Long Summer Day (26 page)

His wife confirmed this, admitting that she had been disappointed at first but was now reconciled to the child’s sex, ‘because Sam be as plaised as a mongrel wi’ two tails and us can have a bushel o’ boys laater on!’

Admiring their comforting directness and cordiality Paul thought how wise John Rudd had been to advise him that Sam, the pick of the Potter litter, was a man who would respond to trust.

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘since “Paul” is out how about “Pauline”?’ and Sam, scratching his head said, ‘
Be
there such a name for a maid, Squire? Then, so be it, “Pauline Potter”! Damme they zeems to run together, dorn ’em? Arr, Pauline it is, and now you must wet the baby’s head, Squire, and praise to God you was the first along to do it, for I reckon it’d be old Aaron Stokes and he be one o’ they bliddy Temperance loonies!’

Paul said good-bye to Joannie and followed Sam down to the kitchen, where Sam filled two pewter tankards with rough cider from a barrel under the sink. The brew was in the Potter tradition, about twice as potent as the cider Paul had drunk at The Raven and when he had emptied his mug he took from his pocket a five-shilling piece that he had carried as a good luck charm through the last year of his service in the Transvaal.

‘Here, Sam,’ he said, ‘keep it for Pauline or buy her something with it if you’d rather. It was given to me in Pretoria, and although it didn’t bring me much luck in the field I was too superstitious to spend it before I was wounded,’ and he pressed the coin into Sam’s hand. Sam was overwhelmed. ‘Damn it,’ he said, ‘I’ll bore un through, an’ the maid can have it for a necklace. From Pretoria, you said, sir? Would ’er be Kruger coinage, with the old Queen’s head on it?’

‘No,’ said Paul, laughing, ‘it’s English money. They paid us in crown pieces over there; they weren’t so easily lost as smaller coins. If you want a real souvenir I’ll give you a Boer testament, printed in Afrikaans, with a bullet-hole through it. I’ll be off now, before the doctor comes. If you need anything for the baby, blankets or a cot, let me know, and we’ll see what Mrs Handcock can find in the attics.’

‘You done more’n enough getting me an’ Joannie out o’ the Dell,’ Sam said, solemnly, ‘and I’ll maake it up to ’ee one way or another, sir. Things are good hereabouts an’ like to get better, downalong and upalong, and it’s all your doin’ I reckon, you an’ Mr Rudd’s.’

‘Is that what most of them say, Sam?’ Paul asked, feeling very encouraged.

‘Arr, it be,’ Sam confirmed, ‘leastways, them as matters. Good-bye, and God bless ’ee, Mr Craddock!’ and he held the stirrup as Paul swung himself into the saddle.

It was dusk in the wood as he put Snowdrop at the long slope to the meadow, where he and Claire had surprised Hazel Potter talking to the squirrel, and as he went along he began to do a sum in his head, balancing the credit and debit of his account to date as Squire of Shallowford. On the credit side was an obviously happy and well-housed Sam Potter, and a liberated Will Codsall, to which could be added, perhaps, the coronation supper-ball, but on the debit side the Derwents had clearly taken the huff over something and there was also Arabella Codsall, who would not easily forgive his championship of Will and Elinor. At the foot of this balance-sheet, however, was Sam’s heart-warming pronouncement, ‘Things are good hereabouts an’ like to get better …’ Well, he hoped they would get better as time went along and he could translate all he felt for the woods and fields and farms of the Valley into action but from this point his thoughts enlarged themselves into a more general contemplation of the future.

At the top of the slope he reined in to give Snowdrop a breather, sitting with his legs free of the stirrups and looking down through the straggle of woods to the mere. The basin was full of violet dusk and the great clumps of oaks, immediately below, still showed traces of summer, like dowagers clinging to the rags of finery. All the other trees, except the evergreens, had surrendered to autumn and away to the west, where the woods ran down to Home Farm pastures, the beeches stood like huge, bronze mushrooms, marching through a shallow sea of green. Most of the hedgerow flowers were gone but here and there, as a pledge of spring, was a stray campion and on the very edge of the wood a few foxgloves, still standing sentinel with bells ready to ring. As always, unless the wind was in the north, he could smell the sea here, and its tang reminded him of ventures past so that he could isolate his purpose as never before.

What was his true purpose in the Valley? What was he trying to do with and for the scattered families, enclosed by the sea, the railway line, and Gilroy’s boundary in the west? Had he elected himself judge, jury and custodian of their lives over the next half-century? Or was his role rather that of referee? Or, again, was he simply a landlord, with the power to pull on the rein or bestow occasional bonuses?

Did ownership of the soil that sustained these people give him the right to plot their destinies? And if not, then who would? Perhaps his true responsibility was confined to his pocket and even to Zorndorff’s, so long as he kept the scrapyard revenue in reserve; or perhaps, by coddling them too much, he would sap their initiative. Was his a conception of Imperialism in miniature? Did the investors in Britain’s overseas possessions think along these lines, when they poured in their capital, hogged all the lucrative posts, and talked of the white man’s burden over their whiskies and sodas in jungle clearings and delta warehouses? How much imperial outlay and effort was inspired by benevolence and how much by the profit motive, or the sweets of personal power? Surely there was a parallel here, for had he not enjoyed the power he wielded within the Shallowford boundaries? And might it not, as he grew older and more cynical, corrupt him? The Lovells, presumably, had been corrupted by it, for what had any one of them been prepared to contribute to the Valley? A harvest supper once a year and an undertaking to do outside repairs on half-derelict property but only so long as local forelocks were stretched.

