THE DEVIL IN CLEVELYBy
Norah Lofts

From The Cover:

Sir Charles Augustus Shelinadine was an
autocrat. He ruled his village with a firm
but kindly hand -- instructing his tenants on
their crops, their children,
and their love-affairs.
And when he died and the new Squire came,
the village stirred uneasily. For the new Squire had strange ideas -- and even stranger friends -- friends like Mr Mundford who never seemed to grow any older and whose name so
rumour had it -- was linked with the terrible Hell Fire Club. And Mr Mundford was interested in too many things that should not have concerned him, . . like the ruins of the old Roman temple . . . and what happened in the village on All-Hallows' night. . . and in the silent, amber-eyed young woman called Damask Greenaway. . .
The latter part of the 18th century was a time of conflicting ideas, of rural upheaval and irresponsible whims. And the village of Clevely reflected-- completely--the symptoms of the times.
For the poor there was the round of village life... of harvest... and birth... and death... and there was the threat of land enclosure ... of economic disaster that could rob them of what little wealth they possessed.
And for the rich, for Richard Shelmadine and his long-suffering wife, for the eccentric Miss Amelia, for the sinister Mr Mundford, there were the sometimes cruel, sometimes fantastic indulgencies of extravagant people.
And in Clevely, the conflicts of rich and poor, of loved and unloved, of simple and sinister, culminated in a weird and terrible celebration on the Eve of All Hallows ...
Also by Norah Lofts
JASSY
THE BRITTLE GLASS
A CALF FOR VENUS
SCENT OF CLOVES
THE LUTE PLAYER
BLESS THIS HOUSE
OUT OF THIS NETTLE
THE ROAD TO REVELATION
HESTER ROON
MADSELIN
I MET A GYPSY
HERE WAS A MAN
BLOSSOM LIKE THE ROSE
WHITE HELL OF PITY
THE LOST QUEEN
HOW FAR TO BETHLEHEM
REQUIEM FOR IDOLS
HEAVEN IN YOUR HAND
HER OWN SPECIAL ISLAND
ESTHER
is there anybody there? the story of maude reed rupert halton's tale silver nutmeg checkmate
walk into my parlour the fall of midas michael and all angels copsi castle the concubine queen in waiting day of the butterfly
The House Trilogy
THE TOWN HOUSE
THE HOUSE AT OLD VINE
THE HOUSE AT SUNSET
Norah Lofts writing as Peter Curtis
DAY OF THE BUTTERFLY DEAD MARCH IN THREE KEYS YOU'RE BEST ALONE THE LITTLE WAX DOLL
and published by Corgi Books
The Devil in Clevely
Norah Lofts

CORGI BOOKS
A DIVISION OF TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS LTD
THE DEVIL IN CLEVELY
A CORGI BOOK 0 552 11394 8
Originally published in Great Britain under the title AFTERNOON OF AN AUTOCRAT by Michael Joseph Ltd.
PRINTING HISTORY
Michael Joseph edition published 1956 Corgi edition published 1968 Corgi edition reissued 1969 Corgi edition reissued 1974 Corgi edition reissued 1980
This book is copyright. No portion of it may be reproduced by any process without written permission. All inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.
Conditions of sale.
1: This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. 2: This book is sold subject to the Standard Conditions of Sale of Net Books and may not be re-sold in the U.K. below the net price fixed by the publishers for the book.
This book is set in Intertype Baskerville
Corgi Books are published by
Transworld Publishers Ltd,
Century House, 61-63 Uxbridge Road,
Baling, London W5 5SA
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Collins, Glasgow.PART ONE
Afternoon of an Autocrat
CHAPTER ONE
On the third Saturday afternoon of October, in the year 1795, Sir Charles Augustus Shelmadine set out on what--though he naturally had no notion of it--was to be his last ride.
Stubbornly old-fashioned, he still ate his dinner at midday and made of the meal, as of everything else he undertook, a thoroughly good job. The first pig-killing of the season had just taken place and the walnuts were at their best, though the crop was poor this year; he had dined well, and as he proposed, this evening, to entertain some friends for cards and supper, that meal, usually a frugal affair of two or three courses, would be supplemented by as many again, so if he were to do justice to his own table some exercise was desirable.
As recently as eighteen months ago he would have made his round of the village on foot, but he had lately come to the conclusion that walking provoked his gout. Moreover, today he intended to make a visit to the cobbler's which was across the Stone Bridge on the other side of the Waste; his new boots, ordered three weeks ago, had not yet been delivered and it was clear that Amos Green-way needed a prod. So at half-past two his stout grey horse was brought to the door, and with some assistance from the mounting-block, and some from the groom, he heaved himself into the saddle and set off along the avenue. It was a fine autumn day, golden and mellow with sunshine and with just that hint of chill in the air which was conducive to appetite. The chestnut leaves were sharp yellow and bright amber, the hawthorns crimson and bronze; the old man took, in the weather and the scene, a pleasure undiminished by the repetition of more than seventy years.
As he neared the gate Bessie Jarvey, the lodgekeeper's wife, broke off her work in the potato patch and hurried clumsily to throw open the gate for him. In the family way again, he noticed, he'd thought so last time he saw her, now he was sure. That would be seven youngsters, all under working age; how they fitted into the Lodge, which consisted of two octagonal rooms, one on each side of the gateway, was a puzzle; a puzzle to which there was no solution, for it was obviously impossible to add to either room without spoiling the perfect symmetry of the entrance. And in any case, he remembered, Jarvey's father had reared ten children there--all fine healthy brats too.
'Potatoes done well this year, Bessie; better-looking than mine,' he said, looking down at her as she bobbed, holding the gate wide.
She received the compliment with a smile, closed the gate and went back to her digging. Sir Charles, on the patch of smoothly raked, weedless gravel which divided his gates from the highway, halted for a moment and looked out over the scene which never failed to give him pleasure. The Manor gate stood at the lowest point of the village, just where the main road and what was known as the Lower Road, and the river, all ran together. From this point the land sloped gently upwards, so that looking straight ahead of him he could see the green of the common pasture, the vast expanse of the two common fields and beyond them the blazing autumn glory of the trees of Layer Wood which stretched on all the way to Nettleton. When he turned his head to the left he could see all along the main road which ran straight up the slope, past the church and the Rectory and the inn and the main part of the village, until it turned at the Stone Bridge and disappeared over the Waste. It was all beautiful, all pleasing.
He was--he thought--no sentimentalist, and he would have repudiated the word 'love' as a description of the emotion he felt for Clevely village; yet the passionate
interest, the possessiveness, the complacent approval with which he regarded it came near to justifying the term. Here and there, of course, there were things--and people --that went wrong from time to time, but that was what he was here for--to put things right; and, above all, to see that nothing changed for the worse. He knew villages whose squires failed in their duty and went running off to London, or Bath, or even, until lately, to the Continent, and naturally in such villages most scandalous things happened, most pernicious ideas took root. And he knew other villages where squires on the spot encouraged and even initiated most revolutionary changes--they dared to call them progress. There'd be no such changes in Clevely, not as long as ...
'Come up, Bob,' he said to the horse. They bore left and trotted briskly through the village, past the flat-faced Rectory where the reddened creeper glowed in the sun, past the ancient church with its round Saxon tower, in whose shade so many Shelmadines took their last rest among so many Cloptons, and Greenways and Jarveys and Fullers under their unmarked mounds.
As he neared the inn he slackened pace. He was no Puritan and would have been the last to deny that any man who had done a sound day's work had the right to as much sound liquor as he could pay for, but no one--that is no villager--who wasn't a loafer and a rogue should be drinking at this time of day. Almost as though expecting this visit of inspection, the little inn stood with both doors open, so that at a glance Sir Charles could see into the taproom with its sanded floor and barrels and the room which had, until an occasional coach started coming through, been Mrs Sam Jarvey's parlour; they called it the coffee-room now, though what they drank there he wondered--not coffee, he hoped, for Mrs Sam had never made a decent cup of coffee in all her ten years' service at the Manor. Both rooms were empty; no labourer, no superior person was drinking this afternoon. Sir Charles nodded to himself; that was as it should be. In the orchard at the side of the inn Sam Jarvey was gathering ... what? Damsons, by God! Late--much, much too late.
The forge was next, just at the corner where Berry Lane led off to Flocky Hall Farm. Strong Un, the smith, the third of his line whom Sir Charles had known by that name, was busy, fixing a new rim to the wheel of Matt Ashpole's cart--and not before it was needed. As usual Sir Charles paused to have a word with the smith, who remarked that what was needed was not a new rim but a new wheel. The remark made Sir Charles smile, not because it was witty but because it was in tradition; all workmen always, when called upon to make a repair, said that what was needed was a replacement--too simple to see that if replacements could be made at will they'd be hard put to it to find a job.
He turned left into Berry Lane, so named because it was lined with bramble bushes on which blackberries grew in profusion. Despite the picking which had gone on lately there were multitudes left and the air was heavy with their warm black scent. Nobody was picking today, and that too was as it should be; blackberry-picking ended on the thirtieth of September. Sir Charles did not precisely believe, as many villagers did, that on that date the Devil flew over, claiming what berries were left as his own and cursing any who dared to take one, but he liked every traditional date to be recognised and honoured.
His mood darkened a little as he went along the lane. He would have liked to ride along, straight past Fuller's and up to Flocky Hall, as he had been used to do in old Abram's day. He had been very fond of Abram Clopton, a yeoman farmer of the real old breed whose family had been at Flocky Hall as long as Shelmadines had been at the Manor. Three tall Cloptons, bearing their bows, had gone with Shelmadine to Crecy--that was no legend but sober truth, for all four of them had died and had been brought home at Shelmadine expense and buried together in the church. Most of the dead brought back from that campaign had been buried at Dunwich and been taken out to sea again when half that town was washed away. From that time on, until fifteen years ago, when old
Abram died, the tie between the two families had been sound and close; but things were different now. Young Fred Clopton was progressive--a thing Sir Charles could in no way abide. He admitted--being nothing if not fair-minded --that Fred had a perfect right to do as he choose on his own land. Let him grow his turnips and his clover; let him marl his land and winter-feed his cattle and sell fresh beef all through the winter, and talk about the 'Clopton Herd' and market off his squealing little calves one by one at fabulous price as though they were some kind of jewel. All well and good. But to flaunt his success and his money, to buy his wife a pianoforte, to send his two red-faced little wenches to Baildon Female Academy and to go smashing off to market in a high gig with yellow wheels-- that was a different thing altogether, because it made other men envious and discontented, made them mutter about enclosures. Flocky Hall was enclosed, three hundred and five acres, all fenced, but it had been like that ever since the monks at Baildon Abbey had started sheep farming, centuries ago; and it wasn't being enclosed that made Fred Clopton successful, it was his luck, and his industry and the steady accumulation of wealth from centuries of thrifty, hard-working forebears. Damn it, Sir Charles could prove that that was true, for there were two other enclosed farms at Clevely: Bridge Farm, two hundred and ten acres, which had been part of the estate but which had been sold off in 1721, when things went wrong, and now belonged to a damned Dissenter named Shipton, who certainly wasn't making a fortune; and Wood Farm, three hundred and twenty acres, still a Shelmadine property which Sir Charles had let, in a weak foolish moment, to a retired army officer named Rout who'd lost an arm at the battle of Bunker's Hill and had a desire to live in the country and farm. He wasn't making a fortune either; always behind with his rent. Discontented fellows who grumbled about the open fields and longed for enclosure never looked at Shipton, or Rout, they only saw Clopton. He had now arrived at Fuller's farmhouse, a pretty, half-timbered building with a small orchard between itand the lane and a small yard behind it. Fuller was, after Rout, the largest of his tenant farmers; he leased one hundred and ten acres--fifty-five in each of the great fields--and his tenancy gave him rights to the common pasture as well. He was a good farmer, hard working and punctual with his rent, but once or twice lately he had made a remark derogatory to the open-field system; and if he made one such today, Sir Charles had decided, he would give him notice, his lease being renewable next Lady Day.
As it happened there was no need for a remark; the first thing that met the Squire's eye as he turned into the yard was a cart loaded with turnips, standing with upended shafts by the pigsty; and the second was the fantastic, crazy incomprehensible thing which Fuller had done to the kitchen. Sir Charles had always admired Mrs Fuller's kitchen with its floor of buff and pink and primrose-coloured pamments, its wide hearth with the spits and the brick oven at the side, and the big black dresser set with bits of brass-ware and pewter plates and mugs. In earlier days, when he walked, or could dismount and mount again without a thought, he had often accepted Mrs Fuller's invitation to step inside and drink a glass of her home-brewed ale, or cowslip wine, and eat a piece of her best plum cake; more recently she had brought these offerings to him on a tray and he had accepted them, graciously, out of custom.
Today he stared at a desecrated shrine. The kitchen had been stripped, its floor lay knee deep in straw; across the far end where the dresser had stood beside the door which led to the inner part of the house there was a brand-new manger, and the madman, Fuller, was standing in the manger, fixing over it a great wide slatted rack which jutted out and covered almost half the ceiling space. He .was hammering so vigorously he had not heard Sir Charles arrive and at the words, 'What the devil are you about, Fuller?' he gave a start and almost swallowed the nails that he was holding between his teeth. Then he spat them into his hand, jumped down from the
manger and came stumbling through the straw, a big-boned, gangling fellow, deceptively mild of eye and manner. He raised the hand which held the hammer to the lank, sweat-damp hair that lay in a bull-pow on his forehead.
'Good day, sir. I'm sorry, didn't hear you come.'
'I asked what the devil you are about, Fuller?' He knew that the answer would be displeasing, since it involved change, so the question might as well be brusque.
'Well,' Fuller said deliberately, 'I'm fixing up a place for my beasts. This year I aim to coddle one or two of my best through the winter.' He jiggled the nails in his left hand, but his light blue eyes, the colour of a speedwell, did not waver from their deliberate stare.
'I had a good hay yield and Fred Clopton had more turnips than he wanted, so he sold me a load and I reckoned I'd try this here winter-feeding.'
'And that demanded that you turn your kitchen into a byre?'
'What else could I do? Pigs need the sty, horses need the stable; mustn't build on my hired acres--you pointed that out yourself, sir, last time I mentioned the matter. Where else can I put my beasts?'
'That,' said Sir Charles, 'is the question, Fuller. When every farmer gets these crazy notions and must keep his beasts through the winter, where will they all go? In a year or so the whole country'd be packed full of bullocks like Baildon market at Michaelmas. You never thought of that, did you? No! None of you fellows can ever see beyond your noses, and your noses are all snouting out quick profits and nothing else.'
Something sparked in Fuller's pale eyes as he formed, in his mind, the answer to the accusation and the refusal of the argument; but he knew his landlord. Sir Charles could be impervious to reason, but open, occasionally, to appeal. So the farmer said mildly:
'I only wanted to hev a try, sir. For one thing, I'd hev my muck; 'tis all good wheat straw I've put down, and by winter's end I'd hev a good heap of muck. My top end of Layer Field is hungry for muck.'
'Your piece of that field, like everybody else's, gets its fair share of dunging when the cattle turn in there after harvest, Fuller. You're just being selfish, trying to get ahead yourself at the expense of everybody else.'
Fuller shook back the limp lock of hair and there was in the quick jerky gesture something resembling that of a horse, fly-tormented.
'Who'm I hurting, sir? Who'll be a penny the worse for my trying to do things better fashion?"
I shall,' said the Squire promptly. Nodding towards the erst-while kitchen, he asked with a glint of humour, 'You don't imagine that you are improving my property, do you? Turning the trimmest little kitchen in Suffolk into a byre. And there's another thing! What about your poor missus, where's she going to bake and brew? In the parlour?'
'For the time being. She was agin it at first but I talked her round and she's willing for me to hev a try.'
'Well, I ain't. So you can clear all that nonsensical rubbish out, my good man. I shall be by on Tuesday, and I shall want to see that kitchen just as I always have seen it.'
'Ah,' said Fuller, now provoked past caution, 'thass just it. Same as things was in the beginning so they must be for evermore, amen. Thass why Clevely lags behind so; thass why us who would get on hev to be hobbled to the old ways that even them old monks knew was backward in their time when they put a fence round Flocky.'
Sir Charles let go the rein and planted both his plump hands on his knees, sitting forward as though in a chair. The red colour deepened in his face and invaded the whites of his eyes.
'That'll do,' he said sharply. 'I can tell which way the wind blows. You're hankering after enclosure like all the other selfish cantankerous fools. I happen to remember when Greston was enclosed; Mr Montague, the parson, and half a dozen farmers did very well out of it, and forty decent poor men were thrown on the parish. That is not going to happen here!'
The enclosure of the neighbouring village of Greston-- which had been mismanaged--was his stock argument against the innovation which he detested; and he used it so much, always quoting the forty poor decent men who had become paupers, that unwittingly and unintentionally he was building himself a posthumous reputation as the poor man's friend.
'Forty idle fellows at Greston what had just kept going grubbing half a crop out of gardens and keeping a few half-starved beasts on the common lost their rights and now go out to work by the day for wages,' retorted Fuller hotly. 'And whether that be bad or a good thing is a matter of opinion.'
'Then here's something that ain't. Your notice. Fuller. I shall not renew with you next Lady Day!'
The farmer's thin face took on a grey dirty look as it whitened under the lingering summer tan, but his eyes did not meeken or waver.
'All right then,' he said. 'Sack me! Sack all but the lazy and the lickspittles! It'll come, just the same. You can't hold back the tide!'
Good-humoured again now that he had shot his bolt, Sir Charles said, 'I never thought of trying. But I can keep fellows like you from putting pigs in bed-chambers! I shall be by on Tuesday. Good day, Fuller. Come up, Bobby.'
He rode briskly out of the yard and turned back towards the main road. The interview had ruffled him a little, but only a little. He'd half known that there was going to be trouble with Fuller; now it had come, and the way he had dealt with it would put a stop to all that nonsense. It was a relief to have it over and done with; and, besides, he had got his way.
Fuller, who had not got his way--had got, in fact, notice instead--stood for a moment breathing as though he had been running, and then turned, stumbled back through the straw and leaned against the manger while sobs racked his stringy body and a few difficult tears brimmed his eyes and lost themselves in the harsh lines of his face. He wouldn't easily find another farm to hire-- the French war and the corn prices which offered such opportunities to men who could go ahead had at the same time put a premium on any sort of land. In the far north and west, they said, the ploughs were out on heaths and moorlands that had never felt the touch of the share before. Sod and blast the stubborn old devil, Fuller thought. He gave himself a shake, brushed his horny hand over his eyes and jumped back into the manger. Ignoring the threat of Tuesday's inspection, he went on hammering at the rack as though nothing had happened. The turnips had to be stored somewhere. ... Tuesday's row couldn't be worse than this; you couldn't be sacked twice.
Sir Charles clattered over the Stone Bridge, an ancient structure only just wide enough to take wheeled traffic, but built with nooks in its walls to allow foot passengers to step back into safety. Immediately upon its other side he was riding alongside a high wall built of the same pleasant red brick as his own house and lodge cottage. The wall and the house which it encircled had been built at the same time as the Manor, and by the same hands, for the house had been, until fifty years ago, the Dower House of the family. Sir Charles's father, like many of his neighbours, had come a cropper at the time of the South Sea Bubble and in 1721 had been obliged to sell the Dower House, Bridge Farm and several hundred acres of land. The experience had taught him nothing, he had remained a gambler, both in investments and at cards, until the end of his life; but it had its effect upon Charles, who had never invested a penny in any stock or share and had made it an inflexible rule to rise from table the moment he had lost two guineas. This habit, once the subject of disgusted comment among his 'deep-playing' neighbours, had, as he grew to be old, come to be regarded as one more endearing eccentricity, and when anyone in the six parishes said that something had cost or was worth
'a Shelmadine' everyone knew that it meant two guineas.
The high wall was broken at one point by a pair of wrought-iron gates, similar in pattern to, though of less impressive size than, those of the Manor, and when he reached them Sir Charles slowed down and sat for a moment staring through at the neglected, moss-grown drive which cut through the tangled, overgrown laurels and lilacs of the shrubbery and past the ill-shaven lawn to the house whose canopied door and window-sills and shutters were all in sad need of paint. He was saddened by what he saw. Still, it was no business of his. The Dower House had been sold to a seafaring man, a Captain Parsons, who was reputed to have made a fortune in the slave trade. He had one daughter, and a good many young men from families like the Shelmadines, recently impoverished, had made a bid for her hand. Charles Shelmadine himself had 'taken a shot at her', was in fact dancing with her at a ball in the Assembly Rooms at Baildon, with old Captain Parsons beaming his approval, when he fell in love, at first sight, across the width of the ballroom, with the beautiful, crazy creature whom he had married and with whom he had spent three enchanting, terrible years. The shames, the shocks, the anxieties, the delights and ecstasies of that brief married life, and its appalling end, would have left a mark on many men to the end of their days, but Charles Shelmadine had possessed then the rudiments of the art which in later years he perfected, of shutting out of his mind anything unpleasant about which he could not take positive action. In quite a short time he was able to think that it was a blessing that Felicity had died before his attempts to indulge her whims and demands had ruined the estate all over again. As it was, she had, in bearing the son in whom he had so much delighted, sown the seed for a bitter harvest.
Now, halted by the gate of the Dower House, all these memories merely brushed the fringe of his mind, which was focused upon the question of whether or not to call upon Miss Amelia this afternoon. It had until recently been his habit to call once, at least, in a month; often he paid an extra visit. She had never married, despite her many chances; like others with her advantages, she had been very choosy and hard to please. With the passing of time she had grown domineering and sharp of tongue, but Sir Charles had derived considerable pleasure from his visits to her. She listened intelligently and sympathetically, and he had once or twice found himself telling her things which he had never told anyone else; and she understood the value of money as few women did. Lately she seemed to have grown miserly; for the last three years the house and grounds had deteriorated, and when, on a recent visit, he had exercised the privilege of an old friend and tried to bring the talk round to her personal financial problems she had been very evasive--so much so that she sounded vague and rambling. And she had offered him, instead of the Madeira which he expected in that house and considered his due, some very inferior Marsala-- without a word of apology.
No, he would not visit her this afternoon. The rumpus with Fuller was quite enough. When he had administered the well-merited prod to Greenway he'd ride on and visit the little hunchback, Jacky Fenn, and hear how he was getting on with his fiddle-playing. That would put him in perfect good humour again.
'Come up, Bobby,' he said, and they jogged along to the end of the red wall.
At this point the highway made a boundary between Clevely and the neighbouring parish of Minsham All Saints. The latter had been enclosed farther back than even Sir Charles could remember, and now, on his left hand as he rode, the hawthorn hedges were high enough to shut out the view; but on the right hand there was view enough, for on that side of the road lay Clevely Waste, a vast open space of commonland, uncultivated save for the little patches of garden and orchard lying near the hovels which fringed its edge nearest the highway. Here lived those of the Clevely villagers who enjoyed rights on the Waste but had no share in the open fields or common pasture. Here lived the self-employed, the oddjobbers
and the merely idle.
In appearance the cottages presented a sharp contrast to those in the main part of the village, where Sir Charles was very particular about the whitewashing of walls and the mending of thatch. Like all other landlords, he was often forced to choose between doing indoor or outdoor repair; and invariably he did the latter, giving reason that one must keep property weather-proof. The owners of the Waste Cottages seemed not to mind about weather; one or two of the structures were fairly soundly built, but most of them looked as though, long ago, they had grown from the soil and were gradually sinking back into it. Many of them, according to legend, had been built in bygone times under an ancient licence known as 'Squatters' Rights' by which any man was entitled to his freehold if he could, between dusk and dawn, rear four walls, slap on a roof and have smoke rising from a chimney in the morning. They gave evidence of their hasty and makeshift origin. Sir Charles, since he felt no responsibility for them, did not find even the most tumble-down of them offensive to the eye; they crouched low and fitted in with the background of nibbled grass and gorse and bracken and stunted hawthorns which was the Waste. And in the same way, he thought, their inhabitants fitted in with the pattern of village life.
Fuller just showed his pig-headed ignorance when he spoke of all Waste-dwellers as idle fellows. In many ways they were useful and sometimes they were industrious. Amos Greenway, though he frittered away a good deal of time, still made and mended boots and shoes and clogs and all kinds of harness; Matt Ashpole went twice a week into Baildon with his bony old horse and ramshackle cart and was available for any odd carrying job and did a bit of dealing as well; Bert Sadler dug all the graves; old Widow Hayward took in washing, acted as midwife at one end of life and layer-out at the other, and had somehow managed to rear three sturdy sons who had all gone soldiering; Matt Juby was idle and a drunkard to boot, and Spitty Palfrey was much the same, but neither of them ever refused a casual job--mole- and rat-catching, emptying privies, work at hay and harvest time. Somebody had to do these things, and it was foolish to say that enclosure, by forcing them into regular work, would benefit the village; it was simply because they still had their Waste and could support themselves for part of the year with their geese and goats and pigs and scrawny cows that they were available when they were needed.
The cobbler's cottage stood at the far end of the strung-out line, and it was one of the more solidly built ones. In time past it had been cared for, with flowers beside the door, a step white with hearthstone, and a neat potato patch at the side. Even now recent neglect had not quite reduced it to the general level. Julie Greenway, when she married Amos, had been a very superior sort of woman, daughter of a small yeoman farmer at Notley, and herself apprenticed to the dressmaking. An old unmarried aunt of Sir Charles had lived at the Manor until her death and Julie Greenway had made all her dresses, and once she had come to do a fitting and had heard that a dairymaid was ill and had offered to make the butter, saying that it would be a treat to get her hands on a churn once more. Damned good butter it was too. If Julie had married a farmer she'd have been another Mrs Fuller, or another Mrs Clopton--Mrs Abram, of course, not Mrs Fred with all that pianoforte nonsense! But it had been easy-- twenty-three years ago--to see why she married a cobbler. A good-looking, merry, devil-may-care young scamp he'd been before the Methodists got hold of him.
At that time, had Amos been one of his tenants Sir Charles would have given him notice; for next to, if not equally with, progressive farming the Squire abhorred Dissent. But the cobbler was a freeholder, so Sir Charles had shown his complete disapproval in the one way open to him: he took away his custom. Whether Amos noticed was doubtful; Sir Charles did, for it seemed that no cobbler in any nearby village could make a decent pair of boots, and even when he transferred his custom to Bail-don be never attained a really easy fit. And then, one
evening, Amos Greenway, trudging home through Layer Wood from one of his Methodist meetings, had seen a light, a flickering blaze, and gone towards it to find a lonely keeper's cottage all aflame. The keeper was out doing his duty, and his wife, with a child in her arms, was at the foot-square bedroom window screaming into the lonely night. Amos had yelled, 'Push him through. I'll catch him,' and had done so. Then, laying the child aside, he had fought his way in and dragged out the woman.
Next day, when the news reached him, Sir Charles had walked straight to the cobbler's cottage and said, 'I hate Dissent, as you know; but I honour a brave man, Green-way. My custom is yours in future.'
Amos, all blistered and hairless and plastered with old Widow Hayward's herb poultices, had said simply, 'It will be welcome, sir.' Then he added something about having often preached about brands snatched from the burning and now knowing what they felt like.
Since then Sir Charles's boots had fitted better, but there was no denying that Greenway became more and more dilatory as time went on and Methodism encroached upon his time. Once he had left his work, which included stitching a stirrup leather for his Squire, and gone sixty miles to hear John Wesley preach, walking every step of the way. Now he was late with this last job, and Sir Charles intended to take no excuses.
Between the road and the cottage wall was a little bed of marigolds, almost past flowering. The door to the room which Amos used for his work was half open, and just inside a large cat, almost the colour of the marigolds, lay basking in the last of the sun's warmth. Sir Charles leaned sideways and rapped smartly on the door with the handle of his crop. The cat sprang up in an offended manner and backed into the flowerbed, where it stood glaring at him with its yellow eyes, moving its tail from side to side.
The door opened wide, revealing, not the angular figure and dreamy countenance of the cobbler, but the small neat figure of a girl, who made her bob, and then looked up at him with a timid, wavering smile.He prided himself upon knowing the name, as well as the history, of every living soul in Clevely, and liked to prove it by using the names freely, surprising young people, particularly when he caught them up to mischief, by saying, 'You're Samuel Thomas Jarvey, ain't you? Samuel John is the one with bow legs.' It irked him this afternoon that he had to wait a perceptible moment before bringing this girl's name to mind. It was out of the Bible, he remembered that much, but not a girl's name at all. Something ridiculous like Jordan or Galilee I Ah, he had it.
'Good day, Damascus. Y'father about?'
'No, sir; I'm sorry. He's over to Nettleton.'
'Well, I hope he finished off my boots before he went galloping about the countryside. Methodist business again, I'll be bound.'
He spoke sternly and was not surprised or displeased to see an expression of acute distress come into the girl's face. He was, however, surprised when, after a second during which it looked as though her eyes might jump out of her head, she said quietly:
'Oh yes, sir, he finished them and he was going to deliver them either on his way there or back.'
'Ah, that's all right then,' said Sir Charles, softening immediately. 'You're busy,' he added, looking at the broom in her hand.
'I try to clear up a bit when I get home, sir. Mother can't do much nowadays.'
'Rheumatics bad again? Pity, great pity!' He was always downcast by any evidence of age or infirmity, but in this case he felt an almost personal concern. He had been very partial to the busy, capable little dressmaker, and had been sorry to see how, soon after Amos took up with the Methodists and began to neglect his trade, her looks and her spirits had seemed to decline; and later, when she had grown stooped and lame and twisted, he had been sorry again.
'Have you tried nettle tea?' he asked kindly. 'I swallowed gallons of it when my gout was bad, and to my
mind it did more good than all the doctor's brew! You put a good bunch of young nettles into a crock, pour boiling water over, let it stand and then strain it off.' He remembered that in its natural state nettle tea had a flat, nauseating flavour which he had disguised by the addition of lemon juice; he remembered too that lemons were not easy to come by and pretty expensive. 'Then you add the juice of a lemon, just to make it tasty. I'll send you one or two along. You make a good jorum of that and tell her I hope it'll do the trick.' 'Thank you, sir. That would be very kind.' All the time he had been speaking, looking down at the girl who stood looking up at him, he had been aware of a small, nagging feeling of annoyance. He had a very weak spot for young female creatures, particularly when they were neat, fairly comely and respectful, and was not averse from pulling a stray curl, chucking a wench under the chin, or administering a little pat on the rump; at Christmas and the Harvest Horkey he was free with his kisses--an old man's privilege. Now, having been stern and then kindly to this young female who was neat, not uncomely and very civil, he felt that the little encounter should be rounded off with some fatherly gesture, yet he could not bring himself to make it. There was an irritating primness about her, that was it. The way all that pretty would-be-curly hair was dragged back from the centre parting and clamped into those hard-looking plaits on the nape of her neck, leaving her brow so naked and so much too big for the small face; the ugly high neck of the print dress; prim, repellent. A pity. But there was something more, something more seriously wrong; and suddenly he knew what it was. Those eyes--they weren't the colour any human eyes should be; damn it, they were nearly yellow--were in fact almost the colour of the cat's, not quite yellow but a cloudy, greenish amber. Most unusual and most disturbing.
As he stared the cat made a delicate, graceful bound through the air and landed on the girl's shoulder, thrusting its soft head under her chin and curving its sinuousbody so that its plumy tail went behind her head. Now, with the ugly collar, the unbecoming slaty colour of the print dress hidden and with the prim expression melting into affection, she was almost beautiful. Sir Charles was happily able to give her a little pat on the shoulder not occupied by the cat and to say with his full geniality:
'Good day, m'dear.'
'Good afternoon, sir,' she said.
The Greenways' bit of garden lay to the side of the house; a potato patch, some gooseberry and currant bushes and a fruit tree or two. The potato patch was thick with weeds and Sir Charles remembered that it was always Julie who in the past had been seen at work there; if this year she had been too much disabled to raise a crop they'd feel the pinch during the winter. And a little hunger might do Amos no harm; bring him to his senses a bit.
Where the garden ended he turned right to follow the foot-and-bridle path which ran between the Waste and Layer Wood and then on between Layer Field and the wood.
Damascus Greenway, whose name had been shortened to Damask so long ago that the full name on Sir Charles's lips had sounded unfamiliar, set the cat down on the step, went in and closed the door, propped the broom in a corner and stood still, spasmodically clasping and unclasping her hands. She had just told a deliberate lie, and told it for worldly profit--the very worst kind of lie I
There they stood on the work-bench; a pair of top boots finished save for the fixing of the yellowy-brown cuffs which would complete them. The tops lay near, awaiting the thirty minutes or so of steady stitching needed to round off a good job. And why hadn't she been honest and said that they weren't quite ready, but that they would be finished and delivered by nightfall. That was all she had to say; that was what Father would have said. And instead she'd gone and told a lie. And it wasn't as though she didn't know better. She knew exactly what
every lie did; it knocked another nail in the cross upon which Jesus had died; it added another spike to the crown of thorns. She'd done that, Damask Greenway, who loved Him ... and she'd done it simply to prevent Sir Charles saying that Father neglected his work for his Methodism.
Now she stood, and the voices began. The grave, grieved voice of God saying man shall not live by bread alone; saying betrayal, thirty pieces of silver; saying he who denies me I will deny; saying a lie, Damask Green-way, a tribute to Satan who is called the Father of Lies; saying another nail, another thorn.
And the voice of the Devil, who could, if he wished, make himself so clearly heard, so plausible, saying how sensible not to offend Sir Charles, how clever to hide Father's lapse, with winter coming on and all the potatoes to buy this year and Mother not able to take in any sewing.
Often she wondered whether other people, other Methodists, members of Nettleton chapel, heard these conflicting voices saying, so clearly, such contradictory things. She thought not. Everybody else seemed so sure. Father, for instance, if he had been home, would have said, 'I'm sorry, sir, they're not done; but if you're in a hurry I'll sit down and finish them off. It'll take half an hour.'
(And you'd have said that, said the Devil, if you could have done the job; you couldn't, so you did the next best thing.)
She felt dizzy and a little sick; so many voices! She knew the remedy. 'Take it to the Lord in prayer,' as they said in the prayer meetings.
She knelt down by the bench and dropped her head on her folded hands, within two inches of the shining toes of the boots which had caused all the trouble.
(Not the boots, said the Devil; your Father leaving the boots unfinished was the cause of the trouble. Be honest with me, at least!)
She began to pray, addressing God as though He were Sir Charles Shelmadine, only infinitely more touchywhen offended, infinitely more kind when pleased, and infinitely more powerful at all times.
She was really very much muddled about God and
Jesus----It was Jesus who had called her to come to Him
in that barn on the June night when she was fourteen, it was Jesus who loved her and whom she loved and who was hurt by her sins; but loving Jesus had somehow committed her to the task of pleasing God, who was quite different, who could never be hurt, only angered or pleased. There were even moments when she didn't think God had been fair to Jesus, sending Him down here to earth to suffer and be crucified, just because men, whom God had made 'in His own image', or so they said, hadn't turned out the way God wanted them. Once she had tried to talk to Amos about this matter and he had said, 'But, child, they're all one; the Trinity--Father, Son and Holy Ghost.' And any further question on her part had been silenced by the realisation that she had no idea of the Holy Ghost at all. Jesus, patient, loving, suffering, she knew; and God, strict, jealous but capable, properly approached, of being benevolent; that was all.
So now she knelt and asked, from the depths of her heart, forgiveness for the lie that she had told; she begged for forgiveness so urgently that sweat broke out on her forehead and between her shoulder-blades, and her hands were slippery with it. O God, don't let that extra nail, that extra thorn hurt Him who never did a sin at all! Forgive me, punish me; I told a lie.
(A plaintive, real human voice from the kitchen called, 'Damask, ain't you about finished in there?" and she called back, 'In just a minute, Mother.')
And she waited. Presently God spoke. With the utmost clarity. He told her that she could work out her own salvation and punishment. She was to wait until Amos came home and finished off the boots. Then she was to deliver them to the Manor. By that time she would be late and must take the Lower Road to Muchanger--the haunted road. So she would show, in one act, the sincerity of her repentance and her faith in God who would protect
her. It was all as clear and simple as any order she had ever received in her place of servitude. She got up from her knees, immensely relieved and determined to ignore something which' had begun to move, coldly and creepily, somewhere just behind her apron band. Hastily she finished the tidying of the workroom and went back into the kitchen, where her mother, with a shawl over her shoulders, huddled by the fire, clumsily and slowly peeling the potatoes for the evening meal. Every fourth Saturday was for the Greenways a feast day. Damask was free on that day from twelve o'clock, and by missing the servants' midday dinner at Muchanger she could be home by one o'clock or soon after, buying sixpenny-worth of pudding beef on the way. The pudding could be on the boil by two o'clock at latest and ready to eat by six. She could then share the feast, wash the plates and be back at Muchanger by eight. And there was enough pudding left to be heated up and eaten on Monday and Tuesday of the following week.
'You do look muddled,' Mrs Greenway said. 'Come now and hev a sit-down and a bit of chat. Did I hear a knock on the door?'
'Sir Charles, come for his boots. I promised he should have them tonight. Father'll just have to finish them off before he has his supper and I'll take them up.'
Mrs Greenway did not comment upon this. There had been a time--nearly four years ago it had ended--when she and her daughter had been on one side, Amos on the other. They'd never gone against him, or defied him ... but there it was, they'd been together and he'd been alone. Then there'd been that revivalist meeting at Summerfield with a Mr Whitwell preaching, and all of a sudden Damask had gone over to the other side. Mrs Greenway had been very lonely ever since. Religious fervour, she thought, was very much like some sort of disease; some people caught it, some didn't, no matter how much they were exposed to it. She never had. Loyalty to Amos had carried her to hundreds of meetings, she had sat through innumerable sermons, knelt through innumerable prayers and never experienced any change. She had conformed to pattern, never did any work on Sunday, wore plain clothes, attended chapel as long as she could walk to Nettleton, never said a bad word, but her heart was not in it. She would look round at her neighbours, Matt Juby and Matt Ashpole, and naturally be glad that Amos was not as they Were, drunken ne'er-do-wells; but wasn't there, she wondered, a middle way, the way of her family, where a girl could wear a pretty dress and curl her hair ... and a man tend his business and make a good living and be proud of it?
And wouldn't it have been better if Amos had made enough money--as he was well able lo do--to let Damask go and be apprenticed, as she herself had been, to the dressmaking instead of going to work in the kitchen at Muchanger? She had once ventured to say as much to Amos, just at the time when Damask was of an age to begin work, and he had looked at her with astonishment. 'What can it matter?' he asked. 'So long as she leads a good life, what do it matter where?'
'Well, service is a hard life, and Damask ain't very big. And she's dainty-handed, she'd do well at Miss Jackson's.'
'She'd hev more temptations, living in the town, and be more prone to get vain and giddy. I shall get over to Muchanger, time she start, and fix so she hev one Sunday every month so as to attend chapel.'
Now, looking at her daughter's hands, still slender and shapely, but rough and reddened from hard work, Mrs Greenway gave a little secret sigh; and looking at scraped-back hair whose prettiness had once been her pride, she sighed again. Then she rebuked herself, and thought what a good girl Damask was, and compared her with Matt Ashpole's ripstitch of a daughter, Sally. And then she asked herself again that old tiresome question, was there no middle way?
Meanwhile Sir Charles had found ample justification for his ride beside the Waste. It was not the first time by many. Once he had found a stranger, a Nettleton man,
slyly taking fuel there, quite illegally; another time he had been just in time to save Shad Jarvey's donkey from drowning in the pond, and a fine mess he'd made of himself, dragging it out of the mud; and on more summer evenings than he could be bothered to count he had come across couples engaged in illicit love-making in the--one would have thought--unpromising and unsuitable shelter of the gorse bushes which edged the Waste. The opportunity of preventing the begetting of bastards was not likely to offer itself this afternoon in October daylight; June evenings were the dangerous times. Still, one never knew; young people were quite unaccountable.
He did find, however, two of Matt Juby's snub-nosed, ill-clad brats amusing themselves by throwing stones at two tethered cows: Bert Sadler's with the broken horn and Jim Gaunts with the defective quarter. He bellowed at them in a voice which could have been, and probably was, heard in Nettleton.
'Stop that, you young devils, and come here to me.' They came cringing, and he gave them, not a talk upon kindness to dumb creatures, which he would not have known how to deliver, but a stern lecture upon the ill-effects upon the milk-yield of cows thus made unduly active; and to impress the lecture on their memories he followed it with two good stinging cuts with his crop upon each ragged behind. That, he reflected, riding on, was the way to keep order; constant vigilance, prompt rebuke. Given a free hand, he knew himself capable of keeping all England in order, and the Continent too, if it came to that. Disgraceful the way the Continent had been going on lately. Not that it had ever been properly run-- and here he had the evidence of his own eyes; for he, in his youth, had made the Grand Tour. And he summed it up in a verse of doggerel which had been his only excursion into the world of creative art. He had written it in a letter to his father, and also in the visitors' book of the inn, just near the St. Gotthard Pass, where he had spent the night and entertained the spirit of poetry for a brief moment. It ran thus:'In France I ate well, but paid dear for my meat; In Germany there was nothing but calves' flesh to eat; In Italy the inns are bad and the people are beasts; But the Swiss, honest Swiss, charge fair for their feasts.'
It might not be verse of the highest standard, but it summed up tersely and accurately young Charles Shelmadine's reaction to 'foreign parts'; it also emphasised his difference from his father, who had enjoyed every mile of his tour, and often harked back to it with wistfulness.
Nothing else demanded immediate action. He noted with approval that the geese were doing well, and his mind slid forward to Christmas. He reared no geese of his own, but he always bought half a dozen, spreading his custom justly among his tenants. He observed with interest that Shad Jarvey's donkey was still alive and able to forage; the beast must be of incredible age. He marked, with disapproval, the fact that Matt Juby's cow still had husk. Only a fortnight ago he had drawn Matt's attention to the fact and offered him the necessary linseed and hore-hound to make it a draught, and a long-necked bottle with which to administer it; but the loplolly fellow had evidently done nothing. It was typical of Juby to allow his boys to stone other people's cows on one part of the Waste while his own coughed itself to a skeleton on another. If Juby wished to share in the Christmas dole he'd have to mend his ways.
The Waste ended in a thicket of gorse and bramble and bracken, beyond which lay a grass-covered ridge called the Dyke, which ran in a ruler-straight line between the river bank and the ride which ran through Layer Wood. The rector, who was something of an antiquarian, believed it to be part of a Roman road which run direct between Colchester and the sea. He had been talking for twenty years of doing some digging to test his theory, but he had never had time; he never would have. The Dyke's interest for Sir Charles was that it made a firm boundary between
the Waste and the cultivated land and also served as a , windbreak, since the fields lay directly to the south of it. Between the end of the Dyke and the opening where the ride which he intended to take ran into Layer Wood he halted and looked out across the two great open fields. They lacked interest at this season. The one nearest the wood, known as Layer Field, had just enjoyed its fallow year and all but a few of its many sections had been ploughed during the last few weeks so that the frost, when it came, could do its part in making the soil friable. The other, slightly larger field, called Old Tom, had been left with the stubble on it after harvest, and the village livestock had been turned into it, to lick up the fallen grains of corn, to nibble the greens tuff which sprang up through the stubble, to knead with their hoofs and manure with their dung the soil which would this year lie fallow. They were gone now; most of them to the butcher, thus fulfilling the year's pattern. Stock beasts, the cows and a bull or two were kept alive through the winter, the rest went into the brine vat. That made the Squire remember Fuller ... and turning his darkening glance he looked out over Old Tom. There in the level afternoon light the even furrows lay, acres and acres of them, each man's sections divided from his neighbours' by a narrow unploughed baulk. One side of each furrow shone pale violet in the light, the other was chocolate-coloured. And they wanted to alter all this. People who called themselves 'progressive'--all sorts of people, from members of parliament down to dung-booted fellows like Fuller--they wanted to do away with the big, beautiful open fields, to chop them into little piddling pieces, fenced round and given over to pernicious ruinous experiments--no fallow year, for example. These so-called progressive fellows wanted to grow clover or turnips or some such nonsense instead of resting a field that was wearied from a corn crop. It might make money for them for a year or two, as it had Fred Clopton, but at what a price. The spoliation of the good soil which had been tilled in the sound, tried old way ever since Domesday Book. SirCharles knew that that was true, for somewhere in the cluttered records in his library he had a copy of the particulars of Clevely as it had existed then; it was on sheepskin, and the writing was illegible, but the map was amazingly accurate and the two great fields, the common pasture by the river, were just as they were today. All those hundreds of years the fields had given a harvest, rested a year, been sown again, and nobody was going to tell him that a system that wasn't good could have lasted so long! Fuller's words came back to his mind, 'You can't hold back the tide.' It Was the threat of change, not the insolence of the remark which rankled. As a rule he ignored the thought of his own mortality as firmly as he ignored anything else which displeased or discomfited him; but he knew, of course, that one day, like everyone else, he must die. What then? How would Clevely fare when he was no longer there? He would have given a great deal to have been able to say, 'My son will uphold the good old traditions.' Instead he had been obliged to face the glaring, appalling fact that unless he was prevented Richard would fall upon Clevely with the ferocity of a tiger upon a lamb....
Nowadays he seldom thought of his son, save at moments like these when he was thinking of Clevely's future. There was nothing to be gained by cherishing sentiment or regret about something that was over and done with, and which could not be helped. God knew he had tried, been patient, indulgent, tolerant to the point of folly, always bearing in mind that Richard was Felicity's son as well as his own.
Staring out over the peaceful fields, he allowed himself to look back over his years as a father and found himself in no way to blame, unless overkindness were blameworthy. He'd loved the boy; they'd had seventeen very happy years together; then Richard had gone wrong. Completely wrong, bad to the very marrow of his bones. One failing, one vice, would have been different, if he'd been merely drunken, merely a wild gambler, merely lecherous, merely spendthrift; but he was all four, and more--there
wasn't a vice or a folly or an insane extravagance which Richard hadn't taken to with the avid ease of a suckling taking its mother's milk. When Sir Charles looked back upon what he had borne between Richard's seventeenth and thirtieth year he was amazed at his own forbearing. Debts and scandals, promises made just to be broken, insolence, ingratitude and, worst of all, that frightening feeling that there was actually something lacking in the boy, that there was nothing there to get hold of, to appeal to, to reason with. It was like having to deal with an imp out of Hell.
He'd gone on, for thirteen long years, thinking it couldn't last, Richard must come to his senses; gone on blaming bad company, loose women, changing times; gone on making conditions--'I'll pay this time if you give me your word never to see this Mrs Davison again', 'We'll forget all this, if you'll swear to keep away from Angelina's'; and knowing, knowing all the time that the imp was laughing at him, making its own plans for his defeat and mockery.
There could be, of course, only one end; and it had come just on ten years ago when he had said, 'I've done with you. Go to the Devil your own gait. If you show your face here again the servants have orders to deal with you as they would any other intruder.'
He had never regretted it. Like many another fearfully postponed act, it had hurt less than he had expected. He could now think of Richard as though he were dead. And the handsome, merry, high-spirited boy whom he had loved was dead; some strange evil thing had come and devoured him and taken possession of his body and made use of his name. Sir Charles would not own that thing as his son.
So Clevely had no heir-apparent; Richard would inherit the title and would become lord of the manor, which nowadays meant little beyond some say in the rights of the Waste. The estate was not entailed and Sir Charles had his own ideas for its disposal. Sir Richard, when the time came, could come home to England and build himself ahovel next door to Amos Greenway's and live like Matt Juby for all Sir Charles cared. And if Fuller and others like him were looking forward to enclosure at Clevely as soon as Sir Charles was gathered to his fathers they were in for a surprise. One day--not tomorrow or even next week, naturally--but one day, all in good time, he was going to send for old Turnbull of Baildon and make a good water-tight will; everything he owned, down to his gold watch and chain, was going to be left to the Guildhall Feoffees, that august body of guardians who administered several trusts bequeathed by a man named Nankyn Reed who had died rich and heirless in the year 1540. Nothing in the care of the Feoffees ever changed; even the bequest which provided for thirty red-hot pennies to be thrown among thirty poor boys every Christmas Eve was solemnly and faithfully administered. They would keep Clevely exactly as Sir Charles had kept it, an everlasting memorial to good sense and tradition. The income which he now enjoyed could be used towards reducing rents in bad seasons, for maintaining the property in better order than he had been able to afford to do, and to help individual deserving men who had fallen on evil days through no fault of their own. He had it all worked out; it would be no more than an hour's work for old Turnbull to write it down with the appropriate number of 'aforesaids' and 'whereases'.
As always, his mind came comfortably to rest upon this thought and his face was calm again as he turned into the green, moss-carpeted, tree-shaded ride which led through Layer Wood. He was on his way to the loneliest place in the district, a keeper's cottage even more remote than the one concerned with Amos Greenway's deed of heroism. It was not his cottage, nor was its occupant his keeper; Fenn was a Mortiboys man, and his interest in the boy he was about to visit was the result of sheer benevolence.
Three years before, at the enormous Harvest Horkey which he gave every year on the day after the last load of corn was safely in, and to which everybody in Clevely was bidden, he had seen a small, pale-faced, hunchbacked
boy standing with his mouth a little open and his eyes fixed on the men who were playing the fiddle for the dancing.
He'd gone over to him and said. 'I don't know you, boy. What's your name?'
The boy had jumped, as most boys did when suddenly accosted by Sir Charles, but his face remained tranquil and his large dark eyes had met the Squire's frankly.
'No, sir. I'm staying with my uncle at the forge; but he said it would be all right for me to come. My name is Jacky Fenn.'
'You're welcome; all welcome today. You enjoying the music?'
'Oh yes, sir, thank you.'
'Be a fiddler yourself, one day, eh?' Not that there was much likelihood--not long for this world if Sir Charles were any judge; he'd seen that look on a child before.
'I'd love it more than anything in the world, sir. But you have to have a fiddle, don't you?'
There was something immensely engaging in his frank look and lack of shyness and shuffling.
'I suppose you do. And fiddles cost money, don't they? Any idea how much?'
'I think about two guineas, sir.'
'Two guineas! Bless my soul I That's a lot of money, ain't it?'
'Yes, sir. A very great deal of money.' He let out his breath like a sigh and his eyes went back to the fiddlers.
'Had all you want to eat? That's right. Enjoy yourself, Jacky Fenn.'
Next time he went into Baildon Sir Charles sought, and after some initial difficulty found, a man who had two fiddles for sale. One, a very cheap new shoddy bit of work, was thirty shillings; the other, old and beautiful with some mother-of-pearl about it and inlay on its belly, was ten guineas. Sir Charles bought the old one and, having by now found out from Strong Un where his nephew lived, rode over to present it. He had also learned that the boy's mother was dead, had died young of the lung rot, and that Jacky had kept house for his father,not being strong enough to work outside.
So he would be much alone in that remote place, Sir Charles thought, and the fiddle would be nice company
for him.
'There you are,' he said to the astonished, speechless child. 'You learn to play and one day I'll come and hear you. I'm very fond of a good tune--a good old tune, mark you. I've spoken to Jim Lantern about you, and he's coming over one evening soon to show you the way of it.' He had ridden away before Jacky could say a word. During the intervening three years he had called at the cottage five or six times. The boy had quickly mastered the instrument and could now fairly make it sing, as Sir Charles said; but it was more and more evident that the boy's time for playing the fiddle or doing anything else was very short. And that was sad. Still, in Heaven he would have a harp and a good straight back, to boot; and there was no use being sickly and sentimental about such things. Jacky himself opened the door and gave the old man a look of dog-like adoration before he reached inside for the fiddle and the muffler which always made Sir Charles think of Joseph's coat of many colours in the Bible--the muffler had been knitted out of hundreds of odds and ends of wool and was like a rather dingy rainbow. 'Well, how are you, my boy? And how's the fiddling?' 'I've got three new songs for you today, sir. Three new old songs, I mean, sir.'
'That's the style. Fire away.'
Half leaning against the jamb of the door, the child genius--he was nothing less--played 'Once in the Month of May', 'Edgar's Sad Wooing' and 'Jack on the Green". The rein lay slack on the grey horse's neck and Sir Charles's plump red hands lay slack on the rein. The last rays of the sun withdrew from the tree-tops and the swift October dusk began to flood through the woods. The wind was rising, carrying the bitter-sweet wail of the fiddle music into the distant thickets. The old Squire's broad face, highly coloured and solid from seven decades of good feeding and drinking and excellent health, and the boy's, pinched and pale from thirteen years of suffering and poverty, wore, for a little while, the same look of peaceful pleasure. Then the last note shrilled out triumphantly, lingered and died. Jacky lowered his brow and stood panting a little from exertion, and Sir Charles roused himself.
'As bonny a music as I ever listened to,' he said heartily. 'And it's a comfort to know that when old Lantern goes to his long home you'll know all the good old tunes to play at the horkeys and weddings. When that day comes we'll rig you up a little donkey cart. Well, you go in now, it's turning cold. Going to be a wild night.'
With some difficulty, for his breeches were a tight fit across his thick thigh, he pushed his plump hand into his pocket, fingered for and found a half-guinea.
'I shall be along again,' he said as he withdrew his hand. 'Here y'are!' He pushed the neat shining coin into the boy's little claw. 'Nay, nay. I'm only paying for my pleasure. Good day, Jacky.'
Fumbling at another pocket, he pulled out his watch, snapped open its case and stared at its face. It was later than he had thought, and he was a good way from home. Best cut through by the Lady's Ride and on to the Lower Road. He'd intended to look in at Wood Farm, where the on-the-face-of-it friendly visit would tend to remind Captain Rout that Michaelmas was rent day and three weeks past; but he could do that just as well tomorrow.
'Come up, Bobby.' he said. 'Best foot forrard now!'
The grey horse, knowing that each step now led towards home, set off briskly; nevertheless it was full dark when they emerged from the wood and turned into Lower Road. And there it happened, whatever it was.
Dark tales were told by winter fires concerning the Lower Road near Lady's Ride. Away back in the time of the Civil War it had been the scene of the last desperate gallop of Lady Alice Rowhedge, who had been convicted of witchcraft. There were very few people in six parishes who did not at least half believe that on certain nights, when the wind was high, she and the great black stallion,which had obeyed her like a dog, rode this way again.
It was, of course, a windy night; and possibly a branch had fallen, startling the sober grey horse and making it throw its rider.
At Wood Farm the Routs heard the clatter of its hoofs and Captain Rout popped back into the corner cupboard the bottle of brandy he had just taken out and opened, very skilfully, with his one hand, holding the bottle between his knees, and Mrs Rout put on her most piteous hard-done-by, all-at-sea expression. But the horse did not slacken pace, and after a moment they looked at one another and breathed again.
'In the deuce of a hinq-y tonight.' said Captain Rout, and went to the cupboard again. A man so handicapped, whose career had been cut short, whose future was decidedly unpromising, needed all the consolation he could give himself.
At Bridge Farm, Shipton the Dissenter, just back from the meeting at Nettleton, which had also drawn Amos Greenway away from his duties, was belatedly feeding his pigs. He was nearly two hours late and the pigs believed that death by starvation was imminent; they were squealing so loudly that he could hear nothing else. Mrs Shipton was deafened by the din too as she prepared in the kitchen a hot meal--the Saturday ritual to make up for not cooking on the Sabbath Day.
The grey horse clattered over the wooden bridge just as Fuller, lantern in hand, was collecting from the common pasture the four bullocks which he meant to stall-feed through the winter. It was late, for he had finished his rack and heaved the turnips into it, and he could have left the beasts out until morning. But the urge to see the job truly completed, to see his bullocks in the straw with their noses in the manger, had been irresistible. As Bobby's hoofs rang hollowly at the bridge Fuller said into a bullock's unresponsive ear, 'There he go, pig-headed old sod! Riding like the Devil: Pity he don't break his bloody neck!'
The grey horse halted by the gate. Bessie Jarvey, who had just sat down for the first time that day, said, 'You
go, Jim?" without any great confidence. However, Jim grunted and rose; not willingly, but with alacrity. Sir Charles did not like to be kept waiting, and Jarvey remembered the time when Bessie had been abed with her fifth and he himself had been in the privy and half a minute's delay had been unavoidable, Sir Charles had said, 'You getting old and slow, Jim? Or is all this night work sapping your strength?'
So tonight briskly he swung back one half of the heavy gate, briskly he put his hand to his forelock and said, 'Good evening, sir' before, in the darkness, he was aware of the empty saddle. He said later that it made him feel no end of a fool. He also said he noticed how profusely the horse was sweating; a bit more than you'd expect it to even after a sharp gallop, the night being so chilly.
Bobby, according to custom and drawn by his stable, went smartly through the gate and was out of reach along the avenue before Jarvey had fully taken stock of the situation and realised that he must do something. He must get up to the house and tell Sir Edward Follesmark and the rector; they were there, Bessie had let them in just before she sat down. They'd know what to do. 'Bugger Bobby, going by me like that,' he muttered. 'Now I must tramp it. I could have rode.'
They found Sir Charles sprawled in the road, halfway between the opening of the Lady's Ride and the gateway of Wood Farm. The way his head lolled indicated that his neck was broken. Fuller was obscurely relieved to think that this must have happened before he confided in the bullock, choosing to forget that all through the late afternoon he had been wishing ill to his landlord. They took Rout's gate from the post and used it as a stretcher upon which to carry the body home. They mentioned Richard in muted voices; they remembered many things; they speculated about the future.
Only one thing was sure. The old man, now dead, had in his fashion 'kept the faith and finished the course. Nothing would ever be the same again.CHAPTER TWO
On the afternoon of the third Saturday of October in the year 1795, but making due allowance for the longitudinal variation in time which those who mastered the subject at school will understand and those who did not be content to ignore, Mrs Richard Shelmadine set out on what she knew would be her last ride through the city of Kilapore.
The Rajah had sent the message in the morning. It was couched in the usual arrogant terms--His Highness would be prepared to take leave of them on this day, an hour before sunset.
Richard had described exactly the various horrible things which he was prepared to see happen to the Rajah, and to himself, before he intended to comply with this command, and so long as he confined his curses to English Linda had made no protest; but when he changed, with that astonishing facility of his, and began a tirade in the native language of the grave-faced servant who stood awaiting an answer she said, 'Richard, please. Ask the man to wait outside, I have thought of something--'He did as she asked, not because he was amenable to her wishes but because he had a well-founded respect for her quick-wittedness; many a time during their wandering exiled years she had found a way to turn an uncompromising situation to their advantage.
As soon as they were alone she said:
'No one could expect you to go. But perhaps I should. He rather likes me, you know. He might give me something.'
Something more like a snarl than a grin crossed Richard's face.
'I've noticed His Highness's partiality! If I'd had any sense I should have let you negotiate. Still, it is a notion. Being impotent as a mule, he can't give you what he would like to--so you may come back with one of the bright buttons with which he decorates his fat belly I'
She gave a little laugh--one of the tinkling, mirthless, brittle laughs which she learned long ago to be the best way of parrying the thrusts which aimed to hurt.
'One of the emerald set! Well, that would be very acceptable."
'Go then, and get away with all you can. All I ask is that you make no civil excuses for me. Tell him I didn't come because I couldn't trust myself not to kick his teeth in.'
As often before, having won her point, she was ashamed of the duplicity which had gained her the victory. But to have spoken truthfully, to have said, 'One of us should go; Surunda has been very kind to us; and though he decided against making the concessions he never led you to expect anything else'--that would merely have led to Richard ordering her not to go.
A half-remembered Biblical phrase drifted through her mind, something about being wily as a serpent and harmless as a dove; it brought with it the memory of English Sunday evenings, with the scent of hay and honeysuckle drifting in at the open door, of sunset brightening the stained glass of the windows and her father's voice thrown back from the sounding-board of the high pulpit. But these were things better forgotten; the days of the dove were over, it had been sacrificed long ago--even the serpent had found survival difficult enough of late.
She dressed for the visit with scrupulous care utterly divorced from vanity. She had never been very pretty, just young and fresh and lively-looking, and five years in India had ruined what looks she ever had; the smooth pink-tinted oval cheeks were bleached to the yellowishivory of elderflower, and there were hollows in them, and at the temples and about the eyes. Her hair, once the prettiest thing about her, shining golden and very curly, had also bleached and faded to a dullish primrose colour and was almost as straight as an Indian woman's. And she was so thin that her neck was stringy. Cousin Maud had been right when she had warned her that India was no place for a white woman. 'In a year you'll be a scarecrow and in two you'll be dead,' she had said. Well, it was jive years and a few months, and tomorrow she would be on her way back to Fort St George; and within a fortnight, with any luck, on her way back to England. The assignment to Kilapore had been Richard's last chance; the Company had finished with him now. And though there were white men--quite a number of them--who had come out to work for the Company and then been dismissed, or had left it to launch out on their own, and, many of them, made a living and, some of them, a fortune, Richard was not of their stamp. It took energy and enterprise and industry and ruthlessness to make a way in India, and of all these qualities Richard possessed only ruthlessness.
She put on the lavender-coloured silk dress which, earlier in the day, as soon as the servant had gone off with the message, she had taken out and shaken. It was the last of four similar dresses presented to her as a parting present by Cousin Maud, whose generosity had exceeded her knowledge of what was suitable wear in India. She had known enough to say that India was no place for a white woman, but she had not known that it was equally no place for stiff silk, tightly waisted dresses with heavy panniers. Linda had soon removed the panniers and let out the seams of all four gowns. But in no time the silk had rotted and split; for in India one sweated--there was no other word for it--sweated like a coach-horse, and in the rainy season mould grew on one's dresses and shoes overnight. When the rose-pink, the blue-green, the yellow and the lavender gowns had all shown signs of immediate dissolution Linda had selected the lavender one, the most
modest and practical-coloured of the four, and laid it away. When the others fell to pieces she had bought lengths of cheap flimsy cotton stuff in the bazaars and made herself some loose cool garments of curious style--a cross between the 'morning' prints she had worn at home, before she went to London to act as Cousin Maud's companion and amanuensis, and the clothes worn by Indian women.
The dress gave one or two ominous little creaks as she lifted it over her head, and more as she strained back her arms to manage the fastening; but as the long gleaming folds fell to her feet and the lace-lined sleeves covered her sharp elbows she knew a moment of rehabilitation. It was a dignified dress, a proper English dress, and she regretted that the amethyst necklace, Cousin Maud's wedding-present, had had to be sold. It would have done much to conceal the painful scragginess of her neck and collarbones. Poor Maud--she had herself made an amazingly advantageous marriage, and in dear little Linda's capture of Richard Shelmadine--such a charming man, and heir to a baronetcy--she had seen her own worldly success repeated, with additions; for Maud's own husband had been elderly, middle-class, invalidish and--to say the least of it--grumpy. Richard Shelmadine was only thirty-- just the right age for an innocent, unworldly girl of eighteen; and though he was wild, had indeed quite a bad reputation, everyone knew that a reformed rake made the best husband. Maud had done, had given everything that could possibly make the match start off well.
(There'd been that stormy interview at Clevely; Sir Charles had said, 'This is the last time, Richard. You marry and settle down or I'm finished with you!' And the perverse devil which ruled all Richard's actions had, two months later, derived the greatest satisfaction from composing a letter which said: 'According to instructions, sir, I have chosen my bride. She is the daughter of a poor parson; she has a dowry of five hundred pounds, the gift of her cousin who is the widow of a man who sold tallow candles with great profit; she is plain of face, rusticof manner but has the ability to make me laugh, and I can make her cry.' It was the last six words which proved to Sir Charles that there was no hope.)
The hat which matched the lavender dress was a genuine Leghorn straw, wide of brim and becoming; but it had changed colour. Much exposure to strong sunshine had darkened the straw and faded the amethyst ribbon almost to grey. Still, it hid a great deal of the straight bleached hair and in its shadow the hollows were less noticeable. As she pulled on her lace mittens--very carefully, for they too had grown brittle--Linda was satisfied that she looked, not attractive, but at her best.
The curtained, wheeled, scarlet-lacquered, silver-decked, cushioned litter which was provided for the use of those of the Rajah's harem who found it necessary from time to time to visit one of the various holy places in the district called for her exactly fifteen minutes and one hour before sunset. Indian time-keeping had always been, and remained, a mystery to her. (Richard had once said, 'It is your inquisitive, puppy-nosing-into-everything attitude that I find so engaging.') She had been interested to know that Surunda Ghotal, Rajah of Kilapore, a man whose wealth just could not be counted, owned no watch, no clock. Once, when she was thinking about the future, she had thought, if I could borrow a little money to start with and could find someone who could make watches and clocks cheaply and quickly, because it wouldn't matter if they didn't last, I could make a small fortune in India. She had had a vision of herself hurrying from city to city, from province to province, with a pack like a pedlar's, selling off the cheap time-pieces. Indians, particularly those who were coming more and more every day into touch with the East India Company, couldn't go on, surely, reckoning time by whatever means they used.
Still, the litter was punctual; it took exactly fifteen minutes, timed by Richard's watch, to cross the city from their horrid little hired house to the palace. She looked into the room where Richard lay, sprawled almost naked upon the bed, with an empty brandy bottle on the floor
beside him, before she went out and climbed into the litter. The driver cracked his whip, the necklace of small golden bells which hung from the horses' necks set up their jingling, and she was off on her last ride through the city.
Today, meek as any member of the harem, she did not lift the curtains, which were just light enough not to be oppressive, just opaque enough to defeat curious eyes. During her first, and her second, and her third ride in this very litter she had lifted the curtain and peered out, making her observations and her comparisons and her comments. Now she knew it all--knew how the people, so many people in the overcrowded streets, made way for the litter and averted their eyes as they dragged their goats, and their children, and their overburdened donkeys, and their old people out of the way; knew how the driver used his whip on those who were slow. Once she had looked out and thought, suppose one, just one of those golden bells came loose and fell in the dust and somebody picked it up, how many bowls of rice could he buy? And had realised that if golden bells were freely broadcast they would lose all value, would buy no rice at all. Today she kept the curtains in place and rode unseeing past the crowds and the dreadful-looking beggars and through the dust and the filth. She had finished with Kilapore.
She knew, by the way the air freshened, when the litter passed into the palace precincts, a little above the city, refreshed by fountains, set with trees. Presently, with the fierce jerk which all Indian drivers considered stylish, the litter stopped, a waiting servant drew back the curtains, and Linda, after settling her hat which the jolt had tilted to a more-than-fashionably rakish angle, stepped out.
She remembered how impressive the palace had seemed the first time she saw it, which was at night, lit by the flare of many torches; and how amusing it had seemed on her second visit, in daylight. It was a vast rambling building which looked as though many successiveowners had added to it and taken pains to see that each addition was individual and different. There was a central part, approached by a flight of marble steps and facaded with pillars, which was of pink plaster and which resembled an iced cake; there was a round tower made of purplish-red brick and a square one of grey stone topped with a silver dome; there was an outjutting wing entirely of wood, and everywhere there were balconies and cornices and buttresses and archways and shutters of varying materials and colours. Symbolic of India, perhaps, she thought, as she mounted the steps, passed on, as it were, from one to another of the white-clad servants who stood at intervals on either side and who raised their hands to their heads as she drew level with them and then slightly turned; symbolic of India--huge, sprawling, overdecorated, conforming to no pattern, full of contrasts and yet mounting up to something magnificent by virtue of very size. Magnificent and on the verge of rot. There was symbolism, too, in the shutters which sagged from their hinges, the balconies which would collapse if ventured upon. Piece by piece India was collapsing, falling into the hands of the East India Company. Surunda Ghotal's palace would hold together a little longer, and so would Kilapore, but they were doomed. She rather hoped that Kilapore would keep its independence just long enough, that the collapse would come after Surunda Ghotal's death, not before. Yet why she should feel sentimental about him she did not know... a few careless kindnesses which cost him nothing but the moment's attention needed for the giving of an order--should she be grateful to the point of sentiment for those? And could she blind herself to the fact that one of those half-crazed, hysterical, greed-frenzied potentates who started off by administering violent rebuffs and then listened to arguments and gave in would have been, in the end, of more value to her and to Richard than this grave, courteous old man who had received them so kindly, listened so attentively to all the arguments, asked for time to consider and then refused to give any concessions at all?
