Long Summer Day (13 page)

He was returning yellowing photographs to the shelf where he had found them when he saw the brass-bound Bible, a ponderous volume on the one shelf free of litter. He pulled it out, wondering why its clasp was secured by a small brass padlock, and it occurred to him that a Bible of this size and weight might contain a family tree, or perhaps a record of Lovell births and deaths over the century. The little padlock presented no difficulties and he prised it open with his penknife, turning to a flyleaf which was disappointingly blank. Then, opening the book at random, he almost dropped it with astonishment, for it was not a Bible at all but an album of near-pornographic photographs, most of them obviously the work of Sir George, for they were identical in tone, mounting and finish to the groups he had just laid aside.

He turned the pages curiously, glancing at twenty or more portraits of show-girls in various stages of undress and a variety of obscene poses. Some of them wore tights, others were draped in what looked like clusters of spangled tassels. The subjects were all plump, rather overblown girls, with great sturdy thighs, mountainous breasts and very ample behinds. Most of them were smirking into the camera, so that Paul found their poses grotesquely comic, as though the photographer, by housing them between the covers of a Bible, was playing a secret joke on society. There was nothing particularly shocking about the first half of the album. The girls were clearly the type who habitually posed for these kind of pictures, and their self-satisfied smiles and negligent poses indicated that they were not in the least ashamed of earning an honest half-guinea catering for their patron’s eccentric tastes. But then the nature of the gallery changed abruptly and Paul recognised, with a sense of shock, one of the older Potter girls, photographed against a background of artificial foliage and looking, he thought, a little frightened and incredulous, as well she might for she was stark naked, her disordered hair masking part of her face as she stood with shoulders slightly hunched, as though poised to run. There were several other pictures of this girl but in subsequent photographs she seemed to have gained confidence, for in two she was grinning and standing with feet astride and her hands on her hips. There were also photographs of a younger girl whom Paul did not recognise, a dark, wild-looking creature, who could not have been more than fifteen and had been permitted to retain an unlikely pair of drawers, frilled at the knee and very much beribboned, as though to heighten her forlorn appeal. She had been photographed standing in front of a full-length mirror and the result of the double reflection was somehow pathetic, as the camera had caught a pile of shabby discarded clothing in the bottom right-hand corner.

Paul stared at the pictures unbelievingly, wondering if chance had revealed to him a well-kept secret, or whether the whole Valley acknowledged George Lovell as a lustful old goat, whose secret pleasure was to coax young girls into this airless little room and bribe or frighten them into stripping and posing for his camera. The local pictures made him feel slightly sick and he pushed the window further open, wondering where he could hide the book until he had a chance to destroy it but as he moved a loose photograph fell to the floor and bending to retrieve it he saw that it was a study of another unidentifiable girl. This one, although naked, seemed to have clung to modesty of a sort, for she had turned her face away from the camera and used her hand as a screen. She was, thought Paul, an unwilling subject, but then he wondered, for a deliberate attempt had been made to pose her against the sylvan background and parody the pose of a surprised nymph. She was, he would judge, about the same age as the girl in the frilled drawers but better nourished, and possessing a more mature figure and a healthy skin. He was slipping the picture between the Bible covers when he heard a step in the library and for a moment he panicked, glaring round for somewhere to dispose of the wretched album. He had just thrust it alongside the festive groups when the door opened and Claire Derwent’s blonde head appeared. She did not seem surprised to find him there alone and smiled, showing beautiful teeth.

‘Why,
there
you are, Mr Craddock! Mr Rudd said you were in the library. I wanted to ask you if my sister and I can help about horses. He told me the news and everyone is delighted! Mr Rudd also told us you had bought the grey and we’re pleased about that too, because Rose bred him from Misty, one of the best mares we ever had in the Valley.’

Paul, thanking God that Claire Derwent had not been numbered among Sir George’s local models, made a determined attempt to compose himself, feeling almost that she had surprised him enjoying the old Satyr’s picture gallery.

‘It doesn’t matter a bit if it isn’t convenient now,’ Claire went on, mercifully oblivious of his confusion, ‘we could easily discuss it some other time, but if you need a good groom we happen to know of one who was a soldier like you, and has just come back seeking a post. We should also like you to know that we could come over and look after any horses if you had to go away again before you settled in. What I mean is, if we can help in any way you have only to ask, and father told me to say he’ll do anything he can to help because he’s just as pleased as we are that you’re going to be Squire!’

