The Mist in the Mirror (17 page)

The weather was dull and often wet – we were having a mild winter, but I walked every day in the park, enjoying its broad vistas, and the elegant landscape, and, as I felt stronger, extended the time I spent outside and went beyond the grounds of Pyre, into the lanes and scattered small villages of the surrounding countryside. Many a time I returned by way of the River Thames which flowed, broad and strong, only a mile or two from the house. Usually the dog Fenny would accompany me, and chase a stick, rather sedately, for she was elderly now and often had to be nudged away from the fireside. Otherwise, I saw almost no one.

I had been at work for a week when several friends and neighbours came to dine, and in the course of the general conversation one, a legal colleague of Sir Lionel’s, happened to mention a journey he had taken north the previous autumn.

‘I went with Mortensen,’ he was saying to Sir Lionel, ‘and he’s a man to venture off into the bush. It was far from my usual beat but I must admit that we had a superb day’s shooting in glorious country –’ He turned to me. ‘You have been a traveller, Mr Monmouth,’ he said, ‘and I daresay have seen many fine sights but I defy you or anyone to paint to me a grander prospect than the countryside spread out below Rook’s Crag, looking over to Kittiscar.’

My fork clattered onto my plate.

‘
Kittiscar
!’

Lady Quincebridge put her hand on my arm. They were all four of them staring at me in alarm.

‘Dear God, man, what have I said?’ he asked. ‘You are ashen.’

‘Kittiscar,’ I choked at last. ‘You said Kittiscar.’

‘I did.’

‘Then I beg you to tell me about it – to describe it – show me the place on a map – tell me anything …’ I almost got to my feet then. ‘I must know!’

‘It is,’ he said, ‘the most wild and beautiful part of the country.’ He nodded across to Sir Lionel. ‘You would not rate it much below your beloved Highlands for grandeur.’

We were seated around the table after the ladies had retired, and the man who had spoken was the lean, sharp-featured lawyer, Crawford Maythorn.

‘It is rugged fell country, with rounded hills and gentle slopes, shelving down to small villages, mostly set beside the fast-flowing streams that run all over those parts. It’s sheep country – hardy little things, scattered about the hillsides. There are no large towns for many miles – not many people either, for such great expanses and those there are huddle together and see precious few strangers – except in high summer, when the walking parties are out. Sheep and grouse – eagles, too, and buzzards occasionally, up on the crags.’ He smoked his pipe appreciatively. ‘I tell you, to sit up there and watch the shadows chasing one another over the open hills, to see the sunlight catching on clusters of slate roofs far below, and hear nothing but the wind keening and the bleating of the sheep –’ He shook his head.

I listened, seated tense and straight in my chair. He had described a countryside I knew, as he spoke I felt sure that
it was familiar, and I had been there, seen these things, my whole being responded to his words. He had not told me about Kittiscar itself, but now he turned to me.

‘I have looked across at it,’ he said, ‘but I do not usually venture as far off the beaten track. Just once, though, I did go; it was two or three years ago. I am afraid there is precious little I can tell you. Kittiscar is very small, a hamlet, no more, with the usual grey stone cottages – a chapel. The Inn is at Rook’s Crag, a mile to the east.’

‘There is a Hall, I believe.’

‘Yes. I remember seeing some sign or gatepost, but nothing of the place itself. We got half lost up there one afternoon – it can be pretty bleak and forbidding in fading light and bad weather. But thankfully we scrambled down and managed to find the road again, and that led us to Raw Mucklerby.’ He grunted in amusement. ‘Now there I fancy you would find out anything you wanted to know about anyone else’s business – history, biography, news, gossip. It seemed to be a popular stop for sportsmen such as ourselves, but most of all the meeting place for the locals from miles around. I’m quite sorry I shan’t be up there this year.’ He glanced across the table. ‘I am promised to the Cairngorms with Quincebridge’s party I think.’ Sir Lionel confirmed it, and the talk then turned to matters of sport. After another ten minutes or so, I made my excuses, which, as I was still convalescent, were readily accepted, and went to bed.

The evening’s conversation had disturbed me profoundly and I wanted to retreat into the cocoon of my illness, and of being protected and sheltered here in this house, for I was afraid now of what I would face when I ventured out of it. The description of the countryside by Kittiscar had awakened memories, and perhaps if I had delved more thoroughly into them I might have teased them to the surface, but instead I turned away from them deliberately,
for I knew the frustration of trying to bring them to my consciousness. They would swirl and drift about, I would half-glimpse them, only to lose them again, as I had lost my own reflection through the mist in the mirror at Alton.

I had heard something, but not enough. Well, I would let it alone, I would set myself to the task in hand, write about the past I was sure of, the places I could vividly recall, and let the other go.

Nevertheless, the following morning, I took down the Atlas of Great Britain rather than of some other, far country, set it before me on the library table, and traced the pale brown spine of hills that ran north, following the names of Thwaites and Becks, Garths and Tarns, across to the most northerly hills. And then, veering a little west, I found those places I had heard of the previous night. Ashlaby. Bleet. Mucklerby. Raw Mucklerby. Rook’s Crag. Kittiscar. And stared at them until the letters danced together on the page before my eyes.

