Groaning Spinney

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘How do you mean?’ enquired Obury. But Ed had shot his bolt, and made haste to change the subject. At least, Jonathan thought that the subject was changed, but his aunt, when she heard of it, thought otherwise.

  ‘I see Mr. Bill Fullalove, day he died,’ Ed observed. ‘Didn’t he used to come out along of you to study these here old badgers?’

  ‘Once or twice, yes, I believe he did come along,’ Obury agreed.

  ‘Ah,’ said Ed, nodding. ‘Many’s the time I see you and him together, up along over here. Ah, many’s and many’s the time.’

  ‘Not as many times as all that,’ retorted Obury. ‘I don’t suppose I was out with Mr. Bill Fullalove half a dozen times altogether.’

  ‘Well, ’tweren’t Mr. Tiny you was out with,’ countered Ed. Obury glanced at him sharply, but the carter’s serene face gave no sign that he was arguing the point. Jonathan, deeply interested in what was, in effect, a dispute, took no obvious notice. Ed left them at the bottom of the wood, and Jonathan took Obury home to dinner. Mansell also was expected, and turned up in good time for the sherry.

  Mansell had great things to report.

  ‘I believe I’ve struck something really good,’ he said. ‘You know where that road goes up by the side of the village pub and becomes a narrow lane? Well, I don’t know how much you know of the country beyond it? Can one get round that way?’

  ‘It makes a pretty good walk,’ said Jonathan. ‘You’ve got to go the hell of a long way if you don’t want to come back by the same path.’

  ‘Oh, but there is a way round, is there? I wish you’d come with me to-morrow. I’ve spotted a most useful place for my trial dig into the hill just north of the long barrow up there. I’ll show you. And then you can take me for the round tour. I’d like that immensely.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s wonderful weather for it, too. Rather different from the last time you were here.’

  ‘Yes, rather. Anything more come up about that business?’

  ‘Nothing of any significance,’ said Mrs. Bradley, before her nephew could reply. ‘Some young woman—probably an imposter—is making an attempt to claim Bill Fullalove’s money.’

  ‘Oh, really? Well, if she’s an imposter she won’t get far without proof.’

  ‘She’s got a very sound-looking certificate of marriage, according to old Baird,’ said Jonathan. ‘I had a telephone conversation with him this morning. He seems frightfully interested. I don’t believe country life suits him too well, and I suppose any bit of news makes a change.’

  ‘Bachelors are always gossips,’ said Deborah unreasonably. ‘May I come with you on your walk? I’d love to see where you’re going to begin your dig,’ she added to Mansell.

  ‘I should be delighted to have you come,’ said Mansell politely, ‘if it wouldn’t be too long a walk.’

  Mrs. Bradley, Sally and Obury promptly added themselves to the party, and next day the company set out. They started immediately after breakfast, and the plan was to return to a late lunch. Mrs. Fairleaf, Deborah’s cook, was to make it a meal which could be delayed if necessary beyond the time which had been allowed for the walk, and, the weather being fine and the air sharp, the party stepped out along the drive and were soon on the road which led uphill through the village.

  At the village public house they turned left and were soon on another and a steeper uphill road which degenerated into a narrow lane and then into nothing more than a track.

  There were banks and hedges on either side, and, on the lower slopes, the track was muddy and slippery. As it mounted it grew drier, and at the end of half a mile of stiff walking the ground flattened out to a small plateau. The hedges disappeared, and ahead of the walkers was the hill on which was the long barrow where Mansell was to make his trial dig.

  About a mile further on, the ground began to fall again, and the track followed a stream. Soon the party came to two small houses. They seemed incredibly remote from the village, although, as the crow flies, they were within a mile or two of a small church which the walkers could see in the distance.

  The track forked beside the houses. Mansell unhesitatingly took the left-hand fork, and the party walked alongside the stream, which, here and there, crossed the path in a tiny cascade over grey, clean stones. It was nowhere sufficiently wide to cause the walkers inconvenience, and the party made very good progress until again the ground took an upward slope.

