Death in Devon (The County Guides) Read online

  ‘Irish dogs,’ said Morley. ‘Like Irish men. Or women, for that matter. Not to be trifled with. Cave canem, Sefton – as they said in old Pompeii.’ He stroked the dog absentmindedly. ‘You really do need to learn how to handle animals, Sefton. They can sense fear, you see. Like children. One should simply fondle them – thus – when they’re near.’ He fondled the dog, thus. ‘But without appearing to pay them much attention.’ He then duly paid the dog no attention. ‘Very much like the Irish … So. Anyway,’ he said, striding around in his underwear, as if it were the most natural way to conduct a meeting. ‘There’s Norfolk.’ He pointed to a pile of typed papers, stacked on the floor next to boxes of index cards: the work of the past week. What was impressive was not only his uncanny ability to produce copy but also his capacity for processing information of all kinds; he had a method of both overseeing and arranging material that was entirely his own, or certainly that I had never encountered before and that required the constant categorising, filing and sub-categorising and refiling of his papers and notecards. He often worked through the night, shuffling papers.

  Fionn mac Cumhaill (pronounced in the Celtic fashion)

  He pointed to another teetering pile of papers on a desk.

  ‘And there’s some correspondence we should probably sort before setting off, Sefton. There’s been quite a lot of talk about what happened in Norfolk, as you know. I’d like to avoid any such troubles on our next trip.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anyway, I cleared a couple of dozen letters before going to bed last night, but I’d like to get them all done before we leave.’

  ‘I see. It seems like rather a lot,’ I ventured. I imagined that such a pile of correspondence might take several days to work through.

  ‘And what is our motto here, Sefton?’

  ‘No slacking.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘No shilly-shallying.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘And no funking.’

  At that moment Miriam appeared at the study door. She was dressed and made up, as usual, in a fashion that suggested that she was about to arrive fashionably late at a cocktail party, probably somewhere in Kensington, thronged with wealthy and elegant suitors.

  The County Guides: Norfolk, in preparation

  ‘Hard at it already then, boys?’

  ‘Ah, Miriam,’ said Morley. ‘You’re uncharacteristically bright and early.’

  ‘Good morning, Father. Yes. The storm kept me awake in the night. I was terribly disturbed. And what about you, Sefton? Another long and lonely night?’

  ‘I slept as well as could be expected, Miss Morley.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘We’ll be leaving at seven, children,’ said Morley. ‘Quick breakfast, and on the road. I want to be in Devon by nightfall.’

  ‘Devon?’ I said.

  ‘And when is your speech, Father?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Founder’s Day.’

  ‘You’re giving a speech?’ I said. ‘In Devon.’

  ‘Yes, I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. I’ve been asked to give the Founder’s Day address down at All Souls, Sefton. They’ve just moved into new school buildings down there somewhere. Where is it, Miriam?’

  ‘Rousdon, Father.’

  ‘Rousdon, yes, that’s it, and—’

  ‘Or Rouse them, Sefton,’ said Miriam coquettishly.

  ‘So the plan is to base ourselves there and tackle Devon. Book number two. How does that sound, Sefton?’

  ‘Mad,’ said Miriam. ‘Utterly, utterly mad. As usual.’

  ‘Super,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, please,’ said Miriam. ‘Soo-per. If you’d wanted someone to soft-soap you, Father, you could have employed a masseur.’ She raised a quizzical eyebrow towards me.

  ‘Thank you, Miriam,’ said Morley. ‘Let’s fight nicely, shall we?’

  ‘Sorry, gents. Must pack,’ said Miriam, leaving as abruptly as she’d arrived, glimmering as she went.

  ‘Untameable,’ said Morley, shaking his head. ‘Wild, Sefton. Utterly wild. Like Devon.’

  The Lagonda

  CHAPTER 3

  GATEWAY TO THE RIVIERA

  AFTER A BRIEF but exhausting breakfast – Morley expatiating on the history of sausages, the music of Wagner, the music of birdsong, the symbolic meaning of the human hand, and the decline of smithying (‘It’s the bicycles I blame, Sefton, not the cars, and of course people getting rid of the pony and trap’) – Miriam and I loaded the Lagonda and prepared to set off. The weather was sullen, and so was Miriam. After everything had been loaded – massive stationery supplies, mostly – I assisted her in lashing a couple of long planks to the side of the car.

