Come to Castlemoor (4 page)

“I know well enough what you had in mind, Alan Dunne,” Bella retorted. “I saw what you were up to with that hussy in red!”

“So you noticed me?” he said, grinning broadly.

“Don't you be gettin' any ideas!” she cried. “A person couldn't help seein' you standin' there like you owned the place, not that I was at all impressed!”

“Aye, you noticed, all right,” he replied.

Bella saw fit to make no reply to this outrageous comment. She developed a suddenly intense interest in the scenery and folded her hands primly in her lap.

We left the main street and passed down a street of small neat houses, brown and gray, mostly brick, with small green lawns and picket fences and blue morning glories. The oak trees soared, their limbs arching overhead to make tunnels through which the fading light dripped feebly. We passed over a wide stone bridge that arched across the river, and on the other side the last grove of oak trees stood, as if protecting the village from the moors. The trunks were thick and strong, grayish brown, the limbs mighty things that seemed to scratch the sky. I had never seen such tall trees. I knew that the druids had worshiped the oak, a symbol of strength and power to them, and now I could understand why. They seemed to dwarf everything around them. I felt small and insignificant as the wagon rolled under their boughs. Primitive man must have found them mysterious and forbidding.

Beyond the oak trees the ground was rough and uneven, sparse brownish grass growing in patches over the flaky gray soil. Here, on the edge of the moors, there was an abrupt change in mood. The rich farmland, the village, might never have existed. The land rolled on and on until it touched the green-cast sky, without a single shrub or tree to break the vista. Time and space seemed to merge into one, and we might have been driving over the land a thousand years ago or a thousand years into the future. The earth might really be flat, and we might be driving to the rim to pitch into the void. These sensations were acute, but I could tell they were merely my own personal reactions to the land. Alan and Bella seemed to feel none of this mystic quality as the wagon bumped and jogged over the rocky road.

“Do you know how to get to the house?” I asked. My voice sounded peculiar to my own ears, as though I had spoken aloud in church.

“Sure,” Alan replied. “Many's the time I've been there. My Aunt Maud cleaned up for your brother, ma'am, and sometimes when I needed the wagon I'd drive her out in the morning and come fetch her 'fore night.”

“You knew my brother?”

“Aye, he was a fine fellow. I helped him get settled in the house when he first came to Wessex, put a new roof on the smokehouse for 'im, built some shelves for all his books, fixed the flue so the fireplace wouldn't smoke him out. Amiable chap, he was, real educated, and not a stuck-up bone in his body. Used to listen to 'im talk for hours when I didn't have nothin' else to do.”

Alan clicked the reins. “I was real sorry, ma'am, about the tragedy. I liked your brother, and he liked me.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

I wouldn't give way to the surge of grief that swept over me. I would learn to live with the memory of my brother and speak of him naturally with none of the maudlin sentimentality he would have despised.

“You must have been a great help to him,” I said calmly. “Donald was brilliant with books and papers, but he couldn't get near a hammer without smashing his thumb. The flue in our apartment was always a great mystery to him. When it smoked, he just opened the windows and tried to ignore it until I got someone to fix it.” I paused, pleased with myself. “Is—is the house in good shape? I know my brother didn't pay much for it. That makes me wonder—”

“It's a fine house,” Alan told me. “Nice fittings, good furniture. It used to belong to the folks at the castle, you know, but they sold it years ago, when the father was still livin'. Lots of people've lived there over the years, but not many of 'em stayed. That's why your brother bought it so cheap—no one else'd have it.”

“What do you mean—not many of them stayed?”

“The moors drove 'em away. These moors—they do things to you. They ain't friendly 'less you're receptive to 'em. Your brother, now, he was real receptive. He took to 'em right away and could spend all day out alone and come back smilm'. Not many people can do that—the moors get to 'em. They haunt you, they take over, little by little—”

“Is that why the men were afraid?” I asked.

“Ah, that's somethin' else. Bunch of children! They're afraid of the stones.”

“The stones?”

