by D J O'Leary
‘What? What? Don’t be ridiculous! There’s no need for all that fuss. One glance at them tells you they are genuine.’
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that I am no expert, but nor was I born yesterday. I must insist that these documents be analysed and assessed and authenticated before they can be accepted as genuine. Fingerprinting, dating of the ink, dating of the paper, comparison of the English used with similar documents from the same period, all of that can, and will, have to be carried out if you want this village to accept them as the real thing and thus allow you and the council to build anything on the Buttercup Field.’
She paused. No one said a thing. Jack Bentley had gone pale. His mouth had twisted into a grimace, but there was something akin to fear in his eyes.
Angela swished aside an imaginary robe, before continuing, ‘If you need to use a forensic laboratory I am sure Warren Pearce here,’ she paused to indicate Tolstoy, ‘could recommend one. The forensic laboratory which Warren approached has just done a wonderful job for him, verifying and authenticating documents he has uncovered in the cellar of Stottenden Manor. Their fees were very reasonable, weren’t they Tolstoy?’
She had turned again to single him out, waited for him to nod, then, smiling, she turned her steely gaze back on Jack Bentley. ‘Are you interested in hearing about the documents that Tolstoy discovered, Jack?’
Jack Bentley’s face now wore a puzzled look, one also evident on many faces among the audience, including those of the councillors.
‘I shall take your silence as an affirmative response to my question. The documents that Tolstoy unearthed date from 1839,’ she looked up sharply at a now rapidly deflating parish council chairman. Angela then rummaged through her briefcase and brought out the file folder containing the ancient legal envelope, then carefully she manipulated its contents, eased them out and, stepping forward, placed them on the table.
‘Now where is the bit I want?’ She pretended to riffle through the documents, before extracting two and exclaiming, ‘Ah yes! Here we are. This is from the de Groot family’s firm of solicitors in Tonbridge, still in practice now too, I believe. It is dated November 14th, 1911.’ And dramatically she began to read. ‘Dear Cornelis, Please find enclosed the documents you requested. You may keep them, unless you would prefer to return them to our sturdy office safe. The two relevant plans you felt sure were included among the deeds to Stottenden Manor were indeed there and they are self-explanatory. One is dated before, the other after, the changes were made. Your grandfather, Willem, clearly created a smaller field as some sort of shield from the road, to help enclose the cricket ground.’ Angela paused and looked up at Bentley, who by now had slumped in his seat. ‘There is actually a fair bit of correspondence between the solicitor and Cornelis de Groot, and that could prove useful right now, this evening, because we could do a quick comparison of the handwriting, to verify that Cornelis really did hand over the title of the Buttercup Field to your grandfather. If the handwriting in these documents,’ she indicated the Manor’s paperwork, ‘matches that which is in yours, then perhaps you will have a case. However, I would caution against fighting it, even if there is a match, because there is enough written evidence here to say that in fact Cornelis was in no legal position to have handed over the land to your family, since it had already been handed over to the church, here in Stottenden, more than half a century earlier, in 1839 to be precise.’
Bentley looked stunned.
‘So, Jack, could you please let me have a copy of the letter you claim is from Cornelis to your grandfather so that I, and others, including of course, yourself, may make the comparison of the handwriting?’
There was a breathless hush in the hall. For those in the know, Bentley was going to lose a great deal, because there was little chance he could have imitated the handwriting of Cornelis de Groot, so his choice, was, as the popular press would have it, stark. Hand it over and be found out, or refuse to allow the comparison and concede that the Buttercup Field did belong to the church, and by extension, the village.
All eyes were on Jack Bentley. He ran an anguished hand through his slicked-back hair and looked around wildly. He saw nothing. No allies. No sympathy. There was curiosity, that was just about the only thing visible on the faces of everyone. Curiosity as to what would happen now.
