Uncoffind Clay, page 2
part #57 of Mrs Bradley Series
‘ “The sons of the Prophet are hardy and bold,” ’ chanted Innes, ‘ “And quite unaccustomed to fear, But of all the most reckless of life or of limb, Was Abdul the Bulbul Ameer.’ ”
‘Is he reckless of life and limb?’ I asked.
‘He must be. Nobody hereabouts wants him either as an acquaintance or a landlord. There’s a lot of bad feeling around and about. He has had a number of the local lads up before the Bench for trespass and wilful damage and in every case some anonymous well-wisher has paid their fines for them and kept them out of chokey, which was the alternative to their coughing up the money. No, Abdul ain’t loved. In fact, I sometimes suspect the Chairman of the Bench, old Lord Maumbury, of putting up the money for the fines himself, not that he can afford it. He’s got one of these interminable lawsuits on his hands to try to settle the ownership of a local property called Fell Hall. The house itself can be written off as a dead loss because they had a disastrous fire there and the place is gutted, I believe, but there’s a chance of selling the rest of the estate for building plots, and that could be worth a fortune with land the price it is, not to mention the rumour that there’s oil in these ’ere parts. They’ve started drilling in some stretches of the county already.’
‘Under the sheikh’s auspices?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. All his business interests are in the Middle East, but he has bought what is said to be the remains of one of King John’s hunting lodges, later converted into a Tudor mansion. The Paine family was crippled by death duties and forced to sell. I’m told he took over the house and estate at a fabulous price and keeps a harem there of beautiful houris. He goes about with a bodyguard, but I don’t suppose they are armed.’
‘He sounds a colourful character. Have you met him?’
‘No, but I don’t believe the stories about the harem and his servants’ reputed attempts to procure the local girls to add to his collection. However, the hoi polloi loves horror stories, especially when they border on the indelicate. As for the local nobs, well, I suppose they’ll accept him in the end, if only because of his money, but at present he’s a parvenu and a foreigner and there’s enough of the old prejudice left in most people for the persistence of a belief that “the wogs begin at Calais”. Thank goodness Mary and I live in nice, comfortable, middle-class anonymity and don’t have to take part in the local boycotting and skulduggery. Mind you, I don’t approve of wealthy Arabs taking over lovely old places such as the Paines’ house, but perhaps that’s better than letting them fall into complete decay. At least these fellows have the money to keep them up.’
Well, nothing is gained by some kinds of argument, so I made no comment. We returned to the car and went on to Courtleigh Purton.
‘The Sunday procession — all cars, of course, because of the distances between the parishes — will be calling at one of the farms near here,’ said Innes. ‘We can have a look at the church, if you like, but the showpiece is, of course, the manor house.’
We left the car in the road and walked down a long, broad avenue of beech trees with, planted between the trees, clumps of daffodils. There was a right of way through the park, but the house itself was in private ownership and not open to the public. Even so, the glimpse we had of it was well worth the visit. There was a gracious, beautiful, seventeenth-century frontage in golden stone. The house had slightly projecting wings, the entrance was protected by very fine wrought-iron gates, the gate-piers were crowned with stone eagles and were recessed with round-headed niches, purposeless but charming. It was a most delightful place.
‘Does this house figure in Sunday’s revels?’ I enquired.
‘No,’ replied Innes, ‘I’m told the family are away. The procession will go past the church and on to one of the farms from here.’
‘Is the church interesting? You did mention it.’
‘Not particularly interesting, and the village perished at the time of the Great Plague.’
‘This isn’t the manor house your sheikh bought?’
‘Good Lord, no! These owners would never sell.’
After Courtleigh Purton we found a pub for our lunch, and after lunch we lost our way. This, Innes assured Mary and me, was not because of the cider which had accompanied our bread and cheese, but because he was not yet familiar with the countryside and so was dependent upon signposts. These proved either to be conspicuous only by their absence or, where they did exist, unhelpful and even misleading.
