-- It's quite a handsome pile , I suppose , she said.

_ It's a pity it's so damned expensive to keep up . I've been here just on eighteen months , and until ...

She stopped speaking and sighed .

-- No point in going into that . I'll just have to leave the whole business to the lawyers. They've given me plenty of assurances , but they're like the mills of God ; they grind exceeding slow.

Peter did not press her to elaborate , but caught up with her as she strode ahead , and in an endeavour to change the tenor of the conversation , he pointed to a small building , set a long way from the drive.

-- I've been wondering what that is , It looks a bit like a mausoleum . On a smaller scale , of course.

-- That's exactly what it is . As far as I can work out , it was meant to be some sort of family tomb . The first owner of this place , who started poor but made fortune in ways that I understand were never discussed , built the house and decided on having a private cemetery But the only one buried there is the first owner's first wife , who died childless.

-- How come there's only the one ? asked Peter .

-- He decided to take his second wife with him on a trip to India , and they both died of plague there and were buried or burned or whatever they did to bodies there then.

-- It's a bit of a waste then , said the practical Peter.

-- But they had a child that survived ?

-- Yes, I suppose it is a waste . A child ? Yes they had a son , but very late in life . He stayed in England at school while they went overseas. As he was growing up the house was completed, but he didn't spend much time here , even though it was written into his father's instructions that the money set aside for the place had to be used to complete it . Preferred the delights of London to the constraints of supervising construction .

-- Lived it up a bit , did he ?

-- Until he married , yes . But the wife settled him down . All the same she was a great disappointment to him because she only managed to produce a daughter . Then the daughter had a wild affair with a serviceman and produced the last of the Nascent line . Just before he parents were compleely destroyed in a bombing raid. Never found the bodies .

-- And he then had no offspring ?

-- I wouldn't know . He was a real tearaway . Got into the drug scene and finally overdosed . The old lady had him cremated rather than buried here , and when she died she left instructions for her cremation too. I think she was a bit ashamed of the way the family turned out -- the first one bootstrapped his way up , never really made it into the Society of the time even with his grand building , and from then on the only way was down . She left instructions , no great monuments and so on . I gather she had a great fling with my father back home, but when he went back to my mother the old girl came back here and became a recluse.

-- Quite a family , said Peter .

-- And I am the last of them , even though it's an indirect line , sighed Helen.

She turned away.

-- Now come with me . No working in the garden for the rest of the day . I have something I want you to help me with -- two things in fact . We'll see if we can bury a bit of the past.

Peter followed her inside , where she led him into the library.

She pointed to the big mantelpiece .

-- See those two matching caskets ? What would you say was in them ?

She glanced at him inquiringly .

-- Hate to guess , but since we've been talking cremations ...

-- Got it in one , said Helen .

-- Those are the ashes , the remains of the two last Nascents . Now let's get rid of them .

-- Spread 'em on the vegie patch ? asked Peter.

-- No , we'll give them more dignity than that. That big key beside the left hand one is the key to the mausoleum. We'll take the two caskets and put them there. I've been wanting to do that for while now .

So each carried a casket . Helen took the key , Peter a torch , and they marched out into the grounds , with just a slight touch of ceremony about the procedure .

The rusty locks were not easy to open , but the placement of the caskets was a simple matter and it was with some relief , and a with sense of accomplishment for Helen , that they returned to the house .

On the way back she paused for a moment and turning to Peter , spoke very earnestly.

-- Tell me honestly . Do you think I overdid it a bit in the florist's shop ?

-- Not entirely. But you certainly put the fear of the devil into the old girl at first . You want my advice ?

-- Yes, I think I do. You're a complete outsider, and you might be a bit more objective than me .

-- Right , though somehow I seem to be involved a bit in the Village's fevered dreams myself . I tell you what I 'd do now . I'd make a gesture towards her. Offer her some of the pictures . That was the bit that seemed to hit her hardest , and I bet she's a bit worried about what they might reveal .

Helen laughed out loud .

-- It's a bit hard to imagine the high jinks of village life back then . But I'm glad you said that . It was just what I was thinking . But I'm not going to get carried away, mind you . I think I might keep some as insurance .

-- Can't argue with that , said Peter , and they moved into the house.

As soon a they were inside, Helen bade him sit at the big kitchen table while she went to get the box of photographs that she had brought down before and some other boxes as well .

-- There's a lot more here than I showed you before . Some are duplicates , but he certainly went into photography with enthusiasm . You should see the cameras and equipment I found , and one of the cellars is set up like a quite modern darkroom . But here , let's lay these out and see if we can sort them. I can't say that he was all that well organised . It's an incredible mixture.

And so began a long and painstaking task , one that would occupy them all through the afternoon and well into the evening .

Some obviously landscape shots were easily bundled , though even there Helen was desirous of grouping them in their relevant areas , old farm houses , shots of fields , shots of distant farm workers , and several shots of an old mill .

It was the photographs of people that caused the most difficulty, as they had obviously been taken at different times and in different places , of single subjects or of groups It was not always easy to single out which photos of the young girls used particular subjects . The portraits of faces were easy enough to classify , but some of the casual snaps were less simple .

-- Whoof , exclaimed Peter , as he came across two or three of the same girl , and he passed them over to Helen .

-- Are you sure you want me to see these ? They don't reflect all that well on the young man and even less on the girl !

-- Too late now . You've seen them , anyway , said Helen ,

-- Keep going . I trust your discretion .

-- Thanks , I can keep my mouth shut . DYB DYB , scouts' honour and all that . But at times this is like reading a sixties' soft core porn magazine.

Finally the job was done , with the photos gathered into discrete groupings .

-- Time to give up for a while , said Helen .

-- Tomorrow I'll have to choose the ones to give back , and the ones I want to keep . I think that all the negatives are still stored in that darkroom , by the way . When that's done , would you be my messenger and take the chosen ones , with a covering note , to the florist's shop ?

-- Wouldn't it be better to get her to come up here for them ?

-- I'll think that over . You might well be right . Thanks for everything , Peter.

And Peter took himself off back to the George's , unprepared for the brouhaha that was to occur next day.