The Lovers of Pound Hill

by Mavis Cheek

  My dearest girl, [she read] We are very comfortable up here and getting the layout shipshape before we start. As in life, so in archaeology, a wise man makes sure he is well prepared for any occurrence so we have brought everything but the kitchen sink with us. Laycock says he has one of those in the cart if we need it. The people of the village are wonderfully helpful. Life in this part of England is hard for those who live by the land. We are nearly all pastoral hereabouts, with some root crops grown for animal feed, and recovery from the bad years is slow. Yet they would gladly share all they have. I do not like to tell them that it is their very suffering that has left the site here so pure and so much undisturbed in the surrounding landscape. Unusually it is not a place that has been used for pasture like the surrounding flatland. There are almost no sheep anyway nowadays, poverty and poor practice in evidence, and cattle and pigs don’t tend to climb hills. But, by recompense, I can pay my way, and shall, and it will help. The beer in the local pub is first class and we are down there most evenings for a warm by the fire, and a decent meal. The landlord is full of ideas about the Hill and its tenant, and a good and cheerful man. The village seems proud of its Gnome, yet not proud of it – rather, I fancy, like a parent who does not want the world to think the less of him for bragging about the cleverness of his offspring.

  I take your admonitions to heart but you will have to trust me that my silence on the subject of possibilities is to do with there being nothing definite to report, rather than my keeping secrets from you. You will need to accept this trial if you are to be the wife of an archaeologist, which, God willing, you are to be one day. To keep a secret from you, dearest Margaret, would be hard. I might be able to do so when we are apart, but once we meet – you always see through me. I do not want to commit my findings to paper except in the form of notebooks until I am quite certain of my facts – though I shall probably give a hint in my letters as archaeology is as much about detective work as it is about science and I need a little fun to enter the proceedings to keep my girl happy. But I hope with all my heart, which you know you have, that our meeting will not be too far off by which time I will have something more certain – and – yes, dear girl, – exciting – as you would have it – to tell.

  Meanwhile you must, must, think very hard about your future. If you want to take a man who is nearly twice your age (it must be said, though you would not let me when we were last together) and who has very little fortune and almost no reputation – though a passion for what he does and a hope that the future will bring good things – then I am he. For myself, despite your father’s understandable assertions as to my motivations (you shock me with your language, my love – to say he speaks of an old man lusting for a young girl is strong! Rather it is an older man full of love for a young woman) I want to state, again and again and again, that I love you with all my heart, and know that you love me and that, despite your youth, you have a brave, intelligent head on your shoulders and one that, should it so take the thought into itself and find it acceptable still, I will marry. I cannot dare think that will be very soon, since you do not finish at school for another three months and have seen very little of the world and there is no doubt that your family will send you off to Switzerland to be finished as soon as school is out. But I will wait. If, as you say, you wish only to see the world with me attached to your arm. Then so be it.

  You ask about the Gnome. You are unkind to tease me. You know perfectly well where his fame lies and I can only tease you back by stating that every evening, before turning into the tent, I sit on his most famous part and smoke a pipe before bed. He is, as I write, magnificent in the moonlight, but he needs clearing. I look at him and wonder why he was positioned here. This is the mystery. We will know a little more over the next few days but my guess is that he was originally laid out by Vespasian’s chaps rather than the Bronze Age locals. A thought I keep to myself currently, as must you. But odd that he should be placed where he was visible only to a comparatively limited area. We are looking into the uprisings that the locals caused in those first few years of Roman power – if it was Vespasian he was mighty good at suppressing rebellions – the Scots and the Welsh can attest to that and I’d hazard that the South-West showed its mettle, too. Of course our Gnome may have been a pagan figure that the Romans adapted. But I doubt that. They would be more likely to obliterate him. And that he is referred to as a gnome seems to be out of the new Latin from the late mediaeval period and he may well have been called something else before then. But I have no proof.

