Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By)

by R. F Delderfield

  Zorndorff had to think hard before he recalled the incident and when he did he smiled wryly, judging that a street-urchin of Ikey Palfrey’s temperament would not willingly exchange the freedom of the streets for Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard. He blew down the speaking tube to Scotcher, the yard foreman, and instructed him to send Ikey Palfrey, Sophie Carrilovic’s boy, to the office as soon as he came in with a load.

  The boy appeared within half-an-hour and Zorndorff guessed correctly that he had been playing truant again, for the schools, closed in anticipation of the coronation ceremony, had reopened as soon as it was known that the King would not be crowned until August. The boy stood before Zorndorff in his rags, eyeing him furtively, as though sure of a command to return to school at once which would mean a thrashing. Ikey Palfrey cared very little for a routine thrashing but he resented very much enforced separation from his barrow, for that meant loss of income. He said, with mock humility, ‘Gaffer said you ’ad special collection for me, sir,’ and Zorndorff chuckled.

  ‘Gaffer said nothing of the kind, boy. He told you I wanted a word with you, and it isn’t for skipping school either. Why should I care a damn if you remain illiterate?’

  The boy relaxed a little, although he still looked ready to dart out of the door.

  ‘Wot was it then?’

  ‘It’s this,’ Zorndorff said, and read the postscript aloud, watching the boy’s bewildered expression. ‘You don’t recall Mr Craddock then?’

  ‘Yerse, I do,’ Ike said at once. ‘’Ee got me a tanner, didn’t he? I ain’t likely to fergit that—earning a tanner, just fer savin’ that bleedin’ carter’s head from being kicked in!’

  The boy’s nasal accent jarred Zorndorff’s nerves and he found it difficult to believe that Sophie Carrilovic, a woman born and reared in Zagreb, could have produced a child who could so outrage a foreign tongue. He would wager that the boy could not speak one word of Croat but then, why should he? He was probably nine-tenths the son of that layabout Palfrey, whom Sophie had been obliged to marry in order to acquire British nationality.

  ‘Very well, you remember him,’ Zorndorff said shortly, ‘but you don’t know that he is Mr Craddock’s son, or that he was badly wounded in the war.’

  ‘No, I never knew that,’ Ike admitted, ‘but wot’s the odds, Mister Zorndorff? What’s that ter me?’

  ‘Mr Craddock seems to think you can be taught to handle horses,’ said Franz, now rather enjoying the interview.

  ‘I c’n ’andle ’em nah, I don’t need to be taught nothin’ about ’orses,’ said Ike sharply but Zorndorff saw that he was impressed by the offer. ‘’Arf-a-crahn an’ all fahnd,’ he murmured. ‘Well, it don’t sahnd bad, do it? Pervidin’ you could pick up the odd bit o’ scrap and flog it. Could you do that dahn there, Mr Zorndorff?’

  ‘I feel confident that you could do it anywhere,’ said Franz, ‘but I wouldn’t like you to miss the main point. Mr Craddock probably intends that you should learn a trade. You aren’t likely to get that opportunity here if I know your parents, and as a stable lad on a big estate I daresay you would have a chance to ride real horses, not cart-horses. You might even become a jockey before you’re finished!’

  The boy’s face shone. ‘Cor!’ he said. ‘You ain’t kiddin’, Mr Zorndorff? You wouldn’t kid abaht a thing like that? I alwus reckoned I could be a jockey, ser long as I don’t grow no more. I’ll take it, Mr Zorndorff, if you’ll ’ave a word wi’ Mum, but don’t let the ol’ girl talk you aht of it, will yer?’

  It was all arranged with the maximum despatch and Franz Zorndorff, pondering the caprices of mankind, went along to Sophie Carrilovic’s two-roomed dwelling that same afternoon, depriving her of her eldest son and partial support, comforting her with promises of a substitute, and despatching Ikey to buy himself a suit of corduroys and two flannel shirts in the Bermondsey market.

  The boy presented himself fully kitted and with undeclared small change in his pocket the following morning and Franz, after inspecting him, gave him a Gladstone bag to hold his scanty possessions, plus a sovereign for his travelling expenses. It was the sight of the coin that destroyed Ikey Palfrey’s composure. As he stood looking down at it in the palm of his hand Zorndorff saw him for what he was, a grimy, raggletailed, undernourished little boy of ten or eleven, with the fear and cunning of the jungle lurking behind his eyes. He had seen thousands of such children during his lifetime both here and in Austria, but for some reason the sight of Ikey Palfrey touched him and he said gently, ‘You don’t know what might come of this, Ike. Work hard and don’t steal. Even if you’re not caught you’ll be likely to cause Mr Craddock trouble. It was very strange that he should remember you, so make the most of it for I have a feeling that you won’t regret what you’re doing. There now, make yourself scarce, tell him I’ll write and might even come and see you both one fine day.’

