“Actual, like, they belong o’ me. Oh, well, I s’pose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a look. You won’t wake the baby, will you?”
“Oh, have you a baby? Boy or girl?”
“A girl, miss. Good as gold, she is.”
They passed through a gate and along a path and so to the back door of the cottage. Hilary slipped a surreptitious threepenny bit to Alfie who, as she had foreseen, instantly demanded permission from his mother to go out and spend it.
“Really, miss, you shouldn’t have ought to give ‘im anything, but it’s very kind of you. Go along, then, Alfie, and mind how you goes. If you sees that there old school attendant on ‘is bike, like, you just get be’ind the ‘edge. ‘E did ought to be going to school, like, at ‘is age,” the mother explained, as Alfie cantered away, “but I never liked school myself, and ‘is father never liked school, so I ‘aven”t sent ‘im yet, nor shan’t ontil ‘e’s seven, if I can ‘elp it.”
“The Greeks had the same idea, Mrs. Dickon. In any case, as the formative years are from one to five—or so I’m told—there seems no point in sending a child at all, so far as the basic plan of his character is concerned.”
“That’s right, miss. Seven is quite soon enough. I don’t want ‘im book-learned. If there wasn’t no book-learnin’ there wouldn’t be no Hatom Bomb, so far as I can see. And that’s not the only nasty thing as us could do without. These ‘ere’s the things, miss. ‘Andle ‘em if you wish, though I’ve polished ‘em once today.”
Hilary duly admired and appraised the finds. Her admiration of them was over-done and struck such a false note that Mrs. Dickon observed that Dame Beatrice, up at the Stone House, had advised her not to be too certain of their antiquarian value, as she had seen modern copies, very similar to the finds, being sold in the streets of Italian towns.
“I don’t suppose she knows the difference between fakes and the real things,” said Hilary, resentfully. “Lots of people will try to tell you that your treasures aren’t much good just because they envy you and would really like to possess the things themselves.”
“Very like, miss, but, to my mind, our Dame Beatrice wouldn’t act mean like that. Very clever she is, and what you would call a real lady of the true, old-fashioned sort. Anyway, miss, Dickon give ‘em me and I know ‘e wouldn’t care for me to part with ‘em. It ent right nor proper to part with things as is give you, not for love and neither for money, it ent. Vicar be welcome to come ‘ere and see ‘em whenever he like, but I baint givin’ nawthin’ away.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t make any impression on Mrs. Dickon,” said Hilary, when she returned to the vicarage. “In fact, she didn’t like me, I know.”
“Did you actually see the finds?” the vicar demanded.
“Yes, but I’m not an expert and, as I tell you, I wasn’t made particularly welcome. It appears that they’d had one visitor already, before I got there.”
“Who would that have been, I wonder?”
“Somebody whom Mrs. Dickon referred to as the squire of the village. That ugly old witch up at the Stone House. You know!”
“Oh, Dame Beatrice! What made her take an interest, I wonder? She’s a psychiatrist by profession and (I think) preference, and spends more than half her time in London, where she has a house in Kensington and a clinic in Queen Anne Street.”
“She had heard about the finds from her secretary, who had been to complain to Dickon about digging out a badgers’ sett. He came back at her with the news of his finds and boasted that you had said they were Roman.”
“Laura Gavin. Takes a great interest in country life. Dickon wouldn’t get far arguing with her if her indignation was aroused. Besides, she’s quite right. Badgers are the most harmless, friendly animals. I suppose Dickon had some feeling that they might attack his chickens. An extremely foolish idea.”
“It seems that Mrs. Dickon did not get very far with Dame Beatrice, who pronounced the things to be modern fakes.”
“What!”
“Oh, yes. At least, she warned her that they might not be genuine.”
“Dame Beatrice is not an expert,” said the vicar. “Besides, why should the pottery be faked?”