We pursued Lower Gushbrook and Aries St. Peter along lanes only just wide enough to take the car, past farms, fields and hedges, between high banks reminiscent of South Cornwall, up and down winding hills, past open country and through woods, past ash trees, oaks and, occasionally, pines, along a high, seemingly interminable ridge from which we could see across the landscape for miles and, here and there, we even obtained a glimpse of the sea.
Once or twice we pulled over to let an approaching farm tractor get by, and on another occasion Innes stopped the car almost in a ditch to allow an immaculately clad rider on a high-mettled horse to pass us. We received a courteous gesture of thanks and I asked who the rider was.
‘Goodness knows. I don’t hunt,’ said Innes.
‘How do you know that he does?’
‘With a horse like that? Besides, they all hunt around here, the farmers, too — although my neighbour tells me there have been some rows about gates left open and young crops trampled. Of course the real locals wouldn’t offend like that, but, unfortunately, some of the big estates have been bought up by people who have made their money but don’t — and never will — really “belong” in the countryside.’
‘Your sheikh, for example?’
‘I shouldn’t think he hunts. He owns a racing-stable somewhere, and an enormous yacht, and plays golf and used to play polo. If it weren’t for local feeling about his buying the Paines’ house and so — in the local view — dispossessing one of the oldest families in the county, he might even be popular. I believe he gives enormous sums to charity and has rebuilt the village hall. They ought to be grateful to him, but they ain’t.’
On we went, past a small, exquisite gem of a Tudor house, past a fruit farm and then, on a long downhill track, past stables, a paddock, a large cottage set on a grassy slope and then past another farm which had a dairy herd of Jerseys. It was after we had crossed a bridge over a narrow stream and come at last upon another signpost that Mary said:
‘I hate to spoil the fun, but if you two are expecting to get any dinner tonight, I think we’d better take the hint from that signpost and go to Fylditch. The car knows its way home from there. I’ll invite Martha Lorne to pop in for a cocktail and then I can ask her the way to Aries and Gushbrook so that we can go there tomorrow.’
At dinner that night I gave her the present I had brought with me. It was a necklace with matching earrings, a charming set. The earrings were in the form of tiny marguerites with dark-blue translucent centres, and the necklace, on a very fine silver chain, was similar — except that the marguerites varied in size from one which was only a little larger than the earrings, to one which was twice their size. The necklace terminated in a flower-bud made of diamonds.
I saw Innes widen his eyes when Mary opened the case and took up the necklace. She was delighted with it.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said, and kissed me. ‘But I’m glad you did. Is this why you asked me to wear blue tonight?’
‘No. I like you in blue,’ I said. When she had gone up to bed that night and we were having our last drink, Innes said,
‘Ought that stuff to be insured, Mike?’
‘Insured? Lord, no, I shouldn’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s quite pretty, but it isn’t all that special.’
‘Diamonds?’
‘Oh, well…’
‘Where did you get it?’
I named the shop and he whistled.
‘Well,’ I said defensively, ‘I miss not having a woman of my own to buy frippery for.’
‘If it’s all the same to you, I shall get it valued for insurance,’ he said. ‘You’re an ass, Mike!’ But as he said it he leaned forward and gave me a brotherly smack on the thigh. ‘She’s thrilled with it. I expect she’s got it all on and is sitting at the dressing-table mirror admiring its reflected glory.’ Then he added, ‘I suppose it came out of your last book, did it?’
‘No. I had a bit of luck with the gee-gees,’ I said. ‘Backed a rank outsider and it came home at thirty-three to one.’
‘What was it called?’
‘Oofy Prosser.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I’d have backed it myself if I’d known that.’ We were both Wodehouse fans. He came upstairs behind me, laughing so heartily that Mary called out from the bedroom,
‘Is it a rude joke, or can anyone join in?’
‘Not innocent young women like you,’ he called back; and I knew that, because the money had come from a lucky bet and not by the sweat of my brow, plus the equally lucky name of the horse, any doubts as to the suitability of my having given Mary an expensive toy had been removed from his mind. I was glad. I was very fond of him in a casual, brotherly way, and we had always had an excellent relationship.
