At this the Marquis once again pivoted and regarded him silently, still giving no clue as to what was transpiring in his thoughts, and then, mysteriously, he turned and continued on his way. The liveried chauffeur was waiting in attendance, shut the door behind him, and within moments the Rolls was driving off into the distance.
“You see,” Brad said dryly, “I told you they were weird.”
David chalked up the Marquis’s odd behavior to aristocratic eccentricity, but was still slightly on edge when he drove into the village of Fenchurch St. Jude. He scanned the streets, prepared for just about anything, and became somewhat more at ease when he noted that it seemed to be a typical little English village. The lane that functioned as Fenchurch St. Jude’s main artery was lined with terrace cottages. There was a village store, the customary pub, even a petrol station, soberly decorated and neonless, but evidence nonetheless that civilization had indeed encroached upon the sleepy hamlet.
There was not, however, anything even vaguely resembling a real estate office, and David resolved to make inquiries at the pub. He noticed as he walked through the weathered oaken door that the name of the establishment was the Swan with Two Necks. Inside, it was a typical English pub, dark, smoke-filled, but resonant with the feeling that a lot of living had taken place within the confines of its comfortingly dark walls.
Here and there a few grizzled regulars sipped at their ale, and behind the bar stood a frail little woman with matchstick bones and garish bleached-yellow hair. All eyes were riveted on David as he entered. He approached the bar and ordered a Guinness. For a moment the woman just gawked at him, and he found himself staring back at her unnaturally colored hair, as stiff and wiry as a yellow pot scourer. Finally she slid a Guinness his way and then rushed from behind the bar and joined a table of regulars on the other side of the pub. All eyes remained on David as she whispered something rapidly to one of the men sitting at the table. It was clear they were talking about him.
This did not surprise him. The appearance of a stranger in their midst was certainly an occurrence worth talking about. What did impress him was the generally unhealthy look of everyone in the pub. The little blond woman was as thin as a starved bird, and the insubstantial sallow fabric stretched over her bones looked more like chicken skin than human flesh. It occurred to David that her stridently colored hair didn’t help matters much. But even the men had a weedy, weak-eyed look to them, a generally unwholesome air that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Their skin was a little too pale and mushroomlike, and their posture stooped and defeated. As he took a sip of his Guinness he noticed that they were still staring at him and whispering among themselves. He turned around on his stool.
“My name is David Macauley,” he announced boldly.
This surprised them. The blond woman straightened and looked at him with astonishment. They had apparently not expected him to speak. She glanced down at one of the men and then looked back at him. Still, she did not respond.
“I’m an archaeologist,” he continued. “We’re doing some work out at the bog.”
This truly captivated their attention. After several more moments of silence the woman said, “You and the other gen’ulman?”
“You mean my assistant, Mr. Hollister?”
“The tall man with the black beard?”
David nodded. “That’s him.”
The ice broken, the woman hesitantly stepped forward and nodded. “Winnifred,”she said simply. “People call me Winnie.”
“Nice to meet you,” David returned.
She looked back at the men behind her, almost as if for support, and then returned her attention to him. “And what did you say you was doing out at the bog?”
“We’re looking for the remains of your Celtic ancestors. We’ve already found two bodies.”
This caused quite a stir among them.
“Oh, you needn’t worry,” David added quickly. “They’ve been dead for at least several centuries, probably much longer.”
This seemed to make no difference to the woman. “But the bog!” she exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be doing no digging in the bog.”
“Why not?”
“Why, ’cause that’s his place.”
“Whose?”
“The Marquis,” she stammered, bewildered. “The bog belongs to him.”
“Not all of it,” David returned. “The government owns a section of it.”
“I shouldn’t think that’d matter,” she snapped. “You shouldn’t be poking around in things you don’t know nothing about. You should leave the bog alone.”
“Why?”
She grew totally exasperated. “Because the bog takes. Mo one as goes up against the bog comes out a winner. You may think you know what you’re doing, but the bog will just wait and bide its time and then, when you least expect it, or maybe when you been expecting it for months, the bog will reach out and take something you love, or maybe some part of you. But it
will
take. It’s been taking from us for some time now.”
