Dead Man Riding (4 page)

‘He is fathoms deep in love. I think Kit may be as well, but he hides it better.'

I was amazed to find myself saying it to him, as if we'd been on close conversational terms for years. He grimaced, but it seemed to be at the thing itself rather than at me for saying it.

‘Odd, don't you think, that we've managed to convince ourselves that that's an enviable state. The ancients didn't think so. Being in love was a madness the gods wished on you, like an illness.'

‘Yes.' I stared out of the window, thinking about something I certainly wasn't going to tell him about. Then I saw, from our reflections, that he was looking at me as if I had.

‘Luckily most people seem to recover,' he said. Then, after a little silence, ‘So you think that's all that's worrying Beston?'

‘Should there be anything else?'

‘It struck me that the nearer we get to his uncle's place, the more nervous he's becoming.'

‘Perhaps it's because we've all built the old man into a kind of mythic beast. He's probably not half as interesting in reality and Alan thinks he'll come as a disappointment.'

‘It struck me that he's not quite sure we'll all be welcome.'

‘But his uncle sent him a telegram and told him he could bring his whole tribe.'

‘Is that the telegram he's carrying around with him?'

‘Is he?'

‘He dropped it on the floor when he was getting out his penknife and scooped it up as if he expected it to run away from him.'

I thought of Alan's face in the torchlight. Meredith obviously decided not to press the subject.

‘We must be getting near Carlisle. Will you excuse me if I go and start getting my things together?'

*   *   *

We'd been told that it would be easiest to go all the way up to Carlisle then change on to the line that went south-westwards down to Maryport on the coast. The nearest town to where Alan's uncle lived was about halfway along the line. There was nearly an hour to wait for our connection so we piled our bags and cases and hampers on the platform and strolled up and down in the afternoon sun. A line of coal wagons clanked past, a reminder that this little corner of the country had mines as well as farms. It was a part of England I'd never set foot in before but the pleasure of being on the edge of a new place was clouded by wondering about Alan. I saw him standing on his own at the far end of the platform staring down the line and went over to him. He turned round, looking alarmed.

‘Everything all right, Nell?'

I decided to come straight out with it. ‘What exactly did your uncle say in that telegram?'

His eyes went to Imogen, sitting with Midge on a bench at the other end of the platform.

‘Has she asked?'

‘No. But there's some problem, isn't there?'

‘It depends what you mean by a problem.'

‘He doesn't want the whole pack of us, is that it?'

I thought I'd understood. If his uncle had withdrawn the offer of hospitality when faced with an invasion by four men and three women, Alan was in a dilemma. It would have been sensible to break the news to us before we left Oxford but that would have meant losing his chance to spend most of the summer with Imogen, and when was a man in love ever sensible?

‘Oh no, he's quite happy for us all to stay. Only…'

‘Only what?'

He licked his lips and looked back along the platform again, though Imogen was nowhere near within hearing.

‘You won't tell her?'

‘If there's a problem she'll find out soon enough.'

‘There might be nothing to find out. It probably isn't anything … His idea of a joke.'

‘Suppose you just show me his telegram?'

He took it out of his pocket and slipped it into my hand like a man passing a bribe. I opened it and read BRING YOUR WHOLE TRIBE AND WELCOME. My brain was just registering that I'd misjudged him when my eyes took in the next phrase – PROVIDED THEY DON'T MIND STAYING WITH A MURDERER. I stared at Alan as he held out his hand for the telegram.

‘What on earth does he mean?'

‘I haven't the faintest idea.'

Chapter Three

W
E
ARRIVED AT
THE LOCAL STATION IN THE
early evening, tired from a long day's travelling, skin prickly from railway upholstery and clothes smelling of engine smoke. The train went on its way down to the coalmines and the coast and left us standing on the platform while Nathan and an old porter organised our pile of luggage. There seemed a lot of it for seven people intent on living simply. As well as the knapsacks and cases of books I counted at least three food hampers and a small crate of bottled ale. The porter heaved three cases and a hamper on to his trolley and looked towards the empty station yard.

