Forged

By Deborah Cox-Walker

What if a work of art was your only means of escape? Scarlet Delamere, an aristocratic orphan, turns to a 16th-century portrait for a way out of the prison her home has become. Character fuses into art and love into politics in this coming of age novel, which centers on a flame-haired nude who looks out silently at the mundane from her gilded frame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: World Castle Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Dec 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781953271433

Deborah Cox-Walker

Deborah Cox-Walker was born in New York but educated in England, where she developed a love of English literature. She graduated from Durham University with a First in the subject and went on to have poetry and essays published before completing her Masters in Film Aesthetics at Oxford University.Her first novel, “Forged,” is a contemporary coming of age story set in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, against the backdrop of the English aristocracy in a world where modern-day witches live and work ‘unseen’ by those they serve. Her personal website is DeborahCox.co.uk.

Book preview

1.png

Forged

by

Deborah Cox-Walker

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WCP Logo 7

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Deborah Cox-Walker 2020

Smashwords Edition

Paperback ISBN: 9781953271426

eBook ISBN: 9781953271433

First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, December 21, 2020

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Smashwords Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor: Maxine Bringenberg

Chapter 1

Scarlet turned to the portrait as if it were a mirror and ran her fingertips along the words etched into its frame, In via recta celeriter. Take the right path quickly. She smiled to herself at the dark humor inherent in the word celeriter. To take the right path was the calling of all true Delameres, but quickly was the operative word. Fleeing from the 16th century Huguenot purges in France, the family had sought refuge in England, and despite marrying into the English aristocracy had again found themselves subject to religious hatred on the other side of the channel under the Catholic queen, Bloody Mary. While choirs were singing Hail, Holy Queen, Enthroned Above and flowers were filling out the churches, the Delameres were pulling up flagstones and digging out tunnels in case of a raid.

Our souls sustain injuries every day as forces of light and darkness fight over every decision of the flesh, Edmund Delamere, the fourth Duke of Woodstock and Scarlet’s uncle, had said during their last lesson. One small battle lost in a single soul—the favoritism of a child—can cause devastation in another’s life just as much an enemy occupation. This is what history is really about—the joins in the maps where all the greatest battles take place; the boundaries just out of sight where the invisible and the visible meet, where imagination meets reality and people you never thought existed come to life.

She looked again at the portrait. On account of its value, handling it was forbidden. Noli me tangere was written in red across the back of a New York postcard tacked to the wall below, and this had, so far as the rest of the family knew, always been obeyed to the letter. For fear of chipping the paint or damaging the gilt frame, Scarlet Delamere—who was only five-foot-four—would mount the chair whenever she needed to take a closer look before returning to her copy for the replicated brush strokes. This was not because she was obedient, but because everything depended on her appearing to be so.

A kite straining at its rope in the wind was the pull of her coming of age—her sixteenth birthday—which was now only a few weeks off, and also the date she had set for running away. It was partly because this plan was so out of character that it stood a chance of success. Up until then, Scarlet had never even hinted at anything so willful. Strange, yes, but not willful. The only thing that had stopped her from running away had been her sense of her own status at the palace. Weird as she was, becoming a runaway would represent a significant fall from grace socially. Up until then, all curbs to her freedom could be met with submission and a certain grace. She could just about reinterpret unnecessary strictures as overprotectiveness or over conscientious pride in the provision of care so as not to appear victimized. It was not too much of a strain to dismiss the put downs in this way. But it was no longer possible to rise above it all now that Dr. Skinner’s intentions had become so blatant.

She had overheard him discussing his intentions with Lady Delamere last week, unaware that Scarlet was concealed behind the long purple curtain. The bay window was one of her favorite spots for observing the luminescence of early evening in spring when the domestic cherry blossoms fell like pink snow, and the tiny blue lobelias in the borders glowed in contrast to the deepening shades. It took some effort to draw her attention within to Skinner’s explanations to her grandmother about why he could not counsel her anymore. Romantic ties were allowed between doctors and their former patients now so long as they used their professional judgment. It sounded creepy even for him. Who used their professional judgment when embarking on a romance?

Scarlet had felt like a single eye searching the tunnels of her grandmother’s mind for a conscience, catching a glimpse of it scrabbling backwards in murky retreat as she replied, That sounds very sensible, Levi. I think you should explain it to Scarlet yourself when you are alone together. I am sure she will be flattered to hear it coming from your own lips. She is a clever girl and would not want to let such a good match pass her by.

As the conversation progressed, it became more and more clear to Scarlet that she should not expect to receive any sort of protection from that quarter. Staying at Blenheim while Dr. Skinner was living under the same roof would be tantamount to soliciting his advances, and there was absolutely no chance of persuading Granny to make him leave. The old woman had become dependent on him. Or was it the other way around? She could never tell with those two.

