The first was his fortnightly letter from Uncle Franz, to whom he had written in detail regarding his efforts to enlarge the estate to the north and east by the acquisition of the Priory freehold, now renamed Periwinkle Farm by Elinor and Codsall, and the cliff fields incorporated in High Coombe. Zorndorff had taken to addressing him as ‘My Dear Squire’, using the form of address with restrained irony but he approved Paul’s ready acceptance of a money draft from scrapyard profits, despite Paul’s disclaimer which Zorndorff, it seemed, refused to take seriously. The Croat’s letter was concise, businesslike and affectionate but there remained the hint of mockery in outwardly innocent phrases, as though, now that he had launched his ‘nephew’, he could pretend that he was indulging the whim of an enthusiastic boy who would soon realise that the estate was all a bit of a joke between them, and could be wound up in the course of time. There was a footnote to the letter which seemed to Paul to underline this, for Zorndorff wrote: ‘If, by spring, you are persuaded that you have bitten off more than you can chew, don’t despair, my dear boy! By pure chance you are batting on a safe wicket! Land values have jumped twenty per cent since the peace and we might even net a profit on your improvements!’
Paul smiled at this, made some notes in the margin and put the letter aside, opening a breezier one from John Rudd, who said he was up and about again and had been advised by his doctor to get as much exercise as possible in order that the cracked ribs could mend themselves. He added that he would be home again on New Year’s Day, after seeing his boy Roderick off at Chatham.
The two letters in feminine handwriting Paul left until last and now opened a stiff envelope containing a very large Christmas card, with slapdash scrawl on the back. It was, he was relieved to discover, from Claire Derwent who had obviously emerged from her interminable sulk, for she wrote:
My dear Paul,
You must think me a presumptuous little fool! Perhaps Rose has told you why I went off without even saying good-bye, but the truth is, on the day after our party, I was so bored, restless and miserable, and everything seemed such a dreadful anticlimax that I just had to do something desperately different! The chance of a visit to cousins here (which I had previously declined) seemed one way out but I didn’t know then, of course, that it would become permanent. Well, it has! I’m opening a tea shop in partnership with my Cousin Marion at a place called Penshurst that you may or may not have heard of because it’s a famous Elizabethan house owned by the De Lisle family (Sir Philip Sydney and all that!) and lots of London visitors come here in the summer so it ought to be fun as well as profitable! I shall miss the Valley, of course, but not so much as you’d imagine, for the countryside here is just as pretty and Kent, remember, is the Garden of England! I do know (and how could I fail to know) what a little fool I made of myself as regards you. I was to blame from the beginning and hope you won’t hold it against me for the rest of my life. I can only put it down to the dullness of life at High Coombe until you arrived to brighten things up a bit but now I’ve had lots of time to think it over and, like I say, it makes me blush to think of the way I behaved to someone who was such a good friend and had plenty of worries of his own! I do most sincerely wish you all the luck in the world, Paul, and I know you’ll do well down there, ‘bringing all they ole “puddenades” bang up-to-date, midear!’ and heaven knows they need it! Keep at it, and bless you,
Yours affectionately,
Claire Derwent.
The friendliness of her letter touched him deeply for he began to see how he had encouraged her more than she cared to admit and also that she had almost certainly been taken to task by her father and packed off home from the party with a flea in her ear. Her letter mellowed him so that he could think of her now with warmth and laughter and he reflected that a letter as frank and cheerful as this might do something to sweeten his relationship with Rose, whom he admired, and Edward Derwent, whom he respected. Ever since Claire had taken the huff, relations between Shallowford House and High Coombe had been very cool and Paul realised that he could not afford to incur the enmity of both the Codsalls and the Derwents within six months of moving in. So, before answering Claire’s letter, he wrote a note to Rose telling her that he had heard from Claire and was writing to wish her luck with her tea-shop venture.
He then opened his fourth letter, to find that it was a brief note from Celia Lovell, stating that they would be returning to Coombe Bay shortly and inviting him to call for tea, at 4 p.m. on December 31st. That was all. No hint that Grace had confided in her, no enquiries concerning their conversation regarding the estate, just that they were coming home and he was invited for tea on the last day of the old year. Re-reading the letter in an effort to learn something of Celia Lovell’s character he thought of her as someone who never put pen to paper without recognising the possibility that she might be called upon to justify it in a court of common pleas.
