The Anchoress of Shere, page 8
The young woman was definitely a suitable case for his special treatment: the right age, probably sufficiently intelligent, fit enough to survive the rigours of confinement, certainly single, and-if he were lucky-even a virgin. Except for her dangerous but convenient proximity, she could well become an apprentice anchoress, real flesh to wrap around the metaphysical skeleton of Duval’s beloved Christine.
Marda Stewart, of course, could not know that she was a potential candidate for a grotesque rapid-immersion course in religion. She regarded herself as not conventionally religious, but she believed in God, maybe a god or even gods. Despite her mother’s former adherence to Rome, Marda had been christened an Anglican, but she had rarely been to a church after leaving school, although she did read a little about Eastern religions. She had always yearned to see faraway places, and her new job as personal assistant to the managing director of Phillips’ Wine Company, despite all the hard work, was very satisfying. Her career had not looked so promising when she left her private girls’ school at the age of eighteen. After a year working as a secretary in Weybridge, she had applied, unsuccessfully, for a job with British European Airways. So she found employment as a nanny in Lyon, where she spent a year improving her French and then moved to Paris. Surviving a variety of odd jobs, she developed a particular interest in food and wine, and finally secured her current job with an English wine importer with headquarters in Guildford. She enjoyed shuttling to and fro between England and France because it made her feel cosmopolitan.
As she was usually at home for less than two weeks in any one month, Marda had lived with her parents in Woking for a while, but at the age of twenty-three she decided it was time to have her own flat. Guildford was the obvious place, but she had fallen in love with Shere’s sleepy, traditional atmosphere during her weekend hikes. The buses were reasonably frequent, and a friend from Guildford, Jenny, sometimes gave her a lift home in her Mini-Cooper, dropping her off at the top of Rectory Lane. It was quicker to walk down the hill rather than go through the centre of the village. And that was how she had bumped into the man with the wonderful voice and friendly dog.
Duval did not know the full biography of Marda Stewart yet; with a grim smile he decided to make it his business to rectify this deficiency.
It would all need planning and precision.
He found it difficult to concentrate in the White Horse, right in the centre of the village, where he felt people were watching him. He sometimes tried the second Shere pub, the Prince of Wales, but the landlady talked incessantly in a loud voice. Up the hill, tucked away in the woods, the King William IV allowed him to relax. Marda’s potential had distracted him-as had a letter from an irritating American, some jumped-up professor who claimed to be an expert on anchoresses. The American had rather impertinently suggested that he should meet Duval during a forthcoming visit to England. The priest disliked uninvited visitors almost as much as he detested Americans and academics.
Duval felt he needed a little pick-me-up. In the dark Hogarthian bar of the William IV, nobody would stare if he pulled out a little jar of honey and added a few drops to his beer. It sweetened it and made it more like the mead of medieval England. Duval relished the taste of his customised drink. He liked to experiment with the flavours, the herbs and the potions of the Middle Ages. At home he could be far more adventurous, adding wormwood, sweet-gale, yarrow, meadow-sweet, cowslip, juniper berries and tree barks to his beer, or sometimes his tea. Despite the dangers, he had tried various permutations of henbane, the weed of witches. But his favourite additive was fly agaric, the red-capped mushroom that grew in abundance around Shere (its white cousin, the “death-cap,” is never tasted twice). The Vikings were said to have spiced their ale with fly agaric before their raids, to put themselves in the right frame of mindlessness, and Duval restricted his usage of the mushroom to the occasions when he needed to be suitably aggressive. Tonight, in the William IV, a little honey in his beer was just fine. Before sipping it, he silently toasted Christine and the imminent arrival of a new companion for her.
Duval started to plan the transformation of Marda’s life. The initial capture was always the trickiest bit, requiring the most specific planning. He thought hard for the best part of an hour; then, having made his decision, he purposefully swallowed the dregs of his customary one pint of beer and walked the twenty minutes from the William IV to his home in a state of controlled excitement. Even Bobby wagged his tail and seemed happy. Duval would be able to write well that evening. Marda Stewart would suffer great emotional pain, but finally she would transcend it, just as Christine had done.
1331
The second winter of Christine’s entombment in the wall was not as hard as the first. Slowly, she had grown accustomed to a cell which was not much larger than a cupboard, and no more did she have to suppress the desire to run, for just one brief minute, in the fields, to let the wind race about her body, or to feel the freedom of rain on her face. She stored these sweet memories and embroidered them into her prayers and savoured them in her contemplation of God’s gift of Nature. There was no doubt that she had diligently applied herself to her devotions: her reading had improved, and she could understand most of the Latin in her single book, while the Church Latin of the services was almost perfectly comprehensible. Father Peter continued with whatever extra education he could master himself before passing on his new learning to his dutiful pupil.
