The Fox in the Attic (11 page)

He had much to think over. Whether or not this was true about L.G. and Free Trade the Tories would soon get wind of the rumor—and what then?

Mary had never been inside that hermitage: only seen it in the distance. But the site though remote seemed so exactly what was wanted; and actually it was only about four miles from the house, an easy bicycle-ride for Mrs. Winter on her afternoons-off. She was so elated she told Mrs. Winter about it that same evening.

Mrs. Winter was very pleased. She too had never seen the place; but how lovely to have her Nellie at last so near, and be able to share her grief!

Discovery that the dead child had been Mrs. Winter's famous little niece was not the only shock the inquest had had in store for Augustine. Apparently the deceased had
not
died of drowning, the police-surgeon said in evidence as soon as the proceedings opened: he had found hardly any water in the lungs and the skull was cracked.

He went on to testify he had found no medical signs whatever pointing to violence: the child's skull was abnormally thin: perhaps her head had hit something as she tumbled in, reaching after her toy boat—even a floating branch could have done it. But this ghoulish sawbones had already had an effect on the court that nothing he said later could alter or undo.

Moreover as it turned out Augustine had found himself sole witness to the finding of the body: his companion Dai Roberts was still untraced.

In the front row of the public seats sat Mrs. Dai Roberts with her Flemton coven: as he told his story their glittering eyes never for a moment left his face. But the jury seemed unwilling to look at him at all: so long as he was in the box they averted their eyes to the well of the court where the public sat, and their faces were wooden and uneasy.

The police for their part said they also had found nothing on the spot either that suggested foul play—nothing at all. But when the police-witness protested perhaps over-much how satisfied they were, Mrs. Roberts under the eyes of the jury took out her purse and looked inside it. The sergeant at the door reddened with anger; but there was nothing he could do. Then a juryman asked for Augustine to be recalled, and put a suspicious question to him, in a suspicious voice: “Whyever did you move it, mun?”

Throughout the still court the questing breathing of those Flemton women could be
heard
...

A scatter of torn frock and a bloody bone half gnawed ... Augustine's mind's-eye flash of the reason he'd had to bring the body away at once was so beastly he just stood there in the box tongue-tied and at last Dr. Brinley the coroner himself had blurted it out: “Rats, laddie!” he said to the juryman reprovingly. The juryman of course misunderstood Dr. Brinley's meaning and flushed with mortification; but the old man never noticed.

Meanwhile a fly had settled on Dr. Brinley's bald head and polished its dirty legs while the aged voice under it continued: “A very natural, decent thing to do!” But on this the juryman set his jaw and looked more obstinate still.

Dr. Brinley was troubled. The whole neighborhood had got it in for that boy ... but
why
? Notoriously wrongheaded, certainly ... tactless ... a bit of a recluse ... With that inadequate eggshell of a skull the wonder was the child had lived so long! The very first fall from her pony ... but she wouldn't have had a pony, of course ... Why, too—Dai had been with the boy when he found her!—Damn Dai for his eternal Law-shy elusiveness: his presence today could have made all the difference ...

But at that point Dr. Brinley was distracted by the appearance of something lying on the desk before him. It was a hand; and a very old hand—the loose skin was blotched with brown under the white hairs, and wrinkled: the joints were knobbly, the ribbed nails horny and misshapen. The withered object was so redolent of old age it was seconds before he realized that this aged hand was his own.—
Now
, when he had never felt younger or better, when even those pains a week ago he had thought mortal were quite gone! But if all over he looked like
that
, all these idiots here must regard him as ... how dare they, puking puppies the whole sort of them!

Thrusting the offending hand out of sight he glared at his middle-aged jury as if he would like to slipper the lot; and they wriggled resentfully ... the old fool!

When the evidence was all taken the coroner strongly suggested a verdict of accidental death; but the verdict the jury obstinately returned was an “open” one.

The Flemton women looked gleeful: Dr. Brinley looked worried.

