Mr. Campion's Abdication

by Mike Ripley

  Mr Campion could not resist embellishing his narrative with the story of how an elderly professor of Old English from Cambridge had stamped his authority on the identification. Although, now he thought about it, Professor Hector Munro Chadwick of Clare College had been almost exactly the same age in 1939 as Campion himself was now. But the story went that once he heard of the Sutton Hoo discovery, he ordered his wife to get the car and they set off from Cambridge making steady but stately progress at twenty mph, a speed which Professor Chadwick (a non-driver and nervous passenger) firmly insisted his wife did not exceed. Arriving, eventually, at the Sutton Hoo dig site, the professor alighted from his car once he had ascertained that his wife had applied all the brakes and surveyed the scene of activity, drawing quite a crowd as several of the diggers were from Cambridge and recognized him. They waited for him to introduce himself or announce the purpose of his visit. Instead, the professor simply declared ‘Raedwald!’ in a loud, imperious tone. Just the one word, then he tipped his hat at the crowd, got back in the car and instructed his wife to drive back to Cambridge at twenty miles per hour. From that magic moment, the body in the Sutton Hoo ship burial, even though there wasn’t actually a body, was identified as Raedwald, King of the East Angles.

  Realizing that his anecdotes about ancient professors of Old English on low-speed archaeological missions across East Anglia over thirty years ago were not exactly entrancing his young audience, Campion decided to tempt them with treasure, for unlike the Sweethearting Boat, the Sutton Hoo ship had carried plenty. In fact, it had been stuffed to the gunnels if, that is, seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ships had gunnels. The grave goods found in that royal ship burial had come from far and wide: a sturdy shield boss from Sweden, a sword and drinking horns from Germany, a cauldron from Byzantium, silver bowls and spoons, intricate gold buckles and Merovingian gold coins. Most famous of all, of course, was the warrior’s helmet, that fearsome metal mask which had become even more famous when it had been used on the cover of the Penguin paperback edition of Beowulf.

  At this point, Mr Campion noticed that the circle of young faces around him had started to glaze over and he made one last attempt to rekindle their enthusiasm. The dramatic finds at Sutton Hoo, he told them, had been made on the very eve of the outbreak of the Second World War and the treasure trove, which had been rushed to the British Museum for safety, was almost immediately hidden away in a disused London Underground tunnel, where it stayed for the duration. At least there it was not damaged by the war, unlike the site itself, which, as with much of east coast, found itself on the frontline.

  At last, there was a question from the pupils of this impromptu tutorial.

  ‘I’m American,’ said Precious Aird, ‘and therefore have no knowledge of geography, but how do you reckon the Suffolk coast to be “on the frontline”?’

  Campion straightened his back and raised his right arm to the horizontal, pointing, he was fairly confident, due east. ‘My dear girl,’ he said, ‘back in 1940, when Britain stood alone against the Nazi hordes – you chaps in America took a bit of persuading to come to our aid, I seem to remember – this part of the coast, from Heronhoe down to the Blackwater in Essex really was the frontline because over there, across the North Sea, was Holland. In fact, Holland’s still there, but back then it was occupied by the enemy and the enemy had lots of aeroplanes and airborne troops in gliders, or so we thought they did. The water meadows and saltings around the estuaries of south Suffolk and north Essex were flat and soft and perfect as landing grounds for invading troops. People were so worried that the Ministry of Something-or-other ordered an anti-glider ditch dug across the Sutton Hoo site in a rather bizarre and brutal example of reverse archaeology, digging a trench with a bulldozer to protect a trench carefully dug by hand to uncover a grave dug twelve hundred years before by Angles, who we would, of course, call Germans today.’

  ‘But they didn’t bother digging an anti-Nazi trench here, did they?’ observed Precious. ‘Pity; might have saved us a job re-excavating it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, you don’t actually have to excavate anything,’ said Campion, grinning broadly. ‘Well, not properly. You just need to clear the ground, rake up a bit of soil and make it look as if you’re excavating – for the film cameras. And, by the way, they didn’t put in an anti-glider trench here because they built pillboxes in the field over there so the Home Guard could provide a crossfire over possible landing grounds. Look, there’s one over there, beyond the trees.’

