Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [142]
THE ABBEY RUINS, AND THE SCATTERED HABITATION that surrounds them, lie southeast of Southampton proper, just beyond the River Itchen. In fine weather, of a summer's afternoon, one might walk the three miles without fatigue; but with two boys on my hands, and the weather uncertain, I had thought it wiser to make a naval expedition of our scheme. As the diminutive craft bobbed and swayed under the boys’ restless weight, I feared I had chosen with better hope than wisdom.
“Sit ye down, young master, and have a care, or ye'll pitch us all over t'a gunnels!” Mr. Hawkins growled at George. Mr. Hawkins is not unkind, but exacting in matters nautical. I grasped the seat of George's pantaloons firmly; they were his second-best, a dark grey intended for school in Winchester, and not the fresh black set of mourning he had received of our seamstress.
The Bosun's Mate maneuvered the skiff into a small channel that knifed through the strand, and sent the vessel skimming towards shore. Above us rose Netley Cliff, and the path that climbed towards the abbey.
“That'll be Netley Lodge.” Hawkins thrust a gnarled thumb over his shoulder as he rowed, in the direction of a well-tended, comfortable affair of stone that hugged the cliff's edge. “Grand place in the old days, so they say, but nobody's lived there for years.”
“And yet,” I countered as the boat came to rest on the shingle, “there is a thread of smoke from two of the four chimneys.”
The Bosun's Mate whistled under his breath. “Right you are, Miss! Somebody has opened up the great house—but who? “
“Perhaps a wandering ruffian has taken up residence,” George suggested hopefully.
Mr. Hawkins shipped his oars. “Beyond is the village of Hound—nobbut a few cottages thrown up, and scarce of folk at that, what with the war. They'll know in Hound who've lit the fires at t'a Lodge.”
A freshening wind lifted Edward's hat from his head, and tossed it into the shallows; he scrambled from the boat in outraged pursuit.
The Bosun's Mate sniffed the salt air.
“Weather's changing. ‘Twon't do to linger long, Miss Austen, among those bits o’ rubble. I'll bide with a friend in Hound while ye amuse yerselves at t'Abbey.” He tossed a silver whistle—the emblem of his life's ambition—into George's ready hands. “Just ye blow on that, young master, when ye've a mind to head home. Jeb Hawkins'll be waiting.”
• • •
THEY RAN AHEAD OF ME, STRAIGHT UP THE PATH, IN A game of hunt and chase that involved a good deal of shrieking. I very nearly called after them to conduct themselves as gentlemen—my mother, I am sure, would have done so—but I reflected that the path was deserted enough, and the boys in want of exercise. In such a season the visitors to Netley must be fewer than in the summer months, when all of Hampshire finds a reason to sail down the Water in search of amusement The summer months! Even so! I had visited Netley last June in the company of the vanished Elizabeth— charming as ever in a gown of sprigged muslin, with a matching parasol. Elizabeth, who would never again walk with her arm through mine—
I breasted the hill, and caught my breath at the sight of the Abbey ruins: the church standing open-roofed under the sky; the slender shafts of the chancel house and the broken ribs of the clerestories; the grass-choked pavement of the north transept; and the cloister court, where wandering travellers once knocked at the wicket gate. A tree grows now in place of an altar. Ivy twines thick and green about the arched windows, as though to knit once more what the ages have unravelled. A futile hope: for all that time destroys, cannot be made new again, as my poor George and Edward have early discovered.
The boys plunged into the ruined church, and continued their game of pursuit; I proceeded at a more measured pace. I have come to Netley often enough