The Moonlit Door Read online

  ‘Take a seat, Nick, do,’ Ekaterina said, her Russian accent quite pronounced, as always. ‘Rufus will not be long.’

  From the depths of an armchair as comfortable as it looked, Nick gave her an appraising glance. She had always been beautiful, gloriously so, but now she had an inner glow, a radiance that spoke of her being greatly loved by more than just a man, by children who also adored her.

  It was out of Nick’s mouth before he had had time to think of what he was saying. ‘Are you going to marry him?’

  A naughty little smile hovered round her mouth. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Well it wasn’t hard.’

  ‘We are getting married next month in London, at Chelsea Register Office. Then we are going to the Seychelles on honeymoon. Then we come home and want you to bless our marriage here, in the chapel in the castle. It will be my first proper wedding. I married my late husband in a crazy place in Las Vegas. The pastor was dressed as Elvis Presley.’

  ‘I trust you will not want me to do the same.’

  She whirled a gin and tonic into his hand and, leaning forward, gave him a hug. ‘No, dear Nick, we want you to wear whatever you think suitable for the occasion.’

  He raised his glass to her and at that moment Sir Rufus Beaudegrave came through the door. Nick stood up because he had been well brought up by his mother and was fanatical about good behaviour.

  ‘My dear Sir Rufus, I hear that I am about to be called into service.’

  ‘Are you?’ He looked puzzled.

  Ekaterina interrupted. ‘I have told Nick our news. He has agreed to give us a blessing in the chapel.’

  ‘Well, that’s absolutely splendid. Thank you so much.’ Rufus glanced at his watch and added, ‘Sorry to be a bit late. The crowds were rather large today and I had something of a struggle to greet them all. But it’s all good for business, I’m pleased to say.’

  Nick metaphorically raised his hat to the effort that went in to keeping Fulke Castle in family hands. The unfortunate part about it was that Rufus’s first marriage – to a titled airhead who had run off with the gamekeeper – had produced four daughters, none of whom could inherit the mighty place. There was a younger brother, of course. The typical ne’er-do-well who loved fast women – and the occasional fast boy, if rumour were correct – fast cars and fast living. He had been married three times and had a son by each wife. Fate was simply not fair, Nick considered. But now, with Rufus’s remarriage there might yet be hope of an heir. The vicar sent up a rapid prayer that this pleasurable ending for everybody might be fulfilled.

  Ekaterina rose from her chair. ‘Where are the girls?’

  Rufus smiled. ‘I know that the youngest has gone out riding but the other three have all gone off to see friends.’

  ‘Then I think I’ll go and join the little one.’

  ‘Do you ride well?’ said Nick.

  Ekaterina laughed joyfully. ‘I’m not really any good. But Perdita is teaching me.’

  ‘Then off you go,’ said Rufus and gave her the tiniest smack on the bottom.

  No need to ask how their relationship was progressing, thought Nick. One could tell at a glance that it was rock solid. Once again he spoke before assessing the words properly.

  ‘I’m so glad you and Ekaterina are getting married, Sir Rufus. Let’s hope it might produce an heir for you.’

  The owner of the castle shot him a wry grin. ‘’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished,’ he quoted.

  Having started, Nick could not leave the subject alone. ‘And how about Ekaterina? Does she want children?’

  ‘Does she!’ answered Rufus laughing. ‘I tell you, she is totally besotted with my daughters. In fact, she’s a better mother to them than their actual one. And she would adore children of her own. They’ll probably all turn out to be girls, but what the hell.’

  Nick, sipping his second tonic and gin, thought what a truly nice man Sir Rufus was.

  He changed the subject. ‘I was wondering if you had any questions for me about the Grand Village Fair.’

  ‘No, why don’t you describe it to me.’

  ‘Well the general idea is to make the whole theme medieval. We’ve hired a team of archers – I believe they’re all amateurs but they’re very good. They appear in films, that sort of thing. We’ve also hired a set of morris men—’

  ‘The Casselbury Ring crowd?’

