Deadlight-Hall(30)

Michael wrote a cheque for the vet, smacked a stamp onto the envelope, then sent a deliberately non-committal email to his editor, saying he thought the Gunpowder Plot book was a very good idea.

These annoying interludes and interruptions dealt with, he set off for the Rural Council offices, encountering the Bursar as he crossed the quad, and spending ten minutes listening to the Bursar’s discourse on the unreliable nature of modern workmen. The decorators, it appeared, could not finish the painting that day as arranged, because they’d had to order an extra twenty litres of paint which would not arrive until Thursday. College would therefore have to continue in its present dust-sheet and stepladder disarray for at least another week. The Bursar found it all very annoying and did not know what things were coming to if a firm of decorators could not calculate how much paint was needed for a few perfectly ordinary stairways.

Michael’s request at the Rural Council offices for a sight of the Deadlight Hall records was received as an everyday occurrence. Certainly he could be given sight of Searches and Land Registrations and Transfers, said the helpful assistant. They had had quite a few people asking to see them recently, what with the place being renovated. The records might not be as complete as they would like – there had been some bomb damage to the old Council offices during WWII – and she believed there were a number of ‘lost years’, which sounded rather romantic, didn’t it. There was, however, still a fair amount of stuff, and everything was scanned on to hard disk, all the way back to 1800. The viewing room was just through there, there was a coffee machine in the corridor, and if he needed any assistance of any kind, please to let her know.

Michael always found it vaguely wrong to use a computer screen for this kind of research. If you were going to make an expedition into the cobwebby purlieus of history, it ought to be by means of curling parchments with crabbed writing penned by long-dead monks and scribes, or through faded diaries chronicling forgotten loves and hates and wars and friendships. It had to be acknowledged, though, that computers were more efficient and a great deal faster than the parchment/diary method. Michael collected a cup of coffee from the machine, sat down at the screen, and waited for the past to open up.

At first he thought there was not going to be anything of any interest about Deadlight Hall. There was the original land purchase which showed the Hall had been built in the early 1800s, but it then seemed to vanish into what the assistant had called its ‘lost years’.

There was an apology on the home page for the incomplete state of some of the documents, and the total absence of others, but explaining that the ravages of time, not to mention mice, damp, and the attentions of the Luftwaffe, had all wrought substantial damage. The main archives department in Oxford might, however, be able to fill in any gaps.

Michael scrolled forward patiently, and was relieved to see that Deadlight Hall sprang back into being in 1877, when a worthy-sounding organization called the Breadspear Trust had acquired it. He made a note of this, and moved to the next entry, which dealt with the Trust’s obligations and administration. It seemed to have been partly governed by a philanthropically minded Mr Breadspear, and partly by the Parish and the Poor Relief Committee. He was rather intrigued to discover that the present Welfare State descended from the original Vagabond Act of the 1400s, a fearsome-sounding law that had required the arrest of vagabonds and persons suspected of living suspiciously. The legislation had apparently been repealed a great many times, and it was probably as well that an original clause requiring these hapless (or perhaps they had been merely feckless) souls to be set in the stocks, pierced through the ear, or handed the materials to build a house of correction, was no longer in force.

The next page opened up a series of letters, which had apparently been attached to the transfer of title to the Trust, and which had been scanned in as being of possible interest to students of local history. At first sight they were so indistinct as to be almost illegible, but letters were always promising, so Michael zoomed up the viewing, which helped, and began to read.

The letters commenced with the appointment of one Mrs Maria Porringer (widow of this parish), to a slightly ambiguous-sounding role at Deadlight Hall. It appeared to be a combination of housekeeper, superintendent and general factotum, and required her to be responsible for:

The well-being and moral behaviour of all children placed in Deadlight Hall … To ensure such children are brought up to be honest, sober, God-fearing and grateful … To ensure that, as soon as the said children are of sufficient age, they are sent to places of work where they must be obedient, punctual, diligent, and honest.