by Amy Myers
‘Ah yes, but rented to the Swinford-Browne estate since at least 1850, and while its owner continues to vote against it as a site for the cemetery on the grounds that it would be desecrated by the hop-pickers, I cannot revoke the agreement, since there are no deeds or documentation. It is a “time out of mind” arrangement, as his solicitors have informed myself and the diocese. I suspect Swinford-Browne has plans for Tallow Field as well as Cooper’s cottage. He needs new hoppers’ huts.’
‘You have no alternative site?’
‘None suitable. Swinford-Browne suggested the present cricket ground, but not with any degree of seriousness.’
Sir John managed a smile. Lordsfield, as its name suggested, was on the Manor estate.
‘The matter is becoming serious,’ the Rector continued. ‘If it is not settled soon, we shall be forced to re-use or double up on plots.’
Sir John frowned. ‘I don’t like the idea of that, if only on more secular grounds. Whose family? Which plot? Every stone is known and dear to someone here. Yet we have a public benefactor for a cinema who stops short of ceding rented land for a burial ground.’
‘He thinks of the future, we of our heritage, Sir John. Both have value. Have you visited the cinema?’
‘In London, yes, many times. Quite out of place in Ashden. It would be a bad influence. The darkness of the cinema can only encourage a familiarity between the sexes that is already growing fast out of control amongst our youth. What should be a privilege of unchaperoned meetings between a young man and woman is fast being taken as a right, and, moreover, abused, and see where it has got us.’
‘Jamie Thorn.’ The Rector sighed. It had to come.
‘I give you a word of warning, Laurence.’ Sir John looked grave. ‘I am told there is talk of rough music.’
‘That outmoded mob law? It died out years ago, surely.’ The Rector was shaken. ‘It has not been known in Ashden in my time.’
‘Merely talk, Laurence. But it is a sign that feelings run high.’
The Rector walked home, in disquiet both at the machinations of man and at his darker side. None knew more than he that the conquest of reason by passions, whether violent or sexual or both, was ever present in a village, however deep it lay buried. And rough music which turned the victim into a social outcast was one ugly manifestation of it. He slipped into St Nicholas, so that its silent certainty might strengthen him. The seemingly massive problems of today faded into insignificance besides the calm relics of yesterday. He knew and loved everything about this church, like the Rectory itself. Its lancet windows and pointed arches, the mural of St Nicholas with his three purses, whitewashed over by the Puritans and lovingly and with difficulty restored, the magnificent bells, two of which were cast by the early eighteenth-century Sussex itinerant bellfounder John Waylett, the hassocks woven by the Mothers’ Union, the disputed altar cloths, the beetle in the beam above him, each carved pew head, the devil’s door in the north wall, the three holy initials on the font: IHC, the stone effigies of the Norville and Hunney chapels, and its centre-point, the altar, all mellowed into a whole, and the whole was God. God was here, God was his help, but the decisions were still his.
The Forest was leaping with life. Bracken that had been slimy brown in February and peppered with a few yellowy-green shoots in April was over a foot high and, save on the higher ground, conquering the dead undergrowth with fresh green leaves. Green canopies formed overhead; and branches waved over their path, triumphant in their victory over winter. Gorse and broom flamed yellow on the open ground. Felicia had dragged Caroline out to Five Hundred Acre Wood, determined to show her a spiked rampion, whatever that was.
‘Please come,’ she pleaded. ‘I wanted to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. It’s so rare.’
Caroline capitulated. She needed some air after being closeted in the Hunney library. After the most glorious April she could remember, the weather was bad again; rain might be good for the trees but it was bad for the spirits, so a dry day like today, even though it was cool, when the undergrowth would not brush wet against her skirts and soak through to her stockings and then to her legs, was not something to be passed indoors, especially with Mother and Mrs Dibble cloistered together over menus and budgets, both for the Rectory fête in July and the wedding. The very word ‘wedding’ was taking over the Rectory, lurking in corners ready to jump out at her. The carrier had three times delivered samples of material on approval for the bridesmaids’ dresses, three times returned them to Messrs Weekes and on the fourth delivered them with such a glare that even Mrs Hazel pronounced herself satisfied. Escape would be good, Caroline decided, and anyway it was pleasant to see Felicia so enthusiastic about something, even if it was a wild flower. She had been very quiet for the last two weeks. When she was younger, Caroline had nightmares that Felicia might slip away from them like Beth who won her heart in Little Women and then devastatingly died in Good Wives. Mother had comforted her by informing her that it was Felicia’s emotions that were fragile, not her body, and, anyway, she had every intention of keeping all five of her children with her, since she was far too lazy to do without her little chicks.
