The Second Sleep

by Robert Harris

  She withdrew and left them sitting awkwardly in the two gilt chairs. In the confined space, their knees were almost touching. For some time, neither spoke, until at length Fairfax said, ‘May I trouble you for the time, Captain Hancock?’

  Hancock reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a watch. ‘A little after five, sir. The time for which I was invited.’ He returned the watch to its place and stared at Fairfax. ‘I take it ye have concluded your “church business” – or did I interrupt it?’

  ‘No, I have done all that needed doing. I shall conduct a service on the Sabbath and then I shall leave directly for Exeter.’

  ‘So if it was not church business, may I ask what brought ye to this house?’ There was aggression in the question.

  ‘You may ask, although I regard myself as under no obligation to answer. However, if the matter is important, I happened to take a letter to Mr Gann to catch the post to Exeter, and then thought I would take a walk along the lane. I saw the gateposts and came in.’ All of this had the merit of being true, even if it was not the full story, but it appeared to satisfy Hancock, who gave an upward tilt of his chin and a grunt. What a boorish fellow he was, thought Fairfax, and for the first time he felt glad to be staying for supper, if only to cause him irritation.

  Abigail came in with a pair of jugs and three glasses, which she set upon the table. Hancock sent her away and insisted on doing the pouring himself: two large tumblers of gin, with only the merest slop of water for dilution. He pushed Fairfax’s drink across the table towards him.

  ‘Let us toast your journey home, sir. May it be safe – and quick.’

  ‘Safe and quick.’ Fairfax sipped the sour, oily liquid and grimaced.

  Hancock drained his glass and poured himself another. He stared at the open door and muttered, ‘Why do women always take so long?’

  ‘You’re unmarried, I take it, Captain?’

  ‘Never had the time for it. First the army, then my business. My sister keeps my house for me. Of course, the issue does not arise in your case.’

  ‘Alas, no.’

  ‘Alas indeed! Although in my opinion, a man should only marry when he reaches a certain stage in life. At that point it becomes a necessity. The parson – God rest his soul – would have had less time for that morbid passion of his, collecting bones and whatnot, if he could have had a wife in bed at night to keep him content. Mind ye,’ he added with a wink, ‘it’s said that Agnes filled the role.’

  ‘Captain Hancock!’

  ‘I’m sorry, young man. I shock thee. Forgive me. I withdraw the remark entirely.’

  Fairfax set his drink down on the table, folded his arms and glanced away, resolved to have no further conversation until Lady Durston returned. But as the silence lengthened, he found himself considering those aspects of life at the parsonage he had himself observed – the housekeeper’s extravagant grief, the cramped living conditions, which required her to sleep with her niece, her resentment at the prospect of leaving her home – and he saw that there might well be some truth in the insinuation.

  Inexperienced as he was, Fairfax was not a prig. He could understand how these things might happen. He did not presume to judge. He had passed too many hours himself secretly thinking of the young women of Exeter, sometimes even in the cathedral itself, might God forgive him. After a while, curiosity overcame his resolve, and he said, addressing his remark not to Hancock directly, but to the open door, ‘Mrs Budd told me that you were with the search party that discovered Father Lacy’s body.’

  ‘Not merely with it,’ replied Hancock. He seemed eager to make amends; his tone became friendlier. ‘I raised the search myself and provided most of the men from my mill.’

  ‘Really?’ Now Fairfax turned and gave him his full attention.

  ‘Aye. The church clerk, Keefer – who works for me when he’s not employed on God’s business – turned up late seeking help on Wednesday morning, said the parson had not been home all night, and Agnes was quite deranged with worry. I stopped half my machines so we could go and search.’

  ‘And how long did it take to find him?’

  ‘All day. We carried him off the hill at nightfall.’

  ‘I heard his body was discovered in a remote spot.’

  ‘Aye, indeed – the remotest! A place in the woods about two miles north of here, close to the ruined tower. The land is always very soft and treacherous up on the hills after the winter rain – a lot of springs rise underground. The earth must have given way beneath him. He fell into a ravine, his little trowel beside him.’