“Them ruins and graves and things farther on. We ain't passed any of 'em yet. Folks say the dead come back. Old Ted Roberts was lookin' for a stray lamb one night and came back and said he saw 'em dancin' around, all in white. Live, they were, and chantin', and they had knives and branches of mistletoe, and there was a girl tied up to one of them stones—” Alan shook his head, his mouth grim. “Them stones—some of 'em are pretty indecent if you know what they're supposed to represent. Old Ted claimed the girl was tied up to one that looked like a—uh—”

“I'm familiar with the symbols,” I said primly. “I know what you are referring to.”

Alan blushed ever so slightly, the lobes of his ears turning pink. He clicked the reins loudly and told the horse to move, Bessie, move.

“Did Old Ted drink?” I inquired.

“Considerably,” Alan replied. “That's why folks didn't pay him no mind at first. Then they found Milly Brown on the rocks, all cut up. Caused quite a fury in Darkmead, I'll tell you that! 'Course what folks wouldn't see was that Milly wudn't no better than she should have been and was tryin' to make Jud Hawke marry her, and they'd had a big tiff two days before. Jud was always a mean 'un, and he suddenly found it convenient to leave for Liverpool to work for an uncle there, he said. No, folks'd rather believe them spirits mutilated poor Milly.”

“How horrible,” I said, shivering.

“Aye, it's that, all right.”

I folded my arms about me, staring at the vast empty land and thinking of what Alan had said. I was slightly alarmed, a hollow feeling at the base of my spine and a nervous pattering in my stomach. The alarm was foolish, of course, but it was still there.

I knew that the ancient druids had held ceremonies around the phallic rocks. They frequently wore long white robes, and the mistletoe played an important part in their rites. They made an aphrodisiac from its berries, and this beverage created a catatonic trance. Virgins, both male and female, were sacrificed upon the altar of Priapus after duly worshiping the generative powers. I wondered vaguely how a drunken villager could possibly have known all these details, and then I smiled at my moment of alarm. Even today villagers all over England hung bunches of mistletoe over their doors at Christmastime, and any lad or lass who stood under it had to give a kiss to the host or else suffer a curse. Although I doubted that many of those who indulged in this quaint custom were aware of its origin, I could see how the people of Darkmead, so near its source, might know more about it. Old Ted Roberts had probably been raised on legends of the druids. Besides, I told myself, from what Alan said, poor Milly Brown could hardly have qualified for sacrifice.

“The men of Darkmead really believe such nonsense?” I asked.

“Aye, there's been talk for years, long before they found Milly. Lots of strange things happen on the moors, all right, and some of 'em are pretty mysterious, but I ain't buyin' a bunch of ghosts comin' up and slittin' a poor girl's throat.”

“I should hope not,” I said.

“Them old superstitions—they hang on, even though we've got a fine church that's packed solid ev'ry Sunday, and a fine choir, too. Folks tell you they're Christian, and most of 'em are, but they don't take no chances. They still have a powerful fear of them pagan ruins.”

“I suppose it's a carry-over from the old days,” I remarked.

“Per'aps it is, but I'm twenty-three years old, and a man to boot, and I for one ain't believin' none of it.”

I smiled at the vehemence of this statement. Alan Dunne was a true man of the soil, strong, forceful, realistic, with no place in his life for native superstition and legend. He was firmly rooted in today, and the past had no claim on him.

The old chestnut jogged along placidly. The wagon wheels creaked with shrill protest, and I was finding the wooden seat highly uncomfortable, but these things seemed small in the cathedrallike vastness of the land. The sky was dark green now, streaks of black merging in like drops of ink on a wet green paper, and the sun had already vanished, leaving behind a few lingering yellow rays that slanted across the horizon. We had come at least two miles into the moors now. A few scrubby bushes and stunted trees broke the monotony. Gray rocks littered the ground, and as we drove farther on I began to see huge boulders that seemed to hang suspended on the sides of the sloping hills.

Bella had been silent all this time, but she was unable to keep up her pretended uninterest any longer. After their first exchange of barbed conversation, Alan had ignored Bella as studiously as she ignored him. He had leaned around her to speak to me, paying not the least bit of attention to her glossy brown curls or low pink bodice. He and I might have been alone on the wagon for all the notice he took of my maid. She didn't like that at all and decided to change her tactics.

