The Mask of the Enchantress (15 page)

es,I said. understand.

here was going to be a ball at the castle. She had talked for days about her gown. It was a mass of frills lilac color, I remember. She was enchanted with it and tried it on the night before the ball. She danced round and round the room in it. She went too close to the candle flame. We tried to save her but it was too late.

hat a terrible thing. I am so sorry.

here was nothing that could be done,he said quietly.

I put out a hand and touched his. ut you are happy now,I said.

He took my hand and held it but he did not answer.

hen,he went on, here was a riding accident. Emerald, you know. My mother Rosalie Emerald

ut now you have Jessamy and luck will change.

He kept looking at me and still he said nothing. But something passed between us. There was so much that did not have to be said. I understood. He had found a certain peace with Jessamy but he wanted something more.

How did I know? Because of a certain longing in his eyes, because of my response to him and my awareness that he knew of this.

I put down my coffee cup.

our patients will be arriving,I said.

am glad you came,he answered.

t was all so interesting.

He went with me to the horses.

I rode away thoughtfully and as I was about to enter the woods I heard the sound of horse hoofs behind me. Then a rider was at my side.

ood morning to you.It was David.

ood morning,I said. am just returning to the castle.

o objection to my joining you, I hope. I am going back myself.

I inclined my head.

o I detect a lack of enthusiasm? I see I am not as fortunate as my brother. What did you think of that place of his?

I said: ave you been following me?

His smile was malicious. just happened to see you emerging with old Joel. You were both looking mightily pleased with yourselves.

had met him by chance and he offered to show me his place in the town. It does not seem to me that there is anything in such a natural occurrence to warrant your amusement.

uite right,he said. ll very proper and natural. Why shouldn our noble doctor show his cousin-in-law this practice of his? I just thought I ought to drop a little word of warning into your innocent ears. There nothing to choose between us, you know. Wee all the same. Mateland men all have the same roving eye they always have theye been noted for it from the days of King Stephen. They don change their ways any more than leopards change their spots. Beware of the Matelands, dear Anabel, and particularly beware of Joel.

ou really are letting your imagination run away with you. Both you and your brother are happily married men.

re we?he asked.

nd,I said, find this conversation rather distasteful.

n that case,he said, inclining his head in mock respect, e must not pursue it.

We went back to the castle in silence. I was very disturbed. I knew that I must get away from there and that I should not come back.

How dull it was at the vicarage. My thoughts were in the castle. Jessamy wrote to me.

I do miss you, Anabel. You should come for Christmas. It will be a traditional Christmas in the castle. It has to be as it was celebrated hundreds of years ago all wassailing and so on, and the great bowl in the hall with steaming punch in it. I heard about it from Esmond. He and I are becoming great friends. There is to be a carol service in the hall on Christmas Eve, and then there will be distribution of baskets of Christmas fare to all the needy villagers. They come up to the castle to collect them. The gardeners are beginning on the decorations. We shall have a house party. Do come, Anabel. It will be spoilt for me if you don. Joel is kept very busy. I have hardly seen him for several weeks. He says there is a lot of sickness in the town. He works very hard. Grandfather Egmont doesn like it. He says there has never before been such a thing as a Mateland actually taking money from others for what he does. He thinks it degrading. Mind you, Joel doesn take money from the poor. He doesn need it really. All the Matelands are rich very rich, I think. Joel is really a very good man, Anabel. He is indeed.

I paused there. I thought she was a little too emphatic. Then I went on thinking about him. He was doctoring and helping the poor, which was very commendable. But there was a certain set of his jaw I could not describe it but it suggested that he was no saint. He was a man who went out for what he wanted and would not rest, I was sure, until he got it. He could be ruthless. He had obsessed me. I wished I had never seen him. e are all the same,David had said. Did that mean that they were all philanderers?

Stop thinking about them, I warned myself.

