Tales From High Hallack, Volume 3 Read online

  There was the bracelet, gleaming never more beckoningly from the dark pocket. The girl drew the ornament out, put it on, and fastened the catch. It was pretty, too pretty to be hidden. Certainly no one would remember it after all these years, so — she would wear it this evening! That decision seemed to come out of nowhere almost like an order.

  Dilly had a new dress of the palest green, and Sally, who now acted as her maid upon occasion, coaxed her red-brown hair into the most orderly waves, with a curl to lie across her shoulder. She then endured the twitching and turning of the modified-crinoline-supported skirt which was the latest fashion. And, for the first time in her life, she looked into the mirror and decided she was attractive — as attractive as Violet had been.

  “Come along with you.” Mackie stood just within the door. “The first of the carriages has turned in, and you must be ready to greet the guests.”

  This evening, Dilly appeared to have laid her usual slightly-timid and retiring manner away with her daytime dress. Her hand sought the bracelet, turning it around and around on her wrist as she descended the stairs. Young ladies mostly wore a modest pearl necklet like the one she also had on, but there was nothing worldly or showy about her other ornament.

  Papa held out his hand to her as she took the last step down and, beyond him, smiling welcome, was — Clement. The young woman blinked and blinked again. These past two months, the Captain’s face had become as well known to her as her own mirrored features; but his gray eyes now — they were somehow unpleasant, as though she had committed a social error. And there was a quirk to his lips as he smiled which made him look almost disdainful and caused her to feel like a country girl intruding among her betters.

  Then she was standing between her father and Clement with Aunt Susan in line, greeting neighbors and distant members of the family. Violet had sent a civil refusal — this was the night of an important dinner which Lord and Lady Ridgley were helping to host. Oddly, no one had thought her refusal strange.

  Dilly’s arm, wearing the bracelet, hung down beside Clement. Twice he had crooked his own arm in invitation, but for some reason she shrank with a real sense of aversion from his touch. She could not understand why her intended seemed suddenly such a stranger, and she tried to tell herself it was because she was uncomfortable at being the center of attention as she had never been before.

  Most of the guests had arrived when there was a small commotion at the doorway, and an unusual procession appeared. First came a chair which was mounted on wheels and was being pushed by a brawny footman in full livery. There was no mistaking the sharp-featured face of the woman who sat bundled in several shawls in that strange conveyance. Dilly heard a startled “Hmph!” from Papa; then he and Aunt Susan moved forward to greet Miss Clarissa Hale, whose penetrating glance had already shaken Dilly. A moment later, the Captain took a grasp on her arm and pulled her forward too.

  However, the woman in the wheeled chair had another attendant. Dilly, trying to forget that unpleasant stare pinning her, gave a little gasp.

  The stranger presented a complete contrast to the dark figure huddled in wraps to whom he paid patient attention. He — he was the Knight! Dilly saw him as plainly as if he had stepped from the pages of the Idylls of the King, which the girl had dreamed over ever since Papa had given her the volume for her last birthday. Somehow she was able to take her eyes from him long enough to greet Miss Hale, whose stretch of thin lips was anything but a cordial smile.

  “Since we are family, or about to become so,” Miss Hale spoke directly to Aunt Susan now, “I knew that you would not mind an addition to the party. An extra young man is always useful.” She laughed, and to Dilly that mirthless noise sounded exactly like a crow’s harsh call. “This is Gerald Langley, dear Clement’s cousin on his mother’s side, who happened to be passing through the shire and had the good manners to renew family bonds with a visit.”

  Both Aunt Susan and Papa had on their set “social faces,” but the young woman was sure they were not pleased; only one could not turn the guest of a guest from the door.

  At that moment, Hawkins came to announce that dinner was served. Aunt Susan looked around a little wildly, as if she wondered how they were to conjure up a place for this unexpected addition to the party, but Hawkins favored his mistress with a certain look which suggested that the matter was well in hand. Nothing ever seemed too difficult for that pillar of the family to manage.

