The appalling possibility that Mother’s whispered stories might not be true could not be considered, not even for a moment. The marsh house must exist and that was all there was to it. It had been dreamed about and yearned for so strongly and for so long, that it could not be simply a fairytale.
But once off the bouncing country bus came the search for signposts that pointed to Mowbray Fen, and a different panic swept in, because supposing there weren’t any signposts? Supposing this whole thing was going to turn out to be as elusive as looking for the rainbow’s end so that you could claim the pot of gold? Supposing that letter Mother showed me was an old one and the house isn’t here any longer? Or supposing I got the journey wrong, and I’ve ended up miles away from where I should be?
But the panic did not last long, because this was the land of the jack o’ lanterns and the will o’ the wisps, and there was a strong pure light everywhere – a light that bore no resemblance to London’s thick cloggy skies – and if ever will o’ the wisps danced in England they would surely dance here, to their own strange wild music, moving across the flat rolling marshlands, in and out of the thick fringings of reeds and rushes. Keep looking. The road will be here somewhere.
The road was there, of course. As if the creatures of the myths were pointing the way, there was the signpost: ‘Mowbray Fen, 4 miles.’
Mowbray Fen. Heart’s desire and journey’s end. I’m nearly there.
Mowbray Fen, when it was finally reached, turned out to be a village with a little straggling street and a big square area of grass at one end, with a stone cross. There were shops – some of them with little roundy windows – and there were houses built out of stone, which was something you hardly ever saw in Pedlar’s Yard.
But Pedlar’s Yard need never appear again, and it need not be talked about or even remembered. Out here, it was possible to believe this.
Just beyond the main street was a church with a little spire; music came from its half-open door – lovely music, not like anything you had ever heard before, but music that was somehow part of the strangeness of this place and that was all mixed up with the feeling of having escaped.
And there, beyond the church, and behind the green, was a small sign, so weathered it was almost impossible to read. But to the prepared mind it was very clear indeed. ‘The Priest’s House’ it said, and at the sight of it memory stirred all over again.
‘It’s called the Priest’s House,’ Mother had said. ‘It was built when people could be put to death for believing in the wrong religion, and there are legends that priests hid there before being smuggled out of the country and across to Holland.’