Even in her confessions, the subject of Sir Richard was never broached, not with Father Peter, her regular confessor, nor with the bishop, nor the visiting archdeacon who occasionally counselled her, received her confession or conducted Mass. Yet through her long isolation and his guilty kindness, Father Peter had become a confidant, no longer the accomplice to a crime, and he was the only person Christine could turn to on the matter of her sister:
“Father,” she said one day, as he knelt in front of the quatrefoil, “year-long I have prayed hard for my sister. For six months now she has laboured in the manor for Sir Richard. Days she works at table and in the scullery, nights she returns to our cottage. My father tells me all is well, but I fear for her soul, and for her life. I know that I should be torn apart by the hounds of Hell were I to let her fall to Sir Richard’s lust. He might treat her e’en worse than me. I spake to my father to guard her well, but naught can he do, ’ceptin’ sendin’ her away. Besides, she is now contracted to the lord, and he might rebuke my father were she to leave his demesne.”
The priest understood her fears and tried to calm her. “Have you warned her of your own fate at Sir Richard’s hands?” he asked plainly.
“I have told her to be beware, but I did not, I cannot, speak of my defilement,” said Christine, shuddering.
Father Peter moved closer to the opening in the wall. “I will inform you very privately that Sir Richard has been over-ambitious. I hear tell his politicking within the court sits badly with the king. His manner with his bonded men, or his applying, here in England and to you, the droit du seigneur, matters not a fig to the royal court, but his taking of disputed land in other demesnes has made many enemies, not least the Dean of Guldenford, who claims Sir Richard has taken properties which the Church has been bestowed in legal writs. To have king and Church agin you is not fitting for a lord.”
Christine was not reassured: “But Sir Richard is cunnin’ like the fox. I do not portend his fall so quick, Father. And I worry still that Margaret be ill-used. She has not paid visit to me for two months or more, and my father shows hurt in his face when I ask of her, though he hides that hurt, or so he does attempt.”
“There is naught you can do but pray,” said Father Peter lamely.
“Father, women may only pray, but men may do bold acts. I am a weaker vessel which I shall pray God fills with purpose, hope and grace.”
The next morning, after Matins, William visited his daughter to speak to her of Margaret, prompted, thought Christine, by her priest. She saw the lines of worry and fatigue etched in his face and knew in her heart that the news was bad. William hesitated, and when he spoke there was a catch in his voice.
“You have often spoken of your sister these weeks, and now I must tell you fairly. She has taken herself to Peaslake to be with our cousins there.”
“Has she been by force compelled to leave the manor? By Sir Richard?” asked Christine.
William sighed. “Aye, that she has.”
Relief coursed through her. “Then that is for her good to be away from his evil hand…” She saw her father’s face. “Unless there be some crime or wrong done by her? Or, God forbid, to her?” The pain in her father’s face seared Christine’s heart.
“She is with child, Christine.” He could not look at his daughter. “She says she was taken and forced by Sir Richard from near the start of her time at the manor. She was too fearful to speak to me.”
William put his shaking hands to his face and tried to continue: “On the night of St. Reuben’s feast day, she stumbled home all cuts and welts. She fell at my knees and told me all. That she were with child by Sir Richard and had just told him so. Thereupon he beat her, and took again of her, and his son Edward has taken of her too, when she lay terrified and barely knowing what day or month or year it be. She told me all in tears when she came home that night-those weeks ago-all bruised, and cut, and sore…”
William started to cry. Christine pulled aside the edge of her curtain and wiped the tears from his cheeks. She leaned through the outer grille and touched the tip of her head against his as their tears joined in shared pain.
Christine wanted to shout at her father, and demand to know why her family had kept the dreadful secret to themselves, but the agony on his face made her control her anger.
“Father, why did you not tell me of this before?” she asked gently.
“I wanted to, my child, but I have worried so much about your health; I dared not add to your privations here in this cold cell. I had delayed telling you, from fear…from love… searching to find good words for such terrible deeds. I ordered your mother to keep silent. When Father Peter told me of your constant prayers for Margaret, I was driven here by guilt. I am sorry to tell you all this now…”
“I forgive you, Father, but tell me, please, what has become of Margaret? How does she fare now? What did you do when she came home so defiled by those monsters?”
William could not answer; his shoulders shook uncontrollably as he tried to fight his anguish. Eventually he composed himself enough to speak: “I asked the reeve to arrange for me to see the lord. He made me wait eighteen days, saying he was conducting duties in London. Finally, in the great hall, Sir Richard spake to me with witnesses all around; before I could speak, he shouted that my daughter had shamed his house. That she was with child and so must depart. That there would be no bastardy in his household. He told me to send her away to furthest kin and let the child be raised in more Godly ways than I had raised thy sister.
“I was so angry I could not stop myself. ‘Sire,’ says me. ‘I must speak out now, without your leave. My daughter tells me she was taken by main force, and by members of your household. This is not justice…’
“‘Hold your insolence in my house,’ Sir Richard did roar at me, his face all aflame. ‘I have conducted enquiries full into your daughter’s fall and ascertained that it were a village lad not connected with this house. Were you now to gainsay my word, here in front of witnesses, I will summon her to court ecclesiastic for the sin of childwrite. And if you persist in this calumny she will by Church courts be judged for fornication and bastardy. If one word more you utter against me in my house, you will also be sent from my sight and land. Leave me now whilst I have the patience not to draw my sword against your insults to me and to mine. Be gone, man, and avoid my face in case I lose my mercy. Next time I see your snivelling features, I will hang you in a cage as we do to Scottish rebels.’ Then he started to scream: ‘Out with you, you lying cur! Out, I say!’”
