This gist of the groom’s stuttered explanation filtered through to him. Grace had needed the brougham to convey luggage to Sorrel Halt and she would not have taken heavy luggage for a two-day trip to Bristol. The transport of her and her trunks in the brougham, instead of the trap, could only mean one thing. She had left home for a prolonged period.
The effort needed to absorb the shock was the more difficult inasmuch as he was prevented from advertising astonishment or alarm to Chivers, who seemed no more than puzzled by his master’s failure to excuse his switch of vehicles. Paul said, quickly, ‘Mrs Craddock must have changed her plans, she intended going on Saturday. She probably left a message with Mrs Handcock.’ And then, sharply, ‘Bring the trap round here now. We shall be going home in a few minutes,’ and he climbed the steps into the band-room behind the platform, shouldering his way through a crowd of party workers until he saw Grenfell standing talking to the treasurer. He said, briefly, ‘I must have a word with you at once, James!’ and they edged into the scullery where the Women’s League were brewing tea in huge urns and here they could hardly see one another for steam.
‘I shall have to go home at once, James,’ Paul said. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t avoid it. You can manage without me now, can’t you?’
Grenfell, struck by his expression, said, ‘It’s nothing serious I hope, Paul?’ and Paul replied, ‘Serious to me, Jimmy! Grace has left home. We had a quarrel, partly over this business, but I never dreamed … well, I can’t burden you with my domestic troubles at a moment like this, I just wanted you to know I couldn’t stay and may not be able to get over tomorrow.’
He was grateful for the man’s serenity. Most people, he thought, would have plagued him with questions and offered a choice of fatuous possibilities but all Grenfell said was, ‘Of course, and please don’t worry about me. It’s decided now one way or the other and we’ve got all the transport we need for tomorrow. I’ll get in touch with you the moment I can and I’m sorry, Paul, truly sorry.’
He had no opportunity to say more for one of the local secretaries spotted him through the steam and shouted, ‘Hi, there, Jimmy! There’s to be a torchlight procession! They’re getting drag-ropes on the wain now!’ and Paul thought, ‘What the devil am I doing here, anyway? How childish it all seems, and how vulgar and noisy!’ and he thrust his way into the cool night-air, half-running down to the Close and standing at the junction of Angel and Resurrection Street, until Chivers should appear with the trap. He was sweating and trembling and the dull roar coming from the Drill Hall was like the clash of gongs inside his head. He thought, savagely, ‘I must get hold of myself! I mustn’t let Chivers see what’s really happened! It would be all over the estate by morning and suppose there was nothing in it? Suppose she had just decided to take a trip to town and give this idiotic quarrel a chance to blow over or teach me a lesson?’ Yet he knew that this was not so, that there was a measure of finality in what she had done and that it would take all his tact and persuasion and pleading to induce her to return on even the old terms. The certainty of this made him grind his teeth for he now saw himself humiliated as never before in the face of every man, woman and child in the Valley; a squire who had stepped into the shoes of the Lovells and had been deserted by his own wife, herself a Lovell.
The steady clip of the cob’s shoes on the cobbles made him aware of Chivers’ approach and he climbed on to the box, saying gruffly, ‘I’ll drive and for God’s sake let’s get away from this pandemonium!’ and Chivers glanced at him curiously. He was not a sensitive man but was puzzled to find the Squire in such an ill-humour after such a personal triumph. He said, respectfully, as they descended the hill outside the town, ‘They say Grenfell will win, sure enough, sir. If ’ee does it’ll be your doing as much as his!’
‘He’ll win right enough,’ Paul grunted, ‘but tonight I’ve had enough of it, Chivers! Let’s go on home, let’s get clear of it!’ and he whipped the cob into a trot as they breasted the level stretch that led on to the first fold of the moor.
Chapter Twelve
I
All that Autumn and the winter that followed there was a conspiracy of sympathy in the Valley. Nobody could have said how it communicated itself to Paul, or how and where it originated but it was there, perhaps the first bittersweet fruits of his stay among them. It was this, more than anything, that encouraged him to hold on.
