Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By)

by R. F Delderfield

  ‘Squire could easily build one,’ he said, grinning, ‘it would certainly seem to recommend itself!’ and steadied her as she stepped into her clothes. She laughed at this, the first wholly natural laugh he had ever won from her. It struck him as even more rewarding than her embraces.

  Chapter Ten

  I

  On the night of January 3rd, 1904, when the hands of the grandfather clock were ticking their unsteady way to midnight, Paul sat before the dying fire in the library listening for renewed sounds from the room above but hearing none or none that he could identify, as he had identified them in the late afternoon. Only the brusque voice of Daladier, the peppery little French obstetrician Celia had introduced as a reinforcement for the baffled O’Keefe, kept him from yet another restless prowl into the hall and up the stairs, to listen outside the room where Grace’s labour had now entered its fourteenth hour. An hour or so ago the specialist had caught him there for the second time and sharply ordered him downstairs and Paul had gone, growling a protest to soothe his raw nerves and had taken refuge in whisky, half emptying the decanter with as little effect upon him as though it had contained barley water.

  The silence upstairs, together with the steady, harsh movement of the clock and awareness of his own helplessness, made him sweat and fidget, and every moment that passed seemed to him to increase the chances of news arriving that the child had been born dead and that the mother was not expected to recover from her ordeal.

  He tried, desperately, to think of other things, to occupy himself in office work, or a book, or more drinking, anything that would cocoon his imagination from what was happening up there, but every alternative thought seemed ridiculously trivial and the only escape route to his fears lay in contemplation of the specialist’s blunt appraisal of the situation, delivered about four o’clock that afternoon, soon after his arrival.

  He had made no bones about it being touch and go, for Grace, the child, or possibly both. It depended, he said, on a number of imponderables, some of which he tried to reduce to laymen’s language but Paul’s mind was so blanketed by fright that he had not even tried to absorb the watered-down medical terms. All he did understand was that the labour was indefinitely prolonged and that it was something to do with the baby’s position in the womb, and the suspense of waiting, after O’Keefe had come down about seven o’clock to help himself to a drink, was unbearable and had now continued, almost unbroken, for five hours. Listening intently Paul heard a few indistinct bumps, as of furniture being moved, then the rumble of conversation and once a long, low-pitched cry that made his blood freeze but after that hardly any sounds at all, except the maddening, metallic click of the big clock, a far-off cough or two and the steady whoosh of the wind and the slash of the rain against the windows.

  The storm outside made it worse, for not only did its uproar drown sounds that he might have interpreted as progressive but brought with it a sense of onrushing doom that dispersed everything but fear. It also obliged him to endure his vigil alone, for Celia had promised to be here after tea and was not likely to appear now for the ford would be shoulder-deep after such a downpour. The staff had been sent to bed two hours ago, Mrs Handcock having to be practically pushed from the room. He was very fond of the old soul but she had no stomach for this kind of crisis and the sight of her sitting there, puffing out her red cheeks and beginning sentences she could not finish, had maddened him. Rudd’s presence would have been a comfort but Rudd was miles away, having driven off before luncheon to attend a farm sale in a village beyond Paxtonbury, with a promise to bring back an almost new threshing machine for a tenth of its real price and although the subject had interested Paul a good deal the previous evening, he now thought of a threshing machine as of less significance than a feather in his wife’s pillow.

