Anyway, I thought, the worst was over. The tram stop was just at the end of the block there. I joined the queue and when the tram arrived, shuffled forward with the others. I had one foot on the step when a large hand was thrust before my eyes.
“Just a minute, brother, just a minute! Where d’you think you’re goin’?” The face under the conductor’s hat was the meaty, heavy jowled, pop-eyed kind which seems to take a mournful pleasure in imparting bad news.
“You’re not bringin’ that bloody lot on ’ere, brother, I’ll tell tha now!”
I looked up at him in dismay. “But…it’s just a few books…”
“Few books! You want a bloody delivery van for that lot. You’re not usin’ my tram—passengers couldn’t stir inside!” His mouth turned down aggressively.
“Oh but really,” I said with a ghastly attempt at an ingratiating smile, “I’m just going as far as…”
“You’re not goin’ anywhere in ’ere, brother! Ah’ve no time to argue—move your foot, ah’m off!”
The bell ding-dinged and the tram began to move. As I hopped off backwards one of the strings broke again.
After I had got myself sorted out I surveyed my situation and it appeared fairly desperate. My car must be over a mile away, mostly uphill, and I would defy the most stalwart Nepalese Sherpa to transport these books that far. I could of course just abandon the things; lean them against this wall and take to my heels…But no, that would be anti-social and anyway they were beautiful. If only I could get them home all would be well.
Another tram rumbled up to the stop and again I hefted my burden and joined the in-going passengers, hoping nobody would notice.
It was a female voice this time.
“Sorry, you can’t come on, luv.” She was middle-aged, motherly and her plump figure bulged her uniform tightly.
“We don’t ’ave delivery men on our trams. It’s against t’rules.”
I repressed a scream. “But I’m not a…these are my own books. I’ve just bought them.”
“Bought ’em?” Her eyebrows went up as she stared at the dusty columns.
“Yes…and I’ve got to get them home somehow.”
“Well somebody’ll tek ’em home for you luv. Hasta got far to go?”
“Darrowby.”
“Eee, by gum, that’s a long way. Right out in t’country.” She peered into the tram’s interior. “But there isn’t no room in there, luv.”
The passengers had all filed in and I was left alone standing between my twin edifices; and the conductress must have seen a desperate fight in my eyes because she made a sudden gesture.
“Come on then, luv! You can stand out ’ere on the platform wi’ me. I’m not supposed to, but ah can’t see you stuck there.”
I didn’t know whether to kiss her or burst into tears. In the end I did neither but stacked the books in a corner of the platform and stood swaying over them till we arrived at the park where I had left my car.
The relief at my deliverance was such that I laughed off the few extra contretemps on my way to the car. There were in fact several more spills before I had the books tucked away on the back seat but when I finally drove away I felt like singing.
It was when I was threading my way through the traffic that I began to rejoice that I lived in the country, because the car was filled with an acrid reek which I thought could only come from the conglomeration of petrol fumes and industrial smoke. But even when the city had been left behind and I was climbing into the swelling green of the Pennines the aroma was still with me.
I wound down the window and gulped greedily as the sweet grassy air flowed in but when I closed it the strange pungency returned immediately. I stopped, leaned over and sniffed at the region of the back seat. And there was no doubt about it; it was the books.
Ah well, they must have been kept in a damp place or something like that I was sure it would soon pass off. But in the meantime it certainly was powerful; it nearly made my eyes water.
I had never really noticed the long climb to our eyrie on top of Skeldale House but it was different today. I suppose my arms and shoulders were finally beginning to feel the strain and that string, bristly but fragile, was digging into my hands harder than ever, but it was true that every step was an effort and when I at last gained the top landing I almost collapsed against the door of our bed-sitter.
When, perspiring and dishevelled, I entered, Helen was on her knees, dusting the hearth. She looked up at me expectantly.
“Any luck, Jim?”
“Yes, I think so,” I replied with a trace of smugness. “I think I got a bargain.”