‘Where to, sir?'

Nathan looked at Alan. Alan looked worried.

‘There isn't a cart or anything to meet us?'

‘Where from, sir?'

‘Studholme Hall. Mr Beston's place.'

The porter's face was weather-beaten and as wrinkled as a hippo's hide. It wasn't the kind of face that changed expression easily but I had a feeling he didn't like what he'd heard.

‘No sir.'

‘Is there anywhere we can get a cab?'

‘Cab's away to Carlisle. Thank you sir.'

He accepted a tip and strolled away. Alan called to him to wait, but he didn't seem to hear.

‘We can't stay here all night,' Imogen said.

Meredith looked amused. ‘We could if we really had to, but there may be alternatives.'

I guessed that he was deliberately holding back. As the oldest one of us he might have taken the lead, but it was his pupil's party. At the moment Alan looked far from happy about that, but he took the hint.

‘Kit and I'll walk up to the town. There'll probably be a pub with a fly or something to hire.'

He and Kit went off at a good pace. The remaining five of us finished off the strawberries and lemonade and then Nathan got his pipe going, always a considerable performance. He smoked a particular kind of tobacco mix that a shop in Oxford compounded to his recipe. It smelt of old rope and overripe apples and he'd brought a dozen tins with him. Once the pipe was fuming away to his liking he produced a length of string from his bulging pocket and did tricks to entertain us – knotting his own wrists together until it looked as if they'd take hours to undo, then releasing the whole cat's cradle with one tug of his teeth, pipe still in mouth. Only Midge managed to work up much interest and while he was showing her how the trick was done Alan and Kit came back. Alan looked angry and, I thought, a little scared.

‘We can't get one.'

Kit said, ‘There's a fly in the pub yard but they won't hire it to us. They say there's something wrong with the axle. Alan offered them a sovereign if somebody would just drive us a few miles to his uncle's place, but they weren't interested.'

From Alan's expression, he wished Kit hadn't told us that.

Imogen asked, ‘So what do we do now?'

It was about seven o'clock by then, three hours or so of daylight left. I think we were all waiting for Meredith to make a suggestion but he just stood there, politely interested.

‘We could walk,' I said.

I'd brought a map with me and had been looking at it while we were waiting. Studholme Hall was marked, no more than five or six miles away by country lanes. Five or six miles uphill as it happened, but it was no good depressing them even more. Midge asked what we should do about all the luggage.

‘We'll have to leave most of it here and have it collected tomorrow. We can put the things we shall need for overnight in the rucksacks.'

It took some time for us all to root out our hiking boots and get essential things packed into the three rucksacks we had among the seven of us. All the time the sun was sliding down the sky and our chances of getting under a roof before it was dark were going with it. That didn't worry me or Midge – who'd led a tomboy life with her brothers – but I could see Imogen was unhappy. There was a point in the repacking when one of the men's shaving kits and her nightdress and washbag were lying jumbled together on the platform and she gave me a look of pure panic. Then Nathan found a flat wagon at the end of the platform and we loaded all the rest of our luggage on to it and pushed and pulled it under a lean-to shelter by the ticket office, with a note in block capitals saying it was to await collection. By that time a group of boys around nine or ten years old had gathered by the railings separating the platform from the station yard and were watching us, not offering to help. I said to Meredith, who happened to be next to me on the cart handle, ‘Those boys worry me.'

‘Why?'

‘When a boy passes up a chance to earn a shilling, there's something odd going on.'