  ‘No, they had another engagement. This lot are called Mr Grimm’s Men.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘Foxfield. Apparently they are a very ancient troop who disbanded after the Second World War only to reunite some ten years ago.’

  ‘Not with the original members, I trust.’

  ‘You trust correctly. This lot are quite young and vigorous. They even have a professor of history amongst their ranks.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Anyway, that aside, we’re going to try and make the stalls look authentic and all the stallholders will be dressed up, mostly in stuff from the WI pantomime, I’m afraid. But there it is. Anyway the beer tent is going to make some effort to look ancient and will be selling Ye Olde Ale and that sort of thing.’

  ‘Sounds good fun to me. Now you’ll want to know about the field I can lend you.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Well, it lies behind the Remembrance Hall and has the most exquisite view. It’s lying fallow at the moment so I think a heavy duty mow or two should make it quite suitable for your purposes.’

  ‘You think it will be big enough?’

  ‘Oh, I should say it will be ample.’

  ‘And how will people get in?’

  ‘There’s a rather rough path leading directly to it. I can get it cut back a bit if you like.’

  Nick protested. ‘No, I’ll ask the chap who mows the graveyard to do it – and to mow the field too. You’ve done enough in giving us the space to hold the fair.’

  ‘It should be quite a sight. Will visitors be encouraged to dress up?’

  ‘It will be optional – you know the English.’

  ‘Indeed I do. I went to a Lady Chatterley dance once and would you believe there was somebody all got up in a crinoline?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick answered sadly. ‘I would believe it. I have seen a great many strange sights in my time.’

  ‘I’ll bet you have.’

  The door opened and in walked Iolanthe. Nick thought that in the relatively short space of time since he had last seen her, she had grown more like her father than ever. She had also grown up, looking at him through mascaraed eyelashes, her height quite considerable, obviously a Beaudegrave hallmark. Nick stared at her, a little nonplussed, never being quite sure how to treat teenage girls. However, she obviously was perfectly used to dealing with people who were shy.

  ‘Hello, Reverend Lawrence,’ she said, holding out a confident hand. ‘How are you? I haven’t seen you for ages.’

  ‘I’m very well, thanks,’ Nick answered, and shook it.

  ‘Well, I’m going to dress up,’ she answered, coming directly to the point and making no effort to conceal the fact that she had been listening outside the door. ‘In fact, I’d like to help on a stall if that’s possible.’

  ‘Well, I can certainly ask if anybody wants any help. A lot of the volunteers are members of the WI. But the younger ones are quite go-ahead.’

  ‘Don’t you like the WI, Vicar?’

  ‘I don’t really approve of any organization that bans the other sex. Men’s clubs, for example. But as individuals I think members of the Women’s Institute are generally charming and hard-working and they are certainly doing their very best to help with the Medieval Fair.’

  ‘It sounds terribly exciting. I wonder if I could help out the fortune teller.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve booked one of those.’

  ‘I’d love to do it if you can’t find anyone.’

  Sir Rufus spoke from his armchair. ‘No, Iolanthe, you’re far too young. I won’t hear of it.’
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  ‘But Daddy, I’m fifteen. I’m not a child any more.’

  Rufus lowered his newspaper. ‘You will always be a child to me, even when I’m eighty and you are fifty. And it’s no good wheedling because the answer will still be no.’

  Iolanthe rolled her eyes and turned back to Nick. ‘Then I’ll set up a stall selling castle produce. We have tons of it in the shop. The gooseberry jam is particularly popular, by the way.’

  And what she said happened to be true. The grand tour exited into the gift shop, which Rufus had established in a converted barn, selling everything from a booklet written by himself on the castle’s history to wine and free-range eggs, with as many trinkets and souvenirs as he could pack in between. Its turnover played an important part in adding to the Fulke Castle finances.

