CONSTABLE OVER THE STILE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 20)

by Nicholas Rhea

  It is fair to say that many of the village people had, at some stage, been visitors to Adelaide’s house and that included both me and Mary, my wife. Mary helped with the children’s playgroup; the playgroup used the village hall for its twice-weekly activities for which a small rent was required and, because Adelaide was treasurer of the village hall, Mary had to visit her from time to time to pay the required fees. My own visits were fairly regular, too, sometimes in connection with village-hall business, and sometimes due to my involvement either officially or privately with one or other of the organizations for which Adelaide held some responsibility.

  I liked her. She would always produce a cup of tea or coffee and invite me to stay for a short chat. Being well-read, she had a wide knowledge and deep interest in current affairs as well as the history of both Britain and Aidensfield and I must say I did enjoy our chats. It made a welcome change from being bombarded with people’s opinions about parking tickets, speeding fines and litter louts.

  Adelaide had a very tall and dominating presence, which might explain her success as a teacher. I couldn’t imagine any class or individual getting the better of her! A large lady with a big, round face, iron-grey hair, horn-rimmed spectacles and a liking for loose-fitting dark dresses, she possessed a strong voice which both demanded attention and commanded respect and yet she was kind, tolerant and helpful to everyone. Even the village children liked her, but they never tried to take advantage of her kindness — rather, they respected her. They would never raid her orchard for apples, for example, or play noisily on the green outside her house. Some of them would run errands for her and, in return, she would take them into the house for lemonade and buns. I had the impression that Adelaide was a most capable person, one who would not tolerate fools and one who was not afraid of anything or anyone. I could imagine her dealing very effectively with anyone who trespassed in her house and grounds or who offended or obstructed her in any way.

  But she endured one deep, deep fear — and it was a long time before I appreciated her phobia.

  It was Mary who first realized all was not entirely well with Adelaide. Mary went to Adelaide’s house one fine Tuesday morning in July for the usual purpose of settling the village-hall dues, but there was no response to her knocking. In such cases, Adelaide had given all her callers specific instructions — ‘If I don’t answer the door,’ she often told them — and Mary — ‘I’ll probably be in the garden. Come down the side of the house and shout for me. If I’m not in the garden, then you might have to come back another time.’

  And so Mary did just that. She walked along the path which ran beside the house into the orchard and garden at the rear, and she called Adelaide’s name. It was evident that Adelaide was somewhere on the premises because the back door was standing open; there was a wheelbarrow on the lawn, a pile of weeds on one of the footpaths and a variety of garden tools strewn about the place.

  Mary called her name and eventually there was a muffled reply; Adelaide had shut herself in the garden shed. Puzzled and wondering if someone had locked her in for a joke, or whether Adelaide was ill, Mary opened the door to find Adelaide cowering on a garden chair. She was pale and shaking all over, but made a determined effort to stand up as Mary attempted to go to her aid.

  ‘Adelaide? What’s the matter?’ Mary was very concerned, as she told me afterwards. ‘Shall I get the doctor? The nurse? Some tablets maybe? Are you supposed to be taking something?’

  ‘No, no, I shall be all right, Mary. Quite all right,’ and Adelaide popped her head out of the door, peered around the garden as if checking that the cause of her distress had disappeared, and then took a deep breath. Whatever had terrified her had disappeared and the colour returned to her cheeks in moments. Soon she was completely normal and smiling at her visitor.

  ‘Sorry about that, Mary. Now, come into the house; I keep the papers in there as you know.’

  ‘Should you get a check-up, Adelaide?’ Mary asked but Adelaide steadfastly refused all offers of help.

  She then attended to Mary’s minor item of business in a perfectly normal manner, offered her coffee and then returned to her garden chores without explaining the reason for her lapse. Mary came home rather worried about Adelaide, but I assured her she’d done all she could without being intrusive, although I did make a mental note to mention her experience confidentially to either the doctor or the district nurse if I encountered them. As things worked out, I visited Adelaide myself before I had the opportunity to mention her problem to either the doctor or the nurse. And I found her in the garden shed.