  “Foster, you may go now.” Miss Hale was abruptly dismissing the footman who had pushed her in. “Sir Clement knows well how to manage for me.”

  And Clement did move obediently to the handle at the back of that chair. Dilly watched him, not a little nettled. By all the social laws, he should have taken her in himself, but it was plain that his aunt had him well “under her paw” — a saying Mackie often used.

  “Miss Manners, may I have the pleasure?” It was the Knight, coming to her rescue before the eyes of the company, just as was fitting for the occasion. Dilly looked up at him. Yes, he was just like the Knight. Was it Lancelot or Galahad? She could not remember now; however, she felt a warm glow as she put her hand lightly on the arm he offered. At least she would not be trailing behind Captain and Miss Hale like a charity child summoned in for inspection!

  There was something of an undignified scramble at the table where Miss Hale’s majestic chair had to be accommodated. The result was that the lady sat on the right hand of her host with Clement still in close attendance on her left. As the minutes passed, Dilly’s irritation grew. Her intended seemed altogether occupied with seeing to his aunt’s comfort, answering various questions she addressed to him between statements to Papa concerning affairs in the world at large. She would say such things as, “Now, you are a military man, dear Clement — what is the Army’s reaction to this?”

  Dilly found that, in a curious way, he seemed to be fading — that he was not her bright and happy friend or, yes, lover anymore. She had a growing feeling of shadows stretching out to overcast the future drawing near. Would Clement expect her, after they were married, to live with Miss Hale? The estate belonged to him, but he constantly deferred to his aunt, saying that she had run it ably for so long her advice was needed.

  For contrast, she allowed herself to be amused by the light chatter of her seatmate, Mr. Langley, who seemed to be anything but “under Miss Hale’s paw.” The girl found herself laughing at his amusing comments about his travels in the shires.

  Suddenly the older woman shot a question at her, completely interrupting a story Mr. Langley was telling. “It is somewhat unusual for a young lady to wear much jewelry, but that is a very handsome bracelet you are displaying this evening — certainly fine mosaic work. Italian, is it not?”

  Dilly flushed. She knew Clarissa had recognized the bracelet. What would that sour spinster say next? Clement was frowning at his intended as though she had, indeed, broken some rule of good breeding. Defiantly, she held her hand out a little further so that the candlelight brought the ornament in question fully into view.

  “It is an old piece, Miss Hale. I really do not know much about it, except that I found it in a drawer. The pattern is quite pretty, and I admit it tempted me.”

  Miss Hale was smiling once more. “Just so. Violets are modest, maidenly flowers and quite suitable. Clement, I think my chair needs some adjustment —?”

  There had been something about that exchange which made the younger woman feel a small shiver. She wanted to pull the bracelet off as Violet had done in the rose garden on that day a dozen years ago, but she could not make a scene. Now, though, the mosaic piece seemed very cold, and the flowers looked faded and far from pretty. She turned abruptly to Mr. Langley with the first remark that crossed her mind — something about the rose garden. Rose garden — she must not think of that!

  Fortunately, in moments her interest was caught and firmly held by his description of his visit to the royal gardens at Windsor and his subsequent presentation to His Highness the Prince of Wales
. Clement and Miss Hale could be forgotten — Dilly was determined it would be so.

  Only at last the dinner, which felt as though it had lasted forever, was nearing its end, when Papa would be giving the toast in honor of the engagement. How, at that moment, she longed for the Knight beside her to see her safely away! It seemed to Dilly that tonight Clement had revealed himself as an entirely different person — one she did not know and would not like even if she did. Deep within her arose a little quirk of wonder at why she felt that way, but it quickly vanished.

  Somehow Dilly managed to sit and smile through the toast, blush in an appropriately-demure way, and accept the good wishes of the company without catching Clement’s full gaze again. Mr. Langley was all consideration and once actually murmured something about time making him a loser which she hoped only she had heard.

