The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga)

by Thorne, Nicola

  After being found in the copse near Penrith by a farmer on his way to milk his cows in a nearby field, Brent was taken to the town mortuary where he was left for dead. The surgeon found no pulse and no breath and he was put on an icy slab, the blood on his head already congealed into a sharp black rock-like substance. It was thought that he had been the victim of some jealous husband for he had been found naked, his fine clothes neatly folded nearby. From those it was deduced he was a gentleman who had seduced the wife of a farmer or some person of lowly station.

  It was Norbert the mortuary attendant who recognized Brent and probably saved him from death. He had once been a servant with the Delamain family, moving to Penrith on his marriage to the daughter of a shopkeeper. Even the blood and dirt could not disguise that noble brow, that fine aquiline face. Out of respect for his late master Norbert, covered his naked body with warm blankets and set out to seek someone who might know what Brent Delamain was doing in Penrith. It was but a short step to the hostelry where Tom was staying, already having alerted the town authorities about his brother’s disappearance.

  For the rest of his short life Tom Delamain thought that God had intervened to save his brother. The form had indeed seemed lifeless as Tom bent to inspect it and then knelt to say in Latin the prayers for the dead. As he gazed through his tears on the still waxen face of his brother he saw colour slowly steal into the white lips and, imperceptibly, a small pulse began to beat at his neck.

  Quickly the surgeon was called and Brent was removed to the tavern and placed in a warm bed and everything that could be done to bring him to life was done. But although Brent breathed and his pulse grew stronger he did not recover consciousness and remained in that state for nearly a week. In that time his cousins, John and Stewart Allonby rode over from Furness Grange and a coach was hired which, under their escort, went very slowly along the narrow road to Keswick. There the coach was abandoned and the rest of the journey was made across the lake by water to the landing stage at Catspaw.

  It was a sad arrival for Tom who had not seen his Allonby cousins for years. He felt closer to this other branch of the family than to the Delamains because their loyalty to the Stuart cause was legendary abroad, in those places where exiles waited and plotted. He had a fierce, proud love of the Allonbys and what they had endured, still endured, for the rightful king and the old faith.

  How different was the arrival on this cold day in September of the year 1744 from the one he had planned. True Brent was there, but unconscious and, some thought, unlikely to recover. There was a sadness about the house for days as those around prayed and waited for a sign of change.

  But Brent was a young, vigorous man and whether it was the result of all the prayers offered up for him or the skill of the doctors who were called from as far away as Preston and Carlisle to attend him, or his own robust constitution, none knew. But one day, as Tom sat beside his bed, saying his Office, he looked up and suddenly saw Brent’s blue eyes, a little faded because they had been shielded from the light for so long, gazing at him with the uncertainty and confusion of a new-born baby. They were unable to focus properly, and they scarcely seemed to recognize Tom. Brent found difficulty in talking and could not move his limbs and for the first few days it was hard to tell whether his recovery was to be desired or whether it were better he had died; whether he would be a normal human being, or a lifelong invalid.

  But gradually Brent started to recover; his eyes cleared and remained fixed when he looked upon a person. He started to form words that made sense and his limbs began to move. Then one day, as Mary Allonby was sitting by his bed reading, he looked at her with a clarity that was startling and smiled.

  After that his recovery was swift. There was no impairment to the brain or the limbs, as far as the doctors could tell. He would make a complete recovery; he would live to father children, if God wished it, and serve the King. And then, knowing all was well, Tom set out one morning and, accompanied by Stewart, made his way to Whitehaven where he took a ship for France. He could delay no more.

  Every morning Brent was a little better, but he loved to lie in his bed looking out on the lake watching the mist break and, if it was fine, the sun rise above the purple slopes of Skiddaw. He could feel the blood flowing strongly in his limbs and he would twitch each muscle to be sure it still worked. Then he would turn and look towards the door with anticipation, waiting for his cousin Mary to bring him his breakfast.

