by John Burke
‘Mother, when did I ever stop you doing anything?’
Without deigning to reply, Lady Brobury turned to Bronwen. ‘And how has your picture-making progressed, Mrs. Caspian?’
‘I hope the results will be satisfactory. Tomorrow morning ought to be enough for the remaining subjects, if the weather holds. Then we must be on our way.’
‘But you don’t have to leave immediately.’ Judith’s tone was imploring. ‘Surely you can stay on a few more days?’
‘We’d love you to stay, you know that,’ said David.
‘Please.’
‘Mrs. Caspian has already told us,’ said Lady Brobury, ‘of the important tasks waiting for her in…now, where was it?’
‘Caernarvon,’ said Bronwen.
‘Good gracious, so it was. Caernarvon.’ Lady Brobury enunciated the syllables with mounting disbelief.
* * * *
In the morning Bronwen announced her intention of going into the maze. David glanced quickly at his wife, and said as casually as possible:
‘You’d better show her the way in, my dear.’
‘David, you know I can’t—’
‘Perhaps when you have to act as guide you’ll find your imagination—’
‘It’s not imagination! There’s…something there. Something or somebody.’
He bent over her and kissed her and held her for a long moment. ‘Just see,’ he begged. ‘Just see if it makes any difference when Bronwen’s with you.’
David went off with his bailiff to spend some hours on the home farm. Bronwen took her camera and, with Judith at her side, set off across the lawn, round the rose-beds, and down the long slope to the grove. Caspian brought up the rear, carrying another box of plates.
Behind them, birds fussed in the eaves of the house, and there was an occasional chattering flurry of martins. From the grove ahead came no sound but that of the stream.
Bronwen went in under the trees and once more reached the end of the bridge. From the corner of her eye she saw that Judith was faltering. Bronwen put one hand on the flimsy rail of the bridge, which she could now see consisted of little more than two planks above the swiftly running water. Judith stayed a few feet back.
The outer hedge of the maze was clear and neat in a shaft of sunlight. Its full dimensions were masked by clustering ash trees and the broad body of one ancient oak, but between branches Bronwen could make out a jagged stone tooth jutting up from the centre.
‘That’s the cell?’ she asked over her shoulder.
Judith edged closer. Caspian’s tall, reassuring frame was dark against the distant black and white flicker of the house.
Bronwen stood to one side. ‘Are you going to show me the way?’
Judith mutely, pleadingly, shook her head.
‘It looks straightforward enough,’ said Bronwen. ‘From here to the outside of the maze, anyway.’
‘It…gets more difficult. Even to get near.’
Bronwen and Caspian stood quite still. Judith stared unhappily across the bridge into that corner of bright glade.
She took a step forward.
Bronwen and Caspian let their minds relax into a soothing swell of nothingness, so that they should neither urge nor alarm Judith. It took, incongruously, a great effort not to concentrate: simply to wait, and not watch, not prod, not reach out a helping hand or even the suspicion of a helping thought.
Judith reached the end of the bridge and tried to put her left foot on it.
Now Bronwen felt the strain. She did not turn to look at her husband, but in every mental and physical fibre she sensed that he too was thrumming with it. They let their minds waken slowly and concentrate slowly, warily on Judith.
The pressure built up. They were one with Judith, feeling as she did the firm thrust of two hands against her shoulders; against their shoulders. With her they struggled to walk forward—so easy, to take a few paces across that bridge and walk on into the glade and enjoy the teasing puzzles of the maze—and with her they fell back a step. And another. The hands that held them back, forced them back, were not rough or aggressive; but very sure and very powerful.
Judith whimpered, let herself sag against a tree, and it was over.
‘You see? I can’t do it. I can’t get near it.’
She did not know how close they had been to her, how deeply embedded in her they had been, but somehow she was sure they would understand and sympathize.
‘What makes you think you can go no farther?’ Caspian asked carefully.
