Ladygrove

by John Burke

  She was within a few feet of the herd when the hand was against her chest again. She tried to beat away an invisible arm and wrist, but was thrust inexorably off the path and against a tree.

  There was another shout. The swineherd, driving a few stragglers round the corner, hurried into the battle. His stick rose and fell against the haunches of a huge sow. There was another chorus of squeals as he stormed his way through. One brawny arm plunged, he caught Pippin by the collar, and then was belabouring the dog with his stick.

  ‘Stop it!’ Judith tried more desperately to break the spell; but was still held off.

  There was a final thwack of the stick. Then the swineherd literally tossed the dog clear by the scruff of its neck.

  ‘Get that thing out of here.’

  ‘How dare you? Beating the creature just because it—’

  ‘Because it was let loose on her animals, that’s why.’

  ‘You have no right—’

  ‘Haven’t been told I’ve got no right, not by Lady Brobury.’

  ‘I am Lady Brobury.’

  The sunken eyes gleamed with insolent malice. ‘Ah. Well, I suppose y’are as well, ma’am. Your ladyship. But you’d still best keep that dog out of mischief, else her other ladyship won’t be best pleased.’

  Pippin cowered at Judith’s feet. The swine surged past, with one tusker looking as if he might stray and risk another charge. Judith tensed. By her ankle she felt the dog trembling. But the herd went by as if guided along an invisible wall, thumping past only a few inches away.

  Evan Morris, resuming his place at the rear and urging them on, slowed as he drew level with her.

  ‘No need to be afraid of ’em, your ladyship. They ain’t ready yet.’

  ‘Not ready—for what?’

  He quickened the pace, flicked his stick along some wobbling rumps, and drove the herd off down the shaded woodland path.

  She wanted to pursue him, wanted to demand an explanation. But Pippin was whimpering, and when she put her hand on his collar he strained towards the way they had come, towards the gates and the house and safety. Within the gates, Judith turned to approach the lodge. The wicket gate was shut, but at the end of the short paved path the front door under its little porch was open. A pair of secateurs and a jug half filled with cuttings lay on the path near the patch of herb garden. Judith reached for the latch and went in.

  Other cuttings and a number of twigs were laid out on the wide windowsill to the left of the door. Judith glanced at them; and was conscious of something trying gently to turn her away, not so much pushing this time as tapping her shoulder in an attempt to distract her.

  ‘No—please, no more.’ She said it aloud, and the sound brought Lady Brobury to the door.

  ‘Judith, have you started talking to yourself? A very bad sign. Do come in and have some sherry wine and a biscuit, and talk to me.’

  ‘No, really, I—’

  ‘We’ve got to look after you. Now come along in.’

  Judith took a step forward. Was it her own reluctance to share half an hour with her mother-in-law, which prompted the warning voice in her head, telling her to turn back?

  ‘You’re not having another of your silly turns, are you? said Lady Brobury. ‘Oh, do come in and stop fussing, there’s a good girl.’

  Pippin, edging in through the gate, was attracted by the glimmer of a dragonfly across his vision. He sprang like a puppy, made a wild snap in mid-air, and finished up against the wall, narrowly missing the window and flailing out with one leg. Twigs on the sill were sent flying in all directions.

  ‘That insufferable dog! I shall insist on David doing something about it. Since Mortimer’s death it has been…oh, it’s quite unmanageable.’

  Judith found that without hindrance she had followed Lady Brobury into the cottage. Something had silenced the warning voice. Pippin slouched in behind her and curled up before the hearth, keeping one mournful eye on the older woman in readiness for a hurried departure if it should prove advisable.

  Looking at his wary head, Judith considered mentioning the incident with the swineherd and his charges. But Lady Brobury was fussing over the draught from one window and trying to persuade her to move across the room. ‘Now you know what I have to put up with. Something will have to be done about it, I keep asking David, and still I’m left sitting here in that draught. It’s no wonder my neck gives me so much trouble.’ Judith was too tired to make a fuss. She would speak first to David, and see what he made of it.

