Theo trudged back to the gap and looked. There to the west was the huddle of poor cottages known as Smoker’s Hole and to the east he could see the sails of the windmill at Fellingham village. So why land a boat here? The only building close was a church: flint-built, round-towered, ancient and humble. It must have belonged to some small fishing hamlet that had long ceased to exist, lost to the sea or the encroaching marsh, perhaps.
Exploring that and then walking back by the coast road was a more enticing prospect than labouring back through shingle and loose sand on the beach or retracing his steps along the clifftop and Theo strode forward without a backwards glance. The view across the marshes as he walked along the causeway was invigorating, with the wide sky of the East Anglian coast stretching above him and the shimmering water and mud of the marsh, dotted with reeds and pools, merging gradually into the browns and greens of the fields beyond.
Was he alone in the world? It seemed so, except for the faint smudges rising from the chimneys of the village and from the smokehouses that gave the hamlet its name. The causeway was well-made and maintained, surprisingly so, he thought, if all it was for was to serve the needs of a few crabbers. The surface was marked by cart wheels and there was the evidence that several horses or mules had used it recently. Smugglers? He was beginning to think so and the church ahead of him immediately assumed an enticing air of mystery.
Theo reached the coast road – although road seemed a lofty description for the collection of ruts, potholes and puddles that it consisted of. Still, it was wide enough for a good-sized wagon or a herd of cows, which was probably all that travelled it regularly. Another trackway rose up to his left towards the church and he took that, searching for signs of recent use. It was well-trodden, but that could be church-goers, he supposed.
The rusty iron gate to the churchyard opened so silently that he hardly noticed it and was half a dozen steps up the path to the South door before the improbability of that struck him. He walked back and looked at the hinges – clean of rust and recently oiled. That wasn’t due to a fastidious churchwarden, not judging by the overgrown state of most of the graves, so why take such care to silence the gate?
Theo studied the churchyard with more interest. There were a few recent graves that were being tended, some narrow paths through the long grass and wild flowers, but no sign of anything substantial being carried through. Possibly there was a crypt. Or possibly I am letting my imagination run away with me, he thought as he made for the door again. Even if this was simply a romantic fantasy he was chasing, he did not much care, looking for clues was enjoyable.
The sight of the table tomb next to the path and about nine feet from the porch brought him up short. It was the kind of thing one saw outside the larger city churches, or those associated with great families, not modest little country churches that looked as though their most wealthy communicant was a yeoman farmer.
The rectangle of greyish white stone was almost chest-high, its corners supported by fat, scowling cherubs and slightly crooked twisting columns, its sides covered by what looked like coats of arms and mythical animals. Theo leaned over, brushed at the lichen and tried to read the flowing script on the top.
Sir Brandon Flyte, Kt. 1673 – 1767 was clear enough, but the rest was in Latin and hard to read unless one was actually kneeling on the slab that was the size of a small dining table and probably a sight heavier. Whoever the knight had been, someone had held him in high esteem. Probably himself, Theo thought with a grin as he turned from the tomb and tried the door into the porch. He could imagine the aged Sir Brandon sketching out his grandiose monument and confounding the limited skills of the local stonemason who had done his level best to realise the ideal.
He was not surprised that the door to the church opened when he turned the twisted iron ring: somewhere as remote and simple as this probably had no valuable plate to steal. The interior was a cobwebbed white space lit by large windows of plain, greenish glass, letting the sunlight flood over old oak benches and a h
alf dozen high-walled box pews, and Theo’s grin became a smile of simple pleasure. The old church had a calm and a rightness despite its poverty and he sat on one of the back benches to absorb the atmosphere.
He was not a religious man, but he had rarely found somewhere so conducive to meditation. What am I doing with my life? he mused, watching the dust motes swirl in a shaft of light. What is my purpose? He had friends in plenty, money sufficient and more to his comfort and his indulgences. He had occupations that gave him pleasure but…
‘Forgive me, but may I help you in any way?’
Theo shot bolt upright, then relaxed when he saw the figure standing at the end of the bench.
The man, in his mid-twenties, thin, dressed in slightly shabby clerical black with white bands at his neck, pressed his hands together. ‘Forgive me, I have interrupted you at prayer – ’
‘Not at all, I was merely deep in thought. This place is well suited to that, Vicar.’
‘It is indeed, sir. But we have a Rector and I am merely the curate, William Thwaite. We do not often see strangers here – I feared you had, perhaps, lost your way.’
Very true. ‘Perhaps I have,’ Theo admitted.
‘If it would help to talk?’ Thwaite sat down at the end of the bench. ‘I promise not to pray at you,’ he added, and Theo caught an attractive trace of humour in his voice.
He grinned. ‘If I say I am probably past praying for, then I am sure that is enough to provoke any cleric. No, what you see is a reformed man finding facing up to his responsibilities extraordinarily dull. And I am annoyed with myself because those responsibilities give me status and a very comfortable living, so I have no right to be disgruntled,’ he added with a shrug.
‘Then I would say you are halfway to finding your way back. You know what the problem is, you only have to work out what will give you an interest that enlivens you.’
‘A mystery is what I need. I enjoy mysteries, even very small ones, like what on earth was Sir Brandon Flyte thinking of, having that grandiose and slightly inept tomb erected here?’
He expected a shrug, but the curate nodded. ‘I know. It puzzles me also. I have searched the parish records and can find no references to the Flyte family, let alone that particular burial. There is no old manor in the parish that might have belonged to them – I even scoured ancient maps to see if something was demolished many years ago. There are some old documents and notebooks I found recently in a cupboard behind rotten boards in the vestry, but the writing is hard to read and I confess I have yet to persist with them. My predecessors did not appear to have much respect for paperwork and there are certainly entries that should have been transcribed into the registers. They might hold a clue.’
The Curate leaned forward and with his forefinger traced the outline of a sailing ship that some bored churchgoer had scored into the wood of the pew. ‘I did wonder if perhaps he had been drowned off the coast here, his body brought to this church and then his family decided to have him buried at this spot,’ he continued. ‘But then one would expect a reference to that on the inscription and there is none, although it is hard to read and I might have missed something.’
‘What about the coats of arms?’ Theo stood up. ‘Let’s go and take a closer look.’
Outside, they hunkered down beside the tomb and squinted at the incised designs but could identify nothing in particular. ‘If I bring some strong paper and some black wax I can make a rubbing of them, then we can study them more closely and with books of reference at hand.’ Thwaite sat back on his heels and bit his lip. ‘But I am presuming, sir.’
‘You most certainly are not and it is an excellent idea.’ Theo stopped tracing the outline of what looked suspiciously like a fat domestic pig, but was probably meant to be a wild boar, and decided that he liked William Thwaite. ‘I should have introduced myself. I am Theo Quenten, Viscount Northam, and I am staying at the house of my absent friend, Lord Manners.’
‘My lord.’ Thwaite got to his feet.
‘Theo.’ He stood too and held out his hand. ‘Cambridge man, William?’
‘Oxford. And I go by Will to my friends. My father is Sir Charles Thwaite and I’m the youngest of four. We’re a Suffolk family.’