“I give it up,” he said hoarsely. “The stuff’s not here.”
“Oh, we needn’t stop yet,” said Daphne. “It’s only just one.”
“Yes, I know that bit,” said her husband. “I know that we can go on till a quarter past two. If we then reverse our procedure and work like so many fiends, we’ll get our hole filled up as the dawn comes in. Well, the answer is that I’d rather die in my bed. I mean, face the poisonous facts. Are you going to argue that Studd ever laboured like this? ‘Buried that night’ were his words. D’you mean to tell me that after a spot of High Toby he rode to this place and dug a thing like a shell-hole some four feet deep?”
Looking upon our labour, I felt the force of his words. We had certainly worked like mad; but, had I not helped to make it, I never would have believed that such an excavation could have been made in three hours. Eight feet by three feet six by four, it would have swallowed a sofa of an enormous size: and Studd had buried a bag the size of his head. I found it hard to believe that our margin of error was insufficiently wide.
We had not been interrupted. The girls and the Knave, between them, were keeping watch, and were ready to flash a warning from either bend of the road. And my sister sat in the Rolls, ready to take such a signal, drive the car slowly forward and put out her lights.
“Ten minutes’ rest,” said Jonah, and glanced at his watch. “And then we’ll have one more go.” He looked at my sister. “Will you relieve Perdita, dear? It’s over her time.”
As my sister sped up the road—
“Let’s have the lights out,” said Berry. “The sight of that hole makes me tired.” He laid himself down on the turf. “Enough to make a cat laugh, isn’t it? Fancy giving up a good night’s rest to displace about three tons of earth and then shove it back where it was. Talk about futility. And I was laughing at Horace – three crowded hours ago.”
“Some one has said,” said Jonah, “that unless you have sweated or shivered, you’ll never meet with success. I think it was Juvenal.”
“I see,” said Berry, thoughtfully. “In that case I’ve qualified for about three million pounds. I’ve larded the earth tonight. The wonder is the damned place isn’t a swamp. Are you going to put those lights out? Or do you derive satisfaction from the almost immediate future that trough presents?”
As Perdita glided up to take her seat in the Rolls—
“I was waiting for the lady,” I said, and put out the lights.
“This is heartbreaking,” she said. “And I’m sure it’s there.”
“If it is, he was sozzled,” said Berry, “and couldn’t walk straight. We’ve nearly got down to the water under the earth.”
“When we start again,” said Jonah, “we can go on for half an hour: and then we must turn and come back.”
“Oh, give me strength,” said Berry, fervently.
“The burning question is – which way do we go?”
After a little silence—
“I think it should be wider,” said I. “We’ve got enough length.”
“I entirely agree,” said Jonah. “But if we make it wider, we cannot advance the Rolls.”
“I know that,” said I. “Let’s risk it.”
“I’m terribly tempted,” said Jonah, “I must confess. But if anyone did come along… I mean, you know, we should look such blasted fools. You can’t explain a chasm like this.”
“You could to Horace,” said Berry. “You’d only have to tell him you’d dropped your stud.”
“Ah, Horace – yes,” said Jonah. “But the next to come by may be a shade less artless. We’ll hardly strike two such giants in a summer’s day.”
In the silence which followed I closed my eyes and tried to forget my state. My hands were raw, my back and my knees were aching as though their bones were diseased, every stitch upon me was soaked and my face was smeared and my arms were plastered with dirt. The thought that all this was for nothing was hardly bearable.
At length—
“One minute to go,” said Jonah. “Perdita, give us some light.”
As the darkness fled, I dragged myself to my feet. Then I heard a footfall behind me and started about.
Before I could think—
“Oh, I’m so ashamed, Captain Pleydell,” said Harold’s voice.
“When I found myself in your tent, I had a dreadful feeling that you would be sitting up. I turned to Horace, but…”
The sentence faltered and died. The sight of the yawning chasm had murdered speech.
Berry had the youth by the arm.
