Shades of Darkness (Timothy Herring) Page 2

  “Yes,” said Alison, in a meek voice, “of course you are. After all, to your obviously bitter and sustained regret, the dratted nuisance aforesaid was the means of bringing you and me together. I don’t wonder you’re sick to death of her. You have every right to be, you poor wife-ridden thing. My heart bleeds for you, and if I could think of any reason for it, I’d let you divorce me.” She raised her head from his shoulder and kissed him under the angle of his jaw.

  “Look,” said Timothy, “I’ve never given you a tanning yet, but, as Psmith would say, you must learn to distinguish between the unusual and the impossible, so stop taking unnecessary risks.” His arms tightened around her. Alison laughed and kissed him again.

  The result of the conversation was that, at the next committee meeting, he put the proposition fairly to the members without expressing bias of any kind, and, to his mingled amusement and chagrin, he was given carte blanche and the Society’s blessing to track down (if possible, within reasonable distances of one another), a period house, a ruined castle, an old bridge, a folly, a large barn, and a ruined church.

  “So now see what you’ve done!” he said to Alison as he drove her home from the meeting. “You are a most undutiful woman, and your punishment will be to accompany me on my loathsome quest for these unmentionable locations and help me to assess and chart them. All this will be instead of spending Easter in Paris, and serve you jolly well right!”

  “Were we going to spend Easter in Paris?”

  “I wasn’t, but I thought you might like to.”

  “I’d much rather help you run Mrs. Miles’ fools’ errands—really I would. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be pretty good fun, and if only it hadn’t been Mrs. Miles’ suggestion you’d think the same. Cut loose from your cocoon of prejudice and obstinacy, and look at the issue objectively. You know I’m right. It will be something really interesting to do. Where shall we start—and when?”

  Timothy accelerated and they covered those miles of motorway which lay between Beaconsfield and Stokenchurch at a speed which terrified Alison.

  “All right, that’s enough naughty temper,” she said, when he slowed to what seemed a crawling pace through the village. “Now be nice, and admit that you’re a pig-headed, self-opinionated, conceited, intractable, bullying roughneck.”

  “All right,” said Timothy, grinning. “Admit that you’ve just been scared stiff.”

  “You know I was, you uncouth beast!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Netherton Fivefields

  “Erlinton had a fair daughter;

  I wot he wear’d her in a great sin;

  For he has built a bigly bower,

  And a’ to put that lady in.”

  Border Ballad—Erlinton

  * * *

  On marshes bordering the rivers kingcups were showing and, matching their mollyblob gold, the shining lesser celandine starred banks above the ditches. Primroses were out, purple willows, alders, beeches, and hazels were dripping with catkins, gorse was in flower on the heathland, and when Alison left the car to stretch her long legs and take the air she found a root of dark sweet violets.

  The car, heading south from the Cotswolds, had passed through Marlborough and Salisbury and crossed a broad and beautiful reach of the Hampshire Avon. After Fordingbridge it followed a maze of minor roads until its occupants could see, on a little, flat-topped hill, the ruined church of Netherton Fivefields.

  The village had been decimated by the Black Death. The villagers’ hovels had been left to decay and had long since disappeared, and the church had fallen into decrepitude. A new village had grown up some miles to the east and its church had been built and consecrated soon after the time that Urban V left Avignon and the papal power and pomp returned to Rome. A late-fourteenth-century tower could be seen among some trees, and not far away stood an eighteenth-century folly whose manor house was not, from the road, disclosed to view.

  The ruined church, which was what Alison and Timothy were making the journey to see, was distinguished, if not unique, by having been built within a circle of irregular banks and ditches which marked the existence of a very much older sacred site. This had been protectively fenced in, but a wicket-gate on a latch gave entrance to the ruins.

  “There’s a round-barrow over there,” said Alison, pointing, “and from where we are I can make out three circles of banking.” They had left the car on the roadside verge and had come to the wicket-gate, which Timothy opened. “The inner one, with the church inside it, is still complete; then there’s a broken-up bank and ditch, and where we’re standing the outer bank’s been flattened, but you can trace its outline over there towards that farm. Same period as Avebury, I think.”

