Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By)

by R. F Delderfield

  ‘I’m a bit astonished by the grip the eighteenth century still has on the area,’ Paul said when they had been admitted by the back door and had moved into one of the rooms facing the terrace where they could overlook the crowd in the paddocks and drive.

  ‘What else did you expect?’ Rudd said. ‘We only got our railway link four years ago, and I can remember The Times being read aloud in the bar of the Raven once a week! You’ve caught us at an intermediary stage—say about 1860, and I think this might be the source of some of your biggest headaches! You saw one or two reach for their forelocks at the farms but when they realised they were doing it instinctively they felt shamefaced, and that’s a bad thing. Either a man freely acknowledges power of wealth and class, or he doesn’t think of himself as anything but a free man, with a free man’s privilege of telling the squire to treat him as one or go fishing! Take that mob out there, flirting, guzzling and skylarking around the waggons. Not one in fifty has any intention of bidding for anything here. With one or two exceptions they couldn’t afford to pay for it if it was knocked down by them, but does that stop them making a fête out of the sale? Why, bless you, Sir George Lovell in his heyday would have had his keeper herd them the far side of the ford but today there they are and not a blush between them, except when Parson Bull buttonholes sermon-dodgers and threatens to name slackers publicly from the pulpit! There he is now, giving Arthur Pitts the edge of his tongue,’ and Paul saw a massively built clergyman, with a great mop of white hair, hectoring a downcast-looking Arthur, who stood with his wife Martha in the forecourt awaiting the auctioneer’s signal to unlock the front door.

  ‘What kind of man is Bull?’ Paul enquired. ‘I daresay I shall have to attend church as soon as I settle in,’ and Rudd chuckled and said that even Sir George Lovell had been circumspect in his dealings with Bull, who was probably the last buttress of the eighteenth century in the Valley, for he hunted three times a week, swore freely in public and usually called for a tot of brandy before dispensing communion wine to his flock. ‘Willoughby, the Non-conformist, once challenged him outside The Raven, accusing him of setting a bad example to his parishioners,’ he said, ‘but Bull only shouted, “If you meet a man carrying a lantern on a dark night don’t question his character, you dissenting knave! Just be grateful for the light he’s shedding, in the hope that it will keep your erring feet clear of hell!” He’s a hard man is Bull, but he’s respected. He’s a real man, you see, and they prefer that to someone who hands out the Gentle Jesus brand of Christianity!’

  The auctioneer asked Rudd if it was time to open the doors and when Rudd said it was Paul withdrew and watched the bidding, almost all the lots on the ground floor being knocked down to a dealer from Whinmouth, rumoured to be bidding on Lord Gilroy’s behalf, or to one of the auctioneer’s staff acting for absent clients. He recognised Claire Derwent’s blonde head under the rostrum and she saw him and smiled, nudging her sister Rose and then looking quickly away. Arabella Codsall bought a mirror and one or two figurines, and in addition to greeting the Pitts and Tamer Potter, Paul acknowledged the polite greetings of Willoughby, his shy daughter Elinor, and the grim-faced Edward Derwent, who never once took his eyes off the auctioneer but offered no bids, either by word or gesture. After a time Paul’s leg began to ache so he drifted into the library and thence into the adjoining room that Sir George had used as a photographer’s studio. The window was still draped with black cloth and when he had ripped it down, and opened the window, he saw a jumble of faded photographs, hypo baths and fixing frames left on the benches by the late owner. The pictures gave him a closer insight into the family than he had obtained from reading the Illustrated London News. He decided that George Lovell was no ordinary amateur but a technician with imagination and finesse, for there were some cleverly posed groups under the chestnuts, and several excellent pictures of horses and of meets in the forecourt outside. There were also souvenir pictures of fancy-dress balls of more than twenty years ago, dated and signed on the back in Sir George’s spidery hand-writing—Shallowford Christmas Rout, 1882, and Harvest Ball, 1883, large photographs showing groups of Robin Hoods, Dick Turpins and fairy-tale characters. It all seemed to belong to an age as far away as Waterloo, or before then, when choleric squires dispensed lavish hospitality and drunk themselves insensible after gruelling days in the hunting field. Looking at them Paul thought of what Rudd had said regarding the transitional stage at Shallowford, and its time lag, reflecting that he would be the person responsible for quickening the tempo but he also wondered if good intentions and an injection of capital would be enough to drag this self-contained little community into the twentieth century? Did the people of the Sorrel Valley acknowledge the Age of Progress that everybody in London talked about? Had they ever devoted a moment’s thought to airships, and electric lighting, to motors, phonographs, and higher education? And even if they had, would any of these things add anything important to their lives?

