Fletchers End (Bel Lamington Book 2) Read online

  FLETCHERS END

  D. E. Stevenson

  © D. E. Stevenson 1962

  D. E. Stevenson has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1962 by Collins.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  part one

  The Old House

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  part two

  Winter in London

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  part three

  The Brownlees at Home

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  part four

  Alarms and Excursions

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  part five

  Miss Lestrange’s Bureau

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  part one

  The Old House

  Chapter One

  Mrs. Warmer often wondered how old the house was and who had lived in it. When she first took over the duty of caretaker she had been a little frightened of living in an empty house all by herself but she had got used to it quite soon. There was a friendly sort of feeling in the house. Mrs. Warmer was not an imaginative woman—one could see that at a glance—she was short and stout with thick legs and sandy hair and unexpectedly deep-blue eyes. Obviously she was not the sort of woman who had strange dreams and saw ghosts. All the same she had a feeling that there were things in the house which could not be accounted for in a rational way. There was a scent of violets in the drawing-room for instance. Sometimes the scent was quite strong and Mrs. Warmer would stand still for a few moments and sniff thoughtfully before she got down to the job of cleaning the windows and sweeping the floors.

  The house was very solidly built of honey-coloured stone and was covered with creepers. The garden was a tangled mass of nettles and willow-herb and overgrown bushes and straggly trees—Mrs. Warmer was not responsible for keeping the garden in order—but there were no violets in the garden. She had looked.

  The house seemed isolated, it was in the Cotswold Country and very quiet, but it was not really as isolated as it seemed. The village of Archerfield was only a few hundred yards down the road. It was a very small village, consisting of a few cottages, a post-office (including a little shop which sold a heterogeneous collection of odds and ends) and an inn called The Green Man. Mrs. Warmer had several friends in the village, chief of whom was Mr. Carruthers the sweep. It was a great day for Mrs. Warmer when Mr. Carruthers came to sweep the chimneys at Fletchers End.

  In the other direction little more than a mile distant was the much larger village of Shepherdsford with its shops and fine old Norman Church. Mrs. Warmer could hear the clock on the tower of St. Julian’s strike the hours—if the wind was in the right direction—and the sound of the bells on Sundays came drifting across the fields. Every Sunday Mrs. Warmer went to church at St. Julian’s, either in the morning or the evening. There was a path along the bank of the stream which ran past the bottom of the garden. It was called The Church Walk because long ago all the inhabitants of Archerfield had walked over to St. Julian’s to worship there. Now, alas, very few of the villagers attended church—or, if they did, they went by the bus which passed along the main road at convenient times for the services. Mrs. Warmer preferred to walk, for it was a pleasant walk, and unlike the bus, cost nothing at all.

  Sometimes people said to Mrs. Warmer, “It must be dull at Fletchers End. Aren’t you lonely in that big empty house?” Mrs. Warmer was not lonely and she was never dull; there was far too much to do. She kept the house swept and garnished; she scrubbed and polished; she cooked her food and washed her clothes. Once a week she locked up the house securely and bicycled to Shepherdsford to receive her pay from Mr. Tennant’s office and do her shopping. A van called at Fletchers End on Tuesdays. Every morning a bus passed along the road outside the house on its way to the town of Ernleigh, which was only five miles distant, and occasionally Mrs. Warmer boarded the bus, spent the day in Ernleigh and went to the pictures. Sometimes she went with her friend, Mrs. Stack, who lived at Archerfield, but more often she went alone for Mrs. Warmer was a woman who enjoyed her own company. She was of a contented nature.

  The house was for sale and it was one of Mrs. Warmer’s duties to show it to people who called and presented ‘a card to view’. She was aware that her employer was very anxious to sell it, so obviously it was her duty to show it off and make the best of it to prospective buyers . . . and, as she had a high standard of integrity, she did so.

  Sometimes she worried about what would happen to her if the house were sold. She would have to leave of course. She would have to go away and find some other job—the idea of leaving the dear old house was dreadful. The idea of going away and never seeing it again, of having no right to wander round the rooms, sweeping and dusting and polishing, of never again smelling the violets . . . Oh dear, it was almost unbearable!

  But the months passed and the years passed and nobody showed the slightest desire to buy it. People came quite frequently with the necessary ‘card to view’ but they never stayed long. They looked round vaguely, asked a few questions and went away. Sometimes they were angry with the agent who had sent them to see it and most unjustly vented their rage upon Mrs. Warmer.

  “What a dilapidated place!” they exclaimed. “How dreadfully lonely and isolated! Who do you think would buy a house like this? Fancy coming all this way to see it! The agent must have been crazy to send us here. I told him the sort of house we wanted.”

  “You’d like to see round the house, wouldn’t you?” inquired Mrs. Warmer politely.

  “No, indeed!” they replied crossly. “It would just be a waste of time. I wouldn’t have the place as a gift.” Then they went away and no more was heard of them.

