Chapter Three

Ruth Aston perched unhappily on a rickety stepladder, cleaning Sir Rufus Fitzroy’s memorial with a bright green feather duster.

The Fitzroy monument, as the leaflet giving the church’s history called it, gave the impression of having been an expensive piece of sculpture in its day. The leaflet, however, repeated the tale that the sculptor had been down on his luck and done the work for a song. He’d been an Italian who’d arrived in Britain hoping for commissions from wealthy patrons. He had been reduced to making nymphs and satyrs for landscaped gardens when asked, almost in passing, if he couldn’t produce a suitable memorial for a gentleman. Nevertheless, the result was one of the tourist attractions of Lower Stovey’s parish church, in as much as it had any. Architecturally, it was no different to a host of other late medieval churches. It had lost its original stained glass when Cromwell’s soldiers knocked it out with Puritan zeal. They’d pulled down its carved statues of the saints on the façade and smashed them. The only one left was one they couldn’t reach, an unknown bishop high on the west front where nothing could get at him but the jackdaws.

The Victorians, with their own brand of pious hooliganism, had remodelled the chancel, taken out the fourteenth-century font and replaced it with a Gothic-style version by a follower of Pugin. They had also taken out the eighteenth-century boxpews and put in oak benches nowadays occupied by, at best, a congregation of fifteen souls on a good Sunday. The villagers, both indigenous and late-comers, weren’t religious and the weekend visitors, second-home owners, spent their Sunday mornings soaking up rural atmosphere in the village pub and their afternoons getting ready for the drive back to London.

In these circumstances, Lower Stovey no longer warranted its own priest or even a weekly service. It got whoever could be spared from duties at other churches in the area on a monthly rota, though technically it was in the care of Father Holland at Bamford.

But its church did have a few interesting features and Ruth, who had made it her task to dust them off from time to time, knew them intimately.

The Fitzroy memorial displayed the deceased’s periwigged marble profile held aloft by a pair of cherubs. The sculptor had chosen a side view, presumably, to make the most of the dead man’s distinctive features. He had probably been thought handsome in his day with his thin face, hooded eyes and aquiline nose. Beneath the sculpture was an inscription listing his virtues, which had been many; his achievements, which had been noteworthy; his learning, which had been extensive; and the dutiful sorrow of the nephew who had inherited his fortune. To the left of the inscription was the figure of the Grim Reaper, partly veiled. He leaned on his scythe, left skeletal leg straight, right one crooked nonchalantly across it resting on its bony toes. He had the air of someone contemplating another job well done. To the right of the inscription, completely veiled, was a mourning female figure in classical robes, one finger pointing up at the portrait above lest any onlooker fail to get the message, even after all the rest.

Ruth didn’t care for the Fitzroy monument. It seemed to her both ghoulish and smug. She doubted Sir Rufus had been the paragon it made him out to be and she had her doubts about the nephew’s motives in having the thing put up.

Ruth herself was a small-boned woman with a tip-tilted nose and widely-spaced green eyes. Her fair hair was streaked with grey but because it had always been an ashen blonde, it looked little different now to when she’d been younger. She’d been a pretty child, a pretty young woman and now, at fifty-seven, was still attractive. At the moment she was wearing denim jeans, sensible flat shoes and a much washed-out man’s rugby jersey which had belonged to her late husband. Because the jersey was way too big, the cuffs were folded back and the rest of it flapped round her sparse frame, giving her, as she put it, plenty of room for movement. It was her church-cleaning outfit.

She’d been alone in the church and liked it that way. But now behind her back came the creak of the North door opening, a burst of birdsong from the churchyard trees and the tap-tap of a stick. She knew who it was. She had no need to turn round. He’d seen her car parked outside from his cottage just a little further down the street on the opposite side. He never failed to come across for a chat. The conversation pretty well always went the same way. She’d no reason to think today would be any different. Ruth suppressed a sigh and waited for the inevitable opening question.

