“Well, in that case,” Hamish’s face became more animated as he continued speaking. “All this decorative work, the ceilings, walls and the patterned floors,” he indicated the two-toned hardwood floor of the living room, “It’s all pretty standard for the time. And Jonathan Kendal, the previous incumbent, kept to the same style when he added the conservatory. It would take an expert to tell the difference ...He even used encaustic tiles on the conservatory floor ...” Noting Linda’s puzzled look and explained, “those unglazed octagonal tiles in the conservatory with the black bits in the corners ...tesserae ...they’re the sort of thing you’d expect to find in an abbey or a cathedral. So Jamie was right when he said it looked ‘medieval’. Though if he wants to see a real castle, perhaps you’d better take him to Bodium one day while you’re down? It’s not that far away and I’m sure he would love it there. It’s exactly a small boy’s idea of what a castle should look like. I’m not sure if it’s open all year round or not but I could check it out for you. I’ve got a National Trust guide book somewhere in the study. I had to put all my books in there since these bookshelves were already full.”
“You’re right; there isn’t a lot of space left here.” Linda agreed, looking around at the crowded shelves. I’m really surprised at how much has been left in the house. I might have expected a few bits and pieces of furniture, but not all these books, lamps and paintings and things. You’d think they would have been claimed by some relative by now or sold off. And that bed upstairs, that’s something else!” She looked down at Hamish from her perch. “You know ...its very kind of you to offer to let Steve and I have your bed but I’m not too happy about you sleeping on the floor. Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in it yourself? We would be absolutely fine on these sofas down here.” she said, pointing to the two oversized sofas that had been uncovered from beneath the dust sheets, given a thorough vacuuming and deodorising and now flanked the fireplace, facing each other.
“Don’t waste your breath, Linda. I’m happy where I am, and remember, I’ve got the fireplace in the study. I hope you packed your warm p.j.’s and hot water bottles, like I told you, because you’ll need them ...no namby pamby radiators here to keep you warm.” He smiled. “Besides, if one of the children wakes up and needs you in the night you’ll be nice and close up there. You’d never hear them if you were downstairs.”
“I guess you’re right,” Linda conceded. “But my conscience dictated that I at least make a feeble attempt to let you have your own bed. Truth is, I’m quite looking forward to trying it out. It’s so very ...regal.” she waggled her eyebrows suggestively and attempted a wicked leer. “Steve and I can play Kings and Queens like in the Tudors.”
“You keep your bawdy thoughts to yourself, lassie.” Hamish said, in his most strongly accented Scots. He knew that Linda’s light-hearted banter was an attempt to alleviate his dour mood. “But, the way we’ve been working young Steve this afternoon, I’d suggest you might be better to take a good book to bed with you.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she agreed, laughing “...knowing him, he’ll be out like a light the minute his head hits the pillow.” She got up and walked over to the closest bookcase. “So ...is there anything on these shelves that I might like to read in that very fancy bed?”
“I haven’t had time to look in the bookshelves.” he said, in answer to her question. “But you’re welcome to borrow anything you find interesting.”
Linda reached up to open the front of one case. “It’s a good thing all these books were behind glass. It saved me a huge job, not having to dust them.” She scanned her eyes along the first shelf of spines. “Phew, not a lot of light fiction here. Some of them look really old, and from the titles, I’d say that whoever collected them had a real thing about plants and gardening.” She moved on to another shelf, “Oh, and with a side-line in ancient myths and legends -there’s a whole case-full of those. And a heap of fairy books by Andrew Lang, Cicely Mary Barker, someone called Dinah Craik and, look ...this little Japanese tale about the Fountain of Youth. She waved the book in front of Hamish before returning it to the shelf and picking up another. “Oh ...here’s something that might be worth a look.” She had pulled out a book and opened it, leafing through the pages. “Tsk, tsk ...look at this ...someone has underlined bits and written in the margins, not in English either ...I hate it when people scribble in books.” She replaced the book amongst the others on the shelf to continue her search.
Curious, Hamish got up to look as well. He ran his finger along some of the books, noting titles. They ranged from beautiful leather-bound tomes to garden DIY books that would have been contemporary to Jonathan Kendal’s time and earlier. “‘A Gardener’s Guide to Rose Care and Pruning’ ...well that should be useful, I’ve yet to attack those massive climbing roses in the orchard.” He continued along the row ... “‘Gardens of a Golden Afternoon’, by Gertrude Jekyll. I might have a look at that myself when I get the time.” Then, “Hey ...here’s something you might like to read... ‘All Passion Spent’ by Vita Sackville-West.” He grinned, “Could be an apt title for tonight.” Linda laughed, as he continued, “She grew up and lived most of her life not far from here, first at Knole then at Sissinghurst Castle.” He opened the front cover of a small book, and whistled, “Whew...it looks like a first edition, signed by her. Perhaps we should be handling these with white gloves. Still, as far as I’m concerned, there’s not much point having a book if you can’t read it. You want this?” he held the book out to Linda. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head so he placed it back on the shelf.
