Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By)

by R. F Delderfield

  ‘So do I,’ Rudd said with a smile, ‘if only to see the girls scramble for you. By the way, can you dance with that leg?’

  ‘I’ll have a damned good try, if only in honour of King Teddy,’ Paul said, and after Rudd had gone home he sat at the library table and composed two letters to Claire Derwent, each covering a single page and respectively numbered ‘one’ and ‘two’.

  The first was couched in terms that parodied her letter. ‘Dear Miss Derwent,’ it ran, ‘Your note arrived by runner this a.m. Have consulted my estate agent and he approves suggestion in principle. Perhaps, at your convenience, you would call, in order that we might discuss preliminary arrangements for staging some local festivities of a patriotic nature. Sincerely, P. Craddock.’

  The second letter was an attempt to revive their comfortable relationship: ‘My dear Claire, What a marvellous idea tucked away in a stuffy little letter! Rudd thinks your notion is just what is needed to play me in and is tremendously enthusiastic, as I am myself. Come on over, you silly girl, and we’ll discuss what needs doing. I’ve missed you very much, but honestly I’ve been inundated with work and John Rudd keeps me at it day and night! Affectionately, Paul.’

  He gave both letters to the Derwent farmboy when he called next morning and instructed him to present them in rotation. Then he went whistling about his work, riding over to the Home Farm to discuss the introduction of a new strain of Southdown sheep, afterwards crossing Priory Wood to consult one of Henry Pitts’ hired men regarding the construction of a new boundary fence between Hermitage Farm and the new sixty-acre smallholding, acquired from Mrs Hardcastle. He was back at the house shortly before the lunch hour and was delighted to see Ikey Palfrey watering Claire’s bay in the yard.

  ‘Miss Derwent rode in about ’alf an ’our ago, sir,’ Ikey told him. ‘She’s in the kitchen with Mrs Handcock.’

  ‘Good,’ said Paul, handing Snowdrop’s reins to the boy and watching him lead the horse into the stable, ‘Do you dance, Ikey? I don’t mean “Knees Up Mother Brown” but real dancing, waltzing and suchlike.’

  ‘Lumme, no, sir, Mr Craddock! Why would I want to do a thing like that?’

  ‘Oh, you never know, Ikey,’ said Paul and left him, with his mouth agape, and went chuckling up the yard steps to the kitchen.

  Chapter Six

  I

  The soirée organisers soon resolved themselves into a committee of five, with Claire Derwent as an enthusiastic chairwoman. Rudd stood back and gave advice, and Mrs Handcock made herself responsible for a buffet-supper that promised to give everyone who attended indigestion. Ikey Palfrey ran all the errands and Paul, enjoying every moment of the upheaval, spent most of his time seconding Claire, who added fresh touches every hour they spent together.

  It was a happy time for Claire Derwent and her inspiration flowered under Paul’s patronage. It was she who discovered how to enlarge the dancing space, recalling that the dining-room and adjoining billiard-room were still connected by a sliding door that had been sealed and papered over. Paul sent for Eph Morgan, the builder, and had him re-open the rooms and build a dais for the musicians at the western end. The billiard-table and heavy furniture were carried away and there seemed to be ample space for The Lancers. Claire also made out an invitation list, the cards displaying pictures of the King and Queen, and sat for hours at the library table listing names, checking and rechecking to make sure that nobody in the Valley was overlooked. ‘Those with young children will just have to draw lots and set up a baby farm for the night,’ she said. ‘That way most of the mothers will be able to attend. I make the total of certainties one hundred and fourteen, allowing for child-minders and sickness. Altogether you’ll need to write out a hundred and twenty-five invitations.’

  ‘Can’t they be printed?’ he asked, and Claire said they certainly could not because the whole idea of this party was to establish personal contact between the new Squire and everyone between sea and railway line, and therefore letters in his own handwriting were essential. ‘I’ll get Ikey to take a note to the Whinmouth stationers,’ she said, ‘and while we’re at it we might as well start the decorations. We’ve only got ten days and we need every moment of them.’

