by Joan Smith
“You’ve got yourself a mighty fine fireplace, ma’am. Your trouble ain’t here. I’ll just throw a ladder up to your roof and have a gander of your chimney.” This was done almost with the ease of expressing the intention. He was up there for the better part of half an hour, and I was soon informed that I had a mighty fine chimney and roof, too. All nice and flat, and with no loose masonry. He mentioned the possibility of a squirrel down the chimney, or a bird, but as the rattling went on during progressive days, including several in which a fire burned, I could not think a well-baked squirrel would be so rambunctious. The sounds were more in keeping with an elephant.
Next it was the basement, which was also proclaimed to be mighty fine. This was the last hope, and I went to the basement with Mr. Pickering. The Roman wall he did not recognize as Roman but did recognize as being mighty fine. I told him its origin, and he was interested. “Seaview (I used the name he would recognize) is built over an old Roman fort you know,” I told him. “The Duke of Clavering’s ancestors were so ill-judged as to build over it.”
"No," he said, shaking his head firmly.
I looked at him in surprise, pointing to the Roman wall. “The Duke himself told me,” I said.
“He’s wrong,” the man said simply. I don’t know why it should be, but the remark filled me with joy. How happy I was to hear that Clavering was wrong.
“Why do you say so?” I asked with the liveliest curiosity.
“They didn’t build over it, they built next to it, adjacent as you might say. If they’d built over it, they’d have used two walls. You’d have two Roman walls at right angles. You’ve only got the one, so the Roman fort, if that’s what it is, is out to the side of your place, not under it.”
I considered this a moment and found it sensible, as I might have expected from Mr. Pickering. He went on to make his point clearer. “I’m hazarding the fort was considerably bigger than Seaview. If it was exactly the same size, you’d have four Roman walls in your cellars, of course, but assuming it was bigger, and they were big things, you know, the man building Seaview would have used as much of the foundations as possible, two walls at right angles, and the rest filled in with earth to your own foundations, you see.”
I saw very clearly, indeed, and was cheered to know Clavering was wrong. "There’s something a bit off about this wall though,” Pickering went on. He had my whole attention. “You see how she’s set in a mite from the house wall above.
This was seen by following his pointing finger to a small half-window that gave a minimum of light to my cellar. And then I noticed what I had not noticed before. Looking out the window, the house walls jutted a good yard out past the cellar walls. The stones of the outer wall ran to the ground, but the cellar window was recessed to an abnormal degree.
"Odd they’d do that. It weakens the structure somewhat,” Pickering went on. “Why wouldn’t they have taken the house wall up straight from the Roman foundation? Must be a reason for it.”
Only one reason occurred to me. “A secret passage?” I enquired eagerly.
“She’d be a slim one,” he informed me, but did not deny the possibility, “And where would she go?” He looked around the cellar for a doorway, but it was clear at a glance there was no secret entrance to the basement. The walls were of uninterrupted stone except for the stairs from the pantry and the window.
“It goes behind this Roman wall into the Roman fort!” I shouted.
He shook his head uncertainly. “You don’t find much in the way of a secret passage in these newer homes. In the olden days they had priest’s holes and the odd time a passageway into a dungeon, like at Belview, but in these new homes..." In historical terms, a house only eighty years old is new.
“It is possible?” I asked.
“A very narrow passageway is possible. We’ll go above and have a look,” he said, and we went at a fast gait up the stairs back to the saloon. My hopes were not high. The panelling looked extremely innocent. Mr. Pickering went tapping along the walls with his knuckles this time, listening for hollow sounds, but shook his head despondently. He stopped at the parson’s bench, which I informed him sadly did not move. But it interested him. He was convinced it would swing aside to reveal a passageway if only we could find the magic means of movement. We spent the better part of an hour pressing every protuberance anywhere near it. It did not move. Pickering tried then to pull it away by main force, convinced it should come loose, but it was stuck to the wall in some immovable manner. It did not lift, slide right or left, or do a thing but sit as solid as a mountain. At length we had to give it up. I thanked him heartily, paid him, and took him to the kitchen for a glass of ale.
I was more convinced than ever that my house held hidden treasure, and convinced now that it had a secret passage, as well; but when an expert had failed to find it, how should I proceed? There was one who knew more about my house than I knew myself, who had known, for instance, that the parson’s bench did not come away from the wall. Clavering I was sure could tell me what I wished to know. I was eager to see him, not because he ever would tell me, but because I was looking forward to telling him he was mistaken in the location of the fort, and I also wanted to enquire whether he had managed to cripple the two unfortunate men who wandered into his meadow. He stayed away from us completely, however. Other than the one day we nodded in the village, we did not see him.
* * *
Chapter 8
Slack, who must surely have had her book by heart at this point, continued perusing it at every free moment. Sewing, the fire screen, and all other hobbies were neglected. On the Thursday evening we settled in as usual before our fire, Slack with her book, I to work the buttonholes on my riding habit. I had worked on it during the afternoon, and it was done but for the buttonholes.
