Mask of Night (12 page)

“And she has actually talked of enemies, of being poisoned?”

“Not in so many words, although she did once mention discoloured or strange-smelling food,” said Susan Constant. “She is a delicate woman. She would weep plentifully over the death of a favourite dog. She has done so before now.”

This distress over a dog’s death didn’t seem to me so unreasonable, though Susan Constant’s tone suggested that
she
would not have been so easily affected. She continued, “But I have only to look at Sarah to see that something is working away at her from the inside. She has grown thinner and careworn, she has complained of pustules and blisters on her back. She says she is sometimes hot and feverish.”

“And this is making her suspicious?”

“It is making me suspicious.
She
has a trusting nature. Since she will not look out for herself, someone must be suspicious on her behalf.”

“Maybe she’s anxious about the prospect of marriage,” I said. “Even if the opposition to it is really quite small, she may still be troubled by the idea of going against her parents’ wishes.”

“Oh she is sick, believe me,” said Susan.

I was affected by the helplessness in her voice. I was inclined to believe her, or at least half-inclined. I watched a heron take off on the other side of the river, its boxy wings casing up the air.

“Has anyone else detected these symptoms you talk of?”

“No one knows her as I do, not even Nurse Root. If they noticed anything wrong they would probably put it down to an anxious mind and heart, as you have just done.”

“And has
Sarah
mentioned the signs to anyone else? Her intended husband, for instance.”

“She – she would not say anything to him. Anyway, I do not think she is aware of her true state. Or does not want to be aware of it. She tries to laugh it off.”

“What about consulting a doctor? Doctor Fern?”

“Not him,” she said.

“Why not? After all, you must trust him.”

“Why so?” she said, sounding genuinely curious.

“You described how he was clever enough to find your missing cup by casting for it.”

“Cleverness is not trust. There is a world of difference between a missing trinket and an attempt at poisoning.”

“Someone else then? Oxford must be full of wise men for you or your cousin to speak to.”

“I tell you she will not take her condition seriously. She would rather think of her wedding day. Dream of it.”

“When will it be, this wedding day?”

“There are negotiations taking place between my family and the Sadlers. If they are satisfactory the wedding will be celebrated soon.”

“I still don’t see why you are telling me all this. What can
I
do?”

“I do not know where else to turn,” she said, and so naturally won a small quarter of my heart if not my head.

“I’m just a player.”

I avoided the “simple” addition this time.

“Another member of your Company told me how you once helped a family in Somerset when they were in distress and how you brought light into a dark place. It is reputed that you can do these things.”

“Who told you?”

“Abel Glaze is his name.”

So that was it! That was what she and Abel had been talking about at the Ferns’. Well, it was my fault for having hinted to my friend that I had been instrumental in resolving a problem to do with the Agate family and the deaths which had occurred in it.
*
Of course, I might just have let slip details of one or two other riddling affairs which I’d been involved in. Now I was repaid for my casual vanity. If you have a mystery then bring it to N.Revill and watch him fumble his way to a solution.

We were still walking side by side along the river bank. Now I stopped, forcing Susan Constant to a halt as well, and turned to face her.

“Mistress Constant, I do not think you are being altogether straightforward with me.”

A baffled look crossed her face.

“Why not . . . Nicholas? And you should call me Susan.”

I grew a bit warier at this.

“Whatever I should call you, you are not telling me everything. You are fearful for your cousin Sarah because she is sick, and because you think that someone is determined she shouldn’t marry. But there is no evidence for any of these beliefs – apart from the fact that she’s grown thin and careworn – and the – what was it? – the blisters on her back. Where does this talk of poison and enemies come from?”

“You will compel me to say more, Nicholas?”

“If there is more to say.”

“Listen and you may judge. But if you didn’t believe me earlier then you are even less likely to believe me now.”

She’d nimbly put me in the wrong by accusing me of outright disbelief – when what I really thought was that she had probably dreamed up a plot and enemies where none existed – but I didn’t protest. Instead I waited. Avoiding my eyes, she looked out over the fast-flowing waters of the Isis.