Finally, after what had seemed like hours but in reality was a bare half-minute, Bentley got to his feet, pulled his documents to him, gathered them up and folded them, before slipping them into his inside jacket pocket. Then, in a voice that suddenly sounded like that of a very old man, he said, quaveringly, and for many, unconvincingly, ‘Quite obviously in the light of these revelations about an earlier agreement involving the Buttercup Field, the papers that I hold in my hand, while being genuine, have no legal standing. They have been pre-dated by very many years. The gift had already been made. Since my family has done without the Buttercup Field for all this time anyway, there is nothing lost to us. I therefore withdraw the planning application. The Buttercup Field belongs to the church, and as Angela said, by extension to the village. Thank you.’
He started to move away from the table as loud cheers hailed the announcement, but Angela stopped him in his tracks. ‘Jack,’ it came out quite sharply, ‘there is more to come and you have not formally closed the council meeting.’ She turned to the main hall and appealed for quiet. ‘Please, everyone, just a few more minutes of your time, then the celebrations can begin.’ Silence fell. Bentley moved back to his chair, nodded at his fellow councillors, then invited Angela to continue.
She addressed her remarks to the councillors. ‘I have here two original plans of the cricket field before and after the gift was made to the church, with the statement on one from Hubert de Groot’s great-great-grandfather, Willem, that he had made the new field over to the church of St Martin for use by the village and villagers in perpetuity. All these documents are accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from a respectable forensic laboratory in North London. I would formally request the parish council, and its leader, Jack Bentley, to acknowledge acceptance of these documents and their authenticity, and to declare that the proposals to build on the Buttercup Field will now be shelved for good.’ More cheers broke out, but again, an elegant wave of a hand by Angela hushed the hall.
Jack Bentley stood up and, with a degree more formality than might have been expected, said, ‘Stottenden parish council hereby accepts the authenticity of the documents which will prevent any building or development work to be carried out on the piece of land known as the Buttercup Field in perpetuity. The planning application for residential development is hereby withdrawn.’ He then turned to the clerk of the council and asked for that statement to be minuted as well.
Cheering once more broke out, but this time the cheers were more for Angela Smeaton and her brisk demolition of Bentley’s case. During a brief break in the celebrations Bentley formally asked if there was any other business. On discovering there was none he formally closed the meeting, then, for the second time that evening, pushed back his chair, got to his feet and gathered up his papers. This time he was allowed through, the crowd parting to create a passage for him. Once he was clear of the crowd and heading towards the front door of the hall everyone closed ranks again and rushed towards the stage, where Angela was being alternately hugged and patted on the back for her handling of the case.
Tolstoy and Kate had managed a hug and a peck on each other’s cheeks. Elspeth wiped a tear from her eye, grateful that her husband’s legacy would live on. Grateful, too, that Tolstoy had been the one to discover the documents. Bert was seen to slap Old Ned on the back and then guide him to the hall door, whence they would make their way to the Snitcher’s Head. Nick Marten had already left, together with Jo, to prepare for what promised to be quite a busy night.For a couple of minutes everyone else just milled around, smiling, laughing, punching the air, before someone realised that the pub would now be
open, and the crowd as one, surged towards the exit, their minds focused on a celebratory drink.
When the bulk of the villagers had gone, leaving only Angela, her husband Bertie, the colonel, his wife Miriam, Elspeth, Kate and Tolstoy, the seven of them heaved a collective sigh of relief.
‘Angela, thank you,’ said the colonel. ‘First-rate job. Best bit of advocacy I’ve ever witnessed. In boxing terms, you had him on the ropes and then on the canvas. He never stood a chance. The pity of it is that we didn’t get to see his “evidence”, although that was an inspired tactic to say we could do a direct comparison of handwriting right then and there. That surely would have shown him up for what he is, a shyster and a fraud. That was a truly magnificent job. Again, thank you.’
‘Thank you for your kind words, but I think Tolstoy here also deserves our gratitude. After all, if he hadn’t braved the dust of a couple of centuries and then patiently waded through what I gather were reams of old papers, then none of this could have taken place, and we would be in the Snitcher’s Head right now, but drowning our sorrows, rather than celebrating a victory. And worse, the council and Mr Jack Bentley would even now be driving the diggers and dumper trucks onto the Buttercup Field. Andrew, your role in this has been no less important. You brought everyone in the village – apart from Bentley and his henchmen – together. It meant the villagers were able to put up a united front, and as we have seen this evening, they are overjoyed at the outcome. Now I suggest we all join them and have a drink or two to celebrate a famous victory. Shall we go?’ And taking her husband’s arm Angela swept towards the door with the others bringing up the rear.
