‘Fashionable or not it’s something I don’t relish,’ said Paul. ‘Did you see her on more than that one occasion when you took her to dinner?’
The old man twinkled. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘I’ve seen her several times. As a matter of fact she came to me to discuss the possibilities of letting you go free before you wrote but I didn’t take any action because I couldn’t be sure you weren’t anxious to have her back on any terms. As soon as you wrote I got in touch with her and that bill arrived by return of post.’
Paul studied the bill again and asked, ‘Who is James Monteith?’ and Franz sighing, said, ‘You really do live in another age down here, Paul! He’s no one in particular.’
‘He isn’t someone Grace has taken up with?’
‘Knowing her I should think it extremely unlikely. He’s almost certainly a professional, someone to whom she paid money for the purpose of getting evidence.’
‘Good God!’ Paul exclaimed, ‘I’ve heard of women employed in that respect but never men!’
‘I still don’t think you really understand the situation,’ Franz said, patiently. ‘In almost all these cases it’s accepted that the man takes the initiative, on the assumption that he has less to lose than the woman, but as the law stands you would have to provide evidence of adultery and cruelty and refuse to have her back. Well, for your information, Grace won’t hear of anything like that but not simply because she recognises you as the injured party. She won’t be under obligation to a man, so as far as I can see it will have to be that evidence or a long wait. You would have to write inviting her back and she would have to reject the offer. It could drag on for years and she considers this would be most unfair on you. If I were in your shoes I should give me instructions to go right ahead on what you have there.’
‘Tell me honestly, Franz, does it make any kind of sense to you? I don’t mean simply her approach to divorce but her entire attitude to life?’
‘No,’ said Zorndorff, ‘not sense but there’s a kind of glory in it.’
‘Glory?’
‘Yes, glory. These women see themselves as a vanguard carving out a new social structure. There have always been minorities set on martyrdom. The early Christians were one and some people might even include the Lollards and Lutherans in the parade. The world usually begins by mocking them, then slams them behind bars and ends by canonising them! Today the fabric of society is changing at frightful speed and although the process has now been going for quite some time it’s only recently that people are sitting up and taking notice.’
‘Then I suppose you class me with the minority who won’t face up to change and take refuge in a bolt-hole like this?’
‘No,’ said Franz, ‘not altogether and neither, I think, does Grace. A man ought to follow his destiny and yours is clearly here doing what you believe yourself capable of doing. Take my advice, my boy, and let her have her own way about this, and I tell you that not because I agree or disagree with her but because I happen to know it will ease her conscience. Believe me, she has one, and it’s troubling her a good deal!’
He seemed to prefer to leave the matter there and went on to talk of more general matters, of the stimulating effect the Dreadnought race with Germany was having upon the price of scrap-iron, the increasing pressure building up under the new Liberal Government for an avalanche of social legislation, of matters that were common currency to him but to Paul were little more than London newspaper topics. They talked on in the small hours and when Paul had shown him to his room, and they stood together at the open window looking out over a paddock bathed in moonlight, Franz said, ‘Well, it doesn’t look as if much has changed around here since the Tudors but it will, although I daresay it will last you out, or maybe you’ll be so set in your ways you won’t even notice the differences.’
Paul said stubbornly, ‘I’m not afraid of differences, Uncle Franz. My policy here involves change. What I am opposed to is dissolution.’
‘Ah, I daresay,’ he said, cheerfully, ‘and who isn’t? Sometimes I think we’re all heading for perdition but so long as we get a choice of route I’m satisfied. You stick to yours, Paul, and let Grace stick to hers! That’s my advice, for what it’s worth.’