  My experience was almost identical to that of Mary. Adelaide was cowering behind the closed door of her old garden shed as if she’d been faced with something too horrible and ghastly to describe and, after poking her head out of the door upon my arrival, she recovered in moments and dealt with my enquiry as if nothing had happened. Like Mary, I asked if she wanted any kind of help, from a doctor perhaps, or anyone else, but Adelaide shook her head and refused to discuss the matter. I noticed her attacks had not occurred in the house and wondered about the significance of the garden shed. Whatever had terrified her, I noted she had taken refuge in the shed — not the house or any of her other outbuildings. A brief and almost superficial examination of the shed during that visit showed it to be a perfectly normal structure, built solidly of wood many years ago, with a felt-covered wooden roof secured to two stout beams, a glass window in one side and a good solid door. It was large enough to accommodate all her tools, wheelbarrow, lawn-mower and such, as well as her garden chairs and a metal table.

  At home, I discussed my experience with Mary who told me she’d heard a similar tale from another lady in the village. Mrs Angela Welford had called on Adelaide some weeks previously and had found her quivering with fear in the garden shed, but there had been no explanation from Adelaide.

  I realized that this was something of a very personal nature and likewise knew that I must not interfere. Whatever was causing these dreadful panic attacks was something she alone must deal with — and so she did, by enclosing herself in the garden shed. There seemed to be no other method for her to cope with her problem. I began to wonder about the mystery of her garden shed.

  Some three or four weeks later, I encountered the district nurse, Margot Horsefield. Our respective duties coincided when an old man collapsed in the village street in Aidensfield, immediately in front of a passing car. Luckily, the driver of the car managed to stop without running into the casualty so neither was injured. Margot and I, both working in the village at the time, were on the spot within minutes to deal with the incident. The collapsed man was a holidaymaker who’d suffered a heart attack. He survived thanks to the good care he received in Strensford Hospital, although the driver of the car started to blame himself for the incident. We had difficulty explaining he was in no way responsible — in fact, his quick reactions had saved the casualty from further injury and removed the need for me to submit a road traffic accident report! It was after discussing the case that I decided to mention Adelaide to Margot.

  ‘I know about it. It’s a phobia of some kind,’ Margot told me. ‘She refuses to talk about it — I’ve found her in the garden shed too, with the door shut, on more than one occasion. But whatever it is that terrifies her, it’s gone in seconds. It does not follow her into the shed nor does her terror last very long. She recovers in minutes. But she always runs for shelter in the garden shed, Nick. Don’t ask me why; there’s nothing there except garden tools and so on. No bottles of gin or other comforters.’

  There was no reason for me to be unduly concerned about Adelaide. For one thing, it was not a police matter and another factor was that her peculiar condition was known to others, including the district nurse. As a consequence, I tried to put this minor concern to the back of my mind.

  Then one hot summer morning, I had to visit Adelaide in the course of my duty. She had provided a reference for a young woman who wished to join a Scottish police force and, as w
as the practice in all such cases, the reference had to be checked to ensure it was genuine and I was on my way to her house with a copy of the reference to verify. I knocked on the door, but there was no reply although it was evident she was about the premises. As was the practice, I walked along the side of the building and headed for her garden, but the moment I emerged from the shadows of the house, I saw a fluffy white cat stalking across the lawn. Adelaide was hoeing weeds in one of the borders and chanced to turn in my direction as I approached. Then she saw the cat.

  She shrieked in a manner which told me she was utterly terrified of the animal, dropped her hoe and fled, panic stricken, towards the shed. The cat, alarmed by her sudden, noisy reaction, bolted into the vegetation as Adelaide slammed the door to enclose herself in her place of safety. Everything happened in a matter of seconds, but the picture of Adelaide’s reaction to her dread remains with me to this day.

