by Mavis Cheek
Winifred, arriving just at that moment, said, ‘Well, why not put him on a pony instead. His feet would nearly touch the ground then.’
Marion’s eyes lit up with a smile and she leaned down from the saddle and kissed Winifred on the cheek – which made Winifred beam with pleasure. Lufferton Boneyites seldom kissed each other in public; or in private, for that matter. ‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ Marion said. ‘And I’ve got just the pony at home. She’d be perfect. Perfect.’ She gave an uncharacteristic whoop, turned Sparkle back towards the village and rode away as fast as Sparkle could go.
Winifred touched her cheek. ‘Everywhere seems to be breaking out in a kind of happy harmony,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Donald is going to attempt macaroni cheese today and he spoke for five whole minutes on the telephone to Charlotte last night, without getting angry once. Apparently when Charlotte asked him where I was and how I was, he told her that I was working up here and too busy for domestic duties. And she said About Time, Dad. Anyway, he said this morning that he quite liked cooking. And I said that if he quite liked cooking, perhaps he could also get to quite like the clearing up as well.’
‘Hallelujah?’ said Dorcas enquiringly.
‘Hallelujah indeed,’ said Winifred. ‘He was consulting a medical book when I left, making notes on the manifestations of guilt in the disturbed mind.’
‘For you?’ said Dorcas.
‘Not this time, no. For Dryden Fellows, I think. Though don’t ask me why. Donald has been very dismissive of him in the past.’
At which point a breathless Julie Barnsley ran up to them and asked if Nigel was around as his father said he was already up and out.
‘He’s not here,’ said Molly.
Julie cast a suspicious eye over her as if she might be hiding him about her person. Dorcas said, ‘I think he may be taking a ride around Spindle Tor with Marion.’ At which Julie hooted with a cross between derision and good humour, said ‘Nigel? On a horse?’ and marched off.
There was another short delay while Susie, purple skirts a-flying ran back to Chrysalis Cottage to collect some yellow flowers which she then tucked into the front bibs of the three women’s dungarees. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Chase-Devil. You may need it.’ Pinky rolled his eyes as if in mock despair but she was only half serious. Molly, however, did seem interested. ‘Why Chase-Devil?’
‘Oh,’ said Susie, ‘it’s the pagan protection against dark forces. Its other name is St John’s Wort. Hypericum. Just in case. You never know – you may be disturbing something more powerful than time.’ Molly felt a funny little shiver running up and down her spine, but then righted herself, smiled and said, ‘Well then, let’s go up there and see if we are …’ But she tucked the flowers into her pocket more securely, all the same.
As Susie and Pinky turned back together, Pinky took such a deep breath that for a moment he thought he might expire – then he gathered his courage, remembered Winifred’s words from the night before, and said to his wife, ‘Now – don’t go off on one, love – but about the colour purple …’
To the sound of the church clock striking the half-hour, up they went, slowly, slowly, higher and higher, away from the clamour of the folk below, nearing the Gnome who was peaceful now, the tarpaulins moving only slightly in the breeze, as if beckoning them. Even at this time of the morning the air was warm. Molly stopped for a moment and looked up at the sky and around at the landscape. ‘We’ll risk taking the covers off for good today,’ she said. ‘The weather is set fair.’
She turned to Dorcas and pointing, said, ‘According to that old map – which I think is early – you could have chucked down a spade and begun to dig anywhere over there – all around us really – and you’d have found something. It was even more crowded than it looks now. From the Mesolithic right up to the late Iron Age, probably.’
‘When we filmed there,’ said Winifred, ‘it was jam-packed.’
Molly nodded. ‘Hugely significant.’ She turned back to climb up towards the Gnome. When they reached the trailer, which was full to the brim with rubber buckets of sifted rubble, Molly paused and said thoughtfully, ‘All around, even into the Roman period, busy, busy, busy. But not up here. Up here – nothing. All the map showed was the Gnome. Nothing else. Pound Hill is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. And – given what we appear to have found – I’m beginning to have a rough idea why. There’s a constant emphasis in notebook II about love. I noticed it last night. And I don’t think my grandfather was a sentimental man.’
