Late Harvest

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  Ralph was not mentioned. We did not quarrel. James made himself clear without words. I continued to pretend that I had noticed nothing untoward.

  But I remembered James saying, at Bampton, that he had wanted to kill us both, and I remembered that sudden harshness of his, long ago, when whoever had murdered Maisie had bought himself free of the law. There was a demon in James that must never be aroused.

  I hoped that Stephen Duggan would cling to life for a good while yet.

  In the autumn of 1815, James said: ‘Now that William is thirteen, it’s time he finished with book-learning and spent his time on the farm with me. He can read and write and he adds up better than I do, and he can spout dates in history the way I never could and that’s enough. None of that’ll tell him when the wheat’s ripe for cutting. And he agrees. Says he feels like a man now, and it’s time.’

  I nodded. Only the week before, William had told me that he thought he should leave off going to Edmund Baker’s school. ‘But we’d better tell Mr Baker, hadn’t we?’ I said. ‘We know him well – it might look rude just to stop sending William there, or even just to send a note.’

  James was agreeable to that, and on a clear early November morning, we harnessed Goldfinch to the cart, and set off for Exford.

  It was a very clear day indeed. Exmoor’s hillcrests and the folds in the land are nearly all smooth; where the land falls away into river valleys, it looks as though it has been partly liquid at some point and was poured over the edge like treacle being poured from a spoon. In weather of such clarity, we could see details miles away. As we left Foxwell, I saw that the standing stone on Stephen Duggan’s land, though tiny with distance, was plainly visible, and the colours of the dark heather patches and the stretches of golden-brown bracken on the slopes below it were as separate as a small cloud drifting from the west was separate from the blue sky in which it sailed. I said to James: ‘I can make out the very shape of the standing stone today. It tapers a little at the top. I wonder what it was for?’

  ‘Does it matter? Some pagan thing,’ said James, not interested. He looked about him and added: ‘This weather won’t last. Never does when it’s this clear.’ He looked up at the little cloud. ‘That’s the first of them. It’ll be pouring by tonight.’

  ‘I hope we get home before that,’ I said.

  It was a Saturday, when Edmund’s school was closed. We took Goldfinch to the back of the house, where we found the groom who was one half of the domestic staff, giving a bucket of water to a strange horse, a big, raw-boned dapple grey, quite different from the quiet dun gelding that Edmund rode. Mr Silcox had given up the saddle because he said that riding tired him. When he went visiting, he used a trap. We left Goldfinch to be unharnessed and rubbed down and made our way to the front of the house, which meant passing the schoolroom.

  It had once been the drawing room of the house which Edmund Baker and Arthur Silcox now shared. Mr Silcox had put in three rows of desks with lift-up lids, with benches behind them, and it was he who had bought the numerous textbooks and the blackboard and the globe that I remembered so well. In his day, ink had been provided but pupils had to bring their own notebooks and pens. Edmund had gone a step further, buying notebooks and pens in quantity, at a discount, from a supplier he knew in Minehead. He had also added to what he called ‘our little library’.

  As we passed the schoolroom windows, I stopped to look through them and smile as the memories came back. I wondered if my children would remember their schooldays so kindly. William now wanted to leave them behind yet of all my children, he was the one most like me, at least in temperament. He took after James in looks, but he seemed to think in the same way that I did. Lately, as he grew up, there had been times when we both began to talk of the same thing at the same moment.

  We found Edmund and Mr Silcox in the parlour that their dignified housekeeper Alice Meddick – the groom was her husband – kept so carefully polished, but they were not on their own. A third man was there, someone we didn’t know, a quietly dressed, unobtrusive kind of man, though if that big dapple grey was his, there must, I thought at once, be more to him than met the eye. That was a horse that would need handling.

  Though it was mid-morning and a long way from teatime, the three of them had been sharing a tea-tray. The stranger rose when Mrs Meddick showed us in, and said: ‘I’ll be off, then, since friends are calling on you. My thanks for the tea. I’ll collect my horse myself, don’t see me out.’