  Mary Allonby, fair-haired and oval faced, petite, very like his mother, her aunt, had become indispensable to Brent. Like a good angel she was to be observed sitting quietly by his side, reading to him, or keeping a companionable silence if he did not feel like it or wished to sleep. At first she had fed him, preparing his food herself, making it delicate and tempting for the invalid and spooning it gently through his cracked parted lips.

  She was the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing at night as she gave him the gentle smile he had come so much to love, kissed his brow and blew out the candle. He would watch her close the door, the soft light in the corridor outside gradually receding, leaving him in darkness and he would think of her moving quietly along the corridor, her braided hair gleaming in the glow of the candle she carried in her hand, the soft fabric of her dress swirling around her slim figure.

  Four weeks after he had been found and left for dead Brent Delamain gazed with anticipation at the door, waiting for it to open and Mary to come in with her tray. Today he would get up and dress and go for a walk; just a short one, as far as the lake. Usually he dressed for part of the day or sometimes he didn’t dress at all, but stayed in his nightshirt with a warm shawl about his shoulders, a rug over his knees as he sat by the window.

  But today he felt so well and vigorous. Why, he could run up Catbells and down again. He wanted to be well to go and join Tom in France, prepare the way for the conquest by the King. There was a tap at the door and Mary came in with the tray in her hand. Brent stretched his arms over his head in an expansive gesture.

  ‘Mary, I feel so well today. I could walk over Honister. I could ...’

  ‘Brent, Brent,’ Mary laughed, placing the tray with fresh rolls, Cumberland butter and hot coffee on a table by the bed. ‘Mr Lorrimer said only short distances first. He has been a good doctor, done you well and you must abide by what he says.’

  Brent shrugged and turned to butter his rolls. ‘Maybe you’re right. The Allonby common sense my mother always called it. We’ll go to the lake and throw stones. What say, Mary?’

  Mary smiled shyly, looking into his face, so thrilled he was recovered, and that she had helped in some small way to bring it about. Mary Allonby had always been half in love with her handsome cousin, who was four years her senior, but he had never seemed aware of her, in that way, behaving towards her like a brother, fond, chiding, but never at all loving. Mary, a gently nurtured country girl, was well aware of Brent’s reputation with women. That he ran after women in London and at Cambridge and they ran even faster after him. That the women with whom he associated were never nice, well brought up ladies like Mary, but the sort who frequented taverns or were to be found on the boards of theatres or, worse, who sold their favours for money or gain.

  Mary could never believe it of her handsome, fastidious cousin, that he could associate with women of this kind. Why, to his very finger-tips he was the epitome of an English gentleman with his proud, erect carriage, his lean aristocratic face, his easy manners, his soldierly bearing on a horse. But Mary had known some of the young women in whom his mother had tried in vain to interest her son – and they had all said the same thing with a woeful shaking of the head: Brent was not interested.

  Even the reason Brent was here in this sorry state was supposed to be due to a woman, though no one knew for sure. Tom had breathed the awful truth to John, and John had told Stewart and Stewart had whispered it to her – Brent had been found in a forest without his clothes on; not robbed, for his clothes and wallet were nearby. It all looke
d as though Brent was up to his old tricks again, but this time with more serious consequences. It had nearly killed him.

  Was this why she had detected a change in his attitude towards her? She was sure his glances were becoming loving rather than friendly, his touch amorous rather than brotherly. Had he realized at last that this sort of woman was no good for him, got him into trouble, nearly killed him? Mary didn’t know. All she did know was that the late September days were golden with happiness, and rich with promise. For her hope was that the cousin whom she had loved for so long was returning this love.

  Brent was aware he had met death, maybe lingered in its shadows. He seemed to have emerged from a long dark passage in which mists had swirled and fearsome odours prevailed. Thus to open his eyes on scenes of such natural beauty as Derwentwater in the autumn, and such feminine physical beauty as his gentle cousin Mary doing her needlepoint beside him, was enough to make him fall passionately in love with life all over again. Maybe for the first time really to value being alive.

