Unholy Writ

by David Williams

  ‘I wish he was my Timothy.’ Miss Goodbody blushed to the roots of her mousey hair, and Treasure was prompted to wonder whether academic research was the sole reason for her interest in Mitchell Stoke. ‘But yes, he did hit on something marvellous and wrote to me about it. In the May of 1599 the local carpenter had triplets – or rather his wife did – all boys, and they were christened Oliver, Jaques and Orlando. What d’you think of that?’ Miss Goodbody beamed at Treasure with the air of a conjuror who had just completed a particularly difficult hat trick.

  ‘Fancy,’ said Treasure, conscious only that the names had a Shakespearean ring about them.

  Aware that the staggering information she had just imparted had been received with something less than astonishment, Miss Goodbody continued: ‘Those were the names given to the three sons of Sir Rowland de Boys in As You Like It. Don’t you see, the coincidence is too clear really to be a coincidence. The names are not even common English ones. They must have been taken from the play, but so far as anyone knows the play hadn’t been performed anywhere before the late summer of 1599.’

  Treasure began to understand the drift of Miss Goodbody’s argument, and the reason for her obvious excitement. ‘You mean you believe the village carpenter at Mitchell Stoke had seen the play before his wife presented him with triplets, and that it’s not very likely he was a regular attendant at the Globe Theatre in London?’ He felt this minimum deductive offering on his part at least established him as something better than an academic moron in the face of such inventive scholarship.

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Miss Goodbody triumphantly, ‘or almost exactly anyway,’ she continued, implying that either Treasure was jumping to his conclusions, or else that she exercised a more disciplined approach to hers. ‘What we know for a fact,’ she continued, ‘is that the triplets were baptized on 6 May 1599 – that’s what Timothy unearthed in the Parish Register. What it’s reasonable to suppose is that if a band of travelling players visited Mitchell Stoke in that year the local craftsman most likely to have been involved with them was the carpenter …’

  ‘Even though the play was performed in the open air,’ Treasure put in, not wishing to be outdone if exactitude was to be questioned.

  ‘True,’ Miss Goodbody nodded, ‘because even an open-air performance requires something in the way of rudimentary sets – things like screens, benches, and so on. Just imagine, one of Shakespeare’s plays may have been staged for the very first time in this village.’ They had just entered Mitchell Stoke. ‘Golly, if only I can prove it.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘I can’t imagine anything truly alarming happening in our churchyard at three o’clock in the afternoon,’ Trapp volunteered. He sensed, but could not understand, the tenseness his earlier remark had caused. ‘Apparently Maggie did have a very weak heart,’ he added rather lamely.

  ‘P’raps a mouse ran up her leg,’ offered Scarbuck in a tone of forced bonhomie. ‘There must be plenty of those in country churchyards.’

  The only audible response to this unlikely conjecture was the sound of Moonlight blowing through the pipe he had been cleaning. ‘Where are you putting Maggie?’ he enquired in a quiet voice.

  ‘She’ll be breaking old ground this side of the church,’ said Trapp. ‘It’s a part of the churchyard that hasn’t been used for burials for something like two centuries, judging by the few gravestones that survive there. The churchwardens have come to the conclusion that that’s a decent enough interval. Fact is there’s no room left anywhere else.’

  ‘You mean the patch between the Hall gate and the Acropolis,’ Moonlight observed. Scarbuck stood up with such alacrity as to suggest he had been propelled by a powerful force outside his own control.

  Trapp resisted an involuntary reflex to salute the flag. ‘That’s it,’ he replied. ‘Worple was hard at it when I came over – and hard’s the word. He claimed he’d hit rock.’

  ‘Not rock; stone more likely,’ said Moonlight. ‘The same stone the wall is made from. He’s hit on a bit of the old Hall I should think. Solid stuff too. Eleventh-century monasteries were built to last – not many of them have, of course, except for what’s underground.’

  Scarbuck was doing his best to disguise a nevertheless evident state of agitation. He glanced at his watch for the second time in ten seconds, during which period he had been moving backwards towards the door of the study. ‘You must forgive me, both of you,’ he said. ‘I’ve a date on site at eleven and it’s gone that now. Nice to have met you, Vicar. Have a good … er … I hope the funeral goes all right.’ And with that he hurried through the door and was gone.