He had recovered sufficiently to pay some attention to her now and it struck him again that she was an extraordinarily pretty woman, with her small, neat head, tidy corn-coloured hair dressed in coiled plaits, Dutch fashion, clear blue eyes and soft, red mouth. Her figure was good too, not straight and lithe like her sister’s, but rather full, with small hands and feet, so that everything about her suggested neatness and vigorous health.

‘It’s very civil of you, Miss Derwent,’ he heard himself saying, ‘and I daresay I shall take advantage of your kindness. I’m very much taken with the grey and I expect, soon enough, I shall want a good cob for the trap, and maybe a second hunter. However, my first job is to try and get some kind of order into this chaos. The house needs a great deal of renovation, don’t you think?’

She looked round the room with a woman’s appraising eye for defects.

‘Eph Morgan will sort it out in no time,’ she said, ‘he’s the local builder Mr Rudd will recommend and what he can’t manage himself he’ll find somebody to do it. It’s going to be wonderful to have Shallowford come alive again after all this time. This could be a wonderful home, Mr Craddock, it only wants somebody like yourself to … well, to love it, and care for it! The Lovells were always coming and going, taking on people and getting rid of them, and really keen farmers like Daddy felt rather wretched about it all, you understand?’

‘It’s going to be different from now on,’ Paul promised and was surprised at his enthusiasm. ‘I’m going to like it here and I’ve no interest in town life. We could pull the place together in no time, providing every family is as co-operative as yours!’ And then, because he noticed a gleam of triumph in her eyes, he felt he had said too much, and added, lamely, ‘I’d like to see how things are getting on out there if you’ll excuse me, Miss Derwent, I only came in because it was so stuffy among the crowd in the big room.’

Oh, they’re all upstairs now,’ she said gaily, ‘selling the stuff in the guest-rooms. We’ve come over in the waggonette and brought a picnic lunch. Would you care to join us when they break for luncheon? We’re at the top of the drive and Daddy’s got some rather good claret.’

‘That’s kind of you,’ he said, ‘but I must ask Rudd if Mrs Handcock is expecting us for lunch.’

‘Oh, no, she isn’t,’ said Claire, ‘I’ve already asked Rudd and he said I was to ask you.’

‘Very well then, I should be delighted,’ said Paul, a little taken aback by her persistence, and they moved out of the library to join the crowd on the landing, at the point where the passages branched.

He could hear the auctioneer’s voice droning away at the far end of the corridor and the crowd made way for him in a way that suggested the news had already spread far and wide. He shed Claire on the way and here, looking over people’s heads, he saw that the room was packed with spectators and that some of the lots from the bedrooms had been carried in to provide more selling space. Then, in her familiar corner by the window, he saw Grace Lovell, and beside her, looking as if association with the crowd distressed them, was a slim erect man about fifty, and a handsome, hard-faced woman, in her mid-thirties, who held a lilac parasol and whose features were rigid with concentration. He identified them at once as Grace Lovell’s father and stepmother.

The auctioneer was selling Lot 250, the nursery screen, and before he was done with his patter Grace Lovell called ‘Ten shillings!’, speaking so quickly that her mouth was closed again before Paul had realised she was bidding.

‘Ten shillings!’ repeated the auctioneer, as one of his assistants lifted the screen, ‘Any advance on ten shillings? A lot of painstaking work has gone into this! How about some of you young ladies and gentlemen thinking of getting married …?’, and there was a dutiful titter, in which the Lovells did not join.

‘Fifteen!’ said a woman standing in front of Paul and he recognised Arabella Codsall.

‘One pound!’ Grace called, before the auctioneer could invite an advance and Arabella, with a tut-tut of irritation, said, crossly, ‘One guinea, then!’ and Paul caught a glimpse of Martin Codsall’s peaked face at his wife’s elbow.

The auctioneer glanced across to the silent trio by the window. ‘Come now, Miss Lovell, you’ll not let it go for that. Shall I say twenty-two and six?’

