Category: Writing

Sunday Service.

The start of the story can be found here.

Following from the last section
A new chapter. Sylvester insists on attending Sunday service, and Elizabeth makes a new friend.

Mrs Grace smiled at him, her Lucy often needed the same reminder. “I’ll send them along, and just hope they don’t wander off on the way.”
Meanwhile, Lucy and Elizabeth were quickly becoming friends. Lucy asked, “Elizabeth, have you had much time to explore?”
“No, I only arrived a few days ago.”
“First-rate! Then I can show you around. There are so many places around here that are right out of Coleridge or Wordsworth. It will take your breath away.”
“Given that I came here to help cure my consumption, I’d rather keep by breath.”
“Are you well?”
“So much better than I was. The country air must agree with me. I’d love for you to show me your favourite places.”
“I know just the place, and it’s near Barnecourt.”
Two hours later, after Lucy had changed into rambling clothes, and they had walked to Barnecourt, and after Elizabeth had changed, they walked down the farm lane to the base of Hunters’ Tor. Lucy said, “We won’t go all the way to Manaton, but the stream, you simply must see it.”
Elizabeth remained silent as she drank in the beauty. While she had visited woods and farms during family outings, it had never been on her own, just walking with a companion. Eventually as they approached the stream and could hear it gurgling over the rocks she said, “Nothing like this in London. It’s both quiet and noisy at the same time.”
When they reached the side of the stream, they sat and listened to it as the water flowed over the stones. Mayflies fluttered noiselessly around, while the sun peaked through the canopy above and showed beams through the misty forest air. Lucy pulled a slim volume of verse from her pocket and began to read. “This one is by Coleridge and I like to read it here.”
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

Lucy sighed when she was finished. Coleridge was so romantic, so beautiful, so fitting to this quiet stream.
“What’s an amaranth?” Elizabeth, ever practical, asked after they had been silent for a few minutes’ contemplation.
“Some flower or another, I suppose. The poet says they bloom.”
By now, flies, midges and mosquitoes had joined the mayflies that were hovering around them. After a few, well-placed slaps, the two decided that it was time to move on instead of remaining there to feed the wildlife. Even if it was a romantic place. Lucy led her friend by a different route on the way back to Barnecourt.
They crossed over one of the stone stiles that separated field, and were picking their way carefully through the muddy pool of sticky dark bovine muck that often accompanied stiles, when Lucy stopped and pointed at the far end of the field.
“That’s new!’
“What is?”
“They look like fresh graves.”
“Can’t be. Not here. Not in North Bovey.”
The two young women ran over to see what it was. Traced on the ground, using sand and ashes, in front of them was a nearly perfect pentagon, with a five pointed star inscribed inside. A goat’s head, recently killed, sat on a stake in the middle and stared at them. It had a particularly annoyed and disapproving look about it, as though the two women were not quite the quality of company it expected to associate with. The crows and ravens had already begun to deflesh the skull, which left it with an especially macabre expression. Four of the corners had flat boards sunk into the ground. The boards had characters written in an obscure script on each as well as one of the pentagons with its inscribed star on it.
“Do you know what they say?” Lucy asked.
“No,” Elizabeth replied, although had she looked at the bracelet her uncle gave her, she would have recognized the lettering. “It looks like something out of the middle ages. A coven, a gathering of witches or black magic.”
The wind shifted and brought with it the scent of decaying goat. It was followed by a swarm of flies, newly hatched from their goat-head nursery.
Lucy turned and ran for the far side of the field, and once she crossed the stile, waited for Elizabeth. She was not far behind, although she had to catch her breath before she could cross out of the field and into the lane beyond.
“What now?”
“I should tell my father. The souls of this parish are in his charge. We can’t have that kind of devil worship, not here in Dartmoor and not in my father’s parish.”
Elizabeth looked both ways down the lane. It was just turning dusty, in the few days since the last rain, and the trees arched above it. The verges were covered in grass and nettles. In contrast to the abomination in the field, it looked refreshingly usual, a country lane like so many others. She said, “I haven’t a clue which way takes me to Barnecourt or indeed how far it is.”
Then she gave a quiet cough, the start of several in a row. Once started she couldn’t stop.
“Are you well?” Lucy asked, listening to her friend hack away.
“I’m dreadfully tired.”
“It’s closer to my home,” Lucy replied, “We’ll walk there, and I’ll drive you back in the pony cart.”
She began to help Elizabeth walk with her, but after only a few hundred yards Elizabeth turned to her and said, “Lucy, can I rest here? I’m knackered.”
Lucy helped her friend to sit. “Wait here, I’ll be back with my father and the cart.”
Elizabeth nodded, “Thank you. I’ll be fine. Just need a rest.”
Lucy, worried that it might turn into a very long rest, one six feet underground in a deal box, ran to get her father.
When they returned, half an hour later, Elizabeth was gone. 

The next installment.
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Sunday Service.

 The start of the story can be found here.

Following from the last section
A new chapter. Sylvester insists on attending Sunday service.

Uncle Sylvester knocked on Elizabeth’s door in the morning. “Sleep well?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. It’s Sunday and that means church. Time to rise.”

Elizabeth threw on her house dress and descended for breakfast. “Uncle, where are Mr and Mrs Trent?” She helped herself to the porridge that burbled on the range.

“They’re non-conformists, dissenters. I let them use the trap. Don’t like Sunday travelling as a rule myself, but they have an excuse. We’ll walk to St. Michael’s in North Bovey. It’s not far. Unless you’re still feeling weak.”

