Hunter's Green

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  A final curve of the path led me almost unwittingly into the clearing. The place had been allowed to return in part to forest growth, and a green carpeting covered the old stones, covered fallen mounds of brick, almost hiding them from sight. Only where the scorched and broken chapel walls remained had brush been cut away and grass planted to a smooth green floor. There between broken walls, rising serenely against the sky, stood the great arch of the window.

  It was so beautiful I could hardly bear it. I went out upon the green carpet and sat cross-legged on the grass, where I could stare up at the marvelous arch that had been raised here hundreds of years before by those who understood beauty.

  Every stone was intact, forming the great Gothic point at the apex, pointing into the sky, and falling away in eye-pleasing curves on either side. Beyond the window the forest had been cleared for some distance, and I could sit there on the grassy floor and look through to the expanse of blue English sky. I sat so quietly that the birds came close, to hop upon the walls and sing in the trees about me. Because I wanted to hear a nightingale, I was sure that one penetrating birdsong must really be that of a nightingale.

  As I watched and listened, a jet plane moved across the sky in a great arc, leaving its vapor trail behind, so that through the window the sky was streaked with the signature of my own time. It was not incongruous. Indeed, there seemed a continuity to life at that moment that the white trail in the sky intensified. Others had been here before me and left their heritage. Others would follow me, and if there was any force to my own small life, they might profit because I too had lived.

  I had never felt this before, even though, unlike many of my contemporaries, who seemed to scorn the past and lived only for the present, I had grown up with a sense of history. Now for the first time I sensed a continuity to being alive. Even my small flash in time was part of some pattern that would go on, no matter what new forms it took in the future. In those brief moments while I sat upon the grass in a place that had long ago burned down, I had an exultant feeling of life welling up in me, a feeling that for the first time I held its clear meaning in my hands.

  Of course so intense a vision had to fade, but as I sat there the threads of history began to weave themselves through my mind in colorful warp and woof. Here in this place, before this arched chapel window, John Edmond Athmore had fought for what he had built and believed in, and for the safety of his wife and children. Fought with a sword in his hands and been wounded to the death while the flames that devoured Athmore Hall leaped greedily about him.

  So vividly was I immersed in another time, with the very roar of those flames, the clash of ringing steel, the shouting which echoed through the woods sounding in my ears, that when a man in modern dress walked into my line of vision I felt no self-consciousness. I simply accepted him as part of the scene and spoke to him eagerly of what I saw.

  “That was where he fought his last battle—that first Athmore,” I said, rising on my knees to point toward the arch. “John Edmond slew Glanbury on that very spot, and then he picked Margaret up in his arms, and although he was mortally wounded, he vaulted through the window, where the glass had already been broken out by vandals’ swords. I know he carried her away into the woods to safety, but I wonder where he died, exactly? I wonder if they still keep his sword at Athmore?”

  The man who had walked in upon my vision answered me gravely. “I can show you where he died. I can even show you his sword.”

  “Oh, I’d love to see that!” I cried, aglow with excitement over this reliving of history. “But there’s one thing I’ve never understood. That stone window ledge is fairly high, and I suppose it was the same in Athmore’s day. So how did he manage—wounded as he was—to pick Margaret up and go vaulting through that opening as they say he did?”

  The tall man looked down at me and under his blue, intense stare I remembered that I was a stranger here and that I’d been informing someone who actually lived at Athmore of Athmore history. Still—his expression was not ominous, and his blue eyes appeared to be dancing. Before I could scramble to my feet, he swooped down upon me, scooped me up in arms that held me lightly as he swung me toward the window, lifted me through the opening and set me on my feet upon the grass beyond. Then he vaulted the sill and stood beside me.