  ‘It sounds lucky you found him.’

  ‘It was. Fortunately Keefer had some inkling of whereabouts he’d been scouting lately, so we knew the area to look in first. Otherwise it could’ve taken days.’

  Fairfax sat up at that. ‘Keefer knew where to go?’

  ‘Roughly speaking, aye. Most of the men won’t go near that place, due to the local superstition. One mercy, though, Fairfax.’ He put his hand on Fairfax’s knee and leaned in, confiding, man to man. ‘I reckon it must have been a quick death.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the animals in the woods had been chewing at him. They’d never have done that if he’d still been alive.’

  Just at that moment, Lady Durston appeared in the doorway. Hancock gave Fairfax a warning look, withdrew his hand from his knee and briefly put his finger to his lips.

  ‘What an intimate pair!’ She sounded surprised, and even a little put out. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer it if I went away? Otherwise, gentlemen’ – she executed a mocking curtsy – ‘supper is served.’

  The dining room was further along the stable block, with a door through to the kitchen. Like the sitting room, it had been furnished with objects rescued from the main house: a pink floral carpet, its lozenge pattern faded almost to nothing; a table that could seat eight, with chairs that did not match; and a sideboard on which stood two large pewter candelabra. Lady Durston sat at the head of the table with the two men flanking her. Captain Hancock’s flowers were in a vase between them. Her hair was tied up and she had changed into a long black skirt, a pale blue blouse and a brocaded jacket. Like the costume she had worn in church, it was clearly of fine quality, but old and mended, and although it took Fairfax a while to notice it, her neck, ears and fingers were naked, unadorned by jewellery. We are clinging to the wreckage, she had said. She asked him to say grace.

  The food was good, if simple – a hot egg soup followed by boiled pigeon on a bed of spinach with a slice of bacon on top – each course served from the kitchen by Jenny the cook. The wine was a Devon red, although Hancock stuck to gin. He had carried the jug in from the sitting room and kept it beside him throughout the meal, frequently topping up his glass. He was the type of successful man Fairfax had often observed socially among the wealthy merchants in Exeter. Dominant and even (one might concede) entertaining when the conversation was to their liking, they lapsed into a brooding and impatient silence when the topic did not touch upon their own interests. Thus, when the captain held forth on the manufacture of woollen cloth and the way in which a single man working at one of his machines could produce as much in a ten-hour day as fifty using traditional methods, and how this would sooner or later transform the economy not just of the valley but the county, his voice was animated and Fairfax listened with interest.

  ‘And how many days of the week do they work ten hours?’ he asked.

  ‘Six. On the seventh they rest, as the Bible decrees.’

  ‘Sixty hours a week sounds a long time to work at one machine. Do they not complain?’

  ‘They complain without cease! But I pay them more than ever they could earn by weaving in their own homes.’

  ‘Not fifty times as much,’ observed Lady Durston.

  ‘No, but I must bear the cost of the machinery and its maintenance. I take all the risks and they take none.’ He turned to Fairfax. ‘Our looms are water-driven and break down often, mostly because we have no control over
the size and force of the river. In the spring and winter it’s too fast, in the summer sluggish. Nature is the greatest brake on our expansion.’

  Lady Durston said, ‘Well I for one am glad that nature keeps your ambitions in check. I should be sorry to see the old way of life in the village disappear.’

  ‘Aye, my dear Sarah – and that is why we sit down to eat in your horses’ house while your real house falls to pieces beside us!’

  She laughed at him. ‘Hark at the way he bullies me, Mr Fairfax! Come to my rescue.’

  ‘I believe you need no rescuing by me, or by anybody else, Lady Durston.’

  ‘Ah, but she does, Father! She needs rescuing right enough. She’s just too proud to face it. Listen: I employ close on half the men in the valley. Because they produce more, I pay more. They then have more to spend in Axford market, and the stallholders and the shopkeepers can extend their produce. Prosperity spreads. What objection can there be to that?’

