The Affacombe Affair

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  She expected blankness or politely concealed amusement, and was astonished at the unmistakably wistful look which flashed across Barbara Winship’s face.

  ‘I think you’re so lucky, Olivia. I mean, all the things you’re interested in, and know so much about. You’ve got such a solid kind of life...’

  Olivia searched hastily for an answer. Behind her friendliness and ease she was chary of becoming intimately involved with people, but here there was something very like an appeal.

  ‘I married late, you know,’ she said, rather to her own surprise. ‘Not until I was nearly thirty. So I had quite a long spell of earning my living and making a life for myself. Then, after John died I had David to see through and get started, so I took a job again to make things easier financially. I only had eleven years of married life.’

  ‘I married far too young,’ Barbara said abruptly. ‘I think it’s a great mistake. I don’t mean Julian and David, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘They’re both so sensible, aren’t they? Really, Ju sometimes makes me feel she’s older than I am. Anyway, David’s thirty. I suppose we shall have to start planning the wedding soon,’ she went on in her usual conversational tone. ‘Ju won’t hear of Highcastle Cathedral: she’s determined to have quite a simple affair here. Are you going back? I think I’ll turn too, then.’

  They walked back to the village talking easily, and parted outside Crossways, Olivia refusing an invitation to tea on the plea of dampness and muddiness. She went on alone, intrigued by her first glance of the real Barbara Winship behind the elegant and languid façade.

  Impatient though she was to get to know her prospective daughter-in-law better, Olivia wisely decided that Julian must make the going. She was, therefore, delighted by a visit from her on the following Saturday evening.

  The season of log fires had begun, and they sat companionably on either side of the hearth, Julian looking most attractive in a plain dark red frock. She had suggested that they made a start on ‘filling in the picture’, and Olivia found herself talking freely about David’s boyhood and the problems of bringing up a fatherless boy. A good listener, she thought with satisfaction.

  ‘I don’t think anything can quite make up for losing your father early on,’ Julian said thoughtfully.

  Olivia turned the conversation to the girl’s own history. She quickly sensed that a defence of Barbara was implicit in Julian’s narrative, and that she obviously realized that people found her mother irritating. Olivia began to feel rather conscience-stricken: Barbara had certainly been through a great deal. Her first husband, an R.A.F. bomber pilot, had been killed in action over Germany only six months after their marriage. A few hours after Julian’s posthumous birth the nursing home was hit in a tip and run raid.

  ‘It must have been absolutely grim for Mummy. She herself wasn’t hurt at all apart from shock, and I was perfectly all right. But her cousin who was in the part of the building which collapsed was dead when they got her out, and her baby which had been born the day before died afterwards. I don’t think Mummy has ever quite got over it all, you know.’

  Julian looked squarely at Olivia, who nodded without speaking.

  The wealthy paternal grandfather emerged as a dominating and possessive figure. He had clearly been disappointed in his son’s choice of a wife, but after the former’s death had concentrated all his affection and pride on Julian, insisting that she should be named after her father, and tolerating Barbara for the child’s sake. He was a widower, and for the first ten years they lived with him in his Cotswold home, where an established housekeeper made Barbara’s position difficult.

  ‘He was awfully generous over Mummy’s allowance and that sort of thing, and when she said she was going to marry Daddy he was simply furious. He thought she’d have more children and that I should suffer, and when he saw he couldn’t stop her marrying, well — he bribed her. He said he’d go on with the allowance if she’d agree to him legally adopting me, so that I had a home in my own right. He had made me his heiress already. He was perfectly reasonable about my spending half my holidays with her and so on, and in the end she agreed. I’m afraid I’ve always felt a bit resentful — at being a sort of bargaining counter. David was absolutely horrified about it when I told him last weekend. He said he couldn’t imagine anything in the world inducing you to have let him be adopted.’