“Odd the Duke has not been to call all week,” Slack mentioned.
“You are eager to discuss Aquae Sulis, I gather?” I asked ironically. “Very likely he is gone to London. He mentioned he was to go soon. Mentioned it quite some time ago."
“Ah, very likely he is gone to Londinium,” she said.
I stared at her blightingly. “We have progressed in time to A.D. 1813, Slack. If you mean London, please say so. There is nothing so ill-bred as flaunting your esoteric scraps of knowledge to puff yourself up.”
“You just said Aquae Sulis,” she retaliated, quite childishly.
“You were not used to be so dull you didn’t realize when you were being roasted.”
“You didn’t used to think yourself satirical,” she answered sharply.
We might have deteriorated into a squabble, for really Slack was becoming very short-tempered these last days, taking one up on every little thing. We were saved by the sound of the knocker.
“George, and it’s only quarter to nine,” I said with resignation.
It was not George but Clavering who had decided to honour us with a call, after a week of neglect. I smiled in delight at having a chance to point out to him his error at thinking Willow Hall was built on a fort, and Slack smiled to have at last a fellow antiquarian with whom she might speak her three words of Latin.
The Duke is, of course, about as sensitive as a public bench, but I thought he showed traces of sheepishness at first showing his face after his rude behaviour at Belview. He looked a little self-conscious, unsure of his welcome.
“Ladies,” he said, bowing. He was again in black evening clothes, having either been out to dinner or dined in state at home. We both nodded; then he advanced to Slack, offering her a large tin box. Her foolish face beamed with pleasure.
“Why, you’re early, Your Grace. My birthday isn’t till tomorrow,” she chirped.
“Is it indeed? I had no idea. This is not a birthday gift, however, but a replacement for your hospitality the other evening.” It was opened to reveal about five pounds of dried cherries. “You mentioned you share my predilection for them,” he said. Then he turned to me. “And when I discover if there is anything in th
is world Miss Denver likes, I shall attempt to bring it to her.”
“I am fond of good manners, and would be very happy if you could find some to bring with you next time.”
“I would not have guessed it, ma’am,” he said with a charming smile. “Do you mind very much if I have a seat?” This was thrown in to remind me of my own lack of manners in not offering him one. I bowed my acquiescence, but he was already seated, with one leg thrown over the other in a vulgar, slouching position.
“Well, and what have the ladies of Seaview been up to recently?” he asked, with a face I did not trust. I felt he had a pretty good notion what we had been up to.
“We have taken up the study of Roman ruins,” I said, spurning his thrust regarding Seaview.
“And been making some interesting discoveries, to gather from your smirk,” he replied.
“Ladies do not smirk,” I pointed out.
“No, ladies don’t usually,” he agreed. “I have never seen Miss Slack, for instance, smirk.”
“Might I suggest you take a look at her now," I said, for she was smirking in such a way I longed to shake her.
“I have been reading this book about Aquae Sulis,” Slack told him, disdaining to hear my jibe.
“Endlessly,” I added, but in a low voice.
“How interesting,” Clavering said, turning to face her, so that I had a broad view of a black back, and nothing more but the back of an equally black head. “It is one of the more interesting remains in England,” he said, and they were off on a tedious discussion of rectangular baths, round baths, chalybeate springs, arches, Minerva, and so on.
“I always stop a moment when I stand on the diving stone, and look at the groove in it made by all those generations of Romans,” he was saying. I sat biding my time, phrasing my own comments to come in the most cutting way possible.
“Oh, have you been there! How I would love to go to Aquae Sulis,” Slack declared.
“Why do you not? It is well worth the trip,” he said.
“Some people are not in the least interested,” she said in a meaningful voice, and with a glance at me. “But I shall go one day, and to Londinium, too, I have been to Londinium, of course, but not since I have become interested in the Roman ruins, and my book mentions some ruins in Londinium.”
“Since that time four days ago, you have not had your head out of the book, Slack. Julius Caesar himself could have been to call, and you would not have known it.”
“You must go up to London now that you are aware of its origins,” he told her.
“Slack is aware of nothing but Aquae Sulis,” I told him. “The book the library had deals with it exclusively.”
“London is rich in ruins,” the Duke said, turning to hold converse with Slack alone. “Strange, it did not even exist when the Romans landed in England. Colchester was then the capital, if it can even be said there was one. But, of course, the Thames and access to the ocean soon made London the natural capital, and eventually, much later, actually, the governor presided there to administer the four divisions. It is amazing anything remains considering the number of times it was destroyed, and the nearly two thousand years that have passed, but there is still a great deal to see. The London walls, for instance, are still standing in several places, but the best place to see Roman London is from the cellars."
“How interesting,” I said in a tone to denote my complete lack of enthusiasm. No one paid me the slightest heed.
“Much of their original pavement is to be seen in shop cellars, and very often a wall, as you have here at Seaview.”