  To the bemusement of his students, Mr Campion raised his right arm to the perpendicular and waved it furiously.

  ‘Is it normal to wave at inanimate concrete objects in England?’

  ‘I’m merely being friendly,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Just saying hello to the chap over there behind the pillbox who has been watching us through binoculars ever since we arrived.’

  FIVE

  ’Arrods’ ’Ome Delivery

  Oliver Grieg Bell would never have admitted to having had a sheltered upbringing but he was intelligent enough to realize that his experience of the world had been somewhat filtered; not by wealth or position but by a series of happy accidents. He had won a scholarship to a minor public school where his natural talent for music was not only nurtured but ensured that he was protected from the rougher educational advantages offered on the school’s playing field. An organ scholarship took him to Oxford, where he embarked on a love affair with the harpsichord and was much cherished by a cabal of dons who shared a love of Baroque music. He emerged with a creditable second-class degree in music and a total ignorance of anything resembling politics or philosophy and certainly economics. He had studiously failed to remember the names of, let alone cultivate friendships with, fellow students from his college, who had by 1970 become merchant bankers, Members of Parliament, a lead writer on The Times and a prize-winning mathematician.

  With wealth and position he had no conscious personal contact until he had met, and fallen for, Lavinia and her fearsome father, Lord Breeze. The first experience had been fortuitous and pleasant, the other inevitable and far less so. Lavinia had cared not a jot that he had no money, no job, no career plan. She had seen and fallen in love with his unworldly innocence and genial, somewhat Micawber-ish something-will-turn-up attitude. The fact that Oliver seemed totally unimpressed by, and uninterested in, her father’s fortune and his ambitious plans to increase it only endeared him to her. The fact that her father disapproved of their marriage sealed the deal.

  When Lavinia received Heronhoe Hall as a wedding present, along with a twelve-inch-high porcelain bust of Lord Breeze, Oliver accepted it as a ‘something’ that had ‘turned up’ fortuitously, negating the need to apply for a mortgage or find regular employment. His future would be dedicated to the upkeep of the hall although he was, in practical terms, totally unsuited to achieving such an objective. To put it kindly, Oliver was not exactly focused when it came to understanding such matters as electrical rewiring, damp courses, sewage and drainage, woodworm treatments, the intricacies of plumbing or the ability to understand a professional report or estimate on any of them.

  Such domestic concerns were never going to trouble Oliver unduly but the legend of the Heronhoe Horde which came with the hall fascinated him and he demonstrated a level of enthusiasm for uncovering the mystery which Lavinia noted had been previously reserved only for Hattie, his beloved harpsichord.

  He soon discovered that the very words Heronhoe Horde were a myth, almost certainly created by Gerald Wemyss-Grendle, for there was no horde of treasure in the boat burial excavated. Oliver had combed the archives of the East Suffolk Courier and Hadleigh Argus for contemporary reports of the excavation, which were covered in some detail that summer of 1935 by a reporter called Samuel Salt, who quoted both the vicars of Sweethearting and Heronhoe on the dearth of finds. There had, of course, been no public precedent as the treasures of Sutton Hoo were not discovered until 1939, and the one grainy picture used in the newspaper coverage showed a fin
ger and thumb holding a piece of what was said to be pottery but could, to the untrained eye, have been just about anything.

  Yet the excavation of the Sweethearting Barrow or Tumulus – or whatever the warring vicars called it – had been newsworthy enough, apparently, to attract the attention of the Prince of Wales and his paramour, the then un-divorced Mrs Simpson. Or so local legend had it, although Oliver was rather curious that local journalist Samuel Salt had made no mention of the royal visit. Plenty of local residents had confirmed that the visit had happened although, at the time, the British public was kept deliberately uninformed of the future king’s dalliance with a twice-divorced American woman.

