Hi everyone, this story is a romance/ghost story. If you want to know more about the inspiration read ‘A Beautiful Cottage’ on my other blogfeast blog under username tiaoxing. It will be up tomorrow if not tonight. Oops! I can’t have two blogs under one e-mail address but have queried management. Keep an eye on the comments and I’ll tell you when I have my new positive life experience blog up. Thanks for checking this story out and I hope you enjoy it.
Dancing in the Deer Circle
Andrew saw the entrance with difficulty in the night mist and u-turned back towards it, nearly missing it a second time. He pulled off the road and drove carefully along the stony driveway until the trees cleared and cottages appeared. Number two, the one on the right. A round thatched gatekeeper’s cottage sitting opposite its twin. Both were unlit but that was hardly surprising considering the time.
An owl whooed as he groped in the boot for a torch. He walked around to the door and was glad to find the old key turned easily in the lock. In the alcove where the power board hid he flicked the main switch. There was only need for one light switch in the tiny living room which just managed to fit a sofa, an armchair, a table and chair. Another switch revealed a miniature kitchen which squeezed in a sink, stove, refrigerator and cupboards with just enough bench space to make a sandwich on.
Torch in hand he mounted the narrow spiral staircase to a bedroom which held a very basic double bed and wardrobe. Beyond that was a bathroom and toilet. He was relieved to see that an old deep bath had fitted in. There was no shower.
He went back to the car and hauled some of his bags out, taking them through the living room and up the stairs. On his first attempt he found it was an impossible squeeze to get up with everything he was carrying so he reversed carefully, put it all down, lifted his largest suitcase and carefully manoeuvred it before him round the curved ascent. He brought in his other things from the car and locked up. The rest of the bags were left on the floor downstairs for the morning, except his sleeping bag. He threw it on the bed and soon fell asleep.
Andrew rose early the next morning, not because he was alert but because the old bed and lack of a pillow had given him a torturous night’s sleep. It was too early to shop for a new pillow so he decided to explore the grounds. Stretching and twisting to put his back and neck into place again, swinging his arms and lifting his legs high as he walked, Andrew entered the Estate through the big iron gates. There was still a light mist in the air but he had a happy tingle in his soul as he walked. After a while he found he was jogging and almost dancing as he went.
He passed carefully clipped bushes and gardens full of azaleas and rhododendrons. Beyond these was the manor house, disappointingly new. Probably about a hundred and fifty years old. There was a path leading around the building and he was glad to see that the terrace and well laid out gardens behind had an older look about them.
An archway in a high yew hedge led through to a small lake. This area was not so well kept. There was a small wooden jetty and a rowboat, both unpainted and looking as though they might fall apart if anyone used them. A feeling of sadness and oppression came over him and he decided the lake was not the best feature of the Manor.
Beyond the lake he found a small dense wood which seemed to be perfectly circular. He walked around it and found an entrance which he jogged through to find the trees formed a ring. Lying about in the clearing were Caryatids, female figures carved in stone, which he assumed must have formed some of the pillars of an older manor house which no longer existed. The mist, which was thicker here, gave the place a surreal feeling which added to the sense of excitement which was building up in him.
Andrew laughed and to his own surprise started to dance around the circle, in and out between the statues. A feeling made him turn to see he was not alone; in the mist a woman dancing among the caryatids. She was wearing a light gown and a tiara seemed to sparkle in her hair. He stood watching a while and moved towards her to say good morning but she danced into the trees and was gone. He tried to follow but couldn’t find a gap.
He walked back to the cottage quietly, thinking of the dancing woman, wondering if she had been scared of him, feeling a little embarrassed. Perhaps he should not have tried to talk to her. After all men don’t dance in the woods, do they? He was amazed himself that he had been dancing but laughed and brushed off the stereotype.
That day he spent organizing his cottage. The old estate was now owned by the University so he rang the Domestic Bursar and asked if there was somewhere he could store the old bed and rickety chair if he replaced them. Then he went into Southampton and arranged to have an assemble-it-yourself futon and a comfortable office chair delivered the next day. He bought some more groceries to add to the small store he had brought down from Manchester and on impulse bought a bright but tasteful throwover for the settee.
In the afternoon he went looking for the gardener who told him where the shed was and promised to come with a handcart at eight the following morning to help him get the bed out and carry it away. Andrew asked the gardener if he knew who the woman was who had been dancing in the circle of trees. The gardener looked at him strangely and said, “That’d be the deer circle. The deer would come early every Winter morning and the Lords and Ladies of the manor used to feed them like pets. A dancing lady, eh? That would be a mystery then.”
In the days that followed he settled down into a routine of writing and walking, wandering in the formal grounds and the wild woods adjoining, both with their separate beauty. Spring brought bulbs in their thousands, daffodils, jonquils, crocuses and, in the woods, bluebells. He wrote stories he would never have imagined himself writing, for his mood was light and he was happier than he had been for many years. And often, as he walked in the dusk or early in the morning, he caught a glimpse of her, dancing, and she appeared so joyful that he found himself dancing too. He had not danced for years. Andrew, a lifelong sceptic, was soon convinced that the woman was a ghost.
The gardener told him that there was still a library in the manor with a collection of books about the Estate and its history. Andrew obtained permission and a key and began to spend time there. He confirmed well enough for his own convincing, his ghost theory.