* * *
chapter 2
LOWER GUSHBROOK AND ARIES ST. PETER
« ^ »
Mary’s conference with Martha Lorne, whom I had met over cocktails, must have achieved results, for, having lazed away the following morning and had an early lunch, we found Aries St. Peter and Lower Gushbrook without difficulty. I had come down on the Sunday evening, and this Tuesday the weather had become boisterous — for we were not far from the Channel — and somewhat chilly, so we were well wrapped up in the car, which was unnecessary while the heater was on, but essential when we got out and were assaulted by the wind.
Mary was driving, Innes beside her, and I was on the back seat and slower at seeing the signposts than he was. I was not much concerned with following our route. My lunch had settled nicely and I was content to sit and watch the banks and fields and hedgerows go by.
Violets and primroses were out, there were still some hazel catkins where the hedges had not been ruthlessly cut back, and here and there were willows. I recognised salix caprea, the Great Sallow, which produces its catkins in time for Easter — early, as it happened, that year, for the children were already back at school. Unlike some of its kind, this willow is not dependent on streams for its existence, for it grows in woods and tall hedgerows. I thought of my wife, Imogen, who had loved what she called pussy-willows, and I was only recalled to the present when Mary said,
‘I knew we were right when we passed the turning to that last farm. We ought to be able to see the church tower of Aries St. Peter soon. Martha says the church stands on a little hill.’
‘There was an argument going on in that last turning,’ said Innes. ‘Looked pretty heated, too. Unusual, in these parts. They’re an easy-going lot around here. Ah, there’s the church on our left.’
Although we could see the church, it still took us a little time to reach it, and the lane we were on turned so much that sometimes the church appeared on our right, sometimes on our left, and sometimes almost straight ahead. Our lane mounted gradually but steadily, now between banks of dead bracken as the land rose on either side of us, and higher up the hillside we passed ash and beech trees and, crowning the steep rise, there was a ridge of pines. A baby deer ran across the road when it heard the sound of the car, and Innes remarked that we were passing one of the largest estates in the county.
Soon we were among silver birches and more pine trees. A little further on, Mary pulled up where the lane widened as it became part of the village, and on our left, perched above us on its eminence, was the church.
A flight of wooden steps with a helpful handrail led upwards to a path through the churchyard, and there before us was the church itself, surprisingly large (as village churches so often are), with a fifteenth-century tower, a thirteenth-century chancel and fourteenth-century windows to the nave.
The interior held only one striking object. This was the font, and I understood at once how the village had received its name. The font was just inside the west doorway of the church and was well lighted by the windows, which were of clear glass with no colouring. The font had been formed from the capital of a Roman pillar and part of its shaft. The rubble had been hollowed out a little in order to accommodate the basin to hold the baptismal water, and the capital itself was carved with enormous spirals reminiscent of the curling horns of a ram, and at the angle of the cushion capital was a ram’s head.
‘Amazing,’ I said, studying it. ‘A mixture of the sacred and the profane. Whatever induced them—?’
‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘Some people even think that the base formed part of a Roman altar, but that has been ruled out, I believe. We thought you’d like to see it today, as the church will be crowded on Sunday before the vicar gives his celebration supper to those who’ve been beating the bounds. The font is unique, I’m sure.’
There was nothing else of interest in the church. In fact, so well lighted and so otherwise dull, with its late nineteenth-century south arcade and aisle and its pitch-pine pews and darkly-cemented walls, was it, that the splendid views of the countryside from its exterior, when we went outside again, were almost a necessary compensation for the drabness (except for that astonishing font) within.
‘Lower Gushbrook lies over there,’ said Mary, pointing. ‘I don’t know why we’re going there, except that the procession passes through it. There’s nothing much about it in the guidebooks.’