  At some point in history, or at least in Oliver’s research, the ‘Heronhoe Horde’ underwent a metamorphosis and became the ‘Abdication Treasure’. It was equally nebulous in the sense that no one had actually seen it, or knew its worth or even form. The residents of Sweethearting – at least the ones Oliver talked to in the public bar of the King’s Head – were, however, convinced that the prince who then became a king and then a duke had bestowed some elusive ‘treasure’ on the village following his abdication in recognition, it was presumed, of the hospitality shown by the locals during his visit. Oliver’s researches in his other personal reference library, the public bar of the Hythe Inn in Heronhoe, elicited no supporting evidence whatsoever for this rumour, although even an innocent incomer such as Oliver had quickly realized that Heronhoe folk would rarely admit to the Sweethearting population of possessing anything they did not, other than perhaps swine flu.

  As both vicars who had actively participated in the 1935 excavation had long since left their parishes – one seeking a more adventurous life in retirement on Alderney and one to commune more closely with his employer – reliable sources were no longer available, Oliver having discounted Gerald Wemyss-Grendle as reliable on their first meeting. Not even local journalist Samuel Salt had pursued the story, or at least Oliver could find nothing in the archives of the East Suffolk Courier. In fact, Samuel Salt, after his initial enthusiasm for the Sweethearting excavation in 1935, seemed to have lost interest in the story completely, and his journalistic byline disappeared from further reportage of local news.

  A simple soul at heart, Oliver was convinced that as so many local inhabitants so firmly believed that there was a treasure of some description connected to Heronhoe Hall, then it must in fact be true. That no one had ever actually seen anything which could be valued, weighed or measured as treasure; that the previous owner of Heronhoe Hall had not enjoyed any sort of financial windfall (although it was whispered that the turf accountants of Newmarket may have); and that Lord Breeze, when buying the estate, had insisted on in-depth legal searches and valuations, did not deter Oliver in the slightest. He rummaged in lofts, explored cellars and outbuildings, tapped panelled walls, uprooted floorboards, even stripped wallpaper looking for a safe or hiding place for valuables, to the complete distraction of his wife Lavinia. He spent weeks pouring over documents in the county land registry, parish records, old parish magazines and newspaper cuttings in search of clues, all to no avail. What had begun as a hobby – and a harmless one, or so his wife thought – had become almost an obsession, and Oliver had been on the point of despair when Mr Albert Campion appeared out of the blue and on to the scene.

  The genial Oliver Grieg Bell had never thought to ask exactly why Albert Campion and Lady Amanda had turned up unannounced that wintry afternoon just after Christmas, claiming that they had ‘been in the neighbourhood visiting family’. To be perfectly honest, Oliver had no idea who the Campions were, but he was old fashioned enough to accept that the proprietorship of a manorial hall brought responsibilities of hospitality, or at least tea and a plain digestive biscuit. He was relieved to discover that his wife had no objection at all to his inviting these particular strangers into the hall at a moment’s notice, even though she was wearing her oldest jeans and one of Oliver’s moth-eaten pullovers, no make-up and had been in the middle of painting a skirting board in the kitchen. Unlike her ethereal husband, Lavinia had certainly heard of the Campions and regarded Lady Amanda as something of a heroine and an exemplar to women. She allowed Amanda to make herself comfortable in their one presentable armchair and even take an exploratory sip of her tea before she simply had to congratulate her on her achievements in the aeronautical industry, an industry dominated by men.

  Amanda had accepted the adoration with good grace, saying, ‘It all began right here in Suffolk, you know, over in Pontisbright, fiddling about with mechanicals. Sometimes, though, I wish I had chosen a more credible career.’

  Oliver, meanwhile, was displaying a similar sort of hero-worship once Mr Campion had volunteered the information that not only had he visited Heronhoe Hall during the excavation of the Sweethearting Barrow in 1935 and had heard the stories of missing treasure, but he was also genuinely interested in Oliver’s theories on the subject.