  At the top of the rise was the long barrow, a whale-backed object higher at one end than at the other, and commanding a magnificent view over the valley of the Severn and away to the Forest of Dean and the Welsh mountains. The situation of the barrow was romantic, and, although lonely, not desolate.

  Mansell spent some time in demonstrating exactly where he proposed to make his trial dig. This was not into the barrow itself; that had long since been excavated and its contours carefully restored. His idea was to determine whether, at a short distance from the barrow, there had existed a sacred site of the Neolithic Age. Mansell had an archæologist’s reasons for believing that such a site was there. He put forward these reasons concisely, and the company, whether they were edified or not by what he said, gave a civilized impression that they fully understood and appreciated his statements, and listened with apparent interest to what he had to say.

  ‘What interests me,’ said Obury, the only one of the party to appear a trifle restive during Mansell’s lecture, ‘is the fox’s den which I see has been made into the lower bastion of the camp.’

  ‘Not camp; not bastion; theatral area, if you like,’ said Mansell, with a slight touch of condescension which was not lost upon his hearers.

  ‘I think we ought to be getting along,’ said Jonathan. ‘We’ve still the longer part of the walk in front of us. How do you feel, Deb?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Deborah, who looked so.

  Beyond the long barrow the track forked again, and, keeping to the left, the party climbed a knoll and saw in front of them a small wood. A lonely cottage seemed to be the only dwelling-place, and as they came up to it they saw a woman in a dark-blue dress slip in by the side door.

  Beyond the wood there was a village. They by-passed this, led by Jonathan, until they reached the church which they had seen from some distance away. Once past the church, low walls of Cotswold stone enclosed the little road, and another steep climb brought the party to the turn which indicated the road home. Here they bore sharply to the right, along a lane which bordered upland pasture, and then took a downhill track between hawthorn hedges to a farm.

  ‘There’s our village,’ said Jonathan, pointing. ‘We keep along this track until we come to the stream, and we follow that until we come to our own church.’ He took out his watch. ‘Two hours and a quarter. Good going.’

  ‘I say,’ said Deborah, dropping behind to walk beside Mrs. Bradley, ‘did you notice that woman in the blue dress who slipped inside that lonely cottage as though she didn’t want us to see her?’

  ‘Yes. It was the woman who claims to be Mr. Bill Fullalove’s widow,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘At least, so Will North informed me yesterday.’

  ‘That’s who I thought it might be. But what is she doing there, I wonder? She’s supposed to have gone back to Portsmouth. Besides, the cottage belongs to Tiny Fullalove. He lived there before he had the bungalow built. He’s said nothing about letting it to anybody.’

  ‘I’d like to see that woman’s marriage certificate,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘If she is put down as the wife of Mr. William Fullalove we’ve quite a lot to think about, and so have the police and the lawyers.’

  ‘You mean …?’ asked Deborah.

  ‘Mrs. William Fullalove isn’t Bill’s wife but Tiny’s,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I heard from Jon that Bill’s real name was Clarence. I’ve a good mind to go to Farmer Daventry and find out whether he’s seen the marriage certificate, and, if so, what is on it. You see, if we’re right, it would be just as easy, when once her claim is substantiated, for Tiny Fullalove to share
the five thousand pounds’ insurance with his wife as to inherit it directly! In fact, from his point of view, if Bill’s death was no accident, it would be much the safest way to get hold of the money.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Deborah. ‘It’s all horrible and all interesting.’

  ‘That’s due to the devil,’ said Sally, who had joined them whilst the men walked on ahead. ‘The trouble about horrors is that they are interesting. Deb, Jon is looking round anxiously. I think he is afraid you’re getting tired.’

  ‘No, that Aunt Adela is,’ retorted Deborah. Mrs. Bradley cackled.

  ‘Nonsense, child,’ she said. ‘He never thinks of anybody else when you are one of the party, and quite right, too. I like young husbands to be obsessed with their wives’ charms. Far too many of them are not. It may be rather hard on the wife to be an object of worship, but to an observer it is undoubtedly fascinating. The exalted primitive theory that the primary deity is a woman …’

  Deborah made a face at her, tripped over a tree-root and would have fallen but for Mrs. Bradley’s iron-fingered grip on her elbow.

