Cherringham--The Secret of Combe Castle

by Neil Richards

  “Thank you. It will be good to show this to the owners. Very reassuring.”

  “I doubt they’ll understand the model.”

  “Still — it shows that Cauldwells is state of the art, hmm? And I will be back with thoughts about next steps very soon.”

  Then, gathering up her handbag from the sofa she said goodbye to Anjii — who seemed surprised that the meeting had rushed to its conclusion — and left the office.

  As she turned the corner into the village square she passed Cecil Cauldwell on his way back to the office.

  Early …

  She’d been lucky.

  Was she going to be lucky with the password too?

  10. Long Memories

  Jack pulled up in front of Pelham Grange next to a mud-splattered Toyota pickup loaded with hay bales, and turned the Sprite’s engine off.

  The drive had taken him longer than expected.

  Pelham Farm was marked on the map as being to the south of the FitzHenry estate but when Jack got there he discovered that the farm was just that: barns, stores, vehicles, livestock, milking rooms — but no actual farmhouse.

  One of the farmhands had explained: the Pelham estate was split in two. One half — the working half — to the south of the FitzHenry’s, the other to the north.

  And the farmhouse, where Arthur Pelham lived, was in the northern section.

  So back on the road Jack had gone, stopping in a small roadside pub up on the ridge for lunch of shepherd’s pie and a glass of Coke.

  Remembering how ten years ago when he’d toured here with Katherine, they’d not thought twice about having a pie and a pint of beer …

  And then he’d driven another ten minutes until he’d spotted the sign to Pelham Grange and driven down the long drive which had brought him here.

  He looked up at the farmhouse — big, modern, functional.

  He rang the bell and waited.

  The door opened and a man stood there, chewing away, a sandwich in one hand.

  Arthur Pelham …

  He was tall — six foot three maybe, thought Jack — and though he looked to be in his sixties, Jack felt sure he was all muscle under the jeans and Barbour jacket.

  “Mr. Pelham?” said Jack.

  The man shut the door behind him.

  “That’s right,” he said. “And you are?”

  “Jack Brennan. I was hoping to talk to you about your neighbors, the FitzHenrys …”

  The man squinted.

  “What are you — police?”

  “No, just trying to help them out with a little … vandalism … that’s occurred on their property.”

  Pelham shook his head. “Well, you’ve come to the wrong place, Brennan. I’m not in the business of helping the FitzHenrys. Ever!”

  Pelham walked past Jack and headed for the pickup.

  “Sorry to hear that. Could be helpful if you had time to talk, Mr. Pelham.”

  Jack watched the man pause at the vehicle.

  “D’ya have ears? Why should I help those buffoons?”

  “Don’t know. Though …”

  Jack looked away, about to play a card he had played so many times before in the line of duty …

  “– it certainly would be a good way to remove any suspicion that you might be involved.”

  The man’s hand had been on the truck’s door. He looked as though he might yank the door right off it.

  A man not used to being played with.

  Jack watched Pelham consider his words. A nod, a shake of his head, then Pelham opened the passenger door of the Toyota pickup.

  “All right. Hop in. You talk, I’ll drive.”

  “I can follow you,” said Jack, nodding towards his Sprite.

  Pelham laughed. “Not in that you can’t! I’m going to work, man.”

  So Jack locked the Sprite and climbed into the battered old pickup.

  Pelham crunched the gears and they roared off up the drive.

  *

  Jack held tight to the clutch bar on the pickup’s dash as they rocked and jolted over the rough ground.

  No way could they have a conversation, bouncing around like this.

  Pelham had turned off the tarmac drive and now headed south across the meadows, by-passing herds of cattle, and avoiding ditches at the last minute.

  Guy wants to give me a lesson in farming, thought Jack. Well, if it makes him happy …

  Eventually they crossed a muddy, pitted meadow and stopped at a small pen holding half a dozen cattle, next to a long fence which Jack could see disappearing for miles in either direction.

  Pelham turned off the engine.

  “Come on, then.”

  He climbed out and headed round to the back of the truck. Jack opened his door and followed him. A harsh wind was blowing and Jack wished he’d brought his heavy jacket.

  He watched the farmer drop the tailgate, pick up a bale and hoist it on his shoulder.

  “You want to talk?” he said. “Then work.” The man grinned. “Deal?”

  Jack laughed, nodded and hoisted a bale onto his own back. He liked this rough-edge, no-nonsense farmer.

  He followed Pelham to the pen where the cattle were already waiting for their feed, and tipped the bale over the side.

  “Getting them ready for market, huh?” said Jack on the second trip.

  “Yup. Really good price right now,” said Pelham. “Just right for Christmas.”

  When they’d done the bales, Jack nodded to two sacks in the back.

  “Barley too?”

  “Both sacks,” said Pelham. “Done this before then?”

  “Brooklyn born and bred,” said Jack grabbing a sack. “City kid. But spent summers on my granddad’s farm upstate.”

  He saw Pelham nod and, bent under the heavy sacks, they both went to the pen.

  Jack tipped the barley into the feed tray, then watched Pelham check the water. Then they stepped out of the pen, leaving the cattle to eat.

