‘Well, however the squire was murdered, I hope it wasn’t by getting caught in one of those mantraps,’ thought Fenella. ‘Horrible, wicked things!’
Apart from the orderliness and freedom from dust of the collection, she noticed that the heavy, clumsy flat-irons were free of rust, that the pewter objects had been lovingly washed and rubbed up and that all the cutlery was not only polished but sharpened. It appeared that the curator and his wife earned their Mayering five pounds a year. She spent about a quarter of an hour over her inspection and, having returned the key, decided to go along to that end of the village farthest from the iron-age fort and find the site of the seven wells.
She had not far to go, and was guided by the sound of music. She did not think she had passed the ash grove and the springs on her way into the village and found that she was right. There was a lane by the side of a blacksmith’s forge and she followed this and the sound of the music until she came upon a small common. Here a number of girls were performing a dance, holding garlands of paper flowers fastened to the ends of peeled sticks. The dancing was accompanied by an orchestra consisting of two violinists, a drummer and a man who jingled some small bells such as morris men wear on their legs. These, however, were attached to a piece of leather which the man held in both hands. Anything more innocuous and unexciting could hardly be imagined.
There was only a sprinkling of villagers acting as spectators, not nearly as many as Fenella might have expected. She stood and watched the dancing for a few minutes and then moved on to where another knot of idlers was watching the erection of a small shelter woven from branches on a skeleton of tall poles. This, she supposed as she approached it, was to be the hut for the occupation of the two Guardians. As she drew nearer she saw what appeared at first to be a pond set in a deep hollow, but the water flowed away in the form of a broad, shallow brook and, as she reached the edge of the hilly dip, she could see the springs of water coming out of the hillside and the ash-trees growing almost at the water’s edge.
Considering all that she had heard about the Mayering, its celebration seemed to be falling very flat. She supposed that the recent death of the Squire of the village, and the funeral which was to be held on this singularly inappropriate day, were the causes of the unenthusiastic nature of the annual May-Day rites. Disappointed, she decided to return to the inn and find out how soon the landlord was prepared to drive over to Croyton and reunite her with her car.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Green Man
‘If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’
St Luke – 23:31
To Fenella’s delighted surprise, lunch was on the table by a quarter past twelve. She had returned to the inn and was washing her hands when Clytie tapped on the bathroom door, informed her that her meal was ready for her in the lounge and asked whether she would take anything to drink.
‘And master says don’t be long about it, as he wants to be in Croyton as soon after one o’clock as maybe, along of gettin’ back for the funeral,’ Clytie concluded.
‘That’s marvellous,’ said Fenella. ‘I’ll have a glass of beer with my lunch, and perhaps you’d also bring the bill, so that I can settle up quickly.’
Lunch consisted of two meat pies (re-heated, Fenella supposed, from the previous day’s baking) with potatoes, boiled onions in a thick sauce, and cauliflower. This was followed by a very good sherry trifle and some cheese. The bill was extremely moderate and included a small sum set against the item: Petrol for one double, two single journeys, an understatement.
She had finished the meal by twenty minutes to one. She went back to her room, ostensibly to make sure that she had finished her packing, but really because there was one other thing which she was determined to do before she left the inn. Making certain that there was nobody about, she sneaked down the stone stair, raised the lid of the trapdoor and, torch at the ready, once more felt her way down the ladder into the crypt.
As before, it smelt musty but not otherwise unpleasantly, and, by the light of the torch, which she switched on the moment she was at the foot of the ladder, she was able to make a sufficient inspection of the small undercroft to satisfy her curiosity.
The vault was supported by two squat pillars, and the whole of the floor-space, she judged, was not more than about twenty feet by twelve. Of the bones which had lain there, perhaps earlier than the time of the Black Death, only a few scattered fragments remained. There was not even a skull, and Fenella was relieved about that. There was no dead man’s sightless grin to encounter.
She shone her torch over the whole of the floor-space to make sure that she knew where to place her feet without treading on the scattered bones, and inspected the walls. She found the remains of the original steps which must have led down from the Norman church, and she could also make out a blocked doorway. There was nothing else of interest, no traces that the crypt had ever been used as a chapel or, indeed, that it had been used for any religious purpose at all.
She wondered how it was ventilated, for, so far