‘Love isn’t sentimental,’ said Dorcas.
‘Oh,’ said Winifred, marching on. ‘Love? That old thing.’
Dorcas who had been attempting to stay cool and patient and respectful could no longer do so. ‘Please!’ she yelled, stomping off after Winifred, the sound of her voice echoing all around them. ‘Please can you stop blathering about maps and stuff and let me see what you’ve found – now.’ Just at that moment Winifred burst out laughing. She was pointing away from the village and the Hill to the lower slopes of Spindle Tor where they could just about make out the distant figure of Marion Fitzhartlett on Sparkle – and a diminutive figure, which they could also just about make out, which was Nigel – trotting alongside her on a very small pony. A very, very small pony. It seemed certain that if he took his feet out of the stirrups they would drag along the ground. But what was very clear, and ringing even, was the echoing merry laughter that both riders gave vent to, and which bounced around the bordering curves of the landscape and came back to the three watchers on the Hill.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Winifred. ‘What have I done? Nigel has never been back on a horse in his life. He’s scared of them. His father once came to Donald and asked if he would do some hypnosis to see if he could cure it, but Donald doesn’t hold with what he calls superstitious nonsense. I thought it might have worked …’
‘Well Nigel looks happy enough about it now,’ said Dorcas. ‘In all the years I’ve never heard either of them laughing like that.’
But Molly was looking thoughtful again. Then she nodded. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Exactly so. You can hear it plain as anything. And look – as the day moves on some of the Tor and surrounding land is in shadow and sunlight – do you see how it brings out the curves and bumps?’
They did. It almost looked as if it were moulded. ‘That’s very ancient workings,’ said Molly. ‘I’ve never seen it look so clearly defined.’
‘Nor me,’ said Winifred.
‘Nor me,’ said Dorcas.
‘Yet where we are remains untouched. Hmmm.’
Behind them the Gnome seemed to raise the wind and the covers began to move more loudly as if they were being shaken. ‘I think he may be getting impatient,’ said Winifred.
‘That makes two of us,’ said Dorcas.
‘Three,’ said Molly.
‘Breeze is stiffening a little,’ said Winifred, surprised. ‘Let’s get those tarpaulins moved. I’ll crawl under. Did you bring your torch, Dorcas?’
Dorcas pulled a very large item from the depths of her waterproof, and brandished it. ‘I can lighten your darkness, and – if necessary – hit the Gnome over the head if he gets too bumptious.’
Molly laughed. ‘It won’t be his head you’ll be worried about.’
The covers flapped once more. The three women set to work.
*
Dryden stood at the window of Beautiful Bygones and looked up at Spindle Tor. It held all his dreams. He saw his son, looking silly it was true for he appeared to be riding a long-nosed dog – but he was riding alongside the daughter of the Fitzhartletts and Dryden could have wept for joy. His grandchildren would have the blood of kings in their veins. They had been up there for hours and were taking a circuitous route – in and out of thickets and the small plantations of trees that were dotted around the Tor and they appeared to be happy and engrossed in each other. Dryden’s heart leapt in his breast. He tried to rise above the way his son looked as he trailed his feet on the ground. He was hap
py. Nigel was happy for Christ’s sake, wasn’t he? Dryden looked all around him most fearfully but there was no pale wraith knocking at his window or standing at the top of the shop stairs – none at all. You’d have thought she might have turned up to see that he had done something right for a change. And while he could not entirely believe in Porlock’s prognosis – that it was likely to do with guilt in some way – he nevertheless felt a weight had been lifted from his shoulders since spilling the beans in the surgery. Porlock appeared to have changed his mind about dismissing it and had, on the contrary, patted his arm and told him to look in any time if the spectre ever reappeared. ‘The best thing you can do,’ he said, ‘is to make Nigel very happy. Then you will be released.’
