Page 115 of Hope and Happiness in Bluebell Wood
‘Possibly,’ Jonah says, ‘but there were a lot of photos. The locket looks familiar, though . . . Where did you get it?’
But luckily I don’t have to explain because Callum’s muffled voice shouts from upstairs. ‘I have it! Back down in a moment.’
Callum reappears carrying a cardboard box which he carries through to the kitchen and puts down on the table. Then he rips open the top and begins to thumb through the contents.
‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Ava?’ Jonah asks politely as we follow him into the kitchen. ‘My friend here seems to have mislaid his manners.’
‘Thank you, Jonah, but I’m fine.’ I watch Callum pulling photos from the box, then discarding them on the table.
‘Gosh, you have got some really old photos here,’ I say, looking at a few of them as they come flying our way.
‘Here it is!’ Callum says triumphantly. ‘I knew it was here. Look, this is the same guy, isn’t it?’
I compare the sepia photo in the locket with the slightly crumpled one Callum has thrust at me.
‘Yes, I’d say it is. What do you think, Jonah?’
But Jonah is looking through the discarded photos on the table.
‘Here!’ he says, looking as elated as Callum had been. ‘I knew I’d seen it before. Is this your locket?’
I look at the photo that Jonah is holding out to me. It’s a photo of an Edwardian lady. She has her long hair piled up on top of her head, and she’s wearing a long dark skirt tightly nipped in at the waist, and a high-necked white blouse, and I’m astonished to see that she’s wearing a locket around her neck that looks exactly like the one I’m holding in my hand.
But what’s more amazing is she’s standing next to a man with a beard, who not only looks exactly like the man in the photo that Callum has just found, but is the spitting image of the man in my locket too.
Thirty-seven
‘Where did you say you got this locket?’ Jonah asks, while we all sit at the kitchen table examining the photos in front of us.
‘Ava found it in her garden,’ Callum says quickly, before I can answer. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I reply, ‘earlier today.’
‘When Ava showed me the photo in the locket,’ Callum explains to Jonah, ‘I knew I’d seen the man with the beard somewhere before, that’s why we came rushing over. I had no idea that there would be a photo of the locket inside this box too.’
‘The locket must have belonged to the bearded man’s wife, by the look of the photo Jonah found,’ I say. ‘I can only assume it’s his wife if he was the parish priest. They look like a couple, don’t they?’
Jonah turns the photo of the couple over. ‘It says Father Corbin Hawkins and his wife Mavis. So yes, they were married. It doesn’t surprise me that the locket turned up in your garden, though, Ava.’
‘Why?’ Callum asks.
‘Oh, Callum, I’ve told you before you should read up on the history of the parish you’re rector of.’ He shakes his head. ‘There’re books all about the history of our church in your study. Which, luckily for you, I spent some time reading when I first came here.’
Jonah gives Callum a reproving look, which Callum chooses to ignore.
‘If I remember correctly,’ Jonah continues, ‘Mavis was the daughter of the main landowner around Bluebell Wood at the time when she married Corbin. Back then, something called a glebe was in place to help maintain churches. They supported themselves by taking taxes or a living from the land near to where the church was housed; often that land would extend far further than the church grounds. So when Mavis married Corbin, her father granted them part of the benefice that his ancestors had been given by the Crown, sometime back in the twelfth century, I think, if my memory serves me correctly.’
‘Lonan told me about that!’ I say excitedly. ‘Something to do with a horse and the king’s son?’
‘Yes, that’s the one,’ Jonah says, nodding keenly. ‘I believe the story goes a farmer was given part of the Royal Forest by the King, in gratitude for looking after his son following a riding accident. As a result, the farmer eventually became a wealthy landowner, living off the benefits that land gave you back then with tithes and so on.’
‘Lonan seemed to think the farmer’s descendants built the manor house that’s now just ruins up on the hill at the top of the woods,’ I say excitedly, while Callum watches us, looking slightly bewildered that we both appear to know so much about the history of Bluebell Wood.
‘Yes, I believe his family did build that house eventually.But the original land the farmer lived on was where your cottage is now.’
‘Really? How very exciting. I had no idea. I thought his house was where the ruins are.’
‘No, that building came much later. The farmer had a very meagre home, probably a small cottage not unlike yours, on the outskirts of the wood.’