‘Are you all right up there on that ladder, Mrs Aston?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mr Twelvetrees.’ Her reply was automatic. Her eye had been caught by a small greyish area on the plastered wall high above Rufus Fitzroy’s head. It couldn’t be accounted for by the shadow thrown by a wooden beam or carved corbel head. Surely not a damp patch? That was a problem they’d been spared so far. If it was, it would have to be reported to Father Holland.

‘That don’t look too good a ladder to me. You wants to get on to the church to buy a new one.’ The newcomer tapped the ladder with his stick.

Fat chance, thought Ruth. She really couldn’t ignore that grey patch. Someone would have to inspect it but she couldn’t reach up so far from her stepladder nor did she fancy teetering up there at that height. She’d ask Kevin Jones if he’d bring a long ladder from the farm and climb up and have a look. Kevin was very obliging about that sort of thing.

‘The rain’s stopped. Fair old downpour, wasn’t it?’ Her visitor persisted in his side of the conversation despite the lack of response.

‘I was in here,’ mumbled Ruth.

He changed tactic. ‘That’s a fine bit of marble.’

Ruth surrendered. She paused in her labours and climbed half way down her stepladder to where she could turn her head without unbalancing herself.

There he was, William Twelvetrees, Old Billy Twelvetrees, so-called because there was a Young Billy, his son, even though Young Billy no longer lived in the village. Old Billy was broad as he was tall and as sturdy as this old church. He had a thick shock of white hair despite his fourscore years. He was red-faced from a lifetime in which every working day had been spent in the fields and every evening in the snug of the Fitzroy Arms. Old Billy’s only infirmities were a dodgy hip, hence the stick, and an occasional spasm of angina which gave him the excuse not to attempt anything strenuous, however minimal. He raised the stick now and pointed it at the monument.

‘I don’t like it much,’ she said. ‘It’s too fancy and morbid.’

‘They knew how to do a proper monument in those days,’ said Billy reproachfully.

‘How are you today, Mr Twelvetrees?’ asked Ruth, refusing to be drawn into a discussion on Georgian funerary art.

‘I still get them twinges.’ Billy tapped his chest. She was spared more detailed medical information because, as it turned out, Billy’s mind was on something else. ‘You seen the police car?’

Ruth stared at him. ‘Which police car?’

Though he was pleased that she’d not yet heard the news and he’d be the first to tell her, yet there was a petulance in the way he spoke, as if his daily routine had been upset by the unexpected event with its unknown origins. ‘He come out of the blue, roaring past, near on an hour ago and he hasn’t come back. There’s a speed limit in this village, police or no police. What do they want here, anyway? I looked over and saw you hadn’t left your little house yet. I see your car wasn’t parked out front here, so I reckoned you might not know.’ He put one gnarled finger alongside his nose.

Ruth, who was a retired teacher of English, thought crossly that of course you couldn’t see something which wasn’t there.

Old Billy was still grumbling.

‘He ought to be reported. He drove through the village like a bat outa hell. Why ain’t he come back?’

Ruth glanced apprehensively towards the chancel and murmured, ‘Perhaps you oughtn’t to use that expression in here, Mr Twelvetrees.’

He brushed this aside. ‘They’ve gone up to the woods, that’s my reckoning. Don’t know what they want up there.’

‘Are you sure?’ Ruth asked sharply. She tried to drive away the unwelcome feeling of something bad about to happen.

‘There’s only one road, ain’t there?’ he sulked. ‘It leads to the woods and stops there. I waited by my door to see if they’d come back driving the same speed and if they had, I’d have reported them. What do you think is keeping them there, Mrs Aston?’ He peered up at her. There was something grotesque about his round red face with its stubble of white whiskers and snub nose, as if one of the corbel heads above had returned to life from the hands of the medieval mason.

Ruth put out a hand and grasped a cherub’s head to steady herself.

