The White Stone Well

This week, Charlie Raven's kindly given us an extract from her Holmesian murder-mystery The Compact. 

It's 1898. Recovering from traumatic events, the artist Alexandra has been persuaded to recuperate at the domineering Minerva Atwell's country hotel. An inexplicably eerie atmosphere seems to pervade the valley, perhaps associated with the ancient well in the woods - or with Minerva herself.

 

Adsullata Spa Hotel, Whitstanwell, Somerset

My dear Harriet,

Well, you will see from the notepaper where I am. I am sorry not to have communicated with you before. We arrived on Tuesday and I would have written sooner but it was all very rushed and time just seems to go so quickly. But before I say anything else, I want to apologise to you for my recent coldness. I don’t have to tell you why. I am sorry too about the unpleasant scene after the funeral. I fully understand why you felt you had to question Mr Burroughs like that and I cannot excuse his remarks to you. I think the shock affected him, as it did all of us. Think what he must have seen! Anyway, my harsh words at the time were uncalled for and I beg you to forgive me. Like the good old friends we are, let’s put it behind us. Now! Let me tell you about this place.

We took the train to Bath, of course, and then entrusted our luggage and ourselves to a rather alarming but very sturdy equipage that Mrs Atwell had arranged to meet us. It was drawn by two immense muddy dray horses and I soon understood why they were necessary. The carriage, as black and shiny as a beetle, at least looked in no danger of overturning, which was well - for it had to thread (rather dangerously, I thought) up and down steep foothills and through country lanes in the darkness. I cannot say that January is the time I would have chosen to explore the wilds! Mrs Atwell of course is a seasoned traveller and often comes here. She says the soft airs of the place, even in winter, are particularly conducive to health both of body and mind. There is a pretty village not too far away with a convenient post office too.

Anyway, we are settled now, dear Harriet. Mrs Atwell is a fascinating companion but she is often busy and you and I could chat very comfortably here. I have not had an opportunity to explore everywhere as yet, particularly as part of the hotel is shut up and undergoing repairs. It is being modernised, Mrs Atwell says, in preparation for the much busier seasons she expects in the future as the Spa builds up its reputation.

There are but three residents here at the moment, each of whom receives the very best care. Mrs Atwell tells me the waters of a marvellous local spring provide such benefits to the nervous system as are almost impossible to enumerate. She says the source is the same extraordinarily deep volcanic wells as supply the renowned hot springs at Bath. She herself discovered the forgotten well in the valley here and had it restored, diverting the waters to supply a pump room in this romantic old place. It has taken a great deal of work to get it right, she tells me, and she says the Bank has ‘sunk’ a lot of money into it, but the modern building is now almost perfect and will rival Bath itself in time. 

With her keen interest in history, Mrs Atwell assures me that she has found evidence that the use of the well dates back to pre-Roman times. Her workmen discovered various stones under the water in the course of their work. They are crudely shaped to suggest human heads. Apparently the poor superstitious fellows would have destroyed them but Mrs Atwell intervened and had them set up in the salon, much to local disapproval, as you may well imagine! She had them thoroughly scrubbed and they have come up as white as alabaster. She believes the very name of this valley is inspired by them – perhaps a fanciful idea, but who can say? You would be much interested to see them – I intend to append a sketch of one. You will agree, I think, that they retain a certain power.

I am sitting, my dear Harriet, in the comfortable salon having ‘taken the waters’ myself these three days running. I have drunk them – tastes like metal and blood, very odd - and also immersed myself in the beautiful pool which Mrs Atwell had built here. You would love to see it (and you would laugh to see me in it attired in a voluminous bathing gown!). It is tiled with blue and gold fishes – the pool, that is, not the gown. Don’t laugh – my head is a muddle. One hardly wishes to leave the pool once one is fully immersed. I can truly feel myself relaxing into a better state of health. 

I have made a great friend here too, a Mrs Halliwell, who as I write is sitting near me by the fire. She, poor thing, suffers much from gout and rheumatism. By lucky chance, she once also lived in Cairo for a while so I have enjoyed chatting whilst pushing her about in a handsome bath chair (or else she must hobble about on bandaged feet).

Dear Harriet, after the recent terrible tragedy – of which I can barely think or write - I hope that the healing qualities of this place are restoring me to my right mind. Quite soon I plan to resume work on the famous portrait of Minerva Atwell. She particularly wishes to work at it here because she says the atmosphere, light, etc. are very ‘artistic’. It made me laugh when she said that. 