  He was returning yellowing photographs to the shelf where he had found them when he saw the brass-bound Bible, a ponderous volume on the one shelf free of litter. He pulled it out, wondering why its clasp was secured by a small brass padlock, and it occurred to him that a Bible of this size and weight might contain a family tree, or perhaps a record of Lovell births and deaths over the century. The little padlock presented no difficulties and he prised it open with his penknife, turning to a flyleaf which was disappointingly blank. Then, opening the book at random, he almost dropped it with astonishment, for it was not a Bible at all but an album of near-pornographic photographs, most of them obviously the work of Sir George, for they were identical in tone, mounting and finish to the groups he had just laid aside.

  He turned the pages curiously, glancing at twenty or more portraits of show-girls in various stages of undress and a variety of obscene poses. Some of them wore tights, others were draped in what looked like clusters of spangled tassels. The subjects were all plump, rather overblown girls, with great sturdy thighs, mountainous breasts and very ample behinds. Most of them were smirking into the camera, so that Paul found their poses grotesquely comic, as though the photographer, by housing them between the covers of a Bible, was playing a secret joke on society. There was nothing particularly shocking about the first half of the album. The girls were clearly the type who habitually posed for these kind of pictures, and their self-satisfied smiles and negligent poses indicated that they were not in the least ashamed of earning an honest half-guinea catering for their patron’s eccentric tastes. But then the nature of the gallery changed abruptly and Paul recognised, with a sense of shock, one of the older Potter girls, photographed against a background of artificial foliage and looking, he thought, a little frightened and incredulous, as well she might for she was stark naked, her disordered hair masking part of her face as she stood with shoulders slightly hunched, as though poised to run. There were several other pictures of this girl but in subsequent photographs she seemed to have gained confidence, for in two she was grinning and standing with feet astride and her hands on her hips. There were also photographs of a younger girl whom Paul did not recognise, a dark, wild-looking creature, who could not have been more than fifteen and had been permitted to retain an unlikely pair of drawers, frilled at the knee and very much beribboned, as though to heighten her forlorn appeal. She had been photographed standing in front of a full-length mirror and the result of the double reflection was somehow pathetic, as the camera had caught a pile of shabby discarded clothing in the bottom right-hand corner.

  Paul stared at the pictures unbelievingly, wondering if chance had revealed to him a well-kept secret, or whether the whole Valley acknowledged George Lovell as a lustful old goat, whose secret pleasure was to coax young girls into this airless little room and bribe or frighten them into stripping and posing for his camera. The local pictures made him feel slightly sick and he pushed the window further open, wondering where he could hide the book until he had a chance to destroy it but as h
e moved a loose photograph fell to the floor and bending to retrieve it he saw that it was a study of another unidentifiable girl. This one, although naked, seemed to have clung to modesty of a sort, for she had turned her face away from the camera and used her hand as a screen. She was, thought Paul, an unwilling subject, but then he wondered, for a deliberate attempt had been made to pose her against the sylvan background and parody the pose of a surprised nymph. She was, he would judge, about the same age as the girl in the frilled drawers but better nourished, and possessing a more mature figure and a healthy skin. He was slipping the picture between the Bible covers when he heard a step in the library and for a moment he panicked, glaring round for somewhere to dispose of the wretched album. He had just thrust it alongside the festive groups when the door opened and Claire Derwent’s blonde head appeared. She did not seem surprised to find him there alone and smiled, showing beautiful teeth.

  ‘Why, there you are, Mr Craddock! Mr Rudd said you were in the library. I wanted to ask you if my sister and I can help about horses. He told me the news and everyone is delighted! Mr Rudd also told us you had bought the grey and we’re pleased about that too, because Rose bred him from Misty, one of the best mares we ever had in the Valley.’

  Paul, thanking God that Claire Derwent had not been numbered among Sir George’s local models, made a determined attempt to compose himself, feeling almost that she had surprised him enjoying the old Satyr’s picture gallery.

