Long Summer Day (25 page)

Paul said, ‘Will’s been here, Mrs Codsall, and I’ve granted him a lease on Priory,’ whereupon Arabella, turning red in the face, burst out, ‘Then he’s more underhanded than I could have believed, Mr Craddock! Everyone in the Valley knows that land rightfully belongs to the Hermitage holding, and that when Hardcastle died it would go back to the Pitts!’

‘That was the intention, Mrs Codsall,’ Paul said, patiently, ‘but after hearing Will’s intention to marry I thought it fair to give him a place of his own. Honeyman says he’ll make a first-class farmer if we give him encouragement.’

The word ‘encouragement’ lit a fuse in Arabella’s brain.

‘Encouragement!’ she blustered, ‘you think that wicked boy
needs
encouragement? Or her either, that chit who’s bewitched him, along of her ranting father? Do you know what Will did the day he walked out on me an’ his dad at Four Winds?’

‘Yes,’ said Paul, trying hard not to smile, ‘he threw a shepherd’s pie at your cuckoo clock!’

‘Is that any way to carry on in front of his own mother and father?’ demanded Arabella. ‘You give him that tenancy, Mr Craddock, and you’ll rue the day! A boy that wilful won’t make a success of anything—farm, marriage or what all!’

‘Suppose I didn’t,’ argued Paul, somewhat ruffled by her attempt to browbeat him, ‘how would he earn his living? Deepdene can’t support two families and he’d have to leave the Valley and work as a hired hand.’

Martin made his first real contribution to the discussion, and it seemed to Paul that for once he spoke without reference to his wife’s prejudice.

‘He’s no call to go hiring himself to anyone outside the Valley,’ he growled. ‘He’s our firstborn, an’ Four Winds’ll come to him in the course o’ time. He can come home any time he’s a mind to.’

‘With Elinor?’ Paul asked and there was a pause, during which both of them looked at Arabella.

‘Yes,’ she said finally, ‘with her, if he won’t come alone. They can set up in one of the cottages, and we’ll make the best of it, so long as they’re married in church that is! I won’t have a son of mine bedding his woman on the strength of a chapel wedding!’

For a moment Paul considered. It was obvious that Martin, irrespective of his wife, longed to have Will restored to him and as the elder of the Codsall boys his inheritance of the lease was protocol in the Valley but Paul doubted the wisdom of settling a truculent boy like Will, and a spirited girl like Elinor, on Codsall land, within close range of Arabella’s tongue. He wished then that Rudd, or Claire, were at hand to advise him, for instinct warned him that an incident like this could poison his relationship with the tenantry. Then he recalled Will Codsall’s shining eyes and his heartfelt gratitude on the previous day and it occurred to him that Sydney Codsall, his younger brother, was his mother’s favourite, so that Will might not inherit Four Winds after all. He said, bluntly, ‘It wouldn’t work, Mrs Codsall. Will’s almost of age, and from what I’ve seen of him he’ll be happier left to himself. He can still have Priory if he wants it but I’ll see that he knows your offer to return home.’

‘You’ll advise him to?’ This was from Martin, whose face, in contrast to that of his wife, had paled under the stress of the interview. ‘I’ll tell him,’ Paul promised, ‘but he and Elinor must make their own decision.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have believed it!’ said Arabella. ‘I just wouldn’t have believed it!’, and she marched towards the library door as Paul rose, saying, ‘The boy’s got his own way to make in the world, Mrs Codsall. There’s no sense in alienating him by making such a silly to-do over whom he marries. There are worse families hereabouts than the Willoughbys.’

‘Yes,’ she said, turning at the door and looking more venomous than he could have believed possible, ‘there
are
worse, Mr Craddock, but I can only name one—the Potters! Maybe you would have helped him to drag us down to
their
level, if he’d taken a fancy to one of they harlots in the Dell!’

Her implacability was like a wall of ice and to overcome her monstrous prejudice, to touch her in any way, one would have to chip away at frozen blocks of pride, ignorance and pretension, accumulated over the years since she had been a child over her father’s shop. He saw that he was unequal to the task but his failure saddened him, for he recognised her now as an enemy and he doubted if he could afford an enemy as formidable as the wife of the best farmer in the Valley. He tried once again.

‘Don’t you see, I must do what I think is right, Mrs Codsall—right for Will, and for the Willoughbys, as well as for you? Will doesn’t really want to go his own way but your way wouldn’t lead to anything but more trouble.’