Lower Gushbrook, however, was a very pleasant surprise to us. As Mary, guided by Mrs Lorne’s knowledge of the countryside, had told us, the village was on our way home. It was a straggling little place with some ugly buildings and a few picturesque houses and cottages. The church, nineteenth-century and unremarkable, was not worth the visit we paid it. The village, however, had two remarkable and, to my mind, beautiful features, although in the light of what happened later, I doubt whether I am justified in using such an adjective as ‘beautiful’. All the same, Lower Gushbrook became of so much importance to ourselves, the police, the national press and Dame Beatrice herself, that I feel it merits description.
So far as I remember, we came upon its stretch of water suddenly. We had turned a corner by a jumble of cottages which were apart from the rest of the village — this, we discovered, was further on — and there on our left was this stretch of water too large to be called a pond, nor sufficiently vast to merit the title of lake, but which might justifiably be given the poetic appellation of a mere. On our side the bank was flat and grassy. The opposite shore was wooded, with a hill rising behind it. We discovered later that the woods were on an island and that the mere itself had a further grassy side beneath the hill.
There was a swan on our side, and there were mallard on the water, a brownish speckled duck and a brightly plumaged drake with feathers of green on his head, a white collar and a purple breast.
At the roadside, but running between the grasses, was the stream from which the village took its name. Although, so close to its source in the surrounding hills, it was, indeed, little more than a brook, it flowed fast and cleanly, a lovely little chalk-stream dashing and splashing along over the bright pebbles in its bed, with here and there some cresses and other water plants which occasionally interrupted its rapid flow.
We got out of the car to look at it, for there is magic in running water, and this little stream, bubbling, gurgling and singing, was delightful. After a bit, I strolled back along its bank to look over at the mere. While I was standing there, Innes came up. He thought he had better get back to the car, he said, in case it had to be moved to let another vehicle pass, but Mary joined me on the broad grassy verge and we stood side by side looking over the water.
‘Isn’t it beautiful here?’ she said. ‘I’m glad we came.’ By what seemed to be mutual reaction, we strolled on. Beyond the turn of the road which had brought us in view of the mere, a lane branched off, following the course of the brook, and led to some cottages, but where road and lane came together, some boys (presumably) had built a miniature clapper bridge across the stream.
We crossed it and found a well-trodden path which seemed to lead to the narrow end of the mere. We followed it and so found out that the woods I had supposed to be covering the further shore were on a long, narrow island, but to this there was no access except by wading.
‘I should think the village kids have a wonderful time here,’ I said. ‘Nothing beats grass and water and woods.’ We turned and walked back towards the clapper bridge on our return to the car, but stopped to look at a half-submerged duck-punt which was lying in shallow water at the head of the mere.
The woodwork was rotting away and the boat was half-filled with a mixture of soil and leaf-mould in which some tufted sedge and young osiers were growing. Around the punt I could see the submerged stems and skeleton-like rigid, thin dark leaves of the water-crowsfoot, although so early in the year there were no flowers.
Mary joined me.
‘I wonder whose punt it was, and how long it’s been there,’ she said.
‘Probably used at one time to cut waterweed,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t have been used for pleasure-boating in a place like this. Does the procession come along this road?’
‘I don’t know. Anyway, this is one of the five parishes. I suppose they will stop at the church before going on to the trout farm and then they’ll finish up at Aries St. Peter. That will be the last stopping-place. There will be a church service there, followed by cider and something to eat at the vicarage, and then everybody who has seen the whole thing through to the end will meander home, I suppose.’
‘Is the procession a time-honoured thing? Does it date back a long way?’
‘Oh, no. I daresay there was something of the sort in the Middle Ages — you know, blessing the crops and so forth — but not on this sort of scale. The route will cover more than forty miles, I should think, by the time all the farms have been visited. This “five parishes” business is quite an innovation. They did it last year, Martha Lorne tells me, but before that, if there ever had been a tradition of blessing the crops, it had fallen into limbo so far as Strode Hillary is concerned. After all, we aren’t a farming community in Strode Hillary. We’re professional or business people, for the most part, town-dwellers, anyway, by nature, whether retired or not. The nearest farm must be quite a way outside our town.’
