He hurried towards a woman sitting alone at one of the tables further down the room. Edward Tuke glanced quickly at Mrs Kenway-Potter, hoping that she had not noticed the passing dismay in his face at the prospect of a possibly lengthy holdup of his departure for Littlechester. To his relief she was watching her husband’s progress and then proceeded to consult her watch. He thought she looked tired and rather distrait, and he hoped that being suddenly landed with an unknown and unexpected guest was not the last straw. As Rodney Kenway-Potter came hurrying back with the woman who had been sitting by herself his heart sank. He recognised a familiar type: the dedicated sort with an obsessive interest. Added to this she was ungainly, with one shoulder slightly higher than the other, had a large expressionless face and was wearing a shapeless green jumper over a thick tweed skirt.
‘Mr Edward Tuke — Mrs Rawlings,’ Rodney Kenway-Potter was saying hurriedly. ‘She’s a mine of information on the village, as I told you. See you this evening. Drive straight along the village street, past the church and turn left over the bridge. Our drive gates are a couple of hundred yards further on, on your left... I’m coming, Amaryllis, we’ll just about make it with luck.’
‘Till tonight then, Mr Tuke,’ she called over her shoulder as her husband hurried her off with his hand under her elbow.
Resigning himself to his fate Edward Tuke offered Mrs Rawlings a drink.
‘Thank you, no,’ she replied, planting herself purposefully at his table. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t much time. It’s one of my days on the Mobile Library van, but I’m always glad to meet a fellow folklore enthusiast. Have you published in America?’
‘I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding,’ he told her, conscious of unexpected relief. ‘I really don’t know anything about folklore. I just casually asked Mr Kenway-Potter why this fine pub hasn’t got one of those painted signs outside. I mustn’t take up your time.’
He looked up to find himself under keen scrutiny from a pair of sharp dark eyes.
‘If you weren’t subconsciously aware of the past, Mr Tuke, you’d never have asked that question. The answer goes back two thousand years and more. This is the inn sign that ought to be hanging over the door.’
As she spoke Mrs Rawlings extracted an envelope from her handbag and passed it across the table. Edward Tuke opened it and took out a photograph of a startlingly repellent face. At first glance it reminded him of the masks worn by devil dancers in a documentary he had watched on television. But a closer study suggested a basically human quality, even though sprigs of what looked like hawthorn were sprouting prolifically from the corners of the staring eyes and ravenous sensual mouth... It’s as though two kinds of life were fighting like hell to come out on top, he thought, and realised that he was finding the photograph in some way disturbing. Irritated by the discovery he fell back on flippancy.
‘A sign with a face like this on it certainly wouldn’t be a viable commercial proposition, I’ll grant you. It would put folks right off their liquor. Who is the guy, anyway?’
‘The Green Man of Woodcombe, Mr Tuke. Green Men are familiar figures in medieval folklore, symbolising the process of regeneration in nature. Fertility symbols, if you like. But the Woodcombe Green Man is more than this. Much more.’
She had lowered her voice and paused dramatically. Edward Tuke looked up, met the intent eyes in the expressionless face and began to feel embarrassed.
‘The original of this photograph is one of the bosses in the nave roof of the parish church just down the road,’ she went on.
‘Funny sort of thing to have in a church, you’d think,’ he reacted.
‘Perhaps the safest place for it, Mr Tuke.’
He stared at her incredulously. This was a real crank: not just one of the dedicated sort of females.
‘In a clearing up at the top of the Manor Woods there’s a standing stone, ten feet high, hewn out of granite. There’s no granite nearer than fifty miles. It was brought here by the men of the Bronze Age. When the Saxons came in the seventh and eighth centuries they called it Old Grim, their name for the devil, and kept clear of it. But in the fifteenth century a stonemason went up one night for a bet, saying he’d give Old Grim a face.’ Mrs Rawlings paused again.
‘What happened?’ Edward Tuke asked in an attempt to speed things up. ‘Can you still see it? I’ll have to go up and have a look this evening.’
