The Kissing Garden Page 15
Amelia stopped and pointed out the now vacant space in the sky. George ignored her, continuing to beat a way through along the path.
‘George?’ Amelia called. ‘George, it has gone. Look!’
‘Maybe it was never there in the first place. Or maybe it was one of those odd little suns you read about which suddenly burn themselves out.’
‘Oh yes,’ Amelia replied sarcastically. ‘I’m forever reading about odd little suns burning themselves out and falling to earth in Somerset.’
‘Well I never,’ George suddenly said, coming to a halt. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed.’
‘What? What, George?’ Amelia bumped into George’s back as he stood stock-still, staring ahead of him. ‘What is it, George?’ she repeated more quietly. ‘What is it you’re going to be blowed about?’
‘It isn’t a spaceship,’ he replied. ‘Or a star fallen to earth. Look – it’s a house of some sort. Or rather a ruin.’
Coming to his side, Amelia could see the outline of just the top of some buildings which lay ahead of them behind a grassy knoll.
‘How amazing,’ she whispered, easing herself in front of her husband. ‘I wonder if it’s occupied.’
‘Hardly,’ George replied, following her up the knoll. ‘With a drive in this condition?’
‘Goodness,’ Amelia exclaimed. ‘Wait till you see, George – it’s beautiful. Look . . .’
In the still bright moonlight the group of old ruined buildings which lay before them looked like something out of a fairy tale. Judging from the shape of the windows, at first Amelia thought the main building must have once been a church or chapel, but when she mentioned this to George he said he thought the disposition of all the buildings meant it was more likely perhaps to have been a small priory or convent, particularly given its position.
‘Hardly the place for a church, however ancient, I’d have thought,’ he said, walking slowly round the main building. ‘Too far off the beaten track – and anyway, look – here at this side? There’s what looks like the remains of a little chapel, see?’
Amelia leaned through one of the carved stone windows to examine the annexe.
‘I think you’re possibly right,’ she said. ‘In fact that stone table there under the main window – that could even have been an altar.’
‘I am sure it was a priory. I mean, from the size of the main building it would seem to have been designed for residency.’
George took Amelia by the hand and walked round to what he thought must be the main entrance, an old oak door which was still on its hinges and, when he pushed it, opened on to a stone flagged hall.
‘I’m sure I’m right, Amelia.’ George stood aside to allow her to enter. ‘This is definitely a hall, wouldn’t you say? Rather than the chancel of a church – and this room to the right here . . .’
Amelia followed him as he pushed another door open to reveal a large rectangular room.
‘. . . This was probably the refectory – and here—’ George disappeared into another room off the one they were in, followed by Amelia. ‘This was probably another living room – and there’s another room running off at the end, I think. Yes, yes there is.’
‘And there’s a staircase,’ Amelia called, having wandered through a stone archway into another hallway. ‘So it has to be a house because you don’t find a lot of churches with staircases, do you? You coming up, George?’
‘Careful, Amelia!’ George reappeared at the bottom of the stone staircase, half of which Amelia had already climbed. ‘You don’t know what the floors will be like up there!’
‘They seem to be fine!’ Amelia called back, having carefully made her way along the landing. ‘Most of the roof seems to be still in place, so the floors are really all right! Come up and see for yourself – it’s like a rabbit warren up here!’
All along the corridor they were both now exploring they found a series of rooms which from their size and disposition could well have been bedrooms, while right at the end of the passageway there was an altogether larger room which judging from the serrated partition midway had at some time been divided into two. Spectacularly, the end wall of the large room was almost entirely taken up with an enormous Gothic window, sadly with only three or four panels of the stained glass still remaining, the rest probably having been stolen or vandalized.
‘This must have some view,’ George remarked, standing in front of the huge window. ‘Down there below us – those must have been the gardens, I should imagine, and then beyond that wall there, it’s just open countryside and then woodland, right up to the tower.’
Looking out at that landscape Amelia could see a broad sweep of fields and woodland, right up to the tall landmark tower which stood atop the highest hill in the neighbourhood.
‘Do you know what that tower is, George?’
‘No idea.’
‘It was built where King Alfred is supposed to have erected his battle banner against the Danes. It’s meant to be the site of a famous battle. One that saved England from evil marauders.’
‘Alfred as in burning the cakes?’
‘The very same. I told you this place was steeped in legend.’
‘And this place,’ George continued, taking Amelia’s hand and leading her back through the building, ‘I’d say this place has been lived in as a proper house, wouldn’t you? And not so very long ago to judge from the way it’s been fitted out. These doors here’ – George pointed out some of the doors hanging in the entrances to what they supposed had been bedrooms – ‘they’re certainly not medieval. And downstairs, off the last room I was in when you came up here, there’s a kitchen, of sorts.’
‘Imagine living here,’ Amelia whispered. ‘It has to be the most enchanting place I’ve ever seen.’
‘We must come back and see it in the daylight. I should imagine it’s even more enchanting.’
‘Do you think it’s very old, George? It feels very old.’