Meanwhile the police had found the Bentley in the street outside with its windscreen smashed, and belatedly had set a guard on it. After adjourning his court Dr. Brinley took one look at the damaged Bentley and then surprised Augustine by asking him for a lift home in it. He ignored someone else's offer and insisted he wouldn't mind the draught from the broken windscreen; but in fact his old eyes watered painfully the whole way back to his house.

The pavements in the High Street as they passed were unnaturally deserted—but not the windows.

*

At Newton that night two of those unshuttered billiardroom windows got smashed and late flowers in the garden were deliberately fouled. But of that Augustine knew nothing, for straight after dropping Dr. Brinley he had started for the north. He was embarked on what was presently to prove a none-too-satisfactory visit to Douglas Moss—the former Oxford luminary and leading philosophic wit. This was their first meeting since both went down. But Douglas was a native (surprisingly) of Leeds and already, alas, beginning to revert to native ways: he was out all day at the “Works,” leaving Augustine to his own devices—and then Augustine couldn't get that inquest out of his mind, his thoughts kept returning to it. The Mosses' home was a vast and almost bookless mansion in grimy crimson brick, built on the outskirts of the city. The old people made him as welcome as they could, but still the inquest continued to rankle. That accusing question: Why had he moved the body? That juryman's suspicious voice, asking him “
Why ever did you move it, mun?
”

The whole thing was indeed an intractable cud to chew ...

What was that phrase Jeremy had once used?—“Flemton's tricoteuses.”

Waking next morning Mary did wonder a moment if she had been rash, telling Mrs. Winter without having even seen the place: but it was all settled now, so she put the thought from her. After breakfast, though, she would ride that way ... there might be repairs needed. There might even be no sink!

It was a golden mid-October morning when Mary started out: sun above, and in the hollows mist. There was a smell of frost in the air but none properly in the ground yet, and the oaks in the park still held their yellow leaves.

Polly was out exercising her pony there, under a groom's surveillance: a tiny, narrow piebald pony off the Prescelly hills Augustine had given her like a miniature Arab, and perfectly schooled. Polly had a remarkable natural seat for so young a child, and the beauty of their effortless performance together under the trees that autumn morning plucked at Mary's heart. Should she take Polly with her for company, then? But no, it might be too far (or was the real reason a fear Polly might not like the Hermitage?)—Anyway, Mary rode on alone, collecting her mare to take the low wall from the park into the stubble (no wire was allowed anywhere on Mellton land, however much the farmers grumbled).

The soil in the valley was still soggy with autumn water though today the tufts were frosted; but once on the high downs where lay the chase (a misnomer nowadays, with its ten-mile circuit of high wall) the going was crisp and solid, and the air was sharp.

As she entered the chase at last by the crumbling castellated gateway even the green unrutted track she had followed came to an end, and Mary realized fully for the first time how ungetatable this hermitage was. Once more she felt a twinge of anxiety; but again drove it from her, for Mrs. Winter would be bitterly disappointed by adverse reporting
now
.

Moreover as Mary neared the Hermitage all practical thoughts were banished by the beauty of its setting. This chase, this tract of land preserved unchanged by man for a thousand years or more, was a piece of Ancient Britain itself. In the middle distance red-deer grazed warily: this was where they had always grazed since the dawn of time, for this turf under the wide sky had never known the plough—not since ploughs were invented. These thickets had never known the ax, these huge hollow yews and holly and random natural timber all tangled in old-man's-beard and bryony.

This was the very Britain King Arthur knew! In this setting, even the romantic fragment of the Hermitage looked almost true. In this setting, Mistress Mary Wadamy felt quite mediaeval herself ... she hitched her palfrey to a thornbush and let herself in.

The kitchen was smaller even than most town kitchens. It was darker and gloomier too because of that ruby-tinted lancet which provided the only light. Mary's heart sank ... still, it would probably just take a table for two ... the stained-glass in the lancet could be replaced with clear (and perhaps even made to open): white walls would work wonders, and in any case whitewash is far healthier than wallpaper when there are germs about.

