ONE POINT IS MADE CLEAR
CALDECOTT was, I found, a very out-of-the-way little place. The pretty
village of Rockingham, with its long, broad street leading up the hill
and the old castle crowning it, was its nearest neighbour, for at that
station I alighted from the train and walked through the noonday heat
along the short, shadeless road pointed out by the railway porter.
The country in that district is of park-like aspect, mostly rich
pastures with spinneys here and there, and running brooks; but on that
blazing summer’s day, with the road shining white before me, I was glad
enough when I got under the shadow of the cottages of Caldecott.
My first impression of the place was that the village was both remote
and comfortable. The cottages were mostly well kept and nearly all
thatched, with quaint little attic windows peeping forth here and there
and strange old gable ends. Every house was built of stone, solidly and
well, and every cottage garden seemed to be gay with jasmine,
hollyhocks, sunflowers, and other old-world flowers. Not a soul was in
the village street, for in that great heat the very dogs were sleeping.
Behind, on a slight eminence, stood a fine old church of Early English
architecture, with narrow, pointed lancet-shaped windows similar to
those in the choir of Westminster Abbey, and as I passed, the
sweet-toned bell from the square ivy-clad tower struck two o’clock.
Walking on a short distance I came to a small open space which in olden
days was, I suppose the village green, and seeing an inn called the
Plough I entered the little bar parlour and called for some ale. The
place seemed scrupulously clean and comfortable, very old-fashioned, but
well-kept, therefore I decided to make it my headquarters, and engaged a
room for at least one night.
The young woman who waited upon me having explained that she and her
brother kept the place, I at once commenced to make some inquiries. It
was, I knew, most necessary that I should avoid attracting any undue
attention in the gossiping little place, therefore I had to exercise the
greatest caution. I gave her a card and explained my presence there to
the fact that I was taking a holiday and photographing.
“By the way,” I said, standing at the bow window which gave a view on to
the church, “whose house is that away among the trees?”
“The Vicarage, sir. Mr. Pocock lives there, a very-nice gentleman.”
“Has he been vicar long?” I inquired.
“Oh, he’s been here these five years, I think, or perhaps a little
more.”
“And is there an old Manor House here?”
“Yes, sir. Right up the top end of the village. Mr. and Mrs. Kenway live
there. They’re new tenants, and have only been there about a year.”
“Is it a large house?”
“One of the largest here—a very old-fashioned place.”
“Is it the oldest house?”
“Oh, yes, I think so, but I wouldn’t care to live in it myself,” and the
young woman shrugged her shoulders.
“Why?” I inquired, at once interested and hoping to learn some local
legend.
“Well, they say that all sorts of strange noises are heard there at
night. I’m no believer in ghosts, you know, but even rats are not
pleasant companions in a house.”
“Who does the place belong to?”
“To a Jew, I think, who lives in Ireland. Years ago, I’ve heard, the
place was mortgaged, and the mortgagee foreclosed. But lots of people
have rented it since then, and nobody within my recollection has lived
there longer than about three years.”
What the young woman told me caused me to jump to the conclusion that
the house in question was once the residence of Bartholomew da Schorno,
and after finishing my ale I lit a cigarette and sauntered forth to have
a look at the place.
I need not tell you how eagerly I walked to the top of the village, but
on arrival there I saw no sign of the house in question. I inquired of a
lad, who directed me into a farmyard gate, whence I found a short,
ill-kept road which ended in a _cul-de-sac_, leading into a field. On my
right was a clump of elms, and hidden among them was the quaint and
charmingly old-world Manor House.
First sight of the place was sufficient to tell me that it had been
allowed to fall into decay, and certainly it was, even in that summer
sunshine, a rather dismal and depressing place of abode.
The old cobbled courtyard was overgrown with moss and weeds, and some of
the outbuildings had ugly holes in the roofs. The house itself was long,
low, and rambling, of Elizabethan architecture, with old mullioned
windows, built entirely of stone, now, however, grey with lichens and
green with moss on the parts which the clinging ivy had failed to cover.
The outside woodwork, weather-beaten and rotting, had not been painted
for a century, while upon one of the high square chimneys stood forth
the rusty iron angle of a sundial, from which, however, most of the
graven numerals had long ago disappeared.
The high beech hedge which formed one of the boundaries was sufficient
proof of the antiquity of the place, but the trees of the broad pleasure
grounds, which had no doubt once extended far away down to the river,
had been cut down and the land turned into pastures, so that only a
small, neglected kitchen garden now remained. The place, even in its
present decay, spoke mutely of a departed magnificence. As I stood
gazing upon it, I could imagine it as the residence of the lord of the
manor in the days when peacocks strutted in the grounds, when that
moss-grown courtyard had echoed to the hoofs of armed horsemen, and the
talk was of the prowess of Drake, of Walsingham’s astuteness, of the
martyrdom of Mary at Fotheringhay, and the fickleness of the Queen’s
favour.
Determined to make the acquaintance of the present occupiers, even
though it might or might not be the former residence of old Bartholomew,
I went up to the blistered door and pulled a bell, which clanged
dismally within, and made such an echo that I wondered if the place were
devoid of furniture.
My summons was answered by a rather stout, middle-aged woman, who, in
response to my inquiry, informed me that she was Mrs. Kenway. I was
somewhat taken aback at this, for I had believed her to be a servant,
but the moment she opened her mouth I knew her to be a countrywoman.