  ‘There’s no need to rush away, Ben,’ said Mr Silcox. ‘Please sit down again. Alice, bring us some more tea and bring some cakes too. Ben, I’d like you to meet James and Peggy Bright, old acquaintances, and parents of two of my pupils. Their third one will no doubt join them soon.’ He smiled at us. ‘This is Mr Benjamin Hartley, Riding Officer for the Revenue. He was one of my pupils too in bygone days. He’ll be much on the alert now that the war’s over.’

  ‘True enough,’ said Mr Hartley. He had a slow, low-toned Somerset voice but there was a sharpness in his gaze that didn’t match with that. ‘There’s a deal of folk sayin’ that now Boney’s out of business and English ships can get into French ports in the night without the risk of being sunk if they’re seen, there’s no harm in running contraband from France. And the same with French vessels sneakin’ into our coves and harbours, too. The Waterguard started workin’ extra hours a good three months ago. Because it’s actually happening. Contraband has been getting ashore again.’

  ‘Do I hear a note of warning?’ James asked easily, as we sat down. ‘No need. I’ve never bought contraband. Don’t hold with ’un.’ He caught my eye. ‘Sorry, Peggy. I know your father got his baccy and brandy that way. But he’s gone now and we’ve no interest, one way or another.’

  ‘I’ve never agreed with smuggling,’ Edmund said, ‘and nor has Arthur here. We’d be sorry to see it start up again. Even sorrier if anyone we knew were involved in any way.’

  ‘That,’ said Mr Hartley, ‘is one of the hardest things about my work. This spider’s web of friendships and relations, spreading all along the coast and inland. Even folk who wouldn’t buy contraband know where they could get it if they wanted to, and they keep quiet because one of the smugglers is their third cousin twice removed, or their Auntie Mary is married to him, or they were at school with him when they were young.’

  He sounded exasperated but then saw me looking at him and said, more kindly: ‘Not that I’d ever ask a woman to tell on her menfolk. That wouldn’t be right. Women mostly keep out of these things and so they should. I can’t imagine you drinking contraband brandy, let alone smoking the baccy your father bought when he was alive, Mrs Bright.’

  ‘Quite,’ I agreed, keeping my face straight. The mental picture of me smoking tobacco made me want to laugh.

  ‘It must indeed be difficult for you,’ Mr Silcox said to Hartley.

  Hartley shrugged. ‘Well, there you are. I can’t even trust all my own colleagues. I know quite well that some of them are hand in glove with smugglers. They claim to be ardent upholders of the law, and they’ll be anxious to report a rumour about a landing at Watchet, but all the time, it’s a ploy to draw the Waterguard that way, because the landing’s to be at Porlock! I can’t prove that they misled me on purpose. Bah!’ The exasperation was back in his voice.

  ‘I believe the Waterguard fleet has proved a success,’ said James.

  ‘Aye, that’s so. We have one based at Porlock. A good strong rowing crew can do better than a sailing ship sometimes – they don’t have to tack against a headwind.’

  ‘Let us not talk about it,’ said Edmund pacifically, as Alice came in again with a heavy tray of tea things plus a pile of scones, a dish of plum jam and another of clotted cream. ‘Let’s enjoy the refreshments. And the sunshine.’ He twisted in his seat to look out of the window into the garden. ‘It’s warm for November, but a little too clear for my taste. Rain’s on the way, I fancy.’

  ‘It’ll do no harm, this time of year,’ said James. ‘It�
��s to be expected.’

  ‘As long as it isn’t a bad storm,’ said Mr Hartley. ‘That’s never welcome, on land or sea. I could swear, today, that to the south-west I could see a little hump in the sea that might be the island of Lundy.’

  ‘Oh, that’s impossible,’ protested Mr Silcox. ‘You can’t see Lundy from this far up the coast.’

  ‘Ah, well, maybe I imagined it,’ said Mr Hartley, slicing a scone in half and piling it lavishly with jam and cream. ‘I’ve had Lundy on my mind a lot. It was used a good deal by smugglers up to the start of the war. We put a stop to it then. A family called Hunt have it now and all through the war, Sir Aubrey kept trying to get the government to use it as a base for troops – and pay him for the privilege, of course. But that’s over now and he’s likely enough to be thinking of some other way to make a profit. He’s got Irish lands and he has a lot of Irish folk living on Lundy with him and they’re a wild lot by all accounts. I keep my ears open. I overhear more than folk tell me …’

  ‘He sits in taverns, looking harmless,’ said Edmund. ‘And sometimes, no one realizes he’s there at all.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Hartley. ‘But I’ve learned, never mind how, that now it’s started up again, the smugglers are using Lundy as a halfway house with French ships unloading there and leaving things for our smugglers to pick up, or having a rendezvous with our miscreants in Lundy Roads. Well, I’m not in a fuss about it today. I’d say that the weather’s going to turn very treacherous and no one will be running contraband in a storm.’