Helen rose and looked at me eagerly. “Really?”
“Yes,” I decided to play my trump card. “I only had to spend three shillings!”
“Three shillings! What…where…?”
“Wait there a minute.” I went out to the landing and put my hand under those strings. This, thank heaven, would be the last time I would have to do this. A lunge and a heave and I had my prizes through the doorway and displayed for my wife’s inspection.
She stared at the two piles. “What have you got there?”
“The Geography of the World in Twenty Four Volumes,” I replied triumphantly.
“The Geography of the…and is that all?”
“Yes, couldn’t manage anything else, I’m afraid. But look—aren’t they magnificent books!”
My wife’s level gaze had something of disbelief, a little of wonder. For a moment one corner of her mouth turned up then she coughed and became suddenly brisk.
“Ah well, we’ll have to see about getting some shelves for them. Anyway, leave them there for now.” She went over and kneeled again by the hearth. But after a minute or two she paused in her dusting.
“Can you smell anything funny?”
“Well, er…I think it’s the books, Helen. They’re just a bit musty…I don’t think it’ll last long.”
But the peculiar exhalation was very pervasive and it was redolent of extreme age. Very soon the atmosphere in our room was that of a freshly opened mausoleum.
I could see Helen didn’t want to hurt my feelings but she kept darting looks of growing alarm at my purchases. I decided to say it for her.
“Maybe I’d better take them downstairs just for now.”
She nodded gratefully.
The descent was torture, made worse by the fact that I had thought I was finished with such things. I finally staggered into the office and parked the books behind the desk. I was panting and rubbing my hands when Siegfried came in.
“Ah, James, had a nice run through to Leeds?”
“Yes, they said at the lab that they’d give us a ring about those sheep as soon as they’ve cultured the organisms.”
“Splendid!” My colleague opened the door of the cupboard and put some forms inside then he paused and began to sniff the air.
“James, there’s a bloody awful stink in here.”
I cleared my throat. “Well yes, Siegfried, I bought a few books while I was in Leeds. They seem a little damp.” I pointed behind the desk.
Siegfried’s eyes widened as he looked at the twin edifices. “What the devil are they?”
I hesitated. “The Geography of the World in Twenty Four Volumes.”
He didn’t say anything but looked from me to the books and back again. And he kept sniffing. There was no doubt that only his innate good manners were preventing him from telling me to get the damn things out of here.
“I’ll find a place for them,” I said, and with a great weariness pushed my hands yet again under the strings. My mind was in a ferment as I shuffled along the passage. What in heaven’s name was I going to do with them? But as I passed the cellar door on my right it seemed to provide the answer.
There were great vaulted chambers beneath Skeldale House, a proper wine cellar in the grand days. The man who went down there to read the gas meter always described them as “The Cattycombs” and as I descended into the murky, dank-smel
ling depths I thought sadly that it was a fitting resting place for my books. We kept only coal and wood down here now and from the muffled thuds I judged that Tristan was chopping logs.
He was a great log chopper and when I rounded the corner he was whirling his axe expertly round his head. He stopped when he saw me with my burden and asked the inevitable question.
I answered for, I hoped, the last time, “The Geography of the World in Twenty Four Volumes.” And I followed with a blow by blow account of my story.
As he listened he opened one tome after another, sniffed at it and replaced it hurriedly. And he didn’t have to tell me, I knew already. My cherished books were down here to stay.
But the compassion which has always been and still is uppermost among the many facets of Tristan’s character came to the fore now.
“Tell you what, Jim,” he said. “We can put them in there.” He pointed to a dusty wine bin just visible in the dim light which filtered through the iron grating at the top of the coal chute which led from the street.
“It’s just like a proper book shelf.”
He began to lift the volumes into the bin and when he had arranged them in a long row he ran his finger along the faded opulence of the bindings.
