by Mavis Cheek
Orridge opened one eye and saw Lady Dulcima disappearing round the top of the upper staircase. He operated a very simple system: whenever he was to bring up something good from the cellar he would bring up two of the something goods. Whenever he was requested to bring up something quite ordinary, he would bring only one. That way he could sleep soundly in his chair at night (he seldom made it to bed before about 4 a.m.) knowing that he was not being profligate. Besides, there was nothing of very low quality in the cellar, it was just that he had become something of a discerning bibulator and did not wish to ruin his health. When you found yourself imbibing an entire bottle of Château Lambert at a sitting, it was as well that it was so fine. The quality stopped the hangovers, and did not harm the liver. Why, it was practically medicinal.
As Dulcima slid into her bed she looked at the door to Harty’s adjacent room. She gave a little sigh and a shrug. He wouldn’t be up to bed until dawn, she knew. Sometimes – she sipped again (she must remember how much she liked this forty-year-old tawny) – sometimes she wondered … And then she stopped herself. Marriage was not love. Marriage was marriage. Harty had told her to have a stiff upper lip when she thought their only daughter might have died. Marriage was most definitely marriage. She knew that, she had been told that, and she accepted that.
She drained the last of the glass, turned out the light, lay on her back looking up into the darkness, and thought about how charmingly Dryden spoke of carved giltwood mirrors and feather banded bureaux, how elegantly he set out his wares. And that rather strange son of his. How hard was the burden of being left wifeless, no mother for his son. Possibly Nigel would be a good friend for Marion. They could help each other with their social awkwardnesses? Possibly. Except he did not ride. Troublesome. She thought of her daughter, drank off the last of the exceedingly good port, and fell back on her pillow returning St Augustine’s indulgent smile.
Nigel pretended to be asleep when his father charged into his room.
‘Good grief,’ said Dryden. ‘What’s that bloody noise?’ He switched on the light and stared all around. Nothing was out of place. The boy (b. 1986) was in bed, asleep; his clothes were in a pile on the floor; the curtains were drawn – and yet – and yet – Dryden had definitely heard something that made him wonder if Nigel had taken up tap-dancing. Very delicate tap-dancing. He was just about to leave the room when he heard the noise again, much nearer this time, a definite tapping. It came from the window.
He strode over, pulled back the curtains, and there, bathed in moonlight, was Julie Barnsley with a very long pole – it looked like the window-opening pole from the Old Holly Bush. Bestriding the situation like the Colossus of the vicar’s dreams, he threw open the window and leaned out just as Julie gave the pole another go. It engaged, immediately, first with Dryden’s cheek and eye socket, and then his nose. It did not cease for several goes, on the grounds that Julie Barnsley could not see – quite – what was happening up there – and she needed all her concentration to hold the pole at the base.
Dryden reeled back, fell over the end of Nigel’s bed, bounced on to his son several times, his elbow connecting with Nigel’s cheek, and wondered if he should have had that last sherry. Nigel sat up and held his face and stared at his father. Had he done this to him on purpose? Did he know about Julie and the engagement? His father had never hit him in his life before. But as Nigel raised his fearful eyes towards his father’s face, he saw that he had buried his face in his hands. ‘Oh God,’ said Nigel, ‘I am sorry. She threw herself at me. Please don’t, please don’t …’
‘Don’t what?’ said Dryden through his fingertips.
‘Don’t hit me again. I have broken it off.’
Leaving father and son to continue talking at cross purposes about which part of their anatomy might, or might not, have been broken off in the fray, we return to Julie Barnsley who was still calling, softly, persistently, beneath the window, and still holding the now redundant pole. She waited. No one appeared at the opened casement. Julie realised that all was not well, that the end of the pole (brass) had hit something soft and yielding, followed by a noise indicating that the soft and yielding bit was connected to a human being (well, almost). After a little more gentle persistence in the calling department, which rendered nothing, the window was closed by a pale hand that seemed to float out of the darkness and vanish as the catch was fixed down. She waited silently until, quite horribly, the face of Dryden Fellows appeared at the closed window, and as it shimmered there in the moonlight it looked strangely other, not like him at all, yet it was him – was it? The face opened its mouth and let out a noise. Not a good noise. And – with no wish to go into the details of same – she was off. Racing up the village street, carrying the pole before her.
