Blackbriar (9 page)

“Oh, yes,” he said, “the article was very clear, as far as it went.” The wind was streaming into every crack and crevice in the car and he could hardly keep from shivering. “The article was about the oldest building around here, and they weren’t really sure whether Blackbriar was or not. But the earliest records they have of it were from the time of the Great Plague, you know, the bubonic plague, when it hit England in 1665. Blackbriar was where they put away the people from Dunchester who caught it.”

Philippa was gazing at him silently, her lips slightly parted. Now that he had broken the ice, he went on quite rapidly. “I did some research on the plague today. The first time it came, three quarters of the population of Europe died from it. It sounds like such an awful disease, with people getting huge sores on their bodies that itched and stung and were so painful that people would just scream and writhe around uncontrollably. And they had fits and convulsions too. I think it affected the brain, people would go mad from the pain and run around helplessly, not knowing where they were or what they were doing, trying to rip the swellings from their flesh. . . . That explains the names on the door, of course. All those people died there, from the plague. I still wonder about Mary Peachy, though, why she had no date. I was thinking, maybe she was the last one to die, and there was nobody left to put it down.”

For a moment Philippa was silent. Then, her voice husky, she said, “I’ll go get the milk and eggs,” and dashed from the car.

Truly shivering, Danny absentmindedly pulled Islington more tightly against him. Oddly enough there was something comforting about stroking his warm, gently breathing body. He wondered vaguely why Islington did not protest, but soon began to think about what that strange man had said the night before. Mr. Creech had told them he was a harmless eccentric, and maybe his words were nothing but confused, meaningless prattle. But there was something about the way he had said them that made it difficult for Danny to get them out of his mind. There must have been something very special about Mary Peachy for the man to speak of her like that, something more than just being the last to die. The librarian, too, had reacted to her name. But what was there about her? And what could last night’s visitor possibly have meant by suggesting that she might be there? It was clearly impossible that she could still be alive. Yet that was what the words had implied, and Danny could not forget them.

Soon Philippa returned, and with brisk movements tightly packed the milk bottles, egg cartons, and a pot of fresh butter into the back. Roughly, she jerked the car away, and soon they were driving through the little forest with the gnarled roots. Here it was almost night, the thick, twisted shadows of the trees stretching out across the road. “Well,” Philippa said at last, “that certainly is a piece of information. But I’m not sure how grateful to you I am for finding it out, I must say.”

“But you know we’d have had to find out sometime. We were just too curious not to.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But tell me, how do you feel about living there now?”

“I don’t really know. I suppose it’s silly to worry about the place still being infected; it couldn’t be, after all those years, and nobody gets the plague now anyway. But I’m sure that really isn’t what’s bothering either of us. It’s just the idea of it, that all those people died such horrible deaths there. I mean, that’s the only frightening thing. And why should that have any effect on us, really? I mean, unless we believed in ghosts or something, which we don’t.”

“Yes, yes, I know all that. But, I just don’t know if I can bear the continual thought that right in my own bed, right where I’m sleeping, somebody was rotting away in mindless agony.” For a moment she closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth, then quickly snapped her attention back to the road. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m an emotional person. I’m even a bit superstitious. And I know that something like this can work its way into my head and just dominate all my thoughts. I just don’t know, I don’t know.”

Well, Danny thought, now it’s going to be easy to persuade her to leave this uncomfortable place and go back to London. Briefly he pictured the London apartment, and the kind of life he had had there. And he realized, with a shock, that he really didn’t want to go back. “But haven’t you grown to like the house?” he asked. “In the few days we’ve been there I’ve really got used to it. I know we felt uncomfortable at first; but actually, that probably
was
that we just weren’t used to being isolated. Now that you’ve fixed it up and made it so cozy and nice, why, it almost seems to me that there’s something benevolent about the place.”

Philippa glanced at him suspiciously. “But
you’re
the one who didn’t want to come here in the first place. What’s made you change your mind? Good God, there’s still so much we don’t know about the place! Why was that awful wooden figure there, for instance? No, I’m sure this isn’t the complete answer. I’m sure we’ve only tapped the surface. It would take more than this plague business to make everyone hate Blackbriar so much.”

“But that’s another reason why I want to stay. I’ve got to find out the rest of the story.”

Philippa flipped on the headlights, murmuring, “Now we’ll have to drive up there in the dark.” They drove on in silence until they reached the Black Swan. She pulled into the driveway. “I’m going in for a drink,” she said. “You can come in with me if you want.”

It was dark inside the public house, and hot, and the air hung with smoke. There was the heavy pub smell of rich beer and cigars, and the hum of glasses and conversation. Behind the stained mahogany bar, bottles of every size and shape were arranged in pyramids against dark wooden columns and oval mirrors reflecting a darker, smokier room. The heavy beams on the ceiling were hardly discernible, and the fire blazing in the stone fireplace, which was big enough for a man to walk into, flickered over the groups of people huddled around the bar, standing in corners, seated on black leather window seats or at the round wooden tables scattered about the room.

They made their way to the bar. Danny felt slightly uncomfortable, never having been in such a place before, but the bearded bartender hardly seemed to notice him at all. “What’ll it be, madam?” he asked Philippa, wiping off the counter with a white cloth.

“Gin and French, please,” she said, “but only a
drop
of French.”

“And for you, my lad? A ginger beer? A lemonade?”

“Some lemonade, please.”

Philippa paid for the drinks, and they made their way to a table in the corner near the fireplace, where no one would be able to hear them. The tabletop was comfortably scarred and stained, and there was a large black ashtray in the center. Philippa took a sip of her drink and lit a cigarette. “We can’t stay long,” she said. “I’ll just have this one drink. But I do need something to help me face that place now.” She took a nervous puff and stared into the fire.

His elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, Danny studied her face. In the firelight it looked soft and worn, the skin loose, her eyelids drooping in a way that was weary rather than just tired. He wondered if it was wise to have told her what he had learned about Blackbriar.

She took another slow sip, and a long column of ash fell from her cigarette onto the floor. “If we leave here,” she said, “we’ll have nowhere else to go, nowhere.”

Danny sat up so quickly he almost knocked over his chair. He hardly had time to be amazed at his own concern as he leaned toward her across the table and said in an intense whisper, “Leave here? But why? Just because it was a pesthouse once a million years ago? Just because some people died there? People die everyplace. People had the plague everywhere! How can you mean it?” He had never argued with her so vehemently before; until now, he had never cared enough about anything.

“I hardly know what I mean,” she said slowly. “I can’t bear the thought of moving again, I can’t bear the thought of looking for another place to live. But I wonder if I can bear to go on living there. . . .”

“But—” Danny sighed and fell loosely back into his chair. How could she be so stodgy and unadventurous? He searched his brain for something nasty to say to her.

But before he had a chance to say anything he felt a light tap on his shoulder, and turned to find Lark standing behind him. “Oh, hullo,” he said, getting up awkwardly. “I was wondering if you would be here.” She was still wearing jeans and the thick black sweater, and her hair was no neater than it had been the day before on the windy hillside.

“I didn’t expect
you
to be,” she said. “Why should anybody be in this place when they could be up there with just the wind and the trees all around, in your wonderful house? Well, aren’t you going to introduce me?”

“Oh,” he said. “Right. Philippa, this is Lark. I met her at the tumuli yesterday. And this is Mrs. Sibley, the lady I live with.”

“Hello,” Philippa said. She turned to Danny. “You didn’t tell me you’d met anybody yesterday.”

“I—I guess there just wasn’t time,” Danny said lamely, trying to hide his embarrassment. “I mean, so many other things happened last night that—”

“I’m very glad to meet you,” Lark interrupted, somewhat timidly, Danny noted.

“Why don’t you sit down,” Philippa said coldly. “Danny, pull up a chair for her.”

He was ashamed to be told what to do in front of his independent friend; but there was nothing he could do but pull back a chair and then flop carelessly back into his.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since I met Danny,” Lark began, leaning forward. “I knew I would like anybody who liked Blackbriar, especially someone who would come all the way from London to live there.”

“You might not like her, then,” Danny said. “She wants to leave.”

“Oh, come now,” Philippa said. “You’re exaggerating, and you’re not telling the whole story. The truth is,” she went on, turning to Lark, “that I have been wondering, just wondering, if we really should go on living there. You must know the strange attitude people have about the place. They seem either disgusted or afraid, and so secretive, all of which does have some relevance, after all. And now it turns out that Blackbriar has a really rather macabre history, as Danny discovered today.”

“What did you find out?” Lark asked quickly.

“Oh, it was a pesthouse,” Danny said, trying to make it sound boring and ordinary. “When the Great Plague came in the seventeenth century that’s where they put the people from Dunchester who caught it. I told you about that door, remember? All the names on it must be the people who died there.”

Lark gave a long, low whistle and slowly leaned back in her chair. “I see what you mean,” she said to Philippa. “That’s about as ghastly as you can get.” To Danny she said, “How clever of you to find that out! And in less than a week as well. I’ve been here for practically as long as I can remember, and I had no idea it had been used for that.”

Danny felt a quick wave of pleasure. It was the first time he had ever been complimented for something he had done completely on his own, perhaps because he had never really done anything on his own before.

“Yes, yes,” Philippa said. There was an unpleasant edge to her voice. “I’m sure we all appreciate how very clever Danny is. But I don’t understand why no one will tell us anything about the place.”

While Lark was explaining to Philippa that the people in this part of the country were really quite secretive, Danny suddenly remembered that he hadn’t told her not to mention the chanting on the tumuli to Philippa. Now she was probably going to say something about it, and Philippa would be furious that he hadn’t told her, as well as even more convinced that they shouldn’t stay. Every time Lark opened her mouth Danny was sure her next words would give it away. Silently he begged her not to mention it, while he desperately tried to think of some way to keep her quiet without making Philippa suspicious.

But in a moment Philippa finished her drink and stood up. “I’m going to the loo,” she said. “And then we’ve really got to get back. There’s the firewood to find, the oven to light, the lamps to fill, the dinner to cook, poor Islington’s been cooped up in that car practically all day . . .” And she moved off into the smoke.

Danny breathed deeply. “I kept thinking you were going to tell her about all those people at the tumuli!”

“Oh, didn’t you tell her? But you shouldn’t have worried. I got the drift of what was going on. She seemed to be on the
verge
of wanting to leave, so it would have been stupid of me to remind her of something like that, even if she already knew. I suppose it was wise of you not to tell her.”

“It certainly seems that way now. But listen, there’s this thing I forgot to tell you the other day.” And he described the doll, told about Philippa’s reaction to it and how he had secretly hidden it in his room.

“I’m dying to go up there now,” Lark said. “I can’t wait to see all these things you’ve been telling me about. I wonder if it would be possible . . .”

“I can ask her,” Danny said, and then added quickly, “and anyway, it’s my house too. She has no right to refuse—”

Lark motioned to him to be quiet, for Philippa was approaching the table. They both looked up guiltily, but she seemed too preoccupied to notice. Quickly Danny said, “Philippa, could Lark come back to the house with us now?”

Philippa looked at Lark doubtfully. “Well, you’d have to spend the night. I’m not driving back down again, you know. If you think your father would approve . . .”