Paul said good night and went along to his own room, where Mrs Handcock had lit the small lamp and shadows were playing hide-and-seek in the window draught. He sat on the bed and pulled off his tall boots that he wore almost exclusively in these days, for he was on horseback most working days. The strong Maxwell boots gave support to a leg still inclined to trouble him where the tendons surrounding his Transvaal wound had been strained during his buffeting in the cove. Tonight there was an ache in his heart as he thought, with a touch of nostalgia, ‘This room was her creation and whenever we were alone in it we were at peace. If I marry again I suppose Claire will make changes but a man doesn’t slough off a woman as easily as all that, not when he’d held her in his arms through long winter nights.’ He got up restlessly and padded over to the window, flinging it wide and sniffing the night air, heavy with the scent of the woods. ‘Franz talks of changes,’ he thought, ‘but I feel their presence myself tonight. So many things have changed since I spent my first night here; Martin Codsall and Arabella were alive then, and Tamer Potter, and poor old Smut was ranging the woods, poaching deer; Lord Gilroy’s tame M.P. represented us at Westminster and now Grenfell’s up there at my instance, making what he can of this clamour for change. Simon was born in this room and Grace spent her last night at Shallowford here, with me beside her, never dreaming what was in her mind. All this, in four years! I wonder what the next four will bring?’
Over in the chestnuts an owl hooted and from the rhododendrons nearer the house came the sounds of a stealthy scuffle. He yawned, feeling detached from the past yet near enough to look back and savour its bitterness and sweetness. Then he thought of Claire, of her smooth oval face, pink and white freshness and the repose she seemed to have acquired during her exile and suddenly he felt more cheerful, flung off his clothes and climbed into bed. ‘Maybe I’ll stop shaping things and let ’em happen in future,’ he told himself and on this compromise he slept.
IV
Paul’s moment of self-revelation, and what came of it down by the landslip, released a spate of letter-writing up and down the Valley. The Sorrel people were shy of pen and ink. Some of them had never written a letter in their lives and a majority were content to scrawl greetings on Christmas cards once a year but events in the cove during the early spring, and their appearance on the front pages of newspapers, made the Valley folk aware of themselves as a clan. Some, with relatives in other parts of the West, followed up with news of events that grew out of the wreck, notably the Squire’s intention to divorce his wife and marry Claire Derwent as soon as he was free.
Claire herself was not guiltless of rumour-spreading. Having written to her cousin and partner, arranging to sell her share of the business and stating that she was unlikely to return to London, she added an enigmatic postscript: ‘Have been seeing a good deal of “P”. There is talk of him divorcing his wife, who left him some time ago and has since been mixed up with the suffragettes.’ What her cousin made of this is not certain but if she recalled Claire’s four-year-old confidences on the subject of ‘P’ she probably put two and two together.
Maureen O’Keefe wrote two letters in illegible scrawl (deliberately cultivated for writing prescriptions) to the only woman who had shared her medical course in Dublin, a glum, Hebridean girl, now junior partner in a Belfast practice where women doctors were just tolerated, providing they were good Protestants. Maureen succeeded in astonishing her friend by adding, after saying she was taking over her father’s West country practice ‘ … and I expect you will be even more surprised to learn I am to marry in September! I still can’t believe it especially when I (a) look in the mirror, and (b) check up on my birth certificate! I think you would like John—John Rudd that is, for in so
me ways he reminds me of you being dour, very solemn and wonderfully kind. He is fifty-two, a widower with a son in the Navy, and has been agent on this estate for years …’ She rattled on about Paul, Grace and even Claire Derwent, but mention of Claire reminded her of another letter she intended to write, so she cut short the Irish mail and began a slightly more legible letter to Ikey Palfrey.
‘My dear Ikey,’ she wrote, chuckling again as she recalled the encounter by Codsall bridge, ‘I think the time has come to keep you up to date but burn this as soon as you have read it, or we shall find ourselves on the carpet again! I took care not to breathe a word about your MACHIAVELLISM but I felt you should know that it worked out better than any of us could have hoped, for Squire, so I hear, is taking steps to get a divorce and there isn’t the slightest doubt that if and when he does he will marry Miss Derwent, and jolly good luck to them! By the way, he’s quite his old self again now. Today, when I was visiting in Coombe Bay, I watched him go past without him seeing me and he was whistling loud enough to loosen his front teeth. He’s very fit and putting on weight and Mr Rudd tells me he’s just not the same man at all, so we can both take credit for that! Good luck to you, Ikey, and I do hope you’re happy at school and are looking forward to the holidays. Affectionately, Maureen O’Keefe.’