‘There’s some force that won’t let me. You don’t know what it feels like.’ They did, but would not betray the fact. ‘It’s always the same now. There are other places I don’t like, and would sooner not go into—like the priest-hole in the house—but I can make myself do it. Not here.’ She looked round. The stream tinkled pleasantly enough, the leaves were bright and dark green and the world shimmered and yet was deliciously still. But Judith shuddered and said: ‘There’s something waiting. Always out of sight. Under that tree, perhaps, or deeper into the wood. Ready to step out if I persist in trying to reach the maze.’
‘Has anything, or anyone, ever stepped out? Anything you could actually see?’
‘No. But if it didn’t, it would still somehow be there. Waiting for me to stumble over it.’
‘Just after we arrived,’ Bronwen recalled, ‘you said something about it not having always been like this.’
‘When David first brought me to Ladygrove, I could go in and out of the maze whenever I felt like it.’
‘And found…?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. A fragment of old chapel wall, and the ruin of a cell built against it. Full of leaves and débris. And the maze was easy enough to penetrate, once you’d worked it out. But then it all went strange.’
‘When did that begin to happen?’
Judith closed her eyes briefly, not so much in an effort to remember as to shut out something that only she could see, and did not wish to see. ‘Soon after I knew I was going to have a baby.’
‘How soon after?’
She opened her eyes again. Horror, or the memory of it, stirred in their depths. ‘The very day after I…after it happened. Or I thought—I was sure—it had happened. I had a…a dream about the maze, and next day I went down there—down here—and couldn’t get in. And then, later’—she blushed a demure pink—‘I felt unwell in the mornings and got a dizzy feeling, and it grew even more impossible. David thinks it’s all part of my condition, of course. Like the walnuts.’
‘Walnuts?’
‘Didn’t I tell you’—Judith was cheering up, laughing at herself—‘I’ve a terrible craving for walnuts these last two months?’
Bronwen smiled a response but went on looking along the line of the bridge, pointing towards that mysterious yet innocuous-looking stretch of hedge only fifty or sixty yards away.
She said: ‘Well, I’ve no hunger for walnuts and I don’t feel in the least dizzy. I imagine I’m immune. So I’ll go and take a few pictures.’ She beckoned Caspian closer, and tugged the strap of the plate box on to her shoulder.
Judith was tense again. She watched as Bronwen set foot on the bridge.
No hand thrust Bronwen back. There was nothing to bar her way, nothing for her to stumble over. She felt the planks creak beneath her feet and walked on.
Halfway across, the plate box swung heavily against the rail. There a sharp crack. And beneath her feet there was a louder creaking, and then something like a muffled pistol shot. Her right foot slid forward and downward. She felt the world giving way under her. She flailed out wildly with her left hand, but still was toppling forward. A splinter of rail tore her wrist. Suddenly her knees were in water and when she let the camera crash down on to the stones her knees, too, were jarred down on to those hard, unyielding lumps. Above her Caspian was shouting. She glimpsed a broken plank swaying above her left shoulder. Then he had splashed into the water beside her and had an arm under her armpits, heaving her upright.<
br />
‘The camera—the plates!’
Roughly he bundled her up on to the shallow bank, and turned back to retrieve the camera and the box.
Judith was motionless, staring fatalistically down.
Bronwen blundered to her feet, squeezed some of the wetness from her skirt, and winced as her hand brushed across her knees.
‘At all events it can hardly be called a malevolent spirit if it saved you from that,’ she said ruefully to Judith. ‘Especially in your condition. A pity it didn’t take a similar interest in me!’
Caspian turned the camera over to reveal a wide crack down one side. When he shook it gently there was a faint clatter from the lens.
‘And that’s the only one I have with me,’ Bronwen lamented.
A faint breeze sighed down the slope, chill through the dampness of her clothes. The three of them headed for the house Judith staring fixedly at it as if afraid to take her eyes off their goal.
Lady Brobury stood waiting by the corner of the terrace.