The servant on the uppermost step passed her on no further; instead he turned and led her through the now-familiar but still uncharted labyrinth of the interior of the palace, through high halls where her heels rang on the tiled floor, through narrow dim passages, through curtained archways, up stairs, down stairs. Finally a doorway gave upon a place which she had never seen before, a small enclosed space which denied absolutely the haphazard nature of the rest of the palace and its precincts, a little place of pure and formal beauty. It was walled all round with white marble, solid blocks to about shoulder height, and above that a two-foot-deep fringe of carving so delicate and intricate that it looked like petrified lace. From the point where she stood, and where the servant had halted and turned his hand palm upwards, pointing straight ahead, ran a path paved with the same white marble. On either side, between path and wall, was a space of bright-green grass, such as she had not seen since she came to India; and in each piece of green lawn, perfectly matched, were three fountains in play, the spray catching the light in broken rainbows. Set along each side of the path, in perfect symmetry, were small flowering trees, and at its end was a little marble summerhouse, traced over, but not embowered, with climbing roses. The whole space was artificially, mathematically precise, but it was beautiful, with the measured disciplined beauty of a sonnet. She stood for a moment taking in the cool delight; the green, the white, the fountains' graces, the little trees, so strictly shaped and each standing in its ring of fallen petals ... then she looked towards the place where Surunda Ghotal sat, half reclining upon his couch in the summerhouse, his infirm leg propped out straight before him. In his youth, leading a punitive expedition against a rebellious Polygar, he had been wounded in the thigh and the wound had never healed; there were times when, close to him, you could smell the festering, rotten-sweet stench of it. Possibly because of his enforced inaction he had grown very stout, and the drugs which he relied upon to relieve the constant nag of the pain had made his hairsparse and dry, the whites of his eyes saffron-coloured, his lips and finger-tips a smoky purple. He was, at forty-eight years old, a very ugly old man; just as Linda Shelmadine, at thirty-three years of age, was a plain, prematurely aged woman. It was not admiration for one another's physical attributes which made the link between them, it was something more subtle--the recognition of the other's intelligence, and a shared measure of what Richard had called that 'inquisitive puppy-nosing-into-everything' quality.
Until the arrival of the Shelmadines in Kilapore, Surunda Ghotal had never seen a European woman, but he had heard about them from three independent sources. A member of his harem--and he had collected his women much as he had collected the items of his huge menagerie --had once, as a very sick child, been nursed by Portuguese nuns in a convent at Goa. To the best of her ability, years after, she had described them to her lord and master. Then, some years before the English East India Company had seen in Kilapore a possible field for exploitation, the French East India Company had sent one of its agents to spy out the land, just as lately Richard Shelmadine had been sent--and the Frenchman had shown Surunda Ghotal the little painted miniature of his mistress which he carried with him; and that woman had looked to be an entirely different breed of creature from the women whom the concubine described. Finally there was the evidence of his own eldest son, Jasma, whom he sent, in the year 1794, into Fort St George, to live incognito, with orders to get himself some job which would bring him into close contact with the English, and to learn the language. 'Moved I more easily I would go myself,' Surunda had said. 'I observe that they move with the inevitability of the locust swarms, and in your time, if not in mine, they will arrive in Kilapore. It will then be to our advantage to know what is said, since it is evident from what has happened in other places that hired interpreters have a foot, as they have tongue, in either camp. You will live,' said Surunda Ghotal, with his little
I
secret smile, 'miserably, being unknown and in a state of servitude; therefore you will learn swiftly in order to escape. And you will then return and teach me.'
The scheme had worked well. Anxiety to return to Kilapore, combined with the Indian facility to acquire at least a superficial knowledge of any subject quickly, had soon put a term to Jasma's exile. The long sessions during which he endeavoured to impart what he had learned to his father were agony to them both, since it was unnatural for a son to instruct his father, and impossible for him to correct him. Nevertheless, by the time Richard Shelmadine--entrusted with the task of negotiating with the Rajah solely on account of his knowledge of Hindustani--arrived in Kilapore, Surunda Ghotal had acquired enough English to make himself understood by Linda Shelmadine, and in the end was able to regard his efforts as well worth while. She never knew that his demand for her to visit him, his very courteous reception of her, had been prompted by sheer curiosity; and she never guessed that behind his good manners, on that first occasion, an enormous amazement lay hidden. Jasma, among a thousand other observations, had given his report of those few intrepid European women who had ventured out with their menfolk to Fort St George. He said that they feared the sun always, and frogs sometimes, but were otherwise extremely bold; they took no interest in their surroundings but lived like trapped birds in a cage, awaiting the day of release; and, like birds, had two voices--the loud one in which they gave orders, the soft one with which they addressed their mates. Surunda's concubine from Goa had been impressed by, and anxious to emphasise, the complete sexlessness, the unselfishness, the otherworldliness and peculiar physical appearance of the Western women she knew, while the visiting Frenchman had, quite justly, emphasised precisely the opposite qualities in his particular specimen; so it was with the nearest thing to excitement possible to his sluggish nature that Surunda had heard of the arrival of an Englishwoman as far inland as Kilapore. At last his curiosity was to be satisfied.
He was disappointed with her. She fitted in with none of the descriptions he had been given, nor did she immediately strike any impression of her own; just a female creature--not beautiful, not even peculiar. He would probably have dismissed her from his mind after the first ten minutes had Richard been in a better mood--or had she been more obedient to the orders Richard had given her before they set out.
'God knows,' Richard had said, 'why he asked you to the palace at all. Damned insolence, no doubt. They never let their women show their faces outside their own quarters. And you'd better keep well in the background. Speak when you're spoken to, not otherwise.'
He had judged it advisable to present himself in a state of complete sobriety, and the strain of that unaccustomed condition was showing before ever they set out. It grew fiercer with every minute of the long-drawn-out interview. For the first half-hour the Rajah asked all the questions, moving in circumambulatory fashion towards his real objective--the exact reason for Richard's presence in Kilapore, the terms and conditions of the concessions the Company wished to acquire. Then, for twenty minutes, Richard, who knew what he was talking about, and was anxious to make a success of his mission, held the floor, while the Rajah seemed to pay slight attention and in the end said, 'There would be much to think; sixty days of think in this head, in heads of old wise men to advise.'
It was then at the beginning of the season of greatest heat and the prospect of spending two months far inland did nothing to calm Richard's nerves, which were screaming for the brandy oblivion they had been denied all day. He had said what was required of him, and said it well; let him now be dismissed.
'Now you shall tell me much thing,' Surunda Ghotal said, and proceeded to ask all the questions; stupid little questions which his curiosity dictated and which were, to his mind, of much more urgent moment than the ones he
had asked earlier about the East India Company and its advances to him. Any man but Richard Shelmadine would have realised instantly that here, by a stroke of good luck, was handed to him the key to Surunda's interest and friendship at least, but the arrogant perverse devil who ruled Richard was bored, impatient and affronted. There were things which a gentleman down on his luck must do, just to keep bread in his mouth and a roof over his head, but Richard Shelmadine had fulfilled his obligations when he had made his twenty-minute speech--in this fat old heathen's own language, which was more than most men could do. His answers grew shorter and brusquer; he said 'I don't know' or 'It would be impossible to explain' so often that Linda blushed with embarrassment and began first to supplement Richard's grudging answers and then to take upon herself the responsibility of making the first response to the endless questions. The Rajah seemed surprised, even a trifle ill at ease for a moment and Richard turned upon her his nastiest, most mocking grin. When the moment had passed Surunda focused his whole attention upon her, and during the next half-hour she did her best to give him whatever he wanted--a description of Windsor Castle; an explanation of what was a newspaper and how it circulated; a dissertation upon the jury system. Jasma had brought back with him from Fort St George two or three copies of The Times and The Spectator, all well over a year old by the time they reached Surunda's hands, and they had been his English textbooks, which, as he had mastered the language in which they were written, had also provoked his curiosity by their references to strange things. It was wonderful to find that this Englishwoman, so dull to look at, so disappointing, was in reality the thing he had often wished for--someone better informed than Jasma and willing to answer questions.
He would gladly have talked to her for hours, but he was aware at last of the Englishman's mounting impatience, so he said, 'Many, many thing I have to ask. The Christianity, of that I would hear; as also of party politicand of turnpike road. Sixty days will be time if you will be kind to tell me. One thing there is to ask now.' Richard gave an audible sigh. 'In your house there are servants?' 'Here in Kilapore, you mean, Your Highness?' 'In Kilapore, yes. Servants are obtain for you?' 'Yes. They were--I think--hired with the house.' 'That is not good. Tomorrow I shall send one to rule them. He is a man of ... it is the knowing how to do ... experience.' He produced the word triumphantly. 'One who went with my son to Fort St George and learned in the house of Mr Mackintosh. Very stern. He shall rule and none shall rob you.'
'Thank you,' Linda said earnestly. She cherished the hope that in the house of Mr Mackintosh the stern man might have acquired a little English; then she could give orders without bothering Richard.
With an effort which brought a look of abstraction to his face the Rajah sought for some formula of dismissal and finally found it.
'Sir and lady,' he said, 'I beg your leave to retire yourselves.'
On the way back to the hired house Richard said, 'You prolonged that ordeal by at least an hour.'
'I know,' she said meekly. 'But we wanted to please him, and I thought your long speech had tired you.' It had long become second nature to her by this time to avoid trouble by placing the most favourable interpretation upon Richard's actions whenever possible. Criticism merely led to quarrels.
'I could make that speech in my sleep! I just could not be bothered to answer his damned silly questions. I'd told him all that he needed to know--and he could hardly be civilly attentive to what did concern him. He's stupid, like all the rest of the apes, and anxious to exhibit his two words of English, and to show his power. Making us sweat it out here for two months while he makes up his mind, when he knows damned well what his answer will be.'
'And what will it be?'
'He'll concede. If he hadn't decided he would have asked a few questions about terms and conditions instead of about Windsor Castle and newspapers.'
Before she spoke again she hesitated, reluctant to offer a contrary opinion and so worsen Richard's mood; but perhaps he should be warned, perhaps it was her duty to mention what she had noticed.
'I couldn't follow, of course, what you were saying, but I kept my eye on him, and he did seem, as you say, fidgety and inattentive. He was listening, though, and every time you mentioned Bholobad his hands clenched.'
'Avarice, my pretty one. Bholobad is the Company's ace of trumps in these negotiations. The Rajah of Bholobad has doubled his income in three years' trade with the Company.'
But she had placed her own construction upon Surunda Ghotal's reaction to the word, and when, at the end of sixty days, his answer had been a point-blank refusal to trade on any terms at all she had not been surprised. Bholobad might be the place where the Rajah's income had doubled, but she remembered, and so did Surunda no doubt, that the Rajah who enjoyed the enhanced income was not the same one who had ruled the state and received the Company's first emissary. The course of events had followed a pattern by now well established; concessions were granted, the Company moved in; some trivial dispute was fanned into a brief bloody civil war, and when that was over the Company's own chosen candidate was on the throne. He might enjoy more income than his predecessor, but he had no power at all.
During the two months of his pretended indecision Surunda had shown several signs of favour to his uninvited guests; he had sent them gifts of fruit and vegetables from the palace gardens, put a litter at their service so that in the brief, less-scorchingly-hot hour of the late afternoon they could take drives and gain from the moving air at least the illusion of freshness; he had invited them to bathe in the palace pools.
Yes, he had been kind; and for that reason she had now come to take a courteous leave of him. He had completed Richard's ruin, but he had done it unintentionally.
Seeing her arrive alone, Surunda Ghotal nodded knowingly to himself; then as she drew near he smiled. 'Good afternoon, Meesis Shel-ma-dine. Please to sit.' He indicated a second couch, set at some distance from his own.
'My husband asks you to excuse him. He has many things to arrange. We leave early tomorrow morning.'
'Ah, he is angry to me. I am understanding. And you? You are also angry to me?'
'No. I am sorry, naturally. If my husband had succeeded in persuading you ...' But there was no point in completing that sentence. Richard, in the end, had used every bit of persuasive power; had even changed tactics and used charm--all to no purpose. It was over. 'You did as you thought best,' she said. 'And was I not wise?'
'That is difficult to say, Your Highness. Sometimes, as I look about, I am bound to think that in the end the Company will rule all India. At least you have put off the day when they move into Kilapore; and'--her lips moved in a small smile--'if you use all the time you have gained as energetically as you have used this last two months, when the struggle comes you will be in a strong position.' 'What are you meaning of the last two months?' 'On our drives in the afternoons I have noticed two new forts--one on the road to Chilpuddy, the other on the road to Dorhea; they have risen so fast I think the men must work all through the night. And many soldiers have arrived from somewhere.'
'Your eyes are keen,' he said approvingly. 'Yes. They have said to me, using sweet words, Give us Kilapore to do with as we did with Bholobad; and I have said, No. One day they will say to me, Now we will take Kilapore as we took Bengal; and on that day I shall say, Attempt it. But it is not of such things we should speak on this last
day. Please to refresh yourself.'
She looked at the little table near the couch; it bore a tall, slender silver flagon and a thin beaker of porcelain, and three small dishes piled with the highly flavoured, violently coloured sweetmeats which all Indians loved. She had tasted similar ones on a former visit and been nauseated by their oversweetness, so today she merely poured herself a beakerful of the slightly acidulated, effervescent liquid which in the palace served in place of wine. She was grateful for its coolness.
'So tomorrow you go. That is sad; for me, very sad. Where do you go?
'First to Fort St George, of course. And then, as soon as possible, back to England.'
'So? Meester Shel-ma-dine, he works no more for the great East India Company?'
She said steadily, 'We have been in India for five years. There are things in England which need my husband's attention.'
The quaking feeling of sickness which always assailed her when she was forced to think of the future made even the cool bubbling liquid nauseating. She set down the beaker and pressed her handkerchief to her lips. England, which should have meant such different things, stood for a return to the shifts and debts, the sordid lodgings, the dubious means of survival which had been their lot before some influence had been exerted to find Richard a place in the Company's service.
'You have been very kind to answer such many questions,' Surunda Ghotal's voice broke in on her dismal thoughts.
'And you have been very kind to us. Most especially I thank you for lending Mee to rule my household; it has made everything very easy for me.'
'I now wish to make you little gift. For gratitude. And for memory. There is a word...'
'A keepsake,' she said. Involuntarily her eyes went to his tunic; today he was wearing the one with the emerald buttons, each of the four matched stones as big round as aguinea and set in a circle of diamonds. All very well for Richard to laugh--the gift of one such button would make all the difference. She thrust the thought away and said, with truth:
'I have no need of a keepsake to remember you, Your Highness. I shall always recall our conversations with pleasure and your kindness with gratitude.'
'And I shall remember all things you teach me.' He leaned forward as much as his bulk and outstretched leg allowed and regarded her steadily for a moment. 'One thing,' he said, 'you are teaching me is from you to me alone. Other people may have told me what is turnpike, but this thing is from you to me alone. In history of India, here and there I am hearing of women, one or two, very few, Ranee or Begum with young son maybe, one or two with husband, very clever, come to great power and ruling most well: Always to hear this I am laughing. In my palace are many women, and always when a new one comes--now no longer, for me--but in past time always I am asking myself, Is this one to be like those of whom in history I am hearing? And it is not so. Not once. Never. And still I am laughing because of the stories. You are understanding me? I wish you to know that now I am not laughing. In days to come when I am hearing of women so clever I am saying to myself, Ah, there is woman with mind like Meesis Shel-ma-dine; with mind to understand and eye to see and tongue to say wisely. And for this reason, as well as for memory, I make you now this gift. Please to come with me.'
Tales of the legendary, fabulous wealth of the Indian potentates were commonplace in Company circles; tales of chests full of gold, of rubies as large as pullets' eggs, of great diamonds that were blinding to look at. Such tales were lent substance by known facts; the state elephant of the Rajah of Bholobad, for instance, on really great occasions had worn four anklets, each four inches wide, crusted with emeralds and sapphires. As Surunda reached for the heavy gold-topped staff which he used for his rare essays in walking, Linda permitted herself to hope. It was
just possible that he was now about to lead her to his treasure-room and give her a 'keepsake' that would make Richard laugh in quite another key.
As Surunda took his first shuffling steps across the pavilion, she thought of something else; something she had often wanted to say to him but had never quite dared.
'Your Highness, there are two doctors in Fort St George; one, Dr Adams, is very clever. He would come to see you, I am certain, and he might do something to make you less lame. May I ask when ...'
'No, no,' he said testily. 'My doctors do well; I am living these many years.'
Well, she thought, at least he is consistent; he will have no business with the English and asks no favours. India for Indians, and Indian doctors for Indian legs wounded by Indian spears.
Outside the pavilion they turned sharply and stood before a gate in the marble wall. Surunda opened it and said:
'There are stairs; go with care.'
She recognised the place; it was the vast courtyard in which he kept his menagerie and it joined, at one point, the even larger court in which his elephants were stabled. Why was he bringing her here this afternoon? Perhaps, she thought, only half-mockingly, he intended to give her an elephant! Such a grotesque keepsake would be, somehow, in character. And one could have worse gifts. An elephant could carry all their baggage down to the coast, and would fetch a good price at the fort.
Surunda closed the gate and descended the stairs slowly, painfully. As he moved draggingly towards the first cage --the one which held the black-maned Nubian lion--she recalled that on the first occasion when he showed her his beasts he had been carried in a small litter, like a sedan chair. Thinking of this and the size of the yard, she said, as she would have said to any man, elderly or infirm:
'Would you like to take my arm? I'm really very strong.'
'No, no,' he said in the same testy voice, but this timethe refusal was accompanied by a glance of ... could it be? ... disgust. She remembered that never once had he touched her, never shaken her hand, never shared a couch. Probably there was some law against it. Memories of childhood flashed back again, all those things in Genesis --'he shall be unclean for forty days'.
'I am managing.' Surunda said less crossly. 'I am slow, but there is light yet, and when the light goes there are torches.'
They passed the lion; and the long-necked, spotted giraffe; and the elephant that was here and not in the other courtyard because it had been born an albino; two striped wild horses from Africa; a reindeer which had been ailing on her previous visit and was now moribund; and an English hound dog with melancholy eyes.
The cages were much better built and cleaner than the hovels in which most of Surunda's subjects lived, the courtyard immeasurably better kept than any of the city streets, but the unmistakable, acrid odour of captivity was all about, a miasma of sadness. She thought of the Rajah's women, collected, held captive in much the same way. Then she shrugged the thought aside. Why should I pity them? Am I free, who chose my own gaoler?
They came to the archway which led to the elephant stables; they passed on. So it is not to be an elephant. Have I lost my sense of direction and are we in reality taking a short cut to some part of the palace? Perhaps a pullet-egg ruby after all.
Beyond the arch. the bird cages lay. Surunda, panting from exertion, had not breath for speech and passed the birds as he had passed the animals, almost without a glance. Linda, from a mixture of politeness and interest, looked for the second time at the tall ostriches, the birds of paradise, the humming-birds brilliant and fragile as flowers, the lone, duck-billed platypus. She too was silent lest any comment should evoke a response for which breath would be grudged. But before the cage of the tiny birds which looked like blossoms she said, 'How beautiful!'
"Wait. Until now you are seeing nothing.' In front of the last cage he paused, moved the stick forward and leaned on it with both hands. 'The golden pheasants of China,' he said simply. There were two of them; and even upon eyes so lately dazzled by the humming-birds their beauty struck with a pang. About the disposition of their green and white, red and blue, yellow and bronze feathers there was a suggestion of deliberate artifice, as though upon the instinctive skill and prodigality of nature a more mature and cunning design had been imposed. By comparison the other birds were gaudy, the work of a happy haphazard child: these were from a master hand; and it seemed that they knew it, for in addition to their complete beauty there was a real dignity, a matchless grace.
Now she knew why he had brought her here; to show her his newest and loveliest acquisition. She said, without the care with which she ordinarily chose her words with him:
'They are the loveliest things I have ever seen in all my life.'
'I am glad,' he said. 'They are for you.' They had arrived only two days earlier. He had wanted them for years, just as he had wanted one of the tiny dogs with feathered tails which were also Chinese. It was very difficult indeed to get anything out of China. All China was closed to all trade, just as he had closed Kilapore to the Company's trade. Nothing came out of China by legal means. Some silk, some porcelain was smuggled out, because hungry peasants and avaricious merchants could lay hands on silk and porcelain; but the golden pheasants were to be found only in the gardens of the wealthy, and the little dogs were strictly the preserve of royalty. Surunda had wished, but he had never hoped to own a specimen of either rarity. Almost four years earlier he had done one of his minor Polygars a great favour, and when repayment was mentioned he had brushed it aside airily, saying, 'One day you may give me a Chinese pheasant, or one of the dogs of Pekin'; which was tantamount to saying, One dayyou shall give me the moon or a slice of a rainbow.
Yet, two days ago they had arrived, beautiful and dignified in a cage of wickerwork, with nothing to show that almost four years, a sum of money equivalent to two thousand English pounds, and the lives of five men had been expended upon their transportation from one place to another. And because they were new, and so beautiful, they were, of all his countless possessions, the things which Surunda held dearest on the afternoon when Linda Shelmadine came to say goodbye to him. And for that reason he must give them to her.
Earlier in the day he had, with an eye to choosing a 'gift for memory', taken stock of his treasures. He had opened, and then dived into, several chests, the contents of some well known to him, others which he had forgotten, if he had ever seen them--sapphires bluer than the sky; emeralds green as young corn; diamonds, pearls. He had tumbled them back, dissatisfied. He had given too many jewels to too many other women, even to dancing girls who had relieved an hour's tedium. A jewel was far too ordinary a gift to mark the end of a friendship so rare. And with that thought came the knowledge of exactly what was the apt, the suitable, in fact the only gift.
Now, looking at the beautiful birds, he was satisfied with the Tightness of the gesture. It did not occur to him to reflect that by tomorrow or by the next day the Chinese pheasants would have lost their novelty and therefore their charm for him. Nor did he wonder whether a pair of largish birds, however rare and beautiful, was, in a practical sense, exactly the right gift for a woman about to set out on a journey of several thousands of miles. Even the look of blank dismay on Linda's face did not enlighten him; he took it for astonishment at his munificence. She had a vision of the pheasants in their wicker basket on top of the jolting ox-wagon which would carry their luggage to the coast; she knew in anticipation the difficulty of finding a place to put them while they waited to take passage; and finally the picture of their arrival in London drifted before her inward eye--a drizzling day at
the docks, the hackney coach in which they set off to look for a cheap lodging. We want accommodation for a married couple and two rare pheasants___
She felt the spasm of half-hysterical laughter in her throat. She took a small piece of the inner side of her cheek between her teeth and bit it hard. One emerald
button that would never be missed___Oh, the irony of
it! When she could trust her voice she said:
'It is most kind, most generous of you ... and in keeping with the way in which you have always behaved to me; but I could not take anything so valuable, so rare. I thank you from my heart for wishing to give me such a present, but I cannot accept it. For one thing you could never replace them.'
'That is why,' he said simply. And the words revealed the full value of the offered gift. She recognised the element of self-sacrifice___She thought rashly, I don't care
what Richard says; somehow I will take them back and I'll send them to his father, at Clevely. He may not wish to receive me, or Richard, but he could not resist such a gift. They'll be safe there.
She turned to Surunda and tried to express not only her gratitude for the gift but her awareness of the subtle honour it conferred. He cut her short before she had completed her first sentence.
'I am glad that they please you,' he said. He beckoned to one of the watchful, unobtrusive servants, and said a
few words.
'They will be ready. It grows dark. We go this way.' He opened another door and she saw ahead of her a long passage, already lighted by torches, each held by a servant immobile and expressionless as a statue. Fitting her step to the Rajah's slow, limping pace, she passed along the length of it, prey to an emotion unfamiliar and without a name. It was like dying, this feeling of 'never more'. Surunda Ghotal would remain here, with his great possessions, warding off the encroachments of the Company, growing old, dying. And she would go on to whatever the future held for her. They would never, in thisworld, meet again.
The passage led straight back to the high wide hall which lay just behind the door at the top of the marble steps by which she had entered the palace less than an hour ago. She expected that here he would take leave of her; but he hobbled forward through the doorway and down --awkwardly, clumsily down--the flight of marble steps upon which he had never set foot since the day when he had started out upon the expedition which had resulted in his disablement. As he had said, the pheasants were ready; the wide wicker cage strapped into position beside the driver of the litter. The sudden dusk had fallen and more torches lighted the scene. At the foot of the steps the Rajah paused.
'It is now,' he said.
She could not speak. Her eyes were dry, but there were tears at the back of them; her lips moved, but from the painful constriction of her throat no sound would come. All she could do was to reach out with her mittened hand. Surunda Ghotal moved his stick from his right hand to his left and reached out his hand. Linda took it and they stood so for a moment.
Then he said, 'Go in peace.'
She tried to say, 'You also', but no words came, and she turned and hurried to the litter as though seeking shelter.
The Rajah stood and watched as the horses, under the whiplash, plunged forward. The men who had been hovering came forward with his chair and he sat down heavily and allowed himself to be carried up the steps. At the top the torchlight fell on his face, and anyone bold enough to look at him would have seen that his eyes and the heavy discoloured pouches below them were damp. But nobody saw; it would have been highly unwise to be witness to a moment of weakness in so stern and terrible
a man.
'Well, and what glittering prize did that bit of bum-sucking gain for you, my pretty?'
'A pair of very rare, very valuable pheasants.'
Richard's laugh, thin and high and sneering, rang out, jangling her nerves until it was difficult not to cry 'Stop it I' and scream.
'Serve you bloody well right,' Richard said. 'And what do you propose to do with this loot? Have a feast of the Passover?'
There'd been a time when she would have said simply, 'Oh, but you wouldn't kill them,' and that would have been his cue and the birds' death sentence.
'Such a meal is hardly for the likes of us,' she said lightly. 'They're worth their weight in gold. They're Chinese, the only ones ever to be seen outside China. Plainly destined for Windsor, or Chatsworth--five hundred pounds the pair!'
As always, the mention of money arrested his attention.
'So valuable?' he asked incredulously and roused himself to go out and look at the birds.
'Now I wonder why His Fatness should give them to you,' he said.
She knew the answer. 'Because he is so rich that when he wanted to give a present that would cost something he was like a pauper; he could only give me the one thing he valued at the moment.' But that was not a thing one could say to Richard.
She said, Tart of the general lack of reality. He'd have no idea what trouble ...' Inspiration visited her. 'Or perhaps he had I Perhaps he wanted to give you trouble.'
That was enough.
'Ha ha!' Richard said. 'I shall make no trouble of it. No trouble at all, and possibly a profit.'
She knew then that the pheasants were safe. Another small victory, at the price of another enormous betrayal. She turned away, sickened by the thought of what she had become. PART TWO
Sunset of a Philanderer
CHAPTER THREE
At first Damask thought that, after all, God meant to let her off lightly. Amos came home almost an hour before he was expected.
He wore an unfamiliar look, more unfamiliar than could be accounted for by the fact that he was wearing his chapel suit; his face was smooth and lightened with joy.
'I bring great tidings,' he said, as soon as he was inside the kitchen. 'It was decided this afternoon to build a chapel in Clevely.'
Neither his wife nor his daughter was capable, at that moment, of fully sharing his joy. To Mrs Greenway, now more or less house-bound, a chapel at Clevely and a chapel at Nettleton five miles away were much the same; and Damask was preoccupied with the matter of the Squire's unfinished boots. She knew this to be unworthy, however, and tried to force herself to enthusiasm. 'Where is it to stand, Father?' she asked. 'On Abel Shipton's little back meadow, the one they call the Flat Iron; he've promised the narrer end where Mrs Shipton hev kept her ducks. You know.' Amos said, glowing with honest self-abasement, 'I've wronged Abel Shipton in my mind many a time! Over and over again when a chapel in Clevely hev been mentioned I've thought him lukewarm in the Lord's cause not to offer a morsel of ground, he being the only one that could, no other Methodist being his own landlord. However, today he did so and there'll be a chapel in Clevely at last!'
It had been his dream for many years. The chapel at Nettleton served the six parishes and was large enough to
accommodate all its members, so that at first sight there might not appear to be a crying Heed for one at Clevely; but when Amos thought of the six villages he could see one lighted and five in darkness. He would look around on Sunday evenings and count--ten souls from Nettleton, four from nearby Minsham, three, two, one or none from distant places, himself and Abel Shipton the only representatives of Clevely. Five miles was a long way to walk for old people, or children, or those who were not yet fully persuaded. He was certain that if he could build a chapel in Clevely he could make converts; if he could kindle the light people would gather around it.
'Who's going to pay for it?' Julie asked. She was trying, in her turn, to take interest and it was not her fault that the question had just a tinge of sharp practicality.
'All Of us,' said Amos eagerly. The and one or two more'll do the work and every one of us at the meeting today made a solemn promise to give all we could towards the cost of the stuff. We reckoned we'd get the timber cheap, anyway, Judson being a member of the chapel at Baildon and being in that line of business.' He broke off and then added, in a different, dreamier voice, ' "A light to lighten the Gentiles", thass what that chapel'll be."
Julie looked about the sparsely furnished, comfortless kitchen and wondered a little drearily how Amos expected to pay his contribution towards the chapel-building; they lived near enough to the bone already. What further sacrifice could be demanded?
'Father,' Damask broke in on Amos's dream, 'Squire came by this afternoon and was put out at not finding his boots ready. I promised to ...' Oh dear, that was another lie almost. 'If you'd work on them now I'd take them on my way home. The pudding won't be ready for another half-hour.'
'The Manor ain't on your way home, child,' Julie said. 'It is if I go by the Lower Road.'
And there, Julie thought, quite humbly, lay the difference between the really religious people like Amos and Damask and those who only paid lip-service, like herself.She would not dare to walk that road after dark, and she did not much relish the thought of Damask doing so.
'All right, I'll get on,' Amos said. He would much have preferred to stay in the kitchen and go on talking about the new chapel; but he now had the best of reasons for working hard and keeping his customers. In the workroom, donning his leather apron, he realised that since the job was merely simple stitching he could carry it into the kitchen and talk as he worked; and this he did, oblivious to the waning of Julie's interest and the agonised glance which Damask cast him every time he halted his needle to give full value to a remark or ceased work to stare into space.
'Father, do get on,' she said at last. 'The pudding is ready to dish."
The later she was the less chance of any other person being abroad on that road and calling a human, heartening 'Good night'. The later she was the deeper would be the darkness, the greater the risk of something not friendly, not human....
She rattled the plates as she took them from the shelf, ostentatiously and noisily grated some salt from the block, lifted the lid of the saucepan so that the good scent of the pudding might titillate Amos's nostrils, but it was not in him to scamp a job even when pressed for time. When at last he placed the last firm stitch, cut off the waxed thread and tucked the end under, it was well past the ordinary supper hour. Damask almost snatched at the boots and began to bundle them into one of the canvas squares used for the delivery of such important orders. That done she dished the pudding hurriedly and put on her cloak.
'But you ain't had your supper,' Julie said plaintively. 'You can't go off like that, missing your dinner as you do these Saturdays. You'll turn faint or something.'
'I rather wanted you to do a bit of figuring out for me,' Amos said, 'about this here timber. I don't reckon so easy as you do, Damask; started too late.'
He had been quite illiterate up to the time of his conversion; then he had learned to read in order to study the
Bible, and had proceeded to learn how to write in order to make notes for his sermons when he became a preacher. He wrote, curiously enough, a very good scholarly hand. Damask had acquired her smattering of education early in life through the Nettleton Sunday School, which she had attended every Sunday afternoon until she went out to work. The Sunday School had been the hobby of an old schoolmaster who believed that Methodism was the remedy for all the spiritual ills of the world and universal literacy the remedy of every other kind. It was useless, he held, to tell children the bible stories of which, if they remembered anything at all, only garbled versions would remain in mind; they must learn to read for themselves. So on Sunday afternoons, after a brisk prayer and a loud hymn to work off what surplus energy remained after a long walk and an attendance at morning service, the young Methodists of the six villages settled down to learn their letters. Most of them made little progress, some fell asleep; the old man devoted his attention to the few who wanted to learn. Of these one or two even reached the stage of learning grammar.
'Our Lord,' the old man would say, 'spent His earthly life as a poor humble man, but He didn't say "I ain't" and "I worn't", and nor need you!'
The grammar was a high fence at which most of even the eager learners fell; those few who reached the other side were taught the rudiments of arithmetic. Damask was one of the few. The old man, delighting in her teachability, often regretted that she was not a boy, capable of becoming a proper scholar.
'I'll help you with that next time I'm home,' she said to Amos now.
'You sure you can't stop for just a mouthful?' Julie asked, beginning to cut into the crust of the pudding. Hunger watered in Damask's mouth as the brown gravy oozed and the rich scent escaped. Then she thought of the Lower Road and shook her head.
'Oh dear. And I was counting on us heving a cup of tea together after.''Ah!' Amos exclaimed, as though a question had been answered. 'I been figuring out where we could make spare a bit. Tea! No more tea in this house till that chapel stand four-square in the Lord's sight!'
'But that 'ont save much,' Julie said in a small voice. 'We use so little. What I got in the tin now was bought back in August.' She loved her cup of tea, made an event, a treat, of each rare brewing and used the leaves three times over.
'Then we'll save on cheese too,' Amos said. 'Not a bite of cheese will I touch from this day on.'
Both Julie and Damask knew that his main meal on six days of the week was a hunk of bread and cheese; they stared at him, Julie's faded blue eyes wide with awed dismay, Damask's amber ones with awed respect. A truly good man--and his daughter was a liar! That brought her back to a consciousness of her circumstances. She went over and kissed Julie.
'Goodbye, Mother. I'll see you next month.' By her father she paused but did not kiss him, 'Good night, Father. I'll see you tomorrow week at chapel.'
'Goodbye, Damask; thank you for all you've done for me today,' Julie said, and sadly put some pudding on a plate.
'Good night, Damask,' said Amos, drawing his chair to the table. 'I'll see you unless Stevens is still ill; if he is I might hev to take his pulpit over at Summerfield.'
Summerfield, she thought, opening the door on the dark, windy night. Summerfield ... magic word, her talisman against fear. For it was at Summerfield, on a June night, that Jesus had called Damask Greenway and she had answered the call.
She was fourteen and at the end of the month was going to start work, and that was one reason why Amos had insisted on her going to the week-night meeting that was to be held at Summerfield by a famous preacher named Whitwell. Damask nearly missed it because during the week, cleaning the work-room, she had dropped a
heavy last on her foot and the nail on one toe had turned black and was coming off. She couldn't walk to Summerfield; and Mrs Greenway had half hoped that they could stay home together and make gooseberry jam, and have a cup of tea and gossip more freely than they could do in Amos's presence. Mother and daughter were very close to one another at that time.
'But once she get to work she'll never be free for a midweek meeting; and this Mr Whitwell is famous. On the Norwich circuit last month he brought over three hundred sinners to repentance.'
'Well, Damask ain't much of a sinner,' Mrs Greenway said.
'We're all sinners,' said Amos sternly, 'and I should like to see her cast her burden at the mercy seat afore she go out to face the world. I know what I'll do. I'll borrow Shad's donkey.'
'That'll mean starting a full hour sooner than we need,' said Mrs Greenway. The remarkable state of preservation of Shad's ancient animal was due to its lifelong refusal to be hurried.
'Ah well, your father's a good man,' said Mrs Green-way, seeing her cosy evening doomed and seeking comfort
where she could, 'when I look around at some----Mrs
Juby hev a terrible black eye again today. We can't complain, I s'pose.'
Damask had gone sulkily. Apart from Sunday School, where sheer boredom had brightened her wits until every lesson was fascinating, she found everything in connection with chapel tedious in the extreme. Yet Amos had been right; the meeting was the turning-point of her life.
The barn was crowded; not only had the faithful rallied from all quarters, there was a good number of people who had come in search of entertainment. Revivalist meetings offered much amusement, with women falling down in hysterics and screaming and tearing their hair and men rushing to the front and blurting out that they were great sinners and often giving most intimate detailsof their misdoings. The commonest sin was wenching, then sharp dealing, then drunkenness.
Amos had prudently brought a stool which he placed
near the door of the barn, so that as Damask sat there
the scent of cut hay, of honeysuckle and wild roses drifted
in and touched her before it became sullied by the odour
of human breath, human sweat and the ale-reek which
hung about some of the unregenerate. She was still sulky,
and until John Whitwell climbed up into the improvised
pulpit and began to talk she would rather have been at
home, making gooseberry jam, with a cup of tea to look
forward to.
Whitwell spoke very simply and said nothing that was new to such a regular chapel-goer as Damask; what was new was his burning belief and his power to convey it. He believed in God who loved the world and offered even to the worst of men a chance to repent and enjoy eternal life in Heaven; he believed that the Devil tempted men to sin, to resist God, and waited gloatingly for the chance to torture them in Hell throughout all eternity.
He was fluent and passionately sincere, and he possessed good looks above the average and some rudimentary hypnotic power. When at the end of his discourse he threw his arms wide and, with the last level rays of sunshine falling on his smooth yellow hair, earnest face and beautiful eyes, cried, 'My brothers, my sisters, make the choice tonight, for tonight your soul might be required of you. Eternal joy or eternal pain--that is the choice. And here is Jesus, opening His crucified arms to you, calling you to come and cast yourselves upon His infinite mercy. Come, while there is time,' fifty-five people moved forward, and quite a few of them were those who had come to see the fun.
Damask went too, of course. She was fourteen, and it was June and she was under a spell. So confused that to the end of her days Jesus of Nazareth would wear John Whitwell's face, speak with his voice. Dust moved in the barn as the penitents shuffled forward, and the sun shimmered in the dust and there was a halo about that yellow head. She went forward and offered her heart, to Amos's
supreme joy.
The next four years, save for an occasional lapse into sin and a consequent troubling of conscience, were happy ones. Her heart was in safe keeping. She was happier than Juliet, who at the same age gave her heart to Romeo; happier than Sally Ashpole, who at the same age gave what she thought was her heart and what was certainly her virginity to one of Widow Hayward's soldier sons; happier than all the uncounted girls who at the same age gave their hearts to governesses and fellow schoolgirls and other fallible human creatures. Jesus never repudiated her love, never exploited it, never changed. He was always there, always loving, even when, or perhaps especially when, she hurt Him by sinning. And she had no doubt, on this evening, as she stepped out into the windy dark, that He would be with her on the Lower Road.
She cherished a half-hope that at the Lodge Jarvey would open the gate for her and say that he had an errand up to the house and would carry the boots with him. Or would that be cheating? Now and then it was difficult to decide whether a chance accident was a sign of God's favour or a particularly cunning wile of the Devil. Tonight no such decision was called for; the eldest of the Jarvey boys admitted her and scuttled back into shelter like a rabbit. The wind was full in her face as she trudged up the avenue, and by the time she reached the back door of the Manor she was completely out of breath. The yard between the house and the stables lay deserted, unusually quiet, and it was a long time before anyone answered the door to her. She was obliged to ring the bell three times; and when someone came it was not one of the maids, it was the stout, regal housekeeper, Mrs Hart, who did not ordinarily answer doors. She looked as though she had been crying and just stood there without speaking.
'Good evening,' Damask said. 'I've brought the boots. I promised Sir Charles this afternoon...'To her astonishment Mrs Hart made no move to take the parcel; she lifted her black silk apron and held it to her face, beginning to cry again, wildly.
'His boots!' she sobbed. 'He'll not need them. Poor dear man, he'll never wear boots again!'
'Why... is he ill ?' Damask faltered.
'He's dead I Brought home not ten minutes since, on a gate, his neck broke.'
And who then would pay for the boots? All that leather of the best quality, all those hours of Amos's labour. Oh what a pity that they hadn't been finished earlier, finished and paid for! That was her first thought and she was immediately ashamed of it. 'Oh dear,'she said.'What happened?' Like most mourners, Mrs Hart, though she would have been impervious to comfort, found the invitation to tell a dramatic tale a palliative to her grief.
'What happened? Ah, that nobody can say.' She lowered her apron. 'His horse came back, about six o'clock, all in a muck sweat and the saddle empty. So then Sir Edward he rid the highway with a coupla men and Parson took Bobby, just as he was, all of a tremble, and went with a couple more along Lower Road, and Mr Hatton went off to Berry Lane--you never saw such a to-do. And then, like I told you, they found him, poor dear, dead, with his neck broke, and brought him home on a gate. The best master that ever breathed, he was, for all he was so particular.'
'Where did they find him?' 'In the Lower Road, just by the Lady's Ride.' Genuinely grief-stricken as she was, something professional, automatic still functioned perfectly in the housekeeper's mind. All girls were stupid, it took five minutes and at least one repetition to get the simplest thing into their minds. She always acted on that assumption, and now, in one more instance, she realised how right she was. Damask Greenway hadn't so much as blinked at the first telling of the broken neck, the sudden tragic death-- but now, just five minutes later, she went all pale and gave a great gasp.
'Come to think of it,' said Mrs Hart, 'you'd be one of the last people to see him alive, wouldn't you? That'll be something to remember.' She mopped her face again. 'Did you notice aught... anything to show why he should have a dizzy spell and fall off his horse?'
'No ... no. He seemed ... quite ordinary.' (And I told him a lie!)
'Ah, so I said.' Mrs Hart sounded immensely satisfied. 'There's more in this than meets the eye. It'd take something more than a falling branch to make old Bobby rear and shy. And the state he was in! I allust did say that I wouldn't venture along that road after dark--no, not for a thousand ...'
'Mrs Hart, what shall I do with the boots?'
How rude, to interrupt like that I
'Not for a thousand pounds,' said Mrs Hart firmly. 'The boots? I'm sure I don't know."
'Shall I leave them?'
'I don't know,' Mrs Hart said coldly. 'And this is no tune to be bothering with such things.'
Boots ... boots! Fancy interrupting her just as she was telling how she had always felt about that dreadful road! Damask Greenway needed to be put in her place; Mrs Hart did it, closing the door firmly.
It was not the first time--it was far from the first time --that Damask had suspected that there was something queer, something quite out of the ordinary about her mind. Most people had minds which dealt with one thought, and then another, one at a time. Hers very often dealt with two, even three, all at the same time. She was thinking now, as the door shut in her face, that it was lucky that Mrs Hart hadn't taken the boots. Father could perhaps sell them as they were, or alter them to fit somebody else, or, if the worst came to the worst, use the leather again. They wouldn't be the dead loss that they might have been had Mrs Hart taken them and put them down somewhere to be forgotten. And at the same time another part of her mind was thinking about the LowerRoad ... thinking such terrible, terrifying thoughts that no other mind could have held them and any other thought at the same time; thinking that God really did intend to punish her for that lie, to test her faith to the uttermost. And at the same time yet a third part of her mind was capable of standing back and observing what a very strange mind Damask Greenway had, to be able to think all these things together. The whirl of so much thinking made her dizzy. There was the familiar moment of blackness during which all the thoughts came together. Then everything cleared and one thought had come uppermost--the thought of the Lower Road.
As she retraced her steps along the avenue Satan offered her a new and very subtle temptation. Time was of no account now, he said; it didn't matter how late she got back to Muchanger, nobody would scold when they heard the news she brought. Also--he said--by going back by the main road she would pass her home again, and could tell the news there and get rid of the boots.
She argued that she wasn't really going by way of the Lower Road to save time; she was going to punish herself.
Ah yes, Satan retorted, but when she had made her plan she hadn't known that something else horrible was going to happen on that very stretch of road; nor had she known that she would have to carry the boots all the way to Muchanger.
But God had known, she replied--God knew everything; and if He intended her to be this much more severely punished, it would be wrong to try to wriggle out of it.
By doing the sensible thing?
All too often the apparently sensible thing was the wrong thing--like telling the lie this afternoon.
Then, just as she reached the gateway, she thought of Jesus carrying the heavy cross--the cross to which she had added another nail--all the way up the slopes of Golgotha. And the other nail would stay in until God had forgiven her; and she couldn't be forgiven until she had
proved her penitence.
Without further parley or hesitation she turned towards the wooden bridge and stepped out briskly.
It was very dark; but all her journeys back to Much-anger in winter were made in the dark; and the blackness itself did not alarm her. Immediately beyond the bridge one lighted window from Bridge Farm cast a cheering ray, and soon after that had fallen away behind her she could catch a glimpse of another lighted window at Wood Farm. After that the darkness thickened where Layer Wood loomed up and the wind changed its tone; it boomed and howled through the trees and the tormented branches creaked and clashed.
Now she was coming to the bad part. Every story that she had ever heard about this stretch of road rushed back to add its modicum of terror; she could hear again the very voices which had told the tales, culminating in Mrs Hart's saying that she wouldn't walk this way for a thousand pounds.
Nor would she, Damask Greenway I She was here for the only reason powerful enough to make her take the risk.
The twenty-third psalm was an excellent thing to remember when one was frightened. She remembered it. 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.'
Satan made himself heard again: You'd be more comforted if someone came along and walked with you, wouldn't you? Even Matt Juby and he a bit tipsy! It'd take more than a falling branch to make Bobby rear and shy--wasn't that what Mrs Hart said? And what about that night when Widow Hayward... Get thee behind me, Satan I
She started the psalm again. 'I will fear no evil, no evil, no evil ...' What a dreadful word evil was, just by itself, when you came to think about it!
But she was getting along; nearly to the place where the Lady's Ride--and that was an ominous name too--opened out into the road. It must have been just about here that Sir Charles... Don't think about that. Nothing has happened yet, and perhaps it is all superstition after all; a good Methodist shouldn't be superstitious. And perhaps she was to be spared the worst. Perhaps the terror which she had inflicted on herself was to be her punishment. 'The wicked flee when no man pursueth.. .
But it isn't man you're afraid of, is it, Damask?
It was then that she heard the sound of hoofs, coming quickly, coming towards her.
Her heart gave a great jolt and then seemed to stop. She stood, paralysed with terror, stock still in the middle
of the road.
Nobody not already half-demented by fear could possibly have mistaken the hoofbeats of the Fullers' old carthorse for those of a spirited stallion, even though young Danny Fuller was driving hard, even though the rattle of the iron-rimmed wheels toned so exactly with the roar and moan of the wind as to be indistinguishable. But Damask was already half-demented. Fear had been moving within her when she rose from her knees in" the workroom and it had been rising ever since, pressing against the barriers of reason and determination and faith; now, as she realised her worst fears and knew that she was to be spared nothing, the barriers went down.
She stood in the middle of the road and closed her eyes and thought, 'Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil, evil, evil. Deliver us..."
She could smell the horse; she could feel its breath. She dropped down, mercifully insensible, as the old horse checked and slithered to a halt.
There was a text: Underneath are the everlasting arms! And it was true. So were all the other things people said about Heaven. She'd died there in the dark and fallen--fallen through infinite space and infinite darkness, and now here she was, safely held in those strong everlasting arms. She gave a great sigh of happiness and relief, and lay back in the arms more securely. It was
wonderful; it was all over--the struggles against Satan and temptation and sin; all the hard work and the way the cook at Muchanger made fun of her and called her 'Methody'; the long trudging miles to chapel ... all over. No more hurry, the whole of eternity, held close like this. Everything had been worth while. Presently all the glory and beauty of Heaven would be there to be enjoyed; for the moment it was enough to lie here. She snuggled closer.
Then a very human, ordinary voice said, 'My God, I thought I'd killed you!' Not the voice of Jesus which had come from Mr Whitwell's lips in the Summerfield barn. So hard on the heels of this realisation that it seemed part of it came the awareness that what her face was pressed into was some rough cloth that smelt of smoke, of cooked onions, of hay, horses and ale.
'Wake up and speak to me,' said the voice. 'Are you hurt?' The voice was not very steady. Danny Fuller had had a fine shock; pounding along like that and having old Short check and swerve, and climbing down to find what looked like a dead girl in the road.
'Are you hurt?' he asked again.
Not without disappointment Damask came to full knowledge. She was still on earth; she must make an effort.
'I'm all right. She didn't touch me. And I kept my eyes shut, so I'm all right. How did you get here?' Her voice was languid and the few words seemed to demand all the strength she had left. She kept her eyes closed and still lay limp in his embrace.
'If we didn't touch you why did you fall down? And why didn't you get to the side of the road. You must have heard us coming.'
'Not you. Her! I heard her and I prayed and God heard me. He sent you.'
'I think you must have had a crack on the skull,' Danny said practically. The hood of her cloak had fallen back on to her shoulders and he put his hand to her head, running his fingers through her hair with a touch which made a thrill of voluptuousness move over her. Sheshuddered a little.
'No bump that I can find,' he said. He was sure of her identity now, having touched the hard bunch of plaits; no other girl wore her hair that way. 'You're Damask Greenway, aren't you?' Unconsciously his manner cooled. His susceptibility to girls was the greatest trouble as well as the greatest joy of his life, but his feeling for Damask was tinged with the same reserve and resentment which Sir Charles had experienced earlier in the afternoon. She was so prim and strait-laced, and she could have been pretty, but deliberately made herself plain; and that, besides being a pity and a waste, was in some curious way a rebuke to Danny and his kind. His brown, good-looking face twitched into a mischievous grin as he said: 'I'm Danny Fuller.'
That'd make her sit up I It certainly did. She opened her eyes and pulled away from him, thankful that the darkness hid the hot blush which scorched her face as she remembered how she had lain in his arms and pressed her face to his coat and thrilled to the touch of his hand in her hair. Danny Fuller, who had the worst name for running after girls of any boy in six parishes.
'I'm quite all right now, thank you,' she said in the prim way he detested.
'Well, I'm glad of that. What the hell did you think you were doing, walking in the middle of the road with your eyes shut? Isn't it dark enough?'
'I was frightened,' she said. 'She was so near me I could feel the horse's breath on me.' 'Who was?' 'Lady Alice.'
He broke into laughter. 'Only horse came near you tonight was my old Short! There were we spanking along and there you stood. If he didn't have better sense than you do we'd have run you down. Fancy you, of all people, believing those daft old tales.' He was pleased to find this proof of weakness and human feeling in her.
'Well, maybe it was silly.' She thought for a second. 'Yes, it was silly ... but all alone, in the dark ... And I
had another reason. Squire was found dead just here only a little while back.'
'Squire? Good God! Is that really true?'
'Mrs Hart herself told me. I went up to the house with these ... Oh, where are those boots?' She felt about in the darkness while Danny said slowly:
'That's wonderful; the very best thing that could happen.'
'I don't see why.' she said, stooping to gather up the parcel. 'My father'll miss his custom; so will a lot of other people.'
'There'll be a new Squire, silly. Younger and not so set in his ways. Nobody could be so pig-headed as the old man was. Ha ha; now we can all go ahead and get on.'
'That's what I must do now. I was late to start with, and I've still got a long way to go.' She pulled the hood of her cloak into place.
'Where are you now?' Danny asked.
'The same place. Muchanger.'
'Then what are you doing on this road? The Turnpike's shorter and doesn't have ghosts.'
'This is a bit shorter from the Manor end of the village; I told you, I went up with these boots. And I have another reason.'
'Meeting somebody?' He wasn't yet aware that the answer to that question mattered to him; he asked it teasingly.
'No, I wasn't. That's just the sort of thing you would think, Danny Fuller.'
'I only asked,' he said, 'because I thought you might get scared again ... alone, in the dark, with all these ghosts about. Lady Alice, dead and buried hundreds of years I I am surprised at you.'
'I'm surprised at myself. But ... being frightened was part of it... part of why I was on this road, I mean. And perhaps ... Well, I must get along now.'
'I tell you what,' he said. 'You hop up and I'll turn round and drive you to Muchanger.'
'That's very kind of you. Thank you very much, butI'd rather walk.' 'Why?'
She stood silently, trying to put her reason into words that would not sound too offensive. 'You aren't afraid of me, surely.'
'Not afraid,' Damask said. She added, speaking slowly, so that what she said should be precise and unmistakable, 'But somebody might see us. And any girl you ever look at is talked about, you know that. I don't want people saying that I'm one of your jilts.'
'Don't talk so daft,' he said. 'Who's to see us? You can't go lugging that great parcel all the way to Much-anger and getting scared again. If you don't get in the cart I shall turn round and drive slowly alongside; then, if there was anybody to see, you would be talked about. Come on, now, hop up.'
She still hesitated, engaged in one of her inward debates. It was dark; she was late and the parcel was heavy. Also, in her hour of need Danny had arrived; it looked as if God had sent him. Perhaps it would be all right. 'Well, thank you very much.' she said. Danny climbed nimbly into the cart and held out his hand to help her up.
The old horse turned unwillingly and went slowly in the direction which for him was all wrong, leading as it did away from his stable, his well-earned supper. Danny did nothing to hurry him.
The seat of the cart was a plank, stretched from side to side and capable of being removed when the vehicle was needed for farm work; one half of this seat was occupied at the moment by a big linen bag full of snippets of silk and velvet which Danny had that afternoon collected from Miss Jackson, the dressmaker. Mrs Fuller, during the long winter evenings which were her only leisure, occupied herself by making patchwork quilts which were popular in the six parishes as 'bride gifts'. She had a standing arrangement with her cousin the dressmaker by which all 'pieces' were exchanged for a dressed fowl, a dozen eggs, a loin of pork and a pound of butter now and again.
Earlier in the afternoon, seeing Danny off to Baildon, Mrs Fuller had said, 'And take my piece-bag along. And don't go chucking it in the back of the cart like you did last time. All the pieces stank of muck and the bag had to be washed. Tie it on the seat aside you.'
So there it was, and there were Damask and Danny forced to sit very close to one another on the other half of the seat. And Danny was large; he had his father's big bones, not yet stripped and made angular by constant hard labour, and he was better nourished than his father had been in his youth, for Mrs Fuller was not one of those farm-wives who marketed the best produce and fed her family on what was left. Early in her married life she had made that plain to Mr Fuller when he once ventured to mention that his mother's habit had been to 'make do with what's over'.
'Your mother bore eight children and reared two and your father died at forty! Glory be to God, what's the use of a farm if it can't feed you? Before my family starve in the midst of plenty we'll leave the farm and move into town where I could earn food at least.' That silenced Fuller, whose wife before her marriage had kept a thriving little pastry-cook's shop in Baildon and made money with her quilts besides. So Danny and his sister Susan had grown up straight and strong and handsome beyond the average, and their father, despite his hard work and what Mrs Fuller called his 'worritting nature', had already outlived his father by six years.
Sitting in such close contact Danny and Damask were very much aware of one another. He could smell the odour of the cobbler's workroom in which her hood had hung all afternoon; he could smell soap and now and again an elusive whiff of lavender and rosemary. But he could also smell something more positive and pervasive, the ghost-stink of the muck for which the cart had been used during the week. That brought something else to mind and provoked the first remark to be made during the drive.
'Father's going to try stall-feeding some beasts thiswinter,' he said. 'He took the kitchen for a byre and Mother agreed to try it if he promised to buy a gig with the first profits he made. She's been mad for a gig ever since Fred Clopton bought his.'
She could find nothing to say to that. On the fringe of her mind there dwelt for a moment the certainty that it was all concerned with a worldly and therefore unworthy ambition, something her father would decry, but it seemed not to matter very much just now. 'Would you like to ride in a gig, Damask?' 'I don't know. This is really the first proper ride I've ever had in a cart even. My only other ride was in Shad's donkey rig.'
The idea that a ride in the despised old farm cart could be a treat, an experience, was amazing, and touching.
'I tell you what,' he said, 'I'll bring the cart and drive you the whole way next time. When will you get out next? Next Saturday?'
'Oh no. I have a Saturday once a month. The others get two--they're very lenient at Muchanger--but my other day out is a Sunday so I can go to chapel.'
The last word dashed him, reminded him of her difference, her primness, the withheld prettiness which he resented. But that only lasted a moment, because he could feel her there pressed against his arm and thigh, very small, and warm and soft, and smelling so nice and clean. 'Four weeks from now, then, I'll call for you and drive you home.'
'I know you mean kindly, but that wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all.'
'Why not?'
'I told you.'
'Told me what?' This was the kind of conversation he was most at home with, half-teasing, half-probing, trying to make a girl say something out of which something else could be made.
'You know. You know as well as I do, Danny Fuller. You've got a bad name. You're always running after girls and taking them to the Midsummer Fair as though you
meant to marry them, and then you don't.'
'Well, what if I do? I like girls, I just go on looking for a girl I can keep on liking when I really know her. I never did find one, but you can't blame me for that. Now just suppose--suppose, I said--you turned out to be that girl and then wouldn't have anything to do with me just because I'd had the sense to wait for you. Wouldn't that
be a pity?'
She laughed then, and he was delighted that she could laugh just like any other girl.
'I bet you say something like that to every girl you take up with! When your mother made you go to school for a year she said it was so you could learn to reckon, but I think you learned disputation too.'
'Disputation. What's that?'
'It's making an argument--not twisting exactly, but making what you say make other people see things your way. I know about it because it's something the travelling preachers do. People sometimes jump up and ask awkward questions and try to make them look silly, and that's where disputation comes in.'
'And are you trying to make me look silly?' he asked, seizing upon the one phrase which would allow him to drag the talk back to the desired line.
'Of course not. I'm the one who would look silly if I believed that you had been waiting for me.'
'But it might be true.' Something that had been working in him ever since she had confessed her fear of Lady Alice's ghost assured him that it was true, but then he'd thought that so many times before and he'd always been wrong so far.
'It might be true,' he repeated. 'You might give a chap a chance to find out, Damask.'
There! He knew now. Another symptom. That something special in the name, the pleasure of saying it. Phyllis, Agnes, Daisy, Rose, Joan ... name after name had been briefly lighted and made special by the charm of the girl who owned it. Cissie, Martha, Jill, Jennie ... name after name had darkened, waned, become just an- other name as the girl who owned it became just another girl. He seldom took time from his girl-chasing to remember the past or think about the future, but now for a moment he did so, and was sobered. Damn nearly twenty-five and no nearer being settled than he was at eighteen. Something, anything, a look, a chance word, would set him off and he'd be hot after a wench for weeks; then, suddenly, out it would all go, like a blown candle, and his chief feeling would be one of relief that he'd never yet been hasty enough to marry a girl. It would be awful to wake up one morning and find yourself tied for life to a girl who had ceased to attract you. What could be worse?
He had time to think while he waited for her answer, and some excitement crept in and mingled with his thoughts. Damask wasn't like other girls; it would be a new experience to break down her primness, coax her into loosening those plaits. Every drop of his hunter's blood moved swiftly to meet a challenge which it met all too rarely. He was handsome and merry, and some deep instinct had restricted his chase to a class of girl to whom a farmer's son was a 'catch'; most of them had come halfway to meet him. This was different. Still she did not answer; and at last he said:
'Well? How about me meeting you next time you're out?'
'No. That wouldn't do,' she said. 'And I'd be obliged if you'd drop me here, outside the gate. If anybody saw us I should never hear the last of it.'
'And would you mind? Really?'
'I should hate it. I can bear being teased about what is true, but not... not something that isn't.'
'Do you get teased?'
'A bit.'
And again he knew he had been 'set off', for he felt belligerent towards those who teased her. Damn it all, why shouldn't she be a Methodist? There were worse things to be! He could think of a whole host of worse things. And what if she did scrape her hair back in that unbecoming fashion; she did keep it clean. He remembered several girls who were pretty to look at from a distance but not very nice close to.... 'I said stop. Please, Danny.'
'Just as you say,' he said, pleased that she had used his name. The old horse seemed to halt of his own accord, and before Danny could move Damask had pushed past the parcel and scrambled down on the far side of the cart, so that he could not even help her. 'And I'm not to see you again--ever?' 'No. But thank you for bringing me back ... and stopping here ... and coming along just when you did. Goodbye.'
Entranced rather than deterred by his rebuff, Danny turned the horse again and rattled away to his home, where, over a belated supper table, his father had just broken the news about Sir Charles's attitude towards the stall-feeding.
'So there they stand, pretty as a picture, and there they'll stand on Tuesday when he come nosing back. He've done his worst now and can't damage me no more till Lady Day, and then we'll all be out in the road, fat bullocks and all.'
Mrs Fuller cherished, like many other women in the village and the district, a curious, respectful, sentimental feeling for the old Squire. When he praised her kitchen, or said she looked well and bonny, or accepted her cake and wine, her self-esteem warmed and expanded and something very near to worshipful love moved in her heart. It was something which she had never felt towards Steve Fuller; and when Steve, blurting out the whole miserable story, said, 'He even arst how you'd manage without a kitchen, making out I was doing you a wrong,' her immediate feeling was, Ah yes, he would think of that, he's a gentleman!
But all that was froth, a dreamy nothing. Her attitude towards her husband might be mainly maternal instead of the dog-looking-up-to-kind-master one which every woman in her heart longs to attain, but, simply for thatreason, any attack on Steve was a battle cry.
'Let him come here on Tuesday,' she said, 'and he'll get a piece of my mind! As you say, the damage is done now and I'll tell him something he 'on't forget in a hurry. And don't you go fretting, my dear. We can manage. I hear the Claughton at Colchester is minded to retire and sell his shop. S'pose we could get hold of that! I could make a living there! And failing that there's hundreds of places. Don't you fret. We can manage."
Danny came in, knowing that, what with his lingering in the King's Head at Baildon and then turning about and going back to Muchanger, he was dreadfully late this time. Being late when he had been out afoot was not serious, but old Short's hours, being numbered, must be accounted for.
'I brought the pieces, Mother, and a damned long time I had to wait while Miss Jackson collected them. And I've got news for you, Dad. Squire fell off his horse and broke his neck this evening!'
Fuller said 'Thank God for that' before he remembered what he had said to the bullock; Mrs Fuller said 'Oh no! Poor dear man!' before she remembered what Sir Charles had said to her husband. Danny, looking from one to another of them and seeing that his lateness would pass unremarked, said cheerfully:
'I've got a feeling that everything will alter now; tonight will be a sort of turning-point.'
On the next evening, which was Sunday, the chapel at Nettleton gained a new attendant at the evening service. He came in at the last moment, took a seat at the back and slipped away before anyone could speak to him. Amos was preaching that evening, and as soon as he saw the familiar face in such unfamiliar surroundings, he hastily changed the subject of his discourse and preached a very earnest sermon about the joy in Heaven over one repentant sinner. He slipped from the pulpit and hurried to the door as quickly as he could and was greatly disappointed to find Danny gone; they could have walked home together
and he could have continued his exhortation on more intimate terms.
Danny went home disappointed but not downcast. She had said a Sunday, not which one, and he would go on attending until he hit on the right one. The wasted evening, the long walk meant little. Once, long ago, at the Midsummer Fair, he'd been 'set off' by a girl who was helping her father to sell his pills--guaranteed to cure everything short of a broken bone. He'd been obliged to buy a great number of pills in order to obtain a few minutes' conversation with her, and she had told him that they were going next to Bywater. An invented errand had gained him possession of the horse and cart and he'd gone to Bywater and stayed there three days. The pill vendor and his daughter had never appeared, and when Danny went home his father had beaten him with his belt, that being during the period when Steve still hoped to knock the nonsense out of him.
On the next Sunday evening, as he slipped into place, he knew, before ever looking round, that Damask was there; and so she was, sitting beside Amos, who had not been called to preach at Summerfield after all. Danny edged along the seat, awkwardly because his legs were too long for the space allowed, until he could see her without obviously straining his neck; and there he sat, feasting his eyes on the knot of plaits he had once thought so regrettable, and on the straight narrow shoulders and slim waist in the ugly slate-coloured dress. A dispassionate observer might have considered him very lucky to have something to distract his attention from the sermon, for it was Abel Shipton's turn to preach, and his sermons were a trial even to the most earnest and well-disciplined members. Not only were they painfully dull; they were delivered slowly, over-emphatically and in a voice which was afflicted with a peculiar disability.
'Now-er we will take for our text-er this evening-er the words-er of the Apostle-er ...' Abel began, and Danny, who never even heard the text, was the only person present who could truly have said that he enjoyed the nextforty-five minutes.
This evening Amos had no difficulty in getting hold of the new-comer; Danny was waiting outside, just where the thick candle in the hanging lantern made a little island of light in the murky black of the autumn night. While Amos gripped him by the hand and spoke the words of welcome which he had not been able to deliver last Sunday and asked Danny to wait so that they could walk home together Damask stood silent. She knew why Danny was there; but she acted as though she had never spoken a word to him in all her life, nor ever would. Her silence passed unnoticed; everybody was shaking hands with everybody else and saying 'Good night, God bless you', and a good many people were busy lighting their lanterns for their long trudges along lonely roads and over the field paths. Abel Shipton came and joined them and they all four set out together, lighted by Abel's lantern: but as soon as they had fallen into step Abel said:
'Oh-er, I saw Judson-er yesterday-er in Baildon-er and he said-er he'd worked out-er the timber costs-er.'
Amos's attention was immediately riveted, and as soon as a bigger puddle than ordinary shone up in the lantern-light Danny seized Damask by the arm and said, 'Mind the mud', and drew her aside; and after that they walked two and two.
'Well,' he said. 'Surprised to see me?' To say 'Yes' would be a lie; to say 'No' would imply that she had expected him and had been thinking about
him; so she said:
'I think it's wrong to go to chapel and make everybody think ... well, things that aren't true. Father might have been preaching at Summerfield tonight, and then how should we have looked?'
'You think a lot about how things look, don't you?' Danny said, not critically, just pursuing a line of interest. 'Well--it says in the Bible to avoid sin and the appearance of sin: I can't remember the exact words, but I understand the meaning.'
'And is walking along with me a sin?'
'You know what I mean and you know how it looks. I felt awful when Father was welcoming you in as though you'd turned from ... well, all your old ways.'
'Maybe I have. I said you should give me a chance, didn't I, Damask?'
She made no answer. He cast about in his mind for something impersonal and inoffensive to say and hit upon the topic which had eclipsed all others during the past week--Sir Charles's death and the changes expected as a result.
'When I got home the other night ...' he began, and told her about the kitchen-turned-byre and the Squire's reaction to it and the notice which now could be ignored. 'Down in the Black Horse,' he ended, 'they were saying that the new Squire was as different from his father as chalk from cheese, just as the old man was different from his father. And Jim Jarvey from the Lodge said last time he opened the gate for Lawyer Turnbull he told him the new Squire was in India and he'd sent a letter off with the news. People make fortunes in India; maybe he has and'll come back and build us all new byres.'
'It'll be nice for your mother to have her kitchen back,' said Damask primly.
They came to the cross-roads where the three roads met; one running on to Clevely, one to Muchanger, and one to Strawless. In the little green triangle where they forked there was a hump, said to be the grave of a boy who had hanged himself because he was suspected of sheep-stealing, away back in ancient times. Nobody tended the grave --if grave it was, for nobody was even sure of that--but everybody knew that the little mound always produced the wild flower that was in season--wild violets, primroses, cowslips, marguerite daisies, scabious, knapweed. One old story said that there was some connection between this grave and the Witch, Lady Alice of Merravay; it said that she had planted the roots of the flowers.
