I must confess, my expectations regarding footpaths in and around Liscombe were at first quite low, my defense being almost seventeen years of wandering through an intricate network of trails dissecting the Isle of Wight. I was, in brief, terribly spoiled and quite unforgiving of anything outside my beloved childhood haunts.
Mr. Lovell had given me a good deal of information—though perhaps not complete—regarding the natural splendor of his Exmoor home. While I accepted his fond and enthusiastic descriptions, I secretly believed the West Somerset area to be insignificant in so many ways compared to the contained—and, therefore, wonderfully preserved—beauties of the Isle of Wight’s ageless landscape.
I arrived at Liscombe without much understanding of, and appreciation for, endless moors and only associated them with old romantic tales of very little importance.
These tales seemed to be peopled with characters who brooded and pined and allowed themselves to be overruled by base passions, qualities which always left me huffing in impatience as I listened to Mama recount their stories.
Once I stepped onto a footpath and surrendered myself to Nature and to chance, however, I was completely transported within minutes. My initial prejudices and doubts dissolved quickly and easily with every step I took away from Shepley Abbey.
Trails crisscrossed here and there, and though I was more than once sorely tempted to stray onto those not recommended by my host, fear of losing my way easily overrode curiosity. I kept to specific paths and was never disappointed.
Mr. Lovell’s instructions led me down a pretty trail that meandered alongside the River Barle, taking me through wooded areas and bluebell forests that forced me to slow my steps or to stop completely, while I gazed around with my breath held. Those vividly colored flowers took on the quality of an indulged infant, with lush greenery cradling it below and long, arching branches of trees shadowing it above. Just like an elaborate baby carriage it all appeared, occasional birdsong not unlike a mother’s gentle humming. And with the river a few feet away, my solitary walk took on a wonderfully meditative feel, and my mind and spirits experienced a renewal.
I reached the Tarr Steps and enjoyed a slow and appreciative walk across those ancient stones. Several times along the way, though the bridge itself wasn’t very long, I took care to stop and gaze up and down the river, absorbing what I could of the clear and gently flowing water that passed under me. In that one moment crossing that bridge, I could feel history bearing down heavily on me. Immeasurable time flowing between rocks and grass, branches and leaves, flowers and drops of water, and an unknown point in history during which heavy slabs of stone were set upon each other by unknown men, bridging one side of the river Barle to another.
Once I reached the other side of the river, I began to entertain hopes of walking through these same paths again in the company of Mr. Lovell. He’d have much to say about the area, I was sure, and listening to him recount local legends would certainly make my appreciation of Exmoor a great deal more profound.
Well past the river, somewhere before Hawkridge, I believe, stood an old church that had suffered a great decline in preceding years, according to Mr. Lovell. As this unfortunate detail was given to me quickly and almost thoughtlessly—because Mr. Lovell needed to return to his guests—I never discovered the reason why. All I knew was that less than a dozen worshippers crossed the church’s threshold, a far, far cry from its better days, when its stone walls thrummed with the meditative voices of its flock.
I wondered how Papa would take to such a sad affair. I doubted if he were to see his own church suffer a similar indignity, being well-liked by everyone in the village. There was still that chance, I thought, however remote.
The languishing church was called St. Bertram. I followed the path till I found a smaller trail—one nearly obscured by an overgrowth of grass and weeds, clearly indicating lack of use—that branched out in a northwest direction. It was that small path that I was instructed to follow, and I found myself wandering through a rather dense wood that seemed to bury me alive in thick shadows and plunging temperatures. It wasn’t a large area, however, and within moments I emerged and was once again walking in sunlight, the trees around me suddenly scattered over a vast area and allowing me an unimpeded view of the countryside once again.
A low stone wall on one side of the path alerted me to St. Bertram’s location, which was several yards further, up a very low slope. An old iron gate, about the same height as the wall, marked the churchyard’s entrance. It had no lock of any kind, and I pushed past it, wincing at the sharp, grating noise it made, and walked up the path.
It gently turned to the right. The old church peered over its collection of decaying gravestones at me—quite pitiful in its isolation and worsening neglect, I thought. It was intact on the outside; indeed, as I studied it from the path, I found it unremarkable—no different from all the other country churches I’d seen. Against a brilliant blue sky, its weathered stones and narrow arched and pointed windows looked quaint enough and nothing more.
“The church is left open,” Mr. Lovell had told me, “quite likely because of its abandonment. In the two visits I’ve made, I found the interior exceptionally clean and well-tended though no footsteps must have marked its floors for several days. It’s a pity, really.”