Grace shook her head and Paul, seeing her glance drop, said, ‘Thirty shillings, Mr Auctioneer!’, and everyone in the room turned to stare. There was a pause and then, swiftly, the auctioneer brought down his gavel. ‘Sold to Mr Craddock, and I’m delighted something else is staying where it belongs, sir! Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all in here and we’ll break for luncheon. The remaining lots, including all those outside, will be sold commencing two p.m. sharp!’, and the crowd began to surge out into the corridor, pressing Paul back to the landing, and downstairs to the hall where they streamed into the open.

Paul waited beside the big fireplace, watching Bruce Lovell and his wife descend the stairs, and pass into the forecourt. They did not see him and were engaged in low and earnest conversation. When Grace did not follow he went up again and along the corridor to the nursery. She was still there, standing with her back to the door examining the screen with care. He said, ‘I didn’t really want it, Miss Lovell, but I could see that you did and it didn’t seem right to lose it to Arabella Codsall. It’s yours if you want it and I can see that you do.’

She turned slowly, regarding him with disconcerting gravity.

‘Very well,’ she said, almost inaudibly, ‘I’ll send the money for it tonight. I daresay my father can get someone to collect it tomorrow.’

‘I don’t want paying for it,’ Paul said, ‘I’d like you to have it for old times’ sake. You said you used to come here as a child and I daresay this room has happy memories for you. I’d be very glad if you would let me make you a present of it, Miss Lovell.’

She continued to gaze fixedly at him and he decided that he wished she would sometimes make an effort to put him at ease. As if she could read his thoughts she suddenly dropped her glance and said, still very quietly, ‘Happy memories? I don’t know why I wanted the screen, I probably wouldn’t have looked at it when I got it home, but I helped to make it from scraps, cut up in the schoolroom. I was about seven or eight then, but it seems longer ago than that!’ She seemed almost as though she was talking to herself but suddenly her head came up and she smiled, ‘It was a kind thought anyhow, Mr Craddock, and I don’t intend to be churlish again! I’ll accept it as a gift—a going-away gift!’, and she walked past him into the corridor and down the stairs, leaving him as baffled as he had been by her two previous dismissals.

Chapter Four

I

Z
orndorff, enthroned on his high stool overlooking the yard, adjusted his half-moon spectacles and re-read Paul’s eight-page letter with the undivided attention he gave to every document addressed to him, even trade brochures and invoices. He had read it before that morning but hurriedly, to assess its factual worth. Now, with time on his hands, he dissected it, phrase by phrase.

It told of Paul’s meeting with Rudd and the understanding they had arrived at during their ride over the moor; it described the scenery, house, farms, tenants, sale and the terms of his contract with Rudd. It even reported on the progress of his wound but it said nothing of Grace Lovell, or of the episode concerning the nursery screen. Zorndorff, however, had been prising undisclosed information from letters too long to miss the inference that there was a pretty girl somewhere between the lines and her presence intrigued him, for he was aware of aspects of Craddock’s character of which Paul himself was unaware and among them was a certain loss of confidence engendered by the shock of his wound, his long illness and the certainty that he now faced life with a permanent disability. It was because he was aware of these factors that Zorndorff had not been impressed by the young man’s summary rejection of the scrap-iron business. To Craddock, as to any young man emerging from hospital with one leg shorter than the other, the world had a slightly sour taste and he would be ready to quarrel with everything until the period of adjustment had passed. The fact that a few days in the west had enabled him to mention his wound in passing satisfied the Croat that Paul had somehow succeeded in making that adjustment in a matter of days. Fresh air, soft scenery, and a visit to a few run-down farms, Zorndorff reasoned, would hardly have inspired a letter as jubilant as this; he wrote like a man in love and Zorndorff, who, despite preoccupation with business, had lived a full life, could appreciate the difference between the stimulus of a pretty landscape and that of a pretty woman. The only aspect of the letter that puzzled him was its postscript, obviously an afterthought. Paul had written:
‘One other thing— I need a stable lad and remembered that urchin, the one who was so smart with that cart-horse. Would he care to exchange smoke for fresh air? Anyway, ask him and advance his fare if he’ll come. He’ll get full board and half-a-crown a week, together with expert training as a groom.’

Zorndorff had to think hard before he recalled the incident and when he did he smiled wryly, judging that a street-urchin of Ikey Palfrey’s temperament would not willingly exchange the freedom of the streets for Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard. He blew down the speaking tube to Scotcher, the yard foreman, and instructed him to send Ikey Palfrey, Sophie Carrilovic’s boy, to the office as soon as he came in with a load.