  Six weeks later, here was Mr Campion based in Heronhoe Hall with a team of young archaeologists who were to recreate the 1935 dig for the television cameras and, although the naturally vague Campion had been less than forthcoming about the actual details, Oliver was convinced that a treasure hunt was underway. Even if nothing physical were found nor a speculative theory proved, Campion’s offer to pay a reasonable rent for the rather basic accommodation to his young diggers and the part-decorated, half-furnished bedroom he himself occupied was a welcome deposit in the echoing coffers of Heronhoe Hall. He had even offered to pay a fee for permission to dig the Sweethearting Barrow but Oliver had come clean and admitted that technically, since the disposal organized by Lord Breeze brought on by the refusal of building permits, the site was now on land owned by Thomas Spark of Windy Ridge Farm.

  Whatever Campion’s motives, as long as they were likely to result in the outcome Oliver desired, Oliver was content and, in any case, Campion was clearly a man of wealth and taste, having already endeared himself by enthusing about harpsichord music and not just the populist composers such as Bach and Scarlatti but also those earlier pioneers, William Byrd and François Couperin. He had also shown his generosity to the cash-strapped Bells in very practical terms, as witnessed by the arrival at the hall of a delivery van in green livery with the signature Harrods emblazoned in gold lettering.

  Lavinia rushed out of the front door to meet the arrival with the speed of a child waking on Christmas morn and the same air of barely concealed mercenary interest. Campion had materialized, as if from nowhere, at her side and Oliver joined them as two middle-aged gentlemen wearing brown bowler hats and long brown coveralls – the ubiquitous warehouseman’s coat which Lord Breeze with his northern heritage would certainly insist on calling a ‘smock’– dismounted from the cab and proceeded in stately fashion to the rear doors of the van, which they opened with a flourish.

  Whatever cornucopia of delights Oliver and Lavinia Bell had envisaged would be revealed, the interior of the delivery van took their breath away, but not in a way they might reasonably have expected. Of the three, only Mr Campion’s jaw remained in place and his facial expression remained blandly untroubled.

  The bowler-hatted, brown-smocked footmen held the van doors open to their full extent, revealing, in regal pride of place among the crates, boxes and shopping bags overflowing with fruits and vegetables, a throne.

  It was in fact a Chesterfield Queen Anne wing-back armchair in grey leather, secured to the floor and frame of the van by a system of canvas straps, buckles and bolts. In it, blinking sleep-filled eyes in the sunlight, yawning until his jowls quivered with the effort and stretching his arms out in front of him like an overfed cat, was Mr Magersfontein Lugg.

  ‘So it’s true,’ breathed Campion. ‘Harrods really do sell everything.’

  ‘I sees a bit of comfort goin’ spare and so I takes advantage of it. There’s no ’arm in that, though I suppose you’d ’ave preferred it if I’d ridden up front with the staff.’

  ‘Not at all, old boy,’ said
Campion. ‘A chap your age needs to conserve his energy, especially after a hard morning’s shopping. Did you make sure they filled my list?’

  ‘They take great h’offence at ’Arrods if you question their integrity, you know,’ said Lugg, ‘and if you pays for top-class service, you gets it there. They didn’t bat an eyelid when I thumbed a lift with ’em, and as that armchair was on its way to a certain party up in Hadleigh it seemed a shame to waste it. I think you’ll find you’ve got everything you ordered.’

  ‘I don’t remember requesting a crate of brown ale.’

  ‘You said on the blower that you was getting in iron rations for this campaign; well, them’s my iron rations.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Campion. ‘Let us away to the kitchen and find some glasses and a church key.’

  ‘A wot? Bit late for Matins and too early for Evensong, ain’t it?’

  ‘I meant an opener, a bottle opener. “Church key” was just an Americanism I heard yesterday.’

  ‘Americans in the vicinity, eh? More bloody foreigners,’ grumbled the bald fat man.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it, old fruit. I take it your stately progress from Knightsbridge was comfortable enough? It certainly looked that way.’

  ‘At our age, yer takes yer bits of comfort where yer can, though I would’ve preferred one of them electric vans they used to run before the war. Remember them? Top speed nineteen miles to the hour, now that was stately.’