  Earlier in the evening he had, by degrees, succeeded in getting himself under control by looking round the room, itemising the changes Grace had wrought in it in less than a year’s custodianship. He noted the glittering Sheffield plate candelabra, the warm red and gold wallpaper, the heavy velvet curtains with their tall pelmet, the rearrangement of the books, formerly shelved any-old-how, now neatly organised into sections. He was able to think of, and to appreciate, each of these things objectively and from them assess her value as a wife and a friend but this encouraged him to make a deeper survey of their marriage, remembering some of the other things she had brought to him and these too he began to itemise, like a man making an inventory of salvaged possessions after finding himself alone on a desert island. He could appreciate now, after ten months as her husband, his previous callowness and ignorance. She had opened so many doors that he could not even count them. She had shown him, by example, how to strike a workable balance between familiarity and authority with staff, how to distinguish between good and indifferent wine, how to nurse a sick horse, how to make a garden grow, how to buy clothes and even how to conduct a public meeting, although she cared nothing at all for his wholehearted conversion to the Liberal creed and had refused to accompany him to a fund-raising ball in Paxtonbury. In one field alone, the management of the estate, she had left him alone. The submission of advice regarding Smut Potter’s fate had been her single excursion in this sphere and she had learned her lesson, and so, perhaps, had he and there now existed between them an unspoken pact that such advice as he needed must be sought from John Rudd. There remained between them, however, the personal honesty that had characterised their association from the beginning. She accepted his possession of her as a woman if not as an individual, for her preoccupation with privacy did not extend to her body. She had once said something to him in this respect that he was never to forget, for it made a deep impression on him at that time. It was when he had expressed his appreciation of her generosity and she had replied, calmly, ‘When I begin to be dutiful you can turn me out. You know the convention in the West—men have orgasms, women have babies! Well, it was never intended to be that way between man and woman and if I had believed as much I would have gone out of my way to remain a virgin. The only way a marriage can hope to succeed is by yielding mutual satisfaction. Even then it can founder but without a physical basis it doesn’t stand a chance. If it is there, or it develops quickly, then even incompatible people like us can get along.’

  Now, he reflected, as a direct result of her affection, she was in agony and perhaps at the point of death but he could do nothing whatever to help her and the awareness of helplessness made him grind his teeth and kick the dying fire with the toe of his riding boot that he had forgotten to draw off when he returned from High Coombe and Mrs Handcock had told him, in her quaint, old-fashioned way, ‘Mrs Craddock, poor dear, ‘as been brought to baid!’ adding that O’Keefe had been sent for, his mother-in-law notified and that he had best ‘zit down an eat a gude meal fer the three of ’em!’

  That had been nearly twelve hours ago and since then there had been nothing but the arrival, wet through, of Celia’s French specialist, indeterminate thumps on the floor, the rumble of voices and that one, low-pitched moan. He had just made up his mind to risk the doctor’s wrath by a return upstairs when he heard a sharp rapping on the glass of the French doors opening on to the terrace. He thought at first that part of the trellis had come down in the gale but then the rapping was repeated and he pulled aside the curtains, fumbling with the stiff catch. When he got the window open the force of the storm almost wrenched it from his hand and a very bedraggled Ikey staggered into the room, holding a storm lantern tied to a short length of ash. Paul closed the doors and redrew the curtains and turning saw the boy crouching over the fire, rain streaming from his peaked cap and a look on his face that Paul remembered seeing on the faces of troopers awaiting the order to advance across open country in the face of Boer marksmen. He said, gruffly, ‘Well, what is it, Ikey? Why didn’t you come in the proper way?’ and Ikey replied, his voice shaking with excitement. ‘I couldn’t make nobody hear, sir, I on’y just got back and tried Mr Ru
dd’s lodge first, but it was the same there, the wind’s making such a racket!’

  Paul remembered then that Ikey had taken the cob to the Coombe Bay for shoeing and had been told to summon Celia while he was in the village, but Celia would not come now as it was already after midnight. Where had he been all this time? The boy said, in the same shaking voice, ‘Something funny’s bin happening over at Four Winds, sir! I follered Farmer Codsall along the beach, then back over the dunes. He saw me and tried to do for me with his shotgun!’, and he held out the tails of his coat and Paul saw that they were shredded, as with buckshot. He said, urgently, ‘Go on, Ikey, tell me exactly what happened!’

  ‘Well, I first see him when I was mounting the cob to get on ’ome, sir. He was drunk as usual, an’ weaving about, so seein’ he had his gun with him I thought—well, I thought I’d better keep him in view ’till I made sure he was clear o’ the village.’

  ‘That was the sensible thing to do; then what?’

  ‘Well, it was getting dimpsy by then so I follered him along the beach. He went right into the water once an’ didn’t seem to notice me, for I kep’ back beyond the tideline but then he come out an’ went over the dunes and I still follered, thinking he hadn’t got a proper butcher’s—proper look at me, but he must ’ave! When I crossed into the first field he let fly with both barrels and on’y just missed me!’

