when people heard his approach, they came out on their doorstops to watch and wave. The years passed and the practice grew, yet still Dr. Fox had not entered into the holy state of matrimony. He had not yet found the right woman to make him a suitable wife, he responded with a laugh to anyone who inquired. Such close communities as Richmond, however, have their traditions and their expectations, and that the local GP should have a wife to send him out with a hearty breakfast inside him each morning, to darn the socks he wore out on his daily rounds, and to have his slippers warming by the fire on a chilly winter’s evening, were certainly among them. Dr. Fox cannot but have been aware of these rumblings. Thus it was an occasion of great joy in Richmond when Dr. Fox introduced to his partner Dr. Nelson and his wife Mary, on the 12th of June, 1936, seventeen years after his first arrival, a beautiful young woman of 23, by the name of Grace Elizabeth Hartnell, whose beauty, natural charm, domestic competence, cheerful disposition and delicate femininity soon conquered the hearts of everyone she encountered. If Ernest was the practical and dependable rock of the family, then Grace was its warm and gentle heart. Grace worked as a nurse at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, in Newcastle, and that was where she and Ernest began to meet more and more regularly for tea. They were already acquainted, as Dr. Fox was a friend of the Hartnell family, who hailed from Saltburn-on-Sea. In no time at all, Grace became a well-known and much-admired figure around Richmond, and the general opinion was what a wonderful doctor’s wife she would make. This step was finally accomplished on a warm, sunny 26th September, 1936.
October 2010
I had hardly been out of the house all week, except to buy some more food, wine and office supplies, so I decided to visit one of the local pubs I had found online, which was in the village of Kirby Hill, a couple of miles farther up the road at the end of my lane.
Heather Barlow had rung earlier and told me that she and her husband Derek would be delighted to come for dinner on Saturday. After the briefest of pauses, Heather had gone on to ask me whether it was all right if she brought a friend, ‘to round out the numbers’. I detected a whiff of matchmaking in the air, but what could I say? Her name was Charlotte, Heather told me, and she was nice. A solicitor. I would like her. We would see about that.
The piano tuner had come and gone, and he had done an excellent job. I had set up my office around the walnut escritoire, tinkered with a few ideas, themes and chord sequences at the grand, but I didn’t yet feel settled enough to immerse myself in the sonata I was hoping to write. I know that piano sonatas aren’t especially popular with composers these days – most opt for shorter, more impressionistic fragments – but I like the four-part structure with its intricate themes and variations, perhaps because it is similar to the way I approach my film score work. Schubert and Beethoven are my touchstones, but I haven’t ignored everything that’s happened in music over the last two hundred years, and I have great regard for Britten and Shostakovich.
At least I had been sleeping much better. Though I still awoke occasionally to the strange night-time sounds, I became more adept at ignoring them and going back to sleep, saving my movie-watching binges for the long evenings. By the time darkness started to fall on Thursday, I felt lonely and restless and couldn’t even settle down to Peeping Tom, one of my old favourites, so I decided to venture out.
I still found it hard to get over the sheer isolation of Kilnsgarthdale every time I drove along the bumpy one- track lane to the main road. It was only a mile and a half, but that’s actually quite a long way to be from civilisation. Perhaps not in the American West or the Australian outback, but in little old England it is. I couldn’t even see my neighbours a mile away behind me, over the hill. Even the main road was a meandering, undulating, tree-canopied B road two miles from Richmond to the south and, in the opposite direction, about the same distance from Kirby Hill, where I found the Shoulder of Mutton. The pub stood at a bend, opposite the church, where the road turned left into the village, and the view from the car park across the fields to Holmedale and across the A66 to the moorland beyond was stunning, with the last vestiges of sunset on my left, a Technicolor wasteland.
The pub was moderately crowded, and in the room to the right of the small bar, a few people sat eating dinner. I walked over to the bar and ordered a pint of Daleside bitter and a packet of cheese and onion crisps from the young girl, who graced me with a shy smile. One or two of the regulars paused in their conversations and gave me surreptitious glances, as if they didn’t see too many strangers in there, or as if word of my presence in the area had spread around. It wasn’t quite An American Werewolf in London, but it wasn’t far off. I wasn’t sure whether I would get, or wanted, any conversation. Yorkshire people are notoriously contrary when it comes to these matters. They can be as friendly as you like, and bend your ear until you’ve had enough, or they can simply pretend you don’t exist. And you can’t always be sure which course they will take. I thought it was best to be prepared for all eventualities, so I took a book along with me.
I carried my pint and crisps over to an empty table in the corner directly opposite the bar, close enough to the blazing fire to catch some of its warmth. The brass and polished wood gleamed. There were no machines or pool tables, no posters advertising quiz nights or karaoke, and, of course, no smoking. I tried to read the names of the single malt whisky bottles displayed on the plate racks around the room. A petite, energetic woman I took to be the landlady was dashing in and out of the bar, stopping to chat and joke with the regulars. She flashed me a quick smile and said hello as she passed my table.
It was hard to concentrate on my book, an espionage novel by Alan Furst, even though I was enjoying it. I kept overhearing snatches of conversation, or the punchline of a joke, and one of the women at a busy table near by had a very loud laugh. As the place filled up, I watched people come in, and soon all the tables were taken. A couple about my age glanced at me from the bar and came over. The man asked whether the chairs were taken. I said no. I had seen them chatting with the landlady when they came in, so I guessed they were regulars, but I had no idea they knew who I was until the man opposite me said, ‘You’re the new owner of Kilnsgate House, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, putting my book down on the table.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ the man said. ‘You were reading.’
‘That’s all right. I only brought the book because I didn’t know if there’d be anyone here to talk to.’
‘Or anyone who would want to strike up a conversation with an incomer?’
‘Well, yes… I suppose so.’
The man leaned forward and whispered. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not from around these parts. I’m an incomer, myself, a bloody southerner. Brighton.’
I laughed. ‘Chris Lowndes,’ I said, holding out my hand.
He shook. ‘I know who you are. I’m Ted Welland, and this is my wife Caroline.’ Caroline was a shy woman in a green cardigan, showing the bulge of a handkerchief over her skinny wrist. The tip of her nose looked red, and I guessed she was carrying the hanky for a purpose. She blushed and averted her eyes when we shook hands.
‘It looks like an interesting book, at any rate,’ Ted went on, glancing at the cover.
‘I’m a spy fiction fanatic. I cried when they pulled down the Berlin Wall.’
Ted laughed. ‘I’m afraid I’m more of a non-fiction man myself. History, biography, that sort of thing.’
I noticed Caroline roll her eyes, as if she recognised the beginnings of a boring lecture. ‘You’re a historian? You should-’
‘Good Lord, no! Just a curious mind, that’s all. An avid reader. Especially anything about the Second World War. Now that I’m retired, I find I have plenty of time on my hands, and it keeps me out of mischief. Doesn’t it, darling?’
He patted his wife on the knee, and she smiled. ‘I’d like to think so,’ she said, then she blew her nose.
‘Perhaps you can help me?’ I said.
Ted Welland raised his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Do you know Kilnsgate House?’
‘I’ve walked by it on a number of occasions. I know where it is.’
‘There’s a funny sort of humped stone ruin on the hillside opposite, a folly or burial mound of some sort. Do you know what it is?’
‘The lime kiln?’
‘Is that what it is?’
‘You mean you don’t know why it’s called Kilnsgate House?’
‘Well, no, I suppose I don’t.’
‘It means “the way to the kiln”. That ruin is a lime kiln. They were used to make quicklime by burning limestone. See, it’s got an outer layer four or five feet thick, and inside there’s a kind of bowl made of brick or