  Oh my darling girl, this is not what you want me to write. You want me to write that I love you and miss you and wish to be with you and the foolish stuff of lovers. So I do. And I enclose a small thing, black and dull to your eyes, I’d warrant – found up here when I walked the land first – and you must be content with it as a love token despite its plainness – for that small and smooth black article you hold is a little aberrant – that tells me there is something to know up here beyond what the Gnome seems to say. This object was brought here. It was drilled with a small hole. Why? The usual use for such pebbles was jewellery – beads, mainly – or weaving – no one is quite sure – but none has come this far before and none has been found already drilled but away from a settlement of some kind. I take it as a talisman that I am on the right track of something – but what, my love, what?

  Look after it and I shall collect it from you when we next meet. I have an inkling, just a faint inkling, of what I might – I hope – I will – find, but no certainty. The only certainty in my life now is you. I hold on to that. As I cannot, yet, hold you. Dearest Margaret, Love is the binder, always is and, I hazard, always was.

  More anon, your loving Arthur.

  The letter, carefully folded, was placed back with the others. It always made Molly sad to read it, knowing what was to come. The next time they met it was not for a little love trysting moment, it was to elope and marry. After which he never went back to the site.

  Molly lay in the darkness a while and pondered – it was the most informative of all the letters for after that it seemed that the excitement began and Arthur’s communications, even with his beloved girl, were shorter and more obscure. The shale piece, which he drew and identified in his notebook, was not kept with the letters and notebooks but she knew the stuff well. Some of the finest polished beads were made from it – though this piece was referred to as being still in its found form, as a pebble, from the Jurassic coast. Her grandfather was certainly right to be puzzled by it. She was, too. Some beads, properly polished and pierced, had been found away from the coast, but none had been discovered as far as Lufferton Boney. Another mystery. She liked mysteries up to a point, you would be a fool to take up her profession and not like them, but in this case she wanted to be sure that it would eventually be solved. Of that there was no certainty. Far from it. Now she had seen the site for herself she concurred with her grandfather: it was older than its received history allowed. But just how old?

  She turned out the lamp, began the thinking process, and fell instantly asleep. Tomorrow was time enough for mulling, tomorrow when the site would be secured and made ready, after which her helpers from London would be gone, leaving her and the village volunteers to take it to the next stage. But after that they, too, would leave the field to Molly alone. The prospect both delighted and daunted her. She had never worked a site in such singular fashion before. Some (including Freddy) might say it was madness. She smiled. It was love that had done this to her. The love of her grandfather for her grandmother. If it had not been for war he would have reached an answer and Molly would not be here setting up the site. She might not even be an archaeologist. History, personal or worldly, is full of unpredictables. Love and War – the two great movers and shakers of history – had been more powerful forces than knowledge. Always would be.

  Nine

  SO THEN, how did Pound Hill and its ancient site escape being scheduled and protected and ring-fenced and compulsorily purchased for
so long? How was it that a private landowner could have such a monument to the past and be allowed a say in its future? How was it that, unlike the inhabitants of other ancient places, the people of Lufferton Boney – and the few trippers who arrived there – still had access to the figure? How was this done? Quite easily. There was no letter sent to The Times by William Flinders Petrie as there had been in 1900 on behalf of Stonehenge so that Pound Hill’s owner, like Edmund Antrobus, felt shamed into responding with remedial work. No – nothing like that. The site was overlooked for a long time. The Edwardians were slowly waking up to the need for public interference in conservation and there were many grander sites that required their attention. Arthur Bonner wrote in his Note-book I that Pound Hill was reasonably high, it was set in the middle of a bowl of land and therefore not widely seen from the surrounding countryside. Most strange, he wrote, for such a bold figure in the landscape to be placed so insignificantly.

  Thus the Gnome waited. The locals seemed to look after it up to a point, and up to a point it was left alone. Whether it did the job that many hoped for could not be proven or disproven. Many babies were born, many wishful mothers had visited the Gnome – and who was to say? But not until recent times had the beady eye of the heritage establishment been cast so determinedly upon the site. There would be no houses on the baby slopes of Pound Hill. No removal of the Gnome by stealth. Nor, it seemed, would it be economically viable to make it into a pukkah museum. To which Miles, not unreasonably, might say Just My Luck.

