Look after yourself, Jasper. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Your most sincere friend,
Martin Godfrey Gilbert
Almost feverish with curiosity, and hardly knowing what to look at next, I went back to the notebook.
Glebe House
7th April 1947
I must write, for I fear I am losing my remaining reason and what is left of my memory. I know what they are saying about me in Bishop’s House. Martin tells me, may God bless him, but it is difficult for him, I know, for he must remain the Bishop’s man. When I am alone, and it is late into the night, I sometimes wonder if they are right, because it seems like madness, but I have seen the children in the churchyard. They are trapped in a place that Hillyard called the half-world. I have seen him, too, keeping his eternal vigil, in recompense for what he did, always watching with his poor burned face.
Haldane Thorston has entrusted to my view the documents rescued from Old Glebe House by his forebear, who risked everything to save them from the conflagration. Piers Hillyard, it seems, attempted to destroy the beast with flame and expired in the attempt (if only I could say God rest his soul), but he could not have succeeded, for it cannot be vanquished with the elements of this world. It hung in the air, was buried in the earth, was burned with fire, and, as far as I can understand, avoids the water. I believe it is sustained by the energy in the lifeblood of the very young.
“And the Lord said unto Cain: And now art thou cursed from the earth… . And Cain said unto the Lord: Behold, thou hast driven me out from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth… .”
I must find out more… . God help us all.
JS
Then, on the next page:
23 November 25 Eliz. Indictment of Aphra Rushes of Shersted, Boxton, Bryers Guerdon and others, spinster, being a common enchantress and witch (communis incantatrix et magica), as well of men as of beasts and other things, and exercising art of witchcraft, sorcery, and enchantment, not having God before her eyes but led by diabolical instigation, of her malice aforethought, contrary to the Act of 5 Eliz., cunningly bewitched and enchanted John, son of Edmund Carey Guerdon, knight, at Guerdon Hall, Bryers Guerdon, aged 1 year, whereof he died 1 August 25 Eliz.; and that the said Aphra bewitched Ygurne, wife of the same Edmund Carey Guerdon, knt., at Guerdon Hall, Bryers Guerdon, on 1 August and thereby killed her, and that the said Aphra Rushes by her charms and enchantments and of her malice aforethought slew and murdered the said John Guerdon and Ygurne Guerdon.
A witch.
Denied.
Fails to confess.
Judgement that she be returned to prison and be pilloried four times for 6 hours and each time to confess her offence.
Indictments of felony taken anno 25 and certified to the next Assizes.
I turned over.
16 December 25 Eliz. Inquisition held in the Mote Hall at Lokswood taken before Robert Lord Myldmaye, Thomas Petrie, John Fawkes, Henry Cottingly, knts., William Chunce, Thomas Vernon, Edmund Purton, and Henry Coker, esqs., and others. The jurors say that the said Aphra Rushes of Shersted and Bryers Guerdon, spinster, there bewitched and killed the said John Guerdon, son of Edmund Carey Guerdon, knt., and Ygurne Guerdon, wife of the same.
Judgement according to the form of the Statute Incendetur ad Cindres (to be burned to ashes).
My hands had gone clammy and left marks on the fine paper.
Thereupon the Judge proceeded and pronounced the sentence of death against her, as worthily she had deserved. After she had received her judgement, she was conveyed from the bar back again to prison, where she had not stayed above two hours but the officers prepared themselves to conduct her to the place of execution, which is Bryers Guerdon. To which place they led her, and being come thither, on the day appointed, one master Fortyce, a learned divine, being desired by the justices, did exhort this wicked woman to repentance, and persuade her that she should show unto the people the truth of her wickedness, and to call upon God for mercy with a penitent heart, and to ask pardon at His hands for the same. But she would not so, and went to die deserving of the punishment of the law.
Suddenly I heard a noise — Auntie Ida’s footsteps on the stairs.
As quickly as I could, I gathered up the papers from the floor, tiptoed across to the bed, jumped in with the box, the notebook, and everything, and covered myself right up to my chin with the eiderdown. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes tight shut. The box was hard and cold against me, and a corner of the leather book dug into my neck.
Mimi turned over.
Auntie Ida stopped outside the door, listening. I was holding my breath so long I thought I’d die.