He owed little enough to time or to the counsel of the more articulate of his friends, men like John Rudd, James Grenfell or even Uncle Franz, who wrote several sympathetic letters before the one that brought Paul post-haste to London. It was as well, perhaps, that this letter did not arrive until spring, for by then the link between himself and the people of the Valley had helped him to climb to his feet again and take stock of the future. Without it he might have continued to brood until his thoughts festered and destroyed him.
It was strange, in view of his active role in the election, that he should have been one of the last to learn of James Grenfell’s resounding victory at the polls. It was Mrs Handcock who enlightened him long after he had arrived home to find no note and no message, nothing but half-empty wardrobes and a dressing-table swept clean of feminine clutter. She had gone, and that was all that could be said. Gone, God alone knew where, and although reason told him that this was monstrous and ridiculous, that it was the gesture of a hysterical woman and that she was not given to theatrical gestures, he was certain in his own mind that she would never come back and that threats and promises would leave her unmoved. For this was the sum total of the little she had taught him of herself.
It was pathetically plain that Mrs Handcock had no idea of the finality of what had happened, was unaware that there had been more than a lovers’ tiff between them. She bustled in with his breakfast the day after the election announcing, ‘Well, you won so I yer!’ and when he replied with a noncommittal grunt she decided that he was disappointed with the statistics of the victory and waddled out again, seeking out Horace for further enlightenment. Horace, with his sensitive nose for scandal, guessed the source of Squire’s ill-humour at once.
‘Tiz about her running off, Ada,’ he confirmed, rubbing the nose that made him the Shallowford oracle, ‘tiz her doin’ an’ tiz taaken the ’eart out o’ the boy! Mark my words, Ada, tiz a bigger up-and-a-downer than you give me to understand! They’ve had but a rare ole bust-up, and us baint heard the last of it!’
She soon realised that he was right. Day after day, as Paul lounged about the house, she noticed that he had been at the decanter during office hours, that the swing had gone from his step, and that when he addressed any member of the staff there was a hesitancy in voice and manner that belonged to his first uncertain days among them.
Then, after John Rudd had rushed off and reappeared a day or so later with his motor-mad son in tow, the alarming truth spread through kitchen, stable-yard and gardens, whence it crossed the paddocks to the Home Farm and into the Valley beyond, rumours that crept along belly to ground and the first of these was also the most obvious, involvement with the agent’s son. Soon, however, there were fresh rumours, the most persistent being the refusal of Squire’s wife to have another child and, when Horace Handcock pooh-poohed this, came whispers of a lover or lovers in London. Finally the Valley found itself discussing the most bizarre explanation of all—a bitter cleavage of political thought, brought to the surface by the triumph of the Valley Liberals.
It was natural that Paul should think of Roddy first and just as understandable that John Rudd should deny it and set about proving his point. Nothing would stop him hurrying off to Portsmouth and bringing his son back like a fugitive under escort. Roddy was scared, not by the threat of scandal but by his father’s attitude for he had never seen him so truculent and vindictive but he had no trouble persuading him that he was innocent of any part in Grace Craddock’s abdication, saying that during their drives she had never spoken disloyally of Paul, and Rudd reali
sed the boy himself was astonished by what had happened. For all that he insisted on Roddy confronting Paul and they met, the three of them, in the library, an hour after father and son had returned. By this time, however, Roddy was exasperated and said, indignantly, ‘I give you my word of honour, Mr Craddock, I haven’t set eyes on your wife since I left here! She hasn’t written or communicated with me in any way and she doesn’t even know my address.’ Then, seeing Paul and his father exchange glances, he added, sulkily, ‘Mrs Craddock isn’t the slightest bit interested in me if that is any consolation to you!’
It was not for Paul, feeling that he had been made to look even more ridiculous by his agent’s confrontation, to apologise on Rudd’s behalf and thank Roddy for coming right across country on such a fool’s errand. He realised then that he had been a fool to suspect the boy. He was not the kind of man to hold Grace’s interest for more than a day or so, and her temporary absorption with him had its origin more in the motor than its owner.
