“Caseman Castle!” I mocked. “It sounds even grander than Caseman Court.”

“You have ideas, Damask. Caseman Castle!”

“And you have ambitions. Not content with a court you must have a castle as well.”

“There is no end to my ambitions, Damask.”

“But they are not always realized—even in your case.”

His eyes smoldered as they looked into mine.

“That can only be decided at the very end,” he said.

I was afraid of him in that moment. I thought: I must get away. It is unsafe here. I will marry Rupert. It is the only way.

Marry for security, for safety, for a hope of forgetting? I was as mercenary as Kate.

“You gained this house through some service in an influential quarter,” I said. “You are doubtless looking around to find means of doing a similar service, the reward of which would be the Abbey and all its lands.”

He looked at me, laughing; but I knew I had put into words the ideas fermenting in his head.

I stood up. “You are a very ambitious man,” I said.

“Ambitious men frequently get what they set their hearts on.”

“No one can ever achieve the impossible,” I retorted over my shoulder as I hurried away.

That night I had a great desire to see my father’s grave. I waited until the household was sleeping, then I crept quietly out of the house. The moon was shining brightly and how beautiful the country looked—vague, mysterious in that cool pale light.

I slipped through the ivy-covered door into the grounds. I sped across the grass and paused for a while to look at the gray walls of the Abbey. Suddenly I was startled by the hoot of an owl; I looked up at the roof—half open now to the sky—and I thought of this historic Abbey’s falling into Simon Caseman’s hands.

I went along to the burial ground and wending my way among the tombstones, I knelt by the grave in which lay my father’s head. The rosemary was flourishing. I took a little sprig of it and slipped it into my gown.

“As if I needed rosemary to remember you, dear Father,” I murmured. And I went on: “Give me courage to live without you. Show me what I must do.”

I looked about me almost expecting to see him materialize beside me, so sure was I that he was close.

It was hard to go on living in the house which now belonged to a man whom some instinct forced me to mistrust, and Kate would have delighted to have me with her. But she would try to find a husband for me, I was sure, and I did not wish for that. If I had wanted a husband I would marry Rupert of whom I was fond and whom I trusted. Then my thoughts went to Bruno as they constantly did, and I wondered afresh whether that confession of Keziah’s had been wrung from her and that she had dared not deny it. I thought of her tied to the bed and that evil man bending over her. Had she screamed words which he put into her mouth? And had the monk supported her story because torture impelled him to? How could one be sure what was truth when people were threatened with unendurable agony until they confessed what their tormentors asked of them? How many men at this moment were being racked in that grim gray fortress along the river? How many were suffering the torture of the thumbscrews, the rack and the scavenger’s daughter, that dread machine of which I had heard, shaped like a woman and covered with iron spikes which as a man was squeezed into an embrace, penetrated his body, puncturing heart and lungs.

The times were cruel. Simon Caseman was right in one way. We should enjoy what we could while we could.

I fancied that it was my father’s spirit which comforted me. And I rose from my knees and left the burial ground filled with that peace and lack of fear which always astonished me on these occasions.

I was on the edge of the burial ground and the Abbey was in sight when I saw the figure of a monk gliding across the grass. Was this the ghost of some departed monk who could not rest and had risen from the grave to haunt the scene of his tragedy?

I stood very still. Strangely enough I was not really frightened. Years ago Kate would invent gruesome tales of ghosts who rose from the tomb to come back to haunt those who had wronged them; and I would lie in my bed trembling with fear. Sometimes I had begged of her not to talk of ghosts when it grew dark—which of course always provoked her to do so. But now I was surprised by the calm within me. I was not so much frightened as curious.

The figure had crossed to the Abbey wall. I expected it to disappear through it but it did no such thing. It pushed open a door and passed into the Abbey.

All was silence. Then I heard the owl again. Something prompted me to cross the grass to go to the door through which the monk had passed. On this impulse I did so; I pushed the door which opened easily. The cold dankness of the Abbey rushed to greet me. I half stepped inside but for some reason which I could not understand my hair seemed to rise up from my head and I was afraid.

I believed in that moment that the special power which protected me in the burial ground and which came from my father’s spirit could not follow me beyond those gray walls.

I had an overwhelming desire to run away. I sped across the grass as fast as I could and let myself out through the ivy-covered door.

The fear left me then. I walked home.

I had corroborated the opinion of the farmer and his wife and those others who said they had seen a figure near the Abbey. So the Abbey was haunted.

My mother was now noticeably larger and happily making preparations for the birth of her child. She decorated the cradle which had been mine and which had been put away for eighteen years. She had polished it and cleaned it and I had seen her rocking it with a faraway look in her eyes as though she was already imagining the baby there.

We heard little news of the Court for we did not have visitors now; Kate did not write. She had never really been a letter writer. It was only when anything was wrong or she wanted something that it would have occurred to her to take up a pen.

I would have written to her but I did not wish to write of Caseman Court. And in any case there was little to say.