  Jack could see the sun beginning to set over the hill, a dull glow catching the underneath of gun-metal clouds.

  Getting cold enough for snow, he thought.

  “Thanks for the help, New Yawker … so, you wanted to talk about the FitzHenrys?” said Pelham. “Well, I’ll tell you about the FitzHenrys.”

  Jack pulled his jacket tighter in the wind.

  “See the fence?”

  Jack nodded.

  “All the land this side is Pelham land. And everything you see on the other side is FitzHenry land. The fence is theirs to maintain. But they never do, you see? So I pay for it and I maintain it.”

  “From what I hear they’re short of cash.”

  “Damn right there!” said Pelham. “Now you see how my land goes down to the river?”

  Jack looked to his left: the fence ran all the way down to the Thames, just visible in the valley. He nodded.“Well — so does the FitzHenry land. But here’s the rub. On the other side of their land is the other half of my land. Five thousand acres.”

  “Ah,” said Jack, realising. “Your land’s split — and let me guess … you have no right of way through?”

  “Exactly. Every bloody time I want to get to those five thousand acres, I have to go up the hill two miles to the main road — then drive another three miles before I hit my land again.”

  “And that’s deliberate, huh?”

  “Oh yes. Seven hundred years ago the feeble King of England stole that land from my family and gave it to the FitzHenrys.”

  “Why?”

  “To reward them for some craven act of loyalty — and to punish us Pelhams for daring to stand up for our rights.”

  “But over the years, surely you could have bought some kind of right of way?”

  “Ha — from the FitzHenrys? Some hope! Not only penniless, they’re filled with stupid pride! For seven hundred years we’ve begged on bended knee for a road, a track — a footpath even to link the farms. But they’re selfish bastards the FitzHenrys, ‘our historic land’ they’d say �
� and they’ve turned us down every time. For centuries!”

  “Okay. I can see why you don’t want to help them,” said Jack. “And I guess you know nothing about the vandalism at the castle?”

  “If you find out who did it, let me know,” said Pelham. “I’ll buy ’em a drink.” The man laughed. “Maybe a full on dinner!” More laughs … then:

  “But no. Haven’t a clue, as they say.”

  “You know the castle and the estate might be up for sale?”

  “I’ve heard rumours.”

  “You’d be in the market to buy?”

  “Oh yes. In a heartbeat.”

  “But you wouldn’t try and force them out if they didn’t sell?”

  “Don’t believe that’s legal, Brennan …”

  “So you haven’t tried to?”

  Another laugh. “You have ears, don’t you? No! And if I had, would I tell you?”

  “Guess you wouldn’t.”

  Jack watched him carefully. He doubted that this straight-forward farmer would resort to anything like notes and painted warnings. But on the other hand … you wouldn’t want Pelham as your enemy. There was a coldness about him. Steel.

  “I need to get back to the milking,” said the farmer. “Can’t waste my time yakking out here.”

  Jack followed him back to the pickup and they both climbed in.

  Pelham fired up the engine, then turned it around in a big arc across the muddy field, and they headed back to the farm.

  By the time Pelham dropped Jack off, the sun had set.

  Jack climbed into his Sprite and drove back through the dark roads to Cherringham thinking about history, and the long shadow it could sometimes cast.

  11. The Hidden Legacy

  Sarah was knee-deep in learning all she could about the FitzHenrys’ past and present.

  When she’d got back to the office, things were still quiet, with Grace handling the job of creating the over-sized one-sheets for the upcoming pantomime.

  “Sarah — what do you think?”

  Sarah turned to see Grace holding an A4-sized version of what would be a giant poster — for the event.

  “Let me see …”

  Grace handed the sheet over. She had deftly taken all the elements of the original flyer and turned it into an even more garish explosion of colour, and added additional characters from the pantomime.

  Sarah laughed. “They really have that lot playing the seven dwarves?”

  “Indeed they do,” Grace said, “Found them online.”

  “They look like they’ve been caught in a police line-up. And that Maid Marian. Isn’t she … or is it he …?”

  “Yes! Burt Freelove!”

  “Didn’t even know he was still alive.”

  “Alive — and apparently kicking.”

  “He makes a rather fetching maid, I must say, though the five o’clock shadow could use some attention.”

  And that made Grace laugh. Grace had gone from being her young assistant in the small web and design business, to what Sarah knew she was now … a full creative partner.

  She made a note that she would — at the right moment — tell Grace exactly that. And also give her a raise — at least as much as current cash flow would allow for.

  I’d hate to lose her, she thought.

  “We good to go?” Grace asked. “Shall I fire it off to the printers?”

  “Absolutely! Brilliant work. The theatre will love it.”

  Grace beamed — pleased both with her work and with Sarah’s reaction.

  Grace was canny, and knew when Sarah was digging into something. This morning she had, as usual, asked no questions. Grace was used to Sarah’s part-time detecting — and knew not to get involved unless invited.

  And Grace had helped on plenty of occasions — but right now, Sarah felt she should run this one alone.

  And she definitely wasn’t going to hack into the Cauldwells’ database until Grace had left the office!

