Виктория Холт: Curse of the Kings

Life had certainly become more interesting since it had been decided that I share lessons with the Bodreans.

On this July afternoon I was interested to learn that the Squire's current sin was, as Mr. Pegger said, "putting in his nose where God hadn't intended it should go."

"And where is that, Mr. Pegger?"

"In Carter's Meadow, that's where. He wants to set up digging there. Disturbing God's earth. It's all along of these people who've been coming here. Filling the place with heathen ideas."

"What are they going to dig for, Mr. Pegger?" I asked.

"For worms I'd reckon." That was meant to be a joke for Mr. Pegger's face creased into what did service for a smile.

"So they're all coming down to dig, are they?" I pictured them—ladies in silks and velvets, gentlemen in white cravats and velvet smoking jackets all with their little spades in Carter's Meadow.

Mr. Pegger brushed the pasty crumbs from his coat and tied the bottle back into the red handkerchief.

"It's digging up the past, they'm saying. They reckon they'm going to find bits and pieces left behind by them as lived here years and years ago."

"What here, Mr. Pegger?"

"Here in St. Erno's. A lot of heathens they were, so why any God-fearing gentleman should bother himself with them is past my understanding."

"Perhaps they're not God-fearing, Mr. Pegger; but it's all very respectable. It's called archaeology."

"What it's called makes no difference. If God had intended 'em to find these things He wouldn't have covered 'em up with his good earth."

"Perhaps it wasn't God who covered them up."

"Then who?"

"Time," I said portentously.

He shook his head and started to dig again, throwing the soil up onto the bank he had made.

"Squire were always one for taking up with these fancies. I don't like this one. Let the dead bury their dead, I say."

"I believe someone else said that some time ago, Mr. Pegger. Well, I think it would be interesting if we found something very important here in St. Erno's. Roman remains perhaps. We'd be famous."

"We weren't meant to be famous, Miss Judith. We were meant to be . . ."

"God-fearing," I supplied for him. "So the Squire and his friends are looking for Roman remains close by. And it's not a sudden fancy of his. He's always been interested. Famous archaeologists often come to stay at Keverall Court. Perhaps that's why his nephew is named Hadrian."

"Hadrian!" thundered Mr. Pegger. "It's a heathen name. And the young lady too."

"Hadrian and Theodosia."

"They'm not good Christian names."

"Not like your Matthew Mark Luke John Isaac Reuben . . . and the rest. Judith is in the Bible. So I'm all right."

I fell to thinking of names. "Dorcas! Alison!" I said. "Did you know, Mr. Pegger, that Theodosia means divinely given? So you see it is a Christian name. As for Hadrian, he's named after a wall and a Roman Emperor."

"They're not good Christian names," he repeated.

"Lavinia," I said. "I wonder what that means."

"Ah. Miss Lavinia," said Mr. Pegger.

"It was very sad, wasn't it, to die so young?"

"With all her sins upon her."

"I don't think she had many. Alison and Dorcas speak of her as though they loved her dearly."

There was a picture of Lavinia hanging in the rectory on the landing just at the top of the first flight of stairs. I used to be afraid to pass it after dark because I imagined that at night Lavinia stepped out of it and walked about the house. I used to think that one day I would pass it and find the frame empty because she had failed to get back into it in time.

I was such a fanciful child, said Dorcas, who was very practical herself and could not understand my strange imaginings.

"Every mortal man has sins," declared Mr. Pegger. "As for women they can have ten times as many."

"Not Lavinia," I said.

He leaned on his spade and scratched his white mane of hair. "Lavinia! She were the prettiest of the rectory girls."

Well, I thought, that might not have meant a great deal if I was not so familiar with Lavinia's picture, for neither Alison nor Dorcas were exactly beauties. They always wore somber-colored skirts and jackets, and thick strong boots—so sensible for the country. Yet in the picture Lavinia had a velvet jacket and a hat with a curling feather.

"It was a pity she was ever on that train."

"In one moment she had no idea what was about to happen and the next . . . she was facing her Maker."

"Do you think it's as quick as that, Mr. Pegger? After all she would have to get there . . ."

"Taken in sin, you might say, with no time for repentance."

"No one would be hard on Lavinia."

Pegger was not so sure. He shook his head. "She could have her flighty ways."

"Dorcas and Alison loved her, and so did the reverend. I can tell by the way they look when they say her name."

Mr. Pegger had put down his spade to mop his brow once more. "This be one of the hottest days the Lord have sent us this year." He stepped out of the hole and sat down on the curb of the next grave so that he and I were facing each other over the yawning hole. I stood up and peered down into it. Poor Josiah Polgrey who beat his wife and had his children out working on the farm at five years old. On impulse I jumped down into the hole.

"What be doing, Miss Judith?" demanded Mr. Pegger.

"I just want to see what it feels like to be down here," I said.

I reached up for his spade and started to dig.

"It smells damp," I said.

"A fine muss you'll be getting yourself in."

"I'm already in it," I cried, as my shoes slipped down into the loose earth. It was a horrible feeling of being shut in with the walls of the trench so close to me. "It must be terrible, Mr. Pegger, to be buried alive."

"Now you come out of there."

"I'll dig just a bit while I'm here," I said, "to see what it feels like to be a gravedigger."

I dug the spade into the earth and threw out what it had picked up as I had seen Mr. Pegger do. I repeated the operation several times before my spade struck something hard.

"There's something here," I called.

"You come out of there, Miss Judith."

I ignored him and went on probing. Then I had it. "I've found something, Mr. Pegger," I cried. I stooped and picked up the object. "What is it, do you know?"

Mr. Pegger stood up and took it from me. "Piece of old metal," he said. I gave him my hand and he pulled me out of Josiah Polgrey's grave.

"I don't know," I said. "There's something about it."

"Dirty old thing," said Mr. Pegger.

"But look at it, Mr. Pegger. Just what is it? There's a sort of engraving on it."

"I'd throw that away . . . sharp about it," said Mr. Pegger.

But I would do no such thing, I decided. I would take it back with me and clean it. I rather liked it.

Mr. Pegger took up his spade and continued to dig while I tried to wipe the earth from my shoes and noticed with dismay that the hem of my skirt was decidedly grubby.

I talked for a while with Mr. Pegger, then I went back to the rectory carrying the piece of what appeared to be bronze with me. It was oval shaped and about six inches in diameter. I wondered what it would be like when it was cleaned and what I would use it for. I didn't give much thought to it, because talking about Lavinia had made me think about her and what a sad house it must have been when the news was brought that Lavinia, beloved daughter of the Reverend James Osmond and sister of Alison and Dorcas, had been killed in the train which was traveling from Plymouth to London.

"She was killed outright," Dorcas had told me as we stood at her grave while she pruned the roses growing there. "It was a mercy in a way for she would have been an invalid for the rest of her life had she lived. She was twenty-one years old. It was a great tragedy."