Steve chose that moment to poke his head around the kitchen door to inform them all in booming tones that dinner was served. “We’re eating in the kitchen since the only other table is out in the conservatory,” he said “and it’s probably arctic out there by now. I have two words for you, Hamish ...centraaal heeeating....”
“Don’t do that, Daddy.” you sound like a scary ghosta, wailed Jamie. “And I don’t like scary ghostas, I only...,
“.... like nice ghostas!” chimed Ali, Linda and Hamish in unison. Laughing, Hamish scooped Jamie up off the carpet and over his shoulder. They all filed into the warm kitchen to eat dinner.
Of joys departed,
Not to return, how painful the remembrance!
Robert Blair
Liana
She stirred, unable to drift back into deep sleep. The whispering had risen to such a crescendo that it could no longer be ignored. Eventually, faced with the inevitable, she rolled languorously onto her back, disturbing the thick blanket of leaves that had covered her, her eyes still firmly shut against the bright daylight, reluctant to acknowledge that she was, in fact, awake. Some considerable time later, she raised a hand to rub at her eyes, slowly opened the long thick lashes and struggled to sit up. This should not have happened, she thought crossly as she looked around, now fully awake. She had not asked for it, nor had she wanted it.
Contemplating her immediate surroundings, she was perturbed to notice the absence of those plants she had chosen to encourage her long sleep, then realised that wintry sunlight now fell on the glade where she had slept, the pine trees having been swept back to where their influence could no longer reach her. Next, she observed that her herbs had been supplanted by, most notably, Coffea arabica, interspersed with the iris-like leaves of Acorus calamus or sweet sedge and the large, curled ‘donkey ear’ leaves of horseradish, the pungent fiery Armoracia rusticana ...all well-known for their stimulant and tonic properties, and the creeping square stems of scarlet pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis which she knew to be remedial in cases of melancholy. Nothing remained of her original plantings.
“What mischief have you done?” she cried broken-heartedly, knowing that these plants, which had a purpose almost completely opposite to that which she desired, had not seeded themselves in this particular place by mere chance.
“You have mourned long enough,” she caught the impression, drifting on the soft breeze rath
er than the words themselves, soughing through the branches above her head. “It is time you started to live again ...I had ...no ...choice.” The last words drifted away into the cold morning air.
“..And who are YOU to say?” she interjected, now shouting into the empty space around her, anger palpable in every carefully enunciated syllable, knowing full-well to whom she was talking...”Sixty years or six hundred....it was MY CHOICE ...MINE!... You hear! You had NO right to interfere!” she stopped the tirade as suddenly as she had started, aware that the object of her ire had removed itself from her presence and she was talking, now, to thin air. Realising that she had lost her audience, her anger melted away as quickly as it had come and she sat, slumped and alone among the trees, sobbing softly. Already, the memories of times long past and loves long gone were flooding back ...and the torture she had sought to escape from was beginning again...
***
She, however was not the only one awakened. The Garden’s whispers had stirred another into full wakefulness. In the twilight of the evening before, a figure had peered out from the cave near the pool, staring intently into the burgeoning night with sharp leaf-green eyes before emerging and slipping noiselessly among the trees to disappear into the woods.
From her perch high in the branches of an oak tree overlooking the waterfall an owl hooted a warning to the other woodland creatures.
“Beware,” she cried…. “Green Jack is back!”
And as nearly all the forest creatures knew, nothing good could come of that.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
Chapter Eight
Hamish
The week started badly for Hamish. Waking on Monday morning, it was as if everything had colluded to make the day dismal. Steve, Linda and the children had left to return to London late Sunday afternoon, and Hamish, who was normally at ease with his own company, found himself immediately missing them, especially the children. All Sunday evening, the house had felt unnaturally quiet without the sounds of their childish squabbles and laughter and he’d gone to bed early to get away from the oppressive silence.
When he woke, alone, in the bone-chillingly cold house the next morning, it was without any of the sense of purpose that he’d had since moving in. It took all of his resolve to get up, wash and dress ...then when he drew the curtains back to check outside it was to find that the skies were as grey as his mood, which did nothing at all to help lift the feeling of depression that had settled around him. He went up to the studio, intending to make a start on a new painting, but his resolution fled after half an hour of staring at a blank canvas.
Finally, after he’d spent the rest of the morning wandering aimlessly around the house, starting then abandoning several small jobs, he went outside, with the notion that he might clean out the carriage house or the garden shed. He was in the right frame of mind, he decided, to throw something away!
As he walked between the newly shorn hedges of the serpentine path the sun made a valiant gesture, appearing briefly through the clouds. Approaching the carriage house, he was struck by the similarity of the scene now before him to a lithograph he had admired at the Royal Academy’s print exhibition a few months earlier. This was, surely, he thought, a winter version of the same. The stark contrast of light and shadow around an almost square, compact two-storied stone building set among trees, with access to a disused dovecote above and wide-timbered carriage doors below had triggered his brain. The artist’s name was somewhere there in his memory, but he couldn’t quite recall it...he tried an old mental trick that usually helped him remember names,...sifting through the alphabet letter-by-letter in an effort to bring it to mind....”I,...J,...K”, he muttered under his breath, ...that rang a bell...K for...hmmmm?, he tried the vowels, ... “Ka,...Karl”...that was it, now Karl who? Try as he might, the last name remained tantalisingly out of reach. Rosetta, he knew, would have it ...she was a walking directory of artist’s names and once she saw someone’s work she never forgot them. That reminded him that he’d have to ring her soon, very soon, or she’d be breathing fire the next time he saw her. He had purposely left London without providing her with his mobile phone number, wanting some time alone to rediscover, he’d hoped, some of the sense of peace and purpose that living in the city without Elaine had stripped from him.