  ‘Good God!’ said Paul, forgetting everything else for the moment, ‘why didn’t you get help in the village?’

  ‘Well, I reckoned I ought to ’ave, sir, but I didn’t want to let him out o’ view, not knowing what he might get up to, once he’d reloaded. I skipped back out o’ range pretty smart but he seemed to forget about me an’ went off across the fields. It was pitch dark be then but I chanced he’d gone on home an’ follered, tying the cob to the farm gate when I got to his yard. Then … well, then …’ and suddenly the boy’s face crumpled and he began to sob, so that Paul, acting instinctively, poured a measure of whisky into his glass and said, ‘Drink this, Ikey! Then tell me what happened at Four Winds.’

  The boy gulped down the spirit and it set him coughing but it steadied him for he was able to continue in a level tone. ‘I couldn’t see nothing at first, it was so dark, but after a bit I heard a lot o’ thumping and screaming from upstairs an’ then, all of a sudden, the winder o’ the end room crashed open an’ all the glass blew out, an’ out come the boy on to the sill an’ made a jump for it, not into the yard but right across to the roof o’ the barn opposite! I could see him jump in the light coming from ’is winder an’ he landed orlright but was stuck twenty feet up ’till I found a ladder an’ fetched him down. He was in ’is nightshirt an’ awful scared. I tried to get ’im to show me the way to the foreman’s cottage but ’e couldn’t, he just started carrying on something awful, an’ I couldn’t make no sense of it, except that old Codsall had come for ’im an’ ’is mum like a madman an’ that’s what made ’im jump for it!’

  ‘Where is young Codsall now? What did you do with him?’

  ‘I brought him back here’ Ikey said, ‘and when I got to the loft I woke Gappy, an’ we give ’im a good rub down an’ put ’im in Gappy’s bed, which was warmlike. I told Gappy to make cocoa for ’im, fer ’e was perished when he got here, ’im in his nightshirt an’ all. But you don’t want to worry about ’im, sir. Gappy’ll take care of ’im. It’s just that—well—I reckon someone ought to go over to Four Winds right away, sir!’

  Paul began to think logically for the courage of the boy steadied him. He said quickly, ‘Throw some chips on that fire, Ikey, and warm yourself. Mrs Craddock is having her baby and nothing is going right for her but I’ll have to go to Four Winds at once. I daresay we shall need the police and help from elsewhere!’ He thought of waking Horace Handcock but Handcock couldn’t sit a horse and wouldn’t even go close to one and apart from him there were only the doctors and the girls. He swallowed another tot and went into the hall, up the stairs and along the corridor to the bedroom, rapping gently on the door.

  O’Keefe’s flushed face appeared instantly and from inside came a whiff of stale air and ether. He got a glimpse of the room, with the lamp beside the four-poster throwing its light on Grace’s tumbled hair but saw nothing more, except the fire roaring up the chimney and an array of instruments on the table near the window. He said, urgently, ‘How are things going?’ and reading impatience and irritation in the Irishman’s face, added, ‘It’s not nerves on my part, Doctor! Something bad has happened at Four Winds. Codsall seems to have gone off his head and he tried to kill my stable-boy! I shall have to go, no matter what happens here. Are you making progress?’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ O’Keefe said, and Paul felt a tremor of relief, ‘but it’ll be about half an hour. It was a breech birth, if you know what that is but the worst is over and they’ll both do well enough with luck! What’s this about Codsall? You say he’s gone crazy?’

  ‘It seems so,’ Paul said, ‘can you be spared?’

  ‘No,’ said O’Keefe, ‘not unless you want to run a very grave risk, Craddock!’

  Paul made his decision. Whatever had happened at Four Winds wasn’t worth the risk of mounting the old man behind Snowdrop and racing through a storm. If the boy Sydney had been left behind it would be different but Ikey, gallant kid, had whisked him out of harm’s way and Arabella and the staff must look to themselves. He said briefly, ‘Well, I shall have to go, I can do nothing here and I may be useful over there. If my wife asks for me tell her I’ve had to see to storm damage at the Home Farm.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ O’Keefe said soberly, ‘you get off right away and I’ll come over as soon as it’s light. Good luck, Craddock!’