  “No monoliths.”

  “There could have been a timber stockade or heavy timber uprights. It would be worth while to dig, if we could get permission.”

  “Curb the enthusiasm. It’s the church we’ve come to see. Wonder who owns the land? It can’t be the Ministry of Works or the National Trust, or it would say so. Well, come on, let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute while I take a photograph.”

  The Norman edifice was roofless. Its ivy-covered tower was still standing, but of its staircase only half-a-dozen broken stone treads remained. The entrance to the church was by way of a gap where the south door had been placed, and the interior of the building now consisted of the remains of nave and chancel, with an arcade of round-headed openings with traces of billet moulding. These arches separated the main part of the nave from the north aisle. An early English window with three narrow arches, its stonework badly weathered, lighted the east end of the chancel.

  “What does Mr. Ryanston want with a church?” asked Alison.

  “I’ve no idea. Perhaps the film story includes a Black Mass.”

  “I say, do you know you’re trespassing?” asked a voice from behind them. Alison and Timothy looked round. There had been nobody about when they had left the car, and they had heard no sound of approaching footsteps over the long, rough grass which surrounded the ruined church. A girl was standing in the damaged opening which afforded the only entrance.

  “I’m frightfully sorry if we’re trespassing,” began Timothy, “but the gate was on the latch, so . . .”

  “Don’t I know you?” asked Alison, interrupting him and addressing the sturdy girl. “Aren’t you . . .”

  “Annabel Leigh. Not the Edgar Allan Poe one, but the one who used to be in your history group at school. How do you do, Miss Pallis? Come back all I said about trespassing! It’s nice to see you.” She advanced and held out her hand.

  “Mrs. Herring now,” said Alison. “This is my husband.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Herring? What was all that about a Black Mass? Oh, I say! You’re not Timothy Herring for the Society for the Prevention, and so forth, are you? If so, I’m one of your members. Are you prospecting on behalf of Phisbe? I say, do come up to the house and have some lunch and tell us all about it. I’m so glad you’re married to Marchmont. I had a fearful crush on her at school. I hope she didn’t know!”

  “Considering that I remember you chiefly as a plague and a nuisance, and one given to asking unanswerable questions in class, no, I most certainly didn’t know!” said Alison. “You say we're trespassing? To whom does this land belong, then?”

  “To the Leighs, of course, so you’d better come along and drink life to them.”

  “Punning is an execrable taste,” said Timothy, “and certainly don’t become a young woman. However, as you have kindly withdrawn the charge that we are trespassing, I feel I ought to tell you that we are here on behalf of the Jacob Z. Schnellenhamer Film Company of Hollywood, U.S.A. What do you think of that!”

  “Oh, I say, do tell me all about it on our way to the house! Is that your car? What a beauty! Will you give me a lift?”

  The house, distant some few miles by road and lane from the church, had been built as a late-fifteenth-century hall, but had received additions and al
terations during the succeeding four hundred years and now presented a jumble of contrasting styles.

  Two tall stone pillars, each crowned with a Caroline urn from which some ivy was growing, marked the gateless entrance, and there had been no lodge. The central feature of the south side of the mansion was an early Tudor doorway surmounted by a diamond-patterned brick tower which ended in a steeply pitched gable. The gables which topped the wings on either side of the tower had attic windows of the same period, but the fenestration on the ground floor and the first floor had been altered to give the principal rooms more light This was now provided by tall, narrow windows with triangular pediments and ornamentation in the form of scroll-work and pendants of stone.

  “Well, here we are. Welcome to Fivefield Hall,” said Annabel. She tugged on an ancient bell-pull whose handle was of wrought iron, and a woman servant opened the door. They entered the hall. It was in the two parts sometimes favoured by the architects of the early seventeenth century, and these two parts were separated by a stone screen with a broad uncurtained archway in its centre. The walls were panelled in dark wood and through the arch could be seen a fine, broad-balustered staircase. This interior part of the hall, into which Annabel led the way, was furnished with a late-seventeenth-century Derbyshire chair, an Elizabethan joint-stool and an oak box-stool of the time of Charles II.