I found this to be true. The door was unlocked, and on closer examination, I found that whatever used to secure it in the past had been taken out. As to whether it was removed on purpose or it simply was too old and damaged to be any use, I could only guess.
The interior was just as Mr. Lovell described—clean and well-tended. The walls were mirrors of the church’s exterior, weathered stone exposed and smoothed by centuries protected from the elements. Old and nearly faded stone plaques marked the walls, memorials alternating with the narrow windows and an occasional sacred painting. Dark, heavy timber formed the ceiling, with beams stretching from one wall to another in a somber, repetitious pattern of lines. A pointed arch marked the chancel, with a fairly elaborate altar, looking as though it had been cut from the same tree from which the beams had originated, carefully tucked away a little behind this arch. With the pulpit on the left side and the pews that filled the nave, St. Bertram was, indeed, a beautiful church, but in a vaguely unsettling manner.
It was the strangeness that one often felt when surrounded by something so old and so remote as to be untouchable in many ways. There was no connection there—no sense of familiarity because everything that could legitimately lay claim on it had long vanished, and I was nothing more than a witness to the remnants of the past.
The only thing that connected me to the moment was the presence of a woman. A widow, to be exact, because she was dressed in mournful black from head to toe, and she’d taken her place near the front of the church, where she lost herself in prayer.
I quietly made my way to one of the rear pews and remained there, lost in thought. It was comforting, really, to have company in such a desolate place despite the nature of her visit. I reflected for a while, my thoughts wandering aimlessly down so many paths till I felt more and more comfortable inside that church, and it seemed as though I was no longer detached from my surroundings. History might have caught up with me, or I might have been transported back to the distant past, I couldn’t say.
The woman presently finished, and she abandoned her place in a rustle of heavy silk. Her mind must have been completely occupied by something—perhaps mournful recollections—because she appeared not to notice me. Her head held high, she stared straight ahead, the picture of serene and melancholy strength. Her stride was slow and measured, almost idle, and I must confess to being strangely mesmerized as I watched her approach the door. A quick and quiet step past the open door, and she was gone, her spell finally broken.
“Mama?” I murmured.
The word just came out because the widow, I thought, bore Mama’s resemblance. And uncannily so. I shook my head and chided myself, chuckling sheepishly.
“Don’t be stupid, Nathaniel.”
I allowed myself a few bewildered minutes before making my way toward the altar because I was interested in one of the paintings that hung on the wall directly before me.
As I passed the pew where the widow prayed, I caught sight of an object on the floor. It was a miniature, on closer inspection, of a golden-haired young lady in old-fashioned dress, whose features had faded or perhaps scratched out. I couldn’t say with any accuracy. What I did know was that it must have been dropped by accident.
Forgetting the painting, I hurried out of the church with the miniature in hand, but I saw no signs of the widow anywhere. I made my way past the gate and looked up and down the path, with no success. She could have gone anywhere, given the nature of the trails that cut through the area in endless, random patterns.
All the same, I decided to follow the path that led further north, but after several minutes of walking, I could see nothing but more trees and more paths, and once again, fear of losing my way halted my progress. I turned around and retraced my steps, returning to St. Bertram’s church in hopes of finding the widow there, looking for her lost treasure. I was once again disappointed.
“I suppose it would be best to leave this here,” I muttered, idly fingering the miniature as I walked toward the front of the church. “If she discovers the loss, she can come back here and find it without trouble.”
It was definitely a young lady’s portrait I held, someone who lived sometime in the early part of the century, judging from her dress. Her hair reminded me of all those old portraits I’d seen both in my uncle’s house and in Shepley Abbey—all swept up in an elegant collection of curls that ladies in Bonaparte’s days highly favored.
The matter of her face puzzled me, however.
She must have been pretty, judging from the delicate lines used in capturing her likeness, but her face was completely gone. In the sunlight, I could see her features didn’t fade in time as I at first suspected. There were scratch marks, most definitely, and when I touched the surface with my fingers, I felt faint grooves caused by something sharp repeatedly scraping against the ivory.
It was unsettling, to be sure, looking at that little portrait. The purposeful obliteration of the sitter’s features was certainly one thing, but what troubled me more was the end result. The lady seemed to regard me with, literally, a blank face that conveyed a sense of someone who was neither alive nor dead but was unarguably real.
I set the miniature on the pew where I assumed the widow prayed. Then I went about my idle business of inspecting church artifacts, making my slow, scholarly way around St. Bertram’s interior. When I reached the door, I felt relief and a surge of energy. The calm and the isolation had invigorated my spirit, and I looked forward to returning to Shepley Abbey and engaging Mr. Lovell in conversation about my adventures in his beloved countryside.
