The Lovers of Pound Hill

by Mavis Cheek

  *

  ‘So you think the Romans feared that the spirit of the lovers’ grave up here would strengthen the locals’ rebellion?’ said Dryden. ‘It’s a compelling theory.’ It took a lot to permanently penetrate Molly Bonner’s eternal joy and optimism with the world. But just at that moment, Miles made a very good attempt. Ignoring Dryden’s statement (for he was, in truth, only a tradesman when all was said and done) Miles moved to the very edge of the grave and looked into it. ‘It could be that the Gnome came first. We don’t know.’ His lip curled. When he thought of the powerful draw the Gnome intacto would be – when it was put back together again – it was no contest. ‘I’ll have to ask you to restore the Gnome to his full masculinity,’ he said. ‘We can’t move this project forward with only half of his a – um …’ Peter was very helpful with his anatomical suggestion yet again.

  ‘Ah no,’ said Molly. ‘The archaeology proves it was the other way around.’

  ‘If the lovers were there first,’ said Dryden, ‘then we should not restore it. The Gnome, I mean. He’s a crude usurper.’

  ‘Now just a bloody minute,’ said Miles. ‘I’ve got to have the Gnome put back the way he was – or no one will bother to come here. We’ll just move the grave a little way. Who’s to know? A bone is a bone, after all.’

  Molly was enraged. ‘You will not move the grave, Miles Whittington, those lovers will stay exactly as they are. They have held each other for two thousand years – and I will not allow you to change them. But you are right, the Gnome must be restored, too, if we are not to get into trouble with the authorities. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.’ And the Lufferton Boneyites thought to themselves collectively that they had absolutely no doubt that she would.

  ‘And now,’ said Molly, ‘I think we should give the lovers their blessings.’

  *

  The vicar, who had recovered a little from the jibes regarding his appearance, and who wished to impress his patron and his patron’s lady wife with his articulacy under any circumstances, stepped to the edge of the trailer and prepared to begin. But Susie intervened. ‘Druids before Christians, I think,’ she said. ‘We got here first.’ And standing at the edge of the grave she gave it her best ever blessing of all. Pinky thought she was magnificent, she could even transcend beige.

  May the light of love

  Shine brightly in your hearts

  May the light of understanding

  Shine in your minds.

  May the light of harmony

  Glow in your home

  May the light of service

  Shine forth from your hands

  May the light of peace

  Emanate from your being

  May your presence

  Light the lamps of peace and love wherever you go

  The hush that descended after this was broken only by the sound of the church clock chiming again. Molly looked at her watch and then down the Hill towards the village below. And smiled. She had faith.

  It was now the vicar’s moment. In a flurry of garments and nerves, he stepped up on to the trailer. Looked down on them all and beamed. Now that was more like it. ‘We will,’ he said, his face shining with determination, ‘bring these poor heathen souls back into the light from the outer darkness in which they lived. They will be born again.’ The vicar, untouched by rural considerations and with no notion of evangelism but liking the grandeur of the statement, was quite unaware that this phrase was anathema to many traditional churchgoers since it required kissing your pew-neighbour, and vicars playing guitars. Sir Roger very nearly shouted Not On My Turf, but managed to restrain himself. Even he was rather taken with the way the archaeologist girl conducted herself. He would not interfere with the proceedings. Molly opened her mouth to say something but Winifred laid a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Short men, dear,’ she said, ‘Some, though not all, can be a bit Napoleonic.’ And so, unchallenged, the vicar began. And though the speaker might be suspect, the words were very fine, all agreed. Even Susie, who had a very different view of born again, too.

  Father of all mercies

  And God of all consolation

  You pursue with untiring love

  And dispel the shadow of death

  With the Bright Dawn of Life …

  Bless these our countrymen in their love

  And hold them in peace in Your arms.

  Everyone was absolutely silent as they stood and stared into the grave and a little ripple of movement went through the gathering, a drawing together. There was the sound of clapping from behind the group. And a voice, confident, masculine and quite unfamiliar to all but one of the assembly, called out, ‘Bravo, my Molly. Bravo. Beautifully done.’ The clapping intensified.

