Golden Barrier

by Mira Stables

  Having accepted her assurances that she had suffered nothing worse than one or two bruises, and politely restored her hat to her, Mr. Winfield addressed himself to the problem of getting her home. The simplest way, he suggested, was for her to ride his horse, which he would lead. It would not be very comfortable, but she could cling to the saddle and he would go very slowly. Her groom could then go off in pursuit of the runaway.

  Katherine demurred. “But surely, sir, you came out hunting. I cannot cut up all your plans just because I was so foolish as to permit myself to be thrown. I can easily walk as far as the inn in the village, and there I can hire a conveyance to take me home. Certainly Jasper must go after Ajax, and the sooner the better, but you must not be giving up your day’s hunting on my account.”

  Privately Mr. Winfield endorsed these views, but she seemed a plucky little thing and she had taken the deuce of a tumble. He said politely, “I could not enjoy my sport, ma’am, if I did not first see you safely home. Pray permit me to do so. I think you should be laid upon your bed with some revivifying cordial to calm your nerves, as soon as possible.”

  He seemed quite determined—and further argument would only waste more time. Katherine capitulated, allowed herself to be lifted on to the back of his tall hunter, and grasped the pommel with one small hand, twisting the other in the animal’s mane.

  “It’s Hays Park, sir. Mr. Martenhay’s place,” volunteered Jasper. “And I’ll be off after Ajax right away, if it please your honour. You can’t miss the house. The lodge gates are about half a mile out of the village on the right hand side of the road. But Miss Martenhays will tell you.” He touched his hat politely and set spurs to his horse.

  Conversation between Mr. Winfield and Miss Martenhays did not flourish. It is an awkward business to lead a horse and talk to its rider, especially when the horse is dancing with impatience for a good gallop, and the rider is none too securely seated. Moreover Katherine was beginning to feel the effects of her fall. Her head ached, and it took all her determination to sit up straight and maintain her precarious balance.

  Mr. Winfield was absorbed in his own reflections; Martenhays; he had never met the fellow, though he knew of him as a good employer who treated his workers well. But it was also said of him that he subscribed to a good many modern notions about the ownership of land that went far beyond Dermot’s mildly progressive views. Now he supposed that he would be obliged to make his acquaintance. He could scarcely abandon Miss Martenhays on the doorstep.

  The meeting did not eventuate. The door was flung open for them by a butler much concerned about his young mistress’s unexpected return in such unusual fashion. Dermot, lifting the lady down from her lofty perch, explained the accident; supported the victim in the view that it was probably not necessary to send for the physician, and recommended the healing properties of a rest and a cup of tea. He then abandoned his charge to the ministrations of the butler, now reinforced by the housekeeper and an abigail who was presumably the young lady’s maid; said politely that he would do himself the honour of calling next day to enquire how she did, and rode down the drive in some relief at having brushed through a tiresome affair so easily. It was fortunate that Mr. Martenhays had not been at home, though they would probably meet on the morrow when he paid his courtesy visit.

  Too late to go hunting now, he decided, and rode home, wondering if he could spare another day later in the week. Perhaps, if he worked this afternoon. There was a sheaf of estimates that he must go through before certain works could be put in hand. If he made a good start on those, he might steal a day’s hunting on Thursday.

  Once again his intentions were frustrated by a Martenhays. Katherine’s Papa would not permit a day to elapse without expressing his gratitude for Mr. Winfield’s services to his daughter. Upon returning to his home and learning of her mishap, he did not even stay to take a bite of luncheon, but had himself driven over to the Priory immediately.

  Despite his annoyance at being interrupted, Dermot liked the warmth and frank manners of his visitor. He shrugged off the gratitude, but kindly, making allowances for the concern of a father, and hoped Miss Martenhays was none the worse for her tumble. Mr. Martenhays reassured him on this head and enquired about his host’s schemes for drainage and dam building. The two men were soon happily immersed in the problems that arose over the proper management of a country estate. To a certain extent their views coincided, but Mr. Martenhays shook his head over the number of small farms that made up the Priory estate.