  He had never really looked at Mary properly before, appreciated the grace of her long, white throat, the depths of her clear blue, almost violet eyes, the soft swell of her young virginal bosom. Her dull-gold hair was braided around her head and little wisps which had escaped the pins fell engagingly about her forehead. When she was near him her face was always transformed by a soft smile and when she looked at him it seemed to deepen into something very special.

  Gradually Brent came to be used to Mary beside him, quietly reading or sewing. They would look over the lake together and their eyes would meet and he would think it must always be thus; he and Mary Allonby were made for each other.

  But what of the future? Brent’s heart grew cold at the thought of the war that would ensue in his wake if Prince Charles should ever land in this country; of what it would do to his and Mary’s tranquil life together. But he knew it was his duty; honour before love, and as he grew stronger and the days shortened into October he knew he would soon have to sail to France and keep his promise to join Tom.

  Brent ate quickly as Mary moved about the room straightening the books, freshening the flowers with bunches of autumn leaves she had brought with her. She was happy just to be in the same room as Brent, to have him near her. Would it could be so always.

  Brent finished his breakfast with a clatter of cup on saucer, wiped his lips on the napkin and swung one leg out of bed. Mary looked quickly away because his nightshirt had ridden up and one long, brown, hairy leg had a great tuft of even darker hair at the top.

  ‘Mary, send up James to shave and dress me and we shall walk to the lake. I feel better than ever today! Come, get your shawl and wait for me in the hall.’

  ‘But Brent, I have a lot of mending to do. I promised myself that today ...’

  ‘Pah! Today you will leave the mending and the darning and walk with your cousin. We will not have many such fine days before the winter sets in.’

  It was true. Winter could come with awful suddenness in Lakeland, fine skies one moment became grey and heavy with snow the next. Besides, her eyes sparkled at the thought of a whole hour with Brent; maybe two.

  ‘All right. I’ll send up James with hot water and make my excuses to my brother as to why I cannot housekeep for him today.’

  Because of the burden of taxes and fines they had had to pay over the years the Allonbys were considered poor by some standards. They had relatively few servants, and John and Stewart put in a full day in the fields or supervising such small possessions as they had left and which could still be worked, mainly forest and pastureland. Mary was the housekeeper since her elder sister Sarah had married a prosperous merchant from Cockermouth and moved away from home.

  Not given to her were the amusements, diversions and follies of other well brought up young women of her class. From an early stage she had learned to make do with the solitary comforts of home and life at the Grange. Her mother had died years before and there had been a sick father to nurse, brothers to care for, servants to feed and a house to run. At the age when young ladies of the nobility and gentry were going to balls and parties or decking themselves with fine clothes, Mary was getting up at four in the morning, working all day and falling exhausted into bed at dusk. Although only eighteen she was already old in knowledge, and the harsh experience of a life where one didn’t hope but simply existed, knowing that the following day would not be much better than the one just over.

  But now her cousin Brent had come, and her life had been transformed just by nursing him and seeing the expression of fondness and gratitude with which he greeted her turn, she thought, into something more profound.

  ‘Aye, you’ll not housekeep today. Maybe bring some ham and bread and a bottle of ale and we’ll sup by the lakeside!’

  Mary fled down the stairs as Brent started to remove his nightshirt, apparently unaware of the unseemliness of it in her presence. He was so natural he was like a young animal, she thought, both liking and fearing what she’d seen. She had washed him as he lay almost naked many times when he was half conscious; but somehow there was something different about the sick body compared to the healthy one. As he’d stood there his nightshirt half on and half off, turned in profile away from her, the sight inspired in her an awareness of a sensation that hitherto she had known little about. This young male cousin was an awesome as well as a desirable creature.

  Brother John was passing through the hall as Mary flew excitedly down the broad staircase. Despite his cares he stopped and a gentle smile illumined his tired face at the sight of her animated features.