I could do nothing but wait patiently while he chatted on to Slack’s impressed audience. My moment was coming, and I relished it. He took us on a mental tour along the villas of the Walbrook, the warehouses of the Thames, even to the cemeteries beyond the walls, back to town to admire modern buildings with crooked walls dictated by the Roman ruins on which they were erected, eventually depositing us at the British Museum, to admire reconstructed mosaics, golden jewelry, armour, writing tablets, and other memorabilia, each item of which received an excited “Imagine” or “Really” from Slack.
“I will certainly bear all this in mind when next we go up to Londinium,” she assured him.
“In the meanwhile, we have made rather an interesting discovery regarding our own Roman ruins,” I said, savouring my triumph.
“Your investigation is causing considerable amuse— interest in town,” Clavering said, turning back to me with a certain gloating on his face.
“If the townspeople are amused at my investigation, it is yourself who is to blame, Your Grace, for it is you who misinformed me Willow Hall stands on the ruins of a Roman fort, and it is no such a thing.”
“You must confess, ma’am, I never told you a thing about Willow Hall. What I did say is that Seaview is built on one wall of a Roman fort. The other walls, of course, were quite destroyed in the earthquakes that occurred around the time it was built.”
“You told me my house stands on a Roman fort!” I said angrily, for I was peeved to have the ground cut out from under my feet, my little triumph destroyed. “You said it would lend a sense of immediacy if tourists could stand on the exact spot where the Roman soldiers looked out to sea!”
“This is the exact spot; it is only that part of the foundations were destroyed.”
“You can’t know the exact spot if the foundations are gone. Mr. Pickering says the Roman fort is adjacent to that wall, out beyond the house.”
“Poor Pickering has not had access to the original plans of the house, and the drawings of the Roman fort that accompany it. I planned to put all this material in the museum. You can take my word for it, you stand precisely where the Roman fort stood.”
“I never heard of any earthquakes in England.”
He stared in astonishment. “Up till 1750 we were prone to them. You must have read of the terrible London quakes in 1750. They rocked the city every four weeks for months. There was panic in the streets; the town was all but deserted. Ladies, always on the lookout for a new fashion, had themselves earthquake gowns made up. They occurred a few years earlier here, at Pevensey. They were less severe, but they did topple three walls of the Roman fort, unfortunately.”
“You’re making that up!” I charged.
“I refer you to the excellent and highly readable letters of Mr. Horace Walpole. I have a copy of them in my library if you have not, and will be happy to lend them to you."
I was silent. He wouldn’t offer proof if none existed, and I was forced to accept it.
“I have read all about the London quakes,” Slack told me. “Indeed, I remember Mama speaking of them. Very severe, but I never heard of the Pevensey quakes.”
“Neither has anyone else,” I muttered.
“But tell me, has there been more trouble with the grate, since you have taken the trouble to have a builder out to investigate?” Clavering asked me.
“Nothing to speak of,” I answered with a quelling frown at Slack. I had no desire for her to go telling him I held him to blame, and wouldn’t satisfy him to know we were so troubled as we were.
To be fair, she did not tell him he was suspect in the matter, but nothing else was left out of her telling. The awful shakings were all revealed in detail.
“This particular spot is prone to earth tremors. I wonder if that is what causes it,” he suggested.
“It wouldn’t tremble so violently here and not a single quake felt at Lady Inglewood’s or Belview. Have you felt tremors?”
“No, I haven’t,” he disclaimed at once. “But then Belview was not troubled the other time either, when the Roman fort fell.”
“It’s something to do with the foundations,” I said. “Mr. Pickering feels they are irregular. The stone wall is not in the right place. It is set back a yard or more from the line of the house wall, and I am not at all sure there aren’t some Roman ruins beyond. Perhaps there is a hole there—water could be seeping in from the sea. Why, the walls
might come tumbling down on our heads. I’ll do a little excavating there, to the east of the wall, and..."
“No!” Clavering said firmly.
“I certainly will!” I answered automatically.
“I think not, Miss Denver. That is my land, leased only, and subject to my control. I will not have it dug up. It is just possible there are archaeological remains of interest, and I won’t have them botched by an amateur dig.”
"Oh, dear me, no,” Slack added her appeal at once. “You can’t imagine the damage done by the ignorant at Aquae Sulis, Priscilla.”
“I am not ignorant, I hope.”
“You are ignorant of Roman antiquities. I plan to have it all excavated after you leave, by professionals,” Clavering said.
“You’ll have a long wait!”
“As you pointed out yourself, nineteen years is but a drop in the bucket of time. Still, it is a long time to have to endure the discomfort of a rattling grate and the uncertainty of what causes it. If you wish to sell, I shall begin my excavating at once and solve the mystery.”
“You can excavate without my selling. Go ahead. I will be very happy to have it settled.”
“No, no. There is no point excavating if we can’t dig up under Seaview, as well.”
“You said nothing of that. It was to be a museum.”
He gave a guilty start. “That decision had not actually been taken, that we would do an excavating. It is an alternative plan, but in any case the house would not have been torn down. A careful dig in the cellar would be possible if no one were actually living here.”