She tapped the photograph. ‘He came down crazy with terror saying that Old Grim already had a face: this one. And he carved what he had seen on the boss I told you about... I must be going, I’m afraid. Goodbye, Mr Tuke.’
She got up so quickly that she was already on her way to the door before he was on his feet.
‘Excuse me, sir.’
He turned to find Tom Wonnacott beside him and received an unmistakeable wink.
‘Takes all sorts, don’t it, sir? If you’d care to see your room, the missus’ll be pleased to take you up. Just step this way. When bar’s closed us comes and goes by the door round to the back.’
The bedroom was low with massive oak beams and a sloping floor. The lattice window was set so low in the immensely thick wall that it was necessary to kneel on the floor in order to see out adequately. In reply to a question from Edward Tuke Mrs Wonnacott, small, plump and rosy-cheeked replied that folk said the Green Man was more than three hundred years old, but nobody knew for sure. She hastened to add that Tom had put in a bathroom just across the landing, the water was scalding hot day and night, and visitors always said the bed was real comfortable to lie on. Edward Tuke assured her that he had never seen a bedroom he liked better, and went down to his car to get his suitcase. After unpacking the contents he left for Littlechester. As he drove up to the main road a car coming from the Littlechester direction turned into the village, its only occupant being the man at the wheel.
At first the road took a winding course through woods, rising gently but steadily until it finally emerged into more open country at the crest of the long hill. Edward Tuke pulled into a layby, got out of the car and crossed the road to a gate. He leant on it, his forearms resting on the topmost bar, and surveyed the wide landscape spread out beneath him lying tranquilly in the spring sunshine. He saw a vast pattern of fields broken here and there by clumps of trees, isolated groups of farm buildings and occasional irregularly-shaped villages in most of which he could detect a church tower. The road he had been following seemed to become more purposeful from now on, straightening out and taking a more direct course towards a distant blur on the horizon which, he thought, must be Littlechester. The whole landscape seemed to be held together by an irregular network of narrow green fines. Country lanes, he concluded, interlinking the villages and farms and sunk between hedges now bursting into leaf.
But it was the mosaic of fields that particularly fascinated him, as it had done when he gazed down from the aircraft on the homeland of his forebears when arriving in England ... the endless variety of their colours and shapes and their preposterously small size. As he contemplated them now he tried in vain to relate sweeping curves and mysterious acute-angled projections to the dictates of geology, slope and aspect. A phrase from the information so portentously imparted by Mrs Rawlings recurred to his mind: ‘in the seventh and eighth centuries the Saxons came.’ Land-hungry people on the move, of course, like the flood of immigrants flowing ever further westward in the U.S. during the nineteenth century, heading for the most fertile tracts. But down the generations since the Saxons established themselves there would have been wars, new laws, buying and selling of land, marriage settlements ... hence the incredible patchwork spread out before him. This landscape’s got a human quality he thought, something quite lacking in the vast rectangular fields back home in the Middle West worked out mathematically in a land registry office. The present pattern’s rooted in the past of English people. My people, what’s more.
American-born son of English-born peasants, he was aware of having reached the moment of decision. He wou
ld come back for good. Back to where his roots really were and take British nationality. Marry an English girl and raise some English kids...
The car which Edward Tuke had met on leaving Woodcombe turned into the short drive of a bungalow at the western end of the village. The man at the wheel was James Fordyce, the research genealogist with whom the young American had been corresponding. He was a man in his middle fifties with a narrow face and intelligent hazel eyes under bushy brows. His wife had opened the doors of the integral garage and he ran his car straight in. He unlocked the door into the kitchen and carried in his suitcase and a number of cardboard folders, each bearing the name of a client for whom he was carrying out a search. His wife Eileen, was, as he knew, out at the monthly meeting of the Women’s Institute’s local branch, but she had left a note for him propped against the tea caddy.