  ‘I think that is a very good idea,’ said Nick. ‘Would you agree to it, Sir Rufus?’

  ‘My dear chap, I would agree to anything that would boost the funds and also help your fair along. Where did you say the profits were going?’

  ‘To the steeple preservation fund. If we don’t seriously rebuild it, it will come crashing down one day.’

  ‘If you’re having a raffle at any time you can add the prize of a free balloon trip over the castle and surrounding countryside.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  They discussed the practicalities of Iolanthe managing a whole stall by herself and Rufus tactfully suggested that it might be so overrun with customers that Araminta should help as well. This she agreed to with a thoughtful nod, during which her marvellous mop of red hair flew round her head like an aureole. Nick was impressed and thought of suggesting to Ivy Bagshot that she step down from the role of principal boy in the WI annual pantomime and give Iolanthe a chance instead. Then he realized the folly of his ways and decided that discretion was all, if he wanted to stay on friendly terms with the parishioners of Lakehurst.

  After refusing another drink, he was shown out by Sir Rufus’s daughter and made his way round to the private car park. Glancing at his watch, he realized that he was late for his next appointment and drove rather faster than usual back towards the delightful but somewhat strange village of which he was the parish priest.

  Returning to consciousness under a hedge was always an odd experience for Dickie Donkin because he was never quite certain which way up the world was. Under his back he could feel the earth, hard and uncompromising, while over his head there seemed to be a vast crown of thorns and leaves, all interwoven. What he always did in these circumstances was to blink his pale blue eyes – so pale that they looked like the sunlight glinting on a glacier – several times over. Then he would heave himself up on to one worn elbow and see if the world turned round again and then, when it didn’t, clamber into an upright position and grasp the hedge with a hand on which was a mitten so old and tired that it looked like a tracing done by an angry child.

  Dickie Donkin had been living rough for many years now and yet the view that greeted him when he finally stood on his worn and battered legs was always fresh. He would gasp at the neatness of the fields, at the beauty of the villages that lay in front of him, at the majestic splendour of the tall trees, at the wheeling and dipping of the birds in the sky above. Then his hand would go to the worn, old school satchel that he had stolen many years ago from a playground, fasten round the shape of a bottle he always carried within, and raise it to his lips. What was inside was anybody’s guess – usually the contents of a can of cider transferred to the Scotch bottle to give him a feeling of importance, but sometimes a drop of gin that a publican would give him just to stay outside and sit solitary on a bench, supping, and sometimes it would be a lager or a pint. But whatever it was that he purloined or was given as a hand-out, the bottle was always full.

  Dickie Donkin was known throughout the vast county of Sussex because he had walked its entire length and breadth in his time, starting when he was twenty and his mother had died. There had been something about the rent book – he didn’t understand it – but apparently it could only be passed down three times. Whatever the facts of the case, he had found himself without a home and had quite literally been turned out on to the streets by his landlord. So he had taken to the highway and walked from that day to this.

  A legend had grown up about him, about Daft Dickie Donkin, as he was known. A legend that it was lucky to get a sighting of him, that it brought good fortune to see him when one was out and about. Children would often run after him chanting, ‘Smile at us, Dickie. Come on, look our way.’ Sometimes he would oblige them, showing what was left of his rotting brown teeth in the parody of a grin. Other times, when he was moody or not interested, he would keep his pale eyes fixed on the ground and hurry away, conscious of their feet scampering in his wake. Yet he wasn’t quite as daft as people thought. He knew a thing or two about folk, having observed them from a midnight tree or caught them in the long grasses. So he was also known as Dickie the Watcher and he preferred that name because it gave him a certain air of dignity.

  This day, though, when he awoke and gradually got to his feet, he saw that a man sitting on a mower was cutting the long grass in the Nether Field, part of the grounds owned by some local toff. Dickie had walked forward, his gait long and rolling, and had stared silently. The man had waved an arm. He had heard the legend that the tramp was a lucky omen. But Dickie approached cautiously, wondering whether or not it was a trap.

