CHAPTER 3
Rodney was waiting for James in the morning for the walk to school. James decided it was too late to do anything about the previous evening. Rodney had let the cat out of the bag, and that was that.
"I'm sorry I let the story out," Rodney began.
"Oh, never mind," said James. "He would have found out anyway. At least by being sent to my room I had the chance to look at the books. We've got time - let's go the other way and look at Mandy's cottage with the well."
"Were the books any good?" enquired Rodney.
"Yes and no. The Victorian Gentleman is very flowery and hard to follow but the different bits have headings which help. There are some nice black and white drawings. He says about the cottage with the well - it belonged to the Abbey, he says."
"That's a link with Mandy's monk."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. He also says Abbot William was said to be an alc .... alchemist, whatever that is."
"Something to do with magic, I think. We'll ask the teachers, if they don't get cross about nonsense."
There was a light in the cottage, so it was lived-in. It was certainly very old, the top floor overhang uneven, as if bowed down with the weight of centuries. The tiled roof was all uneven, like waves on the sea.
The well was on the side of the house nearest the church. It had a round stone wall with a solid wooden lid - not the usual roofed wishing well but something far more primitive.
"Wow," said Rodney, "it is old. I bet there is something to the story."
James considered the position. The lid was large and heavy-looking, and the problem would be the inhabitant of the cottage, if he and Rodney were to investigate further. Still, who wanted to go through all that if the only reward was a dead monk?
"The books didn't say anything about murdered monks," said James. "But the digging-things-up book said the well was very old and had not been properly investigated. Still, perhaps we should try to decipher the chapel first, before we do anything else. I'd rather find treasure than dead monks. Though the dead monk would be interesting."
Rodney looked at his watch.
"We'd better run, we'll be late!"
"What's alchemy?" James later asked the History Master in class. "We found it in an old book about this place, but don't know what it is."
"It was the early form of chemistry," Mr Wilson replied. "Alchemists used to analyse things to try to find out the philosopher's stone. You don't know what that is?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"They believed that it would turn lead into gold, and give eternal life as well."
"And did anyone find it?" asked a girl.
"Some claimed to have done so. But there's no proof. After all, as far as we know, none of them lived for ever."
The class know-all spoke up.
"I've just read about the Compte de St-Germain," she said. "He is supposed to have lived for a long time, after finding the elixir of life."
"That's only a legend," frowned Mr Wilson, not happy at being upstaged.
When the class was over, Rodney and James caught up with Jane the Know-all.
"Tell us about this Comet you mentioned in class," demanded Rodney. "Where did you get that from?"
"I read it in a book," returned Know-all. "He was French Compte who lived in the 18th Century, but he had really lived before that, because he found the secret of eternal life. People kept seeing him for years and years after he was supposed to have died. It's true!"
"Life and light eternal," muttered James.
"What's that?" queried Know-all.
"Nothing."
James said no more, but he had an idea which he couldn't quite work out at the moment. He felt a sense of purpose which he had not had for a long time. If he was going to solve this local mystery, he felt he had found a clue.
"We will have to have another look at the chapel, you know," he told Rodney later.
So when school was over, they called at the Rectory. The vicar was in, and remembered them. He was pleased that they were interested in his church, and agreed to show them the chapel again that evening.
"But you must get your mother's permission first," he said. "I don't want to get into trouble for kidnapping you! Here is my telephone number. When you have agreed it with your family, give me a ring and I will meet you at the church."
Rodney's mother was somewhat surprised at her son's sudden interest in old churches, but was happy to encourage him in anything remotely serious. Anita, on the other hand, was a little doubtful, but cheered up when she heard James would be with the Vicar and Rodney. Derek was not there that evening to oppose James, so he got the agreement he wanted from Anita.
"Do you want to go too, Mandy?" she asked.
"No way!" said Mandy. "What if I met the ghost? That church is right near his well!"
James was relieved. He didn't think Mandy in her present superstitious mood would be of any help.
"Surely you don't still believe that?" enquired their mother.