  A modern note, and one which, to the visitors, was incongruous and sadly tasteless, was struck by the bust of a young man on whose otherwise naked shoulders the sculptor had fastened in coloured material the insignia of a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force. On a Chippendale vase-stand in front of it stood an electric light in the form of a red sanctuary lamp. The bust, presenting its profile and sentimentally treated in the fashion of the early 1920s, was reminiscent, in its unlikely and slightly sickening saintliness, of the photograph of Rupert Brooke which adorned the title page of the earlier editions of the poet’s 1914 and Other Poems.

  The visitors followed Annabel and were shown into a large, well-proportioned room occupied, at the moment of their entrance, by a tall, thin, elderly gentleman and two women of late middle age. The man was holding a skein of wool for one of the women; the other woman was feeding a handsome borzoi with chocolates.

  “Oh, really, Aunt Wallie!” expostulated Annabel. “You’ll make him sick! Anyway, look who’s here!” She introduced the guests, who learned that the relatives were Aunt Wulfilda, Aunt Waltruda, and Uncle Ordulf. “Mr. and Mrs. Herring are going to film a Black Mass at the old church, and they’re staying for lunch. After that, I’m showing them over the estate,” she went on.

  Alison’s observant ex-schoolmistress’s eye caught a horrified glance which passed between the elderly gentleman and the woman who was winding the wool. Interpreting it, she exclaimed immediately,

  “It’s very kind of Annabel to suggest that we stay for lunch, but I’m afraid we have to meet our producer in Shaftesbury at half-past one, and have promised to lunch with him at the Dragon and report progress. We just came along to apologise for trespassing. We didn’t realize the church was private property, and we’d like to ask if we may come along to look at it again at some time.”

  “We don’t want a Black Mass,” said Aunt Waltruda, the dog-spoiler, going over to a bunch of dried sage which was hanging beside the empty fireplace. “And that’s the last of the chocolates, Boris, so shoo!”

  “Well, if you can’t stay for lunch, why not come back to tea?” said Uncle Ordulf. “When you’ve had another look at the church, perhaps.”

  Alison glanced from the tall, thin, wool-winding Aunt Wulfilda, with her air of disdainful good breeding, to the puffy-faced Aunt Waltruda, sniffing at the bunch of dried sage, and left the responses to her husband.

  “It’s very kind of you,” said Timothy. “Thank you so much. We’ll look forward to this afternoon, then.”

  “I’ll see you to your car,” said Annabel. “We have tea at five sharp,” she added, when they were outside the house, “and Aunt Wallie gets busy with her ouija board after that, so—if you don’t mind being a bit punctual? I say, I suppose you couldn’t get me a small part in the film, could you? I’m bored to death here.”

  “All those astonishing lies of yours with the verisimilitudinous embellishments!” said Timothy severely to his wife when they were out on the open road. “How come? Didn’t you want to stay to lunch? Did you find the household somewhat off-putting, or aren’t you hungry?”

  “Darling, they didn’t want us to stay. Annabel hasn’t altered. She never did possess any of the finer feelings, and, anyway, she always had an anti-social habit of speaking first and thinking afterwards. Didn’t you notice the horror with which her remark about staying to lunch was received?”

  “No, I can’t say I did. Did they take an instant dislike to us, do you think?”

  “I fancy the reason they didn’t want us is far more practical. I expect the lunch is chops or cutlets, or something else that comes in individual portions and has to be counted. I think they realized there wouldn’t be enough to go round.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I’m glad you don’t think we repelled them, and I must say I did admire your spur-of-the-moment excuses. I had no idea you possessed the gift of extempore fabrication to such a beautifully finished degree. Oh, well, hilltop historic Shaftesbury, here we come!”