At last we were organised with Kit, Nathan and myself carrying the rucksacks. Alan had tried to take mine from me, but I wouldn't let him. The road from the station passed between terraces of workers' cottages on the outskirts of the small town. There were strings of faded red, white and blue flags looped across the street and a poster in the corner shop window announced ‘Mafeking Relieved' with a portrait of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell. It had happened six or seven weeks before, and if we'd had more energy the signs of celebration might have sparked off a discussion. In our group, all of us had our doubts about the Boer War but with most of the country in a patriotic frenzy you had to be careful about how and where you voiced your opinions. I had a cousin serving with the cavalry in South Africa and hated to think of him risking his life in what seemed to me a piece of imperial bullying. By the look of it, this part of the country was solidly behind Queen, Government and Empire. Some of the families along the street probably had sons in the army. It seemed a sociable place if you lived there. People were out on their front steps, chatting to each other and enjoying the evening. The boys who'd been watching us back at the station had fallen in behind us, still at a distance. It was natural that we'd attract attention but odd that none of the people on the doorsteps answered when we said good evening to them. One man even turned away and went inside.

‘Don't seem to care for strangers round here,' Nathan said.

Just after we passed the last house in the terrace the stones started flying. They came from the boys following us and the first flew over our heads and landed at Alan's feet. Then two or three more, one of them thudding against Kit's rucksack. He whirled round and ran back along the street towards the boys, Alan and Nathan following. The boys yelled out something in shrill voices, both scared and defiant, and disappeared behind the houses. Suddenly all the front doors had shut and there was nobody watching, just rows of closed windows glowing orange in the low sun.

Imogen called to the men, ‘Come back. Come back, it's no good.'

They came unwillingly, furious.

‘The little…'

‘Their parents didn't even try to stop them.'

We walked on. I was glad when we'd left the town behind us and were on the uphill road. It was a deep lane with ferns and red campion growing up the banks, thick hazel hedges at the top so it was already deep dusk.

Alan and I led the way at first but after a while I let him have the map and dropped back with the other two women because I was worried that Midge might still be having trouble with her ankle. She was stoic as usual and insisted it wasn't bothering her. Imogen had gone silent and was walking in the plodding automatic way of somebody who can't imagine the journey ever ending. The first of the bats were flying across the lane before she said anything.

‘Those boys, Nell, did you hear what they were shouting when they ran off?'

‘I'm not sure.'

‘It sounded like “murderers”. Could it have been? What did they mean?'

‘They were just boys. Don't worry about it.'

*   *   *

I tried to take my own advice and stop worrying because walking in the country on a fine night like this was what I'd pined for when shut up indoors. The clouds had cleared and a warm breeze was blowing, with wafts of hay and wild flowers coming off the fields and the sound of little streams. Above all there was the sense of the high hills not far away with a different smell about them that was difficult to define but somehow harder and older than the fields, perhaps the smell of the bare rock itself that you don't get in the soft south. Although I couldn't see them I knew that the Uldale Fells were to the east of us and the foothills of Skiddaw a little way to the south. We had the landscape almost to ourselves except sometimes we'd pass a track with the dark shape of a house at the end of it, the glow of candlelight or lamplight in a window and a dog barking. Once we saw a man checking a cattle trough at the side of a field with his back to us. Usually I'd have called out good evening but this time I said nothing. The others walked past in silence too. I think the experience with the boys had made us all unsure of our welcome. If he was aware of us, he must have found us a strange intrusion. It was too late in the day and too far north of the popular Lake District tourist areas for a rambling party. Besides, we didn't look like one. Our clothes weren't right and there was no spring in our steps, no sense of being pleased with ourselves.

We tried to keep together but got strung out. Alan and Kit walked in front. I could see Alan was torn between his responsibility as leader of the party and concern for Imogen because he kept looking back at her. For most of the time, Michael Meredith walked on his own a little way behind them, moving with a good easy stride and looking as if he, at any rate, might be enjoying it. Then there were the three of us, plus Nathan who was carrying the heaviest rucksack and kept up a continuous flow of jokes and silly remarks that were obviously intended to keep our spirits up and worked after a fashion, more because of his good-heartedness than the quality of the jokes.