Here Amos always turned off on to the road to Clevely, while Damask went straight along to Muchanger. And here, as usual, Amos halted and said:'Well, good night, Damask. Be a good girl. God bless
you.'
Shipton halted too, holding his lantern a little higher as though in salute; as though they expected, Danny thought, that he was going to join them and leave Damask
to go on alone.
She seemed to think so too, for she walked straight ahead into the darkness, with just a 'Good night, Father; good night, Mr Shipton.' None of them, fortunately, could hear how her heart, so long uneasy, had suddenly started
to knock in her ears. 'Mr Greenway, d'you mind if I walk along with
Damask?'
'Why, no. But thass the long way round for you, ain't
it?'
'I don't mind that. Good night, Mr Greenway; good
night, Mr Shipton.'
'So that-er is why-er he came to chapel-er," said Shipton,
a little sourly.
'Why he came,' said Amos, vaguely. 'Well, maybe, maybe. God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.'
'Danny Fuller don't-er. He move in a brash, sinful way-er, wenching and drinking. I should-er be very sorry-er to see him go off-er with my daughter.'
'Ah, but you ain't got one. If you had you'd know that no harm could come to a properly brought up Christian girl same as Damask.' He was absorbed in the problem in mental arithmetic just presented to him by Shipton's account of his meeting with Judson; he was also distracted by the very terrible nervous affliction which always came upon him after ten minutes of Shipton's company--he had to struggle against imitating him; and between the two bothers he had no time or interest to spare for his daughter.
Danny caught up with Damask and took her by the I elbow. I
'There,' he said, 'now we can talk properly.'
Fire ran all over her at his touch, but she jerked her arm free and stopped walking.
'I've said all I have to say to you, Danny Fuller,' she said. 'You go along with Father and Mr Shipton and leave me be. I don't want you coming to chapel and making me look ridiculous. Nor I don't want you walking me home.'
'Now why not? Just tell me why not.'
'I did tell you. And just now you said about being in the Black Horse; I don't want ... I mean it wouldn't be suitable for me... with you going there.'
'Well, I don't see much harm in that; but if you do, Damask, then I won't go in the Black Horse. Would that please you?'
A great warm, weakening tide seemed to lift her, hold her helpless, threaten to sweep her away. She strove against it valiantly.
'It isn't just the inn. It's ... it's everything. You know as well as I do; you're just pretending not to see, just to tease me.'
'What else don't you like about me?'
'Well... swearing.'
'I don't swear,' he said indignantly.
'You do. I heard you say "Hell" myself.'
'Bless you,' he said. 'D'you call that swearing'? You should hear..,' He broke off. 'All right then, no swearing. You know I'd do anything to please you.'
And that, at the moment, was true. He was schooled in the practice of pleasing in order to be pleased. He had had his first lesson long ago, during his year at the King Edward Grammar School in Baildon. There, every Saturday morning, an old woman was allowed to enter the courtyard and sell her toffee and meat pies and saffron cakes to such boys as were blessed with spending money. Mrs Fuller, who had insisted upon Danny having a year's schooling when he was thirteen, was paying his fees with her 'quilt money' and allowed him fourpence a week. Accustomed to good farm food, he found the schoolmeals meagre and for some weeks counted the hours between Saturday and Sunday. Then one morning the old woman came accompanied by a little girl, a waifish little creature with great dark eyes in a thin, sad face. She helped to carry the basket and then stood watching the money and the foodstuff change hands. When it was Danny's turn to be served something made him say, 'Do you like toffee?'
'She don't know,' said the old woman gruffly. 'We can't afford to eat it, we make it to sell. We ain't lucky like you young gentlemen.'
He took his purchases and dropped back, waiting, whistling nonchalantly until the last customer had scampered away and the old woman drew over the basket the cloth which kept the dust and flies from her goods. Then he reached out and pushed all his fourpennyworth into the little girl's thin, dirty hand.
He knew, even then, that he was not being charitable, or generous or kind--there were plenty of boys all about who would gladly have accepted even one mouthful; he did it to make the great dark eyes smile at him. And they did. After that, so long as he was at school, he spent his fourpence on the little girl. (The old woman always took the stuff away from her as soon as they were out of the school yard; but Danny had had his smile. And on the whole the child benefited, for the old woman was suddenly granted a glimpse of the future, the hope that one day there might be some reward for bringing up an unwanted orphan grandchild--if she appealed to the gentlemen.)
'You know I'd do anything to please you.' he said again, as Damask did not reply to his first protestation. 'No, hell; no damn. I think that's all I know, Damask. Come on, you tell me the other words I mustn't say.'
'Now you're teasing me,' she said, and tried to sound prim, but suddenly broke into laughter.
'That's better,' Danny said, and laughed too and took her by the arm again. All in a moment something was established. The preliminaries were over.
CHAPTER FOUR
Damask's fear of 'talk' had been well founded. Before Christmas everyone knew that Danny Fuller was walking out with her, and spice was added to the gossip by the rumour that he was a reformed character. At the Christmas-week market this rumour was abundantly confirmed: one of his former cronies had betted another five shillings that he would have Danny inside the King's Head before the day was out, and with such a sum at stake exerted all his cajolery to gain his point. When he failed he turned nasty and said, 'Well, I hope it's worth it! I'm told that if you can get a Methody girl in the ...' and went on to say something very gross and offensive. Blows were struck, out there in the open street, to the great delight of the whole market.
In February Mrs Fuller felt it safe to say, looking up from the patchwork quilt:
'I got a feeling that this one 'on't hev to .go very far afield, Father. I allust said, didn't I, that the boy'd settle down and pick a decent girl in the end.'
Fuller, with the consciousness of Lady Day being within reckoning distance now, was little disposed to rejoice about anything.
'Time enough to crow,' he said, 'when they're married. And whether that'll be much to crow over I ain't so sure, Funny he couldn't pick up a decent girl reared to farm work and with a bit in her stocking, same as we give Susan when she married. And there's another thing--if he do wed Amos Greenway's wench and they live along of us, she needn't think she's gonna bring her Methody wayshere. Cold Sunday dinner for the glory of God and a black look if you use a bad word! Not.' he added gloomily, 'that there'll be much dinner, hot or cold, by the look of things.'
'Oh, you wirrit too much,' said Mrs Fuller, 'Lawyer Turnbull and Sir Edward Follesmark said, didn't they, that everything was going to jog along unchanged till Sir Richard arrived. And nobody but us knew about the notice, did they? You'll see it'll all be forgot, and most like when the changes do come they'll be the ones you been hankering for all this time.' 'I wish I could believe it.'
'You might as well. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you; thass what I allust say.'
Amos Greenway, who never heeded gossip at any time, was particularly immune just then; his whole mind devoted to the plans for the new chapel. The timber dealer, Judson, had fallen far short of expectations and quoted an extortionate price for the needed material, and Amos, depressed by this evidence of 'lukewarmness in the cause', was still seeking another source of supply. He had no time or interest to fritter away on trivialities.
One day Matt Ashpole came into the workshop with a bit of harness to be mended and said:
'I hear young Fuller hev took up with your girl, serious like.' ,
'Oh,' Amos said, vague and unconcerned as though Ashpole had mentioned a stranger. 'This end's clean perished, Matt. Wouldn't hold the stitches more'n a week afore it'd break away agin.'
'Well, tack it together. I might be lucky and pick up a new bit while it was holding, like. Done very well for herself, ain't she? I only wish my Sally could do as good.' 'You didn't bring her up right. No man can gather figs from thistles. 'Tain't in the nature of things. All right, I'll do what I can, but don't blame me if it don't last.'
Julie's attempts to talk about the affair met with no more success. She had only to ask whether Danny had been in chapel again, and off Amos would go, speculating
on the possibility of persuading the young man to take an interest in the Sunday School. 'Its early days yet, of course, but once I'm sure it ain't just a flash in the pan I shall ask him. He had a bit of schooling, you know; he'd be very useful.'
That kind of remark exasperated Julie, but she was accustomed, by this time, to thinking her own thoughts and holding her own counsel; and one morning in March when Amos was out she unlocked and opened the bottom drawer of the chest which stood by her bed. The musty, melancholy scent of ancient lavender came to meet her as she stooped stiffly over her treasures. First of all, taking up most of the space, was the blue silk dress in which she had been married, and a saucy little flat hat, ribboned with the same blue. Both showed signs of wear, for during her early married life, before Amos turned Methodist, she had worn them every Sunday and on many other festive occasions. She could still remember the day when Amos had said that they were 'too worldly' for chapel wear. 'I ain't suggesting you should chuck 'em away, Julie; the dress'd dye some sober colour and you could spare a bit out of the skirt to fill in the neck like, couldn't you? And pull the hat about a bit, more like a bonnet.'
She had saved for months to buy the material for that dress and stitched it herself after long hours of toiling over other women's clothes. It was the only completely charming and satisfactory outfit she had ever owned and it was too precious to sacrifice upon the altar of Amos's Puritanism; she had folded it carefully, sprinkled it with lavender and locked it away. It had lain there for twenty-one years.
Now she stroked the folds of the overfull skirt, the silk rasping under her work-roughened fingers, and wondered whether Amos would allow Damask to wear it for her wedding. Most likely not; but afterwards ... surely Danny would not be so strict. Julie was sure in her heart that it was Damask who drew Danny to chapel....
What beautiful small stitches she could make in those days; now her fingers were clumsy. And what a lovelyshade of blue. Not so good a colour for Damask, with her yellow-brown eyes, as it had been for her; but the lace on the bodice had yellowed with age and would make a kind of match. It would look well enough.
She took out the small heavy parcel which had lain below the dress, unfolded the bit of linen in which it was wrapped and looked fondly at the handsome gold watch thus displayed. It had belonged to her grandfather and had been given to her by her grandmother. Neither Mrs Greenway nor any other member of the family could understand why she should be chosen to be the recipient; sometimes she thought the old woman had done it to spite her three sons and seven grandsons who all coveted it. However, hers it was, and when she was married Amos had made a neat little leather case for it and it had hung on the wall and kept time for the household. Then during the great gale in December 1789 the roof of Nettleton Chapel was blown off and funds were urgently needed for its repair. Amos had suggested selling the watch. Then Mrs Greenway had told a lie--and one which cost her never a pang of conscience.
'No, I mustn't sell it; my Gran said so. Thass to be kept in the family and passed on. If this one is a boy'--she was pregnant at the time--'he must hev it. If not it'll go to Damask. 'Tain't mine, really, you see. I'm only holding it to pass on.'
There had been two still-births since Damask was born, and this pregnancy was not going well; perhaps for that reason Amos refrained from an insistence which might upset his wife. But after that Julie never felt that the watch was really safe, so one day she opened it and put a tiny splinter, very delicately, in a vital place. So the watch stopped and there was no money just then for watch-mending: It went into the drawer and she hoped Amos had forgotten its existence. Not that she minded much. It was not her intention to let Damask go into the Fuller family as bare as a hedge tinker. Everybody else in the six parishes might think the cobbler's daughter had made a catch; Mrs Greenway knew differently. On her side of the
family there were people every bit as good as the Fullers, and better. Damask might be only the daughter of a cobbler too unworldly to ply his trade and be prosperous, but if Mrs Greenway could in any way contrive it she was going to her husband with the 'three of everything' which made up a proper bridal chest. She eyed the watch ominously, wrapped it in the bit of linen and put it in the pocket of her apron. Then she relocked the drawer, went downstairs, wrapped her shawl about her and went hobbling across to the Ashpoles' place.
Matt was at home, taking his ease, bootless and unbuttoned, before a roaring fire. A little later in the year he would be out with his ramshackle old cart and his bony old horse, buying up whatever he could find that was cheap and selling it as soon and as profitably as possible; but in March, when the weather was bad and there was little huckstering to be done, he stayed at home, except on the days when he drove to Baildon.
Mrs Ashpole, Julie was gratified to see, was not in the untidy, stinking room, where, on a sack by Matt's feet, his lurcher bitch was on the verge of giving birth to pups.
'The missus is poorly,' Matt explained. 'We kilt a pig last Monday and she overet herself on chitterlings. Bin sick as a dawg. But she's awright. Just lay there groaning and throwing up. Thass me owd Ripper here I'm worrited about.' He stretched out his foot in its filthy torn stocking and gently nudged the lurcher's flank. 'Gitting a bit owd for this game, ain't you, gal? But then bitches on heat don't take no heed of their birthdays!'
'If there was anything I could do for Mrs Ashpole ...' Julie said, sincerely hoping there was not. 'But it was really you I wanted to see.'
'Show your good sense, too. She's nowt to look at this minnit, I can tell you.' He grinned his good-natured, graceless grin. 'And what can I do for Mrs Greenway?'
'A great favour; though there'd be a bit of profit in it for you. Only you'd hev to promise me not to say a word about it to anybody.'
'Want a love-letter took? I'm your man, missus!Wouldn't be the first by a long chalk; I've done some jobs in my day.'
He ran his shrewd little piggy eyes over her as he spoke, inwardly savouring the irony of his suggestion. It was odd, he thought, but she hadn't worn as well as his missus, for all she had such a good husband. He and his wife had furious rows which often ended in blows and they'd brought up a large family, few of whom were anything but a nuisance, but there was some sap left in his old woman, whereas poor Julie, a comely girl in her day, had shrivelled like a leaf.
'Go ahead,' he said, quite kindly, 'tell us the worst; no need to be shy with me.'
She told him what she wanted him to do, giving as excuse for her secrecy and need to use him Amos's sensitive feelings. 'Naturally he'd like to provide for his daughter, any father would; but he can't, and I wouldn't for the world hev him know I'd had to sell the watch.'
'Let's have a look at it. Whoo--thass a nice ticker. Do it go?'
'I think so.' She opened it and picked out the little sliver. Amos had wound it all those years ago in the attempt to set it going, and now, with just a shake, it started ticking again.
'Good as new. Why, yes, I can get rid of that all right. Mind you, I'm risking my good name to help you. 'Tain't my class of goods at all, they'll surely think I lifted it. Never mind, that'll buy all the flannel drawers your Damask'll need.'
The coarseness rasped, but she smiled and thanked him. 'Hi, though,' he said. 'Amos is bound to see the stuff, ain't he? Where're you going to say you got it?' 'I hadn't thought as far as that,' Julie admitted. 'Wimmen never think a thing to the end,' Matt said, grinning, 'and maybe thass a good thing. If they did the world would've ended with Adam and Eve, eh, missus?' He looked down at the dog and clicked his tongue encouragingly. 'Tell you what. Amos could wring out half a crown if he really had too, I reckon? All right then. I'll
get the stuff and muck it about a bit--only on the outside, and anyway it'll wash off--then I'll bring it along and arst you to buy it. Say I got it dirt cheap because it was dirty. Ha ha. Amos'll give me half a crown and I'll take a penny in the shilling of what I get for the watch. Fair enough?'
'Oh, thank you! That is a wonderful idea. I shall be everlastingly grateful. And you won't say a word, not even to Mrs Ashpole.'
'She's the last I ever tell anything to. Ah'--he dropped to his knees beside the dog--'thass the way; heave and shove. Soon be over now. Good owd Ripper, pod the little bastards.'
Late on Wednesday evening there was a great knocking on the Greenways' door and Amos Went to answer it. Julie heard Matt Ashpole's voice say, 'Hello, owd cock I Got a bargain for you tonight. With your gal getting hitched I reckoned this would be worth half a crown to you.'
Mrs Greenway, with her heart beginning to beat rapidly, heard those opening words, but Amos's reply, spoken more gently, escaped her; then she heard Matt start shouting abuse, and then break into a great roar of laughter. Finally the door shut. Amos came back into the kitchen, empty-handed.
'Matt Ashpole, dead drunk, trying to sell me some great quantity of cotton and flannel goods for half a crown,' he said, shaking his head ruefully. 'He couldn't possibly have come by them honestly, and I told him so straight; I told him the receiver was as bad as the thief and he just laughed in my face.'
It was a blow and for a little while Mrs Greenway was felled by it; but she had had blows before and lain supine and then bobbed up again. Two days later, when Amos had gone in Shad's donkey cart to buy leather at Baildon, she went across to the Ashpole cottage and when Amos returned the two rolls of material were in the kitchen.
'You wronged Matt Ashpole, Amos,' she said. 'He wasdrunk, but he didn't steal this stuff. Claughton, the draper at Colchester, is giving up business, he's sold his shop to a grocer and he's got to get it all clear by Lady Day when they move in. So the last things, soiled or faded, he was practically giving away. So ... I thought you wouldn't mind if I snatched up the bargain. We owe Matt half a
crown.'
The next day was Saturday; the day when Damask came home, bringing, as usual, the pudding pieces. Mrs Greenway could hardly wait until the pudding was made and put in the saucepan before displaying her purchases. 'There's enough here for three of everything, summer and winter, which is what a girl should have,' she said. "Then I thought you could spend your money on a lindsey woollen dress, and it ought to be a nice yellowy-brown colour. Not a wedding-dress, something that'll be useful for everyday best, sort of. I've got ... well, if we can talk your father round ... I've got your wedding-dress laid away; the one I wore myself.'
No outburst of girlish excitement such as she expected welcomed this speech. Damask's face went red, then white, and she looked embarrassed.
'But, Mother--nothing's been said about any wedding.' 'Of course not. That wouldn't be seemly. But you and Danny are walking out, and the Fullers asked you to Sunday dinner; and though you couldn't go it's just the same, it shows they agree. And it's for you and me to look ahead. You won't hev time for sewing, and I'm slow these days. Once I could stitch as quickly as I could talk, but not now.' She held out her twisted hands with the thumbs which seemed to grow more and more powerless every day and which were doubling in under her palms as though to find shelter for their weakness. Damask looked at them with pity. It was strange, she thought, how in the last few months she had felt herself more drawn to her mother. Up to the time of her conversion she had preferred her mother to her father; she was less strict, less unworldly and not so set against taking pleasure in anything outside the chapel. Then, when Damask's heart changed, everything changed; Amos moved into the ascendant, Julie moved to decline. Damask had sensed, as Amos had sensed long ago, that behind Julie's acceptance and compliance there was some small reserve. She was not, as they were, wholehearted in the cause. Therefore for almost five years she had seemed shadowy, negative. And then, with just such another sudden change, everything had turned topsy-turvy again, and in the emotional confusion which had beset her since October it had seemed to Damask that her mother was more likely to understand her than her father was. All this unordered flow of feeling went through her mind now as she stood looking at the two rolls of stuff and heard her mother say, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, that marriage should not yet have been mentioned.
Was she wrong, too impatient, in thinking that the word should have been spoken by now? After all, as her mother had said, the Fullers had invited her to Sunday dinner, which was the recognised way for parents to show their approval. None of Danny's other girls had ever been so recognised by his parents. She was sure of that, but she had asked him just for the pleasure of hearing him say so, and he had given the right, the pleasing, the reassuring answer, but in a curious way, as though the whole subject embarrassed him. She had wondered at the time whether it was tactless of her to mention all those girls ... but afterwards she had wondered whether Danny felt that his parents had been a little hasty.
She had not been able to go to dinner and thus be, as it were, established, because she was never free until afternoon on her Sunday out, but she had, on the nearest Saturday, gone' to tell Mrs Fuller and explain, and she had been given plum cake and cowslip wine--completely harmless despite its name, Mrs Fuller had assured her; and she had been shown the quilt on which Mrs Fuller was working this winter and asked if she liked the pattern. Even Mr Fuller, though less warmly welcoming than Mrs Fuller at first, had ended by being friendly and showing her his cattle and pigs. She had really felt accepted andrespectable that afternoon; and she had expected that on the way back to Muchanger Danny would say something about getting married. After all, they'd seen one another twice a month ever since October and his family had asked her to Sunday dinner.
Her mother's voice broke in on her thoughts.
'You are fond of him, aren't you?'
'Oh yes. I'm fond of him.' What a weak, poor word to use. She wondered what her mother would say if she used
the right ones.
'And it's plain he's head over heels in love with you. When you think what a young rip he was and look at him now ... you'd hardly believe it.'
Yes, there was that, too. She knew that she had power over him. If she said, 'Go and jump in the river,' he'd
probably do it___
Nevertheless there was something--well, not wrong exactly; something queer about it all.
There was another trouble too; the violence of her own feeling for him. It frightened her. She believed that she would remember until the day she died the first time he kissed her, which was when he came to take her back after her November visit home; her bones had melted and she'd turned dizzy and there was nothing left on earth or in the heavens above or in the waters under the earth save the pressure of his hands on her waist and the pressure of his lips on hers and the savage hunger that they awakened. She'd pulled herself free and run into the house and up to her little attic bedroom and cried and prayed God to forgive her for feeling like that about Danny Fuller, who was, after all, only a human being. It was awful to think that she had been tempted to behave
like Sally Ashpole and all the rest of them----
'You'll see, it'll work out right,' her mother said. 'I reckon Danny isn't used to keeping company with a respectable girl, it probably makes him shy like. And, anyway, we got this stuff cheap; there'll be no harm in laying forward a bit whatever happens.'
On the other side of the village Mrs Fuller, chopper in hand, stood regarding what was left of half a pig after the hind leg and shoulder had been taken off to be smoked. When her mental calculations were complete she raised the chopper and dealt two expert blows, took a knife and did a bit of trimming and neatly scored what would be the crackling. The very best middle cut; what better form could her goodwill take?
Her voice was carefully casual when she asked, 'Will you be seeing Damask tonight?'
'Yes,' Danny said; something wild and shy taking fright within him.
'It was only that I had a mite of pork I'd no use for, and I thought you might take it along with you. They don't rear a pig, do they? No, that'd be too sensible for Amos. They'll be glad of it then. Don't go off without it.'
That was all she said and it was well-meaning and innocent enough, but it sent Danny off scowling to wash and change his clothes.
What a situation for him, of all people, to get himself intol Like being stricken with the falling sickness; like running mad in the full of the moon; like stepping into Filby Bog and sinking in up to the neck. Up to the neck --but he'd still kept his head out, just his head; and now even his mother was trying to shove him under.
He had never, in all his life, been in such a muddle. He could look back over seven years of being set on girls and see that all his affairs had followed the same pattern, or rather the same pattern with one variation. He'd be set off for one reason or another, he'd chase the girl; they'd have fun--for most girls, in the end, let him have his way with them, though one or two had been cautious--that was the variation; they did, or they didn't--but whichever way it went the end had always been the same; with lightning suddenness his interest had waned and the whole thing was over.
This affair hadn't followed the pattern; it had lasted six months and he was still mad for the girl; she was hard to please, but he'd tried to please her, and every time hekissed her she turned into a block of stone. And the outside world, which hitherto had merely watched his affairs with amusement, was now all agog, trying to be helpful. Great lumps of pork. Invitations to Sunday dinner! Trying to push his head under, trying to marry him off to the one girl he'd ever known who didn't care one bit about him. And there he was, unable to help himself; dead set
on a girl who didn't care one bit about him----One day
he'd give up the fight; he'd ask her to marry him and she would, and he'd end up the most hen-pecked man since Reuben Farrow, who, after a lifetime of saying 'Yes' and 'No' as his Martha bade him, went to rest in Clevely churchyard under a tombstone which bore the words:
'Here lies the body of Reuben Farrow.
God made him man I made him mannerly.'
Everybody who thought at all about that epitaph thought of Reuben as small and cold-blooded, of Martha as large and vital. Danny Fuller knew differently. Reuben had been big and lusty and hot--Martha small and cold. It was always the ice that made the fire look silly.
It shouldn't in this easel Damn it all to hell, he'd done everything he could to please her, and she hadn't been pleased. The one thing he had not done was to ask her to marry him; and he wouldn't, he wouldn't. Not until she had given him some sign.
And he wished to God he'd never met her; and he wished to God that he could be cured of this 'set off' as he
had of all the others.
And he shaved himself carefully, carefully; and cleaned his nails and brushed his hair and donned his best clothes, self-immolate, votary of the unknown goddess.
He remembered the pork; which assured Mrs Fuller, and, ten minutes later, Mrs Greenway, that all was well. He drove Damask to Muchanger; he kissed her; she turned into stone. She let him call for her; she chatted away, as friendly as could be; and then as soon as he touched her she turned into stone----
That night, rattling home over the Stone Bridge, he saw Sally Ashpole standing back in one of the recesses to let the cart pass. There'd been a time when he had been set on Sally Ashpole, black-haired, easy-going, good-natured trollop that she was, and she was not one of the girls who turned nasty when he ceased paying her attentions; they were still on terms of friendly banter. Sally had been anything but cold and hard and demanding, he remembered. With a feeling that he was making a gesture of defiance--though against whom or what he could not have said--he stopped the cart and called, 'Hi, Sally___'
That was towards the end of March, and once March was over the year moved rapidly into spring. Mrs Green-way persuaded herself that the warmer weather eased her stiff bones and stitched away diligently, entertaining herself with secret thoughts about three of everything, about a golden-brown lindsey dress, about Damask attaining the security and comfort that she herself had missed. Mrs Fuller, with her pullets beginning to lay, her broody hens beginning to sit, and all the bother of the calf-rearing season approaching, stitched away with equal diligence at the quilt and entertained herself with thoughts of grandchildren.
And a tall sailing ship with her hull packed with tea, with bales of silk and muslin from India, to which had been added a consignment of pepper, nutmeg and mace, taken on from the Dutch East India post at the Cape of Good Hope, came buffeting up through the Bay of Biscay on the last lap of her long journey. The pheasants in their wicker cage were quite tame now and would take food from Linda's hand.
The third Saturday of May in that year 1796 was one of those perfect early summer days which come all too rarely. In the pastures the hay, white with marguerite daisies, misted red with sorrel, stood knee high; the ditches frothed with meadow-sweet and all the air wassweet with the last rich fragrance of the lilacs and gillyflowers. While Damask made the beef-pudding Julie rather timidly displayed the result of her month's stitching--timidly because it included some feather-stitching and a little drawn-threadwork here and there. And to her great relief Damask only said, 'How pretty. You must have worked very hard.' Not a word about vanity.
Then Danny had called, on foot and early, bringing with him fresh evidence of his mother's approval in the shape of a plump roasting fowl which Mrs Fuller, forgetful of Steve's words about Methodist ways, had thought would be nice for Sunday dinner. Julie was emboldened to open the little tin which served her as a tea-caddy, and which had been opened only once--on Christmas Day-- since Amos had issued his veto on tea in October. Amos and Abel Shipton had gone down to Bywater to inspect some old ships' timber in a breaker's yard there. The search for cheap timber had so far proved disappointing and disillusioning and they were being driven to try
makeshift methods.
The heat of the day and the exertions of her work had brought a flush to Damask's cheeks and loosened her hair a little; she looked quite pretty, her mother thought, still regretting the colour and fashion of the ugly dress which Damask had chosen and made for herself. Danny described, with some homely wit, his mother's attempts to cook out of doors now that the weather was warm and the parlour, used as kitchen, unbearably stuffy. Mrs Fuller had said that if gypsies could cook over an open outdoor fire so could she; but she had made the fire too near the house and the thatch had begun to smoulder. Altogether it was a very merry tea-drinking.
'We'd better start,' Danny said. 'Father wouldn't let me bring the horse out, he's resting up for his hay-carting] labours. My legs aren't so valuable in Father's eyes.'
Damask said quickly, almost as though she had been awaiting the opportunity to say it:
'You needn't walk all that way with me, Danny. It'll still light; I can quite well go by myself.'
They both looked at her curiously; Danny in simple puzzlement, Julie with a flash of unusual cynicism. Was the girl really very clever, and deep and cunning? Was the secret of her success, where so many had failed, the simple expedient of pretending not to care whether Danny came or went?
'But of course I shall go with you. What d'you think I'm here for?' Danny said.
Julie looked at him--the handsome merry face, the thickly growing vigorous hair, the size and power of him --and something long buried stirred in her defeated heart and withered frame. She remembered her own youth, the good-looking boisterous young cobbler whom nobody had thought a good match for a farmer's daughter who'd finished her apprenticeship and was clever with her fingers and lively and smart. But she'd known where her joy was to be found; and though it had
lasted so short a time it had been sweet___She hoped
that Damask would find that same joy and that it would last longer.
'I thought we'd cut alongside the Waste and go through Layer. The bluebells should be out; it'd be pretty,' Danny said. 'And it isn't much further--we don't have to go all the way along the ride. I know a short cut.'
'All right,' Damask said, with no pleasure in her voice.
To cover the lack Julie said, 'It should be a lovely walk. When I could get about I used to go to Layer every year just to see the bluebells----'
Even Mother--closer as they seemed these days to one another--had no notion, Damask thought. No notion how, all day, from the moment when she had risen in the dew-soaked, bird-loud dawn, she had been doing battle with herself; how every call of the cuckoo, every petal and leaf, every ray of sunshine had been lining up on the Devil's side, putting such thoughts into her head as nobody would believe.
They set off through the soft lingering light. One cuckoo in the depths of Layer Wood and one in the denseshrubbery of the Dower House were keeping up their eternal question-and-answer, and in the comparative coolness which had come with the evening all the scents of the
summer had magnified.
She was not self-analytical enough to realise that in truth her nature was sensuous and amorous, that even her 'conversion' was all confused with the scent of hay and honeysuckle and the way the light had fallen on a man's hair; but she knew that the season's beauty, the world's loveliness this evening, would just make it more difficult to behave as she should.
They spoke little, and the few words they used had a
brittle, unreal sound.
The bluebells were out, misting with blue the distances between the trees and contributing their own peculiar scent of honey to the evening's incense. They wandered along, idly gathering the flowers until their hands were
full.
'You take these,' Danny said, pushing his bunch into her hands. 'I'll pick another bunch for Mother. She often talks of gathering them when she first came to Clevely to
live.'
Suddenly Damask found herself staring down at the
flowers through a dazzle of tears. The words sounded so innocent and so disarming--and she remembered that she hadn't wanted to come through the beautiful wood at all; and there was no danger, nothing wrong except the wickedness of her own heart. She looked at Danny's big, brown, work-scarred hands gently gathering the flowers and her love for him was a physical pain. Oh, how she loved him; how she wished that he would ask her to
marry him.
Twilight seemed to rise from the ground, blotting out the distances and blurring the trunks of the trees while the upper branches were washed with light. The cuckoos ceased their calling, and immediately a wood-dove resumed its long lament. Quite suddenly, without a word spoken, they both stopped, dropped their flowers, and turned to one another with a gesture older than time.
Their identities dropped with the flowers; no more Damask Greenway, no more Danny Fuller. Just a man and a maid in a summer wood.
All the old pagan gods came rustling up through the flower-filled thickets; they understood human nature, indulged it, exploited it, were tolerant of it because they could mould it so easily and held it in contempt. Just one more couple with the summer in their blood.
But one of this couple had, for almost five years now, been in the service of another God who also understood human nature, had small indulgence for it and no contempt, because of it He had fashioned saints and martyrs and other curious creatures, such as girls with natural appetites leashed to touchy consciences. Just at--from the moralist's point of view--the right moment Damask's conscience jerked the leash. She cried breathlessly, 'No. No. It'd be wicked.'
She unclasped her arms and, putting both hands against his chest, began to push herself free. He tried to pull her close again and said in a thick strangled voice, 'I'll marry you, Damask. We'll get married as soon as we can fix it. Aw... Damask----'
He had now spoken the words she had been longing to hear, but the time was not right; she knew her Devil and recognised his trickery. It was just like when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, saying, 'If thou, therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.' She struggled more violently and freed herself, sobbing with effort, and with the shock of having found herself so nearly in the pit of sin.
Her bodice was undone, and she fastened it with unsteady fingers, brushed the bits of crushed leaf and petal from her skirts, pulled a twig from her hair. And all the time Danny did not move or speak. As she had pulled away from him he had rolled over and put his face on his folded arms. She imagined that he was also ashamed. Presently she said, very gently:
'It's all right, Danny. I'm not angry.'
He did not answer immediately; then he said: 'I'm sorry, Damask. I should have known better.' A more perceptive ear than hers might have heard less of apology than ironic comment in the words.
She retrieved the flowers, noticing that they were wilting already, and laid the stems into two neat bunches.
And still Danny did not move. He lay there quite overcome by the strangeness, the utter uniqueness of the thing which had happened to him in the last few minutes. He was cured. When she had said 'I'm not angry, only politeness had held back his true rejoinder, 'I don't give a damn whether you're angry or not.' He now lay savouring his relief, his joy at being his own man again. But he was still puzzled; this affair had begun in a curious way, it had followed an unusual course, and it had ended in a fashion, which, only half an hour ago, he would have said was impossible. Such a rebuff at such a moment should, by all the rules, have quickened his desire; but it hadn't, it had killed it stone dead. It was as though he had been bargaining for something and the seller kept putting the price up until in the end he'd no longer wanted it. When he had wrenched out the words about marriage he'd ached for her; when she pushed him away again it was suddenly all over. He'd been mad, he'd gone stark mad in October and now he was sane again. He lay face downwards and looked forward to a future when he hadn't to go to chapel and could go into the Black Horse. 'It's getting dark, Danny.'
He jumped up at once and said with an impersonal kindness which many a girl in the six parishes would have
recognised as ominous:
'So it is, and we have to get you home. I'll carry the
flowers.'
So it ended, as oddly as it had begun. And perhaps the strangest thing about it was the memory which it left. It was natural that Damask should remember. But Danny? Danny, who grew into just such a stout, red-faced, top-booted, sporting farmer of the period as was to be immortalised as 'John Bull'--why should he remember and feel something stirring deep in his bulk when such a day visited the earth again, and sometimes shove aside, with an impatient gesture, the jar of bluebells which one of his daughters had set on the dinner-table, and distort the simple facts of what he remembered until it seemed as though he had been cheated? Why should he? Only the gods, the ones in the thicket and the One who tweaked the leash of a conscience, could answer that.
Danny was not at chapel, and he did not come to take Damask home on her June Saturday; but that was understandable. The hay harvest was in full swing, and from the moment when the morning dew had dried off until darkness fell men were busy. On that June Saturday Damask made the beef-pudding and a quantity of gooseberry jam; and Mrs Greenway, encouraged by the reception of the feather-stitching, embarked upon some real embroidery--true-lovers' knots and little posies. She also asked whether Damask had thought any more about the golden-brown lindsey, and Damask said she had had her quarter's money and had asked Miss Lee, the governess at Muchanger, to buy the stuff for her when she took Miss Amelia to the dentist in Colchester.
Damask was radiant that day; radiant with virtue, radiant with hope, for Danny had asked her to marry him. Once more she had proved the truth of the Bible. 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all these things shall be added unto thee."CHAPTER FIVE
Richard Shelmadine had collected the quarter's salary due to him when he returned to Fort St George; and as a ship was ready to sail within two days, and there was nothing upon which to waste money during the voyage, he arrived in England with money in his pocket. Not being the man to take thought for the morrow, he picked out the most comfortable-looking hackney carriage, had his baggage loaded, helped in Linda, who was wan and frail from the last bout of sea-sickness, and said to the
driver:
'Mrs Everton's; Soho square.'
Linda so far forgot her policy of non-interference as to
say:
'We owed Angelina money when we left. She won't have
forgotten.'
'Nor have I, my pretty one. It is not customary among gentlemen to regard a debt as a reason for patronising a
rival establishment.'
The smooth snub was his instant retaliation to the criticism implied by her reminder, but it went almost unnoticed. The day was long past when reference to her middle-class origin could plant a barb.
'I thought Angelina had no rivals,' Linda said, and was rewarded by a glint of amusement.
'A true word,' Richard said.
Angelina Everton, born plain Aggie Stubbs, had spent the first thirty years of her life pitting her moderate good looks, her lively wits and her indomitable spirit against the world, which had received her unwillingly and
promised her nothing but poverty, degradation and disease. She had served ale in a pot-house, exposed her limbs and sung vulgar songs on the stage, had been one of the gossamer-veiled 'virgins' in Mr Scudamore's shortlived infamous Temple of Diana--all before she was seventeen years of age. She left the Temple to become mistress to a foolish, wealthy young man who kept her just long enough to set her foot on the bottom of the ladder which led to the bedchamber of the Duke of Brittlesford, who, like the psalmist David, had 'waxed cold' with age and asked little but kindliness and comfort from his bedfellow. He had always promised Angelina that he would provide for her, she need never wrestle with the world again; but he failed in his promise, and when he died he left Angelina, then aged forty-two, nothing that he knew of. She had helped herself to the deeds of the house in Soho Square and coarsely invited the outraged family to take what action they liked to recover them. She had saved and swindled small amounts over the twelve years and had two thousand pounds laid by; she had jewellery worth perhaps a thousand more. She could have lived in modest comfort for the rest of her days; but modest comfort was not what she desired. Her tastes were extravagant, she craved excitement.
So she turned the house in Soho Square into ... what, exactly? It depended upon what you were looking for. There was a great drawing-room whose four tall windows looked out upon an 'Italian' garden of reassuring primness and formality, and there, under the glittering chandeliers, ladies and gentlemen of the most unimpeachable character could gather to hear the best musicians and singers in London. Mrs Everton's fortnightly musical gatherings were something not to be missed by anyone who wished to be regarded as the possessor of taste. At other times the chandeliers scattered their prismatic lights upon livelier, but still formal, assemblies where the conversation and the presence of the literary celebrities and the even more renowned literary-minded great were the attraction. But Mrs Everton also catered for lighter tastes,I
still well on the respectable side. She sponsored a number of fortune-tellers, giving preference to those of foreign origin; and lectures on every subject of fashionable interest had been given from the little platform of her 'Forest Room'--so called from the two or three dozen exotic plants, survivors of several thousands, which grew and hung and trailed against its panelled walls.
It was a large house, however; and the wide hall where the primmest matron in London might be seen drinking coffee or chocolate or sipping a glass of Madeira, the great drawing-room and the Forest Room--only entered by invitation or ticket--were far from comprising the whole. A few people--all men of liberal mind and catholic tastes --knew as much of it as was open to the public; but on the whole those who visited Angelina's ground-floor rooms were strangers to those above stairs, while those who visited the upper floor were seldom to be seen at the concerts and lectures below. On the first floor there were three public rooms: two devoted to gaming and one where food was served--excellent food, served grudgingly, purely for the convenience of patrons who could only spare a little time between games. Nobody ever went to Angelina's in order simply to eat. 'I do not run a chop-house," she said. And although behind the three public rooms there were a number of very comfortably appointed sleeping chambers, nobody could go there and hire a room; they were for the convenience of gentlemen who, playing deep, and drinking deep as they played were too late, or too early, to go home to their own beds.
But there was another staircase, another floor; a honeycomb of small, luxurious cells; each, one might say, occupied by a queen bee, about whom the male drones clustered. And now and then, as from humbler hives, one of the queen bees took wing, flew some distance and settled, the acknowledged ruler of some great house as Angelina had been in her day; and now and then, as in humbler hives, a male drone died, untimely. The clusterings, the flights and the deaths were all hushed away; everything concerning that topmost floor was hushed,
discreet, secret. Just occasionally scandal broke loose; but Angelina had many friends. Quite a number of her queen bees had outflown her and attained what she had missed, married status; they, and those who had been content with less, were always ready to weigh in with the favourable word. After all, but for Angelina where would they have been?
Mr and Mrs Shelmadine were on their way to Angelina's. They would arrive, their luggage would be taken to some hidden place; Linda would go and sit in what Angelina called her 'Pretty Parlour' and Richard would climb the stairs towards the gaming-room. Habituees would say, 'Ha, Shelmadine, we've missed you', and would hardly know whether he had been away five days or five months or five years; and he would settle down and lose everything he had, and that would entitle him to one of the bedrooms at the back of the house, the charge for which, unless enough loose change remained in his pockets when he left the tables, would be docketed against him. Linda, in the Pretty Parlour, would be served with tea; would look through the current periodicals on the gatelegged table and wait ... and wait. And there would be--one must admit and be philosophical about it--one night in a comfortable bed. It was folly to look beyond that.
'Mr Shelmadine, sir! Welcome back, sir, Madam, your servant!' The big Negro doorman, one of the features of Angelina's, whose greeting was--once you understood things--an exact barometer of your standing and credit in the house, was considering the unpaid debt, now five years old, surprisingly warm in his welcome.
'Miz' Everton, sir, sez whenever you come back, do it be in the middle of the night, she is to be told, sir. And you is to wait in the Pretty Parlour.'
It sounded as though Angelina did not intend to allow Richard on the gaming floor until that debt was paid.
One midget page--deliberately gin-dwarfed--led the way to the parlour; another vanished through the door which led to Angelina's own sacrosanct part of the house.It was the dead hour of the day, three o'clock in the afternoon, and the hall and parlour were alike empty. Linda sat down thankfully in the comfortable chair and began to glance through the new papers; Richard walked about, cracking his fingers and cursing in a mumbling undertone. They were not alone long; the door was flung open and there was Angelina with her inscrutable thickly painted mask of a face, the piled-up mass of dead white hair, the eyes as cold and black as flint. She never smiled, never frowned--perhaps on account of the false, china surface of her face; and even when she spoke she moved her lips as little as possible. Yet it was her mouth which indicated her mood. When she was angry her lips, scarlet paint and all, disappeared; when she was pleased they swelled, two sated leeches, the lower one more prominent than the other. She was pleased now. She stood in the doorway and dropped a mocking little curtsey towards Richard and at the same time shot a flinty glance at Linda. 'Welcome home, Sir Richard,' she said.
It was July. The hay from the common pasture had been cut and scrupulously divided among those who had rights to it, and the cows, with the calves born to them this season, were turned out to graze upon the tussocks which the scythes had left and the young grass springing up anew. In the Layer Field a glint of gold was spreading through the green of the corn; in Old Tom an embroidery of poppies and scabious and knapweed and thistles gave evidence that though he had lain fallow he had not been idle this season. The new Squire was up at the Manor and had already made two rounds of his estate, accompanied not by Lawyer Turnbull or Sir Edward Follesmark, who had attended to things during the interval, but by Mr Montague of Greston.
That was significant. To Steve Fuller, Bert Crabtree and one or two others who had for years hankered after enclosure, it was the star rising in the east, promising the imminence of the millennium. To a number of others, especially the freeholders on the Waste, it was a very ominous
sign. Greston had boasted the biggest commonland in the East of England, its cottagers had been the envy of every village in Suffolk and Essex. Then Greston had been enclosed and all the Greston Common had come under the plough--Mr Montague's plough. And, as Sir Charles had so often said, forty decent families, hitherto self-supporting after their fashion, had been thrown upon the parish. If the new Squire meditated enclosing and took Mr Montague and Greston as his pattern, it was an ill look-out for those who lived in the cottages on the Waste. Matt Juby's old cow might cough day and night, but she kept the family in milk. Shad Jarvey's donkey might be of an incredible age, but, given time and enough stick, he could perform a number of profitable errands in the course of a year. If this new Squire, with his yellow-bilious face, went hobnobbing with Mr Montague, things would go ill for people like Amos Greenway, Shad Jarvey, Matt Juby--and Matt Ashpole.
Matt Ashpole owned a gun. It was old and demanded skill of its user, for it threw high and slightly to the left. Moreover, Matt was not legally entitled to own it at all (he did not hold a freehold of £100 a year or a leasehold of 150, pounds he was not the son or heir-apparent of an esquire or person of greater degree) and every time he fired-- aiming low and slightly to the right--he was committing a felony. Still, he had kept his gun, and more than once, when the larder was empty, he had used it, both in Layer Wood and in the coppice which lay between Bridge Farm and Wood Farm.
One evening towards the end of July he took out his gun, cleaned it carefully and loaded it, carried it to the place where the Waste ended with the Dyke and hid it there, under the gorse bushes, with a bit of sailcloth to protect it from any rain or dew which might fall. He'd had, in the past week, a little talk with his daughter, Sally; and he had seen the new Squire out with Mr Montague. And he had made his plan. Every evening, regular as sunset, Danny Fuller went down to the pasture to make sure that, whatever might have happened toother beasts, those belonging to the Fullers were on their feet and feeding well. Matt stood on the wooden bridge this evening, and when Danny came and jumped the little ditch between the pasture and the Lower Road he turned and hailed him cheerily.
'I got something up at my place that you'd like to see, and I'd like you to hev a look at.' he said. 'Got a minnit to
spare?'
'What is it, Matt?'
'Something I picked up real cheap and want to get off me place. No room for it.' Matt said mysteriously. 'All right then, if you must know, thass a horse; lovely blood mare. But she was lame, see, hoppy-go-bob, off to the knacker's. I doctored her up and she's a clinker. Fred Clopton, he want her; but you know me, Danny, I don't favour Fred Clopton--all airs and graces these days. I'd ruther you had her.'
'I doubt if I could afford it, Matt.' 'Dirt cheap. Five pound.'
'Well ...' That might be managed. He knew now that he would never marry. He just wasn't made to stick to one girl long enough. And that reminded him. 'I don't much fancy coming up to your place, Matt. You know
how it is.'
'I do.' said Matt heartily. 'But this what I hev to show
you is only just past the Dyke.'
He dived into the sagging pocket of his dirty, ragged old coat and produced, most surprisingly, one the flat, capped hunting-flasks which gentlemen carried. 'Here,' he said, 'hev a pull at this. Right good stuff that is--French
brandy.'
'And a nice flask too.'
Tut in with a job lot over at Summerfield when they sold old Major Telford's stuff. Can't think what they were about. Four cracked jugs and a brass fender, a pair of bellows and this boy. Bought the lot for a shilling. But the stuff in it I got from ... well, that'd be telling. You taste it and tell me if you ever had the like. You got quite a bit of drinking to catch up on like, ain't that so?' He
watched Danny's face and went on, kindly, 'There's no pleasing 'em, is there? So drink up and thank God for good liquor!'
They drank, turn and turn about, until the flask was empty and then walked in warm, brandy-flavoured friendliness towards the Dyke and reached the place where Matt had hidden his gun.
'Half a minnit,' he said, stooping to retrieve it. Having done so, instead of putting it under his arm and walking on, he stood still, holding the gun as though he hoped to see something at which to take a pot-shot. The brandy-- which was like nothing he'd ever drunk before--was by this time moving swiftly in Danny's blood, breeding dreams in his brain. He saw himself, the bachelor, the misogynist, riding about the six parishes, to and from market, on the blood mare that Fred Clopton envied.
'Come on, Matt,' he said, impatiently.
'We ain't in no hurry.' Matt's voice, though still amiable, had suffered a slight change. 'I s'pose you ain't minded to marry my gal, Sally?'
'Good God, no!'
'Then you'd better be! Don't move, Danny; this here owd gun is likely to go off and blow you to Glory. 'Naccident that'd be; but they'd only hev to look at it to see how unaccountable she is on the trigger.' His voice was laconic but his stare was stony, and Danny knew that he was not joking. Nevertheless he said:
'Don't be daft, Matt. And don't point the old blunderbuss at me, even in joke.'
'I ain't joking. Nor I ain't preaching. We're all young once. But there's my gal in the family way and she hold you to blame, so ..."
'But I... I haven't had anything to do with Sally since last Midsummer Fair.'
'You think again.' 'Bout March, I seem to recollect.'
'Yes. That's true. But we only want for a bit of a ride. Nothing happened.'
'Ah, thass what you think! Fact is we're most of us better bulls than we reckon--or wanta be at times. We 'on't about that. There's Sally four months gone, you can see by the hang of her apron, and you was out with her in March; and if you ain't ready to stand up like a man and do the right thing by her, I swear to God you 'on't stand up never no more, Danny Fuller.' 'I don't want to marry Sally, nor anybody.' "Tain't what you want, 's'what I want; and I'm the one with the gun! I warned you--stand still; don't this touchy trigger might cut your meditations. I'm fair; giving you a chance to think, I am. But think quick. And don't go off with some half-cocked idea about saying yes now and no tomorrow. That hare 'on't run. If you diddle me I shall wait for you and get you for certain. Anyway, I'm sick of this argyfying. Yes or no? I'm gonna count three now; then this gun is gonna go off. One ...'
It was all very well to think--This is ludicrous, this can't be happening to me. It was happening. Matt's eyes were the eyes of a man with a purpose. The worn, touchy trigger was there, his finger was ready. 'Two,' Matt said in a voice of doom. And there was nobody about; here on the edge of the Waste it was as though they two were alone in the world. 'All right then. If I must, I must.' 'Thass the spirit. Now I should be obliged if you'd just stroll along to Parson's and fix for the banns, starting Sunday. I shall be right behind you, but I'll be careful. And as soon's that done we'll to to the owd Horse and wet the bargain. You could hev done worse, you know, Danny. Sal's a bit wild, but a clout or two'll settle her; and she do make as good a dumpling, when she's in the mind, as ever I set my teeth into.'
When Damask's August Saturday came round, the banns had been read twice and were due to be read for the third time on the morrow. How soon after the first reading the news had reached Amos's ears no one could know. He did not report it and Julie learned it by overhearing a chance conversation started by somebody bringing a pair of shoes to be cobbled. Never before had she
ISO
realised the full bitterness and exasperation of having a husband whose mind was set on 'higher things'. Amos refused to share her feelings, refused to speculate upon the truth or falsity of the rumour, refused to be concerned.
'Somebody must go and break the news to Damask, gently,' Julie said.
'Well, I ain't got time to go chasing over to Muchanger to carry a bit of gossip. We're still digging out the foundations and the timber is due to arrive any day now.'
'Then will you ask Shad if I could hev the donkey-rig?'
'I shall hev enough favours to ask of Shad time we start carting the timber, Julie. Besides, if you go to Muchanger in the donkey-rig Damask'll think there'd been a death, to say the least.'
'It's as bad as.'
'Don't talk so wild, woman. Danny Fuller he backslid, there's the long and the short of it. He fell into sin and got a girl into trouble and is making the only amends he can. We should be glad he's going to make an honest woman of the poor girl. Why Damask should mind and you say it's as bad as a death I fail to see.'
'But she thought he was going to marry her. You must have seen that I'
'And I thought he'd turned over a new leaf. And maybe he did. Maybe if it wasn't for his mended ways he'd hev left the girl in the lurch. Ah, there is that to think of.'
'It's Damask he's left in the lurch.' Julie said, beginning to cry.
'Now thass a shocking thing to say, and I'm surprised at you, her own mother. Damask is a good girl; she'd never do with Danny Fuller, nor no other man, anything so he could leave her in the lurch. You know that. Why you should be so upset and seem to reckon she'll be, I can't understand.'
'But she loved him. I'm sure of that, though she never said it in so many words.'
'Come, come, Mother! How could you know? And even so--well, we all hev our troubles and trials. The Lord knows what is best for us; the Lord knows what is best for Damask! You just take comfort in that thought! Remember the psalmist, "The Lord is my shepherd".'
It was quite useless. All she could hope was that Damask would not hear the dreadful news from somebody casual or cruel. Then, as the day for the visit drew near and she realised that if Damask arrived in ignorance she would have the task of telling her, she almost wished that someone might have forestalled her.
The day came and Damask came running in, carrying the parcel of beef pieces and another, larger parcel. It was a hot sultry day and a faint odour of meat already on the turn was perceptible immediately.
'I must get this on quicker than usual, it's half cooked already,' Damask said as soon as she had greeted her mother.
The kitchen table was bare; not one of the 'three of everything' was to be seen. She laid the large parcel aside carefully and began to gather together the things she needed for the pudding-making. Then she realised that her mother was looking at her queerly, and that she seemed to have shrivelled and shrunk.
'Are you all right, Mother?' she asked, dipping a cup into the flour sack.
'I'm all right,' Julie said in a tone which implied that her health was the one lonely thing that was right in the world. She looked at the larger parcel. 'Thass your stuff? Oh, my dear, my dear!' She burst into tears.
(Miss Lee, kindly and obliging, had tried to buy a golden-brown lindsey away back in the spring, had put it on order and here it was and Mother crying over it.)
'Mother, what is the matter?' Damask stood still, holding the cup of flour and the bowl into which she had meant to pour it. 'Is it Father? What then? Has anything happened?'
'Lots has happened,' sobbed Julie. 'Ain't you heard anything? Ain't you got even a glimmer of suspicion?' It sounded as though she pleaded with Damask to know, to suspect, to spare her the task of telling.
'Danny?'
Julie nodded.
'Ill? Not dead? What is it, then? Tell me. Tell me.'
'He's going to marry Sally Ashpole. He got her in the family way, my dear, so he ...' She broke off, shocked by the pallor, 'the very look of death', as she said later, which had come into her daughter's face.
'It isn't true,' the white lips said.
'My poor dear, it is. Spitty Palfrey brought his shoes, but you know how he mumble, I couldn't hear all; and you know your Dad--what ain't said about chapel might as well not be said for all he know. So I went across to the Ashpoles' and asked straight out. And there the hussy was, four months gone if a day and as proud as Punch and Mrs Ashpole the same, telling me the banns had been asked....'
She saw the girl sway and hobbled forward, hoping to catch her, but she was too late. There Damask lay, rigid and white on the floor, surrounded by the spilt flour and the bits of broken crockery.
In the airless room where Julie had stitched away her girlhood fainting fits had been a commonplace; she knew all the simple ready-to-hand remedies and she applied them, convinced though she was from the first that this was no mere faint. Nor was it a convulsive fit, so horrible to see with its writhings and frothings. The girl lay there as rigid and cold and still as a twelve-hour corpse and only a noisy, battling breath drawn at long intervals showed that she still lived.
When Julie had tried all she knew and the hot little kitchen reeked of burnt feathers, of hartshorn, of sliced onion, of vinegar and pepper recklessly scattered in the hope of provoking a sneeze, Julie thought of the one thing she had not yet tried--brandy. There was, naturally, none in the house, but more likely than not Matt Ashpole would have some. She shrank from the idea of going to their house again--they would guess at and triumph over the cause of Damask's fit--but she couldn't let Damask die for such a nicety. Hobbling as fast as she could, she wentacross to the Ashpoles' and was fortunate enough to find Matt alone in the yard, half-heartedly at work gathering his plums.
'Aye.' he said, when she had gasped out her request and the reason for it, 'Hot enough to fell a bullock, ain't it? Let's see now ... I might hev--and again I might not.' He came down from the ladder, picked up his old jacket, took the hunting-flask from the pocket and gave it a shake.
'Ah,' he said in a satisfied voice, 'here's a drop o' the best. That'll do the trick.' He handed over the flask and then said, 'Want me to come and give you a hand?"
'Oh no, thank you,' Julie said hurriedly. 'Thank you very much. I'll bring this back soon.'
'No hurry.' Matt said. He looked at the laden plum tree with ungrateful distaste and, diving into his pocket again, produced his clay pipe and a screw of tobacco. He'd known all along that it was too hot for working.
Julie hurried back and arrived panting. Damask, still as white as death, was on her feet, once more assembling the pudding materials, her movements so abrupt and jerky that Julie was reminded of an unskilfully handled puppet.
'Are you all right?' she gasped out.
'Quite all right. I'm sorry about the bowl. It was the heat; and I'd hurried.'
'You set down, my dear, and I'll make a cup of tea. Never mind about the pudding today. We'll hang the meat down the well and I'll deal with it on Monday.'
'I'm dealing with it now. What's that you have in your hand?'
'A little drop of brandy I borrowed.' She felt the need to excuse such an action. 'I couldn't bring you round, you see. I got frightened. I don't really see the harm ... not in illness.'
'I'm all right. I'd like a cup of tea, though.'
'You still look queer.' Julie said, pulling the kettle
from the hob to the centre of the fire. Damask went on
with the pudding, the jerky puppet movements oddly
efficient, her face completely composed. Save for the jerkiness and the ghastly pallor there was nothing to show that she had been shocked into an unconsciousness which must have lasted a full hour; certainly there was no real reason why Julie should feel as though her daughter had died there on the floor and that this was a stranger, something queer and rather frightening, just pretending to be Damask Greenway making the usual pudding. But that was how she did feel.
Julie lifted off the kettle and made the tea, and Damask slipped the pudding-saucepan into the kettle's place.
'Now you set down and hev a nice cup of tea.' Julie said. She felt that over the tea they might talk and Damask might cry and she might comfort her and this feeling of strangeness would pass. Tears, anger, protests--anything would seem more natural.
Damask drank half a cup of tea, then she reached out and picked up Matt's flask from the corner of the table where Julie had laid it. She unscrewed the cap, poured brandy into Julie's cup and then into her own.
'Try that.' she said. 'It's good.' Julie just stared, unbelieving. 'The cook at Muchanger always laces her tea if Mr Hook, the butler, has managed to refill their bottle.'
'And hev you ever .. .'
'No.' A slight smile, not in the least like any smile Julie had ever seen on her daughter's face before, flitted across Damask's lips. Unaccountably frightened again, she said, sturdily:
'Well, it'll do you good. It'll do us both good. I had a fright too.'
She could feel it doing her good. Every rare cup of tea she ever tasted did her good, made her feel more cheerful, and loosened something tight and knotted which crippled her spirit as the rheumatism crippled her limbs, and now the tea laced with brandy did her twice the good, acted twice as fast. She'd hardly swallowed three mouthfuls before she found the courage and spirit to say, 'You know, my dear, there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out.'
The stranger across the table jerked its arm up and drank and set the cup down and said, 'If you don't mind,we won't talk about it.'
'Oh, of course not,' Julie agreed hurriedly. 'I shan't say a word. We must put a good face on it. Even that time when I told you I went across to ask I did it casual like, and I said "I congratulate you, I'm sure" as natural as natural, though I did feel as though I'd been...'
'Didn't I say not to talk about it?'
'But, my dear, that ain't natural! Believe me, I know. Living with your father all these years, having to keep everything bottled up. Things turn sour in you. I know. I often think loose tongues and easy tears was what God gave women to help them bear their burdens....'
'I'd like another cup of tea,' Damask said. When she had drunk it she went, despite all Julie's protests, and tidied the workroom.
The rest of the afternoon and evening--except for the fact that Julie did no sewing--passed as usual. At dusk-- and now, in August's third week, the days were beginning to draw in--Amos came home from his foundation-digging and resumed his monologue about the chapel-building. The pudding was dished up and eaten. It was just like an ordinary day, yet Julie's anxiety and feeling of disaster persisted. When it was time for Damask to go she went with her to the door and, holding her by the arm, said timidly :
'You will be all right, won't you?'
Tm all right,' Damask said.
'You're a right brave girl and I'm sure it'll all turn out for the best.' She gave Damask one of her rare kisses.
Back in the kitchen, knowing well what reception the remark would receive, she could not refrain from saying:
'She bore up well, but it was a cruel shock to her.'
'What was?' She told him.
'Oh, that. I told you it was nowt to her. All that fuss!'
'Well, I don't know.' Some control, long strained, gave way; Julie's voice became sharp and shrill. 'I don't like it,' she said. 'I didn't like the way she went into a faint that lasted an hour and then got up looking and acting like
think her heart's broke.'CHAPTER SIX
Outside the house, in the dark just before moonrise, she stood still and listened to all the voices that were making confusion in her mind. Julie's voice saying with the steady monotony of a pulse, 'He's going to marry Sally Ashpole; marry Sally Ashpole--Ashpole--Ashpole; he's going to marry ...'; Amos's voice, so certain, so unaware, so righteous, 'See you in chapel Sunday week; see you in chapel--chapel ...'; and that other voice, effortlessly bearing down the others, saying, 'There you are, that's the reward of virtue! You've got the reward of virtue, Damask Greenway. Sally Ashpole has the wages of sin.' There the voice went off into peals of satirical laughter, in which, at last, now that she was alone in the dark, she could join. She stood by the bed where the marigolds were dying and let the laughter shake her like the wind, and all the time the tears poured from her eyes, unnoticed. When the hysteria had exhausted itself she could think again, and the thought was like yet another voice within her head--'I've really known all along,' it said with great calm. 'Look at Jesus, He never did a sin at all; and how was He treated? God deserted Him at the end too.'
She had always had a peculiar awareness of the bitterness of that last cry from the cross. Her ardent imagination, with little to nourish it save what fragments of folklore were allowed to cross Amos's guarded threshold, had seized avidly upon all the Bible stories. Jericho, with Rahab the harlot's marked house, was quite as real to her as Baildon, a few miles away, but never visited; and Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Nazareth and Bethesda, where the waters were troubled and miraculous cures effected, were all far more part of her mental landscape than the six parishes familiar to her ear and eye. She knew Golgotha, the Place of the Skull; in Nettleton Chapel she had sat and watched the drama there, seen the nails and the blood and the darkening sky, the torn veil of the temple, and heard that last despairing cry. And always she had been sorry for Jesus___
And she had been right. Blind and ignorant, but right. God always failed you----
Without surprise, as without intention, she found herself walking not in the direction of Muchanger but towards the Stone Bridge. Some time had passed, the moon was now rising, a wide bronze disc in the blue-black sky. Time no longer mattered. She was not going back to Muchanger; never again was she going to be industrious, punctual, patient, virtuous. What she would be instead and where she would be it she had, as yet, no notion. She walked towards the Stone Bridge like a sleep-walker and presently stood in one of its embrasures, staring down at the water upon whose late-summer, smoothly running surface the moon presently cast a lacquering of gold. At some such immense distance that it only just made contact with her consciousness was the certainty that presently something would happen. But even that seemed unimportant. Nothing mattered any more, nothing would ever matter again.
She was not startled when a voice from behind her, a voice unmistakably human and real, said, 'Poor child, are you from the Poor Farm?'
She turned slowly, almost unwillingly, and faced the questioner. A strange figure in the moonlight, an old woman, very tall, of skeletal thinness, with a wild mass of white hair framing a face like a death's-head, a bone-white jutting nose, eyes that seemed only dark hollows and a mouth which was a changing shape of blackness as it asked again, 'Are you from the Poor Farm?' 'No,' Damask said.'If you are,' the old woman said, quite briskly, 'there's no need to be ashamed. Not with me. A good strong girl who had run away from the Poor Farm would be more welcome to my sight than Solomon in all his glory. That is a Poor Farm dress, surely. And the way they do their hair. It always made me so sorry. Charity suffereth long and is kind, according to the Bible, so why the girls should be made to look so very ugly ... Oh no, no, you're not
ugly, I don't mean that; just the dress----' She advanced
another soundless step and laid a hand on Damask's sleeve.
'Umm ...' She made a little satisfied sound. 'You are from the Poor Farm. Just what I wanted. For months and months I've said to myself ... I mean anyone who could come to full growth in such circumstances would be strong and resilient and used to standing up for herself, and that is just what I need. I do need help so very badly because, you see ...' She broke off, edged into the embrasure beside Damask and said 'Shush' in a whisper. Damask listened, sorting out the sounds which made up the silence of the late summer night, the small muted sound of the water under the bridge, a bird's cry, a dog barking at the other end of the village, and nearer at hand the sound of a creaking gate.
'I've run away myself, you see,' the old woman whispered. 'I will not be treated as though I were mad. I am not mad. Occasionally--very occasionally--I forget things. Sometimes I even forget what I have come out for; but tonight I remember quite clearly. I came out to find somebody to help me. And I have found you. You will come home with me and help me to turn those people out, won't you?' 'What people?'
'Saunders and his wife. All the rest have gone. Mr Turnbull insists that I should count myself fortunate to have them. He little knows! On several occasions the woman has struck me. Imagine that! But if you will come home with me and support me everything will be all right. The thing to be careful about is not to take her shilling; that commits you quite as deeply as taking the King's shilling. Time and again somebody has come back with me and she says 'Thank you very much' and gives them a shilling and then I am all undone again. You don't need her shilling; if you stay with me I will give you all you wish. I'm no longer well-to-do, but I'm not so poor as they would have me believe. I know where my money goes. Mr Turnbull, of course, is scrupulously honest himself; but, as I tell him, to connive at other people's dishonesty is to assume a share of their guilt.'
She had forgotten whatever it was that had made her whisper and her voice had regained its brisk and vibrant tone. Damask listened to the flood of garrulity and gave it some part of her attention while another part of her mind considered her earlier feeling that she had come to this place for some purpose which was now becoming plain.
'... so you will come back with me, won't you? And refuse her shilling and stay by me. I swear you shall never regret it.'
'I'll come back with you,' Damask said, thinking of Muchanger and the dinner-party for twelve that was planned for the next day and the extra work her absence would throw on the cook who had so often sneered at her for being 'Methody'. 'Where do you live?' There was a sudden, ominous silence. Perhaps the old woman was mad after all and the whole story a fandango of nonsense.
Then, on a note of profound triumph, came the answer.
'I live at the Dower House. There! Just for a moment I thought I had forgotten again. But, you see, you waited; you had patience and didn't begin to shout at me, and so I remembered. I'm quite sure that if you would only stay with me and be my friend and get rid of those awful people everything would be all right. Of course it was very ill-advised of me to tell you that she had struck me-- I did tell you that, didn't I? Does that intimidate you? I hoped that being from the Poor Farm ...'
'I am not from the Poor Farm and I am not scared by anything you have said. Shall we go to your house?' 'I can't walk very quickly, I'm afraid. You see, I have to watch my opportunity and came out wearing my slippers, which are inclined to fall off.' She laid her thin hand on Damask's arm. 'Oh, horrible material,' she said as they began to walk. 'You shall have such pretty dresses, my dear. I have dozens of such pretty dresses which would fit you with a little alteration. She's so stout, you see; cloaks and muffs and tippets she has made very free with, but the dresses were useless to her. You shall have them all....'
The gate creaked as they pushed it open--this was the gate whose creaking had made the old woman say 'Shush' and drop her voice to a whisper. The drive between the overgrown trees and shrubs was a dark tunnel, and the moss underfoot deadened any sound of their feet; at the end of the tunnel the big, unlighted house stood in the moonlight, immensely sinister. Only yesterday, Damask thought, this would all have seemed frightening----
The front door opened upon a high wide hall lighted by a solitary candle upon a side table and what light emerged from a half-open doorway at the back, beyond the curving stairs. As soon as they entered a voice called, 'Is that you, Jem? Did you find the old ...' and the figure of a stout, square-shouldered female was outlined against the oblong of light.
'Now don't be frightened; you stick by me and I'll stick by you,' said Miss Parsons as she released her hold on Damask's arm; but in the second before her hand fell away Damask felt the tremor which ran through it.
The woman advanced, saying in a changed voice, 'Oh, ma'am, you had us that worried; going off like that in your slippers and all! There's Saunders out hunting for you, and me nigh distracted. And you fell in with somebody good-hearted again, thank God.' As she reached the table where the candle stood she paused and fumbled and within a few seconds three or four other candles were alight. Now she could see who had brought home the wanderer; a female, young, harmless. Her manner changed
again, became affable and condescending.
'I'm very much obliged to you, young woman. Poor lady, she isn't quite ... you understand; and now and again she gets a wandering fit and we're so afraid that something might... Still, there we are, all safe and sound. I hope bringing her back hasn't taken you far out of your way, my dear. Thank you again.' She put her hand into the pocket which hung from her waist and brought out a shilling. 'Please accept this for your pains.'
Making no move to take the coin, Damask glanced at Miss Parsons, who had drawn a little apart and now stood watching with the interested yet impersonal expression of someone watching an incident in the street.
'It's all right,' the woman said soothingly; 'she'd wish you to have it, I'm sure. When she realises she'll be as grateful to you as I am. I'll get her to bed now, after all this excitement. You take this, and be getting along.' She thrust out the shilling again. Deliberately Damask waited in silence until the posture of offering an unaccepted tip had made its small contribution to the woman's discomfiture; then she spoke.
'I've come to stay,' she said.
Mrs Saunders recovered herself quickly and laughed a little.
'Oh dear me, has she been at that game again? That's part of her trouble, poor lady. She used to keep six or seven servants, you see, and now she can't really afford any, if the truth was told. But over and over again she'll go out and come back with some poor innocent girl like
you----I'm sorry, my dear, there's no job here. It's a shame
she should have raised your hopes; but there, you can't really blame her, can you? You take your shilling and get along. You're a nice tidy girl, you'll soon find a place.'
