“And is that it? There’s no other way in which I can assist?”
“No, that’s it. Thank you again.”
And indeed that seemed to be that...
I went to see them a fortnight later. Old Jason Carpenter had not had a telephone, and David was still in the process of having one installed, which meant that I must literally drop in on them.
Kettlethorpe lies to the north of Harden, between the modern coast road and the sea, and the view of the dene as the track dipped down from the road and wound toward the old farm was breathtaking. Under a blue sky, with seagulls wheeling and crying over a distant, fresh-ploughed field, and the hedgerows thick with honeysuckle and the droning of bees, and sweet smells of decay from the streams and hazelnut-shaded pools, the scene was very nearly idyllic. A far cry from midnight tales of ghouls and ghosties!
Then to the farm’s stone outer wall—almost a fortification, reminiscent of some forbidding feudal structure—which encompassed all of the buildings including the main house. Iron gates were open, bearing the legend KETTLETHORPE in stark letters of iron. Inside... things already were changing.
The wall surrounded something like three-and-a-half to four acres of ground, being the actual core of the property. I had seen several rotting PRIVATE PROPERTY AND TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED notices along the road, defining Kettlethorpe’s exterior boundaries, but the area bordered by the wall was the very heart of the place.
In layout: there was a sort of geometrical regularity to the spacing and positioning of the buildings. They formed a horseshoe, with the main house at its apex; the open mouth of the horseshoe faced the sea, unseen, something like a mile away beyond a rise which boasted a dense-grown stand of oaks. All of the buildings were of local stone, easily recognisable through its tough, flinty-grey texture. I am no geologist and so could not give that stone a name, but I knew that in years past it had been blasted from local quarries or cut from outcrops. To my knowledge, however, the closest of these sources was a good many miles away; the actual building of Kettlethorpe must therefore have been a Herculean task.
As this thought crossed my mind, and remembering the words of the curator of Sunderland’s museum, I had to smile. Perhaps not Herculean but something later than the Greeks. Except that I couldn’t recall a specific Roman strong-man!
And approaching the house, where I pulled up before the stone columns of its portico, I believed I could see where David had got his idea of the age of the place. Under the heat of the sun the house was redolent of the centuries; its walls massive, structurally Romanesque. The roof especially, low-peaked and broad, giving an impression of strength and endurance.
What with its outer wall and horseshoe design, the place might well be some strange old Roman temple. A temple, yes, but wavery for all its massiveness, shimmering as smoke and heat from a small bonfire in what had been a garden drifted lazily across my field of vision. A temple—ah!—but to what strange old god?
And no need to ponder the source of that thought, for certainly the business of David’s antiquarian research was still in my head; and while I had no intention of bringing that subject up, still I wondered how far he had progressed. Or perhaps by now he had discovered sufficient of Kettlethorpe to satisfy his curiosity. Perhaps, but I doubted it. No, he would follow the very Devil to Hell, that one, in pursuit of knowledge.
“Hello, there!” he slapped me on the back, causing me to start as I got out of my old Morris and closed its door. I started... reeled...
...He had come out of the shadows of the porch so quickly... I had not seen him... My eyes... the heat and the glaring sun and the drone of bees...
“Bill!” David’s voice came to me from a million miles away, full of concern. “What on earth...?”
“I’ve come over queer,” I heard myself say, leaning on my car as the world rocked about me.
“Queer? Man, you’re pale as death! It’s the bloody sun! Too hot by far. And the smoke from the fire. And I’ll bet you’ve been driving with your windows up. Here, let’s get you into the house.”
Hanging onto his broad shoulder, I was happy to let him lead me staggering indoors. “The hot sun,” he mumbled again, half to me, half to himself. “And the honeysuckle. Almost a miasma. Nauseating, until you get used to it. June has suffered in exactly the same way.”
V: THE ENCLOSURE
“Miasma?” I let myself fall into a cool, shady window seat.
He nodded, swimming into focus as I quickly recovered from my attack of—of whatever it had been. “Yes, a mist of pollen, invisible, born on thermals in the air, sweet and cloying. Enough to choke a horse!”
“Is that what it was? God!—I thought I was going to faint.”
“I know what you mean. June has been like it for a week. Conks out completely at high noon. Even inside it’s too close for her liking. She gets listless. She’s upstairs now, stretched out flat!”
As if the very mention of her name were a summons, June’s voice came down to us: “David, is that Bill? I’ll be down at once.”
“Don’t trouble yourself on my account,” I called out, my voice still a little shaky. “And certainly not if you don’t feel too well.”
“I’m fine!” her voice insisted. “I was just a little tired, that’s all.”
I was myself again, gratefully accepting a scotch and soda, swilling a parched dryness from my mouth and throat.
“There,” said David, seeming to read my thoughts. “You look more your old self now.”
“First time that ever happened to me,” I told him. “I suppose your ‘miasma’ theory must be correct. Anyway, I’ll be up on my feet again in a minute.” As I spoke I let my eyes wander about the interior of what would be the house’s main living room.
The room was large, for the main part oak-panelled, almost stripped of its old furniture and looking extremely austere. I recalled the bonfire, its pale flames licking at the upthrusting, worm-eaten leg of a chair...
One wall was of the original hard stone, polished by the years, creating an effect normally thought desirable in modern homes but perfectly natural here and in no way contrived. All in all a charming room. Ages-blackened beams bowed almost imperceptibly toward the centre where they crossed the low ceiling wall to wall.
“Built to last,” said David. “Three hundred years old at least, those beams, but the basic structure is—” he shrugged, “—I’m not sure, not yet. This is one of five lower rooms, all about the same size. I’ve cleared most of them out now, burnt up most of the old furniture; but there were one or two pieces worth renovation. Most of the stuff I’ve saved is in what used to be old man Carpenter’s study. And the place is—will be—beautiful. When I’m through with it. Gloomy at the moment, yes, but that’s because of the windows. I’m afraid most of these old small-panes will have to go. The place needs opening up.”
“Opening up, yes,” I repeated him, sensing a vague irritation or tension in him, a sort of urgency.
“Here,” he said, “are you feeling all right now? I’d like you to see the plate I took that rubbing from.”
“The Dagon plate,” I said at once, biting my tongue a moment too late.
He looked at me, stared at me, and slowly smiled. “So you looked it up, did you? Dagon, yes—or Neptune, as the Romans called him. Come on, I’ll show you.” And as we left the house he yelled back over his shoulder: “June—we’re just going over to the enclosure. Back soon.”
“Enclosure?” I followed him toward the mouth of the horseshoe of buildings. “I thought you said the brass was on a lintel?”
“So it is, over a doorway—but the building has no roof and so I call it an enclosure. See?” and he pointed. The mouth of the horseshoe was formed of a pair of small, rough stone buildings set perhaps twenty-five yards apart, which were identical in design but for the one main discrepancy David had mentioned—namely that the one on the left had no roof.