"I do!" replied Mandy. "Rowena said today that there had been strange lights seen in the lane at night, near that well."
"Did Rowena see them herself?" asked Anita.
"No," admitted Mandy, "but her sister knows someone who met someone else who had."
"Typical village gossip!" her mother said. "Still, if I live in a village, this is what I must expect I suppose. Have it your own way."
James and Rodney made their way down the darkened roads to the church at about seven o'clock.
"I'm glad we're together," said Rodney. "Your sister has a point. It is creepy. But it's odd -" he dribbled a stone as if it had been a football - "We've lived here a few years and we hadn't heard any ghost stories before until your sister told you that one."
"Oh? The vicar knew about it."
"Yes, so it must be an old story. But what if someone's started it up again for reasons of their own?"
James thought about this. Rodney had a point, he felt, but he couldn't think why anyone should do this, and said so.
"What if they are looking for the treasure, now the window and paintings have been discovered, and want to keep people away from the church at night?"
"We're going to the church at night," James pointed out. "It hasn't kept us away."
"What would you do if you saw a ghostly monk?" enquired Rodney, changing dribbling-stones.
"Go up and ask him what he thought he was doing!" said the soldier's son aggressively - but he secretly hoped the opportunity wouldn't arise.
The church lights were on, and the lighted stained-glass windows looked very attractive through the wintry trees.
"Like a Christmas card," said Rodney. "There will be a carol service here at the end of term. We always go from school."
James still hadn't been able to stand the idea of Christmas with Derek, so he only mumbled a reply. He did not have to say any more about this, because they had reached the church door where the vicar was waiting for them.
"I got some books from the Library, like you said," James told him and told him what they were.
"Ah yes," said the Vicar. I have heard of the Victorian Gentleman, but have never read him. Was it interesting?"
"He said Abbot William was an alchemist," said James.
"Ah yes," said the Vicar again. "He was supposed to be. But then everyone who had a scientific interest was called an alchemist in those days."
"Could he turn lead into gold?" asked Rodney.
"No-one can do that," replied the Vicar. "I expect people thought he could, though. Hence the treasure story. He was probably just an amateur scientist. I got out the Abbey books for you to look at. There is something in one of them translated out of Abbot William's book which I expect you would like to read."
"Yes please!" they said, and now they were in the Lady Chapel.
Since it was dark outside, the window was not at all clear - the churchyard lamp outside lit it up only faintly. The outline of the pattern was all that really showed and the bright white robe was dull. The vicar allowed them to go up the altar steps and look more closely at the stained glass.
"What do the words say?" James asked, after squinting at the three scrolls along the bottom of the window. "They aren't in English."
"Of course, you don't do Latin at school nowadays, do you," sighed the Vicar. "They are quotations from the Latin Psalter. This one" - he pointed to the left - "says Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis, and this one in the middle of the window: Ecce audivimus eam in Ephrata and here to the right it follows on: Invenimus eam in campis silvae."
The boys looked blank.
"Who is Silvia, it sounds like," said Rodney, remembering what he considered dreary Elizabethan songs from a recent music lesson. "But why is she camping?"
"Nothing to do with Silvia", said the Vicar, looking at them sternly through his thick spectacles. "This is what it means, in order left to right: 'Light rises in darkness for the righteous', 'Behold we heard of it in Ephrata'- ("Pardon?" said Rodney, unenlightened) - "and 'We found it in the fields of the wood'."
"Found what?" asked James.
"What's an Ephrata?" asked Rodney.
"I said it's from the Psalter - the Psalms in the Bible," answered the Vicar. "Ephrata was another name for Bethlehem - I suppose you've heard of that? Good. What was found in the Fields of the Wood was the old Ark of the Covenant from the temple, which was captured by the enemies of Israel and finally brought back and kept at a place called Kirjath-Jearim - the Fields of the Wood. People said the Ark was a symbol of Christ, so the idea is that Christ was found in Bethlehem in a humble stable, like the Ark in a humble home. He is the Light that rises in darkness, too. It's the Christmas story, really."