'Miss Parsons asked me to come and stay here with her, and that I am going to do.'
'Now that is daft talk. I've told you how it is. She ain't responsible. You get along now and don't stand there wasting my time.' Damask stood still and silent; Miss Parsons watched. When the woman spoke again her voicewas shriller. "What are you waiting for? Ain't a shilling enough? You insolent little baggage. Be off, I tell you. If you got enough sense to understand her telling you there is a job here you got enough sense to understand me telling you there ain't! Get along with you. Or do you want me to put you out?' 'Do you want to try?'
The woman made a sound of complete exasperation and came forward, two hasty steps and one hesitant. The belligerent expression in her eyes gave way under Damask's calm stare. Suddenly she looked baffled.
'My husband'll be back in a minute. He'll deal with you,' she muttered.
Miss Parsons broke into a delighted cackle of laughter. 'Now let us go upstairs and get rid of that unbecoming dress," she said. She snatched up a candlestick, and holding it so that drops of grease fell upon each step she led the way upstairs. Damask followed. Mrs Saunders stood watching, incredulous. It could not be true ... just a little scrap of a thing like that; why hadn't she taken her by the scruff of the neck and thrown her out?
Twenty minutes later when Saunders had returned, heard the news and gone storming upstairs and come down again looking stupid and scared, she asked him the
same question.
'I meant Co,' he said. 'I went up to her and said, "Come on, out of this!" and made to get hold of her. Then I just couldn't. You know how I am about cats--that same sort of feeling came over me.'
'But I don't mind cats, and that same feeling come over me too,' Mrs Saunders said. They stared at one another in silent dismay for a moment, then she said, 'But we must do something. What are we going to do?'
'We'll leave it till morning,' Saunders said. He had a distinct feeling that daylight would bring courage.
PART THREE
High Noon
of a Changeling
CHAPTER SEVEN
Even those neighbours who had been affectionately disposed towards the old Squire and were thus inclined to lay the blame for the breach on his son admitted at last that possibly there had been fault on both sides; or else the years and the long exile had improved Richard. Some of them remembered that the last quarrel had taken place at the time of Richard's marriage, and these had been prepared to find the new Lady Shelmadine a quite impossible person; pretty perhaps--or why should he have married her?--but pretty in a blowsy way, vulgar, ignorant, and, now that she was newly rich, extravagant and ostentatious. To them Linda was a pleasant surprise. The ladies especially were strong in their approval. The gentlemen remained a little puzzled; she seemed the last kind of female for a man of Richard's reputation to have married. Was it perhaps possible that-his wildness had been exaggerated? After all, even those who were fond of Sir Charles were bound to admit that some of his views had been very hidebound.
All through the late summer and autumn of that year there was much coming and going between Clevely and the big houses in the neighbourhood; Ockley and Mortiboys and Merravay, Greston Park and Muchanger and Nettleton New House. Richard took pains to be charming, and in the privacy of the connubial bedchamber made no secret of his purpose.
'My father had a great reputation for honesty; and since he always represented me as a devil, I can see them all waiting for the cloven hoof to peep out. As no doubt it will, but not before I have cast some doubt upon his honesty or judgment--I don't care which."
To behave in accordance with the unexacting standards demanded by a group of Suffolk squires was not difficult, and it was made more easy for him by the fact that he was, at the moment, delighted with his heritage and had not had time to be bored. He rode round the estate, being extremely affable to everyone; he instituted no unpopular changes and missed no opportunity of showing generosity. This year, in addition to the Harvest Horkey, the villagers of Clevely enjoyed a Cricket Supper.
It was taken for granted that he would enclose, and the matter came under discussion at the first dinner-party which the Shelmadines attended at Ockley. Sir Evelyn Fennel then said:
'When you do, let Monty here by your model. My father enclosed in '74; when he began he owned fifteen hundred acres and when he'd finished he had fourteen hundred and ten. Monty, when he tacked up his notice, had two thousand three hundred, and when he put up his last fence had four thousand of them.'
'And that, Sir Wichard, is not the pawadox that it sounds. The first figure, of course, was just the awable and pasture; the second included my share of the common
waste.'
Richard, who upon being introduced to Mr Montague Ryde Montague had dismissed him as a lisping young fool, now turned to him with attention.
'Greston? Where forty decent poor men ... eh?' He spoke the last words in a tolerable imitation of his father's voice. Everybody laughed.
'All the same,' Sir Evelyn said, 'they do fall on the rates, damn them; never having worked in their lives, they expect to be kept in idleness. The thing to do, I understand, is to demolish the damned hovels. Once they're homeless they move off and find work.'
'But that is stwictly illegal.'
'So are lots of other things.' Sir Evelyn's voice was dry.
'Well, it's pwobably sentimental of me, but I would
dwaw the line at destwoying their homes.'
'Having enclosed to such advantage you can afford to pay your rates.'
'That is twue. The thing is, Shelmadine, if you wish to get your enclosure bill thwough this year you must look sharp. The last Act demands that you tack up your notice for thwee Sundays in August or September.'
'So there's a close season for enclosing, is there?' Richard said. 'I didn't know, there are a good many points on which I am ignorant. I should be grateful for your advice.'
'I adore giving advice,' said Mr Montague.
Two days later he rode over to Clevely and he and Richard shut themselves in the library with a map of the village and all the papers relevant to tenancies and sales and purchases of land which Richard had managed to sort out from the fantastic jumble in which his father had kept such things.
Lisping, elegant, effete-looking as he was, Mr Montague showed himself a good man of business, shrewd and orderly of mind.
'I cannot, of course, guawantee that you will do as well out of your enclosure as I did at Gweston,' he warned. 'I was deucedly lucky in my commissioners and in the number of fellows who either had no claim to show or couldn't pay their share of the expenses. Now there is a hint! Don't twy to keep down expenses. As the largest pwopwietor you will naturally have to bear the greater share of them; but if, in the end, you have only two small pwopwietors who can't meet their costs, then their land falls into the common pool, of which you get the gweatest share and in the long wun you are better off. I twust I make myself clear.'
He brooded over the map and the papers, the fine lace of his shirt cuff casting a little shimmering pattern as he traced the boundaries of this man's holding and that, his eye all the while as keen, as calculating as a butcher's studying a carcass.'I think you may do very well, Wichard. Even if half your Waste fellows have a legal claim--and that would be most extwaordinary bad luck--you'd still do well because there are so few landowners for it to be divided among. Miss Parsons, Fred Clopton, Abel Shipton-- they're the only ones worth considering; the rest own so little that when the Waste is shared out pwoportionally they'll only get an acre or two extwa, and that pwobwably wubbish if you draw weasonable commissioners and make yourself civil to them. There's another hint--the commissioners allot the land and some is good and some
is bad----Enough said?'
'I will take pains with the commissioners,' Richard
said.
'But tactfully, my fwiend, tactfully,' said Mr Montague, lifting an elegant finger. 'Once every hundwed years an absolutely incowuptible fellow gets an appointment and will scweam "Bwibewy" at the top of his voice at the first opportunity. So tact is needed there.' He looked down at the table again. 'This Cawoline Amelia Parsons --not old Captain Parsons' daughter? She must be a hundwed!'
'She's eighty. The rector says she is dotty.'
'Ah ... there now. There might be something for you there, Wichard. She might be just sane enough to sign in favour of enclosure but not sane enough to look out for her wights. Enclosure is like wevolution, you know; full of opportunities for the wide-awake. Well now, that completes our pweliminary reconnaissance, I think. Now you must dwaw up your notice and get the signatures of all the other people who own land. I pwesume that everybody is agweed.'
'How could anybody not be? Fellows like Clopton and Shipton who are enclosed already stand to get a bit of the Waste; old what's-his-name, Bowyer, and Wellman and Crabtree and Fuller surely will see that to have their land altogether, plus their small share of the Waste, is better than going on in this old-fashioned way.'
'You can never be too sure,' said Mr Montague sagely.
'At Gweston I had just one old man who owned twelve acres--six in one field, six in the other--and make his mark he would not. I twied every persuasion, even offered him twice the market pwice for his land, to buy him out, you know. He wouldn't budge.'
'So what did you do?'
'Just went ahead without his signature. It was a wisk. He could have gone popping off to the authorities and made a fuss, but he didn't. They don't know their own power. I should say the only one who could make difficulty for you if she wished is the old dame ... but then, if she's dotty ... Now, shall we begin to make a list of those whose signatures you wequire?'
'I think not,' Richard said. The first signs of boredom were making themselves felt within him. The idea of becoming richer, of extending his land and increasing its value was attractive and had borne him along so far, but to ask him to sit down and copy out a list of names was too much.
'I have a new bailiff fellow arriving tomorrow,' he said; 'he can do all that. Do him good to get familiar with their names and acreages and so on.'
'Then let us take a wide awound and look at the land itself. I was never welcome here in your father's time,' said Mr Montague.
So they set off on the ride which warned Clevely of the Squire's intentions and made Matt Ashpole get out his gun. Matt knew that he had no claim, save right of usage, to his cottage, his garden, his pasture on the Waste, and he was foresighted enough to visualise a time when his old horse would be homeless; but the Fullers, he reasoned, would always have a farm and Danny could never refuse house room to his father-in-law's old horse.
By the first week in September Hadstock, the new bailiff, had written out in a clear firm hand the notice which was to be fixed to the church door; and he had also made a list of all the landowners in Clevely, large and small, who should sign the paper.The notice read: 'We the undersigned, being the Lord of the Manor, the tithe-holder, proprietors and freeholders of the Manor and Parish of Clevely in the County of Suffolk, do hereby give notice to whomsoever it may concern that we propose to approach His Majesty's House of Commons through the good offices of Sir Thomas Blyborough M.P. for an order for the enclosing of the arable land, pasture and waste land of the aforesaid parish.'
Richard, with the deadly depression of boredom rising in him, set out to collect the necessary signatures. He would gladly have deputed this task to Hadstock, but Mr Montague--and one must always remember that his enclosure had been superbly successful--had said, 'It, is infinitely better, Wichard, to pweserve the personal touch in such affairs. Fellows who might easily be disposed to say 'No' to a mere bailiff will sign at a nod fwom you. We're losing gwound every day, as everybody knows, but it still takes a bwave man to defy us to our faces.'
Richard started his round with a call at Flocky Hall, where Fred Clopton, though not defiant, showed himself to be dubious and reluctant. 'I've no wish to stand in your way, sir,' he said, 'but I've got to think of myself.'
Restraining his impatience and forcing himself to speak amiably, Richard said, 'In what way, Clopton?'
Tm benefiting now by being enclosed,' Clopton said slowly. 'Sounds selfish maybe, but we're all selfish when you get to the root of us. I can grow turnips, I can grow clover, I can winter-feed my beasts, just because I am enclosed and free to do as I like. When everybody is the same I shan't get the price I do now for the things I have to sell and everybody don't.'
'With more land, which would cost you nothing except the fencing, and with your experience in the new methods you'd still be well ahead of the others,' Richard said. 'More land?'
'As a landowner you would get a share of the Waste; it might be quite considerable.'
'Are you sure of that? I don't mean,' he added quickly in answer to Richard's swift scowl, 'I don't mean to doubt
what you say, but it sounds peculiar. You see, my freehold never carried any rights to the Waste. Not that I minded --I wouldn't want my beasts to run with all those poor ill-conditioned creatures.'
'Naturally not. But if you sign this petition, as a landowner you will get a proportional share, enclosed; and not necessarily Waste, if you understand that. An increase of your acreage, in proportion. It would be for the commissioners to decide where it was."
'Well, in that case, of course, I'll sign gladly, sir.'
The next three farmers on the list were all small proprietors, owning strips in the open fields. Bert Crabtree signed with alacrity. 'I allust wanted it, but I never reckoned it'd come in my lifetime,' he said. 'If you'll be so kind as to write my name, sir, I'll put my mark to it. I bain't no scholar.' Clem Bowyer listened to Richard's explanation and then said, 'I'd be for it, sir, tooth and nail, if I was twenty years younger; but I be old and I don't fancy no changes and upheavals at my time of life.' The third man, Ricky Wellman, was more forthright; he was, in fact, Mr Montague's 'bwave man'. 'I'm agin it, same as the old Squire allust was; and when I'm agin a thing I'm agin it,' he said. To Richard's casual eye, Bowyer and Wellman looked stupid, bovine creatures, only very slightly the intellectual superiors of the beasts they reared; and remembering Monty's story of his obstinate old man, he decided that their opposition was not worth bothering about, so he wasted no eloquence on them but rode on to Bridge Farm to interview Abel Shipton.
'But that don't-er concern me-er, sir,' Shipton said. 'I am-er enclosed. This farm-er was fenced-er around-er at the same time as Flocky.'
'I know, I know. The point is ..." And he repeated, in a voice of poisonous patience, the argument he had laid before Fred Clopton. Shipton listened, looking more and more uncomfortable and glancing now and then in the direction of the kitchen door. Finally he said:
'Only owners sign-er? Then it wouldn't be right-er for me to. To tell you the truth-er, I ain't owned this land-er this last four years-er.' 'Oh. Who does then?'
Shipton shot another uneasy glance at the kitchen door and then told his tale. He'd been in what he called a muddle and at his wits' end for ready money four years previously, and he couldn't sell the farm because Mrs Shipton had put the whole of her dowry into it when they married; he hadn't even dared to tell her what a muddle he was in. Then one day 'somebody' had offered to buy his farm and let him stay on at a ridiculously small rent on condition that the change of ownership remained a secret. 'And that-er,' Shipton ended, 'seemed like a miracle to me-er; an answer to prayer if ever there was one-er.'
'Certainly very fortunate for you. But a curious arrangement. Who is this somebody?'
Shipton looked at Richard with harassed eyes and a nerve began to twitch in his cheek.
"Twas part-er of the bargain, sir. Heving took-er advantage of it like-er, 'twouldn't be right-er for me to teller.'
His disability increased with his nervousness and was in itself enough to annoy his listener past bearing.
'Such a sale could be easily traced, you foolish fellow,' Richard said. 'You can save me time and considerable displeasure by telling me.'
Shipton looked down at his feet and cracked his knuckles.
'Oh well, possibly Mrs Shipton could hazard a guess.'
'You wouldn't-er tell her, sir?'
'Would I not?' Richard's smile sent something cold through Shipton's blood.
'If I teller...?'
'Then I need make no inquiries.'
' 'Twas Miss Parsons, up-er at Dower House-er.'
'Oh.' Richard sat for a moment, mentally adding the acreage of Bridge Farm to the amount of land which Miss Parsons owned openly and speculating upon the form of madness which would lead a woman to buy land
on such a strange condition. Then he rode away. And soon he found that another man, ostensibly the owner of several strips in Old Tom and in Layer, had in fact sold his land to 'somebody' who wished the deal to remain secret.
'Not so much of a secret,' Richard ventured. 'Miss Parsons' kindness is better known than she realises.'
'She saved me from beggary,' the man said simply. 'I'd had a run of bad luck, and to top all broke my leg. Old Scrat alone knew where I'd have been but for being able to sell out and yet stay on for such a small rent.'
'Most fortunate for you,' said Richard absently. And perhaps, he thought, fortunate for me too. He remembered Monty's remark about the old woman being perhaps sane enough to make her mark and not quite sane enough to watch her rights. Certainly she now ranked second to himself as a land-owner, and her claims to the Waste when it was divided would be considerable. He set out to visit Dower House.
Miss Parsons was feeling very well. It was a long time since she had felt so well in body and so clear of mind. Damask, dear child, had now been with her for a fortnight, and in that brief time had worked wonders. Saunders and his dreadful wife had gone. How that miracle had been brought about Miss Parsons did not fully understand; Damask had told her to stay out of the way while she dismissed them, but she had been worried and had gone down and stood outside the kitchen door, ready to go in and support the child if necessary. No sounds of strife reached her, however, only the sound of voices; Damask speaking quietly, the man and the woman muttering at first, and then becoming quiet. Later in the day they had left the house and Miss Parsons had been hysterical with relief. When she was calm again she said, 'And you promise to stay with me--promise.' 'Of course I shall stay,' Damask said. 'Then would it not me wise of me to write to the Poor Farm?'
'I am not from the Poor Farm. It might be as well to write Mrs Cobbold, at Muchanger. That was where I was working and my quarter isn't up until Michaelmas. She might make a fuss if she knew I was here.'
'Oh no, not if I write and say how much I depend on you. I'll do it at once.'
She showed Damask the letter when it was written. It began well--the courteous, formally-phrased letter of one lady to another, asking as a favour that she should allow a maid-servant to break her time and enter new employment. Then it deteriorated suddenly because Miss Parsons' mind had slipped a cog and it was fifty years earlier and she was writing to thank another Mrs Cobbold for a very pleasant dinner-party on the previous evening and asking whether anyone had picked up a silver button which had dropped from the Captain's waistcoat--of no value, no value at all, and if it had not been found no one
was to bother to search for it----
'That will do very well,' Damask said, rightly concluding that this unmistakable evidence of the state of Miss Parsons' mind would strengthen the force of the appeal in the opening sentences. Mrs Cobbold, when the letter reached her, said to her husband, 'Oh well, this explains. Now which do I answer--the first half or the second? Poor old thing, she must be quite demented! Still, she chose well! that solemn little creature will not take advantage. And Cook always resented her going out on a Sunday----'
So that was settled. Miss Parsons' next concern was the finding of substitutes for the Saunders. 'I'm not going to have you ruining your pretty hands and working yourself to death, dear child. If you did you might just have well stayed at the Poor Farm. Could you go and find some servants in the village?'
'I could,' Damask said. 'But some from away would be better, if you want me to keep them in order.'
'Of course, of course. Oh, how clever you are! And how stupid of me. I know what I shall do. I shall write to Mr Turnbull.'
She did so. That letter too was most oddly compounded of reason and dementia; but it roused the old lawyer's sense of responsibility towards his client and resulted in the arrival, ten days later, of an elderly married couple; the woman stone deaf, the man, an old sailor, lacking some fingers on his right hand. Conscious of their handicaps, they were delighted to find employment, touchingly anxious to give satisfaction, and when Richard Shelmadine came to pay his visit to Miss Parsons the house was cleaner than it had been for years and a considerable, stretch of the lawn in front of the house had been roughly scythed.
Nevertheless, as he approached the house he wondered again why anyone living in such obviously straitened circumstances should have bought land and then accepted such nonsensical rents.
Miss Parsons, on this bright September morning, was alone in the library at the back of the house, busily and happily mixing the ingredients of pot-pourri in a large Chinese bowl. It was years since she had made pot-pourri. Damask had suggested it, had dried the rose leaves for her and emptied and washed the smaller bowls which now stood ready to receive the mixture when it was blended. The room was clean and in perfect order, the sun shone in at the wide window and gleamed on the polished floor and the surfaces of the furniture. Miss Parsons was calm and lucid of mind; it was all like old times.
Into the calm came Bennett, the old sailor, saying:
'Sir Richard Shelmadine to see you, ma'am.'
Miss Parsons took her fingers out of the pot-pourri and held them to her nose. Scents, more than anything else, are evocative of memory; everything slipped backwards in time.
'Show him in. And bring Madeira and biscuits,' she said. Charles always enjoyed a mid-morning glass of Madeira. Charles? Oh, how foolish! Charles was ... oh dear! Richard, of course, the man had said. Richard. And now here he was, smiling and bowing over her hand and saying that he hoped that she remembered him.
'Oh, very well; very well indeed,' she assured him. Itwas not true; entering the room unannounced he would have seemed a stranger. He bore no resemblance either to his father or to the young man of nineteen or twenty whom she did remember.
As soon as he was seated Richard began to apologise for not having called upon her earlier, pleading press of business; there had, he said, been so many things to see to.
'Oh, I do not expect to be visited nowadays,' she said abruptly. 'I expect you want something now. What is it?'
He exerted his charm. 'Of course I wanted something --to renew our acquaintance. In the old days I always greatly enjoyed coming here; you have so many curious and interesting things--and the fact that you used to offer me a sip of wine and a biscuit as though I were grown-up much endeared you to me.'
'In those days the fact that you were your father's son endeared you to me,' she retorted crisply. 'Later on I deplored the way you behaved to him; the fact that the poor man is dead makes no difference to that. I'm still alive and able to speak my mind.'
He had guessed that it would not be an easy interview; he had expected to find her senile and vague, probably cantankerous, but not inimical to him personally. Nobody else had held his behaviour to his father against him; why should she?
The entry of the servant, rather flustered, explaining that he could find no Madeira, was a welcome interruption, giving him time to consider his next words. It would be unwise to make any further reference to the past, he decided.
'No, I know. That horrid man drank it. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all,' Miss Parsons said, justifying the old sailor's opinion of her as an employer--'easygoing but very changeable in her mind'.
Richard took out the paper which bore the notice, and said in a more businesslike manner, 'The second reason for my visit is this. It speaks for itself, I think; but if there is anything you wish to ask about it I will explain to the
best of my ability.'
She took the paper and, holding it at arm's length because age had made her very long-sighted, studied it for a moment and then laid it down beside the Chinese bowl.
'Your father,' she said, with apparent irrelevance, 'was a very foolish young man and he grew into a very foolish old man. Always talking about what he would do one day, as happily careless as a schoolboy talking about what he will do in his holiday. I knew it would come to this, and I took my precautions. That is why there is no Madeira. It really was comical; he looked so disgusted the day I offered him an inferior wine. And it was all his fault.' A smile of wry amusement began to reassemble the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes; then it faded, and her whole expression clouded as she realised that she had lost track of what she was saying. And there was no help, no guidance to be had from this stranger who was watching her so closely, yet so coldly. She said, with some defiance, 'It's all right, I know, I know. I must just ...' She turned away and plunged both hands into the potpourri, willing herself to remember. She must remember. Here was the pot-pourri; she had been making it when this stranger arrived--that was obvious; and they must have spoken to one another. But about what, and who he was, she could not recall. The very effort to do so led to greater confusion, and after what seemed to her a long, an impolitely long time she lifted her hands and said piteously:
'I'm sorry. I have forgotten what we were talking about. I do forget. That is my trouble.'
He said gently, 'Please don't worry. We all have these little lapses. Why, once in London I hired a hackney carriage and gave the man the address of a house where I hadn't lived for four years! Actually we were talking about this'--he reached out and touched the paper--'and you were just going to sign your name, here.' He indicated the space where he wished her to place her signature.
Still confused, and wishing to conceal her confusion, she said in a more animated voice, 'Was I really? Well, that seems very simple, doesn't it?' The quill stand and the inkpot, used for the letters to Mrs Cobbold and Mr Turnbull, stood on the far end of the table. Miss Parsons looked at them, and then at Richard again. Something-- not what she was reaching for, but something--fell into place in her mind. Signing things had some connection
with Mr Turnbull----
'Why didn't Mr Turnbull come himself?' she inquired. 'It was hardly of sufficient importance,' Richard said, after only the briefest hesitation. 'A mere formality.' She selected and dipped a quill, took up the paper and held it at arm's length again. The word 'enclosing' leapt out at her. Her mind cleared and she knew what it was she had been saying before she digressed to mention the Madeira and lost her way.
'But that was what I was about to tell you. I knew he would procrastinate too long. So I took action.' Her expression became cunning. 'You can't enclose unless I sign, can you? And I shall never sign. I own more land than you realise. I shall have quite a voice. That is why I have had to live in this meagre fashion, to make my plan and keep my secret. But you can't enclose unless I consent, can you? So we might as well tear this up.'
Taking the top edge of the paper between her two hands she began to tear it, and had torn three inches before Richard lunged forward and seized her by the wrists. At his touch she reacted exactly as she had done to Mrs Saunders' attempts at violence, resisting fiercely and screaming like a maniac. As she fought against him the tear in the paper continued to lengthen and Richard realised that he was helping her to destroy it; so he let go her wrists and put his hands on her shoulders and shook her, partly in the hope of making her drop the paper, partly in genuine rage. He thought later, when he had time to think, how easy and how delightful it would have been to shake her to death. The shrill screams were actually giving way to jerky, breathless little cries when the door opened and Damask rushed into the room. Shouting
'Stop it', she launched herself at him and would have seized him by the elbows but for the fact that he immediately released his hold and stepped back, feeling immensely foolish. Miss Parsons fell limply back into her chair and the paper fluttered to the ground.
'He tried to murder me,' she said shakily.
'Ma'am, I assure you ... I was merely trying to prevent her from tearing an important document,' Richard said, feeling more foolish. He stooped to retrieve the paper and held it out to show the torn edge. 'She had taken up the pen in order to sign, then suddenly she began to tear it instead.'
The girl was not looking at him or at the paper; she was stooping over the old woman and had placed her arm about her.
'There, there,' she said, as though to a child. 'It's all right now. I'm here. It's all right.' She tucked back a wisp of the white hair and fastened one or two buttons which had opened in front of the old woman's bodice, and then she lifted her head and looked into Richard's face with a stare which was neither accusing nor tinged with complicity, nor amused. It seemed indeed to have no connection with the unusual scene just ended; it was a long, cool, measuring stare under which his lack of ease increased to the fidgeting stage. Touching his hair and then his cravat, he said again, 'I assure you ...'
'He tried to murder me,' Miss Parsons repeated.
'No, no. Nobody would do that. It was just a misunderstanding. Look, you go on with the pot-pourri and I'll take him away.'
Her attention thus distracted, Miss Parsons muttered something about not wanting any more interruptions and resumed her mixing in the bowl. Richard, almost reduced to similar childlike obedience--'I'll take him away', indeed!--stepped forward and opened the door and then followed Damask through it.
'I had no idea,' he said, as soon as they stood in the hall. 'She seemed to be so rational, and then suddenly ...'
'You must have done something to upset her,' Damask said, stating the fact without blame, but equally without excuse.
Richard felt fury begin to move in him again. That detached cool manner of hers was extremely annoying; the more so because she was young and pretty and should, he felt, have been either apologetic and flustered by the whole incident or inclined to giggle about it. He looked her over before he spoke again. There was nothing prim about the tight-waisted, full-skirted muslin dress, yellow in colour and tied with an amber velvet sash, nor in the clustering bright brown curls among which the amber ear-bobs swayed, nor in the necklet of heavy amber globes tied with a matching velvet on the nape of the smooth white neck. Everything about her looked as though it had been chosen and donned with an intent to charm---and she could have been charming, should have been charming; yet her glance and her manner towards him, acceptable perhaps from some sour elderly female, was, from her, subtly insulting.
Yet, because she had handled the old woman so well that in the circumstances it might be wise to enlist, or attempt to enlist, her aid, he spoke smoothly.
'Perhaps I did; but if so, unintentionally. The unseemly scuffle which you interrupted--and I am grateful I that you did--was, as I said, merely my attempt to prevent her tearing up a list of signatures which has taken me some time to collect and which I have no time to gather again. You, of course, handle her marvellously, if I may say so. You have had much practice?'
Who was she? He imagined a relative, a great-niece or something to the old lunatic. There was, now he came to think of it, something rustic about her; it showed, not in her looks or deportment but in her voice and ... yes, her hands! He had noticed them as she soothed the old woman; her hands and about half her forearms, between wrist and elbow, were not as white and smooth as one would have expected. Some poor young relative perhaps, chosen to act as companion and caretaker; and that queer manner might be the result of shyness.
Yet there was nothing shy about the girl's voice as she said--ignoring his question--'What was it you wanted her to sign? May I see?'
'Certainly. I don't suppose you will understand it, but I can assure you that to sign would be to your ...' He waited for just long enough for her to supply the missing word, but she did not ... 'Miss Parsons' advantage. And, as I say, she was on the very point of signing when her mood changed and she began to tear it instead.'
As they talked they had moved, by a progress so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, away from the library door and now stood almost opposite another. Damask ignoring the paper which he held out towards her, leaned forward and turned the knob of the door and pushed it open upon the large square drawing-room whose furniture and two chandeliers were shrouded in ghostly linen and whose shutters were closed.
She went over to one of the long windows and flung back the shutters so that the sunshine streamed in. Just for a moment she stood in its path, a golden gleam and shimmer; really, he thought, a most attractive little creature but for that manner which reminded him of somebody about to pull one's teeth. Shyness? Ignorance? It occurred to him that no introductions had been made.
'Permit me,' he said, 'to introduce myself. Sir Richard Shelmadine, at your service, ma'am.'
'My name is Damask Greenway. May I see the paper?"
'A very lovely and unusual name,' he said. Damn it, he was doing his best! 'And if I may be permitted to say so, extremely suitable.' To that there was no response. He handed her the paper and, assuming ignorance on her part, began to explain. She cut him short.
'I understand about enclosure. I have lived in Clevely all my life and heard enough about it. And about Greston...'
"Where forty decent poor families were thrown upon the parish",' he said, just as he had said it at Sir Stephen's table. She did not smile. She said:
'So this is how it all begins. And it ends by making all the farmers as prosperous as Fred Clopton.'
He thought then that he understood. Not a relative; some farmer's daughter with just the necessary smarter of education. Back home, helping in the dairy and with the hens and then gladly escaping, taking a post of amanuensis to a daft old woman ... much as Linda had been to her cousin Maud.
'Yes,' he said, 'it will be a great thing for the farmers. But, of course, if Miss Parsons remains obdurate everything may be held up indefinitely. All the land-owners are supposed to be unanimous--to give their consent. Two of the freeholders have refused to sign; but their opposition can, I think, safely be overlooked. This is different, Miss Parsons owns a good deal of land, and unless she changes her mind very quickly she will delay the whole scheme for another year at least.'
She gave her attention to the paper, reading it, he observed, in the slow, careful manner of the unpractised, and frowning as she read.
'I'm sorry to bother you about it,' he said as pleasantly as possible. 'It is not, I know, a matter about which a pretty young lady should be asked to concern herself.'
'Oh, it concerns me,' she said. 'It concerns me very much.'
Expectations from the old woman's will, no doubt.
'I can assure you the enclosure will be greatly to Miss Parsons' advantage. For one thing, enclosed land is always of greater value than land in open fields--farmers become more prosperous and rents go up; for another, her share of the Waste would be considerable. It will be divided proportionally, you see.'
'My father is one of those who lives on the Waste.'
'Your father?'
'Amos Greenway, the cobbler.' As she spoke she raised her eyes, and for the first time he saw her gaze tinged with some expression; it was one of mockery. It was as though she said, Now change your manner to me; and see if I care!
'I see,' he said. 'Well, of course he could be safeguarded.
He may, of course, have a claim of some sort--the commissioners, that is the men who make the division, have grown more lenient of late. But suppose he can produce no shadow of claim it would be very easy for me to make him some allotment. What would you suggest?'
'I can't tell you because I can't picture in my mind how big an acre is. He must have enough.'
'That could be arranged. If you would bring a little persuasion ...'
'That isn't all. There is a man called Fuller.' 'Ah yes, I know. But he is a tenant. The enclosure would not affect him--except, of course, that his land would be all in one piece and fenced around.' 'Yes. That is what he has always wanted.' 'Well, then...?'
'That is what I don't want him to have.' She brought out the words with a deadly simplicity. 'He shouldn't have it, either. The very last thing Sir Charles did was to give him notice. On the day he died. His lease ran out on Lady Day and he should have gone then; but nobody knew, of course, and he hoped nobody would know. I'm not going to coax anybody to sign anything that will make the Fullers as rich as the Cloptons and set Sal ... Mrs Fuller up in a gig!'
The spite in the last sentence brought a smile to Richard's lips. Some girlish squabble which the other female, Sal... Mrs Fuller, had probably forgotten, brooded over by this cold-eyed little cat and resulting in that venomous statement. How very odd and amusing.
But he remembered something which Miss Damask did not know--that Miss Parsons' refusal to sign was not, as he pretended, just an arbitrary mood. From the few things she had said he had pieced together another story; long ago, sanely and quite cunningly, the old woman had set herself to carry on his father's opposition to enclosure. He'd tried to trick her into signing, but she wasn't mad enough to be easily tricked. It seemed as though his one hope lay with this girl. you think you could persuade Miss Parsons to sign this?'
'I could try.'
'On condition that your father is provided for and Fuller sacked?' She nodded. 'Very well, that suits me. Fuller, I understand, is an excellent tenant, but that is no rarity. When do you think you can let me have the paper?'
'Tomorrow.'
'That would be excellent. And I promise that if you manage to persuade Miss Parsons to sign I shall keep my side of the bargain.'
She looked at him again with that calm, expressionless stare; and again he was disconcerted. Once outside, mounted and on his way home, he smiled derisively at the idea that this mere girl, a cobbler's daughter, could, without saying a word, have threatened him, Richard Shelmadine. Nevertheless, at that moment, as their eyes met, some definite communication was made to him, some warning given, as though something quite apart from the girl, and infinitely powerful and knowing, had said, 'You would be wise to do so.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
During that last week of August which followed Damask's free Saturday Julie worried about her daughter a good deal. During the next week she found herself looking forward to the moment when Amos would return from chapel on the Sunday evening and, if questioned closely enough, tell her whether the girl was looking well or poorly. When that time came, however, all that Amos had to report was that Damask had not been to service at all and he entirely failed to share Julie's concern over her absence.
'She've missed Sundays afore this. When I fixed for her to hev a Sunday every month nobody said which one. She'll be there next week.'
Tm worried,' Julie said. 'A shock like that don't show all at once. I remember that time when a girl, Jennie Brook her name was, set aside of me, sewing on the same skirt, and dropped dead. I never shrieked nor anything, then two days later I started to shake so I couldn't hold a needle. Had to go home and take a fortnight off. S'pose it took Damask that way.'
'You're too fanciful,' Amos said.
'Fanciful or not,' said Julie with unusual firmness, 'one of us has got to go to Muchanger and ask. Will it be you, or shall I hev Shad's donkey-rig?'
'You'll just make yourself look silly,' Amos said.
Taking that as permission, Julie arranged to borrow the donkey next day in the afternoon.
When he helped her into the low flat cart Shad handed Julie a stout stick and said, 'Now thass no use just a-tap- on't show all at once. I ping him, missus. Nowt on earth'll make him run, as you well know, but a whack'll keep him moving. And I'm sure I hope you'll find the little maid all right.'
'Thank you, Shad,' said Julie. She took up the reins and made the sort of sound likely to encourage a donkey.
'Go on, fetch him a whack; don't, he'll never start,' Shad cried.
Julie used the stick, timidly at first and then firmly, and the donkey moved away. Even at his slow pace Julie felt the jolting of the cart in all her stiffened joints, and when he stopped, as he soon did, she waited for some moments before rousing him to action again. Between home and the cross-roads where the grave was, bright this afternoon with scabious and knapweed, he stopped twice more and Julie began to be conscious of time's passing.
'Oh, get along, get along,' she cried. 'I surely ain't so heavy as some loads you take!'
The slow, intermittent progress continued and at last three-quarters of their journey was done and Muchanger only another mile away. Then the donkey stopped once more, and Julie hit him as usual. This time, instead of moving along, he seemed to crumple, went down on his knees and then keeled over sideways, tilting the little cart. A shaft snapped and the cart righted itself, so Julie escaped without even a bruise; but Shad's donkey, that legendary animal, the wonder of six parishes, had stopped for the last time.
This would happen to me, with Amos so against me borrowing him and all, she thought as she climbed awkwardly out of the cart and looked down at the little grey heap. She was sorry about the donkey too; for as long as she could remember he had been part of the landscape of the Waste. And she regretted that last blow.
'I'm sorry, Neddy, but I couldn't know, could I? And what am I going to do with you now? And how'm I going to get to Muchanger and back?'
She looked helplessly up and down the road. Nobody in sight. She was now miserably sure that bad news awaited her at Muchanger; this was an ill omen, surely. Tears filled her eyes.
Well, it was no use standing there crying. She must get to Muchanger somehow and know the worst. She set out to hobble the last slow mile.
The mere mention of Damask Greenway's name infuriated the Muchanger cook, always an irascible woman.
'She ain't here, thass all I know and all I can tell you. Went off a fortnight ago for her free day and never came back, and me with a dinner-party on my hands on the Sunday. Thass your creeping Methodist what had to hev a Sunday off every month so's she could go to chapel.'
'Didn't nobody get a word?'
'Mrs Cobbold got a letter and said to me that little Greenway ain't coming back. And I say good riddance.'
'Is Mrs Cobbold at home?' Julie asked, humbly.
'No, she ain't; the master neither. They're in Norfolk.'
'So nobody knows. Was it Damask wrote the letter? She can write.'
'Oh, she can write.' The woman's voice was sour. 'Always above herself, she was. How should I know who wrote the letter? I worn't told a word but what I've told you, and 'twasn't my place to ask. My job was to muddle along short-handed till another girl was found--and not a Methody this time, thank God.'
As Julie turned to hobble away the cook fired her final shaft:
'Gone to the bad, like as not. Them quiet sort is always the worst.'
Hearing it put like that, Julie knew that that was what she had, all along, feared without admitting it to herself. She had never been able to rid herself of the memory of the way in which Damask had poured the brandy into the tea; it had indicated a deliberate face-about----
She had not gone a quarter of a mile before she realised that it had been the desire to get to Muchanger which had enabled her to walk there. Now, with no desire to go anywhere--least of all home where she must break thenews about the donkey to Shad and the news about Damask to Amos--every step became more painful. She began to cry again, and was shuffling along, now and again wiping her eyes with the edge of her shawl, when she heard the clop-clop of hoofs and the rattle of wheels behind her. On such a day it was almost too much to expect that she might fall in with somebody kind who would give her a lift to the cross-roads, so it was with a hopeless kind of hope that she lifted her head when the vehicle drew level. And it was Matt Ashpole.
He reined in quickly, but he had gone a little past her already. Twisting round in his seat, he shouted in an astonished voice:
'Julie Greenway! Why, for God's sake, Julie, what're you doing here? How'd you get here? And what're you howling for? Here, come along now, give us your hand.' He helped her into the cart and made room for her beside him. 'There now, there now,' he said in a soothing voice. 'Tell us whass gone wrong.'
'Oh, Matt,' she sobbed, 'I never was so glad to see anybody in the whole of my life. There's my Damask gone from Muchanger, nobody can tell where. And I've killed Shad's poor old donkey and I didn't think I'd ever get home.'
'Giddap, Gyp I' Matt said, shaking the reins. 'There now, you stop blaring, Julie. We'll see you safe home. You tell me all about it.'
She did so, omitting only the reason for her concern over Damask's well-being, merely saying that she had missed her Sunday. By the time she had ended her tale they had reached the scene of the disaster. 'And there he lay,' she said, pointing.
Matt drove just past the wreck and drew to a halt.
'Well, now I've seen all,' he said in an interested voice which somehow seemed to make the whole thing less tragic. 'That ought to be put on show, that do! They say you never see a dead donkey, and I never did afore--not in all my days. Well, well. Now we gotta get him home, I reckon; can't leave him here on the highway. Besides,
Shad'd never believe you; he'd think you'd swapped him for half a pound of tea!' He swung himself over the side of the cart. There was no one on earth, Julie thought, comforted, better able to deal with a dead donkey and a broken cart than Matt.
First he loosed the harness and turned the little cart and hitched it behind his own. Then, with a grunt, he lifted the little grey carcase into the cart which it had drawn so many miles. His movements were competent and sparing of effort, and in no time at all he was climbing back into his own vehicle.
'Well, here we go, missus! Reg'lar Lord Mayor's Show; ain't we? Giddap, Gyp!'
Shad's grief and rage knew no measure.
'You med him run, thass what you did,' he shouted at Julie. 'Thass women all over; no sense, no patience. I let you hev him out of the goodness of my heart, and you kilt him. He'd hev lasted out my time but for you. You're a murderer, Julie Greenway, same as if you'd killed a pusson--and there's a heap of them could hev been better spared!'
The commotion brought everybody out of the cottages; even Amos looked out to see what was afoot. Seeing Julie wilting in the centre of the group, he came and joined her, hammer in hand, half a dozen brads held in his teeth.
When Shad renewed his accusations Amos was moved to loyalty; spitting the brads into his hand, he said:
'Come, come, man, thass no way to talk. Poor old Neddy been due to die this last five year. 'Twas just bad luck my missus happened to be out with him.' He put his arm through Julie's and she leaned on it gratefully.
'How'm I gonna make a living without my old Neddy?' Shad demanded.
'We'll cap around for you,' Matt said. 'All of us here, eh?' There were murmurs of assent, varying in enthusiasm, but unanimous. 'And I'll ask all the chaps down at the old Horse and all about. I'll start you off with a shilling,' Matt said, reckless with generosity, 'and I'll keepmy eyes open for a nice cheap donkey for you.'
Amos drew Julie towards their cottage. There his manner changed.
'I told you,' he said, 'but you would go running off. Now there's a shilling gone outa what I was saving for the chapel! You being out with the creature, we can't very well give less than Ashpole. And if you'd just stayed here you've hev seen Damask.'
'Seen her? You mean to say she was here?' 'No more than ten minutes arter you'd gone galloping off. She've changed her job and gone just acrost the road to Miss Parsons. Said she'd hev come over afore to let us know, but the house was in a terrible state and there worn't nobody to leave the old lady with till lately.'
'Well, thank God for that,' Julie said, almost crying again from relief.
'Thass right enough to thank God,' said Amos in his pulpit manner, 'but you should trust Him too. "Trust in the Lord and wait patiently for Him", as the Good Book says. If you'd hev done that, Julie, the chapel'd be the better off by a shilling I'
'I'll put my wits to work and try to think out some way to make that shilling right with you, Amos,' Julie said meekly. 'Did Damask look well? Did she seem like herself?'
'Now I come to think of it, she didn't. Well enough; but her hair was all over the place and her dress worn't suitable. I remarked about it, but she said it was Miss Parsons' wish she should wear it.'
Tunny she should be there,' said Julie meditatively. 'Her time at Muchanger wasn't up till Michaelmas.'
'Seems Miss Parsons wrote to Mrs Cobbold and asked for her. There, I've told you all I know, and she said she'd be running over again very soon. Now I gotta get back to work; I've wasted enough time as it is.'
The death of the donkey and the collection of contributions for a new one remained a focus of interest among the Waste dwellers for just a few days and then dropped
into limbo suddenly. For on the next Sunday morning there was the preliminary notice about the intention to enclose tacked on to the church door.
Those Waste dwellers who through piety or policy attended Morning Service brought back the shocking news.
'Well, now,' said Matt, when he heard it, 'I reckoned he'd do it, but I never reckoned he'd move so fast. You'd think he'd wait till he'd settled his bum in the old chap's saddle afore turning everything topsy-turvy. Well, boys, this is serious. We gotta move fast too; and we gotta move all together if what happened at Greston ain't to happen here.'
Amos, who was preaching at Summerfield that Sunday morning and attending chapel at Nettleton in the evening, first heard the news at about six o'clock on the Monday evening. He had been hard at work all day and Was just about to set off for Bridge Farm to squeeze in an hour's work on the new chapel before darkness fell. Never in his life before had he so deplored the shortening of the daylight hours which came with summer's end. Very soon, he decided, he would change the programme of his days. He would work on the chapel in the morning and do his ordinary work at home by candlelight; but that change must be postponed as long as possible because then he would work alone and his progress would be very slow. It took two to handle the timbers properly.
As he opened his door he was confronted with a group of his male neighbours, headed by Matt Ashpole.
'You off somewhere, Amos? We was just coming to see you. We want a bit of help?'
That was an appeal which Amos could not ignore, pressed for time as he was, so with an inward sigh he asked what it was they wanted of him; and Matt, who had taken on the role of spokesman, explained that everybody on the Waste must join in the endeavour to resist the enclosure, and that his neighbours were counting on Amos for help, 'You being handy with your pen, Amos, and glib with your tongue, as we all know.'More concerned with the waning of the light than with the future of the Waste, Amos said hurriedly that he'd think it over; it was a thing which needed thinking over anyway, and just now he had a job to do. They could come and talk to him about it again, towards the end of the week.
'But we've gotta look lively, Amos,' Matt protested. 'This is a serious business.'
'So is my chapel.' Already he thought of it as his. The idea to build had been his; he had persuaded Shipton to give the plot of land; he had thought up the way of getting round the timber problem by buying the old ship's timber's; and he had done by far the greater part of the work. His chapel seemed near and urgent, this enclosure business something distant and concerned with the future. So, having said he would think it over, he pushed his way through the group and hurried away, but he did not go fast enough to be out of earshot when Matt said disgustedly, 'Him and his blasted chapel! Can't the silly sod see this is his tater patch in danger as well as ours?'
That speech may have helped Amos, when he came to think the matter over, to decide to dissociate himself from the resistance effort. He certainly thought over the question of time. If he were to ply his trade diligently enough to feed himself and Julie and keep up his contributions to the building fund and also go on with the building he would have no time to run hither and thither trying to prevent something the Squire had set his mind on and which would thus happen in any case. So when next approached about the matter he said that he had thought it over and had come to the conclusion that this was one of those situations covered by the text, 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things which are God's.'
'Seizer,' said Matt. 'Who the devil ...? Oh, I see. Ha, ha. Thass a good 'un, Amos! Squire, he means, boys. Ah, he's a seizer, all right. And naturally I'm all for letting Seizer hev what is Seizer's: what I ain't in favour of is letting him hev what is ours and was our father's afore
us, even if we don't hev no bloody papers to prove it.' There was a murmur of assent, then somebody said:
'Ah, boy, but how're you going to stop him?'
'Thass what we've got to think out. But I can remember back when they cut up Greston Common and so many folks was in misery, heving lost their all. Something was said then about they left it too late to put their case. One chap'd even got his paper--little old black scrap of stuff that was too, and nobody could read it; but he went and dug up the damn thing too late--fences was up then. I've hunted my place like a dog hunting fleas, and I ain't found no paper; but I shan't let that daunt me.'
Talk turned for several minutes upon papers; how diligently they had been hunted, the unlikely places that had been searched. Only Matt Juby had found anything that looked as though it might have value in this connection.
'Well then, all the rest of our grand-daddies were damned careless old fellows. And maybe as well they were--don't, we shouldn't be here to tell the tale!' At this point Amos turned away and went on with the stitching upon which he had been engaged when they entered his workroom to ask whether he'd thought things over.
'So we ain't got no paper,' Matt went on, 'but we still can try. And to start with we should tackle Squire and state our case. If Amos here 'on't go, I will.' He ran his bright little eyes over the gathering and halted them on Widow Hayward's son, lately come back from his soldiering and lacking an arm. 'You shall come with me, Dicky. You got a case. There you are, fought for your king and country, give your arm for England--where'll you be without that bit of Waste to grub in and grow taters and keep a pig? I don't say Seizer'll listen, I don't say he'll take no notice; what I do say, we'll hev tried.'
Richard received the deputation civilly enough, listened to what Matt had to say, promised to bear it all in mind and sent them away to drink beer in the kitchen. Dicky Hayward was satisfied and reassured; but then he was a simple soldier and had not Matt's lifelong experience ofhorse-dealers and other tricksters to draw upon.
'He was all right, very smooth-talking,' Matt said. 'But I noticed something I didn't like. He says, "Hev any of you got anything to show in the way of papers?"; and I says, "Only Matt Juby", and a sort of glitter showed in his eye, like it will in a chap's that hev just sold you a broken-winded nag smartly doctored. Arter that I couldn't stomach his talk about not wanting to ruin anybody and most like we could all count on allotments. If he didn't want to ruin anybody, why should he be glad we hadn't got no papers? Still, there we are; we ain't done yet. I'm going to talk to the next on the list, and thass Miss Parsons.'
'Fat lot of good that'll do. She's dotty.'
'She ain't too dotty to write her name. She'd hev the next loudest voice to Squire's when the time come, and maybe she's dotty enough to speak up for us.'
So it was from Matt Ashpole's tongue that Miss Parsons learned that her signature was on the paper after all.
The September evening had turned chilly and Miss Parsons and Damask were sitting by the fire in the library. Damask was shortening another dress to her own length --a velvet one this time--and Miss Parsons was reading aloud from Robinson Crusoe to entertain her as she sewed. Upon this quiet domestic scene Bennett came to say that two men were at the back door, asking to speak to Miss Parsons, and that one gave his name as Matt Ashpole.
'Oh yes, I know him. He often does odd jobs for me. Let him come in.'
Matt, to whom shyness was unknown, stepped in boldly, followed, more diffidently, by Dicky. Miss Parsons said, 'Good evening, Ashpole'; and Matt said, 'Good evening, ma'am.' And then he saw Damask, and, as he later said, he could have been knocked down with a feather. He did almost for a moment lose sight of his errand. Mindful of his manners, he said, 'Excuse me, ma'am', and then turned to Damask accusingly. 'So thass

where you got to! Why'n't you let your pore old mum know? There was she rushing over to Muchanger, killing Shad's old donkey and crying her pore eyes out; and you only just acrost the road all the time.'
('And then,' he said, reporting the incident later on, 'she ups and give me a look and says, "I went across and told my father where I was at the first opportunity". Now them's ordinary words enough, ain't they, and she said them quite pleasant, but the look she gave me went clean through me like a cold knife.')
Recovering himself, he turned back to Miss Parsons and said, 'Excuse me, ma'am. It was just that seeing her here, and thinking her mum didn't know yet, put me off what we come about.' Then, since the old lady was looking at him with no sign of dottiness at all, he proceeded to tell her exactly what he had come about, with Dicky, as support, now and then saying 'Ah' or 'Thass so'.
In the interval since Richard's visit Miss Parsons had made still further improvement. Now when her memory lapsed a little or she contradicted herself there was nobody to shout at her or mock her or say she was mad. Little Damask had a wonderful way of saying, very gently, 'Now wait a minute ...' and then telling her just what she had been saying when her memory failed, or what she had said yesterday which conflicted with what she was saying today. As a result she was no longer frightened or worried; she was well fed, well served and much happier than she had been at any time since her father's death. This evening she was quite capable of listening intelligently to what Matt had to say, and when he had done she said in a clear firm voice:
'I quite agree with you. I'm very much against enclosure.'
'Then, if I may make so bold as to ask, ma'am, why did you sign the paper in favour of it?'
'But I did not. That is just what I would not do. Sir Richard came here and he ...' Part of her affliction was not that she forgot but that she remembered too many things too vividly, so that the past, instead of being inperspective, decently remote, was always encroaching upon the present. Now, in her memory, she relived, without the buffering of the past tense, the moment when Richard had started to shake her, 'He tried to murder me,' she said.
Matt did not believe that, and fearing lest his disbelief and astonishment should show in his eyes he removed his gaze from her, looked at Damask, who bent her head over the needlework, and then at Dicky, who--parade-ground trained--could express a great deal without moving any feature much. His face now said, 'There y'are; I told you the old gal was dotty.'
For a moment Matt was at a loss, then once again experience came to his aid. He remembered his grandmother, who had lived with the family when he was small; she too was a bit dotty and inclined to accuse people of acts of unbelievable malevolence. The thing to do was to take no notice. So now he ignored the accusation against Sir Richard and said bluntly:
'Well, ma'am, if you didn't sign, how do you reckon your name got on to that there paper?'
'It cannot be on it,' Miss Parsons said. But her voice was losing its assurance; something in her head, just behind her eyes, was beginning to pull tight and knot itself. Her - expression clouded.
'But ma'am, there it is, writ plain for all to see. On the church door,' Matt insisted.
'But I ... There was ... The church door, you say? The church door ...' She had a sudden, immensely clear, mental vision of the church door. On the Sunday morning when Charles had brought his wife out of the church on his arm for the first time. Out of the shadow, into the sunshine; so fair, so radiant, so very beautiful.
'I don't think I can bear it,' said Miss Parsons, speaking aloud, after all these years, the words she had so resolutely repressed then. To stand there, surrounded by the gaping, admiring villagers, and to look down the long dark tunnel of the years, alone, alone. 'I don't think I can bear it,' she said again, and pressing her hands to her face she
began to cry desolately.
Damask rose, without haste, to her feet and went over to where Miss Parsons sat and touched her on the shoulder.
'Now there's no need to upset yourself, no need at all,' she said. 'I'm here and everything is all right. I'll send them away. Don't cry. Everything is all right.' Miss Parsons ceased crying and Damask, turning her head, signed to Matt and Dicky to go away. Dicky actually set himself in motion, but Matt stood his ground.
'To my manner of thinking, thass just what it ain't. All right, I mean,' he said, allowing a trace of truculence to creep into his voice now that he was talking to Damask. 'That look to me like there's been some jiggery-pokery somewhere. The lady say she never signed, yet there it is, her name, writ plain. You stand aside, Damask, my girl, and let me get this kinda straight.'
'I am not going to allow you to upset Miss Parsons with any more of your nonsense,' Damask said. She straightened herself and turned towards him, looking him full in the face. 'Go home, Matt Ashpole,' she said.
'I don't take orders from ...' He blinked and swallowed and started again. 'I come here to talk to Miss Parsons ...' His voice trailed off inconclusively on the last word and his mouth stayed a little open. Then, abruptly, he turned and followed Dicky, who was already on his way out of the room.
Damask picked up the book and the magnifying-glass which helped Miss Parsons to read and placed them in the old lady's hands.
'Oh yes,' Miss Parsons said, an expression of simple pleasure lighting her face, 'we were reading, were we not? And just coming to the exciting part, dear child!'
Holding the book well away from her and manipulating the glass with skill, she read on and reached the moment when Crusoe found the footprint in the sand.
Damask had taken up her work and resumed her stitching, her head bent. She was conscious of Miss Parsons' voice and polite enough to make, now and then, asmall appreciative sound; but her mind was far away, in the strange place into which she had fallen when the news of Danny's betrothal had felled her to the floor--the place of the Voice and the Promise, the things for which there were no human words. From that place she had emerged with a power of whose nature and magnitude she had no conception; she had handled it tentatively at first, as a man might try an unfamiliar tool. Now confidence was growing, and skill, and ambition----
'There I' said Miss Parsons with satisfaction. 'Was not that exciting?'
'Immensely exciting,' Damask said.
Outside the Dower House Dicky Hayward straightened his shoulders and drew a deep breath.
'Pore owd gal, mad as a March hare!' he said. Matt made no answer, and Dicky imagined that he was depressed by the failure of the interview.
'I tell you what, Matt; I don't reckon they'll none of them take no notice of our plight. Not so as to be a help. I reckon thass every man for himself now.'
Matt grunted. They reached the gate and Dicky made as though to turn to the right, cross the Stone Bridge and go to the village, but Matt turned left, towards home.
'Hi, come on,' Dicky said. 'Less go down to the old Horse and wet our whistles. I can do with a drink arter all that shindy.'
'I'm going home,' Matt said. 'I don't feel like seeing the chaps tonight,' he added, explaining to himself, as much as to Dicky, the reason for his unusual choice. There was certainly no connection, in his mind, between Damask's words, 'Go home, Matt Ashpole', and his sudden feeling that home was the one place where he wished to be, and if anyone had pointed it out he would have called them mad.
'They'll know you done your best, Matt,' Dicky said. 'There's nowt you can do when you're up agin them in power. Cheer up and come along. I'll treat you.'
'Thass kind of you, boy, but not tonight. I feel like
getting home and getting my boots off.' That was it; he wanted to take his boots off.
He turned towards the Waste, and Dicky, after a moment's wavering, turned that way too and fell into step beside him. They walked in silence for a while, and then, just as they reached the edge of the Waste, Matt said:
'Rum how the old gal shut off the blaring, worn't it. Once I seen something like that afore. A gyppo, it was, that had a way with horses. Nappiest horse there ever was he'd go up to it, be it kicking and carrying on ever so, and just lay a hand on and speak a word and there it'd stand, quiet as a lamb.'
'She hev a rare masterful way of giving orders,' Dicky said. 'Made a good sergeant, she would. And I call to mind the time when she was mim as a mouse. Got right nice-looking too, ain't she?'
Matt ignored that and there was silence again until they reached Widow Hayward's door. There Matt paused.
'I dunno,' he said. 'That kinda stick in my mind--the old gal being so sure she never signed that paper. I reckon that could bear looking into, Dicky.'
'You can't pay any heed to what she say. She's off her head. Said Squire tried to murder her.'
'Well, s'pose he wanted her to and she wouldn't and started to blare and carry on; maybe he did. 'S'nuff to make any man feel like murder, talking sense one minnit and rubbish the next. Just like my old granny--and many a clout she had from my dad, and my mum, come to that! I fare to recollect that Mr Turnbull look after Miss Parsons affairs; I reckon 'twould do no harm to hev a word with him, if I can get near him.'
'I done running up and down on this job, Matt. They got all the guns and all the powder, you might as well face it. If they mean to grab the Waste they'll grab it. All we can do is retreat in good order.'
'But we got nowhere to retreat to, you fool,' said Matt angrily. 'I know what a loony say ain't much to go on,but thass something, and maybe we could make more of it. Damn it all, boy, I kept alive and brung up a family just by making a little something into a bit more.'
Next morning Miss Parsons woke and found herself very clear in her mind. She lay and watched the strengthening light and thought over Matt Ashpole's visit and everything he had said; she remembered it all. When, at eight o'clock, Damask appeared, as was her habit, with the breakfast tray, Miss Parsons said:
'My dear, I have been thinking. I must go along to the church and see for myself whether he told me the truth. You were there when Sir Richard tried to force me to sign, weren't you. And you know I didn't, don't you? So what the man was talking about I really do not know, but I must find out.'
'There isn't the slightest need for you to bother yourself about anything he said.' As she spoke Damask leaned forward; with rather less than the width of the tray between them their eyes met. 'I won't have you exciting yourself about every bit of nonsense stupid people come and tell you. Forget it. Just remember that everything is all right.'
And of course it was. So long as Damask was there everything must be all right. The old lady ate her breakfast placidly and with enjoyment. Damask removed the tray and went out into the garden to cut, from the weed-smothered beds and borders, enough of the hardy survivors of the flowers as would decorate the house. She left Miss Parsons to dress herself as usual.
Halfway through her dressing Miss Parsons went to the window and looked out into the garden. A brisk breeze was stirring and the first leaves were loosening their hold. Far away, across the stretches of roughly scythed lawn, Damask was moving about, a wide basket on her arm.
I shall need some outdoor clothes, Miss Parsons said to herself and went to the cupboard. There she asked herself why. And gave herself the answer. Because she
was going to the church to see if what that man had said was true. And she must slip away without Damask knowing, because the dear child didn't want her to be worried.
It was all perfectly plain. She was not even deterred to find that the outdoor clothes which she thought were hanging in the cupboard were no longer there. That was nothing to get excited about; she knew where they had gone. Mrs Saunders had taken them. And that she remembered the fact proved, did it not, how very clear she was in her mind. Damask, dear child, of course didn't realise how much better she was; she had first encountered her when, what with one thing and another, she had been in a very bad state, so naturally she now tried to protect her, to shield her from all worry. But really there was no need----
She found an old black cloak which Mrs Saunders had despised and a tricorne hat with a broken feather. Having put them on, she took another crafty peep through the window and saw Damask busy gathering sprays of rose-trees which had almost reverted to the wild stage and were, at this season, laden with bright red berries similar to those found in the hedges, but more plump and rounded.
Miss Parsons went downstairs and let herself out of the house.
She encountered nobody and nothing happened to distract her during her walk, and she arrived at the church gate with her purpose intact; and although on the previous evening a memory, with the church as a background, had caused a disturbance in her mind, this morning she faced the church itself without a tremor. Her swift gliding steps carried her along the path where the shadows of the ancient yews lay blackly, and up to the porch.
And there it was, indisputable: Amelia Caroline Parsons, just in the space where Richard Shelmadine had asked her to write it, and in her own fine Italianate hand --the only decently written signature on the paper.
She stood motionless and stared at it for a long time.Then, as the deadly significance of it was borne in upon her shrinking mind, she began to cry--not the loud protesting sobs which were her usual form of expressing distress, but a low, desperate moaning, broken now and then by muttered words:
'I am mad. I must be mad. I am mad.' Hitherto, however glaring her lapses of memory, she had always held firmly to her belief in her sanity; even when she had run away from the Saunders and then, in emotional stress, forgotten her very name or where she lived, as soon as she was capable of thought again her first thought had been that she was not mad, she merely forgot things. But now she knew. Never, save in a fit of stark, staring madness, would she have written her name on that paper and thus given her consent to the very thing she
had planned to prevent.
She sank down, trembling, on the church steps and put her head in her hands and went on moaning and muttering. There very shortly--since it was easy to guess her whereabouts--Damask found her. Distraught as she was, she recognised 'the dear child', and taking her hands from her head laid hold of Damask's, clinging to them with the frenzied clutch of the drowning, admitting over and over again that she was mad, begging Damask to stay with her and look after her and not let her be locked up.
When she had abased herself sufficiently Damask spoke. She said, 'Of course I shall look after you. That is what I am here for. Listen ... everything is all right. I am here
and everything is all right. Look at me---- There's
nothing at all for you to worry about. Come home now and be happy----' And happiness and comfort and assurance and a sense of well-being flowed in from the touch of her hand, the sound of her voice, the steady, calm gaze
of her eyes.
Quite happily Miss Parsons allowed herself to be led
home.
That Mr Turnbull--Mr Lawyer Turnbull, as many people called him--was a kindly man was evident in the way in which he received his roughly dressed, roughly spoken visitor and allowed him to sit down and tell his story without interruption. But when Matt had finished the lawyer allowed his amusement to show plainly.
'Really,' he said. 'One of the most ingenious ideas I have ever encountered.' He leaned back in his chair and gave Matt an appreciative look. 'Whose idea was it?'
Matt was not quite sure of the meaning of the word 'ingenious' or of 'encountered' so he hesitated for a moment before committing himself, and then said cautiously:
'It was me that had the idea something might be a bit odd-like, sir.'
'And I suspect that you hoped that if the signature were questioned at this last moment everything might be held up for another year.'
'Well, if it did that it'd be all to the good. Arter all, a year's a year when you look like losing everything.'
'Indeed yes. Leaving the matter of Miss Parsons' signature aside for the moment, tell me--how many of the Clevely Waste-holders have anything to show in the way of a claim?'
The Squire had asked the very same question. Watching the lawyer very closely, Matt said:
'Matt Juby dug up a paper, and Amos Greenway-- though he ain't with us in this thing--did come down to tacks and spell it out for him; and that told how way back his careful old great-great-grandad did get leave from the Squire to build a cottage and graze his beasts. And only yesterday Bert Sadler's wife hunted out one that looked just the same to my eye, but we ain't had time to get Amos's word for it yet. Thass about all, I reckon.'
No glint of pleasure shone in Mr Turnbull's eye; he looked serious and concerned and Matt was encouraged to say:
'Maybe we all had papers in the past; but you know how it is, sir--folks that can't read or write don't set such store by papers as them that can. And there ain't much space for hoarding such things----'
'No, unfortunately. Well, I'm afraid that in that casethe most the rest of you can hope for will be a charitable allotment. And that rather depends...'
He broke off, thinking how much better the small people of Clevely would have fared if the old Squire could have been persuaded to enclose, or by some means forced to enclose. Sir Charles's very horror of the results of enclosure would have led him to mitigate its evils as far as possible. Mr Turnbull's dealings with Richard had led him to conclude that the new Squire was pleasant, but not at all inclined to be sentimental.
'That depend,' Matt said, 'on what the owners say, you mean? And that was what I had in mind when I went to see Squire. Then I reckoned I'd put it to Miss Parsons too; and, as I just told you, she said she was against the whole thing and never had signed no paper. Yet there her name is, plain as print. So I thought I'd ask you what you made
out of it.'
'I think that it was genuine forgetfulness on her part. She is very forgetful. Or it might be that your request embarrassed her and she didn't want to promise you anything and at the same time didn't like to refuse point-blank, and so took refuge in ... well, an untruth. I've known women tell far worse lies than that merely to avoid a moment's unpleasantness; haven't you?'
'There is such a thing as forgery, as you should know,
sir,' Matt persisted.
'Indeed there is. But to forge a signature and then expose it in a public place under the very nose of the person whose signature it was supposed to be would be unusual, to say the least. And to whose profit would it be to commit forgery in this case? Nobody would gain anything...'
'Except somebody as wanted to enclose and knew the old lady was dead against it,' Matt said shrewdly.
'Now, now,' said the lawyer warningly, 'you mustn't start making such suggestions.'
'And mark you,' Matt pressed on, 'anybody that thought of it could count on the old ... lady never seeing it. She don't go about. The chance is she never would of known the paper was there, not 'less I went and told her. And I don't reckon there's many folks in Clevely know how Miss Parsons write. But that you do, sir, and so I reckoned I'd come to you.'
'Well, if it would ease your mind at all, I'm willing to look at it; but I'm sure my opinion will only confirm it. I visit Miss Parsons once a quarter. I'll come next week, on Tuesday.'
'Thass very good of you, sir; and I'm sorry to hev took up your time.'
But the getting together, the waiting to see whether Amos would speak for them, the visit to the Squire, the visit to Miss Parsons, the framing of the intention to visit the lawyer and fitting in that visit, had all taken time; Matt, like everybody else, had to devote some attention to making a living. So there was a Sunday between Matt's visit to Mr Turnbull and Mr Turnbull's visit to Clevely, and that Sunday was the third of the three demanded by the Act for the public display of the notice. There it had hung for the required time, no formal objection had been brought forward by anyone important enough to be considered, and by the day of the lawyer's visit the notice, with certain other relevant papers, was well on its way to London, where, upon receipt of it, Sir Thomas Blyborough, M.P., was ready to set the machine in motion.CHAPTER NINE
As soon as he had done his part towards promoting the enclosure of Clevely Richard was free to turn his attention to the next item of his programme of reversing his father's policy--the alteration of the Manor House itself.
Had she had the power, to oppose him Linda would have done so; as it was, at the first mention of his schemes she allowed herself to say, most indiscreetly, 'Oh, but it is so lovely as it is.' He made the predictable retort:
'Doubtless to you, my dear; but then your experience has been unfortunate.' He then spent a happy ten minutes pointing out the practical inconveniences and the aesthetic faults of the building she thought 'so lovely'.
Compared with Flocky Hall, Bridge Farm, the house where the Fullers lived and many other buildings in the parish, the greater portion of the Manor was in its infancy. Richard's grandfather had been in the middle of a building spree when the financial disaster of 1730 overtook him. He had added a Queen Anne facade, done away with many leaded casement windows, removed or concealed many heavy Tudor beams. Sir Charles, with his love of antique things, had often said, with truth, that he preferred Flocky Hall and had had a perennial joke with Mrs Abram Clopton--one day, when they both had time for such an upheaval, they would change houses.
Richard only compared his home with Greston Park, which Mr Montague, vastly enriched by his enclosure, had been able to demolish and rebuild in the Palladian style; he craved the wreaths and swags and medallions of the new plasterworrk made fashionable by the brothers Adam, the closed hearths with basket grates, the pillared entrance.
His own mother, during her brief reign, had succeeded in persuading her husband to have the dark panelling painted--the drawing-room white and gold, the dining-room a pale blue-green; and Linda, arriving forty years later, thought both rooms very beautiful, even though the unrenewed surface of the paint had faded and developed a myriad of cracks, fine as a cobweb. Richard said that the panelling must go, and both rooms be lengthened by fifteen feet. Fluted and carved marble fireplaces were ordered.
