by Tim Symonds
The car crept towards us through the wagon yard, the low throaty sound of the engine just audible over the whinnies and whoas of the horse-and-cart community. I marvelled at the sight of this open-topped giant.
Dudeney introduced himself with a bob of a leather-clad head as he held open the passenger door. We climbed in and lay back on the extraordinarily comfortable leather seats. Our conveyance would have been at home at a session of the Chamber of Indian Princes - gold- and silver-plated cars, cars with hoods of polished aluminium and bodies of costly woods, cars in purple, lavender, sky-blue, orange, emerald green, vermillion. Cars upholstered in satins, velvets, brocades.
While our chauffeur waited for the horse-drawn traffic to clear, he offered a detailed description of the vehicle, starting with the pre-selector epicyclic gears, working his way with calm enthusiasm to the worm-drive rear axle, tiller-steering and finally the four-cylinder water-cooled overhead valve engine. Siviter had named the Lanchester ‘Julia’. In return, I remarked I had read Siviter’s cat-and-rat fable and was looking forward to viewing Crick’s End electricity at work.
A young newspaper vendor leant over to push a copy of the Sussex Express into my hand (‘The Paper for Uckfield, Heathfield, Crowborough. Established 1837’). Even as I passed him a coin, Julia leapt forward with a mighty roar, scattering the last of the horse-drawn wagons. Before us bobbed our chauffeur’s helmeted head and shoulders, piloting the Lanchester like a Wright Brothers’ Flyer. A few more seconds and we passed beyond Etchingham to a broad ridge road. There we gained a small companion. Within inches of my face, a boy peddled hard and with intent, his heavy bicycle and wicker panier emblazoned Thomas Blinks Butcher in gold lettering. In a well-practiced manoeuvre, he obtained a precarious handhold on Julia. By this enterprise he achieved a speedy ride to his first delivery half a mile later, dropping away at a large, dark house set back in a laurel-clumped lawn.
The sweetness of scent enveloped us in sudden great balloons of air. Seated on our vehicle’s high bench we had a view over the fresh-trimmed hedges to either side. The run of unusually warm springs commencing with the new King’s reign meant the heads of the grasses and wild flowers were heavy with pollen.
Buoyed by the engine’s steady roar and the clean, fresh air, I looked out at the serene May countryside, at the profusion of wild flowers and early honeysuckle, contented herds of Sussex Reds resting in the cool shadow of the many great oaks, a tree so prevalent, our driver informed us, it was called ‘the weed of Sussex’.
I looked at the Sussex Express. A great rat-hunt had taken place on Broyd’s farm. Bees killed a dog on Mr. T. Davis’ farm.
‘Holmes,’ I said, amused. ‘Listen to this! ‘Astounding Doings at lonely Sussex Farm’.
A series of mysterious happenings at a lonely farmhouse in the Sussex Weald has brought about in the neighbourhood a firm belief in the resuscitation of witchcraft. The Walk Farm at Etchingham, in the occupation of Mr. Neil Armstrong, is the scene of its manifestations. A few mornings ago, when Mrs. Armstrong’s maid was at work in the farmhouse kitchen, she felt her back was being burned between the shoulder blades. She was not near the fire, and there was no possibility of a spark or live coal reaching her. The girl, who firmly believes ‘a witch did it’ was considerably burnt and had to be surgically treated. The first suspicion of something uncanny came on a recent morning when several golden sea-bright bantams were found in the fowlhouse with their legs broken. A watch was set that night, but though no one came near the fowlhouse, more bantams were found with broken legs next morning. The next day, when Mr. Armstrong and his family and a neighbour were at dinner, a flower pot on the window sill was seen to be wildly whirling around. Mr. Armstrong ran to the window, but there was no one near, and there was no wind, and yet the pot was still whizzing round. Pans jump up and down on shelves, chairs move jerkily across the floor in broad daylight while no one is near them, brooms dance, and household utensils move while being watched.’
At my side in the comfortable seat Holmes lay back with his hat tilted over his nose. ‘This stretch of road,’ I said conversationally, having done some cartography on the eastern part of the County of Sussex while Holmes cat-napped on the train, ‘is called the Straight Mile, built by the....’
