Having found and bought the derelict Sexton's Cottage as described in yesterdays posting, I outfitted myself in all the necessary thorn-proof gear, armed myself with a nice long pruning hook and set off from the edge of my recently acquired pond.
Within a few paces I was enclosed on three sides by walls of clinging, stinging greenery. Clouds of almost invisible flying, biting bugs surrounded my head, attacking every exposed patch of skin. Wild things skittered away through the undergrowth and blackbirds either called defiance or fled with angry pip-pip-pips. On the other hand, an audience of sparrows was gathering expectantly in the overhanging trees, jostling from branch to branch as I hacked my way through the jungle.
Suddenly I realised it was rambling rose, not bramble I was slashing at, and moments later I found myself in the shadow of a steep split-flint and redbrick gable. Against the cottage's end wall, an amazing lean-to shed had been constructed. A now sagging timber frame clad with an assortment of rotting wooden planks, lace-like strips of rusting corrigated iron, patches of moss covered plywood and several chipped enamel advertising signs for motoring products of the 1930s. The roof was red pantiles of the corrigated type, a different pattern from those on the main cottage. An ivy covered door with a large lump of rust where the padlock should have been stared me in the face.
With the tip of my slashing hook, well stained with the green gore of battle, I sheared away the ivy. The padlock came with it, along with half the door. I stepped back in case the rest of the place was about to follow suite, but apart from a cloud of dust and spores, which set me sneezing, it remained intact. At this point I was joined by my backup party, wife with babe in arms. "You're not going in there?" she said. So I knocked on the lintol of the door frame, and when nothing happened, passed within.
The place was lit from above by a few glass pantiles, also of the corrigated pattern to match the tiles. They allowed in a generally greenish, almost "underwater" sort of light. The place was mostly filled with rusting heaps that might once have been gardening equipment, piles of mouldering old sacks and wooden chitting trays. Against the opposite wall, standing elegant and alone, was a beautifully carved antique marble topped wash-stand. "I like that!" announced the backup team from the safety of the doorway. "So do I" says I, "And it looks in perfect condition."
I stepped carefully between the heaps to get a closer look. The first thing that struck me was the colour of the thing. The top was grey-veined white marble with a scalloped front edge matching the curved front of the drawer beneath, but suprisingly the wood was almost as pale a shade as the marble. It looked like a fine grained timber, the Shereton style design called for walnut veneer, but there was no sign of that. What it actually was we shall never know, because as soon as I leant forward and tapped a knuckle on the marble top, the whole thing disintegrated into a heap of dust. All that was left was the top and that had been broken by the fall.
"What happened?" asked the backup team.
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