I hadn’t shut the curtains. Would she see the strip of light under the door and know I was awake?
The latch clicked. I swallowed. The papers rustled slightly. I didn’t dare, dare move.
The latch went back down again. There was quiet for a minute, then I heard Auntie’s feet moving away down the passage towards her own room. Her door opened with a creak, then banged shut. I came out from under the covers, and my breath rushed out.
I put the loose paper and letters back in the box and rested it on the eiderdown between Mimi and me, then sat up and propped the soft feather pillow behind my head.
I opened the notebook once more. The warm sunlight streamed across the bed. I pulled the eiderdown up around me. Mimi’s little toes touched my legs, but as I read, I began to feel a creeping chill in my bones.
Cora was banging on the back door. I was only up because Dad woke me before he went to work saying Mum wasn’t feeling too good, so could I take her a cup of tea in bed.
“Blimey, you’re early,” I said, peering round the door, trying to hide the cowboy pyjamas I’d got from Grandma.
“I’ve got to show you something! It’s really important!” Cora was breathless. She pushed her way in, dragging Mimi, looking bleary-eyed, behind her.
“Don’t slam it! Mum’s still in bed. Pamela’s had a fever and been sick all night. Mum’s whacked. I don’t think Terry’s all that well, either. Keep Mimi in here for a minute.”
I took Mum her tea, though I don’t think she noticed, then I went into my bedroom to find myself some clothes. Pete was still asleep.
My old shirt from yesterday was still on the floor, so I stuck it on again. Just as I shut the door, I heard a horrible retching noise coming from Terry and Dennis’s room. I waited for a few seconds, hoping Mum would come, but when she didn’t, I knew I’d have to go in.
Terry came lurching towards me and whooshed sick all over my shirt and trousers. Smartly I took a step backwards and the rest sprayed over the lino.
“Blinkin’ hell, Terry!” I yelled.
“I was trying to get to the toilet,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “I feel horrible, Roger. Ooh, there’s more coming… .”
And it did.
We didn’t know how to start off the washing machine, so filled up the bath with hot water and tipped in the whole packet of powder. Then we dumped the clothes in and swished them around with a wooden spoon from the kitchen.
Baby Pamela started crying, so Roger got her from his mum’s room. I could see Mrs. Jotman through the crack of the door, flaked out on the bed. Pamela smelled awful. Roger said I should change her nappy, but luckily Mrs. Jotman, her eyes bloodshot and her hair sticking out, came and took the baby.
We tried mopping Terry’s bedroom floor with a bottle of Dettol and made him stay in the bathroom in case he was sick again.
Dennis and Mimi went to play in the garden. Pete was still fast asleep. Mrs. Jotman wandered around rocking Pamela in her arms, trying to make up her mind whether or not to bother the doctor.
We couldn’t find much in the cupboard, so made ourselves some sugar sandwiches, then sat side by side in the crook of the big oak tree.
Cora took a small leather notebook and some old squashed let
ters out of her pocket.
“They’ve all come out of that box I told you about,” she said. “I found it. Auntie went out first thing, really early, and I sneaked in and got it.”
“Where’s the box now?”
“I hid it under the bed. I couldn’t bring all the stuff that’s in it, but this is the most important. I had to wear these trousers because they were the only things I had with a pocket big enough. Look at this.”
She opened the notebook and forced it under my nose.
“It’s rotten handwriting,” I said, reading.
She would not so, and went to die deserving of the punishment of the law.
“What’s all this about, then?” I said, when I’d finished all the letters and pages Cora wanted me to read for the time being. “It’s horrible.”
“And that Anne Swift in the letter is the girl in the photo from the paper in your mum’s scrapbook. And — and she’s the same little girl in the graveyard, the one with her arms out. On my mum’s side, they’re all Swifts, you know. Mum’s name was Swift before she married my dad. Her mum was Auntie Ida’s sister, Agnes Guerdon, and her dad was One-Eyed Jack Swift. Dad and Auntie Ida said something about Anne when he came. I overheard them. It’s all something to do with my family.”
I looked over the letters again.