  Then the girl was free. By now, her head was pounding, and she wanted nothing more than her bed and Mackie’s soothing hands stroking her hair. She glanced about in near desperation, but knew that neither Aunt Susan nor Papa would countenance her withdrawal — no, she had to go inside, stand by her betrothed (who seemed bound by an invisible tether to his aunt’s chair), and present the proper appearance. Mr. Langley still watched her, and now and then their eyes met. It almost seemed then that he understood her growing confusion and need for escape.

  Finally the party began to break up. Clement turned to her with a suggestion that they go out onto the terrace, but Miss Hale’s harsh demand that he guide her chair into the hall summoned him away. Aunt Susan and Papa were busy saying farewells when the Knight appeared beside her.

  Dilly was not aware that she had raised the hand backed by the bracelet, but she found it clasped in his and felt the unnerving brush of his mustache as he raised her fingers a little to kiss them. At the same moment, Clement appeared in the doorway. His face looked hard and set, and he summoned Mr. Langley with a wave; nor did he come to Dilly but left with his aunt and cousin without so much as a goodnight.

  The young woman’s head was bursting now, and she wanted to cry. She got by Aunt Susan and Papa, she never knew how, and back to her room. Once in that merciful refuge, she sent Sally away and dropped into the big chair by the window, not caring how her skirts were being crumpled. Holding her head between her two hands, she tried to understand what had happened to her.

  “Child—” The familiar endearment from Mackie brought the tears, hurting tears, which Dilly tried to wipe away.

  “I knew that one would make trouble.” Mackie drew her close in soft, comforting arms; then, suddenly, the nurse’s fingers closed tightly about her wrist and turned it into the light. The girl heard, even through her sobs, the hiss of the old woman’s breath.

  “Where did you get this?” Mackie gave a jerk hard enough to bruise Dilly’s wrist and waved the bracelet before her charge’s tear-filled eyes.

  “I — I found it —”

  “This was Miss Violet’s, sent her by that woman.”

  Dilly managed to get out the story of that long-ago afternoon in the rose garden and what she had seen there. “The bracelet was so pretty, and they did not want it, so I took it.” Her voice sounded childish even to herself.

  “Pretty? Aye — about as pretty as a viper!” The aged nurse was holding the now-dangling band as she might well hold the reptile in question. Now, moving away from Dilly, she lifted the ornament close to the nearest candle. She was looking, not at the flowers, but rather at the back of the oval gold pieces which framed them.

  “Yes — as I thought all along when Miss Violet acted so. This is a wicked, bewitched thing! That woman — she knows more than anyone mortal has a right to do. I wonder she can set foot in church of a Sunday!

  “But where there is darkness, there can be light. Where is your prayer-book, child?”

  Completely amazed to the point where she was no longer crying, Dilly went to the bedside table and took from its drawer the worn, velvet-bound book which had belonged to her mother and which she had carried to church more Sundays than she could remember.

  Mackie had pulled aside the curtains at the closest window. Now she carefully placed the book, opened to a certain page she had hunted for in the full moonlight, and across the flattened volume she laid the bracelet.

  “Darkness and hate, spite and harm — what is within this thing of evil, may it be brought forth. In the Names of the Father Above, the Son Whom we cherish, and the Holy Spirit Which awaits the call of any in need.” She said the words slowly and solemnly, and then she added certain other ones which Dilly did not understand at all but which had the sound of an urgent summons.

  Did she see a mist gather over the bracelet? The girl was always sure afterward that she had. Then that mist passed on out through the window and was gone, and she felt as she had when she was small and was recovering from a bad illness. Now all the events of the night appeared utterly strange and unreal. Clement — Clement was strength, and warmth, and loving —

  The young woman rubbed her hand across her eyes. “Mackie — do such things happen? This is real life, no fairy tale! Did Miss Hale wish some kind of bad thing on Violet and Chris and try to do it again with me, until you sent it away?”

  “Child, there are many powers in the world, both good and evil. Belief makes either one strong to help or hinder. This evil is gone —”

  “But I do not want that ever again.” Dilly looked at the bracelet. “Put it away, Mackie, in one of the trunks in the attic. Let it stay hidden forever.”