‘Is he reckless of life and limb?’ I asked.
‘He must be. Nobody hereabouts wants him either as an acquaintance or a landlord. There’s a lot of bad feeling around and about. He has had a number of the local lads up before the Bench for trespass and wilful damage and in every case some anonymous well-wisher has paid their fines for them and kept them out of chokey, which was the alternative to their coughing up the money. No, Abdul ain’t loved. In fact, I sometimes suspect the Chairman of the Bench, old Lord Maumbury, of putting up the money for the fines himself, not that he can afford it. He’s got one of these interminable lawsuits on his hands to try to settle the ownership of a local property called Fell Hall. The house itself can be written off as a dead loss because they had a disastrous fire there and the place is gutted, I believe, but there’s a chance of selling the rest of the estate for building plots, and that could be worth a fortune with land the price it is, not to mention the rumour that there’s oil in these ’ere parts. They’ve started drilling in some stretches of the county already.’
‘Under the sheikh’s auspices?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. All his business interests are in the Middle East, but he has bought what is said to be the remains of one of King John’s hunting lodges, later converted into a Tudor mansion. The Paine family was crippled by death duties and forced to sell. I’m told he took over the house and estate at a fabulous price and keeps a harem there of beautiful houris. He goes about with a bodyguard, but I don’t suppose they are armed.’
‘He sounds a colourful character. Have you met him?’
‘No, but I don’t believe the stories about the harem and his servants’ reputed attempts to procure the local girls to add to his collection. However, the hoi polloi loves horror stories, especially when they border on the indelicate. As for the local nobs, well, I suppose they’ll accept him in the end, if only because of his money, but at present he’s a parvenu and a foreigner and there’s enough of the old prejudice left in most people for the persistence of a belief that “the wogs begin at Calais”. Thank goodness Mary and I live in nice, comfortable, middle-class anonymity and don’t have to take part in the local boycotting and skulduggery. Mind you, I don’t approve of wealthy Arabs taking over lovely old places such as the Paines’ house, but perhaps that’s better than letting them fall into complete decay. At least these fellows have the money to keep them up.’
Well, nothing is gained by some kinds of argument, so I made no comment. We returned to the car and went on to Courtleigh Purton.
‘The Sunday procession — all cars, of course, because of the distances between the parishes — will be calling at one of the farms near here,’ said Innes. ‘We can have a look at the church, if you like, but the showpiece is, of course, the manor house.’
We left the car in the road and walked down a long, broad avenue of beech trees with, planted between the trees, clumps of daffodils. There was a right of way through the park, but the house itself was in private ownership and not open to the public. Even so, the glimpse we had of it was well worth the visit. There was a gracious, beautiful, seventeenth-century frontage in golden stone. The house had slightly projecting wings, the entrance was protected by very fine wrought-iron gates, the gate-piers were crowned with stone eagles and were recessed with round-headed niches, purposeless but charming. It was a most delightful place.
‘Does this house figure in Sunday’s revels?’ I enquired.
‘No,’ replied Innes, ‘I’m told the family are away. The procession will go past the church and on to one of the farms from here.’
‘Is the church interesting? You did mention it.’
‘Not particularly interesting, and the village perished at the time of the Great Plague.’
‘This isn’t the manor house your sheikh bought?’
‘Good Lord, no! These owners would never sell.’
After Courtleigh Purton we found a pub for our lunch, and after lunch we lost our way. This, Innes assured Mary and me, was not because of the cider which had accompanied our bread and cheese, but because he was not yet familiar with the countryside and so was dependent upon signposts. These proved either to be conspicuous only by their absence or, where they did exist, unhelpful and even misleading.