  Sitting here in the lodge made her, if anything, more stiff and uncomfortable. All at once she longed for the solitary comfort of her own drawing room. After the glass of sherry and two sweet biscuits, she made her excuses and went back to the house. She would do all the right things, all the things her husband and his mother were repeatedly telling her to do: putting her feet up on the chaise longue, pushing a bolster into the small of her back, making sure the doors were closed against draughts and the long curtains drawn just far enough across the windows to shield her from that direction, too. Then she would try to read. There was a new volume of stories by Henry James which she had been promising herself she would settle to, now she had so much enforced time on her hands. But she found it hard to concentrate. For the tenth time she reached for some creased, out-of-date copies of the Illustrated London News and leafed idly through them.

  A flicker of movement above the page caught her attention. Facing the window, she glimpsed the swineherd heading for the lodge with a menacing, purposeful step.

  Judith had lunch sent in on a tray. She decided to have a nap immediately afterwards; but was somehow not in any way surprised when Lady Brobury arrived, quivering with indignation.

  ‘That dog! What’s all this I hear about that dog savaging my animals?’

  ‘It was very much the opposite. Those dreadful creatures tried to tear Pippin apart.’

  ‘Because he attacked them.’

  ‘He was…trying to protect me.’

  ‘Protect you? Heavens above, protect you from what?’

  ‘We didn’t expect a herd of pigs to come rampaging round a corner like that. I was frightened.’

  ‘Of pigs? Whatever next?’

  ‘And your swineherd,’ blazed Judith, ‘was no help. He was insolent, he made no attempt to intervene, I could have been…could have been gored to death, for all he cared.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Judith knew she had exaggerated slightly, but she was in no mood to be told off like a naughty child. ‘You’d take that insolent oaf’s word rather than mine?’

  The lines in the corners of Lady Brobury’s mouth tightened. Then she gulped, and with an odd meekness, which was almost an apology said: ‘I trust him. I have to.’

  ‘Mother, you mustn’t let him have too free a hand.’

  But now it was Lady Brobury who wanted to be done with the conversation. Hurriedly she changed the subject. ‘When do you get David back? Perhaps you could both come and have a glass of wine with me before your dinner, both of you.’ Which meant that Judith had to say how much more sensible it would be if the three of them dined together—an invitation demurringly, then offhandedly, accepted.

  When David did come home, Judith said without preamble: ‘I must get away from here. I can’t endure much more.’

  ‘My dear, there are weeks to go yet.’

  ‘I want to be in London, where I’ll feel safe.’

  ‘Safe? We know the baby can’t be due before—’

  ‘It might come early. I don’t want to be stuck here at the mercy of the local horse doctor.’

  ‘You’re being a bit unreasonable, my love.’

  ‘Your own father forbade me to bear the child at Ladygrove.’

  ‘Father had some strange notions. We agreed—’

  ‘We agreed,’ said Judith, ‘that you would take me to London in good time and occupy yourself with rounding off business interests there. You promised.’

  ‘But it’s too soon. I have a lot of t
hings to tidy up here before I can spare the time to go to London.’

  ‘Then I shall go on my own, and you can join me when it suits you.’

  ‘Judith—what has happened to upset you?’

  ‘Your mother is coming to dinner,’ she said frostily. ‘Among the things which need tidying is yourself.’

  The moment the door closed behind him she felt a twinge of panic If this bickering became a habit—and in her present state of mind that would be all too easy—he might protract those rides of his across the estate, disappearing on unknown errands as his father had done and seeking other pleasures.

  All the more reason why she should flee to London to recover and be refreshed.

  At dinner Lady Brobury was unexpectedly quiet for the first fifteen minutes. Then, equally unexpectedly, she came out with: ‘Judith, I’ve been worrying about these unpleasant sensations you’ve been troubled with.’

  ‘Let’s not encourage talk on that subject.’ David risked a smile at Judith to show he meant it jokingly.