She smiled, “I haven’t felt this strong in at least a year. You were right about the value of country air. What’s wrong with travel on Sunday’s?”

“I may be old-fashioned, but Sunday is meant to be a day of rest. I don’t travel unless I must. Which reminds me, I’ll need my bag. I must see a patient after service. Doctors don’t always have the privilege of a rest on the sabbath.”

Elizabeth sat with her uncle through the service. He sat bolt upright throughout, alert even when the vicar lulled most of his congregation to sleep with a 45 minute long digression into the home life of the Assyrians, Persians and Medes, finally ending up with the mene, mene, tekel, and upharsin verse from the book of Daniel. Her uncle’s loud voice echoed, only slightly off-key, through the church during the hymns.

Afterwards, he congratulated the vicar, “Excellent sermon, Dr Grace, most entertaining.”

“I may have been a mite too long. Especially on such a warm morning. I could see some of my congregation nodding off.”

“Stuff and nonsense, I felt as though I were back in Nineveh. Those were great times. Much younger then.” He stopped in thought, and then seeing a middle-aged woman and her daughter, shot off to them. “Mrs Grace. I am so pleased to see you. Have you recovered?”

“Yes, Dr Standfast, I’m much better now.”

“Capital, not that my medicine did anything, but capital nonetheless. I have a visitor from the city, my niece,
Miss James. She’s about your Lucy’s age.”

“I should think Lucy would be overjoyed to have a new companion. Miss James is educated?”

“Surprisingly well – even with the poor quality of city schools these days,” He paused, and then called,

“Elizabeth, please come here.”
Elizabeth stopped looking at the flowers and trotted over to where her uncle was conversing.

“Elizabeth, may I present Mrs Grace and her daughter, Miss Lucinda Grace.” Lucinda, Lucy to her friends, was a healthy young woman, with light brown hair, and a more sunburnt robust complexion than Elizabeth’s. Her father had seen to it that she was well educated, or at least as well educated as a country vicar of a remote parish could afford. While she shared many interests, such as horses and riding, not to mention young men, with the young ladies of the parish, she also had something of a literary and cultured, if not to say romantic outlook. Sometimes it made her seem standoffish, above her peers, when she meant nothing of the sort. Still, her all too few terms away at school had driven a wedge between her and the girls she had played with as a young child.

Lucy examined Elizabeth and liked what she saw, “Miss James, may I call you Elizabeth?”

“If I may call you Lucinda, Miss Grace.”

“Lucy, please.”

After making their excuses to Dr Standfast and Mrs Grace, the two young women wandered off to the far side of the churchyard for a private chat.

Sylvester said to Mrs Grace, “It looks like they will like each other. Do you mind if I leave Miss James with you? I must check on how poor Mrs Willis is getting on. She wasn’t at service, which is not at all like her.”

“Why ever should that matter, Dr Standfast? I’ll let your niece know where you’ve gone.”

“Thank you. Oh, and please remind Miss James to stop by Barnecourt to change if she and Miss Grace decide to go for a ramble. That London dress of hers would not last long in the briers.”

Mrs Grace smiled at him, her Lucy often needed the same reminder. “I’ll send them along, and just hope they don’t wander off on the way.”

The next installment.
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The Aldebaran Connection.

 The start of the story can be found here.

Following from the last installment:  Dr Standfast has just committed a poor unfortunate to Princeton Gaol. Something else is up.

Saying, “I should have known,” he dashed to the fire and tossed it in. There was a greenish flash and it vanished in a puff of acrid smoke.

“Uncle! I liked that. It was pretty.”

“Let me get you another. Much nicer, and it’s been in the family for a while. Time you should have it.” Moving quickly, for an ostensibly tired old man, he ran upstairs and a moment later returned. “This one’s solid gold, not paste.”

Elizabeth took it from him and examined it closely. It was, if anything, more ornate than her old one. More interestingly, it was covered in writing. Writing in a script she couldn’t recognize.

“Uncle,” she said, “Do you know what it says?”

“Some of it, but my Aldebaran isn’t as good as it used to be.”

“Aldebaran?”

“A dialect of Arabic, from Timbuktu. Or somewhere like that. It’s mostly for good luck. A verse from the Koran, intended to ward off the evil eye. Superstitious twaddle of course, but I’d feel happier if you’d wear it. Wear it all the time.”

“If you insist.” Elizabeth put it on and felt a warm glow come over her. “Thank you.”

“Excellent, now shall we see what the industrious Mrs Trent has prepared for dinner?”

“You know Uncle, there might be something to that superstition. I’m feeling stronger already.” A thought struck her, and she paused, “Uncle, what did that man do?”

“Which man?”

“The one you committed.”

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but not before dinner. Spoil your appetite. Funny thing, he claimed he was from another planet. Stuff and nonsense.”

“So it wasn’t hard then, to prove he was insane.”

“Not at all, he was decidedly not a normal person. Tried to bite Sergeant Hopwell and snarled at us in an incomprehensible language.”

Elizabeth started walking into the back parlour, and the asked, “Was it safe to keep him here if he were so dangerous?”

“Being an alienist, I have the facilities to restrain, um, difficult patients. George kept watch, so yes, I’d say it was safe.”

“If you say so, Uncle.”

“I do. By the way, George will be in your room this afternoon. Replacing that broken window pane and fixing the lock. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, what happened to it?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I did.”

“Someone must have thrown a pebble from the street. The pane was broken, and the lock, well, it needed replacing in any case.”

That’s the end of this chapter. We’ll pick up at the beginning of the next with the next installment.