After lunch the rain stopped and a watery sun came out, so he told Ikey to prepare the dog-cart and put a loose halter on Snowdrop, so that he might drive into Coombe Bay for shoeing the grey and the cob. As an afterthought he took Grace’s retriever pup, perched on the box beside him. She was a gawky, lovable little bitch, with a pathetic eagerness to make friends with everybody and Paul lavished upon her a special affection of which she took shameless advantage, calling her ‘Goneaway’ because of her ever-hopeful but always unsuccessful pursuit of game flushed from the thickets during her walks. She lolloped at his heels as he rode about the estate, sometimes following him so closely that her face was masked by a film of liquid mud thrown up by Snowdrop’s hooves. Paul had come to agree with Chivers, the groom, that she was untrainable as a gun dog but he went on trying, calling her to heel when she was half-way down a rabbit hole, or scrabbling at a molehill, and thus a curious rhythm was established between man and dog that varied according to the time of day. Whenever Paul thought anyone else was present he used a stern voice but when he and Goneaway were alone in the study, all pretence of trainer and trainee was abandoned and the bitch leapt on to chairs, dragged bones under rugs and invariably positioned herself where she could monopolise the heat of the fire.
The Coombe Bay smith, a squat, mild-mannered man called Abe Tozer, promised to shoe the horses within the hour, so Paul, taking Goneaway, walked up the east side of the slope overlooking the harbour, where stood Lovell’s rented house, shuttered and silent. He was a little disappointed at this, and almost decided to call at the lodge and ask if the family was expected before Christmas, but thought better of it and walked on to the sandhills above the beach.
A high sea was running but the tide was out and beyond the empty beach he could see rollers throwing up a fine spray that travelled on the wind as far as the ridge. Beyond the bar, a mile out to sea, was a grey tumult of water and the horizon beyond Nun’s Island and Whinmouth Head was empty and desolate, with the threat of more rain to come. He had walked perhaps a half-mile along the little plateau when the dog, barking furiously, dashed down the slope to the beach and began to worry the legs of a solitary figure who was so close to the water that Paul realised he was drenched by every wave. He called Goneaway to heel but the dog, as usual, took no notice of him, so he ran down the sandy slope to offer an apology. When he was halfway across the beach he stopped, recognising that the stationary figure was in fact Martin Codsall. The man was impervious to the dog or, indeed, to anything but the breakers crashing on the bar far out to sea.
He called, ‘Give the dog a cuff, Codsall!’ but Martin seemed not to hear and made no movement of any sort but continued to stand in the overspill staring fixedly out to sea, as though fascinated by something happening beyond the bar. When he came up with him Paul was startled to see that his expression was blank and that his weather-beaten face was as unresponsive as the rest of his body. He noticed also that Codsall seemed very inadequately dressed for a wet day in late December, having nothing on his back but an old jacket, a collarless shirt with a pair
of tattered trousers stuffed into topboots. Goneaway soon lost interest in him and scampered off to tease a stranded crab but Paul, taking Martin by the arm, shook him asking, ‘What is it, Codsall? What do you see out there?’, but still Codsall gave no sign that he was being addressed and Paul noticed that he was trembling, either from the cold or the rigidity of his posture. Just then a ninth wave drenched them both and Paul swore, jerking the man higher up the beach and here Codsall gave a long shudder, seeming to emerge from a trance. Paul saw then that the fellow was suffering from some kind of self-hypnosis and his mind returned to some of the cases of epilepsy he had seen in hospital. He said, leading Codsall away from the water, ‘Come on, old man, let’s get back and dry off,’ and they walked arm in arm back along the beach, Codsall stumbling sometimes and leaning more than half his weight on Paul.