  When Molly Bonner came along with her proposal it was the next best thing. Her money would provide. Miles had no fears that the powers that be would refuse him – as he put it – the permission to control the number of visitors and take remuneration for the protection of this ancient monument once the Gnome was restored to his full (some might say too full) glory. Miles would be its protector, is how he put it to them, and they nodded in enthusiastic relief. Another box ticked. They happily acquiesced.

  Once it might have been true, indeed it certainly was true, that Arthur Bonner was not considered the right sort to be honoured in his profession, but that was the case no more. Archaeology was no longer seen as a personal and expensive quest by the elite, but a democratic way of showing everyone today how their ancestors lived yesterday. Rich or poor, beggar or toff – all were part of the story of the ages. And since his skills and talents were now acknowledged, Arthur Bonner’s work in other areas – before Pound Hill – was properly recognised. His conclusions that the Augustan legions had moved much further north than originally thought were honoured at last, as were his various identifications of long-serving temples and what went before them.

  He took his place in the Hall of Fame and his work, right up until his death on the Front, was now acknowledged. But no one in his profession gave a thought to his last site, Pound Hill. Too much was going on at the time for anyone to register it – Molly’s grandmother had his only records and now Molly had them. They would be given to the right people and put in the right place once Molly had done her job. Her grandmother advised this and Molly agreed. And while she did, of course, invoke the name of her (now) esteemed ancestor in order to set the scheme up, she did not go into any greater detail than was absolutely necessary.

  Some grants were available for the project but it would be largely self-funded by Molly. This smoothed the wheels no end. When she needed help or muscle, Molly would use locals, and if she needed more expert help than she herself could supply, why she would call on it. But she did not think that would be necessary. Miss Molly Bonner, as her first appearance in Lufferton Boney’s village street had shown, was a woman of confidence, experience and conviction – though her pink skirt and her boots had been tidied away for the duration and she wore rough-cast clothing that, if anything, thought Nigel as he gazed upwards using his father’s binoculars (which he held slightly away from his eyes and nose as the bruising was still, despite the passing of time, quite painful), made her all the more attractive. Like seeing a pretty, delicate, fragile little feminine thing wearing army combats. He shivered at the thought and focused more longingly upon the figure scurrying about up on the Hill. Molly did not notice him lingering in the street below; Molly had other things on her mind. But Julie Barnsley, wincing slightly at the degree of bruising she observed, did.

  The blinds were drawn in Beautiful Bygones. Dryden lay back on a horsehair and leather chesterfield (ex-Manchester St James’ Men’s Club, 1870, £700 in need of restuffing/covering) and held the packet of frozen peas even more firmly to the bridge of his nose. He, too, was still suffering. He chose to pull down the blinds and block the sight of the Gnome and all its activity and not to open his eyes even indoors for the time being. Nigel was hardly in a condition to go wooing anyone, especially Marion Fitzhartlett, even if he were up to the task. Though he seemed to be determined to do Molly Bonner’s bidding. Oh well, nothing wrong with that, might even put a bit of muscle on him.

  Miles, looking up, fingered the cheque, looked again at Molly’s signature, and sighed. He was happy.

  The Fitzhartlett family made nothing of it. There was no ribbon to cut or speech to be made at this point and so they carried on in their usual way. Sir Roger took his gun over to Biddlecombe, Marion took her second-best horse to be shod over Dunsditton way; and Dulcima made herself wait for her morning’s tipple until the clock had struck eleven. This, she smiled, was progress. To celebrate she chose champagne. Such delights were moving rapidly towards an end.