As I spoke these words, our iron chariot ran out of straight road, rounded a sharp bend, and with a crash of its epicyclic gears came to a sudden stop. Close before us a hay-wagon had cast its load. Dudeney left us to assist in the reloading of the bales. The task accomplished, he returned to his seat. He turned to me and said, ‘Sir, you mentioned the tale of the cat-and-rat. I’m afraid you will be disappointed. Village children at play raised the sluice-gate and emptied the pond of all its water. The mill-pond is at present too low to run the turbine-generator.’
At this he set off again. I proceeded to give Holmes an account of the origin of the Sussex place-names. ‘Holmes, many of the Wealden villages end in ‘-den’. Did you know that’s Old English for ‘woodland pasture?’
He withdrew his pipe and answered, ‘I did not know that, Watson,’ and added, ‘I may soon forget it. I have no wish for my brain to emulate our attic.’
Undeterred, I followed up with a description of the South Downs sheep. I was deep into a description of the Sussex Red cattle and about to move on to the Shoveller Duck when I noticed Holmes looking closely at his gold watch. Realising I was boring him with such country matters, I stopped. Holmes laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Go on, my good Watson. I shall indulge you and hear more about the Shoveller Duck, if only to quiet you on the Sussex Red on which I fear I now know too much.’
‘Holmes,’ I replied. ‘No-one can know too much about the Sussex Red. You may find the Shoveller Duck a different matter.’
In this good mood we approached the historic Wealden trading-centre of Burrish. The Lanchester pulled us up a small curving slope and we were on an ancient High Street built when iron was king of the Weald, rich merchants’ houses on our left, artisans’ dwellings on our right. At its end our driver turned sharp left and we rolled down a steep lane. The view to the South opened up. Large coppices of sweet chestnut and hornbeam spread over the valley sides, cultivated for the charcoal which once fired the many now-lost iron forges of the Dudwell Valley. It made a pleasing contrast with the dims and drabs and slate greys of London.
The Lanchester descended until the lane flattened out at the valley floor. To our left two donkeys stood under a considerable oak in a steeply-sloping field, surrounded by a group of contented, snuffling, small black pigs and one silent, choleric-looking Muscovy duck. On our right loomed the grey stone lichened house. We had arrived at Crick’s End.
We Meet Siviter And White
Turned to gold in a sudden burst of sunlight, the squat building emitted an air of calm and stability, an English refuge. The roar of the Lanchester’s engine dropped abruptly as the vehicle came to a halt, waiting for the handsome wrought-iron gates to open. The gates hung from tall, weather-bitten posts patterned with centuries of epiphytes and surmounted by exquisite carvings of hops. A silver-grey oak dovecot was just visible above the walls and hedges of the house. Crows watched keenly from the great oak on Donkey Hill, their cawing a ceaseless accompaniment to the afternoon.
My companion sat in silence, staring forward at the house. I wondered what first impression he would make on the members of the Kipling League. In addition to his striking appearance, his ancestry (second cousin to the Ulster King of Arms and Chief Herald of Ireland) had bequeathed him a nonpareil sense of the practical and a fertile and retentive mind which sprang alive in the face of the supernatural. So Celtic is he in origins that at a miniature medal affair at Downing Street, after the dramatic solution of a Continental matter, I was asked in a low voice by a British Prime Minister to confirm Holmes’ place of birth. The eminent personage felt he must be a foreigner who spoke English well.
‘Julia’ sque
ezed between the finely-wrought gates, her voice reduced to a low growl. The grounds of the Armadillo of a building bulged with lines of potting-benches, garages, outhouses and oast-houses built with Staffordshire Blues. Blackbirds atop the yew hedges abandoned their song and flew in alarm to their sanctuaries, giving shrill warning of our arrival.
The vehicle came to a halt before a bronze statue of two defiant drummer-boys. Close to, solid rather than grand, Crick’s End looked what its builder, an ironmaster of the 17th Century, had wished it to be, the very image of a manse for the rising Middle Classes.