  After lunch Deborah had to go into Cheltenham and Sally went with her. Jonathan went out with the limping Tiny Fullalove to look at the pigs. Mrs. Bradley went up to her room to write letters, Mansell went out to co-opt labour for his dig, and Obury sought out Ed Brown. He observed to the others that he had taken a great fancy to Ed because of his knowledge of the countryside and the strange attraction he had for animals. He proposed to accompany Ed on his afternoon round.

  Jonathan was not at all certain that this programme would appeal to Ed, or to Farmer Daventry who employed him, but he supposed that the day would end with beer for two at the village pub, and he trusted that this would compensate Ed for any boredom or embarrassment which he might suffer during the afternoon. As for Farmer Daventry, he probably had the wit to leave a good carter alone.

  Left in the house, except for the servants, Mrs. Bradley sat at her window for some time looking out over the hilly fields and pastures. Then she gave one glance at her unanswered letters and went downstairs and out to the front door.

  There she paused whilst she surveyed the scene. She returned to her room, put on walking shoes and an indeterminate ulster, and strode out into Jonathan’s drive. She followed the rough, downhill path as far as Will North’s house, and then struck up into Groaning Spinney. She walked on the soft humus and the fallen pine needles until she reached the sturdy tree in which Obury and Ed had rebuilt the badger-watching platform.

  She took off her ulster and tossed it over a shrub, and then climbed up to the platform. Here she squatted like a benevolent toad and appeared to lapse into meditation.

  Around her the signs of spring, in the form of shining buds and a lively blackbird, gave colour, perhaps, to her thoughts, for she descended from her perch after a while, and, taking out a small lens, diligently surveyed the trunks of various trees. She then transferred her scrutiny to the badgers’ sett and even poked experimentally into a hole with the end of a long rod which she fitted together from parts which she took from the pocket of her discarded ulster.

  Obtaining no apparent results from these probings, she abandoned them, and, instead, began to scrape aside the layer of humus formed by the fallen leaves of the tree in which the platform had been built. She looked up to see Jonathan and Tiny approaching her. Tiny seemed to find the soft going difficult, and Jonathan had to give him a hand down the bank. Just as they descended, Mrs. Bradley bent down, inserted a yellow claw into the hole she had previously probed, and popped into her skirt pocket an object which neither man, at that distance, should have been able to identify. She then looked up, grinned like a crocodile at them, and allowed Jonathan to help her on with her ulster.

  ‘And what are you supposed to be doing?’ he enquired. ‘I thought you stayed in to write letters? Never mind. You can come with us now to see Will’s ferrets.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘and then I must catch the bus.’ She accompanied them as far as Will North’s house and then hurried off down the lane for the village street and the bus stop. She grinned hideously at the recollection of Tiny’s face.

  When she glanced back the two men had gone. Mrs. Bradley dived into her skirt pocket, took out the object which she had secreted there, and, upon arriving at the mill-stream, she threw it in. It was a cardboard container which had surrounded a bottle of aspirin tablets. She leaned on the miller’s railing, and watched the small package float away downstream.

  Then she walked briskly to the high road, took the bus into Cheltenham, and went to a cinema. She remained there until seven, dined alone at an hotel, and returned on the half-past eight bus.

  ‘I say,’ said Deborah, when she returned, ‘Jon’s had another anonymous letter.’

  ‘What about this time?’ But Mrs. Bradley did not seem surprised.

  Deborah giggled.

  ‘About you. You are supposed to be corrupting the minds of the village children. What have you been a-doing of?’

  ‘I suppose my immediate removal from the vicinity is demanded?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. There’s a postscript which says that all witches ought to be burnt. Who on earth does write the beastly, silly things?’

  ‘Was it written or typed this time?’

  ‘Oh, typed again, and on the same typewriter. At least, Jon thinks so.’

  ‘I’d like to see it.’

  ‘Oh, you shall. He’s taken it to show the vicar and Mr. Baird. He says you said they were to be called in to conference. He’s gone in the car. He went directly after dinner. I don’t expect him home until after midnight. He’ll go to Mr. Baird second, and they’re certain to gossip.’