  ‘None,’ said Fairfax, ‘unless the pursuit of money becomes an end in itself. Then I should find plenty to object to. “Consider the lilies: they toil not, they spin not.”’

  ‘Indeed, sir, they do not – that is because they are flowers.’

  ‘Enough of business,’ said Lady Durston firmly. ‘Tell us of yourself, Mr Fairfax. Was it always your intention to be a priest?’

  The abrupt change of subject caught him by surprise. ‘Mine? No – the intention was rather chosen for me. My parents and my sister were killed by the fever when I was young, and I was obliged to live with my uncle in Weymouth. He was a decent enough man, but getting on in years, with little use for a lively boy of ten, and so I was sent to the cathedral school in Exeter, and from there to the seminary.’

  ‘So the Church has been both your mother and your father?’

  ‘Yes, and all my other relations combined, since my uncle also died soon after he sent me away.’ He felt a flicker of guilt. His behaviour this day had hardly been that of the Church’s loyal son. ‘Since childhood my vocation has been to serve God, and it is my honour to do so.’ For the first time the familiar formula sounded vaguely hollow.

  ‘There are too many priests,’ pronounced Hancock, pouring himself another drink. ‘That is my opinion. No offence, Fairfax, but they interfere too much in the running of things that do not concern them. Take my factory, for example. They come out from Exeter to inspect it in case I’ve broken some law or other and installed machines that are proscribed. Where is this decreed in the Bible? They should confine themselves to matters of the spirit and leave the weaving of cloth to me.’

  ‘So Church and state should be separate?’

  ‘It would be best for both.’

  ‘Then surely we would arrive at a place where the Church would have morals without power, and the state would have power without morality. That is exactly what led the ancients to disaster.’

  ‘So the Church maintains – but then of course it suits their interest to tell us such. But how are we to know if what they say is true, since they have made it a crime to investigate the past?’

  ‘Be careful, John,’ warned Lady Durston.

  ‘I merely express my private opinion. I’m sure the father will not report me to the bishop for heresy.’

  Fairfax smiled. ‘Your opinions are safe with me, Captain. There are even some in the Church who hold similar views. I well remember an ordinand who said much the same.’

  ‘And what became of him?’

  Fairfax paused. ‘Now you ask me, I do not rightly know.’ And it was true: he did not. One day the young man had been dining with the rest of them in the chapter house, the next his place had been cleared and his belongings packed and gone. No one had spoken of it. Fairfax had forgotten the episode himself until this moment. It must have been three or four years ago. He couldn’t even remember the ordinand’s name.

  There was a lull in the conversation. The sun was setting; it was beginning to feel cold. Hancock drained the jug of gin. Lady Durston rose and closed the stable door, then went over to the sideboard, struck a match and started to light the candles. Fairfax glanced up at the skylight. It would soon be dusk. He felt suddenly uncomfortable. ‘I had best start back to the parsonage.’

  ‘Not yet, surely?’ Lady Durston sounded dismayed. ‘The meal is not complete. We have a pudding of baked apples.’

  ‘A tempting prospect, but the light is going. I must observe curfew or Mrs Budd will wonder what has become of me.’

  ‘But it’s a long walk and the way is unknown to you.’

  ‘I shall find it well enough, I’m sure.’ He folded his napkin, placed it on the table and stood. ‘My thanks, your ladyship, for a splendid meal, and for the company.’

  She swung around to Hancock. ‘John, you’ll give him a ride home? It’s on your way.’

  Hancock pulled a face at her across the rim of his glass. ‘I do not see the necessity. The journey is easy enough.’ He looked up at Fairfax. ‘Through the park, turn right and then left at the bottom of the hill. There’s an hour’s light, at least.’

  ‘I would feel easier in my mind if I knew Mr Fairfax was safe. Who knows what desperate characters may lurk in the empty lanes with night coming on? Please – as a favour to me – take him.’

  Fairfax said, ‘Really, Lady Durston, there is no need.’