  ‘Careful with the paintwork, Sefton, or you’ll have to touch it up. We wouldn’t want that, would we?’

  ‘No, Miss Morley,’ I agreed.

  ‘Ah,’ said Morley, appearing fortuitously with his trusty Irish terrier. He tapped the long wooden boards with a great deal of proprietorial pleasure. ‘They arrived then?’

  ‘Apparently,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Beautiful, aren’t they, Sefton?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. My attention was elsewhere: I was attempting to fondle the dog, and simultaneously to ignore it, as Morley had advised. But the dog was not impressed – the damned thing was tugging determinedly at the turn-ups on my trousers.

  ‘Finn!’ said Miriam sternly, and the dog immediately stopped and trotted off. Miriam gave me a pitying smile.

  ‘Absolutely beautiful,’ Morley was saying to himself, about the boards, which were indeed beautiful – sleek, rounded, polished – though I had absolutely no idea what on earth they were.

  ‘Solid ash,’ said Morley. ‘Had them made by Grays of Cambridge – the cricket chaps. Not cheap. But worth every penny. They finish them with the shinbone of a reindeer. Did you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Gives a lovely finish.’

  ‘And they are … ?’

  ‘Surfboards, of course,’ said Morley.

  I must have looked, I suppose, rather nonplussed. It was still early in the morning.

  ‘Really, Sefton, have you never seen a surfboard?’ said Miriam, delighted.

  ‘No. Of course I’ve seen … surfboards and … surfboarding, but—’

  ‘Well, you’re in for a treat,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Morley. ‘It’s very—’

  ‘Liberating,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Morley. ‘Liberating is exactly the word. Like flying. Being free.’

  ‘It’ll be a new experience for you, Sefton,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Hawaiian in origin, obviously,’ said Morley, as he climbed into the back of the car, and Miriam fitted his portable desk with his typewriter stays. ‘I’ve done a little research, I think our best bets are north Devon. Saunton. Croyde. Round about there.’

  ‘We could camp on the beach!’ said Miriam, clapping her hands, and then carefully slotting Morley’s favourite travelling Hermes typewriter into place.

  ‘It sounds like it’s going to be quite an adventure,’ I said, climbing into the back next to Morley, who unceremoniously dumped the manuscript of the Norfolk book and a pile of index cards into my lap.

  ‘Let’s hope so!’ said Miriam, climbing into the front, and starting up the engine, which gave its customary pleasing growl. ‘Better than bloody Norfolk anyway.’

  ‘Language, Miriam,’ said Morley.

  ‘I need adventure, Father.’

  ‘I know, my dear – don’t we all. And Devon is of course the great county of adventurers and explorers. Scott of the Antarctic – from?’

  ‘Plymouth?’ said Miriam.

  ‘Correct. And Sir Francis Drake, the old sea dog, born near? Sefton?’

  ‘Erm. Plymouth?’ I said.

  ‘Tavistock. So we’ll have to pay respects. And we’ll also have to visit Sir Walter Raleigh’s bench ends in All Saints, East Budleigh.’

  ‘Great,’
I said, as Miriam raced the car down St George’s long drive.

  ‘And a trip to Axminster, home of the eponymous carpet. Exeter, obviously. And Ottery St Mary.’

  ‘Utterly St Mary!’ said Miriam.

  ‘Ever heard of it, Sefton?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Shame on you. Church modelled on Exeter Cathedral, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born there. Ring any bells?’

  ‘Erm.’

  ‘Yawn,’ said Miriam.

  ‘And speaking of bells, it has a clock, I think, that’s said to date from the fourteenth century, and which is one of the only pre-Copernican clocks in the country—’

  ‘And there’s surfing,’ said Miriam. ‘Which way, Father?’

  ‘Left.’