“Winnie!” one of the men chided sharply from behind, and David noticed that the entire crowd seemed to have grown uneasy at her admonition. He almost thought he saw several of the men looking around nervously, as if some unseen danger lurked in the walls or the woodwork.
The same man who had chided Winnie reached out and hushed her sternly as he grabbed her by the arm and drew her back. “But I got to tell him—” she began, but he just shook his head for her to be silent.
He looked at David. “You don’t pay her no mind,” he said tersely.
David took a large swig of his Guinness. It did not seem especially odd to him that the woman had such an unprovidential attitude about the bog. The bog was a treacherous place, and it was only natural that the people who lived near it should have developed a certain healthy respect for its perils.
“How long do you expect to be here?” the man asked.
“Quite some time,” David answered. “At least six months, maybe even a year or longer. In fact, that’s why I came in here. I was wondering if there were any cottages in the area that are available to be rented?”
This remark had an even more marked affect on most of the patrons in the pub, and they became increasingly agitated. But the man who had addressed David just continued to look at him unaffectedly.
“That’s something it would be best to talk to the vicar about,” he said.
David chugged down the remainder of his Guinness, pleased with this granule of information. “What’s the vicar’s name?”
“Venables,” the man returned.
“Thank you very much,” David said. He paid for his Guinness, nodded to his rapt audience, and turned to leave. Just before he passed through the door he noticed what appeared to be a stack of newspapers on a ledge. The name of the paper was
The Little Telegraph
, and when he looked closer he saw that the masthead said Fenchurch St. Jude. David purchased one from Winnie and left.
As he had observed, the church was set apart from the village and overlooked the bog. It took him about five minutes to get there. He pulled around to the side and parked his car next to what he assumed to be the vicarage. As he walked to the front of the church he noticed that some effort had gone into maintaining it, but it was still greatly in need of repairs. The rhododendron hedges around it were neatly trimmed, but the walls of the church itself were flaking and crying out for paint, and the roof was in obvious need of patching. He went inside.
As he passed through the door he wondered if he would find anyone in the church, it not being Sunday and all, but he did not have to ponder the matter for long, for standing atop a rickety stepladder and plastering a hopeless-looking crack in the ceiling was a man he assumed to be the vicar. The man looked down at the sound of David entering.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Are you Mr. Venables?”
The vicar nodded.
David introduced himself and explained why he was there.
“Oh, I see,” said the vicar, laying down his board and trowel. He glanced up one last time at the crack. “The church is falling apart,” he mumbled disconsolately before he started to descend from his precarious perch.
When he reached the floor, he wiped his hands on a rag and then regarded David more carefully. In feature, he was a gaunt man with a resolute face and luminous gray eyes. As he approached, David noticed that he too was staring at David with a sort of incredulous curiosity, but it was a softer scrutiny than the naked ogling he had received from the people in the pub. In fact, it occurred to David that it was more like the gaze of some of the dons he knew at Oxford. He fancied that the vicar was an intelligent and highly sensitive man, a man who contemplated the deeper mysteries of existence. It also did not escape David’s attention that there was a strange sadness about the vicar, as if on occasion some of his contemplations caused him deep sorrow.
“You want a place to live?” he repeated.
David nodded.
“How long did you say you intend to stay in Fenchurch St. Jude?”
“Anywhere from six months to a year, but possibly a little longer. It would be nice if the landlord were willing to be a bit flexible.”
The vicar mulled all of this over. He looked at David. “It’s an unusual request, you know. We don’t get many people wanting to move to Fenchurch St. Jude. The last one was over forty years ago. It was before my time.” And after he said this he grew suddenly troubled. Something seemed to race through his mind and then he suppressed it, looking back anxiously at David. “I just don’t think this is the place for you.”
“Why not?” David asked.
“I just don’t,” the vicar snapped.
