‘Well, I suppose I do hate cities,’ he admitted, ‘particularly London, but my real reason for buying Shallowford wasn’t as simple as that. I couldn’t stand the thought of an office career and with my knee the field was very limited. Then, after I was committed, I soon grew to love every blade of grass in the place but I suppose it really began with the dream.’
She showed interest at once. ‘What dream?’
‘Oh, I can’t tell you here and anyway it’s time to go back.’
‘Will you tell me tonight?’
‘Yes, but it will probably bore you. Other people’s dreams always bore me.’
She held him to his promise and when they were in bed he told her as much as he could recall of the conflict between the static hosts on the hospital ceiling and the compensating view of the country beyond the ward window that had seemed, at the time, to play such a vital part in his recovery. He could not tell whether she was impressed or dismissed the story as an unremarkable symptom of fever and drugs and would have been very surprised to know that she lay awake long after he slept, or that his story helped to convince her that he was by no means the amiable simpleton she had first supposed him to be. She lay there wondering if, even now, he understood that she had married him as cold-bloodedly as any fortune hunter and in retracing her steps over their various encounters she realised that already her conscience troubled her somewhat, for surely his apparent need for her could no longer be dismissed as the self-delusion all men used to disguise their clamour for access to a woman’s body and the incidental acquisition of a woman servitor. His approach, she thought, already indicted something more substantial than that and it would be folly not to admit it, for although his physical enjoyment of her was uncomplicated he already respected her as a person and not as a bedmate or a brood mare for children to perpetuate his name. For this, in the main, was how she had thought of him in the brief interval between her unconditional surrender and marriage but it was not, unfortunately for her peace of mind, how she thought of him now. He was, she admitted, far more imaginative than she had supposed, possessing also a certain originality and infinitely more patience than most young men, and even if his eyes were still fixed on contemptibly small horizons his vision might, she thought, expand if she could teach him to look beyond Coombe Bluff. She made a half-playful attempt to separate the Paul Craddock of Shallowford from the Paul Craddock now sleeping beside her. The one she had thought of as little more than a gawky, earnest, ignorant boy who had served and suffered in a war but learned little or nothing about people and their overriding greed and self-interest. He could still suffer fools gladly, so much so that he accepted rascals like Tamer Potter and cranks like Edwin Willoughby as personal responsibilities. He liked to think of himself as a benevolent patron, administering a tiny kingdom of rustics when, in fact, he was no more than a lucky young ass, aping the country gentleman and lagging a century behind the times. He had probably never heard of people like Keir Hardie and his forlorn little working-man’s party, or the vanguard of women prepared to sacrifice everything in an attempt to have a voice in their own destinies. Yet, and she was obliged to admit it, there existed, deep in this long lump of a man, a spark of idealism that was never completely submerged by douches of sentimental claptrap or obscured by muddled thinking, and now and then she had glimpsed it. There was something even more rare—a male gentleness that she had never experienced in any other man. Intrigued by now, she lit the night light, turning carefully on her elbow and looking down on him as he slept. He was not, she decided, particularly good looking, with his long, craggy face, strong features and stiff, unruly hair almost as dark as her own. If they did have children they would probably have faces as long as a horse and complexions as swarthy as Spaniards. She rested on her elbow a long time, studying him calmly and objectively, noting his look of innocence that was offset by the unexpected firmness of the jaw and the fastidiousness of the long, thin nose. It was a face, she thought, that could have belonged to a ruthless or even a cruel person who would want his way with men and women, yet she knew by now that there was no spark of cruelty in him and very little ruthlessness as far as she was concerned. She was aware too that she could, if she wished, manipulate him easily enough, either by appealing to his old-fashioned sense of chivalry or by the more direct method of throwing her arms and legs about him, and yet, was she capable of making him turn his back on his dream, so that they could advance as man and wife into the twentieth century? She looked at his jawline again. Perhaps, in time, when he grew a little but not yet, possibly not until she had borne him a child or two. A month ago this conclusion would have depressed her but tonight it only made her smile. She said, half aloud, as she playfully drew a lock of her hair across his cheek, ‘Well, Squire, we shall see! And anyway, I’ve been luckier than I deserve!’ and she kissed his forehead, blew out the light, turned over and chuckled. It was a long time since Grace Lovell had indulged in a chuckle.