‘Should you like to be married, Caroline?’ Felicia asked, bending over to inspect the ground closely, Sherlock in search of a clue, Caroline thought, amused.
‘And leave you? I should think not.’ Caroline decided to go cautiously.
‘I should. But I sometimes think I never will be. Do you believe there is only one man for each of us?’
Caroline considered the question gravely. ‘How could I answer that unless I line up every man in the world, from Shanghai to Chicago, and study them one by one? Then I’d know, but I’d be too old to marry then. It is a problem.’
Felicia laughed, to Caroline’s relief. Their footpath crossed a bridle path, and she heard, then saw, two horsemen, or rather a horseman and horsewoman. ‘It’s Reggie,’ she cried with pleasure, straining her eyes in the sun. ‘What on earth is he doing away from the estate on a Tuesday?’
‘Who’s with him?’ Felicia demanded urgently.
Caroline stared at her in amazement, and looked again. ‘It’s his lady love, Miss Penelope Banning.’
She saw Felicia blush, was puzzled, and then in one flash guessed the reason for it. ‘Oh, Felicia,’ she said in despair rather than reproach.
‘I thought it might be Eleanor with Reggie.’
‘No, you thought it might be Daniel.’
‘I can’t help it.’ Felicia sounded agonised as the pair galloped up to them. ‘Don’t tell anyone, please.’
Penelope dismounted, and somewhat reluctantly, Caroline thought, Reggie followed suit.
‘Good morning, Miss Lilley.’
Caroline introduced Penelope to Felicia, conscious that Reggie’s beloved was looking very smart in her riding habit and she, Caroline, was looking very unsmart in her old gingham print. ‘Breeches,’ she commented. ‘Not even a divided skirt. Oh, how I envy you.’
Penelope grinned. ‘That reminds me. I saw your aunt in London the other day –’
‘It can’t have been her. She’d have told me if she was going to London.’
‘Perhaps not. I thought it was her, though. In Kingsway,’ Penelope added, with what seemed to Caroline a faint query in her voice.
‘I say, Penelope, do let’s move,’ Reggie said impatiently. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Caroline? This is the first blessed time we’ve thrown off the chaperone.’
Penelope gave a distinct wink to Caroline. ‘Literally thrown off. So enthusiastic is Reggie he simply tossed her off her pony into the undergrowth.’
Reggie daringly seized her round the waist, leaving Caroline feeling curiously out of joint at seeing his familiarity with Penelope. ‘Come on, young woman. Let me show you how I can throw ladies on.’
Penelope remounted easily, looking even longer-legged in her breeches. Oh, the wonder of it, Caroline thought. If one of his daughters appeared in the Rectory in such garb, Father would faint – or prom
ptly begin an exorcism ceremony.
‘She’s first-rate, isn’t she?’ Felicia observed as the couple rode off.
‘Who?’
‘Miss Banning.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose she is,’ Caroline replied snappily. ‘Now for goodness’ sake, let’s find your blessed rampion.’
Caroline suspected one of the reasons her father so liked Rogationtide was that its traditions still harked back to pre-Christian rituals. He saw no reason that traces of the old religion might not sit comfortably with the new. His fear was that like so many traditions, even the Sussex dialect itself, they were beginning to die out. Not in Ashden, he had resolved, and at first sight it seemed the whole of Ashden must be here for the beating of the parish bounds, Caroline thought, as she pushed her way through the crowds milling in the churchyard at two o’clock on the Sunday afternoon. The reappearance of warm weather obviously helped. She could see Sir John’s bailiff doing his best to discipline the milling huddles into some kind of order with the help of Sammy’s son, Mr Farthing the churchwarden, and the village band was getting ready for its noisy battle with the choir. Hymns usually gave way to more secular melodies. Last year the whole procession, choir and all, had started off decorously singing ‘O God, our Help in Ages Past’ and ended up back at the churchyard bawling out ‘Goodbye, Dolly Gray’.
