The Brides of Aberdar by Christianna Brand

Author:Christianna Brand [Brand, Christianna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9050-7
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2013-01-15T22:37:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

THE RUSTLE OF SILK, the swish of velvet against velvet, the faint, faint whispering of starched ruffs chafing… In their baskets in the darkened hall, the little dogs shivered and whined and a chill wind blew though there had been no opening of the great front door. She leaned in all her beauty, against the newel post at the foot of the stairs: Lenora. ‘So Diccon—another aeon of waiting is at an end and we are here again!’

‘We’ve watched and listened. We’ve not been far away all these years since the last one died, poor pretty Anne.’

‘We keep close in our hands the threads of contact with the old house: who else is to slam the doors and set alight the small conflagrations that keep our victims within reach? But at last came that other one and then immediately the governess—Lady Hilbourne, forsooth! And still the curse prevailed. You could hardly call those two happy brides!’

‘Hardly brides at all; the one moving out of the house, the other with a marriage lasting but an hour.’

‘So we had to be content with non-appearances; just—influences. And with this one, here in the Manor, we have had some entertainment.’

He came to the staircase, stood a couple of steps below her, looking up into her face. ‘You find it all an entertainment. But… That poor pretty Welshwoman—what harm had she ever done to anyone?’

‘She had strayed like a foolish sheep into the dangerous fold of the Anathema. That was enough.’

‘You and your Anathema! What good has it ever done to you and me?’

The blue velvet gown was hooped around her beautiful figure—not so tall as he, of course, but finely built, not an angle in any movement of the smooth, rounded limbs: the gem-sprinkled under-dress, jewelled slippers sparkling in the light of the dying fire as they had sparkled and glittered in the old sombre library, two hundred and fifty years ago. ‘It has given us—a purpose. A moment in the endless chain of moments that make up our eternity of greyness. They say among the living that a man can’t endure, even through his brief spell of lifetime, without hope. You know this yourself—intolerant as ever, you wouldn’t live an hour without it.’

‘And so condemned myself to an eternity without it. And you, also. Why need you have followed my lead?’

‘What, let you go off without your keeper to the courts of heaven! You’d made trouble enough in the courts below.’ She laughed. ‘Had you no fear of that old woman? A thousand times I thought you must be at last for the execution block. There was once you actually brushed by her in your impetuosity, rushing off upon your own occasions, never stopping to think for a moment.’

‘How could men fear her? She was like a wooden doll, a white-painted wooden doll, poking out head and hands from a great stiff bell of costume. I gave her due loyalty.’

‘And a sort of affection?’

He said, shrugging, ‘Because I was not afraid of her.

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