by Anne Moore
CHAPTER 27
Mr Nesbitt ensured that the formalities for the sale of Tanway Manor were completed rapidly. For one thing, he was nervous that Mr Scrooge might change his mind, and for another he needed his commission.
Less than two days after the signing of the necessary documents, Scrooge had found himself a retired builder in Pewsey. This gentleman, for a consideration, took up temporary residence in the village to supervise Scrooge's program of work for the Manor.
Three more days, and Sasha had been installed in her own room in the Manor, with a new bed, to become the new housekeeper. A maid was also taken on, though a cook was not yet needed.
Scrooge, meanwhile, remained a guest of the widow.
And now began a great scrubbing and washing and papering and plastering and ordering up of curtains, carpets, tables, chairs, pots, pans, and every other sort of item which was needed to repair, redecorate and refurnish a house of substantial size.
Workmen from many miles around were persuaded (a handful of cash paid in advance usually did the trick) to postpone the task which they had in hand and to work instead for Mr Scrooge.
This process did not make Scrooge the most popular man in the county (other than with the tradesmen and craftsmen, of course). However, as he pointed out to anyone who complained, if the work was all done in one go, and quickly, then everyone could return to their old ways; the jobs which had been postponed and held up would, he was sure, be completed in record time thereafter. Continued grumbling was assuaged by the gift of a few bottles of champagne and a personal letter, which usually charmed even the surliest temperament.
Sasha was happier than Scrooge had ever seen her, at least after he had put her mind at rest on one point. She had, in the first instance, been concerned about the domestic arrangements in the Manor.
'If I am sleeping here, Mr Scrooge,’ she said, ‘and you are sleeping at the widow's, how am I to be true to my promise to Mrs Bannister?'
'I think,’ said Scrooge carefully, ‘you should regard your commitment to Mrs Bannister as having been discharged, Sasha. And if you have any doubt about the matter, please feel free to consult her. My understanding is that Mrs Bannister gave you her instructions so that we should both, you and I, have an experience which would stand us in good stead for the future. It was never intended that the arrangement should be permanent—only that it should prepare us to go on and form relationships with others.'
Scrooge paused and saw that Sasha was still frowning.
'Now I am flattered,’ he continued, ‘that you should not seize hold of the first excuse you can find to vacate my bed for ever.'
Sasha smiled at him shyly, a little embarrassed.
'And I for my part have come to love you, and will always love you, in an avuncular sort of way. But you are a young and beautiful girl, Sasha, and it would be selfish and wrong if I were not to release you at this point. And besides,’ he added, ‘I do have hopes of finding a substitute.'
At which Sasha laughed out loud. ‘So I was right then, was I? You do fancy that widow lady.'
'Ask no questions,’ said Scrooge amiably, ‘and you'll be told no lies.'
Scrooge's conversation with Sasha reminded him of something that he had been trying hard to forget; something which he knew he ought to do, but had been putting off.
He had decided some time earlier that he really ought to make sure that the widow understood the nature of his relationship with Sasha. In view of the fact that Sasha and the widow were as thick as thieves, he suspected that the widow already knew all she needed to know. On the other hand, you could never be quite sure unless you asked, and for his own devious purposes Scrooge wished the matter to be understood now, rather than have it emerge at a later date.
Choosing his moment carefully, when the widow was engrossed in an evidently tricky bit of embroidery, he coughed to announce that he had something to say.
'Er, there is just one point which I would like to clarify with you,’ he began.
'Yes, Mr Scrooge?'
'It is something which I should, in fact, have made clear to you even before I took the liberty of proposing marriage. And for that I apologize. But I, er, I thought that, even if it is a little late in the day, I ought to clarify for you the nature of my feelings for young Sasha.'
'Sasha?’ said the widow, looking up absent-mindedly from her embroidery. ‘Oh yes, I can see that you are very fond of her.'