The boy appeared within half-an-hour and Zorndorff guessed correctly that he had been playing truant again, for the schools, closed in anticipation of the coronation ceremony, had reopened as soon as it was known that the King would not be crowned until August. The boy stood before Zorndorff in his rags, eyeing him furtively, as though sure of a command to return to school at once which would mean a thrashing. Ikey Palfrey cared very little for a routine thrashing but he resented very much enforced separation from his barrow, for that meant loss of income. He said, with mock humility, ‘Gaffer said you ’ad special collection for me, sir,’ and Zorndorff chuckled.

‘Gaffer said nothing of the kind, boy. He told you I wanted a word with you, and it isn’t for skipping school either. Why should I care a damn if you remain illiterate?’

The boy relaxed a little, although he still looked ready to dart out of the door.

‘Wot was it then?’

‘It’s this,’ Zorndorff said, and read the postscript aloud, watching the boy’s bewildered expression. ‘You don’t recall Mr Craddock then?’

‘Yerse, I do,’ Ike said at once. ‘’Ee got me a tanner, didn’t he? I ain’t likely to fergit that—earning a tanner, just fer savin’ that bleedin’ carter’s head from being kicked in!’

The boy’s nasal accent jarred Zorndorff’s nerves and he found it difficult to believe that Sophie Carrilovic, a woman born and reared in Zagreb, could have produced a child who could so outrage a foreign tongue. He would wager that the boy could not speak one word of Croat but then, why should he? He was probably nine-tenths the son of that layabout Palfrey, whom Sophie had been obliged to marry in order to acquire British nationality.

‘Very well, you remember him,’ Zorndorff said shortly, ‘but you don’t know that he is Mr Craddock’s son, or that he was badly wounded in the war.’

‘No, I never knew that,’ Ike admitted, ‘but wot’s the odds, Mister Zorndorff? What’s that ter me?’

‘Mr Craddock seems to think you can be taught to handle horses,’ said Franz, now rather enjoying the interview.

‘I c’n ’andle ’em nah, I don’t need to be taught nothin’ about ’orses,’ said Ike sharply but Zorndorff saw that he was impressed by the offer. ‘’Arf-a-crahn an’ all fahnd,’ he murmured. ‘Well, it don’t sahnd bad, do it? Pervidin’ you could pick up the odd bit o’ scrap and flog it. Could you do that dahn there, Mr Zorndorff?’

‘I feel confident that you could do it anywhere,’ said Franz, ‘but I wouldn’t like you to miss the main point. Mr Craddock probably intends that you should learn a trade. You aren’t likely to get that opportunity here if I know your parents, and as a stable lad on a big estate I daresay you would have a chance to ride real horses, not cart-horses. You might even become a jockey before you’re finished!’

The boy’s face shone. ‘Cor!’ he said. ‘You ain’t kiddin’, Mr Zorndorff? You wouldn’t kid abaht a thing like that? I alwus reckoned I could be a jockey, ser long as I don’t grow no more. I’ll take it, Mr Zorndorff, if you’ll ’ave a word wi’ Mum, but don’t let the ol’ girl talk you aht of it, will yer?’

It was all arranged with the maximum despatch and Franz Zorndorff, pondering the caprices of mankind, went along to Sophie Carrilovic’s two-roomed dwelling that same afternoon, depriving her of her eldest son and partial support, comforting her with promises of a substitute, and despatching Ikey to buy himself a suit of corduroys and two flannel shirts in the Bermondsey market.

The boy presented himself fully kitted and with undeclared small change in his pocket the following morning and Franz, after inspecting him, gave him a Gladstone bag to hold his scanty possessions, plus a sovereign for his travelling expenses. It was the sight of the coin that destroyed Ikey Palfrey’s composure. As he stood looking down at it in the palm of his hand Zorndorff saw him for what he was, a grimy, raggletailed, undernourished little boy of ten or eleven, with the fear and cunning of the jungle lurking behind his eyes. He had seen thousands of such children during his lifetime both here and in Austria, but for some reason the sight of Ikey Palfrey touched him and he said gently, ‘You don’t know what might come of this, Ike. Work hard and don’t steal. Even if you’re not caught you’ll be likely to cause Mr Craddock trouble. It was very strange that he should remember you, so make the most of it for I have a feeling that you won’t regret what you’re doing. There now, make yourself scarce, tell him I’ll write and might even come and see you both one fine day.’