Today was not a good day to be thinking about peace ...or calling Rosetta, he thought. He’d done more than his share of thinking in past months ...and not all of it positive. Now was time for some action ...first, he’d take a look at the dovecote. He’d had it in his mind for a few days now that he would like to restock the garden with some doves. He bounded up steep stone steps to one side of the building, stopping on the landing outside a low gothic arched door set towards the back wall. In a sort of automatic response that years of city living had ingrained into him he had already pulled the set of keys out of his pocket and had started flipping through them to find one that might fit the lock before he thought to try the door. Upon inserting the first key that looked as if it might work the lock, he found that the door wasn’t locked after all. He turned the handle, pushed experimentally, and it swung inwards with only a token protest, so he stuffed the keys back in his pocket and went through, ducking slightly to avoid hitting his head. The door swung closed behind him, but small lancet windows set in the front and the apertures in the rear wall that would have allowed birds to fly in and out let in enough light for him to look around.
Not that there was much to see. The roofline was a simple gable running end to end, with holes and landing pads for the birds under the rear gable and enough head space for him to stand upright towards the two opposite ends. The centre of the room was filled with tiered nesting boxes that went from floor to ceiling, three sides effectively forming another tiny square room, with a door facing Hamish, making the fourth side. He pulled the door open to find that there were three shelves on the far wall, all empty. On the floor were the remains of what must have been a bag of bird feed and several wire mesh screens. One screen was torn, and mice or other small creatures had taken care of most of the grain long ago. The bag that had contained it was now little more than piled up shreds of burlap.
The air was stale and musty in the enclosed space and Hamish could feel his nostrils and throat becoming irritated with the dust he had stirred up...he backed out of the small space, thinking he would go and look around the other side of the boxes. Dust and bird droppings, disturbed by his movements, hung in the still air and he suddenly sneezed almightily. Feeling another sneeze coming on, he looked to see if any of the small lancet windows set with multi-coloured glass panes along the front wall could be opened. They couldn’t, so he went back outside and down the steps to find a stone to wedge the door open. That was an improvement ...now, while he was close to the door, he had some breathable air. But a cross-draught would be better to clear the dust ...he remembered seeing louvered slits in the wall facing the driveway. These, he found, had been covered with solid shutters on the inside. He unlatched them and fixed them open ...and was instantly rewarded with a cool draft of air wafting over his face. Now, at least, he could work without choking.
Looking around, the only nest that appeared to have been used in the recent past was an untidy one tucked between the rafters and roof that might have belonged to a blackbird. Bits of old straw, broken eggshells and dry guano littered the floorboards below it. Mice droppings and spider webs were the only other signs of life but that was nothing, Hamish thought, that couldn’t be fixed. All that was required was a broom and a dustpan, and he’d seen those in the garden shed next door. He went down the stairs again and was back shortly, broom and pan in hand, then spent an enjoyably mindless half hour sweeping out the central storage cupboard and all the boxes, and cleaning over sixty years of dirt, droppings and cobwebs.
Next, he went downstairs to check out the carriage house ...time, he decided, to make some space to park his car inside, rather than under the trees where
it had been for the past weeks.
He wrested the heavy doors open with some difficulty. Unlike the door to the dovecote, these had been locked, with a simple padlock and chain that Hamish knew would have presented little more than a moment’s hindrance to any competent London thief. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary for him to try out his lock-picking skills, as the key had been among those on the ring he’d been given. The doors would need some work, though, before he could use this as a garage, the timber was sound but they were sagging under their own weight on rusted hinges.
When Hamish went inside he discovered why the studio in the house had been so empty of artist’s paraphernalia. To one side there was something the size of a small car hidden under a tarpaulin, but what claimed his immediate attention were all of the materials that he had expected Kendal would possess, blocks of wood and stone, most of them untouched, but some partly worked and abandoned in their half-finished state,...he lifted a sack covering work on a stand, to find one side of a man’s face peering out from a block of marble, forever frozen in half-genesis. On the floor, stone rosettes and small creatures similar to those he had seen decorating the covered bridge lay scattered around. Tools had been dropped in an untidy pile on the bench and some had fallen to the floor, as if someone had brought them here from the house all those years ago and dumped them hurriedly, to be rid of them. Files, chisels, adzes, mallets and hammers were strewn across the bench’s surface and littered the floor below. He stooped and picked up a chisel, testing its edge with his thumb. It was still sharp, but others he could see, had been badly damaged by being dropped on the hard floor. He stood again, and gazed around, wondering where to start. He would need a wheelbarrow to move much of this, preferably a sack barrow. With any luck there might be something here, if not, he would go and get the barrow from the gardener’s shed.
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