A servitor of indeterminate age and dark skin wearing a turban waited in the fore-court by the bronze, having seen (or more likely heard) our transport proceeding down the hill.
‘Staray mashay,’ I tried, placing my right hand over my heart. His head bobbled. With almost a sleight-of-hand gesture he swung his wrist so the palm faced the sky, forefingers slightly elongated. ‘Namaskār,’ he replied, taking my portmanteau and inclining his head towards the front of the house. ‘Or ‘Gurdaspu’, if you know the Punjab, Sahib’.
Head down, silent, without looking to either side, he walked us towards the entrance.
The brick pathway led us to the Corinthianesque porch. Carved into the sandstone beneath a small oak barometer on the porch’s outer left-hand pier were initials which I presumed correctly to be of the Siviter family: RS, CS, ES, and JS, and an unidentified other, CM. The door opened. The clatter of a piano resounding through the house ceased in mid-concerto. A maid-servant with a French accent and a rounded face freckled like a plover’s egg stood before us straight from the pages of Lettres de Mon Moulin. In a creaseless white apron and high starched collar she was as filled with grace as a Botticelli Venus. I smiled at her and was about to send her back into the interior with our cards when she was put aside. A man stepped out, dressed in putty-coloured - almost white - broad-cloth and, in surprising combination, a pale-grey patterned silk Ascot tie. It was our host.
Siviter looked of a slightly older age than his true middle or late forties, genial and breezy. His skin was dark by English standards. He sported a luxuriant dark moustache. Goldrimmed glasses over sharp little acetylene eyes were arched by outstanding eyebrows starting to bush with age. One or two teeth were false. At his side he held a brown soft felt hat with a broad, floppy brim and low crown. Stepping forward from beneath the fanlight to join us, he immediately placed it on his head.
In the open air he seemed remarkably small, the crown of the wideawake hardly reaching Holmes’ shoulder. I estimated his weight at less than nine stone, a slight amount for a man of his age. Author of the much-loved Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, it was hard to believe he was the fourth best big-game shot our Eastern Empire had ever produced, a wonder with a 600 Express, a sporting rifle with a recoil so powerful it would break a man’s collar-bone if he fired it from a prone position. I marvelled that a man who still wrote extensively about the sapphire skies of India, picturesque buildings, minarets and domes, the camels, deserts, the sense of endless space and endless time should now be living contentedly in so confined a valley.
‘How very good of you to come, and at such short notice,’ he welcomed us warmly, guiding us towards the door. ‘Our patron Kipling himself would be here but he and his wife were called off to Vermont. They are selling up a property there.’
After these civilities we proceeded before him through the porch and open door and entered a dark-panelled hall where my hat, dust-coat and coat and umbrella were taken from me with a bright smile by the same Venus-like maid-servant who greeted our arrival at the porch. Her uniform emitted a slight smell of rose-geranium.
Walking into the Grand Hall from the calm greens of Sussex was like following Aladdin into the Cave of Enchantment. Flowers were abundant, arranged daintily in every nook and corner. We were at once face to face with mounted heads from big game expeditions, at least one in eastern Africa to judge by a long-necked Gerenuk. Burne-Jones’ ‘The Mill’ was flanked by two water-colours by Pevensey of what I took to be gardens at Crick’s End. At their side, in remarkable contrast, hung a group of five sepia watercolours depicting Indian trades and professions. Above a fine Coromandel screen was a masterly oil-painting titled Bridge over the Thames at Barnes. It portrayed a choppy and turbulent river in its best grey winter-wear, carrying a red barge towards the interior of London. Next to it, another great waterway was represented by a painting of a dahabiah sailing down the Gambia River. Both were signed by Lesley Abdela, a female artist of Greek descent as yet unknown to me.
We were walked alongside rich and glossy tapestries draping the walls, including one of the lost Titian painting ‘Portrait of Isabella d’Este in Red’. Carpets, especially a gold kincob carpet five yards square, gave a touch of Eastern luxury, magnified by the faint smell of tobaccos and spices of India and the sudden, unexpected, sharp clean scent of kaffir lemon grass hanging in the cool dank air. Much of the remaining space was filled with an assemblage of tiny objects, some from the Far East, all from a distant past. Every item had been brought back to England in Gladstone bags specially built for elephants.