William shivered as he recalled the awful scene. “His armed men forced me from the house and I have sat with rage at home. With all my righteous hurt what can I do agin so strong a lord? I tell you true, but there is naught you can do except to pray His justice be done on earth.” William pointed up to heaven.
Father and daughter sat silently. Then William stood suddenly, unable to endure his humiliation. “I must take my leave straightway,” he said, not able to look into Christine’s eyes. “Your mother needs more comfort than I.”
“Comfort her well and tell her I do love her,” said Christine through her tears. “And send word of my love to Margaret, too,” she called out as the sound of her father’s footsteps diminished.
Christine sat on the cold stone bench, then fell to her knees. She would intensify her rigorous devotions and pray for a sign to come at last.
She prayed all night, asking for God to guide her in how to avenge her family’s wrongs. She knelt for hours, and stared and stared intently at the altar, willing some holy tears of blood to fall from the crucifix, but her Christ did not answer her. Drained and frustrated, she fought off sleep.
The long night became a day of prayer and fasting, but still Christ did not respond. Throughout the second day and night of prayer, she took no food nor water, and her thin frame shook uncontrollably. The lice and fleas roamed her body and she was too distracted to scratch or search them out.
Usually she needed to pray in seclusion, but she was interrupted that morning by a visit from Anna de Kempis. For once, she was welcome. “Perhaps you are the sign of God, Mistress de Kempis. I have prayed for guidance to leave my cell for urgent business to save the life if not the soul of my sister. Let us pray together and, then, please help me by unlatching the bolts of my door so that I can leave my cell.”
Anna de Kempis’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, I cannot, holy anchoress, you are tempting me and God is tempting you. Were I to sin thus, I would be excommunicated, and tortured on the rack. I know God will strengthen you, just as when He gave fortitude to His Son on the Holy Cross. I know the pain, the terrible pain…”
She threw herself on the ground and started to kick her legs in the air and wave her arms and scream, and sob, and whimper, and then scream again. Christine had seen her share the agony of Christ on previous occasions and waited for her passion to pass, but Mistress de Kempis wailed for longer than before, and louder. Father Peter heard her cries and came to the north wall. He kneeled to comfort her and she threw her arms around him, sobbing more piteously.
The priest rocked her gently. “Ah, the Holy Spirit is leaving you for a while, Mistress de Kempis. Peace be with you now. Hush. Go and pray in the church, and I will speak to you after the Mass.”
The wailing woman staggered off, and Father Peter spoke to Christine: “God works in strange ways with strange people.”
“Father,” moaned Christine, “God is ignoring my earnest supplications. He has not answered my prayers. Please undo the bolts. I must leave to help my sister.”
The priest looked at her in amazement. “After all our devotions together, I cannot throw you to the Devil! What can you do that your father here in Shere and our Father in Heaven cannot? This is worse than foolishness, it is vanity. This is Satan’s temptation-you must know that. You do know that, don’t you?”
Not a little anger suffused his face. “I must be off to Mass, before Mistress de Kempis causes mayhem in my congregation,” he said with unaccustomed terseness. “I shall pray for you. But I shall return soon to confirm that your resolve… and the bolts…are firm.”
An hour later she heard her priest rattle the bolts, but he did not speak to her. Self-loathing, fear and doubt engulfed her, and she cried in long choking sobs until night fell upon the church.
At the end of the second day, a fever crept upon her, but she did not feel the touch of death. On the third night of her intense devotions, she felt the flood of warmth embracing her whole body. Through the mist over her eyes she peered at the crucifix. Did it move? Were there holy tears of blood? The mist cleared and there was nothing. The crucifix stared back, immobile, untouched, unresponsive.
She hid from the gaze of her mother when she brought her food, and the priest spoke only in communion prayers.
In her solitude, in darkness except for a little light which framed the edges of her curtain, she dreamed that her long nails were broken. Blood flowed from her fingertips, blood seeped from the iron nail that had been plunged over and over again into the frame of the trapdoor. She dreamed that she was tearing with bare hands against the crumbling mortar around the wooden frame.
She raised her bloodied hands in despair and, in the slim shaft of light, noticed two tiny holes appearing on the palms of her hand. She watched them grow, indefinably at first, then over the hours she could not be mistaken.
On the fourth day blood began to seep through, although there were no wounds in the palms. Then it stopped. On the fifth day the blood appeared to flow copiously for a few seconds when the Mass began. On the sixth day, it happened again.
She felt the gashes on her forehead, and imagined them as wounds from the crown of thorns. Her shoulders ached, perhaps from the weight of the Cross, she thought, and she babbled in tongues.
This she saw and heard and felt in her fever.
In truth, her hands were a mass of gore, her fingers were ten stumps tearing at the door frame, fumbling for the rusted bolts.