II
It was after their return to London, when they were being lunched by an attentive Uncle Franz, at Romano’s, that she surprised him again, this time by demanding to be taken to the scrapyard to see the actual source of all the war profits that had been diverted to Shallowford. Paul, once he had recovered from his surprise, said, ‘Now what the devil can interest you down there? I promised myself I’d never go near the stinking place again!’, but she replied, watching Zorndorff, ‘That’s a very arrogant promise, Paul, and could only have validity if you had renounced your interest in what it yields! As long as you use its income you’ve got as much responsibility for it as you have for the farms in the Valley!’ and Uncle Franz said the lady certainly had a point and soon twinkled Paul out of his sulks, ordering a four-wheeler to take them along the route Paul had taken on his first day out of hospital.
As they went along, weaving through the traffic, Paul noticed that Grace had made a singular impression on the old Croat and because he had a groom’s intense pride in his bride her conquest warmed him, for although old Franz was a Continental, and could therefore be expected to pay court to any pretty young woman, he knew his man sufficiently well to appreciate the difference between a genuine interest and conventional gallantry. They were talking now of motor-cars, one or two of which could be seen dodging about between the cabs and drays that flowed along the congested highway.
‘I should have thought, Uncle Franz,’ Grace was saying, ‘that a merchant prince like you would have acquired a motor long ago! After the initial outlay upkeep must be far less than a carriage.’
Paul, who privately thought of this as nonsense, winked at Uncle Franz but the old boy obviously took her seriously, for he said, ‘Oh, they’ll have all the horses off the road eventually. Only a stick-in-the-mud like your husband will insist on keeping horses, but you’re in error, my dear young lady, as regards the economics of the contraption. They cost more in oil than a horse eats in corn and you can’t engage a trained chauffeur at the wage you pay a coachman. I daresay I shall experiment with one in a year or so, when they have got over their teething troubles, for it never does to rush in and buy mechanical devices until they have settled down. They tell me new developments are being made every week and a great deal of money has been sunk in promotion!’
They went on to talk of other topics, land development this side of the Thames, the prospect of a general election, and of Paris, which Zorndorff had not visited since had passed through it as a refugee. Paul noticed too that the Croat had also made a deep impression upon Grace, for she coaxed him to tell her something of his impression of England, and how he had managed to make such a success of life in a land where he had arrived without knowing a word of the language. Paul could see that Zorndorff was flattered but he was only half listening, for the familiar reek of the streets made him homesick for the Valley and as they traversed the Old Kent Road, and passed the tanyard and Peek Frean’s factory, he found himself comparing the dinginess and squalor around him to the charm of
the French capital and wondered how Londoners could be so chauvinistic about their sprawl. Then, as they turned in at the gates of the yard and looked again on the jumble of desolation that filled the rectangle between the street and the backs of houses, he thought of the smell of the wind over Blackberry Moor and was impatient to be gone.
‘I still feel damned ashamed of drawing money from the place!’ he said, but his protest seemed to amuse her and she said, glancing at Franz, ‘How strange! Uncle Franz wallows in it, don’t you, Uncle?’
‘No, but I haven’t a conscience about it,’ said the Croat, ‘and I imagine I tolerate it because it is alive.’
‘Would you say the Sorrel Valley is dead then?’ demanded Paul but Grace was far too interested in the scene around her to take him up on this and began to bombard Zorndorff with questions regarding the collection, assortment and disposal of scrap, the prices it fetched and the use to which it was put when melted down. It baffled Paul that she could be so absorbed in such a dull subject when she had never so much as asked a single question about crops or cattle, so he left them to it, stepping out on to the platform above the weighbridge and gazing down at the yard, hating it all the more for the debt he owed it and would always owe it.