Selena Skyring was a famous socialite and beauty who was passionately fond of dancing. She often came as a guest to Chilworth and it was rumoured that she often met her lover, one of the Mountbattens, at the boundary where the property adjoined Broadlands. There was a reproduction of a daguerrotype of her from the British Museum collection. Even though she must have had to sit perfectly still for some minutes the restless, vibrant energy which he had felt in the woods glowed from the woman in the photograph. She wore a simple gown and a jewelled tiara. She must have been a remarkable woman. Her drowning in the lake caused a national sensation and rumours she was murdered by her lover’s family to end the scandalous liaison took years to die down. The body was recovered but not the tiara, which reinforced the murder theory. He doubted the murder story. She did not seem like an aggrieved spirit.
Spring brought daffodils and crocuses to the lawns of the Estate and bluebells to the woods. His creativity flourished and he wrote and walked and danced with Selena. He found himself telling her all about his life, believing she could hear, and as he did so his spirit became lighter and lighter. By the end of summer the few friends who came down to visit saw the glow and began to make jokes about a secret lover.
The time was approaching for him to leave. The arrangement had been for one year only and it would not be renewed. His fortunes had turned and a major publisher was negotiating to publish a volume of his stories. It was time to move into a new phase of his life. He felt good and he was fitter than he had been in many years. He even wondered about finding someone to settle down with but for the moment he had Selena. The sense of her companionship and the exuberance of her presence had become so strong he felt something akin to love for her.
Tonight he would have to move out. The gardener and he had brought the old bed back and reinstalled it and he hardly slept, just as on the first night. He was reluctant to leave without seeing Selena again. She had not shown herself for about a week and he thought she might be peeved at his leaving. He rose at dawn and walked through the gate to the estate.
Andrew walked past the azaleas and rhododendrons, around the side of the building and down the stairs, through the arch across the crocus lawns to the lake where she died. He lingered a while before walking hopefully on to the deer circle where he had first seen her. It was a misty morning as it had been that first time and he stood waiting expectantly.
He found himself saying softly, “Selena, I’ve come to say goodbye. I want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed being here with you. I would never have believed that I would ever be standing anywhere saying this sort of thing to someone who most people believe is dead but I’ve never met anyone who is as alive as I think you are and either that’s true or I’ve gone completely mad. If I have I don’t mind. I haven’t felt better for years.”
She didn’t appear and after a while he sat down glumly on a caryatid. He looked into the blank eyes and asked it if it knew where Selena was but there was no response.
He walked slowly from the Deer circle and turned towards the woods. The mist was lifting and he knew he would not see her again. He tried to remember all the times she appeared to him, the times she clearly danced before him, the times when she was a joyous shape in the mist and times when there was only a glimpse or sense of a happy presence. He was in the woods now and as the sun came out his mood lifted and the happiness he had felt over the past weeks returned. He started to dance down the path and dancing and smiling towards him was Selena in the sunlight for the first time! She came closer than she ever had before, turning and twirling along before him, and he followed.
They danced on and on, he had no sense of the time. When he was exhausted she stopped and turned to him. She lifted her graceful hands towards her mouth and swept them downwards, upwards and outwards in a fluid motion of gathering and presenting something to him. Then she waved a sophisticated wave, blew a kiss and was gone.
Tears sat in the corners of his eyes as he walked over to where she had been standing. He laughed as he saw a cluster of edible mushrooms, his favourites, a gift indeed! He took his jumper off and began to pick them and pile them onto it, just enough to feed him. He handled their firm pleasant flesh delicately and reverently, almost as he would Selena’s if that were possible.
The last mushroom he decided to pick was a wonderful specimen, firm and ripe and with subtle beautiful shadings. It was in an awkward position and he unbalanced as he plucked it, causing it to come away from the earth with a clod of mycelium and rich humus. The other hand shot forward to steady him and plunged into the soft dirt where the mushroom had been. As he regained his balance he felt something hard in the soil, not a rock but something smooth. He moved his index finger along it with rising excitement, a metal band with… He pushed down around it curving his fingers and giving a light pull. That was all it took and he was holding a silver tiara set with diamonds, emeralds and rubies; a gift, and a message to the world from Selena.
He folded the tiara into the jumper with the mushrooms and rose to continue down the path to the cottage, his heart singing, beginning to whistle. Amazingly, a figure danced into view and his whistling stopped as his heart jumped wildly. Selena again! He must tell her he never believed the murder story. But no, the figure he saw was a brunette. Selena was blond.
She stopped momentarily when she saw him, but walked towards him merrily and laughed when she came near. “I suppose you think I’m mad but there is something about these woods that makes me really happy.”
“Strangely enough, I understand. I’ve been dancing too”, he said. She squeezed her forehead together and arched her eyebrows.
“I have a story I just have to tell someone. Then you will think I am the mad one, until I show you proof. Have you ever been in the Deer Circle? Well my story can only be told in the Deer Circle. Oh, I’m Andrew.”
“You are a very intriguing man Andrew. I’m Serena.”
He laughed loudly as she stood and looked wonderingly, smiling back at this happy man. He already knew that he had been given a precious gift by Selena, and years of dancing were ahead.