In the one step it was as though we were re-entering the Raj or other far-away land, an infinity of all that was beautiful, of utility and in good taste, a space that brought to the senses the cacophony of the sounds of the East - ships’ bells, splashing oars, native shrieks, a world where if you stared over the rain you might see Mowgli seated on the jetty, or if you cocked an ear the sound of giant kettle drums from a distant Salute State. I half-expected an Oriental figure to glide towards me, a Hindoo servant clad in yellow turban, with white, loose-fitting clothes and a yellow sash, attendant on his Maharaja, Nizam, Nawab, Khan, Maharawal, Jam, Raja or Rao, potentates whose arrival in villages was feared like the coming of locusts, so large were their entourages which, like those of Tudor and Stuart kings, had to be fed and watered without as much as a silver rupee in compensating payment.
Breaking into my reverie, Siviter told us he anticipated two further guests within the hour. A third, Lord Van Beers, was already in residence or at least on the grounds. He had spent the previous night in a tent in the garden, ‘For the sake of his joints,’ Siviter added with an ironical expression. ‘He tells me the house is too dank.’
The artist Pevensey, grandee President of the Royal Academy, was also for the moment away from Crick’s End, ‘putting finishing touches to one or two commissions’. He would return around mid-afternoon to a make-shift studio in Park Mill, at the lower end of the gardens, and planned to leave in the early evening, his work completed.
Our talk was to take place in the parlour at three o’clock. There was time for us to be conducted around the gardens. Coats back on, we followed Siviter out of the Grand Hall along a stone-flagged passage and through a side-door on to large terraced lawns where we were greeted by an assembly of leaping, barking, overjoyed Aberdeen terriers and a brace of black, curly-coated retrievers released from their shed, eager for exercise. From their sentry-duty at the front of the house, their ever-watchful eye had spotted what they took to be a stratagem by Siviter to leave them behind.
Millstones punctuated the brick paths. Two gigantic Chinese monals squawked at the dogs, rising near vertically to settle in the branches. The air was filled with the low drone of insects and the sudden sharper note of a bluefly shooting past us with its quivering, long-drawn hum like an insect tuning-fork. The beds bloomed with herbaceous plants and shrubs chosen for their hardiness.
The brick pathway turned to paving stone. The valley air was warming up in the intermittent early-afternoon sun but within the garden it was still cool, with a slight breeze. Overlooking a terraced lawn, stone seats like the sedilia of a church had been pushed into the yew-hedge, facing to the South and West for evening sun and warmth. Tucked away by a hedge we could see Van Beers’ tent.
At the sundial Siviter stopped. ‘It is my custom,’ he i
nformed us solemnly, ‘to honour our President by offering a few lines which he composed seated on a canvas chair at this very spot.’ With an arm held high, an engaging, almost boyish smile on his face, he sang the antistrophe of ‘The Way through the Woods’:
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods ...
But there is no road through the woods!
At that second, daunted by the yap and yelp of the terriers below it, a grey squirrel leapt out of a small tree and bolted across the grass. It had until Christmas to live, Siviter informed us. After that he would shoot it, thereby the filberts the creature had filched from his trees and buried around the estate for winter fare would have a chance to germinate in the spring.
We came to a small clutch of dogs’ graves. On one was inscribed with clear affection, ‘Our Dachshund Billy 1888-1901, A Wise and Humorous Friend’.
Daffodils, scillas, wood anemones and fritillaries reached up through rough grass.
We crossed a bridge. Some fifty yards further we came to Park Mill. ‘Just look at the rabbeting, the mortising, the mitreing, the dovetailing, the joinery,’ Siviter exclaimed in admiration. ‘And done so long ago.’ He pointed at an assembly of wheels, pipes and cable. ‘But here, Gentlemen, is a miracle of our age, electric light at the touch of a switch. Put together by Sir William Willcocks, one of the most interesting fellows I have ever met, the very man who built the Aswan Dam and modestly spoke of it to me as ‘that trifling affair on the Nile’.’