After Roddy had gone Rudd spoke very frankly. ‘I did what I could to warn you when this began,’ he declared, ‘and I say this even though I realise that to come between a man and his wife is unforgiveable! She never did belong here, Paul, any more than the Lovells belonged! It was no more to her than a pleasant place to spend a summer’s day and as to loyalty, as people like you understand it, no member of that family ever possessed any! It’s not their fault, I suppose. At fifty I’ve come to realise people can’t help their temperaments but if I was in your shoes, hard as it sounds, I should wipe the slate, boy! I wouldn’t waste an hour looking for her!’
Paul took this harsh advice more impassively than Rudd had anticipated, saying, ‘That’s easy enough to say, John, for you never trusted her, did you? As for me, I happen to be in love with her, although I fully appreciate all you say about the streak in the family. It’s a kind of congenital amorality, an opting out of the ordinary rules that most of us take for granted. Old Sir George, that boy Ralph of his, Bruce Lovell, and now Grace prove as much. But there were times, many times, when I thought she was fond of me, or at all events respected me.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you something else,’ Rudd said, unhappily. ‘I never trusted her or her me but I was beginning to think I was prejudiced and although you may not believe it this gave me a good deal of satisfaction, if only for your sake! And she did respect you but in a way you might find it difficult to understand. I believe she could stand outside and see what you were trying to do down here and although nothing could convince her it was worth doing she could still admire the helping hand you gave people like Will Codsall and Elinor, Eveleigh and his family, and even Smut Potter, in spite of the friction he caused between you. However, people can admire an effort without wanting to take part in it. I’ve cleared Roddy and that’s a personal relief to me!’ and he left, feeling he had presumed enough.
John Rudd’s logic yielded Paul small satisfaction, for his main purpose now seemed as sterile as Grace had always regarded it and his work no more than a dullish method of passing time and tiring himself physically. Grenfell’s counsel brought him even less comfort than Rudd’s. He drove over the night after the rally, when his place was at the polling booths, and was frank enough to confirm Paul’s growing belief that this was an irrevocable decision on Grace’s part.
‘I don’t think it has much to do with you personally, Paul,’ he said. ‘I believe there were far more complex reasons for her disassociating herself from what you’re trying to achieve down here!’
‘You’re not going to tell me that women’s votes are that important to her,’ Paul growled. ‘Damn it, a wife doesn’t turn her back on home, husband and baby in order to march about with a banner and make a fool of herself at public meetings! Frankly, I’d prefer to hear she had left me for a lover and so would any man!’
‘That’s your trouble, Paul,’ Grenfell said seriously, ‘you try and rationalise every issue that presents itself. You can’t do it with most political issues and you certainly can’t with personal ones! Her preoccupation with the Women’s Suffrage movement is a manifestation of what she feels about everything important to her, and I believe that goes for a good many of those gallant misguided women! They want a purpose, Paul, like yours or mine and we have been denying them one ever since they lived in caves.’
‘But surely a home like this and a family is a purpose in itself?’
‘It was and still is for most women but not for women like your wife! That’s the price we are beginning to pay for universal education and men might find it a heavy one in the near future. It isn’t you she is rejecting, Paul, but your whole way of life.’
‘You mean you suspected this might happen?’
‘Not precisely this, but something less drastic perhaps.’
‘You said nothing!’
‘Who the devil am I to criticise a man’s wife to his face, Paul?’
‘Yet you’re now telling me, as kindly as you can, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it?’
Grenfell considered. Far more clearly than Paul he saw the wider issues confronting him and could view them free of bias. ‘Not at present but after an interval there may be; it would depend on all manner of things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘On what happens to her and to you. On how quickly the pair of you mature and on the changes in the world we live in, perhaps. She may not have the moral strength to battle on alone. If she tried and failed, would you take her back on her own terms—freedom of action to go where she wished and do what she liked? To make her own friends so long as she was loyal to you in the conventional sense?’
‘No,’ he said, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘I don’t think I would, Jimmy. That isn’t enough to stop a marriage like ours going sour. At least, not the kind of marriage I need so long as I stay here.’