  In fact it occupied the pair of them exclusively, for two or three days later Rudd left for Portsmouth, and Mrs Handcock grew very testy under the strain of ordering and preparing huge quantities of food and drink, so that Claire and Paul were left to decorate the huge room unaided by anyone except Ikey. Two huge cardboard ovals, together with the gilded legend ‘God bless our King and Queen’, were brought in to dress the walls, so that the two rooms were soon transformed into a vast green cave, lit by strings of Japanese lanterns and hung about with Christmas-tree decorations. The hall beyond became a kind of antechamber, for here Claire (who seemed to have ready access to the most improbable stage properties) hung pictures of Canadian forests, Australian deserts and Indian temples, together with the flags of all the nations, including some who would have disclaimed the suzerainty of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

  The whole house was turned upside down and soon presented a more disorderly appearance than during its renovation period. Guest-rooms were prepared for those staying overnight, two cloakrooms contrived out of butler’s pantry and estate office, washing facilities provided at key points off the main corridor and a dozen trestle tables hired for the kitchen staff, who were promised a Christmas party of their own to compensate them for their labours the night of the ball. For Paul had now begun to look upon it not as a supper-dance but a ball, hardly less important than the recent county event in Paxtonbury. Under Claire’s driving force he saw the event mushroom from a local soirée, with a tinkling piano and a couple of amateur fiddlers, into the most important social event in the history of the Valley, and it pleased him to think that it might prove an evening that people like the Potters, the Willoughbys and the Pitts would remember all their lives.

  As his excitement increased so he came to take more and more pleasure in Claire’s company but although they were often alone after Rudd had left, and Ikey was usually out on one of Claire’s missions, there was never a repetition of their mutual recklessness in Shallowford Woods and this not because Claire was always in a brisk, businesslike mood, but because of his shyness in her presence, that increased alongside admiration for her ingenuity and her skill in getting the last ounce out of over-worked maids and outside staff, like the head gardener, Horace Handcock, the old-maidish groom, Chivers, and particularly the stable lad, Ikey.

  Only on one occasion, when he was helping her down a ladder, did their relationship enlarge itself slightly beyond that of a brother and sister, organising a family party and that was when, in the act of steadying her, he held her by the waist rather longer than was necessary and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She did not acknowledge the salute but neither did she say, as he half expected her to, ‘Now then, we’ve no time for that kind of thing!’ or some such evasive remark. She merely stood still at the foot of the ladder and said, carelessly, ‘Thank you, sir!’ and then, to his annoyance, Horace Handcock came stamping in with another great bunch of evergreens and they sidled apart.

  It was after twilight when she arrived home that night and Rose was anxiously awaiting her at the top of the lane with a lantern. She had driven the trap at a slow walk, for she wanted an opportunity to summarise the events of the last few days, before being obliged to gossip with her father, sister and stepmother, all of whom were showing the liveliest interest in the event.

  She had entered upon the task of organising the soirée with enthusiasm but caution. It was obvious from Paul’s second note that he had dismissed or forgotten all that silly talk in the wood, although she rather hoped he remembered the moment that preceded it. That he enjoyed her company she now had no doubt but he seemed, in some mysterious way, to have retreated into a kind of boisterous adolescence during their separation. It surprised her the more because, in matters t
hat did not concern her such as the daily issue of orders to Home Farm and estate workers, he seemed at the same time to have enlarged himself and she could see that, even without Rudd’s presence to guide him, he had grasped the essentials of administration. He gave his orders in a confident voice and she could have wished that, on occasions, he would employ this tone and manner with her, but he did not, and his deference was the one small cloud on Claire Derwent’s horizon during this season and one to which she gave considerable thought during her journey home to High Coombe that evening. ‘Maybe I’m being too bossy,’ she told herself, as the trap wheels slipped on the loose surface of the Coombe ascent. ‘Maybe I should get him to make suggestions and applaud them, no matter how impractical they are!’ And then the memory of his hands about her waist and his light-hearted kiss returned to her and she thought again of the hectic moment beside the mere, so that it was fortunate for both of them that the cob knew its way home for it got little or no guidance from the rein.