  And so the conversation and the journey continued across country and down to Devon, hour after hour after endless hour, Morley, like Pliny the Elder, continually making notes along the way – ‘Lavender! Roses! Gypsophila! Dry-stone wall!’ – while I corrected his work on the manuscript of the Norfolk book, and Miriam smoked innumerable cigarettes and offered the occasional taunt and barbed aside: she was, as usual, determined to provoke. Somewhere in Essex, for example, I think it was, we passed a woman riding a horse and this excited a typical little Miriam provocation. She often spoke like someone trying to get around the Hays Code.

  ‘Medicine may well have something to say on the subject of whether women should ride astride once they have reached maturity,’ Morley had remarked. ‘Side saddle is surely the appropriate method, wouldn’t you agree, Sefton?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, come, come,’ said Miriam, cocking her head rather. ‘Surely you must have an opinion on the question of women’s riding styles?’

  ‘It is a matter about which I have no opinion whatsoever,’ I said.

  ‘Such a shame,’ she said, revving the engine unnecessarily.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Morley. ‘No need.’

  For navigational purposes Morley had cut up and mounted onto thin oak boards a large Philip’s Road Atlas of Britain, dividing England county by county into squares of approximately nine by six inches. It was my job to arrange these giant county playing cards, as it were, into some kind of meaningful hand, and then to deal out the route, card by card, to Miriam, with Morley adding his own inevitable comments and elaborate instructions: ‘Avoid Cambridge at all costs, Miriam – whole place stagnant with marshes and dons!’; ‘Ah, yes! Beautiful lute-like Berkshire! Belly to the west, neck to the east!’ Etcetera, etcetera. Morley would also make requests for ludicrous detours and stopping points – ‘Do we have time for a dawdle through Hampshire?’ ‘Up to Bristol? Cardiff?’ – which Miriam, thankfully, resisted.

  ‘This is the route, Father, that we are sticking to, if we wish to arrive any time today. Repeat after me: Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.’

  ‘And Devon!’ cried Morley.

  A giant county playing card

  ‘Obviously,’ said Miriam. ‘No slacking. No shilly-shallying. No funking.’

  ‘No Bristol?’ said Morley.

  ‘Correct,’ said Miriam. ‘And no Bath, no Basingstoke, no Bournemouth. So please don’t ask. I have the wheel, Father. Mine is the power.’

  ‘Onwards, Boudicca!’ cried Morley. ‘To defend the nation!’

  We stopped for a filthy tea somewhere near Salisbury, at the inexplicably named Nell Gwynn Tea-Rooms, a place decorated both inside and out with an unfortunate combination of fake wooden beams and very shiny yellow bricks.

  ‘A Tudorbethan lavatory,’ said Miriam, as we pulled up. ‘How quaint.’

  ‘Worse than Mugby Junction,’ said Morley, which seemed to be an allusion to something or other: it certainly made Miriam laugh. They often enjoyed little jokes like these, based on a lifetime’s shared experience and reading: I imagine Milton and his daughter might have enjoyed similar happy reminiscences. Our Nell Gwynn tea consisted of cold potato soup and rather hard and arid little rolls which produced in us all such indigestion that we had to consume several packs of Morley’s favourite mints in order to overcome the aftertaste. (These mints – Bassett’s People’s Mints – are not to be confused with actual Morley Mints, which were at one time produced by the manufacturers of Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls, and which Morley consumed in incredible quantities. ‘Insufficient weaning,’ Miriam would traditionally reply, when Morley asked for another of his mint balls, and ‘Oh, do spare us your Freud,’ he would traditionally respond, popping another into his mouth.)

  And then finally, towards evening, after much indigestion and some confusion in my dealing of the county cards – I had accidentally confused Somerset with Dorset, sending us on a rather round-about route – we made it to Honiton. The weather had remained calm all day, but now the sky closed in again, menacing, threatening more rain. This did not, however, dampen Morley’s mood.

  ‘At last!’ he cried. ‘Honiton! Gateway to the Riviera!’

  I looked around as we sped through the streets – street, really – of Honiton.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Indeed, Sefton. Welcome to Devon! So, what are we looking forward to most in Devon, Sefton?’

  ‘Erm …’

  ‘Yes, Sefton,’ called Miriam. ‘What are we looking forward to most in Devon?’

  ‘In Devon?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Morley. ‘Or Dumnonia, as I believe the ancient kingdom was once called.’