  ‘It doesn’t matter a bit if it isn’t convenient now,’ Claire went on, mercifully oblivious of his confusion, ‘we could easily discuss it some other time, but if you need a good groom we happen to know of one who was a soldier like you, and has just come back seeking a post. We should also like you to know that we could come over and look after any horses if you had to go away again before you settled in. What I mean is, if we can help in any way you have only to ask, and father told me to say he’ll do anything he can to help because he’s just as pleased as we are that you’re going to be Squire!’

  He had recovered sufficiently to pay some attention to her now and it struck him again that she was an extraordinarily pretty woman, with her small, neat head, tidy corn-coloured hair dressed in coiled plaits, Dutch fashion, clear blue eyes and soft, red mouth. Her figure was good too, not straight and lithe like her sister’s, but rather full, with small hands and feet, so that everything about her suggested neatness and vigorous health.

  ‘It’s very civil of you, Miss Derwent,’ he heard himself saying, ‘and I daresay I shall take advantage of your kindness. I’m very much taken with the grey and I expect, soon enough, I shall want a good cob for the trap, and maybe a second hunter. However, my first job is to try and get some kind of order into this chaos. The house needs a great deal of renovation, don’t you think?’

  She looked round the room with a woman’s appraising eye for defects.

  ‘Eph Morgan will sort it out in no time,’ she said, ‘he’s the local builder Mr Rudd will recommend and what he can’t manage himself he’ll find somebody to do it. It’s going to be wonderful to have Shallowford come alive again after all this time. This could be a wonderful home, Mr Craddock, it only wants somebody like yourself to … well, to love it, and care for it! The Lovells were always coming and going, taking on people and getting rid of them, and really keen farmers like Daddy felt rather wretched about it all, you understand?’

  ‘It’s going to be different from now on,’ Paul promised and was surprised at his enthusiasm. ‘I’m going to like it here and I’ve no interest in town life. We could pull the place together in no time, providing every family is as co-operative as yours!’ And then, because he noticed a gleam of triumph in her eyes, he felt he had said too much, and added, lamely, ‘I’d like to see how things are getting on out there if you’ll excuse me, Miss Derwent, I only came in because it was so stuffy among the crowd in the big room.’

  Oh, they’re all upstairs now,’ she said gaily, ‘selling the stuff in the guest-rooms. We’ve come over in the waggonette and brought a picnic lunch. Would you care to join us when they break for luncheon? We’re at the top of the drive and Daddy’s got some rather good claret.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ he said, ‘but I must ask Rudd if Mrs Handcock is expecting us for lunch.’

  ‘Oh, no, she isn’t,’ said Claire, ‘I’ve already asked Rudd and he said I was to ask you.’

  ‘Very well then, I should be delighted,’ said Paul, a little taken aback by her persistence, and they moved out of the library to join the crowd on the landing, at the point where the passages branched.

  He could hear the auctioneer’s voice droning away at the far end of the corridor and the crowd made way for him in a way that suggested the news had already spread far and wide. He shed Claire on the way and here, looking over people’s heads, he saw that the room was packed with spectators and that some of the lots from the bedrooms had been carried in to provide more selling space. Then, in her familiar corner by the window, he saw Grace Lovell, and beside her, looking as if association with the crowd distressed them, was a slim erect man about fifty, and a handsome, hard-faced woman, in her mid-thirties, who held a lilac parasol and whose features were rigid with concentration. He identified them at once as Grace Lovell’s father and stepmother.

  The auctioneer was selling Lot 250, the nursery screen, and before he was done with his patter Grace Lovell called ‘Ten shillings!’, speaking so quickly that her mouth was closed again before Paul had realised she was bidding.

  ‘Ten shillings!’ repeated the auctioneer, as one of his assistants lifted the screen, ‘Any advance on ten shillings? A lot of painstaking work has gone into this! How about some of you young ladies and gentlemen thinking of getting married …?’, and there was a dutiful titter, in which the Lovells did not join.

  ‘Fifteen!’ said a woman standing in front of Paul and he recognised Arabella Codsall.

  ‘One pound!’ Grace called, before the auctioneer could invite an advance and Arabella, with a tut-tut of irritation, said, crossly, ‘One guinea, then!’ and Paul caught a glimpse of Martin Codsall’s peaked face at his wife’s elbow.