The reason the kitchen was so cramped was that two-thirds of the space in the Hermitage was occupied by the grandiose beginnings of an ascent of corkscrew stone stairs. This stairway had been concocted so wide and ornate as proof of the fabulous dignity and wealth of this abbey-which-never-had-been: seen from outside, the stairs extended several feet even above the façade of the building, then the corkscrew broke off dramatically against the open sky (effectively masking from sight the kitchen chimney but perhaps rather spoiling its draught).

Off these stairs, just before they emerged through a trap into the open, a low door led into the hermitage's only room other than the kitchen: an attic bedroom, contrived in the small space available under the sloping, hidden roof. It had no window—but surely a skylight is adequate ventilation for quite so tiny a room? The slightly-slanting floor was triangular, and so were the only two walls (on the third side the roof itself sloped to floor-level). Presumably, though, it was here the hermit had set his truckle-bed ... and indeed there
would
just be room here for a single bed for the mother if she didn't sit up too suddenly, and even for the child's cot too.

As for the invalid, Mary had made up her mind before starting out: an opensided wooden shed out-of-doors should be built for him such as she had seen in Swiss sanatoria. She was thankful there was no possible room for Gwilym here in the house: it saved argument. In times past, when the warm sweet breath of cows was thought sovereign for consumption, folk would have contrived him a little dark loft in some crowded cowhouse close over the cows and there they'd have been shut up all winter, he and his raging tubercles and the milking-cows together. A more scientific age now realized the danger to the
cows
; so they prescribed chalk downs, and the warm sweet breath of a loving wife and child ... Mary had little patience with doctors who sent infectious cases home to their families like this: they seemed too much like farmers doing a grim seeding for next year's crops.

As her eyes got more used to the half-dark in the kitchen she saw now there was moss growing on some of the beams. The place could certainly do with a good drying out, and Gilbert
must
provide a sink (there was no piped water or drainage, but a sink can be served with buckets). Workmen must be sent up at once, so that the woman could move in and have it ready for her husband when he arrived.

As her eyes grew still more used to the ruby-tinted gloom she saw that the open grate was nearly solid with wet ashes. The chimney-throat was plugged with a wet sack: Mary poked it with her crop and it collapsed, discharging a barrow-load of sodden soot and jackdaw nests. Under this weight the front of the grate fell out too.

As Mary rode home she wondered how best to describe the place to Mrs. Winter. It was indeed a fairy-tale little place; but its charms were not altogether too easy to put into simple words.

However, when Mary got home she found a new problem awaiting her to consider in her bath that night. A letter from Augustine in Leeds: he told her he thought of traveling in China for a bit.

Even before the inquest Augustine had known the Hermit-of-Newton phase of his life was ended. His obsession that every man
is
an island remained, but his craving for physical solitude had been transitory and was now gone. It had been succeeded by a similar compulsive craving to “see the world.”

Because of the war, Augustine had come to manhood without ever setting foot even on the further shores of the Channel. Even Calais would have been strange to him. But his temperament was not one ever to do things by halves, and hence his letter to Mary that he thought of going to China. He had “once met a chap who had actually set out to
walk
to China and had got as far as Teheran when the war broke out and stopped him. Perhaps ...”

Mary's answer suggested: “Fine, but first why not go to Germany?” She could write to Lorienburg ... And now Douglas had commented: “After all, why not?—If you don't mind remoteness; for Germany of course is so much
remoter
than China.”

The friends were alone together, after dinner, in the huge but darkling and unventilated pillared paneled “lounge.” Tonight Douglas seemed a little more like his old self: business forgotten for once, he lay on his back in a deep armchair with his long legs higher than his head and his suède-shod feet tinkling the bric-à-brac beside them on the top shelf of the chiffonier, while he purported to be composing a love-letter in modern Greek. Augustine looked at him hopefully. There was sound truth in what he had said: Germany was indeed singularly “remote,” in the sense that Germany was somewhere utterly
different
.