  The months passed and the years passed and the old house became more and more dilapidated. The woodwork round the windows rotted and the paint peeled off the front door; the gate was almost falling to pieces; the garden was wild and tangled, the creepers rioted over the walls and the roof. It was now quite usual for people with ‘a card to view’ to stop at the gate for a few moments and then drive on without getting out of their car.

  If Mrs. Warmer saw them from a window she would run out and open the gate and try to persuade them to come in—in this way she performed her duty to the best of her ability—but she was seldom successful in her attempts.

  Gradually the idea that anyone would ever buy the house faded from Mrs. Warmer’s mind and Fletchers End became her settle
d home.

  *

  2

  During all this time only one gentleman took an interest in the house. He presented a card from an agent in London, Messrs Hook and Rook, upon which was written, ‘Kindly give Mr. Rutherford every facility to view Fletchers End’. So Mrs. Warmer opened the front-door (not without difficulty for it had sunk on its hinges) and let the gentleman come in—and he went all over the house looking at everything very carefully and making notes in a little book.

  “Are you thinking of buying it, sir?” asked Mrs. Warmer a trifle anxiously.

  “Good heavens, no,” he replied. “I’m interested in ruins, that’s all.”

  “Oh, it isn’t a ruin!” exclaimed Mrs. Warmer, who could not bear to hear her home referred to in these terms. “It’s a very nice house. It’s old, of course. I suppose it must be a hundred years old.”

  “Multiply by three—possibly four,” said Mr. Rutherford smiling.

  “All that?” asked Mrs. Warmer, opening her blue eyes very wide.

  “All that,” he answered. “You’ve only got to look at those huge oak beams in the ceilings; they had to be tremendously strong to sustain the weight of the stone roof. Those weren’t made by machine; they were sawn by hand and chipped into shape. They’re made of the same wood that was used to build Queen Elizabeth’s Navy.”

  Mrs. Warmer looked at the beams. She had seen them every day for years but now she saw them differently—not just as a hazard for tall people to bump their heads on (she always warned tall visitors of this danger), but put there by the men who built the house, chipped into shape by men’s hands, set into the walls of the house to support the roof.

  “What a big job! I wonder who did it,” said Mrs. Warmer wonderingly.

  “Ah, that would be interesting to know. I should like to take a trip backwards in time and see this house under process of construction. It would be worth seeing. Those old johnnies knew how to build. The fabric is as sound as a bell—I was wrong when I called it a ruin. It has lasted about four hundred years and it’ll still be standing when all the houses they’re putting up now will have fallen as flat as pancakes.” He sighed and added, “It’s absolutely criminal for people to allow their property to deteriorate like this. Look at those window-frames, all rotting for want of a lick of paint!”

  “The owner is a naval officer in forrin parts,” said Mrs. Warmer solemnly. “He’s a very nice young gentleman by all accounts.”

  “He’s nice, is he?” said Mr. Rutherford smiling. Already in their short acquaintance he had discovered that this was the caretaker’s favourite word. “Well, he doesn’t keep his property in a very nice condition; you can tell him so from me the next time you see him.”

  “I never seen him in my life,” declared Mrs. Warmer. “I told you he’s in forrin parts. I gets my wages every week from Mr. Tennant, the lawyer.”

  They were coming down the stairs together by this time.

  “I don’t suppose you’d know what kind of people used to live here, sir?” Mrs. Warmer inquired. “Funny kind of people they must of been to have three stairs, a little one at each end and a big one in the middle.”

  “They were fletchers.”

  “Fletchers?”

  “People who made arrows and feathered them—I can tell you that much. The village down the road is called Archerfield, so it’s only reasonable to suppose that they practised archery in that big meadow down by the stream.”

  “And the people in this house made the arrows!”

  “You’ve got it in one,” said Mr. Rutherford chuckling. “As for the stairs: it’s obvious that the house was originally built as two houses. Two families lived here and made arrows, see?” He took his coat which was hanging on the newel-post of the big central staircase which led into the hall.

  “Three houses,” suggested Mrs. Warmer.

  “No, no,” he replied, a trifle impatiently. “Originally there were two small houses, each with a small staircase. Then someone came along and bought them and joined them together to make himself a good-sized residence. He turned the rooms round a bit and built a new staircase leading up from the hall.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I’m interested in old houses. I use my eyes.”

  He put on his coat and made for the door, but Mrs. Warmer had not done with him yet. She followed him down the stone-paved path and helped him to open the gate which, like all the rest of the perishable material, was rapidly falling to pieces. It was difficult to open—or to shut—unless you knew its ways.

  “I suppose,” said Mrs. Warmer. “I suppose that’s why it sunk—because it’s so heavy, I mean.”

  “Sunk?”

  “Yes, right down to the very doorstep.”

