The Captive Read online

“I like it here,” I said, ‘with all of us. “

  Nanny nodded her approval of that sentiment.

  I could see Mr. Dolland was in the mood to entertain us and I was wondering whether to ask for “Once more unto the breach’ or The Bells.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “There’s been a lot going on round here. If you could only see back to years ago.”

  “It’s a pity we have to rely on hearsay,” said Felicity.

  “I think it’s fascinating to hear people talk of the past.”

  “Mind you,” said Mr. Dolland, “I can’t go back all that way, but I’ve had stories from my granny. She was here before they put up all these buildings. She used to talk about a farm that used to be just about where the top of Russell Street is now. She remembered the Miss Cappers who lived there.”

  I settled happily in my chair, hoping for a story about the Miss Cappers. Mr. Dolland saw this. He smiled at me and said: “You want to hear what she told me about them, don’t you. Miss Rosetta?”

  I nodded and he began: “They were two old maids, the Misses Capper.

  One was crossed in love and the other never had a chance to be. It made them sort of bitter against all men. Well-to-do, they were. They had the farm left to them by their father. Ran it themselves, they did. Wouldn’t have a man about the place. They managed with a dairymaid or two. It was this dislike of the opposite sex. “

  “Because one was crossed in love,” said Emily.

  “And the other never had a chance to be,” I added.

  “Shh,” admonished Nanny.

  “Let Mr. Dolland go on.”

  “A queer pair they were. Used to ride out on old grey mares. They didn’t like the male sex but they dressed just as though they belonged to it … in top hats and riding breeches. They looked like a couple of old witches. They were known all round as the Mad Cappers.”

  I thought that was a good joke and laughed heartily, only to receive another reproving shake of the head from Nanny I should know better.

  One should never interrupt Mr. Dolland when he was in full flow.

  “It was not that they did anything that was really wicked. It was just that they liked to do a bit of harm here and there. It was a place where boys used to like to fly their kites … it being all open to the sky. One of the Miss Cappers used to ride round with a pair of shears. She’d gallop after the boys with the kites and cut the strings so that

  the little boys were standing there … the string in their hands, watching their kites flying off to Kingdom Come.”

  “Oh, poor little boys. What a shame,” said Felicity.

  “That was the Miss Cappers for you. There was a little stream nearby where the boys used to bathe. There was nothing they liked more on a hot summer’s day than a dip in the water. They’d leave their clothes behind a bush while they went in. This other Miss Capper used to watch them. Then she’d swoop down and steal their clothes.”

  “What a nasty old woman,” said Dot.

  “She said the boys were trespassing on her land and trespassers should be punished.”

  “Surely a little warning would have done?” said Felicity.

  “That wasn’t the Miss Cappers’ way. They caused a bit of gossip, those two. I wish I’d been around when they were alive. I’d like to have seen them.”

  “You would never have let them cut your kite and send it to Kingdom Come, Mr. Dolland,” I said.

  “They were pretty sharp, those two. Then, of course, there were the forty steps.”

  We all settled back in our seats to hear the story of the forty steps.

  “Is it a ghost story?” I asked eagerly.

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Perhaps we’d better have it in the morning,” said Nanny, her eyes on me.

  “Miss gets a bit excited about ghost stories at the end of the day. I don’t want her awake half the night fancying she hears things. “

  “Oh, Mr. Dolland,” I begged.

  “Please tell us now. I can’t wait. I want to hear about the forty steps.”

  Felicity was smiling at me.

  “She’ll be all right,” she said, wanting to hear as much as I did, and, having whetted our appetites, Mr. Dolland saw that he must go on.

  Nanny looked a little displeased. She was not as fond of Felicity as the rest of us were. I believed it was because she knew of my affection for her and was afraid it detracted from what I had for her. She need have had no qualms. I was able to love them both.

  Mr. Dolland cleared his throat and put on the expression which he must have worn when he was waiting in the wings to go on the stage and do his part.

  He began dramatically: “There were two brothers. This was a long time ago when King Charles was on the throne. Well, the King died and his son, the Duke of Monmouth, thought he would make a better king than Charles’s brother James, and there was a battle between them. One of the brothers was for Monmouth and the other for James, so they were enemies fighting on different sides. But what was more important to them was their admiration for a certain young lady. Yes, the two brothers loved the same woman and it got to such a state that they made up their minds to fight it out between them, for this young lady was the Beauty of Bloomsbury and she thought quite a lot of herself, as such young ladies do. She was proud because they were going to fight over her. They were to fight with swords, which was how they did it in those days. It was what they called a duel. There was a patch of ground close to Cappers’ farm. It was waste land and it always had had a bad reputation. It was the haunt of highwaymen and no one with any sense walked there after dark. It seemed a good place for a duel.”

  Mr. Dolland picked up the large carving knife from the table and brandished it deftly, stepping back and forth as he battled with an invisible opponent. Gracefully he held the knife but with such realism that I could almost see the two men fighting together.