‘The K-Ps got away with it, of course,’ he read in her large childish handwriting, ‘but guess what!!! Len Bolling’s clearing out!!! A For Sale board (Ford’s) went up this morning. He must have known he hadn’t a hope against the K-Ps and fixed to go anyway. Oh, James, couldn’t we buy Bridge Cottage? Do ring Ford’s and find out what he’s asking. I’m sure this place would sell all right. What heaven to live in that super little house! Back as soon as I can make it. Cake in tin. P.S. A young American’s coming to see you at five, worse luck.’
James Fordyce read the note with a wry smile. Did Eileen really believe that he didn’t know her motive for wanting the move? Already she was visualising herself in the enhanced social status of living virtually on the doorstep of the Manor, and the opportunities for frequent contacts with the Kenway-Potters which this would bring. He read her snide opening remark again. It was pathetic, of course. Behind it lay the unconscious social and intellectual inferiority complexes which had coloured her attitude to life ever since he had committed the supreme blunder of marrying her, an attractive young secretary twenty years his junior.
For Eileen it had meant translation to a sphere for which she was wholly unequipped, and for him the realisation in a matter of weeks that any building up of genuine companionship between them had been a pipe dream on his part. An honest thinker, he accepted responsibility for the situation and had stood by his bargain, providing her with security and a comfortable home and falling in with her wishes when he felt it possible to do so. And he was fair-minded enough to admit that the marriage had not been a dead loss. It was still possible to describe her as attractive, she was a competent housekeeper and usually cheerful in an immature way. It would never have entered her head to be unfaithful to him, or to suspect him of extramarital relationships, although she often commented with tiresome facetiousness on his frequent absences from home. She enjoyed the status of being married to a clever man but he was well aware that his real self was a closed book to her.
Still standing with the note in his hand memories of her effusiveness when encountering the Kenway-Potters brought a sense of discomfort. He wondered briefly if she had the remotest idea of why he, too, was attracted to the idea of moving to Bridge Cottage. He crumpled up the note, dropped it into the wastepaper basket and took the folders into his minute study. Some correspondence awaited him on his desk. He sat down, glanced through it, and dealt with the only letter needing immediate attention. It took only a few minutes to consult his diary and write a postcard offering an appointment. This done he sat deep in thought for several minutes. Finally he got up, unlocked his filing cabinet, and deposited the folders under the appropriate initial letters. He had always kept papers connected with his searches under lock and key. As he relocked the cabinet he remembered Eileen’s indignant protests when she discovered this practice after they were married. His attempt to get across to her the concept of professional ethos where confidential information was concerned had been unavailing.
His immediate objective was to have a good look at Bridge Cottage, even if only from the outside. It was just possible that Leonard Bolling had decided to make himself scarce. Gone to see his solicitor, perhaps, or even to look at a house somewhere else. Almost certainly one could find out about his movements by dropping in at the village post office-cum-shop, unofficially known as the Information Bureau. He left the bungalow and walked along the street which was almost deserted. The postmistress and shop owner was seated behind the counter, knitting vigorously while keeping an eye on the open door.
‘So you’re back again, Mr Fordyce,’ she greeted him, putting her knitting aside and getting to her feet. ‘My, but there’s been some pretty doings here in Woodcombe since you went away. Mr Kenway-Potter in court, and football hooligans smashin’ the place up last night, drat ’em. Bring back the birch, that’s what I says. And now that Bolling’s off, and a mighty good riddance, too. There’s been a man over from Ford’s puttin’ up a For Sale board: you can see it for yourself if you take a look. And there’s an American gentleman puttin’ up for the night at the Green Man, but I expect you know that, seein’ that he called at your place round about midday.’
James Fordyce, attuned to village life, allowed five minutes for his further briefing on the state of the nation.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘you’ve put me in the picture all right. At any rate people will be able to fish in peace now. Mr Bolling’s gone to ground in Bridge Cottage, I expect?’
‘That he hasn’t, Mr Fordyce, not him. He was off one-twenty in that blessed van of his, drivin’ through the village bold as brass. Lookin’ for a new house like as not, and the further away the better, I says.’