“What do you
do?
” she asked abruptly. “When you're not wastin' time with some no-account like that tart at the inn, I mean.”

“I do lots of things, little lady. What would you like to hear about?”

“My name's Bella Green—
Miss
Green to you—and I couldn't care less, really. I was just makin' conversation.”

Alan grinned and shrugged his shoulders, a gesture calculated to drive Bella to distraction. She sulked, a pout on her lips, and Alan shifted his great body on the seat and leaned forward a little, taking a firmer grip on the reins. The raven-black hair curled on the back of his thick neck, and the wind touseled those locks that fell over his forehead. The bulky brown suede jacket emphasized his powerful torso. Bella leaned a little closer to him, her pink skirt touching his black pants leg. The pungent male odor did not seem to bother her now, though pride prevented her from speaking again. I secretly felt she had finally met her match.

“Do you work in the pottery factory, Alan?” I asked, hoping to break the strained silence.

“The factory's no place for a man who's a man,” he retorted. “It sucks the life out of you, makes you pale and weak. The work ain't so bad, but the hours are long, and there ain't enough ventilation inside, and a man sees the sun only when it's comin' up or goin' down.”

“It seems Mr. Rodd would do something to improve conditions,” I said. “He took over the factory a few years ago, I understand.”

“Aye, and there was lots of groanin' and complainin' when he did. The men of Darkmead hate 'im, and that's a fact. First thing he did was pass a rule sayin' no child under thirteen could work there—and over a hundred families lost a source of income. Rodd don't believe in child labor, and I go along with 'im there, but folks'd rather see a few shillings comin' in every week than see their young 'uns growin' up tall and healthy. Rodd also shortened the hours the women were allowed to work and passed rules on the kind of work they could do—packin' and sortin' and labelin' consignments, and that sort of thing. They couldn't work in the kilns or pits anymore. A lot of folks depend on the factory for livelihood and think all these radical changes're going to spoil industry.”

“Don't they know Parliament is trying to pass laws against child labor and improve working conditions for women? It would seem Mr. Rodd is on the right road—”

“Aye, Miss Hunt, but them things are happenin' in London, and Darkmead ain't much interested. Folks're thinkin' of those few shillings that don't come in no more since the kiddies ain't workin'.”

“Does Mr. Rodd visit Darkmead often?”

“He inspects the factories twice a month—woe unto anyone who hasn't been doin' his job properly! He's got a vicious temper, he has. Marches in like a general and sticks 'is nose in everything. You'd better hope everything is smooth as silk. Ever so often, he'll bring Mrs. Dorothea and the Italian girl to church, but most of the time the whole bunch of 'em stay at the castle.”

“If you don't work at the factory, where
do
you work?” Bella asked, breaking her self-imposed silence.

“Here and there,” he replied, not looking at her. “I had a fine herd of sheep last year, but the blight took 'em, took every last one of 'em. I do a little farmin' when someone needs an extra hand, but mostly I just do stray jobs, runnin' errands, deliverin' goods. A handyman of sorts, I guess you'd call me.”

“Oh,” Bella said, her tone of voice clearly indicating how totally unimpressed she was.

“My time's my own,” Alan added. “I can spend it near'bout any way I've a mind to spend it.”

“Really? I suppose that delights a lot of girls in Dark-mead.”

“Aye, there's a few of 'em who don't mind seein' me hangin' about.”

Bella made no comment. She had gained the information she wanted, and now she was contemplating just what she would make of it. I could visualize seeing quite a lot of Alan Dunne in the future as he found excuses to come to the house.

The wagon jolted as we pulled up a long slope. A dark brown bird flew in aimless circles against the greenish sky, his wings spread wide. We came up over the slope and moved over level ground again, and I saw the first ruin. It was far away, silhouetted sharply against the horizon. Tall brown rocks rose like rough, round columns, supporting long, flat rocks that balanced on top like a sloping, uneven roof. It was a weird sight, primitive and bizarre, standing so starkly on the barren soil. Even from the distance I could feel the power it generated. It dominated all the land around, and it seemed to cast a spell. It seemed to draw one to it, and at the same time it warned one not to come too near. It was undeniably majestic, but there was something sinister as well.