Cherringham--The Curse of Mabb's Farm (3 page)

So Sarah found herself alone with Emily in the sitting room.

“Shall we take our coffee into the garden?” said Emily. “It looks like the rain’s stopped. Bit of a sailor’s coat …”

“Good idea,” said Sarah, picking up her cup of coffee.

She opened the French windows and stepped outside. Although it had rained for much of September, the garden still looked pristine. Sarah wondered if she would want to manicure a lawn like her father when she reached his age. It seemed unlikely.

“I hope you don’t mind me bringing you out here,” said Emily. “It’s not too cold, is it?”

“Not at all,” said Sarah. “I’m glad to be out of the office. And there’s still warmth in the sun. Just about!”

She and Emily walked side-by-side down the wide lawn to the little jetty that jutted out into the Thames. Compared with her own tiny semi-detached house in the middle of an estate built in Cherringham in the sixties, Sarah felt her parents lived in luxury. She’d left home before they’d been so comfortably off so she always felt she was visiting a hotel rather than a family home.

“All this stuff about curses is nonsense, you know,” said Emily suddenly, interrupting Sarah’s domestic thoughts. “Absolute rubbish.”

“Oh, it’s just a little bit of fun, don’t you think?” said Sarah.

“Not at all,” said Emily. “It’s dangerous. It allows people to abdicate responsibility. It celebrates victimhood.”

Sarah had never imagined that the usually demure Vicar’s wife could be so forthright.

“You sound almost personally involved …?” asked Sarah gently, wondering what Emily was going to say next.

The other woman stopped in her tracks and spun to face Sarah.

“Well I am — or at least, I feel I am,” she said. “Very involved. Which is why I need to talk to you.”

“Me? What can I do?”

“You’re good at finding stuff out, Sarah,” said Emily. “I’ve heard that. You and your American friend. And I know you believe in doing the right thing.”

“Well, I hope I do. But what are you talking about here? The Curse? The farm?”

“I’m talking about Charlie Fox — or rather, his wife, Caitlin.”

“Go on.”

“You know they’re the couple who live up at the farm, yes? They have a baby, Sammy. Such a precious little boy,”

Sarah nodded. She motioned Emily to a little bench that faced the fast-flowing river, and they both sat with their coffees.

In the distance beyond the far bank, she could see the village of Cherringham.

“Now Caitlin’s hardly what I’d call a church regular, but well, little Sammy was christened at St James’s last year, and I’ve tried to keep in touch. Anyway, she came to the rectory yesterday in such a terrible state. Sobbing her eyes out. And all because of this ridiculous ‘Curse’.”

“Had something else happened?”

“The way she told it, it sounded like some kind of supernatural attack. From where I stand, however, it’s just another event in a run of bad luck, which besets that poor family. Now, most of it is no doubt the result of her husband’s feeble planning, ignorance, laziness, anger, pride. Most — but not all.”

“So what did Caitlin want?”

“She wanted Simon to go to the farm and exorcise it. I mean — exorcism — how ridiculous. ‘Like in that film’ she said. ‘Get rid of the evil spirits that are ruining everything’.”

“And what did Simon say?”

“Well, he suggested that the two of them talk about what’s been happening at the farm and perhaps pray together. But she didn’t fancy that. Not at all. She wanted something quick and more drastic. She said if Simon wasn’t going to do it, she knew somebody else who would. We tried to reason with her. But she just upped and left.”

Sarah shook her head.

“What did she mean — someone else?”

“To be honest — that’s what really worried me. A lot of people in the village have been getting very worked up about this whole Curse thing. But I do believe there are one or two who do very nicely out of a good supernatural scare.”

“You mean the New Age lot up at the hippy shop? What’s it called?”

“Moonstones,” said Emily, almost spitting the name out.

“I’m sure they’re harmless, Emily.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Emily. “That woman Tamara who swans around in there with her Tarot Cards and her Scrying Stones. You know the one I mean?”

Sarah felt that now wasn’t the time to admit that when Moonstones opened she’d popped in to try out Tamara’s hot-stone massage. Half the price of the spa out at the Country Club and not actually that bad.

“Hmm, yes,” she said. “I’ve seen her around the village. Very flamboyant! For Cherringham, at least.”