  ‘Freddy!’ called out Molly, and immediately dropping all sense of formality she flew from the graveside, her long black boots jumped the wooden barrier, her pink skirt fluffed out all around her, her red hair flew out from her head like a fire – all in the most winning of ways – and she flung herself into his arms. ‘I thought you would never get here.’

  At which, entirely overcome by emotion, what with rebellious Brits and nasty Eyties apparently making mincemeat of them all over the place, Sir Roger Fitzhartlett, fifth Baronet and extremely lousy shot, released the trigger on his new Churchill and fell backwards to the ground, apparently shot through the heart and stone dead. Everyone rushed to help, but Dulcima was on her knees beside him before anyone else. She pushed them away with her hands. ‘Let him breathe, idiots,’ she said. ‘It’s probably kickback. Some fool didn’t adjust the mechanism correctly.’ But there was blood, all the same, and she did not sound wholly convinced.

  ‘Is he dead?’ asked Nigel from quite far away and fearfully. And then he fainted. Not so much at the sight of the blood as at the sight of his father’s – not to put too fine a point on it – enraged face. He fainted right in the path of Donald Porlock who, not in the least knowing what had happened – for who did? – was on his way to offer help when Nigel passed out. It is a doughty doctor who can step over an unconscious man. He knelt to see what was what.

  All around the body of Sir Roger the group came closer again, peering and whispering. ‘Give him air!’ yelled Dulcima. At last they moved away. But one figure remained crouching by the now moaning Sir Roger. And a voice in Dulcima’s ear, another unfamiliar voice, yet – oddly – also a familiar voice, said, ‘I’m a doctor. Can I help?’ And it was not the voice of Donald Porlock.

  Six

  THE PERSON WHO said he was a doctor dealt smoothly and efficiently with the injured Sir Roger. He loosened his tie, he loosened his clothes, more importantly he loosened his grip on the trigger of the smoking Churchill. He said nothing, this doctor. He kept his back to the crowd behind him and did what he had to do.

  Dulcima, crouching next to him as the others looked on from a distance, had but a moment to take in the wiry brownness of the new doctor’s bare arms, the dexterity of his sunburnt fingers, the weathered lines on his cheeks. They did not look like the fingers of Dr Porlock, she found herself thinking, nor did they look like the cheeks of Dr Porlock, nor the arms – but he seemed to know what he was doing. At any rate he seemed to have staunched the flow of blood; if there had been a flow, that is. Dulcima noticed that there was nothing to indicate a wound anywhere on her husband’s chest or shoulders – just a bit of a nasty cut on his ear. It appeared to be bleeding very cheerfully into the grass as he lay so still and peaceful with his arms by his side. Surely he was not dead?

  Dulcima was paler than she had been since Marion’s little accident. Fear gripped her. Love gripped her. And then her husband suddenly made a very loud noise in his nether regions, a noise that Dulcima long ago had decided was the last and very giddy limit of what a wife in bed had to put up with. He broke wind. But now she loved the noise as she loved life itself.

  ‘He’s alive, he’s alive!’ she cried in delight.

  ‘Of course I’m alive, old thing,’ said Sir Roger who tried to si
t up and in doing so made a similar noise to that made previously. He looked nervously at his wife, who was looking down at him with such an expression of tender concern that he wondered for a moment if farting were the way forward … but decided, despite women being the most perverse of beings, that it probably was not. Then he looked up at the face staring down at him.

  A brown, ruddy face, with bright blue eyes and curly reddish hair (what was left of it) and a very familiar look. Sir Roger decided to close his eyes for a moment. He was obviously having delusions. It would pass. ‘Oh Roger, I thought I had lost you,’ said Dulcima. ‘Would you have cared?’ he asked, rather surprising himself with the perspicacity of the remark and opening a tentative eye. She put her arms around his head and tenderly kissed his bald bit. ‘Madly,’ she said. ‘Madly.’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said the new arrival, standing up. ‘Porlock can do the rest, it will only need a bit of disinfectant and a plaster.’ And he moved away. ‘Hip pocket,’ whispered Sir Roger faintly to Dulcima. ‘Hip pocket.’ He tried to move but seemed to be pinned to the ground. Dulcima felt around his shooting trousers until she found the correct pocket and drew out his Great-Uncle George’s silver flask. She opened it carefully – while her husband lay there with his mouth open and ready – then she tipped back her head and took a decent gulp of the brandy and made that little noise that he loved so much which was something between a gasp and a cough. ‘Now me?’ he said.

