The Bath Conspiracy

by Jeanne M. Dams

  I squeezed his arm. ‘You know, there are times when I think I did the right thing when I married you.’

  ‘Oh, I could have told you that! Now, are you ready for home, or our reasonable facsimile thereof in Bath?’

  ‘No. I’ve revived, and I want to see those cloisters you’ve been tempting me with.’

  Now, I’ve seen cloisters. Lots of them. On earlier English visits with my first husband, and in recent years with Alan, I’ve visited a lot of cathedrals, with cloisters. There is a sameness to them. After a while they begin to blend. Long corridors, open on one side to a courtyard, paved or grassy. Arches overhead, Roman or Gothic, fan-vaulted or unadorned. Pillars, slender or sturdy. They’re all slightly different, and all interesting.

  But … these rocked me back on my heels, but not for any architectural or aesthetic reason. ‘Alan,’ I breathed, clutching his arm. ‘It’s Hogwarts!’

  I’m a big fan of Harry Potter and have seen several of the movies. I never thought I’d be walking through Hogwarts, in person.

  He chuckled. ‘I thought you’d be surprised. The cloisters have been used in several films, but the Potter ones are perhaps the most recognizable. And a bit farther on … voilà!’

  I stood transfixed. There, in a perfect medieval room, small, arched, rather dark, stood a large black pot, the very cauldron I’d seen on the screen. ‘It’s … it’s spooky. The setting makes it all seem so real. I swear I expect to turn around and see Snape breathing down my neck.’

  ‘This was the warming room. They kept a fire going in the cauldron, or so the story goes, so the nuns could get warm for at least a brief time every day. The winters were cold indeed, and there were no fireplaces elsewhere in the abbey.’

  I shivered. ‘I used to think the cloistered life had a good deal of appeal, but now I’m not so sure. Were they Benedictines? Working all day would have helped keep them warm.’

  Alan looked at the guidebook. ‘No, Augustinians. I’m afraid I know nothing about their rule.’

  ‘Poor things. I wonder where they went, what they did, when Henry threw them out.’

  Alan squeezed my hand. ‘You always sympathize, don’t you? Even with people you never met, who died centuries ago. You may be sure, my love, that they’ve been in heaven for lo these many years, safe and comfortable and happy. And warm.’

  I smiled at him. ‘I’m sure you’re right, but I’m getting cold down here, and it’s a beautiful October day. Let’s go out into the sunshine.’

  EIGHT

  There remained the museum and the used bookshop. I was torn. A bookshop has a powerful attraction for me, but a museum shop is always special. ‘Very unique’, as a friend of mine used to say over my anguished protests that the word unique cannot be qualified.

  ‘Flip a coin?’ Alan suggested.

  ‘No. Museum. I don’t know that I care much about the exhibits, but the shop …’

  I left the thought unfinished. Alan knows me very well.

  The exhibits were very well done, but photography as such doesn’t interest me a lot, and besides, the display was a bit too up-to-date for me. I wanted something more in keeping with the ancient surroundings. ‘Frank would have loved this,’ I commented to Alan, feeling a bit melancholy. ‘I’m sorry we never got here.’

  ‘He knows all about it now, love. Probably enjoying conversations with William Henry himself.’

  I appreciate Alan’s talent for making things better.

  So we skimmed the museum, once over lightly, and ended up in the shop.

  Ah, the shop!

  ‘Alan, am I a shopaholic?’ I was beginning to feel some qualms about my instant gravitation to all museum shops.

  ‘Only in specialty shops,’ he said indulgently. ‘And we’re celebrating your birthday, remember? When we get home I’ll put you back on bread and water. For now, shop to your heart’s content.’

  So I did just that. There were books about photography, about the abbey, about the Talbot family, about the Harry Potter connection. I bought one of those for a young neighbour, Nigel Peter Evans, who was addicted to all things Potter. Of more interest to me were the gardening items, lovely little pots, seed packets, and even the occasional plant.

  ‘There’s a garden centre just outside Lacock, and a good one, too, but we won’t have time to get there before they close,’ said Alan, ‘so you might want to pick up a few things here. I wouldn’t suggest plants, though. Don’t forget we have to get them home, and the poor things might not enjoy travel.’