We pursued Lower Gushbrook and Aries St. Peter along lanes only just wide enough to take the car, past farms, fields and hedges, between high banks reminiscent of South Cornwall, up and down winding hills, past open country and through woods, past ash trees, oaks and, occasionally, pines, along a high, seemingly interminable ridge from which we could see across the landscape for miles and, here and there, we even obtained a glimpse of the sea.
Once or twice we pulled over to let an approaching farm tractor get by, and on another occasion Innes stopped the car almost in a ditch to allow an immaculately clad rider on a high-mettled horse to pass us. We received a courteous gesture of thanks and I asked who the rider was.
‘Goodness knows. I don’t hunt,’ said Innes.
‘How do you know that he does?’
‘With a horse like that? Besides, they all hunt around here, the farmers, too — although my neighbour tells me there have been some rows about gates left open and young crops trampled. Of course the real locals wouldn’t offend like that, but, unfortunately, some of the big estates have been bought up by people who have made their money but don’t — and never will — really “belong” in the countryside.’
‘Your sheikh, for example?’
‘I shouldn’t think he hunts. He owns a racing-stable somewhere, and an enormous yacht, and plays golf and used to play polo. If it weren’t for local feeling about his buying the Paines’ house and so — in the local view — dispossessing one of the oldest families in the county, he might even be popular. I believe he gives enormous sums to charity and has rebuilt the village hall. They ought to be grateful to him, but they ain’t.’
On we went, past a small, exquisite gem of a Tudor house, past a fruit farm and then, on a long downhill track, past stables, a paddock, a large cottage set on a grassy slope and then past another farm which had a dairy herd of Jerseys. It was after we had crossed a bridge over a narrow stream and come at last upon another signpost that Mary said:
‘I hate to spoil the fun, but if you two are expecting to get any dinner tonight, I think we’d better take the hint from that signpost and go to Fylditch. The car knows its way home from there. I’ll invite Martha Lorne to pop in for a cocktail and then I can ask her the way to Aries and Gushbrook so that we can go there tomorrow.’
At dinner that night I gave her the present I had brought with me. It was a necklace with matching earrings, a charming set. The earrings were in the form of tiny marguerites with dark-blue translucent centres, and the necklace, on a very fine silver chain, was similar — except that the marguerites varied in size from one which was only a little larger than the earrings, to one which was twice their size. The necklace terminated in a flower-bud made of diamonds.
I saw Innes widen his eyes when Mary opened the case and took up the necklace. She was delighted with it.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said, and kissed me. ‘But I’m glad you did. Is this why you asked me to wear blue tonight?’
‘No. I like you in blue,’ I said. When she had gone up to bed that night and we were having our last drink, Innes said,
‘Ought that stuff to be insured, Mike?’
‘Insured? Lord, no, I shouldn’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s quite pretty, but it isn’t all that special.’
‘Diamonds?’
‘Oh, well…’
‘Where did you get it?’
I named the shop and he whistled.
‘Well,’ I said defensively, ‘I miss not having a woman of my own to buy frippery for.’
‘If it’s all the same to you, I shall get it valued for insurance,’ he said. ‘You’re an ass, Mike!’ But as he said it he leaned forward and gave me a brotherly smack on the thigh. ‘She’s thrilled with it. I expect she’s got it all on and is sitting at the dressing-table mirror admiring its reflected glory.’ Then he added, ‘I suppose it came out of your last book, did it?’
‘No. I had a bit of luck with the gee-gees,’ I said. ‘Backed a rank outsider and it came home at thirty-three to one.’
‘What was it called?’
‘Oofy Prosser.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I’d have backed it myself if I’d known that.’ We were both Wodehouse fans. He came upstairs behind me, laughing so heartily that Mary called out from the bedroom,
‘Is it a rude joke, or can anyone join in?’
‘Not innocent young women like you,’ he called back; and I knew that, because the money had come from a lucky bet and not by the sweat of my brow, plus the equally lucky name of the horse, any doubts as to the suitability of my having given Mary an expensive toy had been removed from his mind. I was glad. I was very fond of him in a casual, brotherly way, and we had always had an excellent relationship.