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ Paul said hurriedly, ‘wake Mrs Handcock, the housekeeper, and tell her to have a good fire and hot drinks ready. As soon as it’s light, or before if possible, send Handcock to rouse Honeyman and send the two shepherds to Four Winds right away!’

  ‘I’ll do that!’ said the Irishman. ‘Mother of God, the trials we’re called upon to face!’ and at once withdrew, closing the door.

  Paul returned to the library where Ikey now had a bright fire blazing. The boy’s cheeks were flushed but he seemed to have himself well under control. He said, ‘Saddle up Snowdrop, Ikey, I’m going there right away.’

  ‘Who’ll be going with you, sir?’

  ‘Nobody for there’s nobody to go! I can’t waste time making a detour to Home Farm, I’ll have to cut across the corner of the wood and head straight for the bridge. How was the water level when you came over?’

  ‘About up to the planks, sir!’ Ikey told him, and then, obstinately, ‘If you’re on your own, sir, I’m coming with you! Young Codsall’s orlright an’ that drink you give me put noo life in me, sir!’ and he grinned.

  ‘Do you think you can stick another trip over there, Ikey?’

  ‘With you along o’ me I can,’ the boy said and Paul put his arm across the child’s shoulder.

  ‘I won’t forget this, Ikey, you’ve done splendidly! None of the men could have managed any better. Have you got a dry coat and boots?’

  ‘I c’n take Gappy’s, sir. The cob’s fresh enough and I’ll ’ave Snowdrop ready in a trice!’ and he shot out of the room giving Paul the impression that he welcomed the adventure now that he could share it with someone. Ten minutes later, with Paul riding ahead and carrying a lantern, they were picking their way along the edge of Priory Wood and round its western boundary, probing for the track that led down to the river road. The rain had slackened somewhat but the force of the gale tried to tear them from their saddles and twice Snowdrop stumbled, almost pitching his rider to the ground. Above the roar of the wind Paul heard a pine crash in the wood behind and again his thoughts returned to the steadfastness of the boy, splashing along in his wake. There was no chance to call to him. All he could do was to hold the swinging lantern high and trust Ikey to
follow the light. If it went out they were finished. At last, after what seemed to Paul about an hour, they struck the park wall, groping their way along it to the gate that breached it opposite Codsall bridge. The boy was still in his wake and came alongside to take Snowdrop’s bridle while he dismounted to wrestle with the stiff gate. It came open at last and they were out on the road, where it was less dark but they had now lost the protection of the wall and the wind made the horses restless. There were, he recalled, some white flood posts at the bridgehead and as soon as he saw them he dismounted again and led the grey forward, shouting at the top of his voice for the boy to follow. The roar of the current vied with the shriek of the wind and the river level was dangerously high, lapping the planks to a depth of nearly a foot. Paul slopped across, however, remounted and followed the path that led down to the farm, trusting in the grey’s sight more than his own and in this way they soon reached the first of the Four Winds’ out-buildings, a great bulk of a barn, in total darkness. Here, in the angle of the building, they could talk again. Paul said, breathlessly, ‘Well, we made it, Ikey! We’ll put the horses inside and go round the back, the front door is sure to be locked,’ and he groped along the face of the barn until he found the fastening, bracing his shoulder against the door to prevent it crashing back on the horses.

  The barn faced east so the wind here lost some of its force and together they managed to lead Snowdrop and the cob inside. The first thing they saw, in the dim light of the lantern, was a shotgun resting against a small bale of hay and then, as Paul broke it to see if it was loaded, he heard the boy utter a cry and turning, holding the lantern high, he saw a pair of rubber boots swinging four feet clear of the ground.

  ‘It’s ’im!’ Ikey cried, his teeth chattering, ‘it’s Farmer Codsall!’ and Paul dropped the gun and crossed the barn to where Martin Codsall swung in the strong draught from the door, suspended from a cross-beam on a length of baling cord.