  ‘What an extraordinary man,’ observed Trapp as soon as the door was safely closed.

  ‘Repulsive little squirt would be more apposite,’ said Moonlight, ‘but then you’re a charitable chap, Timothy.’

  ‘Yes, but as a matter of fact, some of the things he said to me before we joined you were a bit of a strain. Does he wear those clothes all the time?’

  ‘I should think it extremely likely he has a dressing-gown and pyjamas to match – or perhaps a nightshirt; the effect must be dazzling,’ Moonlight replied. ‘To be accurate, I think we got the total ensemble this morning because he’s got a bus load of his followers arriving after lunch.’

  ‘What, all dressed like that?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea,’ said Moonlight, ‘but we shall no doubt find out later. Perhaps they’ll all do a war dance around the swimming pool. Hope they fall in.’

  ‘Exactly what is the Forward Britain Movement?’ asked Trapp. ‘To be honest, I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘Then your ignorance does you credit, my boy. They’re somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan – anti-black, anti-semitic, anti-Common Market, the lot. Little Englanders with the accent on the little. Thank God they don’t own a gun-boat. Incidentally, how was your rest cure with the gallant Commandos?’

  ‘Invigorating, but I think it’s time I gave it up. I’m getting too old for scaling cliffs. Still, brushing up unarmed combat was a useful exercise – I just wish the average Royal Marine was as pint-sized as those little chaps who weighed into me this morning. Well, I must be going.’ Trapp made to rise from his chair when the door opened and a smiling Elizabeth Moonlight came into the room.

  ‘Darling Timothy,’ she exclaimed, ‘how very good to have you back, and here’s another gorgeous man come to see us.’ Mark Treasure appeared in the doorway behind her.

  Elizabeth Moonlight had lost little of the radiance, and indeed natural beauty, that had made Arthur Moonlight the envy of all his contemporaries when he had married her twenty-odd years before. Simply, she had mellowed handsomely, kept her figure, her tiptilted nose, and her ability to be totally engaging to men she considered worthy of engaging. She was petite, very English, unmistakably upper-crust, and not in the least ashamed of it. Timothy Trapp adored her, but no more than did Mark Treasure. Nor was there any circumstance that suited Elizabeth better than to be in the company of three men who in their own ways each made her feel younger and more attractive than she really was.

  When introductions had been completed, Elizabeth poured coffee for the whole party from the trolley which Treasure had been detailed to tow in behind him when he first appeared. ‘Timothy,’ she said, ‘have they told you about my ghastly experience in the churchyard?’ and without waiting for a reply, ‘Mark, there I was gliding between the graves, a vision in last year’s sheepskin, and, my dear, I practically fall over a dead body. My poor Miss Edwards had dropped dead right there on the path.’

  Use of the possessive pronoun applied to the people she liked was characteristic of Elizabeth Moonlight. Few if any of those that she thus appropriated felt anything but flattery at being alluded to in this way. Maggie Edwards would have been no exception, and with good reason. Even though the Moonlights had been obliged to divest themselves of more and more of their worldly possessions, they had never considered abandoning what both regarded as the obligations of rank. The
y were much involved in the well-being of the inhabitants of what they termed the ‘old village’. The spirit of noblesse oblige was still very much alive in the Moonlights.

  ‘And what I shall never forget was the look on her face,’ Elizabeth continued. ‘She was petrified – well, perhaps that’s the wrong word, more … er … horrified. Yes, that’s it; as though she’d been frightened to death.’

  ‘A heart attack can be very frightening, my dear,’ said Moonlight firmly.

  ‘Yes, but somehow one doesn’t expect people to look anything but reposed in death,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘Not that I’ve seen many dead people. Aunt Mildred I remember looked rather smug, as if she’d just had the last laugh – she had too, leaving all her money to the RSPCA. We’ll come to the funeral of course, Timothy – two-thirty, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sure that will be appreciated by the relatives,’ Trapp replied. ‘I gather there are some, coming from London. Sorry to deprive you of your hosts, Mr Treasure, but the service will barely last half an hour.’