‘Here, you sure you’re all right, Mrs Aston? You’ve gone quite pale.’ He moved closer, fixing her with his shrewd little eyes beneath the thatch of shaggy white brows.

‘I’m all right!’ Her voice was shrill in her own ears. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing serious.’ She sought an explanation. ‘Perhaps someone’s lit a fire in the woods. People do silly things like that.’

‘Then it’d be the fire engine, wouldn’t it? Not the police.’

‘If you go back outside,’ said Ruth with quiet determination, ‘you’ll see the police come back eventually. They have to come this way. They might stop and tell you or ask you something.’

For a moment she hoped the ploy had worked. He turned as if to go and she thought she was rid of him. But the North door creaked open again and a splash of watery sunlight fell across the flagged floor. A dark silhouette framed by the Gothic arch moved and descended the two worn steps into the church. Behind the newcomer, the door closed.

Ruth’s heart had given a little hop, anticipating the new arrival would be one of the policemen seen by Billy. But she could now see it was a woman and not in uniform. A stranger, which wasn’t that unusual. They did get people to see the church. The woman was tall, mid-to-late-thirties, with thick brown untidy hair. Not a pretty woman, thought Ruth, but a striking one. Her features were regular, her eyebrows arched over fine eyes, possibly hazel. She wore jeans and a pale yellow cotton shirt.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Ruth replied gratefully, clambering the rest of the way down from her stepladder. ‘Have you come to see the monuments?’

The visitor looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know there were any. Are they famous?’

‘I wouldn’t say famous, but they do get the odd mention. I’m Ruth Aston. I’m a churchwarden here.’

Old Billy cleared his throat loudly and tapped his stick on the flagstone.

‘And this,’ said Ruth resignedly, ‘is Mr Twelvetrees who’s lived in the village longer than anyone else.’

‘S’ right, I have,’ said Billy.

‘My name’s Mitchell, Meredith Mitchell,’ said the young woman. ‘My partner and I are house-hunting. We’ve just been to see the old vicarage.’

‘Mrs Aston can tell you all about the vicarage!’ said Billy.

Ruth glared at him. ‘Why don’t you go and watch for the car coming back?’ she urged again. ‘I’ll just show Miss Mitchell round our church.’

Billy was torn between two subjects of absorbing interest but plumped for the police car over a tourist. He muttered, ‘All right,’ and stomped out.

Ruth heaved a sigh of relief. ‘He waits till he sees me come in here and always comes over for a chat. I suppose he’s lonely, but after you’ve had the same conversation with him for a few times, it gets a bit much.’

She gestured at the interior of the church around them. ‘The reason he said I could tell you about the vicarage is because I used to live there. My father was the last incumbent. We don’t have our own vicar now, the congregation is too small. But the older locals, like Old Billy Twelvetrees, still think of me as “the vicar’s daughter”. Hester, the friend who shares my home, and I act as churchwardens and keep an eye on things. I feel my father would’ve expected it of me.’ She grinned wryly.

‘We haven’t made any decision about the house,’ said Meredith quickly. ‘We just came to look at it.’

‘It’s in a bit of a state, isn’t it?’ Ruth asked sympathetically. ‘It used to be very nice. The garden did, anyway. Muriel Scott isn’t a gardener and that wretched dog of hers has dug holes everywhere. Did you meet Roger?’

‘No, he was shut in a closet.’

‘Avoid him, if you can. He slobbers. Sorry if I seem nosy, but have you got a family? I mean, the vicarage is on the big side.’

‘We don’t have any children. I agree, it’s probably far too large. My partner came with me to see it today but he’s driven up to the woods.’

Ruth eyed her with sudden suspicion. ‘Why?’ she asked tersely.

Meredith looked a little embarrassed. ‘We saw a police car go up there earlier. Alan’s a policeman himself. He had to go and find out.’

