The Gropes (18 page)

‘How did you sleep?’ she asked.

‘Perfectly well. Actually, I had a very nice dream about you. It was about living with you after we’re married.’

Belinda was charmed. He really was a delightful youth.

‘Only two days to go now,’ she said and kissed him before going down to the kitchen to make his breakfast.

Behind her, Esmond smiled to himself. Little did she guess. The two days couldn’t pass too quickly for him.

After he’d eaten he went out again and along the railway line until he was round a curve that was once more out of sight of the Hall. Then he sat down in the sun and went over yet again what he was going to say to Belinda once they were married. And how long he should wait before he carried out his threat. He decided he’d wait for a week to let Belinda assume she was still the boss of the estate and then he’d strike. He’d tell her that unless she gave him total control he would have her prosecuted for bigamy. And for kidnapping. And probably for poisoning him with alcohol too.

He was sure that she’d break. But what if she didn’t? She might turn nasty and dangerous. He had to take that possibility into account. Well, then he’d disappear and scare the wits out of her by leaving a note suggesting he was going to the police. Yes, that was the answer if she wasn’t intimidated by his threats. In any case, he couldn’t really believe she’d turn nasty.
After all, she’d saved him from that swine Uncle Albert and from his own murderous father and domineering mother and he was certainly grateful for that.

He lay back in the sun and wondered what his parents were doing. Not that he much cared. He’d turned away from the past and was now concentrated on the future, his future as the first male Grope to be head of the family and in total control of the estate.

It was an extraordinary prospect and a challenging one. But the first thing was to go through with the wedding. Once he and Belinda were married he could force her to do exactly what he wanted.

After two hours Esmond climbed the side of the railway bank and up the hill beyond to the thick pine wood that straddled the top. He’d never been there and he wondered when the trees had been planted. He walked a bit further and suddenly came to a large clearing with a stone wall around it. To his astonishment it was a graveyard. He climbed over the wall and looked at the names on the gravestones. They were nearly all those of Grope women who had run the Hall for many hundreds of years. It occurred to Esmond that if he succeeded with his plan he’d be buried here too when he died. The thought did not depress him in the least. Rather it delighted him. The cemetery was filled with wild flowers and shrubs in bloom but there was no sign that anyone had visited it recently. He wondered why the person who had been buried in the long grave in the chapel had been
buried there and not here with all the others. It was much nicer here with a view of all the surrounding countryside and no one much to disturb you.

Esmond looked at his watch and saw it was time for lunch. He climbed back over the wall and hurried back through the trees and twenty minutes later he was in the kitchen. To his amazement in the middle of the old deal table there was a splendid wedding cake. Belinda smiled at him.

‘I thought we’d do things properly,’ she said. ‘I ordered it yesterday and drove into Wexham today to collect it while you were out. After all, tomorrow is Friday.’

‘Good Lord, I must be getting absent-minded. I thought you said today was Wednesday. Anyway, that’s wonderful,’ said Esmond. ‘So tomorrow we’ll be Mr and Mrs Grope.’

‘Of course, darling,’ she said and kissed him more passionately than he’d ever been kissed before. ‘Now eat your lunch. We’re going to have a gorgeous honeymoon.’

‘Honeymoon? Where are we going?’

‘Nowhere, my love, we’ll have it here. Gropes have never gone away from the Hall when they got married. That’s the tradition and we must continue it.’

‘Oh definitely,’ said Esmond who had every intention of doing exactly the opposite. After lunch he went up to his room and wrote the note about going to the police if she turned really nasty about his
becoming the head of the Hall. He put it in an envelope which he sealed with superglue and took out with him to look for Old Samuel. He also wanted to ask Young Jeremy to be his best man next day.

After searching high and low he finally found him in the chapel. To Esmond’s amazement Old Samuel appeared to be using a carjack under the end of the long brass gravestone set into the floor. He already had it raised eighteen inches and he was busy filling the gap beneath with stones from the disused railway.

‘Take a look at this,’ he said. ‘I’ve always known there was something very weird about this gravestone.’

Esmond peered down and saw the feet of a skeleton with the end of a spade beside them.

