One Moment...

A pause, a hesitation, before the crack as shoe met stone. The sound multiplied in the echoing stillness until it became a thousand tiny crack-crack-cracks. A pearl of rain-water rolled downwards, flattening the tendril of cut-grass against the scuffed shoe and darkening the stone under-foot. As if summoned the birds began to jostle one another from their perch high above. They scattered like blotches of ink from a broken nib across the cerulean canvas framed by a lichen covered arch. One, and then two passes of swooping and cawing, until finally all was settled and calm once more.

A House Of Scandal...

I cannot take full credit for this story as the idea was originally thought up by my father. A little over three years later and I have taken it upon myself to expand upon his suggestion.

Oxfordshire, 1929.

“That’s Augustus House, sir.” The chauffeur intoned politely with a nod towards the sprawling residence that had finally come into view. Fleets Lane shifted slightly in his seat in order to gain a better look and then let out a small breath of surprise. The house was imposing in its ugliness. Its stone was weathered to a grim grey and the effect was left unsoftened by a lack of surrounding foliage. Lane was reminded of Shelley’s Frankenstein for as the motor-car drew closer it became clear that the house had been cobbled together from different parts over the centuries. A medieval great hall was sandwiched between neoclassical columns, whilst this was all flanked by great curvilinear wings that were currently the height of fashion.

“It’s not hard to believe that the family will soon be suffering financial woes looking at that heap of bricks.” Lane’s companion remarked quietly. Tyler Hill was a bit of a mathematics genius and Lane had little doubt that his mind had already calculated the cost of each of those bricks and subtracted it from the annual income of the estate. It was perhaps as a result of this analytical approach that Lane could detect none of his own admiration on the young man’s face. Hill saw only the decaying edifice that would slowly bleed away profit margins, whilst Lane was old enough to appreciate the family heritage preserved within each cracked stone.

“How bad have they been affected?” Lane kept his voice low so that their probing of the family’s private affairs was kept from the liveried chauffeur. Lord Bowles, the owner of Augustus House, was an American and only a month before the American stock market at Wall Street had crashed. Hill had calculated that in a worst case scenario the effects would be felt by economies all over the world for at least a decade. For Augustus House and its inhabitants, however, the effect would likely be far worse.

“It’s serious. They’ll probably need to sell the house and estate to recoup their losses.” Lane shook his head, his dark eyes solemn.

“Yet another old family who will be forced to sell their ancestral home. The world is changing.” He murmured more to himself than Hill. He could remember a time before the war, before the world had been turned upside down. Lane had grown up on an estate like Augustus House. On his return from the Front he had gone back, but the farm where his family had lived and worked was gone, along with the family and servants up at the big house. The war had of course changed everything, including the direction of his own life. The injury he had sustained for King and Country ultimately forced him to retire from the police force and to set up his own practice as a private investigator.

“It’s only tenuously an ancestral home now though, sir.” Hill’s logic drew Lane’s attention back to the present. “The current Lord Bowles was a very distant cousin of the late Lord Bowles, and it was the marriage between the cousin and the daughter which meant that the title and the estate could remain intact.” Hill was too young to remember the war and the unreserved respect that had previously been thought owing to the aristocratic class. Despite any youthful inexperience, Hill’s precise reasoning and talent for detecting patterns and connections made him an invaluable assistant to Lane’s investigations.

“The Bowles’ are a relation of Lady Granchester, I believe. We recovered her diamonds last year, which is presumably why Lord Bowles contacted us particularly.” Lane mused as he thought of the terse telegram that had requested their immediate presence in Oxfordshire. Yet there had been no mention of the matter which actually required their professional services. There was, however, little time for any further speculation by the pair for the chauffeur was pulling around the large turning circle.

Lane and Hill had arrived.

Of Monks And Men II

Quite a few weeks ago I posted simply this picture of one of my very favourite medieval images - a rather mischievous monk.

British Library, MS Sloane 2435, f 44v.