Ikey read this letter in the Fives court, having first extracted the five-shilling postal order enclosed with it and fortified himself with two cream horns at the tuckshop. He was gratified by the news, although it seemed to him that the slightly crazy woman doctor must be pulling the longbow somewhat, for he still found it difficult to believe that people could change wives like horses. The information regarding Squire, however, was cheering and having obeyed her instructions, and carefully burned the letter, he occupied his Sunday letter-writing period composing a suitable reply. ‘Dear Doctor O’Keefe,’ it ran, ‘many thanks for P.O., which is now spent and also for news. There are lots of things I should like to know more about but better not write them as you never know with letters do you. I am looking forward to coming home for summer half hols and entered in the under-fifteen mile sports day which is soon and I hope you and Squire will come up for it because I might win. Cooper our running capt. thinks so. Good-bye and thanks again for the P.O. Respectfully, I. Palfrey.’
Maureen O’Keefe did not burn this letter. It amused her so much that she put it away in her souvenir box, alongside her degree and collection of trainee photographs.
Sam Potter, at the instance of his wife Joannie, wrote one of his very rare letters to Smut, who had completed his third year and was expected to be released on licence by autumn. Sam had accompanied his mother on a visit to the gaol immediately after Tamer’s death and had decided that nothing would induce him to go there again but his wife thought he should tell Smut about the special headstone the German Mercantile had erected over Tamer’s grave. After a great deal of laborious pen-chewing and chair-squeaking as he writhed in the agonies of composition, he produced the following: ‘Dear Smut, this it to let you no they Germans paid for a stone over Father and chipped out a lot of wot happened on it—must have cost I dont no how much but you can read it when you get here—I cant rite it even if I could think on it. They say Squire is puttin aside his missus and there is tork he will take Ted Derwents dorter to church the pretty one I mene see you soon Sam.’
Smut was intrigued by this letter, although both items of news puzzled him for, although there were a number of Potters laid in Coombe Churchyard, none had attained the dignity of a headstone which, as he recalled, were luxuries reserved for freeholders and prosperous tradesmen. He was even more mystified by Sam’s reference to the Squire’s possibility of taking a second wife, supposing that this privilege extended only to heathens and was against the law in England, even for a man as exalted as a Squire. His memories of Claire, however, were vivid for she had always been reckoned the most fetching girl in the Valley and he had suspected that she might one day make a good match, although not quite as good as this.
Something of Smut’s natural exuberance had returned to him of late for they had recently put a card on the door of his cell, explaining the legend thereon, ‘E.D.R. 15.10.06’ meant ‘Earliest date of release, Oct. 15th, 1906’. If things continued to go smoothly he would be back in the Valley in less than three months but the nearness of his release date was not the sole reason for his cheerfulness. Since his shift back across the border into Devon, where he could smell the sea and, if the wind was in the right quarter, the scent of gorse blowing down from Blackberry Moor, some of the sting had departed from confinement behind stone walls and iron doors and under the encouragement of the officer in charge of trusties working in the prison grounds, he had found a new interest in growing flowers. Smut, although he had lived his life in the open, had always taken flowers for granted but he did so no longer for in here a small splash of colour riveted the eye and sometimes made a man catch his breath. All summer he laboured away tending geraniums, lobelia, calceolaria and marguerites and bit by bit, as he watched the results of his work, the occupation became the focal point of his existence so that he sometimes thought a little fearfully of the time when he would be separated from them and some other clumsy lout would have charge of them. He pondered this a good deal and wondered if it would be possible to make some kind of livelihood out of potting plants in the Coombe. If so, then he would prefer to devote himself to a job like this rather than share the casual husbandry of Meg and the girls, for here a man could see something in return for energy expended whereas nothing ever prospered under his hands in the Dell. He made up his mind to broach the subject to Chief Officer Phillips as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
In the meantime, however, unknown to Smut, a place was being prepared for him in the Valley, for the manner in which Tamer had died forged a personal bond between Paul and the shiftless tenants in Low Coombe. At harvest-time Paul rode across to the Dell and had a talk with Meg on the family’s future, after which he crossed the corner of the Bluff and descended the wooded slope to Sam Potter’s cottage beside the mere.