I was compelled to make an excuse for my call, so I invented what I
conceived to be an ingenious untruth.
“I have called to ask you a favour,” I said, “My mother was born in this
house, and being in the neighbourhood I am most anxious to see the old
place. Have you any objection?”
“Oh, no, sir,” was the kindly woman’s prompt response. “Come in; you’re
very welcome to look round, I’m sure. No, keep your hat on, there are so
many draughts.”
“Is it draughty, then?”
“Oh, sir,” she said, shaking her head and sighing; “I don’t know what
the place used to be in days gone by, but me and my husband are truly
sorry we ever took it. In winter it’s a reg’ler ice-well. We can’t keep
ourselves warm anyhow. It’s so lonely, and full of strange noises o’
nights. I’m not nervous, but all the same they’re not nice.”
“Rats, perhaps.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” And she led me along the narrow passage where the
stones were worn hollow by the tread of generations, and ushered me into
a small, low room where black beams ran across the ceiling. But, oh! the
incongruity of that interior. Over the old panelling was pasted common
wall-paper of hideous design in green and yellow, while the furniture
was of modern description, quite out of keeping with the antiquity of
the house. As she led me through room after room I noticed how
successive tenants had, by papering and white-washing, endeavoured to
turn the place into a kind of modern cottage home. Much of the old
woodwork had been removed, and even the oaken doors were actually
painted and grained! The staircase was still, however, in its original
state of dark oak, and handsomely carved, and the stone balustrade which
ran round the landing was a splendid example of Elizabethan
construction. Half the rooms were unfurnished, but the good woman took
me along the echoing, carpetless corridors and showed me the various
chambers above as well as below.
Could that ruinous place be the one which the noble adventurer had
chosen for the concealment of the loot?
The place certainly coincided in date with the written statement, but I
had nothing to connect it with the name of da Schorno. Perhaps, however,
some of the title-deeds connected with the place might tell me
something, so I obtained from Mrs. Kenway the name and address of the
landlord, a man named Cohen, living in Dublin.
“This isn’t at all the house me and my husband wanted,” she declared.
“Our idea when we took it was to take paying guests, because I’m used to
lodgers. I let apartments for six years in Hunstanton, and our idea in
coming here was to take paying guests, as they call ’em nowadays. We
advertised in the London papers and got two ladies, but they only stayed
a fortnight. It was too quiet for them, they said. Since then several
people have been, but I haven’t let once.”
I was certainly not surprised. If I were paying guest in that house I
should go melancholy mad within a week. Besides, as far as I could see,
the place was comfortless. An appearance of freshness was lent it by the
new paper in execrable taste in the hall, and a gaudy new linoleum upon
the beautiful old polished stairs, but beyond that the interior was just
as dingy and cold-looking as the outside.
Indeed, so depressing was my visit that I was rather glad when it was
over. One or two of the upstair rooms were panelled, with oak evidently,
but the woodwork had been painted a uniform white, while the floors were
rickety and suggestive of dry-rot.
She had another two years’ lease of the place, Mrs. Kenway regretted to
say. They were trying to re-let it, for if compelled to keep it on until
the end of the term it would swallow up all their slender savings.
“You see, we are earning nothing, except a little that my husband gets
out of canvassing for an insurance company. But it takes him out so
much, and I am left alone here from morning till night.”
I was secretly glad to hear of this state of things, because if I could
prove that the house had belonged to old Bartholomew, it might become
necessary for us to rent it and make some investigations.
Through the lattice window of the long, low room wherein I stood a wide
view could be obtained across the neglected garden and the pastures
beyond away down to the river, and as I looked forth it occurred to me
to ask what rent was required.
“We pay forty-five pounds a year,” was her reply.
“Well,” I said reflectively, “I know some one who wants a quiet house in
the country, and I’ll mention it to him if you like.”
“Oh, I’d be most thankful, sir,” she cried, enthusiastically. “The
gentleman would be quiet enough here. There are no neighbours, and not
even a passer-by, for, as you see, the road leads to nowhere.”
Again I wondered whether, concealed in that weird, tumble-down old place
were the gold and jewels from the Spanish galleon and the spoils from
the Corsairs of Barbary. Behind that panelling upstairs might be
concealed treasure worth a fortune. As far as my cursory observations
went, there was no likely place downstairs, unless, as in many old
houses of that character, there was a “priest’s hole” cunningly
concealed.
I went forth accompanied by the lady who was waiting in vain for paying
guests, and examined the front of the house, which faced south towards
the sloping pastures.
Walking a little way back into the wilderness of weeds which was once a
garden, I looked up to the row of long mullioned windows, and saw in the
centre of the dark grey wall a large square sculptured stone bearing the
date 1584. Above was a coat-of-arms cut in the crumbling stone, a device
that was in an instant familiar to me.
As my eyes fell on it I could not repress a cry of satisfaction, for
there was the leopard rampant with the fleur-de-lys, the very same
device that was upon the seal of the document with the seven signatures
I had found on board the _Seahorse_!
Thus was it proved most conclusively that it was the actual house
mentioned by Bartholomew da Schorno, for it bore his arms, with the date
of either its construction or restoration.
I talked with Mrs. Kenway for some little time as an excuse to linger
there, and when I left I held out strong hopes to her that I might
induce my friend to take the remainder of the lease off her hands.