“It’s all right, Harold. But tell me. Is Horace awake?”
“No, no. I couldn’t wake him. I—”
“Thank God for that. Can we rely upon you to hold your tongue?”
“Of course, sir. I’m awfully sorry. I never dreamed—”
“Why should you?” said Berry. “I can hardly believe it myself. Never mind. Just listen to me. By daybreak today that hole you see there will be gone. No sign of it will remain. The turf will show no traces of having been touched. May I have your solemn word that you will keep to yourself what you’ve seen tonight?”
“You can, indeed,” cried Harold, earnestly. “I’m only so sorry—”
“Good enough, my lad,” said Berry. “And now I’ll tell you the truth.”
And so he did, whilst I helped Jonah to loosen another twelve inches of turf.
Harold listened – with widening eyes.
When Berry had done—
“But how – how very romantic,” he stammered. “I mean – after all these years…”
“It is, isn’t it?” said Berry, swallowing. “It’d be still more romantic if we could have found the stuff: but it’s nice to think that we’ve, er, mucked about a bit where it used to be.”
“You’re not going to give up, are you? Oh, don’t. Let me bear a hand.”
“By all manner of means,” said Berry. “But it’s very nearly time to start filling this cranny in.”
Harold stared at the hole: then his eyes travelled to the milestone.
“Fifteen paces,” he murmured. “Of course, if he didn’t walk straight… I – I wonder why he made the distance so long. I mean, it seems unnecessary, doesn’t it?”
Apart from the point he had made, the way in which he spoke was suggestive of more to come, and Jonah and I stopped working to watch his face.
“As a matter of fact,” said Berry, “Studd said ‘fifteen.’ He didn’t use the word ‘paces,’ but what else can he have meant? He’d have had no measuring line – the whole thing was improvised.”
Again Harold measured the distance from milestone to trench.
“It’s such a long way,” he said slowly. “That’s what gets me. It leaves so much room for error – especially by night. Of course you’re right – he’d have had no measuring line, but” – he hesitated – “it’s great impertinence on my part…”
“Go on, old fellow,” said Jonah. “We’ll say if we think you’re wrong.”
“Well, don’t you think, perhaps – I mean, as a highwayman, he’d certainly have ridden a lot.”
“Spent his life in the saddle,” said I. “No doubt about that.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Harold, eagerly. “So he must have been very…horsy. You know. Almost like a groom.”
“Go on,” said everyone.
“Well, when he said ‘fifteen,’ d’you think he might have meant ‘hands’ – the measure you use when you’re telling a horse’s height? I mean, it would be very easy – for Studd, I mean: and fifteen by four is sixty. That makes five feet. And that’s much nearer the milestone…”
His eyes ablaze with excitement, his voice tailed on. Jonah was down on his knees, with one hand against the milestone and his palms side by side on the turf.
“Harold,” said Berry, with emotion, “I give you best. You’re right, of course. I know it. Whether the stuff’s there or not, we all of us know you’re right.” He laid a hand on his shoulder. “Yo
u’re the deus ex machina, Harold – the god that rolls up in the car to put everything straight. And I have the honour to thank you for turning a hideous failure into what I’m ready to bet will be a yelling success.”
Twenty minutes later, fifteen handbreadths from the milestone, the spade I was using disclosed the remains of something that was not soil.
I do not know what it had been, for its many years of burial had corrupted it out of all knowledge and very near brought it to dust. I think, perhaps, it had been a wallet.
I gave my spade to my cousin and used my hands. When I touched it, the stuff gave way, and my hand went into a hollow – a slight, irregular crevice, which might have been the inside of what, when first it was there, was a stout, leather bag.
At once I felt some object, and, closing my fingers upon it, I drew it out.
It was flat and small and oblong – and made of gold.
In fact, it was an exquisite snuff-box.
When Perdita had wiped it, the Royal Arms of England, beautifully done in enamel, blazed at us from the lid. And within was engraved the cipher – of the man to whom it had been given, from whom it had been stolen away.