"Is that all?"
"What else could it mean? That's what the experts decided when the window was restored."
"It's clever stuff, and quite right for Christmas," agreed Rodney.
"Shup up about Christmas," thought James, but didn't say it out loud. Out loud he said - "There are more words up the top of the window, I seem to remember. What do they say? I can't see them against the dark."
"They are just titles of Mary," replied the Vicar. "I suppose they go with the little buildings painted up there in the tracery. One says Turris Davidica (Tower of David), and the other Domus Aurea (House of Gold)."
"Gold!" thought James. "A clue!"
He just said, "That's interesting." He wrote down all that the vicar had said, but anyone who knew Latin would have despaired of his spelling.
Next they looked at the wall-paintings, which were on either side of the altar and on the north wall, but could make nothing of them. They were trees interlinked, as far as the boys could tell. In between the trees were painted roses, and crosses or stars; the pattern was too faded to really tell more detail than that. There were no more words.
They came down from the altar steps and looked at the painting on the north wall. This seemed to show two people in long dresses sitting beside a small round building of some kind.
Rodney recognised it first.
"It's a well!" he cried.
"Yes, it's Christ and the Woman at the Well," said the Vicar, "or at least, that's what I say it is."
"It looks like the well at the cottage," Rodney went on. James peered at the painting more closely. It did, too!
"All wells probably looked like that in Abbot William's day," said the Vicar. "I don't suppose it's any particular well."
"Jesus hasn't got a beard," complained James. "I can't tell Him from the Woman."
"The painting has faded very much over the years," replied the Vicar. "Or maybe He never did have. In some old pictures He was shown without a beard, so perhaps Abbot William copied one of those. The experts weren't sure what the picture was meant to be, but I am."
James carefully copied this picture into his notebook too - he had already copied the pattern behind the altar. He could not see the window clearly enough to copy that tonight, but he had the sketch he had made on the school visit, and that would do for now.
Politely (his mother would have been amazed) he thanked the Vicar and said that he thought they ought to be getting home now, as they had homework to do.
"Maybe I will see you on Sunday?" asked the Vicar, not too hopefully. James surprised himself and Rodney by saying maybe he would.
Before they left the Vicar gave them the books he had promised. As there were two, Rodney took one and James the other, deciding to compare notes the next day.
They walked back towards their own lane, discussing what they had seen.
"I think that window's a code," said James. "'House of Gold' indeed! I don't wonder people talked!"
"That's all very well," mused Rodney. "But where is his House of Gold. That's what I'd like to know!"
"We'll just have to find out. Perhaps it's the cottage."
They were passing through the tunnel of dark trees that edged the fields of Manor Farm to their right and the gardens of the few old houses to their left. There was no moon, and the stars were shining brightly through the branches. Suddenly Rodney nudged James, who had been deep in thought.
"Look over there!"
James looked where Rodney was pointing. Between the trees of Manor Farm he saw, or imagined he saw, a faint light.
"It's just the light from the farmhouse showing through the trees," he said.
"No it isn't, because it moved."
"That's the wind in the branches." James remembered his boast about tackling ghostly monks and wished he hadn't said it. However, he remembered he was going to be a soldier, and stood still, watching the trees.
The light wavered, then crossed from one tree to the next.
"See, I told you so!" whispered Rodney.
James was unable to deny what he himself had seen. He steeled himself, then crossed the road. He had to climb up a bank to reach the hedge which surrounded the field and its edge of narrow woodland, not an easy task in the dark. He grabbed clumps of withered grass and pulled himself up. Finally he made it. Standing upright on top of the bank, he could just see over the hedge.
Now for it. Could he see the light now? Was that it flashing over there? He couldn't be sure. He swallowed hard, clenched his fists and took a deep breath.
"What are you doing over there?" he called.
Silence. Darkness. Nothing but the faint rustle of wind through dried leaves. James waited for what seemed an age, but there was no answer to his challenge, and the light was nowhere to be seen, so he slithered back down the bank to join Rodney.
