Appleby Talks Again (2 page)

“I don’t know that I’d go as far as that. But at least they’ve cut the grass. Odd, perhaps – but meritorious.”

On this side too the house was elevated behind a terrace, and between the terrace and the river lay a broad expanse of turf. This was not in good condition, but it had certainly been recently mown with some care. Judith looked at it in perplexity. “I suppose it’s a gallant attempt to make a decent show. But who’s to see it? No one would bring a sail up here, and its decidedly remote for canoes or punts… The fabric’s better, too.”

Appleby turned. The house as viewed from this angle was plainly in disastrous disrepair, but it bore no suggestion of falling to pieces. The terrace here was in tolerable order, the windows were either glazed or decently shuttered, and under a massive portico a stout oak door appeared firmly shut. Rather to his wife’s surprise, Appleby led the way across the grass and climbed a broad flight of steps that rose to the house between battered statues. “Weeded,” he said. “And they don’t tilt disconcertingly when you tread on them.” He stooped. “Patched up, after a fashion.” He reached the terrace, walked to the oak door and tried it. “Locked.” And this time, to Judith’s positive astonishment, he gave it an impatient rattle. “Shades of Dr Johnson’s father.”

“Dr Johnson’s father, John?”

“Don’t you remember? Every night old Michael Johnson went out and locked with great care the front door of a building which no longer had any back to it. Young Sam was afraid he was going off his head. Well, Water Poole has a back rather like that. So if we
do
want to go inside there’s no particular difficulty. We just go round to the other side again.”

“Then here goes – and I believe you’re quite as curious as I am.”

“It’s the place that’s curious – not me.” For a moment Appleby turned to glance again at the river. It was no more than a stream, but he judged it to hold promise of excellent trout. “And as for that lawn–” He broke off, and they returned to the back of the house in silence.

On this side the terrace half-obscured a basement floor of cellars and offices, and into these they walked without hindrance. For a time they wandered among flagged chambers and passages, either vaulted or with plaster ceilings most of which now lay on the floors. Here and there were vast fireplaces, cumbersome stone troughs, gloomy larders and pantries with massive slate shelves on a scale suggesting a morgue. Nothing movable was to be seen – except in one obscure recess a heap of brushwood disposed into a rough bed, with signs of a small fire nearby, as if a tramp of the more pronouncedly melancholic sort had recently chosen this congenial spot for temporary residence. It was clear that in modern times the house when occupied must have achieved more practicable domestic arrangements on the next floor. And to this the Applebys presently climbed. So far, it had all been most depressing, and Judith’s whole exploration appeared to hold every promise of ending in mere dismalness. Appleby endeavoured to enliven the proceedings by affecting to hear the threatening approach of the man. His wife however was not amused.

But upstairs it was different. The great hall was a stately place, with high mullioned windows looking towards the river, a fine linen-fold panelling which must have been older than the house itself, and an elaborately ribbed plaster vaulting with pendants. These last had mostly broken off, and the effect was oddly like one of those caves or grottos in which eighteenth-century gentlemen amused themselves by shooting down the stalactites. But to an eye failing to travel so high as this the impression was less of decay than of suspended animation. Here was the very heart of the house, and it still faintly beat. It seemed only to be awaiting some prompting occasion to pulse more strongly, until the place felt the quickening flood in all its enchanted limbs, and stirred and breathed again.

Judith paced the length of the hall from screen to dais, and there stood quite still, as if she were listening. When she came back her expression had changed. “It’s queer,” she said. “There’s something.”

“Something?”

“Don’t you feel it?” She smiled at him, faintly puzzled. “But of course you don’t. It’s not your line.”

“If you mean ghosts and what not, I didn’t know it was your line either.”

“Not quite ghosts. Unless – yes – a throng of ghosts. I have a feeling of time shutting up, telescoping. Our time and theirs. So that they were here – and have all gone away – only today or yesterday.”

Appleby was examining on the great carved screen a fine series of panels exhibiting the motive of an arch in perspective. “My dear girl, who are ‘they’?”

“I don’t know.” She laughed at her own absurdity. “Gentlemen adventurers bound for the Spanish Main. Cavaliers riding away to join Prince Rupert or the King. If we had been just a little earlier we might have seen them. They forded the river, I think, and rode away at dawn.”