  ‘Hello, there,’ the man on the mower called out. ‘How you doing?’

  Dickie remained silent. He rarely spoke, because he didn’t care to. He had been born autistic. The only sound he liked was his singing and often at midnight, standing solitary in the woods, he would startle the night creatures by chanting to the moon in a rich, melodious baritone.

  ‘Want a beer?’ continued the other. ‘I’ll buy you one if you like.’

  Dickie nodded.

  ‘Do you know the Great House?’

  Dickie nodded again.

  ‘Well, start walking then. I’ll catch you up.’

  Dickie gave a deep nod to show he understood and proceeded across the fields, his gait now rolling and purposeful as he had just received an invitation and did not want to be late getting there. After a while the man on the mower passed him and gave a cheery wave, pointing in the general direction of Lakehurst. Daft Dickie raised his pale eyes but otherwise gave no clue that he had even noticed.

  TWO

  On Tuesday nights the Crossword Club met in the Great House for what should have been a convivial evening. The vicar, however, found it generally boring and stuffy, the men who belonged being elderly and over-hearty, prone to remarks like, ‘The Times were absolute stinkers this week. Or at least that was how they struck me.’ Then there would be a general murmur of consensus with, perhaps, one dissenting voice.

  On this particular night Nick’s head was full of the Medieval Fair and he had been held up on the phone by the captain of Mr Grimm’s Men, Chris O’Hare, arranging to arrive on the day at nine in the morning in order to get a look at Patsy Quinn, who was opening the fair at ten o’clock. She was the sort of girl that Nick considered ghastly but for all that had come fifth in the Britain’s Got Stars contest a year or so previously. After this she had formed a band and sung loudly on a C tour of the British Isles. Her only claim to knowing Lakehurst was that her grandmother lived there and the organizing committee had rather desperately agreed that she should open the fair if she was free. Inevitably, she was.

  Not feeling in the least like socializing, Nick nonetheless made his way to the Great House to find the various members of the club at odds with each other.

  ‘I say the fellow ought to be moved on. He’s occupying that bench at the bottom of the garden and is definitely sleeping there. God knows what his sanitary arrangements are. I think it gives the village the wrong sort of image.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ said the local bank manager, who had a quite uncanny resemblance to Captain Mainwaring.

  ‘What’s a
ll this?’ said Nick, feeling irritable.

  ‘Some old tramp has taken up residence on the seat at the bottom of the Great House garden. He just sits there staring at the view. I have spoken to Constable Littlejohn but he says the fellow’s an old Sussex character and will move off of his own accord in a day or two.’

  ‘Well then, what’s the problem?’

  ‘This is an historic Sussex village, Vicar, and a tramp sleeping on a bench is not the kind of thing that should be encouraged.’

  ‘I suppose if Christ came and sat on the bench beside him you would accuse him of being an illegal immigrant.’

  There was a rather fraught silence.

  ‘Perhaps you could talk to the man, Vicar. He might listen to you.’

  ‘I have no objection to that whatsoever,’ said Nick, and marched out of the pub’s side door and down the length of the beautiful garden.

  It was just getting dark and Nick slowed his pace and looked at the exquisite view opposite, drawing in a breath of delight as he always did. The garden sloped gently downwards and ended in a lane with pretty cottages built on either side. Beyond these a hill descended, growing steeper as it approached a small brook, which bubbled, ice-cold and fresh, at the foot of the valley. But it was to the majestic sweep of the elevation opposite that Nick’s eye was drawn. With the reflection of the sinking sun dappling it with shades of pink, it almost looked unreal, like the playground of the gods.

  Daft Dickie, as predicted, sat on the bench, motionless, staring at the view as if he were taking in every detail, which perhaps he was. Nick silently slid in beside him, noticing the odour of the man, not altogether unpleasant, for he smelled of earth and hay and being outdoors.