  Mr. Rutherford was annoyed; he had seen all he wanted and was anxious to get away. What a fool the woman was! Then he turned and, looking at the old house, he realised what she meant. A person who was accustomed to modern houses—boxes of brick with steps leading up to the front-door—might easily imagine that Fletchers End had sunk. It had the appearance of an over-loaded ship sinking into a green sea of vegetation.

  “Those old johnnies dug deep down before they started to build up,” said Mr. Rutherford, trying to explain the matter in words suited to his audience. “That’s one thing. Another thing is that, having originally been planned and built as two houses, the proportions are unusual . . . Well, never mind that. Here’s something quite easy to understand: this place is getting buried by the weeds and bushes which have grown up all round it and are growing higher and thicker every year. That’s why it looks as if it were sinking into the ground.”

  “Oh yes,” said Mrs. Warmer nodding.

  Mr. Rutherford got into his car, switched on the engine and drove off, leaving a crisp crackly note in the hand which Mrs. Warmer had extended to bid him good-bye.

  *

  3

  Mrs. Warmer never saw the gentleman again but he had given her something more valuable than the crackly note; he had given her food for thought. Indeed he had changed Mrs. Warmer, altered her whole outlook upon life. He had told her that he used his eyes and now Mrs. Warmer began to use hers. She had loved the house before, but now she loved it differently for she had begun to understand it. Instead of going round with a dust-pan thinking about the activities of the Women’s Institute she went round with a dust-pan and thought about the house. She had always kept the place clean and tidy, it was her duty, but now she kept it scrubbed and polished as if she were expecting Queen Elizabeth herself to walk in at the door. Not the reigning Queen, of course, but the old one whose ships had been built of the same wood as the huge oaken beams.

  One day when she was standing upon a ladder, poking about in the rafters searching for spiders’ webs, she came across a little piece of polished stick; one end was sharp and tipped with metal; the other was jagged as if it had been broken in two. If it had not been for the gentleman Mrs. Warmer would have used it to light her fire . . . but the gentleman had said that long ago the people who lived in the house made arrows. Arrows! Well, of course, that was what it was! A bit of an arrow!

  Mrs. Warmer was so excited that she forgot all about the spiders; she took her find down to the kitchen and put it away carefully in the drawer where she kept her mother’s brooch and her Post Office Savings book and her National Health Insurance card. In other words the little piece of polished wood had become one of her treasures. Sometimes she took it out and held it in her hand and thought about the man who had made it, and wondered what he had looked like; (she had such a very hazy idea of history that she imagined him shaggy and attired in the skin of a bear). And she wondered how the arrow had got broken and where the other piece of it could be . . . but although she searched assiduously, high and low, she never found it.

  Chapter Two

  Friday was the day for Mrs. Warmer’s shopping expedition. It was a fine warm summer morning so the bicycle run to Shepherdsford was enjoyable. Coming back with a heavy basket
on her handlebars was not quite so pleasant—it was uphill most of the way. As she turned the corner of the road which led past Fletchers End she was surprised to see a small car standing outside and a lady, young and slender and extremely pretty, struggling to open the gate.

  “Did you want to come in?” asked Mrs. Warmer as she dismounted from her bicycle and leant it against the hedge.

  “It’s for sale, isn’t it?” asked the young lady, shaking the gate violently.

  “Don’t do that, Miss!” exclaimed Mrs. Warmer in alarm. “It’ll fall to bits. I’ll open it for you. It isn’t difficult when you know how.”

  The girl stepped back and looked up at the house.

  She said doubtfully, “It’s in awfully bad repair, isn’t it? They gave me a card to view but I don’t know . . . perhaps it isn’t worth bothering about.”

  “You could see it, anyhow,” suggested Mrs. Warmer.

  The ‘card to view’ was from Mr. Tennant instructing Mrs. Warmer to give Miss Louise Armstrong every facility to view Fletchers End.

  “Are you the caretaker?” asked Miss Armstrong. “Surely you don’t live here all by yourself?”

  “Yes, I live here.”

  “How frightful. The place looks absolutely derelict.”

  “It’s a nice house, really. It’s been let go a bit and the garden makes it look worse. There isn’t nobody to keep the garden nice.”

  “It isn’t a garden at all. It’s a jungle,” said Miss Armstrong with conviction.

  By this time the gate had been opened and they were walking up the path to the front-door.

  “If you wait a minute I’ll go round and open it,” Mrs. Warmer said. “You can’t open this door from the outside, so I always use the back.”

  “Goodness, look at it! The paint has all flaked off and the panels are loose. I don’t think it’s any good bothering to look at the place. I’m sure my friends would never think of buying a house like this.”

  Mrs. Warmer was delighted to hear it, but she had her duty to do. “Well, now you’re here, you’d better come in and have a look round, hadn’t you, Miss. It’s an interesting old house.”