A Crowded Coffin(7)

‘Call me Edith, everyone does. Look, I’m really sorry if I was a bit short,’ she told him again. ‘I shouldn’t have, it’s just that you look so….’ She frowned. ‘There’s a portrait, you see … well, I’ll show you later, then you’ll understand. But as I was saying, there’s no point me making a fuss. If Gran thinks you should be here, then here’s where you have to be.’

‘She’s been very helpful. We fixed things up earlier in the week and I moved in this morning. Your grandmother’s friend in the village told her about me and that I was looking for somewhere to live. She vouched for me because her sister used to live next door to us.’ Rory filled her in on some details. ‘I’m starting a new job at the university next term and this gives me a good base for getting to know my way about and doing some leisurely house-hunting.’

Edith shivered, suddenly cold. ‘Earlier in the week? You were here? When was that? Was it before or after Grandpa’s accident?’

He stared at her abrupt question. ‘I heard about that. It was the same day, I think, Wednesday. At least, I think it was that night he was injured, wasn’t it? Why? Does it make a difference? I promise not to get underfoot.’

‘It’s not that … oh, never mind.’ She still felt chilled and suddenly very tired as well as paranoid. Somebody walking over her grave, perhaps? ‘I was just wondering, that’s all.’ She led him through the original stone-flagged entrance into Locksley Farm Place. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea,’ she suggested. ‘I’m parched.’

Rory lagged behind, staring up at the entrance. ‘You’d never know this was here, would you,’ he said, nodding towards the mediaeval building. ‘Tucked round here you don’t see it at all when you come up the drive, it’s amazing.’

He caught up with Edith and as they crossed the great hall Rory paused to look around. The room was dominated by an enormous refectory table that stood across one end, gleaming with centuries of elbow grease. Silver pots filled with roses stood at either end and there was a larger flower arrangement in the middle.

‘I see the village Flower Club ladies have been here.’ Edith looked puzzled as she nodded towards the artfully elegant display. ‘I wonder why. Maybe it’s just a compliment to Gran as she used to be their chairman.’

Rory was clearly only half listening. ‘This table is incredible,’ he murmured, stroking it with an appreciative hand.

‘It is, isn’t it,’ she agreed, giving him an approving look as her suspicions faded into the background. ‘It’s the genuine article too. My umpteenth great-grandmother is supposed to have pinched it from her convent during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Though, to be more accurate, she sent for it when the convent was closed down as she had already run away with my umpteenth great-grandfather. I doubt she paid anything for it; the legend says she was a tough cookie.’

‘A runaway nun?’ He looked intrigued.

She was gratified to note his interest so she continued. ‘It’s said that they were distant cousins and forbidden to marry because her family were poor. His father actually bought off her parents with the price of her dowry to the convent so he must have taken the affair seriously. There’s no way of knowing why she went along with it and took her final vows. Maybe they forced her, or perhaps she was just biding her time.’

She took out a tissue and wiped up a scatter of drops of water from the flowers. ‘Anyway, two years later, at the time Henry VIII started getting heavy with the monasteries, she and her cousin, Richard Attlin, turned up at the Angel House bearing a marriage certificate that might very well have been legal. Apparently, everyone turned a blind eye and it was never queried. The forbidding father had died, which was why Richard took off to fetch her and as the convent was broken up soon afterwards, I don’t suppose anyone thought it was worth checking.’

‘The Angel House?’ Rory enquired. ‘I thought it was called Locksley Farm Place?’

‘Quite correct, so it is. The Angel House is just the local name for it. The old name of the village was Locksley Angelorum and now it’s officially just Locksley, which, by the way, is nothing to do with Robin of Locksley; we’re a long way south of Nottingham.’ She perched on the edge of the great table and watched Rory make a leisurely circuit round the room.

‘This place is incredible. When I was fixing things up I didn’t actually come in here,’ he told her as he gazed in awe at ancient beams that spanned the soaring height of the hall, then paused, as everyone always did, to peer up the chimney of the huge stone hearth. ‘Hey, I can see the sky a long way up.’ He cast a sardonic glance at the smoke-blackened stonework and grinned at her. ‘I see it smokes; it must be fun here in the winter.’