  ‘I don’t think I can either,’ said Olivia. ‘But it’s awfully difficult to think oneself into someone else’s skin, isn’t it? The adoption gave you complete material security, of course.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Too much, really. You probably know that it nearly put David off altogether. But that side of things is going to be all right. There are trusts for children, for instance. We’ve talked it all over in a completely uninhibited way. And David absolutely agrees with me that Mummy’s allowance must go on. Legally it stops when I marry, or in eighteen months’ time when I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘I’m so glad about that. I —’

  The telephone on Olivia’s desk rang. She went across the room and took up the receiver.

  ‘A trunk call from London,’ she told Julian. ‘It could be David.’

  Their eyes met hopefully. Then an unfamiliar masculine voice came through.

  ‘Mrs Olivia Strode speaking — Oh, good evening, Mr Garnish.’ Olivia made an astonished grimace at Julian as she listened. ‘Why, I should be delighted to go through the papers you took over with the property — No, I don’t mind how bad a muddle they’re in. I shall almost certainly find some useful material for my book — No, I shouldn’t think of accepting a fee. Local history’s my hobby, you know — Next Saturday evening, about half-past six? Thank you, I shall look forward to coming and meeting you both. Goodbye.

  ‘My dear, can you believe it?’ she said to Julian, returning to the fireside. ‘They’ve asked me up for a drink!’

  ‘It’s epoch-making! As far as I know they’ve never had anyone inside the door barring the Ainsworths. What do you think has done it?’

  ‘John Ainsworth says Mr Garnish — whose antecedents are pretty humble, I imagine — gets a tremendous kick out of owning a place like the Priory, and I dare say he’s thrilled at the prospect of its being written up. He’s no idea what a modest affair the P.H. is going to be, of course.’

  ‘That remains to be seen. I’m afraid I really ought to go home now — I’ve loved coming. By the way I’ve fixed with David to go up for next weekend. We’re seeing my trustees, and getting down to plans generally. Where we want to live, and so on. The vicar says January 3rd is perfectly all right for the wedding. I think Mummy would have liked the Cathedral and a big reception, but I should simply loathe it, and David feels just the same. You’ll give her moral support over everything, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Olivia promised.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Murdered the room, haven’t we?’ asked Roy Garnish. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Mrs Strode. Modern furniture instead of the right period stuff.’

  He stood with his hands in the pockets of an admirable tweed suit and legs apart, stocky and ginger-haired with a grin on his reddish face as he watched for her reaction to this mild baiting.

  Olivia smiled. ‘You can’t spoil a room with proportions and windows like these,’ she said decisively. ‘Besides, the furniture may be modem but it’s good in its own right.’

  Pleased, he turned to his wife.

  ‘What about that?’ he demanded.

  ‘What about a drink for the visitor?’ Pamela Garnish countered, bringing forward a trolley of appetising snacks. ‘Try this chair, Mrs Strode. I think you’ll find it’s comfortable, whatever it looks like.’

  ‘What’s your pet poison?’ Roy asked her, going across to a cabinet which opened at the flick of a finger to disclose an impressive array of bottles.

  ‘A dry sherry, please,’ Olivia said.

  ‘On the rocks?’

  ‘Please. My son introduced me to that idea.’

  ‘Jolly g
ood one.’ Ice rattled and clinked as he busied himself.

  ‘Isn’t it your son who’s just got engaged to a local girl?’ Pamela Garnish enquired politely. She moved the trolley nearer. ‘Do help yourself, won’t you?’

  Olivia was visited by a mathematical fantasy. Roy Garnish was a cube, Pamela a line. She was slightly the taller, and of a curiously elongated appearance. She had incredibly long fingers, spindly legs, and her facial features reproduced the linear pattern. Unobtrusively eyeing her suit and jewellery, Olivia wondered what it would feel like to dress oneself on that level. She was aware that she, too, was being scrutinized, but in a puzzled way. Pamela was seeing a late-middle-aged woman dressed off a middle-grade peg, and wearing cultured pearls.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in reply to the first question. ‘He’s engaged to Julian Wrey, the step-daughter of Colonel Winship, who lives at Crossways.’