The prospect of steady work all through the winter for local labourers did a good deal to compensate for the loss of popularity among the poorer people which the move to enclose had cost the new Squire. It became evident, for instance, that Mrs Sam Jarvey at the inn no longer welcomed the discussions and grumbles about the proposed enclosure in which Matt Ashpole and the other Waste-dwellers spent their time. The work at the Manor brought a good deal of custom to her house, carpenters and bricklayers and plasterers earned good money and spent it recklessly. One day she spoke out, as she had told Sam she would if Matt and his lot kept on bellyaching about the Squire; she leaned over the bar and said clearly, 'Now that'll do, Matt Ashpole. This is a decent house, I would hev you to know, and I don't like your language.'
'I ain't using no language, Mrs Sam, that I ain't used these thutty years gone by. Hev you gone Methody or something?'
'No, I ain't. But I don't like to hear Sir Richard miscalled. He may not suit you, but he suit some all right.'
'Meaning he suit you! Well, you don't want to be shortsighted, missus! All that new trade'll go back where it come from. Us from the Waste'll still be here, and if we don't hev a spare ha'penny for ale you'll feel the draught the same as us, and you'll only hev the bloody Squire, what suit you so well, to thank.' Having made this reasonable statement, and seen it received without sympathy,with in fact a sour disapproval, Matt went on, 'What is more, if my language don't please your fancy, I'll find a place where thass welcome, along with my custom. Come on, chaps! My old Hoss and cart is still good for a jog into Nettleton.'
Once he had given his orders and made sure that the builder, a man called Farrow, understood them and was capable of carrying them out Richard suffered an attack of boredom. Having deliberately sought and gained the goodwill of his neighbours, he now found their company tedious in the extreme; the hunting and shooting with which they wiled away their country winters demanded an energy and fortitude towards cold weather which he did not possess, and the prospect of returning to his old haunts in London--this time with money in his pocket-- was irresistible.
He asked Linda whether she wished to accompany him. The question sent the clever little tightrope-walker in her mind out on another tricky little trip. There had been a time when it had been possible for her to get what she wanted by the simple expedient of expressing a wish for the opposite; but Richard had seen through that device and was apt now to say, 'Very well, so it shall be.' She knew what she wanted in this instance; all summer she had known that she could be very happy--by her modest standards--in Clevely if she could be free of Richard's company. She liked the house, and the village; she liked most of her neighbours. She had, after all, been born and reared in the country and had now, after long exile, come home. But to say outright that she wished to remain here would be to invite frustration. So she said, dully:
'For me it is a choice between two boredoms. In London you will, I imagine, spend most of your time in Soho Square, so I should be alone with nothing to do; and here I shall be alone with nothing to do.'
'That,' he said, 'is where you make your mistake, my pretty one. You will be here, alone except when Mrs Cobbold and Lady Fennel and others of the sisterhood
come to cheer your solitude by drinking tea with you, but you will have plenty to do. For one thing, you will see that the workmen carry out their orders. And if it is not asking too much, I wish you to keep an eye on Master Hadstock.'
'But I don't know anything about farming,' she said quickly.
'No. For a country girl you are singularly ignorant of the practical side. But then if you were as capable as Lady Fennel I should hardly have been obliged to engage a bailiff. I know nothing about farming either, but I know that Hadstock is as self-opinionated as he is competent; that is why I shall arrange for you to overlook him. It'll do him good to be obliged to consult with and report to you.'
Really, she thought, his ability to contrive discomfort for others had a smack of genius. In the three or four months since Hadstock had been engaged to supervise the agricultural side of the estate he and Richard had had several violent differences of opinion. Hadstock was always right, Richard wrong; and Richard knew it, but derived great pleasure from provoking the man just up to the verge of saying, 'Run your farms yourself then!' At that point Richard, knowing Hadstock's worth, would withdraw and, without actually making an apology, smooth over the difference with a false and mannered courtesy which again seemed to put Hadstock in the wrong. To arrange that this man, so knowledgeable and experienced, should consult with and report to a completely ignorant woman was the kind of plan which it delighted Richard to devise. It was on a level with the manner in which he had amused himself by causing domestic friction ever since their return. He had managed to combine a perpetual complaint and carping about the food and service with a campaign of charm directed to the servants, so that every complaint appeared to originate from her. He had thus, in a subtle manner, made use of the natural suspicion and reserve with which all the old retainers greeted the new regime. Naturally the new Squire could not be a patch on the old, now sanctified by death and a model of all virtues; so somebody had to be disliked, and since the Squire was so smiling and charming, his lady constantly making suggestions for improving this and that, in no time at all the dislike was concentrated upon her. 'Linda bore it with the wry resignation with which she had borne so many other things. And now Richard was off to London and she would be left alone in peace at Clevely; she could rehabilitate herself.
On the day of his departure Richard made an early start, for the autumn days were short. It was a mild November morning with a slight bluish fog shredding away as the sun rose. Linda stood by the side door which, during the alteration to the front of the house, was used as a main exit and entrance and watched the carriage disappear along the avenue. Her relief was so profound that she was almost ashamed of it. Deliberately she looked back, remembering the time when she had looked forward, with such eagerness, to his coming; had thought him so wonderful and looked upon his attentions to herself as nothing short of miraculous. Charmed, and dazzled and flattered, completely under the spell she had been, and oh, so humble! Now she was glad to see him go.
She walked round to the front of the house where the work was in progress and knew a shame even deeper. Not only was she glad to see Richard go; for one shocking moment she had entertained a wish that he'd gone for ever. Looking upon that scene of activity, now in its most destructive stage, she had thought for a moment how wonderful it would be if Richard were never coming back; then she could stop it all, tell them to close in the two pleasant rooms now so indecently exposed, replace the old panelling, put back the heavy old door with its fanlight and portico, restore as far as possible the portion of garden now trampled and dug up and ruined, and go away. No, not quite so abruptly. Before they went she would give them a job that would be a genuine improvement--they could put windows into some of the servants' bedrooms, those dim little warrens high under the roof at the back, some of which were lighted by two panes of glass
in the ceiling and provided with air by a grating high in the door. In the summer when, soon after her arrival, she had made a careful inspection of every corner of the house she had been aghast by the atmosphere in some of those apartments. Richard had pooh-poohed the suggestion that while the builders were on the premises some windows which would open could be made. 'Walk round the village some warm evening and see how many windows that will open are open,' he said. 'Cottage people dislike fresh air."
Still, to think about what she would do if she had control was surely the most fruitless way of spending time and energy. She set about making the most of her unusual
freedom.
In the afternoon she went for a walk through Layer Wood and was pleased to catch a glimpse of her two golden pheasants. They had been so tame by the time they arrived at Clevely that it had seemed safe to turn them loose in the grounds; there, for some weeks, they had remained, stalking on their delicate feet through the flowerbeds and over the lawns, and coming up, with friendly condescension, to take food from Linda's hand as they had learned to do on the ship. Then, at the beginning of October they had disappeared. There had been one or two light frosts, so it was not unreasonable, perhaps, for Richard to say lightly, 'I expect they died. After all, they're tropical birds; they could hardly be expected to weather an English winter.' He went on to say that he was himself feeling the cold severely and to ask whether this poor apology for a fire was really the best the house could provide.
Linda mourned the pheasants until someone from the village told Jim Jarvey, the lodgekeeper, who carried the news to the house, that 'a masterous gaudy old bird' had been seen in Layer Wood.
'They won't be there long,' said Richard. 'Yes, of course we could warn everybody not to shoot them, but what about poachers? My preserves are pretty sharply looked to, but Layer isn't all mine, and everybody isn't so strict.I'm afraid you've seen the last of them.'
However, they were there this afternoon and Linda called to them and flattered herself that they did hesitate for a moment before taking wing. Perhaps it was as well, she thought, that, since they had gone back to the wild they should have abandoned their former lameness completely. Safer so.
It was dusk when she reached home and full dark by the time she had taken off her outdoor clothes and settled down by the fire in the small sitting-room, with a tea-tray on a table beside her. The whole long peaceful evening stretched before her; and she was luxuriating in the thought when a servant came and asked when would it please her to see the bailiff--now, or later on ?
'I'll see him now,' Linda said, and laid aside her book. When the man entered she greeted him with a tentative smile, and saw with dismay that she had been right in thinking that he would resent these interviews. He returned her greeting civilly enough, bringing one big brown hand up to the lock of straw-coloured hair which fell over his brow, but his expression, which was surly, did not lighten.
'Sir Richard said, my lady, that you wished me to come and report to you every day.'
That was, of course, exactly how Richard would put it, making it seem as though the idea were hers. And she could not--in the circumstances--contradict. Also, she thought, with just a flash of spirit, suppose she had said so; would it have been so extraordinary? While Richard was away she was in charge and had a perfect right to demand that the bailiff report twice a day if she wished. But this bout of self-assertion lasted only a second; the rightness of her position was undermined by her knowledge that Richard had arranged these interviews as a form of penance for them both. Richard's malice poisoned everything.
'Well, you see,' she said placatingly, 'I shall be sending letters to my husband regularly, and what you tell me will give me something to write about. Please sit down.'
He was not placated, and too late she realised that to mention the matter of letter-writing was a tactless mistake; it sounded like a spy reporting.
'Thank you, no, my lady. I'm in my working clothes. That was one thing I wanted to ask you. Do you wish me to come when we knock off work, or later on, when I'm cleaned? I've taken the worst off my boots, but I'm still a bit doubtful whether they're fit to be in the same room with a lady.'
'That depends entirely upon which you prefer. To come back would mean more walking, wouldn't it?' She seemed to remember hearing Richard say that Hadstock, offered the choice between lodging at the smithy and a cottage in Berry Lane, had chosen the latter. 'I always make a round after supper,' Hadstock said. 'In that case then, if you prefer it, look in later on. But now please sit down. Do you drink tea? I know many men despise it.'
'I like it, but I won't have any now, thank you all the same. I shall be making my own later on.' 'Do you live alone?" 'I live alone.' 'In Berry Lane, isn't it?' 'Yes, my lady."
The brief, unyielding replies might, she thought, be put down to awe of her--but she had heard from Richard some verbatim accounts of things Hadstock had said to him during their differences; and his manner might also be the result of shyness in the presence of a female. Yet nothing in his posture or expression indicated shyness; he sat at ease, not fidgeting, and looked straight at her with a cool, unabashed look. His eyes were greyish-blue, light against the weather-beaten skin, and numerous little lines radiated from their outer corners. He was defying her to put the interview on an easier footing, and with a sigh Linda abandoned the attempt and asked the question which she had been deferring. What was there to tell about the day's work? As though he had memorised a distasteful lesson, hereeled off the day's doings. Because of her ignorance hardly any of the things he mentioned evoked any mental image in her mind, and when he had finished all she could think to say was:
'You seem to have been very busy.'
'I am glad that you are satisfied, my lady.' he said, and rose to his feet. 'Have you any orders to give me about tomorrow?'
'Orders?'
'Sir Richard said I was to report to you each evening and take my orders from you, my lady.'
'I think he meant only the event of his having sent some special orders from London, Hadstock. He knows that I know nothing about farming. And I am sure that he knows also that you know exactly what to do.' 'Then I'll wish you good night, my lady.' 'Good night, Hadstock.'
Except that the succeeding interviews took place later in the evening, that Linda never repeated her gesture of offering refreshment and that Hadstock had changed out of his working clothes, that first meeting between them set the pattern.
Then, when Richard had been gone a little more than a fortnight, something happened.
At mid-morning on a bleak, windy day Farrow, the builder in charge, was shown into Linda's room. He seemed to be in a state of excitement.
'We've come on something we hadn't reckoned for, my lady,' he said. 'There's a hole and something beyond it just where the new foundations are being dug. Job Rams-den stood there digging and then he disappeared. He ain't hurt. But to find a hole just where the foundations was to go'll put out all our plans. I thought you should know.' 'I'll come and look at it,' Linda said. 'Wrap up warm, my lady. It's raw out.' The trench which was being dug for the new front wall of the house ran across the space where, forty years earlier, Richard's mother had planned her 'purple' garden, the fashionable craze of the year after her marriage. Linda
picked her way through the uprooted and dying lilacs and wistaria and perennials which had gone on yielding their purple blooms unheeded year after year. At a point where the new trench was nearing its limit its neat, narrow line gave way to a rounded depression with a hole in its centre. Close to it a dazed-looking man was wiping soil from his eyes and spitting.
'It's probably an old well,' Linda said to Farrow, as they neared the spot.
'Begging your pardon, no, my lady. There's stairs, and Job said something about an arch. More like a cellar.'
They stood by the hole. The reason for the collapse was plain to see in the ragged edges of ancient rotted timbers which projected from the soil. Down into the hole ran the flight of shallow stairs, smothered with earth and stones and fragments of sponge-like wood.
"Tain't no cellar, ma'am--m'lady, I mean,' said the man who had fallen. 'So far as I could see in the gloom, it looked more like a church arch, all carved like.'
'Ah,' said Farrow, 'some of them old monks' doings. They was all about here, back in the old times when they started the sheep up at Flocky.'
Linda stooped and took up a branch of one of the murdered lilac trees--the buds which should have been next year's leaves and flowers were already there, with their promise--and with it scratched away the soil and stones from the uppermost stair. White and smooth, the marble which the Roman galleys had brought to this barbarian, marbleless colony gleamed up at her. Of the Romans, of the galleys, she knew nothing; but she recognised marble. No cellar entry, this.
'Get a lantern,' she said. Then, turning to Job, she asked:
'Are you really unhurt?'
'A bit shook up, m'lady. Thought I was a gonner for a minute, I did, earth opening under me feet that way. Then I hit the stairs and went down on me ... like youngsters go downstairs, m'lady. And then what with the archand a great space beyond, all dark. Aye, that shook me up."
'And yelled, he did, as though Old Scrat had got hold of him I' Farrow said. But he spoke absently. Job's accident and the hole and the stairs and the arch and whatever lax beyond were of no moment to him; he was working out what the find meant in terms of constructional difficulty.
The man who had gone for the lantern arrived, panting.
Farrow took it.
'Best let me go first, my lady. Something else might give way.'
He descended the stairs, his boots crunching on the soil
and stones and fragments of wood. He disappeared under
the flat canopy where the unbroken timbers still supported
the three-feet depth of root-threaded soil and those above
waited and listened. After an interval they heard his feet
on the hidden lower stairs, and then he came into view
again. He looked awed and did not speak until Linda
asked impatiently, 'Well, what is it?'
'A church, I reckon; but sich a one as I never see... all pillars, my lady, and statchers, and the floor all coloured.' He blinked and seemed to shake himself. "Thass safe enough. I know what happened; they shored over the entrance, whoever they was--and they knew their job, I'll say that for them. But where the timbers ended they sopped up the damp, like, and when Job stood just on their ends they give way. Further in them pillars take the weight anyway. Thass safe enough, but I ain't sure...' He looked at Linda dubiously. Cursory as his inspection had been in the dim lanternlight, some of the 'statchers' had shocked him. But of course the 'gentry' had different notions. His sister, who before her marriage had been parlourmaid at Nettleton New House, had told him about some of the things they regarded as ornamental-- negresses without a stitch to their name, holding candles; little china boys naked as frogs, supporting fruit dishes. 'What aren't you sure about, Farrow?' Linda asked. 'How this is going to work out with the building,' Farrow said, almost truthfully, for part of his mind was grappling with that problem.
'Oh yes, of course. And I shall have to write to Sir Richard... but now I must see it.'
That evening she was in the middle of writing to Richard when Hadstock arrived to act his part in the daily ritual. Laying down her pen, she said, 'Oh, Hadstock, have you heard the news?'
'About the church found underground? Yes, my lady. I have heard.'
'I am just writing to Sir Richard about it; and I find that I have forgotten--or rather that I did not notice-- many details. I wonder, Hadstock, would you, instead of saying all those same things over again, come with me while I take another look?'
'But of course. Certainly, my lady.' And behind those simple words were a statement and a question. You give orders, I take them. Why ask me?
'I went down this morning with Farrow,' Linda said, answering the question. 'He hurried me round. There are some statues which, I am sure, he found embarrassing. But I have lived in India ... and I assure you that these are, by comparison, most respectable.'
She checked herself. What on earth had provoked her to speak so confidentially to Hadstock, who might, for all she knew, share Farrow's views and prejudices? She started again.
'I could have asked Walters, or one of the Jarveys, or Daniel to come with me--but, to tell you the truth, all the servants seem a little ... scared of it. They seem to think that anything so old and underground must be ... sinister.'
And why should Hadstock think otherwise? He was a servant too.
With the first real feeling he had ever allowed any word of his to reveal, Hadstock said:
'I should regard it as a favour to be allowed to look round, my lady. As a matter of fact I intended to ask yourpermission to do so before I went home tonight. I have my lantern.'
'We'll go then,' she said.
As they walked towards the place, with the lanternlight casting a yellow circle about their feet, she said with cautious primness:
'You mentioned an underground church. It isn't quite that. The statues are more of a... classical nature.'
'Or possibly pre-Reformation English,' Hadstock said, as though speaking to himself.
'Would they use marble so much then?' Linda asked. 'This place is all marble--or at least I think so.'
'Indeed, my lady?' Holding the lantern in one hand, Hadstock with the other rolled back the piece of sailcloth with which Farrow had covered the hole. Then he descended five or six stairs and turned, offering Linda his hand.
'With only one lantern,' he said, as though to excuse this familiarity, 'one of us must walk in the dark, so I'll light my own steps and guide you down.' 'I meant to count this morning. I will now,' Linda said. There were twenty-four stairs. Between them and the arched entrance was a square of tessellated pavement, thinly covered with soil and debris brought down by Job when he fell. Then there was the arch and, within, the pillared space, three times as long as it was wide, and lined with figures which Linda had modestly described as 'classical'.
Hadstock seemed not to share Farrow's embarrassment; holding the lantern high, he studied each one and moved on. Neither he nor Linda spoke. In fact within a few moments of entering the place she would have found speech difficult, for she was forced to press her teeth together to prevent them chattering. There was a deathly chill in the place; a chill of which she had not been aware on her earlier visit, when, in contrast with the atmosphere above ground, the subterranean space had seemed warm.
There was also--and she became increasingly aware of it as their progress brought them to the further end--a sense
of somebody watching. She attributed this to the statuary. All the figures, even those in the most unusual postures, were extremely lifelike, and as Hadstock caused the light to fall upon one it was rather like being introduced to a person; then the light moved on, darkness engulfed the figure, but it was still there, and watchful. Before their slow progress brought them back to the arched entrance Linda had decided that, as in so many other things, the simple untutored instinct of the servants had been right; there was something frightening about the place, and perhaps Mrs Hart, who when invited to go down and view the wonders had said, 'No, thank you! To my mind anything that's once bin buried is best left buried,' had spoken more truly than she knew.
Outside on the square of pavement Hadstock stopped after Linda had stepped on to the stairs.
'Just a minute, my lady, if you don't mind,' he said, and with his foot cleared a space and looked down, moving the lantern backwards and forward.
'What is it?' Linda asked, her teeth chattering.
'Look,' he said.
Pale stone-coloured squares, and brown ones and some of bright greenish blue, and some of pink and black and terracotta colour were arranged to make a picture--a huge black bull being slaughtered by a slim pale youth wearing a blue loincloth.
'You're cold,' Hadstock said, and held the lantern to light the stairs ahead.
In the open the November night seemed warm as June, and the starlight more than ordinarily friendly. Linda drew a deep steadying breath and said:
'Well, what did you think of it? It isn't a church, is it?'
'Not as we understand it. A place of worship, yes.'
'Heathen?'
'Pre-Christian.' He looked down at the stairway, thoughtfully. 'You should warn Farrow, I think, my lady, that he may stumble across another entrance.' 'Oh. What makes you think so?' 'Bulls were sacrificed there,' Hadstock said, 'and you'dnever get a bull, dead or alive, down by those stairs, they're not wide enough.'
Linda allowed herself the shudder she had suppressed.
'I felt something horrid about it. At least tonight I did. I didn't notice it this morning, nor the cold.'
'No. He was a sun-god.'
'Who was?'
'Mithras,' Hadstock said.
Strangely enough, it was not until she had returned to her letter to Richard that it struck Linda as being remarkable that the bailiff should seem so well informed. She had actually written the words 'Hadstock thinks that the place is ..." when she realised that Richard would neither welcome nor believe Hadstock's theories and would, at the same time, be surprised to learn that he had any and that she gave them any credence. At that point she was surprised herself; and, looking back, realised another thing--Hadstock, giving his views and theories about the mysterious underground place, had spoken with more assurance, more ease of manner than usual.
She scored out the last words she had written and, taking a fresh sheet of paper, wrote a hasty note to Mr Avery, the rector, telling him of the find and inviting him to inspect it and give his opinion. Mr Avery, whose antiquarian interests were genuine, though curbed by his slothfulness, was eager to visit any remains already excavated which appeared to bear out his theories about the Roman occupation of Clevely. He was at the Manor soon after breakfast; and Linda, finishing her letter to Richard at midday, was able to say, 'Mr Avery has seen the place and thinks it was, long ago in Roman times, a temple of Mithras.'
She conveyed to Farrow Hadstock's warning about another entrance, and after that digging was done in a gingerly manner since Job Ramsden's experience might at any moment be repeated. Farrow went down and gave the place a more thorough inspection and did find, at the
end farthest from the stairway, a great stone slab. 'But do that mark t'other doorway,' he said, 'thass nowt to do with us; that lay right under the house. I only wish this 'un did too.' The delay--for nothing could be done until Squire had had his letter and replied to it--irked Farrow sadly; the days were so short, and getting shorter.
Amos also was worrying about the shortening of the daylight hours. Every day now he set off for Bridge Farm in the morning twilight and laboured away till dinnertime; but the work was slow, and growing slower, because each successive layer of timber had to be lifted higher and was more difficult to hold in place singlehanded while the nails were driven in. He had ingeniously dug a ladder into the ground at one corner so that its staves held the far end of the planks steady while he nailed his end, and that helped; but the staves and the planks were not of equal measure, and sometimes the planks slipped and sometimes the ladder shifted. Several times Amos had been obliged to call upon Shipton to come to his aid, and that had resulted in a really nasty scene with Mrs Shipton.
Mrs Shipton, who never had any time or desire to gossip with anybody and who went to chapel, not to church, had remained ignorant of the notice on the church door until long after it had been taken down. But at the back of the house at Bridge Farm there stood three fine walnut trees and in years when the crop was heavy there were more nuts than Shipton could spare time to collect and market. Shipton, for some reason which no one could name, was always muddled and behind with his ordinary farm work. But collecting walnuts--helped by a few of the youngsters from the Waste--and marketing them in the small quantities which made most profit was just Matt Ashpole's job. So when the nuts were ripe he went along, paid so much a tree into Mrs Shipton's hand, and while his small minions toiled had time to talk about enclosure. And there came that awful moment when Mrs Shipton said:
'Abel, something's going on that ain't right. Why worn't your name on that there paper? You're an owner; why should you be overlooked? Matt Ashpole say you o'n't get your rights when the Waste's cut up I'
She had the whole story out of him in no time, and she was just as furious as he feared she would be.
Next time Amos loped along to the kitchen door and asked could she tell him where Abel was because he wanted him just to come and lend a hand Mrs Shipton made short work of him.
"Chapel I am, allust hev been and allust shall be,' she said fiercely; 'but there's chapel and chapel, I'd hev you to know. Thass one thing to live righteous and another to live daft I You're daft, Amos Greenway, and you've made Abel daft. That there little bit of meadow was where I allust had my duck pen; that you must hev. Now you must hev Shipton wasting his time. The chapel at Nettleton allust hev been good enough--them that grudge walking a few miles to their worship ain't worth anything to the Lord, nor to me, nor to you. You get along with your rubbish and leave Abel be. If I catch him wasting another minute on that wooden hutch of yours I'll burn it down. I mean that, Amos Greenway.'
Amos believed her. He'd suspected all along that every evidence of Shipton's lukewarmness could be traced to his wife. Nevertheless he started to read her a sermon about putting God and God's business first. Mrs Shipton cut that short.
'We ain't in chapel now,' she said truthfully, and went in and slammed the kitchen door.
So Amos toiled on alone except on Saturdays, when a few earnest souls came along to help him; and as the walls of the little chapel grew, so did the labour of adding to them.
CHAPTER TEN
Linda's letter arrived at Richard's London apartments less than an hour after he had left for Angelina's on what his servant guessed would be an all-night session, so he dutifully ran along to Soho Square with it and it was handed to Richard at the card table. He glanced at it, recognised Linda's hand and laid it aside. Some hours later, when play ended and he was about to rise from the table--in a bad mood, for he had lost heavily--he would have left it lying on the consol table on to which he had tossed it but for the intervention of a man against whom he had been playing.
'Sir, you are forgetting your letter.'
Richard glared at him. He was the man whose luck had been as consistently good as his own had been bad. He was also--which obscurely added to his crime--a stranger to Angelina's. Now that he came to think of it, Richard remembered that as they sat down one of the other players had made an introduction, but lack of interest had prevented him from noticing the name sufficiently to retain it. A dim-looking fellow with something vaguely clerical about him, either in his face or his clothing; and the face looked as though it had been carved from suet, with two bits of coal stuck in for eyes ... but his luck had been quite phenomenal.
Richard reached for the letter, remarking as he did so:
'You had devilish good luck this evening.'
'I am usually lucky at cards,' the man admitted. 'That is why I play so seldom. One becomes unpopular; also-- and this may surprise you--consistently good luckeventually becomes as tedious as the other kind. But I am preventing you from reading your letter.'
He turned away from Richard and stood sipping the brandy which he had ordered when play ended.
Richard--though he was careful not to become too much intoxicated when at the tables--was no longer clear-headed enough to absorb much of the meaning of Linda's letter. What it conveyed to him was succinctly expressed when a man, on his way out, paused and said casually, 'You'll be here tomorrow, Shelmadine?'
'No. I shall have to go to Suffolk. It's an infernal nuisance. I've some work being done and they've blundered on to something that puts out the plans.'
The other man said, with interest, 'A priest-hole? We came across one when we made our alterations. Cunningly hidden too----'
'Underground, my wife says. Something to do with Mithras, whoever he may be.'
'Never heard of him. Well, get back as soon as you can. Suffolk in November! Ugh!'
'Ugh, indeed,' Richard said. He folded the letter and looked round for the waiter. The stranger had swung round and now said:
'Did I hear you make mention of Mithras?' 'Possibly,' said Richard, watching the waiter's passage across the room.
'If you don't mind my asking--in what connection?' 'Perhaps you would like to read the letter!' Impervious to sarcasm, the man said eagerly: 'Indeed I should. Thank you.'
Richard tossed it to him and then turned his back and strolled over to another table, where play had ceased and last drinks were being ordered. Dropping into a chair, he said to his neighbour:
'Do you know that fellow?' He indicated the man who stood reading the letter.
'Good God, yes! That's Mundford.' He reached out and touched another man on the elbow. 'I say, Errington, Mundford's turned up again. Over there, look.'
'So it is. Funny I hadn't noticed him.'
'He was probably invisible last time you looked!' There was a spurt of laughter, hearty enough, but with just a hint of uneasiness in it, like the laughter with which schoolboys greet a joke from a master of whom they are intimidated.
'Don't draw his attention,' Mr Errington said. 'I owe
the brute seventy pounds!'
'His luck tonight was unbelievable,' Richard said.
'Oh. Have you been playing with him? Stripped you, eh? He invariably wins. They say the Devil engaged to stand by his elbow and see that the cards fell right for
him.'
'Not to mention endowing him with perpetual youth.'
There was another spurt of the same laughter.
'Well, he was one of Francis Dashwood's merry Medmenham boys,' said Errington. 'And the Hell Fire Club closed down in ... let me think ...61 or '62; and he wasn't young then.'
'He certainly wasn't,' said a youngish man on the other side of the table. 'I know,' he explained, 'because my Uncle Borthwick fagged for him at Eton and Uncle B. is seventy-four. Had his birthday last week and, like the damned ass I am, I forgot to offer my felicitations.'
'Alas for your expectations,' Errington said. 'You can't expectate if you don't felicitate. But to return to Mundford, the sight of whom makes me expectorate--he must be hard on eighty; and yet he doesn't look it, does
he?'
'So perhaps the rumours are right. He always wins; he does not grow old....'
'He is looking this way. In that embalmed brain the memory of seventy pounds is stirring! I'll wish you good night, gentlemen, fellow gamblers and scoundrels all.'
But it was at Richard that the coal-chip eyes were looking; and as the group around the table hastily broke up, Mundford approached and held out the letter.
'Thank you for allowing me to read it, sir. Most interesting. You do realise, don't you, that if what your localcleric suspects is true, you have there a property of incalculable value.'
Value ... a hole in the ground? Ah, but there was something else----
'Oh, all those marble figures, eh?' asked Richard, remembering.
'They doubtless would have some value, antique relics, works of art,' said Mundford smoothly. 'It was of the site itself I was thinking. If it is indeed a Mithraic temple-- as sounds possible--I myself would give you two thousand pounds for the use of it... for one evening.'
Momentarily speechless, Richard gaped at him.
'For the use of it; a little secrecy and possibly some small collaboration on your part. And believe me, Sir Richard, the sum mentioned was not just an attempt to strike a bargain; it was a surety of my sincere interest.'
'Well, if you're interested to that extent you'd better come with me tomorrow and take a look at it.'
'How very kind of you, I am most infinitely obliged to you. There is nothing in the world that I would rather do.'
His voice was calm, but something so avid shone on his face that Richard gave voice to words of unusual sincerity.
'I wish to God,' he said, 'that there was anything in the world that I really wanted to do.'
As he spoke the limitless boredom moved in him like a sickness; the boredom that had driven him from one excess to another, which had set in early and grown great as his interests narrowed and his emotions cooled and one diversion after another failed him.
Mundford said, almost as though speaking to himself, 'There are always new worlds to explore,' and passed on to ask about their place of meeting, their mode of travel on the morrow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Linda was surprised at the interest which Richard evinced in the underground place; he had shown none at all in the ruins of a temple reputed to be two thousand years old, nor in a deserted city said to be even older than that, nor in an aqueduct which had last served its purpose in Akbar's time, all of which had been the object of visits from other white people in India. She, of course, had joined the expeditions and stood and stared and exercised her sense of wonder to the full.
His attitude towards this antiquity she attributed to Mr Mundford and reflected that there was novelty also in Richard's relationship with this man. Never before had she known him to be on such terms with anyone. Acquaintances he had in plenty, but no friends, and she had often hated herself for taking advantage of her knowledge that one way to amuse Richard was to decry or make mock of his acquaintances. This Mr Mundford was different; no word of criticism must be used concerning him, as she quickly learned. Towards him Richard had something of the reverence which a young schoolboy has for one older, stronger and more popular.
It was all very strange and perhaps a little comic, but although she disliked Mr Mundford and found him physically repellent she could not regret Richard's friendship with him. It seemed to have eased something which had always been provoking Richard to be unpleasant, to take pleasure in being unpleasant. One might think it strange that friendship with such an ugly, dull-seeming little man should oil the rasping wheels of their marriage, but it seemed to do so; Richard was much kinder to her than he had been for longer than she could remember and actually said that she had behaved sensibly over the find. 'Many women would have thought only of getting the house refronted and would have had the hole filled in at once.'
And that made her think of Hadstock, who, on the evening after their visit to the place, had abandoned reserve and formality long enough to say that if he had his way he would have the opening closed over at once. And she had said, 'I feel the same.' Their relationship, at that moment advanced a step.
For two days after their arrival Richard and Mr Mundford went up and down the marble stairs and into and out of the house. They said little about the find in Linda's presence, but sat up late, talking. On the third day, much to Farrow's relief and joy, Richard gave orders that the hole was to be closed. At that point the foundations were to be deepened and strengthened for safety's sake; then the building would go on as usual and no one would ever guess what lay just by the long sash window-- one of three--in the new dining-room.
No one questioned Richard's action. 'A queer old place, full of statchers, all of 'em naked and some of 'em nasty,' as Farrow described it, had been found on a gentleman's private property; the gentleman had come from London to look at the find and had sensibly decided not to let it interfere with his building plans. The days of publicity lay far ahead in the future and every one of the few people most nearly concerned would have laughed to be told that if, one hundred and fifty years later, one fragment of one of the statues should come to light it would receive nation-wide attention. Mr Avery, the rector, was heard mildly to lament that a friend of his at Cambridge had not been able to view the find; but even he realised that nothing must stand in the way of Sir Richard's new dining-room. To the workmen Job's sudden disappearance into the earth and his lucky escape were far more matter for wonder and talk than the discovery to which the fall had led.
Richard and his new friend went back to London and in a few days it was all forgotten.
Hadstock resumed his evening visits. During the first of these Linda asked the question which had lain in her mind since their inspection of the temple.
'You were the first person to identify that place,' she said suddenly, 'How did you know?'
'I guessed.'
'Anyone could have guessed. I could have guessed-- but I shouldn't have been right. You were. You must have had something to go upon.'
'I read a little, my lady.'
Although, in its wording the sentence might have been an opening towards conversation, its tone had a finality and Linda asked no more questions. She began, however, to entertain a curiosity about Hadstock, who lived alone, who held himself apart from everyone, and who 'read a little' and was informed upon matters about which one would have expected a farm bailiff to be ignorant.
Once, in a short November afternoon, the last of the month, she walked along Berry Lane and stood and stared at the cottage as though it could afford some clue. It shared its occupant's secretiveness; its two small windows--one up, one down--were curtained with some ugly drab material, and the tiny garden was untilled, thickly buried under the leaf-fall of a solitary, age-twisted apple tree. When she had passed and could see, looking back, the space behind the cottage, she had a view of a linen line slung between two posts. Limp in the windless air hung two of Hadstock's shirts--his working blue, and the white one into which he changed in the evening-- three handkerchiefs, and two pairs of socks. Did he do everything for himself, she wondered, or did a village woman work for him? The idea of Hadstock washing, perhaps even ironing, his clothes was amusing, and yet pathetic.
She might never have known any more about the man than she did on that November afternoon had it not been for the accident which took place during the second week in December.
During his brief visit Richard had ordered, or had told Hadstock to order, a new bull. The two men who had delivered it, each holding a pole hooked into the ring through its nose, had warned Hadstock of its savage disposition. A stout leather collar had been slipped over its head and attached by a chain to one of the solid posts by the side of the manger, but even thus shackled it had, in a few days, managed to intimidate anyone who attempted to feed it. Hadstock had undertaken the job himself '... until the creature has settled'. The stockman, in his first entrances, had always gone armed with a pitchfork; Hadstock, believing this to be provocative, had relied upon the bull-pole, slipping the hook through the ring as the great head turned upon his entry and, by pressing on the pole, warding the creature off while he emptied the food into the manger within reach.
The days were now so short that the evening feeding had to be done by lanternlight; and on the second Thursday in December Hadstock entered the bull-stall, a skep of food embraced by his left arm, the lantern and the bull-pole held in his right hand. He set the lantern down and in the murky light advanced, slipped the hook, as he thought, into the ring, pressed, felt some resistance and edged himself towards the manger. But the hook had missed the ring and was pressing against the bull's nose. It moved its head slightly, the hook fell away, and there was Hadstock, close to the manger. He realised instantly what had happened and without releasing his hold on the skep--a stout wicker basket capable of holding a bushel--leaped away. The skep saved his life, deflecting the full force of the impact of the animal's attack. One horn struck the upper part of his arm, tearing it to the bone, and as he fell backwards he hit his head on the edge of the manger. But the fall carried him out of reach of further attack and the bull's supper fell back too and was scattered on the floor. So there was Hadstock
lying senseless and the bull, held by the chain, prevented from doing murder and also from enjoying his supper. Very soon the bull began to lament in a loud voice the folly of his recent action; he could smell his food, but he could not reach it.
'Di'n't Mr 'Adstock feed that there owd devil?' Tim Palmer asked Boy Jarvey as, having finished their rounds, they were on their way home.
'I see him go off with the skep. Ain't sin him since.'
"E don't generally make that row time 'e's eating,' Tim said, leaving it to Boy's wit to know that he was referring to the bull, not the bailiff "Old your lantern out of the way a minnit, Boy. Ah, I thought so--there's a light in the beast's stall.'
'He's talking to him,' said Boy with that deep irony of which only the very simple are capable. 'Soothing, like he towd me time he see me fending him off with a pitchfork. Come on, Tim, thass gonna freeze cruel. Less get along.'
'I don't like the sound of yon,' said Tim, who was not without experience. 'You don't reckon the owd devil got Mr 'Adstock down, do you?'
'Serve him right if he did,' Boy said; but the callousness was superficial, for he added immediately, 'Mebbe we'd best take a look.' There was, also at a superficial level, curiosity, the chance of drama, and below that, deeply rooted, the old loyalty, man against beast.
They entered the bull-pen cautiously and pulled Hadstock out by the legs, Tim Palmer, even at that moment, sparing attention and breath to address the bull sardonically, 'Thass right, you go on a-blaring, you
owd------. Reckon anybody'll feed you arter this?' Then
he said, "E's 'urt bad, Boy. Run along to the 'ouse and tell them.'
'But of course he must be brought in here,' Linda said. 'And somebody must go for the doctor.' So Hadstock was carried into the room where Mr Mundford had slept during his brief visit and somebody rode, helterskelter,for the doctor who lived in Baildon and came somewhat unwillingly, since he, like Boy Jarvey, expected frost and had, by careful questioning, made quite sure that neither Sir Richard nor his lady was in need of his attentions. And when, much later, he arrived, there was nothing that he could do, because Lady Shelmadine had already bandaged the gash in the man's arm, and when he suggested bleeding the patient in the hope of restoring him to consciousness she said, 'Oh, but he has bled a great deal already----'
The doctor was comforted, however, by presently being set down to an excellent game pie and as much port wine and brandy as he could take, and a little later he had the satisfaction of watching the victim of the accident return to his senses--or at least show signs of life.
They stood, the doctor flushed and expansive, Linda pale and tense, by the foot of the bed when Hadstock's eyelids flickered, and he said, in a voice which surprised the doctor, who had, after all, only the working clothes and some gasped-out words about a bailiff whom a bull had gored to go upon:
'So there you are. I knew that somewhere in the Elysian fields ... it could not be otherwise, or how could Heaven be?' The blurred gaze focused, sharpened, came to rest on the doctor's flushed face; and then, very slowly but surely, the curtain of reserve dropped again. 'I was wrong,' Hadstock said: 'I should have taken a pitchfork.'
Next day, though ghastly pale and obviously in pain, Hadstock suggested going home to his cottage.
'But you can't. You couldn't look after yourself one-handed.'
'Then I'll hire an old crone.'
'But why do you want to go home? Aren't you comfortable? Is there anything I can do? Books? I have several--some quite new; let me fetch ..."
'I wish to go home.' Hadstock said, in a manner only just short of rude and ungrateful.
'I forbid it. You must stay at least until the doctor has been again and we are sure that the wound is not inflamed.
Then, if you must, and I am sure that some able-bodied woman is there to look after you, I will allow you to
go-'
It was obvious, from the way he set his mouth, that it
was with an effort of will that he prevented himself from speaking words of anger. They looked sternly at one another. Then Linda said, with dignity:
'There are plenty of servants; you give no trouble. And if you wish to be alone you can have solitude here quite as well as in Berry Lane. Alfred will look after you; and if you wish for anything just tell him.'
'Now you're angry,' Hadstock said, surprising her. 'Don't be angry. I'm not .ungrateful, I assure you. I know you mean kindly, but you don't ... It's just that, for a sick man, home is the only place.'
'Then just for a day or two you must regard this as
your home.'
She walked to the fireplace and laid on two logs and then went out of the room. She did not enter it again that day, nor the next, but contented herself by ordering light, nourishing invalidish meals, telling Alfred to tell Hadstock that she had made kind inquiries about his health and sending him two of her newest and most entertaining books.
On Sunday morning her caution was justified. Alfred reported that Mr Hadstock was out of his mind, mumbling and muttering and carrying on very strange. Later in the day the doctor, fetched from Baildon in a hurry, had his moment of sweet self-justification. He was able to say, 'I expected this', and to do his bleeding after all, audibly hoping that it was not too late.
The bleeding, and certain nostrums which he administered, silenced Hadstock for a while; but presently he began his mumbling and muttering and carrying on again, and Linda, having listened to him for a while, took the sensible precaution of sending Alfred away for a well-earned rest. It would never do to have Alfred exercising his simple mind on the subject of what Hadstock was talking about. A good deal of it was wellout of his range--Shakespeare's sonnets, so much quoted, for example: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely ...', 'Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire?' That was all innocuous enough; but Hadstock, wildly quoting, wildly commentated too. 'The hours and times,' he said--'shall it be the time when I'm all in a muck, and sweaty and stinking, or later on when I am, if nothing else, clean? Just as you wish, Hadstock, of course it is nothing to me. Clean or dirty, all one! She'll offer you tea, however much you stink. Oh, most gracious. "I know many men despise it"--just for a minute setting you alongside the rest of them: a man, like the others. I will not take the Borgia draught. Lower the fence and let the tiger in? Halt by the shop window and stare, wet-lipped with longing? Not II'
It went on and on.
There was fear in the house. Everybody knew someone, or someone's close relative, who had been gored by a bull and died. Even though he had had the benefit of a doctor's attentions the bailiff would go the way of all the rest. There was a special venom about a bull's horns, as about a toad's tongue, a serpent's tooth and a cat's claw. Accidents went in threes, and death was catching. As the year moved towards its dark nadir everyone was content, indeed deeply glad, to leave it to Linda to sit in the sickroom, to thrust spoonfuls of black syrup into the sunken mouth, to lay wet cloths on the burning brow and listen to the interminable ravings.
Hadstock was sane again and on the mend when Richard arrived, unannounced, bringing Mr Mundford to keep Christmas with him. Of the accident he said only that it was entirely Hadstock's fault, he had been careless and oversure of himself. And he expressed surprise that the bailiff had been accommodated in the guest-room.
'With three good rooms out of use on account of the alterations, and Christmas upon us, I should have thought even you would have had better sense.'
'For a time he was very ill, and I was helping to look after him; it was convenient for me to have him in this part of the house.'
'I wonder you did not think of my room; that is nearer, and has a communicating door I'
There was nothing, Linda knew, behind that remark save a jeering sarcasm; their own disastrous physical relationship, for which he held her entirely to blame, had convinced him that she was cold and without sexual attraction, and he was incapable of jealousy where she was concerned. Nevertheless, she was obliged to turn away quickly to hide the dark wave of colour which ran upwards from her throat to her hair.
'I'll see that the room is cleared and cleaned immediately. It shall be ready for Mr Mundford in less than an hour,' she said.
Hadstock was already up and dressed, the coat sleeve taut over the bandaged arm. She had seen very little of him since he returned to his senses with the fever's abatement, confining her visits to brief inquiries made at the open door and leaving the care of him to Alfred. Now, in order to regain a footing in safe everyday terrain once more, she said briskly:
'I'm afraid it won't be a very cheerful Christmas for you, Hadstock, You must allow me to send you up some festive fare.'
'I've already arranged with old Widow Hayward of the Waste to come and do things for me, my lady. And now, before I go, I must thank you for all the care, and the attention, and the kindness. Very few ladies would have ...'
'Oh, I did very little,' Linda said hurriedly. 'Alfred
bore the brunt of it.'
Hadstock looked into her face as he said, 'Alfred has been most conscientious.' Then, shifting his gaze, he went on, 'But I did ask him whether I talked much nonsense, and he said he hardly knew, as you sat with me, my lady, most of that time. A man at such a moment has no guard on his tongue ... and if I used rough language or--or saidanything to offend you I do most humbly beg your pardon and ask your forgiveness.'
'You cannot claim credit or take blame for the bulk of what you said, Hadstock,' Linda said lightly. 'You quoted from Shakespeare most of the time; so fluently and extensively that I began to wonder whether at some time you had been on the stage.'
The years of enforced falsity with Richard had not been wasted, she reflected. The words had exactly the right ring and the hint of curiosity gave the final touch of authenticity.
'Why, no,' Hadstock said, relief plain on his face. 'I've not done that. But I did once have a schoolmaster who would assign long passages of Shakespeare to be learned by heart as punishment. It seemed barbarous at the time, and, later on, blasphemous--but if it gives a man something to babble about when he's in delirium it has served its turn.'
The Christmas season passed more pleasantly than she had anticipated. Richard donned his affable face again. Invitations which she had not known whether to accept or refuse, not knowing whether Richard would be home or not, were hastily accepted; other invitations as hastily issued. There was the usual Christmas feast for the villagers and the distribution of the 'Christmas dole'. She was saved by these activities, and by Mr Mundford's soothing presence, from the trivial persecutions which Richard's company ordinarily involved. The two men were now on Christian-name terms and seemed to have endless things to talk about; often they sat up far into the night. Frequently they were joined by Mr Montague, who had been introduced to Mr Mundford at one of the gatherings and who seemed to be as unaccountably charmed by him as Richard was.
., The subject of enclosure seemed to have receded to the background of Richard's mind and was only mentioned once when someone asked how things were going. Richard replied carelessly that everything had gone without a
hitch and that the commissioners were expected to begin their work of assigning claims early in the New Year.
For Damask, too, this was a pleasant Christmas. Last year she had been a humble receiver of 'doles', this year she was a giver. When the carol-singers, with their lanterns, came and hoarsely chanted the traditional songs at the door of the Dower House, it was very pleasant to open the door and see their faces as she revealed herself in her velvet dress and the little fur wrap which she had put round her shoulders before opening the door on the cold night. Most of them were Waste dwellers; she knew their names, they knew her, although Amos's prejudices and then her own Methodist ways had precluded any real familiarity. There had always been a slight gulf, and often, in her childhood, she seemed to be on the wrong side. Now, thanks to the miracle, the gulf was a great chasm, and she was very much on the right side of it. She distributed pennies and oranges and mince-pies with a regal air. The youngest of Matt Ashpole's brood, a boy of twelve who had inherited his father's shrewd little eyes as well as a full measure of his cheekiness, had fully made up his mind that when his turn came he was going to say 'Thank you, your ladyship,' just to show her. But when his pennies and orange and mince-pie were handed to him his courage deserted him suddenly and he said, 'Thank you, miss', as meekly as the others.
On Christmas Eve Damask, carrying a large basket, walked across to the cottage on the edge of the Waste. She had made regular visits ever since the one when she had found Amos alone and he had 'remarked upon' her changed appearance. Since then she had, so far as possible, timed her visits to fit in with his absences. He was still working on the chapel each morning--or at least each morning until so much neglected work had accumulated that he was obliged to stay at home and deal with it. Twice during that late autumn and early winter he had been at home when she paid her visit, and she had discovered that he was one person who would not be overawed, or intimidated, or stared down. He scolded her about her appearance, rebuked her roundly for ever taking a job where she could not get leave to attend chapel at least once a month, and inquired sharply about the gifts of tea and sugar and cheese and bacon which she brought to Julie. Did Miss Parsons know the stuff had been brought out of the house? Were they goods regarded as part of her wages, or what? She directed upon Amos the stare which had disconcerted Sir Richard Shelmadine, quelled the Saunders, silenced Matt Ashpole; and Amos stared back, grave, concerned, reproachful. On another visit, reaching the cottage door and hearing within the sound of Amos's hammer, she had turned back, giving as her reason--though honest enough to know that it was, in reality, not the reason--the excuse that with Amos there Julie's pleasure in the visits was marred. When she found her mother alone the visits were delightful. Julie gloated over the dresses, admired the hair-dress, was delighted that Damask's hands had grown smooth and white. She accepted the gifts with a pathetic humility and never questioned Damask's right to bestow them. They would brew tea and drink it together and everything was cosy and pleasant. Early in December, when Bennett slipped on an ice-lacquered path and hurt his knee and had to have the doctor's attentions, Damask spoke to the doctor about Julie's rheumatism, and next time he passed--on his way to visit the bailiff at the Manor --he left at the Dower House two large bottles of mixture which, he assured Damask, had been most efficacious in the relief of cases similar to the one about which she had consulted him. One was a medicine; one a general tonic. The medicine was a sweep syrup, heavily loaded with opium, and Julie did not exaggerate when she said that it relieved her aches and pains; the tonic, which smelt strongly of cloves, had a base of cheap brandy, and she was speaking the truth when she said it made her feel a great deal better. Every time she took a dose of either mixture, brewed a cup of tea, fried a slice of bacon or nibbled a piece of cheese Julie was happily amazed at the
way things had turned out. Damask was a good girl, and she had been rewarded; far better off, she was, than that slatternly Sally Ashpole, with a baby on her hands, a husband back in his old wild drinking ways, and the whole family with notice to quit at Lady Day next March and at their wits' end where to go. It was, Julie reflected with fustian philosophy, very queer how things that looked bad turned out for the best after all--and the other way about, come to that!
So on Christmas Eve she welcomed Damask with joy and accepted all the gifts in the basket with expressions of pleasure, and Damask, walking back to Dower House, was well pleased with herself.
Just before he left for London again Richard said, 'Oh, by the way, a box will arrive. Have it put, just as it is, in Alec's room--they're some things he wants us to store for him.' The box arrived a few days later; a heavy black iron-bound trunk, furnished with solid locks. It was carried up as Richard had ordered and she thought no more about it. She had a new interest in life.
Three or four days after Richard's departure, when Hadstock, still holding one arm in stiff immobility, came for his evening interview, he said:
'Do you like dogs, my lady?'
'Oh yes, very much.'
'But not in the house, perhaps?"
She was embarrassed, hesitated, and then decided to be frank; after all, there was nothing unnatural about disliking dogs and she need not go into any detail.
'I do,' she said, 'but Sir Richard objects to them in the
house.'
She remembered, with distaste, that time when, the enchantment over, she had tried to free herself of slavery; Richard was set to subject her then against her will and had found, in her pet spaniel, a tool ready to hand. Twice she had given the dog away, twice it had found its way home--once from a considerable distance. She had thenpaid somebody to shoot it, and had never since had any pet, unless the golden pheasants could be so regarded.
'I rather thought,' Hadstock said, 'that a dog'd be company for you on your walks and evenings when you're alone here. And I had the chance of getting hold of something rather unusual--but of course if Sir Richard ...'
'What is it? What kind?'
'Would you care to look at it, my lady?' He went to the door, opened it and spoke, and in walked, with immense dignity, a dog that seemed, to Linda's astonished eyes, as large as a donkey; it was pure white all over and had a thick glossy pelt.
'How perfectly beautiful,' Linda said as the animal paused just inside the room and took stock of its new surroundings. At the sound of her voice it looked at her and then moved over to Hadstock and laid its head for a moment against his hand.
'He's used to me now. I've had him since Christmas Eve. I had thought ... for Christmas, my lady; but perhaps in the circumstances it was just as well."
'Oh, but I should love to have him. He's so beautiful and would be such company. But it is... I mean dogs get fond of you and then it is rather difficult to find them a place where they can be happy when someone who doesn't care for them ... Oh, you know what I mean, Hadstock.'
A glimmer of understanding, more profound than was justified by anything she had said, showed for a moment on Hadstock's face, and then, impassive again, he said:
'Well, he knows me now, and I'll see him every evening. I could always take him home with me if that seemed desirable.'
'Oh, on those terms I could have him. That would be such pleasure. Thank you, Hadstock, thank you. Now do please sit down and tell me all about him, his name and everything.'
Of the dog's breed Hadstock spoke freely. His grandparents were foreign dogs, of a kind originally bred in
the Pyrenees to protect sheep from wolves; their courage had been proved time and time again. The name of this one was Simon; he was eight months old and wouldn't grow any larger, though he would thicken out somewhat. How and where he had come by him Hadstock seemed to slur over--someone he knew, he said, had imported two of the dogs and hoped to make the breed popular in
England----
'But in that case ... I mean anything new is always so very expensive,' Linda said.
'He didn't cost me anything, my lady. And even if he had I should still be very deeply in your debt.'
'Oh, nonsense,' Linda said. 'I am now very deeply in yours--for the kind thought as well as the dog. Will he come to me, do you think? Simon. Simon.'
'Go to her,' Hadstock said, speaking to the dog as though it were a person. 'You belong there now.'
A faint, far echo of something that same voice had said about belonging, something that the man did not know he had ever said, stirred in Linda's mind. She felt the colour in her face again and was glad that at that moment the dog left Hadstock's side and walked towards her. She bent over him until she was composed enough to go through the silly evening ritual.
After that the dog went with her everywhere and slept on a rug beside her bed. His allegiance was soon entirely transferred to her, and though he greeted Hadstock in a friendly fashion he would not leave Linda's side even when Hadstock entered.
He was by her side one morning as she came out of her own room and saw that the door of Mr Mundford's-- ordinarily closed--was open and that a maid was within it, giving it the 'turn out' to which even empty guestrooms are subjected in well-regulated households. Linda remembered that she had something to say to the maid, so she went into the room and began, 'Oh, Annie, I wanted to tell you ...' She broke off and sniffed. 'What a peculiar smell. Is it the polish you are using?'The girl, who had been polishing the floor, had risen to her feet, still holding the cloth.
'No, my lady. It's wearing off now--the smell, I mean. It was something the gentleman used. It used to be awful in the mornings when he was here.'
'Open the window.' The girl turned to do so and let
out a startled exclamation. Linda turned to her and,
following the direction of the gaze, saw that Simon was
advancing towards the trunk. His attitude was strange, he
crouched down so that his belly fur almost brushed the
carpet as he advanced; his ears were flat to his head, his
tail low. Within a foot of the trunk he paused and began
to growl, far back in his throat; then, as Linda and the
maid watched he made a different sound, a shrill kind of
yelp, twirled about and dashed from the room.
Seeing the girl's pallor, Linda said as steadily as she could, 'I suppose he has never seen a trunk before. Let me see ... we were going to open the window, weren't we?' The girl fumbled and Linda went to help her, noticing with shame that her own hands were not quite steady. 'There,' she said, 'that will freshen the air.'
Simon was in the corridor waiting for her, lifting his
paws, thrashing his tail and trying to lick her hand as
though he had committed an offence and were making an
apology. It was merely fanciful, Linda told herself as
they went side by side down the wide shallow stairway,
to think that he had sensed something sinister about Mr
Mundford's trunk and had committed what must, in his
sheepdog eyes, be the worst crime--deserted in the face
of danger. Merely fanciful. (But on her way to bed that
night she paused by the door of the guest-room, opened
it, reached inside for the key and locked the door on the
outside.)
The moment Linda had gone down the corridor in one direction, the maid emerged from the room and bolted in the other, towards the back stairs. And the next time that room was dusted and polished, two maids, both eyeing the trunk and competing with one another in suggesting what gruesome objects were contained therein,
did the least possible amount of work there in the least possible time.
The year turned and began the slow climb upwards to summer. A few snowdrops, strangely immaculate, pushed their way through the black soil at the edges of the shrubberies; a few yellow aconites stood stiffly in their little frilled ruffs at midday--but most noticeable of all was the change in the quality of the afternoon light. Sometimes, even when snow lay on the ground, the sky, just before sunset, would take on a luminous look, palely green and full of promise. It was winter still, but spring was on the way.
On one such afternoon, a Saturday, a thin young man rode into Clevely, hitched his horse outside the church gate, vanished into the shade of the yew trees and after a few minutes emerged again and rode away. The body of the old Squire lay in quiet corruption under the great stone tombstone, and his ghost did nothing to forestall or hinder or punish the young man in his action; which was strange. For it had happened; enclosure had come. The new notice stated that the necessary Act for the enclosure of the parish had been passed and that all those who had claim to the Waste and had not already done so should furnish a clear and correct statement of those rights within one week, either to Sir Richard Shelmadine's bailiff or to the office of Mr Turnbull, attorney, in Baildon. It looked official but harmless enough, and even Matt Ashpole, when it had been read slowly and distinctly twice over to him, said:
'Well, that ain't so bad as I feared. That don't say nowt about mucky little owd bits of paper. That say a correct and clear claim. Well, all of us hev claims that are correct and Amos shall see that they're set down clear. Of course we'll take Matt Juby's owd paper and Bert Sadler's, just to show the sort of thing we all had, no doubt, till some silly young bitch used 'em as hair curlers; and for the rest Amos shall write out clear correct statements. I'll give him the gist of it and he'll put it proper-like.'Amos, duly approached, said, 'Well, it's like this here, Matt. You don't go to chapel and I don't care about the Waste; so if I bother with your business, you'll hev to bother with mine. I got the chapel walls so high now that I can't manage any longer single-handed, and with the days so short and the roads so bad I can't get anybody to labour with me regular. S'pose I say I'll draw up your paper, will you come and help me with the last three layers of timber? I don't aim to go much higher than that, and anyway I ain't got much wood left. Next thing I'll hev to reckon with is the roof....'
'Now you come right down off that there roof of yours,' Matt said. 'I do wish you'd get it into your skull, Amos, that you ain't doing us no mortal favour. You live on the Waste, same as us; so do Shad's new donkey that I got for him--best bargain I ever struck. Now when you want leather fetched from Baildon, who cart it? Shad do. You picture for yourself when there ain't no Waste, nor no donkey. Nor my owd Hoss. I did reckon I'd got him provided for, come what might, but I was wrong!' Matt's voice turned sour. The ejectment of the Fullers had been a heavy blow to him. 'None the less, Amos, if you'll scribe out a decent paper for us, all right, I'll come and give you a hand with your tabernacle, though I'm church myself,' said Matt, who never went near the church, but did occasionally send his children so that they might qualify for the parson's 'dole'.
After much argument and much crossing-out and insertion of phrases a fair copy of the statement was produced; a strange combination of pomposity and naivety.
'To Sir Richard Shelmadine, Bart.; His Majesty's House of Commons; the Commissioners for the enclosing of Clevely parish and all else whom it may concern--We the undersigned be the dwellers on the Waste in the said parish and this be our case. From time immemorial we have lived on the Waste and made our living thereby. Saving Matt Juby and Bert Sadler we don't have papers to show; theirs are enclosed herewith as a sample of the lot. We beg leave of your honours to say that in the eyes
of God and by right of custom we have claim for some provision to be made for us when the Waste shall be divided. We think your honours would not wish to have on your conscience the misery and hardship that would come upon us if we be driven off the land where we support ourselves as our fathers and forefathers did in years gone by. Trusting your honours to consider our rights and throwing ourselves upon your justice and mercy, we be,
sirs, your humble and obedient servants------'
'Ah,' Matt said judicially, when Amos read out the final draft, 'that read very well.' He savoured the businesslike sound of 'sample of the lot', his own contribution. 'Now you sign, proper fashion, Amos, and if you'll be so kind as to write my name for me I'll make shift to copy it somehow; then Dicky Hayward can put his--he can write a bit. Amos, maybe we should have made special
mention of Dicky, him losing his arm and all----'
'It would be hard to work it in now,' Amos said. He was tired of the whole business.
'It could go in after "divided". It could read on "specially in the case of Dicky Hayward what give his arm for King and Country"--that'd read very well, Amos.'
'I don't think it'd be wise to make any special cases. Once you start where would you stop? You could go on and mention Shad with his donkey to provide for and old Mrs Hayward who must hev somewhere to hang out her wash. Best leave it as 'tis, to my mind.'
There was still quite a lot to do. Amos had to write out Matt's name to be copied; and for the others, less ambitious, he must write the name on the paper itself: 'Kate Hayward, her mark; Matt Juby, his mark'--quite a number of names; then the marks must be made.
It was Wednesday by the time the paper was ready, the two legal claims folded within, with whole enclosed in a clean sheet, sealed with a blob of cobbler's wax and addressed to Mr Turnbull.
'I'll journey into Baildon tomorrow to deliver it all safe and sound,' Matt said. It was he who had insisted that the paper should go to Mr Turnbull, not to Mr Hadstock. Mr Hadstock was Squire's man; the lawyer, he thought, was impartial.
'And then on Friday,' Amos said, 'you'll come and give me a hand with the chapel.'
'Oh--the chapel,' Matt said. 'I ain't earned nowt this week yet, Amos, galloping to and fro on this job. Gimme Friday to knock up a crust; don't, I'll be too weak and feeble to heave for you. Thass all right for you--I see that there mawther of yours carting a bloody great basket of goodies for you every week. Not that I blame or grudge, mark you. I only wish one of mine had done as well for herself. Look, I'll give you a hand Satterday.'
A few minutes later Amos said to Julie, 'Next time Damask bring anything across the road, whether I'm here or not, you tell her to take it straight back. I never did feel easy about it, and I ain't heving Matt Ashpole saying we take charity. I always hev earned what we need, and so long as God gives me health and strength so I will. We don't need no luxuries!'
One could only hope, Julie thought, behind the meek mask which she presented to Amos, that Damask would choose her time for visiting carefully. It was such an easement to have a cup of tea whenever one felt like it.
Mr Turnbull admitted that he had a sentimental side; so he permitted himself to sigh a little as he opened the package and spread out the paper which bore the mark of several different dirty thumbs and fingers, and which seemed to have been in close contact with onions, leather, human sweat and horse manure. It had, the old lawyer thought, another odour too: the sad smell of simple man's invincible trust and hope for justice and mercy-- in this case all misplaced and doomed to disappointment, Mr Turnbull thought as he laid aside the modern document and turned to the enclosed, aged ones. They, at least, did constitute valid claims; Matt Juby and Bert Sadler would probably receive an acre or two apiece to compensate them for their lost rights. As for the rest... And really this was no way for a man of law to be
thinking, he reflected briskly; rights were rights, legal documents must be preserved and ready to produce when called for, or where would lawyers be in the scheme of
things?
Nevertheless the phrase 'in the eyes of God and by right of custom' had an oddly haunting quality.
The three commissioners--the same ones who had surveyed and redistributed the parish of Greston--set up their headquarters at Baildon, at the Hawk in Hand, a comfortable little hostelry within reasonable reach of the acres which were to be rattled into fragments and then painstakingly reassembled after the manner of a jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately the eldest member of the group, a Mr Sawston, was assigned the largest and best-furnished bedchamber, which faced east, and on the first night of his stay the wind blew, unhindered, straight across from Russia, across the flat plains of northern Europe, across the ruffled North Sea, in at the estuary where Bywater stood and on until it came to the old, ill-fitting casement window of the Hawk in Hand at Baildon. Mr Sawston arose next morning with a very stiff neck which made him irritable and impatient. He and his colleagues were receiving two guineas a day apiece, which was a considerable remuneration in a period when a farm-labourer earned seven shillings for a week's hard toil and a country clergyman was 'passing rich' with fifty pounds a year. But Mr Sawston, moving about, with his head a little on one side, in an aura of pungent embrocation, was in no state to linger over the job, fond as he was of money and useful as he found it. His one idea was to get back to his comfortable chambers in Chancery Lane. Under his guidance the commission carved up Clevely with the despatch of a butcher, with a shop full of customers, jointing a new carcass.
There came a day--it was in late February, a day of alternating sunshine and brief bitter squalls of snow-- when a list of lands assigned, claims admitted and expenses to be met was exposed on the church door, accompanied by a rough map drawn up by the surveyor who had worked with the commissioners.
On that day, late in the afternoon, Steve Fuller walked into the kitchen which had once been a parlour and dropped from his shoulders the bit of damp-spattered sacking which had been his protection against the snow. He sat down by the table, rested his elbows on it and dropped his haggard face into his hands which seemed so disproportionately large for his body.
'If only I'd waited,' he groaned. 'If only I'd had the sense to wait. There it is, all in the one piece. "Tenancy at present known as 'Fuller's', property of Sir Richard Shelmadine, Bart." All in one piece, just what I allust longed for, and now to let! 'Tain't to be borne.'
Mrs Fuller crossed the room and laid her red puffy hand on his bowed shoulder. She was no longer quite the cheerful buxom creature from whom Sir Charles had accepted the offering of cake and home-brewed wine. There were more lines in her face and more grey hairs among the curls. But her spirit was unimpaired.
'Don't you fret, Steve. Don't you fret, my dear. We'll manage. I give Annie Jackson good warning and she've been on the look-out for a little shop for me; and she've found one, in Friargate. You give me just a year or two there, living close, and we'll hev the money to buy us an acre or two. Danny'll get a job. There's a room right up in the roof, we'll hev a lodger; Sally can help there, and with the cooking. We ain't beat yet, Steve, not by a long chalk. Come on, don't you fret. I got a nice dumpling just ready.'
'I couldn't eat a crumb,' Fuller said. 'I doubt if I'll ever eat anything again. To hev it happen just like I allust wanted it, and me under notice to quit; and all on account of my own damn hastiness. I could cut off my hand what hammered the nails in that there rack and that there manger, so I could.'
Sally, who had been nursing her baby, now laid him in the old black hand-carved cradle which had rocked
seven generations of Fullers.
'Once,' she said, fastening her bodice, 'I had a job at the Hawk in Hand. I dessay I could get it back if it come to a pinch.'
Fuller took no notice and Mrs Fuller hesitated before she spoke. Danny's marriage had been a dreadful shock and disappointment to her; and to her simple nature things would have seemed easier if she could wholeheartedly have disliked the girl. If she had done so Mrs Fuller would have given her what she obscurely called 'Bell Tinker'. When Danny had come home, back last summer, and sheepishly announced that he was going to marry Sally Ashpole and that she was going to have a baby in the autumn and that was why, Mrs Fuller had said, 'Sally Ashpole, dirty little slut and careless too. I'll give her Bell Tinker.' But there was something rather disarming about the girl's good nature, and she had a sense of humour; also the baby was a boy--though nothing like Danny to look at. Mrs Fuller disapproved of her daughter-in-law, but she could not wholly dislike her. Disapproval, however, came uppermost now as she said:
'I've no doubt you mean well enough, but that wouldn't do. We've allust been a respectable family, and don't you forget it.'
'And a hell of a lot of good we've done ourselves,' Fuller said bitterly. 'Even that damned surveyor fellow, when he went round, said my land was the best cultivated of the lot. So because I worked my guts out manuring and coddling that mucky old top end of Old Tom some other chap is going to hire the neat little holding I should hev had. 'S enough to break your mind just to think on.'
'We'll manage,' Mrs Fuller said again.
"We'll manage,' Sally echoed.
After a moment Fuller stood up, rising slowly and heavily like an old man.
'Damn beasts gotta be fed, come what may.' he said, and went out into the yard.
'Well, that's the worst yet,' Mrs Fuller said, lifting the saucepan lid and peeping at the dumpling. 'Things'll mend now. You and me'll drive into Baildon as soon as there come a decent day, Sally, and take a look at this place my cousin found me. This dumpling's ready to dish. He'll fare better when he's got a good bite inside him.'
In the byre that had once been the kitchen Fuller stood still, staring with sick eyes at the rack which had worked his ruin. Slowly, with the movements of a sleepwalker, he reached out and took up a halter and set about the only thing that was left for him to do in this world.
Mrs Fuller's spirit was equal to this last challenge. If it could be managed, Steve was going to have proper burial, in consecrated soil, and with all the rites. She managed very well. As soon as the limp body had been laid in its bed Sally was sent through the snow, which had settled in for the night, to tell the rector that Fuller had taken a chill and that Mrs Fuller didn't much like the way he was wheezing and that Fuller himself was nervous and thought he was going to die. They'd all be much obliged if the rector would call and talk to him, not tonight, tomorrow. This message, carried from the back door to the cosy study where the rector was brooding over the commissioners' decisions and drinking port wine, distressed him very much. He disliked all thought of illness and of death. He seized upon the one cheerful note in the appeal, 'not tonight, tomorrow', and sent back,a reply that he would make a visit tomorrow if necessary, but that he sincerely hoped--and that was true--that Fuller would be much better by morning. Morning, with snow still falling, brought another message to say that Fuller was dead.
Mrs Fuller dug into the 'egg and butter' money, which she had been saving towards setting up her little shop, and gave Steve a funeral which set a standard for all time in the six parishes and became a byword; seventy, eighty years later people in an attempt to convey a description of splendour would say, 'Grand as Fuller's funeral.'
