The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,122
deteriorated, and as we headed steeply upwards towards the first bend Ned changed down a gear and grinned sideways at me.
‘It’s much more exciting coming down, but here we go!’
The road – which wasn’t really worthy of the name – ascended in a series of sharp zigzags through thick woods. Where there were crash barriers, they showed ominous signs of vehicles having bashed into them, and a deep storm drain down one side of the road must have made things tricky if two vehicles met … assuming there was more than one mad driver living in the area.
Ned took a hand off the steering wheel to point out a half-ruined cottage, the Sixpenny Cottage of the treasure story.
‘You’d have had to have been a keen treasure hunter to hike up here,’ I said.
‘Lots of people seem to find the lure of treasure irresistible, even when it’s as unlikely to be as realistic as this one. I expect the cottage and garden were searched several times over before they finally found that box in the outbuildings, but I bet Wayne and his pals with their metal detectors turned it over later, just in case, too.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I’m sure they have, though they’d have come up by Land Rover, not walked. His friends are like Wayne: after easy money with no effort. I’m off up to Risings in the morning to have a word with him about those holes in my lawn,’ he added grimly. ‘It’s his regular day working there.’
‘There’s no proof it was him, though, Ned.’
‘But I know he did it and I’m going to make it abundantly clear that if he ever sets foot on my property again, he’ll be toast.’
For a moment, the usual easy-going, good-natured Ned Mars was overlaid with something older, grimmer and slightly intimidating. I thought Wayne would do well to keep his distance.
Eventually we emerged from the woodlands onto more level ground, on which stood a very small stone church with a square tower, surrounded by a walled graveyard. The surface of the road as we reached the gate suddenly returned to smooth tarmac and we stopped bouncing about, which was a relief.
‘Here we are,’ he said unnecessarily, pulling up at the side of the road. ‘It’s just outside the Thorstane parish boundary, one of those strange old quirks on the map, and it was always the Jericho’s End church. I don’t know why they built it up here, unless it was because there isn’t much flat land down in the valley for a church and graveyard – or not land that doesn’t flood, as those monks obviously found.’
We got out and walked through a wooden gate and up a gravel path.
‘There’s a Grace family tomb behind the church in the oldest part of the graveyard – two, in fact, because Nathaniel Grace built one there, too. The Lordly-Graces have a newer plot in the graveyard behind the Victorian Gothic church in Thorstane. It’s a pretentious building with a door like something out of a Hammer horror film – we’ll drive past it in a bit.’
The door to the church was open, as Ned said it usually was, only being locked at night.
‘They don’t have anything valuable, just a few pewter candlesticks and embroidered hassocks, and I don’t think there’s a huge market for those.’
Oddly, it seemed smaller inside than out. The walls had been painted white and the pews were plain, dark wooden ones, shiny with use and polish. One worn stone step led up to a simple altar.
It had the indefinable atmosphere of an ancient holy place, peaceful, serene and slightly scented with the lingering traces of flowers and Calor Gas heaters.
The Angel Gabriel window was small and narrow, with a pointed top. He stood in the centre of the large panel, his name on a banner near his feet, in case you’d missed the clue in the church’s name or the large white lily he was brandishing. It was a very ancient window, the pieces of glass small and brightly coloured. The angel’s somewhat androgynous face was calm but stern, and his wings were folded. Over his head, in the topmost section, a host of smaller angels in gaily coloured robes were swooping about, holding what looked like harps and trumpets.
‘The Puritans never smashed this one: when the villagers of Jericho’s End heard what was happening in other churches, they came up here and took it away and hid it.’
‘Is that in Elf’s book, too? I must have missed it.’