  The boy, thrown off guard by Zorndorff’s tone, stuck a knuckle in his eye and then, with a long sniff, jerked himself erect and bestowed upon his employer a Cockney wink. Zorndorff, shamed by his emotions, frowned but he watched him march down the ramp and through the debris to the double gates of the yard, and the boy must have realised that the Croat was watching for, when he reached the road, he suddenly turned and lifted his hand, a gesture that surprised Franz very much. ‘Now why the devil did he do that?’ he asked himself aloud. ‘Was he simply acknowledging my part in the business, or was he saying good-bye to the only place in the world that ever gave him anything but hard knocks?’ Then he put the boy out of mind and addressed himself to totting up a list of fractions with the speed of an adding machine.

  Ikey Palfrey was not entirely unfamiliar with the country. Twice in the last few years he had been hop-picking in Kent, and on two occasions he had travelled as far as Leith Hill in Surrey, on Sunday School treats, but always, when he had passed outside the rings of brick and stone that enclosed his entire world he had done so in the raucous company of two score of his neighbours, so that the terrible emptiness of a landscape had gone more or less unnoticed, had seemed, indeed, less real than the green patches on railway posters.

  Now, for the first time in his life he was alone in it, and long before the train stopped to change engines at Salisbury the defensive crust of his urban cockiness had cracked and fallen away, leaving him as vulnerable as a country-bred child turned loose in a populous city. He was, however, very far from being a weakling. He in no way resented the cruelty of the society into which he had been born but fought back, more or less successfully, with fists, hobnailed boots, artfulness and lies. These weapons, however, were no defence against the loneliness that enfolded him as he sat looking out of the window at miles and miles of fields, coppices and picture-book farms, all as alien to him as the upper reaches of the Amazon. How, he wondered, did one find one’s way about in a place bereft of landmarks, where every field and hedge were identical and every patch of woodland cover for nameless enemies? What did people do with themselves by day in such a wilderness? And when night fell, and darkness pressed down like a thick wet sack, how could one sleep with a certainty of waking again? He was by no means an introspective child, and was incapable of rationalising his fears, but they were there just the same, multiplying with every clack of the wheels, and in the terrifying isolation of the frowsy third-class carriage they began to undermine his courage, so that he would have burst into tears had it not been for the coins in his trouser pocket. Zorndorff had given him a sovereign and the fare demanded of him at Waterloo had been half-a-sovereign; never having possessed this sum before he regarded it as a special talisman against evil, and when he was not looking at it he was holding it in his moist palms, together with the small change left over from the sum given him to buy clothes. Ever since he could remember money had been a guarantee against oppression and the everyday hazards of cold and hunger. He had enormous respect for coins, all kinds of coins. With a halfpenny one could buy a roasted potato on
a frosty night; with a penny for a juicy meat pie one could not only avoid going to bed supperless but could exchange half the pie for a seat beside a night-watchman’s brazier. These things were fundamentals and coins were the keys to them, so that even the nameless dread conjured up by the endless fields and woods must, he reasoned, be subordinate to so much wealth, for today, by the mercy of God and his own prudence, he was worth thirteen shillings and sevenpence; in view of that there could not be much to worry about.

  They had told him at Waterloo that the journey would take about six hours but as he had no means of knowing the time it seemed to pass very slowly. He had eaten his pies and sandwiches long ago, and had begged a mug of water from a porter at one of the stops, but now he was both hungry and thirsty, and also much agitated by the prospect of overshooting his stop and missing the junction where he had been told to change trains. His stomach cart-wheeled with relief when the guard looked in and told him to get out at the next stop and there was only one other train at the branch siding, so that he was able, to some degree, to compose himself during the brief journey to Sorrel Halt. But when he arrived there, and there was no one to meet him, he gave himself up for lost.

  He sat down on a platform seat, staring out over the empty moor like the sole survivor of a shipwreck gazing over a waste of water. The great moor, yellow with drought, stretched away in the distance, and across it ran the single white ribbon of a road. The sun, blood-red and ominous, was setting over the woodlands on his left, but the minutes ticked by and still no one appeared. What, Ike asked himself, did one do in such circumstances? What could one do but pray?

  He had no real faith in the power of prayer. Every morning, at Alexis Street Council School, there had been a brief religious service that included a gabbled prayer and on the rare occasions when he attended Sunday School (in order to qualify for the annual treat) the bearded Superintendent prefaced and concluded his address with interminable appeals for Divine guidance and mercy. Ike had remained unimpressed by his appeals. They seemed to him to have even less meaning than the words of the hymns they chanted, yet who could say with certainty whether or not there existed above the bright blue sky an Omnipotent Sunday School Superintendent in a long white nightshirt who might be disposed to extricate a petitioner, providing he made his plea with eyes tightly closed and palms pressed together? He arranged himself in the conventional pose and murmured, swiftly, ‘Lord, get me aht of ’ere quick! Make Mr Craddock show up! Amen,’ and when he opened his eyes, and saw a trap speeding down the ribbon of road, he was ripe for wholesale conversion, so much so that, in the act of grabbing his Gladstone bag and leaping on the seat to wave, he did not forget to comment on the despatch of Divine service, saying, breathlessly, ‘Lumme! It worked!’

