Distant Voices. Barbara Erskine
menacing. She bit her lip, for a moment wavering, then the thought of her empty bookcase and the string of verses from the New Testament, together with the memory of the tortured burnt remains of her poetry book simmering in the heart of the range returned and with it her anger and indignation. Gathering her skirts she began to run on towards the second gate.
The hillside was steep and shadowed. She could hear herself panting as she scrambled up the winding path, groping blindly where the shadows made it totally dark. She could smell the night-scented stock in the cottage gardens in the village below and the newly scythed grass in the churchyard. The smell of smoke hung on the air and she wondered bitterly if it was from the Rectory chimney.
She was panting when she finally reached the top of the hill and emerged from the wooded path into the clearing which held the castle ruins. Up here the moonlight was clear. She could see the black shadows of the crumbling walls hard across the grass. She stopped right in the middle of what had once been a courtyard and stared southwards at the sleeping countryside. Again the sky was lit by the flicker of summer lightning, and this time a low menacing rumble of thunder followed it. She ignored it. Panting slightly she walked across to a low, ruined wall and hitching herself onto it she started reciting the little litany she always repeated when she came up here. ‘Papa relies on me. I have to obey him. He means well and I have to look after him. That is my duty …’
Duty, her soul was screaming, her duty! To suppress all her hopes and dreams; to give up all thoughts of having her own mind, all thoughts of any independence, all thoughts of a home of her own in order to look after a bigoted selfish old man? Yes … Yes … I am his daughter. It is my duty … Besides, I love him.
So often she had fought this battle within herself, up here, in the ruined castle, where long ago battles had raged. Each time her better self had won. She had firmly suppressed the rebellion, allowed the peace of the countryside to soothe her and returned to the Rectory, meekly ready to take up her duties once more as a dutiful daughter. But this time … this time she wondered whether she could ever bring herself to go back.
She sat there for a long time as the moon hazed and disappeared behind the clouds, watching the storm draw closer as it moved steadily inland from the sea.
The sound of a stone falling was very loud in the silence. She stared round into the darkness, forgetting her father and the troubles at the Rectory, as her mind flew nervously back to thoughts of ghosts.
In spite of herself she couldn’t help remembering cook telling her once of the headless man who was supposed to run across the courtyard and disappear into the thickness of the wall and she shivered. The lightning flickered again, throwing the castle ramparts into eery relief and out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw something move. Her heart hammering, she slipped off the wall and crouched close to it. It was stupid to think about ghosts. No one of any education and sense believed in ghosts! What she had heard was a piece of masonry falling; the movement was a trick of the eldritch lightning. The thunder growled once more and she took a deep breath. She should return to the Rectory now, before the rain came.
As she stepped away from the loose rubble of the wall she heard from somewhere quite close the sound of a low laugh. For a moment her terror was so great she thought she would die, then relief flooded through her and she heard herself sigh. What she had heard was no ghost. It must have been one of the village lads, up here courting. Almost trembling with relief she frowned at the unexpected, miserable wave of loneliness and envy which fleetingly seized her as instinctively she moved back into the shadows again. Whoever he was he had come up here to be alone with his girl. It would embarrass them enormously to think they were being spied on by the rector’s daughter.
Gathering up her skirts she had started to creep silently around the side of the wall when the sound of more subdued laughter pulled her up short. It was male laughter, strident for all it was guarded, and it came from several throats. Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder towards the sound, and was in time to see the flare of a flame. For a second it illumined a face as it was sucked down into the bowl of a pipe, then all was dark again. On the leaves overhead the first raindrops began to patter down.
Caroline flattened herself against the wall, suddenly afraid again. The face she had seen was no familiar village lad. It had been that of a stranger and there had been something furtive about his action – the fleeting way he had glanced round over his shoulder into the darkness. Whatever he and his companions were doing, they did not want to be seen doing it; and she did not want to see them.
Cautiously she stepped back, holding her breath, her heart thumping with fear. The path back down the hillside seemed a thousand miles away. Away from the trees the rain was harder. She could feel the drops cold on her head and shoulders. Praying that the lightning would not betray her she picked up her skirts again and ran towards the outer wall. Reaching it safely, she pressed herself against the wet stones, listening as she peered round. They did not appear to have seen her. Breathing a quick prayer of gratitude she stepped carefully towards the steps and flattened herself back as a brighter than ever flash of lightning tore across the sky. It was enough to show her that some dozen men were standing inside the ruined walls about twenty yards from her. A second flash showed her they were intent on piling some boxes beneath the rubble in the old castle moat.
‘Smugglers,’ she breathed to herself with a shiver of real fear. She had so often heard her father talking about the men who avoided the excise by bringing in brandy, wine and tobacco all along the lonely Sussex shore and how they cheated the government and the people of the country. It was a favourite theme of his. These men had obviously met a boat down in the estuary, collected a load of some sort of contraband, and were hiding it up here in the castle. Suddenly she was seething with indignation, her fear completely swamped by her anger. All she wanted to do was to get back down the hill so that she could alert the authorities and they would be caught.
As she watched the storm surged on overhead. It was raining hard now and she was becoming drenched. Her hair pulled loose from its knot and hung down on her shoulders. Her thin dress and petticoats were soaked, the silk clinging to her body like a second skin. As each shaft of lightning tore the black sky open she cowered back against the wall. She was not afraid of storms, they exhilarated her, but the speed and power with which this one had finally driven inland from the coast was awesome. Another green flash split the night sky and as suddenly as it had come her anger and indignation had gone and she felt the excitement of the night. Her anger had been her father’s, not her own. To her amazement she realised that she envied these men. They were free, able to sail on the wild sea, ride their shaggy ponies through the storms. Like all men, they were their own masters. What they were doing was exciting and dangerous. What did it matter if the revenue men lost a few guineas? Was that so very dreadful?
In that second, as she watched them, her heart beating with excitement, distracted by her romantic dreams, one of the men saw her in the next flash of lightning which lit up the sky.
She saw him turn towards her, saw his hand raised to point at her, then his warning cry was lost in the crash of thunder which followed.
Her exhilaration vanished and was replaced by icy panic. Abandoning all caution she turned and fled towards the gap in the wall. Her wet skirts tangled between her legs; her hair whipped across her eyes and her thin shoes slipped on the wet grass. Her heart pumping with fear, she ran blindly to the left, her hands outstretched to feel the wall. Another flash of lightning betrayed her. In the long suspended moment of white light they all saw her now. Dropping their loads the men were after her. She heard their angry shouts as she dodged around the end of the wall and across the strip of old cobbled courtyard.
She did not stand a chance. They cut her off in seconds and when the next flash of lightning illumined the scene she was surrounded. She pressed herself back against the wall, trying to catch her breath, feeling the cold, wet stone against her shoulders. Her head high she looked defiantly at the men. One of them had produced a lantern, and he held it up towards her.
‘Miss Hayward?’ The astonishment in his voice as he recognised the rector’s daughter was genuine.
Dazzled by the lantern light held so close to her face Caroline could see nothing of the men behind it. She