* * *
chapter 2
LOWER GUSHBROOK AND ARIES ST. PETER
« ^ »
Mary’s conference with Martha Lorne, whom I had met over cocktails, must have achieved results, for, having lazed away the following morning and had an early lunch, we found Aries St. Peter and Lower Gushbrook without difficulty. I had come down on the Sunday evening, and this Tuesday the weather had become boisterous — for we were not far from the Channel — and somewhat chilly, so we were well wrapped up in the car, which was unnecessary while the heater was on, but essential when we got out and were assaulted by the wind.
Mary was driving, Innes beside her, and I was on the back seat and slower at seeing the signposts than he was. I was not much concerned with following our route. My lunch had settled nicely and I was content to sit and watch the banks and fields and hedgerows go by.
Violets and primroses were out, there were still some hazel catkins where the hedges had not been ruthlessly cut back, and here and there were willows. I recognised salix caprea, the Great Sallow, which produces its catkins in time for Easter — early, as it happened, that year, for the children were already back at school. Unlike some of its kind, this willow is not dependent on streams for its existence, for it grows in woods and tall hedgerows. I thought of my wife, Imogen, who had loved what she called pussy-willows, and I was only recalled to the present when Mary said,
‘I knew we were right when we passed the turning to that last farm. We ought to be able to see the church tower of Aries St. Peter soon. Martha says the church stands on a little hill.’
‘There was an argument going on in that last turning,’ said Innes. ‘Looked pretty heated, too. Unusual, in these parts. They’re an easy-going lot around here. Ah, there’s the church on our left.’
Although we could see the church, it still took us a little time to reach it, and the lane we were on turned so much that sometimes the church appeared on our right, sometimes on our left, and sometimes almost straight ahead. Our lane mounted gradually but steadily, now between banks of dead bracken as the land rose on either side of us, and higher up the hillside we passed ash and beech trees and, crowning the steep rise, there was a ridge of pines. A baby deer ran across the road when it heard the sound of the car, and Innes remarked that we were passing one of the largest estates in the county.
Soon we were among silver birches and more pine trees. A little further on, Mary pulled up where the lane widened as it became part of the village, and on our left, perched above us on its eminence, was the church.
A flight of wooden steps with a helpful handrail led upwards to a path through the churchyard, and there before us was the church itself, surprisingly large (as village churches so often are), with a fifteenth-century tower, a thirteenth-century chancel and fourteenth-century windows to the nave.
The interior held only one striking object. This was the font, and I understood at once how the village had received its name. The font was just inside the west doorway of the church and was well lighted by the windows, which were of clear glass with no colouring. The font had been formed from the capital of a Roman pillar and part of its shaft. The rubble had been hollowed out a little in order to accommodate the basin to hold the baptismal water, and the capital itself was carved with enormous spirals reminiscent of the curling horns of a ram, and at the angle of the cushion capital was a ram’s head.
‘Amazing,’ I said, studying it. ‘A mixture of the sacred and the profane. Whatever induced them—?’
‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘Some people even think that the base formed part of a Roman altar, but that has been ruled out, I believe. We thought you’d like to see it today, as the church will be crowded on Sunday before the vicar gives his celebration supper to those who’ve been beating the bounds. The font is unique, I’m sure.’
There was nothing else of interest in the church. In fact, so well lighted and so otherwise dull, with its late nineteenth-century south arcade and aisle and its pitch-pine pews and darkly-cemented walls, was it, that the splendid views of the countryside from its exterior, when we went outside again, were almost a necessary compensation for the drabness (except for that astonishing font) within.
‘Lower Gushbrook lies over there,’ said Mary, pointing. ‘I don’t know why we’re going there, except that the procession passes through it. There’s nothing much about it in the guidebooks.’