  Somewhat surprised by this turn of events, I halted in the middle of the lawn and found myself staring at the old wooden shed and at the area where the cat had vanished. The garden was as still as a morgue for a few seconds. Then I decided I should approach Adelaide. I went to the shed, tapped on the door and opened it. She was sitting on a garden stool with her head in her hands, shaking like a leaf.

  ‘Adelaide? Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Has it gone?’ She did not look at me nor did she remove her hands from her eyes.

  ‘The cat, you mean? Yes, it’s gone,’ I said.

  She removed her hands and remained on the stool for a moment or two, taking deep breaths and trying to get herself back under control.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I am really sorry, Nick, behaving like that, but I can’t help it . . . they terrify me. I am petrified of white cats . . . I cannot even look at one . . . you must think I am stupid.’

  ‘Most of us have phobias of some kind.’ I tried to sound sympathetic and understanding. ‘An aunt of mine went to pieces whenever she saw a spider and lots of people can’t stand rats or mice; and there’s a friend of mine who can’t touch feathers on a bird, dead or alive.’

  ‘We’re a funny lot.’ She appeared to have made yet another of her rapid recoveries. ‘But with me it’s only white cats. Black ones, tortoiseshells, marmalade cats . . . I’m fine with those. But white ones really frighten me. It’s so silly, really.’

  ‘But why run for shelter into the shed and not the house?’ I asked. ‘If you’re in the shed which is in the garden, then that white cat could be around for a long time. If the cat decided to go to sleep in your garden, you could be marooned in your shed for hours!’

  ‘Oh, we always ran for the shed,’ she said shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘We?’ I puzzled.

  ‘My mother and my grandmother — and I think her mother before that . . . we always ran helter-skelter for the shed when a white cat appeared.’

  ‘All of you?’ I puzzled. ‘All of you afraid of white cats?’

  ‘Well, I’ve often wondered why we all made such a fuss when a white cat appeared.’ She looked rather sheepish now, chatting in such a way to me. ‘It doesn’t make sense because we never did when other cats came along, but I ran because my mother ran, and I think she ran because her mother did . . . I don’t think any of us really asked why, come to think of it. I grew up thinking I had to run for safety every time a white cat appeared — I have no idea what it might have done to me, but can remember my mum and my granny grabbing my hand and screaming at the sight of one, then running into that shed.’

  ‘And, down the generations, all of you ran into the shed! That very shed, was it?’ I asked. ‘Every time?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a very old shed.’ She patted the woodwork. ‘I think my great-grandfather made it.’

  ‘I can’t understand why you sought refuge here.’ I shook my head. ‘There must be a reason, Adelaide.’

  ‘Oh, there is,’ she said smiling quite blandly. ‘It’s the wood. This beam,’ and she patted a beam above her head. It was directly over the door, running the width of the shed. ‘It’s rowan wood, Nick. The mountain ash, some call it. It saves you from cats.’

  ‘But that’s an ancient moorland superstition,’ I told her. ‘Rowans were supposed to avert witches and witchcraft or diseases and prevent the effects of the evil eye, not merely keep you safe from white cats. Farmers planted them near the house and close to their outbuildings, like the cow-house and stables, their presence was supposed to avert all manner of mishaps. If you take a good look at some of the older farms on the moors, especially the outbuildings, you’ll see beams of rowan wood still in place. It’s for much the same reason that some houses and buildings have horseshoes fastened to the wall, or why brides carry horseshoes on their wedding day, or why we adorn the house with greenery at Christmas . . . they’re all ancient superstitions lingering in our modern world.’