  For now Sarah turned back to her screen, and returned to hunting for anything and everything that had to do with the odd FitzHenry dynasty and the even odder Combe Castle.

  *

  The first thing she found was the historical record of Basil FitzHenry’s duel, which, amazingly, matched the wobbly diorama that Oswald had created.

  But then — interestingly enough — there was actually a mention of some kind of royal connection. Each heir apparently carried the story forward, much to the disbelief of the locals.

  For hundreds of years FitzHenrys had claimed royal blood, and for the same amount of time the locals thought the claim ludicrous.

  And then — it ended in a duel!

  Suddenly, she became more interested in this odd family.

  She read about an early lord of the castle, a Ralph FitzHenry who, it turned out, was a privateer. Rewarded by the King with property, someone who captured Spanish ships … a genuine buccaneer.

  And famed for returning to England from the East Indies with a prize ship loaded to the gunwales with gold doubloons.A far cry from the goofy — and broke — Oswald!

  Interesting. There had indeed been money then.

  And the fortunes of the family seemed to remain good right up until the end of the nineteenth century. She read about garden parties held at the mansion; the well-to-do family being a strong part of village life.

  That is, until along came Basil FitzHenry.

  The local paper at the time, The Cherringham Gazette, regularly reported on Basil and the festive goings-on at the castle.

  But not all that reporting was favourable.

  Accounts of one party included the news that a young man from Mayfair had ‘accidentally’ stepped into the chilly river and drowned.

  Other than that soggy event, the ‘Venetian Masque’ held at the manor was apparently, the story reported, a great success. The list of provisions — from a score of ducks, to roast lamb and sides of beef, not to mention enough bubbly to float a battleship — was massive.

  But there were also reports of anonymous protests lodged at village meetings over the traffic and noise created by the parties that seemed a regular feature of castle Combe life in the last decades of Victoria’s reign.

  Week after week, there seemed to be a story detailing someone complaining about Combe Castle.

  And throughout it all — there was money. Trips abroad on great steamships, summer-long stays ‘on the Continent’, massive donations to various Good Causes of the time, guaranteeing that anyone complaining at a town meeting would be quickly shushed.

  Then — treated as a major front page story — the sudden death of Basil FitzHenry.

  Reported as heart failure, presumably to avoid any scandal, his death at the relatively young age of fifty had sent shocks waves through the village.

  And now the story shifted …

  His son Bentley FitzHenry took over running the place. And for the first time, there was a hint of financial problems, not to mention a strain of dimness in the family lineage.

  A punitive demand for back taxes.

  A law suit by the contractor responsible for renovations to the actual castle went unpaid, with Bentley claiming that the ‘work wasn’t up to proper standards.’

  While the contractor, one Joseph Gammon, said that FitzHenry had simply refused to pay … ‘because the scoundrel can’t pay!’

  Sarah sat back.

  The money vanished … or was lost, as Oswald said?

  This wasn’t just a downturn. It was a dramatic reversal of fortune. One day Combe Castle seemed to be a well-kept, well-funded estate. The next, it had to scramble to cover everyday bills.

  Soon, it would be turned into a tourist attraction, a further sign of its rapid decline.

  And here was the thing …

  So clear …

  There had been money, all those doubloons fuelling an extravagant, wealthy life style …

  Then, overnight, seemingly all gone.

  It seemed impossible.

  Wha
t had happened to it? The doubloons, a treasure that should have kept the estate going for centuries … vanishing at a stroke, with the death of Basil FitzHenry?

  *

  Sarah made herself a cup of tea then returned to her desk. She didn’t want to hack into Cauldwells while Grace was still around.

  But where to look now?

  She scrolled through a quick search of the current local newspaper database, looking for anything to do with the castle.

  But aside from a few meagre articles about ‘stunning new exhibitions’ being revealed over the last few years, there was nothing.

  And then …

  An article and a picture from just a few months ago that made Sarah stop in her tracks.

  The picture showed an angry Oswald in front of Combe Castle, raising a fist at the camera. And the article explained why …

  Oswald had been taken to court and fined for excavating an area next to the house with a mechanical digger.

  He’d claimed he was just ‘following my passion for history and specifically the royal connections of my noble family.’

  But the judge had called it ‘an ill-judged and amateurish attempt at treasure hunting, which risked damaging the fabric of one of England’s most fascinating — and protected — Norman ruins.’

  Treasure hunting …

  Sarah sat back from the screen. Those two words — ‘treasure hunting’ — were not ones you’d want to have linked to your home in a newspaper article.

  Oswald’s explanation to the court was a joke. He’d clearly been trying to find the doubloons, and given the continued financial mess he was in, he’d obviously failed.

  But who knew what hornets’ nest he’d dug up in the process?

  Sarah knew of quite a few locals who would see a report like that as a challenge.

  Treasure? Spanish doubloons? Bring it on!

  And what if the story had spread wider than Cherringham? There were plenty of people out there who would follow up a treasure story and stop at nothing to get access to the house to search for themselves …

  Sarah quickly searched some of the national papers.

  And yes, just as she’d thought — one or two had picked up on the court case, running their own jokey features about the ‘wacko aristos’ and their ‘pirate gold’ …