Lower Gushbrook, however, was a very pleasant surprise to us. As Mary, guided by Mrs Lorne’s knowledge of the countryside, had told us, the village was on our way home. It was a straggling little place with some ugly buildings and a few picturesque houses and cottages. The church, nineteenth-century and unremarkable, was not worth the visit we paid it. The village, however, had two remarkable and, to my mind, beautiful features, although in the light of what happened later, I doubt whether I am justified in using such an adjective as ‘beautiful’. All the same, Lower Gushbrook became of so much importance to ourselves, the police, the national press and Dame Beatrice herself, that I feel it merits description.
So far as I remember, we came upon its stretch of water suddenly. We had turned a corner by a jumble of cottages which were apart from the rest of the village — this, we discovered, was further on — and there on our left was this stretch of water too large to be called a pond, nor sufficiently vast to merit the title of lake, but which might justifiably be given the poetic appellation of a mere. On our side the bank was flat and grassy. The opposite shore was wooded, with a hill rising behind it. We discovered later that the woods were on an island and that the mere itself had a further grassy side beneath the hill.
There was a swan on our side, and there were mallard on the water, a brownish speckled duck and a brightly plumaged drake with feathers of green on his head, a white collar and a purple breast.
At the roadside, but running between the grasses, was the stream from which the village took its name. Although, so close to its source in the surrounding hills, it was, indeed, little more than a brook, it flowed fast and cleanly, a lovely little chalk-stream dashing and splashing along over the bright pebbles in its bed, with here and there some cresses and other water plants which occasionally interrupted its rapid flow.
We got out of the car to look at it, for there is magic in running water, and this little stream, bubbling, gurgling and singing, was delightful. After a bit, I strolled back along its bank to look over at the mere. While I was standing there, Innes came up. He thought he had better get back to the car, he said, in case it had to be moved to let another vehicle pass, but Mary joined me on the broad grassy verge and we stood side by side looking over the water.
‘Isn’t it beautiful here?’ she said. ‘I’m glad we came.’ By what seemed to be mutual reaction, we strolled on. Beyond the turn of the road which had brought us in view of the mere, a lane branched off, following the course of the brook, and led to some cottages, but where road and lane came together, some boys (presumably) had built a miniature clapper bridge across the stream.
We crossed it and found a well-trodden path which seemed to lead to the narrow end of the mere. We followed it and so found out that the woods I had supposed to be covering the further shore were on a long, narrow island, but to this there was no access except by wading.
‘I should think the village kids have a wonderful time here,’ I said. ‘Nothing beats grass and water and woods.’ We turned and walked back towards the clapper bridge on our return to the car, but stopped to look at a half-submerged duck-punt which was lying in shallow water at the head of the mere.
The woodwork was rotting away and the boat was half-filled with a mixture of soil and leaf-mould in which some tufted sedge and young osiers were growing. Around the punt I could see the submerged stems and skeleton-like rigid, thin dark leaves of the water-crowsfoot, although so early in the year there were no flowers.
Mary joined me.
‘I wonder whose punt it was, and how long it’s been there,’ she said.
‘Probably used at one time to cut waterweed,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t have been used for pleasure-boating in a place like this. Does the procession come along this road?’
‘I don’t know. Anyway, this is one of the five parishes. I suppose they will stop at the church before going on to the trout farm and then they’ll finish up at Aries St. Peter. That will be the last stopping-place. There will be a church service there, followed by cider and something to eat at the vicarage, and then everybody who has seen the whole thing through to the end will meander home, I suppose.’
‘Is the procession a time-honoured thing? Does it date back a long way?’
‘Oh, no. I daresay there was something of the sort in the Middle Ages — you know, blessing the crops and so forth — but not on this sort of scale. The route will cover more than forty miles, I should think, by the time all the farms have been visited. This “five parishes” business is quite an innovation. They did it last year, Martha Lorne tells me, but before that, if there ever had been a tradition of blessing the crops, it had fallen into limbo so far as Strode Hillary is concerned. After all, we aren’t a farming community in Strode Hillary. We’re professional or business people, for the most part, town-dwellers, anyway, by nature, whether retired or not. The nearest farm must be quite a way outside our town.’