  He paused for a moment and, pointing to the kitchen stove, said:

  “There on a bank … enjoying every minute, seeing each brother prepared to kill the other for her sake, sat the cause of the trouble.”

  The kitchen stove became a bank. I could see the girl, looking a little like Felicity, only Felicity was too good and kind to want anyone to die for her. It was all so vivid; and that was how it always was with Mr. Dolland’s turns.

  He made a dramatic thrust and went on in hollow tones:

  “Just as one brother caught the other in the neck, severing a vein, the other struck his brother through the heart. So … both brothers died on Long Fields as it was called then, though afterwards the name was changed to Southampton Fields.”

  “Well, I never,” said Mrs. Harlow.

  “The things people do for love.”

  “Which one haunted her?” I asked.

  “You and your ghosts,” said Nanny disapprovingly.

  “There always has to be a ghost for this one.”

  “Listen to this,” said Mr. Dolland.

  “While they were going back and forth’ he did a little more swordplay to illustrate his meaning ‘they made forty steps on that bloodstained patch and where those brothers had trod nothing would ever grow again. People used to go out and look at them. According to my granny, they could see the footsteps clearly and the earth was red as though stained with blood. Nobody ever went there after dark.”

  “They didn’t before,” I reminded him.

  “But the highwaymen didn’t go there either … and still nobody went.”

  “Did they see anything?” asked Dot.

  “No. There was just this brooding feeling of something not quite natural. They said that when it rained and the ground was soggy you could still see the footsteps and they were tinged with red. Things were planted but nothing would grow. The footsteps remained.”

  “What happened to the girl for whom they fought?” asked Felicity.

  “She fades out of the story.”

  “I hope they haunted her,” I said.

  “They shouldn’t
have been such fools,” said Nanny.

  “I’ve no patience with fools. Never have had, never will have.”

  “It’s rather sad, I think, that they both died,” I commented.

  “It would have been better if one of them had remained to suffer remorse . and the girl wasn’t worth all that trouble anyway.”

  “You have to accept what is,” Felicity told me.

  “You can’t change life to make a neat ending.”

  Mr. Dolland went on: “There was a play written about it. It was called The Field of the Forty Steps.”

  “Were you in it, Mr. Dolland?” asked Dot.

  “No. A bit before my day. I heard of it though, and it made me interested in the story of the brothers. Somebody called Mayhew wrote it with his brother, which was a nice touch … brothers writing about brothers, so to speak. They played it at the theatre in Tottenham Street. It ran for quite a while.”

  “Fancy all that happening round here,” said Emily.

  “Well, we never know what’s going to happen to any of us at any time,” commented Felicity seriously.

  So the time passed, weeks merging into months and months into years.

  Happy, unruffled days with little to disturb our serenity. I was approaching my twelfth birthday. I suppose Felicity would have been about twenty-four then. Mr. Dolland was greying at the temples which we declared made him look very distinguished and that added a certain grandeur to his turns. Nanny complained more of her rheumatics and Dot left to get married. We missed her, but Meg took her place and Emily Meg’s and it was thought unnecessary to engage a new twee ny In time Dot produced a beautiful fat baby whom she proudly brought round for us all to see.

  There were many happy memories in those days; but I should have realized that they could not go on for ever.

  I was growing out of childhood and Felicity had become a beautiful young woman.

  Change comes about in the most insidious way.

  There had been the odd occasion since Felicity had come to us when she had been invited to join one of the dinner parties given by my parents. Of course, Felicity explained to me, it was because they needed another female to balance the sexes, and as she was the niece of Professor Wills she was a suitable guest, although only the governess. She did not look forward to these occasions. I remember the one dinner dress she had. It was made of black lace and she looked very pretty in it, but it hung in her wardrobe a depressing reminder of the dinner parties which were the only occasions when she wore it.

  She was always thankful when my parents went away for the reason that there could be no invitations to dinner parties. She was never sure when they would be forced on her, for to invite her was generally a last-minute decision. She was, as she said, a most reluctant makeshift.

  As I grew older I saw a little more of my parents. I would take tea with them at certain times. I believe they felt even more embarrassed in my presence than I did in theirs. They were never unkind. They asked a great many questions about what I was learning and, as I had an aptitude for gathering facts and a fondness for literature, I was able to give a fair account of myself. So although they were not particularly elated by my progress, nor were they as displeased as they might have been.

  Then the first signs of the change began, although I did not recognize them as such at the time.

  There was to be a dinner party and Felicity was summoned to attend.

  “My dress is getting that tired and dusty look which black gets,” she told me.

  “You look very nice in it, Felicity,” I assured her.

  “I feel so … apart… the outsider. Everyone knows I’m the governess called in to make up the numbers.”

  “Well, you look nicer than any of them and you’re more interesting, too.”

  That made her laugh.

  “All those deedy old professors think I’m a frivolous empty-headed idiot.”

  “They are the empty-headed idiots,” I said.

  I was with her when she dressed. Her lovely hair was piled high on her head and her nervousness had put a becoming touch of pink into her cheeks.

  “You look lovely,” I told her.