  ‘Oh, you’re right, darn it. I had my eye on that.’ I pointed to an attractive pot holding lots of slender green stems with tiny red flowers on top. ‘I have no idea what that is, but I’ll bet Bob could make it grow in our garden.’ Bob Finch is our gardener, a green-fingered magician who, between occasional bouts of drinking, makes our small plot of land into a paradise.

  ‘Bob can do anything except, unfortunately, stay away from the bottle. But I’m not sure that tender little thing, whatever it is, would enjoy a long ride.’

  So I settled for asking the name and writing it down (the salesperson gave the proper botanical name – my husband the botanist would have approved) to give to Bob when we got home. Then there were a few trinkets for various friends, decorative pots, pretty plant labels, that sort of thing.

  ‘This doesn’t seem to be the kind of shop patronized by our thieving friend,’ I said softly to Alan. ‘No jewellery, nothing very expensive. Nothing here to attract a magpie.’

  ‘No,’ said Alan in an odd voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This.’ He picked up a postcard. It was a reproduction of the famous ‘first photograph’ of the window, showing both the original negative image and a positive print made from it. I’d learned that it’s perhaps the most famous photograph in the world, and the shop had them by the dozens.

  I frowned. Yes, it was all very interesting, and the image was nice, but nothing to get excited about. ‘So?’

  ‘One of these postcards was in the bag in our car.’

  We asked Andrew to take us back to the Angel, where we requested a quiet corner and pints while we considered this development.

  ‘Alan, that makes no sense!’ I said for the fifteenth time.

  ‘And when has anything about this mess made sense? It means, presumably, that the chap’s thieving radius extended – or extends – beyond Bath itself.’

  ‘Right. And he stole a postcard that sells for fifty pence. There’s no way he could hawk that at a profit.’ I took a healthy swig of my beer. ‘Unless … no, that wouldn’t work.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘Well, we think he stole the reproduction Roman coins planning to “age” them somehow and sell them as real antiquities. I was thinking he could do the same with this photo somehow, but it wouldn’t work.’

  ‘No. Even if he copied it onto the right sort of paper and so on, there’s only one of those negatives. He couldn’t hope to pass his amateur effort as the one-and-only.’

  ‘So that just reinforces one of our conclusions: the man is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Alan, let’s go back to Bath. It’s getting dark. We’ve kept poor Andrew working all day and I’m sure he wants to get home. And I want to have a nice meal and go to bed and forget about all this for a while.’

  Andrew dropped us at the hotel with assurances that the rather long day had posed no problems for him, and that he was at our disposal should we require his services again. Alan’s handsome tip might have had something to do with his attitude, but again it might not. He struck me as the sort of person who genuinely liked people and took life as it came.

  We chose not to explore dining options in Bath. Walking in a strange city after dark has limited appeal for our age group, and the hotel food was excellent. We had arrived at dessert (a heavenly fruit concoction of some sort) and coffee before I brought up our puzzling problem. ‘Are we getting anywhere, Alan? It feels to me as if every new clue that turns up just makes the whole th
ing more confusing.’

  ‘There are at least two possible reasons for that.’ Alan tented his fingers in his lecturing position. ‘The first is that we’re looking at everything from the wrong angle. Find the proper one and the picture will upend itself, the kaleidoscope will form its pattern, and we’ll see clearly.’

  ‘If that’s the case, I sure wish we could get some hint of that proper angle. I’m getting frustrated. Is your second possibility any more optimistic?’

  ‘Sorry, no, and I fear it’s the more likely one. It may be that there is no pattern, no reasonable solution. If we thought some ill-balanced collector was amassing trophies from Bath, the Fox Talbot postcard spoils that theory. I’m leaning to the idea that someone was clearing out Grannie’s attic.’

  ‘And Granny was a thief with a taste for jewellery and Bath oddities.’

  Alan spread his hands.

  ‘And how does that theory explain how the loot – all right, the attic gleanings – ended up in our car?’

  ‘Do you have any idea how many two-year-old Ford Fiestas are on the road? Many of them grey?’

  ‘No, but I’ll bet you’re going to tell me, O Source of all Wisdom.’