  “Don’t be silly! You know as well as I do that there’s a perfectly good picnic lunch in the boot.”

  “And there it can jolly well stay. Feed it to the birds! You’ve just dashed a good hot meal from my slavering jaws, so you are certainly not going to get away with fobbing me off on to sandwiches and bottled beer! If you will tell gorgeous fibs, you must expect me to take advantage of them. Fancy even knowing the name of the hotel and everything!”

  “Well, actually, I made up the name, but I had to extricate us somehow. I wonder whether the bridge and barn Annabel mentioned are any good? If we can recommend them and the old church and the folly to Mr. Ryanston, we’re half-way home.”

  Mindful of Annabel’s hint that strict punctuality was desirable, Timothy and Alison returned to the mansion at a quarter to five to find a singular rite in progress. The door was opened by the elderly maidservant who put a finger to her lips and motioned them in without speaking. She pointed to a monks’ bench which stood against the side wall just inside the front door, bobbed a curtsey to indicate that her informal and secretive manner of admitting the visitors was none of her choosing, and vacated the hall by means of a side door which they had not noticed on their earlier visit. What they did notice was that she was in stockinged feet and that the doors, including the front door, opened and closed without a sound.

  There were sounds in the inner hall, however. This was now curtained off, and from the hidden interior beyond the screen came a low murmuring, as though a litany was being said. Alison held her breath and listened intently. The words were in Latin and seemed, with some slight but significant omissions, to be taken from the book of Psalms.

  The concerted recital came to an end. There followed a silence, as though the participants either were silently praying or were waiting for something to happen. After this, the recital was taken up by one voice only—the clear and youthful tones of Annabel Leigh.

  “Sederunt principes et adversum me loquebantur et iniqui persecuti sunt me. Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis, dolores inferni circumdederunt me. Dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea et sicut aqua effusus sum.

  “Quare faciem tuam avertis, oblivisceris tribulationem nostram? In die clamavi et nocte coram te. Esto mihi in deum protectorem et in locum refugii ut salvum me facias, quoniam firmamentum meum et refugium meum es tu. Justus es et rectum judicium tuum. Fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam.”

  Timothy looked at Alison and raised interrogative eyebrows. As she shrugged off the implied question, a scrambling noise indicative of persons rising to their feet from a kneeling position was accompanied by the reappearance of the elderly servant. At the same time the thin
silk curtain which had been screening the archway between the inner and outer hall was drawn aside. Timothy rose to his feet and Alison followed suit as the maid, who had remembered their names from their previous visit, announced them.

  Aunt Wulfilda came forward, icily gracious and calm.

  “So sorry,” she said, formally. “We were just communing with dear Erik. Do come along and have some tea.”

  “Oh, do, yes,” said Aunt Waltruda, turning from the bust whose head she had just denuded of a wreath of paper poppies. She raised her voice. “Boris! Boris, darling! Come to mum! Prayer-time over! Tea-time, darling! Come to mum!”

  Tea at Netherton Fivefields was complicated by the presence of the borzoi and two cats whose requirements appeared to be of paramount importance, but it was over at last, and by six o’clock Annabel and the elderly Uncle Ordulf, who was known to her with a mixture of affection and derision as Boffin, had arranged to meet Alison and Timothy on the following morning and conduct them over the estate.

  “The aunts always breakfast in bed,” said Annabel, when the time of meeting had been agreed, “but if you can get here by ten I can show you over most of the house as well. It’s not bad, and it’s really quite compact, in spite of the alterations.”

  “Well, what did you make of them all?” asked Timothy, as they returned to the hotel where they had lunched and where he had booked a room for the night.

  “I shouldn’t think it’s much of a life for Annabel. No wonder she’d like a part in Mr. Ryanston’s film! She has a right to be bored, stuck in a place like that, with those rather weird relatives and no other young people around.”

  “Oh, did you find the relatives weird? Rather a sinister adjective, I think. I merely found them three elderly, possibly slightly eccentric, eminently respectable persons.”