“There was a woman died recently outside the city walls, on a farm near the Constant grounds.”

“Poisoned?” I said.

“Perhaps,” said Susan, ignoring the touch of mockery in my remark. “But she was old and ready enough to die.”

“You knew her?”

“Everyone knew old mother Morrison. She and her family have been tenants of the Constants for ever. But, listen, that is not the point of my story. On the day of her death I was out walking close to this farm. It was a fine morning and I was out early because I had not been able to sleep. The birds were singing with the spring. The sky was clear.”

She turned away from the river and suddenly grasped my upper arm.

“Then at once there was – was – a figure crossing the path directly ahead of me. I saw a figure.”

“What figure?”

“It was dressed in black. Some kind of black coat or cloak that was shapeless. It seemed to drain the light from all around so that wherever it moved there was a dead, dark space.”

Her grip on my arm tightened.

“It was carrying a long thin stick, held out in front of it. Like a probe.”

She did not need to grasp my arm so tightly. She had all my attention now.

“On this fine morning to see such a figure cross my path! Like a fragment of the night! But that wasn’t the worst aspect of it. The worst of it was the head. It had the head of a bird, a head all cased up in black. There was a snout which stuck out like a fat beak as if it had just crammed its maw. There were its eyes, glassy eyes, wicked round eyes which caught the glitter of the morning sun.”

As she said this, Susan Constant was staring not at me but staring inwardly, remembering her vision of the bird-figure.

“It gazed neither to the right nor left but moved across my path, within two arm’s length, three at most.”

“It did not see you?” I said, struggling to keep my voice level.

“Thank God, it could not have done. It was intent on other business. It glided on and disappeared among the trees and bushes by the side of the path. I – I did not want to turn my head and see it vanish into the woods.”

“Are you certain of this?” I said.

“I felt the passage of the – the thing,” she said. “As it moved across in front of me I felt a draught of air. And smelt a smell, a musty dead smell. Then I heard the noise of a body moving among branches, a slight noise, a rustling. It was not a spirit. I did not dream this thing, I’m certain.”

She shuddered. Then it seemed as though she came back to herself. She looked down at her hand where it still grasped my arm. She even managed a quarter-smile.

“There . . . Nicholas. I said that you were even less likely to believe me now.”

“But I do believe you.”

I did not say that the figure she’d described was the same, essentially the same, as the ones I had half seen in a back street on my first night in Oxford. A figure garbed in black with a bird-shaped head, holding out in front of it a stick like a probe or an insect’s horn. I had glimpsed several of them by night while Mistress Constant had seen a single one by day. But could there be any doubt that, separately, we had witnessed the same . . . prodigy?

Perhaps encouraged that I hadn’t dismissed her story out of hand, Susan went on.

“I stood there for I don’t know how long. I think I was afraid to move, and also afraid that the figure would come back, and between one fear and the other I did nothing. The sun shone and insects were buzzing about my head. Then I heard a terrible cry from the direction of the farmhouse where mother Morrison lives, where she lived rather, and that must have brought me to my senses because the next thing I knew I was running – not towards the house, but away from it. I ran and ran until I got home . . . ”

“Did you tell anyone about this?”

“I said no words but crept up into my chamber, my legs were trembling so much that I could hardly stand. So I knelt down and spent some time in prayer and eventually grew calmer in my mind and body. For a time I hoped that it had all been my imagination, that I’d never seen the figure cross my path or heard the cry from the farmhouse. But I know that I saw that shape as surely as I can see you now, Nicholas.”

I put out a reassuring hand.

“I said I believe you.”

And now I briefly described the vision which I had experienced, the shapes shuffling along the dark alley, the flash of lantern-light from above, the nightmarish sight of the hooded and snouted heads. Susan Constant looked shocked, as if taken aback to have her own vision confirmed by someone else.

“What did you do?” she said.