Julie looked, thought Peter Hanker as he stared out of his own bedroom window at the charging figure coming towards him, like St Joan in all her fiery fervour. He sighed. It was a night for Lufferton Boneyites to sigh, it seemed. Sighing had broken out all over the place. It followed hot on the heels of the post-party happiness.
Not to be outdone, Peter sighed once more and got into his narrow, cold bed. What it was that made Julie so keen on the fool Nigel he could not, for the life of him, fathom. Peter Hanker might himself be a man of business in all things but he was not one to impute such values to golden-haired Julie. Besides, in his reckoning a woman would have to be loony to marry a twit like that for money. No, he reckoned she was in love with the creep. Women were the strangest creatures. Never did what you expected them to do. Nigel! That wimp. And Peter had been so sure that Julie was in love with him once upon a time. How wrong could you be? He had offered his hand, and his heart, and all the other bits as well. He had said that together they could rebuild the business, find ways to increase the profit margin, be partners in every sense. Love would make it work. So much for that little idea …
He waited for the bed to warm. He was extremely tired of sleeping alone. He had thought the single bed would help, for he thrashed around too much in the double, but it scarcely made any difference. Yes, what women wanted was a very great mystery to Peter Hanker. His previous barmaid, a woman of forty-five if she was a day, had a T-shirt with Tom Cruise printed on the front. And she thought A Few Good Men was his finest hour. She left, never to return, when one of the regulars told her he was very short and wore high heels for the part. Such was a woman. Unpredictable and given to strange desires. Just like Julie. Peter wondered if it had always been like that and decided that back in the mists of time they probably just got on with it, none of that lovey-dovey stuff, and very probably an easier time was had by all.
He turned the light out and his thoughts turned to his guest, Miss Molly Bonner. Strange it was, he thought, that though she was pretty and funny and intelligent and vibrant – with very good legs – yet his heart was not taken by her. Why was that? Why was it that someone who was all those things, and now staying under his roof, and single, or so it seemed, did not give him that special buzz (Peter Hanker was uncertain about the use of the word love from now on and decided it was best avoided – buzz said it all, in his opinion) – whereas Julie … As he gave in to the night he began to dream of sitting on Pound Hill and proposing marriage to Julie. And in his dream she accepted. Men, he thought in his dream, dangerously unpredictable creatures and given to strange desires. Like changeable women. Nigel! It didn’t bear thinking about.
*
But Julie was not on Pound Hill. She was telling herself that she had been stupid and that she had better not be found out. She flung the pole over the wall into the yard of the pub and ran off home as fast as she could go. She had probably blinded Nigel for life. It was cold comfort to think that he had sufficient in his trust fund to have a live-in carer and that she, as his wife, would not have to push the wheelchair very often. Julie’s view – like that of so many of her contemporaries who do not yet even wear spectacles – was that difficulties such as blindness constituted great helplessness. One day, though n
ot for a year or three, she would turn on the television and see a race taking place which consisted largely of blind men on bi-cycles in a velodrome in France. Not helpless at all. But for the moment, if she had blinded him, she had to make up her mind whether it was worthwhile pursuing financial security with a damaged man attached to it. If it was, then she must do something about that scarlet-headed freak. Archaeology? Finding fossils? What kind of job was that for a girl?
