Devil Water by Anya Seton

Author:Anya Seton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 2012-06-01T16:17:08+00:00

Jenny slept that night in a big bed with Dorothy. The bedroom had been the Abbot’s lodging in the old monastery, her hostess explained, and Jenny had never seen anything like it. The ancient beams were black, there were deep stone cupboards and niches in the walls. The triple lancet windows were of stone too, and had fragments of stained glass in them. They looked out over a garden which had once been the cloister. Little humps marked the graves of the murdered monks.

That night at Blanchland, an eeriness began for Jenny and continued for as long as she remained in Northumberland. It was an awareness of something close and wishful of communicating, a feeling that the veil was here very thin -- more awesome than frightening-- yet there were times when Jenny was frightened. She was during that night at Blanchland. Unable to sleep beside the gently snoring Dorothy, she listened to the crackles in the old woodwork, the scurrying of mice overhead. Again and again her excited brain presented her with pictures of the day just past; of the heather moors, and the cries of curlews -- “whaups” she had called them in Coquetdale; of her father, and the loving teasing way he spoke to her, of the laughter they had shared. These pictures were radiant, then they darkened, as the moorland mists had swallowed the sun. There were such disturbing things about her father. His Catholicism for one. Jenny was embarrassed when he crossed himself. And worse even was his obstinate undeviating belief in the Pretender. A belief she had childishly thought to change. Patten’s visit had exposed her error. The panic, the concealment, and the lies were daunting. She had herself been plunged at once into the momentary whirlpool. To refuse to do so would have injured her father. But it shouldn’t be so, Jenny thought. She looked up at the bed’s shadowy canopy, and felt a great weight in her breast. At that moment she heard the frenzied tolling of a deep bell. It seemed to come from far away and yet resounded in her ears. She sat up with a muffled exclamation.

Dorothy stirred and murmured, “What’sa matter?”

“The bell,” said Jenny with a kind of sob. “Who’s ringing that bell?”

“Ah, so you hear it!” said Dorothy awakening. “I don’t, but others have.”

“Where does it come from?” Jenny cried. “You said the church was in ruins.”

“ ‘Tis the monastery bell,” said Dorothy softly. “An echo from the long long ago.”

“They rang the bell for gladness they were saved -- and it was that which killed them,” Jenny whispered. “Oh, it’s horrible.”

Dorothy soothingly touched the girl’s shoulder. “You might say rather that they were punished by their own witless folly. It is often so.”

Jenny put her hands to her ears, then fell back on the pillow. “It’s stopped. Thank God, it’s stopped.”

Dorothy pulled the blankets up, and tucked them around Jenny. Poor pretty child, she thought. She’s a sensitive. The future for her will never be an easy one.

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