  He grinned. ‘I have no idea, actually, but I do know it’s the most popular car in England, so there are bound to be heaps of them. Well, you know as well as I do: every time we go to the supermarket there are several cars just like ours.’

  ‘I know. I’ve had to use the panic button more than once to find it. I wish it were bright yellow, or fire-engine red.’

  ‘So there you are. The cars in the garage were not, then, kept locked. Our not-too-bright friend simply made a mistake and put the stuff in the wrong car.’

  ‘And was then so worried about it that he made an inept attempt to break into our car and get it back. An attic’s worth of junk.’

  Alan is a very patient man. He shrugged. ‘No, it doesn’t answer all the questions. But I think it’s a better explanation than any other we’ve proposed. Now, do you want a nightcap before we go up?’

  We had that nightcap, and after a long day I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. Towards morning, though, after I had to make the usual trip to the bathroom, I fell into a fitful sleep with the kind of dreams that go on and on, never very pleasant, never reaching a conclusion.

  This time it was the familiar dream of trying to get somewhere, but making constant wrong turns, that led me deeper into the neighbourhood, or the building, or whatever I was trying to escape from. It seems I was driving a grey car, but so was everyone else on the road, and we kept running into bags of trash that made us swerve into yet another wrong path. I knew that if I could only get out, everything would be wonderful, but I couldn’t work out how. Then I wasn’t driving anymore, I was in the back seat, but the person at the wheel was doing everything wrong, and I kept trying to reach forward and take control, but my arms weren’t long enough, and anyway I couldn’t reach the pedals, and someone was talking to me, distracting me, never stopping, trying to make me move my arms …

  ‘Wake up, love. Wake up. It’s all right. Wake up.’

  I opened my eyes. ‘But I was just about to … or … was I talking in my sleep?’

  ‘Muttering. And thrashing about. Was it bad?’

  ‘Not really. I couldn’t get out, and I couldn’t control the car. And there were trash bags everywhere.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes. Our puzzle attacking me in my sleep. It’s not fair!’

  ‘No, indeed.’ He sat up and put his legs over the side of the bed. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Is it morning?’ We had pulled the curtains last night, and there was no light coming through the chinks.

  ‘Earlyish. Nearly seven.’

  ‘Oh. Way too early to get up on a holiday. On the other hand …’ I got out of bed and tottered to the bathroom.

  ‘Lord Peter once said,’ I grumbled when I returned, ‘that he didn’t envy the young their hearts, only their heads and stomachs. Me, I envy them their bladders.’

  ‘Me, too. Are you going to try to go back to sleep, or shall I make that coffee?’

  ‘Coffee, I think. I’ve had enough sleep, really. It’s just getting up in the dark that makes it so hard.’

  ‘And after a distressing nightmare.’

  ‘Not actually a nightmare. Just a standard frustration dream. I used to have them a lot. The scene changed, but the plot was always the same. I’m trying to escape from somewhere, turning this way and that, but always just getting in deeper.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘Sounds like a nightmare to me. Here, chase it away.’ He handed me the coffee.

  I drank two cups, and on that stimulus showered and dressed. When I next looked out the window a sullen sort of light was visible. ‘Oh, nuts. It looks like rain.’

  Alan consulted his phone. ‘Yes, they’re saying rain most of the day. Let’s go down for some breakfast and decide what to do on a rainy day.’

  Mindful of the huge amount of food I’d been putting away all week, I opted for cereal and fruit for breakfast, and tried not to look askance at Alan’s plateful of eggs and bacon and sausage and mushrooms and beans. Tried, and failed. ‘The Full Cholesterol,’ I commented sourly.

  He just grinned. ‘Want some?’

  ‘Yes, blast it, but I’m not going to have any. Hurry up and finish, though, so I don’t have to look at it. And smell it.’

  ‘You will be rewarded for your righteousness, my dear.’

  I was about to snap back when a faint chime rang out. ‘Ah! The abbey speaks a blessing upon me. So there!’

  ‘I heard it too, you know. And it’s given me an idea. We haven’t really seen the abbey properly. Let’s spend part of the morning there, shall we? Nice and dry, and beautiful.’

  ‘And I don’t think they have a café, so I will not be led into temptation.’