  Pinky and Susie put on their rucksacks, stuffed bread and cheese and cider into each one, and set off from Lufferton Boney. It seemed to Susie that while they were waiting for the Gnome to come back to them, cleaner and more potent than ever, they might rediscover the pleasures of the tramp. It used to be one of their special private jokes – Pinky would say ‘Fancy a tramp?’ And Susie would say ‘Why would I want a tramp when I’ve got you?’ They did it again, now, and it made them laugh and laugh, all the way to Binster Rings. Pinky’s tentative suggestion that Susie discard her flowing garments for something a little more sensible was greeted with consideration by his wife. This was progress. It was still a bit flowing and fringed on the top half, but the lower half was a very proper pair of jeans. Figure hugging. Nice.

  Winifred looked at Donald and wondered if she would ever feel happy to see him sitting across a table from her again. Donald did not seem to know her thoughts. ‘I do believe that Nigel and his father have been fighting,’ he said. ‘Black eyes, they’ve got, the both of them, in the same place – must have been a hell of a clip … Fighting – I ask you.’

  Winifred pushed back her chair and stood up with a very odd look on her face. ‘Well Donald,’ she said. ‘At least that is something.’ She went to the window, pulled back the curtain (Peter Jones, chintz, three colourways) and stared up the Hill. How free the girl looked. How engaged with the world. That, she thought, is my salvation. My hopes, my possibilities. And then she laughed. ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,’ she said to the flitting figures atop the Gnome, ‘from whence cometh my help …’ She laughed again. When she returned to the breakfast table Donald was looking at her most peculiarly and holding on to the teapot so hard that his knuckles showed white.

  Peter looked out of the front window, just before he opened up, and saw Julie Barnsley staring at Nigel Fellows who was staring, through a rather fine pair of binoculars, at the busy goings-on up on the Hill. He seemed, noted Peter, to have trouble focusing the very fine binoculars – Peter was a man who enjoyed gadgets and technology and boys’ toys and it pained him (almost as much as it pained him to see how hungrily Julie stared at Nigel) to see another man misusing something of such high technological calibre. He threw the bolt on the door, flung it open and dashed across the road. ‘Nigel, you prat,’ he called. ‘This is the way to hold them for maximum effect.’ And he thrust the binoculars in the sensible position right up into the other man’s eye sockets. So Nigel, bowed down with something, made a not very ni
ce noise, and hit him. Julie Barnsley ran over to the two of them and separated them with fierce elbows and even fiercer eyes. Above them, quite oblivious, Molly Bonner and her team worked on.

  And Dorcas? Where was Dorcas? Dorcas was in her tiny courtyard staring up at the pale blue morning sky and the Hill. She did not look up at it very often for, though she would never say it to anyone, it always felt as if the Gnome mocked her in some way – as if he declared to the world that she was a fool for love and that he had won. More than that Dorcas could not explain, but so it was whenever she looked up at him – until now. Now that Molly Bonner was up there doing whatever it was she was doing, it somehow felt that the Gnome had diminished a little, had become less certain in his mockery, that his pride in his member was not quite so clear and strong now that there were people scampering about all around it. ‘Good for you,’ Dorcas whispered, looking up at the crouching figure with its distinctive red hair in the far distance – the figure seemed to be measuring and hammering and stretching tapes with a determined movement and sound. It rang out, in fact, the hammering, and Dorcas was pleased. If anyone could take that Gnome in hand and control him (a thought that made her chuckle) then Molly Bonner could. The prospect gave her energy, renewed hope even – and Dorcas remembered what she had, in misery, forgotten; something that she once vowed to say every day until Robin came home or she went to find him. She spoke it again now. ‘I don’t know if anyone, a god, a fate, a will-o’-the-wisp, is up there and listening, but if you are, and if you can, please send him home safe to me. Or let them find his remains so that I can bury them – or something – anything. Let it happen. Please. Thank you.’ Feeling much better and just about resisting the urge to stick out her tongue at the lowering creature above her, Dorcas then returned to her tiny kitchen, filled with coffee the vacuum flask that had not been used for many a year – and set off to climb the Hill and deliver it to Molly Bonner.