The Old Knowledge Read online

  I met her out there at half-past-two, and we walked up and down and in between the intricate symmetrical patterns formed by the low, clipped box hedges, bending down from time to time to pick and sniff or taste the pungent leaves. I named the plants I knew, and Ingrid wrote them onto her plan of the knot garden. As the sun moved around the sky, the air became crisper, and I saw her shiver in her thin coat.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go in and have a cup of tea and a slice of cake. I made a fruit cake this morning, and we can have some with a piece of Wensleydale cheese. A fine old-English custom for you.’

  We sat in the kitchen, and she seemed to like the cake and cheese, nibbling them in between sips of tea. Just as something to say, I mentioned the dog I had seen in the knot garden last night.

  ‘We probably should have washed the herbs before tasting them!’

  Ingrid turned ashen. She dropped the slice of cake and I thought she was going to faint.

  ‘Ingrid!’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘Whatever is the matter? It was just a joke! I didn’t see it peeing or anything.’

  She swallowed and almost whispered: ‘What kind of dog was it?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m not very good on dogs. It was big. I thought it was an Alsatian. A German Shepherd.’

  She shuddered. ‘I suppose it must have found its way here from the village. I’m all right. I’m not fond of dogs, that’s all. Look, Ellen, I feel rather tired. I’m going to lie down until dinner. Please make me a little portion. And no meat. I don’t feel like it.’

  I didn’t have time to think about what had happened because a few moments later the supplier’s van arrived and I had to unpack, check and store each item, which took me an hour or so. Once I’d finished, I found that Ingrid had left her plan of the knot garden folded on the table. A quick glance showed me that she had obviously done some prior research—she had scrawled in the name of some of the plants we had yet to look at: wormwood, lady’s mantle and wolf’s-bane.

  I handed the plan back to her at dinner, but she barely acknowledged it, or the cheese and apple pie I presented her with. She seemed listless and far away. But she did begin to eat. As I was opening the door to leave she called me back.

  ‘Ellen, I am going for a walk in the park tomorrow. Would you like to come with me? I can show you the grounds.’

  We agreed to meet in the garden at two, and I will be only too glad of the excuse to get outside—not having a car of my own is a bit of a drawback here, although Janet has offered to drive me into Bakewell if I need to do some personal shopping. If I stay for more than a few weeks, I will ask if I can borrow a car. The Johannsons must have several in the large stable-block they use as a garage, although I have yet to see Ingrid drive out in one.

  Now I’m back in my eyrie, I feel as if a certain sense of oppression has lifted from my shoulders, although I can’t really identify where it came from. The garden looks even more immaculate by moonlight. The moon is very nearly full, although tonight there are a few high clouds obscuring the stars. I’ve just seen the dog again, trotting down one of the long paths that lead to the park. It must regard the grounds as part of its territory. I won’t mention it to Ingrid, as it seems to unsettle her so much.

  9th October

  The sun shone through my thin cotton curtains this morning and I woke feeling full of life and energy. I realised that for the first time in I don’t know how long I hadn’t thought about Colin throughout a whole day. A new life is opening up for me—I am enjoying putting my professional skills into practice—and with the up-to-date references I hope I’ll receive from this job, I’ll be in a better position to apply for some more ambitious and longer-term positions. Perhaps I’ll be able to work abroad; see some more of the world.

  I went down to the kitchen and prepared a beautiful little concoction of brioche with fresh fruit and yoghurt for Ingrid, which she seemed to enjoy because there was nothing left in her bowl when I went to collect it.

  Janet Maddocks announced that it was her day off and she was going to Buxton for the day, and I was on the point of asking to go with her when I remembered that I had agreed to walk in the park with Ingrid. It couldn’t be helped, but I must admit I felt a bit resentful. I spent a pleasant enough morning, though, making a chocolate mousse for dinner and reading my borrowed book. There had been a vicious wild dog in the vicinity in Victorian times, it seems, that terrorised the inhabitants of the village and devoured the local sheep. They had a lot to contend with. There was also a severe problem with the harvest around that time. Many local people didn’t have enough to eat for several years.