The manuscript dates to around c. 1285 and was made in northern France. It contains the text ‘Le Regime du corps’ by the Italian Aldobrandino of Siena. The content of this text is reflected in the other large historiated initials, which include depictions of bloodletting and physicians.

British Library, MS Sloane 2435, f 11v.

In my spare time I have been creating an embroidered version of my favourite image, which when completed will sit proudly on my mantelpiece. I have now almost reached the halfway point and thought I would share a photo of my efforts so far.

My very own monk.

A Perfect Stranger...

He was there again, sitting on the park bench which looked out onto the neat row of Victorian terraced houses. A handkerchief covered the soiled wooden slats and he unpacked his luncheon onto the make-shift tablecloth. His hands tidied the flask and sandwiches into precise patterns. It was an old routine, one his fingers knew by rote, leaving his mind empty and able to drift freely.

All this the woman observed from across the street. Of course she had no idea who this man was and it was hardly her place to comment on the state of his mind, empty or otherwise. Their acquaintance was merely a result of his strange choice to eat his luncheon opposite her house. When exactly he had begun to sit there she couldn’t really say with accuracy. Perhaps no more or no less than a year. Yet it was as if he had always sat there and would always continue to sit there. So much was this the case that she had begun to think, and even speak, about it as his park bench.

There could be, you would suppose, nothing more natural in the world than his sitting on a park bench. Except that it was that park bench. It couldn’t even be truly considered a park bench when there was no park, indeed not even a garden in a mile radius, unless you thought to include the tidy window boxes nestled under Mrs Ashcombe’s bay window. The very existence of the park bench was then a peculiarity, and his sitting upon it was so decidedly irregular that she could not help but steal glances throughout the course of her day to see if he really was there at all.

But there he really was. Always, without fail, arriving at 11.27 before proceeding to lay out his luncheon upon the same carefully pressed handkerchief. When it rained an umbrella joined him or a peaked hat might make an appearance on days when the sun was high and bright. Today a scarf enveloped the top portion of his body and most of the bottom portion of his face. The stick, however, remained a constant companion, resting faithfully against its master’s knee. It wasn’t that he was a particularly old man. In fact his hair looked to her remarkably thick and dark, his face notably unlined and unblemished. Yet his spindly frame was seemingly permanently hunched over itself in an ungainly stoop.

Her gaze wandered to the handsome clock on the mantelpiece before straying back to the man, whose hands rested patiently on his knees. An outlandish urge suddenly over took the woman. A desire to change what had become their bizarre routine. Tentatively, strangely frightened she might upset some cosmic balance, she eased open a window. Her breath expelled a relieved sigh when the universe remained as it was. She finished sliding the window onto its latch with a certain amount of liberated pleasure. Now the action was complete she glanced back towards the clock. Gathering her skirts about her she sat on the stool which had been prepared and flexed her fingers in the rapidly cooling air. It was 11.45 at last. And they could begin.

The notes were coaxed and beckoned by her manicured fingers which sought out the familiar keys. She drew the music from the instrument and allowed it to course through the well-appointed room and out into the open air. She didn’t need to check the window to know that the man would have begun to eat his luncheon by now. Today, for the first time since their peculiar acquaintance had begun, he wouldn’t need to strain and grasp for each lilting note. The music would be as crisp and clear as the autumn air and there was no breeze stirring in the russet trees to carry it away from its audience.

Of course she could not be certain whether he was in fact actually listening. For in truth she had no idea why a perfect stranger would sit there upon that park bench.

When Shall We Three Meet Again; In Thunder, Lightning Or In Rain?

Houseleeks (sempervivum tectorum) are my new favourite plant. Though perhaps not much to look at they are hardy plants which grow well in dry soil and rough conditions. Perfect for rock gardens or even growing on roofs.

In the medieval period houseleeks were believed to protect a building from lightning. They were grown on the roof for this purpose. There is actual historical evidence for this practice. The Capitulare de Villis, a document issued in the eighth century, decreed how the estates within the Carolingian Empire should be run. Within this it stated that “the gardener should grow houseleeks on his house.”