  ‘And don’t say the cream teas!’ called Miriam from the front seat.

  ‘The …’

  ‘Moors, of course,’ said Morley. ‘Yes. Correct. Dartmoor. Exmoor.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘And it is renowned for what else, Devon? Topographically, geographically, I mean?’

  ‘Well, there are the moors, obviously, and …’ I was struggling rather.

  ‘The fact that it is the only one of our counties to be in proud possession of not one but two coastlines!’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Correct! And any other particular places and sights of interest? I am myself particularly looking forward to visiting Torquay United, Exeter City and the mighty Argyle. But you’re not a fan of association football, are you, Sefton?’

  ‘Well, no, I’m more of a—’

  ‘Lah-di-dah?’ said Morley. ‘But we’ll say no more about it. What about you, Miriam?’

  ‘I can’t wait to just strip off and get into the water,’ she called. ‘I’ve brought my costume. Have you brought yours, Sefton?’

  I forbore to answer.

  ‘It’s emerald green,’ she said.

  ‘And some rockpooling perhaps,’ said Morley. ‘Crabbing. I do love a spot of crabbing.’

  ‘And surfing,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Morley. ‘Now, Devon: patron saint? Sefton?’

  ‘St Petroc?’ said Miriam.

  ‘Good guess. But wrong. Cornwall, Petroc. Though I believe he did pass through on his way down. St Winfrid I think is Devon’s, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Possibly, Father.’

  ‘Also the patron saint of?’

  ‘Germany?’ said Miriam.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care.’

  ‘Brewers,’ said Morley.

  ‘Sefton will feel right at home then.’

  I blushed rather.

  ‘And we must make a visit to the Dartmouth pixies, Miriam, while we’re here. Or piskies, as I believe the locals call them. Pharisees, as they are known in Sussex. The little people. They like to ride ponies and lead unwary travellers to their doom in the bogs on the moors, isn’t that right, Miriam?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Pixies?’ I said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Deadly,’ said Miriam. ‘Deadly serious.’

  ‘Pixies?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Absolutely. Father is
as serious about his pixies as Conan Doyle was about his fairies. Didn’t you know? Deadly, deadly serious.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, I suppose we must allow for the possibility of—’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t believe in pixies, Sefton!’ cried Miriam.

  ‘Joke!’ cried Morley. ‘Jolly good, Miriam.’

  They roared with laughter: they had a curious sense of humour, the pair of them.

  ‘Pixies!’ cried Morley, tears coursing down his face. ‘Pixies!’

  ‘Pixies!’ cried Miriam, sobbing with laughter also.

  ‘Do you think I have entirely taken leave of my senses?’ This was not a question that required an answer. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

  ‘People will believe anything, won’t they?’ said Miriam.

  ‘Indeed they will, my dear,’ said Morley. ‘Indeed they will.’

  ‘Ghoulies and ghosties!’

  ‘Gremlins and goodness knows what,’ said Morley. ‘Do you know Yeats’s poem “The Land of Heart’s Desire”, Sefton?’

  ‘I’m—’

  He began to intone, in Yeatsian fashion:

  The Land of Faery

  Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,

  Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,

  Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

  ‘Pure fantasy,’ said Morley. ‘Absolute nonsense.’

  ‘Pixies!’ cried Miriam.

  ‘Pixies!’ echoed Morley. ‘Marvellous! Marvellous!’

  And so, in characteristic fashion, we arrived at our destination.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE VERY BOUNDARIES OF ENGLAND

  ROUSDON, according to White’s History, Gazetteer and Directory of Devonshire (1850) – a copy of which Morley had usefully brought with us, along with several other dusty old directories, including Pigot’s, Kelly’s and Slater’s, and a small suitcase-worth of up-to-date guidebooks to the geography, topography, history, culture, coastal scenery and cider-making heritage of a county that most of them insisted on referring to, inevitably, at some point in their Exmoor sheep-herd-like ramblings as ‘Glorious’ – ‘is an extra parochial estate belonging to R.C. Bartlett Esq., and lying within the bounds of Axminster parish, adjoining the great landslip of Dowlands and Bindon’.