Scarlet drew in a long breath to steady her nerves and mounted the chair, feeling as if she were about to cross a hitherto sacred line between devotee and religious object. Taking the original by its frame, she reminded herself that it was just a picture—it had no holy power. While creating its copy, she may not have been able to ignore the sense that behind the woman’s expression was a mind, but this was just an illusion, a brilliant illusion created by an old master. No real breathing creature waited as her fingertips wedged between the grooves at the edges of the frame. No senses shrank from the touch of her palms as they swept across the paintwork before returning, dusty, to her own face. It was an indirect touch, the fine particles offering a protective film, and as such, it did not bother her. So what if the painting got cracked or the frame got chipped? No one except her would notice. The rules about not touching it were not there to confuse the distinction between things that could feel and people that could not. Surely.

Besides, what was there to fear from inanimate objects? What could the painted woman say or do to reproach her? Put a curse on her? Of all the family, Scarlet had been the only one to truly appreciate and value the Ruth Devenir as she deserved. If anyone had the right to touch her, it was Scarlet. All attempts at mental reasoning—as if aligning her thoughts respectfully might be coercive somehow—came to nothing, as did all attempts at lifting the hanger from the hook. She was about to get down to see what crowbarring it with the fire poker might do when the cuff of her oversized shirt caught the corner of its frame, and as she pulled back, the portrait came away from the wall slightly. Another firm tug, and it began to open towards her on its hinges like a door or a book.

Scarlet was entranced.

Her life of restraint had always felt partly justified by the mystery the portrait represented, and, as such, it was a relief to see it hanging there on its hinges like an open wound. Submitting to the cautions about coming into physical contact with it all these years masked the real reason behind her avoidance: fear of secrets, yes, and not just of being seen to uncover them, but also of destroying them. For they were like a trail of breadcrumbs leading back, to safety in one direction, and back to the witch’s house, where all the real unanswered questions lay hidden. While she had seen herself reflected in the trapped and muted woman, she had also been drawn in by the painted woman’s patient composition. With its conflagration of russets and gold, the portrait was more than just an extension of the fireplace’s flames.

Its inscription—Salus in pictura latet; your salvation lies within the picture—presented a challenge to discover some sort of an inward spiritual deliverance or birth. However, salus could also be translated as safety or safe passage as opposed to salvation. If within was translated literally, it could be simple directions to this lever behind the portrait. Scarlet suddenly felt sick with excitement. The portrait did not merely hold the answer to any number of mysterious secrets of salvation within the masterful complexity of its composition. It was, in itself, a very real and direct means of escape. Your safe passage is behind the picture.

She ran her fingertips along the contours of the lever, and a shudder ran through her as she found herself unable to pull away. Her hand became cold and heavy like an extension of it as it began to pull down of its own volition. Flagstone scraped against marble, grinding like a knife on glass, and a black hole began to yawn forth from within the hearth, microcosmic of the one spinning at the center of the universe, those within her eyes, and the one she felt where her heart should have been.

~*~

Much of Scarlet’s childhood had been spent investigating cellars, attics, and antechambers at Blenheim Palace—the Delamere family’s stately home—prising open loose floorboards and knocking at walls. Until now, such investigations had not revealed so much as a secret cupboard. Yet here she was, teetering on the edge, not only of her childhood but also the central quest that swirled at the heart of all her fantasies and dreams: the hidden entrance. A low rumbling of stones, followed by a ssshhh, reverberated back and then faded into an unfathomable distance like concentric rings on an underground lake. After what seemed like an age—a heavy, pregnant silence in which she could feel her heart beating—there was the whisper of wind through tunnels as if through a giant pair of lips, softly but not so far away that it could not be heard approaching through the earth. A gust from the recess below blew up as if in warning and made her gasp, like an infant taking its first breath.

There was no time to recover, though, as footsteps were approaching. They had the distinctive rhythm of Dr. Skinner’s unapologetic gait, the hard slap of leather followed by the shoddy scuff of heels. Scarlet closed the portrait and blew the merest token of a kiss at its subject before getting down. Crouching on all fours, she dragged the screen behind her as a cover and gave one last look at the doorknob as it turned on its spindle. The toss of her dyed red hair lit up the fireplace like the flames which had burned there once. And she was gone.

