might at one time had been a large, rather roughly made cross but which was now left with only its centre trunk.
He thought the top had somehow got broken. As it was near the stream it had perhaps been washed away. The large piece of wood was thick with mud, but when they washed it clean, they found engraved on it were some words that nobody could make out.
Her father had cleaned the wood until the words could be seen more clearly. He’d given orders for the cross to be driven back into the ground, high above the stream so that the water would not touch it again.
But they were unable to find the missing cross piece, which had made it look a little strange as it stood surrounded by the trees.
“How can you be certain it is a cross?” she remembered her mother asking, as they walked through the wood.
“You’ll be as certain as I am when you see it now,” the Reverend Colwell had told her. “It’s been cleaned and we can read what is engraved on it.”
It was spring and the trees were coming into blossom. Rena, holding her father’s hand, had been thrilled to walk through the woods which belonged to The Grange, and had thought what a wonderful place to play hide-and-seek.
At last they saw the tall, impressive piece of wood, that her father was so convinced was a cross. When she drew nearer, she saw the writing on it, and her father had translated:
“YE WHO ASK FOR HELP WILL FIND IT WHEN YE PRAY TO ME.”
“That’s what convinced me,” her father said when he read it aloud, “that it was originally a cross. I think perhaps it was placed here hundreds of years ago, when the house was being built or perhaps even before that.”
“It’s certainly very interesting,” her mother had said. “I only hope the people who prayed there got what they wanted.”
“If it has lasted so long, I’m sure they did,” her father replied.
He had given his orders that the cross should stay here, and it was still in place ten years later. Now it was the only thing left to which Rena could take her troubles, hoping that if she prayed hard enough some help might come to her.
Perhaps, she thought, it might even be her father telling her to go there.
“It’s really a very simple problem,” she told herself. “How to stop myself starving to death. What could be simpler than that?”
She often talked to herself in that ironic way, presenting her difficulties with a slightly wry twist. Her father was sometimes a little shocked by what he perceived as her levity. But Rena had found a sense of humour a great help in confronting the world.
She set out now to find the cross. It was spring again, a beautiful warm spring. She didn’t wear her best coat, but slipped on the jacket she used in the garden.
She walked through the village until she saw the gates of The Grange, which, unusually, were standing open. So perhaps the new Earl has really arrived, she thought hopefully.
How neglected it was, she thought. It was quite obvious that no one had worked on the drive. When she moved into the fields on one side of it, they, too, had been neglected. It was depressing. But the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and sometimes she saw a rabbit or a squirrel moving through the grass ahead of her.
Just before her were the woods, with the trees in bud. And there was the stream, and beside it what she always thought of as her father’s cross, looking incredibly lovely because the kingcups had come into flower at the foot of it. Golden in the sunshine flickering through the trees, they made the cross itself seem to stand out firmly because the wood was dark.
She read again the words carved on the cross which she could see quite clearly, and instinctively she began to pray. As she did so, she looked down at the kingcups, and one side of them she saw a thistle. It was green and ugly and was spoiling one side of the cross.
It seemed dark and mysterious. Then she remembered that she had a pair of gloves in the pocket of her jacket. They were thick and lined with leather.
When she put them on, she attacked the thistle, finding that she had to pull it with both hands as hard as she could before it finally came out.
And then, she saw to her astonishment that attached to the roots were several coins. She picked them up and started to rub away the mud.
Then stared, thinking she must be dreaming.
They were gold.
And there were more of them in the hole she had made in pulling out the thistle. They were ancient, maybe two hundred years old.
And solid gold.
For a moment she was dazzled. Then she took a deep breath and reminded herself sternly that these coins belonged to the owner of The Grange – whoever he was.
She remembered the open gates, the rumour that The Grange had been re-opened. Now was the moment to find out.
She removed two more of the coins under the thistle, then she put the thistle back where she had found it, pressing it into the earth, so that no passing stranger could make this discovery.
First she took the coins from it before pressing it back into the ground.
Then she stood for a moment looking up at the top of the cross.
“Perhaps you have answered my prayer,” she said.
Then she almost laughed at herself for being so optimistic.
“If the owner is a generous man he’ll give me at least, one of the coins I found for him. Couldn’t I just take one – to help me find some work?”
But it was impossible. She was too much her father’s daughter to take anything secretly. Every coin must be handed over to its rightful owner.
At once.
Walking out of the woods she began to move through the field, then into the garden towards the great house.
*
It was a long time since Rena had been to The Grange, and she had forgotten how attractive it was.
It was about four hundred years old, a long, grey stone building, stretching to two wings, and with a tower in the centre.
The tower was an oddity. It had been added about a century after the house was first built, and was topped by small mediaeval style turrets, which clashed with almost everything else about the building. But to the people of the village it was a treasured landmark, and they would not hear a word against it.
The house even maintained its beauty despite its poor condition. Many of the diamond-paned windows were broken and the rest badly needed cleaning.
There had been no gardeners here for a long time, but the flower-beds were brilliant with colour. Even the many weeds somehow seemed part of the picture rather than to spoil it.
On a day like this it was hard to remember the rumours that The Grange was haunted. There were old people in the village who said they had seen and heard strange noises when they visited it.
A