  Lunch was my version of a ploughman’s lunch, with warm granary bread, local butter, fresh homemade tomato chutney, tiny pickled onions in balsamic vinegar, salad leaves and herbs from the knot garden with a simple French dressing, a sliced apple and a small selection of English cheeses. Ingrid seemed a little happier. She smiled when I came in with the food, and said how much she was enjoying my cooking.

  ‘Mrs Telford, she is … oh, how do you say it? … a “good plain cook”, but you, Ellen, have an altogether lighter touch. My appetite is returning a little. I don’t know how you get all the flavours and herbs to work, but you do. I think it is magic. I can’t cook to save my life. Employing a cook is my one extravagance. The one thing I have demanded of Peds.’

  I would have thought that living in an enormous Tudor house was pretty extravagant in itself, but I didn’t say it, obviously.

  At two o’clock we set off down the garden path towards the park. Ingrid had put on a warmer coat and gloves—she needed to, it has been very cold all day. After a few polite conversational sallies on either side, I plucked up courage to ask her why they had moved here.

  ‘Peds needed to be close to Sheffield, and, you know, he has always wanted to be lord of an English manor. He is very good at making money. He has a gift for it. And he likes spending it, too. We met at university in Stockholm, and he always had business ideas, even then. I come from an ordinary background, I grew up in a suburb in a flat, and I have not got used to all this money. Like many of my countrymen, I like to live simply, close to nature. It is the garden here and the park that I like. It is my passion. He bought the house cheaply, you know. The previous owner did not like it, because his wife could not settle here. She preferred to live in London. And then she died …’

  We had walked out into the park and were heading towards a small copse of trees planted on a small hill some five hundred metres ahead. She asked why I had only recently gone back to cooking for a living, and I explained a little about Colin.

  ‘So, he found himself a younger woman,’ she said. ‘What a bastard. Men are bastards, aren’t they, one way or another? Did you have any children together?’

  Her doll-face looked eagerly up into mine.

  ‘No, we didn’t. The time never seemed right. I had a job in an office. We didn’t have enough money. Colin saw too much of the children at his school. There were loads of reasons …’ I was mortified to find that I was close to tears.

  ‘I will have lots of children,’ she said fiercely. ‘I just need to get strong again. I had a miscarriage, you know. Peds wants to have children very badly. He says it’s part of nature to have a family.’

  We walked on in silence for a while. I pulled myself together. We climbed up onto the knoll and turned towards the house. It was a breathtakingly beautiful view, the autumn sunlight glanced off the handsome stonework, the tall windows glittered like diamonds. Ingrid sighed.

  ‘We will walk around the perimeter and take a look at the deer. They belong to a local farmer, who from time to time takes some of them off to be slaughtered. Peds enjoys venison—he is a great carnivore!’

  We walked about three miles around the fence. Beyond it was mainly deciduous woodland, looked after, said Ingrid, by a specialist countryside management firm. Peds makes a small profit out of it by selling the mature timber to a sawmill.

  The deer were very shy and seemed to
be able to merge into the parkland at will. To the rear of the house we came across a young buck sniffing what turned out to be the corpse of a doe. He bounded off as we approached. Her throat had been ripped out and half her belly and intestines eaten. It looked as though it had happened fairly recently—within the last day or so. Ingrid gasped and looked away.

  ‘Oh, how horrible. How has it happened?’

  I spoke without thinking. ‘I expect it was a dog. Probably the Alsatian from the village. It’ll have to be shot if it can’t be kept under control.’

  Ingrid fell to her knees. She was emitting a kind of low keening wail.

  ‘Oh no, I can’t bear it … I can’t bear it …’

  I cursed myself for having forgotten about her dog phobia, and helped her to her feet. Luckily we weren’t too far away from the house, and I led her back inside; she leaning heavily against me, into the kitchen, where I made her drink a large glass of cooking brandy. It seemed to do the trick. She apologised for her weakness.

