Freya's Quest (10 page)

‘Bugger,’ she said, peeking under her T-shirt to study her breasts instead. ‘Nothing doing there either.’

I looked at her in disbelief.

‘Care to join me?’

‘No, I do not!’

‘Sorry about this. Cover your eyes, if you want.’ She leaned to one side and pulled down her tight-fitting trousers to reveal the upper part of her thigh and right buttock. I could glimpse the edge of a recently applied tattoo protruding from underneath her panties.

I was transfixed. I couldn’t turn away, as she stabbed herself with the needle and pushed down the plunger. Then she discarded the syringe on the stone floor and slumped against the column. She stared towards me, eyes wide and her breath uneven.

‘Yes,’ was all she said, as the heroin surged through her body.

I thought she’d sunk into unconsciousness or worse. My anxiety rose. I leant over her and put my ear down to her mouth. I couldn’t hear her breathing, but I saw her chest rising and falling.

Suddenly I felt her stroking my hair. I looked up at her taut face, her eyes feral. Yet she apparently still comprehended the world around her. She pulled me down against her right breast, stroking my hair.

‘Look up, look up,’ she whispered. ‘This is what I really wanted you to see.’

I lay back against her and gazed up at the domed ceiling.

What I saw was truly awe-inspiring. The dome was covered in a magnificent painting. Its colours were rich and vibrant, protected from the elements unlike the rest of the building. It depicted a devil-like creature, partially enveloped in flames. He was devouring a young black-haired maiden from behind, as she reached out, breasts exposed, to another figure on the other side of the picture. This other side was white and radiant, with a naked long-blonde-haired nymph – or maybe she was an angel? – reaching out a hand towards the stricken woman.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. And remarkably well preserved.’

‘It’s not as old as you think….Seraphina painted it.’

‘Really – now that
is
interesting.’

There was a long pause as we both contemplated the painting. Totally absorbed.

‘When I get high, the figures seem to move. Amazing!’

Then Emily floated off into blissful unconsciousness.

I HAD FELT VERY relaxed lying upon Emily’s breast, absorbed by the sight of the painting on the ceiling. So much so, in fact, that I must have drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, there was a chill in the air and I was alone. I struggled to my feet, trying to concentrate, forgetting where I was for a moment, then worrying where Emily had gone.

I passed through the columns and gazed up at the sky. It looked like late afternoon light, so I couldn’t have been alone for very long. Emily must still be around somewhere.

I was about to go back through the tunnel of yew trees, when I saw a flight of steps under the foliage. The plants had been trampled on recently, and as I neared the edge, I could hear a faint thrashing lower down the slope. Perhaps this was what had woken me up.

I stepped tentatively down the first flight of stairs to a landing. There was a carved balustrade on either side, matching the decoration of the ramparted lawns nearer the main house; and the outline of an urn on a small plinth, shrouded, ghost-like, under the greenery.

I continued on, down several more flights of stairs, until I gained a level rampart running at right angles to the stairway. I was about to go along this, when I heard more sounds from below. I peered over the wall and saw Emily lower down, brandishing a stick and thrashing at the stinging nettles. She was climbing out of a hollow onto a steep rise on the other side. Now she had gained an overgrown path that meandered through deciduous trees.

I was going to shout down to her, but decided against it. I sensed she wanted to be alone, otherwise she would have taken me with her in the first place. Intrigued at her clandestine manoeuvres, I brushed away the tree branches which barred my way onwards down the stairs.

I reached the bottom and found myself on a little stone bridge. As I surveyed the hollow around me more closely, I realized I was surrounded by ornamental lakes, clogged up with years of reed-growth and leaves. They stretched out in both directions for over a hundred feet, descending in flights of pools from right to left. I could make out carved fountain heads and one waterfall was still running, albeit only at a trickle.

I would have liked to have lingered longer, but Emily had disappeared and I wanted to see where she had gone.

I followed in her footsteps, up the banks of the hill. As I trod through the trees, the rise seemed conical shaped, perhaps even man-made. After about twenty feet, the trees became thicker and the light faded. I fumbled my way through. This was worse than the yew-tree tunnel, I thought, as my hair, face and clothing tangled on the branches.

And then, unexpectedly, I stumbled through into a large forgotten clearing. Now it was my legs that fought with brambles and burrs.

I stopped, perplexed.

Ahead of me lay more ruins. Yet this edifice was so different. There was a tall tower, with a doorless entrance at its base. To its right, a half-fallen-down wall ran for about seventy feet. Though ruined, the arched windows left me in no doubt this wasn’t another folly, but a Gothic chapel. A maturing oak was growing from inside, the canopy spreading skyward where the roof used to be.

The strangest thing of all was the stonework. It was as elegantly dressed as the main house and the folly. But it was of black granite. Dark and lugubrious, with an air of foreboding.

I felt hands upon my shoulders. I jumped backwards.

‘What are you doing here?!’

It was only Emily, but I’d nearly burst my bladder in fright.

‘I’m sorry, Em.,’ I said, recovering gradually. ‘I heard you ahead and followed.’

‘Spying on me, eh?’

‘Well….’

‘I didn’t want you to come here. Not yet, anyway. I wanted to be alone.’

I apologized again.

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I suppose you might as well look around now you’re here.’

