’ I told him. ‘And anyway, think of the clues she left in the window. No, it’s genuine.’
It was daylight before the troop of soldiers rode away, finally convinced that I harboured no King’s men. I made great play of my uncle’s name and gave them to understand that I was of his political persuasion.
I do not know how I managed not to appear distraught before them. While I provided food and drink, the loud howls of the wind down the great chimney sounded to me like the cries of an injured man … though I knew my husband could not have survived such a fall.
All was quiet after they had left: the wind and the howling had long died away. Dorcas had given Lydia a draught and she slept in her old chamber, where I joined her, for the thought of mine made me shudder.
My husband was assumed to have died on the battlefield and his man of business proved a staunch support, giving me much wise advice until my son, Edmund, was of age. Our investments prospered beyond expectation.
I caused the door of the great bedchamber to be locked and never used again and soon the servants were declaring it was haunted and avoiding that part of the passage …
Perhaps it was.
I often shudder at the thought of what lies down there in the darkness at the heart of the house, but I do not feel it weigh too heavily on my conscience, except that I would wish I had earlier understood what ailed my poor daughter. I failed her in this.
But I expect she and I will long have been dust ere anyone reads this, and will not judge Lydia’s action too harshly: for terror made her turn the carving and consign Phillip to the depths.
It affected her mind, so that in time I acceded to her wishes and got her to a Protestant nunnery in the Lowlands, where she could do penance for her sins, though to my mind, when the truth is weighed in the balance, I believe God will judge her not to have been the sinner.
Signed this day, 14 June 1655
Lady Anne Revell
‘Well,’ I said to Carey, ‘I didn’t see that last bit coming. I thought it was the maidservant, Dorcas.’
‘Me too – but the poor child must have been terrifie
d and he deserved everything he got.’
‘Including the everlasting flames of hell – that’s how she portrayed him in the window,’ I said. ‘But whatever happened, he brought it on himself.’
I awoke to the sun streaming through the open window and the curtains stirring gently.
On the terrace below, I could hear voices raised in argument – my husband and his lover. I slipped out of bed and looked down on them: Rosslyn Browne sat on the stone balustrade while Ralph stood facing him. Their voices carried clearly and Ralph sounded as if he had been drinking heavily.
‘I tell you, she knows everything – what if she spreads the tale?’
‘She wouldn’t be believed if she did,’ his friend said with a short laugh. ‘In any case, I’m leaving, so it’s not my concern.’
‘Leaving? You mean … for good?’ Ralph took a hasty step forward. ‘No – you’ve threatened often enough, but you always come back.’
‘Not this time – and since you say Mossby will have to be sold to meet your debts, there won’t be anything to come back to,’ he said cruelly.
‘I can mortgage it, I’ll find a way …’ began Ralph desperately.
‘I hope you do – but believe me, it’s over between us.’
Ralph went very still. ‘You’ve found someone else, haven’t you?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes. It was good while it lasted but now you can play happy husband and father and forget I ever existed.’
He got up and flicked the end of his cigar over the edge of the terrace. ‘I’m off in the morning. Everything at the Lodge can be packed and sent on.’ He looked up at Mossby’s white façade but I am sure he didn’t see me watching him for he said, as if to himself, ‘Mossby is beautiful, but I want to be remembered for designing many houses, not just one.’
The House of Hopes and Dreams Page 37