She gave him a final bleak look and was gone but Martin remained a moment, lifting his shoulders and spreading his hands in a gesture of despair.

‘Can’t you do anything with her at all?’ Paul asked, and Martin, looking at him unblinkingly, said, ‘No, Squire, I can’t an’ never could! Nor can’t anyone hereabouts! I’ve always been one for peace, for turning the other cheek as the Good Book says, but after twenty years of it I’ve come to realise that baint right way to go about it! Holy Writ can make mistakes, like the rest of us! You might spend your life sowing Christian seed but the harvest on my land’ll be tares just the same!’

He went out after his wife and the chill in the room was not solely the result of the steady drip of rain from the verandah. Paul stood looking after them, trying to persuade himself that what had happened was a trivial incident, and would seem even more trivial in retrospect but he knew, deep in his heart, that this was not so and that Martin’s tares would be much in evidence before a year was past. The certainty of this made him more angry with himself than with Arabella. Old Squire Lovell, he thought, would have managed it so much better.

II

H
e remained despondent all day, although Will Codsall’s high spirits when he called to say he would have the Priory farmhouse habitable in a matter of weeks confirmed Paul in the rightness of his decision. Then, for a time, he forgot the Codsalls, for Ikey came in with news that the carrier serving the triangle between Whinmouth, Coombe Bay and Sorrel Halt, had left a sealed wicker basket addressed to
P. Craddock Shallowford House,
and that it contained some kind of animal, advertising its discomfort by scratching and whimpering. He followed Ikey into the yard and helped Chivers cut the fastenings. At the bottom of the crate, crouched and abject, was a half-grown puppy, with a label attached to its collar. On the label, in a neat feminine hand, was written,
‘She has a defect in one eye and was condemned. No good for gun but rather appealing, don’t you think?’
and then the angular initials ‘G.L.’.

He examined the dog carefully, finding it a well-bred golden Labrador bitch, and Chivers, inspecting the eyes, confirmed that there was indeed a slight defect but that otherwise the animal was very healthy although he doubted if it could be trained for the gun. Paul carried the puppy back into the house, setting it down before the library fire. He was touched not only by Grace’s kindness towards the little reject but also by this proof that he had remained in her mind although it puzzled him somewhat to reflect that she should go to the trouble of sending a puppy all the way from London when she had not bothered to write a postcard. He sat on for a spell toying with names. ‘Grace’ suggested itself but donor and dog had little in common. The pup was a shrinking little creature, already absorbing the warmth of the fire, and was clearly without a trace of Grace Lovell’s prickly self-containment.

There was a meet the following day at Heronslea, Gilroy’s place beyond the Teazel, and because it was the first of the season within easy travelling distance the Valley contributed more than half the field. On his way down the river road Paul overtook a local cavalcade, consisting of Tamer Potter on a sturdy cob, Edward Derwent and Rose, riding two of the most mettlesome horses in the Valley, and several farmers from further along the coast, some of whom Paul knew by sight. Rose was polite but distant but Derwent confined his greeting to a nod and a touch of his hat. Claire, Rose told him, was still away in Kent, but when Paul pressed her for details she seemed disinclined to gossip and he put this down to the fact that she was riding an untried gelding and had her hands full for, on reaching the crossing where Arthur and Henry Pitts came cantering down from Hermitage, the big horse threw up its head and screamed, sidling towards the river and only returning to the road in response to Rose’s urgent whispers and firm, gentle pressures. Paul admired both her skill and nerve but secretly relished the fact that he was riding a horse as docile and well-mannered as Snowdrop, whom he could ride on a loose rein. Arthur Pitts was in his customary good humour and gave his blessing on Will Codsall’s tenancy of the adjoining freehold.

‘He’s a good lad, and I’m all for seeing him start on his own,’ he said. ‘Me and Henry have as much as us can manage, Mr Craddock, so dornee give another thought to what you had in mind about tacking they acres on to our boundary! That boy of Arabella’s needs to be out of range of his mother’s tongue and Willoughby’s li’l maid will make un a praper wife, mark my words! There baint a girl between Sorrel and the county border as can rear better chicken, nor make better clotted crame!’

