“I’m not the betting man you are,” said Jonnie. “I’ll wait and see.”
The next day they inspected the site. I went with them—so did Grace.
The place seemed to have lost its eeriness. It was only when I was there alone that the atmosphere seemed to envelop me. They inspected the jutting stone on which that man had cut his head.
“Yes,” said Jonnie, “it’s part of a wall. We’ll have to start digging here.”
He walked down to the pool, examining the water.
“I reckon,” he said, “that this was once a fishpond. They always had fishponds in their monasteries. They provided food for the monks.”
“We’ll try to fish,” said Gervaise. “Ten pounds for the first one who makes a catch.”
“Be serious,” said Jonnie. “Any fish in that pool would have been poisoned long ago. Heaven alone knows what has gone down into that water over the years.”
“Well, it will be fun to try. Let’s say a tenner for the first one who brings up anything at all. It might not be a fish. Angelet is looking disapproving. I’m sorry, Angelet. I’m really a very serious character under my skin.”
He smiled at me so charmingly that I wished I could tell him what I was thinking. I was sure he would have made some light-hearted comment and made me feel that I was worrying unduly.
That very afternoon they started to dig. They had brought the necessary equipment with them and they wore what they called working gear. My parents were very amused by them.
There was a great deal of comment throughout the neighborhood and it was largely critical. Mrs. Penlock expressed the general feeling.
“ ’Tain’t natural,” she said. “If it was meant to have been seen it would have been. If the good Lord sees fit to cover it up, that’s how He wants it.” I knew it was serious when the good Lord was brought in. His name implied that it was a question of right and wrong, and on such occasions Mrs. Penlock and the Lord were always together on the right side.
So I gathered that the exploration was unpopular.
“If it were meant to be discovered,” said Mrs. Penlock to me, “it would never have been covered up.”
“But it has been covered up, over the years. People have to discover these things. It teaches things about the past. People want to know and the Lord helps those who help themselves, remember.”
“ ’Tain’t natural,” was all she would say.
Protests came vociferously from one quarter. This was from old Stubbs. He lived in the cottage near the pool. He and his daughter Jenny were a strange pair. They had lived alone since Stubbs’ wife had died. She had been a kind of white witch who grew herbs and was said to be able to cure all sorts of ailments. Jenny Stubbs was as Mrs. Penlock said “Not all there.” She was in fact a little simple. She would go about crooning to herself, but she would be on the quay when the catch came in, picking up any fish that was thrown aside because it was not up to standard. I had seen her once or twice gathering limpets and snails. She made a broth of them, I believe.
They lived a hermit-like existence. Old Stubbs was said to be a footling which meant that he had been born feet first and therefore had special powers. He did occasional work, like clipping hedges; and my father had allowed the family to go on living in the cottage.
We were there, with Jonnie and Gervaise digging and Grace and I fetching and carrying, when the old man suddenly appeared. His eyes were wild, his hair unkempt.
He said: “Lay down them shovels. What be doing on our land?”
Gervaise smiled charmingly. “We are exploring and we have permission to do so.”
“Get off our land or ’twill be the worse for ’ee.”
“Really,” began Jonnie. “I don’t see what right …”
“This land ain’t meant to be disturbed. There’s people that don’t want it and won’t have it.”
“Why there’s no one here.”
The old man looked crafty. “They be ’ere … but you can’t see ’em.”
Jonnie was exasperated. Gervaise of course thought it was a joke; but nothing concerned with this place could be a joke to me.
“This land belongs to the dead,” said old Stubbs. “Woe to them as worries the dead.”
“I should have thought,” said Gervaise, “that they would have liked us to find their buried monastery.”
“You’m worrying the dead. ’Tain’t right. ’Tain’t proper. You go away from ’ere. Go back to your big city. That’s where you belong to be. No good will come of this I promise ’ee.”
With that he shook his fist and hobbled away.
“What an interesting character!” said Gervaise.
I told him about their cottage nearby and how he and his daughter scratched a living from the soil.
Gervaise was quite interested but Jonnie wanted to get on with the dig.
For three days they worked, but knowing the people well, we in the family were aware that there was general disapproval of the excavations.
“It’s so silly,” said my father. “Why shouldn’t we know if there was really a monastery there? Why all this objection?”
“You know how the people hate change,” my mother reminded him.
“But this is not going to change anything in their lives. I’d like to know how the story got about that there was a monastery there.”
“You don’t propose to drag the pool, do you?” said my mother.
“I hardly think that would be possible. But it would be nice to know that at least the monastery was there.”
What followed was inevitable.
A groom, exercising one of the horses, passed the site. It was dark, and he distinctly heard the sound of bells. They were coming, he thought, from the bottom of the pool.
Then there was talk of nothing but the bells.
They rang, didn’t they, when disaster was threatened? Someone had displeased God and you didn’t have to look far to see who that was. Dead folks didn’t want to be disturbed and it was reckoned that “all they monks at the bottom of the pool don’t take kind-like to people coming up from London and starting to dig all round their resting place.”
People were saying they heard the bells and it was always at dusk.
Two weeks had passed and I think that even Jonnie was beginning to realize that it was no use going on. They had uncovered what could be part of a stone wall. It might have been an old cottage. There was nothing to show that it was part of a monastery.
“We should need to have special equipment,” said Jonnie. “We’d have to go down a long way …”
“And possibly find nothing,” added my father.
“What a pity!” said Grace. “I am so sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“Oh no,” cried Jonnie. “It was the greatest fun, wasn’t it, Gervaise?”
Gervaise said that he was satisfied. He had found new friends which was far better than an old monastery.
“Charmingly said,” replied my mother. “But I know you are disappointed. Never mind. Perhaps Pompeii will be more rewarding.”
“Well, we shall certainly find something there,” said Jonnie.
There had been some talk of our going back with him and staying in London for a while, but my father said he could not go for there were all sorts of problems to be dealt with on the estate.
I was disappointed, but relieved that they had stopped digging, and the recent activity at the pool had made me feel that I wanted to escape for a while.
“Angelet does so love London,” said my mother. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t go, darling. Grace could go with you.”
Grace said: “Oh, that would be wonderful.”
So it was arranged.
It was the day before we were to leave when Gervaise said to me: “I want to take one last look at the site. Will you come with me, Angelet?”
“Why do you want to look at it?” I asked.