  ‘But only a little. Only ever a little, Roger dear.’

  He nodded. He was happy. ‘Damn fine gun, that, Fellows,’ he called. ‘Damn fine son, too.’

  Marion heard the shot. Saw her father fall. Then saw the villagers all crowded about him. She steeled herself. She must ascend, Gnome or not. This time she would not fail – this time she would make the journey. She was a grown woman and she was needed … Up she went as if the wind was with her – Sparkle happy at last to be on Pound Hill which he and Coco had discussed many a time over a manger of hay as being just the best place to have a real run at it but they never got the chance.

  On, on, Marion rode until she came to rest and slid off the horse into Nigel’s waiting arms. Oh, it was just like something out of King Arthur, he thought. She did not have time to think for she threw herself at her father – and mid-throw was surprised to see him sitting up with a hip flask and smiling at her and Nigel in a way that said he was not dying at all. Though there was some blood on his shirt. ‘Just a little cut to the ear,’ said her father when she asked. ‘Bleed like pigs, ears do. Don’t they, doctor?’

  The stranger nodded and stood up, peering over the heads of the crowd. He looked familiar to them all and yet …

  Nigel clasped Marion’s hand, Marion clasped Nigel’s hand, their smiles split their faces and Dryden, who had heard Sir Roger say he had a damn fine son and was in ecstasy again, was jolted out of his ecstatic state by the sudden appearance – standing a little apart from the crowd of Lufferton Boneyites as she had always done in life – of Lottie. The wraith that was his dead wife was still pale, but a pair of roses of a delicate pink bloomed on her cheeks now. And she was smiling. Dryden smiled back, tears coming hot and fast. And such a smile was Lottie’s. If Julie Barnsley had smiled the smile of warmth and friendship upon Molly and surprised her, how much more surprised was Nigel to see his father’s smile bestowed (so it seemed) upon him. Dryden did not take his eyes from Lottie’s little faded, quivering face. Her smiling continued. So did his. Then, tentatively, Lottie put her thin fingers to her pale lips, and blew him one loving kiss – a kiss of affirmation, a kiss of forgiveness, he thought. Dryden’s eyes again filled with sadness: so this was what might once have been his and was now beyond his grasp? So this was loss. Dryden put his earthly fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss in return, a loving kiss, so tender that she smiled to see it. And then, with one last wave, a true goodbye this time, she was gone.

  Dryden refocused on the world of reality only to find his son staring at him in wonder with his fingers on his lips and, it should be said with some embarrassment, blowing his father a kiss in return. While slowly at Nigel’s side, his beloved Marion, suddenly realising what she had done and where she was – so near to the Gnome – fainted.

  While the little matter of his patient and his patient’s wife enjoying a social drink together was being re-established, the stranger bent over to brush grass and bits of chalk and whatnot off his knees. He was therefore quite unprepared for what happened next. Which was that the Hill, which had earlier been privy to the flying femininity of Molly Bonner, which femininity was now entwined in Freddy’s arms while the pair looked on at a proper distance from where Sir Roger was being ministered to, was suddenly privy to something similar all over again. More flying femininity. The flash and blur of a blue and white frock was catapulted from the back of the crowd to the front and, on arriving at its goal, jumped with arms and legs akimbo into the earlier noted very brown arms of the stranger. With a cry of ‘Robin!’ Dorcas Fairbrother buried her head in her captive’s neck, and howled – a noise that was almost drowned by the response of the Lufferton Boneyites who could not believe it, just could not believe it.

  ‘Steady, steady,’ said the captive who did not seem to mind too much about the wetness of tears and possibly dribble that was attacking his shoulder. ‘Any more tears and I might start to shrink.’

  Then he looked up, smiled at everyone and said, ‘Home at last.’