  ‘But think of what happened to Father Lacy …’

  Hancock banged down his glass in exasperation. ‘Lacy was an old man, wandering the edge of a dangerous hill. Fairfax is young and the way is safe.’ His tone became uncharacteristically wheedling. ‘Really, Sarah, I have no desire to leave just yet. There are matters I wish to discuss with ye.’

  ‘Please, John.’

  Hancock drummed his fingers on the tablecloth. ‘Very well, Fairfax, if she insists, but I’d be grateful for a minute or two alone with her ladyship before we go, if ye’d oblige us.’ He reached into his inside pocket, withdrew a folded sheet of paper – a legal document of some sort by the look of it – and laid it on the table.

  Fairfax turned to Lady Durston to settle what had become an awkward impasse. She gave him a look that made him feel he had let her down in some way, but then she sighed and her expression became resigned. ‘Would you mind waiting in the other room while I hear out Captain Hancock?’

  ‘Of course not. Excuse me.’

  He went out into the stable yard, closing the door behind him. He wondered what business it was that needed to be discussed so urgently. The servant women – Abigail, Jenny and a third, more mannish-looking, whom he assumed must be Mary – were huddled together whispering. Mary, who was in outdoor clothes and bonnet, seemed to have just come back from somewhere. She was holding a large dog on a leash that growled when it saw him and strained to reach him until she tugged at it sharply and it settled down. He nodded to the trio and made his way to the sitting room.

  No candles had been lit. In the gloom the Durston family portraits peered out at him with unnaturally large round eyes. How modern-looking they were, he thought. One might encounter them in any street or house in England, complaining about their servants or the state of the roads. Their clothes were more elaborate – military uniforms nowadays were a drab olive green rather than scarlet – but otherwise they came from a world recognisably similar to his own. It was as if the long recovery after the Apocalypse had stalled at the point civilisation had reached two centuries before disaster struck. Why? Was it that there were certain basic patterns of human behaviour that were irreducible – the need to grow food, to live in settlements, to worship God, to bear children and to educate them – but that beyond those essentials a great leap was required to achieve the sort of world described in Morgenstern’s letter, and such a leap had never been attempted? Or had it been attempted at some point in the past, but had failed or been suppressed, and he had never heard of it?

  He stood for a long time, perhaps a quarter of an hour, in the accumulating dusk until his meditation was ended by the sound of Hancock impatientl
y calling his name. He went outside to find him already seated in his trap, his body hunched forwards, his elbows on his knees, the reins held loosely in his hands, staring into nothing. Lady Durston was standing in the doorway of the dining room with a shawl around her shoulders. He sensed an atmosphere between them. Clearly they had said their farewells already. The three servants were nowhere to be seen. He approached her with his hand outstretched.

  ‘My thanks again, my dear Lady Durston, for a memorable tour and supper. I hope perhaps we might have a final chance to say goodbye after church on Sunday.’

  ‘It’s possible, Mr Fairfax, although I must confess I am feeling very tired.’ She did indeed look pale. She took his hand in both of hers, leaned in and added quietly, ‘You must say whatever needs saying to the bishop. It was wrong of me to argue otherwise. If Father Lacy was murdered, his killer is at large and I am very glad the captain will escort you.’

  ‘It’s not I who am at risk, but you, in this isolated place.’

  ‘I am well able to protect myself. Only don’t think too badly of me.’ Her fingers squeezed his palm briefly then she released him and stepped back. ‘Good night, gentlemen. Safely home.’

  The buggy rocked as Fairfax climbed up on to the bench seat. Hancock released the brake, made a clicking noise with his tongue and shook the reins. They lurched across the cobbles and swept around the courtyard in a wide arc. Fairfax raised his hand in farewell towards the place where Lady Durston had been standing, but she had already gone inside.

  Hancock did not speak and Fairfax did not feel inclined to start a conversation. They drove in silence, down to the lake and across the bridge. Frogs croaked in the dusk. Fairfax looked over his shoulder at the house. It seemed darker than the surrounding trees, as if its density absorbed the light, its high gables rising like four pyramids against the purple sky. Then it slipped behind the cedars.