‘All this has made me forget what I came in for,’ James Fordyce told her. ‘Stamps, as usual. I want to post this before Dick Stone comes to clear the box.’
‘Robbery or daylight robbery, sir?’ Mrs Trotman asked, getting out her stamp book and referring to the current charges for first and second class postage.
‘Make it ten of each,’ he said, producing his wallet. After stamping his postcard he managed to extricate himself and went outside to post it. He then turned right and walked the short distance to the junction of the road leading to Woodcombe Manor and over the hill to Marycott, the next village. Here he turned left, reflecting that it would soon be common knowledge that he was interested in Bridge Cottage. However, the same report would circulate about all the other local residents who would be unable to resist coming along and having a look. He arrived at the crest of the single span stone bridge, leant on the parapet and critically surveyed the little house.
It had been built, he knew, about a century ago as a modest dower house for the Manor, and had remained Kenway-Potter property until Rodney’s father had sold it during a period of financial stringencies in the thirties. Mercifully the architect had eschewed Victorian Gothic and produced a simple two-storied small house in keeping with both the village as a whole and the Manor itself. It was well-proportioned with good windows and its mellowed red brick and white paint combined to produce a very pleasing effect. There appeared to be four main rooms in the front of the house, facing south, and James Fordyce remembered noticing an extension built out at the back and some outbuildings. He looked at his watch. It was only just after three. Bolling must have gone off pretty quickly after his lunch, so it looked as though he had some definite programme for the afternoon and would not turn up again just yet. Walking on, James Fordyce arrived at the garden gate. He walked up to the front door and rang the bell twice. No one answered it, and he circumnavigated the cottage, peering in at the ground floor windows with an eye to the possibility of a reasonably secluded study for himself. He then inspected the outbuildings and finally returned to the road. He stood for a few moments looking up at the rose-coloured chimneys of the Manor just visible above the trees, and finally began to make his way along the path on the north bank of the little River Honey.
When he approached Upper Bridge some time later there were sounds of activity which included bursts of vigorous hammering, and he came upon Bill Morris engaged in re-erecting the ‘Private Fishing’ notices and clearing up
the litter scattered about by the football fans. James stopped to chat and heard an even more forceful account of what had taken place. Finally he went on again and returned to the bungalow by way of the Littlechester road, letting himself in as the grandfather clock in the sitting room struck four. After consulting the yellow pages he rang Ford’s, the Littlechester estate agents. He had been put through to the partner who was handling the sale of Bridge Cottage when he heard his wife’s footsteps coming hurriedly up the garden path. The front door burst open and he raised a hand enjoining silence, mouthing the word ‘Ford’s’.
At thirty-four Eileen Fordyce still retained much of the attractiveness that had captivated him ten years earlier: the fresh pink and white complexion, the heart-shaped face with its big expressive blue eyes, and the naturally curly hair worn short and kept golden with only minimal assistance from her hairdresser. Only the small mouth was now a little hard and wary in repose, raising doubts in the mind of the critical observer about the genuineness of her spontaneity. Now she dashed across the hall and pressed close to her husband, craning her head towards the telephone receiver in an attempt to listen in. James rested his hand lightly on her shoulder and went on with the conversation. This was now about the selling prospects of the bungalow, and Eileen quickly lost interest. She squeezed his arm, murmured ‘tea’ and went off to the kitchen.
‘No problem,’ the Ford partner was saying, who had sold James the bungalow five years earlier, when a legacy from an uncle had enabled him to give up a senior post in the Area Income Tax Office and devote his whole time to his hobby of genealogy. ‘I remember your place perfectly well. It’s well-built and the layout’s unusually good. Not too much garden. Just the job for a Littlechester commuter. We’ll get the particulars out right away and I’ll put your offer to Bolling. I’ll send a chap over tomorrow morning to have a look around and he can bring you an order to view Bridge Cottage at the same time.’
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