I feel very blessed to have such a friend – for I think I may increasingly trust that I am her friend – and even more blessed to know that I remain your A.

Alexandra read the letter through, signed it and folded in a small sketch she had made the previous evening. She sealed it into an envelope and walked out to leave it at the reception desk with other letters waiting for the post. She was alone for now. Mrs Halliwell had dozed off in her chair. The other two residents were receiving various treatments from the staff. Minerva was somewhere about the place or busy in her office. 

Alexandra looked out of the windows of the solarium towards the head of the valley. At the top, a shoulderblade of brown-gold hillside caught the winter sunlight. Leafless trees marched down the slopes to flank the road leading to the hotel. Above it all, the thin and blue sky was like a pane of ice. It would be good to work again, to get the easel and some pastels, perhaps, and begin to sketch some of this. She had forgotten how compressed and exhausted she habitually felt in London; and although there was still a physical pain inside when she thought of Valentine, here it seemed easier to manage it, to breathe and to think alongside it. Stepping outside, she saw that waxy snowdrops were already nodding in the chilly wind by the wall in the sun.

Half an hour later, sitting on a tree stump with a board on her knee, Alexandra began a pencil sketch of the view back down the slope towards the house. She liked the irregularity of the building and the lie of the pale shadows on its complicated face. It had two distinct sides. One had a plastered façade in a Palladian style; the other was darker and far older. And from up here, she could see that there was more to it than she had originally thought. The more ancient half of it had a kind of prison of ash-pole scaffolding set up at one end but no workmen were in sight. 

The wind was cold and her hands quickly reddened. Too cold to stay exposed here for long, after twenty minutes she put the board on the ground, leaving it well-weighted with a lump of limestone. She decided to warm up with a walk and chose to aim for a thicketed little fold down near the bottom of the slope. As she stumbled over the tree roots, glad of her sturdy boots, she was thankful that the descent among the trees was taking her out of the wind. She hesitated, wondering whether to go back and collect up her things and recommence work from here. A few pretty sketches of the house and valley would be an appropriate thanks to Mrs Atwell for her kindness. 

She looked around to see if there was a worthwhile view, peering between the ranks of green-grey tree trunks. Nothing was moving. There was no sound at all. Further down, she saw a plume of steam rising from a hidden cleft. Fascinated, she realised she may by chance have found the source of Minerva’s original ‘White Stone Well’ and immediately set off to get closer to it.

This must be the well all right, she thought; but it was a weird place. A little further down the slope, she could see where the water had been diverted and hurried away underground into modern pipes, but here at the source, all was untouched. A few flat green stones led down in a shallow stair, natural or perhaps man-made, for she imagined she could detect the wear of feet. She followed them down to the spring itself and stood suddenly astounded to watch it gush out of the crevice. The strength of it was breathtaking. The copious brown stream rippled strongly up and out, steaming, powerful, pumping from a deep gash. The water-smoothed stones were red in the steam.

She sat down on a rock, staring, silent, and after a long time, dared to stretch down and touch the water. It was so hot. It was almost indelicate – fleeting associations of menstruating, giving birth, passed through her head. A most extraordinary sight, her modern rational self said again and again, as the water forced its way out, staining the rock surfaces, immodest, sinewy, from the deep into daylight. At long last, she turned away, feeling that she owed the wellspring something, a token, because it seemed alive and she had watched it.

Feeling foolish, she pulled one of the silver hat pins from her felt hat and threw it into the spring; and, as she moved to go, saw that she was not alone in this irrational urge. There was a shining edge of a hidden thing poked into a cleft in the rocks. The returning ferns and mosses would be covering it a few short weeks from now. Gingerly, she extracted it. It was crudely drawn, mere scratches on a tiny sheet of copper. She brought it closer to her eyes, eager to find out what it depicted. As far as she could make out, it showed a somewhat bizarre female figure. She rubbed the metal and slanted it to get a sight of the rough engraving. A standing naked woman was flanked by two birds. It’s the oddest thing, thought Alexandra, because someone’s drawn her with very unusual feet. The cloak drooping from her shoulders looks almost like wings. She replaced it carefully, deciding to discuss her discovery with Mrs Atwell after dinner. ‘Because it isn’t very old at all,’ she said aloud.