“Like you, I went back to my room, to the inn where we’re staying in town. I ran back, if I’m honest. No one asked me any questions, my fellows were mostly asleep. It took
me
some time to get to sleep though.”

“You told no one afterwards?”

“Not until now.”

“I’m glad.”

“Glad I haven’t told anyone?”

“Glad that I am not alone. That you have seen this thing too.”

“This old woman you mentioned,” I said, “the one in the farmhouse, she died?”

“Her death was reported the same day. She was found in her bed at the dinner hour. So the cry I heard must have been . . . ”

She let the sentence fall away.

“You’ve no idea what the shape was?”

“No. But listen, I have seen it since and near to our own house too.”

For the first time in her account I felt myself go cold.

“Early one morning I was looking out from my chamber window – I could not sleep again – I do not know why but I have been restless and wakeful recently – when I caught sight of it, black-clad, bird-headed, outside among the yew hedges. It was there one moment and I turned away in terror and when I turned back it had gone.”

I didn’t ask her what “it” was doing out among the yew hedges but my look may have been enough because she went on, “Later that day Sarah received a parcel. It contained a clay figure, like a plaything.”

“A present? Who sent it?”

“There was no mark of any sender. The parcel was left outside a back entrance to the house, with my cousin’s name on it.”

“What is so terrible about a play figure?”

“This one had a pin stuck in its belly.”

I had heard of such attempts at magic cursing before. It is not too difficult to shrug them off as the work of ignorant country dwellers, but not perhaps if you are the recipient.

“What was its effect on Sarah?”

“She said at first that the image wasn’t meant for her but for someone else. Then she said that the person who made it must have simply left the pin in its belly by accident. And then she took to her bed with stomach cramps and a fever. Nurse Root was able to mix a preparation of saffron for her.”

“You are linking the figure in black with this item? Just as you link it with the death of the old woman in the farmhouse?”

“I don’t know,” said Susan Constant. “But it seems likely. What else can I do?”

The effect of these visions and happenings was plain enough. They had made Susan Constant a frightened woman, not so much for herself but for Sarah. I couldn’t understand any way in which these events and surmises might be connected but it was obvious that something was not right in the Constant household. But neither could I understand the role which I was destined to play, or what Susan had in mind for me.

“I don’t know exactly what I want from you, Nicholas,” she said, when I reiterated this point. “Simply to talk to someone else is a relief and then to find that you also have witnessed these things! And you are a player and so a resourceful man . . . and your friend Abel told me how you had helped to solve a mystery once . . . and I know that you are an observant individual.”

This praise wasn’t altogether welcome (because I did not yet see how I could assist her) but I must have raised my eyebrows at this last comment.

“You noticed that Mistress Root referred to my mother, and you picked up on it when I said that my parents were dead. That is all I meant, Nicholas. You’re a sharp-eyed person, a sharp-eared one too.”

We moved back along a path leading towards the city. There were few people about now and it was growing dusky.

“Are you superstitious?” she said. “Do you believe in spirits and such?”

“It depends on what time of day you ask the question – or what time of night perhaps.”

“Just so. You bring reason to a situation, if you are able to. So do I. Yet you can be overtaken by fears. So can I. I tell myself that what I have seen is not an apparition or a monster but a human being who, for motives of its own, chooses to – disguise itself in such a manner. And if it has reasons they are likely to be connected somehow to my cousin’s forthcoming marriage. And if there are
reasons
then, whatever they are, they can be uncovered by the application of reason.”

I looked sideways at my companion’s profile. There was a clear, determined set to her expression. She was moving briskly. There was something almost masculine about her process of argument. I was willing to be impressed. I was ready to give a hand.

“So what do you want me to do?” I said.

So she told me.

As we were walking back along the meadow paths towards the town, the calm of the early evening was broken by the ringing of a church bell. Nothing unusual in that. Oxford, like London, is a city of towers, steeples and bells. But on this occasion there was an eager, even frantic quality in the sound.