  ‘I’ve been most inconsiderate, brushing it aside.’ His mother twisted a corner of her napkin into the beginnings of a knot and then let it unravel. ‘One tends to forget one’s own troubles as one grows older, you know. I’ve never been one to dwell on my own aches and pains.’

  ‘No, mother.’

  ‘But before I had you,’ said Lady Brobury, ‘I suffered much the same discomfort. I felt I was being pushed out, pushed about—kept out.’

  ‘Out of where?’

  ‘Wherever I wanted to go. Judith’s quite right. There’s something in this house, something that’s belonged to the place for too long. We must face it. If only,’ she said plaintively, ‘I had been given the chance of facing it then, instead of being dragged away, just as David wants to drag you away, my dear—’

  ‘No,’ said Judith. ‘I’m the one who wants to go. Just to go and have the baby, and then come back.’

  ‘It’ll never be settled that way. Never be ended.’

  David silently consulted Judith, who found herself unable to respond. He bent towards his mother. ‘How can it be settled, then?’

  ‘We’ll exorcize it, whatever it is.’

  David sat back, appalled.

  At last he said: ‘I’ve never heard anything like it.’

  Judith’s mind was in confusion. The mere idea of exorcism was so strange—so much a part of a forgotten and discarded past—that she could not see any present-day meaning in it. Yet she wanted to know. If such things had worked once, long ago, might they not still work? If there was something tangible and evil still haunting Ladygrove Manor, such an ancient curse might most readily be cured by an ancient antidote.

  ‘It can do no harm to try,’ said Lady Brobury.

  ‘It could do a great deal of harm.’

  Judith said: ‘If there’s something here that can be dismissed, it would be a relief to have it dismissed. And if there’s nothing, then no harm will be done.’

  ‘Get rid of it,’ said Lady Brobury. ‘Mr. Goswell will know what to do. The house can be cleansed once and for all.’

  ‘You two sound as if you were calling in a sweep to clear the chimney of soot.’

  Judith was disturbed by her eagerness to be allied with Lady Brobury. Allies, against David? But eagerly she said: ‘All right, let’s think of it like that. Just like that.’

  David did not smile. ‘If there’s a ghost here, and if it has been here as long as the stories make out, why was it not exorcized before? Because there’s no such ghost—or because the ritual didn’t work?’

  ‘Conditions could have been unsuitable,’ said Lady Brobury. ‘Or the procedure could have been mismanaged. All I know is that we are going to do something about it. In the morning,’ she said peremptorily, ‘you can drive me into the village and we’ll consult Mr. Goswell.’

  ‘No,’ said David.

  The two women stared.

  ‘I will not take you to consult Goswell,’ he said. ‘And as master of this house I forbid you to meddle with exorcism or any other such foolishness.’

  ‘David, you sound so pompous.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have no part in this. And nor will you. Is that understood?’

  The rest of the meal passed in silence, until Lady Brobury coughed over her glass of hock and said it was unfair to set her on edge like this, speaking in that way so that it went straight to her stomach and now she wouldn’t sleep a wink all night.

  Judith slept very few winks. Estranged from David, not touching him, she stared up into the darkness. A few words uttered in different corners of the house and perhaps along the rim of the maze: what could be wrong in them? If they proved strong, strong enough to wipe out the incubus which this house had, as Lady Brobury said, suffered too long.…

  In the morning the post brought a letter for David.

  ‘From Margaret! She’s in Hereford, arranging a school for the children. We must invite her over.’

  ‘That will be nice,’ said Judith coolly.

  Lady Brobury, when acquainted with the news, said: ‘Oh, she’ll come in her own good time. She was never one to put herself out for others. She did not even trouble to attend her own father’s funeral.’

  ‘Mother, by the time she had received the news, and set out from Penang—’

  ‘Her only interest now will be in what’s coming to her through the will.’

  ‘I want to see her about that,’ said David. ‘Let’s get all the loose ends tidied up.’

  If he talks about tidying anything else up, thought Judith, I shall burst into tears.