  The rain had begun, but not hard enough to keep us inside. We put on all the rain gear we’d brought with us and walked fast, and arrived at the abbey mostly dry under our coats.

  It’s a beautiful church. Of course, for Alan and me nothing can compare with our own Cathedral at Sherebury. It’s home. But one of my favourite beauties at Sherebury is the fan-vaulted roof, and that’s one of the famous features of Bath Abbey as well. It was worth a more careful examination than I’d given it on our first visit.

  ‘The guide leaflet says the choir ceiling is the original, but the nave is a copy. I wonder if the coloured middle bits in the choir are added, or just restored? I’m not sure I like them.’ The centre spaces where the fans met in the choir ceiling were brilliant with colour, but not those in the nave.

  ‘You know the mediaeval cathedrals had a lot of colour, love. It’s only in the past few centuries that almost everything reverted to the original colour of the stone and wood.’

  ‘Yes, well, you know I’m a mediaevalist at heart, but I like the colour best in the glass. This east window is magnificent!’

  We wandered for a bit, carefully avoiding the roped-off areas where the floor had been taken up for repairs. ‘That’s the trouble with ancient buildings,’ I said, catching hold of Alan’s arm as I almost tripped over a stanchion supporting the ropes. ‘Something’s constantly in need of repair.’

  ‘And in this case it isn’t just repair,’ said Alan. ‘I read somewhere back there – one of the signs – that they’re also reconfiguring the space, and putting in underfloor heating.’

  ‘But isn’t that terribly expensive? All that electricity!’

  ‘Not in this case. They’re not using electricity. It’s really quite a clever idea. They’re going to use the hot springs, diverting them from the Baths. At the moment that heat is just wasted, flowing straight from the Baths to the river. Which, incidentally, can’t be very good for the river and its ecosystem. I didn’t read the whole thing, but apparently there’s enough heat for the Baths and the abbey and several other buildings. Bound to be very expensive to build, but think of the money they’ll s
ave in the end.’

  ‘Not to mention using less coal or oil or whatever. I’m impressed.’

  I turned back to the guidebook. ‘I can’t find out anything here about guided tours, except of the tower.’

  ‘Apparently that’s the only tour available. And as it involves climbing over two hundred steps, and there wouldn’t be much of a view today anyway …’

  ‘Say no more. I wouldn’t climb that many steps for anything short of … I can’t think of anything, actually. Maybe when I was twenty years younger. Not now.’

  We wandered for a bit, stopped for a quick prayer and then, inevitably, ended up in the gift shop.

  It was crowded. A good many people seemed to have found the abbey a pleasant shelter from the rain. There was only one clerk, and she was hard put to deal with sales, let alone answer questions and help customers find what they were looking for. ‘You need some help,’ I said when I finally got to the head of the line with several books and postcards, a pair of earrings I couldn’t resist, and (trying to hide it from Alan) a large bar of chocolate.

  ‘I usually have a couple of helpers,’ she said, sounding frazzled, ‘but Elaine called in sick, and the weather’s a bit dire for Sammy on his bicycle. That’s seventy-nine pounds fifty, please.’

  I handed her my credit card. ‘Sammy? That wouldn’t be the same Sammy who works at the Jane Austen Centre, would it?’

  ‘Oh, you know Sammy? Yes, he’s a dear. A bit wanting, of course, but as sweet a boy as I’ve ever known, and a hard worker. If you’ll just enter your PIN – thank you.’ And she was dealing with the next person.

  Alan saw the chocolate bar as it tried to slide out of the bag. I gave him a shamefaced look. He chuckled and put his arm around me. ‘You know perfectly well I love you just the way you are, so you eat all the chocolate you want. It’s nearly lunch-time, though, so I suggest you save that for later. We can find something more politically correct, I’m sure, if you insist on worrying about it.’

  It was not the kind of day when a salad had any appeal, but we found a place that had really good soup to nourish both my body and my conscience. ‘Now,’ said Alan when I had polished the bowl, ‘this is a perfect day for the Baths. The big pool itself is open to the sky, but everything else, including the walkway around the pool, is under cover. And we’re nearing the end of our stay, so I don’t want to put it off any longer. Right?’