‘I think so. But we’ll have a much better idea in daylight, wouldn’t you say?’
‘There’s something else about it,’ Amelia said, hesitating behind George as he began to make his way back downstairs. ‘Besides feeling as if it’s been here for ever.’
‘What? What else is there about it?’
‘It’s – I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it, without sounding silly. It just sort of – it’s as if it was a place of love. More than that. It feels as though it was once a place of great love.’
‘You feel that too?’
‘Really strongly. Isn’t that odd?’
George stopped on the stairs, turned to her and shook his head. ‘No. No more odd than you insisting we find the place.’
‘What?’ Amelia frowned back at him. ‘I don’t understand what you mean, George.’
‘Have you forgotten your famous falling star?’
‘Good heavens.’ Amelia put a hand up to her throat. ‘The star. You think the star actually brought us here, George?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Now it’s my turn to be blowed.’
They returned the next morning, almost as soon as it was light. On their way George stopped the car outside a little whitewashed house which served as a post office to the little hamlet that lay no more than quarter of a mile away from the ruins they had discovered. Amelia waited in the car while George disappeared inside the post office, her thoughts completely taken up with their extraordinary discovery.
Try as she would she could find no logical explanation for the phenomenon of the star, and although not generally given to flights of fantasy she could not help believing that the two of them had somehow been guided to the place, although as to the reason why – as yet she only had the smallest inkling of an idea.
George on the other hand was happy to put everything down to pure coincidence, apparently seeing nothing remarkable about the fact that Amelia seemed to have spotted a falling star which would appear to have plummeted to earth right on top of a set of medieval ruins.
Amelia now asked, ‘So what kept you?’ as George finally returned to the car from his sojourn in the post office.
‘Sending a few postcards. You know. Wish you were here.’
‘You were truffling, you truffle hound! Digging the dirt.’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t want to hear?’ George started the car and headed it straight for their destination. ‘We were right. Originally it was a holy place, so my informant in the post office told me, some sort of priory founded early in the Middle Ages. Like most other such establishments it was dissolved and abandoned in Tudor times since when it has remained mostly unoccupied.’
‘But we know someone must have been living in it recently, don’t we?’ Amelia argued. ‘From some of the fittings – and the kitchen.’
‘Precisely, my dear Watson. At the turn of the century this family got hold of it. The de something or others. Mad as March hares apparently, most of them. First the family lived here, then just the widow, who I gather was extremely dotty and stayed on with her dogs and her sheep after she had lost her husband until the war came, when for some reason she sold up and went back to Yorkshire. A farmer owns it now and wants to knock it down and sell off the stone.’
‘Knock it down?’ Amelia cried. ‘He can’t knock a place like that down! It’s against the law, surely?’
‘I don’t think so.’ George sighed dramatically. ‘If you own a set of old ruins like that, you can do what you like with them apparently.’ He gave Amelia a sideways glance which in her indignation she missed altogether.
‘He can’t knock that place down, George, I mean to say! That is a very special place.’
‘Very special place or not, Mrs Dashwood – that is exactly what the said gentleman proposes to do.’
Amelia was still quietly seething when George stopped the car at the dead end of the road.
‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ she asked as she got out of the car. ‘I seem to remember it from last night as being much more overgrown.’
George came round her side of the car, armed as before with his stout knobkerrie.
‘This is the place all right. It probably just looks less overgrown in daylight. Besides, I gave most of these brambles a pretty good hiding last night.’
Amelia shook her head. ‘It was much more overgrown than this.’
In fact the whole place looked not only considerably less sylvan but also less ruinous than they remembered it from their nocturnal visit, although George insisted this had to be an optical illusion since instead of moonlight they were now inspecting the place in bright and warm September sunshine.
Having once more climbed all through the house, examining every room and discovering that the main building was now more or less laid out as a family house, they inspected the grounds, making their careful way through small woodlands, round overgrown paths, across a small field and back round a path which ended in a wall of trees. George pushed on ahead, holding back some sturdy branches so that Amelia could safely pass, but the way soon became impenetrable.
‘Just as well,’ Amelia said, testing the ground with the heel of her shoe. ‘We wouldn’t want to venture much further because the ground’s quite boggy here. Very boggy, in fact.’
‘That would make sense, would it not?’ George wondered. ‘Seeing how much of Somerset is half under water.’
‘That’s more to the west, George. Towards what’s called the Flats. I should think all this water in the ground here suggests marshland pure and simple. There’s a path we can take here,’ she directed, pointing to a cutting through the trees. ‘It looks as if we can get out that way.’
The two of them made their careful way out of the woods, Amelia protecting her clothes from the thorns while George did his best to spare her by holding back what branches he could. When they emerged they found themselves on the far side of the building, which they could just see beyond a huge hedge of brambles and wild dog rose.
‘We shall have to walk all the way round again,’ George said, looking unsuccessfully for a way through. ‘This is like a wall.’
‘Along here!’ Amelia called from the end of the hedge. ‘There’s another hedge here at right angles, but there’s a path to the side! Which runs back to the house!’