  ‘So,’ he went on, ‘I’ll drive into Hereford, take her to old Fosdyke’s office, and go through the papers with her. I’ll stay the night and see if I can bring her back here for a few days. It’ll depend on whether she’s got the children settled, of course.’ He turned to Judith with a loving plea in his face. ‘She’ll be company for you. Take your mind off things.’

  Judith did not trouble to argue.

  Next morning she stood in the doorway watching him until the trap had bounced over the bridge. The moment it had turned and disappeared into the village street, Lady Brobury was hurrying from the lodge up the drive.

  ‘We’ll do it while he’s out of the way,’ she said with conspiratorial glee.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Fetch Mr. Goswell, of course. This afternoon or this evening, whichever he decides is most propitious.’

  ‘You mean we’re to go behind David’s back?’

  ‘It’ll all be over in no time. As straightforward as sweeping a chimney: he said so himself.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.…’

  ‘Do you want that pest out of this house or don’t you? You’re going to live here the rest of your life, remember.’

  ‘Why didn’t you try to drive it out when you were living here?’

  Lady Brobury looked vaguely about, then tilted her head in the direction of the distant church. ‘Can you imagine that old fool Haines…? No, of course you never met him. But conditions weren’t right in any case, and now they’re right. I’m sure everything’s ready.’

  ‘Ready? What makes you—’

  ‘We are going to do our best,’ said Lady Brobury. ‘Will you accompany me in the carriage, or must I visit Mr. Goswell on my own?’

  Doubtful and filled with a sense of disloyalty, Judith went with her.

  The Reverend Frederick Goswell was speechless for a full minute after Lady Brobury had completed her airy request. Then he said: ‘You seriously mean you wish me to.…’ He stopped, dodging away from a concept so disturbing. When he tried again, he faltered again: ‘I have studied the rite, naturally, but I hardly thought…doubt very much whether.…’ Finally he found a solution to absolve him: ‘I am quite forbidden to carry it out without permission from my bishop.’

  ‘That low churchman?’ snorted Lady Brobury. ‘He’d be most unlikely to grant it.’

  ‘Then I must not proceed.’

  Lady Brobury
drew herself up superbly. ‘Surely you do not need reminding, Mr. Goswell, that your benefice is administered by the Broburys? Your church is a Peculiar, coming under our jurisdiction and not that of the bishop.’

  ‘That is true, but.…’ Goswell sighed, floundered, and clutched his lapels as if about to deliver a sermon. But already there was a speculative gleam in his eye. He was longing to experiment—to dabble, thought Judith. Again she felt a twinge of conscience, and wished David would return to make a decision and make them all abide by it.

  ‘This evening, then?’ Lady Brobury was saying.

  ‘I shall require time to meditate, and prepare myself.’

  ‘This evening, then.’

  * * * *

  Judith found that she was shielding herself from guilt by deliberately picking on those aspects of Mr. Goswell’s appearance and behaviour which could be construed as dramatic rather than devout. His gestures grew lavish and more histrionic. Having thought himself into the part he must play, he was bent on playing it to the full. She remembered an evening with the Caspians a year ago, when Alexander had on the spur of the moment slid into his role of Count Caspar, his movements becoming instinctively more expansive while he smoothly perplexed his audience and made them laugh and gasp at his sleight of hand. Goswell tonight was playing the magician, too. She tried to make a joke of it to herself when he insisted on having the lamps dimmed and swung a lantern, like a slowly swinging censer, in the centre of the hall. But to him it was no performance. He was in deadly earnest.

  So was Lady Brobury. She stood well away from the vicar but watched his eyes move. When he went through a door murmuring to himself she followed, maintaining a regular distance between them, Her face was rapt. She mouthed secret little words as her own contribution to the ritual.

  After a preliminary tour of inspection and appraisal, the Reverend Frederick Goswell returned to set himself solemnly in the centre of the hall. He raised his eyes and spoke in a clear, ringing voice. He was addressing not the two women but some vision floating in far space.

  ‘We are here to cast out the diseased spirit of this house. Not to wrest demons from any person herein, but only to rid this place of its unhappiness.’ He lowered his gaze commandingly. ‘Let us pray.’