The Empty Frame by Ann Pilling

Author:Ann Pilling [Ann Pilling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007392421
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Her voice wavered, then ceased, and she stared sadly down at the knotted web her gnarled hands had made round the pictures.

“That’s Macbeth,” Floss said in surprise.

“It is. Clever girl.”

“No, I’m not. Magnus seems to know the whole play off by heart. It’s just that I’m trying to learn some of it, to get a part in a play at school. It’s what the doctor says to Macbeth, when Lady Macbeth is sleep walking.”

“It is indeed. It’s about guilt. It’s about terrible deeds that prey on the mind and will not let you rest.”

Magnus was thinking hard about the face of the Lady Alice Neale. In the portrait it was hard and truculent, unforgiving, almost cruel, the face of a woman who might be capable of wicked things. And yet, the second time he had seen her, through the door at the swimming pool, he had seen other things in the face, traces of sorrow and regret under the stubborn exterior. He said, “But what is Lady Alice supposed to have done, Miss Adeline? What is it that she weeps about, after nearly four hundred years? Why is she guilty?”

“Well, there are all kinds of theories, some of them rather wild, but there is a very strong tradition that she killed one of her own sons, or at least, neglected him in some way that led to his death. As you know, there is no record of such a son or of such a death, there is no tomb, but the story has persisted for nearly four centuries, as you’ve just pointed out, and when a story really persists like that you begin to think there might be some truth behind it.”

“You mean ‘No smoke without a fire’?” suggested Magnus.

“That’s one way of putting it. The Neale family were very clever people and that’s historical fact. You can look it up. They produced all kinds of scholars and one or two high-powered diplomats, and they were very close to the king. They think that a Neale – possibly a brother of Lady Alice – tutored young Edward the Sixth, the son of Henry the Eighth, who died young. There’s no hard evidence but there is evidence that Elizabeth the First spent some time at the Abbey and was friends with Lady Alice Neale.”

At this point she stopped abruptly. Then she said, “I think I can trust you, can’t I?”

“Yes,” answered Magnus, stoutly. “You certainly can.” But Floss, wondering what on earth was coming next, did not answer. She was too excited.

“Florence, there’s a tiny picture on the wall by that window… no… have you got it? It’s a piece of tapestry work in a frame. Bring it to me, will you?”

The cloth square was black silk, richly worked in gold, vine leaves and grapes, exquisitely embroidered, the detail so fine it looked as if it had been executed by fairy-tale mice in a story book.

“This relic has always been in our family,” said Miss Adeline. “And it is supposed to have come from a dress worn by Elizabeth the First, when she was at the Abbey.

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