Following her directions they soon found themselves back in the land immediately surrounding the buildings, emerging on the side which contained the little chapel, which they had already found had been stripped of all its portable fittings.
‘George,’ Amelia said, as they stood beside the stone altar and examined the superbly carved and fashioned wooden roof. ‘George, this place is unique. That stupid farmer simply cannot be allowed to knock it down.’
‘Oh well, in that case,’ George said with an exaggerated sigh, ‘we had better go and find him – and stop him.’
‘Are you thinking what I am thinking, George?’ Amelia wanted to know as, having ascertained from the post office where the farmer in question lived, George now drove out to find him. ‘You have to be, don’t you?’
‘Of course. Of course I’m thinking the same as you are. We both thought it the moment we set foot inside.’
‘If we do buy it—’
‘After we have bought it—’
‘If the farmer allows us to buy it, George, we shall need somewhere to live while it’s rebuilt.’
‘I’m going to ask Archie and Mae.’
‘We can’t impose like that. Rebuilding somewhere like that could take – I don’t know. Ages.’
‘The other night Archie said they were away so much that the house is empty for over half the year, except for Mad Betty and old Dan. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind us either camping out in that little guest cottage of theirs or even keeping the house itself warm. Keeping the ghosts company, as Archie would put it.’
‘You’re right, George. The Hanleys would be only too happy to have us stay. Now I come to think of it they’ve often suggested the same sort of arrangement to my parents.’
‘So there you are. All we have to do now is beat this farmer fellow down.’
* * *
The farmer lived high on a bare hill overlooking a valley grazed by black and white cattle. He was a big, ugly man dressed in a heavy brown overcoat and a vast floppy hat, even though it was a fine early autumn day. His coat was held closed by a length of twine, as were the bottoms of his heavy black trousers, tied tight above what appeared to be a pair of army boots. When George and Amelia approached him, he scowled and stood his ground, making no effort to greet them.
‘Mr Crouch? My name is Dashwood. And this is my wife, Mrs Dashwood.’
‘Whad ’ee wan’?’ the farmer growled, poking his emaciated dog to heel with a long walking stick. ‘Folk sed ’ey was sniffin’ round ’e castle. Was ’im you?’
‘The castle?’ George said in surprise. ‘If you mean the old ruined priory in the woods below Marlington--’
‘I means ‘e castle, thad’s wad I means, squire.’
‘I’m told you own it.’
‘Wad if I does?’
‘I’m also told you want to sell it.’
‘Summun’s bin doin’ sum tellin’ then, ain’t ’ey?’
‘I’d be interested in putting in a bid for it,’ George continued. ‘That is if you are wishing to sell. I need the stone.’
‘Wad else ’ud un wan’ ’im fer, ay?’
‘Exactly. I’m also told the going rate – to include the scrubland round it--’
‘Scrub, ’ee say?’ The farmer interrupted, before spitting hard on the ground. ‘Er’s thirdy acre gud meadow there, squire. An’ another twenty scratch. Lan’ alone cost ’ee twenny poun’.’
‘Ten,’ George said. ‘You couldn’t stand
a donkey on it.’
‘Twulve.’
‘Ten,’ George insisted. ‘A hundred and thirty pounds for the entire holding, to include all loose stone.’
‘’Undred and fafty.’
‘One hundred and forty. That’s my last offer.’
“Undred and farty-five.’
‘A hundred and forty-two.’
‘Dun.’
‘Done.’
The farmer spat on his hand and offered it to George, who without blinking an eye spat on his own and shook.
‘I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers,’ he said. ‘Good day.’
‘Be it cash, mine!’ the farmer called after him. ‘An’ not to include ‘em chairs in the parlour!’
‘What chairs?’ Amelia wondered sotto voce, as they walked away. ‘He can’t mean those dreadful old ladderbacks downstairs?’
‘He’s welcome to them,’ George laughed. ‘Even if they’re Hepplewhite.’
‘Which knowing Somerset farmers, they most likely will be.’ Amelia suddenly stopped to stare at George. ‘Is it really ours, George?’ she asked. ‘Really?’
‘Looks like it. Bar a fall.’
‘Then let’s go and take another look, shall we? A proper look?’
‘You took the notion right out of my head,’ George replied.
By now it was late afternoon and the air was heavy with the drone of insects and the scent of wild columbine as they threaded their way back along the overgrown path to find themselves once more in the enchanted place. A family of young swallows were busy flying high above the chapel, building up their strength for the long flight south which was now imminent, while on the grass mound beyond the main window a hare sat watching the proceedings.
‘What will it be like to live here, I wonder?’ Amelia said, holding George tight by one arm. ‘Can you imagine waking up in a place like this? And looking out on nothing but this wonderful view?’
‘Living anywhere with you would be wonderful,’ George replied dreamily. ‘But here – here it’s going to be heaven.’
‘We can make a garden,’ Amelia said suddenly. ‘That’s something I’ve always wanted to do – actually create a garden.’