Paul thanked him and wished heartily that all his tenants had the amiability of the Pitts family. Skirting the Codsall farmstead they headed west over the shallow Teazel to Heronslea Woods, picking their way through the extensive larch coverts to the big white house, where old Gilroy and his son were standing on the broad steps under the portico watching the butler serve stirrup cup but otherwise remaining aloof. Gilroy had given up hunting some years before and his son confined himself to attending one or two lawn meets and the big Boxing Day event. Gilroy’s chief whip, the virtual master of the pack, took charge of field operations, and at eleven o’clock they moved off to draw Folly Wood, behind the house, where they found at once and dashed off on a north-easterly line, across Blackberry Moor and over the railway.

There were several checks and Paul had leisure to enjoy the unfamiliar stretch of country and watch the antics of such of the field as he knew personally. Parson Bull lived up to his reputation as a thruster, pounding along on a barrel-chested piebald and cursing everyone who got in his way. He represented, thought Paul, a Christianity that was as dead as the Plantagenets and watching him plunge through a gap on the heels of the chief whip, it struck him that Bull had no business to be drawing an annual stipend for preaching the Sermon on the Mount, for anyone less meek would be difficult to find in the shire. Then a joyful shout from Henry Pitts made him qualify his verdict, for Henry, drawing level with Paul on an upslope, shouted, ‘Keep Passon in view, Mr Craddock! If us loses un us’ll never be in at the kill!’, and Paul thought that whatever Bull’s demerits he had at least won the respect of his parishioners to a man. Rose Derwent, giving the gelding his head, was away up in front and Derwent, who rode just as fearlessly, was not far behind. Tamer Potter panted along in the rear, and was soon left behind but Paul managed to keep up with the middle section of the field, a group that included the two Pitts, young Gilroy (who rode as though he was indifferent as to the outcome of the day) and several of the farmers along the coast.

They killed about a mile beyond the railway and found again an hour later but this time the field moved off so quickly, and became so scattered in the broken country north of Shallowford Woods, that Paul soon found himself alone and decided to call it a day. He took a bearing on the red knob of Coombe Bluff, and following a stream that flowed south, pushed on through the woods until he saw the gleam of the mere below. He was skirting the eastern arm of the pool, within sight of Sam Potter’s cottage, when Sam ran out and hailed him, waving his arms in a way that implied a certain amount of urgency, so Paul put Snowdrop at the ditch separating them and cantered into the clearing, where Sam came running, his brown face glowing with excitement, his huge boots crashing through the dead bracken stalks.

‘’Er’s arrived, Mr Craddock!’ he bellowed, when he was still fifty yards distant, ‘’er come sudden, two or dree hours since, and ’er’s the prettiest li’l maid in the Valley!’

Paul looked for the doctor’s gig and not seeing it said, ‘Well, I’m delighted, Sam! Is Doctor O’Keefe with your wife now?’

‘Lord bless us no, he baint showed up yet!’ Sam said, striding along with one hand on Snowdrop’s leathers, ‘Joannie told me her time was come first light so I had the choice o’ leavin’ her, or waitin’ until Aaron Stokes come up to the mere for his withies. Zoon as I zeed him I sent him off for doctor, but that warn’t till noon! It don’t signify tho’, fer I managed well enough, and Joannie seems comfortable. Will ’ee … will ’ee go up, an’ taake a look at ’er, Squire? I tell ’ee, ’er’s the prettiest maid in the Valley!’

‘You mean you delivered the child yourself?’ Paul asked, incredulously and Sam shrugged his shoulders, grinning. ‘Well, there warn’t no choice, was there? I fetched calves an’ foals often enough, and there baint all that difference, Maister!’

Paul climbed the stairs with some misgivings and peeped into the bedroom, the one upstairs room of the cottage. Joan Potter, wan but triumphant, was sitting up in bed feeding the child and when she saw him she blushed, saying softly, ‘Why ever didn ’e call up first, Sam? Squire’s a bachelor, and whatever will ’ee think of us?’

Paul said, ‘Well—er—congratulations, both of you! I didn’t realise babies could arrive without a doctor but you seem to have managed all right. What are you going to call it—her?’

‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘I was thinking us ought to leave that to you, Squire, seein’ you’m the first bar us to zet eyes on the tacker! Baint her a pretty li’l maid?
Baint
her, tho’?’, and he plucked aside the shawl to reveal a brick-red face crowned by a clownish patch of black hair. ‘’Er’s the spit of her Gran! Dark as a Gyppo, and likely as full o’ mischief! Now
you
have the naming of her, Mr Craddock, for us was goin’ to call her after you, saving your presence, if er’d been a boy, warn’t us, Joannie?’