“Thank you, Mr. Yeoman. I’ll be having a cooked tea later on, so I doubt I’ll be hungry. This is a lovely room.”
“My wife made the curtains and counterpane.” He surveyed the room with pride. “Now then, the WC is along the landing, to the right, so there’s no going outside to an earth closet in the middle of the night. Will you need towels?”
“I’ve brought my own, thank you, Mr. Yeoman.”
He passed the key to her. “Fred. You can call me Fred, miss.”
“Thank you, Fred.” Maisie smiled as Yeoman left the room, closing the door with barely a sound.
The room was neither small nor spacious, and the rug-covered wooden floorboards creaked under her footfall as she stepped toward the window. From the outside, she had dated the inn at around 1350, of typical medieval hall-house construction. The upper floors would originally have been simply a galleried landing where people slept; she suspected the division into rooms probably took place in the seventeenth century, with water closets and gaslights being added during Edward VII’s reign. Electricity would likely be next, and she thought Fred Yeoman might look to adding a bathroom for guests, so they weren’t completely dependent on a single washbasin in the room for their personal hygiene.
The window provided a perfect vista across the farmlands beyond, and in the distance Maisie could see the roofline of the Georgian manor house at the center of the Sandermere estate. If she craned her neck, she could also view the hop-gardens and even the train chugging toward Paddock Wood. The room, she thought, would be perfect for a couple of nights. She locked the door behind her as she left, slipping the key into her jacket pocket. Waving to Yeoman as she departed the inn, she decided to walk along the High Street to get her bearings.
To the right, as she walked, there was just one shop, a general store selling all manner of goods, from groceries to oil for lamps, from kitchen cutlery to baby clothes. A few houses followed, then a common where, she thought, cricket would be played in summer and the local fete set up on a sun-filled June day. She imagined Beattie Drummond walking back and forth, trying to get even the most mundane story from the locals, to no avail. Considering the villagers, she looked about her and realized that few people were out and about on such a fine afternoon. Early closing was yesterday, so perhaps the shopkeepers had only just opened again following their midday meal.
THE VILLAGE SCHOOL was set at the far end of the common, and the muffled but high-pitched singing of a folk song signaled a music lesson in progress. Beyond the common, farther down the street, an old outbuilding with smoke belching from the chimney suggested a blacksmith at work, and as she walked closer she saw two draft horses waiting to be shod, flicking flies from their hefty rumps with their long tails or occasionally turning to nip an insect from their flanks. She watched for a while, then walked on. A strip of fallow land came next, with neither house nor sign of recent harvest, and there was no indication that it was used for grazing, which she thought strange, for country folk are not given to wasting land.
Maisie retraced her steps and reached the smithy just as the farrier came out to collect one of the drafts, reaching up and taking it by the halter.
“Excuse me,” Maisie called, taking advantage of the farrier’s being outside, away from the clanking bellows.
The man cupped his ear with his free hand as he looked around the horse to see who had spoken.
“Over here.” She walked toward him, gentling the horse with a hand to his neck as she approached. “Sorry to bother you while you’re working.”
“What can I do for you?” The man was not curt, but neither was he making an effort to be courteous.
“I’m visiting Heronsdene and wondered about the land next door to you. Does anyone own it?”
“Me. And I ain’t selling.”
“Oh, that’s alright. I was just curious, wondering why it wasn’t used.”
The man shook his head and turned toward the blackened inner sanctum of his smithy. “Not used since the war, since the Hun bombed out my barn. Lucky to save my business, I was, but everyone pulled together, everyone helped.”
“I’m terribly sorry, that must have been dreadful. Will you build another barn?”
“When I get the money, per’aps I will. Until then, I’ve left it fallow. Now then, miss, I’ve got to get on.” And with that he turned away from her, in such a way that, had she not stepped sideways with speed, the horse might have caught her foot with his own.
Maisie stood for a moment or two, watching the farrier as he maneuvered the horse into stocks and tied the lead rein to a ring on the wall. Though the horse turned his great head to look at her, the man did not speak again or cast his eyes in her direction. She crossed the road and went back through the village, passing her motor car and the inn as she walked in the direction of the church.
Three people were apparently killed in Heronsdene, but the smithy had not even mentioned the tragedy when he spoke of the Zeppelin. She considered this as she looked first at the Norman church, then at the ancient lych-gate and the graves beyond. She tried to ignore the war memorial close by but thought the people killed in the bombing might be listed among those from the village who were lost in the years 1914-1918. Maisie sighed and walked over to the memorial. She barely cast her eyes over the list of names, not wanting to inspire memories that came on with the same ferocity as a searing headache might be visited upon her by a too-bright light or a piercing sound. There was no mention of the three who perished here.
Maisie looked around and once more took account of the waste ground she had seen when she first arrived. She crossed the road to better look at the rectangular lot, set apart from other houses in the village, and stood for a while at the edge of the land, for she had realized she was reluctant to step forward onto the ground and was aware of a definite perimeter, even though it was overgrown and no margins of any building that might have been there remained. She closed her eyes as she felt a sudden shaft of cold air, even in the midst of a sun-filled September day with morning’s early chill long banished. It was not a cool breeze borne on the promise of autumn that made her shudder, but a sensation akin to an icy finger laid upon her skin, accompanied by a dark shadow that descended into her waking consciousness. Oh, my God, what happened here? What terrible thing happened here? Maisie staggered backward. The horn from a passing motor car blared as she almost tripped into the road, a sound that served to prevent her fall and caused her to stand upright and regain her balance.
This is where they died. Maisie knew in her deepest being that life had been lost in this place, that an act of aggression had touched the very earth across which she cast her gaze. She shivered, surveying the barren ground, a wasteland except for the Michaelmas daisies. It was then she remembered her grandmother again, remembered the gift of a bunch of the bright mauve blooms she’d gathered while walking with her father. “Ah, St. Michael’s flowers, brought to me by my boosul little angel herself,” said her grandmother. And she cupped Maisie’s cheek with her hand, liver-spotted and wrinkled, and bent forward to smell the musty aroma of Michaelmas daisies, flowers that always bloomed in time for the old festival of St. Michael, the warrior saint of all angels.
MAISIE TURNED TOWARD the church, the cold air diminishing as she made her way along the cobbled path to the entrance. It took both hands to wield the latch and gain entrance, and at once she felt at ease, comforted by the smells of ancient flagstones underfoot, of fresh blooms arranged by the village womenfolk, of damp foxed prayer books and worn woolen knee cushions. But she came not into the church seeking the tranquility offered amid the prayers of ages. She was looking for some sort of marker, some commemoration of the three who were lost when the Zeppelin released its deathly cargo. Names of villagers from earliest times were immortalized on the walls of the church, plaques placed following a timely donation by heirs centuries ago. But there was nothing, no honoring of the dead of a most terrible disaster. She emerged into the day once again, then began walking around the churchyard. Gravestones giving up the weight of years leaned toward one another, moss- and lichen-covered so that names could barely be read. A small contingent of stones in one far corner were those of prisoners of war from Napoleon’s time, given their due and buried with the blessing of God upon them.