There was enough to do at the vicarage even if I had decided that I was not going to Mateland for Christmas. Aunt Amy Jane and Uncle Timothy had been invited to the castle and were going.

t will be so interesting to have a castle Christmas,said Aunt Amy Jane. hope all goes well here, James.She meant, of course, that it would be the first Christmas that she would not be at home to superintend the festival. shall be here for the children party,she went on. nd I am allowing the MothersUnion to have their annual gathering in our hall. That is all taken care of. I think I can leave the rest with you and go off with a clear conscience.

How I wished that I were going! Silly, I told myself. It was your own fault. You were invited.

It seemed a long Christmas. It rained all through Christmas Eve. Janet cooked the goose with one of the women from the village to help her. It was too much to do alone, she said, now that Amelia had gone off to that Crabtree Cottage.

The doctor, his wife and two daughters dined with us on Christmas Day. It seemed quiet after our usual Christmas at Seton Manor. The day seemed endless and then there was Boxing Day to follow.

I went for a ride. I had permission to ride one of the horses in the Seton stables. The groom who saddled it for me said: t don seem the same without Miss Jessamy. A lovely young lady, she was.

s, Jeffers,I cried. on talk about her as though she is in the past.

I was depressed. I could find no pleasure in the morning although it was a lovely day, quite balmy, with a faint mist in the air. I noticed that there were lots of berries on the holly, which was a sign of a hard winter, so those who were well versed in country lore told us.

I was uneasy about Jessamy. I did not know why I should be. She had everything. Why should I have qualms about her future? I must stop thinking about Mateland Castle and the people in it. My life would be set in a different direction.

I took the horse back to the Seton stables and from there walked to the vicarage. My father was not in.

e not come back yet,said Janet. expected him an hour ago. I waiting to put the food on the table.

s he still at the church, do you think?

e said he was going over for something I don remember what.

e forgotten the time,I said. l go and get him.

I went into the church. I could not enter it now without thinking of myself sprawled on the altar steps and Joel Mateland standing there. I had been a different person up to that time.

I called to my father. There was no answer.

He must be in the vestry, I thought, or in the Lady chapel.

Then I saw him. He was lying very near the spot where I had fallen. I ran to him crying: ather, what happened?

I knelt beside him. At first I thought he was dead. Then I saw his eyelids flicker. I ran out to get help.

He had had a stroke, and he was paralyzed down one side and had lost the power of speech.

With Janet help I nursed him. A vicar came to take over while my father was illo they said; but I knew and so did Janet that he would never preach again.

Tom Gillingham was an earnest young man and a bachelor. Janet reckoned he been sent for a purpose.

hose purpose?I asked. od or the bishop?

wouldn mind reckoning a bit of both,retorted Janet.

Janet, true to the habit of plain speaking, had put the matter clearly before me.

our father is not going to get any better,she said. ray God he doesn get worse. And what of you? Youe got to think of yourself. Oh yes, you can look at me as if you like to tell me to mind my own business. It is my business. I work here, don I? What going to happen to you and me when your father dies?

e may live for years.

ou know he won. You can see him getting worse every day. Two months three at the most, I reckon. Then youl have some thinking to do. I doubt the vicar is going to leave you a fortune.

our doubts are confirmed, Janet.

ell then, what for you? Companion to some old lady? I can see that for you, Miss Anabel. Governess to some little ns a bit more likely, but still not right. It either that or staying on here.

ow could I do that?

lain as a pikestaff, that is, that Tom Gillingham being a bachelor.

I couldn help smiling. wonder what he would say if he knew you were arranging the future for him?

e wouldn mind seeing as how Ie arranged it. He sweet on you, Miss Anabel. I wouldn be surprised if he got something like that in mind.

e a pleasant enough young man,I agreed.

nd youe been brought up in a vicarage know all the ins and outs and suchlike.

t seems very satisfactory but for one thing.

nd what that?

don want to marry Tom Gillingham.

ove can grow, they say.

t can also diminish, and if it is not there in the first place it can even do that. No, Janet, we shall have to think of something else.

t not that I so concerned. Ie got my sister Marian I could go to for a spell. We never got on but it would be somewhere to go while I looked round.

h, Janet,I cried, should hate to say good-by to you.