  “Too many tenants,” he opined. “And half of them, if my own experience is anything to go by, as set in their ways as those old Priory ruins that I passed on my way here. They’ll moulder away before they’ll change. You’ll never make the place pay, farming it in small parcels like that, and neither will your tenants. One large holding is the thing, and plenty of modern implements to do the work.”

  “And what’s to become of my present tenants?” demanded Dermot. “Most of them were born on the place. I’ve taken two more farms in hand since I took over, and I’ll admit that one or two of my tenants are pretty mediaeval in their outlook. But I can’t just dispossess them.”

  “You could employ the willing ones,” argued Mr. Martenhays. “They’d be better off with a good master than scratching a poor living as they do now.”

  “Well there we shall never agree,” said Dermot good-humouredly. “However good your employer—and I couldn’t afford to be over generous—it’s not the same thing as being your own master. As the short leases fall in I shall not renew them except in cases of personal hardship, for in theory I agree with your recipe for success. But it will be a long slow business.”

  Mr. Martenhays grunted. “Too tender-hearted. That’s your trouble. It doesn’t pay in business. And farming is a business as much as any other.”

  Dermot’s grin was rather rueful. He was very well aware that there was a good deal of sense in his visitor’s notions, but he did not see why the fellow should have it all his own way, even though he was an older man and only newly met.

  “You bear the reputation, sir, of being a good employer, paying a good wage and caring for your men in time of sickness. Are you asking me to believe that this is just good business practice?” he enquired.

  Mr. Martenhays acknowledged the hit. “Perhaps not entirely,” he owned with a frosty twinkle. “But I don’t carry common decency or Christian charity to the point of endangering my profit. After all—if I go bankrupt, my employees will suffer along with me. It is to their interest that I keep a cool head on my shoulders.”

  “So much I grant you. But I wonder how you would deal if you found yourself in my situation. I’m no sentimentalist, any more than you are yourself, and I detest idlers and whiners. But when a man and his forefathers have served the land for generations; when tenants are hard workers and honest in all their dealings, would you punish them because their minds are slow moving and do not readily accept new methods?”

  Mr. Martenhays scratched his head. “You strike shrewd blows, young man. Though punish is not the word I would use. But this I will say. The new methods must come, however much prejudice there is against them. The population of the country is increasing. With so many more mouths to feed, there’s many will starve to death unless we can produce more food. And the old ways cannot do it. You are young. Mark my words, you’ll see the changes come quicker and quicker.”

  Dermot had a pretty shrewd notion that the gentleman was in the right of it, like it or not. In his grandfather’s day, the peasants had managed to supply their own needs by working their small holdings, with perhaps a little surplus left in a good season which they would market, to earn the necessary cash to buy such staple commodities as they could not grow for themselves. Less well informed than Mr. Martenhays, he was still aware that, with the rapid growth of the manufacturing towns and their increasing calls on food supplies, this simple system would no longer meet the nation’s needs.

  He said quietly, “I have a good d
eal of sympathy with your views, sir, even if I cannot endorse them wholeheartedly. But so much talk has made me thirsty. Shall we crack a bottle? And then, if you would care for it, I will show you something of the improvements that I am making. I will even promise to listen to your advice, though I do not undertake to accept it as though it were the Gospel.”

  Chapter Seven

  February gave way to March. One or two early lambs were born, and Dermot moved the lambing flock down to the river pastures where the shepherd could more easily keep an eye on them. Every one grumbled because it rained persistently. The roads and tracks became quagmires, and social life was practically at a standstill.

  Sickly weather for the lambing, pronounced the shepherd grumpily. But Dermot had a more pressing anxiety. The progress of his drainage works had already noticeably augmented the volume of the water in the river. Now the heavy rain filled all the little streams to the brim and even caused new springs to break. There was a threat that the river might burst its banks. That would put the lambing flock in grave danger, and probably flood several cottages that stood on the low ground. He arranged for a watch to be kept on the threatening waters both day and night, and put extra men to work on the dam and the mill lade which would eventually divert some of the surplus water but which, at present, were only half completed. Those whose houses were threatened were warned to move their belongings to the upper floors.

