‘Do you want us any longer, Edward?’ asked his wife, as he paused.
‘No, Lilian. There is only one more thing. My concern is with the castle buildings, or what remains of them. The interior of the large outer bailey, which, as we have seen, is the flat expanse between the slope which leads up from the main gatehouse to the defensive ditch, is the province of Professor Veryan and we shall not encroach upon it. Away with you, then. Get some lunch and then everybody should be at the foot of the castle mound by half-past two.’
The group broke up and dispersed. As they walked back to where the party had left their cars, Tom said to Bonamy, ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s scour the neighbourhood for a pub outside the village. Veryan and the other overlords will make for the Barbican. We’ve got until two-thirty, so there’s plenty of time for a reconnaissance.’
There had been a discussion between the two young men concerning cars. Bonamy had suggested that they rely only on his, for Tom had been staying with him the night before the two of them were due to begin the survey of the castle, but Tom dismissed the idea. If the group was to include girls, a party of four in one car might be all right on some occasions, but there would be other occasions when, as he expressed it, a man could work better on his own. There were more important things in life, he pointed out, than sharing the price of a few gallons of petrol, and one of these was that a man must have scope if he wanted to get action.
The girls, except for Susannah, however, had proved something of a disappointment, and Susannah was as tantalisingly beyond reach as the grapes were to the fox, so the young men had no option but to resign themselves and endeavour to imitate the fox’s bitter attempt at self-consolation by surmising that the grapes were sour.
‘She’s probably frigid,’ said Tom. ‘These brainy, beautiful women often are. She must be nearly thirty, anyway. Well, now,’ he went on, ‘our problem, as I see it, is to keep all knowledge of our private activities from the others until we have something to report. It’s a nuisance having the girls’ caravan parked right at the foot of the hill. They will want to know what we’re up to.’
‘There isn’t anywhere else near at hand where they can possibly leave it. We’ll have to put our cars there, too. I wonder the gypsies haven’t taken over that verge before this. It’s wide and it’s flat and it’s grassy,’ said Bonamy.
‘Well, let’s hope the girls are heavy sleepers.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past that young Priscilla to rise before dawn and gather a nosegay while the dew is still on it. She looks a chronic Gawdelpus to me. I suspect her of being a secret folk-dancer and Fiona is probably an early-morning jogger.’
‘Well, so long as she jogs away from our mound and not up it, that won’t affect us. What about Susannah? I don’t see her as part of the dawn chorus.’
‘Well, it seems as though she will stick to the caravan, anyway. Perhaps she thinks the girls need a chaperone with types like us about.’
‘That blest pair of sirens wouldn’t need a chaperone even if you set them down with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. Never mind the girls. Let us thank goodness for the sybaritic tendencies of the Senior Common Room. At least we shan’t have Veryan, Tynant and the Saltergates breathing down our necks at crack of dawn.’
‘True, but I’m not too happy about young Priscilla. The trouble with girls who don’t have a sex life to contend with is that they need an outlet in other directions. Priscilla has all the earmarks of perpetual spinsterhood. That being so, her nose will always be into other people’s business and that’s the last thing we want. I have a hunch that she doesn’t lack brains, either.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about Priscilla. If she did get up early, she wouldn’t trouble about what we were up to. She would probably be saying her prayers to the sun or meditating on mutability. She’s the Yoga type. Any danger, as I see it, would come from Fiona. She is, I suspect, beetle-brained, and probably full of innocent, childish curiosity.’
‘If anybody does notice us, let’s hope they will put our activities down to excess of zeal. What about the evenings? I should think we could knock off at five or half-past. We could get dinner at the Barbican at six-thirty, and that would give us a nice bit of time before dark to push on with our search.’
‘Perish such an unworthy idea! No, Tommy lad, I’ll get up with the lark, but by the time we’ve done our personal and private stint before breakfast and then put in a nine to one and then a two-thirty to (probably) five-thirty labourer’s day on Saltergate’s account, I shall be ready for beer, skittles and bed.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. No sense in running ourselves into the ground.’
‘Besides, I expect Fiona has brought her guitar and will sit on the steps of the caravan after dinner and sing plaintive love songs in a throaty contralto which will start all the village dogs howling. We shall be much better off in a pub. Come on! I’ve got the thirst of Tantalus upon me after all that salt-water bathing.’
‘There is one more thing. I don’t see why we need to pitch a tent down there by our cars and the caravan. If we’re planning to start work before breakfast, what’s wrong with carting the folding camp-beds and our sleeping-bags up to the keep and camping out there so long as the weather keeps fine? We shan’t need a roof over our heads unless it rains and there is plenty of shelter from the wind up there. What do you say?’
‘Pub first, plans later.’
They drove inland and found a hostelry in a small inland village called Stint Magna where the moors ended and a river wound through water meadows. They drank their beer and bought sandwiches at the bar and, fortified, returned to Holdy. Finding themselves first in the field (for service at the Barbican for Veryan and Tynant, and at the Horse and Cart, where the Saltergates were staying, was willing but slow), Tom and Bonamy transferred camp-beds and sleeping-bags from their cars up to the keep and cleared one side of it of rubble.
‘Young Monkswood is the godson of Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, he tells me,’ said Lilian Saltergate to her husband, as they walked from the Horse and Cart alongside the little river which curved round the foot of the castle mound. ‘I hope that it means he is going to take his work here seriously. The other young man, Mr Hassocks, strikes me as a somewhat frivolous individual.’
‘I am not sure that Dame Beatrice herself has not a frivolous side to her nature,’ said Edward. ‘I remember offering her a cocktail on one occasion and she was guilty of responding with what I imagine is a rather well-worn pun.’
‘Oh? What did she say?’
‘She quoted from the Rubaiyat.’
‘A cocktail, you say? Oh, well, there are certainly lines there which would be apposite. Which did she choose?’
‘Oh, thou who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the road I was to wander in.’
‘How naughty of her! Poor Edward Fitzgerald never dreamed of such levity. Did she accept your offer of a cocktail after all that?’
‘No. She said she preferred dry sherry.’
‘If we co-opt those two lads to help with the digging,’ said Malpas Veryan, ‘I think we ought to stake them to daily breakfast and dinner with us. Lunch they can get for themselves. The Saltergates and Dr Lochlure are making similar arrangements for the two women students. The idea emanates, of course, from the motherly Lilian. A kind and thoughtful woman, that, and practical, withal. She spoke to Saltergate and asked him to speak to me.’
‘About giving the lads breakfast and dinner?’
‘She only mentioned that they were providing for the caravanners. She spoke about toilet facilities for the two boys.’
‘Oh, I expect they will dig a trench in some convenient spot. The Scouts do it when they camp, I believe.’
‘There will be quite enough trenches on the hillside when we begin our work, without one which has a purpose of its own. Besides, there is the question of baths. This is going to be dirty work and sweated (literally) labour. I thought that, if we fixed up a regular breakfast and dinner routine for the two lads, the landlord would not be averse to their using the facilities at the hotel.’