Having managed that, Mrs Fuller retired from management. She talked no more of the little shop and made no
alternative plans.
'You'll hev to fend for you and yours now, Danny,' she said. 'If you want me I'll come with you; if not, I can allust go and live with Annie Jackson.'
The responsibility thus thrust upon him, combined with the shock of coming home and finding his father dead, and the remorse of having been absent--drinking at the village inn--at a moment when his presence might have prevented a tragedy, sobered Danny entirely. He'd thought that the worst thing of all had happened to him when he found himself married to a girl whose brief attraction for him had waned--he was morally certain that the baby who bore his name was not of his getting --and he'd tried for half a year to escape the reality of his life, leaving everything but his share of the manual work to his father and mother. Now decision and management must be shouldered.
'Father--and he was the best farmer in six parishes-- couldn't find land to hire,' he said, 'so I doubt if it's much use my trying; but maybe I could get a job like Mr Had-stock up at the Manor if I tried. And of course you'll come with us, Mother. You can mind the baby and Sally can get a job too. We'll manage.'
Nobody noticed that he had used the words so often on Mrs Fuller's lips; but in the speaking of them Danny entered into his manhood.
Fuller was not the only casualty of the enclosure bill. Old Clem Bowyer, he who had refused to sign, saying that he was too old for changes, received by word of mouth the news of the assignment to him of a neat packet of land, and of the share which he must pay towards the expenses of the commissioners and the fencing. He had the details repeated to him three times so that they were fixed in his mind and then went home and said to his daughter, who kept house for him: 'I fare sorta tired, Martha. Reckon I'll go to bed early.' She was a good daughter; she took him a brick, hot from the oven, wrapped in flannel to warm his feet anda great pewter mug full of hot black-currant tea to warm his innards, and Clem turned his face to the wall and slept very well. But he did not attempt to rise in the morning. As soon as he woke he thought about all the changes and the expenses and he knew he could not face them.
'I fare sorta tired, Martha,' he said when his daughter came to see why he was not stirring. 'Reckon I'll bide where I be today.'
He never left his bed again and in ten days was dead.
Ricky Wellman, who had also refused to sign, saying that when he was against a thing he was against it, changed his views completely when he discovered that, despite his refusal to demand enclosure, enclosure had been thrust upon ,him and that his thirty acres--now all in one piece--included two upon which Fuller had toiled so earnestly. 'I were a rare silly owd fool,' he confessed, 'trying to stand in me own light like I did.' He then took a stout knife and pried up one of the bricks near the hearth in the kitchen floor and lifted from its hiding-place the leather bag which held his life-savings. One or two of the coins were already rarities, guineas first minted in the reign of Charles II, hoarded away by Grandfather Wellman. Ricky counted them, the coins clumsily lifted and set out by his great gnarled fingers. There was enough to pay his share of expenses, do the fencing and leave plenty over; he could go in for newfangled things like turnips and clover and winter-feeding if he had a mind. Twenty years dropped away with his prejudices.
At the Bridge Farm the enclosure had a result which was logical, but quite shocking, as logical things often are in this illogical world.
In a manner ominously calm, Mrs Shipton said, 'Well, there you are, Abel Shipton. If you'd given your mind to your business and not messed away your farm and my money you'd now hev a bit of the Waste to add to it. Now Miss Parsons, being the owner, get the share of the
Waste what go with this farm, and she's old and she'll die and we'll end with notice to quit same as the Fullers. Thass what chapel done for you, my man, and thass what you've done for me; and there's no getting away from it.'
There was no argument either, and Shipton attempted none. He remembered the text, 'Blessed art thou when men shall revile you ... for My sake', and in silence obeyed the Biblical precept of turning the other cheek.
Next morning, all in the snow, Mrs Shipton, having fed her fowls, tramped on to where the new chapel stood, the walls reared to about the height of ten feet, as Amos and Matt had left them when the timber gave out. She looked at it a long time, remembering the duck-pen which had stood on the site; remembering the hours which Abel had wasted helping Amos Greenway to dig the foundations and begin the walls; remembering the hours--and the devoted attention--which Abel had given to the other chapel at Nettleton.
Mrs Shipton was at a dangerous age for women; the hot flush which, despite the cold, scalded her neck and face, the feeling of dizziness and nausea were no new things to her. Ordinarily she drank a cup of cold water straight from the well and sat down for a few minutes, but today she did not attempt any palliative; she stood there nursing her grudge and growing more flushed and more dizzy and more nauseated as she stared at the little chapel. Eventually she turned away and walked unsteadily into the house; and there, in the kitchen, Shipton presently found her. Not meeting her eye, he said sheepishly:
'I'm taking them pigs into market. Is there anything you wish I should fetch home?'
'No, thank you. Unless you know some place where they sell gumption.' said Mrs Shipton curtly.
Still turning the other cheek, still thinking 'blessed are the meek', Shipton turned away and went off to market. As soon as he was safely away Mrs Shipton took a really nice dry faggot and the tar bucket and the bellows from the hook where they hung by the kitchen stove; shecarried them away and then she came back and shovelled out of the stove a dustpan full of growing red embers.
Mrs Shipton had more affinity with the Old Testament than with the New.
While all these events were taking place in various parts of Clevely, consternation and dismay reigned in the Waste. Of its dozen or so families only three were provided for, or even recognised as having existence. Matt Juby and Bert Sadler were granted half an acre apiece, 'To be enclosed and fenced about from that portion of the said Waste immediately contiguous to the dwellings of the said copy-holders, Matt Juby and Bert Sadler,' whatever that might mean; and Amos Greenway, cobbler, was awarded twenty acres--no reason given. The others, like the forty decent families at Greston, faced real destitution.
Human nature, consciously or unconsciously, demands a scapegoat who can bear the blame for its woes; and the scapegoat must be handy, within reach and sight. Sir Richard Shelmadine and the Parliament men were in London, the commissioners dispersed, Mr Turnbull in Baildon. The obvious scapegoat was Amos Greenway, who had written out the paper and now had twenty acres awarded him. What had he added to or subtracted from that writing? Who could know?
Ill-feeling, though running high, took no outward form for two days; partly because a kind of paralysis had overtaken the Waste, but chiefly because the selection and persecution of the scapegoat demands the services of a high priest, and Matt Ashpole, obviously the choice for that role, was not sober enough to stand up at any moment during those forty-eight hours. So Amos went, unmolested, down to Bridge Farm and viewed the smouldering remains of his chapel, and came home and knelt down by his work-bench and addressed his God in words which, if the Deity had any memory at all, must have reminded Him sharply of another faithful servant named Job.
While Amos wrestled with his God, and Matt Ashpole lolled in drunken stupor, too far gone to notice that his lurcher bitch was whelping again, and the other Waste-dwellers gathered in little groups and bewailed their fate, nobody noticed that Dicky Hayward, the one-armed ex-soldier, had disappeared; and when, more than a week later, news drifted in from Nettleton, which was on the coach road, that the coach from London had been held up and robbed on the other side of Colchester, nobody connected that with Dicky Hayward or spared any sympathy for the passengers, who had--so said the rumour--been robbed of watches, jewellery and cash worth ninety pounds. Everybody was interested, and envious, when, a few days after that, Dicky reappeared, stolid-looking as usual, and said that he had got himself a job as footman with one of the officers of his old regiment who had now retired and was off to settle in America. His old mother was going with him; and that news did make a stir. In future the Waste-dwellers, when they starved to death, would have no one to lay them out; nor, if miraculously they should survive and go on breeding, would they have the services of a midwife. But they thought Dicky lucky and told him so, and he gave no sign of what he knew-- that he had not been lucky, merely enterprising and desperate.
At the end of the second day after the posting of the enclosure results Matt Ashpole was sober--for the simple reason that his supply of liquor was exhausted and he had no money to replenish it. He noticed the puppies for the first time and said, 'Pore owd Ripper, had to manage all on your own. Done well too--though how we're gonna feed the little buggers this time beats me.' He then took his old gun and said in quite another voice, 'Now I'm gonna talk to Amos.'
By the time he arrived at the cobbler's door almost every male dweller on the Waste was behind him; even Matt Juby and Bert Sadler thought it wise to join the group. On the fringe a number of little boys hovered, and two girls. There were no women in the crowd; Mrs Ash-pole had spoken for the whole of her logical sex when she said, 'S'pose you do for Amos; what'll that get you? You'll swing and his twenty acres'll drop back into Squire's hand as like as not.' Naturally Matt took no notice of that.
They came to the cobbler's door. Amos was not working--he had done no work since the previous day when he had seen the ruins of his chapel--he was reading his Bible, searching for comfort and understanding; and since he read in the kitchen it had been impossible for Julie to make herself a cup of tea all that day. When the knocking came on the door some slight hope stirred in her; the knocker, whoever he was, might hold Amos engaged just long enough for her to make a brew ... the kettle was boiling.
Amos went to the door.
'So there you are, you Methody twister,' Matt said at once. 'We're come to hear how you account for writing yourself into twenty acres while the rest of us get nowt.'
'Ah' and 'Thass right' said the crowd.
'I can't account for it,' Amos said, bringing his mind back to mundane matters. 'No, there's no accounting for that, so far as I can see.' No accounting for anything in a world where it could happen that one day, a man received enough wealth to ensure that the chapel would be roofed, and on the next news that the chapel was burned down. 'I can't account for it at all,' Amos said again.
No impartial observer could have failed to see that, so far from being elated by his unaccountable award, Amos looked ill and sick at heart; all the harsh lines in his face were graved deeper, a patchy pallor lay around his mouth and eyes, and his lids were red with sleeplessness. But there was no impartial observer in that crowd, and all anyone saw was the man who had, not very willingly, drawn up the paper from which they had gained nothing and he twenty acres for which he now said he could not account.
'You was the one said let Seizer hev what was Seizer's,
ain't you?' Matt said accusingly. 'And beyond doubt thass
what you wrote, you------! And got all us bloody iggerunt
lot to sign it. They give you twenty acres for your services,
you crooked sod, you! I see it all as clear as------day I' He
believed that he did. He'd taken no solid food during his two-day drinking bout and now, half light-headed with fasting, was in a state to believe anything.
When he had left his hovel, carrying the gun, he had no intention of using it; he meant to frighten Amos, to scare him thoroughly and force some kind of explanation from him. Now he had found his own explanation, and there stood the rogue, entirely unrepentant, not attempting any explanation and not looking in the least scared. 'If you reckon you're gonna gloat over your ill-got gains, Amos Greenway, while the rest of us starve on the parish, you're mistook. I'm gonna shoot you for the damned treacherous swine you are!'
Even then he might not have done it had not Amos stood there so exasperatingly calm. As it was, he swung the old gun into position and pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a muffled kind of explosion, a strong smell of gunpowder and a cloud of blue smoke which hovered for a moment between the two men and then drifted outwards over the heads of the crowd and inwards, across the workroom, to the kitchen door from which Julie, her tea forgotten, was fearfully peeping. As the smoke cleared Amos could see Matt again, standing there holding out his scorched and bleeding hands, and the twisted broken thing which had been his gun lying at his feet.
'You'd best come inside,' Amos said, reaching out an arm. 'You, Bert, take his other side; the rest of you go home.'
They helped Matt on to the bench by the work-table and Amos called Julie to bring water and something for a bandage. Matt then showed his mettle. White-lipped, he said:
'We don't want no water, Amos; gunpowder's the best cleaner. I've put a pinch and sparked it off on many a wound afore now. Jest you tie me up. And you, Bert, getout and find me a drink of some sort, somewhere, for the love of God.'
'Julie'll make you a cup of tea,' Amos said. Julie did; she also, remembering Matts several kindnesses to her in the past, produced the big black bottle of the medicine which was so effective for easing her pains, and gave him, since he was a man, a double dose, which soon did its merciful work. Then the four drank tea together, even Amos drinking the strong, heavily sugared beverage gladly; and presently Bert took Matt home. It was generally agreed that nothing but a miracle had saved Amos and Matt and those nearest to them from death, mutilation or blindness, and the jubilation was in no way mitigated by thoughts about quick death being preferable to slow death by starvation, which seemed to be the fate in store for many Waste-dwellers just then.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As soon as his hands were partially healed and he felt capable of carrying on the campaign Matt attempted to talk to the Squire again; but Richard, wary perhaps of such attempts, stayed in London the whole of that spring. So Matt drove into Baildon again and was again kindly received and listened to by Mr Turnbull, who said, yes, he had received the papers and, yes, he had noted what they said, and then mentioned that he had taken on himself to advise Sir Richard and the commissioners to make some allotment, however small, to the Waste-dwellers.
'I could only advise, you know, because all that side of the business was nothing at all to do with me; and because, except for the two who had papers, none of you had even the shadow of a legal claim. But I think I explained that before.'
'Seem to me they took your advice, sir, and made some allotment--twenty acres; but all to one man, Amos Green way, the cobbler. Now why should that be? Twenty acres divided out among us all would hev done us well and satisfied everybody. Why all to one and nowt for the rest of us?'
'That is a question quite beyond my power to answer. Greenway has no claim that I know of, and the land granted him came from Sir Richard's personal allotment of the Waste. Sir Richard may have had some private reason--I understand that Greenway is a very industrious workman.'
'So are we all in our way; and we are dependent on the Waste, which Amos ain't. He could cobble shoes anywhere.''Yes, I admit that it seems very hard. But I have to tell you frankly that you have no redress, no hope of redress. The distribution was done legally and justly, and you would be best advised to accept it and to look out for some means of making a livelihood when the Waste is fenced, as it will be very soon.'
A more discouraging interview could hardly be imagined, and Matt had to stiffen his courage to attempt the next one. He braced himself and early one evening walked up to the Manor again and asked, this time, to speak to Lady Shelmadine. He'd seen her about and rather admired her looks--her hair was pretty; and it was well known that she had been more than ordinarily kind to the bailiff when he had his accident. A pretty woman, thought Matt--knowing nothing of the circumstances--might well have some influence on her husband, and a kind woman might be disposed to use that influence in the cause of right and justice. He was astonished at himself for not having thought of it before.
Linda received him kindly and listened to his story, which was more succinct and less full of rancour than she had expected when he began and she realised the reason for his visit. When he had finished she began gently, 'I will, of course, speak to Sir Richard about you and the rest of them--I promise you that; and if I thought any persuasions of mine could have any effect ...' She broke off, imagining exactly what the result of such pleadings would be. 'It's Sir Richard's land,' she said, 'and if he has decided not to make any allotments, as it seems he has, I'm afraid that nothing I could say would change his mind.'
'But you will try, my lady? Afore thass too late, if you don't mind my saying so.'
'I'll write to him tomorrow. Ill put the case just as you have put it to me. But... I do beg of you, don't pin your faith on my efforts.'
Seen close to she was even prettier than he had thought, because her eyes were so soft and gentle-looking--in fact not unlike old Ripper's; and when she smiled, as she did when bidding him good night, she was very sweet-looking indeed. It was funny--Matt thought--that she should have so little faith in her powers of persuasion; he knew several lumpish women with faces like the hindquarters of a cart-horse who got their own way with their menfolk every time. And it wasn't because 'the gentry' were different; everybody knew that Lady Fennel ruled Ockley, and not by sweet smiles and saying 'please'. Them that smiled and said please--like poor old Julie Green-way--most often didn't get much, Matt reflected; and that brought him back to the hopeful-hopelessness which had led him to go to the Manor. If this failed, what else could they do? What'd become of them when their front doors opened on the highroad and their back doors on the fenced-in Waste? What'd become of Shad's new donkey and his own old horse? You could pay for beasts to be pastured, of course; but then to turn that necessary extra penny you'd have to work the poor beasts to death--and yourself too. My God, Matt thought, we are all in a mucky mess, and that's the truth.
That evening, when Hadstock paid his routine visit and had said his piece, Linda mentioned Matt Ashpole's visit and its reason. 'It really is dreadfully hard for them, and I do feel sorry; but of course there is nothing I can do. I can write, of course, but I can't alter something that has been done legally.'
'No. All progress has to be made over somebody's dead body,' Hadstock said.
They won't all die, surely?'
'No, no, of course not. Don't look so horrified,' said Hadstock, adding, just too late, 'my lady.' 'I only meant,' he went on, 'that all change hurts somebody.'
'You do think that enclosure is progress?'
'Beyond all doubt. The open-field system was the right, the only one when men, even while they worked, had to be ready to beat off their enemies, human or ... well, wolves, for example. Once these times were past it becamea clog, preventing improvement, chaining the best man to the pace of the slowest. Enclosure was bound to come and was bound to hurt somebody; but they'll adjust themselves--the Waste-dwellers, I mean--and in the end--not yet, but eventually--more produce per acre will make food more plentiful, and cheaper, and the poor will benefit by that.'
'And that will be a good thing. I speak feelingly,' she explained, 'because I know what it is to be poor. Enclosure was partly to blame for that. My father was a clergyman, quite unbelievably unworldly, so he took no care of his rights, and when Didsborough was enclosed he lost almost all his tithe and received nothing in exchange. So we were poor, but we were a very happy family.' Her voice, though she did not know it, took on a wistful, nostalgic note.
'I'm glad of that. I mean, my lady, that a happy childhood is a wonderful, enviable thing; something that--if you don't have it--nothing that comes later can make up for it. I missed it..." 'Were you poor?'
He laughed, briefly, harshly. 'No; quite the reverse, in fact.' He looked her in the face and seemed to make a sudden decision. 'Not to put too fine a point upon it, my lady, my father, like many others of his kind, was scrupulously careful to provide for his illegitimate children, of whom he had a great many.'
'Oh, Hadstock,' she said, using the surname in such a warm, intimate way that it might well have been a term of affection. 'I am sorry I asked. At least, I mean only that I am sorry if it made you tell me something you would rather not. Though really, if you look at it sensibly, it doesn't ... doesn't make any difference; not really, does it?'
'It depends who does the looking,' he said bitterly. 'They don't think, these fine gentlemen in search of an hour's diversion; or if they think, they believe their poisonous money can make amends for everything. Bring the brat up in luxury, send it to school, make it an allowance--what more can be expected? All perfectly
honourable. The stigma falls on the poor wretch who didn't ask to be born, should never have been born, or, being born, should be drowned at birth.'
'Oh, Hadstock, no. Don't say that. Surely life ... to be alive ...' Embarrassment at the situation which her simple question had brought about, and a desire to comfort the man, banished all discretion. 'If you weren't alive,' she said, 'I should miss you very much. You've no idea how much I rely ... and that reminds me of something I've wanted to ask you for a long time. You're so knowledgeable; can you tell me what there could possibly be in a locked trunk that could frighten a dog?'
The sudden change of subject seemed to leave Hadstock at a loss for a moment. Then he said, 'Do you mean Simon, my lady?'
'I mean Simon, and the trunk belongs to Mr Mundford; it contains things he wanted to store here.' She told him about the morning when Simon had entered the spare room and how he behaved. 'That night,' she said, 'I locked the door. But now every night when we go past-- he sleeps in my room, you know--he behaves strangely. Sometimes he scratches at the door and sometimes he slinks past it as if he were frightened. And I ... well, I know it sounds silly ... just a locked trunk--that is, two ... but at night, alone in this part of the house ... it gives me a creepy feeling. There's a strange smell, too, even though we opened the window; it doesn't go away. I think it comes from the trunk.'
'You're not suggesting...'
'Dead bodies?' She laughed rather uncertainly. 'Oh no. Though I believe Annie and Polly did start up some tales--Annie was there that morning when Simon ... No, this is a strange smell, but not altogether unpleasant.'
'Do you mind if I go into the room and see, and smell? I'll take the dog. Here, Simon, come along.'
The dog raised his head and pricked his ears at the sound of his name but did not move from Linda's side.
'I will come too,' she said, adding as they went from the room, 'This is going to present a problem, I'm afraid,when the time comes for him to go home with you. But perhaps that won't be necessary, after all.' Richard's moods were less virulent nowadays, she thought, and also there was a difference between this large, strong, potentially fierce dog and a small fawning spaniel; even Richard would see that. That Simon was capable of ferocity she had proved several times, and that made his behaviour with regard to the trunk more remarkable and disconcerting.
As often before, Simon ran down the corridor and scratched at the door, growling in his throat as though some enemy were within the room; but when Linda turned the key and opened the door he did not attempt to enter with them but hung back, ceased growling, and took on a cowed air again.
Hadstock sniffed. Then he said, in a relieved voice:
'Why, it's incense; that's all.'
'Then how silly of me not to recognise it. Some churches.,.'
'This, I should say, is particularly strong and pure-- the best, and very expensive. And if I may hazard a guess, I should say that Mr Mundford has impregnated some clothes with it as a deterrent to moths.'
'And why should Simon ...?'
Hadstock hesitated for a moment.
'It sounds a long guess, but it is feasible. Race memory. Where his parents come from all churches smell of incense; and dogs are not allowed in church--are, in fact, kept out with shouts and blows. So a devoted dog, once a week, sees his master disappear into a place where he is not allowed; consequently he hates the place and the very smell of it. After many generations such a prejudice may be inborn and qualify to be called instinct.'
'I suppose it could. That is the only explanation, isn't it? Oh, thank you, Hadstock; you have relieved my mind.'
'What were you imagining?' Hadstock asked curiously. 'I don't know,' she said slowly. 'Something... well, evil, in some obscure way. Actually, to be honest, I never feel very comfortable in Mr Mundford's presence.'
'That may be prejudice too. All those old stories are bound to create an impression.'
'What old stories? I never heard any in connection with Mr Mundford. Did you?'
'Oh, nothing specific. Just a generally bad reputation.' 'In what way?'
'The usual way,' Hadstock said. 'Shall we lock this door again--for Simon's peace of mind?'
'If your theory is correct, the locked door and the scent within will only increase his prejudice.' 'Clever as he is, will he know that the door is locked?' 'For my peace of mind then, yes, please lock it.' When they reached the spot where Simon was lurking Hadstock put out a hand and gave him a friendly clout.
'I'm ashamed of you,' he said, 'and so are all your ancestors.'
'But they,' Linda said, 'are to blame for his behaviour --again if your theory is correct.'
Hadstock laughed. But as he followed her and the dog downstairs he said, serious again:
'If you feel nervous at night why don't you have some servants in this part of the house?'
'It would be so silly,' she said. 'Servants are so very nervous themselves, it would never do to allow them to suspect that I was nervous too. Besides, at the moment, on account of the alterations, there are only three rooms-- Mr Mundford's, Sir Richard's and mine--in use in this part of the house.' 'I see.'
They came to a standstill at the foot of the stairs. Then Hadstock said, staring about as though taking his bearings:
'If your room is beyond the one we've just inspected, it shouldn't be too far from the stableyard.'
'It isn't. One of my windows looks on to the yard.'
'Then, if you like, while you are alone here I'll come
and camp over the stable. There is a room, unused. Then
if at any time your imagination produced any fears you
could shout or blow a whistle and summon my imagination to produce the explanation. I assure you the arrangement would not inconvenience me at all.'
'It is extremely kind of you to suggest it,' she said. 'I do thank you; very much. But of course I'm not really frightened, and I have the dog; and the servants are not far away. I wouldn't dream of putting you to such inconvenience--for it would be that, whatever you say.'
'Very well; as you wish, my lady. There are times when it is a convenience for me to be on the spot, and I had marked that room for my purpose. So if you ever look out and see a light rather late, you'll know.'
After that the time when it was convenient for Had-stock to sleep over the stables appeared to recur very frequently. Seldom, for the rest of that winter, during Richard's absences did she look out and fail to find the faithful little light.
PART FOUR
Night
of a
Necromancer
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
During March of that year Linda received three letters from Richard, all urging her to spur on the workmen as he expected to find the alterations completed in April when he returned. The letters also contained detailed instructions for the placing of various articles of furniture --new carpets, mirrors and ornaments--which began to arrive at Clevely in almost daily consignments. The enclosure had gone as Richard had desired and his income would be larger in the coming year; also, as he wrote, in a moment of unusual expansion, his luck at cards since Christmas had been phenomenal. (He did not mention that shortly after his return to London he had again mentioned to Alec Mundford the matter of luck, and that Alec had said, 'Well, as I said, I'm bored with it. I'll lend it to you and see how you like it.' He had bunched the tips of his tallowy fingers and thumb together and lightly touched the back of Richard's left hand, using his left too. And that evening Richard's luck had changed and had continued good.)
On the second day of April Linda received another letter. Richard wrote that his plans had changed; he and Alec were going on a short visit to France, to a place called Loudon. They would return in May and come direct to Clevely, bringing company with them: two gentlemen and five ladies. 'Now that the house is habitable--or shortly to become so or there will be something to be said--we can begin to entertain a little, at least enough to leaven the lump of local company. These are a lively crowd--you, my dear, will probably think them toolively; but, as you are well aware by this time, I do not insist upon you sharing my interests any more than I enquire too closely into yours I So long as you have an eye to the material comforts and needs of our guests you may abstain from their company if you so desire and gather your primroses and catkins in peace! I will advise you of the date of our arrival nearer the time....'
Linda read this letter with an emotion which it was not written to evoke--a deep relief. Save for the finishing touches the house was ready--that was a comforting thought; and so was the plain implication that when the 'lively company' arrived she would not be expected to participate in their activities.
Inevitably, as April passed, alternating days of warm sweet promise with others of biting wind, and Richard's final letter arrived, and then May came and at last the day of the arrival dawned, Linda's relief gave way to a mounting anxiety. It was the first time in all her life that she had been responsible for a houseful of guests; and she feared Richard's censure if anything was unsatisfactory; she also became timid of the guests, especially the female ones. She knew Richard's taste in female company; the pattern had been set long before her time by that Mrs Davison who had been the cause of one of the first quarrels between old Sir Charles and his son. Richard favoured married women--smart, sophisticated women who for some reason or another had fallen from or abandoned the strictest standards of 'ladyhood'. They were usually past their first youth, not too financially secure, widows, or married to men who were merely shadowy figures in the background; but they were, invariably, what was called 'well-bred'-- and that meant that they would know and notice if in any detail the housekeeping and service at Clevely Manor should fall short of standard. Quite humbly Linda admitted to herself that life at the Didsborough Rectory, in Cousin Maud's comfortable middle-class establishment and in the places where she had lived with Richard during their married life had not equipped her to make good showing as the hostess of a country house.
So on first sight she was relieved, and at the same time, being human, slightly annoyed, to find that all five ladies were extremely young and what the French called 'women of the people'. All were very pretty, well-dressed, exquisite and even elegant in their equipment; but they were all of humble origin, and each pair of pretty, high-heeled feet was set on the bottom rung of the ladder which Angelina had scaled successfully. On the first evening, looking at all the lustrous young eyes, the slim young waists, the rounded young bosoms, the full, painted young lips, and listening to the voices, frankly rustic or painfully genteel, Linda thought to herself, with the inward honesty which was at once her curse and her salvation, Here we have the makings of a very superior brothel, and any minute now one of them is going to call me 'Madam' which will put me in my place!
That notion, followed to its conclusion, brought dismay. Was it right to be so compliant? Suppose Sir Evelyn Fennel turned up at Ockley with five such guests; what would Lady Fennel say, do? What ought Lady Shelmadine to do?
Lady Shelmadine sat there, weakly, feebly glad that her guests were not more intimidating. They seemed, indeed, to be in awe of her; and this attitude was encouraged-- almost deliberately, it seemed--by the behaviour of the male guests towards their hostess. They treated her with the most elaborate civility, as Alec Mundford had always done, and as Richard was doing. Both the men were 'gentlemen'; one old and rather shabby, with a cynical face and--it was revealed--a cruel, witty tongue; the other young and foppish, not unlike Mr Montague, who was, Linda was not surprised to learn, invited to make the tenth member of the party.
On the first evening, tired by travelling, everyone went to bed early. On the second, at about nine o'clock, Richard said, 'We are going to play cards and shall be late. If you prefer to retire my dear, we will excuse you.'
'If you propose to be late you will need some refreshments. Shall I order them?''That would be as well. Have them brought here and tell the servants they can go to bed. We can wait upon ourselves.'
The extension of the front of the house had resulted in more bedrooms, but still, in order to accommodate properly the ladies whom she had imagined would be critical, Linda had remained in the room which she had used during the alterations; and to it, having ordered cold food and wine and brandy, she retired. Hadstock's faithful little light still burned in the window above the stable. She had not seen him since Richard's return and probably would not see him as long as the visit lasted. Looking at the light, she now wondered what explanation Had-stock had given for his change of sleeping place, or whether he had indeed given any; and also why he had not taken the opportunity to return to his cottage, the house now being full enough of company to reassure the most insanely nervous person.
And yet, to her, dismissed to bed like a child--for the outwardly considerate words which Richard had spoken were nothing less than dismissal from her own drawing-room--the little light was, obscurely, a comfort, a recognition of her identity; proof that she mattered to someone. Upon that thought she slept.
She was awakened by Simon, who was moving about and growling that same low, stifled growl which he had emitted so often outside the door of Mr Mundford's room. She roused herself and listened. Quiet movements in the next room, muffled by the thickness of the old walls, reassured her. She did not trouble to make a light, but spoke softly to the dog.
'Don't be silly, Simon. Come here and lie down. It is only Mr Mundford going to bed.'
Simon remained restless for a while, then at last flung himself down with a sigh. Linda returned to sleep.
The house guests slept late next morning, Linda breakfasted alone, interviewed Mrs Hart, who, surly before the guests' arrival, had now cheered up under Richard's lavish praise of her arrangements, and then gone into the garden, where the first irises of the year were showing colour. She stood admiring them, Simon by her side, when one of his sudden, defensive movements warned her that someone was approaching her from behind. She turned and saw one of 'the girls' coming across the lawn from the house, walking rapidly. As the girl drew near Linda made an effort to fix a name to this young body, this pretty face, and succeeded; this was Miss Jackson, the one they called Rose, the one who, by just a trifle, was the youngest and the prettiest of the lot. This morning her face was puffy--with sleep, Linda thought at first; then she noticed that in her clenched hand Rose held a sodden handkerchief.
She said, 'Good morning, Miss Jackson. Isn't it a beautiful morning.'
'Lady Shelmadine, can I speak to you for a minute?'
'But of course.'
'Privately,' the girl said, looking back at the house.
'We'll go through here,' Linda said, and walked towards an opening in the thick yew hedge which backed the border where the irises grew. Another yew hedge grew on the opposite side of a wide grass path, and at the end of the path a third hedge made an enclosure in which stood a sun-dial and a stone bench. At this time of day, at this season, the sun fell on the bench and the yew hedges shielded it from the wind; it had seemed the perfect place to sit, Linda had thought. But it was, she discovered melancholy. The dark hedges were gloomy even in sunshine, and the sun-dial, with its trite little motto, 'It is later than you think,' was not cheerful company.
They sat down together on the sun-warmed stone, and after a moment's silence Linda said:
'Now, what did you want to ask me?'
'It's a favour. I want you to lend me my coach fare back to London. I know it's a lot to ask--in the circumstances, I mean; but I got to go, and I can't very well pad the hoof like this. ...' She indicated her flimsy, high-heeled shoes, her long, wide, silken skirts.'Of course not,' Linda agreed. "Why should you? I'm sure my husband will...'
'Oh.' said Rose, her hand flying to her mouth. 'I got off on the wrong foot, as usual--but I did say privately, didn't I? I meant just between you and me, my lady; nobody else to know till I was safely away. Lend it to me, will you? I swear I'll pay you back.'
'That isn't what bothers me. I'd give it to you ... but, to tell you the truth, I haven't got more than a few shillings.' She attempted to explain this statement, which was true. Richard allowed her money for current expenses, enough and no more. The allowance for April was spent, and now it was May and he was home and she would have no more money until he went away and left her in charge again. She had not, had never had, the price of the coach fare to London for her own; Richard housed and clothed and fed her--what more did she need?
The attempt to explain was drowned by Rose's bursting into sobs, noisy, uncontrolled as a child's with a broken knee. She appeared to be in such distress that Linda's mind flitted from the financial to the emotional problem; placing her hand on the girl's smooth silken knee, she said:
'What is the matter? Is someone ill? I'll think of some way ... if only you'll hush and let me think. Why can't you tell my husband and ask him for the money?"
Rose hushed, drew a quavering breath, let it out in a final sob and began to talk.
'I'm daft,' she said, 'that's what's-a-matter with me. It all sounded lovely, a 'oliday in the country and nothing to it but the usual. I ain't all that particular, else I shouldn't be ... You must of seen through us, my lady; you know what we are, shut your eyes as you may. Even so, even if it was what it looked like, it was a rotten crying shame. I knew that the first night, but what could I do? I got a living to make, same as everybody else. But even me ... All right, I'm daft... and I'm scared. I'm too scared to go on with it, promise what they may. I know the difference between right and wrong; I do wrong... I know that, but

a natural sort of wrong if you can understand that, my lady. This is different ... nothing else ever scared me. Now I'm scared and I've gotta get away without their knowing. They'd be that angry! And I wouldn't put it past that Mundford to be sitting there in his bedroom and hearing every word I'm saying now....'
And deep down, far under the foundations of reason and experience, something in Linda's mind popped up its head and said distinctly, 'Neither would I.' And that was, of course, absolute sheer nonsense.
'That is nonsense,' she said aloud. 'No one could possibly hear from such a distance; and no one could approach us and listen. My dog would give warning. What is it that has frightened you?'
The girl lifted her head and looked at Linda; her eyes were very beautiful, a clear hazel in colour, with a tinge of blue in their whites and with thick, rather short black lashes.
'No use asking me that. I took me oath not to say. I dus-sent say, and if I did you wouldn't believe me. I don't want to talk about it. I just want to get out. If you can't lend me the money I'll chance me luck and just go. I've gotta foot it into this place--Baildon, ain't it--to get the coach anyway.'
'On some days the coach runs through Nettleton, which is much nearer.'
'Let's hope this is one of them days. I can get into the park without goin' back to the 'ouse, can't I? Then I'm off. Goodbye, your ladyship.'
She jumped to her feet, gathered up a handful of her skirts in either hand, displayed slim ankles and the promise of well-turned calves and set off along the path, running lightly, with something of a swallow's swoop in her gait. Linda looked after her for a moment and then dropped her head into her hands.
It was possible to ignore or discount everything the girl had said except one thing. 'You must of seen through us ... you know what we are.' She had seen on the first evening; she had known all along. And she had done nothing,said nothing, had accepted the situation with a meekness which she now saw was shameful, despicable. 'You must of seen through us ...' That had been said to her by a pretty little London prostitute--and four others were there, under what was technically her roof, and they were doubtless thinking the same thing ... and so were Mundford and Montague and old Dunhill and young Saxstead. She saw suddenly the depths of the abyss into which Richard had thrust her, one small push following another all through these years----
Suddenly she stood up and began to walk towards the house.
Richard and Alec Mundford were in the breakfast-room. The older man had before him a plate well filled with bacon and grilled kidneys and was making a hearty breakfast, though his pallor was almost phosphorescent; Richard was sipping coffee. His hands were unsteady and so was his head; she had seen that convulsive, only just perceptible tremor shake it on many mornings, in many places.
She greeted neither of them; from the doorway she said:
'Richard, I want to speak to you--alone.'
'Oh, do you? Well, I don't want to be spoken to in that tone of voice,' Richard said, instantly turning nasty. 'If you can be civil, you may say anything you wish to say in Alec's presence.'
'Come, come,' said Mr Mundford, balancing food on his fork and speaking good-humouredly, 'why involve me? If every other room in the house is occupied, I shall be finished in about five minutes and will go into the garden.'
What was the power behind those words, strong enough to make Richard, furious as he was, set down his coffee-cup and get up and open the door which led into the little sitting-room which she used when she was alone, saying as he did so, 'No, no, finish your breakfast in comfort'?
Inside the room he faced her, 'Well, what is it?', and she found that the words which had been ready in her mouth only two minutes ago were now not easily spoken;
she could have said them when she walked into the breakfast-room, now they sounded melodramatic. But that was the kind of hampering, undermining thought which had allowed her to be brought to this pass. This time she would speak, no matter how the words sounded, no matter how much Richard was enraged.
'It's this. Either those women must leave this house or I do!'
Richard began to laugh, and even at that moment she observed that there was nothing false or forced about his mirth; he laughed as heartily, as almost painfully, as a normal man would laugh at some remark of exquisite humour. He sat down, laughing, in a chair, and, laughing, put up a hand to steady his tremulous head. ... It was quite a moment before he could speak.
'What an alternative,' he said. 'Then they must go, must they not? They can go back to Angelina's; but you, where would you go?' When she did not immediately answer, he went on, 'It is difficult to choose, is it not? You have so many friends! And of course there is always the rectory at Didsborough--what difference would one more mouth make among so many? I'm sure your holy brother would welcome you heartily, if only to help wipe the nine little noses--it is nine, or have I lost count?'
'Where I go,' she said, with some wonder that her voice should sound so clear and steady, 'is not important. What I am telling you is that it is impossible for me to remain here with those young women. Their presence puts me in a hideous false position; if you have a glimmer of reason left you must see that.'
'Could it be that at this late hour you are becoming jealous, Lady Shelmadine?'
'I have no reason, you should know that! Where you are concerned, Richard, nobody could take anything from me because I have nothing. But that only you and I know. In the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the young women themselves, I look like a compliant, conniving wife--nothing more nor less than a procuress. And that I cannot, will not bear.''It is a pity that there are no footlights,' Richard said. 'Mistress Shelmadine in her celebrated part, "The Wronged Wife"! I have invited into my own house some gentlemen of my acquaintance and a few young women to keep them company. I have not, you may have noticed, attempted to thrust them into the society of the fat Suffolk squires and their wives whom you regard so highly, nor have I demanded that you show them more than the merest civility. So what all the to-do is about I completely fail to see.'
And so, by that time, alas, did a considerable part of Linda's own mind. The impulse which had brought her in from the garden, which had seemed so strong and right and valid, had dwindled now--seemed, in the light of Richard's words, quite ridiculous. Mentally she fingered Rose's words again, 'You must of seen through us... you know what we are, but they had lost their accusation; all she could think of was that she had not Rose's courage. Rose had run off, penniless ... but then she had her looks, and her lack of standards, and a destination.
'In any case it is only until Monday,' Richard said, with a return to his smooth, affable manner. 'After that the sanctity of the roof-tree will be restored ... though we shall be back,' he added.
Better perhaps to wait. In the interval lay by some money; find a post ... housekeeper, governess. 'Your name? You have references?' Dear God, where could one turn?
'And now, if that little bout of hysteria has cleared the air,' said Richard, rising, 'I should be very glad if you would ask Mrs Hart to tell the cook that the kidneys she serves are fit only for cannibals. How Alec could stomach them I do not know; it made me feel sick to watch. In fact' --his voice took on a note of mock approval--'on the whole, my dear, your interruption was not untimely.' He strolled back to the breakfast-room, leaving her to the bitterness of one more defeat. Afterwards, in the calm of emotional exhaustion, there was plenty of time to
remember the other things which Rose had said, and to wonder.
On the morning after the party had left--even the liveliest of the young women now quiet and jaded--Linda saw that the door of Mr Mundford's room had been left open. The black trunk had gone from the place where it had stood so long. Yet it had not been among the luggage which the travellers had taken with them, she was sure of that. She added this new mystery to the things which she wished to talk over with Hadstock. He did not come to the house on the day of the departure, so presumably Richard had given enough instructions to last out that day; but on the evening of Tuesday he presented himself as usual, and as usual began his mechanical report.
'Oh, leave that,' Linda said; 'we both know that it means nothing. There are so many things I want to consult you about. I know you'll think I'm silly again--like with the incense--but they are things that worry me, and I have no one else to tell. So please sit down and listen, and then tell me I'm silly--even that will be some relief.' Hadstock sat down and regarded her gravely. 'I don't think your fears--they are fears, aren't they?-- are silly at all, my lady.'
'Fears? That sounds so very definite. Yet one of those girls ran away. She said she was scared. And Simon was scared--the trunk has gone, by the way. And where? Not to London. I know, because there was such confusion, so many people shouting and giving contradictory orders and the young women seemed half asleep, that I went and overlooked the loading.'
'Oh yes,' Hadstock said. His voice was carefully noncommittal but her conscience--sensitive at this point-- thought that it detected astonishment and disapproval. No doubt Hadstock had 'seen through" the female guests and wondered that she tolerated them. And beyond Hadstock there was the village, and beyond that the dinner-tables of the neighbourhood--gossip, speculation, condemnation. She looked down at her hands for a moment while the hot blush rose and subsided, then she raised her eyes and looked at Hadstock almost defiantly.
'It's a mystery, isn't it--the disappearance of the trunk, I mean.'
He looked at her steadily, assessing before he spoke.
'If I told you what I think, what I suspect, you would hardly believe me. And I might frighten you, which I wouldn't do for anything in the world. Yet if I leave it unsaid and this goes on ... and on, I leave you in an intolerable situation. I'm in an intolerable situation myself--'
'I think I should believe almost anything you said, Hadstock. ... And just to know that somebody else suspected ... well, incredible things, would be a comfort in a way. There was that girl who ran away. She asked me to lend her the coach fare; I had no money at the time, so she just went off, on foot. ... Nobody mentioned her, asked about her, commented on her absence. That sounds unbelievable, does it not? You see ...' She hesitated; in all these years she had never confided in anyone, never voiced a complaint about Richard, and on the surface of her mind floated the thought that it was strange to begin now, to Richard's own bailiff. But below the surface there were depths. She knew that Hadstock was knowledgeable, trustworthy and on her side. And below that again, other depths; the little lighted window over the stable ... his own remark, still audible, that he would not frighten her for anything in the world. 'You see, I did make a protest; and he said he had simply invited his friends to stay and had provided the young women for company. It sounded ... well, somehow, so plausible when be said it; and yet when Rose--that was her name--just disappeared nobody took any notice. And for me, that put another face on the matter ... that and the trunk's disappearance. If I told you what was in my mind, Hadstock, you'd hardly believe me.'
'And what have you in mind?'
'I think," she said slowly, 'that in some peculiar way it is all--Mr Mundford, the girls, the trunks and everything --somehow connected with that place ... the temple of
Mithras. I think Mr Mundford, absurd as it sounds, here in the eighteenth century, worships Mithras, and I think the girls were brought here to act as ... priestesses or something. The one who ran away said to me, "I do wrong, I know that, but a natural sort of wrong; this is different." Those were her very words, I've thought and thought about them, and a few other things, and that is the only conclusion I can come to.'
She ended on an apologetic note, half expecting Hadstock to laugh, half hoping he would produce some rational explanation of it all, as he had done when consulted about Simon's behaviour over the trunk. When at last he spoke his words fell heavily upon her hopes of comfort.
'I think you're still a bit short of the mark,' he said. 'My lady, does the name Medmenham mean anything to you?'
'Medmenham? I don't think ... no, nothing. Why?'
'It is a place in Buckinghamshire,' Hadstock said. 'And there, only forty years ago, in this enlightened eighteenth century, a little group of gentlemen used to worship the Devil. That is known fact. The moving spirit of the group was a Sir Francis Dashwood, and they used to call themselves "The Franciscans" and dress up as monks of that order, the more perversely to indulge in every kind of vice and debauch. It sounds like nonsense, doesn't it; childish, nasty nonsense ... but there was more in it. After all, a belief in God presupposes a belief in the Devil, doesn't it? There is Biblical evidence; if you believe that Christ said "Love your enemies" you should also believe that He said, "Get thee hence, Satan." Anyway, one of these Franciscans --they also called themselves the Hell Fire Club--a man called Baker, went mad and died, raving, in the same lodging-house where a man who had some talent at verse-making lived. Baker's ravings, just as they emerged, but shaped into rhyme, went into a broadsheet which had a tremendous sale in London in 1762. There was a great scandal and the Hell Fire Club broke up the next year. Most of the members died violently, or untimely. But AlecMundford lived on ... just as Baker said was promised him. I should remind you, my lady.' said Hadstock with a slight smile, 'that the broadsheet was sheer doggerel. In its own words, the promise to Mr Mundford was--
Thou shall live on and wondrous luck shall know, Until of life and luck thou has enowI When thou art weary thou shalt make thy plea In the right hour and I will come for thee!
And I know it sounds crazy and far-fetched to the point of fantasy; but, like you, I've thought and thought about it, and I have come to believe...' 'What, Mr Hadstock?'
'That Mr Mundford is attempting to re-form, here, the Hell Fire Club. I think that trunk contained clothes ... vestments--probably those same monks costumes from Medmenham--and the set of church plate. And I think you were right about the place. They must have stumbled upon the other entrance.'
'From the cellars,' Linda said. 'You remember Farrow said it would be somewhere under the house I Oh, and I remember now ... Woods--do you remember the butler named Woods? On Mr Mundford's very first visit, in the middle of the night, Woods roused the house saying there was someone in the cellar. He'd been out very late and came in and heard voices or saw a light or something. They --Mr Mundford and my husband--couldn't be found for a moment, then they appeared, and my husband was very angry. He said he had taken Mr Mundford down to choose a bottle of wine and that Woods was drunk to be making such a fuss. Woods left soon after. It's funny, isn't it, how everything seems to fit in, and yet all adds up to something so ridiculous I'
'There's a side to it that is not ridiculous, my lady,' Hadstock said. 'It's a free country ... nobody minds what they do except in so far as it involves ... It's you I mind for, my lady.'
'Well, of course,' she said, making an effort to be reasonable,
'I am not much involved. Richard would never .,.' She broke off as she realised she had referred in this informal way to Richard. 'And we have no proof, have we?' she went on hastily.
'And if we had there's very little we could do.' Hadstock's voice was suddenly heavy. 'At least, you, my lady ... Would it not be possible for you to make a prolonged visit somewhere until this has blown over, whatever it is?'
He looked so troubled that she said, more brightly:
'Why, yes, of course, I could always do that. But I think I have been making a fuss about nothing. It's strange how bothersome, puzzling things grow less when one talks them over, isn't it? I am so glad I can talk to you.'
'Well, I'm there to be talked to, or called upon, if ever there is anything I can do. In fact I'm entirely at your service, my lady.' He brought out the last sentence with a mocking imitation of a fine gentleman's formal utterance of the phrase.
'I know. And I'm very grateful,' Linda said. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Once again Matt Ashpole had been foresighted. So far all his plans and schemes had gone wrong, but it was difficult to see what could go wrong with this one. He'd obtained several old pine trees and a two-handed saw; and having worked at it with his wife and those of his children still at home just long enough to demonstrate the management of the tool, he had set them to saw five-foot lengths and then split them into fencing stakes. There'd been a slight difficulty with Mrs Ashpole, who protested that it was not woman's work.
'Don't be a dunderhead,' Matt said. 'Stand to reason, don't it, I can't stand here a-sawing--that is unless you'd care to take owd Gyp and knock up a living for us. We gotta eat till them stakes are ready and sold.' Mrs Ashpole, who was as fond of her food as any woman, saw the force of that argument and later used it herself. As soon as Matt had gone off in the cart she abandoned her end of the saw, saying, 'Now you boys get on. Stand to reason I can't stand here a-sawing--that is unless one of you'd care to make a stew. We gotta eat!' She did more cooking in the next few weeks than she had done in the previous two years. She also kept the boys at work by the simple expedient of setting so much work to be done before food was served. The pile of stakes grew steadily. There would soon be a brisk demand for them. The commissioners had borne in mind the European situation. England and France were at war, the island kingdom must feed itself or go hungry; not even the enclosure of Clevely must be allowed to reduce, by one
grain, the year's harvest. A greater yield next year must be arranged for in every possible way. So they had ruled that the Waste should be fenced by the end of May-- which would give its new owners a chance to plough it if they intended to try cultivation, or to gather a hay crop; and Old Tom and Layer were to be fenced by the end of November. Any land remaining unfenced by that date was forfeited. As Mr Sawston truly said, 'Any man who can't afford to fence after harvest must be a very inefficient farmer and should not have land at all.'
By the end of May the fences were up, and on some claims the ploughs were out. The desperate situation which Matt had foreseen, when the Waste Cottages lay landless between the fence and the highroad, had come about. There were other Waste-dwellers, more blindly optimistic, or too stupidly incredulous to be taken by surprise.
Mrs Palfrey was one of these. Spitty, her husband, was no good; he was frail in body and feeble in mind, the last to get a job when seasonal labour was in demand, the first to lose it. Mrs Palfrey had kept food in the many mouths of her large family by growing potatoes, rearing a pig on the potato peelings, and keeping a few geese and hens. Nine pregnancies and several miscarriages had not interfered with her simple yearly routine. She had always begun to plant her potatoes on Good Friday; and on that date, in 1797, she planted them as usual, despite the warnings of more far-sighted persons who told her she would never gather the crop. All through her married life she had done her best, and that included planting potatoes; her dim mind could not visualise a future which did not include a potato crop.
Three weeks later she stood by the brand-new fence which stood within an arm's length of her hovel door and watched the ploughshare turn out the potatoes--'All sprouted beautiful,' as she said. She shed no tears, for she had learned the futility of them in the first four years of her life; she stood and watched with an expression ofdumb-animal hopelessness on her face and then went in and shut the door. She had four geese and six hens in the precarious shelter of Matt Juby's half-acre; she had enough potatoes to last until late July. 'There'll be no taters this year; we can't live athout taters,' she said to herself, over and over again. Two more of the children must get work: Emmeline, aged nine, who, like Spitty, was not quite bright; and Tommy, seven. And she herself must leave the younger ones to Spitty's care and go Out to work. In June she made hay at Wood Farm and earned eight shillings; in July she picked stones from a section of the newly ploughed Waste--twopence a bushel they paid her and she earned fifteen shillings. The one hundred and seventy bushels of stones, did, as she said, 'drag you down a bit'; but by August she knew that the down-dragging was not all due to the stones. She was pregnant again. Soon she would be unemployable, since lithe active women were ten a penny. In the old days she could go out and dig a few potatoes and catch her breath and lean on the spade, her own woman, on her own plot; now there'd be nothing for it but to starve or go on the parish I Nobody looking at her, gaunt, despairing, ragged, dirty creature as she was, would have credited her with any pride; yet she had been proud--proud of the fact that, though they had been hungry, and cold, and barefooted, they'd never yet been on the parish...
Matt Juby had enclosed his half-acre as soon as he had paid the one shilling and sixpence which was his share of the commissioners' expenses. He hacked into the thinnest possible slivers a wooden bedstead, the back door of his hovel, a ladder whose staves had rotted, and the body of an old wheelless wagon which Matt Ashpole bought for a shilling, dragged home and sold for half a crown. Each stake was linked to its neighbour by a piece of string, a length of knotted rag or some twisted reeds and rushes. 'That don't look a mucher; but there 'tis, thass fenced and nobody can say it ain't,' Matt Juby said. Few were in a position to criticise the fencing, for most people were
begging Juby to house some bit of livestock or other, 'just till we know where we are.' Bert Sadler, the other fortunate legal possessor of a half-acre, had put it all down to potatoes immediately, foreseeing a time when potatoes would be in demand among his neighbours. Matt Juby 'took lodgers'. The rickety fence established his claim and satisfied--apparently--the letter of the law, but it did not act as a retaining wall, so anybody who struck a bargain with Juby and gained a lodging for his beast must do a bit of fencing on his own account. Mrs Palfrey's four geese and six hens were penned in a corner surrounded by a fence made of the stouter sticks of a faggot gathered by Emmeline and Tommy from the edge of Layer Wood; the thinner sticks were woven in and out and formed a kind of. basketwork. But geese eat a great deal of grass and very soon the patch was bare, and then, in the struggle for the possession of the boiled potato peelings and 'gleanings' which Mrs Palfrey brought for the hens, the geese always won; so the hens starved and laid no eggs and it was only reasonable to kill them off one by one while there was still flesh on their bones. Matt Juby had bargained for one goose as rent for the corner, so the Palfreys ate three geese and six scrawny hens in nine weeks and then settled down to an unvaried diet of potatoes again.
For a while Shad's donkey also lodged with Matt Juby, not fenced in, but attached to a stake which allowed him only a limited amount of grazing for which Shad paid sixpence a week. The donkey did not realise how privileged he was; he could only remember that when he was free on the Waste he stayed as near as possible to a certain back door which would open and a woman would come out and give him a crust or an apple core. Five times in four weeks he managed to grub up his stake, trot to the flimsy fence, lean against it and get to the door where three times he received a titbit and twice--complaints having been made--a clout on the rump. At the end of the month Juby said to Shad, 'Sixpence a week or no sixpence a week, I can't afford to house that donkey. might hev my fence down one time when they come to inspect, and then where would I be?'
So then Shad's donkey went to join Matt Ashpole's horse, which was staked out on the narrow grass verge of the road which ran through Nettleton to Baildon. Juby-- on the whole ungratefully, considering that Matt had got him the wagon cheap--had refused to house the horse, so Matt had taken to the roadside, where the animal, eating steadily, was moving every day farther and farther from his owner's house. 'He'll end in Baildon, so any tune I want to drive in there I'll hetta walk there first to fetch him,' Matt said.
Amos had also been faced with the fencing problem. His twenty acres, that unaccountable gift from Heaven, did not lie near his house at all. About five acres of it consisted of the tip of the common pasture where it ran up to the Stone Bridge; the other fifteen acres were on the Waste just across the river. It was, all moist, soggy ground, the grass freely interspersed with clumps of reeds, and though it afforded pasture of a kind it was useless for cultivation. As an allotment made to someone who was not a proprietor and had no rights it did not carry with it the demand for a share of the expenses, but it must be fenced by the end of May and Amos had no money.
'S'pose I fence her for you, Amos,' Matt Ashpole said, grasping out to catch another slippery opportunity. 'S'pose I fence her real good and proper and for payment take pasture for my owd Hoss for--well, less say five year. End of that time do I still hev a Hoss I'll start to pay you sixpence a week--regular. Thass a fair offer, Amos.'
'A fair offer,' Amos repeated. 'But I dunno ... that stick in my mind that God didn't bring all this about just to give your old horse a home. There's purpose behind all this and I've gotta puzzle it out.'
'What d'you mean, a purpose?'
'A purpose. The will of God. There I am, my chapel burnt down and twenty acres of land I can't afford to fence. That don't make sense to me; but there must be some purpose there, part of the eternal plan. Seems to
me if I could sell the land, then I could build a chapel----'
'And who the hell'd buy that mucky marshy bit?' Matt demanded. 'There's Martha Bowyer, she can't afford to fence what her own man left; either he didn't hev no cash money or he hid it where she can't find it. Hers is good land and that ain't snapped up yet. Fact is, Amos, all about here, just this time, them thass got cash got land as well and folks like me that is land hungry is money hungry too. Nobody'd bid for your bit; you'd do best to let me fence it like I said.'
'Well, I 'on't refuse right away, Matt, but I gotta give God a chance. Heving all enternity, He move a bit slow; but I reckon everything'll work out afore the end of May....'
Apart from mentioning here and there that he had a bit of land for sale, Amos did not exert himself. He was busy; with haytime and harvest approaching there was a good deal of harness to repair, and the light evenings brought a spate of out-door meetings in villages which had no chapels. Amos attended as many of these as he could and preached at several, and when he thought about the land which must be fenced or forfeited before the end of May he reminded himself that the Lord would provide.
He was coming home from an outdoor meeting--a very well-attended and successful one--on a Saturday evening when May had only ten more days to run, when he overtook Danny Fuller, walking rather wearily towards Clevely.
The Fullers had left the village in March, that much Amos knew, so he was surprised to see Danny, so late, in the dusk, going that way. 'Hullo, Danny,' he said as he drew level. 'Oh, hullo, Amos,' Danny said. There was a slight constraint. It was, Danny remembered, almost a year ago this very day he'd set off with Damask to take the way through Layer Wood to Muchanger--it seemed hundreds of years, so much had happened--and he'd never really come face to face with Amos since. And Amos was remembering that Danny was a backslider--which was, in a way, worse than being a heathen. Heathen didn't know what they missed, backsliders did and scorned it. Still... raking in his mind, Amos turned out the fact that Danny had done the right thing by Sally Ashpole ... and then Julie had said ... and there was Damask ... His mind shot away from the thought of Damask ... all wrong--all wrong somehow; he'd argued and rebuked everytime he saw her. ... It was no use dwelling on your failures----
'How're you faring, Danny? I misremember for the moment where you went and set up.'
'We went to Baildon, in the Friargate. Handy for me. I got a job with Mr Thurlow Lamb, the auctioneer.'
'Did you so? And your mother? Well, I hope?'
'She's all right--in health, I mean. Still pining. Houses seem to mean a lot to women. She never got over being uprooted.'
That was the explanation that he and Sally gave one another for Mrs Fuller's decline in energy and efficiency. Danny could remember the time when, at every turn, his mother would mention, either as a threat or a promise, what she could do with a little shop in Baildon. Now she had the little shop and took no interest in it. Her cooking had deteriorated and every time the bell rang she'd say 'Oh, bother that bell' or 'You go, Sally.' And she was always harking back. 'Just about now that apple-tree is in full blow.' 'I reckon them lilacs smell sweet this morning."
Danny thrust the uncomfortable thought away and said more briskly:
'You live on the Waste, Amos. Can you tell me--did Fred Clopton plough his piece or leave it for grass?'
'I never noticed.'
'Oh well, I can but ask. I never did like Fred and I used to show it like a fool, and I dare say there'll be a bit of humble pie to swallow; but I reckoned he might hire me ten or twelve acres. I don't know who else to ask.'
'What do you want it for?'
'I held on to my best beasts when we quitted, but it's been the devil's own job finding them pasture, everybody
ploughing up on account of the corn prices. Four moves they've had in the last seven weeks. Maybe I was daft to try and keep them--but I had in mind that I might one
day hire some land again, or find a bit cheap----' He
laughed derisively.
'I got twenty acres--I mean nineteen, Danny, that I aim to sell. 'Tain't fenced, and 'tain't very good. Maybe you know it.' He described its position. 'I'd take a pound an acre for it.'
Danny stood still in the road.
'I could manage that! My God, Amos, that's wonderful!'
'Now there's no need to be taking the Lord's name in vain, Danny. You'd hev to fence it, and be quick. But Matt Ashpole'd do it for you, and cheap too if you'd let his old horse run along with your beasts.' 'That'd be wonderful,' Danny said. 'What is more,' said Amos, with growing eagerness, 'if you keep your beasts there all winter you'll want a shed. I'll help with your building if you'll help with mine.' 'Why, what are you building, Amos?' 'A chapel, of course! Thass worked out wonderful. Them that trust in the Lord shall never be confounded-- no truer word was ever writ.'
Nineteen pounds to spend on timber, and a far better site than the old one, stuck away there behind Shipton's barn. The new chapel would be very conspicuous; he'd have some big notices outside it so that those who could read could read out for those who could not edifying remarks such as 'THE WAGES OF SIN ARE DEATH'; and on Sunday evenings when the men and boys gathered to lounge on the Stone Bridge and gossip and spit into the water the sound of the good hymns and prayers would rise up and reach them.
Danny was dreaming too. He'd heard about the wonderful things that were being done with drains up in the fens near Ely, and maybe he could drain his piece, grow better pasture, rear more beasts, somehow or other get back into farming again.They walked along for quite a distance without speaking again. Once Amos did open his mouth to say, 'All things work together for good for them that love God', and that he did not say the words aloud was in no sense due to doubt of their truth; it was because he remembered that this scheme was going to benefit Matt Ashpole and his horse, Danny Fuller and his bullocks----
Danny's nineteen-acre plot, now known by the name which it was to bear for many years--Cobbler's Corner-- was fenced by the end of May and his bullocks and Matt's horse installed. Matt, owning only limited human sight, had no idea that his original scheme for ensuring his horse a home had seemed to fail, had gone underground and then burrowed its way to open triumph again, so he regarded the whole transaction of the fencing and Danny's return as a piece of lucky business. He was quite willing, therefore, to hang about Baildon Market each Wednesday and Saturday and wait until the auctioneer's office closed and then give Danny a lift to Clevely, and on Saturday nights he also provided what he called a 'shake-down' so that Danny could stay over and spend Sunday with the bullocks. By late June the shed which was to shelter the beasts through the winter was under construction, and so was Amos's chapel; the two men helped one another with the planting of their corner posts and Matt helped with the hauling of the timber. There was marked amity.
On Wednesdays Danny had to walk back to Baildon after his evening's labour, and the exertion, stripping the flesh from his bones, brought out the marked resemblance to his father, causing Mrs Fuller to fret a little. Lethargic as she had become in other ways, she always stayed up on Wednesdays to serve him a late hot meal. One Wednesday, seeing him off to the market, she said, 'You'll be going to Clevely, I s'pose?' and then added one of her wistful remarks, 'I reckon that pink rose by the parlour window'll be all in bloom now. I planted that the year afore you was born.'
That evening Danny left off work while there was still
light in the sky, crossed the highroad and entered Berry Lane. He intended to ask the new tenant of the house to allow him, as a favour, to gather half a dozen of the pink roses. To his surprise the house still stood empty, the garden thick with a summer's unchecked weeds, the nettles beginning to invade the little yard. The door of the byre that had been the kitchen was open and Danny could see the ill-fated manger and rack.
He pushed his way to the front of the house and gathered a big bunch of the sweet pink roses and then walked rapidly through the dusk towards Baildon. But on the Waste he stopped and had a word with Matt Ashpole, who would know, if anyone did, why the house was standing empty. Matt knew. The tenant who had hired the holding was building a new house.
'The land, you see, Danny, when they shuffled it about, was all in a piece down by the Lower Road, so he reckoned it best to live there. He's a warmish chap. Grigg his name is--son to old Grigg, the biggest butcher in Bywater, so he could afford to build like. Come in, boy. Hev a bit of a set down and a sup of my brew. I've took to making me own in these hard times. Ain't got it right yet, but it's a drink.'
'No, thanks,' Danny said. 'I reckon ... No, too late tonight. Mother will sit up and she'd fret. On the other hand, if I wait till Saturday somebody might go and snap
it up----'
'Whass bothering you, boy?' 'That house. I'd like to see Mr Hadstock.' 'About hiring it again, you mean? Well, I wouldn't go rapping him up about that this time of night, might make him rorty. Tell you what, Danny, if you like I'll hev a word with him tomorrer morning. I got a errand up at the Manor 'smatter of fact. He ain't a bad chap in hisself --apart from owd Seizer, I mean. I'll put in a word for you, and let you know Saturday.'
Hadstock, who had always considered the Fuller family ill done by, promised Matt that he would do what hecould to arrange the tenancy, and that evening spoke to Linda about the matter. Matt had told a glib story: there was Mrs Fuller, he said, 'peaking and pining away, fretting for her owd home' and there was Danny 'killing hisself running backwards and forrards'. Linda said it would be very nice for Mrs Fuller to come back to Clevely. 'I never did understand that business,' she said. 'In all other matters my husband went dead against old Sir Charles's arrangements, but he confirmed the Fullers' notice to quit. I thought it strange at the time. And of course he may object to their return.'
'I wonder,' Hadstock said. 'Five pounds rent is better than having the place empty until it rots. There've been no other applicants. And I hear that old Wellman is now intending to build a new house in the middle of his holding. Others will too, as they can afford it. There won't be much demand for houses without land. I wonder...'
'I think we're both thinking of the same thing,' Linda said, smiling. 'Just to write and say a suitable tenant has offered to rent the house----'
'That was in my mind,' said Hadstock, returning the smile.
'Let's try it,' Linda said. There are relationships in which such a humble, harmless piece of connivance is more significant than a passionate embrace; their was one such.
Richard did not even trouble to reply to the letter which informed him that a tenant for a five-pound-a-year property had been found. Why should he? Why should he keep a bailiff if not to attend to just such trivialities? Besides, he had other things to think about. He was discovering how right Alec had been when he said that consistent good luck could be embarrassing and in the end tedious. He ignored the unpopularity which resulted, for his touchy temper and perverse behaviour had rendered him unpopular before his luck changed; the trouble now was to find a game. At Angelina's the tables were either filled against him or the players, after a game
or two, made excuses and drifted away. He had to seek new places, find strangers to play with; and although he gloated over his winnings he found gambling boring nowadays. The very spirit of the game wilted when you knew, before you turned it over, that the card you had drawn would be the very one you wanted.
In Baildon Mrs Fuller returned to life as soon as a return to Clevely came under discussion. She took out the quilt with the true-lovers'-knot pattern which she had made for Damask and never been able to bring herself to give to Sally and draped it over a screen at the back of the little shop. Every customer who entered for a twopenny pie or a pennyworth of gingerbread adored it; many asked if it was for sale. 'I dunno,' said Mrs Fuller. 'I made it special; thass not a pattern you see every day. I hung it there to brighten the place like.' Soon people were asking, 'S'pose it was for sale, what would you be asking for it?'
'Oh, I'd want five pounds for that one.' said Mrs Fuller.
Five pounds for a quilt! Over the teacups women asked one another, had such a price ever been heard of? But of course it was a very unusual pattern, and all silk, not a bit of cotton stuff in it. Finally Mrs Thurlow Lamb, assiduously visiting a sick friend of slightly superior social status, saw one of Mrs Fuller's quilts, ten years old, but as good as new, on the sick-bed; and next day she went to the shop in the Friargate and bought the true-lovers' knots.
'So there you are, you can get a horse, Danny; stabling 'on't cost nothing back home, and you can ride in and out so long as you hev to--and that'll on't be till we get on our feet again. Give me back my dairy and my fowls,' said Mrs Fuller, 'and we'll be on the mend again in no time. We'll live close for a bit and sell the best.' She made that concession to fate, thinking of Steve's mother as she did so. 'But not for long,' she added stoutly. 'I'll manage.'
Just before the move Danny took two days' holiday and went to Clevely, where, aided by Matt Ashpole, Spitty Palfrey, Shad Jarvey and one of the Gardiner boys, he whitewashed the house inside and out, and moved the rack and the manger into the now almost completed bullock shed on Cobbler's Corner. He noticed how easy it was to get people to work nowadays--the mere smell of a job brought all the Waste-dwellers running. Oh, if only he could lay hands on some more land, arable land, any land----
By evening of the moving day Fuller's was, in all but one respect, itself again. The black dresser was back in its rightful place in the kitchen and the firelight was red on the sides of the pewter mugs which Mrs Fuller had set Sally to polish. Mrs Fuller was frying a pan of eggs and bacon, standing to do so within inches of the spot where Steve's body had hung from the turnip rack. That fact, as fact, she did not bear in mind, but other memories of Steve were there, newly poignant on account of the surroundings, so that her pleasure was dimmed and soured. Deliberately she turned away from them, scowling at the bought eggs as she turned them in the pan. The bacon she had cured herself last summer, taken into Baildon and brought back again; that was all right, but bought eggs at Fuller's! She thought of fowls clucking around the back door, of brown eggs warm from the nest; she thought of bright yellow butter and pale-yellow cheese. And she thought again of Steve, poor man, poor man; still, she'd done her best for him, dead and alive, and fretting did nobody any good, it'd just weaken her for the long pull and the strong pull which lay ahead if they were to make a success of this new venture. Deliberately she left Steve to his rest and faced her labour. She'd manage----
In June, Mr Turnbull came to bring Miss Parsons her quarterly allowance, as usual. It was his fourth visit since Miss Greenway had been installed as companion and he had ceased to wonder at the improved appearance of the place and its owner. Miss Parsons was indeed becoming quite plump and placid. Today she was making what
looked like a bead purse--the girl was skilful in contriving little peaceful occupations for her; she seemed always to be busy with something nowadays.