  “I fancy that’s how it was done,” he said. “History may have embroidered a bit. I used to play the game here when I was a boy and I had it all figured out. Desperately wounded men have been known to perform heroic deeds, and he would have been bent on getting Margaret to safety. But she was whole of limb and unhurt, so I doubt that he’d have gone carrying her through the woods. More likely, she supported him a good part of the way. Fortunately the children had already been sent far off and they were spared the whole murderous affair. Come along and I’ll show you where John and Margaret went that day.”

  It seemed natural that I should go with him, that we should take each other for granted. The path beneath arching branches of beech and oak was still there, still kept clear in these times. It was some little distance that he led me through the woods to the edge of a small clearing.

  “There was a woodsman’s hut just here,” he said. “It was empty that day and Margaret brought her John into it. He died there in her arms. Glanbury’s men had run away at the death of their leader, and it was Athmore’s tardily arriving forces who found them there—Margaret rocking him in her arms, white-faced but very brave, with his blood upon her dress, and John Edmond dead of his terrible wound. There’s a picture of her at the house, painted when she was old—a grand lady with fire still burning in her eyes and the stamp of pain and courage about her mouth. That gown of hers has been preserved as well. She would not have it destroyed, and it is under glass, torn and stained with faded brown.”

  Somehow I managed to shake myself back to life, back to the present. “You know so much about all this—you must be the present Athmore,” I said. “Though of course I know that’s not your name.”

  “My name is North,” he said. “Justin North. Now tell me yours and tell me how you know so much about Athmore history.”

  “I’m Eve Milburn,” I said. “My grandmother’s name was Appleby and she was born in the village. She was Vicar Appleby’s daughter.”

  He smiled at me and held out his hand. “Welcome home, Eve Milburn,” he said.

  His clasp was warm as he held my hand, studying my face, as though something about me puzzled him. Perhaps he would have tried to put his puzzlement into words, except that we heard someone calling his name from the chapel ruins.

  “Oh, good Lord!” he cried in consternation. “That will be Maggie—my cousin, Mrs. Graham. She sent me to remind you that your bus would be leaving before long, and I forgot the bus completely. So now it’s gone and I am to blame.”

  I forgave him without question. “I forgot it too. And I’d much rather have had this happen to me, no matter where I stay tonight.”

  “Come,” he said, and took my hand. “We’ll go and break the news to Maggie and see what can be managed.”

  We went together through Athmore woods—or rather, he went ahead, his legs much longer than mine, pulling me behind as we ran.

  Maggie Graham was gracious and kind about having an uninvited guest thrust upon her. The fact that my grandmother was an Appleby and local weighed in my favor, but I’m sure Maggie would have taken me in no matter what.

  It was planned that I should stay overnight—but somehow my visit extended into the week. Justin was home on holiday and there was so much he had to show me. I had given him back his boyhood memories, he told me, so that when he showed me Athmore’s sword hanging in its honored place in the Hall of Armor, he could recapture his own young feeling about it. When he showed me Margaret’s blood-stained dress—glass-protected in the great library—he even opened the case so that I could touch that brown stain wonderingly, reverently. The cloth felt dry and old, but once a warm, loving woman had worn this gown, and warm, brave blood had spilled upon i
t. I took my hand away and there were tears in my eyes. Because of old suffering, and old loss, because life lasted for only a little while—and because I was young and had no one to love, or to be brave for.

  That was when Justin kissed me for the first time. The kiss was only meant to comfort me, I knew, but I had the first inkling of what might happen to me—with this dangerous mingling in me of love for Athmore history and more than liking for the man who was the Athmore of the present.

  We went on and he showed me drawings of how Athmore Hall had been rebuilt after its first fire. The second fire had been more prosaic and had done far more damage, so that afterward it was decided to build a completely new house—the present Athmore. But that marvelous chapel window in the woods would always be preserved. Some of the remaining walls had been shored up and were kept in repair. Such restoration could be authentic because the quarry was there from which the original stones were brought.

