‘We’ll have the results in about three hours. Ajay promised television time turnaround.’
The four friends sat around one of the three picnic tables Derek and Bill had made for the garden. They were making serious headway into one of Tina’s lemon cakes. The girls both had clipboards in front of them. Tina was making a note of everything left to do for the Open Day in thirty-six hours’ time. Thea was drawing the pot shard which sat in the middle of the table, while Shaun took out his tape measure and calculated how big it would have been when it was intact.
Sam stroked the top of the pot fragment. ‘What is a mortarium anyway?’
‘The bowl part of a Roman pestle and mortar.’ Thea picked it up so Sam could see the underside. ‘If you feel here, it’s got a rough, gritty texture. That was part of the lower bowl. It had a deliberately pitted surface to help grind herbs, or whatever else needed pounding into a paste or powder.’
‘And you can tell that from one tiny piece of pot?’
‘Sure.’ Thea turned to Shaun, who had finished calculating the measurements of the shard, looking at him expectantly.
‘It had a diameter of twenty centimetres I’d say.’
‘That would be in line with the style and size of such pots at the middle to the end of the Romano-British period.’ Thea was trying not to get excited. ‘And unless I’m very much mistaken – which I might be of course – this is from Gloucester.’
Shaun’s head snapped up. ‘You think so?’
‘A hunch, no more.’
‘Rubbish, this is your speciality. Gloucester?’
‘I think so. That makes it from about AD 55-90. It’s rare to find it so far to the south west, but to be honest it’s unusual to find Roman stuff in this region anyway.’ Thea glanced towards where Shaun had found it. ‘And there was no sign of any other pieces?’
‘No. I’d love to have found a piece of flange or rim or something, just to confirm its origins.’
‘As I said, I can’t be certain, but the material is the right sort of pale red-brown, and has—’ Thea lifted the shard up to the sunlight ‘—fine inclusions of quartz sand and limestone. The underside also has a hint of the traditional thin cream or white slip used to finish such pots in the Gloucester area.’
Tina smiled across the table. ‘Look at you two all historied up!’
‘I hadn’t realised how much I missed this bit.’ Thea blushed happily as she picked the four-centimetre-wide piece of pottery up. ‘The chance to investigate something that would have formed an everyday part of a normal human beings life thousands of years ago is so special.’
Not wanting to spoil Thea’s mood, but knowing he had no choice, Shaun asked, ‘Will you tell Malcolm about finding this?’
‘I suspect he knows, or at least suspects.’
Tina nodded. ‘It’s only a theory, but we think he must have got wind of a possible site under the grounds. And with Exmoor being on the very outer edge of Roman success in Britain, there is little chance of any such site not being investigated.’
Sam was confused. ‘Why is that a bad thing? They’re a historical trust, aren’t they?’
‘They are.’ Tina laid down her pen. ‘But excavations cost money.’
‘Would the trust have to pay? Surely the people doing the dig pay for it?’
‘Each case is different. In this instance I imagine it isn’t so much the costs involved in the excavation itself, but the fact that it would have held up the opening of Mill Grange. Think about it in terms of a farmer and his field. If a Roman villa is found in a farmer’s field and is declared of special interest and should be excavated, the farmer isn’t paying for the dig, but he does lose that field’s yield and profits for the length of the excavation, potentially forever.’
‘So Malcolm and his team would lose the income from the visitors they predicted?’ Sam frowned. ‘But if I was them, I’d be thrilled. A rare Roman site on the grounds of a beautiful Victorian manor. Surely that’s two attractions in one to draw the crowds?’
‘If red tape, health and safety and all the other legal requirements that go with that sort of historical site weren’t an issue, I’d agree with you. But it isn’t that simple, sadly. It ought to be, but it’s not.’
‘That’s daft.’
‘Modern life often is.’ Tina added, ‘In this case it’s academic anyway. As the Trust was in financial difficulties anyway, they had to dispose of a property to keep afloat. Far better, in their eyes, to lose one that will cost more than expected to open to the public now, even though it would eventually earn them more income, than to lose one of the less accessible properties that’s already up and running.’
‘It seems dishonest that they’ve sold the house and grounds, and not told the owner what might be lurking beneath.’ Thea sighed.
‘I suppose they might have told them, but I doubt it.’ Tina considered her employers. ‘Since the extent of the money worries has become apparent, Malcolm and Grant have become less history lovers and more bank managers.’
‘Fear of losing your job can do that to you.’ Thea gave the pot shard one last stroke. ‘Talking of which, I’m going to lose this one with dignity and style.’ Accompanied by approving nods from her friends, Thea stood up. ‘As much as I’ve enjoyed my trip into the more distant past, I ought to pull myself together and focus on all things Victorian by finishing emptying the scullery and my attic room.’