‘Whatever has been going on?’
Caspian told her.
Her tongue clicked along the back of her teeth. ‘The footbridge? Really, how inconsiderate of you. It’s not meant to carry that sort of weight.’ But her eyes were sparkling with rheumy glee rather than anger as she studied the damaged camera and the plate box. No concern was expressed about Bronwen’s sodden, uncomfortable clothes. ‘So you didn’t get in after all.’
With stiff politeness Bronwen said: ‘We had been intending to call in briefly on our return journey and deliver finished prints. Perhaps at the same time I’ll be able to polish off the remaining subjects I can’t take today. I shall bring some of my father’s old equipment with me. And who knows?’ She smiled encouragement at the dejected Judith. ‘By then I may be able to do a portrait of the next Brobury.’
‘I may not be here. David has promised to take me back to London in good time.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Lady Brobury. ‘Of course you’ll be here.’
Caspian stood beside Bronwen, his hand on her arm, urging her to hurry towards the house and a change of clothing.
She held her ground for a moment. ‘I’d still like at least to see inside the maze before we leave. There must be some other way of reaching it.’
‘Forty or fifty yards outside the gates,’ said Judith dully, ‘you can take a path to the right and get to the grove that way.’
‘But I’d prefer you not to,’ said Lady Brobury.
Caspian’s tug was more insistent.
‘It is one of the few places,’ Lady Brobury went on’ ‘where I can still be sure of some privacy. I should prefer to keep it that way.’
‘I’m sorry. I had no intention of—’
‘Just one little place I can call my own.’
Bronwen let Caspian steer her away. As they plodded up the slope they heard Judith saying wryly: ‘It’s private enough, goodness knows. I couldn’t even cross the bridge today, let alone reach the entrance.’
Lady Brobury’s airy reply was almost lost on the breeze. ‘When you’re ready, you’ll find it easy enough.’
CHAPTER FIVE
The day after David had driven the Caspians to the station, he announced his intention of setting out early to learn all he could about the leases of his various tenants and the state of their accommodation. He would have to work hard for a couple of days to make up for time lost in entertaining their guests.
‘Time lost?’ Judith was incensed. ‘It was a joy to have them here. They made me feel almost civilized again.’
She had not meant it to sound hurtful, yet once it had been snapped out she was glad of the sound of it.
David said placatingly: ‘I was glad to see them. We wouldn’t have invited them otherwise. But the work of the estate has to go on.’
‘Work. All work and no play?’
‘Judith, my love, when has it ever been like that for me—for us?’
She remembered accompanying him on many of his architectural commissions, providing him with comments and asides, which he would often dismiss and then summon back, gratefully conceding that she had hit on some important point. At home in the evenings they would share views, and she was glad to have contributed something. She felt so close to him in everything. Now he was throwing himself into his new responsibilities with the same characteristic enthusiasm; and if she was to share this new preoccupation, she needed to see things at first hand.
‘Couldn’t I come with you this morning?’
‘My love, it won’t be just this morning. I intend to be out all day.’
‘I’ve been with you all day before now.’
‘It’s not quite the same, now.’
‘You don’t want to be bothered with me.’
‘Judith! You know how much I’d like to have you there to turn to. And that’s how it will be, later. But it wouldn’t be wise as things are, in the—’
‘In the condition I’m in!’ She mimicked her mother-in-law’s inflections.
David looked startled, then put his hand over hers. Her fist clenched, curled up in his grasp. He tried to squeeze it.
‘My dearest, you know full well you couldn’t face a whole energetic day out with me.’
‘So I must face a whole day alone.’ To her horror Judith heard another echo of Lady Brobury—the whine of self-pity and reproach in her voice.
‘Which will be good for you. You’ve been talking a lot and looking after Alex and Bronwen, and staying up late. I’d have thought a lazy day without a care in the world would be just the right cordial for you.’