‘Weird is hardly the word,’ he muttered. ‘He isn’t even in a coffin. And why is he buried here and not up in the graveyard with all the other Gropes? Do you think he was someone special?’

‘Could have been, I suppose, though why they put this great slab of brass on top puzzles me.’

‘Possibly to stop him getting out,’ said Esmond.

‘Or he had it put there to stop the Grope women from getting at him,’ smirked Old Samuel.

Esmond wasn’t sure he understood the joke but went on. ‘Anyway, Young Jeremy, I came to ask if you’d be my best man tomorrow.’

‘Sure, though rather you than me. I wouldn’t marry a Grope no matter how attractive she was. And don’t
forget to call me Old Samuel when the women are about else you’ll be for it.’

‘Don’t worry about me. Like I told you, I’ve got plans.’

‘Yes and this fellow probably had his plans as well,’ said Old Samuel with a grin, pointing down at the grave. He let the jack down and the brass plate fell back into place. ‘Well, I’d better make things spick-and-span in here if the wedding is tomorrow or it’ll be my grave I’m digging next.’

The next morning, a messenger arrived before breakfast with a letter from the Rev. Horston to say that as he had six weddings to conduct that day he would conduct that of Mr Grope and Miss Parry at nine o’clock in the evening or possibly later. He apologised profusely for the delay this would undoubtedly cause them.

‘What a nuisance,’ said Esmond when he came down dressed in his suit and wearing his new shoes, but his aunt and fiancée did not agree.

‘After six weddings he’ll be exhausted and won’t remember ours at all clearly. That is bound to be an advantage to us.’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ said Esmond.

‘Because he’ll be in a hurry and won’t ask too many questions about our religious beliefs like whether we’re members of the Church of England or atheists. That sort of thing. I mean, do you know if you’ve ever been baptised?’

‘Good Lord no. I wouldn’t remember in any case. Can you recall what happened when you had only recently been born? If you can you must have a superb memory. Anyway, I’m going for a walk.’

‘You’re always going for walks,’ commented Belinda. ‘I can’t think why.’

‘Because I find the estate interesting. I’m a great lover of wildlife and the countryside. I used to go up to the woods on Croham Hurst with my father before he became an alcoholic and went mad and tried to stab me. There was a sort of very steep gravel path called Breakneck Hill that I liked to slide down. My father seemed to like me to slide down it too.’ Esmond paused, lost in the memory of a time that now seemed very far distant before adding, ‘In any case, I need to get some exercise. I’d die of boredom sitting around the house all day.’

‘Oh, go for your walk then. I can’t have you dying of boredom. In fact, I’d come with you but I have lots of things I must do in the house.’

Esmond went out, vastly relieved that Belinda wasn’t coming with him. He strode up the meadow towards the wall and the pine wood and once he was out of sight of the Hall hurried along to Jeremy’s cabin.
His friend and accomplice (as he now thought of him) was sitting on the steps enjoying a cup of tea. He was unusually well dressed in a tweed suit.

‘I’m afraid the wedding isn’t until nine o’clock tonight,’ Esmond said. ‘That clergyman has six other weddings today. Sorry about that.’

‘Nothing to worry about. Anyway, I’ve finished cleaning the chapel and even polished that tombstone,’ he said. ‘It’s got the strangest inscription on it. You’ll never guess what it says.’

‘The name of that skeleton bloke underneath?’

Jeremy shook his head. ‘Not on your life. No one’s name. Want to try again?’

Esmond shook his head. ‘No idea. What does it say?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘Of course. Don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘All right. It says, “Who takes me from my tomb will meet his doom. Who does not let me lie in peace will never die in peace. Hell awaits the stranger’s hand. Best be off my precious land.” Grisly threats, don’t you think?’

‘Certainly very weird. Why didn’t we see this yesterday when we used the jack to lift that slab?’ asked Esmond.

‘Because it hadn’t been cleaned for goodness only knows how many centuries. It was only when I used metal polish time after time that I spotted it.’

‘Very peculiar,’ said Esmond, dismissing it from his mind.

That evening Esmond was back in the Hall dressed in his suit and his brand-new shoes. To his surprise, Belinda introduced her bridesmaid, an ancient old woman who he could only suppose was some kind of Grope retainer or nanny. Myrtle had sent word from her room that she was much too poorly to attend and no one else from the family had been invited to join them.