  Nevertheless, before the week was up I was ready to leave—ready to fly, to run, to escape. By that time I knew what was happening—for me, at least. There was an unreality about the entire experience that made me not myself. Perhaps I was a figment of both Justin’s imagination and my own at that time. For the moment I had no life outside of Athmore, and everything I saw and learned about the house and its history enchanted me—literally laid a spell of enchantment upon me. Only now and then did I surface and realize that I was falling foolishly, hopelessly in love with Justin North. It could not have happened any other way, granted my youth and particular susceptibility. He was “Athmore,” the hero of Gran’s stories, and of course I fancied myself as Margaret. Only now and then did I remember that I knew nothing about this modern man who escorted me on forays through history. My head was filled with romantic nonsense and the heady realization that he seemed to be paying attention to me as no other man ever had. Only toward the end of the week, when I began to feel more pain than pleasure, did I tell myself that I must leave. There was still such a thing as reality, and for all that this was an enchanting interlude, Justin North of Athmore was not going to marry a foolish American girl who was years younger than himself.

  I told Maggie I was leaving, and she approved, though gently and with understanding. I did not tell Justin. It was better to be gone first, and not disgrace myself by letting him know how I felt. It was my undoing that I must say goodby to the ruins of Athmore Hall, if not to its present master.

  Justin came home unexpectedly, saw my bag sitting in the Hall of Armor near the front door, queried Maggie, and was furious. Like his forebears he had a formidable temper and an impetuous, unruly nature that he usually kept well in check. He did not now. How dared I leave without letting him know? he demanded of Maggie. How dared she connive with me in this? She tried to talk to him sensibly, appalled by the direction he was taking, but he could be arrogance itself when the occasion called for it, and he came storming arrogantly out to the chapel where I was saying my sentimental farewells, with tears streaming down my cheeks.

  He was rough with me as I had never seen him. Indeed he frightened me half out of my wits. He shouted that even if I thought so little of him that I had to go sneaking away behind his back, he could at least drive me up to London, and see me aboard my plane for home! There was to be no arguing about that. He put me in his car with my bag and drove off furiously. Expert in cars that he was, Justin could never forget that a speeding car had killed his parents horribly, and he disliked driving. Yet he was a skilled, superbly controlled driver, and for all his smoldering rage, he managed to get us to London alive and unarrested. He deposited me alone in a hotel, and when he returned he had obtained a special license for our marriage. So it was in London, without my having very much to say about it, that we were rather angrily married three days later. The ceremony took place in a small church after Justin and I had indulged in so furious a quarrel that we should have been warned. I’m sure the vicar who married us must have shaken his head gravely, wondering at our ill-temper and apparent distaste for each other. I hadn’t even a ring, except for the signet Justin took off his own hand to put on my finger—telling me it served me right. If I hadn’t behaved in so idiotic a fashion I’d have worn the traditional Athmore ring, and I’d have had a wedding dress. Now I must wait for my ring, and there’d be no formal wedding for this Athmore bride. I marveled that so brilliant a man could be so thoroughly bereft of reason and calm judgment, but I was not exactly calm and reasonable myself. More than anything else, I think I was frightened. Yet there was no power in me to swim against the current that swept me along, even if I’d wanted to struggle against it.

  After that violent marriage, we walked out into rainy London and were quickly wet through. Yet, quite inconceivably and unreasonably, we walked together hand in hand down Piccadilly in the pouring rain and were beatifically happy—Justin’s rage gone, as though it had never been.

  Maggie must have been shocked by the news, but she sent what Justin needed from Athmore and he bought me new clothes in London’s best shops, and put the heavy, emerald-studded Athmore ring that Maggie sent upon my finger. That ring which I left behind me when I fled our marriage.

  I had never known such joy, such happiness. This euphoria lasted through our honeymoon in Greece until Grecian ruins reminded us too often of Athmore and Justin began to long for home. What was home to him was not home to me, as I quickly discovered.

