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A Prospect of
Vengeance
ANTHONY PRICE
PROLOGUE:
Old Mrs Griffin's cottage
The children had spotted the ruin of old Mrs Griffin's cottage that very first morning, years before, and from the one place in the farmhouse where it could be seen through the trees: a little low window, cobwebby and covered with dead flies, halfway down the narrow twisty back stair to the kitchen.
And then there had been no holding them.
Rachel and Laurence had known about it already, of course.
The estate agents' man had explained that it was part of the property, as a more-or-less unwanted appendage to the farmhouse plot below the orchard, also dead on the line of the motorway and not part of the fields which had been already sold to the adjacent farms. At the time this had rather aroused Rachel's curiosity, so that when Laurence had embarked on a second tour of their dilapidated (but, as they dummy2
then thought, strictly temporary) new home, she had gone exploring for herself.
Actually, she had never quite reached old Mrs Griffin's cottage then. But she had seen enough, because what she had seen she had disliked even in the safety of the bright sunshine. Indeed, although long afterwards she maintained that her dislike — even then, even then — had been instinctive, or intuitive, it had also been something fiercer than mere dislike: it was in reality strictly practical and maternal, primarily safety-conscious. The children were still little then, but no longer restrictively little. Rather, they were adventurously active, and she knew from bitter experience that Melanie would surely follow where Christopher led; and Christopher, having once glimpsed that little brick chimney and gable-end rising up out of the mossy ruin of fallen thatch, would somehow penetrate the great tangle of brambles and briars and seven-foot tall stinging nettles which had conquered old Mrs Griffin's little garden, and which utterly barred her own progress, but had not prevented her glimpsing the pond.
It was a foul place, she had thought, even in the sunshine: foul, because she could see beastly things in the water —
rotting branches and vegetation, and even an old saucepan breaking the surface of the water with a circle and a handle, over which a cloud of insects buzzed and skittered; foul also, because, although by the standards of her town-bred, traffic-accustomed ears its silence was absolute, it was somehow dummy2
deafeningly noisy, with the low buzz and hum of all those insects hunting and fighting and dying and eating ceaselessly around her; and foul, finally, because she could smell all this activity, of plants and insects and invisible animals competing with each other, and winning and losing — a sweet-rotten smell, the like of which she had never encountered before, a world away from the carbon monoxide and Indian take-away smells which had occasionally invaded their London flat on hot evenings.
'That's a horrible place, down there, darling,' she had said eventually to Larry, when she'd found him again, in the barn beside the farmhouse, staring up at the chinks of sunlight high above.
'Just one or two displaced tiles, Dr Groom,' the estate agents'
man had been saying. The structure itself is absolutely sound
— the timbers, and so on. In fact, as I've said, it's also a listed building — Grade Three — like the house. Late fifteenth century . . . perhaps early sixteenth . . . the expert witnesses at the public inquiry argued about that.' He had given Rachel a quick smile then, acknowledging her presence, if not her words. 'In other circumstances we'd be thinking about a barn conversion, splitting the property into two, rather than about a few displaced tiles. It really is a great tragedy . . . Do you see that main beam, up there? Five hundred years old, that beam is. And — '
'What's horrible, darling?' Larry had overridden the salesman's automatic spiel.
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'The old Griffin place?' The estate agents' man had been quick then, scooping up his error with another smile which embraced them both. 'Awful, isn't it? It hasn't been lived in for years, of course. But it's amazing how quickly those little places fall to pieces once they're untenanted. And, of course, nobody wanted to live there, after old Mrs Griffin died. It's too far off the main road. In fact — in fact . . . you can't even get to it from here. You didn't actually get to it, did you, Mrs Groom?' He had paused then, but too briefly for her to do more than open her mouth. 'There was a path from here, through the orchard, I believe. But that's totally overgrown now . . . The actual access to the cottage — not that it is a cottage now, it's quite irreparable . . . the actual access is from a track on the hill above, through the spinney there. But that's pretty overgrown, too.' Another smile. 'If it wasn't for the motorway, I'd be advising you to have the whole place bulldozed into the pond, and the trees there cut down. Then you'd have superb views of the moor.' Another smile. 'But then we'd be talking about four or five times the present asking price — maybe more, if this barn was included.' The smile had saddened genuinely at that lost prospect. 'It is a tragedy, as I say . . . the motorway.'
Rachel had ignored him. 'It smells as though something had died in it.' She had addressed the bad news to Larry alone.
The children will be into the pond there for sure.'
Her husband's expression had hardened then. And she remembered too late that he was a country boy, country-dummy2
bred, and she had known then that resistance was in vain.
'Well, darling — ' For an instant he had looked up at the ancient beam above him, with a mixture of love and bitterness, because his ownership of it was to be so brief ' —
well then . . . they'll just have to do what they're told, and keep away from it. It can't be more dangerous than London, any day of the week, anyway.'
That had made it certain, even though they were a partnership of equal partners. But then he had made it easier by twisting one of his smiles at her, which she could never resist. 'I'll talk to Chris, darling — don't worry. And . . . while we're here . . . you can look for another place, without a pond
— eh?'
But with a five-hundred-year-old beam, eh? she had thought lovingly, understanding that he felt he was coming home at last, even if only temporarily here, but at least away from his hated asphalt jungle in Highbury.
But, very strangely, it hadn't been like that at all.
Or, at first, it had been —
'Mummy, Mummy!' Mel had cried, as she came down the back stair into the kitchen that first morning. 'There's an old cottage in the trees down there — ' She pointed vaguely in the fatal direction.
'What, darling?' Rachel had pretended not to hear.
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Larry looked up from his yesterday's paper, which he hadn't got round to reading in the chaos of their arrival. 'That's the old Griffin place,' he had said, matter-of-fact and ready to fulfil his promise as Chris arrived breathlessly behind his sister. 'It's part of our property. But it's only a ruin.' He had looked down at his paper again. 'An old lady named "Griffin"
was the last occupant. That's why it's called "the old Griffin place".'
Chris had sat down without a word. And, as Chris played his cards close to his chest even then, that meant that Chris had his plans worked out.
'Was she a witch?' inquired Mel. 'It looks like a witch's cottage, Daddy — it's . . . yrrch!'
Chris had considered the choice between cornflakes and muesli with ostentatious innocence. 'There are no such things as witches,' he admonished his sister. Then he had selected the cornflakes. 'Can I have two boiled eggs, Mother?'
Rachel knew her son almost as well as she knew her husband. So she had waited for his next move.