  Years ago, the moorlands in which I lived were rich with witchcraft beliefs and one very common method of frustrating the activities of witches was to make wide use of the rowan. The stocks of whips used by horsemen were made of rowan, some wove sprigs of rowan into the manes of the horses; milk-chums were made of rowan to help butter-making, babies were laid in cradles made from rowan wood; pigs were thought to thrive if a garland of rowan leaves was placed around their necks; farm tools of various kinds had rowan-wood handles and beams of rowan were placed across doorways to protect those within the buildings . . . and here was a fully grown, intelligent woman still, albeit unwittingly, thinking that a beam of rowan would protect her from the unknown evils brought by a white cat. In England, a white cat was often thought to bring bad luck — but it brought good luck in America; over there, black cats are considered unlucky.

  Now she had explained a little about her actions, Adelaide’s strange behaviour made some kind of sense. In those highly superstitious times a century and more earlier, some female ancestor of hers had clearly believed that any white cat was a bringer of misfortune and, upon seeing one, had panicked and taken refuge in the nearest building which boasted a piece of rowan wood. If she’d had her little girl at her side, then the child was also whisked unceremoniously into shelter — and that shelter happened to be the garden shed. I imagined that successions of little girls had been rushed into that same shed by frantic mothers whenever a white cat appeared . . . and so, even in modern times, echoes of that ancient superstition lingered in Aidensfield.

  Adelaide offered to make me a cup of coffee as I discussed the document which had resulted in my presence that morning and I accepted. But the talk over coffee was about many of the curious superstitions and practices which lingered on the moors and how many of them survived without their followers appreciating the reason for some of the procedures they followed. Quite simply, it seemed, Adelaide had been conditioned from her earliest moments to be afraid of white cats, and she had continued that fear into her adult life without ever pausing to think of a reason. Following our chat, I think she began to take stock of her behaviour.

  ‘Next time I see a white cat in the garden, Nick, I will do my best not to run for shelter in the shed, I promise you. I will struggle to confront it . . . touch wood I won’t be afraid any more . . . if only I can stand still long enough for the thing to go away before I turn and gallop into the shed . . .’

  ‘I wish you luck,’ I responded, showing her my crossed fingers.

  3

  Revenge is a kind of wild justice,

  which the more man’s nature runs to,

  the more ought law to weed it out.

  FRANCIS BACON, 1561–1626

  If the opportunity for revenge ever presents itself, some of us who have been seriously aggrieved may find it very difficult to resist. Whether it takes the form of spitting into an aggressor’s face, putting itching powder in his clothes, arranging for a funeral cortege to appear at his house while he is entertaining friends, chopping the tops off all his cabbage plants or doing something infinitely more terrible, the act of reveng
e can sometimes appear to be very satisfying. Getting one’s own back, the popular name given to the act of retaliation for some past wrong, large or small, is by no means a rare event and history is full of magnificent examples, yet wise people know that revenge can prompt an escalation of pointless vengeance in return.

  Most of us know the ancient advice, given in the Bible, that we should turn the other cheek if someone hits us and the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) reminds us of this when he writes: ‘Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek, to take one blow and turn the other cheek.’ But he adds, ‘It is not written what a man shall do if the rude caitiff smite the other one too!’ ‘Caitiff’, by the way, is an old word for a base or despicable fellow, or a coward.

  One serious outbreak of revenge in which I was involved at Aidensfield served to remind me of the words of Lord Byron who wrote: ‘Sweet is revenge’, but, he added, ‘especially to women’.

  In those few words there are echoes of the oft-repeated adage ‘Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn’d’. In the Aidensfield case, it involved Michael Barton and his wife Eileen. They lived in married happiness at Ash Tree House, a pretty but very compact detached dwelling in the centre of the village not far from the garage. Of modest size, with three bedrooms, it had a pleasing garden with a greenhouse, but it was by no means a mansion. Compared with many, it was a modest house. But it was home for the Bartons and they had struggled over the years to buy it, furnish it and maintain it. They were living there upon my arrival as the village constable and, so far as I know, they had occupied the house since their wedding some twenty-two years earlier. The Bartons had two children, a son of twenty who was in the Royal Navy and a daughter of eighteen who worked as a nurse in London. They came home from time to time and I gained the impression that they were a very close family.