“Yes! And I’m convinced she’s the one who’s whipping this whole thing up. At the beginning of the year they were all but going bust. Since this Curse thing took off, that shop bell of hers hasn’t stopped ringing. Not to mention the till!”

“So Emily … what if it is?” said Sarah. “Surely the whole thing will blow over — it’s just a fad, isn’t it?”

Emily put down her coffee cup on the bench.

“Caitlin is a vulnerable young woman, Sarah. Her husband is on the very edge. He’s already had one fight. He and Caitlin can’t be far from having one themselves. They’ve had fires break out, animals escape. A farm is a dangerous place at the best of times — when things are going wrong it can be lethal. That little boy of hers is caught in the middle.”

“Okay. Do you think that Tamara is using Caitlin for her own ends?”

“
Exactly
,” said Emily. “Caitlin is silly and naive — and I think she’s easy prey.”

“But why are you telling me all this? Why not call the police?”

“Well obviously that was my first suggestion to Caitlin.”

“But?”

“Her husband hates the police. I imagine he’s been on the wrong side of the law numerous times and the last thing he wants is their help.”

“So what about social services?”

“Nothing wrong with them. But once they’re involved the whole weight of the state is brought to bear — and the bureaucracy that comes with it. Would you want them looking over your shoulder?”

“Good point.”

“You and your American friend, however, are … how can I put it? Independent. Light on your feet. And successful — from what I hear.”

Sarah laughed at that. “Thanks, I appreciate the compliment — but I don’t really see how we can help.”

Emily leaned forward and gently gripped Sarah’s arm.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “You could find out what’s happening up at that farm. Who is causing all this trouble? Who is hiding behind the Curse? Who is responsible for this misery? And — Sarah — I think you simply
must
do it — before somebody gets themselves really hurt, or even killed.”

Sarah sat back and stared across the river at the hills in the distance. Mabb’s Farm was somewhere up there although she wasn’t sure exactly where. Did she want to get involved in this weirdness? Curses? Evil witches? Farm accidents and fires?

“Emily, did my parents know you were going to ask me to do this?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“And Caitlin?”

“Of course not. She thinks it’s all the work of the Devil.”

“I’ll have to talk to Jack first,” she said, though she wondered whether it would be his cup of tea.
Then again
…

Emily smiled and stood up.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Now — it’s time I was off. You’ll probably want to get started. When do you think you’ll solve the case?”

Another laugh.

Solve the case indeed.

What case?

But Sarah realised that whether she liked it or not, she had just been hired — not that there was ever any money in it — to solve the Curse of Mabb’s Farm.

Jack squatted down at the edge of table and peered across the river and into the distance.

“Recognise the view?” said Sarah.

“Amazing,” said Jack. “Hardly anything’s changed. Apart from the farm buildings around Ingleston. Otherwise it could almost be Cherringham today.”

He stood up and nodded appreciatively. In his youth, he’d dabbled for a while in table-top war-gaming — but nothing on this scale.

In front of him, transformed into hand-made models, spread the familiar landscape of Cherringham, with its rolling hills, its water meadows, the lazy curves of the Thames and the medieval stone bridge.

But this wasn’t present-day Cherringham.

This was Cherringham as it had been in the seventeenth century.

“Yes,” said the creator of the table who stood next to him. “If you ignore Cromwell’s forces camped in the water-meadows. And the Royalist flags up on the crest of the hills. Not all that different …”

Jack looked at Sarah — she was clearly just as impressed.

When she had told him about their ‘commission’ from the Vicar’s wife he’d felt straight away that this might be an opportunity to find out a little more about Cherringham’s history, curses and all.

And who better to talk to than her father’s friend and local historian Will Goodchild?

Discovering that he was actually in the middle of running a massive English Civil War battle using an accurate model of the area in the 1640s was a real bonus.

“My father said you knew more than anybody about the area,” said Sarah.

“Really? Kind of him,” said Will, taking off his glasses and wiping them on a little cloth he kept in his jacket pocket. “He’s no slouch at the local history either. Still — I’m sure he didn’t send you here to pass on his compliments. What exactly are you after?”

Jack realised that the historian’s skills didn’t stretch to being sociable. So he decided to just jump right in.