“I haven’t a clue, dear sir.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” said the vicar. “And I shan’t allow Dame Beatrice’s opinions (much as I respect her) to knock my Roman road on the head. Fakes, indeed! As I say, who would take the trouble to fake them, anyway?”
“Marigold and Phlox Carmichael,” said the vicar’s wife. “You know what fanatics they are! And, in my opinion, utterly dishonest.”
“Oh, come, my dear! They always pay their bills!”
“That is not what I meant. They’re a very fishy couple, if you ask me. My woman’s intuition tells me so.”
“Really, you know, that is absurd. It also strikes me as unfair. They are rather unusual types, but that should not necessarily be held against them. You must be more charitable, my dear,”
“I wish I were going to meet them,” said Hilary. “It’s so difficult to meet fishy customers in polite society . . . people who are known to be fishy, I mean. Although I must say I wouldn’t trust some of my clients very far. Still, that’s not my business.”
“Really, Veronica, you should not have said what you did about the Carmichaels,” said the vicar. “I protest. They are quite, quite charming.”
“Then it’s all the more of a pity that I’m not going to meet them,” said Hilary Beads. “Or am I? Do they live in these parts?”
“No, but they come and stay here occasionally. They called once, a while ago—some time ago, in fact, when they were hiking in the New Forest—to ask whether we could recommend somebody in the village who would put them up for a night or two, and I said they could stay here if they were prepared to pay a guinea a day each . . .” said Veronica Pierce.
“Shameless!” said the vicar. “Well, I must go.”
“. . . and they jumped at it, and have been here two or three times since,” said his wife triumphantly, blowing a kiss towards his retreating back.
“So, really, you know them pretty well. What are they really like?” asked Hilary.
“I simply do not know. Incidentally, they’re coming here after you’ve gone.”
“Oh, Lord! Have I done them out of their vested interests?”
“Certainly not. If you have, I’m jolly glad. It was rather nice to write and tell them they couldn’t come until the twenty-fifth.”
“Veronica, you’re heartless!”
“Yes, where the Carmichaels are concerned, I believe I am.”
“That seems to answer the question I asked a while ago.”
“About what they’re like? Well, it doesn’t really answer it, because I don’t know why I don’t care for them. I just don’t. Gascony thinks I’m prejudiced and that it’s all a lot of nonsense, but there it is.”
“I simply must meet them! It’s so unlike you to be unreasonable about people.”
“Especially when they pay so well and complain so little. I know. It does seem a shame. I can tell you one thing that makes me feel uncomfortable with them—they never seem to me like a married couple.”
“Really? What fun!”
“Well, it isn’t, actually. Not in a vicarage, you know.”
“But you’re not responsible for their morals.”
“I know, but you can’t shrug things off like that.”
“Oh, can’t you? I jolly well could, particularly when, as you say, they pay so well.”
“Actually, their relationship is an odd one—oh, dear, I’m gossiping! You really shouldn’t encourage me!”
“I shall encourage you for all I’m worth. Tell me all about their oddness! I do hope it’s scandalous. I have to keep my business so clean that scandal is the breath of life to me.”
“That’s just what it isn’t. Separate rooms and the most staid sort of affection for one another.”
“Oh, but lots of elderly couples . . .�
�
“They’re not elderly. Phlox can’t be more than about thirty-five and Marigold is quite ten years younger, I should say.”
“All passion spent, perhaps.”
“I’m sure there’s never been any passion. I do think, though, that they share the same thoughts. Time and again you find that one of them says something just before the other can get it out. It’s quite uncanny.”
“They sound like identical twins.”
“Oh, no. Apart from the obvious difference in their ages, they aren’t a bit alike to look at. Phlox is tall and thin and looks as though he’d snap like a dead stick if you bent him; and Marigold is little and fair and mousy.”
“It isn’t like you to take an unreasoning dislike to people. I do wish I were going to meet them.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Roman Dig
“I cannot laugh at, but rather pity, the fruitless journeys of Pilgrims, or condemn the miserable condition of Fryars.”