  ‘I’m afraid we keep clear of the village,’ Roy Garnish said, coming over with the drinks on a tray. ‘I’m a very busy man, Mrs Strode, and when we manage to snatch a short break down here I just feel like sleeping most of the time. Well, cheers, everybody.’

  He downed the best part of a whisky and soda.

  ‘Are you pleased about the engagement?’ Pamela pursued.

  ‘Yes, very pleased indeed. There’s nothing hasty about it: they’ve known each other for five years.’

  ‘So you’re writing a book about Affacombe?’ Roy Garnish asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

  ‘I’m writing the history of Affacombe parish, actually. It’s quite a big one, running right up into the moor, although nearly all the people live down here in the village.’

  ‘Who are you publishing with?’

  Olivia explained that her book was only at a very early stage.

  ‘I don’t get you,’ he said. ‘If you want material about this place of mine dealing with the 1855 sell-up, you can’t be far short of the end, surely?’

  Sources of information became progressively fewer as you went back into the past, she told him. It was easier to proceed from the known to the less known as you collected your data.

  ‘The last hundred years are a relatively simple matter,’ she elaborated. ‘What I’m doing at the moment is trying to get the fullest possible idea of what the parish was like just before the railway arrived in this part of the world. That was in 1849, when the pre-machine age came to an end.’

  ‘Ah, now I’m with you all right. Damned interesting.’

  Olivia was impressed by his intelligent and unfeigned interest in a topic which had never come his way before. He’s able, she thought. Naturally able. With a different background he’d have gone to a university, and been able to tackle most things.

  Roy Garnish pounced on the information she could give him about the Benisson family who had owned Affacombe Priory for three centuries before the estate was sold up.

  ‘It tickles me pink to think of a chap like me lording it in a stately home, you know,’ he said with satisfaction.

  Pamela pressed more refreshment on Olivia with an assiduity which suggested that this trend in the conversation was not to her taste.

  ‘Really, it’s all quite fascinating,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘Why, I often wonder if the house is haunted.’

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ said her husband, in high good humour. ‘A ghost’s a status symbol, if you like. Ever heard any tales of a Priory spook, Mrs Strode?’

  ‘Not in the house itself, I’m afraid, but there’s the legend of the Monk’s Leap, of course.’

  She narrated it amusingly, and it went down well with both the Garnishes. Roy gave a bellow of laughter.

  As he refilled the glasses it seemed a propitious moment for introducing the subject of the excavation.

  ‘Talking about the ruins,’ Olivia said, ‘there’s another matter of historical interest I’d rather like to put to you, Mr Garnish.’

  ‘Fire away,’ he replied.

  He listened attentively as she outlined the possibilities, but reacted with decision.

  ‘Don’t think we’d care for a whole lot of strangers digging up the place, do you, Pam?’

  His wife agreed.

  ‘There are the Ainsworths, too,’ she added. ‘It might be inconvenient for them. We’ve got to think of our tenants.’

  ‘It was just an idea I had after that tree came down in the gale,’ Olivia said equably, concealing her keen disappointment. ‘Apparently —’ she made a split-second decision not to mention her own visit to the spot — ‘the original Priory extended a good deal farther than the exposed ruins. It must have been bigger and more important than historians have thought up to now. I’m afraid we get carried away at the chance of fresh information coming to light. I quite understand how you feel.’

  ‘Here, hold on a minute.’ The good-humoured grin had returned to Roy Garnish’s face. ‘I’m a bit out of my depth when it comes to culture, y’know. Haven’t had much time for it. But if there’s something worth digging up on the property I don’t want to be obstructive. Far from it. It’d be quite a thing to have a whatsit — Ancient Monument outside the back door. It’s just come back to me that I ran across one of these digging johnnies last summer. He’d been down at that prehistoric place in Midshire with a lot of the high-ups, he said. Can’t think of his name at the moment, but I’ll soon run him to earth. He might get some real top-notchers to come along.’