‘One day you’re blaming me,’ she nagged, ‘for not having seen even half the estate, and next you’re—’
‘When have I ever blamed you?’
‘Only a few days ago, when Alex and Bronwen were here.’
‘I wasn’t blaming you. I was holding it out as something still in store. You’ll be asked to do your share as soon as you’re fit, never fear.’
He was so patient and reasonable that Judith wanted outrageously to hit out at him. The force of her discontent alarmed her. What malicious imp was goading her from the back of her mind? All she knew was that if he said, condescendingly, just once more, anything about her state and about understanding why she was so unsettled, making allowances which she didn’t want made, she would scream something dreadful at him. And enjoy it.
With an effort, staving off the danger of his saying any such thing, she opened her hand to his. ‘Oh, pay no heed to me. You’re right, of course you are.’
He kissed her, and she almost flew off at his patronizing manner: a kiss, and the sort of pat he might have bestowed on a pet animal, and the obvious relief in his eyes as he prepared to set out.
No, he didn’t want the burden of her company.
Disconsolate, she wandered out across the garden, veering sharply under the shade of the trees to avoid an encounter with Lady Brobury, who had come out of the lodge to contemplate the sky. Clouds hung on the ridge with a threat of rain; but no rain came, and the cloud did not move.
Automatically Judith made her way to the end of the shattered bridge. She was alone, very much alone.
No, that would never do. She mustn’t, wouldn’t let herself fall into lamentations like Lady Brobury’s.
If Bronwen could only have stayed a few days longer she might have been able to help. There was a mysterious strength in her, a tie between herself and Caspian stronger than the closest intimacy between any ordinary man and wife. Judith felt that if both of them could have walked beside her, adding their forces to hers, they might have overcome her irrational inability to walk into the maze.
Noticing that Lady Brobury had retreated indoors, she skirted the wood and reached the end of the drive. Pippin, who had been aimlessly sniffing below the terrace steps, pricked up his ears, twitched his tail, and came hopefully bounding after her.
The path into the woods, down the road from the gates, was somewhat overgrown, but the dog nosed its way in
and Judith was able to brush her way between nettles in his wake.
At least, for a hundred yards or so she made good progress. Then some distance from the glade and the maze, the pressure of a slowly rising wind caught her full face. It began to push her back. She lowered her head so that she could fight a way forward. Until, as she had known she would be, she was forced to a standstill.
The dog was looking back, wagging his tail, waiting for her to catch up.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it’s no use.’
The moment she turned away on to a narrower track leading at a tangent from the glade into the woods above the river, the resistance eased. Pippin, crashing through fern and ragged bushes, took a short cut that brought him out on the path ahead of her once more.
David had been right. She could not have faced a full, active day. Already she was breathless, and the child within seemed to have swollen and put on weight extravagantly in the past twenty minutes. Judith leaned against a tree. Pippin sauntered and lolloped around in a wavering circle, exploring the undergrowth.
Then his head jerked up. His muzzle pointed, his legs were braced. His faint, querulous whimper was ready at any second to become a growl.
Somewhere there was a rustle and a snapping of twigs.
Pippin growled.
Now Judith heard the heavier thudding of feet and a snuffling in the secrecy of the wood, coming closer and gaining in bestial power.
Pippin barked.
The face that nosed round a bend in the path was squashed, vacuous, and menacing. Like a monster gobbling its way out of a hedge. Judith tried not to cry out. Then there were more faces, shifting within one palpitating mass which might at any second divide into a score of demons ready to rise on two legs and come screaming at her.
A howl formed and grated in her throat. A chorus of squeals drowned it out. Hard square snouts and savage tusks shaped themselves out of shadow into the uncertain light.
Pippin’s barks grew frenzied, and he hurled himself into the middle of the oncoming mob.
Grunting and squeaking rose almost to a whistle. Pippin yelped. Surrounded, he snapped at an enraged hog and then was heaved aside. Judith forced herself forward, stumbling to his rescue, shouting and waving her arms.