“There now, they look a treat in there, Jim.” He paused and rubbed his chin. “Now all you want is somewhere to sit. Let’s see now…ah, yes!” He retreated into the gloom and reappeared with an armful of the biggest logs. He made a few more journeys and in no time had rigged up a seat for me within arm’s reach of the books.
“That’ll do fine,” he said with deep satisfaction.
“You can come down here and have a read whenever you feel like it.”
And that is how it turned out. The books never came up those steps again but quite frequently when I had a few minutes to spare and wanted to improve my mind I went down and sat on Tristan’s seat in the twilight under the grating and renewed my acquaintance with The Geography of the World in Twenty Four Volumes.
15
THE FLU EPIDEMIC SWEEPING through the Darrowby district hit the farming folk particularly hard. The townspeople could take a few days off till it passed but when there were cows to be milked twice a day it couldn’t be done. On my rounds I saw stocksmen flushed with fever, staggering streaming-eyed from cow to cow when they should have been in bed.
Helen’s father and Auntie Lucy were two of the victims and in need of help. I didn’t wait for Helen to say anything about it but suggested right away that she should return to the farm for a few days to run the house. And it was so strange in the bed-sitter without her that I went back downstairs to my old room adjoining Tristan’s to sleep and I ate with the brothers in the big dining room.
I was sitting at breakfast one morning with the feeling of having turned back the clock. My partner was refilling my coffee cup when his brother cleared his throat.
“You know, there’s maybe something in this Raynes Ghost business after all.” Tristan pushed his chair back from the breakfast table, stretched out his legs more comfortably and resumed his study of the Darrowby and Houlton Times. “It says here they’ve got a historian looking into it and this man has unearthed some interesting facts.”
Siegfried didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed as his brother took out a Woodbine and lit it. Siegfried had given up smoking a week ago and he didn’t want to watch anybody lighting up; particularly somebody like Tristan who invested even the smallest action with quiet delight, rich fulfilment. My partner’s mouth tightened to a grim line as the young man unhurriedly selected a cigarette, flicked his lighter and dragged the smoke deep with a kind of ecstatic gasp.
“Yes.” Tristan continued, thin outgoing wisps mingling with his words. “This chap points out that several of the monks were murdered at Raynes Abbey in the fourteenth century.”
“Well, so what?” snapped Siegfried.
Tristan raised his eyebrows. “This cowled figure that’s been seen so often lately near the abbey—why shouldn’t it be the spirit of one of those monks?”
“Whaat? What’s that you say?”
“Well, after all it makes you think, doesn’t it? Who knows what fell deeds might have been…?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Siegfried barked.
Tristan looked hurt. “That’s all very well, and you may laugh, but remember what Shakespeare said.” He raised a solemn finger. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your…”
“Oh balls!” said Siegfried, bringing the discussion effectively to a close.
I took a last thankful swallow of coffee and put down my cup. I was pleased that the topic had petered out fairly peacefully because Siegfried was in an edgy condition. Up to last week he had been a dedicated puffer of pipe and cigarettes but he had also developed a classical smoker’s cough and had suffered increasingly from violent stomach-ache. At times his long thin face had assumed the appearance of a skull, the cheeks deeply sunken, the eyes smouldering far down in their sockets. And the doctor had said he must give up smoking.
Siegfried had obeyed, felt immediately better and was instantly seized with the evangelical zeal of the convert. But he didn’t just advise people to give up tobacco; I have seen him several times strike a cigarette from the trembling fingers of farm workers, push his face to within inches of theirs and grind out , menacingly, “Now don’t ever let me see you with one of those bloody things in your mouth again, do you hear?”
Even now there are grizzled men who tell me with a shudder, “Nay, ah’ve never had a fag sin’ Mr. Farnon told me to stop, thirty years back. Nay, bugger it, the way ’e looked at me I dursn’t do it!”
However the uncomfortable fact remained that his crusade hadn’t the slightest effect on his brother. Tristan smoked almost continually but he never coughed and his digestion was excellent.