Scrooge coughed again. ‘Yes, well, fond certainly. But since you have also been kind enough to help her in various ways, perhaps I should confess that my fondness, and interest, have been expressed in ways which you may not approve of. In short, I have—’ At this point Scrooge coughed again, several times. ‘I have, er, in the past—not now, of course—but in the past, I have been in the habit of inviting her to share my bed.'
'Really, Mr Scrooge?’ The widow affected, for the moment, to be surprised.
'Yes. Now I realize,’ he continued hastily, ‘that this is in some ways reprehensible. Not quite the way in which a responsible and upright fellow would carry on. But I must ask you to believe that there were unusual circumstances.'
'Oh yes.'
Scrooge paused. ‘What do you mean, oh yes?'
'Well, what I mean, Mr Scrooge, is that I understand the circumstances very well. In fact, if it will put your mind at rest, and I see that you are somewhat exercised about it, let me say that the suggestion that Sasha should be put to work to warm your chilly soul was originally made by me.'
'By you?'
'Yes. On Christmas Day. At your nephew's house. What that man needs, I said to my sister, is a good woman to warm his bed. Ah, said my sister, I believe a have a candidate. And that, Mr Scrooge, was that.'
'Oh,’ said Scrooge in a small voice. ‘I see.'
While the work on the Manor was continuing, Scrooge fell into a routine.
In the mornings he would work on business relating to his charitable trust. Once a week Cratchit would come down from London, bringing with him the correspondence and other paperwork—of which there was a great deal—and every morning Scrooge would sit at the dining-room table and plow through it.
Once the trust had been formally established, Scrooge had instructed Cratchit to write hundreds of letters to organizations and individuals who might be interested in the prospect of financial assistance. Two extra clerks had had to be employed (on a temporary basis, Scrooge hoped) to keep up the pace which he demanded.
Letters had gone, for instance, to the headmasters of many schools, pointing out that young men of promise and ability who could not afford to go university might seek a grant from Scrooge's trust. Hospitals had been asked whether they were in need of funds for new buildings or staff. Refuges for the homeless had been invited to state how they would use a donation. The vicars of all the churches in the London, and in Wiltshire, had been approached and informed that a source of help was available in their work with the poor. And so on.
As a result of these letters, application forms for assistance were already beginning to arrive. Scrooge found them fascinating reading. In each case he made a recommendation—yes, no, and if yes, how much—and passed the forms on to his fellow trustees for further review and decision. To his great satisfaction, both Mr and Mrs Bannister had agreed to help him in this work.
On the whole, Scrooge preferred to help those who were obviously prepared to help themselves. He favored applicants who said that they had collected so much, but needed a little more to meet the full cost of a project. He liked young men who told him that they had borrowed part of the cost from Uncle George, but were still a few pounds short. And ladies who told him that they had arranged for the elderly and infirm in their parish to be fed once a day, but perhaps it was not too much to hope that another meal might occasionally be provided.
So passed the mornings.
In the afternoons Scrooge went to view the work in progress on Tanway Manor. He also began to make a tour of the farms on his estate, and to get
to know the tenants.
There was a great deal to do, and at the end of each day Scrooge found himself feeling tired. All this country air was doing him good, he was sure, but he was conscious that he was much more physically active than he had been in the city.
One Sunday afternoon, at the end of a pleasant stroll in the spring sunshine, Scrooge called in at the Manor. He was not there entirely by chance, and, as he had expected, he found Sasha giving tea to her butcher friend from Pewsey: his name was Bradley Bowman. The young man had walked the three miles to see Sasha and would shortly walk back.
Bradley was twenty, a bigger man than most, with broad shoulders and strong arms. Today he was naturally wearing his best suit, but he was at ease in it, not letting the stiffness of his collar be reflected in his manner. He was dark-haired, with skin which tanned easily, despite his mostly indoor work. And, perhaps the key to his attraction for Sasha, he had a dazzling smile, which came readily enough when he spoke.