Spider-like, she made her way down the twelve-foot chute via some footholds carved into its diameter and paused on the last step, waiting, listening for any sounds that might have given her away. This was surely the summit—or indeed, the depths, she thought giddily—of all her training as a painter, which had taught her to thrive on the periphery and sublimate fears by squeezing through frames and across boundaries. How strange that the tunnels should have remained hidden for so long, their existence a rarely acknowledged secret. Perhaps this was because the act of searching was actually its own paradox. People went around searching for things they wanted to avoid. She trembled to think about what she might discover down there at the farthest reaches of the cave, where there was nothing but earth and stone and herself. What lay in wait for her at the end of the tunnel, longing to intercept and possess her as she ran from the arms of others? Her legs became unsteady, but she soon found courage in her diminutive stature, which allowed her to stand upright as she took the final steps down and along the passageway as it opened out.

The cave at the tunnel’s end point was rumored to hold the remains of troubled women from the past, a central hub from which others branched off like insect legs. It sat below an old witch-hanging site, now a concrete block of flats known as Agnes Heights, after the last witch hanged there. Calling out to lost souls from beyond borders, it bled out along these tunnels that connected Blenheim to a very different estate on the other side of Woodstock, an alien world both ugly and alluring. And the allure was strong. Scarlet felt it in her fingertips as they ran along the walls, in the roots of her hair as her thin legs kept stumbling—despite the indestructible Doc Martens—over such an uneven path. Thuds and groans from the pipework, the squeaking of rats, and the occasional rush of a bat’s wings seemed expressive, all her senses primed as if each sound, movement, crack, or crevice might represent a life-saving foothold in the case of a total collapse.

Another breath in to steady her nerves, and the smell of soil drew into her lungs like she was part of a giant buried organism, dark and deep like a living root. She had another upsurge of courage at this reminder of her training as an artist, which had turned her five senses into languages she had mastered fluently. It had all surely been for this moment, this discovery of a real escape route to be used when all else failed—when Granny refused to let her go or when Dr. Skinner managed to convince the Warneford Hospital that she was a danger to herself and others. All along, they had been arguing over how best to treat a depressed teen and prescribing her all sorts of medicine—which she never took—while she had been hiding, watching, and learning from behind an unemotional mask, waiting for a chance like this.

Torn from their children, work, and dreams, witches in the sixteenth century had been marginalized for daring to get old or for knowing more than they should, maligned for creating life without a man around to take the credit, for gaining wisdom through the suffering or sacrifice of their bodies in labor and solitude. Or was it for their poverty? Whatever their crimes, real or imaginary, their persecution reverberated down the centuries, and Scarlet wanted to understand them almost as much as she wanted to discover the identity of her mother. She needed to know why, when the likes of these had clung to their children until the bitter end, she had been abandoned.

If anyone had the power to reveal such things, it was surely the servant women who worked at Blenheim and lived at Agnes Heights—healers and tea-leaf diviners with their striking sons and dangerous lovers. These were the real source of intrigue: latter-day witches beaten down by jealousy and lust. Whenever Scarlet had been caught eavesdropping on these other women, she had always been shooed off, dismissed by her grandmother as a moth being drawn to its flame. Which, of course, had only made her more curious. The servants might seem exotic to an outsider, Granny warned, but the reality of their lives was far from that. It was a fine line, perilous to cross, between the likes of them and those others, and to do so could lead, if not to a lynching, then to the slow dying of a person’s social self as it bled into a different class. Whether it turned out to be a noose or a tightrope to freedom, Scarlet reasoned, only time would tell.

There’s something in the water, the service staff at Blenheim would say whenever trying to excuse their bad behavior, which was quite often. But it was also an allusion to their sense of having made their homes on a poisoned plot of land which had drawn to it atavistic heirs: modern day witches, ruined by their own beauty and class. In failing to survive, their shadowy predecessors had passed on to the single mothers and alcoholics on the estate a warped and restless legacy. And the waters were still troubled.

As Scarlet neared the cave, the temperature and air pressure dropped. She held up her torch to reveal bones embedded in the walls, which were faintly lit by a grate in the earth above. Walking around the periphery, her fingertips brushed against what seemed to be small faces twisted out of the soil. On closer inspection, these turned out to be gargoyles with expressions woven from roots. Some of their faces were silly, others ugly and distorted—inane devilish faces, owls and other hideous monsters. There was an ice-age hunting scene of men with spears and a wild boar, and a cascade of letters, symbols, and patterns all carved into the limestone, stretching off down another tunnel—apotropaic marks to ward off evil. Evidence of more recent visitors littered a corner with tobacco tins, matches, and Rizla papers, cigarette-ends and beer bottle tops. Scarlet picked up a tin with an archaic holly-and-ivy Christmas scene of two deer in a wood. The words written on its faded shortbread label read Eat me. On opening, Scarlet found twigs and shrivelled bark that turned out to be