  There were murmurs of agreement, and we all drank some more tea and then Silcox turned to James to ask what had brought us here on this Saturday. James began to explain about William’s wish to leave school. I ate a scone with plum jam and cream, and wondered anxiously about Ralph.

  Would he – was he – now thinking of resuming the trade he had once shared with his father? I could only hope not.

  Mr Hartley took his leave shortly after that. Mr Silcox and Edmund persuaded us to stay for the midday meal but we ate it rather quickly, because the bright morning sky had begun to dim, and James remarked again that it was uncommonly warm and close for November.

  ‘Not natural weather,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I reckon that Mr Hartley is right; there’s trouble coming.’ I noticed suddenly that although the basic tow colour of his hair was always bleached after the summer, it now had a few genuine white hairs in it. His health was sound and after all, he was not yet forty; it seemed too soon for them. I experienced a sudden wave of tenderness for him. He was an honest man and he had been, by most standards, a good husband, and for fourteen years, we had worked as a team to look after Foxwell and rear our children, the children he had given me.

  I shouldn’t still be hankering after Ralph. The way my insides had melted whenever I as much as heard his name was wrong. It was time to put all that behind me and try appreciating James for a change.

  I looked towards the window and as I did so, a gust of wind shook the house and the sun finally went in.

  ‘We should be on our way home,’ I said.

  The drive back to Foxwell usually took about an hour. This time it took less because the sky to the west suddenly began to look so ominous that we were anxious to get ourselves and Goldfinch under cover. We kept her to a brisk trot wherever possible, letting the cart bounce as it would over the ruts and tussocks of the rough track. The wind, which to begin with came only in occasional gusts, started to strengthen and the gusts came closer together.

  ‘Gale’s on its way,’ said James. ‘Pity anyone who’s at sea in this weather. They’ll be running for shelter. Whatever’s coming, it’s coming from the Atlantic. Reckon I’ve just seen a flicker of lightning over there towards the sea.’

  Our waiflike maidservant Annie had blossomed during her time with us into a quite a pretty lass and also a trustworthy one. We had left her in charge of Rose and John and she came running out to meet us when we came creaking and clattering into the farmyard.

  ‘I’m that glad to see ’ee back. Nasty feel in the air. Heard thunder in the distance, I have. I’ve shut up the hens and taken the dogs indoors ’cept for Racer. He’s out still, with Reggie. The cats are indoors. Any livin’ thing’ll need shelter from what’s on its way. Mr Searle said just after you’d gone that he didn’t like the look of the weather. He’s brought the sheep down to the shippon.’

  ‘What about the cows?’

  ‘Reggie’s gone for them. That’s why he needed Racer. He got the bull into his stall first.’

  Fred Webster had appeared and was unharnessing Goldfinch. ‘Don’t care for the look of the weather,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the horses under cover quick.’

  He and James saw to that, but by the time they had finished and followed me into the house, the sky was darkening alarmingly.

  We heard lowing and trampling, and our Red Devons appeared, followed by Reggie, who was using Racer, the biggest of our three hounds, to herd them. They were obeying the man and the dog because they were used to doing that but they were also snorting and disturbed by the threatening weather, the increasingly noisy wind, and the change to their routine. The whole atmosphere felt tense.

  The light was vanishing fast. Nightfall was far away, but this was just like night. It was beginning to be frightening. Fred hurried off home. William came in from the fields where he had been working and we all gathered in the kitchen. There was firelight there but it wasn’t enough and Annie set about lighting lamps and candles. The wind howled in the chimney and shook the window frames, and now and then came flickers of lightning.