Scrooge had made it his business to find out something about Bradley. The widow had, of course, been his principal informant, but he had tapped a few other sources as well, for he was not about to let Sasha fall in with a wrong ‘un.
He had discovered that Bradley was well thought of and well liked. His worst vice was a fondness for skittles. Interestingly enough he had been born in Tanway, the second son of a farm laborer. He had learnt to read and write in the small school run by the late Lady Brown, in Tanway Manor itself, but was not a book man and never would be. At fourteen he had been apprenticed to a butcher in Pewsey, and he had lived in a room over the shop ever since. His parents were now dead.
After a few minutes Scrooge decided that he liked the young man. What he liked most was his calm confidence and self-possession. There was none of the clumsiness and awkwardness both of speech and movement which country people so often seemed to display in the presence of their betters. Bradley had a country accent, of course, and it was sometimes hard to follow, for Wiltshire had a vocabulary all of its own; but he was articulate and thoughtful, and had a gentle sense of humor.
Well, thought Scrooge afterwards, why should he have expected anything different? He should have known that Sasha would not have admired a fool.
The following day, when he saw Sasha on her own, Scrooge took her aside and said that, if and when she decided that Bradley was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, he would see to it that they were established in their own business.
Sasha smiled and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You're a good man, Mr Scrooge,’ she said.
'No I'm not. But I might be, one day, if I work at it.'
'Anyway, don't be in such a hurry to marry me off.'
'Why, doesn't the lad want to marry you? He'd be a fool if he didn't.'
'We'll see. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. But I haven't told him about myself as yet—about my life before I met Mrs Bannister, I mean. And then I have to tell him about you. And when he's heard all that he may drop me.'
'I doubt it,’ said Scrooge. ‘He'd be a complete bloody fool if he did.'
Sasha shrugged. ‘Well, perhaps. But even if he still wants me I'm going to make him wait a while. Do him good.'
In the middle of May, the time came for the monthly meeting of the sewing circle, and Scrooge tactfully announced that he was going back to London for a couple of nights. He had decided that he would keep his city apartment open for the foreseeable future, with Mrs Molloy in charge.
On his return he asked how the meeting had gone.
'Oh, very well, thank you,’ said the widow.
She thought for a moment, and then said: ‘But perhaps, come to think about it, there is something you should know about my little group.'
'Yes?’ said Scrooge.
'Yes. You did, after all, take the trouble to make sure that I understood about you and Sasha. So I, for my part, should be equally frank and tell you that the, er, the sewing circle is not quite a sewing circle in the ordinary way.'
'Ah.'
'We are, in fact, a group of ladies who choose to celebrate the rites of the old religion.'
'Ah,’ said Scrooge again. ‘Old as in pre-Reformation?'
The widow laughed. ‘No, Mr Scrooge. Far older than that. And I think, before I try to explain any further, you and I should take a trip to Avebury.'
CHAPTER 28
Some two weeks later, choosing a fine, warm day, the widow acted upon her suggestion: she took Scrooge to see the sights of Avebury.
To carry them to Avebury, she borrowed a neighbor's dogcart. (A dogcart was a small horse-drawn carriage. Originally such vehicles had been designed to carry dogs when going shooting, but in country they were used as a general means of transport.)
The widow and Scrooge traveled west at first, to the village of Alton Barnes, and then they took the steep road north, at a gentle pace. On their left, they passed a huge hill topped by an ancient burial mound known as Adam's Grave; on their right was Knap Hill, where there were also traces of an old settlement.
Everywhere they went the hedges were thick with May blossom, the woods and fields greener than Scrooge could ever remember them. Spring, when it had come at last, seemed to have decided to celebrate its victory over the harshest winter for decades.
They covered some fifteen miles in all, and the journey took most of the morning. But, as they approached Avebury, Scrooge could begin to see why the widow had brought him.
On his left, running parallel with the road, he saw a mile-long avenue of upright stones, rising up a gentle slope. These stones had obviously been placed in position by human effort, rather than left there by nature; each stone was taller than a man, and would have required a score of laborers to raise it on to its end. Scrooge was impressed.
