The Memory Palace
Page 44
‘Why?’ Zeal demanded, when Rachel once again asked her to cover her eyes. ‘Where are you taking us?’
She felt John’s hand find hers again. Their fingers locked.
‘But we’re going together,’ his voice said. ‘So, you shouldn’t care.’
The laughter in his voice made her suddenly suspicious. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’
‘No more than I ever have.’
They had agreed in The Last Resort that, with a lifetime for talking, there was no hurry to answer every question at once. It was enough to know that they both understood the costs of surviving darkness. Then she had shown him the triple portrait and they had wept together for their son. He told her about Tesora’s birth while on the run from the plantation, and her mother’s death soon afterwards. Later Zeal took him to see their child’s tomb next to that of John’s uncle. He had slept that night in his place beside her in her new bed. They decided that whether they stayed at Hawkridge or went to the Indies could be resolved at leisure, or at as much leisure as the progress of the war allowed.
‘But I won’t leave you again,’ he told her. ‘Not for king nor Parliament.’
Now, three days later, they seemed to walk a very long way after leaving the bridge. When they had turned and Zeal felt soft grass under her feet, she warned Rachel, ‘No more wishes! I don’t have any left to make.’
Gifford’s apology, followed by what many people felt was a severe Divine rebuke, had turned public opinion dramatically back in her favour. She had even had half a dozen shame-faced apologies (though not from Jake Grindley). When they became known, Wentworth’s attempts on both her life and John’s had further confirmed the rightness of her cause. Meanwhile, the unexpected return of John Nightingale, well liked and much missed, had released a widespread impulse to celebrate.
‘I expect we could think of something to wish for,’ said John. ‘Peace, perhaps. But I agree with you in the broader sense.’ He pulled her close enough to put his arm around her waist.
She realized that John, not Rachel was now leading her. ‘Can you see when I can’t?’ she demanded. She did not hear his answer because she was noticing the familiar warmth of his arm and her own sense of absolute ease.
Then she smelled water and rotting weed. And duck nests. She heard the splattering run of a duck landing on the water.
‘Please sit now, madam,’ said Rachel, guiding her into a chair.
When she removed the scarf, she saw that she sat beside John at the top of the highest fishpond, where Nereus had once pointed out to his dolphin the piglet-sized grazing carp. The muddy spots where the nymphs had once stood had long grown over with grass. She still found their absence odd, as if someone had unexpectedly left the room when you thought to find them there.
Six ducks swam up to the bank beyond their feet and quacked for food. Nothing else seemed to be happening except the slow descent of dusk.
John leaned to her. ‘Philip,’ he said quietly.
She stiffened.
‘There’s something you should know.’
‘I’m not sure I’m ready yet to learn anything more. I thought we had agreed…’
‘No, listen!’ He shook his head and took her hand again. ‘He made it possible for me to return. Whatever else he did, he helped to bring about this night.’ He looked at her startled face in the dimming light. ‘Truly. I once wrote to him…I will tell you more later, about why I did it. But, in short, he wrote back telling me where to find a hidden cache he had left behind on St Kitt’s. And giving me names I needed to make my way back to England. You should know he did that.’
After a moment, he gave her his handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then he whispered, ‘I think you should look now.’
Pale shapes glimmered among the trees and bushes, each carrying the hot tiny flower of a lighted candle. They approached slowly, as silently as ghosts. Zeal could see now that they were robed in the ancient fashion. Fifteen figures slowly walking closer, from every side. Upstream from the river, from the left over the river berm, from the right down the slope from the old basse-court. They arrived on their spots almost exactly together with her understanding. The fifteen nymphs once again surrounded the ponds. They raised their candles in greeting. As they did, the notes of a fiddle broke the silence, from somewhere among the trees.
The hair stood up on Zeal’s arms. She pressed her hand to her mouth. The fiddle continued to sing alone, a haunting, incautiously pagan tune.
‘It can’t be!’ she gasped. ‘Dear God! It can’t be!’
John squeezed her other hand. ‘Nothing is as it seems.’ He leaned so close that she felt his breath warm in her hair. ‘But sometimes you must make a leap of faith.’
During the music, the nymphs made a slow deep, dreamlike reverence and, just as slowly, straightened again. They turned and danced gravely in a procession around the banks of the ponds until each had taken another’s place. Then they danced on again.
‘Who is that playing?’ whispered Zeal.
‘Who do you know it to be?’
‘Has he been hiding at High House?’
‘Singing to Sir Richard. And at Gifford’s sickbed. But I’ll let him tell you about that.’
Four of the nymphs danced up the slope towards the basse-court. Zeal braced herself for their departure and the end of this wonder. Then she saw that they went to meet two other figures, one large and one very small. All six returned to the ponds. As the sound of the fiddle died away, Tesora and her nurse arrived in front of Zeal and John.
John spoke encouragingly to the child in their strange tongue and the little girl replied. Then, prompted and helped along by her nurse, she began to sing.
It was like no music Zeal had ever heard. She was reminded of Philip’s description of the musicians beside the lake in the city of gold, panting out their souls. Or of an animal’s cry. And yet the shape of music was also clear.
After one verse, the little girl suddenly ran forward and climbed onto John’s lap. He whispered into her ear. She hid her face in his neck for a moment. Then she thrust her fist out to Zeal, clutching a necklace of golden leaves.
Meanwhile, her nurse continued to sing, joined by the fiddle, which echoed and tracked after her but never lost her.
Zeal bent and kissed the little hand holding the necklace. Slowly, slowly, she thought. Don’t frighten the fish.
Later, she could remember little clearly after that point. Except that there had been a rush of candles and torches towards the ponds. That she had hugged Doctor Bowler until he squeaked. That Tesora had at last agreed to come into her arms. And that thirty people, including John, had each taken a turn at setting Signor Monteverdi free into the Hampshire night by grinding the crank of the Antichrist.
Acknowledgments
My warm thanks to the many friends, family and colleagues whose knowledge and experience helped to patch the gaps in my own:
John, my theatre consultant, mechanical artificer, and amazer.
John Fox, Sue Gill and Welfare State International, for introducing me to the power of theatre in every day life.
Ruth Waterman, international violinist, for her creative help with Doctor Bowler’s fiddling.
Composer Cecilia McDowall, who interrupted her own intense work schedule to help me research barrel organs.
Stephen Wyatt, writer, friend, colleague and recipient of my 999 calls, for patient listening and inspired suggestions.
Jeremy Preston, of East Sheen Library, for research support and reassuring me that books matter.
The staff and volunteers of many National Trust properties: Chasleton House, Parham House, The Vyne and, above all, Hardwick Hall, where the curator’s generous gift of information inspired the ‘bones-in-the-plaster’ show-down in The Memory Palace.
Harry Dumler for ornithological advice.
And to those without whom…
Nick Sayers, my editor, sword and shield.
And Rachel Hore, of the unerring eye for placing red flags.
And Joy Chamberlain, who guided in the landing.
Andrew Hewson, agent, friend, and fisherman.
My son Tom for IT support.
And Sadie, for reminding me to look at the ground.
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Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2003
Copyright © Christie Dickason 2003
Christie Dickason asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007101283
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007392094
Version: 2013-01-02
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