“You’ve heard all this stuff about Mabb’s Farm going round the village?”

“Heard it. Hard to avoid it.”

“And what do you make of it?”

The historian laughed. “Not much. This country has always been full of superstitions and superstitious people. Nothing new there.”

“So,” Jack said, “this talk of a Curse?”

“Throughout time, my American friend, people have liked to blame the bad things that happen to them on something, anything — the fates, the gods, the stars, curses—”

“And witches?” Sarah said.

She does like to just jump in there,
Jack thought.

“Ah, that story. The ‘Three Witches of Mabb’s Hill’. Well, if you were to do the research, you would discover that those three women were really just old spinsters dabbling with herbal remedies whose only bad luck was where they were living.”

“On Mabb’s Farm?” Jack said.

“Yes, but it’s more about where their small farmhouse — at that time it was half the size it is now — sat near. Have you walked up from the farm to the hilltop?”

“Not yet.” Jack looked at Sarah. “Is there something we should see there?”

“Oh, I’ll say. Amazed it doesn’t draw more tourists, though … I imagine to the untrained eye doesn’t look like much.”

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

Goodchild smiled.

Guy’s a storyteller
, Jack thought.

He has us.

“Yes. First, I forget myself. Some tea?”

Always with the tea,
Jack thought. Hard to do anything in this country without a cuppa in hand.

And truth be known, he was starting to get used to it.

“Love some,” Jack said. Sarah grinned at him. Probably guessing his thoughts.

“Sure,” she said.

Goodchild raised a finger, a general about to enter the battlefield of kitchen and kettle. “Be back in a — what do you Yanks say? — a jiffy!”

Jack might have mentioned that “jiffy” had fallen into disuse but their host had already departed.

Jack took a sip of English Breakfast, with bit of honey, no milk.

Talk about magic power … a cup of tea could feel mighty good.

Will Goodchild put his own cup down on a small desk, then turned to his sprawling gaming table with the opposing English forces about to face each other.

“Okay, I even put the site into the model. Used tiny flakes of slate. But,” he pointed, “there it is.”

Jack leaned close, as did Sarah, and seeing nothing but a small rise that led from a farmhouse which nestled in a valley.

“I guess that’s Mabb’s Farm?” he said.

“As it was in 1640,” said Goodchild. “And, as I said, a little smaller.”

“I don’t see—”

Then, in a clearing atop the wooded hill above the farm, he noticed the small shavings of stone in a circle.

He turned to Goodchild. “Those stones?”

“Yes, those stones are what is called Mabb’s Circle.”

“And who exactly was Mabb?”

“The old Fairy Queen of mythology. Said to enter people’s minds while they were sleeping and make their dreams come true … In fact, in Shakespeare—”

Sarah shot Jack a look; this quick visit to Goodchild seemed ready to turn into a marathon history lesson.

“Be great to hear that sometime, Will,” Jack interrupted smoothly. “But these stones are important because?”

“Well, to begin with, they’re Neolithic, probably constructed by early Druids for their arcane ceremonies. But exactly by whom, what tribe and for what reason still remains largely a mystery, much like Stonehenge or the Rollright Stones near Chipping Norton. But if there is mystical heart to all the superstition and mumbo jumbo floating around Cherringham, it emanates — if you will — right from there.”

“None of which you believe?”

Goodchild laughed. “Good Lord no. In ancient times there was all sorts of poppycock. Now, the stones are just an amazing artifact. You really should walk up there and see them. There is even the Wicker Man, a more modern addition of course.”

“A Wicker Man,” Sarah said. “I remember one of my teachers talking to us about that. Something to do with human sacrifice?”

“Absolutely. The originals were often burned in effigy along with whatever lucky person was to be sacrificed. The one on Mabb’s Hill popped up some time around the turn of the nineteenth century. More superstition there, if you ask me — I suspect it was installed to placate the Devil and guard the crops.”

“And the witches?”

“As I said, just three old sisters — the poor victims of tongue-wagging and accusations. Happened all the time, well into the seventeenth century. So the three of them swung by their necks in Oxford. Interestingly, there was quite a hoo-ha about where the bodies ended up. Rather important in those days. No record of their interment — they just … disappeared …”