  Having behaved recklessly by following our emotions without benefit of any reasonable doubt, the piper now waited to be paid. We began to look at each other more critically and found to our mutual dismay that Justin was not Athmore, and I was not the brave and loyal Margaret. We were simply two people who had let their passions run away with them and who did not know each other very well. What was worse, we did not very much like what we began to find out.

  The house itself—that magnificent Athmore which had seemed to accept me graciously as an American visitor—now would have none of me. Its history-ridden halls and echoing rooms were like those of a museum—and who could live in a museum? I was cold and lost and lonely. I could not live and breathe history—I wanted a life of my own. The man who had given me his all-absorbing attention at Olympia and Nauplia and Delphi, was now absorbed elsewhere—with cars, with machinery, with his work for the manufacturers who employed him in their plant this side of London. Often he was gone during the week, returning home only for the weekend—and I had no husband. When winter came and the days were coldly gray, I shivered through the daylight hours and was warm at night only when Justin’s arms were about me and love warmed us as we could not be warmed by day.

  Even then, perhaps I would eventually have grown up a little. Perhaps. Simply because I loved him utterly and blindly and without due process of reasoning. Perhaps I had begun at the wrong end, with love instead of understanding, but love was there. It existed for me. Far more for me than for Justin, as I quickly knew.

  But before there was time for growth and adjustment, I learned about Alicia. It was Marc who told me, Marc who pretended sympathy and pity and offered comfort for my wounded pride and empty loving.

  Now in my wide bed in the blue lady’s room, I turned and twisted and tried to turn off the memories that streamed through my mind. Not until the thought of Alicia, and the betrayal of my trust by Marc, rose in my mind, did I manage to put up a barrier that I was not yet ready to pass. There was a painful comfort for me in other memories. But in remembering Alicia and what Marc had done, there was no comfort at all. So I blocked out the problem of those two. To think of them was to destroy my ability to live from day to day in the present—which was all I had.

  Wind whispered eerily down the tower that occupied a corner of my room, and at length the sound furnished the soporific I needed. I fell at last into a sleep of physical and emotional exhaustion. Yet even then my dreams would not let me rest. At some time during the middle of the night I dreamed that Athmore Hall was burning—as it had burned out there in the woods some two hundred years ago. I co
uld hear the crackle of flames, the shouting voices—and I waited for swords to clash, for someone to come and lift me through the window.

  Instead, the sounds grew louder and wakened me. I opened my eyes and stared into a room that was no longer dark. The flare of moving light was reflected upon the blue canopy of my bed, the shadow and flicker of flames moved in replica across my ceiling.

  I rolled out into the cold room and ran to the window. The stable and garage areas were alive with the red of flames, and the shouting voices were real. It looked as though Justin’s workshop was on fire and men were there fighting to save it. Between the screen of beech trees I could see darting figures black against the flaring light, their shadows long upon the ground. The night air was cold and I slammed the window shut and belted on my blue woolly robe. I thrust my feet into furry slippers, pinned my hair back hurriedly with a comb, and went into the corridor. I knew only that where Justin was I had to be. If everything that had meaning for him was being threatened, I could not stay helplessly in my room. I had to go downstairs and learn whether there was something useful I could do.

  After the flickering in my room, the hall seemed dark, its lighted sconces dim as candles. But there was movement at the far end and I went quickly in that direction. As I neared the doors to the long gallery, where they opened midway, I saw that a child stood shivering in the chill of the far corridor.

  She was a flat-chested little thing, inappropriately dressed in a pink shorty gown, tied in bows over each shoulder, with romper panties showing below the hem. Her long legs and her arms and feet were bare and she stood with one foot atop the other, her arms close to her body as she hugged herself in the cold. Her fair hair was cut like a boy’s—indeed it looked so thatched that she must have taken shears to it herself—and she had the largest dark-brown eyes I had ever seen.

  She turned these upon me as I approached, and spoke between chattering teeth. “Th-th-there’s a fire! Something’s b-b-burning down out there! Do you suppose it will catch the house?”