‘Is that it?’ Dryden had asked. It seemed so simple.
‘That’s it,’ said Donald Porlock. ‘Do you have a Mrs Beeton in your shop by any chance?’
Perhaps the good doctor was going off his trolley slightly? Dryden considered that the village had changed beyond all recognition lately. And he did not, altogether, disapprove.
Dryden looked up again at the tiny, jogging figure of Nigel – he looked happy enough. And so did Marion Fitzhartlett. She did not seem to mind at all that Nigel looked even more absurd than Sancho Panza. Hardly a swain. In the privacy of his own head Dryden did wonder, he wondered very much, if the two of them would ever – well – manage it. Create any new little veins for the blood of those kings to flow in. Then he looked away and found his gaze resting on the figure of the Gnome, whose disgraceful end-point was currently hidden from view. And on which three women in dungarees knelt. Perhaps if the two of them went up there …? He shook his head. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Yet all the same … Who knew if there was anything in the witchery of it? Who knew? He’d try anything. Anything. Oh glory, he thought, oh glory – but just then there was a shadow at the side window and Dryden turned. There it was again, that pale ghost of a woman who seemed so like Lottie and who shook her head, smiling sadly at him as she had done in life. There again was the pain in his heart. He looked away, back up at the Tor, but he could no longer see the laughing pair.
You would not, surmised Nigel, think that Julie Barnsley had so much strength in those little arms of hers. But there he sat, on the hard ground, leaning in dazed fashion against what he thought of as a hummock but which that old map called a cyst – leaning up against it and endeavouring to get his breath back. Even such a short fall had winded him. Julie had borrowed Peter’s quad bike and followed the riding couple about halfway up Spindle Tor – curious rather than suspicious – before the quad bike refused to climb safely any more and began to roll back. Steering backwards was not part of the deal, so far as Julie was concerned, nor was the gathering speed of the vehicle. Looking behind her as she began her undesired descent, and just as she thought she might be about to die and was trying to remember how the Magnificat went – not entirely appropriate but the best she could do – she saw, in a moment of supreme hope, Nigel, on his pony, trotting out from a thicket of trees – and coming her way. Or rather, she was going his way. Fast. Perhaps he would dive on to the bike and stop her.
Fortunately, Marion’s horse was some way behind Nigel and she only stood at the edge of the trees and watched the bike and its occupant whizzing downwards. It was, as she would say later, all over in a trice. Julie grabbed at Nigel as she flew past him and – a quad bike being no higher than a pony – she managed to pull him down, hold on with both arms and get free of the contraption – which continued downwards. The pony, thinking it was a great game, got up speed to keep up with the – now empty – bike – and Julie – happily not too close to the animal’s hooves – let loose from Nigel – probably from shock – and rolled after it. Nigel was thrown, or rather slid, and then slumped, dazed, eyes closed against a mound. Only then did he realise that it was not a bird that he heard, nor a creature of any wild variety, but the sound of Marion Fitzhartlett screaming and screaming before jumping down from her horse and running across the grass to where he lay silent. Odd, he thought, as he opened one eye – for though Marion was no longer screaming but merely stroking his hair (as she would a startled horse’s mane) the screaming, though farther away, continued. This time it was Julie. Rolling onward and onward, Spindle Tor being a very steep place, and only eventually coming to rest against one of the lower mounds. Where she kept up her howling for some minutes, as one might expect.
Interestingly, though she could no longer be seen from the village, Julie could certainly be heard. As indeed could the rumbustious noise of a quad bike breaking into what sounded like a thousand pieces on the stones below. Peter, merely guessing, and who had been standing at the door of the pub enjoying the view (this was a lie, made to himself, for he was scanning the Tor for a sight of his barmaid) suddenly leapt into action and – some said afterwards – flew to Julie Barnsley’s aid, terrified that she might be dead. Which quite took away any residual pain he might have felt on the death of his much-loved quad bike. The last thing Julie remembered, as she would tell her grandchildren one day, was the sight of Peter running towards her, his face streaming with tears.