“You ought to have gone in for historical novels, not for sculpture. But – talking of that – look at the chimney-piece. It’s rather good, in a florid way.”

They studied it for some minutes: an affair of Hermes-figures, dolphins and cupids, surmounted by an ornate heraldic carving. “It’s odd about names,” Judith said. “They don’t go in for a pool, but a pole.” She pointed to this element in the elaborate coat of arms that crowned the structure. “But what’s that piece of carving lower down? I’d say it’s been added later.”

“It’s another pole – chopped in two by a sword. What’s called an emblem, rather than heraldry proper. And there’s a motto. No – it’s simply a date. Can you see?”

“Yes.” There was clear sunlight in the hall, and Judith had no difficulty. What she read was:

ye 14 June

1645

Appleby thought for a moment. “Naseby, in fact. The Pooles were in no doubt about that battle’s being the end of them.”

“And this is the tenth.”

“The tenth?” He was at a loss.

“Of June. Four days to the anniversary. No wonder–” She broke off. “John, there’s somebody coming. There really is, this time.”

Appleby listened. There could be no doubt about the advancing footsteps. “Then we go through with it, as usual. Unless, of course, it’s not the man, but a ghost. One of Prince Rupert’s friends, say, who forgot some weapon – or some piece of finery – and has come back for it.”

“What nonsense we talk. But there is something queer.”

“I rather agree.”

They looked at each other for a moment in whimsical alarm, before turning expectantly to the far end of the hall, from which the sound came. In a dark doorway beyond the dais they glimpsed what for an instant might have been identified as a gleam of armour. And then they saw that it was human hair. Advancing upon them was a silver-haired clergyman. He was carrying in his arms a square wooden box; he walked gingerly to a window embrasure and set down his burden; then he turned to inspect the Applebys over the top of small and uncertainly poised steel-rimmed spectacles. “Good morning,” he said politely. “So you are before me, after all.”

Appleby took a hand from his trousers pocket – it was clear that no five shillings would be called for – and contrived a polite bow. “Good morning, sir. But I don’t think–”

“How quickly these things get about nowadays. I am most surprised. But, of course, your Society is always on the
qui-vive
– decidedly on the
qui-vive
.”

“I’m really afraid I don’t know what Society you are talking about.”

“Come, come – frankness, my dear sir, frankness.” The old clergyman shook his head disapprovingly, so that his silver locks shimmered in the thin clear sunlight which flooded the hall. “The lady and yourself indubitably come from the Society for Psychical Research.”

“You are wholly mistaken. If I come from anywhere, it’s from the Metropolitan Police. But my visit here is entirely private – and, I’m afraid, unauthorised. My wife” – and Appleby looked at Judith with some shade of malice – “is keenly interested in old houses.”

“We must get to work.” The old clergyman appeared to make very little of Appleby’s remarks. “But first let me introduce myself. My name is Buttery – Horace Buttery – and I have been the incumbent of this parish for many years.”

“How do you do.” Appleby presented Mr Buttery to Judith with appropriate formality. “I wonder if you will tell us what it is that you suppose to have got about?”

“I’m bound to say that I had come to regard it as a vanishing legend. For good or ill, these old stories are dying out.”

Mr Buttery advanced to the chimney-piece and peered up at the carving. “The date is about right, you must agree.”

“The date is certainly about right.” It was Judith who replied, and Appleby realised with misgiving that she was determined to probe the intentions or persuasions of the old parson before them. “Today is the tenth of June.”

“Quite so.” Mr Buttery, much gratified, nodded so vigorously that his spectacles appeared likely to fly from his nose. “But I have heard very little talk of it, you know, of recent years. Only now and then, and from the older cottagers. The younger people – and it is they, mark you, who are often out late at night, human nature being what it is – the younger people never report anything. Perhaps because they don’t expect anything – eh?” Mr Buttery glanced at Judith with an air of great acuteness. “But then, of course, I’m bound to say I didn’t expect anything myself. It was entirely a surprise. My mind, naturally, was entirely on the gamekeeper.”

“I beg your pardon?” Judith was puzzled.