  Paul Craddock too was reflecting on the trivial incident that same evening, as he sat studying the invitation list whilst Mrs Handcock prepared his supper. Under the incentive of her presence, he decided, the incident in Shallowford Woods had, to some extent, resurrected itself, and with it the distant tinkling of an alarm bell. He would need very little encouragement, he admitted to whisk her off somewhere on a prefabricated excuse and begin the same kind of thing all over again but there was a very obvious disadvantage in this. The girl had already frankly admitted that she had marriage in mind and at the moment, enjoying the unexpected delights of the past few months, he had no desire to ‘settle’ as they said; furthermore he was by no means certain that he was in love with the girl. He wished that he had had more experience with women. What use was the ludicrous incident with the saucy Cherry in the barn, or his calf-love for the girl Daphne, or, indeed, the few minutes in the Cape Town brothel, in teaching him how to proceed with a purposeful and bewitching creature like Claire Derwent? He thought hard about the matter most of the evening when he should have been addressing invitations but the only certainties that emerged were that she was a very pretty girl and that he had no intention at all of being rushed into marriage by anyone. Later that night he found some comfort browsing through one of the big leather-bound books taken from a lower shelf. It was a rather windy account of Queen Victoria’s youth, and he was a little amused by the admission she had made to Lord Melbourne when she declared that she was very satisfied with her situation and had no wish to marry for two or three years. That, he thought, was precisely how he felt himself. He would marry, almost certainly, when Shallowford was under his hand but not before. The challenge was there and he wanted to meet it, so that a wife and family could wait on events. It was fortunate for Paul’s peace of mind, perhaps, that he put the book aside and drove himself back to his homework, and thus did not read the pages concerning Victoria’s ultimate surrender to dear Albert.

  Claire was over again early next day, the last but one before the ball and, as it happened, Paul came forward with a splendid suggestion, without any prompting on her part. When the ballroom had received the last of its finishing touches, and they stood back to review their work, he said, suddenly, ‘What we need now, Claire, is something to cap it all! Something spectacular, like fireworks!’ and then, catching her hand, ‘That’s exactly it! Where could we get ten pounds’ worth of fireworks? And why the devil didn’t we think of it before?’

  ‘They’ve been selling them for weeks in Whinmouth,’ she told him, ‘but if we want as many as that we should have to go to Paxtonbury, right away. Suppose we both go now, in the trap? We can be back by teatime if we take your cob, for my old Nobby would drag his feet all the way home!’

  He was tempted; he had only paid one visit to Paxtonbury and the prospect of the long ride there and back, with Claire on the box beside him, appealed to him but he remembered then that he had not answered a business letter in ten days, and baulked at the prospect of Rudd returning to find the office tray full of headaches.

  ‘I can’t go, Claire,’ he told her. ‘There’s a desk spilling over in the office, and some of the matters have to be attended to before the ball unless I’m to look a helpless, indecisive ass when Rudd comes home. You and Ikey drive into Paxtonbury and I’ll wait tea for you. Then Chivers can take you home after dark. We ought to have fireworks, with a set-piece of the King and Queen if you can get one.’

  She promised to do her best and drove off at once, taking the delighted Ikey for company. Paul watched them leave, spending the next three hours in the office, wrestling with correspondence from seedsmen, county agricultural advisers, dairy contractors, insurance rates and ideas spawned by their observations during rides about the estate during the last three months. He had a bite of lunch and pushed on in the afternoon, so absorbed that he did not notice the sky darkening over the avenue chestnuts or the first slash of rain on the window. It was not until he saw old Handcock run along the rose-garden hedge in search of shelter that he realised it was now pelting down, and that Claire and Ikey would have a very uncomfortable journey home, charged as they were with the responsibility of keeping the fireworks dry. He went across the hall to warn Mrs Handcock to have a hot meal ready for them but as he turned for the kitchen archway the front door bell jangled, so he retraced his steps, opening the heavy door and peering into the grey murk of the porch. A small bedraggled figure was standing there, holding the handlebars of a bicycle but for a moment he failed to recognise her. Then, as she raised her hand to her dark curls to push them aside he saw that it was Grace Lovell and he hurried to relieve her of the machine, propping it against the wall. She said, breathlessly, ‘I’m sorry, I only wanted shelter until it slacks off a little. I was on my way home but the ford is deeper than it looked. The water will go down directly the rain stops, it always does this time of year.’