The King, it was said, was happy in his marriage and the Queen accompanied him everywhere. She was gay and good-natured and it was said that people only had to ask for a favor and she would be ready to grant it. Moreover she was not one to forget her old friends. She was kindhearted too and did her best to reconcile the King to the little Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, who had been the present Queen’s cousin.

I had no doubt that Kate would have plenty of scandal to relate about Court affairs, but Kate was far away and because the King was at last happy with a wife we were lulled into a sense of security.

There was a reminder of the terrible things that could overtake us when the Countess of Salisbury was executed. She had had no fair trial but she was suspected of being on the side of the rebels in the Northern uprising—at least this was said to be her crime. Her royal blood was doubtless the true reason. As the granddaughter of George Plantagenet, the Duke of Clarence, himself brother of Edward IV and therefore in closer line to the throne than the Tudors whose claim had never been very firm, she had always been considered to be a menace and this pretext to be rid of her was too good to be missed. The old lady—she was nearly seventy years of age—had suffered greatly from the cold of her prison cell and the young Queen, feeling great pity for her, had smuggled in warm clothing that at least she might know that comfort. But nothing could save her. Her royal blood must flow to keep the throne safe for our tyrant King.

I remember well the day she died. It was Maytime. Why did so many have to leave this earth when it was at its most beautiful? She walked out to the block but refused to lay her head on it for, she declared to the watching crowd, she was no traitor and if the headman would have her head he must win it.

We heard she was dragged by her hair to the block and there so butchered that the ax wounded her arms and shoulders several times before her head was struck off.

How glad I was that I had not seen it.

A few days later I heard that the Abbey had been bestowed.

My mother had got the news from one of the servants who had had it from one of the watermen who had paused at the privy stairs while she was feeding the peacocks to shout the news to her.

My mother announced it while we were at dinner and I shall never forget the look on Simon Caseman’s face.

“It’s a lie!” he cried, for once robbed of his calm.

“Oh, is it?” said my mother, always ready to agree.

“Where had you this news?” he demanded.

Then she told him.

“It could not be true,” he said; and I knew that he was imagining himself master of that place.

But it seemed that it was true. That week there were workmen putting back the lead on the roof. Simon went over there to talk to them, and when he came back he was pale with fury.

The workmen had been instructed to repair the roof; others were there cleaning the place.

They did not know on whom it had been bestowed. They merely had their orders to make it ready for habitation.

Part II

The Owner of the Abbey

IT WAS JUNE AND the weather had turned hot. I had never seen so many bees at work on the clover, and the pimpernel made an edge of scarlet around our cornfields. Down by the river the nettles bloomed in profusion. My mother would be gathering them soon to make some potion. I believe she was happy. It amazed me that she could so soon recover from my father’s death. The fact that a new life was stirring within her might have been responsible for this; but I had grown farther from her though I had never really been close.

I was thinking that soon they would be cutting the hay, and that this would be the last time Rupert would supervise that activity. He would leave us after harvest and I would have to make up my mind whether I was going with him. The workmen were apprehensive; they had trusted and relied on Rupert. I wondered idly whether people worked better through fear or love. Then I fell to thinking of haymaking in the good days before the King broke with Rome and we had not thought State affairs could so disrupt our house. Everyone used to be called in to work in the fields and the greatest fear in those days was that the weather might break before the crop was carried in. Father himself used to join us and I would come out with my mother to bring refreshment to workers in the fields so that little time should be lost.

I had almost made up my mind to go with Rupert for it was clear that I could not remain under Simon Caseman’s roof. Kate had written urging me to come to Remus Castle and I thought that perhaps I should go to her for there I could discuss my future. She would urge me to marry Rupert. I knew that she still thought I would in time come to see the reason of this. Once she had plans for making a grand marriage for me. This was hardly likely now that I had no dowry. Nor did I care for that.

It was twilight—the end of a lovely summer’s day. The night was calm and still for the slight breeze of the day had disappeared.

As I sat at my window one of the servants came by. She looked up at me and said: “I have a message for you, Mistress Damask. ’Twas from a gentleman who would have word with you.”

“What gentleman?”

“Well, Mistress, he would not say. He said to tell you that if you would go to the ivy-covered gate he would be there and you would know who had sent the message.”

I could scarcely hide my excitement. Who could have sent such a message but Bruno? Who else knew of the ivy-covered door?

I said: “Thank you, Jennet,” as calmly as I could, and as soon as she had gone I went to my room, changed my gown and arranged my hair in its most becoming fashion. I took a cloak and wrapped it around me and I went at once to the door in the Abbey wall.

Bruno was there. His eyes were alight with a kind of triumph which could only be because I had come. He took my hands and kissed them. He seemed different from ever before.

“So you have come back!” I cried.

“And you are pleased?”

“It is not necessary for me to tell you what you know already.”

“I knew you would be happy to see me. Damask, you are different. Are you happier now?”