Relief overtook me. Yet she didn’t expand on her motives for coming here so furtively.

She walked me over to the tower. There was a carved head of a horned goat – again reminiscent of the medallion – over the old doorway. As we went inside, a flurry of activity erupted overhead.

I panicked again. I looked above me and gripped Emily tightly. The floors had all rotted away long ago, but I could not see the sky because of a mass of bats.

‘Don’t worry,’ Emily shouted in my ear. ‘They’re more scared than we are.’

She pushed me through an archway into what had been the nave. The interior was as black as the exterior, but there were many pillars with amazing twists and carved reliefs, all once awash with colours – monsters, goblins and serpents abounded, some in sexual poses.

This was no ordinary chapel! As we walked upon the floor, I noticed more of the geometric shapes we’d seen in the folly. To the sides were four marble plinths, with black effigies upon them. I moved over to one and looked at the carved lettering, once marked in gold leaf:

BARON SIEGFRIED von ESCHENBACH

1800-89

‘A German?’

‘Yes, a Bavarian, I think. He commissioned the Lodge in the first place. Or maybe bought it off the first owner, I’m not sure. I read it in this old book in the library. Memory escapes me now, but he was definitely the one who built this chapel.’

I moved along to the next tomb. The effigy was certainly that of a woman, but with the inscription so badly decayed, I could only read the year of her death – 1907.

‘I think she was the Baron’s daughter. When she died this place fell into rack and ruin. The Lodge lasted a little longer, but had succumbed to the same fate by the 1920s. It would’ve remained so, if Dylan hadn’t renovated it.’

‘Why was the Lodge left to rack and ruin?

‘Too difficult and expensive to maintain, I suppose. A lot of country mansions suffered a similar fate.’

‘There must’ve been more to it, surely?’

‘Well, back in the Fifties, a legend still persisted amongst the locals that the Baron had been in league with the Devil!’

‘What rubbish!’ I said, yet realizing Sera had obviously taken her inspiration for the folly painting from these rumours.

‘Yes, I’ve always thought so. Especially since his daughter was my grandmother!’

‘What?’

‘Yes, I only found this out by chance. Mother never tells me anything. Her name was Hildegard. She married an MP called Sir Ernest Faversham.’ She pointed to the tomb on the other side of the chapel. ‘They only had one son, Frederick, my father.’

I gasped as she led me to the last tomb, which lay half demolished as if by human hand. ‘He only lay here for a few years. Dylan had him exhumed and reburied in a churchyard down in the valley, when he acquired this property.’

I didn’t know what to say.

We moved forward, skirting the oak tree, whose roots had torn up the floor tiles. Beyond lay the back wall, with its huge, once intricate cinquefoil window. Little remained now. Below this stood a solid black altar, showing a few cracks in its lining.

‘The land remained in my family till Mother sold out to the Forestry Commission in 1973. I get the impression Dylan was furious. Anyway, he certainly vowed to buy the Lodge back one day. By the time he achieved it, back in 1980, the building was a derelict shell, ready for demolition. You wouldn’t believe it now, would you? He’s done such a wonderful restoration.’

‘He has. It certainly looks very authentic. What was his motivation? Did he want to recover your family’s prestige? Or was it because he always liked the building? You said they all used to play here as children.’

‘The second, maybe….But the overriding reason’s because Sera’s buried here.’

I exhaled deeply.

She guided me back outside and around to the far side, which had been hidden from view on the way in.

Old iron railings, rusted from neglect, ringed an overgrown earthen mound. A simple decaying headstone read:

Seraphina Faversham Jones

1953-1970

Beloved wife of

John Dylan Jones

R.I.P.

‘Jones?’ I queried.

‘Yes, Jones. His mother’s name. His parents never married. Quest was a pseudonym for his writing at first. He later changed it officially.’

I stared back at the ill-kept grave, which looked as forgotten as the old chapel itself.

A sense of the finality of death oppressed me.

Seventeen years in the elements, untended, had left her grave in a sorry state. This stark reality told me much more about Dylan than my researches so far had informed me. It was as if Seraphina hadn’t existed….No, no….I corrected myself in my thoughts. It was as if Seraphina’s death had never happened.

‘Dylan hasn’t accepted she’s dead, has he?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Mm. Does he visit the grave himself?’

‘No. One look at the state of this site should answer that question.’

‘What about other people?’

‘Only the immediate family know this place exists. And he forbids us all from coming here. That’s why I’ve been so secretive. If news got back to Dylan that I’ve come here, or more to the point, brought you – an outsider – here, you’d never hear the end of it!’

‘But surely you’ve a right to visit the grave of your own sister?’

‘Of course I have the right. But Dylan’s too possessive. When he met her, he was bewitched by her beauty and set about possessing her. He succeeded, of course. And he possesses her still, in death.’

I shuddered.

‘I’m not going to let him possess me in the same way!’ cried Emily, tears welling up in her eyes.

When she’d recovered enough, we left the eerie edifice, for which I was extremely grateful. I had no intention of being caught as night fell in such a haunting place as this.

Once back at the rear entrance, she collected her motorbike. Then she gave me a message that she quickly scrawled on a dirty and creased piece of paper.

‘Give this to Dylan.’

I nodded and watched her head off through the archway.