Seven days had gone by.
The doll’s house stood in our meadows, the Knave was lying down with the mule in his own domain, and Horace and Harold were standing by the library table, regarding a box and two pistols with saucer eyes.
“And there you are,” said Berry. “Studd stopped Great-great-uncle Bertram and robbed him of all he had. The money, no doubt, he spent, but he dared not dispose of the snuff-box because of the arms on the lid. So he buried it by the wayside. He never dug it up, and when he was about to be hanged, he tried to put matters right. He left his pistols to Bertram, and hidden in one of those was a note of the place. He hoped he’d find it, of course. He never did, but, er, one of his scions did. And he went to the place and, thanks to, er, divine intervention, he found the box. So after many years, poor Bertram’s honour was cleared. He’d never staked the snuff-box at all. It had been taken off him by Studd.”
“And yet he was hanged for it,” said Horace. “You know, he ought to have spoken. Then they could have gone to the place and dug the pistols up.”
As soon as he could speak—
“I never thought of that,” said Berry, uncertainly.
Harold began to shake with laughter.
7
How Jill Enjoyed Herself, and Len
and Winnie were Made to Waste Valuable Time
Berry lighted a fresh cigar, tossed the match into the river and then lay back on the rug we had spread on the turf.
“This,” he said, “was the site of the pediluvium.”
A sweet-smelling ghost beside me lifted her voice.
“I’m almost afraid,” she said, “to ask what that was.”
“Where the monks washed their feet,” said Berry. “Once a week we used to do what we could. And when we were through, the water was sold to the faithful at fourpence a pint.”
Jill’s voice lightened the darkness.
“You are disgusting,” she said.
“Not at all,” said Berry. “If it did them no good, at least it did them no harm, and out of the proceeds we erected a private brewery which had to be smelt to be believed. The abbot declared it open by flooring a quart at one draught.”
“Abbots didn’t drink beer,” said Jill.
“I beg your pardon,” said Berry: “I never drank anything else. During my, er, supremacy the community was also enriched by the provision of a fried-fish-pond, two shocking squints and an elegant bear garden where the monks could rough-house. All traces of these have, I regret to see, disappeared.”
There had been no cool of the day, but with nightfall a slant of air had stolen up from the sea, moving on the face of the river that used to serve the abbey whose bones it keeps. No relics are better cared for. As jewels upon a cushion, the rags and tatters of glory, the broken pieces of magnificence are presented upon a fair lawn – smooth as a bowling-green, stuck here and there with flowers. A strip of pavement speaks for the chapter-house: an exquisite row of arches tells of ‘the studious cloister’ it once adorned: a lonely pulpit remembers the lector’s voice: odd columns, steps that lead nowhere, a window without a wall and doorways that have survived the courts they shut show forth The Preacher’s sentence, ‘All is vanity.’
We had, really, no right to be there. At dusk the precincts are closed to the public view. But the spot had found favour in our eyes, and when we were ousted at sundown, we made up our minds to come back. Daphne and Jonah were gone – to dine alone at White Ladies and answer some telephone call, but the girls and Berry and I had supped at the village inn. We had then returned to the abbey and, berthing the Rolls in the shadows, had clambered, none too easily, over a wall…
Deserving nothing at all, we had our reward.
A crescent moon was commending another world, where ruins, lawns and water made up a stately pleasance fit for the ease of kings. Here were no tears. The past was not dead, but sleeping: and the present was too rare to be true. Reality was transfigured before us. All the world became a stage, the scenery of which was enchanted.
“Is the Rolls’ bonnet locked?” said Berry, out of the blue.
“It is,” said I. “Why d’you ask?”
“I wondered,” said Berry. “That’s all.”
Perdita lifted her voice.
“I know why he asked,” she said. “Because of those men who were having a meal at The Drum.”
“I won’t deny it,” said Berry. “I may be wrong, but I found them unattractive, and I think they’d look very well in a prison yard.”