“No matter, no matter.” Mr Buttery might have been supposed momentarily confused. “The point is that I have seen it with my own eyes. And so I feel bound to get to work.” He turned back to his wooden box. “As you do too. Well, our purposes are not the same, but there need be no conflict – no conflict at all. A great deal in our present ills, if you ask me, proceeds from this disastrous notion of a necessary conflict between religion and science. I have a very cogent sermon on the subject, and I find that there is unfailing interest in it, year by year. I am not without the thought, indeed, of printing it and sending a copy to the Bishop. Between you and me, it might do him good. But here we are, here we are.” Mr Buttery was now rummaging in his box. “Bell, book, candle – surely I didn’t forget the candle? No – here it is.”

Judith advanced and peered into the box. “You are proposing some sort of exorcism?”

“Precisely. Not that I consider the manifestation as serious.” Again Mr Buttery glanced up with an air of great acuteness – which had, somehow, the comical effect of exhibiting him as a very innocent man. “I am not at all sure that a single White Paternoster might not very adequately meet the case. Still, one ought to be on the safe side. My reading inclines me to the view that we are dealing with goblins. A really populous affair like this is commonly a matter of goblins. I have little doubt that we shall get the better of them.”

“Do I understand” – Appleby in his turn had come forward – “that you yourself have lately seen at Water Poole a considerable concourse of what you took to be disembodied spirits?”

“My dear sir, you are perfectly justified from your scientific point of view in beginning your inquiry in this purely objective fashion. But I am persuaded that you know very well what I saw here last night.”

“Can you put a name to it?”

“Of course I can. It was the Naseby Ball.”

“Exactly – the Naseby Ball. And – as you can imagine – we are extremely interested.” Appleby gave Judith a swift glance which might have been an injunction to accept without more ado the role of psychical researcher. “It would be invaluable if you were good enough to give us a full account of your experience.”

“By all means.” Mr Buttery picked up his bell, gave it what appeared to be an experimental tinkle, and then addressed himself courteously to meet this request. “The historical background of the legend is no doubt familiar to you. In the summer of 1645 Lady Elizabeth Poole – she was a daughter of the Earl of Warmington – gave a magnificent entertainment here at Water Poole. On any sober calculation, of course, it was no time for anything of the sort, and the ball was clearly intended as a gesture in the grand manner. The Pooles prized nothing more highly than their reputation for being both resourceful and gay – and indeed they are said to be so still. But it took this great aristocratic lady, perhaps, to light that particular beacon against the darkness that was then closing in on the King’s party.” Mr Buttery paused. “One admires it, does one not?”

“And remembers it.” Judith glanced down the hall as if attempting to picture the scene. “And that is the point, I imagine? Lady Elizabeth’s entertainment became legendary?”

“So it would appear. On the stroke of midnight, the story goes, a messenger arrived from Prince Rupert. He announced that Sir Thomas Fairfax was marching with the New Model army upon Northampton, and that in a few days a critical battle must be joined. The ball ended instantly with a loyal toast, there was a bustle of martial preparation, and at daybreak the gentlemen rode away.” Again Mr Buttery paused. “How vividly one sees it: the candles growing pale in the dawn, the women ashen under their paint and jewels, the men all assurance and arrogance and inflexibly maintained courtesy, but with thoughts only for their horses and weapons and accoutrements. Among those who departed were Richard Poole and his two sons. As you no doubt know, none of them came back.”

“And the family never recovered?”

Mr Buttery nodded his venerable head. “It is perhaps true to say that the family never completely recovered – although Pooles lived on, the unquestioned masters of this place, into the present century. In the Kaiser’s war the old history repeated itself after a fashion, for a father and two sons were killed, and the estate became impossibly burdened with debt. No Poole has lived here regularly since then. During the last war, when remote places were at a premium, Water Poole was let out and partially occupied for a time. But now it scarcely appears that it can ever be lived in again, and I am sorry to say that the shooting and fishing have been leased to some very unpleasant people – commercial folk, no doubt – from London. The present owner of the house is almost unknown to me. He is a young man in his early thirties – a Richard, as most of the lords of the manor have been christened – and I believe he has gone on the stage.”