As usual, he chatted a little; handed over the money and watched Miss Greenway put it in a drawer and fetch the ink and the quill-stand. Miss Parsons signed the receipt with her usual flourish, though she muttered something about signing things being dangerous. She then resumed the beadwork.
'Oh dear,' Damask said, Tm afraid she has forgotten again. For the last three weeks she has been worrying about something and wanting me to send for you, but I knew you would be coming. May I offer you a glass of
wine?'
'That would be very kind.' A decanter and three fluted glasses stood on a table behind the chair in which Miss Parsons sat, and as she went towards it Damask paused and said, as though to an earnest child, 'You are making it pretty.' The old lady looked up and smiled in a pleased way and the girl just touched her shoulder, an affectionate, approving pat. It was a pleasing little scene and the old lawyer smiled and then sighed. He could remember a very self-assured, domineering Amelia Caroline Parsons, and he thought it was sad the way age altered people, even their personalities. His own seventieth birthday was in sight! Still, of course, a man, a trained mind, disciplined to a profession ...
He let the thought fall as Damask handed him, very prettily, one of the fluted glasses, and at the same moment, as though to underline his mental comment about Miss Parsons' earlier self, the old lady said with much of her former vigour and decisiveness:
'I wish to make my will!'
Carrying the wineglass, he moved to a chair and sat
down near her. 'You made a will, you know. Five years ago ... yes,
just five years.'
'Then I wish to make another.' That put Mr Turnbull in a quandary. He could hardlylook an old, respected client in the face and say what was in his mind--'Madam, you made a will when you were competent to do so; you are not now so competent.' Instead he sipped his wine and murmured, 'A most excellent Madeira,' and in the moment so gained framed the next sentence.
'Five years is not long. With so recent a will I would hardly advise any changes.'
The girl handed Miss Parsons her glass of wine and said soothingly, 'There, you see, you had made one. So there's nothing to worry about.'
Her glance met Mr Turnbull's and he noticed, at Richard Shelmadine had done, the lack of the expected expression. The glance did not say, 'Poor old thing!' or 'I manage her well, don't I?' Nothing. Yet the glance itself started a train of thought in the lawyer's mind. Of course Miss Parsons wished to leave the girl a legacy, and that was reasonable enough. She deserved something. And even if, by the strictest legal standards, Miss Parsons was not in her right mind, she was, on the other hand, certainly not a lunatic and there was nothing in the least out of the way in her wishing to reward the devoted attention of one who had come into her life since the other will was made.
'I wish to make my will,' Miss Parsons said. 'There is no need to make a new will, you know....' And, dear me, he thought, it would be easier if the young woman were not present.
'Everything to Damask,' said Miss Parsons. 'This is Damask. Damask Greenway, my only friend.'
The girl set down her glass and said, 'Dear, I told you not to bother. Please don't bother.' To the lawyer she said, 'This is all very embarrassing for me. You talk to her.' She walked away through the open french window into the garden.
Mr Turnbull breathed more freely and began to make legal phrases in his mind.'... if still in my employ.' That was it. How much? Well, feeble-minded people often lived to a great old age and became very cantankerous. The

girl might have an ordeal ahead of her... say five hundred pounds.
'I wish to make my will, Everything to Damask. To Damask Greenway, everything.'
'Yes, yes, I heard you. I think that would be hasty and unwise. After all, she might leave you, get married or ... or leave for some other reason----'
'She would not. She promised. She promised and I
promised___' She jumped to her feet, spilling the beads,
which fell in a little tinkling shower. 'Plenty of lawyers," she cried in a rising voice--'about, I mean; plenty of lawyers about. My money, all my money and my will. I wish to make my will. Everything to Damask, Damask Greenway....'
'Now please, please, my dear madam, don't upset yourself ... I am not trying to cross you. I only say that such a matter ... you see, in your case everything is a considerable bequest, very considerable. I think it should be discussed calmly.'
'Calmly. Calmly." Miss Parsons Repeated the word as though she had never heard it before. Then her face took on an expression of immense cunning. 'She didn't say that. I only say what she says. That is the safest way. You see, I'm very forgetful; very forgetful indeed.' She looked about vaguely and presently saw all the tiny beads, pink and blue and green and silver, scattered on the floor. 'Now you've made me drop my beads,' she said, her face crumpling like a child's. 'Oh dear, oh dear.' She began to cry, loudly and complainingly, like a child.
'Now please, please,' said Mr Turnbull. 'Look, I'll collect...' He dropped, with a cracking sound as though twigs were breaking, to his knees and began to gather up the little beads with fingers which were suddenly ten times their usual size. Miss Parsons, crying more and more loudly, stood stock still so that he was grovelling almost under her skirts and he had a sudden memory of the first time he had ever been in this house ... fifty years or so ago, with his father, just after the Captain's death and she'd been ... and he'd been ... Dear, dear, the damagethe years did___
He was conscious of nothing but relief when the girl came hurrying through the french window again.
She took the old lady by the arm and said, 'I told you not to upset yourself. Just over some spilled beads. Please, Mr Turnbull ... I can pick them all up in a moment. There now. Everything is all right. There, there."
She had Miss Parsons in her chair again. Mr Turnbull got stiffly to his feet. Their eyes met.
'I wish to make my will,' Miss Parsons said with all the vigour and freshness of someone making a statement for the first time.
Mr Turnbull remembered that the one thing he dreaded was an apoplectic fit, and never, so far, had he been so dangerously near it.
'Darling, you don't need to make a will,' the girl said. 'You have one nice will already.'
Mr Turnbull made his escape with those ridiculous words ringing in his ears. Nothing, no protests, no attestations on oath, could have so firmly established in his mind the conviction of the young woman's complete integrity. 'You have one nice will already!' And she'd been there when he mentioned that that will was five years old.... She was no fool, she must know what that meant. And her one thought had been to comfort the poor demented old woman. It seemed unbelievable, but there it was; he had seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears. Completely disinterested. And why, in the name of God, should the Guildhall Feoffees, who had never done anything for, never even heard of Miss Parsons, benefit from her estate instead of that truly remarkable, selfless creature Damask Greenway? And after all, with every bit of mind and will left to her, his client had expressed her feelings. Should they not be respected?
Before he retired on that lovely June evening Mr Turn-bull mad a short simple draft of the new will by which Amelia Caroline Parsons bequeathed her whole estate to Damask Greenway.
He then went to bed and slept well and waked to the burst of song with which the birds were greeting the dawn. He felt restored and refreshed by the sound sleep he had enjoyed, and remembered, with amusement, his feeling of threatening stroke on the previous afternoon. Absolute nonsense; it just showed what tricks one's mind could play one. And then, suddenly, quite irrelevantly, when he was thinking so rationally about Miss Parsons and her will, he remembered a performing dog which he had seen at Baildon Fair, long ago when he was young enough to take interest in that event. The sore point of the performance was that the dog did exactly the Opposite of what its master commanded. Extremely easy to train a dog that way, dogs not being aware of the difference between 'stand' and 'sit', 'come' and 'go'; but it would surely not be easy, would in fact be impossible, fantastically impossible, to train an old lady, however feeble of mind, to the point where when you said 'Don't bother' she began to bother madly, and when you said 'You are making it pretty' she took that as a cue to say, 'I wish to make my will.' Really, thought Mr Turnbull, that I should dream of that comparison shows that my mind is not what it was ... or that I am still half asleep. He plumped up his pillow, and then, the birds having exhausted their first exuberance, went back to sleep again. But in the morning he handed the rough draft of the new will to his clerk, who would make a fair copy.CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The harvest ripened and was gathered. For all with corn to reap that was a fortunate year. Labour was very cheap. Out from the Waste Cottages, now besieged between the new fences and the sterile highroad, came every being who could totter on its young legs or stagger on its old ones; so the price of labour went down and down. But the price of the garnered corn stayed, on account of the war, at its peak.
That year even Captain Rout, that inefficient farmer, had his rent money ready for Michaelmas, and was also able to increase his order for smuggled brandy brought in by the gang who operated from Bywater. He was, moreover, able to buy his wife a fine new dress, the first she had had for years. That meant that when, just before All-Hallows' E'en, Mrs Fred Clopton of Flocky Hall invited them both to a party--as she had done in previous years --Mrs Rout was able to accept. Similar invitations she had refused, scornfully, concealing her true reason, which was that it was unbecoming for the wife of a gentleman who had, when all was said and done, borne the king's commission to appear at any gathering where she could not outshine a farmer's wife, however up and coming that farmer might be. Mrs Clopton had attributed the refusals to sheer snobbishness, for which she had at once admired and hated Mrs Rout, and had persisted with her invitations. When the final acceptance arrived she said to Fred, 'Ah. I knew the time would come when she was sick of her own company! And I'm glad it's this year, when Mrs Thurlow Lamb is coming with her airs and graces. It'll
show her.' An obscure statement, but perfectly lucid to Fred, who understood his wife's social aspirations and indeed shared them so far as his daughters were concerned. He agreed that there was no point in sending the girls to the Female Academy at Baildon and having them taught French and the pianoforte, and drilled on the backboard, if they were then to come home and revert to mere farmers' daughters, as their mother assured him they would unless some exertion were made. Money, which he was making 'hand over fist', wasn't enough; social advancement was needed as well.
The Harvest Horkey that year was a particularly lavish affair, as well it might be, the Squire having done so well out of the enclosure. Going home, replete and exhausted, the villagers remarked less upon what there was to eat and drink, and upon the wonderful fiddling of the little hunchback who had come to supplement Jim Lantern's playing, than upon the peculiar game which the Squire's friend, Mr Mundford, had played with some of the girls. There was no point in it, no prize, no result. He just went round offering one girl after another a bit of pale pinkish stone like a pebble. 'Will you be good enough to hold this in your hand while I count ten? Thank you, that will do.' Daft like, wasn't it?
Even Richard, when they were drinking together late in the library, mustered curiosity enough to ask, 'What were you up to all evening, Alec?'
'Reconnoitring,' said Mr Mundford simply. 'You may be grieved, if not surprised, to learn that of your village girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty not one is a virgin.' He took the stone from his pocket and fingered it.
That tallies with the rector's theory that no man will ask for the banns to be put up until he's well and truly caught,' Richard said. Then he added curiously, 'But how can you tell... there wasn't time...'
'I passed this about. It's a very special piece of stone. I bought it from a slaver in Zanzibar--you will appreciate its value to him when I tell you that in the hand of a virgin it changes colour and turns blue. Which is alsointeresting; you can trace there the derivative trend of Christianity. Mary's colour is blue, is it not? I gave two hundred guineas for this, and it is worth every penny. Tonight, for example ... it turned colour once--a little creature with flaxen hair and a pink dress. Before I could reach you and ask you her name she'd vanished, and presently she slipped back into the dance looking rather sheepish. I invited her to hold it again ... and alas ...' He ended with a laugh. Then, abruptly serious, he said, 'After all, it is a thing we must face. We need one by the end of October and some preparation will be necessary. They're so damned coy. I know: I've been through this before. It is very difficult to make them believe that it's a purely passive part. To have one handy, one capable of being worked upon, would be very convenient. The best subject I ever found was at Medmenham--quite simple-minded, with a passion for port wine. Believe it or not, it had no effect upon her, she drank it as a kitten drinks milk, liking the taste and wanting more and more. I only wish I had her now,' said Mr Mundford wistfully. 'She was just right; but then Medmenham, as I've told you before, was wrong. I said so at the time. If you credit one side with power, then you must credit the other; and that was an abbey, consecrated soil, and there was the stumbling-block. Dashwood didn't really believe either way ... what I attained I attained despite him and the other fools." As always on the rare occasions when he spoke frankly of his intentions and aims, a startling change came over him; into his suety face and tallowy fingers the blood seemed to flow, carrying warmth and colour and vitality; his ordinarily cold eyes grew luminous. When he spoke of the Power he sought it seemed to be already his; when he spoke of the Power he worshipped it seemed to be there, in the room, oppressively overwhelming, even to Richard Shelmadine. He could make the incredible seem credible, the fantastic merely a matter of common sense.
Damask first learned of the Fullers' return from exile when she met Danny face to face along the drive just
before dusk on a Saturday evening late in September-- the evening of the Harvest Horkey. She usually chose Saturday evenings for her visits to her mother, since Amos was almost certain to be out of the house then, either working on his new chapel or attending a week-night meeting in one already established. She had, with some reluctance, abandoned the attempt to give Julie bacon and cheese and butter and plum cake and other solid comestibles which seemed of such small value in the Dower House and of such enormous worth on the Waste. Julie dared only accept a little tea and sugar and, at intervals, fresh bottles of the medicines, and these she hid away, furtively.
that Amos had sold him the land, and once or twice the mention of the facts had been 'on the tip of her tongue', as she put it to herself; but she shrank from saying anything which might cast the slightest gloom over these brief visits. Damask had survived--had enjoyed, indeed, a stroke of wonderful good fortune; still, you never knew how deep a wound might have gone or how it might ache, all hidden away. Once, during the summer, Julie herself had suffered a pang when she saw Sally Ashpole-- Mrs Danny Fuller--visiting her mother and carrying a really bonny bouncing baby in her arms. Nice dresses and pretty ornaments and what Julie called 'plenty to do with' were all very well, but did they entirely make up? Her grandmotherly instincts called out that they did not. On that day she had felt with renewed force that Amos in selling Danny the land had been disloyal to his daughter. Damask closed the door of the Dower House behind her that Saturday evening, settled the basket with the tea and sugar and medicines more comfortably on her arm and began to trip along the drive. It curved slightly around a clump of laurels, now neatly clipped back, and as she rounded the curve there was Danny. They came face to face and it was a perceptible while before he recognised her. Matt Ashpole had said in his gossipy way that she was at the Dower House and the old lady thought the world of her, but that had not prepared him for this elegant vision; he had indeed been wondering whether she would answer the door to him, and what their attitude towards each other would be. Now, recognising her, he gave a sheepish grin, 'Why, hullo, Damask.'
'Good evening,' she said coldly. 'What are you doing here, Danny Fuller?' As she spoke she lifted one slim, white, beringed hand and settled the gauzy scarf which lay, light as mist, over her curls and then encircled her neck. She had felt the pulse in her throat leap to life and pulled the scarf closer to hide it.
'I wanted to have a word with Miss Parsons. Is she at home?
'She's always at home. But you can't see her now. She never sees anyone unless I am there, and I am just going out. What did you want with her?'
'Just a bit of business.' Be demned if he'd tell her, acting so high-handed. 'I'll come another time.'
'You might just as well tell me now and save yourself a long walk. I handle all her business now.'
'I don't mean housekeeping. I mean business. And it isn't a long walk--we're back in the old house. Didn't you know?'
'No. I ... why, I..." She collected herself quickly. 'I'm out of touch with village gossip nowadays. No, I hadn't heard. Did you get the land back too?'
'Why, no. Just the house. I've got some land--nineteen acres your own father sold me. Didn't you even know that? Nineteen acres, but that's no enough. That was why I was calling on Miss Parsons. She got her share of the Waste and I wondered whether she'd rent me a bit. You see, I..."
'I can answer that now. None of Miss Parsons' land is for hire.'
'Now you can't answer for that, Damask. Not without even asking. I'd pay a good rent and get the land in good heart...'
'Not Miss Parsons' land you won't.'
'I don't see how you can be so sure ...' By this time she
was completely mistress of herself again and be able to meet his eyes. She looked at him, and strangely, since nothing in the situation had altered, he was certain that Miss Parsons had no land for hire. 'Well, if you're so sure,' he said, all the spirit and hope and fight seeping out of him.
'I'm sure. And now if you'll excuse me ...' She began to walk along the drive again. He turned and began to walk in the same direction, not quite with her, about half a pace behind as a dog might.
'You're angry with me, aren't you? Rightly so, I reckon. It was just--aw, something I couldn't talk about, Damask. But I ... well, I'm sorry if I ... if I made you angry.' It was the best he could do on the spur of the moment, taken aback as he'd been by the way she looked and then shattered by that cold, strange stare. And so much had happened during the last eighteen months, and he himself had changed so much, was now so worn down by work and worry, that he could hardly remember exactly what had been between them ... at least, that was not quite true; he could remember her saying 'I don't want to be one of your jilts'--that was at the beginning; and he could remember the scene in the wood--that was at the end; but there were blanks.
She gave a little light laugh, a lady's laugh, and said:
'Why should I be angry with you? You did me no wrong. And the girl you did wrong you married, didn't you? Why should anybody by angry?'
She was still slightly ahead of him, walking so quickly, so lightly and not turning her head, that he forgot that look she had given him and remembered only his land hunger.
'No,' he said in eager agreement, 'I never did you much wrong, Damask. And if you feel that way and aren't angry with me you might put in a word with Miss Parsons. Her bit of the Waste now, it's fenced but not ploughed...'
'It is being ploughed on Monday,' Damask said. They had reached the gate and she halted and waited as a lady should so that he could open it for her. She passed through, and while he was engaged in closing the gate again she said 'Good night' and was gone, walking swiftly, I lightly in the direction of the Waste Cottages.
On the next evening, which was Sunday, she went to the Manor House. All her fury and discomfiture had now focused itself, and the voice in which she spoke to the footman who opened the door and the glance she gave him cancelled out the small consideration that ladies of importance did not arrive alone, on foot, after dark. He sped to announce her.
Richard, Mr Mundford and Mr Montague were playing cards, and interest had been lent to the game by Mr Mundford having 'taken back' his luck. Just before Mr Montague had arrived Richard had said, 'You were right, as usual. It is tedious to play and know that you will win.' 'Tedious in the end, not the beginning, you will agree? Well, it was only a loan--give it back!' Alec said lightly. He cupped his hand, seemed to pluck something from the back of Richard's left and then paused, holding his hand as though something indescribably fragile and precious were balanced in his palm. 'And if I lend it to dear Monty, then we shall know how every game will go! Never mind, I'll think of something.'
A little later, as Linda moved to take her place at the end of the dinner-table, Mr Mundford reached out and touched the lace of her sleeve with fingers which looked, she thought, in some way afflicted. 'Beautiful,' he said, 'beautiful. Venetian, is it not?' 'I don't know.' she said. 'I'm afraid I don't know much about lace.'
'Nor about luck,' said Richard, with what seemed like complete irrelevance, and dropped into his own chair laughing. Mr Mundford, for some reason, seemed displeased and shot him a quelling glance.
The devil's own luck' was thus safely away, gone with Linda who had said good night and left the three men to

their play, and Richard was enjoying the game more than any he had played for a long time when the door-bell sounded an urgent peal and presently a footman came and said, rather breathlessly, that Miss Greenway wished to see Sir Richard.
'Greenway ... Greenway,' said Richard, looking up from his cards. 'Oh yes, I remember.' She'd done him a favour, persuaded the old lunatic to sign, and he'd kept his bargain, given her father twenty acres--not the best; and sacked somebody she had a grudge against. What did she want now?
They were playing in the library; Linda, unless she had gone to bed unusually early, would be in the small sitting-room.
'Ask her to wait in there,' he said, indicating the door of the breakfast-room, which lay between the library and the room which Linda used most. He laid his cards on the table and said, 'Excuse me. I shan't be a minute.'
Damask stood, very straight and still, with her back to the branching candlestick on the side-table, so that her face was in shadow. Richard said with his easy, spurious pleasantness:
'Good evening, Miss Greenway.'
She waited just long enough so that he began to wonder whether she had heard him, and then said:
'I do not wish you good evening or anything good, Sir Richard. You cheated me.'
'Cheated.' He savoured the word, disliked it, and said with some vehemence, 'That is no word to use. If you remember rightly, I promised to see that your father received an allotment of land and that the...'
'Fullers.'
'... the Fullers should receive notice. Both those conditions I performed to the letter. What do you mean,' he demanded, his anger rising, 'by coming here and abusing me? You are a very insolent young woman.'
'I'm very angry,' she said coolly. 'The Fullers are back in Clevely.'
'God in Heaven.' he said. 'Who cares whether you're angry or not? Who cares where the Fullers are? You coaxed your lunatic mistress to sign her name and I rewarded you, and that is the end of that! Lunacy must be contagious.' He moved to the hearth and pulled the bell-rope. 'The servant will show you out,' he said, and went towards the door of the library. As he put his hand on the knob Damask turned and lifted the candlestick and said:
'Sir Richard.'
He was aware of the shifting light and turned, and seeing the candlestick in her hand imagined that the half-jibing remark about the contagion of lunacy was sober truth and that she planned to set fire to something.
'Put that down!' he exclaimed. 'What in hell do you think you're doing?'
She set the candlestick on the table so that it flowered with its seven golden blooms between them. He saw her face clearly for the first time that evening and noticed, half idly, that her eyes, instead of reflecting the light as one would have expected, seemed to glow, yellow and transparent as though the light were behind them. A most curious effect, he thought, even while his mind was busy framing a sentence which would really hurt her. The desire to hurt her had, he suddenly realised, lurked in him ever since that first interview.
'You should, you know, ask Miss Parsons to add to her other favours by teaching you some rudimentary manners.' he said silkily, and watched to see the barb strike.
Her face remained impassive; she hardly heard him. Her mind reached backwards: the Saunders, scoundrels with a bad conscience between them; poor old Miss Parsons, unsound of mind; Mr Turnbull--but there possibly Miss Parsons' authority had borne some weight; Matt Ashpole, just an ignorant lout. This was the real test; and the power welled up to meet the challenge.
'Sit down,' she said gently. 'Sit down, Richard Shelmadine.'
He fought for a moment; delayed so long, despite the weakening of his knees, that in the end he had only just
time to drag a chair under him and prevent himself from sitting on the floor.
'Insolent,' she said musingly. 'Wouldn't you be?' He went red, and then white with rage, gripped the edge of the table, and tried to heave himself up, then put his hands on the edge of the chair and tried to lever himself to his feet. It was useless; he might have had no legs at all. Damask watched his struggles with an expressionless detachment that was more wounding than mockery. At last he slumped in the chair and muttered: 'All right. What do you want?' 'An apology--for breaking your word.' 'I swear until you told me I didn't know the Fullers were back. Where are they? You see, I don't even know that.'
'They're back in the same house. They've some land already and are looking for more.'
'It was without my knowledge.' Surreptitiously he pressed his hands against the sides of the chair again and tried to lever himself up. Sweat sprang in little shining drops on his brow. 'Without my knowledge,' he repeated. 'I remember now, Hadstock, my bailiff, wrote that he had found a tenant for the empty house; he gave no name. How should I know?'
'Oh well,' she said, accepting the explanation. 'It would have been better if you had told me that in the first place instead of calling me insolent."
Deliberately she removed her gaze and stared about the room with a naive and puppyish interest. Apparently now she had the power to make the spell hold even when she was not staring at her victim. Presently she ventured a move and went over to the sideboard to inspect something which had roused her curiosity: a silver dish with a silver grid over it and three short stout candles under the grid. What was its purpose? Oh, of course, to keep dishes warm while they waited. What an excellent idea! What extreme luxury! Not even at Muchanger had she seen such a contrivance. They must have one at the Dower House. The sweat had gathered now and was running down the harsh lines of the Squire's yellow face. His spruce white neck-cloth was greying with damp and collapsing upon itself. She looked at him without amusement but with immense satisfaction.
'The word,' he said, as though he were being throttled, 'was ill-chosen. I retract it. I apologise.'
Delicately she smoothed her gloves and adjusted the filmy scarf which covered her hair.
'You can't,' he gasped out, 'just go away ... and leave me here. I'll put the Fullers out again. I'll do ... I'll... What do you want of me?'
'Nothing. Nothing at all but just to sit there until I let you up.'
'He's a damned long time,' Mr Montague said, glancing at the door which led into the breakfast-room.
'Wench trouble, I suspect,' said Mr Mundford. 'Miss Greenway, I noticed, and Richard looked blank for a moment and then remembered something and went with some alacrity.'
'And they're suspiciously quiet,' said Mr Montague, who was not without experience. 'Some women shout and thwow things and then you get angwy yourself and you're saved. But when they cwy, quietly, that is dangerous; you begin to pwomise them things. Do you think, that perhaps Wichard would welcome an intewuption?'
'I should welcome a glimpse of the lady,' said Mr Mundford.
'To the wescue then!' cried Mr Montague. He got up and opened the door into the breakfast-room tentatively and politely, saying, 'Wichard, we are waiting for you'; then he saw the way the girl was standing, plainly triumphant, and the way Richard was sagging, sweating profusely in his chair. Too late, he thought; he's promised her a hundred a year.
Mr Mundford had taken a look too and interpreted the scene otherwise. As Mr Montague stepped back from the doorway he moved forward.
'We,' said Damask, turning the stare upon him, 'are having a private conversation.'
'Which one member of the party seems not to be enjoying very much,' said Mr Mundford smoothly. 'Sometimes, you know, an impartial third person ...' He moved towards the chair and said in a bantering voice, 'Manners, man, manners. Get up and introduce me.' Richard looked at him with agonised eyes and scrabbled with his fingers on the table's edge and sweated more profusely.
Mr Mundford looked at Damask, who looked back at him. Blundering fool ... just when she was proving ...
'We have no wish to be interrupted,' she said brusquely. They fought one another over the candles for a moment.
'And I have no wish to be intrusive,' said Mr Mundford blandly. 'Helpful, yes.'
Then for God's sake help me, if you can,' said Richard thickly.
Is it not remarkable,' said Mr Mundford, with his eyes on Damask, 'how, in an extremity, people not ordinarily attentive to the Deity appeal to other people in His name?' He smiled as he spoke and, reaching out one leg, kicked the leg of the chair in which Richard sat. 'Get up,' he said. And Richard was in possession of his legs again.
'Monty is alone, and you need a drink,' said Mr Mundford, ushering Richard out of his own breakfast-room.
'Try on me,' said Mr Mundford before Damask could speak. As proof of his willingness to be 'tried on' he moved to stand conveniently for dropping into the chair.
'It would be no use,' she said, rather sullenly.
'Never mind. Try. My name is Alec Mundford.'
All right, she thought, she'd show him. Coming in like that and spoiling everything. An upsurge of anger, which in the circumstances was understandably mistaken for an uprush of power, swept over her.
'Sit down, Alec Mundford,' she said, desperately willing it to happen. But he remained standing.
'No,' he said, 'I am stronger than you--as yet. But you are young. And I confess I felt a weakening of the knees-- Tell me, how long have you practised this art, and to what purpose?"'It came a year ago, in August. Quite suddenly. A woman was going to throw me out of somewhere where I wanted to stay ... and she couldn't; nor could her husband. Then I knew.'
'And what had happened in August a year ago?' Sullen again, she said, 'Nothing.' 'Come, come,' said Mr Mundford. 'You remember. You and I must be frank with one another if we are to work together.' 'Work together?'
'Why not? It would never do for us to oppose one another, would it? But we'll speak of that later. Tell me what happened in August last year.'
'I had ... a shock. And it was a hot day. I fainted; my mother thought I was dead.'
'And where were you during that time?' 'How did you know?' she asked sharply. He did not bother to answer, he just looked at her and waited.
'In a place,' she said at last. He nodded. 'And there were voices ... and light was something you could touch and handle; and colour ... colour was something you could taste ... and time was ... you could see it. It sounds all confused, but that was how it was, and I understood it... then.'
'And you returned with this power?'
'That was how it seemed. Nobody had ever done what I wanted them to do until then.'
He nodded again. 'Now do something for me,' he said. He took from his pocket the lump of pale pink stone. 'Hold this in your hand, will you?'
She hesitated. 'What is it? I don't want anything else to happen to me. You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone--and Sir Richard if he's your friend, though he did cheat me.'
'I'm not going to take anything away from you. I told you, we must work together. Just hold this in your hand.'
Reluctantly she took the stone and held it.
'Now give it back.' He snatched it quickly and looked at it eagerly. 'And colour,' he quoted delightedly, 'was
something you could taste.' He slipped the stone back into his pocket. 'Working together,' he said, 'there could be no limit to what we could do.' He brooded for a moment. Then he said, 'Tell me, what do you want most in the
world?'
The pulse began to beat in her throat again.
'Something I can never have now...'
'Why not?'
'It is too late.'
'Ah, but you forget. "Time was ... you could see it!" Remember? By that measure it can never be too late. What is it that you want? I swear to you--by the things we both know--that if you will work with me you shall
have it.'
'But he's married now."
'How young you are,' Mr Mundford said, almost do-tingly. 'How young and how innocent----' 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Once the harvest was over the year seemed to go downhill rapidly; the evenings drew in and the usual early October gales stripped the trees and howled around the ill-fitting doors of the Waste Cottages, presaging worse weather to come. Those who had potatoes to dig dug them thankfully, watched by envious eyes.
Matt Ashpole, In that October, received what he called 'a smack on the snout'--one against which even his remarkable foresight had not warned him. He had foreseen and had spoken to Mrs Sam Jarvey about the 'draught' which would blow, cold and bitter, when destitution overtook the Waste-dwellers. He had himself lately felt its breath. Quite a third of his carrier's business had been concerned with taking little bits and pieces of produce to market and buying other little bits and pieces for his neighbours. That trade was now virtually dead. But he had sold all his fencing stakes and he was counting on Shipton's walnuts. So one blustery October morning he drove along to Bridge Farm to come to terms with Mrs Shipton as he had done in previous years.
She was not in the kitchen, so he banged on the door and shouted. Receiving no answer, he took Gyp by the bridle and led him to the rickety fence which separated the yard from the stackyard and left him so close to one of Shipton's haystacks that no sensible horse could have failed to take advantage of the position. He then went, on foot, to take a look at the walnut crop. And there, to his surprise and horror he found Shipton and his missus--her
head tied up in a duster--armed with linen props, beating
down the nuts with their own hands. 'Hullo, hullo!' he said. 'Ain't late this year, am I?' Shipton gave him a sour, sheepish look and went on
with his beating, but Mrs Shipton lowered her prop and
stood with it like a standard-bearer while she said, briskly:
'This year we're gathering 'em, sacking 'em and selling 'em, and taking what profit there is to be had, Matt Ash-pole. Letting you do it was all part of the lop-lolly state of affairs what brought us to ruin!'
'Ruin, missus?' said Matt, remembering all the fat pigs in the straw, all the stacks in the stackyard. 'Come now, you ain't the one to talk about ruin, surely.'
'I ain't talking about it; I'm dealing with it,' retorted Mrs Shipton.
The old bitch must be mad, Matt thought; and there was nothing to be gained by arguing with a mad woman armed with a linen prop. He shot Shipton a glance, a nice blend of sympathy and derision which Abel affected not to see, and walked slowly back to where he had left his old horse, which, being a prudent animal, had made the most of its chance.
'Come on, Gyp,' he said, climbing into the cart, 'we've gotta find some other way of turning a honest penny. I don't know what things are coming to, that I don't.'
Even his sturdy spirit was cast down for a while as he remembered better days when sometimes--not often, but sometimes--a job would go begging, when Matt Juby maybe would rap on his door and say, 'Matt, do us a favour. Dead rat under the floor at Flocky and I promised to go and hunt it this morning and now my cow is dropping her calf.' Nowadays the smell of a dead rat to be hunted and disposed of, a dead sheep to be buried, an overflowing privy to be emptied, brought half a dozen men running, all ready to accept a cut-throat price for the job. Terrible times we live in, surely, Matt thought. But the rhythm of the old horse's plodding hoofs soothed him, and the sight of the animal itself, narrow-hocked, bony- . Terrible times ribbed, sway-backed, ewe-necked as it was, was a cheering sight. He was better off than most; he still had his old horse, and sooner or later he'd find something to buy and sell again. His leathery lips curved in a smile as he remembered Shipton's face, the rasp in Mrs Shipton's voice. Poor old devil, for all his acres.
The increased poverty among his neighbours would, in the end, affect Amos unfavourably too, since in past years the sale of the pig or the geese or the half-grown calf had generally led to an order for shoes for some member of the family. This year nobody would order new shoes, but a good many people were willing to come and lend him a hand with the chapel-building in return for a patch on an upper or a clump on the sole. The new chapel grew much faster than its ruined predecessor, and after labouring on it all through the evenings Amos worked for hours by candlelight fulfilling his obligations to his helpers. Every evening after he had left the house Julie made a pot of tea and drank it slowly, savouring every drop.
The second week in October, just when he had decided it was time to change his routine and build in the mornings again, the weather turned wet. For days on end it rained relentlessly, heavy driving rain against which even a sack offered little protection, so Amos stayed at home and made up great arrears of work and Julie had no tea. Then a fine morning dawned, and as soon as he had noticed the weather Amos, with a piece of bread meagrely spread with lard in his hand, set off for Cobbler's Corner. Thank God for that, Julie thought piously, and put the kettle on, reached down her little brown teapot and the blue jug of skim milk. Ordinarily they washed down the larded bread with a cup of the milk and hot water, unsweetened; this morning Amos hadn't even waited for that.
With the hot sweet tea even the stale bread and thinly spread lard made a feast, and Julie lingered over it, thinking kindly of Damask. She had just poured fresh water into the pot to liven up the brew when the door of the

workroom opened and closed, heavy stumbling steps approached the kitchen door, it opened, and there was Amos, looking so pale and stricken that she cried, 'Oh! Are you ill?' getting clumsily to her feet as she spoke.
'Gone all lopsided,' he said in a terrible voice, and sat down and put his head in his hands.
'What hev?'
'My chapel," he groaned.
'Oh dear me,' she said concealing her inward relief. Thass a sad job.' She looked at his bowed head with a glance void of sympathy but rich in pity. She knew the toil and the self-denial that had gone into that building, not to mention the nineteen pounds. A secret feeling of guilt stirred in her; she had so much resented the immediate sinking of that capital, which had seemed like a gift from Heaven, in the chapel, inevitable as she knew it to be. She had almost wished ill on the place at times.
"What happened?' she asked tenderly, as though interest at this point could retract the grudging of earlier thoughts.
Amos did not answer immediately; he was probably praying. After a few minutes he raised his head.
'I must bear in mind, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth". But the shock of the sight of it made me lose heart for a minute.'
'What happened?' Julie asked again.
Thass sunk, four-five inches all along one side--Danny Fuller's side. I reckon thass all on account of the draining he been doing. Stand to reason, don't it? The ground down there was all plumped out like a fresh apple, he drain, and that shrival like an old apple thass lost its juice. The ground shrivelled and pulled the timber away. One place at the corner it gaped so I could put my hand through.'
Far, far back in Julie's mind framed the sentence-- That's what come of selling land to a chap who jilted your own daughter. The sentence could never be spoken, of course. Instead she said:'Maybe you should of drained your bit when he did his.'
'Maybe I should. I didn't reckon on his being so hasty. Mention draining he did, the first night, afore he'd even bought the land. And that do seem a queer thing, Julie. There he is working away for the glory of Danny Fuller and me for the glory of God, and his drains work, all the reeds and rushes hev died down and he've got good pasture for the price of rubbish and I hev one chapel burnt and the other gone lopsided. That do seem hard.'
As soon as she knew that he was not stricken with mortal illness she had remembered the tea and moved so that she stood between him and the table. Now pity overcame her caution and she went back to her chair saying:
'You mustn't take it to heart, Amos. Hev a cup of tea. It'll pull you together.'
He stared at the teapot, the jug and the cup and the saucer and was tempted. Julie meant it kindly; and there'd be a relief in sitting here, drinking tea and talking over the mystery of God's ways, accepting the comfort of a sympathetic human being.
It was a temptation; he recognised it as such and thrust it away. A whole jumble of admonitory texts took possession of his mind: A house divided against itself could not stand ... the beam must be taken from your own eye before the mote from your neighbours ... except the Lord build the house their labour is but vain___He saw exactly where he had been at fault and why he had failed.
'Julie,' he said, 'that tea come from Damask, didn't it. I towd you, months ago, to send her back with what she brought. And I towd you, two years ago, no more tea in this house till the chapel is built. Both ways you disobeyed me and one way you deceived me. I've wrestled with Damask; every time I see her I've towd her about the way she look and act and never come to chapel, but she don't heed me. She've backslidden too. And there's you taking what she smuggle out of the house and don't even try to account for. The Lord no doubt think I turn a blind on these things. Here ..." he said, and reached out
88 pounds
and took up the little brown teapot and dashed it into the hearth, where it cracked with a small sound which seemed to be echoed by Julie. 'Oh,' she said, as though something in her had broken too. Yet when he turned he saw on her face no hurt, no pleading look; only a red, almost jubilant anger which held him motionless and speechless with astonishment.
Thass the end,' Julie said. 'I've borne with you and borne you all these years, and on'y a minnit ago I was downright sorry for you and offered you a cup of tea for your comfort. Now you've chucked away the one thing thass been my comfort all these weary years. I never asked much,' she said, her voice rising. 'I've scrimped and screwed and gone shabby when there was no need to, and lived as hard as if I'd married a poor tool like Spitty Palfrey, not a man with a trade to his name; and I've come to the point where all I ask is a cup of tea what didn't cost you anything, nor took anything away from your chapel, a cup of tea my own daughter give me. What if she do curl her hair a bit and wear a pretty dress?' Julie's voice rose again as the old barrier fell and the ancient grievance poured out. 'So did I till you went Methodist, and was I any die worse? My people was all good people. A good farmer my father was and good to them that worked for him, and a kinder woman than my mother you'd be hard put to it to find; but they didn't think a curl or a frill or a cup of tea--or a glass of ale, come to that--was a deadly sin. Nor wouldn't God. Thass just you, with your ideas as lopsided as your chapel!'
Amos was as much astonished as that Biblical character, Baalam, whose ass turned and spoke to him. He just stared.
'I can make tea in a jug,' said Julie, 'till Damask bring me a pot, which she will do when she hear what you did to my little brown 'un, what was a wedding present to
me.
She got up, reached down another larger jug and the little tea tin, and pushed the kettle back to the fire. 'I'm gonna make a jug of tea now, Amos; and do youinterfere with me I shall pour the water on you, so you'll be the sacrifice. I don't aim to be the sacrifice no longer."
This was worse than finding the chapel lopsided; more shocking, more bewildering. Without a word Amos turned and went into the workroom and fell on his knees by the bench. 'Take it to the Lord in prayer,' the hymn said, and he did that--all the troubles and the puzzles and the hurts. Damask, he felt instinctively, was at the root of the trouble; he prayed for her, and he prayed for strength and guidance to help him to deal with her----
His chance came on the following Saturday. He had felt for a long time that her visits were deliberately timed to avoid him and he saw no harm in a little subterfuge. He went out as usual, in case his movements were watched, and then came back again.
The tea was made by that time and Julie and Damask were sitting over it, their elbows on the table, their heads together. Damask had asked at once what had happened to the little brown teapot and had been told.
'We ain't spoke a word to one another since,' Julie said, rather piteously. Her rage had flared and then died down like a fire of dry sticks with no log to kindle and she would have been glad to make peace if Amos had given a sign. If he had just admitted that he was hasty over the teapot she would have broken down and cried and apologised for the way she had spoken; but Amos remained silent, prayed more than ever and regarded her coldly.
'That seem so queer,' Julie said, 'to live aside anybody as close as we do and not talk. Not that he ever minded what I said, or answered much.... But if I give in now he'd think he was right, and I know he ain't. I know there ain't no harm in a cup of tea for instance; nor in you letting your hair curl, natural.'
'I'll bring you a new teapot. There are several never used. Which would you like--a china one painted with flowers, or a pewter, or a silver one?'
Some slight uneasiness flared in Julie.
'I thought, maybe, just an old one, past use. I mean ...
well, I couldn't go taking a silver teapot.'
'Why not? Everything in the house is for me to do as I like with. Now that you've once stood up for yourself and don't have to hide things away any more I'll bring you lots of things. Anything you like--blankets, a down quilt, cushions for your chair. Why not? There's room after room in that house fully furnished and never entered except now and then for dusting.'
'But ... still all Miss Parsons',' said Julie timidly, anxious not to offend.
'We share it. I look after her and she provides me with what I need; and if I need things for you, then I can have
them.'
Before Julie could express any of the wondering gratitude which she felt, the sound of the outer door opening reached their ears.
Her recent declaration of defiance had not rendered Julie immune from a feeling of guilt; she started and said, 'Oh! There's your father!'
'Never mind. Just go on drinking your tea and take no notice of what he says.' She put her hand briefly upon Julie's misshapen one and Julie smiled and was calm, much as Miss Parsons was when similarly handled; she was obedient too, and lifted her cup just as Amos opened the inner door.
He said 'Hullo, Damask' just as he always had done upon finding her at home. Then he added 'I'm glad you came tonight. I've got things to say to you.'
She said 'Hullo, Father' and her red lips shaped a smile; above them the golden eyes were cold and deadly.
'One thing,' Amos said, 'is this here tea. Your mother says there's no harm in tea and I ain't saying there is, apart from it being a luxury and an indulgence of the flesh; but there's harm in bringing things out of your employer's house--and you never have yet looked me in the face and said that Miss Parsons give you leave to bring it. And there's harm in breaking your word, which is what you and your mother atwixt you hev made me do. No more tea in this house, I said, till the chapel is finished. The Lord expect a man to keep his own house in order and wouldn't take into account that you both went behind my back. That's one thing,' said Amos, checking off a point made, much as he did when he was in the pulpit. 'Then there is this business of your neglecting your worship. Great pains I took, time you first went out to work, to fix for you to come to chapel regular. Without a word to me you went and changed your job and never been in- ' side the chapel since. That ain't right, and you know it. I don't know what manner of servant you call yourself nowadays, but you seem to hev a lot of freedom; and do Miss Parsons value you as highly as you make out, she'd give . you time off to get to chapel once a month. And if you don't care to ask her, I will. I been sadly lax, letting all this time pass without doing nothing, but now I seen the error of my ways. That's the second thing. And now we come to the matter of your appearance. 'Tisn't seemly that you, my daughter, a well-brought up, godly girl, should go about decked out like the whore of Babylon-- that dress you're wearing this minute ain't decent, Damask, cut so low I can see where your breasts begin. Every time I see you you look more of a scarlet woman--I ain't saying you are, but you look like it. And if, as you said to me the first time I spoke, 'tis Miss Parsons' wish you should look like a trollop, then there's only one thing to do, and that is give in your notice.'
At that point even his logwindedness, practised in exhortations, gave out.
Julie sat sipping her tea, and sipping her tea as though her very life depended on it. Save for the slight noise as she swallowed, the room was very still when Amos's voice ceased.
Damask put her elbows on the table again, shaking out the lace of her sleeves as though deliberately flaunting it; she linked her fingers and set her chin on them and eyed Amos steadily for a moment. Then she asked, with exaggerated sweetness:
'Have you quite finished? Then I have two things to say to you. The first is about Danny Fuller.'
Despite the admonition to be calm, Julie gave another slight start at the sound of that name; and she would have put her cup down but seemed unable to. Another sip would steady her, she thought, and drank again. 'I don't mind what Danny Fuller did,' Damask said; 'it was a good thing for me, in every way. But he could have made me look silly, walking me home from the chapel and fetching me from here on my free days and then marrying Sally Ashpole. It just happened that I was saved from looking silly; but any decent father, with natural feelings for his daughter, would have thought twice before selling Danny Fuller the land he wanted. That's one thing,' she said, with a sudden brutal mimicry of Amos's pulpit manner. 'It isn't the important one, though. That's the way you treat my mother. Years and years she's had no comforts-- not because you couldn't earn the money but because you was.,.' Oh dear, what a slip! How did that happen? '... were too good and holy to tend to your trade. Nobody minded that. But now that things have changed and she could have a few little pleasures and an easier time you just grudge it. Your chapel didn't go lopsided because Mother had a cup of tea, and if you were honest with yourself you'd know it. And you didn't break her nice little brown teapot because you thought tea-making was wrong. You broke it because you had to take your temper out on something. You were angry with God, really; so you smashed a teapot!'
She thought that would make him flinch, or at least shake his calm.
'You're wrong there, my girl. 'Tain't for me nor any man to be angry with the Almighty. God was displeased with me, and rightly, as I've been pointing out to you.'
He looked straight into her eyes. Something like fury moved in her. She remembered the Squire; even Mr Mundford had said that he had felt his knees weakening. She gathered herself for the test.
'You'll apologise to Mother for breaking her teapot.' she said. 'Go on; apologise, Amos Greenway.'
'Now that,' said Amos, 'is no way to speak to yourfather. That look to me as though you're forgetting the fourth commandment as well as a whole heap of other things. "Honour thy father and thy mother", I must remind you. Honouring ain't calling your father by his first name, nor honouring your mother ain't smuggling things out of one door into another just to pander her. What else is in that basket?'
'No concern of yours. Put that basket down; put it down.'
'Bottles,' said Amos. 'Now what do they contain?" 'Medicine. Stuff she should have had to ease her years
ago if you'd been half a man.' She was breathless with
anger. Twice he'd defied her. 'Who paid for it?'
Insultingly she told him the truth, heedless of the result for Julie.
'It went on the bill with the doctor's fees for tending Bennett and the stuff Miss Parsons had for her cough. Pay for it yourself if you feel badly about taking it.'
'You know I can't do that. Doctor's medicine ain't for poor people. But you earn money seemingly. You pay for what you bring your mother--tea and sugar and all; and until I know you do don't you let me see anything else brung into this house.'
Once more she mustered all her forces and tried to beat down his eyes, but he outfaced her and she knew that this battle must be fought out on the level with ordinary human weapons. She had one ready, bright and sharp.
'You weren't so particular, were you, about making twenty acres of land you'd no claim to. Everybody was asking how you came by that, but I didn't notice you concerning yourself. You can grab as greedily as anybody else when it's something you want. Maybe that's why the chapel went lopsided, built on ill-come-by ground!'
Now he was shaken; his face went grey and seemed to shrivel in on itself. He reached out his big work-scarred hands and set them on the back of a chair as though for support. Julie knew another pang of that same pity and let out a sound,-half moan, half protest. Damask watched
him with an almost visible amusement, gloatingly. He had defied her; let him suffer.
He spoke at last. 'I never thought of it,' he said. 'Matt Ashpole and the rest come here asking me to account for it and I said I couldn't, Thass true I never asked a question, never made a move to find out. Maybe I stand condemned for that. Maybe in your rage agin me, Damask, you said a true word.' He swallowed audibly. 'There it was, it seemed all legal and above-board, and I took it and reckoned it a gift from God.'
He had never, in any pulpit, spoken more movingly or with more dignity.
'I'll go straight to Mr Hadstock tomorrow ... and ask,' he said his voice faltering as he realised that the land was sold, the money spent. If something had been wrong about his allotment it was late now to set it right. He couldn't, but God could___
'This,' he said, more firmly, 'is a matter for the Lord. And I ask you, my family, to come with me now to the mercy seat and ask forgiveness for past sins and errors and guidance in the future.'
He looked from one face to another as he spoke; and then, as though to set an example, went down on his knees.
'I must go now,' Damask said. She laid her hand on Julie's shoulder and whispered, 'I'll come soon and bring you a teapot.' Then she went hurriedly.
Almost as soon as she had gone Julie moved stiffly from her chair and stiffly went down on her knees beside Amos, close enough to let him know that he was not alone in his misery and his bewilderment and his search.CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
All-Hallows' E'en dawned murkily. Mrs Fred Clopton, leaving the bed of unrest upon which she had worried the night away, peeped out at first light and burst into angry nervous tears. It was going to be foggy and the party-- the most ambitious one she had ever planned--would be ruined. Maternal love had made her bold, and this year she had cast her net wide; except for Mr Avery and the Routs from Wood Farm, all her choicest guests had some distance to travel, and if it stayed foggy ... She wept hysterically as she thought of the waste; the floor polished to glassy perfection for the dancing; Miss Trent, the music teacher from Baildon, already in the house; old Lantern and the boy whom he had taught and of whom he spoke so highly, Jacky Fenn, bespoken to bring their fiddles; the elegant cold buffet supper to be served in the dining-room; new dresses for herself and the girls. All to be wasted because the November weather had arrived a little too soon. Crazily she accepted it as a sign. Her plans would fail, Ella and Phyllis would never have another chance; they would marry local yokels, comfortably off, perhaps, but unrefined. It would all be wasted.
'Cheer up, lass,' Fred said, 'Fog afore seven, clear afore eleven.'
'Before,' said Mrs Clopton with a gulp and a sob. 'How can we ever hope to get on with you talking like a workman and then this fog?'
Mr Mundford, looking out only a moment or two later, regarded the change in the weather with pleasure.
He gave no outward sign, he did not smile or rub his hands or make a sound of satisfaction, but something stirred, deep and cold and certain within him. With the discovery of Damask Greenway he had known that all his material needs were met, and his next act had been to work out, by a study of the moon's phases and certain astrological charts, the best possible date for what he still spoke of--modestly--as 'the experiment'. When, after the first casting, that date appeared to fall on All-Hallows' E'en it had so astounded and amazed him that he had worked out all his calculations again, without changing the result. He knew then that success was certain. He had the right place--a place of worship; mellow with the memory of many men's yearning towards the unknown, the superhuman, yet free of the taint of the Nazarene. In that place, so long sealed away, the dark symbolic blood had drenched the altar in a ceremony that reached backwards to the beginning of time. Mithras, old god as he was, in Mr Mundford's sight, a newcomer, but his rites were the old ones. The legendary Abel, second generation of mankind, had sacrificed his animals, and so the blood sacrifice was a close link with that.lost time when Lucifer was recognised for what he was, a rebellious angel, strong enough to do battle with those on the other side, Michael and his angels. Mr Mundford, set upon disinterring the thing which had been overlaid and lost so long ago--lost, one might almost say, in the very Garden of Eden--was able to put the right value upon this tenuous link with that lost time. Yes, the place was
perfect.
And he had--again by what seemed an accident--instead of an ignorant stupid female child, half unwilling, half frightened, bullied or bribed into collaboration, Damask Greenway. A mere novice, of course; but the sign was on her, some sort of vision had been vouchsafed her--oh, the naivety of her attempted description! 'In a place ... and light was something you could touch and handle; and colour ... colour was something you could taste ... and time was ... you could see it.' She'd had one glimpse, that was all, but she had come back with something: the power to impose her will and the daring to use that power, even on Richard Shelmadine.
And he had, instead of a batch of rowdy, reckless fellows who approached the whole thing as a game, mud as they would have done a cockfight or a horse-race, Richard Shelmadine, that gnawed-out shell of a man, so emotionally void that he was neither credulous nor sceptical. He was curious, but his curiosity was merely the result of boredom; he'd tried everything and been, eventually, bored by everything; and he was greedy ... he hoped to gain something. That his greed and his boredom actually cancelled one another out Mr Mundford had proved by lending him his luck. Greed had been satisfied, dwindled and died, killed by boredom; yes, they cancelled one another out and left nothing. Richard Shelmadine
was nothing, just the two necessary hands----And then, as
a kind of decoration, the final finishing touch, there was the fact that, by the moon and the stars, this particular day, commonly known as All-Hallows' E'en, was the chosen date.
Mr Mundford saw the significance of that. Like Christmas and Easter and Lammastide and Whitsun and various days, All-Hallows had roots in the past; the crafty organisers of the new Christian faith had seized on all the old landmarks of the year, given them new names, new reasons for being, and incorporated them into the Christian calendar. The horned masks and the licence of Saturnalia lurked behind the Christmas festival; the old rebirth of the year, symbolised by the egg-ceremonies, behind the Easter celebrations; and behind the lesser, only-just-recognised anniversary known as All-Hallows' E'en there was the dark and sinister history of the November Eve covens. No date in the year would so much have suited his purpose; no kind of weather been so promising.
At eleven o'clock, fulfilling Fred Clopton's promise, the fog lifted and the sun gleamed out for a couple of hours. Every last clinging leaf and all the bare twigs shone damply in the sudden brief light. Then the air thickened, by three o'clock it was dusk, and soon after four quite
dark.
Mrs Palfrey, walking heavily, came away from Flocky, where she had been helping with the last preparations for the party. She had earned a precious shilling and had also gained an unexpected prize. The whole skin, the 'swathe', of a ham, with a good lining of fat, just as Mrs Clopton had peeled it from the joint before applying the browned breadcrumbs. The Palfrey family had not tasted any form of animal food for at least six weeks. At the end of harvest Spitty had applied for 'parish relief. In the course of the investigations following this application it transpired that the Palfrey family was not the responsibility of Clevely; Spitty had been born in Baildon, and his relief must be claimed there. He was, by law, entitled to the price of a one-gallon loaf of bread per week, his wife and each dependent child to the price of a half-gallon loaf. In that month the gallon loaf was worth one shilling and eightpence, so the allowance granted to the Palfrey family was five shillings, or sixty pence. And lest this grant should lead to idleness and pauperism the careful guardians arranged that the week's dole should be divided into six equal parts, and Spitty was allowed to collect tenpence each day for six days a week. This made sure that he, at least, had never an idle moment. Lithe, able-bodied Danny Fuller, with his heart light with hope, had found the walk from Clevely to Baildon twice a week quite a strain; for poor, shambling Spitty, product of a lifetime's malnutrition, the walk twice a day was a task only just within his power. He had to set off early in the morning and returned, late in the evening, utterly exhausted; yet, despite the exhaustion, so hungry that he would have found no difficulty in devouring the tenpenny loaf without help from his family. The spiteful and petty-minded arrangement worked woe for the family in another way too, making it difficult for Mrs Palfrey to take any small odd job' which did happen to come her way, since it was impossible to leave three children, all under five years of age, alone in the house for long. In desperation she had done so on the day of Mrs Clopton's party; she had tied the two youngest to the table legs, leaving four-and-a-half-old Betsy free and in charge. Mrs Ashpole had promised to 'look in' once or twice. So Mrs Palfrey came home in triumph, sharpened the family knife and chopped the ham skin into fine mincemeat, the small yellowish-brown, semi-translucent fragments of boiled pigskin shining in the base of soft, lardy fat. She would have fed the children and put them to bed before Spitty came home, but the last crumb of yesterday's bread had been eaten at midday. So they waited, the children wailing with hunger, until, very late on account of the ' fog, Spitty arrived, dewed all over with grey misty drops and almost dead with weariness. Seizing the stale ten-penny loaf, Mrs Palfrey cut it into thick slices and spread them thinly with the 'minced' meat. She was ravenously hungry herself, but just as she spread the fifth slice the new child moved within her, a nauseating lurch. Tightening her mouth, she drew the knife twice across the slice, cutting in into four.
'I did my eating up at Flocky. So you all get a bit extra. Right a feast tonight, ain't it?' she said bravely.
Damask herself carried up Miss Parsons' tray. The old lady had developed a cold two days earlier and was keeping to her bed. Her appetite was good and she welcomed the tray with little eager sounds.
'Quite a feast tonight,' Damask said, pausing to set one covered dish from the tray on the silver heater with the three thick candles under the grid and then carrying the tray itself to the bed. 'Oxtail soup and a roast partridge, some grapes from the Ockley hothouses and our own pears.'
'Delicious I' said Miss Parsons. 'Lying here I have been thinking. One should cultivate gluttony, without practising it too much, in one's youth, so that one may have one dependable pleasure left in old age.'
Thinking of Julie and the tea--Julie had, most oddly, veered clean over to Amos's side and refused the tea and the teapot and even the medicines which Damask had taken over on the day following the row--Damask said, If one can afford it.'
She lifted the cover from the bowl of soup.
'And we can, can't we, dear child? There was a time when ... when we, when I ... nothing but cold mutton, the nastiest kind, all fat and little bones. That was before you came. Now you're here and everything is all right. You'll never go away, will you? Promise me.'
'I have promised you. I shall never go away. I am going out for a while this evening, though. Mrs Bennett will come and make you comfortable for the night and I shall be here when you wake in the morning.'
'Oh dear. I shall be alone.' Miss Parsons' wrinkled old lips, glistening with the rich soup, assumed a childish
pout.
'I must go and see my mother. She isn't very well, you know.' She had told Mr Mundford to stop the carriage in which he was fetching her at the gate of the Dower
House. I hope you find her better,' Miss Parsons said, untruthfully. With the passing of time she had grown more possessive about her 'dear child' and jealous of Julie. It was, of course, natural and proper and admirable that the child should care for and visit her parents, but Miss Parsons grudged every one of the brief, infrequent visits. She rather hoped that Julie would die soon; then she would have Damask's undivided attention.
'I have a mother myself,' she remarked as Damask removed the empty soup-bowl and placed the partridge before her. 'She doesn't care for me, though. Being a girl, you know--a great disappointment. My father says that in China--or is it India? No, China, I think--unwanted girl babies are put out to die of exposure. Did you know
that?'
'No. What a horrible custom.' 'Is he in the library?''Who?'
'Papa. If not, on the top shelf of the cupboard to the left of the window there is a big brown-covered book, a kind of journal which he kept when he was on his voyages. Most interesting. Not intended for female eyes, of course, but most enjoyable reading. We might peruse it together.' 'Not this evening. I told you. I have to go out presently.' 'You must wrap up well. I have a cold, you know.' 'You have had. It is better now. I think you will be able to get up tomorrow.'
'I sincerely hope so. It must be almost time for Charles to visit me, and it wouldn't do, would it, for me to receive him in my bedroom. His wife would object. She's very jealous, you know. And quite crazy, poor creature. I do sympathise with him, in a way. But they say, don't they, "Fools and knaves are always paid out, but fools first." He brought it on himself. Of course she is quite unbelievably beautiful and very well-connected. I do realise that. Papa was quite disgusted and said if that is gentlemanly behaviour give me seafaring men every time. This is a very young tender partridge, or exceptionally well cooked.'
'Eat it while it is hot.'
'And afterwards we might play cards. We could play on the tray, or would you prefer it if I got up and sat by the fire?'
'We'll do that tomorrow. This evening I have to go out."
'Of course. I'm afraid I keep forgetting. I am very forgetful. But not mad, whatever that woman says.'
The beauty of this kind of conversation was that one need not attend, need make no effort at all. One could go on pursuing one's own thoughts, remembering all the things which Mr Mundford had said, all the cajoleries and the promises and the mysterious, tantalising things which meant nothing, because one was young, and ignorant, 'just a beginner', as Mr Mundford pointed out. The promises she did understand; they shone, distant and golden, rather like a sunset, and outlined against them,
stark and black, was the silhouette of Sally Fuller's figure, just as it had been when Damask, leaving the cobbler's cottage one evening, had seen it standing by the Ashpole door: full and ripe, bursting with promise, for Sally was big with her second child. At that sight the slight but vigorous vein of scepticism which in her Methodist days had often troubled her by producing doubts and questions about God began to work again, questioning this other Power. These questions were more quickly silenced; she had only to look around her, or down at her own hands, to find proof of this Power's favour towards her, its omniscience and potency. And there was Mr Mundford, with his signs and wonders, always ready to encourage her.
Damask removed the tray, soothed Miss Parsons into a passive drowsiness and went to get ready to play her part in the great 'experiment'.
The fog, which from within the lighted room seemed so thick and baffling, was far less impenetrable when one was out of doors. That at least was something to be thankful for, Linda thought, as she stole, furtively as a thief, out by the side door and into the stable-yard. She knew roughly where Simon was, for he had howled dolorously for an hour after being dragged away; but he was silent now, and with hands which no effort of will could make steady she opened door after door before she found the right one and braced herself to meet the dog's overwhelming welcome. After that she wasted no time; she had made her plan. Between the Manor and Berry Lane, if you went directly, there was only a stretch of park and the parson's glebe. Hadstock said that the walk took him barely ten minutes. With the dog close to her side, she left the yard and hurried into the park, where the long, tussocky grass, grey with the fog dampness, slowed her progress, until, after a few minutes, she struck the narrow track worn by Hadstock's feet. That was something else to be thankful for--and it was more; it was a sign. Out of all the horror and tumult and confusion and desperation, here she was, on the little path which led direct toHadstock. His feet in their daily journeys had made the way smooth for hers.
The track led, ruler straight, to the sunken ditch which divided the park from the glebe. Water, leaden-coloured against the greyed grass, ran in the ditch's bottom, but two great stones broke the surface, bridging it in two lengthy strides. She misjudged the first step and slipped, soaking one shoe and stocking and one side of her skirt, but she regained a precarious balance and reached the glebe, and Simon crossed in one lithe leap.
The uncurtained kitchen window of Hadstock's cottage' showed as a yellow smudge on the prevailing grey before she reached the gate in the fence which separated his back yard from the glebe, and that again was a symbol of hope. For her most immediately pressing problem Hadstock would have a solution; furthermore in asking his help she would be bound to explain a little and that would be a relief. As she opened the gate and walked into the small yard she reminded herself that she must be careful, controlled; the relationship between them was only tenable on those conditions.
She had not spoken to Hadstock since Richard's return to Clevely just before the Harvest Horkey, and she had seen him, in that time, only once, at the horkey itself. Hadstock had remained aloof then, and left early. After the supper was ended and the trestle tables cleared to leave room for the dancing, she had, as on the previous year, started the jig on the arm of Ricky Wellman, the oldest man present, while Richard hauled Mrs Hart, all twelve stone of her, bulky in four petticoats, twice around the barn. A little later, when Richard said, in his critical fashion, 'You have not yet honoured the bailiff, my dear.' she had said, 'No, but I will,' and turned away quickly lest something in her expression should betray her. The idea of dancing with Hadstock as part of the routine, a sharing out of favours, was repulsive to her; it would have been a secret betrayal of their unacknowledged intimacy. And it would have been something more--a test of fortitude. But Hadstock had gone, his early retirement eloquent
and significant.
The lighted window was close now. As she moved towards it she saw the light obscured by Hadstock's bulk; he carried a kettle in his hand.
She knocked at the door and it opened. There was Hadstock in his shirt-sleeves. He stared at her with unconcealed astonishment.
'You I' he said. Her face in the shadow of the cloak's hood had a luminous pallor; her eyes, with pupils dilated by the walk through the darkness were black and huge; and she was trembling so much that the little globules of moisture along the edge of the hood and the whisps of hair which showed under it shimmered and gleamed.
'Is anything wrong? Come in,' he said. As she entered the kitchen he slammed the door to, as though to exclude some possible pursuer.
'Nothing very much. At least ... Oh, Hadstock, I'm sorry to arrive like this and disturb you. But you did say that if ever ... Do you think you could keep Simon for
me?'
'Of course I can. Here, sit down.' He pulled forward a high-backed chair, black with age, uncushioned. 'Let me have your cloak, it's quite damp.'
'I musn't stay. It doesn't matter. But he took the cloak, shook it, and hung it on the peg on the door where his own jacket hung. The big white dog, close by Linda's chair, watched him. Another disappointing walk! Simon hated Linda to visit cottages; he liked to walk all the time and have her full attention. But he knew how to behave; he stood by her side until the cottage's occupant had admired him, and the children, if any, had mauled him a little, then he lay down with his nose on his paws. This cottage belonged to someone familiar and there were, apparently, no children, so he could lie down now. He did so with a patient sigh, and stayed immobile, only cocking an eye when he heard his own name.
Hadstock turned back and looked at Linda. Some sort of shock, he thought; and nasty, despite the way in which she had said, 'Nothing very much.' He moved to thehearth, and taking up a handful of the dried twigs which lay there broke them small and fed them to the flames which lapped about the kettle.
'I was just about to make some tea.' he said untruthfully. He had fallen into the habit of shaving overnight; it saved time in the mornings and during Richard's absence enabled him to present himself to Linda freshly shaven. The kettle had been put on to heat the shaving water. 'It'll be ready in a minute?' Will you drink a cup while you tell me what has happened?'
She was already calmer. To a degree she had succeeded in her plan. Simon, at least, was safe. Pointing to the dog, she said:
'He bit Mr Mundford this afternoon.' 'Splendid dog I' said Hadstock, so impulsively that Linda began to laugh; and then checked herself, knowing where laughter would lead. 'It wasn't funny,' she said.
'I know,' Hadstock agreed instantly. 'Like many most reasonable actions, it led to deplorable results. Sentence of death?'
'Yes.' He was making it easy for her. Busying himself taking the tea-making things from a little cupboard beside the fireplace, not looking at her, and making the horrible things sound almost ordinary.
The kettle boiled with a spurt and a hiss. Hadstock put tea in the pot, his big hands moving with a care and delicacy that held a hint of pathos.
'He'll be quite safe with me,' he said, as he passed her a cup of tea. He pulled a stool out from under the table and sat down on it. He had seen how unsteady her hand was; his longing to comfort her was like a physical pain. 'Now tell me all about it. When, and where, and how, and how much bitten is Mr Mundford?'
'When was just after we had returned from our walk this afternoon; and where was in my little sitting-room. I've kept him--Simon--out of the way as much as possible, you know; kept him to my bedroom and that one room downstairs. We were there and Mr Mundford came
in, and that smell, the incense, came with him; he reeked of it. Simon bristled and flattened himself on the floor and went behind my chair. Mr Mundford said something about thinking Richard might be with me and he also said something about ... what had happened earlier in the afternoon. Then he came close to me and mentioned this lace on my sleeve. A little while ago he remarked the lace on another dress; asked me was it Venetian, and just touched it. I happen to remember that, because when he did so his fingers were all bunched together as though he had rheumatism. He said that the lace on this dress wasn't nearly so beautiful, and he just touched it too; not with his fingers all together this time, but more as though he were plucking something that hung from my wrist. Perhaps Simon thought he was taking something from me. He sprang at him, straight out from behind my chair, without warning. Fortunately Mr Mundford wears a very voluminous cravat, stiffly starched, otherwise his throat would have been bitten. As it is, only his cheek is lacerated. Here.' She put her hand to the place on her own clear jaw-line. 'I must say, in his favour, that he was very magnanimous about it. He said dogs always disliked him. But Richard was very angry and said Simon was vicious and must be destroyed. I just couldn't bear that.'
'You don't have to,' Hadstock said. 'I'll take him out for a bit each morning and evening, as I did when he lived with me before; and leave him locked up. I'll put the key in the hole in the thatch just over that window, so you can come and see him any time you want to."
Thank you. It may not be for long. Richard generally takes notice of what Mr Mundford says, and he spoke in the dog's favour. Also--they've already stayed here five
weeks.'
'I know,' said Hadstock with some feeling. The time had seemed interminable to him, missing his evening visits to Linda, brief and formal as they often were, and subjected daily to Richard's nagging, veiled insults and interference. He shifted a little on his stool, linking his long brown fingers and letting his hands dangle between his knees. 'And that is all that happened this afternoon?'
She looked at him, surprised. Did he know about the other happening? It was possible, the order might have been relayed through him.
'Not quite all. But I didn't mean to bother you ... that. Did you have anything to do with the pheasant Did you know?'
'What pheasants?'
'The two Chinese pheasants that lived in Layer Wood. , They were ... they belonged to me; I brought them back from India where they were given to me in circumstances that made me value them very much. At first they stayed in the garden, then they moved into Layer, but I used to catch glimpses of them now and then. I hoped they'd breed this year, but I don't think they did. This afternoon Simon and I were just leaving the house by the side door --it isn't much used now that the front is completed, but we use it so as to go in and out unnoticed; today Mr Mundford and Richard were there and so were my pheasants, in a crate! Mr Mundford was saying something about everything falling into place. They both looked startled, rather confused, when they saw me, and more so when I asked what the pheasants were doing there. Richard said he intended to give them away. I asked to whom and he asked was that any of my business, and I ... I answered him sharply and said yes, it was, because they were my pheasants----'
'A not unnatural remark,' Hadstock said dryly. 'And then?'
'That is all. He was very angry, of course; and I feel that is partly why he was so obdurate about poor Simon.'
'And where are the pheasants now?'