‘I daresay you’re right at that,’ said Grenfell, sighing. ‘God knows, your outlook as a landowner who puts human beings first and profit second is rare enough and a man needs peace in his own house to project it in this day and age! I’m desperately sorry about this, Paul, but not as sorry as I would have been if she had gone off with another man. All I can add to that is to tell you that I owe this seat to your loyalty and single-mindedness and I won’t ever forget that! If ever you need me I should be more hurt than I can say if you didn’t call on me!’ and he shook hands warmly and left.
Good enough advice but it did little to help. To Paul, through the rest of the summer, the Valley seemed stale and profitless, and this in itself was strange because she had been such a quiet, unobtrusive person. Thirza, in her new role of Nannie, now took undisputed charge of Simon and was fiercely jealous even of Mrs Handcock’s interference. Rudd saw to it that he had plenty of work and at length he taught himself to stop anticipating the post. It was now, he soon realised, known throughout the Valley why she had left him and that she was unlikely to return but at least, as time wore on, he could stop speculating on what they said to one another when he rode by, or passed on having spoken to one or other of them on a routine matter. It was during these daily excursions that he became conscious of their mute concern, although it was months before he was able to distinguish between sympathy and a conspiracy of embarrassed silence. Throughout the autumn and a cheerless Christmastide he wasted few words on them, saying what he had to say then riding off with a nod. Yet his sullenness and bitterness was contained and perhaps it was this that won their respect. Slowly, and imperceptibly, he was able to translate their curiosity into warmth, so that he became aware of a kinship with them that had not existed in his most sanguine days before his marriage, when he had thought of himself as a well-meaning, bungling amateur and hoped that they would make generous allowances for his inexperience. Something was reaching out to him from all of them and he noted and welcomed it in all parts of the Valley. It was there in the twinkle of Martha Pitts’ brown eyes, when she insisted he stayed to a meal
and ate a little of ‘Henry’s gurt duck’. It was recognisable in Eveleigh’s stolid respect as he submitted his harvest figures and marshalled his little regiment of children to present home-made Christmas cards to ‘Young Squire’. He found it in Elinor Codsall’s voice, when she thanked him (as she did almost every time she saw him) for helping her rescue Will from Four Winds, and it was present in Sam Potter’s determination to name his second daughter Grace, notwithstanding, as he explained to Joannie, that ‘Young Squire’s missis ’as up an’ left ’un, the poor, mazed crittur, not knowing a gude man when one be lyin’ bezide ’er!’ These subtle communications of their friendship would have gone unnoticed by anyone who had grown up among them but to Paul they were the first evidence that he was accepted, that his good intentions were recognised and that he was already regarded by them not as a brash young man with a bushel of fancy ideas but as the natural leader of the community. It was this realisation that encouraged him to look back and reconsider Grenfell’s advice, and it was the same current of unspoken sympathy that enabled him to read Celia Lovell’s startling letter objectively.
II
Celia’s second letter arrived towards the end of January, more than six months after Grace had left. Her first, replying to his angry demands for news of his wife’s whereabouts had merely annoyed him for he concluded from it that Celia was not much surprised by what had occurred and that it was not, in her view, an astonishing thing for her stepdaughter to have abandoned home, husband and a six-month-old child after an apparently trivial disagreement. The letter, moreover, expressed a neutrality that he would not have expected from her in view of her eagerness to arrange the marriage and he thought, bitterly, ‘Damn the woman! She might at least have said something sympathetic, even if she does make it very plain she won’t accept the job of umpire!’ He had not written again and was therefore surprised by a message from Coombe Bay one grey morning, informing him that she had returned to the Valley and would be glad if he would call as soon as convenient. He rode over that same afternoon but as he stood outside the door awaiting an answer to the bell his mind returned to the first occasion he had stood here, also in response to Celia’s urgent invitation; it seemed to him more like fifty than two years ago. She received him graciously when the trim maid showed him up the narrow stair to her little boudoir, looking out across the restless winter sea but he was in no mood for polite preliminaries and said, bluntly, ‘I could make no sense at all of your first letter and can only suppose that you now regard the marriage as a mistake on everybody’s part!’
Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By) Page 44