“Well why not?” David repeated, becoming annoyed. “Because there are no empty cottages in Fenchurch St. Jude except for the hunter’s cottage and that would, of course, be out of the question.”
“Why?”
The vicar’s eyes widened. “Because the Marquis owns it. It’s on his estate.”
“How near to his home is the cottage?”
“Oh, quite far actually. Several kilometers, but—”
“—but why is it out of the question?” David repeated, pretty much at wit’s end.
“Because the Marquis is a very difficult man,” the vicar said in exasperation. “I couldn’t imagine him wanting the place to be rented.”
“Does the Marquis have a telephone?”
“But of course.”
“Then why don’t we call him and ask him?”
This alarmed the vicar more than ever. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Why not?” David cried.
“Because I wouldn’t want to disturb the Marquis,” the vicar returned firmly. “As I told you, he’s a very difficult man.”
“I know,” David sighed. “I met him.”
The vicar looked at him with astonishment. “What did he say to you?”
“He asked me if I was married or had children.”
“Now you see, isn’t that a strange thing to say? The man is difficult.”
David had had enough. “Listen, if you are not going to call him for me, I’ll simply drive up to his place myself.” The vicar shook his head vigorously. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that.” He sighed. “Very well, as you wish. I’ll call him. Follow me.”
They proceeded through the chancel of the church and into the vicarage. David was at least pleased to see that the vicar’s living quarters were stacked floor to ceiling with books. He noticed one open on the arm of a chair. The title of the volume according to its spine was
Serving God on High.
The vicar’s mood became even more rattled as he dialed the telephone. Looking at him, David noticed that the vicar seemed more than just reluctant to make the call. He seemed actually fearful. “This is Mr. Venables,” he said into the phone. “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. Is the Marquis in? Because there’s a gentleman here. Says he met the Marquis this morning. Yes. Yes. Because he wants...” The vicar paused and looked once again at David. “... he wants to rent the hunter’s cottage.” Whoever the vicar had been talking to apparently went off to ask the Marquis, and the vicar put his hand over the mouthpiece and dropped the phone to his side. “Now we’ve done it,” he said, and again David noticed honest fear in his eyes. He lifted the phone back up to his ear. “What? Yes. What? Six months, maybe a year. Possibly longer. What? Very well. I’m very sorry to have disturbed you. Please tell the Marquis I had no choice. He was going to come by and visit if I did not. What? Yes. Please, tell him I’m very sorry. Good afternoon.” He hung up the telephone and turned to David in disbelief, his eyes wide with David knew not what emotions.
“He says the cottage is yours.”
David and Melanie sat at the dining room table, a candle burning romantically between them. They scarcely noticed that in the living room the lights were bright, the television blaring, Ben was barking, and Tuck and Katy were bouncing around having what appeared to be a mild fight, Tuck’s toy helicopter having somehow gotten tangled in Katy’s blond hair. David had just told Melanie the news and she was not taking it well.
“Honey, I still don’t know what’s wrong.”
She looked at him with a sort of vague desperation. “I told you, I don’t know myself. I don’t want to rock the boat, but it’s going to rip something out of me to leave here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. What about Tuck and Katy’s schooling?”
“I’ve talked to their teachers and cleared it for them to leave a little bit early for their summer vacation this year. Then next fall, if we like the school in Fenchurch St. Jude, we’ll enroll them there. Or if not, we’ll tutor them like we did when we were in Nebelgard. After all, we are college professors.”
“You’re a college professor,” she corrected.
“Well, you’re almost one. You’ve certainly had the education.”
Melanie continued to stare into her wine. “What about Katy?”
“What about her?”
“I just don’t think it’s right to be moving her to such a spooky, lonely place.”
“But the house is nowhere near the bog. It’s the moors. She’s reading
Jane Eyre
and she loves it.”
“But that’s just the point. She’s thirteen years old. She’s turning into a young woman. She should be out meeting kids her own age and getting to know herself more. She shouldn’t be reading
Jane Eyre
out on the moors and in total isolation.”