  ‘I shan’t mind in the very least,’ said Treasure. ‘And please call me Mark. As a matter of fact I have a date at two-thirty with your ardent admirer Miss Goodbody.’ He then related the story of his morning encounter, and how he had engaged to accompany Miss Goodbody on a hopeful journey of detection later in the day. ‘Mark you, Timothy,’ he ended, adopting the familiar address that seemed appropriate, ‘I’m sure she’d rather have you for company.’

  Trapp smirked self-consciously. ‘I did offer to put her up at the vicarage,’ he said, ‘but she insisted it would compromise me. Thelma observes all the old-fashioned niceties.’ Treasure considered that Timothy Trapp perhaps underestimated Miss Goodbody’s particular regard for his reputation.

  ‘D’you really believe this Shakespeare business, Mark?’ Elizabeth enquired. ‘Timothy’s been on about it ever since he unearthed those parish registers, but Arthur is distinctly sceptical.’

  ‘Not sceptical, just realistic,’ put in Moonlight. ‘The evidence so far is slim, and I see no possibility of anyone finding any more.’

  ‘But the concept is exciting,’ said Treasure. ‘Just imagine Mitchell Stoke becoming a minor Stratford-on-Avon. You’d be on the American travel agents’ itineraries in no time.’

  ‘A bit late for that,’ said Moonlight ruminatively.

  ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth broke in, ‘and we could have Molly here doing a summer season on the lawn. Mark, how is Molly, you haven’t told us? Is the American play a success?’

  ‘A wild one, I gather.’ Treasure wished it were not so, since his wife had already been in New York for three months. ‘The thing should run for six months at least, and it’s really only the most trifling domestic comedy. A season here in Shakespeare would probably be very good for her art.’

  ‘Well, we could hardly recreate the original setting,’ Moonlight observed. ‘The old Hall has gone, and whatever they had for a garden with it.’

  ‘Of course, the old Hall – the monastery building – was in quite a different position from the present Hall,’ said Trapp.

  ‘Yes,’ Moonlight said, ‘it was much closer to the church, on the patch of rising ground that leads up to the wall. It became part of the graveyard when the new building was finished on the high ground to the east.’ He paused. ‘The monastery was stone built, not brick like the Hall. There are several cottages in the village made up from the old materials – you must have noticed them. The wall itself, of course, was salvaged stone. I always thought they must have dumped the subsoil from the foundations of the new Hall on the site of the old one because the ground rises quite steeply from the Acropolis eastwards. There’s no trace of the old Hall left, though Timothy was saying earlier that our gravedigger appears to have unearthed a bit this morning.’ He glanced at Trapp. ‘D’you know how deep he was Timothy?’

  ‘Seven foot six,’ replied the Vicar with a firmness and accuracy that surprised his hearers. He smiled. ‘Worple told me so.’

  ‘Isn’t that deep for a grave?’ asked Treasure.

  ‘Ah, our Mr Worple likes to give value,’ said Elizabeth, ‘but have you seen how deep those jolly little Filipinos are going with Mr Scarbuck’s swimming pool?’ Moonlight and Trapp exchanged glances.

  ‘Jolly is hardly the word after Timothy’s experience this morning,’ Moonlight told his wife. He followed with the story of Trapp’s adventure.

  ‘But how utterly preposterous,’ Elizabeth protested. ‘That dreadful little man should be reported to the police or the immigration authorities – or both.’

  ‘So it’s that Scarbuck who’s bought the Hall,’ Treasure put in.

  ‘Why, d’you know him?’ Moonlight asked quickly.

  ‘Know of him,’ his friend replied, ‘and that frankly is as close as I’d care to get. But whatever possessed you …’ He paused, obviously embarrassed. ‘That wasn’t Scarbuck who was leaving the house as I arrived – small, fat chap wrapped up in a Union Jack? I thought he must be out of a circus.’

  ‘That was Scarbuck,’ said Moonlight, ‘and as for what possessed me to sell him the Hall, Elizabeth knows already, and Timothy must have guessed: we needed the money.’