As they came over the brow of the hill, however, he was quite stunned. For what he saw then was a massive, long bank of earth, thirty or forty feet high. On the other side of the bank was a deep ditch, thirty to forty feet deep, and beyond that a wide flattened area extending for some distance. These man-made structures of bank and ditch were curved and formed a huge circle, about a quarter of a mile in diameter.
Forming another circle, just inside the ditch, were yet more standing stones, of enormous size and weight, standing about ten yards apart. Once there had evidently been a full set of them, all around the perimeter of the circle, but now there were some gaps in the sequence.
It was clear at a glance that this whole area had been created by very early inhabitants of Wiltshire. Probably, Scrooge thought, the work had been carried out before the arrival of the Romans, for there was a primitive and rough aspect to it all which suggested a less civilized and polished form of civilization.
Furthermore, Scrooge was in no doubt that landscape had been planned and laid out for a purpose. But what that purpose was he could only guess.
As the widow brought the dogcart to a halt, he turned to her for illumination. ‘Can you explain?’ he said simply.
The widow smiled at his puzzlement. ‘Well, Mr Scrooge, the ancient stones at Avebury obviously have religious origins, and once had religious purposes. They constitute an open-air temple of some sort, as I'm sure you can see. The main circle, through which the road now runs, is approached by the avenue of stones that we have just passed. Both of these features must have taken hundreds of people, and many years, to construct. Such an undertaking would not have been contemplated, much less built, unless the local community regarded it as a vital part of their lives. So they must surely have used this temple to worship whatever gods they believed in.'
The widow turned to look at him.
'Beyond that, Mr Scrooge, we cannot say very much. The truth is, you see, there are no written records, and not even any folk memories to give us a hint. All we can be sure of is that the stones certainly pre-date Christianity in this land, and that when the Christians came they did their best to wipe out all earlier forms of religion. But, in the case of Avebury, and of course Stonehenge, the structures wer
e so enormous and so solidly built that some of them have resisted all forms of attack.'
After a further brief survey of the scene, the widow decided that lunch was called for, and they moved on to the village of Avebury itself.
The village was located more or less at the center of the great circle, but the area enclosed by the ditch and the ring of stones was so large that the houses seemed quite isolated within it. Fortunately there was an inn, and there both the travelers and their horse found refreshment.
After lunch they went for a walk along the top of the great bank. Scrooge estimated that the earthwork was a good three-quarters of a mile in circumference. And from this vantage point, he could see that, within the main circle, there were the remains of two smaller rings of stones.
He pointed to them out to the widow and asked what she thought was the purpose of them.
'No one knows for sure, Mr Scrooge. But I surmise that the main circle was used to mark the major astronomical events of the year—the longest day, the shortest day, the death and rebirth of the sun at the season we call Christmas—and so forth. Such ceremonies were probably attended by thousands of people from the surrounding area, and even from further away. Pilgrims, in other words. And the priests or elders probably performed ceremonies which were designed to ensure the fertility of the land. They may have offered sacrifices, either animal or human. As for the smaller circles—well, this is just another guess—but they might perhaps have been used for ceremonies for particular occasions. Such as weddings and funerals.'
'I see,’ said Scrooge. ‘Well it is certainly an impressive arena, there is no doubt about that. But now, if I am not being too tactless, may I ask how this place relates to the practices and beliefs of your own circle—the sewing circle of Tanway? For you have already told me that, in your own way, you celebrate the rites of the old religion.'
The widow laughed. ‘You may certainly ask that question, Mr Scrooge, and I will give you as honest an answer as I can. But the truth is, once again, we do not know what the connection is between Avebury and my circle of friends. I can only tell you that my circle's practices and beliefs, to use your terminology, have been handed down through the female line of my family for many generations. I have written records going back some two hundred years, but there were undoubtedly oral traditions before that.'