It was only when they were ascending the slipway near the boat-shelter that he seemed to be aware of what was happening, for suddenly he withdrew his arm, stared at Paul for a moment, and said, hoarsely, ‘I thought I seed something out there! Out beyond the bar! A ship it was, but ’er’s sunk now, I reckon,’ and he looked distractedly over his shoulder at the empty bay and stumbled slightly, throwing himself sideways, so that Paul had to brace himself to prevent his falling flat on his face. As this happened, however, he caught a strong whiff of Codsall’s breath and was at once reassured for it reeked of cider and he came to the conclusion that Martin was blind drunk. It was strange, he thought, that he had never heard Martin Codsall described as a heavy drinker or, indeed, given to excess of any kind but as he watched him on their way up the street it was clear that Martin had been drinking very heavily indeed for his gait was dangerously uncertain and his speech so slurred that Paul abandoned all attempts to reason with him, hoisting him into the back of the dog-cart whilst he paid the smith and saw the cob harnessed to the shafts and Snowdrop tethered behind. The smith did not seem surprised at the piece of flotsam Paul had brought in from the beach. ‘Ah, Marty Codsall has been swilling like a good ’un lately,’ he said, grinning. ‘In the bar of The Raven most days he is and when he’s had all Minnie Flowers will draw for him he wanders off along the beach, babbling about ships and suchlike! Catch his death o’ cold he will, if he don’t wrap up more, and get the horrors too if he don’t ease off a point or two, sir! Be you zeein’ to him, or shall I?’
‘I’ll take him home myself,’ Paul told him, and then, ‘Does Arabella know that he’s soaking it up like this?’
Tozer chuckled, saying, ‘Well, beggin’ your pardon, Squire, if ’er don’t it’d be the first bit o’ tittle-tattle her’s missed in a lifetime!’, and Paul, reasoning this must be so, said no more, lifting Goneaway into the trap and driving off along the four-mile track to the ford.
Once or twice during the journey he glanced over his shoulder at Codsall, who now sat slumped with his back to him, staring down the way they were travelling. Apart from heaving a long, gasping sigh now and again he remained silent. He seems drunk, Paul thought, but he doesn’t look drunk, just completely bemused, and then it occurred to him that perhaps Martin was ill and wondered whether he should call at Doctor O’Keefe’s before taking him home. He decided against, however, for it was now getting dark and Codsall was obviously suffering from the cold, so Paul drove him as far as the yard of Four Winds, resolving to leave him there for he had no wish to tangle with Arabella again and began to feel rather sorry for the farmer when he thought of the reception he was likely to get from his wife. They crossed the plank bridge and went up the rutted lane to where a square of light glowed beyond the yard rick and here Paul dumped his passenger on one of the Codsall labourers, who emerged from the long row of byres housing the Codsall Friesians.
‘Master’s had a drop too much,’ he told the man. ‘Sober him up in the barn!’ Then, as he began to turn the dog-cart, a strange thing happened. Martin Codsall seemed to shed his helplessness in a flash and suddenly hoisted himself to full height, his features losing their vacuity as they contracted into a kind of mask that suggested scheming servility or deep cunning.
‘Obliged to ’ee for the lift, Squire,’ he said, clearly and distinctly, as though his slurred speech had been part of a practical joke. ‘I’ll go along in to me supper, and thank ’ee, zir, thank ’ee kindly.’ Then, spinning round on the man, he shouted angrily, ‘Dornee waste no time on me, Ben! Get to tending the cattle, you bliddy layabout! Go on, before I kicks your arse through the barn door!,’ and having succeeded in astonishing Paul beyond measure, and effectively cowed the grinning farmhand, Codsall touched his forelock and marched steadily across the yard and in through the kitchen door.