“You see this — Coldwell Hospital,” I pointed out, “where it says Mr. Scaplehorn went — it’s an asylum, where people go when — when they’ve gone mad. It’s out in the country on the other side of Lokswood. In the Easter holidays when Mum was having Terry, Dad had to go over there to do some surveying. He took Pete and Dennis and me with him to keep us out from under Mum’s feet.
“We went through some huge gates in this great high wall with bits of broken glass stuck in the top. He left us in the car while he went in to do whatever he had to do. There were lots of little windows with bars across, and the walls went up and up. I saw a face look out, and they had a white nightie thing on, even though I think it was a man, and I was really scared till Dad got back.”
“Maybe Mr. Scaplehorn was going crazy then… . Look at this,” said Cora, thumbing through the leather notebook again and showing me a page.
Applications were made to the Bishops of Lokswood in 1753, 1812, and then in 1878, and again in 1902 to carry out the Rite of Exorcism at Guerdon Hall, Bryers Guerdon, each time by request of the Guerdon family. “What’s this word here?” She jabbed her finger at the word Exorcism. “Look, it says the names of the priests who did it — ‘Francis Payne, Inigo Ryecart, Percival Wormald’ —”
“Hang on a minute,” I said, getting up. “I’ll go and get my dictionary.”
The house still smelled revolting and was full of steam from the big pan bubbling away on the gas, full of boiling nappies. Mum was opening the windows. She said Terry had been sick again, so I might have to go down to Mrs. Aylott’s to get more Dettol. Pete was tying up his shoes, ready to pop down to fetch Dr. Meldrum from North End.
I found my dictionary under a cushion on the settee in the sitting room. It was open on the Bs. Pete must have been looking up bloomers or bosoms again.
I took the book outside and we found the word exorcism. Apparently it was a ritual carried out in a haunted place by a priest with a special licence from the bishop to make ghosts or evil spirits go away.
“But those exorcisms couldn’t have worked, could they,” I said, “or they wouldn’t have had to keep asking to do them all over again.”
“Then here, look,” said Cora. “The Guerdon family asked for some sort of ceremony — maybe the same thing, maybe an exorcism, but it doesn’t say — in the churchyard, and that was in 1910!”
“Crikey!” I said. “Mrs. Eastfield must have known about it. It would have been a big thing. She must have been about our age.”
“Well, we know that whatever they did, it didn’t make any difference because we’ve seen things in the churchyard ourselves. And look at this… .” Cora searched quickly through the notebook. “It’s the most biggest thing of all —”
Just then, a plump lady in a dark-blue uniform came round the side of the house. She spotted us in the tree.
“Hello there, Roger!” she cried. “Dr. Meldrum is tied up, so I’ve come instead. Ha, ha — when I say ‘tied up,’ I mean he’s busy, not that a robber’s got him. Ha, ha. There’s a lot of this about, this sickness. Is your mum inside?”
I jumped down. “Oh, yes. She’ll be really glad to see you, Nurse.”
She went up the veranda steps and knocked on the frame of the back door, which was standing wide open. “Hello!” she called. “It’s Nurse Smallbone, Mrs. Jotman!” before disappearing inside.
“Funny name for a big lady,” Cora said.
“She brought all of us into the world,” I told her. “It’s a shame, though — when Dennis was on the way, Nurse Smallbone was rushing up Fieldpath Road in her old Ford Prefect to get to Mum when our dog, Bonzo, shot out in the road right into her car — smack bang — dead as a doornail. He was a great dog, old Bonzo. I can’t tell you how many times I wish we still had him instead of Dennis.”
Mum came to the door and called to us, rubbing her forehead with her hand. “Can you go down to Mrs. Aylott’s and get some more Dettol and washing powder? Here’s the money.”
We were on our way back, and at the bottom of Fieldpath Road, when I pulled Cora’s arm and stopped her.
“Here,” I said, “can’t you let me see what you were going to show me before Nurse Smallbone came round? We might not get another chance.”
I noticed out of the corner of my eye some torn, grey net curtains twitching, and realized we were standing right by old Gussie’s broken front gate.
“Not right now,” Cora whispered. “Not here. Later.”
At home, Nurse Smallbone was trying to get Baby Pamela to take a bit of boiled water and sugar from a bottle. She said if she didn’t settle down in a couple of hours, she’d get her over to the cottage hospital in Daneflete.