Loud cheers greeted the seven as they made their way to the bar. Nick Marten had declared that the first three rounds were on the house, and Old Ned had already drained his first glass and was eyeing up his second pint of cider. Bert was standing by him, sipping a little more judiciously at his pint of Fuggles.
Tolstoy squeezed through happy bodies, heading over to the corner where Old Ned held sway. On arriving there he tapped Ned on the shoulder and said, ‘That was magnificent, Ned, thank you. Even before Angela hit him with all our documents you had knocked the stuffing out of Jack. It was so unexpected, and frankly it won the day for us.’
‘I agree, wholeheartedly,’ came a voice over Tolstoy’s shoulder. It was Andrew. ‘That was something that came out of left field. You really shook old Clem, and it was patently obvious thereafter that he and Scott had planted that box by the gatepost on instructions from Jack Bentley.’
Old Ned was flushed with pride at the comments from the two of them. He smiled, a little lost for words, then picked up his glass and raised it to them. They all took a sip from their own.
Then Tolstoy asked Ned, ‘Why is it called the Buttercup Field? Was it once carpeted with buttercups, until disease or whatever wiped them all out?’
A wicked smile crept across Old Ned’s face. He slowly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘the Buttercup Field weren’t named after they bloody weeds. No buttercup has ever grown there. Remember, ’twas part of a larger field that were mown and tended right well, even back in them days. No, ’twas named the Buttercup Field by my great-uncle Ted and ’is mates when they was teenagers. ’Im and ’is mates called it the Buttercup Field like a sort of disguised name for the place. A code, if you like. Because, you see,’ he lowered his voice and leaned towards Tolstoy and the colonel, ‘come the longer evenings of spring and summer, after a hard day’s labouring in the fields, the young ’uns ’ould make their way to the Buttercup Field, which was, by then, screened from prying eyes in the pub and the big house by the ’edges and trees wot ’ad grown up there. The grass were deliberately left long in the field. And the young lads and their girls ’ould get down and do what Mother Nature intended. Now when that were all goin’ on, if you were to look across the field with up to half a dozen couples doin’ it, all you could see were the backsides risin’ and fallin’. An’ that’s when Uncle Ted and ’is mates decided they’d give the field a name, but not the Bums Up Field, that ’ould be too obvious, an’ a mite rude. No, they thought they could make it sound innocent. So, what everyone ’eard was the youngsters calling it “the Buttercup Field”, but in reality they was callin’ it “the Buttock Up Field”.’
Acknowledgements
Had it not been for the rain at Taunton during a Somerset match in 1990 this story would never have been started, let alone completed – albeit 29 years later. My first thank-you, therefore, must go to the late Eric Hill, who came up with the idea of someone inheriting a cricket ground, while rain trickled down the windows of the old press box.
Mention also has to be made of the people, friends and family, who bravely read through the raw manuscript making corrections, suggestions and never once complaining. So thank you Audrey Ray, Colin Bateman, my sister Sarah Gillett and my brother Glyn Llewellyn.
The cover is the work of Dr Linda King, another long-standing friend, who allowed herself to be persuaded to put paintbrush to paper and capture the rural idyll that I have tried to depict in this book. She succeeded, and the book is all the better for it.
The team at Matador, most notably Fern Bushnell, the company’s Production Controller, Alexa Davies, Lauren Bailey, Hannah Dakin, Hayley Russell and Andrea Johnson, has been exemplary. Everyone of them has bent over backwards to help me, often going beyond the bounds of duty. Their patience and professionalism cannot be faulted.
Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my long-suffering wife Hilary, who has had to read and re-read every attempt to start this work, and those attempts are many, then finally reading and making positive criticism of the completed novel over the last 29 years.