Julie rented a small place off the High Street called the Lamb Shed. And this was what it had once been. It was draughty in winter, too hot in summer – but it was all that Julie could afford. For now. The Lamb Shed was at the edge of the village, beyond the Old Holly Bush and try as she might to crane her neck, look around corners, peer around the edge of Pound Hill, she could not see any of the village houses from her window. None. What you could see – she shifted her gaze towards it for a moment and then quickly looked away – was the tip, just the tip, of the Gnome’s famous appendage. Best not think about that, thought Julie, as she peeled off her clothes, decided against a shower because it would wake her up, and wriggled into her bed. She blamed the sherry for causing her to bestow upon Nigel such a whack that she had given him the perfect excuse to remove her from his life. If only she could repair the damage. But how? She closed her eyes, the better to concentrate on finding an answer, but all she could remember was the absurdity of Nigel’s smouldering trousers and the light of laughter in Peter Hanker’s eyes as they both struggled not to give in to the silliness of the scene. Making sure of your future security did seem to be a serious business. Pity. She liked a laugh. She had also – she could say this into her pillow for who would ever know? – she had also enjoyed that kiss.
Miles stood by his window, bathed in the moonlight, and looked out along the white ribbon of the village street in the direction of the top of the Old Manor (predominantly 1590 with an earlier wing). His jaw still ached from all that smiling and he did not feel ready for bed. He was wearing his blue and white striped pyjamas and his feet were cold but still he stood there, thinking. Perhaps when he had made much more money he could approach the Fitzhartletts? But he knew it was pointless, really.
It cut him to the quick that he, the man of the hour, the man of property (soon, soon) and distinction in Lufferton Boney could not get himself wed to the only single woman thereabouts he considered his equal. But in his heart he knew that unless he rode a horse, and rode it with confidence and pleasure – or at least appeared to – he could never succeed with Marion. A most indelicate thought popped into his mind, one that made his smile all the more like a leer. Any spirits abroad that night would be glad no one human could see it. For the thought was that Marion had probably only ever seen both the Gnome and a horse’s private parts. My God, he thought, peering through the window, thinking he saw some movement out there, the prospect of her disappointed face on her wedding night was perfectly hilarious. Such was the humour of Miles Whittington. He must tell Dorcas about this in the morning; they could have a good laugh. Good old Dorcas. Where would he be without her? Most certainly he must stop the silly girl from running off to the jungles of South America in search of Robin. He had persuaded the village nobility, when they thought they might help her financially, that it was a terrible idea, that she would only become more depressed once there, as the FO were very firmly of the opinion that Robin was dead and buried, or eaten. Dorcas needed protecting from herself, he said. And they agreed. Now he smiled and held something up to the moonlight. It sparkled. Rather fortunate, he thought, and not for the first time, that Robin had not returned.
Before he pulled the curtains he saw Julie Barnsley looking like a pole vaulter as she flew past his house and hurled her pole aloft into the yard of the pub. Really, thought Miles, people did strange things in this village. Very strange things. On the bedside table he placed the object he had been holding up to the moonlight at the window. It was a rich and rare solitaire diamond ring set on a band of glowing white gold. Miles polished it and admired it often in the privacy of his bedroom. Robin had entrusted it to him before he went away, and it had been meant for Dorcas. All it had needed was a little adjustment. Yes, most fortuitous that it was not on her finger when his brother vanished. Very … He took one last look at the vulgarity of the Gnome. And a horse’s private parts, he chuckled again, and dived into bed, as if the dive would wash him clean of the thought.
Dorcas let the light from the moon flood into her room. She did not even rise to find out what all the clattering and running was about in the street below. Molly’s delight in life made Dorcas feel shadowy and strange. Only half a person, only half there. She might have been like that if Robin had been beside her. Well, perhaps something would come of the Bonner girl and her project. Something good. Something for Dorcas to relish. How she longed for relish in her life. Molly Bonner looked as if she enjoyed her life, even though she seemed to be quite alone: no parents, no grandparents – and no husband or lover anywhere to be seen. If she could do it, why couldn’t Dorcas?