Felicia was with Mother and Isabel with Robert, who still luckily appeared to think his lady love could do no wrong, judging by the slightly hangdog look of adoration in his eyes. There was no sign of Phoebe. Caroline could also see something even more ominous. Agnes, her arm defiantly hooked in Jamie’s, was surrounded by a crowd composed entirely of Thorns. The Mutters were similarly grouped together. It did not bode well for a Christian festival in which village unity was a dominating factor. She made her way to join her mother and Felicia as the band struck up with something she dimly recognised as ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, and miraculously Ashden turned itself from a disorderly rabble into a well-dragooned column, as they all swarmed down Beggars Lane between Ashden Manor Park and the cricket ground towards the first boundary stone. Not too quickly, however, for Ashden had its own traditions for this festival, one of which was that the churchwarden, sacristan and curate should race each other to this first marker, at the corner of the far wall of the Ashden Manor estate. Christopher Denis won easily by twenty years, and Phoebe was quickly at his side, Caroline noticed with misgivings.
‘I mark this stone –’ The parish clerk, Horace J. Trimble, who owned the cycle shop, was so overcome at the importance of his suddenly public role that his voice came out as a squeak and had to be quickly schooled into pomposity.
Then it was round Ashden Manor and south into the outskirts of the Forest. Like its neighbours Hartfield and Withyham, the parish boundaries of Ashden took in a little of the Forest land, and gave a few lucky parishioners the traditional rights of ‘estovers’, cutting wood for fuel. Then the boundary re-emerged from the Forest to take in Owlers Farm where legend had it that smugglers hid their loot betwixt the south coast and London. It had always seemed a somewhat sinister as well as lonely outpost to Caroline and she was glad when they reached Hodes Meadows, bright with cowslips, the beat of the clerk’s stick hitting the stones in turn. The youth of the village for whose benefit this performance was staged, in order – so the theory went – that the parish boundaries might be protected by an oral tradition, were already losing interest in the markers and concerning themselves with more worldly matters, like sweethearts. And not just the villagers!
‘Caroline, I’ve got to talk to you.’
‘Why?’ Caroline asked, banging the marker stone at the Devil’s Bed on the far side of Tillow Hill, supposed to be a prehistoric burial chamber, Father said. At the moment she wished it were Reggie’s head.
‘She’s jilted me, Carrie.’
‘Who, what are you talking about?’
‘Penelope.’
‘You mean she wouldn’t let you kiss her?’
‘Concentrate. I really need you, Caroline. She says she won’t marry me. She’s decided to devote her life to loftier things, she says.’
‘You’re quite tall.’ The chance to tease him was irresistible.
‘Be serious, please. You’ve got to help me get her back.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I love her.’
‘The truth, Reggie.’
He sighed. ‘I wish you didn’t know me so well. Because I don’t like being jilted. And I do love her. I want you to go and tell her what a stout fellow I am. I’ll give you her address.’
‘Kind of you. But no.’
‘Why not?’ He looked astounded.
‘Because, Reggie dear, you’ve always fought your own battles. Remember Omdurman?’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
She stared at him, taken aback. ‘The games we used to play in the schoolroom. You were always Kitchener, Eleanor your horse and I was a whirling dervish.’
‘Was I? I don’t remember. Look, about Penelope –’
Her limited patience snapped. ‘You’re a pompous, inconsiderate ass, Reggie, and she’s quite right to jilt you.’
He said nothing, merely looked hurt beyond belief, and waited for the usual contrition from Caroline. It didn’t come. ‘I do remember, now,’ he offered at last.
She tried, but somehow she couldn’t meet him. ‘We’re not children any more.’
‘No.’