'I don't know. They had gone when I returned. I admit I was curious. I asked one or two of the servants--quite casually; but they none of them knew anything about them. Mr Mundford knows; I think he had a hand in it, somehow. Ordinarily he is so very ready to put in a tactful word, but all the time we were talking about them he stood and stared at the birds and never even looked
round. And then ... then, later on, when he came to my room he asked might he replace them by a more domesticated pet, and asked if I would like a parrot or a monkey. I was aware then that I had behaved childishly; but those pheasants, though I saw them so little, were dear to
me, in a way.'
Hadstock was surprised to find himself instantly jealous of the donor of the pheasants; jealous in a different, deeper way than he was of Richard Shelmadine. 'Sentimental associations?'
'Yes... and no. They were given to me by an old man, a cripple, who gave them to me for a keepsake because they were all he had to give.'
'Ah,' said Hadstock. He visualised a beggar, making a precarious living perhaps by showing off the birds.'
'He was so immensely rich, you see, he wouldn't have missed' anything else; the pheasants were valuable to him because he had only had them two days.'
She remembered how that truth had had to be concealed from Richard. And now here she was offering it so simply to Hadstock, knowing he would understand. Suddenly, in the light of that comparison, she saw the whole tragedy of her marriage. It wasn't only that by marrying the wrong man you brought misery to yourself and to him; you lost all chance of the happiness that you and some other man might have known.
'I think I should go now,' she said. 'If I am missed there may be another fuss, and I don't think I could bear any more today. Thank you for taking the dog and for listening to all my troubles.'
Hot, hasty words beat their way to the surface of his mind. Don't go back ... stay here with me ... I love you. ... But with the taste of them on his tongue he knew that he could never speak them. He was too old, much too experienced. He knew what it meant to be poor, having been rich, and what a descent in the social scale meant; he could visualise the search for work, the search for a home, the scandal, the friendlessness, the placelessness. He would, at that moment, gladly had lain down and died if his death could have benefited her even a little; but such drama, he thought, satirically, was denied him, like so many other things. So he rose and took her cloak from the peg and laid it on her shoulders, and said in an ordinary voice, 'You will allow me to walk back with you. I have my rounds to make. Have you thought of how you will explain the dog's disappearance?'
'Not yet. My one concern was to get him away.' "We'll think of something as we walk,' Hadstock said. He shrugged himself into his coat and reached down his lantern and carried it over to the fire, where he lighted it with a twig. The dog had gone with Linda towards the door and she had first bent over him and then gone down on her knees, hugging his white head to her breast.
'No. No. You must stay here, Simon. Just for a little while. Sit! Sit! Simon stay here.' By the light of the lantern Hadstock could see the tears in her eyes. He opened the door a little way and said brusquely, 'You slip through. I'll keep him back.' She did so, and as the dog lunged to follow her Hadstock caught him by the collar and heaved him into the middle of the kitchen. Tor God's sake,' he said, addressing the dog as though it were human, 'don't make it harder for her.'
'He'll be all right,' he said, locking the door and putting the key in his pocket.
A loud, unearthly howl from the kitchen denied that Simon would be all right.
'It's quite plain to me,' said Hadstock, 'that his presence, like murder, cannot be hid. I shall say that I let him out of wherever he was confined and took him home with me. Sir Richard can make what he likes of that.'
Linda's words of thanks were lost in the clatter of hoofs and rattle of wheels as Mr Rout's gig and Mr Thurlow Lamb's carriage followed one another along Berry Lane.
'Late traffic this evening,' Hadstock commented, reaching forward to open the little gate.
'I expect the Cloptons have a party,' Linda said. 'It is

All-Hallows' E'en, you know.'
'All-Hallows?' repeated Hadstock in a curious voice. 'Why, so it is I'
Up on the Waste only two windows were lighted; people retired early, saving light and fuel. Candles had never been much used there; rushes which cost nothing, dipped into animal fat, which was plentiful in due season, and allowed to harden, had been the usual form of illumination. This year there had been a shortage of animal fat and a consequent dearth of rush-dips. Matt Ashpole was working by firelight; he missed his fuel-rights from the Waste less than the others, for being able to get about in his cart he was free of the countryside and always kept a sharp look-out for fallen branches or dead trees. Amos Greenway was burning a precious candle, which was justified, for he was finishing off a pair of top boots for Fred Clopton. They were exactly of the pattern and quality that Sir Charles had been wont to order--which just showed how Fred was prospering.
Matt was working on a still. He'd tried various kinds of brews in the last few months and had been satisfied with none of them. Then he'd had the good fortune to fall in with an Irish cattleman at one of the markets and had listened attentively to an account of how what sounded like real good liquor was made in illicit stills in Ireland. By all accounts it wasn't only drinkable, it was saleable. Matt had straightway invested a few pence in a quantity of slightly damaged barley which he said he needed for chicken food, and had made his 'mash'. If the strength of the resultant liquor should bear any relationship to the potency of the odour of the 'mash' it would be liquor of no mean order. Tonight, with a large copper kettle, a bit of brass piping, some clay for sealing the joints and a wash-tub for cooling, he was busy with his first experiment in distilling. The Irishman had warned him that homemade 'potheen' should not be drunk straight from the still; but all Irishmen were notorious liars, and Matt promised himself that if the still did not blow up in hisface and if it produced anything resembling liquor he would have a drink before he went to bed.
When Amos had put the last stitch into Fred Clopton's boots there was still a good inch and a half of candle left. So he turned gladly to a task more to his taste. He had reluctantly postponed--not abandoned, but postponed-- the chapel-building. Until the Spirit of the Lord moved more vigorously among the members of existent chapels at Nettleton, Baildon and Summerfield, and more funds and more labour were forthcoming so that the site could be properly drained and the foundations properly laid, he knew himself defeated. But only temporarily. And the rickety, lurching building could be put to good use. Three of its walls were visible from various points in the road, and Amos was preparing three large boards.
He did not overestimate the literacy of the Clevely inhabitants, nor underestimate their curiosity. The boards would attract attention, and those who could spell out a word or two would be invited to read them out to the others. That was one way of spreading 'The Word'. The passer-by, halting with his back to Berry Lane, would face the front of the chapel, where the entrance should have been; and there he would see in red and black letters on a plain board: 'When God So Wills A Chapel Shall Stand Here.' Coming up from the inn or the smithy, anyone on the road could hardly avoid the sight of the sagging south wall, where these words would meet his eyes: 'The Wages Of Sin Is Death.' Those two boards were already completed, standing face to face to the wall behind the work-bench. Amos now set Clopton's boots aside, laid a plain board on the bench and thoughtfully stirred his paintbrush around in the paint. This was the notice which would show from Stone Bridge. It must be brief, because the paint was low in the tin. With part of his mind selecting, testing and discarding various texts, Amos found himself entertaining an undercurrent of thoughts. He remembered how, on the morning after Damask's terrible attack on his integrity, he had gone to
call upon Mr Hadstock to ask if the bailiff knew any reason why he should have been given the grant of twenty acres. Hadstock had been very reassuring: 'I know of no reason; but you may be sure there was one, and a good one, otherwise you'd have been left like the rest.'
'Well, I'd be grateful, sir, if you could find out for me.'
Hadstock had asked Richard--'The man seemed genuinely concerned.'
'Somewhat late in the day,' Richard had said. 'The allotment was made in February.' He was half inclined to add 'Tell him it was because he has a pretty daughter,' but caution prevailed.
'Oh, tell him anything. What has he done with the land?'
'Sold some and started to build a chapel on the rest, sir.'
'Then tell him I made that special allotment hoping he would use it for that purpose. Don't look so sceptical, Hadstock. Do you doubt my altruism?'
So Amos, in taking the land as a gift from God, had been right and Damask wrong. The chapel's collapse was not a rebuke, it was just one more test of faith. And by using the site as a place for displaying notices Amos was showing that he was still full of faith and devotion and loyalty. What should the third wall announce to the world? Suddenly he knew; the message was brief, profoundly true, and voiced a fact of which many people in Clevely seemed to have lost sight and of which they might well be reminded.
'The Earth Is The Lord's,' Amos wrote.
(Soon after the three boards were in place some anonymous wit, profiting by the lessons he had received in Sunday School, scrawled along the lower edge of that one: 'But Skwire grabbed it.')
The carriage, its lights dimmed and yet magnified in size by the fog, was waiting at the gate of the Dower House. The driver, heavily muffled, sat aloft and neither stirred nor spoke as she approached. Mr Mundford himself opened the door, alighted and helped her in. Immediately the carriage set off. Inside the closed vehicle it was quite dark. Mr Mundford had to fumble about in order to find her hand.
'You're cold,' he said kindly. 'Not nervous, are you? I assure you again that there is nothing to be nervous about, nothing in the least. But it has turned cold and we have quite a long drive. So ..." His hand left hers, and she heard him moving about; then his hand found hers again and pressed a small flat bottle into her fingers.
'Take a good drink of that,' he said, 'it will warm you.'
The liquid was itself cold, almost without flavour, and quite unrecognisable. Since the Saunders' depredations had ceased and Miss Parsons' financial situation had improved, such luxuries as wine and brandy had returned to the Dower House; Mr Mundford's draught was something quite unfamiliar, however, and rather disappointing, neither pleasing the palate nor warming the stomach. Soon, however, she felt its effect, a warm lassitude wove itself about her; it was as though she had crept into bed on a chilly night, felt the light weight of the blankets, the softness of the pillows and begun to drift towards sleep. But she must not sleep now, that would never do. She had to help Mr Mundford and in return he would give her her heart's desire. She struggled against the torpor; and then, all at once, was free of it, free of everything, free of her body. The 'I' which was Damask Greenway rose and floated, hovered somewhere in the space enclosed by the hood of the carriage and looked down upon the body which it had inhabited. There it sat with its hair prettily curled, its yellow skirts demurely spread, its little white hands folded together ... just like a doll waiting for somebody to pick it up and involve it in a game of make-believe. The real Damask, airy and free, watched with interested approval.
The carriage jolted and swayed, turned several corners; it was, as Mr Mundford had said, quite a long drive, and slow, of course, because of the fog. But it stopped at last and Mr Mundford alighted and held out his hand to the doll which rose with easy grace and stood beside him; the
real Damask left the carriage at the same time and hovered, watchful, above the doll's head. The carriage drove away immediately. Mr Mundford took the doll by the arm and led it through a doorway, along a passage, through another doorway and down some stairs into what looked like a cellar, then through another doorway and down a long sloping passage where it was very cold. The doll shivered. They came to a place where a great stone slab had been removed from a wall, leaving a wide gap through which they passed and entered a vast place lined with tall pillars and lighted by candles, and decorated by large white figures which stood at intervals along the walls beyond the pillars. A strange place.
Almost immediately Sir Richard Shelmadine joined them. Mr Mundford said, in an ordinary voice, 'All well?' and Sir Richard nodded and went close to the doll in the yellow dress, regarding it with interest but no favour.
Mr Mundford moved away a little and came back carrying two glasses and gave one each to the doll and Sir Richard; then he fetched a little plate upon which lay three tiny biscuits. They each took one. Mr Mundford turned away again, and when he joined the group he too held a glass and a little biscuit. The real Damask was rather afraid that the doll's porcelain fingers would break the biscuit, and that would be a bad thing because this was a ceremony. Before they ate or drank Mr Mundford said something which reminded Damask of Amos's 'Grace before meat', but this was in a language she did not know. The doll managed beautifully: drank its wine, which was heavy and sweet, and ate the biscuit, which was so frail that it seemed to melt in the mouth. Then Mr Mundford lighted some other candles which immediately gave off a horrible, stifling odour; the reals ones he extinguished, saying some more of the unknown words as each one went out. In the subdued light one noticed the ' fire for the first time; a red, glaring fire like a sunset on a stormy evening. In its glow the doll began to take off its clothes, and there was no more embarrassment or anyother feeling attached to that disrobing than there would have been to the undressing of a doll. After one glance the real Damask, hovering high under the groined roof, paid no more heed but turned her attention to what Mr Mundford was doing to some birds which looked like pheasants, but more brightly feathered, more beautiful than any pheasants could ever be.
In the best bedroom at Fuller's--now the young couple's--the atmosphere grew stuffy and then foetid. Mrs Fuller had started off with four good stout wax candles--quite enough to see the job through--but they had burned out and been replaced, and then, anxious to do something to help. Danny had fetched up his lantern. The lights, the heat that came from the good roaring fire in the kitchen immediately below, and the heat of three sweating bodies combined to raise the temperature in the room to a point only just bearable.
Mrs Fuller wiped the sweat from Sally's face and then
from her own.
'I can't make it out,' she gasped, too much distressed to remember any longer to be tactful in front of the sufferer. 'Coming on like that so sudden and then taking this turn. Granted thass come feet first, but then many do; but they move nonetheless. Oh, what wouldn't I give to see old Widow Hayward walk in that door?'
Danny unclenched the teeth that gripped his lower lip.
'They say Mrs Sam Jarvey is knowledgeable.'
'So'm I. But fetch her, do.'
Danny blundered away and Mrs Fuller turned back to
the bed.
'You gotta try to help yourself, Sally. This ain't your first; you know the worst wrench is the last. One good go and it'll be over. Come on now, take aholt of this and give a good heave.'
But she knew she was wasting her breath. Sally was past hearing or understanding; she just lay there, almost as though she were dead already, and the spasms had practically ceased.
The baby wasn't due for another month, that was the queer part, and babies that came early, though difficult to rear, usually came easily. Mrs Fuller had said as much to Sally when the pains started suddenly midway through the afternoon. 'Thass took us by surprise, like,' she said, 'and it may be a pingler; but you 'on't hev the trouble with it you had with him, bless his heart! Keep on the move, my dear, for a bit, and count on it being all over by suppertime.'
But here it was long past supper, long past bedtime; the middle of the night had come and it looked as though Sally would die. In one blinding flash Mrs Fuller realised how fond she really was of the girl, and how unfair she had been to her. She'd not made enough allowances for her faulty upbringing, not appreciated her good nature or her anxiety to please; she had even withheld the quilt with the true-lovers' knots. If Sally died ...
Dashing away a fresh burst of sweat from her forehead, Mrs Fuller racked her brain in an effort to remember any old wives' trick that she hadn't tried.
Danny, too, was suffering from remorse. This was a judgment on him. He'd been forced into marrying the girl and he had always held it against her. In retrospect. it seemed easy to have defied Matt: he'd never have dared use that gun! Weak and flabby, that's what he'd been, and then spiteful, obstinately refusing to be pleased by anything Sal did or said. He'd been daft too, hankering after that cold little bitch Damask Greenway, who'd treated him like dirt all along. Fool, fool, fool.
When he reached the inn and learned from a shouted and not altogether amiable conversation with Sam, who leaned out of the window to conduct it, that Mrs Sam was herself bed-ridden, a cask having slipped and crushed her foot that morning, Danny knew that there was no hope. Sal'd die just as he was getting set on her--and it would serve him bloody well right!
When Linda and Hadstock left him Simon howled for a while, just as he had howled when Richard had had him dragged away and shut in the shed. Then he tired and lay down to wait patiently until is mistress should come and set him free again; he dozed and waked and dozed again in the timelessness that only animals know. Then he woke again and leaped up, all his age-old instincts shrilling out their danger signals. Out there in the night the enemies were prowling; all was not well with the fold!
He rushed around the small kitchen, throwing his full weight against the door and uttering his deep, full-throated bark. Sometimes just that indication that a dog was awake and wary was enough. He was afraid of nothing now--the thing which had terrified him, which stank of evil and the dreaded unknown, had proved to be only flesh and blood after all. If only he could get out of this place. He jumped on to the table, scattering Hadstock's tea-things, and there found himself level with the window. One bounding leap carried him through, the small panes and rotten woodwork giving way before him. Over the gate, across the glebe, over the ditch and into the park he went like a white streak, his nose dripping blood and the taste of it on his tongue raising his fierce spirit to a frenzy. Thus and thus would the blood of the enemy taste.
He ran straight to the side door of the house and was there baulked again. Madness came upon him; he threw himself at the door, reckless of bruises, retreated, threw up his head and howled and barked, and renewed the assault. The servants heard him and cursed or shuddered according to their sex and disposition and buried their heads in the bedclothes. No one stirred. They all knew that the dog had been locked up for attacking Mr Mundford. And a dog howling in the night boded no good anyway.
Linda heard him. She had not gone to bed and was still huddled by the fire in her small sitting-room, half paralytic with a fear she dared hardly examine or name to herself. Despite the fire which roared and crackled and blazed, the room grew colder and strange draughts troubled the candles. Closely woven into the fear was a sense of guilt. She'd known, really, and tried to take refuge
in incredulity; had seen and turned away, muffling her eyes with disbelief. But what could I have done? she asked herself again and again. What can I do now?
She knew what she must do when she heard the dog. Somehow or other Richard had found where he was, and her imagination shuddered away from the thought of what was happening now. She got up on legs that felt stiff and hollow, as though they were made of bamboo, and took one of the flickering, unreliable candles. She went out into the hall, where the stairs climbed up into the darkness and the cold came to meet her, walked resolutely across it and opened the door on its farther side. It led to the gunroom, disused since Sir Charles's death. Here the dog's noise, a rising crescendo of yelps and barking, reached her more clearly--she was on the right track; but then she'd known all along. As she crossed the room she looked at the neatly ranged guns and for the first time in her life wished that she had learned to use one and thought of Lady Fennel, by repute the best shot in Suffolk. If someone were torturing Lady Fennel's dog and there were guns within reach ... But it was no good, she wasn't Lady Fennel; she knew nothing of guns, not even how to load one.,..
On the far side of the gunroom was the door to the little lobby which was just inside the side entrance. She opened that door and was making steadily along the passage towards the cellar door when Simon, who had momentarily ceased his noise, taken a run back and turned for one more attempt to batter down the door, threw himself against it and snarled as it resisted him. So he wasn't down there in the cellar with them; he was outside. She turned and threw open the door, dreading what she might see. Simon, with his crazy eyes and his fur on end and his face and chest all splattered with blood, was a horrid sight, and he bounded in like a mad dog, pushing against her and sniffing (all right so far, all well with the flock) and then rushing off along the passage towards the cellar door. She cried out, put her hand to the door to steady herself from the impact of the dog's passing, and dropped her candlestick. At the same moment something else moved out there in the darkness, and something low down, near the ground, glimmered.
She would have screamed then, but she was voiceless as one is in a nightmare and no sound came.
'It's all right, my lady. I'm here,' said Hadstock, and raised his lantern.
She could speak then and said 'Oh Hadstock, oh Hadstock.' over and over again, laughing and crying at the same time.
Miss Parsons woke suddenly, as the old do, and was immediately conscious of something wrong. No pain, and her breathing was certainly clear; not too hot or too cold. What then? She raised her head and looked about her. The candle in its perforated china cover, specially designed to burn safely and slowly through the night, gave out its steady muted glow, but the fire was out. It must be very late. She reached for her watch and held it at arm's length near to one of the holes in the candle cover and squinted and scowled until she had it focused and could see the time. Just after midnight. Then she must have been asleep. It was ten when she was settled for the night. Ah yes, now she knew; she remembered. Mrs Bennet had settled her for the night because Damask was out. And she'd meant to stay awake until the child came home, but she'd fallen asleep. That was what was wrong. Or was it? Wasn't it rather the feeling that the next-door room was still unoccupied?
She could, of course, knock on the communicating wall, as she occasionally did, especially if she were unwell. But that seemed unkind. The child had been out with her sick mother and needed her sleep; but she herself would not sleep until she knew. She must know. She rose, put on her slippers and dressing-gown and took her candle.
The sight of the empty room threw her into a fluster. Up to that point her thinking had been logical and lucid and her anxiety natural enough. Now here she was, all alone, and she'd lost Damask. Her world began to break
up. Secrecy, she thought, wildly; that was the thing. Once the Saunders knew that Damask had gone ... Oh dear, oh dear! They mustn't know. She trembled to think what would happen. They'd have it all their own way again. She must escape, get away and find somebody to help her----
Furtive as a thief, she padded down the stairs and reached the front door. It was locked and the key had been removed--oh, how cunning they were. But not cunning enough, or else luck was with her, for the key lay there, on the table in the hall. She inserted it, turned it, and opened the door, inch by inch, lest she should make a sound. There, she was out! And lucky again in that she had brought down the covered night candle-- an ordinary one would have soon been quenched by the thick, fog-laden air. She held the candle out well ahead of her and followed it, steering an erratic, zigzag course along the drive, sometimes plunging into the wet bushes of the shrubbery on one side or blundering on to the wet grass of the lawn on the other, and muttering to herself as she went. Eventually she reached the gate. This time it did not cry out its message of betrayal; somebody must have oiled it since her last attempt to escape in search of help. One of those kind people to whom Mrs Saunders had given a shilling, perhaps.
Now, which way? The Stone Bridge was a good place; people often lingered there, people with nothing to do. On the other hand, that way led to the village where Charles and Felicity lived. She'd avoided the village since their marriage; she hadn't even attended church since that Sunday when Charles had come out of the porch with his bride on his arm. But in this fog it was safe enough. Even if they came by they wouldn't recognise her ... wouldn't know that she was the one whom Charles had jilted in the very middle of a dance because, over her shoulder, he had seen the beautiful pink-and-white mask that hid the face of a mad devil. Funny, the way men never saw behind masks and women always did. She could have told him. She could have said, 'She'll want a purple garden, you know, and a house in London and twenty-four pairs of high-heeled shoes, and all that unnecessary expense will wreck your plans for recuperating your finances.' But of course to have said that would have drawn attention to the fact that she herself was an heiress; it would have been in bad taste. Besides, she had never had a chance. Charles had avoided her for years. Ashamed, no doubt. It was not until Felicity was dead and the baby grown into quite a big boy that he had come visiting again.
She had now reached the Stone Bridge, and having lost all sense of time was momentarily disappointed to find it deserted, all its embrasures empty. But she was soon comforted, for she recalled a dream. In the dream she had stood there, just like this, waiting, and the girl in the ugly dress of the Poor Farm had come along. So everything was all right, and she had only to wait. In the dream it had been a warm night, with a great copper-coloured moon; now there was no moon and the weather was foggy and cold. Very cold, thought Miss Parsons, ineffectually huddling her dressing-gown around her. The poor child would feel the cold too, in that thin print dress; she hoped the waiting would not be too long. However, perhaps her name would keep her warm. It was a warm, red name, Damask, like the rose: the very word called up a picture of a dark, deep-hearted rose, sweet-scented, basking in the sun on a red wall. She said the word over and over again and the foggy darkness took the sound, hushed it away into silence.
In the hidden place Mr Mundford's 'experiment' neared its climax. And about time too, Richard thought; the rites seemed to have gone on for hours and were becoming tedious. In the beginning he had watched Alec's actions with interest and curiosity and had been mildly surprised --but' interested--by the discovery that he was still capable of physical revulsion. Blood he had been prepared for. Alec had made no secret of his intention of sacrificing the pheasants, had indeed gloated over the beauty and
rarity which made them so suitable to his purpose; and to see some of the blood drained off into a little brass bowl was tolerable--after all, Richard had been cupped in his time! Fastidiousness made its first protest when Alec dipped his tallowy fingers in the bowl and, using the blood as though it were paint, began to draw strange patterns on the floor. Richard had looked away then and his thoughts had begun to wander. He would never again--he thought
__be able to watch those long pale fingers handling knives
and forks at table or cards in a game without remembering how they looked at this minute.
The patterns were completed at last. The peculiarly vile-smelling candles threw little light on that part of the floor, and all that Richard could see when he looked that way again was a kind of cross with extra pieces added to each extremity and some interlinked triangles--or it could have been a star. Not that it mattered, he thought sceptically as Alec took a measured pace backward and began to mutter a brief incantation.
Richard allowed his attention to drift towards the stone slab where Damask lay. Interest stirred again; the girl appeared to be dead! Not one of the sculptured figures beyond the pillars was more white or more still, or--come to that--more shapely. He remembered, viciously, those moments when he had been nailed to his chair and how, soon after, Alec had announced in high glee that he had found the perfect instrument, and he had protested against any dealings with the insolent little baggage. Alec had said, 'You may safely leave her to me!' Was that what he had in mind all along--human sacrifice? Immediately he was conscious of irony because he realised that the idea of Damask Greenway losing her life in the cause of this fantastic nonsense moved him not at all, whereas what Alec was doing now ... really, too utterly revolting. Even if one had retained one's childhood belief in the Devil, hoofs and horns and smell of brimstone and all, one could hardly credit that such a nasty--childishly nasty--performance could be pleasing to him.
Averting his eyes, Richard thought back over hisassociation with Alec Mundford. There'd been the promise of two thousand pounds, of course, and the indisputable matter of the luck with cards, but the rest was mainly talk --promises, hints. There'd been that time when they'd come down and brought Dunhill and Saxstead and the girls and there'd been what Alec called an attempt to establish the right atmosphere in the temple, and that, except for one detail, had seemed to Richard just another drunken orgy carried to extremes but not, in essence, different from similar affairs in Angelina's house and other places. The only thing that made it memorable was the behaviour of the girl who ran away ... Rose? Right at the height of the excitement she'd suddenly begun to cry and scream and pray and cross herself. There'd been also the visit they'd made to London, where, years ago, there had, it was said, been an outbreak of demoniac possession. It was a small, dismal place with nothing to do and Richard had been bored and said so. Alec had said, 'Mecca and Jerusalem aren't particularly pleasant places either, but they have their pilgrims.'
Now there was this, pompous, disgusting, going on and on and getting nowhere, just like everything else in life. Well, tomorrow he'd collect his two thousand pounds
from Mundford and just drop him___
It was at that point that he realised that while he had been thinking Mr Mundford had made a fire and thrown upon it something which gave off a powerful scent and a great deal of smoke; and now he was on his knees, praying, if you could rightly call it that, aloud, and praying for something which appeared to put Richard's fee in jeopardy--for what Alec Mundford was praying for was that the Power which had granted him an increased span of years should now take away the gift and grant him instead instant and sudden death.
Richard listened, and saw suddenly that the logical, reasonable and inevitable conclusion of cynicism and boredom was the desire for death, there was no other end, Yet he himself did not wish to die. All he wished was to find a relief from boredom, and something vital still existed in him, because he was still searching and, yes, hoping to find that relief. That was why he was here in this fantastic situation, why he was taking part in this fraud.
He was sure now that that was what it was----
And then, all at once, something of imminence and expectancy filled the temple, sweeping through it like the wind, with the rush and the sound and the overwhelming though invisible presence of the wind, and even Richard Shelmadine knew the almost-forgotten, longed-for quickening of the sluggish blood.
Damask had gone. Her body lay there, slim, white, virginal, but it was as inanimate as the other things with which Mr Mundford busied himself. He had noticed the moment when the induced, drugged trance gave way to true coma and again congratulated himself upon his choice. The girl might even die.
She was back in the place which she had visited once before, when she lay on the floor of her mother's kitchen and Julie had feared her dead. She recognised it with a sense of wonder that her memory of it should have been so blurred and imperfect and her one attempt to describe it to Mr Mundford so halting and imprecise. Yet she understood--because here she understood everything-- that this was because there were no words in which to convey a description of this place, this state. You could no more do it than you could describe colour to a man blind from birth.
She had remembered, and mentioned, voices ... but voices were physical things utterly disconnected from the method of communication which one experienced here....
In only one way did this place resemble the world, this state the state of being alive in a physical sense, and that was in the perpetual pull, the conflict between the Good
and the Evil___Names again, symbols ... but how else
could she explain to herself? For although she was here, knowing and understanding and experiencing, she wasnot part of it yet, she did not belong; the physical world, where 'I' was a thing of hands and feet and eyes and ears and a mind which could only understand through a mesh of symbolism, was waiting to claim her again. Soon, too soon, before she was ready, cleansed and reinstated. For here, eyeless, handless, mindless, the naked spirit was still faced with the same choice as in the other place, the world ... one side, or the other. She remembered the last time and how she had chosen, and where, in the end, that choice had led. With the whole of her being she cried, 'God forgive me and take me back!', knowing that the words 'God' and The' were also symbols--one standing for a great vibrating power, the other for something no more than a dust mote, visible for one second in a ray of sunshine. But the dust mote was capable of choice. Last time it had willed itself one way; now it willed itself the other, and knew itself to be accepted. In its turn it accepted the fact that there would be pains to bear, difficult things to be done. 'I'll do anything, anything. Only show me the way,' she cried.
And it seemed that she was shown. Straight before her face was a great cloud of smoke, the heart of which slowly cleared into a tulip-shaped radiance. In the clear space she saw John Whitwell, exactly as he had looked when he stood in the barn in the evening light and called to her to come to Jesus, except that now the brightness about his head was spiked, plainly denned. Of course--the crown of thorns. And now behind his outstretched arms was the cross of rough wood; and there was Mr Mundford, horned and hoofed, grinning maliciously, hammering home the nails.
She stared for a long while with a double awareness. The scene was as real as any she had ever looked at; yet at the same time she knew that John Whitwell and Mr Mundford were only symbols, that understanding had to creep in this way just as the light of the sun must creep through the cracks of a shutter. But none of what was important; what mattered was what she must now do.
Mr Mundford watched the core of brightness grow and knew that at last he had succeeded. Lucifer, Son of the Morning___
Richard Shelmadine watched too, his feeling of expectancy recoiling in the old familiar way. A complete hoax. Nothing but a nasty mess and a dead naked girl on a stone slab! He might have known, he thought.
Seeing nothing at all save a column of smoke, he was sufficiently in possession of his ordinary senses to be aware when the girl moved. Not dead, then. It would be of some slight interest to watch her behaviour when she woke up sufficiently to realise that she was stark naked in the presence of two men, one of whom at least would stare at her with unfriendly eyes.
He saw her move, with the precise, weighted movements of a somnambulist, and reach out for the knife which Alec had used on the pheasants. He was a little slow in realising what she intended to do with it; then he remembered that Alec now owed him two thousand pounds and that was not a debt which his heirs and executors would be likely to honour. Alec, self-deluded fool, was now on his knees with his hands clasped over his eyes, gabbling away like a crazy man, praying for death again.
Richard shouted 'Look out, man!' and moved between the two and reached out his hand to take the knife. Then the feeling of complete, incredulous wonder to which he had so long been a stranger was briefly his. The knife plunged home, and with his life-blood spurting out over his clutching hands he knew for a moment, too late, the value of life.
The spell was broken. Mr Mundford felt his dark master's withdrawal and sagged forward with a cry of despair.
The spell was broken. Damask cried out too, for the re-welding of body and spirit was as painful as the birth-wrench.
Up at Fuller's inspiration came. 'Danny,' cried MrsFuller, 'I have just thought of something. Fetch me the pepper, quick!' Danny blundered down the stairs and up again and thrust the wooden canister into her hand. Shaking a spoonful into her damp palm, she went to the bed and knew a decline of hope. Sally's pudgy little nose had gone sharp, its pinched-in nostrils bluish-white, so dead-seeming that to hold out the pepper seemed almost like desecrating a corpse. Mrs Fuller's hand trembled and some of the pepper spilled as she said, 'S'too late, my pore dear, too late.' But she was wrong. Sally drew a snuffling breath and the pepper stirred; then she gasped and gave a mighty sneeze, with, hard on its heels, a scream that rent the night. And there was the baby, as fine and lively as though he had arrived exactly at the right time and in the ordinary way. Mrs Fuller didn't even have to slap him to make him draw his first breath, and that was just as well, for she was taken completely by surprise and was crying and saying, 'Oh, thank God, thank God.' It was almost a minute before she could proceed with all she had to do.
It was perhaps only a minute that they had spent thus standing just by the door with their arms around one another, Linda clinging to him as though he were the one solid thing in a disintegrating world, he holding her close and tight as though a flood or a whirlwind might tear her out of his arms--but it seemed a long time. Hadstock had time to remember her face of terror--but she had opened the door; so frightened and so brave. Oh, if only this comforting clasp in which he held her could be a symbol of real rescue, real support; if he could pick her up and carry her away and keep her safe so that nothing could ever frighten or trouble again. 'Where to?' asked the sardonic voice in his mind. 'The cottage in Berry Lane which is part of your miserable remuneration and from which you will be ejected tomorrow morning?' He imagined himself and Linda tramping the roads. Well, would it be worse than this? Had he been cowardly to hold back so long? Was it fair to decide for her, leave her to believe that she must go on ... and on ... alone? Above all, had
he been cold-hearted always to have rejected the alternative? Yes, he had; and though he would, even at this minute, with Linda in his arms, have preferred to cut off his hand than do it, he would. He'd go to the man who had begotten him and apologise, take back all those things he had said, humble himself, ask him for money. The sensual, genial old sinner would stamp and swear, but he'd be pleased, triumphant and he would make no effort to conceal his triumph. He'd take a fingerful of snuff and trumpet into his fine silk handkerchief and say, 'What did I tell you? What's amiss with the wrong side of the blanket if that's where the money is. So now you've run off with another man's wife, have you? You'll have to amend your Puritan notions about bastards, my boy.'
No, no I Not that. He'd humble himself, he'd get the money, but nobody should ever know why. He'd take her away--if she wanted to go--and put her safely somewhere and love her for ever but never go near her. 'And won't that be nice for you both?' asked the voice of the tormentor. Caught all ways, the worm on the pin.
Oh yes, there was plenty of time for Hadstock to do his thinking.
And for Linda too. After all the pains she had taken to be careful--after all the self-derision ... 'What need for all this care? You're not young, not pretty any more; you're imagining it all. Just because you're in love with him, were from the first moment when he was surly and defensive; just because he raved in delirium, muddling something you'd said to him with something Shakespeare had written....'
'But it is true, and it is wonderful. We'll go away and he can be somebody else's bailiff and we'll live in a little cottage and I'll wash his shirts and have supper ready when he comes home.'
The inevitable sardonic voice in her mind reminded her that she had also been in love with Richard Shelmadine. And that there was no denying. Nor the fact that for years--years and years and years--she had gone on, carrying that love, that dead thing, corrupt, past any breath ofrevival, any hope of warmth. Suddenly the burden of self-blame which she had shouldered rolled away. Never once in all their time together had Richard held her like this, with intent to comfort; never once in all those years had she felt that she could depend on him. He'd flashed into her life like a meteor; she'd fallen into his orbit and hung there, attracted, dazzled, compelled ... and now she had been thrown off.
She stirred in Hadstock's arms and he let her go, immediately.
'I've always tried,' she said shakily, 'to behave properly ... but this ... Well, I think you know. You do know, don't you?'
'I know. This is not the time nor the place.'
The whole thing could hardly have lasted a minute, for the blood from Simon's nose was still wet on her hand, sticky on the folds of her skirt.
'He was hurt,' she said. 'And now he is ... We must get him back. There's something horrible in this house tonight, and if he...'
She began to hurry along the passage. There, where it ended by the closed door of the cellar, Simon had found himself baffled for the third time. Silently he was flinging himself at the door. The battering-ram tactics had worked before--either the thing gave way or somebody came and opened to you. He was bracing himself for another assault when Hadstock coming up behind him, whipped off his belt and slipped the end of it through his collar.
'There,' said Hadstock. 'He's safe.' Linda gave a gasping breath of relief. The dog writhed and pulled against the constraint, snarled and pawed the door.
'Now,' said Hadstock in a brisker voice, 'may I see you to your room. Or would you'--he hesitated and then brought out the crucial words--'like to come back with me to the cottage? Unless, of course ... Ockley? Much-anger?'
She looked at him and gave a shaky laugh with the echo of hysteria in it.
'What could I say? Tell them the truth? They'd think I
was mad. Hadstock, we must know. And if it is true we should stop it--or try, at least."
'Not we. I. You take the dog and go to your room and I'll investigate, if that is your wish. I've been in a weak position--I'm not supposed even to enter the house. But if you ask me to see what is going on, I will; and if I can, I'll put a stop to it.'
He'd do that. he thought viciously. Whatever they were up to, even if it were--which he knew it was not--as innocent as sucking an orange. He'd take them by the scruffs of their necks and crack their silly heads together.
A glance at Linda informed that the glorious moment must be postponed a little.
'I'll come back with you; you'd never manage him.' He hauled on the makeshift leash. 'Light your candle from my lantern; I'll leave it here and have both hands free.'
They left the lantern by the cellar door; then Linda, carrying the candle, led the way back into the main part of the house and Hadstock hauled Simon, who fought every inch of the way, his claws scraping the floor, his whole scruff pulled up to his ears by the straining collar.
Inside the sitting-room Linda set down the candle and took the belt's end in both hands. Simon immediately gave a plunging leap.
'You'll never hold him,' said Hadstock, looking round. 'Look, I'll tie him to the sofa leg. Then you lock the door behind me, and don't open it to anyone but me. I shall come back.'
"Whatever Richard says. Promise. They'll be so very very angry.'
'That no longer matters. Don't worry. Just lock the door and wait; I shan't be long.'
He twisted the belt around the sofa leg and buckled it firmly; stood up, took the candle and went to the door. Linda followed.
Behind them there was a sharp crack as Simon lunged and the leg of the sofa broke off. They turned and he catapulted past them, the sofa leg still held by the belt, banging from side to side as he ran,Linda gave a loud cry and Hadstock swore.
'He'll be all right; the door was shut. I'll get him back. You stay here,' he said; then, as she showed signs of intending to go with him, he gave her a slight push, snatched the key from inside the door, slipped out and locked it behind him. Then he ran.
Simon was not in the passage, nor was the lantern; and the cellar door was standing wide open. The scent of incense mingled with a rank reek of burning came to meet Hadstock as he crossed the cellar. At its farthest end a stout new door also stood wide, its heavy padlock dangling uselessly. And beyond was the wide passage down which the bulls had gone to the altar.
In the temple itself smoke billowed and swirled under the groined roof, but the fire had burned red and clear and the flames were steady on the thick dark, evil-smelling candles. All the horrid paraphernalia of Mr Mundford's rites were spread about, and in the midst of them Richard Shelmadine lay on his side, his bloody hands still clutching his chest. At the very foot of the altar itself was Mr Mundford, whom this time Simon had caught without his cravat.
Miss Parsons had waited and waited. The fog thinned out a little and the air seemed to grow colder. She shivered and shivered and her teeth rattled without ceasing. But she must wait because there was nothing else in the world to do, and nowhere to go. She had forgotten everything except that she must wait for Damask. She had been waiting now since the beginning of time and must wait on until its end. Slow, cold centuries of the Ice Age went by.
Then there was life on the earth; something moved and there was light, a small, steady yellow eye, coming nearer and nearer. But it wasn't Damask. Miss Parsons broke into loud lamentations of disappointment when she saw who it was so near, carrying the light. A very small Franciscan monk, a dwarf monk, hooded and robed, with the skirts of his robe tucked up into his belt. Monks did tuck up their robes that way when they needed to move freely;
Miss Parsons remembered reading about the militant Saxon monks who had tucked up their robes and gone into battle side by side with Harold's house-carls at Hastings. She was not surprised to see a monk on the Stone Bridge in the middle of the night, but she was most dreadfully disappointed.
Tm waiting for Damask,' she said, but the words came out all anyhow, what with the chattering of her teeth and her sobbing.
Inside the shadow of the hood the monk had a small white face and wide, sleepwalker's eyes. She could see them clearly because the monk had halted and reached out his hand and said, 'I am Damask.' And it was Damask's voice; and the hand which now pushed its way under
her rigid, shaking arm was Damask's hand----All most
peculiar and confusing; but comforting too. She brushed her hand against the coarse rasping stuff of the grey robe ... and was immediately enlightened. Poor Farm stuff! What on earth would they do next to these poor unfortunate girls? Steadying her chin with her hand, Miss Parsons made an effort to speak clearly. 'Poor child,' she said. 'You're from the Poor Farm, are you not? You must come home with me ... I will give you such pretty dresses.'CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Morning broke over Clevely. Thin patches of fog still clung here and there, but the sun was coming up wide and crimson over Layer Wood, bringing promise of a fine autumn day. Mrs Clopton might have eyed it with bitterness, thinking 'If only ...' Actually she spared it no glance, being far too busy organising hot water in the best brass cans, and a stylish breakfast with three extra places. For the party had been a marked success; despite the fog the whole Thurlow Lamb family had driven out from Baildon, and towards the party's end the persistent fog and some remark about the trying drive back had emboldened Mrs Clopton to suggest that they stay the night. Everything had worked out wonderfully well and young Mr Thurlow Lamb had been most attentive to Ella.
Breakfast was also the concern at Fuller's. Sally had slept and waked feeling cheerful and well and ravenously hungry. She greeted with joy the laden tray which her mother-in-law, with a fond loving look, plumped down on the bed, bidding her eat hearty, for the newcomer was a lusty lad and would take a deal of feeding.
Downstairs again, Mrs Fuller said to Danny, 'You'd hardly believe it was such a touch-and-go job, would you? I feel almost as though I'd dreamt it.'
Matt Ashpole couldn't face his breakfast at all. His head was in two halves which kept parting and then coming together again with a sickening clash; all his bones were hollow and brittle; his tongue was thick with sour
dust; he shook as though he had palsy, and he was sicker than Mrs Ashpole had been after her surfeit of chitterlings. But he was not unhappy and he lacked entirely the sense of remorse which is the usual accompaniment of his condition. In fact, discounting his physical woes, he was happy as a lark. It was damned good liquor; half a pint of it had made him drunk as a lord. He knew how to make it, and he was learning how to handle it. Watered down it would be grand, and it'd sell like hot cakes. Later on today, if he felt better--or, if he did not, tomorrow--he'd go on his rounds and look out for more damaged barley and some old bottles, cheap; and all through the dirty winter days he'd just sit at home and work his still. The two halves of his head clanged together and he thought, There never was such a brew! One part liquor to four of water, I reckon. I'll make my fortune yet.
Hadstock hadn't breakfasted either. He was riding over to carry the news to Sir Edward Follesmark, who was the nearest justice of the peace, a friend of the Shelmadine family and a man of sound good sense for all his eccentric ways. As he rode, Hadstock tested his story again and again. So far as he could see, it all fitted together. One man stabbed in the chest, another with his throat torn out.... What else, short of the truth, could be the explanation? And the truth was unthinkable, no one would believe it; and, besides, Linda had said, 'I did love him once, and this is such a filthy way to die. Couldn't we ... Hadstock, we must hide the truth.'
And what was the truth exactly? Only one person on earth knew that. The girl to whom the yellow silk dress and the other clothes belonged; the girl who had run away, wearing her shoes and one of the grey robes to cover her nakedness; the girl who had left the door open for Simon. And, thought Hadstock, the secret was safe with her!
As it was, being locked away in some remote cell of her brain where even she would never find it again. She thought--as she went about the task of caring for thenow-very-sick woman--that she remembered everything perfectly clearly. She could have summed up the whole experience in very few words. Once upon a time she had been, or tried to be, a good Methodist, and because of that she had lost Danny and fainted and gone to that different world and chosen evil. Evil had led her to agree, happily, to take part in Mr Mundford's experiment; he'd given her something to drink which had made her drunk, then he'd done something cruel and disgusting and she'd fainted, just as she had before, and gone to that different place again, and this time chosen good. Then she'd come round and was naked, but there was the grey hooded cloak to slip on quickly and she had put on her shoes. Neither Sir Richard nor Mr Mundford had attempted to stop her and she had run. Along the passage it was easy, she could guide herself along the wall. Then she was lost until all at once the shape of a door was outlined in light, and she'd gone towards it and opened it and there was a lantern on the floor as though someone had left it there purposely for her use. She'd picked it up, run along a passage, reached a door, opened it and hurried as well as she could through the fog along the gravelled road. She had believed that she was a long way from Clevely, and she had gone on believing that until she reached the Lodge gates, which were ... surely ... they must be ... the gates of the Manor. She realised then how Mr Mundford had tricked her with his talk of a long drive and his driving round and round___
She had got Miss Parsons to bed with a hot brick at her feet and another in the small of her back and a mug of hot blackcurrant tea to warm her inside; and although she was trying to hold fast to the memory of that other place and the glimpse of truth which had been given her, it was fading all the time, just as the pattern on a fabric would fade after repeated washing and exposure to the sunlight.
(Despite all the precautions, Miss Parsons' cold was worse in the morning and by midday she was breathing with a crackling sound as though her chest were stuffed
with brittle straw. Damask sent for the doctor, who, when it was all over, said he had never, in all his life, seen more devoted, selfless nursing than that received by this patient. Mr Turnbull, too, happening to pay a visit during this distressing time, was deeply impressed and reassured that in making the new will he had done the right thing. The poor girl hadn't even spared attention for her own appearance and her manner was ... well, dedicated. Mr Turnbull disliked high-falutin expressions, but that was the word--dedicated.)
Sir Edward, roused from his bed a little untimely, came down wearing his dressing-gown and nightcap, which gave him a vulnerable look, so that Hadstock found himself breaking the news more gently than he had planned. Even so, Sir Edward was profoundly shocked.
'I'll come back with you at once. What a catastrophe. Have you breakfasted?' 'I didn't feel like it.'
'No, of course; naturally not.' He knew a pang of self-reproach because his own appetite was unimpaired. Still, he reflected, he had positively disliked Mr Mundford on the few occasions he had met him, and had not much cared for Shelmadine except just at first, when his warmth of feeling, he realised later, had been due to relief at finding him less black than he had been painted. Nevertheless this was, of course, a shocking tragedy.
'Poor Lady Shelmadine,' he said feelingly. 'Poor lady! How is she taking it?' 'She is prostrate,' Hadstock said truthfully. 'You look somewhat upset yourself,' said Sir Edward, eyeing Hadstock's haggard, unshaven face and red-rimmed eyes. 'I know what would do us both good,' he went on kindly. He bounced over to the cluttered sideboard and routed about and at last produced a bottle of brandy and two glasses--one clean, one cloudy and smeared. He was rich and the house was full of servants eating their heads off, but he was the worst-served man in England. 'I think we'd better take this up to my room and you cantell me more details while I get into my clothes. This dog, for instance,' he began as he charged up the stairs, 'was it naturally savage? Ever attacked anyone before?'
'Not naturally savage, but it had-bitten Mr Mundford earlier in the day; so Lady Shelmadine brought it over to my cottage and asked me to keep it while Mr Mundford was at the Manor.' 'And didn't you?' 'Yes. I left it locked in, but it broke out through the
window.'
'And where were you? Did you not go home last
night?'
'No. There is a room above the stables which I use if I
have reason to be particularly early in the morning, or if
the weather is bad. Last night was foggy.' He was deeply
grateful that he had established that habit, otherwise his
presence might have given rise to questions.
'Yes, of course. Now there are some points ... I was
only just awake, you know, and of course vastly shocked.
If you wouldn't mind recounting the whole thing again.
... And I say, do drink that brandy; you look quite grey.' He drank himself and began to climb nimbly into his breeches. 'Now, you heard the dog, you said ...'
So once more, wondering how many times he would have to tell the tale before it was done with, Hadstock told him how he had heard the dog, realised that it had escaped, dressed, lighted his lantern and come down. 'By that time the noise had ceased, but I went towards where I had last heard it, and hunted about and called. I saw the dog first, just on the edge of the park across the drive from the side door of the house. And the bodies lay
nearby.'
'Sir Richard stabbed and bleeding to death and Mr Mundford bitten in the throat. What a very terrible thing! And what a mystery. What do you think happened, Hadstock?' Sir Edward shrugged on his coat and buttoned it, his fingers skipping by long practice over the three places where buttons were missing. 'It's hardly for me to say, sir, is it?'
'To hell with modesty, man! This is an inquest. You found the bodies, saw how they lay. Who is better qualified to express an opinion? Wait a minute, I think I hear ...' He went to the window, opened it and poked out his head. 'Brinkley! Hi, Brinkley! I want my horse. What? Yes, of course I mean now. The man's a fool,' he said, closing the window. 'Well now?'
'I can only think that Sir Richard and Mr Mundford heard the dog and went out; that the dog renewed his attack on Mr Mundford, who tried to defend himself; that Sir Richard tried to pull the dog away and was stabbed.'
'With what?' asked Sir Edward sharply.
'Mr Mundford had a carving-knife in his hand. I think the gentlemen were just about to sit down to a late supper. Cards were laid out in the library, and a cold fowl, partially carved, was on the sideboard in the dining-room.'
Sir Edward tested this account, as Linda and Hadstock had done in the small hours, and found it acceptable.
'It might even be that Mr Mundford, knowing the dog's enmity, deliberately armed himself--with what a fatal result,' he said musingly. 'Well, I'm ready now.' But outside the bedroom the good odour of eggs and bacon being fried for the servants' breakfast found its way up the back stairs. He paused and cocked his nose.
'You know, Hadstock, I still think we should have breakfast. By all accounts you've had a shocking night-- and we've a heavy day ahead of us. I'm deeply shocked; old Sir Charles was my closest friend--I was at Clevely when we learned of his sad accident, you know. With Sir Richard I was not, of course, on such intimate terms. Still, it is a shock. But it must be faced, and I think breakfast would help.' He trotted into the dining-room and pulled the bell-rope vigorously. Then, just to show that his mind was still on the affair he said, 'That dog! The dog must be destroyed at once.'
'I have already taken the responsibility for that, sir.'
'Splendid. You seem to have kept your head and thought of everything. How very fortunate for poorLady Shelmadine that you were on hand.'
Hadstock's lips tightened and a kind of twitch deepened all the lines on one side of his face.
'Yes, the fog served some purpose,' he said.
Sir Edward tugged again at the bell. As he did so another explanation of the affair flashed into his head. Of Mundford he would believe anything, and once or twice he'd seen Shelmadine in a nasty temper. Suppose they'd quarrelled--perhaps over the dog ... But even trying that story over in his own mind made him recoil. Gentlemen attacking one another with carving-knives in parks at night ... no, no, that would never do. It had all the elements of a first-class scandal, and in these revolutionary times that must be avoided. Sir Edward was regarded as revolutionary himself: he was in favour of a fair wage for a fair day's work; on the Bench he was looked upon as the poachers' friend because he could see what a temptation it was for a hungry man to 'knock off one for the pot'; and he was a ridiculously indulgent employer--but he was a member of the upper class and loyal to his kind. No scandal, no betrayal at any price, he thought stoutly. Even if there were evidence of a quarrel --which, thank God, there seemed not to be--one would have been bound to disregard it, if only for Lady Shelmadine's sake. Poor lady, the shock and the bereavement were quite enough without any scandal. Accidental death in both cases and the whole thing hushed up as soon as possible.
'It'll be a nine days' wonder, I'm afraid,' he said aloud. 'We must try to see it through with as little fuss as possible--for Lady Shelmadine's sake.'
'Yes, indeed,' Hadstock said, and hoped he had not spoken too heartily.
PART FIVE
Afternoon
of an Autocrat
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sally and Mrs Fuller were waiting supper for Danny. He still rode daily to and fro to Mr Thurlow's office, for he had not yet succeeded in hiring or buying any more land; and anyway they were under notice to quit the house again at Christmas. It had been a shattering blow when, just before Michaelmas, they had been given a quarter's notice and for no reason. Mrs Fuller, too desperate to care whether she gave offence or not, had asked straight out and the new Squire had said, 'I'm not giving reasons, I'm giving you notice!' His death so soon after brought no hope. They'd been through all that before; Sir Charles had given them notice and Sir Charles had died and they'd hoped ... but somewhere, obviously, records were kept and Mrs Fuller was certain that notices to quit were written down before they were delivered, otherwise how would anyone have known that Sir Charles had given Steve notice that afternoon.
Danny had said, 'There's a curse on us. Seems we aren't meant to live in Clevely.' He'd talked of selling Cobbler's Corner and all his bullocks and the horse and the furniture and going somewhere farther afield-- America even. And Mrs Fuller had cried and said she couldn't face another move. So then the hunt for land, with or without a house, had become frantic. So far it had been fruitless. But tonight, with the mid-December wind howling about the house, the dumplings gently bumping against the lid of the pot, the babies both asleep, Mrs Fuller and Sally allowed themselves just a little hope as they worked away at a quilt. Tonight, on his way home,Danny had gone to call on Martha Bowyer.
Martha had, in the end, fenced the land that was her heritage. To do that and pay her share of the commissioners' expenses she had been obliged to sell everything else she possessed; every bit of stock, old Clem's plough and wagon and tools, every stick of furniture in the house, and even the gold ear-bobs which her grandmother had left her. And there she was with her neatly fenced barren acres, with not so much as a chicken to run over them, and her snug clodhouse without so much as a stool in it. She'd left them just as they were and gone away one morning, walking to Nettleton to catch the coach, with all the portable goods that she possessed tied up in one of Clem's red handkerchiefs. That had been in June. Then, two days ago, she had appeared again, carrying the same bundle, and gone to her little farm and lighted a fire, borrowed a scythe from the Wellmans and cut down the nettles and docks about the house, and when darkness fell had gone and hired a room at the Black Horse. The news spread about the village, accompanied by the obvious explanation--she was tidying up the place preparatory to selling it. So tonight Danny had gone to make her a bid.
It was no good; they knew that before they saw him. He'd have shouted as he rode into the yard. He came quietly, and when he dismounted his footsteps were as heavy and springless as those of the old, cheap horse. Sally got up quickly and ran to the door. 'I'll see to it You get into the warm,' she said as she joined him. It was her delight to wait upon him now.
'Now, you go in, Sal. It's going to snow.' 'I'll help,' she said. 'You didn't get it, did you?' 'No,' he said, shortly; adding after a moment, 'you'd never guess why!'
'Why?' Her interest was without a tinge of disappointment, Clevely or anywhere else in the world all one to her as long as Danny was there.
'I'll tell you inside. I can't go through it twice.'
They busied themselves with the horse, closed the
stable door and crossed the yard.
'Did she ask too much? Mrs Fuller asked in a flat voice, barely looking up from dishing the dumplings. 'No. She's going to be married.'
'What! Martha Bowyer? She must be fifty and more like a cart-horse than a woman,' cried Mrs Fuller.
'Maybe. Nevertheless she's going to be married. And why do you think she's back in Clevely?' 'To sell her place, of course.'
'No. This man she went to keep house for asked her to marry him on Sunday night. She said yes, and left on Monday morning because it wouldn't be right for an engaged couple to be under the one roof. She said that, solemn as a judge; she did, truly.'
Danny leaned back in his chair and laughed. Sally joined in the laughter, and so, after a moment's hesitation, did Mrs Fuller.
'That beats all,' she said. 'But what about her place, Danny?'
'They're going to live there. The man has a bit of money--enough to stock the place anyway.
The last glint of amusement faded from Mrs Fuller's eyes, leaving them cold and curiously empty.
'I see,' she said. 'Then there's only one glimmer of hope left. We'll hev to ask Lady Shelmadine to let us stay on.'
Danny's spirits rushed downwards at this new proof of tenacity to a place; he said, a trifle sharply:
'You can't count on that I She'd be bound to stick to what he said--him dying so lately and the way he did!'
'I don't see it,' said Mrs Fuller, setting her mouth stubbornly. 'I been through all that. Your dad died sudden; but if he'd done something mean and cruel just afore he died--which he never would, as we all know-- I'd of been only too glad to put it right. And if you're too backward to go and ask, then I will.'
'I don't see the point of stopping on at Clevely where I can't get my hands on any arable,' Danny said. 'How can I get on, buying all my winter feed at millers' pricesand with nowhere to put my good muck? This way I'll be stuck in that old office till I die!' He looked sulky and attacked his dumplings as though they had done him an injury. Sally waited in vain for a word of praise.
It was then that a knock fell on the door. They all jumped at the sound. It was late for callers.
Danny rose and went to the door and opened it cautiously, gave an exclamation of surprise and widened the aperture, the wind-whipped colour in his thin face deepening a little as he said:
'Hullo.'
'Hullo, Danny,' Damask said. 'I wanted to ask you something.'
'Oh, did you?' said Danny in a rough voice. 'Well, I once asked you something. Remember? Whatever you want with me, the answer is the same as I got.'
'Danny Fuller!' said his mother. 'Step in, Damask. Come to the fire.'
Quite apart from any consideration of civility for old times' sake, curiosity alone would have issued the invitation. Damask Greenway's clothes and demeanour had been the talk of the parish when she was just the old lady's companion, a sort of servant; heaven knew how she'd look and behave now that she was an heiress, all that big house and the land and the money left to her outright.
Save that the dress she wore was dead black, with a rough frieze cape of the same colour, the Damask who stepped into the Fullers' kitchen was much the same as the one who had once visited the house to be inspected and who had won Mrs Fuller's approval. The cleanly washed, undecked face was the same, though a little thinner; the hair dragged back smoothly and dressed in hard looking plaits was the same; and so was the manner, a little prim, a little nervous.
Sally said 'Hullo, Damask' in her usual careless friendly manner, and Damask returned the greeting just as she had always done in the past, but stiffly.
Danny kicked the door shut and went back to his place at the table.
'You'll excuse us if we get on--supper's getting cold.' He nodded to Sally to proceed with her meal.
'I don't wish to interrupt you,' Damask said. 'I can talk as you eat. It won't take long.'
'Sit down, my dear, do, and have a bite,' Mrs Fuller said, throwing one curious glance at Damask and another, even more curious, at Danny. Never, never in all her days had she known Danny behave so rudely--even to a girl he had jilted. Surely if there was a grievance it was Damask's!
'No, thank you, Mrs Fuller. I've had supper.'
'Well, leastways sit down.'
Damask did so, her feet in their heavy plain shoes placed side by side, the skimpy folds of the ugly black dress falling primly, her hands folded in her lap, just the way Danny remembered. She turned her eyes on him, and that brought to mind the way she had looked at him on the night he'd gone to ask about hiring some land--but this was the old look, grave and friendly, with something innocent about it; the look she had turned on him when she had said she couldn't walk out with anyone who swore or went in the Black Horse. All at once he remembered the smell of her too-clean, soap-and-the-ghost-of-lavender smell. Through the piece of dumpling in his mouth he said gruffly:
'Well? What you you want?'
'I came to ask whether you had all the land you wanted.'
'Ha! Ha! Wouldn't you like to know?'
'Danny! What's got into you tonight? That's what I should like to know!' said Mrs Fuller. 'You'll have to excuse him, Damask. He's tired; and we've just had another disappointment. No, we ain't got any more; there don't seem to be no land in Clevely, more's the pity.'
'There's mine,' Damask said simply. 'What isn't let, I mean. I thought if you still wanted some ... I don't want it any more. Abel Shipton is buying back Bridge Farm and the other tenants are keeping theirs, of course; but what Miss Parsons got out of the enclosure--you couldhave that, if you liked.'
Danny choked on a piece of dumpling.
'Why, Damask, that'd be wonderful,' said Mrs Fuller, her face suddenly red and eyes full of tears. 'That's the best news. Of course we'd hev it and be thankful. Why, I never reckoned ... I don't know how ... Why, that'd be wonderful.'
Damask kept her eyes on Danny. The piece of dumpling slid down at last, but the effort had reddened his face still more and brought water to his eyes. When he spoke his voice was defiant.
'Hire or buy?' he asked.
'Which you like, Danny. If you have any money...'
'I've got the whole of twenty-five pounds which I went to offer Martha Bowyer tonight. And I've got my bullocks. What are you asking?'
'Twenty-five pounds would do very well.'
'Not for all that! Why, Cobbler's Corner, poor damp place that it is, cost me a pound an acre...'
'Twenty-five pounds will do very well. I'd rather sell than let it. I'm going away, you see. I don't want to be bothered with rent-collecting. What land is still let Father will see to and use the money for the chapel.'
They stared at her in wonder and nobody spoke until the silence was embarrassing; then everyone spoke at once.
Danny said, 'Well, I take it very kindly, Damask. If you're sure you know what you're doing.'
Mrs Fuller said, 'I can't get over the wonder of it. Now all we hev to do is ask Lady Shelmadine about the house.'
Sally said, 'Where are you going, Damask?"
There was no need to reply to anyone. She stood up and said, 'That's settled then. Mr Turnbull will see to the papers, Danny. Good night. Good night, Mrs Fuller. Good night, Sally.'
She had gone before they had fully recovered from their astonishment. It was some moments before Danny broke the jubilant exclamations to say, 'Maybe I should've walked her home.'
'If you did I'd of come too.' said Sally, laughing.
'You know,' said Mrs Fuller, 'I verily believe she've gone right back to be Methody again.'
And that was true. As the other-world experience faded she found herself left with little that she had not known before; there was nothing, really, that the stark, simple teaching of the Methodist faith did not cover. She had never heard of the Jesuit who said, 'Give me a child until he is seven and after that you may do what you like with him,' but she was a living proof of his theory's validity. She had tried to be good and had disliked the wages of virtue; she had tried to be bad and turned away in disgust from what was, after all, the thing to which badness led; she'd had experiences of an unusual kind, seen and heard and known things that there were no words for, and she'd come back, in the end, to the things that there were words for ... she was the lamb which had strayed from the fold, she was the brand plucked from the burning, she was the one from whom the seven devils had been cast out----It was all in the Bible.
Now she had set her house in order. Danny had the land to make amends for the wrong she had done him and his family; Amos would have his chapel; she had even arranged that Julie should have her tea and her medicine and the creature comforts which she--being a weak member--craved. The Dower House was sold. (Fred Clopton had bought it as a wedding present for his daughter Ella, who was marrying young Thurlow Lamb at Easter. 'After all, Fred,' Mrs Clopton had said, 'we must do our part, and it's cheap and it'll make an impressive present. And if Danny Fuller can ride in and out every day surely Bertie could manage it in a gig. And I could keep my eye on Ella.')
Damask was free now. And she knew where she was going. To Georgia, where Wesley himself had once worked among the slaves and the convicts. That was logical; Captain Parsons had made his money in the slave trade. Damask had read 'Papa's Journal' while she sat by Miss Parsons' death-bed. And if half of what hewrote were true, no people on all the face of the earth were more in need of the one thing she could give them: the absolute assurance that this world was just a passing shadow show, a sort of dark tunnel through which the spirit must pass, blinded by its physical eyes, deafened by its physical ears, made stupid by its bone-caged, limited mind. Slaves, whose physical life was a misery, would welcome the truth ... the one thing which all her experiences had taught her. She thought of her mission as she crossed the Stone Bridge. The snow which Danny had predicted was falling, large crisp flakes slanting down the wind's current. The ground was whitening, but the river ran dark. She thought, What I knew then, both those times, is like the snow on the water, swallowed up and gone; but it was real and it is still part of me. And it was not of the slightest importance that she had forgotten so the broken voice in which she said it and the real tears that came into her eyes showed her sincerity.
'And I was right, wasn't I, to say no cheering,' said Matt later, glaring at those who had suggested it. "Twouldn't hev been seemly. And mark you, I never said "Happy Christmas". "Compliments of the season" I said, as being more suitable in the circumstances. I trust you marked that.'
'One thing you did wrong, Matt,' said Bert Sadler boldly. 'You said bitch. You never ought to hev said that, not in front of Lady Shelmadine pore-ladyI'
Matt was not, at this stage, going to admit that the word had slipped out.
'Why, you iggerunt lump, you, don't you reckon I thought that all out aforehand. Couldn't very well say "lady dog", could I, when I was talking to a lady!'
'Anyway,' said Mrs Palfrey, 'that don't matter. She was pleased, and the dog and a houseful of young 'uns'll cheer her up, poor lady.'
Mrs Palfrey walked heavily towards the Gardiners' cottage where she had left her two youngest. She was herself very happy. There was a great lump of beef on her
food shelf, they'd all have a good Christmas dinner. And they'd got back their potato patch. By Good Friday this latest young 'un would be born--and if it was a girl it would be named Linda--and Mrs Palfrey would be free to get on with her digging. How she would dig!
The big white dog sat in the gig between Hadstock and Linda. Her arm lay around his neck and every now and then he turned his head, shot out his tongue and licked her face or ear with an ecstatic shiver.
'Well,' Hadstock said, breaking silence, 'that's over. I admit to moments of grave anxiety, but it seemed the only way.'
'How did you manage it?' Her voice was still inclined to shake and her eyes kept brimming and spilling tears.
'As Ashpole said. He said he reckoned you'd been main fond of your dog and missed it and he wished he had one to give you. He's pretty shrewd, he said he reckoned it might be some time before you felt like getting one for yourself. So then I said I knew where there was a dog for sale, cheap; a real French poodle, grown a bit too big. You must remember that his name is Beau, and if he shows any signs of resuming old habits he must be checked at once. I'm sorry he had to be made such a figure of fun. But it seemed to me that any big white dog might be open to suspicion. I'd been racking my brains for some way of getting him back for you.'
She sat very still with that last sentence ringing in her ears. And Hadstock was silent too, regarding with some dismay the gap which this one short outing had made in the protective fence of formality which had reared itself between them since the night of Richard's death. On that night, when he broke the news to her, she had clung to him weeping and he had held her and comforted her, even kissed her, as though she were a frightened, overwrought child; they had truly been alone then. But almost immediately she had spoken about her old love for Richard, about the necessity for concealment; the world had asserted itself, and there they were concocting thestory with which to deceive it. Since the morning when he had ridden off to fetch Sir Edward they had hardly been alone at all; Linda had been ill, Lady Fennel and other well-meaning females had been in attendance, and the few times when he had been in her presence had been devoted to talk of affairs. She had been apathetic and he businesslike. Something had fallen over their relationship, as a thin, tinkling, transparent sheath of ice will form over a tree when a night frost follows a day of rain.
There were times when Hadstock caught himself wishing that he had arrived in the subterranean temple before the blow was struck. Then, at least, he had something to offer--a refuge, however humble, from horror and disgust; but whenever his thoughts tended that way he remembered that moment when he had tried to plan a future for them both, and how unsatisfactory his plans had been. He was realist enough to see that the situation had been an impossible one from the very first.
He was staring that sombre realisation in the face once more when Linda moved her hand from the dog's neck and laid it on his arm.
'I do love you, you know,' she said. 'This probably isn't the time or the place, and perhaps I shouldn't speak first; but I do love you, and I don't see why I should go on pretending--not when we're by ourselves."
He shot her a startled glance and then looked away; but he moved his hand so that hers lay in it, curved like a shell. He gave it a swift crunching pressure and then laid it back on the dog's neck.
'That's the trouble. People never are by themselves. There's always the world to be reckoned with. I love you. You know that. But being in love isn't an end in itself, however much the poets may pretend that it is.'
'It's something to begin with. Enough to make me feel that nothing else matters so long as we are together.'
'Being together means marriage,' said Hadstock bluntly, 'and that involves several other things. Mild scandal for one. "Imagine Lady Shelmadine marrying her bailiff I" Social ostracism as a result. I'm used to that, but
I should hate it for you. Also--we might as well face it-- I don't think I should fit into the role of kept man with much grace.'
The bitterness of his voice shocked her, but she said lightly, 'I can't imagine anyone who would do it worse. You're much too masterful and set in your ways.'
He did not answer, nor turn his head. He sat slightly hunched, the reins slack in his fingers, his craggy profile blocked in against the gathering dusk.
She thought about the little she knew of his history, and realised that his whole life had been one long affront to his pride, blow after blow falling on the same sensitive spot, and this last was the heaviest of all. A vast aching pity like a physical pain set in her flesh. She could have assuaged it by putting her arms about him and dragging that proud, humbled head down to her breast. But that, she knew was not the way. A line from a poem read long ago began to chant in her mind. 'Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.' Arrogant Samson brought low could not be comforted by pity...
'That night,' she said, 'if it hadn't ended as it did, I was going to ask you to take me away, to let me cook and mend for you. Would you have taken me?'
'I think you know the answer to that. But the cases aren't comparable.'
She saw suddenly that pity was misplaced. He had taken his blows and survived; had preserved his integrity and his pride and was, even now, master of the situation.
It was she who was reduced to pleading.
With the skill of long practice she began to put forward her pleas.