  Olivia tried to convey tactfully that eminent archaeologists were most unlikely to be interested in the ruins of Affacombe Priory, but her views were brushed aside almost impatiently. I can just imagine him in a boardroom, she thought, as the topic was abruptly dismissed and the conversation turned to the estate papers which had been brought down from London.

  Half an hour later she was driving home, mulling over her visit. Some useful ground had certainly been covered. In time it would become clear to Roy Garnish that his ruins were very small beer, and if she were tactful it should then be possible to bring in the Highcastle Archaeological Society after all, and she would be able to take part in the field work herself. The big box of papers in the boot held out fascinating possibilities. She’d made a potentially valuable contact, although one which she’d no wish to extend into the social sphere. It would be best to be rather noncommittal when describing the evening to her friends. And she’d make quite sure that the Garnishes were not in residence before going up to the ruins again.

  On the following Friday evening David rang up Poldens from London, and there was also a call from Julian when the latter had returned to her flat in Highcastle. They were both ecstatically happy, full of their plans and eager to bring Olivia into the picture. She found this heart-warming, and as the days went by did all she could to show friendliness to the Winships, dropping in on them casually and encouraging them to do the same at Poldens.

  Affacombe was by now settling down to its winter seclusion. Summer visitors had departed, and even cruising motorists had become a rarity. With few interruptions Olivia spent blissful hours sorting the box of papers. As Roy Garnish had warned her, they were in hopeless confusion. Only the spare room floor offered adequate space, and she retreated upstairs with them. The musty smell of long-stored documents seeped through the cottage as the little heaps multiplied, each carefully labelled. From time to time she came on a prize. One such was the auctioneers’ plan of the estate drawn up for the sale in 1855. The village was smaller then, but on the other hand some houses seemed to have disappeared. She spread the plan on the kitchen table and compared it with the six-inch map of the Ordnance Survey. It was exactly what she had hoped to find. Later she found a copy of the Benissons’ rent roll for 1839. Under the heading INCROACHMENT there was an additional charge of a penny to Samuel Wollacott ‘for a porch to the cottage called Poledens adjoining the road leading to the turnpike.’

  Quite a lot of these ought to be in the County Archives, she thought, surveying the floor. How would Roy Garnish react to this suggestion? She really ought
to put it to him. The best thing would be to play on his vanity as a landowner. She suddenly sneezed convulsively, and decided that the air was full of dust and that she needed a freshener. Why not go up to the ruins before lunch? She had learnt from the Ainsworths that a tractor and circular saw were dealing with the tree, and that the Garnishes had left. Pulling on a coat she went out to the garage, pausing for an affectionate glance at Samuel Wollacott’s porch.

  This time, having forewarned the Ainsworths, Olivia drove up to the front of the Priory, parked outside the West Wing and approached the ruins from the south side. It was past twelve and the men had knocked off for the dinner hour. But the clearing-up operation was already far advanced. The trunk had been lopped of its small branches and dragged away to an open space for easier handling.

  After making a careful inspection Olivia came to the conclusion that the walls were part of a small building more likely to be the gatehouse than a guesthouse. She stood with her back to it and tried to picture the general layout more clearly. Then she walked in an easterly direction and poked about in what appeared to be the cloister garth. A dense thicket of shrubs had established itself on the probable site of the chapter house. It would be a tough job to clear, she thought, idly parting the branches and peering in. To her surprise there was a kind of tunnel leading to an open space in the middle. Twigs freshly snapped off showed that its existence was known to others — young devils, she at once concluded, knowing that the ruins were out of bounds for the boys. It was irresistible to her, too. Tying a scarf over her head she bent nearly double and wormed her way through.

  Her first reaction was triumph as she discovered a piece of paving and the base of a pillar. There were also signs of much more recent occupation: a ground sheet, some sacks rolled up in a polythene bag, and a squalid litter of cigarette ends, some stained with lipstick, dead matches and sweet papers. A patch of bare earth bore the imprint of stiletto heels and heavy masculine footwear.