The Shrouded Walls by Susan Howatch

There have been similar interesting experiments in crop rotation in East Anglia; I believe the late Lord Townshend was very successful in evolving the method, but my father held out against it for a long time and clung to the old ways. He distrusted all innovations on principle.”
    “And was all the Marsh a swamp once?”
    “A great deal of it was below the sea at one time, but that was centuries ago. Up to the fourteenth century Rye and Winchelsea were the mightiest ports in all England, rivals even to London, and then the sea receded from their walls and the river silted up in Rye harbor so that now they’re mere market towns with memories of medieval grandeur.”
    “And is Hastings nearby—where the Conqueror landed?”
    “It’s less than ten miles from Winchelsea. The ancestor of the Brandsons was reputedly a Dane called Brand who was in King Harold’s entourage and fought with Harold against the Norman invaders.”
    “My mother’s family was descended from Charlemagne,” I said, thinking he was becoming too boastful and determined not to be outshone, but to my annoyance he merely laughed as if I had made a joke.
    “My dear child,” he said amused, “each one of us had an ancestor who was alive a thousand years ago. The only difference between us and, say, our coachman riding behind his horses is that we know the names of our ancestors and he doesn’t.”
    This seemed to me to be a most peculiar observation and I found his amusement irritating in the extreme. I decided the most dignified course of action was to ignore his remark altogether, and accordingly I turned my attentions to the landscape outside once more.
    The weather was improving steadily all the time, but now darkness was falling, and as I drew my redingote more tightly around myself I peered through the window to watch the shadows lengthening over the Marsh. The dykes now gleamed mysteriously, the flat ground gave curious illusions of distance and nearness. When I first saw the lights of Rye they seemed very close at hand, a cluster of illuminations dotting the dark rise of a hill, but it was another hour before we were finally below the walls of the town and the horses were toiling up the cobbled road to the great gate at the top of the rise.
    “Vere said he would meet us at the Mermaid Inn,” said Axel. “The carriage will stop there presently. Ah, here’s the high street! You see the old grammar school? My father sent Ned there to learn his letters. Vere had a private tutor but it was hardly worth spending the money on such a luxury for Ned ... You can see how old the town is—I would think it probable that the streets and alleys you see now are little changed from the medieval days when they were built.”
    I stared fascinated out of the window. I had never seen any town like it before, for Cheltenham, where I had spent my schooldays, was now filled with the modern buildings of the eighteenth century, and the parts of London where I had lived were also relatively new. I was reminded of the city of London which lay east of Temple Bar, a section I had seldom visited, but even though there was a similarity between the city and this town, Rye still seemed unique to me as I saw it then for the first time.
    The carriage reached the Mermaid Inn in Mermaid Street, the driver halted the horses in the courtyard, and presently I heard the shouts of the ostlers and the sounds of the baggage being unloaded.
    My limbs were stiff. As Axel helped me down into the courtyard I slipped and fell against him, but before I could apologize for my clumsiness he said abruptly: “There’s Ned but I see no sign of Vere.”
    I turned.
    There was a man in the doorway of the inn, and as he saw us he stepped forward so that the light lay behind him and I could not see his face. His movements seemed curiously reluctant.
    “Where’s Vere?” said Axel sharply to him as he drew nearer to us. “He told me he’d be here to meet us.”
    “There was an accident.”