The vicar sat perched in one of Sir Roger Fitzhartlett’s wing armchairs. Large chair, small man, which may have been deliberate. Orridge brought in a tray of coffee and put it down on the table that was set between Lady Dulcima Fitzhartlett and her husband, and their guest.
Orridge had not yet forgiven Sir Roger for requiring to be carried home from the Old Holly Bush and the clatter as the tray was put down made everyone wince. Not least Orridge, who had been compensating himself with a bottle or two of Royal Oporto Tawny pre-phylloxera (1870, £750 a bottle and why the hellhound not?) in a less than sensible way. Despite his ill-wishes, Orridge knew what was what and the tray was placed, you could say, like a barrier between the gentry and their vicar and defined their status.
The vicar was well pleased. Very delicately he picked up the cup and saucer and gave Orridge a nod as he exited the room. The vicar sipped the dark and perfect coffee the very taste of which showed good breeding. Nectar. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It’s Monsooned Malabar.’
‘Has it really?’ said Sir Roger, whose mind was on other things such as his guns and his birds. ‘Never been there myself.’
Lady Dulcima showed the merest flicker of amusement before giving the vicar a stern eye. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Does she want you to conduct such a thing?’
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said the vicar uncomfortably. He had raced away from Molly full of excitement and pleasure at the thought of something so unusual, where he would be the focus, something so rare in that wretched pulpit, but now he came to it, he could not, for the life of him, think why he had felt so joyful. It was that archaeologist girl. She had a way with her, a definite way with her. ‘I think it’s because such a ceremony will be a meaningful marking of the moment for the girl, and she will reveal to us all that she has found up there at the same time. And I will be the spiritual guidance. She says I can stand on her trailer. So I will be seen …’ He gave his patroness a look. She responded with a look of her own and a plate.
‘Biscuit?’ she said. ‘Build yourself up? Shortcake …’
The vicar took one, looked at his patroness again – but could discern nothing untoward. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Why is she asking our permission? It’s Miles’s hill, after all.’
‘I think she wants you there as leaders of the community.’ Even having said this the vicar knew he had been wrong to quote Molly.
‘Good God,’ said Sir Roger, jumping up. ‘Makes us sound like a pair of ruddy commissars. What community? Is she a socialist?’ Mind you, he was thinking, it would be a good place to have a go with one of his stickier guns – up high like that. All the guns seemed sticky at the moment. He longed to try something new. Life was empty of meaning nowadays if you couldn’t take a shot at something.
‘I think the vicar means the village community.’ Dulcima bit thoughtfully on a biscuit.
‘Perhaps,’ said her husband with hope in his heart, ‘we could give a volley or two? A gun salute?’ He could take a pop at something. ‘My wife must decide.’
Both men turned to the wife in question. Who continued to think for a moment. The vicar thought how elegantly she chewed her biscuit and Sir Roger thought she had never looked lovelier. Dulcima nodded and turning her eyes upon the man of the cloth asked if there was a precedent for an out-of-doors service?
The vicar swung his legs as he considered this. Dulcima looked at him with irritation. He wouldn’t have to lift those legs if Mrs Webb was vacuuming around him. Why they had to appoint someone of such short stature, such a pity – it really was very, very annoying. Short men were not the most sensitive to others.
Seeing the look on his patroness’s face, the vicar hurriedly said that he thought there was. ‘It must be within the parish, I think, but certainly it is within the remit of the parish church and its incumbent. I think …’ He was not looking entirely comfortable with that answer but the recipient of the news looked splendidly pleased.
‘Excellent,’ said Dulcima. ‘And it is a Sunday on which we are to celebrate whatever it is we are to celebrate. So that will be the Sunday service over and done with. Yes?’
The vicar could tell this was important and nodded enthusiastically. ‘The date falls on a Sunday, Your Ladyship.’
‘In the morning?’