Siegfried looked at him now as he contentedly tapped off a little ash and took another blissful suck. “You smoke too many of those bloody cigarettes!”
“So do you.”
“No I don’t!” Siegfried retorted. “I’m a non-smoker and it’s time you were, too! It’s a filthy habit and you’ll kill yourself the way you’re going!”
Tristan gave him a benign look and again his words floated out on the fine Woodbine mist. “Oh I’m sure you’re wrong. Do you know, I think it rather agrees with me.”
Siegfried got up and left the room. I sympathised with him for he was in a difficult position. Being in loco parentis he was in a sense providing his brother with the noxious weeds and his innate sense of propriety prevented him from abusing his position by ashing the things from Tristan’s hands as he did with others. He had to fall back on exhortation and it was getting him nowhere. And there was another thing—he probably wanted to avoid a row this morning as Tristan was leaving on one of his mysterious trips back to the Veterinary College; in fact my first job was to take him down to the Great North Road where he was going to hitch a lift.
After I had left him there I set off on my rounds and, as I drove, my thoughts kept going back to the conversation at breakfast. A fair number of people were prepared to swear that they had seen the Raynes ghost and though it was easy to dismiss some of them as sensation mongers or drunkards the fact remained that others were very solid citizens indeed.
The story was always the same. There was a hill beyond Raynes village and at the top a wood came right up to the roadside. Beyond lay the abbey. People driving up the hill late at night said they had seen the monk in their headlights—a monk in a brown habit just disappearing into the wood. They believed the figure had been walking across the road but they weren’t sure because it was always a little too far away. But they were adamant about the other part; they had seen a cowled figure, head bowed, go into that wood. There must have been something uninviting about the apparition because nobody ever said they had gone into the wood after it.
It was strange that after my thoughts had been on Raynes during the day I shou
ld be called to the village at one o’clock the following morning. Crawling from bed and climbing wearily into my clothes I couldn’t help thinking of Tristan curled up peacefully in his Edinburgh lodgings far away from the troubles of practice. But I didn’t feel too bad about getting up; Raynes was only three miles away and the job held no prospect of hard labour—a colic in a little boy’s Shetland pony. And it was a fine night—very cold with the first chill of autumn but with a glorious full moon to light my way along the road.
They were walking the pony round the yard when I got there. The owner was the accountant at my bank and he gave me a rueful smile.
“I’m very sorry to get you out of bed, Mr. Herriot, but I was hoping this bit of bellyache would go off. We’ve been parading round here for two hours. When we stop he tries to roll.”
“You’ve done the right thing,” I said. “Rolling can cause a twist in the bowel.” I examined the little animal and was reassured. He had a normal temperature, a good strong pulse, and listening at his flank I could hear the typical abdominal sounds of spasmodic colic.
What he needed was a good evacuation of the bowel, but I had to think carefully when computing the dose of arecoline for this minute member of the equine species. I finally settled on an eighth of a grain and injected it into the neck muscles. The pony stood for a few moments in the typical colic position, knuckling over and sinking down on one hind leg then the other and occasionally trying to lie down.
“Walk him on again slowly will you?” I was watching for the next stage and I didn’t have long to wait; the pony’s jaws began to champ and his lips to slobber and soon long dribbles of saliva hung down from his mouth. All right so far but I had to wait another fifteen minutes before he finally cocked his tail and deposited a heap of faeces on the concrete of the yard.
“I think he’ll be O.K. now,” I said. “So I’ll leave you to it. Give me another ring if he’s still in pain.”
Beyond the village the road curved suddenly out of sight of the houses then began the long straight climb to the abbey. Just up there at the limits of my headlights would be where the ghost was always seen—walking across the road and into the black belt of trees. At the top of the Hill, on an impulse, I drew in to the side of the road and got out of the car. This was the very place. At the edge of the wood, under the brilliant moon, the smooth boles of the beeches shone with an eerie radiance and, high above, the branches creaked as they swayed in the wind.
All Things Bright and Beautiful Page 14