The last time he had been here it was in summer drought, when the debris had festered in the humid air but now, under a March sky, the vast array of odds and ends seemed to huddle together in the wind and the whole area had a pinched, dejected look. The scavengers looked pinched too as they pottered among the garbage and the rattle of their hobnailed boots came up to him like the chink of fetters. He was still there, glowering at his benefactor, when he felt her arm slip through his and her hand squeeze his wrist and at her touch his ill-humour left him. ‘I’m sorry to be so damned sour about it, Grace. I know I owe it money, and probably always will but I can’t help it. The damned place disgusts me. Uncle Franz says my mother was a countrywoman and maybe that explains a good deal.’
‘Uncle Franz has just been telling me that,’ she said, ‘and it is a depressing spectacle, but don’t you ever feel you could do something to improve it and with it the conditions these people work under? I think that’s what would have recommended itself to me before I took on fresh responsibilities,’ and then she laughed, adding, ‘I’m sorry Paul! That sounds mealymouthed!’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said, ‘but it shows a lack of understanding of the Cockney temperament! They don’t recoil from the squalor, they feel safe in it and wouldn’t give you a thank you for more than an hour or so in the country, or by the sea. If you don’t believe me ask Ikey Palfrey when we get home.’
‘Who is Ikey Palfrey?’ she wanted to know and he told her he was the stable-boy who had taken care of her horse on the occasions she had ridden over to Shallowford, and because she was interested he went on to describe the incident of the frightened cart-horse, and how he had felt impelled to give the boy a chance of growing up in clean air. ‘Ikey is the exception that proves the rule,’ he added, ‘but then, his mother was a peasant too, a relative of Franz’s.’
‘How does Ikey like it down there?’ she asked and he told her the boy was doing well and attending Mary Willoughby’s little school in the mornings. ‘He’s a very sharp kid and everybody’s fond of him,’ he added and might have gone on to describe Ikey’s cheekiness and powers of mimicry had she not stood back regarding him with a puzzled smile, saying ‘But don’t you see? That’s exactly what I meant! I just talked about it but you’ve already done something practical! You know, you’re a very unpredictable person, and sometimes bewilderingly human! I think I’m rather fond of you, really!’ and she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek just as Franz, rubbing his hands, emerged from the office and said, ‘Get the man back to his mangolds and let me attend to the business of supporting him!’
III
For some time now Paul had been playing a private joke on himself but had kept it a close secret, even from Grace and John Rudd, for he would have half-agreed with them that his estate diary was evidence of gross sentimentality on his part. When he was alone in his office, usually after breakfast, he unlocked a drawer and took out the Bible-covers that old George Lovell had used to camouflage his collection of photographs. Paul had long since disposed of the pictures but the covers he had laid aside and now it amused him to use the same bindings for his diary. He could hardly have been more secretive about it had the old goat’s harem still smirked from between the leather-backed boards.
In the diary he wrote down the daily trivia of estate happenings and the first entry read: ‘June 26th, 1902. Met at Sorrel Halt by John Rudd, and rode to Shallowford,’ and the second, dated two days later, ‘Bought Shallowford Estate and the grey, Snowdrop,’ and so on, brief and often unrelated entries, recording such minor items as the birth of Sam Potter’s daughter, the purchase of the Priory freehold, the marriage of Will Codsall and Elinor Willoughby, his first meeting with James Grenfell and a page devoted to his coronation supper-ball. So far there was nothing written there concerning his wife but the day after his return he wrote: ‘March 7th, 1903. Married Grace Lovell, my very dear wife!’ and when he re-read this entry a week or so later, he was somewhat embarrassed by it, as though he now saw himself as a patriarchal squire taking care that posterity would take heed of him and his chattels. He did not erase it, however, but made no further entries until the last week of April, when he wrote, ‘Grace began work on the lily pond in the rose garden: Horace Handcock thinks it practical.’