Now, I thought, it is pursuing me. It is I who have tried to turn my back and am fleeing. I crushed the letter up in my hand, and threw it into the fire.

‘You are troubled about something,’ Lady Quincebridge said. We were in her own small sitting room on the first floor of the house. Tea was over, the empty cups and plates beside us. The curtains were drawn. ‘You have been so much more settled and easy, your work has begun to absorb you, and you have gradually extended your walks so that I have had high hopes of your complete recovery very soon.’

‘Yes.’

‘It is this business about Kittiscar. If I had known what Maythorn was to say, how the whole subject would arise …’

‘Yet only a week ago I was the one desperate – hungry – for any crumb of information. I have longed to know my past – my history – if only to take my mind off all thoughts of Conrad Vane and his devilries. I have the Prayer Book beside me on the bedside chest. I look at it every night before sleep. Yet now I have something real within my grasp …’

‘You are afraid?’

‘Is it that? But why? What have I to fear?’

‘You will not know unless …’

‘Unless I go there. Discover for myself. You are right, of course.’

I bent forwards to stroke the cat, Missy, who sat on the rug, squinting into the fire.

‘The truth is,’ I said miserably, ‘I have become comfortable here, and perhaps I have taken advantage of your kindness. I came for Christmas, a day or two at most. I have been here nigh on a month.’

‘Because you needed us. You were friendless, homeless, and without roots in this country which was new and strange to you. And then you were ill. How could we have
sent you away in such a state?’ She smiled. ‘Besides you have been good company to two old sticks. We rattle about here, we are set in our own ways, and little comforts, but at the very least we can share them when it pleases us.’

‘Nevertheless …’

‘Wait a little longer – until the next turn of the year, when there is a sign of spring. It will not be long. But you would have a hard journey and a cold time of it so far north at the back end of January. Go to London, if you are restless now, and visit us again for a few days before you set off. You will be welcome here at any time. Wait a few weeks yet.’

I agreed thankfully, and also said that I would stay at Pyre a few more days, until my work was well under way, and I felt entirely well – for I still tired wretchedly at the end of a walk and fell asleep in my chair, if I was not careful, after dinner.

We played a game of piquet in a pleasantly quarrelsome way then, until the car brought Sir Lionel home from the railway station, and his day in London.

When I went to my desk in the library the following morning, I intended to add several more pages to my African journal. I had made a good beginning, I thought, the memories had come flooding back, and it was a great pleasure and satisfaction to me to be able to recall my Guardian, our neighbours, the servants I had come to know so well, the places in which I had spent my boyhood, and which I had loved.

But, when I set pen to paper, it was not of outdoor days in Northern Kenya that I began to write. As though I were taken over by a force quite outside myself, I began a letter.

Having written the letter, I put the subject from my mind and turned back to Africa.

The weather changed, as January went out; it became mild again with fitful sunshine. A couple of days after I had written the letter to Miss Monmouth of Kittiscar, I took the dog Fenny and set off from the house, in the early afternoon. We walked at leisure between the graceful trees of the park, seeing the small deer ahead in the near distance, but they grazed on safely, unperturbed by the amiable old dog. I had begun to make my plans to return to London after the coming weekend. I was feeling more or less fit now, apart from tiredness at the end of each day, and needed to find a somewhat more extensive library of books about my subject. I also thought that I might visit Theodore Beamish’s curious little shop again and dig about for some rare items there.

We came down the slope and the lake lay before us, its gunmetal surface still and smooth, reflecting the winter
sun. All around me, the banks were white with clumps of snowdrops, heads bent upon their delicate stems, and pale gold aconites nestled beneath the trees. I had come to identify and enjoy these simple English flowers, they moved me, and pleased my eye more than anything vivid and exotic had ever done, and standing here now, as Fenny snuffled among the mulch and fallen twigs, after some old scent, I resolved that I would one day make a garden, and that it would be full of these delightful half-wild flowers, and of daffodils, of which I had heard so much from Lady Quincebridge.

‘You must be sure to return for a day or so at the beginning of March,’ she had said, ‘the daffodils stretch right across the park and sweep down to the lake – Pyre is quite famous for them.’

But, for the moment, the snowdrops were enough for me, and I rested my back against one of the beeches, to drink in the sight of them and try to imprint it upon my memory.

Then I saw him. He had come a little way out from between the trees on the far side of the lake, and was standing there, apparently looking down at the water. The boy. His head was bare, he wore the same torn, white shirt, and grey trousers. His face was as pale as ever, deathly pale. I could see it quite clearly. He did not move away.

My heart was bursting within my chest. This was no ghost, this was a real, living boy; if I went to him now I would be able to touch him, speak to him, question him, there was nothing shadowy or insubstantial about him. So he had followed me here to Pyre, found me out in some way.

And then he looked up, deliberately, knowing full well that I was there, and we were face to face across the expanse of the lake. His expression was as it had been each time I had seen him, distant, anxious, pleading, and it distressed me beyond bearing. I could not move. I was
petrified in time and place standing there in the silence. I saw that the dog’s hackles had risen and that she was alert and quivering slightly, staring in the boy’s direction.