Paul would have liked to question Ben on his master but the man had disappeared so he drove off down the lane, wondering if Codsall’s heavy drinking had any connection with the recent abdication of his son Will, or with his wife’s persistent nagging about the marriage. If it had, he decided, there was very little that he or anyone else could do about it. So long as the Four Winds rent was paid on quarter-day, and the farm continued to yield more than all the Coombe farms put together, it was none of his business yet he continued to think about the incident all the evening and went so far as to discuss it with Mrs Handcock, who opposed his suggestion to call in O’Keefe on such a pretext. ‘The Codsalls ’av all got a mazed streak in ’em,’ she declared, ‘but mostly it dorn amount to more than silliness. Marty’s father, old Amyas Codsall, was a praper old miser most of his life and then he got religion an’ give three-parts of his money to missionaries in Zululand, or some such place. And his father, Sam was mazed too! He once stood a whole night in Paxtonbury market-plaace in mid-winter, just to watch somebody hanged outside the gaol! No, zir, like I’m always atelling of ’ee, dornee bother with all their upsets! They won’t thank ’ee for it! Like as not Arabella’ll traapse about the Valley saying youm persecutin’ ’em!’ That clinched it as far as Paul was concerned and soon he forgot the incident altogether, to recall it a year later, when he had reason to blame both himself and his housekeeper for not taking a more sustained interest in the current trials of Martin Codsall.
II
The Reverend Bull sent a message over on Christmas Eve saying he ‘confidently expected Squire to attend Seven Carol Service that evening’ and had ‘marked him down’ to read one of the lessons. This was Bull’s way with parishioners. He never suggested or invited, he ‘confidently expected’. He never made requests, he simply ‘marked people down’. Paul had already succumbed to the rector’s tactics and sometimes even defended him against the attacks of his new friend, James Grenfell. The Liberal candidate admitted that he could not stomach the man and regarded him as a self-indulgent reactionary, using his cloth to patch a dying feudalism in the Valley, but Paul was growing tolerant of Sorrel Valley eccentricities and argued that a man of Bull’s disposition at least projected the Church as something positive, a creed that men and women who lived with their noses in the soil could understand and that Bull was an improvement on some of the professional hearties he had encountered in South Africa. He told the parson’s messenger that he would attend the service and that he would bring along a contingent of Home Farm and indoor staff for the occasion. In the event Honeyman harnessed a couple of horses to the waggonette and they all rattled off to church with Mrs Handcock, two of the maids, Ikey Palfrey, Chivers and the biblical shepherds, Matt and Luke, who seemed to Paul reincarnations of the originals in the popular carol. He himself rode over in the wake of the waggon for it was a clear, crisp night, lit by stars, and Snowdrop was familiar with the well-beaten track across the stubble fields and down the long slope to the village.
The little parish church was practically full and when he took his place at the lectern, sandwiching a passage from St Matthew between ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, Paul had some difficulty in restraining a smile on noting the incongruous assembly in the pews. The Potter clan was represented by Pansy and her swain, Walt P
ascoe. She had persuaded him that attendance now might divert Parson Bull’s wrath when they were married in the New Year, for Parson Bull castigated loving couples at a marriage ceremony if they were known to have restricted church attendance to weddings, funerals and christenings. Arabella Codsall and her younger son, Sydney, were there, but neither Martin nor Will, the latter having defected to his wife’s denomination since marriage. Edward Derwent and his wife were present, with their daughter Rose, and so were all the three Pitts. The remainder of the congregation was made up of Valley farm labourers and their womenfolk and a majority of Coombe Bay villagers, exclusive of the little fishing fraternity, who were chapelgoers to a man.
They sang lustily and prayed devoutly and when it was all over and they dispersed in the churchyard, there was a babel of gossip, a noisy exchange of Christmas greetings and a good deal of kissing and giggling among canting tombstones. Paul had left Snowdrop at the smithy’s and was leading him out, preparatory to mounting, when Ikey came up with a message that someone was waiting to speak to Squire by the rear lych-gate and that he was asked to go round by the church wall on foot. Somewhat mystified by this cryptic message Paul asked who it was but Ikey could not say. The message, he said, had been relayed to him by one of the choirboys.
‘Very well,’ Paul told him resignedly, for he was cold and hungry, ‘put the grey in the forge and tell Honeyman to drive on home,’ and he went down the steep lane beside the church wall to the rear part of the churchyard, now cut off from the light of the church lamps by a belt of yews.
As he approached the gate there was a movement beside the buttress and Grace Lovell’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘Well, Paul,’ she said, ‘this rendezvous should appeal to an incurable romantic!’, and she gave him her small, gloved hand.
Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By) Page 26