The entry set him thinking and his thoughts ran through pleasant country. It was remarkable, he reflected, how quickly she had settled, winning the friendship of indoor and outdoor staff and sometimes, as in the case of Handcock, the head gardener, enlisting a personal champion. She had dropped enough hints during the honeymoon to give him cause to worry, leaving him in little doubt but that she would only live permanently in the Valley on sufferance and would have much preferred to travel and winter in London. Yet, within hours of their return she had found a small field of creative energy in the house and grounds and had at once set about banishing the bachelor atmosphere of the place so that within a month Shallowford was a home rather than a headquarters. She made no sweeping changes but made her impact everywhere and without fuss. She was careful not to antagonise Mrs Handcock or the maids, particularly the parlourmaid, Thirza Tremlett, known to be prickly. She had a trick of persuading Mrs Handcock and even Thirza that various improvements had originated with them and thus it was that a gay, patterned wallpaper found its way to the featureless walls of guestrooms, along the length of the corridor at the rear of the house and, to Horace Handcocks’s amazement, on the walls of the housekeeper’s rooms in the east wing. By a partial replacement of furniture, carpets and curtains, the main bedroom lost its austerity and the bleak dining-room, which Paul had abandoned to its original browns and greys, began to borrow something from the solid comfort of the library. This room she left alone, declaring it was his but she took a very active interest in the garden, persuading Horace to dispose of most of the overgrown shrubs that cluttered the lawns. Daffodils and narcissi that this time of year spread a yellow and white carpet from the stable-yard to the edge of Priory Woods, now reappeared all over the house, standing in earthenware crocks Grace had found abandoned in a disused stable.
It was this old stable that gave her the idea for the lily pond in what had once been a well-stocked rose garden, between the corner of the paddock and the river. Horace had declared that ‘they ole arbours need a good ole zet-to’, by which he meant the rotting arches and trellis work should be replaced but Grace pointed out that the natural dip in the ground lent itself to the making of a sunken ornamental pond and water could be piped from the river if a culvert was deepened. The rose garden could then be laid out with flags taken from the old stable, and the pond, when complete, stocked with goldfish and bordered by great clumps of iris. Horace and his boy Gappy (occasionally assisted by Ikey to whom Grace
had taken a liking) set to work at once and the pond was now ready for water. Grace did her stint, arranging flags, and Honeyman, of the Home Farm, sent over the Timberlake boys from the sawmill with a supply of freshly cut poles, so that soon this section of the garden was transformed.
She was equally successful as a hostess and they gave one or two little dinners, entertaining James Grenfell, Celia, and finally Parson Bull and his desiccated wife, Kate. Grace seemed to like Grenfell, although she crossed swords with him on several issues, including the political integrity of right-wing Liberals. Celia, for her part, was impressed by her stepdaughter’s relaxed command of the house, easy relationship with such entrenched characters as the housekeeper and parlourmaid but, above all, by her seeming contentment. The dinner with Parson Bull and his wife went off far more successfully than Paul could have hoped, for neither he nor Grace had much time for the rector, and Mrs Bull was a nonentity, with even less to say for herself then the second Mrs Derwent. Bull, however, was more genial than usual, partly because he had an eye for a pretty woman and when the ladies had retired congratulated Paul on his stand against Lord Gilroy, whom Bull dismissed as ‘a bloodless old stick’, going on to describe Gilroy’s heir as a ‘sack of potatoes strapped to a saddle’. Bull, certainly no Radical, nonetheless declared it was high time somebody put a spoke in the wheel of the agent Cribb, who was forever trying to hog the proceeds of local social events and divert money that belonged to the church into the local Conservative coffers. Paul asked Bull if he thought Grenfell had any chance of winning the seat and was surprised when the parson said he would probably triumph in the election after next, for the present member, Colonel Hilton-Price, was rarely seen in the area and the Liberals would soon sweep the country. Before they rejoined the ladies Bull made a direct reference to Grace, congratulating Paul on marrying ‘such a decorative and mettlesome gel’, and one who could ‘sit a horse better than any filly between New Cover and Barnaby Clump’! Bull had his own names for Valley landmarks and seldom used those printed on an ordnance map, referring to uplands, bottoms and coverts according to how they presented themselves to a field in full cry. Thus the western part of Shallowford Woods was ‘that damned hairy place, where you poke about all day!’ and the plateau of Blackberry Moor ‘that stretch where a fox covers the ground with its neck in splints!’ One way and another it was a reassuring evening, although Paul felt very sorry for Grace, left to make heavy weather with Kate.
Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By) Page 31