  Clipping from the Obituary column of the Lincolnshire Times:

  The sudden demise of Miss Clarissa Hale was a sharp and sad surprise for her family and friends. She bore her infirmities with dignity and courage and was an outstanding example of the best of a fine old family.

  From the same publication six months later:

  The wedding of Delia Lucinda Manners, daughter of the Right Honorable Robert Manners and his deceased wife, Lady Pauline Dervant Manners, was celebrated in St. Richard’s, the bride’s parish church. The happy couple are about to set sail for India, where Captain Sir Clement Hale will join his regiment, the Bengal Lancers. The Hale family has a long history of service to the Crown in that country.

  Among the guests were –

  Advertisement in Antique Guide 1995: Estate sale. Unusually fine example of 1840 Italian marble mosaic bracelet. Unique pattern of White Violets.

  Needle and Dream

  Perchance to Dream (2000) DAW

  Dwelling in the pocket of fertile earth that lies walled by the rise of Mount Tork to the south and the Sleeping Hills to northward, the villagers had little knowledge of the outside world. They did, however, have dreams; and, through the centuries they had been isolated from those who had once been their own kind, such night visions had become their one link with the Power Beyond.

  The village folk did not dream often these days. Thus, when man, woman, or child spent sleeptime in a dream, they made haste to report it in the morning and were hurried off to the cottage of the Keeper. There, that guardian of the Old Ways would question them rigorously, noting down in his record book their descriptions of things they had beheld, of actions in which they had had a part.

  Many of those sleep-seeings would prove a reliving of normal doings, though sometimes the daily round was admixed with irresponsible behavior in scenes which the sober Keeper had to shake his head over. But dreams of true foretelling had been sent, as well, and those were entered into the charts and carefully consulted at need.

  There had also come images from the Dark, and those were like a poison in the body of the village. Hanker, the smith, had dreamed of plague—and did it not strike their valley from out of nowhere within two tens of days thereafter? The folk who Dark-dreamed were shunned by their fellows and forced to stand apart, and they were given potions by the wisewife to make sure they did not follow one such nightmare with another.

  It was a cloudy dawn when Krista awoke. Sweat beaded her forehead, and her nightshift clung to he
r spare body, which shook uncontrollably. She huddled, drawn in upon herself, as though a monster padded about the bed preparing to seize her if she put forth so much as a foot.

  The girl could not forget even a portion of her dream, though much of it was strange beyond her understanding. At last, mechanically, she dragged herself from her narrow bed and dressed for the day, but once she had braided her hair she could delay no longer. All the rules she had been taught to live by pushed her to duty now. She had never dreamed before, yet she knew well the course that lay ahead for her. Luckily, no sounds could be heard within the cottage—she alone had waked.

  Fog swirled around each of the small houses along the lane, dimmed them to hulking shadows—forms that, for the first time, Krista found menacing. The girl shot wary glances left and right as she hurried to the last cottage at the very end of the village. There alone a lighted lantern hung, for it was the rule that any dreamer must seek the Keeper at the end of his or her seeing, even though the time might still be night. Raising fist against the door, the newest visionary smote its surface with what force she could.

  Though Krista had been beckoned in by a wave of the Keeper’s hand and sat now on a stool by the fire cradling a tankard of hot herb drink between her shaking hands, she still shrank from speaking. The lore-master, meanwhile, made ready the great recording book and set out a pen and a small cup of soot-black ink. He performed these tasks with great precision, as though he, too, were reluctant to break the silence. At length he turned his head to survey Krista, and the girl gulped, while the tankard threatened to douse her with some of its contents.

  “Master Keeper,” her voice sounded high and shrill in her own ears, “I have dreamed.”

  “And what have you dreamed?” he asked calmly.

  His visitor set her drinking mug down on the raised hearthstone, then twisted her freed hands together in agitation, but there was no escape.

  “Of the Dark—it must have been of the Dark!” The words burst forth in a near scream.