Ibid (Section 3)
* * *
PHLOX and Marigold Carmichael were generally regarded as anti-social cranks by their houseboat neighbours. It was a harsh but not unconsidered verdict. It was true that Marigold had been privately educated (whatever that may mean in these days) and that Phlox, so far as the public schools and the universities were concerned, had not been educated at all, and it is also true that they had once organised a self-conscious, ill-attended gathering billed as a Progressive Educational Fair, but none of these things made them abnormal, even though it gave them nothing much in common (except for the ownership of a houseboat) with their riverside acquaintances. These, however, disliked them.
Each had enough money to live on without being compelled by necessity to take up paid employment (for which, in any case, their upbringing had made them unfitted) and Marigold, actually, was rather well-off. They called themselves an archaeological research team, a vague, unprofessional claim which they honoured by the variety of their interests.
At one time, for example, their whole attention was given over to disc barrows; at another they pot-holed with fervour, hoping to find traces of primitive man. The Sutton Hoo ship-burial fired such interest in them that Phlox tried to break into the stronghold of a well-known archaeological journal with a thoughtful but unscholarly comparison of the carvings on the ceremonial whetstone (found on the ship) with the painted wooden figures of women-servants of the eleventh dynasty in Egypt. He even took the trouble to distinguish between one Egyptian figure, dated 2000 b.c. and housed in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and another of the same date to be seen in the Louvre, pointing out that the former conveyed an impression of seriousness and a hint of the same hair-style as that of the Saxon carving, but that the Parisian exhibit, as one might expect, had the impudent face of a gamine and a totally un-Saxon hair-do.
The well-known archaelogical journal returned the contribution with the well-known courteous regrets. Marigold was extremely disappointed, and Phlox said acidly:
“We can’t expect everybody to have our breadth of thought, dear. We are pioneers. In spite of the somewhat short-sighted policy of this journal, my work goes on. What shall we tackle next?”
“Do you want to help the Reverend Mr. Pierce to identify his Roman road? It doesn’t sound particularly interesting. There are so many Roman roads.”
“Yes, but we’ve promised, so I think we must keep to what was said. When we’ve helped him out, there are two things I’d like to do.”
“I can guess what one of them is,” said Marigold, “and it shall be as you wish, dear. It is nice that we are going to Wandles Parva again, because it makes a starting-point for you, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t really know, for once, what you are talking about, my dear. To what do you refer?”
“Eighteenth-century follies, Phlox.”
“Eighteenth-century follies? Gambling and drinking and lechery in high places, do you mean?”
“No, of course not!” said Marigold, shocked. “How could you think I meant anything of the kind? I meant buildings.”
“Oh, I see. But the observation tower in the Manor House park is not really a folly, you know. It had quite a serious purpose, I am certain. The good vicar thinks it was built as a sort of retiring room for the master of the house, and I am bound to admit that the local history I once consulted in the Culminster public library bears him out.”
“But you have another theory? I do think you’re clever, Phlox.”
“An intelligent man likes to work things out for himself. My belief is that the owner was an amateur of astronomy. There was an enormous interest taken in the sciences during the eighteenth century, when that tower was built, and when I was up there with the vicar I am almost certain that I could identify the mark left by a telescope which had been rested upon the railing.”
“Oh, how very interesting! You must take me up there to see it this time when we are there!”
“You have no head for heights, my dear, and you always turn dizzy and lose your nerve on a steep stairway, so I think not.”
“Just as you decide, Phlox. But if you don’t want to track down eighteenth-century follies, what do you want to do? I mean, quite why are we going to Wandles? Just to help the vicar with his roads and his stupid villa? What shall we be doing after that?”
“We’ve never done the cave-paintings.”
“Oh, Phlox, what a splendid idea! Lascaux? La Grèze?”
“Spain first. The Sierra Morena, La Pileta, Peña Tú, Homos de la Peña, and Mas d’Azil.”
“I thought it was painted pebbles at Mas d’Azil, not rock paintings.”