  “They’ll all be envious.”

  That made her laugh again and I was pleased to have lightened her mood a little.

  The awesome thought struck me: soon I shall have to go to those boring dinner parties.

  She came to my room at eleven that night. I had never seen her look so beautiful. I sat up in bed. She was laughing.

  “Oh, Rosetta, I had to tell you.”

  “Shh,” I said.

  “Nanny Pollock will hear. She’ll say you ought not to disturb my slumbers.”

  We giggled and she sat on the edge of my bed.

  “It was such … fun.”

  “What?” I cried.

  “Dinner with the old professors … fun!”

  “They weren’t all old. There was one …”

  “Yes?”

  “He was quite interesting. After dinner …”

  “I know,” I broke in.

  “The ladies leave the gentlemen to sit over the port to discuss matters which are too weighty or too indelicate for female ears.”

  We were laughing again.

  “Tell me more about this not-so-old professor,” I said.

  “I didn’t know there were such things. I thought they were all born old.”

  “Learning can sit lightly on some.”

  There was a radiance about her, I noticed then.

  “I never thought to see you enjoy a dinner party,” I said.

  “You give me hope. It has occurred to me that one day I shall be expected to attend them.”

  “It depends on who is there,” she said, smiling to herself.

  “You haven’t told me about the young man.”

  “Well, he was about thirty, I should say.”

  “Oh, not so young.”

  “Young for a professor.”

  “What’s his subject?”

  “Egypt.”

  “That seems a popular one.”

  “Your parents tend to move in that particular circle.”

  “Did you tell him I was named after the Rosetta Stone?”

  “As a matter of fact I did.”

  “I hope he was suitably impressed.”

  And so we went on with our frivolous conversation and just because Felicity had enjoyed one of the dinner parties it did not occur to me that this might be the beginning of change.

  The very next day I made the acquaintance of James Grafton. We had taken our morning walk Felicity and I and since we had heard the story of the forty steps and located them, we often went that way.

  There was indeed a patch of ground where the grass grew sparsely and it really did look desolate enough to confirm one’s belief in the story.

  There was a seat close by. I liked to sit on it, and so vivid had been Mr. Dolland’s reconstruction of the affair that I could imagine the brothers in their fatal battle.

  Almost by force of habit we made our way to the seat and sat down. We had not been there very long when a man approached. He took off his hat and bowed. He stood smiling at us while Felicity blushed becomingly.

  “Why,” he said, ‘it really is Miss Wills. “

  She laughed.

  “Oh, good morning, Mr. Grafton. This is Miss Rosetta Cranleigh.”

  He bowed in my direction.

  “How do you do?” he said.

  “May I sit for a moment?”

  “Please do,” said Felicity.

  Instinctively I knew he was the young man whom she had met at the dinner party on the previous night and that this meeting had been arranged.

  There was a little conversation about the weather.

  “This is a favourite spot of yours,” he said, and I had a feeling he was telling himself that he must include me in the conversation.

  “We come here often,” I told him.

  “The story of the forty steps intrigued us,” said Felicity
.

  “Do you know it?” I asked.

  He did not, so I told him.

  “When I sit here I can imagine it all,” I said.

  “Rosetta’s a romantic,” Felicity told him.

  “Most of us are at heart,” he said, smiling at me warmly.

  He told us that he was on his way to the Museum. Some papyri had come to light and Professor Cranleigh was going to allow him to have a look at them.

  “It is very exciting when something turns up which might increase our knowledge,” he added.

  “Professor Cranleigh was telling us last night about some of the wonderful discoveries which have been made recently.”

  He went on talking about them and Felicity listened enraptured.

  I was suddenly aware that something momentous was happening. She was slipping away from me. It seemed ridiculous to think such a thing. She was as sweet and caring as ever, but she did seem a little absentminded, as though when she was talking to me she was thinking of something else.

  But it did not immediately strike me on that first encounter with the attractive Professor Grafton that Felicity was in love.

  We met him several times after that and I knew that none of these meetings was by chance. He dined at the house once or twice and on each occasion Felicity joined the party. It occurred to me that my parents were in the secret.

  Felicity bought a new dinner dress. We went together to the shop. It was not really what she would have liked but it was the best she could afford, and since she had met James Grafton she had become even prettier and she looked lovely in it. It was blue the colour of her eyes and she was radiant.

  Mr. Dolland and Mrs. Harlow soon became aware of what was going on.

  “A good thing for her,” said Mrs. Harlow.

  “Governesses have a poor time of it. They get attached, like … and then when they’re no longer wanted it’s off to the next one until they get too old … and then what’s to become of them? She’s a pretty young thing and it’s time she had a man to look after her.”

  I had to admit I was dismayed. If Felicity married Mr. Grafton she would not be with me. I tried to imagine life without her.

  She was taking a great interest in ancient Egypt and we paid many visits to the British Museum. I no longer felt the awe of my childhood and was quite fascinated, and, spurred on by Felicity, I was almost as enthralled by the Egyptian Room as she was.