  ‘I am so silly, I know, but I hate anything like that. I hate it! It’s so cruel and unnecessary.’

  I helped her to her bedroom—I was interested to see that she and Peds had separate, though connecting rooms. Her room was stunning, somehow both sophisticated and devastatingly simple, mainly white and purple, with some interesting contemporary artwork on the walls. She told me that it had been designed by a top London firm. Then, insisting that she would be all right, she asked me to leave her on her own. I made her promise that she would come down to eat some dinner later.

  Janet Maddocks arrived back from Buxton at around six o’clock, just as I was starting the preparations for dinner. She sat down at the kitchen table and prattled on about her day as I worked. She is a pretty harmless old biddy, and very loyal to her employers, but a bit of a gossip.

  ‘The Johannsons are well liked around here, you know. They get involved. The master gives away a lot of money to local causes, and with the mistress doing her committee work, it’s appreciated by the villagers. It’s a shame they don’t mix a bit more with the local gentry, but that’s their own taste, I suppose. Most of their set is from Sheffield or London. And a very smart lot they are too.’

  ‘Were you here before the Johannsons?’

  ‘Oh yes, dear. The old master and mistress were very different. More of the old school, wanting the villagers and servants to know their place, even though he had got most of his money from his wife’s family. They weren’t real gentry either—they were in newspapers. And the mistress never took to it here. She was killed in a car accident on the drive, a one in a million chance. Something went wrong with the brakes and she veered off and drove into a tree. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was killed instantly. He sold the place very quickly after that. It didn’t take him long to find a new wife, though. I read in the paper that he remarried within the year.’

  I made a hearty vegetable soup with herb bread, followed by custard and almond tart with cognac cream. Janet served, and I was gratified to see that Ingrid ate every scrap. Janet enjoyed it too, when we ate our dinner together in the kitchen, although she said that it was less substantial fare than ‘the master’ was used to.

  10th October—11.00 am

  Peds Johannson must have returned very late last night after we had all gone to bed. I found a note on the kitchen table this morning asking me to prepare two full English fry-ups for a late breakfast at nine o’clock. I compromised a little by providing Ingrid with a more or less vegetarian version, with a larger portion of mushrooms and two eggs instead of sausages. She ate most of it, although she left the bacon. As I was washing up after Janet and I had eaten, Peds strode into the kitchen. He plonked down a large package on the table.

  ‘Well, Ellen, you seem to have been looking after my wife very well while I’ve been away. She has been singing your praises.’

  He sat down and stretched out his long legs, resting his arms behind his head.

  ‘I had a very good time in New York. It was a flying visit, but very good business. I think I have found a partner who will help me crack the American market. This is very good news for me, although it means that I will have to spend even more time away from home until the details are worked out and the deal is done. I will feel happier knowing that Ingrid has a friend here.’

  He shifted his feet into a more comfortable position.

  ‘In the parcel there are some venison steaks. I collected them early this morning from the farmer who rents our park for his deer. In fact they form part of his rent. I would like it very much if you could make them our dinner tonight. Ingrid is not so keen on red meat, so you will have to try extra hard to make it appetising for her. She needs her strength building up. And I want it to be a special homecoming dinner for the two of us. Can you find a couple of good bottles of red wine in the cellar?’

  I had finished the washing up and sat down at the table. He gazed at me for a few seconds with his curiously colourless eyes.

  ‘I must say, Ellen, you are looking very well. I think the countryside suits you.’ He got up. ‘I like a woman who likes her food. You have a good full figure.’ He got up. ‘Now I have had the pleasure, I must get back to business. You can take the morning off. Just make us some sandwiches for lunch. I’ll have mine in the library.’

  I don’t know whether I should feel offended or flattered. He is my boss, after all, and can say more or less what he wants. And he is very charming and good-looking. On the whole I’d say I ought to be flattered. It’s been a long time since a man paid me a compliment.