Her face twitched but she was always in control of her emotions.

We were silent. It was a bleak future we were looking into.

When Aunt Amy Jane and Uncle Timothy came back they were shocked to hear of my father illness.

his puts you in a very awkward position, Anabel,said Aunt Amy Jane.

oul have to come to Seton Manor,kind Uncle Timothy told me.

Aunt Amy Jane gave him a cold look. She had never liked him to show affection to me.

nabel would never want to live on charity,she said firmly. he far too proud.

harity!cried Uncle Timothy. he our own niece.

y niece. Therefore, Timothy, I am the one to know best for her. I dare say there would be something for her to do.

shall know what I have to do when the time comes,I said coldly.

There was speculation in Aunt Amy Jane eyes. I could see she was beginning to work out a plan of action to decide my future.

When she realized that Tom Gillingham was at the vicarage already, and had in fact been appointed to take over when my father died, she saw the solution even as Janet had. Tom Gillingham should marry mehether he wanted to or not. He should be made to see reason, as everyone must who had a part to play in Aunt Amy Jane scheme of things.

I knew that Tom would raise no objection. He was interested in me and I only had to respond, I knew, and he would suggest marriage.

I could not do it. It would be like writing The End to my life story, because everything that followed would be so predictable.

If only Jessamy had not gone. If I had never seen Mateland Castle, if I had never realized there were other goals in the world than contriving to exist in a degree of comfort, I might have been willing to accept what seemed like the inevitable. But I had glimpsed a different life. I had met Joel Mateland and even though he was my cousin husband I still went on thinking of him.

Calmly to settle down in the Seton church as the wife of the vicar was not the life for me.

It was spring when my father died. The moment of decision had come.

Tom Gillingham had made it clear that I must not hurry away, although of course I, as an unmarried woman, could not with propriety go on living at the rectory. When my father had been aliveelpless invalid though he might bet had been different.

It was the day of the funeral. Tom officiated at the service and we filed into the churchyard following the coffin and its pallbearers. We stood round the grave and desolation swept over me as I thought of my dear kindly father with his ineffectual ways and absent-minded but always self-effacing nature.

It was the end of a way of life.

I felt a hand in mine and, turning, I saw Jessamy. The sight of her warmed me, filled me with some sort of hope. A little of my misery lifted.

The mourners had all gone. Jessamy was sitting on the stool in my bedroom, her arms folded about her knees, looking at me. She had always sat like that. To see her there brought back so many memories of our childhood, when I had dominated her, bullied her sometimes, and led her into mischief. Dear, dear Jessamy who had never ceased to love me for all my wickedness to her.

hat are you going to do, Anabel?she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

ou are not going to marry Tom Gillingham, are you? My mother says you are.

or once she is wrong. I like Tom, but

f course you can marry him,she said firmly. hen what?

think the only alternative is to take some post.

h, Anabel. You hate that.

f you have no money you often have to do something which is not congenial. But I worried about Janet. You see, though she can go to her sister for a while, she won want to stay there. Shel have to get another post and posts are hard to come by.

nabel, I want you to come back with me. Come to the castle. I miss you very much. I lonely some of the time. To tell the truth, Joel is away so much and then and then I think he is not very

ot very what?

atisfied with our marriage. He seems almost aloof sometimes. Emerald can say wounding things and so can David particularly David. Sometimes I think he and Joel hate each other. And then there Elizabeth I don know what to make of her. Sometimes I feel so alone there a little afraid. No, not exactly afraid but

thought you were so happy there.

h, I am particularly now. Anabel, I am going to have a baby.