It was with a lazy, indulgent pace that I walked past the dense area of trees and back to the Tarr Steps, past bluebell forests and the Barle river. I saw no signs of the widow anywhere, but at that point, she’d vanished from my mind and left none of her unusual traces behind.
I stopped once I reached the end of the footpath and was once again within the shadows of Shepley Abbey’s ruins, the daylight warming me. I was about halfway closer when a pair of horses and riders appeared from another direction and approached me in a light canter. One of the riders was Lord Lovell. I assumed that the pale, proud gentleman on the other horse was the manservant.
“Ah, youth amid the ruins!” Lord Lovell cried as he neared me. “Damned fine day to be out and about, eh?”
“It is, my lord,” I replied, barely containing a smile. “Did you have a good ride?”
He alighted from his horse while his servant, already on his feet, took the reins from him. “I did, yes. Along with you now, Sebastian,” he said, nodding at his servant.
Sebastian bowed his head and led the horses away without a word. Lord Lovell paused to take a deep breath, turning his face to the sun. Then he grinned at me and lightly thumped his chest with his open palms.
“I see my son let you loose on our deserted footpaths like a lost little imp,” he continued as he led the way to the house.
“Lord Thornber and his family arrived just as we were preparing for a walk. Mr. Lovell was obliged to remain behind.”
“Ah. That’s damned inconvenient. Miles would have shown you much out there. The boy’s just as fond of rambling adventures as I am.”
I found it a little difficult to keep pace with him because he had a long, manly stride that never faltered in energy.
For his age and his reputation for hiding within doors, his exertions came as a surprise to me. “It was no trouble at all, my lord,” I said, slightly panting. “Mr. Lovell gave me excellent instructions, and I didn’t get lost finding St. Bertram’s.”
“What—St. Bertram’s, did you say? What the deuce was Miles thinking, sending you there?”
“It’s a beautiful church.”
I glanced at him and caught him staring at me from the corner of his eyes. “Beautiful, eh? I’m sure the dead would be flattered to know.”
“Dead?”
We’d reached the door then, and Lord Lovell swept through, with me close behind. Even within doors, he continued his remarkable stride as he negotiated his way through the hallways in the direction of the drawing room. Even his voice remained loud as though the sense of being enclosed by his house had yet to touch him.
“Why, naturally, boy! Aren’t ghosts shades of the dead?” Here he burst out laughing, his voice echoing up and down the hallway. “Haunted church, indeed—absurd superstitions, I say! The only thing haunting St. Bertram’s is its hopeless site. Who in his right mind would go to that godforsaken patch of earth for a word with God, I ask you?”
“I saw a widow there, my lord, praying.”
We’d reached the drawing room by then, with Lord Lovell beckoning me inside. “I suppose it’s a proper enough church to run and hide to if one were bereaved. Haunted—pah! You see what ignorance does? It makes one’s mind fertile ground for superstitious claptrap. Take a minute to converse with any of the villagers around here, and you’ll know what I mean.” He shook a finger at me. “If you wish to do good, young man, get yourself a proper education. A head half-filled with facts is far preferable to one packed to bursting with ghouls and talking cats. Now then.” He grinned and observed me with his head back and his eyes peering over his nose, his thick beard sticking out like a withering shrub that had been frozen stiff by winter. “Have you a taste for burgundy? Sauterne?”
“N—No.” I dared not tell him that I’d sampled—illicitly—some of Papa’s port before, but the taste wasn’t to my liking.
“Capital! You’re not a man until you set your throat aflame with a man’s drink, I say,” he said, his eyes gleaming. He made a move toward one side of the room, where a low, handsome cabinet in gleaming mahogany stood—a very visible piece of furniture against a light, elegant backdrop. I understood its purpose soon enough, when a key appeared in Lord Lovell’s hand, and he unlocked the carved doors to expose the cabinet’s interior. Bottles and decanters of all shapes and sizes filled the dark space within. My host had just begun to look through his treasure when a cough from the direction of the drawing room door interrupted him.
“Papa, I’m amazed at you,” Mr. Lovell said. He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the doorway, frowning at his father.
“It’s only a glass, for God’s sake,” Lord Lovell retorted. When he saw his son wasn’t bent on negotiation, he shrugged and turned to me. “I send Miles off to university, and he returns more virtuous than a confounded clergyman. Damned waste of my money.”