  There was a good deal of muttering. The river had never flooded the houses before. It was all this drainage business that had turned it into a menace. One or two wiseacres had known all along how it would be, and it was no use Sam Armstrong pointing out that the projected mill would provide much needed employment. Since he hoped to be given the job of running it, he would naturally be in favour, but how would he like the river coming into his house and spoiling all his goods? However, having vented their disapproval, and shown their sour satisfaction in having been right, they got on with the necessary jobs without further trouble.

  Dermot considered his safety measures and decided that there was no more to be done. There were two tumble-down shacks on the Island, deserted these many years. The Island was not really an island. The river looped round it, almost encircling it, occasionally washing right over it after heavy rain. If, on this occasion, it also washed away the two crumbling buildings, it would be small loss. They were already on Dermot’s list for demolition. Travelling tinkers and gypsies had a trick of sheltering there occasionally, with a consequent increase in the petty crime in the district.

  On the fourteenth of March, gale force winds brought a lashing rainstorm which precipitated the disaster. For once the wiseacres were wholly justified. Before the drainage scheme it would have taken hours for that volume of water to percolate to the lower levels and bring out the river. Now it flowed rapidly along the carefully dug ditches with nothing to check its onward career. The watchers higher up the valley alerted the Priory workers, while the shepherd and his helpers immediately began to move the flock to higher ground. It was a slow business. The animals could not be hurried for they were heavy in lamb, but they knew their shepherd and made steady progress at their own speed. Dermot went down to the village to see if he could give any help there. Thanks to his precautions there was little more to be done. The water posed no threat to life or limb, and a good neighbourly spirit seemed to have emerged, the old, the sick and the babes having been offered asylum in houses that were not under threat. Everything was in good hands. He might as well go back and watch developments at the dam.

  His foot was actually in the stirrup when one of his tenants called out to him, “Reckon there’s some vagrants on the Island, sir. Ben came down that way and said he saw smoke in one of the chimneys this morning.”

  Dermot put his horse into a gallop. Vagrants were vagrants, and a plaguey nuisance at times, but no one wanted them to run the risk of drowning. Surely men of their experience would have too much sense to camp on the Island when the river was obviously rising.

  In this belief he was quite right, but the tinkers, seeing the careful precautions already taken, had counted on being rescued in ample time. That would mean shelter and food for several days, as well as unlimited scope for their pilfering talents. It was worth the risk of a wetting.

  So it came about that Katherine, whose Papa had set out a couple of hours earlier with a band of workers to see if he could render any help in village or Priory, came across a band of pitiful refugees, when she rode after him to see how the work was going. The tinkers were hurriedly loading their few oddments into a shabby cart, the women running about distractedly and shouting at the children, most of whom were crying with fright. The piece of land on which the shacks stood was rapidly disappearing beneath the encroaching flood waters, and, to Katherine’s tender heart, the group presented a touching picture of destitution and helplessness.

  They were in no actual danger, although the cart splashed through standing water as it made for the bank, and the women and children were ankle deep. There were two or three ponies, miserable starveling screws to be hauled to safety. Then the whole band looked expectantly at Katherine. She did not fail them. Swiftly reviewing her resources, she recalled a hay barn, empty at this season of the year, but sound shelter from wind and rain. To this refuge she directed the sorry crew, promising that hot food should be provided for them as soon as there was time for its preparation.

  Dermot, arriving in haste at the Island site, found the place deserted. One of the Hays Park shepherds who was helping to round up the last of the sheep, told him what had happened. Annoyance mounted within him. The Island was a kind of no man’s land, neither the Priory nor Hays Park laying claim to its unprofitable acres, but since his drainage scheme had been largely responsible for the flooding, Dermot felt a certain responsibility for the tinkers. His reaction would have been to give them a good meal and a small sum of money and to send them on their way. If Miss Martenhays had offered them shelter they would undoubtedly batten on her hospitality until even her patience was exhausted. He would be obliged to ride over and discover if he could render her any assistance; probably in ridding her of a bunch of arrant knaves, he thought savagely. But the matter would have to wait. There were more urgent tasks awaiting his supervision.