  The auctioneer glanced across to the silent trio by the window. ‘Come now, Miss Lovell, you’ll not let it go for that. Shall I say twenty-two and six?’

  Grace shook her head and Paul, seeing her glance drop, said, ‘Thirty shillings, Mr Auctioneer!’, and everyone in the room turned to stare. There was a pause and then, swiftly, the auctioneer brought down his gavel. ‘Sold to Mr Craddock, and I’m delighted something else is staying where it belongs, sir! Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all in here and we’ll break for luncheon. The remaining lots, including all those outside, will be sold commencing two p.m. sharp!’, and the crowd began to surge out into the corridor, pressing Paul back to the landing, and downstairs to the hall where they streamed into the open.

  Paul waited beside the big fireplace, watching Bruce Lovell and his wife descend the stairs, and pass into the forecourt. They did not see him and were engaged in low and earnest conversation. When Grace did not follow he went up again and along the corridor to the nursery. She was still there, standing with her back to the door examining the screen with care. He said, ‘I didn’t really want it, Miss Lovell, but I could see that you did and it didn’t seem right to lose it to Arabella Codsall. It’s yours if you want it and I can see that you do.’

  She turned slowly, regarding him with disconcerting gravity.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, almost inaudibly, ‘I’ll send the money for it tonight. I daresay my father can get someone to collect it tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t want paying for it,’ Paul said, ‘I’d like you to have it for old times’ sake. You said you used to come here as a child and I daresay this room has happy memories for you. I’d be very glad if you would let me make you a present of it, Miss Lovell.’

  She continued to gaze fixedly at him and he decid
ed that he wished she would sometimes make an effort to put him at ease. As if she could read his thoughts she suddenly dropped her glance and said, still very quietly, ‘Happy memories? I don’t know why I wanted the screen, I probably wouldn’t have looked at it when I got it home, but I helped to make it from scraps, cut up in the schoolroom. I was about seven or eight then, but it seems longer ago than that!’ She seemed almost as though she was talking to herself but suddenly her head came up and she smiled, ‘It was a kind thought anyhow, Mr Craddock, and I don’t intend to be churlish again! I’ll accept it as a gift—a going-away gift!’, and she walked past him into the corridor and down the stairs, leaving him as baffled as he had been by her two previous dismissals.

  Chapter Four

  I

  Zorndorff, enthroned on his high stool overlooking the yard, adjusted his half-moon spectacles and re-read Paul’s eight-page letter with the undivided attention he gave to every document addressed to him, even trade brochures and invoices. He had read it before that morning but hurriedly, to assess its factual worth. Now, with time on his hands, he dissected it, phrase by phrase.

  It told of Paul’s meeting with Rudd and the understanding they had arrived at during their ride over the moor; it described the scenery, house, farms, tenants, sale and the terms of his contract with Rudd. It even reported on the progress of his wound but it said nothing of Grace Lovell, or of the episode concerning the nursery screen. Zorndorff, however, had been prising undisclosed information from letters too long to miss the inference that there was a pretty girl somewhere between the lines and her presence intrigued him, for he was aware of aspects of Craddock’s character of which Paul himself was unaware and among them was a certain loss of confidence engendered by the shock of his wound, his long illness and the certainty that he now faced life with a permanent disability. It was because he was aware of these factors that Zorndorff had not been impressed by the young man’s summary rejection of the scrap-iron business. To Craddock, as to any young man emerging from hospital with one leg shorter than the other, the world had a slightly sour taste and he would be ready to quarrel with everything until the period of adjustment had passed. The fact that a few days in the west had enabled him to mention his wound in passing satisfied the Croat that Paul had somehow succeeded in making that adjustment in a matter of days. Fresh air, soft scenery, and a visit to a few run-down farms, Zorndorff reasoned, would hardly have inspired a letter as jubilant as this; he wrote like a man in love and Zorndorff, who, despite preoccupation with business, had lived a full life, could appreciate the difference between the stimulus of a pretty landscape and that of a pretty woman. The only aspect of the letter that puzzled him was its postscript, obviously an afterthought. Paul had written: ‘One other thing— I need a stable lad and remembered that urchin, the one who was so smart with that cart-horse. Would he care to exchange smoke for fresh air? Anyway, ask him and advance his fare if he’ll come. He’ll get full board and half-a-crown a week, together with expert training as a groom.’