The Brown Mask

by Percy James Brebner

As it swept round the Abbey the stream broadened out, and its current became almost imperceptible. On one side the bank was comparatively low, but on the Abbey side a stone wall had been built up from the water. Above this was a broad terrace, flanked by the top of the wall, which rose some three or four feet above it, and into which seats had been cut at intervals. This terrace ran round three sides of the Abbey, and was mostly of stone flags, worn and green with age, but in some places there were stretches of trimly-kept grass. Two stone bridges arched and dipped from the terrace to the opposite bank of the stream. Wonderful vistas of the surrounding country were to be seen from the vantage ground of the terrace; here a peep through a sylvan glade to the blue haze of the hills beyond; there a glimpse of the roofs of the village of Aylingford, a mile away; and again a deep, downward view into dark woods, where mystery seemed to dwell, and perhaps fear, and out of which came the sound of running and of falling water.

It was not difficult to believe in the legends which the simple country folk told of Aylingford, and they were many. Had some old monk come suddenly out of the wood, over the bridge, and walked in meditation along the terrace, he would hardly have looked strange or out of place so long as a bevy of Sir John's visitors had not chanced to meet him. It seemed almost natural that when the night was still the echoes of old prayer and chant should still be heard, as folk said they were. Sir John himself had heard such sounds, so he affirmed, and would not have his belief explained away by the fact that the wind found much to make music with in the ruins. Then there were rooms which never seemed to be unoccupied; corridors where you felt that someone was always walking a little way in front of you or had turned the corner at the end the moment before; stairs upon which could be heard descending footsteps; doors which you did not remember to have noticed before. But while of legend there was plenty, of history there was little. It would appear that the monks had forsaken their home even before the Reformation, for the first Lanison had acquired in the Eighth Henry's reign a property "long fallen into ruinous decay," according to an old parchment. Possibly the writer of this description had not seen the Abbey, trusting, perchance, to the testimony of a man who had not seen it either, for certainly much of the present building was in existence then, and could hardly have been as ruinous as the parchment would lead one to suppose. It may be that Aylingford, lying in the depth of the country, away from the main road, escaped particular notice, and this might also account for the fact that it had never attracted the attention of Cromwell's men, which it reasonably might have done, seeing that the Lanisons were staunch for the King.

Since old Sir Rupert Lanison had first come to Aylingford, Lanisons had always been masters there—indifferent ones at times, as at intervals they had proved indifferent subjects, yet reverenced by the country folk.

Sir John, in the course of time, had become the head of the house of his ancestors, proud of his position, punctilious as to his rights, superstitious, and a believer in the legends of his home. He had married twice, losing each wife within a year of his wedding day, and had no child to succeed him. His brother, who had gone abroad ready to serve where-ever there was fighting to be done, had also married. His wife died young, too, and her daughter Barbara had come as a child to Aylingford. She did not remember her father, who subsequently died in the East Indies, leaving his child and a great fortune to the care of Sir John.

So the Abbey and the woods which surrounded it had been Barbara's world for eighteen years, for only once had she been to London before her visit to Lady Bolsover. In a measure this second visit was unhappily timed, for the death of King Charles had cast a gloom over the capital, and the accession of his brother James caused considerable apprehension in the country. Still, Barbara had created a certain sensation, and, according to Lady Bolsover, would have made a great match had not Sir John foolishly recalled her to the Abbey.

"She was just getting free from pastry and home-made wine, and my brother must needs plunge her back into them," Lady Bolsover declared to her friends, who were neither so numerous nor so distinguished now that Barbara had left St. James's Square.

Sir John had welcomed his niece, but had given no reason for bringing her home. She did not expect one. She had been away a long while; it was natural she should be home again, and she was glad. There was no real regret in her mind that she had left London; yet, somehow, life was different, and although she had been home nearly a week there was something which kept her from settling down into the old routine.

"Why is it? What is it? I wonder."

She was sitting on one of the stone seats cut in the wall of the terrace, leaning back to look across the woods. The morning sun flooded this part of the terrace with golden light, the perfume of flowers was heavy in the air. From the woods came a great song of birds; in the water below her a fish jumped at intervals—a cool sound on a hot day. She had this part of the terrace to herself for a little while, but from another part, round an angle of the house, came the murmur of voices and sometimes laughter, now a man's, now a woman's. It had all been just the same before, many, many times, yet now the girl was conscious of a sound of discord in it. Nothing had really changed. The Abbey was full of guests, as her uncle loved to have it, many of the same guests who came so constantly, many of those who had been her companions at Lady Bolsover's, and yet the world seemed changed somehow. The reason must lie in herself. Her visit to London had brought enlightenment to her, although she had only a vague idea of its meaning. She found it difficult not to shrink from some of her uncle's guests, a feeling she had not experienced until now. True, she had been brought more in contact with them during this last week than she had previously been. They treated her differently, no longer as a child, but as one of themselves. They spoke more freely, both the men and women, and it seemed to Barbara that only now was she beginning to understand them, and that it was this wider knowledge which made her shrink from them.

"I have become a woman; before I was only a girl—that must be the reason," she said, resting her chin on her clasped hands and looking down into the depths of the wood on the opposite side of the stream. "I have been very happy as a child, I do not believe I am going to be happy as a woman," and then she glanced towards the distant blue hills. The world was full of sunlight, even though the woods below her were dark and gloomy.