  Then, making us all jump, came a huge blue flash that seemed to fill the room, accompanied by a colossal crash of thunder, as though tons of rock were falling out of the sky. A second flash followed almost at once and showed us each other’s white, scared faces. Rose and little John began to cry.

  ‘There, there,’ said Annie in a trembling voice as she picked John up. I went to Rose and pulled her against me. ‘It’s all right. It’s only a storm. Nothing to be afraid of.’ I hope she couldn’t sense how scared I was myself.

  The animals were certainly scared. Racer had joined his brother Tufty and his mother Russet and the cats by the fire where they made a furry heap, but now Stripey, our big tabby, sprang up spitting and fled for shelter under James’ basket chair while Racer was growling ominously. William picked up Whiskers, who was female and small, and shivering.

  Thunder roared again. There was another flash, another howl of wind, and then the rain came, hammering the ground and clattering against the windows, flung by the wind. It was as though some monstrous entity were trying to force a way in. Whiskers yowled, digging her claws into William’s arm so that he let her go. She bolted into a corner of the room. Racer got up and barked and his brother Tufty joined him. Their elderly mother, Russet, whined.

  And then, out in the farmyard, there was a slithering crash, a rattling noise and a cracking of timbers, and frightened lowing from our cows. Rose screamed. Still holding her against me, I made for the window, to behold, by the lightning that was now almost continual, a sea of tossing horns and gleaming wet bovine backs, filling up the farmyard.

  ‘James! Something’s happened to the byre! The cows are out!’

  They were indeed and not merely out of their byre. Even as I watched from the window, they found the gate of the farmyard, which, as the lightning showed me, had been torn open by the wind, and they were vanishing through it, jostling, stampeding, as if the storm were somehow sucking them out of the yard, to vanish into the murk.

  ‘James!’ I wailed.

  He was there, beside me, looking out on the same scene as I was. In fourteen years, James had never sworn in front of me. Now, he said: ‘Oh, my God!’ and dashed to the back door. But when he opened it, the gale threw the rain inside as though it were hurling the contents of a pail at him, and he reeled back, drenched.

  ‘We can’t go out in that!’ William shouted. He had to shout, because the t
hunder was roaring again and Rose was sobbing in wild alarm.

  James came back and stood by the window again, banging his fists on the sill. ‘I know! Not till the storm stops! God knows where they’ll get to, what harm’ll come to them …!’

  I tried to be sensible. ‘We’ll go after them in the morning,’ I said. ‘This can’t last long!’

  ‘Every bog on the moor’ll overflow; every stream’ll be in spate. We’ll lose some of those cows, Peggy. Bound to. Now, hush, Rose. We’re all here and we’re safe, at least; no need for all this to-do. Peggy, you and Annie get these young ones to bed.’

  I gave him a shaky smile and he hugged Rose and me together, somehow getting his arms round both of us. He and I were closer then than we had ever been, I think. Closer then than we would ever be again.

  Rockfall

  There was no chance of rounding up the cattle that night. The storm raged almost until dawn and we barely slept. But as soon as the uproar had abated, James and I roused ourselves to dress in haste and go out to assess the damage.

  The stable, which was a good solid structure, had withstood the elements very well, but the cattle byre was more exposed and the door had been blown open, breaking its hinges. Hence the escape of the cows. The bull, who was kept in a separate building, was still safely there.

  Some of the cows were now wandering back, looking bedraggled, lowing to be let in and milked. We attended to them, and counted heads.

  ‘There’s still nigh on a dozen out there somewhere,’ James said. ‘William and I had best go out on horseback and look for ’un. Fred and Reggie can start repairing the byre door. We’ve got some spare hinges somewhere.’

  I looked at the sky. It was cloudy but no longer threatening. The wind now was only a light breeze. An unexpected restlessness seized me. I wanted to be out on the moors, with a horse’s mane tossing in front of me; not confined to a hot and steamy kitchen. Annie and Mattie could deal perfectly well with the midday meal, without me. ‘I’ll help the search,’ I said. ‘I’ll take Lady.’ Lady was one of the mature mares we had bought on that memorable day at Bampton. We had done well to buy her and the other mare, Brownie, for Clover and Spots had both died the following year. Lady and Brownie were steady, broad-backed ponies and could keep going all day long. ‘I’ll put my leather leggings on,’ I said.