“I entirely agree,” said I. “As ugly a couple of toughs as ever I saw. More than ugly. Evil. But people who own a sports Lowland don’t go about stealing cars.”
“I know,” said Berry, “I know. But neither do wallahs like that come down to a place like this to study the pretty secrets of country life. And they took a marked interest in us, as no doubt you saw.”
“They did,” said Perdita Boyte. “And I cannot think why – unless they’re bent on some crime and they have an idea that our presence may cramp their style.”
“I trust that it won’t,” said Berry. “I should simply hate to obstruct two gentry like that.”
I saw Jill glance over her shoulder.
“If they knew we were here,” I said quickly, “I think their suspicions would fade. I can hardly conceive a locality less suited to the activities of a crook.”
But Berry did better still.
“There was once,” he announced, “a King, whose looking-glass told him the truth. One day his councillors suggested that the principal town of the kingdom should be bypassed without delay. The King listened to their proposals.
“Then—
“‘Half a minute,’ he said, and whipped upstairs to the bathroom, to have a word with his glass.
“The latter heard him out. Then—
“‘Your crown’s not straight,’ it said shortly.
“‘Damn my crown,’ said the King. ‘What about this bypass business?’
“‘That’s all right,’ said the glass. ‘Only take it round by the south.’
“‘South?’ cried the King. ‘But they’ve planned to take it round by the north.’
“‘So would you,’ said the glass, ‘if you’d bought all the land on that side. Of course, if you want to present them with half a million pounds…’
“As soon as he could speak—
“‘The dirty dogs,’ said the King. ‘The–’
“‘Now don’t be hasty,’ said the glass. ‘Besides, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks.’
“‘Are you suggesting,’ said the King, ‘that I have ever–’
“‘I was looking ahead,’ said the glass, darkly. ‘Have you any idea what they’re asking for Bramble Bush?’
“There was a pregnant silence. The estate of Bramble Bush had been in the market for yea
rs. What was more to the point, it lay south of the principal town.
“‘Oh, and while you’re here,’ said the glass, ‘you’ve got some egg on your–’
“But the King was gone.
“Two days later Bramble Bush passed to the crown, and, twenty-four hours after that, the King informed his council that the bypass must go to the south of the principal town.
“‘You can’t do that,’ said everyone.
“‘What d’you mean – can’t?’ said the King.
“‘Well, it’s not convenient, for one thing,’ said Privy Seal.
“‘Yes, it is,’ said the King. ‘Most convenient. If you take it through Bramble Bush–’
“‘Can’t do that,’ said Green Cloth. ‘The owner of Bramble Bush will never give us his land.’
“‘Of course he won’t,’ said the King: ‘but everyone knows he’ll sell it. Bramble Bush has been in the market for years.’
“‘And why?’ said Green Cloth. ‘Because Buy Bramble Bush, buy trouble is the motto of the house.’
“‘Go on,’ said the King, paling.
“‘Fact,’ said Gold Stick, shortly. ‘As trustees of the kingdom’s welfare, we can hardly fly in the face of–’
“‘Half a minute,’ said the King, rising, and ran upstairs to his glass.
“‘You’re a good one,’ he said. ‘What about this motto?’
“‘What motto?’ said the glass.
“‘Buy Bramble Bush, buy trouble,’ said the King. ‘And I’ve bought the blasted place.’
“‘In that case,’ observed the glass, ‘the mischief is done. I told you not to be hasty. And I’ll tell you another thing – you’ll have to cut out that port. Your nose is getting all gnarled.’
“With a frightful effort, the King controlled his voice.
“‘One thing at a time,’ he said thickly. ‘What about Bramble Bush?’
“‘Well, you can’t go back,’ said the glass, ‘so you’d better go on. Tell them to lock up their motto and lose the key.’
“The King returned to the council-room.
“‘I decline,’ he said, ‘to pander to superstition. The bypass will proceed – to the south. Let the plans be prepared and submitted in two days’ time.’
And Berry Came Too Page 18