The boy, thrown off guard by Zorndorff’s tone, stuck a knuckle in his eye and then, with a long sniff, jerked himself erect and bestowed upon his employer a Cockney wink. Zorndorff, shamed by his emotions, frowned but he watched him march down the ramp and through the debris to the double gates of the yard, and the boy must have realised that the Croat was watching for, when he reached the road, he suddenly turned and lifted his hand, a gesture that surprised Franz very much. ‘Now why the devil did he do that?’ he asked himself aloud. ‘Was he simply acknowledging my part in the business, or was he saying good-bye to the only place in the world that ever gave him anything but hard knocks?’ Then he put the boy out of mind and addressed himself to totting up a list of fractions with the speed of an adding machine.

Ikey Palfrey was not entirely unfamiliar with the country. Twice in the last few years he had been hop-picking in Kent, and on two occasions he had travelled as far as Leith Hill in Surrey, on Sunday School treats, but always, when he had passed outside the rings of brick and stone that enclosed his entire world he had done so in the raucous company of two score of his neighbours, so that the terrible emptiness of a landscape had gone more or less unnoticed, had seemed, indeed, less real than the green patches on railway posters.

Now, for the first time in his life he was alone in it, and long before the train stopped to change engines at Salisbury the defensive crust of his urban cockiness had cracked and fallen away, leaving him as vulnerable as a country-bred child turned loose in a populous city. He was, however, very far from being a weakling. He in no way resented the cruelty of the society into which he had been born but fought back, more or less successfully, with fists, hobnailed boots, artfulness and lies. These weapons, however, were no defence against the loneliness that enfolded him as he sat looking out of the window at miles and miles of fields, coppices and picture-book farms, all as alien to him as the upper reaches of the Amazon. How, he wondered, did one find one’s way about in a place bereft of landmarks, where every field and hedge were identical and every patch of woodland cover for nameless enemies? What did people do with themselves by day in such a wilderness? And when night fell, and darkness pressed down like a thick wet sack, how could one sleep with a certainty of waking again? He was by no means an introspective child, and was incapable of rationalising his fears, but they were there just the same, multiplying with every clack of the wheels, and in the terrifying isolation of the frowsy third-class carriage they began to undermine his courage, so that he would have burst into tears had it not been for the coins in his trouser pocket. Zorndorff had given him a sovereign and the fare demanded of him at Waterloo had been half-a-sovereign; never having possessed this sum before he regarded it as a special talisman against evil, and when he was not looking at it he was holding it in his moist palms, together with the small change left over from the sum given him to buy clothes. Ever since he could remember money had been a guarantee against oppression and the everyday hazards of cold and hunger. He had enormous respect for coins, all kinds of coins. With a halfpenny one could buy a roasted potato on a frosty night; with a penny for a juicy meat pie one could not only avoid going to bed supperless but could exchange half the pie for a seat beside a night-watchman’s brazier. These things were fundamentals and coins were the keys to them, so that even the nameless dread conjured up by the endless fields and woods must, he reasoned, be subordinate to so much wealth, for today, by the mercy of God and his own prudence, he was worth thirteen shillings and sevenpence; in view of that there could not be much to worry about.

They had told him at Waterloo that the journey would take about six hours but as he had no means of knowing the time it seemed to pass very slowly. He had eaten his pies and sandwiches long ago, and had begged a mug of water from a porter at one of the stops, but now he was both hungry and thirsty, and also much agitated by the prospect of overshooting his stop and missing the junction where he had been told to change trains. His stomach cart-wheeled with relief when the guard looked in and told him to get out at the next stop and there was only one other train at the branch siding, so that he was able, to some degree, to compose himself during the brief journey to Sorrel Halt. But when he arrived there, and there was no one to meet him, he gave himself up for lost.

He sat down on a platform seat, staring out over the empty moor like the sole survivor of a shipwreck gazing over a waste of water. The great moor, yellow with drought, stretched away in the distance, and across it ran the single white ribbon of a road. The sun, blood-red and ominous, was setting over the woodlands on his left, but the minutes ticked by and still no one appeared. What, Ike asked himself, did one do in such circumstances? What could one do but pray?