Ruth said dispiritedly, ‘Oh, yes, the police car. Old Billy saw it, too. Everyone will have seen it.’ She shook herself. ‘Well, this is the Fitzroy monument. He’s an ancestor of mine on my mother’s side. Several other memorials are to Fitzroys. It’s like visiting elderly relatives when I come in here. I feel they don’t quite approve of me. Though quite why they should disapprove of me when they were such a disreputable bunch, I don’t know. The reason the church is so big is that it was built with blood money.’

The visitor’s eyebrows twitched. ‘What sort of blood money?’

‘Oh, well,’ said Ruth. ‘That’s what I call it. Hubert Fitzroy gave the money to rebuild the original small church on such a grand scale after the suspicious death of his wife, Agnes. She fell from a window but there were rumours she was dead before she was pitched over the sill. The authorities must have heard the rumours but Hubert was the king’s man and loyal and a woman’s life had little value then. The bishop made a bit of a fuss because Agnes had been a kinswoman of his, but he quietened down when Hubert promised him this church. Hubert and Agnes have a tomb over there, if you’re interested, with their effigies on top. Hubert’s is defaced. Agnes’s isn’t. I’ve often wondered about that.’

Ruth paused. She couldn’t help it. The thought of the police car up there by the woods crowded everything else from her mind and jabbering away about wicked old Hubert didn’t help.

She tried another ploy. ‘There’s no Upper Stovey, by the way. You’ll have noticed that, perhaps. We’re called “lower” because we’re below Stovey Woods. At least, that’s what people think. When I was very young, it was mostly native trees. Then the Forestry Commission moved in some time in the sixties and planted conifers.’

‘Did you play up there, when you were a child? It must have been tempting,’ Meredith asked her.

Ruth shook her head. ‘I never liked the woods. As a schoolgirl they scared me and I never went in there unless I went with my mother to walk the dog and look for interesting bits of greenery to decorate the church. Other village children went there but I believed I might meet the Green Man.’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Meredith. ‘He was a forest spirit, wasn’t he?’ She looked at Ruth, slightly puzzled. ‘Is there a legend about him hereabouts?’

‘Come outside,’ Ruth said suddenly. ‘I want to show you something on the wall under the eaves.’

Outside the church the sun had come out and was doing its best to dry up the rain. It had its work cut out in the churchyard which was covered with long grasses and self-set bushes and generally unkempt. Poking up among the grass-stalks and between the irregular humps of the old burials were the tall plants of honesty, with spade-shaped leaves and clusters of purple flowers. Meredith remarked she’d seen the same plant growing profusely in the vicarage garden and they agreed it must have migrated from there to colonize the churchyard. Tombstones and monuments emerged from the jungle of weeds and flowers, lichen-encrusted and lop-sided. An angel on a nearby pillar looked about to topple full-length at any moment, weighed down by its useless stone wings. A solitary magpie, which had been perched on the stone head, flapped away at their approach.

‘One for sorrow,’ Ruth said aloud and looked around almost desperately for a second. Two for joy? No, just the one.

She thrust the superstition from her mind and began to apologize for the state of it all as the two of them picked their way round the building. ‘We used to pay Old Billy to tidy it but then he couldn’t do it any longer because of his hip and his angina. It looks just terrible. No new burials take place here, although I suppose if any of the really old villagers, Billy for example, expressed a wish to be buried here we’d try to find a spot. Father Holland always says we should respect a wish for a person to be buried among his own kin.’

They stopped and she pointed upwards. ‘Do you see up there, the gargoyle?’

Meredith looked up in the direction of her pointing finger. Some kind of mythical beast formed the waterspout. She said, ‘The dragon thing?’

‘Yes. Now look to the left, along the gutter and down a bit.’

Meredith looked as directed. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There’s a carving, a face, on the side on the church right up under the eaves.’

Ruth said soberly, ‘That’s him.’

A ray of sunlight caught the carving as she spoke, enabling them to see more clearly a cunning face peering from a thicket of leaves.