  There was a momentary silence, broken by Trapp who said, ‘Now I really must go or I shall be keeping the Bishop waiting. He’s coming round to the vicarage at twelve to give me what he calls an account of his stewardship. He’s got three weeks’ collections banked but I don’t suppose they’ll put the Church of England on a new financial footing.’ Bishop Clarence Wringle lived in retirement with his wife Clara in a cottage close to the village. A self-styled ‘ecclesiastical spare part’, he acted as unpaid curate at St John’s and during Trapp’s recent absence as stand-in Vicar.

  Trapp heaved himself out of his chair, an action Bach pretended to ignore.

  ‘So you’ll come for dinner tonight, Timothy,’ said Elizabeth firmly. ‘Seven o’clock. And bring that cassock with you, or else drop it in this afternoon and I’ll mend it. Scalloped hems are definitely out this year. The Wringles are coming too, and I’m just going to ring Thelma Goodbody at The Boatman to see if she’s free – nice girl, if a trifle hearty. Anyway, she’s stimulating in a wholesome way.’ She gave all three men a satisfied glance as if to suggest that other sorts of female stimulation might be bad for them. ‘Come on then, Timothy, there’s a bone in the kitchen that Bach can take home.’

  This last remark she had addressed in the direction of the recumbent retriever, whose ability to sort out the words that mattered from a general conversation brought him promptly to Elizabeth’s side as she and Trapp left the study.

  The two men were left standing, facing each other. Moonlight let out a deep sigh. ‘Mark, I’ve made the most ghastly error. The Hall. I’ve got to buy it back from that evil man.’

  ‘Oh come, he’s not as bad as all that surely?’ replied Treasure. ‘I wouldn’t fancy him for a neighbour myself, but the deed’s done. Why not just plant a cupressus hedge between here and the Hall? Then in a year or two you can forget he’s there. Out of sight out of mind.’

  ‘The deed isn’t done – well, not completely. I’ve taken the fellow’s money – come to that, I’ve spent some of it – but the conveyancing business isn’t complete. I’d hoped you could advise me about putting the thing in reverse.’

  ‘Well, I’m a banker not an estate agent,’ said Treasure half jokingly. ‘Still, if you’re really serious … but if ownership hasn’t been conveyed, does Scarbuck have the right to be doing all this digging you were talking about?’

  ‘I’ve signed a preliminary deed of sale that gives him ownership of the Hall and everything in it. The thing is subject to proof of title before completion.’

  ‘Then I imagine you have no right to withdraw at this stage, Arthur. I suppose you could make him an offer above what he’s paid you. D’you want to tell me how much that was?’

  ‘Two hundred thousand. Half of it was wiped out the day I got it – money I owed the bank for doing up the
Hall and later this place and … er … other things. Financially I’ve been in a muddle for years. Selling the Hall was manna from heaven.’

  ‘And now you want it back. But what are you going to do with it if you get it? And in any case, from what you say it doesn’t sound as if you can afford it. Forgive me, Arthur, but you must be mad.’

  Moonlight had walked to a window that looked out on to the Hall in the middle distance. He turned to face Treasure once again. ‘I tell you, Mark, I’ll go mad if I don’t get the place back from that devil.’ He paused. ‘I’ve worked it out: if I realize all my assets, sell everything of value here including the house, I could probably scrape together a quarter of a million. I’ll need a bit of bridging …’

  ‘Which of course I could arrange. But what are you and Elizabeth going to live on afterwards, for heaven’s sake? Be reasonable, Arthur: the Hall can’t mean that much to you or you wouldn’t have put it up for sale in the first place.’

  ‘Mark, I want it back. I had the chap here this morning to make him an offer but he left before I had the chance. Will you do it for me? Will you get hold of him and make him sell?’ Moonlight looked suddenly older and dejected. ‘Normally I wouldn’t ask such a thing, even from an old friend, but, Mark, something’s happened and I’m desperate. For God’s sake help me get rid of that little swine.’

  Timothy Trapp knelt piously in the vicarage cellar. This was not a part of the house he reserved for his devotions, and since he was humming ‘Colonel Bogey’ it would have been evident even to the least informed observer that he was not engaged in prayer. Here, though, he was safe from Mrs Banquet, who regarded subterranean regions as below the cleaning line. The cellar’s contents if not its location went some way to support this attitude. Successive incumbents had clearly used it as a depository for unwanted or outmoded articles and implements of the kind that would not even have found buyers at a church fête.