Terry kept whining and hanging onto Mum’s skirt, miserable because nobody was taking much notice of him. Mum was getting irritated. If Nurse Smallbone hadn’t been there, I think Mum would have whacked him.
Cora and me got the dry washing down and pegged up the nappies. Dennis and Mimi ran off when we asked them to come and help with the folding. We took the big basket in, and Mum and the nurse were having a cup of tea, but Mum was only sipping at it. Even though Pamela was asleep at last and Nurse Smallbone thought she might be over the worst, Mum looked a bit weepy and didn’t seem to care that there was water all over the floor.
“Couldn’t your mother come and help?” Nurse Smallbone was saying.
“Oh, you know her,” Mum said quietly. “She can’t cope with too much. It’s her nerves. You wait and see — when we’re all feeling better, she’ll have the boys over for dinner, so she can tell her friends at the WI how much she did for me. It’s all right — honestly.”
“I’ll go and speak to her.”
“No, no. And she’s not been too good since Father died. I’m used to it. I’d rather not have the hassle.”
I managed to squeeze two more cups out of the teapot for Cora and me. We went back into the garden with them and found a nice quiet spot in the shade.
“Look,” said Cora. “Mr. Scaplehorn copied this into his book from some old scorched papers that this bloke, Haldane Thorston, had in his house. He says it took them days to work out what it all said — and where these dots are, the paper had burned through so there’s some bits missing.”
“Remember when we were in the church, I told you Haldane Thorston’s this old chap who lives over the Patches?” I said. “His three sons had their names on that memorial from the First World War. He comes up this end sometimes to Mrs. Aylott’s or Mrs. Wickerby’s. Pete and me see him now and then when we go and check on our camps down there.”
“Well, somebody in Haldane Thorston’s family, way, way back, was this servant who worked in the old rector
y,” said Cora, “and it looks like he took some papers out, saved them like, before the whole place went up in flames. Jasper Scaplehorn thought that that thing — you know, that beast thing — must have been in the house, and Piers Hillyard tried to kill it by fire but ended up burning the whole rectory down and himself as well. I think this stuff must have been in those papers.”
I drank down my tea, took the pages from Cora, and began to read.
PIERS HILLYARD
I tremble in my deepest heart when I think what I have done. I write this in my chamber, and it is late into the night. I fear my candle will soon burn out, and who knows now what lurks in the darkness beyond these walls? I write this in mortal dread of the thing I have unwittingly … [illegible section, scorched] … I must write, for I know that somehow my life is forfeit. I must pay the price of my folly.
I know my mind is leaving me, and while I still have some wits left me, by the grace of God, I must write. I must write… .
I know Cain Lankin had threatened the Guerdons with mischief and had confronted Sir Edmund on two occasions, so that when Sir Edmund was summoned to attend the Privy Council by Our Most Gracious Majesty Queene Elizabeth, and would therefore be absent from home for some time, he did exhort his household to beware him.
But there was no proof that Lankin was in Guerdon Hall on that lamentable night when Lady Ygurne and her child were killed, may God grant their poor souls rest and mercy. Surely I could not refuse to inter his body in consecrated ground on rumour and hearsay alone.
The witch, Aphra Rushes, never said he had been there, even when they lowered her into the pitch barrel, even when she was dragged forth, lifted up, and chained to the stake. Even when they held the torch to the wood, she never spoke. Miles Fortyce, having come hither with the condemned woman from the Assizes at Lokswood, did endeavour to persuade her to repent her wickedness, but she said nothing. She did not utter a single cry, even when the flames began to take the wood. There are those who said she smiled, and that they saw the black shadow of Lucifer embrace her in the fire, but I saw nothing, only the dark cloud of smoke from the burning pitch. Even the stake itself began to take the fire. I turned my head away and covered my face. The smoke came over me, and the stench of broiling flesh overwhelmed me. Only then, in her death agony, did Aphra Rushes let forth a scream that pierced the hearts of all who stood there, and a hush came upon the crowd. In that hoarse cry were words that rent the choking air. Aphra Rushes cursed all those that bore the name of Guerdon, in every age that was to come.
Long Lankin Page 19