  Miles Whittington, who had been staring at the vision in front of him, and who finally managed to croak out, ‘Robin?’ suddenly made a dash for Sir Roger and grabbed his gun. Happily Nigel was not yet the best of gunsmiths – no, not at all – and everything was wonderfully jammed, try as Miles might to get the trigger back and put a bullet into his brother’s heart. Miles then fell to the ground weeping with laughter. And fainted. Joining Marion Fitzhartlett, who was still out cold despite Nigel’s attempts to rouse her, and Sir Roger who was lying in a state of bliss next to his kneeling wife.

  ‘Good grief,’ whispered Peter Hanker to Julie Barnsley. ‘If anyone else goes down it will begin to look like the ancient burial place it apparently never was. Which had the result of making them both roll back on to the ground, yet again, with laughter – such is the joie de vivre of youth. Robin might have returned from Hades and his brother might have tried to kill him, but a joke, after all, is a joke to someone under thirty.

  If you have ever seen a picture of happiness you have never seen one like the picture Dorcas and Robin made as they clung to each other by the side of the Gnome, who did not look quite so grand or powerful with his part removed.

  ‘But how?’ said Dorcas.

  To which Robin replied that it was all to do with Freddy. And a certain young woman called Molly Bonner. And that he would tell her everything when he had been back down to his home, had a decent bath and a stiff whisky (he was British, after all). He set Dorcas back down on the ground (for he was not entirely himself in the strength department yet) and beckoned the vicar over. The vicar made a reasonable job of jumping down and felt rather sad to be so short again.

  ‘St Ethel’s still fit for a wedding, vicar?’ he asked. The vicar, wincing at the abbreviation but wisely ignoring it, thought it would be the best possible ceremony for the sanctifying of his new pulpit. ‘Oh yes,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘If you can wait a few weeks they have promised me that all will be well and that I shall be able to see properly. I’m not quite able to do so at the moment you know.’

  Robin did not like to comment on the vicar’s remarkable mobility, given his lack of sight. Instead he took Dorcas’s hand in his and looked down at her fingers. ‘But where is your ring?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d always wear it for me.’ Dorcas was about to say that she would have done if she could but she didn’t know where it was – when from behind them came a terrible, gut-wrenching, tooth-grinding groan. And Miles said, with a smile on his face that was foul enough to shame the gargoyles of St Etheldreda’s with its ghastlin
ess, ‘Just keeping it safe for her. Knew you’d be back. Just knew it.’

  Miles, trembling and ashen faced, stood there with the slightly perplexed vicar who was beginning to feel just a little foolish in his embroidery and robes, though he could not say why. And as they both stood there and looked about them they saw a very strange thing. They saw that every one of the Lufferton Boneyites was holding his or her partner in exactly the same way as the lovers in the grave held each other. Except for Dryden, of course, and Dryden was smiling very contentedly at the sight of Nigel and Marion locked in an embrace that had little to do with horses and much to do with humanity. And, just to add to the moment, behind them, having followed Marion up the Hill, the pony sidled up to Sparkle and rubbed her female muzzle against his. Size wasn’t everything, as had been pointed out with the Gnome. It is to be hoped this was duly noted by the vicar and made up for the fact that the thoughtful newcomer, with embarrassing gallantry, had taken his arm and led him down the Hill making loud comments about any obstacles in his way.

  At the Old Manor, Orridge and Mrs Webb sat with the assembled young men and held forth on the trials of life – while helping themselves and their young companions to the Veuve Clicquot (well, it would do for them) and quite forgetting about the cold collation waiting and drying out in the warm air of the kitchen. Some hours later, when the Fitzhartlett family returned from the Old Holly Bush and the celebrations there (with hot mini roast and Yorkshires as Sir Roger had dreamed) they found a group of snoring young men in tweed in their sitting room, several empty bottles – and no sign of Orridge or Mrs W. The mystery was solved some time later when it was observed that the upper window of Mrs Webb’s cottage remained curtained despite the evening sun, and that all the gnomes in her garden had been set to face the one Great Gnome of Pound Hill. And they appeared to be laughing at him, or dancing, or cocking their gay little legs.