So Reggie saw it too, that gulf that had unexpectedly opened between them, too wide to cross now. There was a grub crawling up the side of that old stump. At any moment it would get to the top, and meet that ladybird. There were three empty acorn cups lying on it too, and Caroline felt like crying. She wasn’t going to, though, not in front of Reggie. Everything had to pass, everything had to change, even friendship. She turned to go back to the path, stubbed her toe, and stumbled on into the sunlight.
‘Caroline!’
She took no notice of his cry for it was drowning in the deep shining pool of their childhood.
Whitsun, two weeks later, was usually the crown on Caroline’s favourite season, but with the cool dull weather the prospect of the weekend ahead lacked the excitement she always associated with it. It was a time of smoking fires and rattling windows, most un-Maylike. She felt restless, dissatisfied with her work and her life. The Rogation Sunday festivities had ended in the brawl her father had feared between Mutters and Thorns, as the Mutters refused point-blank to allow any Thorn across their land (a Mutter owned Robin’s Farm, which unfortunately, near the end of the boundary walk, was split between Ashden and Hartfield). They had yielded in the end, with the Rector’s intervention, but it had set a public seal on the Jamie Thorn split, and she had seen Agnes in tears twice since. It was stalemate: Jamie refused to wed Ruth; Ruth continued to maintain he was the father. Ostensibly the village remained the same friendly place Caroline had always known, but she found now she was always glad to return home.
The Rectory seemed a charmed world. The gardens were blazing with flowers, the blues and purples of May showing signs of yielding to the pinks and whites of June. The tennis court had already seen more play this season than for some years and even Percy Dibble’s grumbling had been reduced to a minimum, since their flying feet greatly reduced the number of times he was obliged to drag out the heavy roller. Yet this did not seem to cheer her in the slightest. Not when the kitchen was full of Mrs Dibble’s mutterings on quantities and supplies, and dark prognostications on the likelihood of rain on August the first. Everything apparently depended on St Swithin’s Day. The oak had done its best by coming into leaf before the ash tree this year, thus ensuring light rainfall for the summer, but the Saint was apparently the ultimate arbiter. July 15 was going to be a tense day.
Caroline wasn’t even looking forward to their annual grand tennis party which was always held in June, partly because she hadn’t set eyes on Reggie since the beating of the bounds and, she realised, had no w
ish to, though she couldn’t analyse why. After all, they hadn’t really quarrelled, a few words were easily forgotten. It took some time for her to acknowledge it was deeper than that. Could it be she was outgrowing Reggie? It had been all too easy to take him for granted, but just as childhood passed, so usually did childhood’s friends. They had different paths to follow – whatever hers was – and sometime they had to reach a crossroads. They’d reached it, that was all. Where her own particular path was going she had not the slightest idea, but it looked an extremely obscure one at the moment.
Everything seemed at odds this year, not only with her and Reggie, but in Ashden with this business of Jamie Thorn and Ruth, which was throwing up a darker side of the village than that which she knew and loved. In the outside world, too, there was trouble, for in Ireland there was talk of Civil War over the provisions of Mr Asquith’s Home Rule Bill. Life seemed to be gathering pace and loping out of control, just like their English sheepdog Ahab when he slipped his lead, lured by the mysterious depths of the forest.
The next event to take them by surprise was that Christopher Denis resigned his position, having felt called to a chaplaincy with the armed forces overseas.
‘I can’t understand why,’ Father told them frankly. ‘I thought he was happy here. Not that it’s for me to interfere with God’s purpose, but I do sometimes wonder if His intentions get a trifle confused in transmission. Christopher is happier with a book than a rifle.’
‘Perhaps that’s the reason, Laurence,’ Tilly suggested. ‘Sometimes one feels called to do something one’s never dared do before.’
‘Like being rude to Grandmother?’ Phoebe asked rudely.
‘Phoebe!’ Retribution was swift. ‘Go to your room.’
It wasn’t fair. She was in the wrong, but she wasn’t a child and Father kept forgetting it. Phoebe burst into tears and dashed out of the room. Elizabeth said nothing. She would never plead with Father in their hearing. Or could it be, Caroline wondered, that she too suspected Phoebe’s rudeness was prompted by her dismay at being deprived of Christopher Denis?