  Thanks to sensible precautions, and the help of willing hands, they survived the flood without loss of stock or injury to the workers. There was a good deal of mess to be tidied up in the cottages that had been invaded by the muddy water, and one or two items of household goods had been overlooked and so spoiled or washed away, but on the whole there was singularly little damage. Mr. Winfield, having inspected the work that was in progress, and tactfully disbursed small sums of money for the replacement of essential items, decided next day that he could be spared to ride over to Hays Park to thank Mr. Martenhays for the speed and efficiency with which he had rendered assistance, and to enquire into the position with regard to the tinkers. He found Mr. Martenhays from home, he having been called unexpectedly to London for an important conference. Though nominally retired, his associates still relied upon his experience and judgement in matters of great moment. Miss Martenhays, said the butler, with that air of complete impersonality that indicates deep disapproval, was gone across to the barn where the tinkers were lodged. One of the children was sickly, it appeared; and she had ignored all the representations of himself and the housekeeper, to the effect that she was like to catch a pestilent fever by meddling with such low trash, and had gone to see if she could be of help. In the absence of her father there was no one to gainsay her, he added, and looked hopefully at Mr. Winfield as though he might be just the man to do it.

  The scene that met Mr. Winfield’s eye when he went into the barn was much what he had expected. Naturally there was no fireplace, but two braziers had been lit, and lent something of an air of comfort to the big bare place. The tinkers had added their own note of disorder. A cord had been stretched from wall to wall, and an array of tattered garments had been spread out to
dry. The men of the party were missing—it might be better not to enquire what they were about—save for one middle-aged fellow who, in a rather desultory fashion, was effecting rough and ready repairs to some harness. One woman was tending something in a pot slung over one of the braziers; two more were engaged in acrimonious dispute over the possession of a red shawl, each declaring that it was her shawl that had survived the hurried evacuation of the Island; while a fourth was crouching over a makeshift crib in which lay the object of Katherine’s concern.

  To visit her unsavoury protégées, Katherine had donned that plain morning gown that had been her working dress at the Priory, and had dressed her hair close to her head. As she glanced up from the baby, at the opening of the door, Dermot recognised her at once. It was the girl of the jewels and the tapestry. With that serious, concerned expression on her face there was no mistaking her. She was also, undoubtedly, Miss Martenhays.

  For a moment Mr. Winfield forgot all about the debt of gratitude that he owed her. He was swept by a wave of primitive fury at the thought that this child of wealth and privilege should have run tame at the Priory for weeks, privy to all the shifts and subterfuges that poverty had forced upon him. Mrs. Armstrong’s ‘friend’ indeed! ‘Gifted with her needle and thankful to earn her board by plying it.’ For that one furious moment he could cheerfully have wrung the girl’s neck.

  His rage was swiftly brought under control, but his greeting was distinctly stiff. Katherine, unaware of his recognition, and remembering his kindness after her fall from Ajax, welcomed him with unaffected cordiality. To speak the truth she was very glad to see him. The tinkers made her feel uneasy. They were shameless beggars, claiming to have lost food supplies, clothing and household goods in the flooded river, in such quantities as would have furnished a substantial house. Having been on the scene herself, and watched their belongings being loaded into the cart, she knew that the claims were quite without foundation; but a generous heart found excuse for some degree of imposition from people so abjectly poor. It was not this, so much as their manner of approach, that distressed her. This varied from sycophantic gratitude, expressed in such flowery terms as to be totally unconvincing, to a kind of veiled insolence that would have been alarming if she had not been on her own ground with servants within call. Even as matters stood she was aware of the comfort of masculine support.