‘Some people,’ said Ruth, ‘think he’s a Celtic god, Cernunnos, but my father believed he was part of a far older tradition, before even the Celts, perhaps neolithic. There’s another line of thought which links him with the rites of Dionysus, a sort of west European version of them. My father was doubtful about that. At any rate, the woods are of ancient origin. My father’s researches told him they’d always been a sacred place. There’s a sort of earthwork in there, mostly overgrown, which my father believed might have been a place of sacrifice. There are plenty of roof bosses and pillar capitals in other churches which show foliate heads, as my father liked to call them, to distinguish them from the real Green Man. It became a fairly common decoration, just a flight of fancy in many cases. But the original Green Man, whatever he was, lived on in people’s subconscious. The men who built this church believed in him all right, the masons and workmen. They knew that this church, representing the new beliefs, challenged the old ones. So they put the Green Man up there, where he looks out towards Stovey Woods, his domain. Inside the church, he’s always a sort of trespasser. But when we go to the woods, then we’re the trespassers.’

She saw that the visitor was looking at her a little strangely and Ruth forced a laugh. ‘Sorry to go on so. It was a particular interest of my father’s so I was brought up on all this. I don’t believe in him, of course. It’s just that Stovey Woods have a reputation. Over the years things have happened there, not nice things. That’s why I didn’t like it when Old Billy told me a police car had gone there. I hope it doesn’t mean more mischief.’

She had intrigued her visitor who looked as if she was about to ask what kind of mischief. Ruth bit her tongue and wished she hadn’t been so garrulous. What had led her to burble on about the woods? The reason, she supposed, was that they were never far from her mind. They were part of that jumble of suppressed memories which lurked like a fishy monster in a lake, surfacing when least expected. But she was in luck. Her companion had been diverted and instead of putting the dreaded question, was pointing up the road which led to the woods.

‘The police car’s coming back,’ Meredith said. ‘And there’s Alan’s car behind it.’

The two women began to walk towards the lych-gate, Ruth trying to look natural, not to hurry, not to seem eager to hear any news. And I don’t want to hear bad news, I couldn’t bear it, she thought desperately. What shall I do if …

The police car rattled past without stopping. There was a youngish man, in his thirties, sitting in the back of it. What had he done? wondered Ruth. The following car, however, slowed and drew up. A tall, thin, fair-haired man in a pullover and chinos got out. He came towards them, smiling.

Meredith said, ‘Ruth, this is Alan Markby. This is Mrs Aston, Alan. She’s the churchwarden here and her father was the last resident vicar. She grew up in the vicarage.’

Ruth found herself blushing. ‘I was just showing Meredith our church. It’s not very active, I’m afraid.’ She drew a deep breath. He looked a nice man. He’d tell her, wouldn’t he? ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Up at the woods?’

The man shrugged his shoulders and a fringe of fair hair fell over his forehead. He bore, thought Ruth, a superficial resemblance to old Sir Rufus with his thin features and patrician bearing.

‘Nothing to get excited about,’ he said. He spoke with that kindly firmness which Ruth associated with those who carry their authority as if it were natural to them. She found she was both relieved and disappointed. That was policemen for you. Like doctors and priests, they were custodians of other people’s secrets. They never parted with information. She should have known. She felt embarrassed because she knew she shouldn’t have asked.

But Meredith beside her had no inhibitions and urged, ‘Oh, come on, Alan. We’re dying to know.’

‘You are, you mean,’ he replied good-naturedly. ‘Keep it to yourselves. A hiker sheltering from the rain found some old bones.’

Ruth heard a gasp escape her lips. She faltered, ‘Bones? What kind of bones?’

‘Not a skeleton, nothing like that. Just a few and we’ll have to wait and see what the experts make of them.’

‘How awful, do you mean, not animal?’ Things were going from bad to worse. Ruth thought her horror must show in her face to a degree which even he must think was more than might reasonably be expected from someone hearing the news.

‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘Human, all right. But as I say, pretty old and not many of them. I doubt they’ll be easy to identify. We’ll try, naturally.’ He must at last have taken notice of her pale face and gaping mouth. ‘It may be an archaeological find,’ he said. ‘These things turn up from time to time, unearthed by wildlife.’

Ruth pulled herself together. ‘Oh, well, then that’s what it probably is. How – how interesting.’

‘Ruth’s been telling me about the woods,’ Meredith told him. ‘And how very old they are.’

Ruth wondered whether the man called Alan heard her. His mind seemed to be running on something else. He looked at both of them for a moment quite blankly, then blinked and said rapidly, ‘If you’ve finished here, Meredith, perhaps we should be getting back.’

‘Yes, sure,’ Meredith said, sounding a little surprised. ‘Thank you for the guided tour, Ruth. It was really fascinating.’

‘Not at all.’ As they started to walk away, Ruth called after them on impulse, ‘If you come back to Lower Stovey, to take another look at the vicarage, please come and have a cup of tea with us. My cottage is at the end of Church Lane. It’s called The Old Forge because once it was a forge and I share it with an old friend. Do come, Hester and I don’t get many visitors.’

They promised they’d come. She watched them get into the car and drive off. It was a nightmare. After all these years, how could it have happened? Why had she asked them to come and see her? To learn what the police found out? The man wouldn’t gossip, not him, not a police officer himself. But the woman, Meredith, might. Then there was Hester. What would Hester say when she heard the news? She’d been asked to keep it to herself but she’d have to tell Hester.

There was a movement to her right in a bushy young yew. Its sprays of dark green needle-like leaves quivered and parted. A wreathed face with small malicious eyes and a snub nose appeared. Ruth gave a little shriek.

The face vanished. The bush shook again and Old Billy Twelvetrees emerged from his hiding place. She’d quite forgotten him but she should have known he’d be hanging around.

‘I heard ’un,’ he said. His tongue ran over his withered lips and his expression had grown thoughtful. ‘Bones, eh? Human bones.’ He drew a deep rasping breath and looked down at the grassy strip between two graves where his own stout boots were planted. ‘That’s a turn-up for the books, ain’t it?’

‘Bones?’ Meredith ventured as they drove back to Bamford.

‘Bones. The countryside is full of them. It doesn’t have to be sinister.’

‘You don’t sound as if you believe that.’

His manner was too off-hand by far, she thought. You don’t fool me, Alan Markby, what’s going on here, eh?

‘I don’t disbelieve or believe anything,’ he was saying virtuously. ‘The bones were found by a young doctor walking the old drovers’ way. He turned off into the woods when it started to rain, fell down a bank and voilà! Found himself looking at a mixed collection of odd bones which he recognised as human.’

Meredith thought about it. ‘It seemed to upset Ruth.’

‘Who? Oh, Mrs Aston. She’s old Pattinson’s daughter, you say? Perhaps I should have mentioned I met her father years ago.’

Meredith, glancing at him, said, ‘I’m sorry if I seemed to make a big deal out of your being here before.’

He shook his head. ‘I should have told you. You were right about the old vicarage. I don’t know why I brought you out to view it. I knew it was a big place, too big.’

‘I’ll go back to the estate agents,’ Meredith offered. ‘There must be other houses.’ She leaned back in the front passenger seat. ‘Did you get a look at the church when you were last here?’

‘Is it interesting?’

‘Oh yes. There’s a carving on the outer wall of the Green Man. That’s what we’d been looking at when you came back. Ruth’s father was very interested in the legend.’

‘There’s a farm,’ Alan said suddenly. ‘It’s called Greenjack Farm. It’s back there alongside the woods. I went there when I came before. The Green Man legend must be connected with the name.’

There they left the subject, Meredith with a half-resolve to visit the public library and look up the Green Man, Markby clearly with things other than myth on his mind.