  I’ve decided to prepare the venison very simply. It looks beautifully matured and tender, and it would be a shame to drown it in a casserole. I’m going to pan fry the steaks and make a simple herb jus for the Johannsons to pour over them, and then serve it with sautéed potatoes, green beans and sweet red cabbage. For pudding I’ll try a hot lemon soufflé. I found two good bottles of merlot in the very dusty cellar, which should round it off nicely.

  I saw Ingrid pottering in the knot garden from the staircase window, and went out to have a word with her. I told her about the dinner—I thought I ought to warn her about the venison steaks. She sighed, then smiled.

  ‘I think I would like to help with the herb sauce. I will pick some herbs for the table, then we can sprinkle them over the food.’

  She seemed very dreamy and far away, a little-girl-lost. I felt suddenly, without knowing exactly why, very sorry for her.

  I’m going to spend the early part of the afternoon reading. Then I must get down to work.

  11.30pm

  This must be a bad dream! If only we had known her true state of health. I’m not sure even now that the damage limitation we’ve put in place will work.

  I’m sitting in the dark. Outside, the full moon looms over everything, coaxing fat shadows from the shrubs. Its silvery miasma reaches into the window, faintly illuminating the pages of this journal.

  I’m going to try to set down here everything that has happened this evening—the real story—so that I never get it mixed up with the other version we have been concocting. And then I will have to put this journal somewhere very safe, maybe even destroy it in time. I don’t expect we will get much sleep tonight and I may be needed later on, so I will write it down as quickly as I can.

  My preparations for dinner went well, and everything was on schedule for service at 7.30pm. The fried venison steaks were resting on a hot plate and I was reducing the herb jus when Janet arrived. To my surprise she had dressed herself up in an old fashioned maid’s uniform, with a starched white apron and hat. She spotted my hastily concealed smirk and explained:

  ‘I know they say they like informality, but everybody likes a bit of dressing up now and again! This was my mother’s outfit. She was in service too, until she fell pregnant with me.’

  The food looked immaculate when I had plated it up, and Janet took it out on a tray, with the little jug of jus. I had gambled on them taking about twenty-five minutes to eat the
main course—the timing of my hot lemon soufflé was critical. I cleared up the mess I had made, and tried not to keep staring through the glass oven door to make sure the pudding was rising. I was just checking my watch and thinking about whether or not I should take it out when I heard a piercing shriek and Janet burst into the kitchen.

  ‘Ellen, come quick!’

  We raced to the dining room. I will never forget the look on Ingrid’s face. She was dancing around the table shouting, ‘I knew he was a wolf! I knew he was a wolf! He took my baby!’ Peds was writhing on the floor, clutching his stomach in agony. Janet bent down to tend him, rolling up her apron and putting it under his head. Ingrid seemed to notice me for the first time.

  ‘Ellen,’ she said, in a surprisingly calm voice. ‘It was wolf’s-bane. I sprinkled it on his steak and he ate it—and it found him out. Look at the wolf now! He hates it! All his strength is gone!’

  I told Janet to telephone for an ambulance, and then checked Peds’ food. There was a stringy green herb sprinkled over his half-eaten venison. Ingrid had not touched her plate.

  ‘Ingrid, it’s wormwood, not wolf’s-bane! It’s poisonous! What have you done?’

  The ambulance took twenty minutes to get to us, but in the meantime we followed the instructions of the telephone operator, forcing Peds to sip some milk and doing everything we could think of to keep him conscious. Ingrid sat quietly while Janet and I came up with a simple cover story: it was an accident. Ingrid, unused to her garden herbs, had picked wormwood by mistake, thinking it was rosemary.

  The paramedics were very cheerful and efficient, and, much to our amazement, Ingrid seemed to have pulled herself together. Even more surprisingly, she announced that she is two months’ pregnant, and was given a health check on the spot. It seems that all is well.

  They told us that Peds was out of danger, although he would need to go to hospital for a few days just to make sure that everything is ok. They took him away on a stretcher—we said we had to stay here to look after Ingrid, and that Janet would drive her in to Sheffield to see Peds in the morning.