  ‘Where art thou off to, lass? Escaping from thy cousin?’

  ‘Oh no, John! He is feeling so well he wants me to go for a walk with him, take a picnic. May I John?’

  ‘Of course, lass. I can’t recall when you had a day off last, seeing to your household duties and nursing Brent as well. ‘Tis well deserved. Fetch some pie and ale from the kitchen and make a day of it.’

  ‘Oh, John, may I? That’s just what Brent suggested.’

  ‘Did he? Good. But take care he does not go too far; he is not well yet.’

  ‘Of course I won’t, I’ll see he doesn’t tire himself.’

  Mary threw her brother a smile and was about to dash into the kitchen when John gently clasped her arm and gazed at her gravely.

  ‘Take care, Mary. Don’t let him play with your emotions. You know that Brent ...’

  ‘Oh, I know, John! Of course I won’t!’

  ‘But I see you looking a lot at him lately, in that fashion, and him, too ...’

  So John had seen it. Then it was true. Her cheeks flamed, and she put her hands to them, both to attempt to disguise the colour from her brother and to cool them.

  ‘Much as I love Brent, when it comes to women,’ John said gravely, ‘he is a philanderer. You know how he was found ...’ Mary’s eyes grew solemn.

  ‘But would he philander with me, John? I am not the sort of woman ...’

  ‘You are a very pretty girl, Mary. Alas, because of our solitary life there are not enough about to tell you so, but any man would be inflamed by you if he was in his right mind. Imagine the effect on someone who had become enfeebled by illness. But when Brent is recovered, and ‘twill be soon, he will be off to France, Mary. Do not let him trifle with you here.’

  ‘Be sure he will not, John. He is not like that, really.’

  ‘Take care, my little sister.’

  Impulsively, John Allonby, a man older than his thirty years, whom misfortune and worry and the loss of a beloved wife in childbirth had prematurely aged, bent towards his baby sister and kissed her softly on the cheek.

  The woods that surrounded the house on Catspaw stretched along the length of the lake towards Keswick. At times they thickened, and at times there was a clearing either in the midst of the wood or by the side of the lake. It was this fine timber that helped keep the Allonbys out of the debtor’s prison, and it was Stewart who was the expert woodsman, who knew when to cu
t and when to plant and when to trim back.

  The larks sang that fine October forenoon as Brent walking slowly and still with a slight limp because his left leg had not quite recovered its full use, and Mary a little ahead of him, paused and looked about for a green sward on which to sit and eat their picnic. Brent pointed to a place where the trees fell back from the lakeside and a grassy stretch reached down into the water protected from view of anyone, other than a boat on the lake, by a hillock. Mary, the hood of her cloak falling backwards from her head, had been gathering fir cones for the fires that needed to burn so brightly in the large cold house in wintertime, and on her arm she had a large basket, half full. Brent had carried the warm bread and large ham pie in another basket and when they stopped he took out the flagon of ale and put it in the water to cool.

  It was quite warm so he removed his greatcoat and laid it on the grass for them to sit upon. Underneath he wore the jacket and breeches of good broadcloth that had been found by him on the night of his attack, and a fine linen shirt, that Mary had freshly laundered for him with her own hands, open at the neck.

  Mary’s cloak slid to her feet and Brent took that and placed it alongside his, aware as he did of her neat ankle just visible beneath a dress of locally woven cloth that was of a becoming blue, particularly complementary to Mary’s colouring. Brent’s heart beat a little faster at the sight of the ankle, and his mind was a confusion of thoughts and desires and of women remembered long ago.

  What puzzled Brent was that he could remember none more recently than Joan Shuttleton, a whore he’d taken up with during his last days in Cambridge. He’d met her in London and taken her with him to live openly as his mistress, which was one of the reasons that his brother had summoned him home even before it was clear that grandfather’s last seizure would kill him.