They sat in the big drawing room and chatted while waiting for the Rev. Horston who arrived looking, as Belinda had predicted, tired but on time at nine o’clock. He was clearly relieved that there were no guests.

‘Ah well, we may as well proceed with the ceremony,’ he said as they rose and, led by the bridegroom, crossed the courtyard to the tiny chapel where Old Samuel had lit an inordinate number of candles. Outside the sun was setting but the chapel windows were so small and splendidly stained that even the weary parson was impressed. Esmond introduced Old Samuel as his best man and the Rev. Horston conducted the marriage remarkably quickly and without any awkward questions. Belinda had been right: he wanted to get back to his vicarage and go to bed as soon as he could. She gave him several hundred pounds more than he had expected and he drove off a well-contented man.

Once he’d left Old Samuel opened a bottle of excellent champagne and toasted the happy couple and an hour later Mr and Mrs Grope went to a large
bed in a bedroom at the far end of the house where they thought that their lovemaking couldn’t be overheard. Finally exhausted they went to sleep.

It was another week before Esmond gathered together his courage and decided that although his lady wife seemed to be behaving herself he really must put his scheme into practice. He was in the middle of rehearsing his conversation with Belinda with only the piglets to bear witness to his extreme nervousness when Jeremy found him and asked him if he would come up to his cabin.

‘I haven’t yet given you a wedding present,’ he said when Esmond arrived.

‘But there’s no need to do that, really there isn’t.’

‘Oh but there is, Joe. You’ve been the first person to be a true friend to me ever since I arrived at Grope Hall and started being Old Samuel instead of Young Jeremy.’ He looked sad for a moment before brightening. ‘See that sack with tar all over it in the corner. That’s my present to you. Go on, open it.’

Esmond still hesitated. ‘I’m serious. You don’t have to give me anything. I’ve got everything I want. Well, I will have if everything goes to plan.’

‘I insist, Joe. You’re my best friend. We shook hands on that, remember.’

‘I do indeed and I’ll always be your friend.’

‘Look at your present for me then.’

‘Well, if you insist.’

Esmond crossed the room and after some difficulty
managed to unwind the copper wire which held the sack closed. As he did so it fell over and some coins spilt out and lay scattered on the floor. Esmond stared at them in amazement. He had never seen money like this before. He picked one up and examined it. It was a gold sovereign. There was no doubt in his mind and as if to confirm his belief the sack itself was terribly heavy.

‘There must be a fortune here. Where on earth did you find it?’ he gasped.

‘There is. I reckon several million. As for where I found it, can’t you guess?’

Esmond tried to guess. Finally he shook his head. ‘You’re not going to tell me under that great slab you were polishing?’ he said, slumping into a chair.

‘Spot on.’

Esmond gaped at him. ‘But it was so heavy. You can’t have lifted it yourself.’

‘I rigged up a sort of crane from a tractor and fastened a whacking great chain to one end of the slab and winched it up that way while you were having it off with Mrs Grope after the wedding.’

‘But someone must have heard you,’ said Esmond.

‘With the racket you and your missus were making? You’re joking! Anyway, the chapel’s some way from the Hall. After I’d done that it was simple. I just moved our skeleton friend to one side and kept shoving in a metal rod until I felt something. Then I dug down and somehow hauled this sack up. It took me
all night and God knows I was shattered. I slept all day and most of the next night.’

‘I’m not surprised. How did you get the sack up here? It weighs a ton.’

‘The tractor again. The tractor with a wheelbarrow tied behind it.’

Esmond stared at him silently in still more amazement mingled with admiration.

Jeremy broke the silence.

‘Well, you’re a very rich man now. You can do what you like, buy what you like, go where you like. You can –’

‘Balls!’ Esmond exploded. ‘I know what I’m going to do, or rather we are. We’re going to go halves. You found the stuff which is more than I could ever have done in a million years though how the hell you knew it was there I can’t even begin to imagine.’

Jeremy laughed. ‘Think of that iron slab and the inscription on it in lousy verse. That told me there was something more than a skeleton with a spade down there, though I didn’t expect it would be a fortune in gold sovereigns.’