He found Sam at his midday meal and Joannie, always flustered by a visitor, wiped a damp cloth across the jam-smeared face of his god-daughter Pauline, who held the distinction of being the first child born on the estate under the new regime. Paul always felt very much at home in Sam’s cottage and accepted a brew of tea whilst Snowdrop was given a feed in the lean-to stable.
‘I’ve been discussing with Meg what we can do about Smut,’ Paul told him. ‘He’s due out in the autumn and I’m officially responsible for him until his full sentence expires. Do you think he’ll go back on poaching?’
Sam said he thought not but he was clearly worried by the possibility. Despite their temperamental differences the brothers had always been close and Sam’s visit to the gaol strengthened the link, for he found it difficult to imagine a worse fate than that of being locked inside a grey fortress for years on end. He said, reflectively, ‘Ah, tiz a real problem an’ no mistake, Maister! Smut were never a varmer, no more’n any one of us, an’ like as not he’ll be praper rusty after being cooped up in that gurt ole plaace! God knows, Mother needs help over there, and I bin in two minds to ask ’ee to give Smut this job o’ mine and let me move downalong, wi’ Mother an’ the girls. I’m no great shakes at varmin meself but I could best Tamer’s efforts and maybe end up a credit to ’ee, Squire.’
‘It’s more or less what I had in mind, Sam,’ Paul told him, ‘but you and Joannie have been happy here. How will you really feel about moving out and letting Smut take over as keeper and woodsman?’
Sam looked glum and said, with a glance at his wife, ‘I’ll be honest with ’ee, Squire, us won’t like it at all, will us Joannie? Us’ve maade a praper nest for ourselves here an’ us don’t fancy going downalong, an’ bedding down in that old muddle! Still, us’d maake a better job of it than Smut and I zee no help for it if us is to give the varmint a fresh start!’
&
nbsp; The same thought had already occurred to Paul. Sam had more than justified his faith when he had set him up here and it was asking much of Joannie to leave her clean, tidy home and share a kitchen with Meg and her sluttish daughters. He said, ‘I don’t like the idea of uprooting you at all and maybe there’s another way round it. Perhaps I could get your mother a permanent hired man and settle Smut somewhere on a patch of his own.’
‘Beggin’ your pardon,’ Sam said, regretfully, ‘he’d never prosper on a patch of his own, Squire. ’Er’s a good sort at heart but ’er’s more shiftless than ever Tamer was. But if us dorn settle ’im somewheres you can be certain sure us is in trouble again, and neither me nor Joannie would like that, seein’ how good you been to us! No, us’ll get packed up, I reckon, and Smut can move in here. Mebbe he’ll marry an’ zettle down an’ if ’er does, then it will have been worth it. What do ’ee zay, Joannie?’
Joannie said, without looking up, ‘Aye, us have got to stand by the family and there’s an end to it!’
As he rode back through the woods it occurred to Paul that there must be some good blood in the Potters somewhere for how else could they produce courage like Tamer’s and loyalty like Sam’s? He wished, however, that he could buy a few acres west of Four Winds or north of Priory, in order to give Smut a fresh start without disrupting the lives of his brother and sister-in-law.
V
The announcement that John Rudd and Maureen O’Keefe were to marry in September intrigued and amused the Valley but it surprised no one. John, although much respected, had never captured the affection of the Valley people and when it was known that he was openly courting the lady-doctor (who, although acknowledged a far more skilful healer than her father, was judged even more eccentric) people like old Honeyman and the shepherd twins told one another that here was someone who might succeed in shaking old John out of himself and maybe encourage him to take himself less seriously. For in some ways Rudd remained a symbol of the Lovell regime and this despite the fact that he was known to be held in high regard by Squire Craddock.
Long Summer Day (A Horseman Riding By) Page 59
