The interior of the house, however, still breathed the personality of Esmond Chadleigh. His image was hard to escape. The walls were covered with paintings, photographs and cartoons of the writer at various stages of his life. From his twenties on he had affected one of those big moustaches with pointed ends which were quite acceptable until Stalin gave them a bad name. Esmond Chadleigh’s short, compacted figure thickened out considerably as he got older; the floppy hair and moustache turned white, but there was always a look of ease. There was nothing of the tortured artist about him. He was photographed with his wife, with his two daughters, Sonia and Belinda, enjoying the idyllic surrounding of Bracketts, and they looked like a genuinely happy family. If there had been any disappointments in Esmond Chadleigh’s professional or personal life, they were not evident in the mood of the pictures selected for display.
In spite of her resentment of Laurence Hawker, Carole could not deny that he was an extremely valuable person to have around on such a trip. The official tour was conducted by one of the Bracketts Volunteers, though not dressed in logo-marked overalls or waterproofs like the outside workers. The team who worked inside the house were all of a type, doughty white-haired women in their sixties, unwavering in their devotion to Catholicism and to the blessed memory of Esmond Chadleigh. They didn’t have an official uniform, but since they all dressed in white blouses, navy jackets and dark-coloured kilts, they might as well have done. They knew their set routine very well, and were up to answering basic supplementary questions about Esmond Chadleigh’s life and work, but they couldn’t provide the kind of detailed glosses that Laurence Hawker could.
Without Laurence, Carole and Jude wouldn’t have heard about the rift with Chesterton and Belloc during the early nineteen-thirties. Though soon patched up, it was something that in later life Esmond Chadleigh blamed for his relative lack of recognition compared to the other two; they, he said – though with no justification – had poisoned the literary establishment against him. Laurence too told them of the loss of faith that temporarily affected the writer in 1939, in disbelief that any God could allow the repeat atrocity of another World War. And it was from Laurence that Carole and Jude heard of the rumour that in the 1950s Esmond Chadleigh had a mistress in London who worked for one of his publishers.
None of this – or anything like it – was mentioned by the kilted white-haired lady who led them round the house. Bracketts was a shrine to the extent that its acolytes spoke only words of hagiography. And Carole got the feeling that their version of events would be very similar to the one which appeared in Graham Chadleigh-Bewes’ book . . . if it was ever completed.
There was one exhibit which she had been looking forward to pointing out to Laurence Hawker, perhaps to gain a moment of one-upmanship from her prior knowledge of the building. But when they reached the dining room, she was disappointed. The glass-topped display-case, the mini-shrine to the tragic Graham Chadleigh, was empty. In the space, a handwritten note read: ‘Contents removed for cleaning and restoration.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Carole murmured. ‘I was hoping to be able to show you the inspiration for “Threnody for the Lost”.’
‘Never mind,’ drawled Laurence Hawker. ‘Never my favourite work. Rather too overt and simplistic a plucking of the heartstrings for my taste.’
Carole Seddon, for whom it was a favourite poem, said nothing.
Laurence looked around with hopeless irritation. ‘Do you think anyone’d notice if I lit up in here?’
Jude giggled. ‘You’ll only find out if you try.’
Which annoyed Carole further. It was, apart from anything else, a very irresponsible thing to say. A smoking ban in a house like Bracketts wasn’t just authoritarianism; it was to avoid a genuine fire risk. As a Trustee, it would be her duty to make that point very firmly, if Laurence Hawker started to take out his impedimenta of cigarettes and lighter.
But he didn’t. Instead, he gave in to another of his deep coughs, which rattled through his body, and which Carole was beginning to find extremely irritating.
One of the highlights of the Bracketts Guided Tour was the Priest’s Hole. The white-haired kilted lady conducting them around stopped in front of the section of panelling with practised awe. She was dauntingly well-spoken, but contrived to impart to her commentary no dramatic impact at all.
‘And here we have one of the most unusual features of the house. It was incorporated into the original design by the Doughtscombe family, because by the time the building was completed in 1589, the celebration of Catholic Mass had been made illegal, in the wake of the Ridolfo Plot, the Babington Plot and the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. Since they couldn’t go to Mass in a church, wealthy and devout Catholic families would invite priests to celebrate the rite in their homes. And the very real danger of raids by the Protestant authorities led to the construction of hideouts for those Catholic priests. The one here at Bracketts is one of the best-preserved in the country. Also one of the best-concealed, and there is anecdotal evidence that some of the owners of the house after the Doughtscombe family died out in the early eighteenth century were completely unaware of the Priest’s Hole’s existence.
‘From the outside of the house no windows are visible, but comparisons of the exterior dimensions and the measurements of this landing demonstrate that there is a space within the walls unaccounted for. And this is what has always been inside that space.’
She drew back a segment of the wall panelling, with all the impact of a wet paper bag bursting. But even her flat delivery could not prevent a gasp from the assembled tour party. Revealed by the sliding panel was a room some twelve foot by eight. It was on a higher level than the landing, and anyone entering would have needed to step up about a foot. Cunningly concealed lighting in the carved ceiling and the lack of windows gave the space an eerie, cell-like quality, which was accentuated by a low table covered by a white cloth. On this stood two lighted candles in tall brass candlesticks, and a large open leather-bound book. The impression of an altar was for the benefit of the tourists – Mass would never actually have been celebrated in this room – but the image was undeniably impressive.
‘Kind of place you’d keep an electricity meter,’ Laurence Hawker murmured. ‘Wasn’t there a Monty Python sketch in which someone came to read the Priest?’
‘I think they came to read the Poet,’ Jude replied, with a suppressed giggle.
Laurence too let out a laugh, which quickly transformed into another of his racking coughs.
It was Carole’s view that the revelation of the Priest’s Hole should have been greeted by rather more reverence.
Arrival at the gift shop signalled the end of the tour, and Laurence Hawker reckoned this also gave him permission to smoke. So, while the two women inspected Esmond Chadleigh postcards, mugs and other memorabilia, he lit up a cigarette. Two new white-haired kilted ladies immediately materialized and offered him the option of stubbing out the cigarette or leaving the building. With an amiable shrug, he went outside. Jude grinned. Carole couldn’t see anything funny about it.
Jude lingered over a white plate with the whole text of ‘Threnody for the Lost’ printed on it in black gothic lettering. ‘It’s so kitsch, I almost feel I should buy it.’
‘Well, don’t,’ said Carole severely. ‘You’ve got quite enough rubbish in your house already.’
Jude raised an amused eyebrow at this, but said nothing. She knew the cause of Carole’s scratchiness. It had rarely in the past proved a good idea to mix friends from different areas of her life. But Jude wasn’t really troubled by the atmosphere. Either Carole and Laurence would find a way of getting on with each other, or she’d arrange things so that they didn’t have to meet much. Because, at least for the time being, Jude reckoned Laurence Hawker was going to be a fixture at Woodside Cottage.