“I believe you are right. Then we could go to Esperança in Val de Jonco.”
“Portugal? I adored Lisbon when we were there!”
“Splendid! Then we could do the French caves on the way back, if you liked.”
“How good you are to me in every way!”
Phlox smirked, and smoothed the sleeve of his violet silk shirt.
“Oh, well!” he said. “After all, I have cause to be obliged to you, too. You are a wonderful companion, my dear. But now, to business! What we require are pen and pad, to remind the vicar of our imminent arrival at his manse, and then to walk Hadrian’s Wall in order to tune our thoughts to the right channel and refresh our memories.”
But their arrival at the Wandles Parva vicarage was not quite as imminent as they had expected. There was a letter for them when they were preparing to visit Housesteads and Corbridge and to see the Solway Firth from Winshields Crag. Phlox heard the postman, dropped his rucksack in the little galley at the end of their floating home, crossed the rather crazy gang-plank to the letter-box on shore, and returned with some bills and the vicar’s wife’s missive.
“From Wandles Parva,” he said, examining the postmark.
“Oh, dear! Can’t they have us? Oh, I expect it is only to confirm our booking,”
“They can have us, but not when we said, so I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll walk the Wall, as we’ve planned, and then we’ll get down to Wandles Parva a little earlier than they expect us. What about the Wednesday?”
“There’ll be nowhere to sleep if we can’t go to the vicarage, though. Haven’t they offered us an alternative date?”
“I have already told you that we can go, but I want to plan it. A cup of tea, dear, and then we shall need the one-inch Ordnance maps one seven nine and one eighty. I’ll be looking them out while you brew up.”
He studied his maps and then O. G. S. Crawford anew and announced that, after they had come south from Hadrian’s Wall, they would travel to Southampton, cross by ferry to Hythe, walk along the Beaulieu road, and so on to Beaulieu Heath and try to follow the Roman causeway.
This they did, on Wednesday, May 22nd, setting out at dawn. In the early afternoon they were in the village of Wandles Parva, Phlox having satisfied Marigold by announcing his intention of finding hospitality in a cottage until it was time to go to the vicarage
. Just outside the village they met a brisk, well-shod woman wearing sunglasses of a very dark colour and with very fancy rims, a tweed skirt and a bright yellow twin-set. She stood stock-still at the sight of them.
“Pardon me, madam,” said Phlox, flourishing his panama, “my wife and I are due to stay as the paying guests of the Reverend Mr. Pierce in three days’ time. My name is Carmichael. We booked for last Saturday, but have been put off a little. Meanwhile we are hoping to hear of a farmer or cottager with a couple of spare rooms. Eggs, farmhouse bread, and a soupçon of fresh butter will provide for our basic needs, and we shall, of course, pay any modest reckoning which is asked. Do you know of such a farmhouse or such a cottage?”
The woman looked at the couple in a thoughtful but perfectly polite way for a minute. Then she shrugged her shoulders, took out a silver case, lighted a cigarette, drew on it, removed it, and nodded.
“Two miles further on,” she said, jerking her head in the direction they were facing and from which she herself had come, “you’ll see double gates to a double-fronted house. Farmer Topps is the name. Here, I’ll write it down for you.” She took out a used envelope, tore it open and scribbled on the inside.
“Very many thanks indeed to you. Farmer Topps? Double gates? A Georgian house, no doubt?” said Phlox, gallant and at his ease as he watched her while she wrote.
“Yes, a Georgian house and a jolly nice couple living in it,” said the woman, with extreme emphasis. She handed over the envelope and then took off her sunglasses and looked coolly at him. Phlox stared at her, an expression of complete and incredulous surprise on his face. Marigold put a hand to her mouth, but did not succeed in stifling a scream.
“Well, I hope that Topps can put you up all right. Good luck! You’ll need it,” said the tweed-clad woman decisively. “I shall expect to be recompensed, you know.” She laughed sardonically. Phlox bowed, master of himself once more.
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