  ‘I wonder what luck Mr. Mansell has had in getting people to work on his trial dig?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  ‘I don’t know. We shall hear from Jon when he comes home, because Mr. Baird knows everything. I shall wait up, I think. What would you like to do?’

  ‘Knit,’ replied Mrs. Bradley. She went up to her room and returned with a repulsive bundle of dead-looking natural-coloured wool. ‘Do you think purple or puce would look better as a contrast with this?’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Deborah, expressing simple horror. ‘It’s bad enough as it is!’

  Mrs. Bradley grinned amiably and set to work on huge wooden needles to fabricate what appeared to be some sort of shawl, a type of garment which, needless to say, she never wore.

  Jonathan came back earlier than his wife had expected. He was in the house by half-past ten, and brought news that Mansell was experiencing some difficulty in recruiting men for the trial dig. He seemed rather annoyed about it.

  ‘It’s a lot of ballyhoo,’ he said. ‘They don’t fancy the job for some reason, so they are saying they don’t like to interfere with something which has been there for hundreds of years. Just imagine chaps like these Gloucestershire fellows talking such rot! No, there’s something the matter with them, and I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Perhaps they haven’t the time to spare,’ Mrs. Bradley suggested. Her nephew snorted.

  ‘He’s prepared to offer handsome pay for next Saturday afternoon,’ he said. ‘They’d jump at it if they really wanted the work. No, there’s something up, and I’d like to know what it is.’

  ‘What about this anonymous letter?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired. Jonathan grimaced.

  ‘I’d almost forgotten it,’ he said. ‘I showed it to old Baird. He doesn’t seem particularly impressed. Says it’s not scurrilous, blasphemous, improper, or in any way actionable, so I’ve brought it back with me.’ He produced it and handed it over. ‘It was typed on the machine we’ve heard of before. It was not posted, but was found on the ground outside the post office by young Bob Wootton, and he handed it in. It was stamped, but the stamp had not been cancelled. Sidney Blott obligingly brought it along. That’s all. Here it is.’

  ‘Very interesting indeed,’ said Mrs. Bradley, examining it. ‘Look at the spelling of “inditin
g.” I remember the same word being used in another of the letters. The spelling—correct enough according to the Concise Oxford dictionary, is in the unusual form “enditing.” Apart from the fact that it is not a word which an uneducated person would commonly use, the rather extraordinary spelling marks it, I think, as the product of an individual mind.’

  ‘And you mean that it narrows the search?’ said Jonathan. ‘Yes, I can see that, all right, if we take it for granted that the writer is somebody living in the village; but——’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Bradley reasonably, ‘who, living outside the village, would know that I am here?’

  ‘Don’t be modest,’ said her nephew. Mrs. Bradley contented herself by leering tenderly at him, and then she said:

  ‘Except, of course, Mr. Mansell and Mr. Obury. And now, take Deborah to bed. “The iron tongue of midnight hath tolled twelve.”’

  ‘“Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time,”’ said Jonathan, breathing the words into Deborah’s hair. ‘Yes, and that reminds me,’ he added. ‘That’s the most exasperating thing about this digging business of Mansell’s. Fairy time, indeed! Grown men of the twentieth century, and not Cornishmen or Irishmen mind you, but sober, and, one would have said, God-fearing West-Country fellows.’

  ‘I say, though! This spelling bee of yours! You don’t mean the vicar?’ asked Deborah. ‘Now that I come to think, that old-fashioned spelling comes in the English liturgy of Edward VI. Would anybody but a clergyman be likely to know that?’

  ‘Think it out for yourself,’ said Mrs. Bradley. Jonathan smacked his knee.

  ‘Oho!’ he said. ‘I’ve got it! But has he a typewriter?’

  ‘At any rate, he must have access to one. I should say, on the whole, he must possess one.’

  ‘Do tell me,’ pleaded Deborah.

  ‘You use your gump. It was you that recognized the Prayer Book of Edward Tudor!’ retorted Jonathan.

  ‘Psalm 45’ said Mrs. Bradley.