The upsetting thing about love, of course, was that it was never far away. Songs were full of it, books were full of it, radios and televisions were full of it – and now Molly was, too, thought Dorcas. That love affair between her grandfather and her grandmother – how he had written letters from Pound Hill and how she had replied, in secret – all so romantic. Dorcas knew it was a story of true love that she both envied and admired, a touch of romance that she could not turn away from. Gawain again, tapping her on the shoulder. Despite Miles’s malign optimism about turning the Gnome and the Hill into a money-spinning tourist attraction, and despite her own desire to rile him, she was pleased that Molly was here. Molly would force her to be a better person, even though going up there was difficult. It would, she counselled herself, do her no harm at all to have to confront the past, move on, start anew. After all, the archaeologist’s granddaughter was doing it out of love, because of love, so who was she, Dorcas, to hold back? Whatever else she had lost in life, she had never lost the feeling of love, only the possession of it.
A shiver ran down her spine, for she realised that, with this decision, she was taking on the mantle of the permanently single woman living in a village who grew a little more dried up every day and smiled and did good works. Dorcas had never wanted to be a woman who did good works, for that way brings people’s pity, but now – she sighed once more – now she was. I will do what I can for Molly Bonner’s efforts on Pound Hill, she said to the unmoving Gnome, though she wanted more than anything to leave the place exactly as it was, to let it remain eroded, let it be hidden for ever, along with her memories of being there, held up high by a pair of sunburnt arms with freckles that you could count, and teeth that smiled out of a brown berry of a face … Love, like relish, seemed a remote and hidden thing now.
She sat there, looking out from her pillows at the Spode dish that glistened in the silvery light. And if the Spode dish had been able to look back at her from its shelf, it would have seen that the same silvery light picked out the trace of a tear on each of Dorcas’s well-scrubbed cheeks. Something that no one else knew about, but which was not a very rare event, as the dish could assert – if asked.
Eight
MOLLY BONNER WAS also in bed but she was nowhere near turning out her light. She, too, was considering love and its consequences. She had beside her the pink plastic box in which she kept her grandfather’s letters to her grandmother and now, at last, here she was, in the place where it was most appropriate to read them again.
The first letter was dated the day that Arthur Bonner set up camp on Pound Hill in early March. Unlike his granddaughter he put up a tent and lived in that for the duration of the workings – except when rain washed them away so badly that the party repaired to the Old Holly Bush for respite until the clouds moved away. But he had not been given what Molly had just been given, which was the drawing done by Peter Hanker’s great-great-whatever-grandfather. There was no mention of it. And even allowing for t
he fact that Peter’s grandfather-much-removed was unlikely to have been a great artist, the sketch must be accurate enough. It was something for Molly to follow. She slipped out of bed and tiptoed across to the window. Whatever the mystery was, if there was one, it was out there and ready to be discovered.
The Gnome lay on the Hill, shameless and even more shocking in the silvery moonlight, his shape bleached by the brightness, and Molly could see at once, even though bushes and undergrowth disguised much of it, that his outline was different from the drawing. Very possibly, if the drawing were to be followed, as she suspected, it might show that something had once been cut to look like drapery over his arm. It might confirm – if she were right – that he was a great deal older than currently assumed.
It was all far too exciting for sleep. And the Lufferton Boneyites seemed a friendly lot, willing to pitch in, which was what she needed. Her main difficulty was that she had no one whom she could trust to secrecy lined up to film each stage. She would have to do that herself after all and it would not be easy. Ah well. Freddy would be the sorrier when he returned and saw how much she had achieved. His short note wishing her good luck and giving a poste restante address was chucked on to the dressing table. The box of letters and the two notebooks were what held Molly’s attention now. She looked at the clock: ten to midnight. Oh, she thought as she hopped back into bed and snuggled the covers around her and took another letter from the pile, Oh she could not wait for tomorrow to come and the work to begin.