Read Online The Rich Are Different by Susan Howatch - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Howatch
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weathered signpost which read ‘To Mallingham and the Marsh’.
The lane twisted and turned, ran unexpectedly over two hump-backed bridges and without warning arrived in the heart of the village. The church was even bigger than the church at Ludham, and as we passed by its flint walls I saw the cottages across the green. Some of the walls were whitewashed wattle-and-daub, but there were others built of faced flint with stone quoins. The pub, which stood facing the green, was called ‘The Eel and Ham’.
‘Short for “Isle de Mallingham”,’ explained Dinah. ‘The original Saxon settlement was an island when the Normans first arrived here.’
The road curved sharply again; as the village disappeared from sight we started to travel along a causeway above the marshes towards a ruined turreted gatehouse set in walls fifteen feet high.
We crossed the last bridge, passed the gatehouse and entered a short driveway bordered by a ragged lawn and some overgrown shrubbery.
I saw the house.
I had read her description and so knew exactly what to expect but even so I heard myself give an exclamation of amazement. Hardly able to believe that the past could have been so perfectly preserved, I gazed at the traditional medieval house with the hall in the centre and the wings, added later, forming the famous H. The walls were flint, some rough,some dressed, with the type of stone quoin I had noticed in the village, and although the windows in the wings were small the windows of the great hall were as long and slender as the windows of a church. I was still marvelling that this present hall should date from the thirteenth century when I remembered that the previous hall which had been built on the same site was even older. William the Conqueror’s henchman, Alan of Richmond, had pulled down the Saxon house when he had been granted the manor of Mallingham in 1067, and had built himself a Norman hall to house his retinue during his visits to East Anglia. Later the entire manor had been described in detail in the Domesday Book. In those days there had been two Mallinghams, Mallingham Magna and Mallingham Parva, but Mallingham Parva had disappeared beneath the sea two hundred years ago during the prolonged and continuing erosion of the Norfolk coastline.
Dinah showed me into the great hall, and there I saw the hammer-beamed ceiling and the staircase which had once led to the solar and the fireplace with the stone carving above the mantel of the coat of arms of Godfrey Slade. This first recorded Slade of Mallingham had built the present hall before riding off to the crusades. It was thought that he had been the son of a rich Norwich merchant who had aspired to grandeur by buying the hall when the previous owners, the monks of St Benet’s Abbey, had sold the property to meet increased taxation.
‘This way,’ said Dinah, but I was still looking up at the hammer-beamed ceiling, and it was several seconds before I followed her into the far wing where a large chamber had been furnished as a drawing-room. A modern architect had built some doors which opened on to a terrace, and as Dinah led the way outside I looked past the Victorian urns decorating the balustrade, down the lawn studded with croquet hoops, to the Edwardian boathouse, the jetty and the shining waters of Mallingham Broad.
The glare of the sun on water hurt my eyes. I closed my lids and as I stood listening I heard the birds calling to one another in the marshes and the salt sea-wind humming through the willows at the water’s edge.
Again I felt the past opening up before me, but it was a different past, a past I had never experienced before. In my mind’s eye I could see it stretching backwards into the mist, layer upon layer, time beyond time, time out of mind, and its vastness was not disturbing but comforting to me.
I opened my eyes and walked down the lawn to the water. The walls of time were very thin, and as I walked I became aware of that endless past merging
The lane twisted and turned, ran unexpectedly over two hump-backed bridges and without warning arrived in the heart of the village. The church was even bigger than the church at Ludham, and as we passed by its flint walls I saw the cottages across the green. Some of the walls were whitewashed wattle-and-daub, but there were others built of faced flint with stone quoins. The pub, which stood facing the green, was called ‘The Eel and Ham’.
‘Short for “Isle de Mallingham”,’ explained Dinah. ‘The original Saxon settlement was an island when the Normans first arrived here.’
The road curved sharply again; as the village disappeared from sight we started to travel along a causeway above the marshes towards a ruined turreted gatehouse set in walls fifteen feet high.
We crossed the last bridge, passed the gatehouse and entered a short driveway bordered by a ragged lawn and some overgrown shrubbery.
I saw the house.
I had read her description and so knew exactly what to expect but even so I heard myself give an exclamation of amazement. Hardly able to believe that the past could have been so perfectly preserved, I gazed at the traditional medieval house with the hall in the centre and the wings, added later, forming the famous H. The walls were flint, some rough,some dressed, with the type of stone quoin I had noticed in the village, and although the windows in the wings were small the windows of the great hall were as long and slender as the windows of a church. I was still marvelling that this present hall should date from the thirteenth century when I remembered that the previous hall which had been built on the same site was even older. William the Conqueror’s henchman, Alan of Richmond, had pulled down the Saxon house when he had been granted the manor of Mallingham in 1067, and had built himself a Norman hall to house his retinue during his visits to East Anglia. Later the entire manor had been described in detail in the Domesday Book. In those days there had been two Mallinghams, Mallingham Magna and Mallingham Parva, but Mallingham Parva had disappeared beneath the sea two hundred years ago during the prolonged and continuing erosion of the Norfolk coastline.
Dinah showed me into the great hall, and there I saw the hammer-beamed ceiling and the staircase which had once led to the solar and the fireplace with the stone carving above the mantel of the coat of arms of Godfrey Slade. This first recorded Slade of Mallingham had built the present hall before riding off to the crusades. It was thought that he had been the son of a rich Norwich merchant who had aspired to grandeur by buying the hall when the previous owners, the monks of St Benet’s Abbey, had sold the property to meet increased taxation.
‘This way,’ said Dinah, but I was still looking up at the hammer-beamed ceiling, and it was several seconds before I followed her into the far wing where a large chamber had been furnished as a drawing-room. A modern architect had built some doors which opened on to a terrace, and as Dinah led the way outside I looked past the Victorian urns decorating the balustrade, down the lawn studded with croquet hoops, to the Edwardian boathouse, the jetty and the shining waters of Mallingham Broad.
The glare of the sun on water hurt my eyes. I closed my lids and as I stood listening I heard the birds calling to one another in the marshes and the salt sea-wind humming through the willows at the water’s edge.
Again I felt the past opening up before me, but it was a different past, a past I had never experienced before. In my mind’s eye I could see it stretching backwards into the mist, layer upon layer, time beyond time, time out of mind, and its vastness was not disturbing but comforting to me.
I opened my eyes and walked down the lawn to the water. The walls of time were very thin, and as I walked I became aware of that endless past merging
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