  ‘Well, for heaven’s sake come in and dry yourself first,’ he said, surprised at his delight in her unexpected appearance. ‘Leave the bike there and I’ll get Mrs Handcock to give you tea. You’ll catch your death of cold for it isn’t like getting wet on a horse. A horse keeps your blood circulating.’

  ‘I’ve never caught a cold in my life, Mr Craddock,’ she said, but she stepped into the hall and he saw to his astonishment that she was wearing one of the new bicycling outfits, a costume that was a shapeless mass of pleats and pockets. He left her spreading her hands before the library fire and told a maid to bring tea and muffins at once. Then he put bellows to the coals and lit the table lamp, aware that she was watching him with the disconcerting concentration he now expected of her. Today, however, there was a difference for her scrutiny did not make him feel inadequate but rather the opposite, as though she was a child who had come in out of the rain expecting a scolding. She looked rather childish, he thought, in that absurd costume, and he decided that he heartily agreed with the people who were currently writing letters to The Times complaining that the bicycling craze had robbed young women of feminine appeal.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a bicyclist,’ he said, as the girl came in with the tray and left again, averting her glance from the steaming figure by the fire.

  ‘Oh, it makes a change,’ she said, listlessly, and then, chafing her hands and looking at the pyramid of sealed envelopes on the table, ‘Are all those letters invitations for the supper-dance?’

  He was surprised by her directness and stopped in the act of pouring. ‘Why, yes,’ he said, ‘as a matter of fact they are and there’s one there for you, and for Mr and Mrs Lovell. You can take it now if you like.’

  ‘Who will be coming?’

  ‘Just about everybody,’ he said, laughing, ‘at least I hope so. Do you think your father and Mrs Lovell will accept?’

  ‘Yes, they will,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve been discussing it then?’

  ‘Everybody’s been discussing it.’

  He was pleased without knowing why a
nd she went on. ‘My father can’t actually attend. He’s going to London tomorrow, but Celia, my stepmother, will, you can be sure of that!’

  She said this almost as a threat and it occurred to him again what an odd young woman she was, for she seemed always to carry on a discussion from out of range, to be standing just inside the boundary of good manners so that it was like talking to a precocious child, in the presence of strangers.

  He said, handing her tea and muffins, ‘I trust you’ll be coming too, Miss Lovell.’

  She looked round the room carefully, inspecting the evergreen decorations before saying, this time with a tired smile, ‘Yes, I will, Mr Craddock, for Celia, my stepmother, would be annoyed if I didn’t. Anyway, I’d like to come now that I’ve seen all the trouble you’ve taken. Everybody ought to back you up, for nobody did anything like this for the Valley people in the old days.’

  ‘Don’t give me the credit,’ he said. ‘All the organising has been the work of Miss Derwent, of High Coombe. She’s been working on it a fortnight.’

  ‘Rose Derwent?’

  ‘No, Claire Derwent, her sister. She’ll be here in a moment, I hope. The poor girl has driven into Paxtonbury for fireworks.’

  She nodded, sipping her tea and nibbling her muffin. She ate and drank, he thought, like a fastidious kitten and as he watched her, trying to think of something affable to say, the mystery that had surrounded her from the occasion of their first meeting returned to him, so that suddenly a breakthrough of some kind became a matter of importance to him.

  ‘You keep coming back here, Miss Lovell,’ he said, ‘and always under improbable circumstances. Yet it seems to me as if being here makes you unhappy, and talking to me makes you angry—not with me exactly but—well, with yourself! Isn’t there anything I can do to make you take me for granted? Almost everyone else is beginning to.’