  Paul came driving out of the sunset in a fast trot and saw the small figure capering on the platform seat. He had misjudged the time it took to climb the long, winding hill from the Sorrel Valley and seeing relief shining in the child’s pale face he was contrite, saying, ‘I’m sorry, kid, I took too long getting over the moor. It’s six miles and rough going. Have you been waiting long?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Ikey said politely, for his spirits had been uplifted by the remarkably swift answer to prayer which boded well for an easy solution to future problems, ‘No, Mister, I knew you’d show up sooner or later, I’d have hoofed it on me daisy-roots if I’d known which way ter go!’, and he climbed up and settled himself, gazing round at the countryside with disdain and assurance. The trap, he thought, was a very smart rig, and the bay cob pulling it seemed exceptionally fat, for plump horses were not within his experience. ‘I think you’re going to like it down here,’ Paul said. ‘I do myself, so much that I don’t think I shall ever go back to London! The big house is the other side of the woods, and as you’ll have to find your way about sooner or later I’ll tell you the names of the places we pass on the way. But I expect you’re hungry after that journey. Could you eat a pasty? A home-made one?’

  ‘Could a duck swim, Mr Craddock!’ said Ikey, and for the next five minutes was silent whilst accounting for the largest and tastiest pasty he had ever seen or heard described and one, he would judge, that would set anybody back twopence in Berstein’s pieshop, in the Old Kent Road.

  As they jogged on over the moor Paul outlined what he had in mind for the boy, an apprenticeship in caring for horses and harness under Chivers, the middle-aged groom the Derwents had sent him. He had arranged, he said, for Chivers to teach him the rudiments of horsemanship and tack-room work, and added, ‘You may find the speech of the people down here difficult to understand at first, but don’t forget that they won’t understand you either! Very few of them have ever been within a hundred miles of London, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Ikey dutifully but privately considered the warning unnecessary, for although he seemed to have travelled a thousand miles since eight o’clock that morning he had not crossed a sea and was therefore still within the confines of the British Isles, where everyone spoke English. As they breasted the slope of the moor, crossed the main highway and dropped down on to the river road, the boy stole a cautious look at his companion, seeing a lean, thoughtful face, with a flicker of kindness in the grey eyes and determination in the small, jutting chin. Ike was well versed in the art of gauging character by a study of adult faces and voices, and concluded at once that here was a soft touch, provided he didn’t overstep the mark. His hunger temporarily satisfied by Mrs Handcock’s enormous pasty he said, with infinite humility:

  ‘I done a bit o’ trap-driving, Mr Craddock, sir. Would you like me to take the ribbons fer a bit? Just ter make a change for yer?’

  ‘If you like,’ Paul said, ‘but take her gently, I only bought her yesterday and she might have one or two tricks I don’t know about,’ and they exchanged seats, Ikey clicking his tongue in the fashion of all the best London cabbies. The cob seemed to understand for it broke into a steady trot and Paul, his shyness making way for a kind of conspiratorial affection for the urchin, said, ‘I know your surname is Palfrey. What is your Christian name?’

  The boy grinned, shamefacedly. ‘Me proper name’s “Percy”,’ he said, ‘but I ’ates it! I mean, anyone would, wouldn’t they? Everyone back ’ome called me Ikey.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I dunno why, Mr Craddock, sir.’

  ‘Very well,’ Paul said, ‘it’s “Ikey” from now on,’ and he wondered if the name had been suggested by the boy’s long, slightly curved nose, unusual in a boy from the South Bank where, Paul recalled, every other urchin’s nose was snub.

  II

  Paul Craddock was to remember the long, blazing summer of 1902 as one of the happiest and busiest of his life. From early July, until the leaves of the avenue chestnuts began to fall, he was called upon to face an endless variety of problems, and to suffer not a few frustrations, but his spirits remained as unclouded as the weather. It was a joy to watch his home growing up around him under the ceaseless sawing and hammering of Eph Morgan’s shock brigade, and to feel the pulse of a domain that seemed to him, admittedly a prejudiced witness, to be stirring after years of hibernation. He was fortunate during all this time to have two such sponsors as Rudd and Mrs Handcock, the resident housekeeper, for both made no secret of their liking for him, were ready to go to any lengths to help him adjust himself to the rhythm of country life, and also to mediate between a rank amateur and the people of the Valley. He was thus able to meet all the tenantry and their employees during this period, as well as most of the professional craftsmen and the few private residents in and about Coombe Bay, but he soon realised that conquest of the community as a whole was not something he could take for granted, simply because he had acquired Shallowford by a banker’s draft. By August, when he had been living at the lodge for seven weeks, the Shallowford folk had sorted themselves into three groups. There were those like Rose and Claire Derwent, and Farmer Willoughby who openly proclaimed their relief th
at the estate was in the hands of an earnest if inexperienced young man; those like Arabella Codsall and Tamer Potter, who were somewhat fussed by his enthusiasm, and grumbled in private about city gentlemen who were prone to run before they could walk; and a third group of neutrals, like the Irish Doctor O’Keefe, Parson Bull, the head gardener, Horace Handcock, and some of the small tradesmen in Coombe Bay with whom Paul found it difficult to establish a close personal contact.