‘Don’t you want to wait for the results from geofizz?’
‘Of course, but I don’t have time to wait doing nothing.’ Thea passed her drawing to Shaun. ‘You go and check on them. Oh, and not a word to any of the others. Especially Mabel. She’d be so delighted that, whether we find anything or not, it would be all around Upwich in less than half an hour.’
Shaun smiled. ‘Agreed. I think we’ll find something though.’
‘Me too.’ Thea gazed across the gardens. ‘Now I’ve studied the ground with an eye to the possibility, I’m inclined to agree.’
‘A villa?’ Sam asked.
‘Unlikely. More likely a temporary camp or even…’ Thea paused. ‘No, let’s not tempt fate.’
‘You think you know what it is, don’t you?’ Shaun’s eyes shone. ‘I really need you on my team if you can work out what’s beneath the earth from the lumps and bumps alone. It’ll save us a fortune in geofizz scanning.’
‘I’m wishful thinking.’ Thea picked up Tina’s list. ‘All we have is one pot shard, some lumps and bumps in the ground and a suspicion that we’ve worked out why the Trust chose Mill Grange as their sacrificial lamb. We could be whistling in the wind.’
Shaun unhooked his long legs from the confines of beneath the picnic table. ‘I’ll go and check how the lads are getting on. I’ve got them tucked away in Moira’s backroom. Only place with a good enough signal around here for them to work.’
‘Was she okay with you hiding more people there?’
‘She’s a wonderful woman, that Moira. Thinks she’s hiding more celebrities.’
‘Which she sort of is.’ Tina smiled.
Shaun kissed Thea’s cheek. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I have news.’
*
Since the smoke damage from the fire had dented her already meagre clothing collection, it didn’t take long for Thea to stuff her few garments into the large rucksack that stood, propped in the corner of her attic room. A few of her things still littered Shaun’s borrowed bedroom, but otherwise, it had taken a depressingly short amount of time to tidy and pack away the evidence of her life for the past few months.
Standing at the window, Thea studied the view, enjoying the vista of the garden merging into the woods while she could. One more night in Mill Grange.
Shaun would want her to spend it in his room with him. She’d like that too, but Thea had an almost childlike urge to spend her last night where she’d spent her first one. Where she’d crouched frightened while the nightjar had woken her in alarm, where she’d lain worrying and wondering about what John would do next, where she’d spent so many hours planning how to make Mill Grange the best visitor attraction she possibly could. Where she’d wondered if Shaun really liked her or if he was just after a fling; at least the latter was something she was certain of.
She’d come to Mill Grange single, a little lonely, and with a man who refused to leave their brief moment of shared past alone. Now she had the chance of a future with an amazing person who seemed to like her as much as she liked him.
It was too early to think beyond like. Yet the other four-letter word beginning with ‘l’ and ending in ‘e’ had almost formed on her lips when they’d been together a few times.
But what about Mill Grange?
‘Coming here wasn’t pointless.’ She spoke the words boldly, trying to edge away the lingering doubts that crowded her head. ‘The house looks great and the day after tomorrow we can show off what Mabel and the others have achieved.’
The pheasant she’d been addressing as it crossed the lawn far below did not appear impressed by her claim.
‘We’ve sold fifty tickets, and with the promise of one of Sybil’s cream teas, Moira’s cider tent and Bill’s mate’s hog roast, even old Alf from the café can’t fail to approve of our efforts on Upwich’s behalf.’
But you burnt down the mill.
The thought arrived from where it had been lurking at the back of her head and refused to leave. It isn’t going to matter how well tomorrow goes, I’ll always be the girl who dropped the candle.
Determined to move her mind forward, Thea looked across to where Shaun had found the pot shard. Despite the trees and flowerbeds, her aerial view reinforced her view that there probably was something under the soil. But whether it was what she hoped it was, or whether it was a disused Victorian rabbit warren, would have to wait to be seen.
‘Someone could have dropped the pot shard. They could have had it in their pocket, after picking it up somewhere else.’
She knew this was unlikely too. But not impossible.
‘Concentrate on the here and now. Think Open Day. Then think what comes next.’ Thea piled her small tower of novels up on the desk. ‘And if they do find a Roman site, so what? I’m nothing to do with this place after 21st July. It’ll be the new owner’s problem.’ Thea froze. ‘We could leak the information. If the new owner finds out they have a possible ancient monument in their garden, especially one of significance, they might pull out of the sale.’
The pheasant tilted its head in Thea’s direction, as if she had finally said something of interest.
‘Anyone who has purchased Mill Grange to get away from it all is hardly going to want a load of archaeologists and sightseers traipsing around their garden.’