His mind explored the margins of his suzerainty but soon, under the spell of the creeping dusk, it lost its way in irrelevances so that he shelved the answers to these questions, promising himself that he would seek them again in the long winter evenings ahead. In the event, he did not wait as long. Riding into the yard, and giving Snowdrop’s bridle to young Ikey, he was told that he had had a visitor, a Mr James Grenfell, from Paxtonbury, who had left a card saying he would be visiting Coombe Bay this week, and would call again to pay his respects to the new master of Shallowford.

Paul was intrigued by the tacit irony of the note and after a traditional hunting tea of boiled eggs and toast, he took the trouble to sort through a pile of back numbers of the county press, certain in his mind that James Grenfell was someone of local consequence. He ran him down in the caption of a picture, illustrating the opening of a church bazaar, a slight, rather delicately built man in his late thirties or early forties, with a very earnest expression that gave his face a slightly fanatical look as he stood on the edge of a garlanded platform, presenting prizes. He found the report on another page and learned that James (Jimmy) Grenfell was the Liberal candidate for the Paxtonbury constituency (a division that included the Sorrel Valley, as well as the Gilroy estate adjoining) that was at present represented by Lieutenant-Colonel Hilton-Price, an amiable nominee of the Conservative and Unionist Party, and this caused Paul to wonder if his chance remark at Mary Willoughby’s school, advertising sympathy with the defeated Boers, might have led Grenfell to anticipate support for the Liberals. He was glad then that he had been out when Grenfell called, for he was far too undecided as yet to commit himself but, in another way, the candidate’s call flattered him so that he questioned Mrs Handcock on local politics when she came in to clear away the tea things.

‘What happens here when there is a general election, Mrs Handcock?’

‘Well,’ she admitted, ‘nothing much, as I knows of! Blue goes in, and Yellow maakes a praper ol’ song an’ dance about it! Us ’ave never been aught but Blue yerabouts, Mr Craddock. My father voted for Lieutenant-Colonel Hilton-Price’s father all his life but I never troubled myself with ’em one way or the other.’

‘How about your husband? Does he vote for the Conservatives?’

‘Lord, no,’ she said, ‘whatever would people like us want with either of ’em? We both for more’n enough to do without draping they old rosettes about us an’ marchin’ up an’ down chanting they silly ole ditties.’

‘What ditties?’

‘Oh, giddon, you must have heard ’em! They as begin,
“Vote, vote, vote for Colonel Hilton, kick old Grenfell out the door …”
, and suchlike ole rubbish!’

‘But Mr Grenfell has never managed to get his foot inside the door, has he?’

‘Well, no,’ she said, ‘and a good thing too when a body comes to think of it, for us could ’ardly do with a nobody like ’ee standing for Parlyment, tho’ they zay his father did, only up-country tho’, among the chimbleys! My Horace says he ought to be locked up, along o’ that rascal Lloyd George, for encouraging they Irish the way he does! Paxtonbury be church folk, you see, on account o’ the cathedral!’

‘Now what the devil has church got to do with Grenfell’s politics?’ he demanded, smiling, but she looked at him severely, replying, ‘Now what calls has an educated gentleman like you to be askin’ that of an ignorant old body like me? You must know that Blue be church an’ Yellow be chapel, zame as it be all over the country! If you baint teasing me, as I think you be, Mr Craddock, you’d best go to Parson Bull for the answer! He’d lose no time putting ’ee right!’ and she waddled out, to the whisper of starch and the rattle of outraged crockery.

About a week later, on returning home early one bitter afternoon, Paul was met by a flustered Mrs Handcock on the steps of the kitchen. He had taken to using the back door and Mrs Handcock, a stickler for the domestic proprieties, had complained of this more than once but today she greeted him with ‘You’ll just have to go in by the front, Mr Craddock!
He’s
there in the library waitin’ for ’ee! And a fine to-do this be, I mus’ say, marchin’ up to the front door, ringing the bell, and zaying as he’ll wait when I tell him youm about your business!’

‘Who?’ asked Paul, forgetting Grenfell’s promise to call again, and she said, ‘
Him
!
That little wisp of a body, “Jimmy Gren” Something-or-other but he might have been Colonel Hilton-Price himself for the airs about him! You’d best show him the door, Mr Craddock, before there’s a praper upset yerabouts!’

‘Good Lord,’ protested Paul, ‘why should there be? Can’t a Liberal candidate call on me as openly as a Unionist? Don’t be so damned prejudiced! He might talk your husband into using his vote before he’s done!’ but Mrs Handcock was so horrified by this possibility that she shut the door in his face and left him no alternative but to walk round to the forecourt and come in by the main door.

He found James Grenfell examining books in the library and although he was polite and affable Paul thought his greeting was spiced with a certain irony. The newspaper picture had not done him justice, for although he was of insignificant build, and looked far from robust, his brown, deepset eyes held in them a kindness and humour that could be seen as soon as he smiled.

‘Ah, Mr Craddock, at last!’ he said. ‘I shan’t keep you long, but I thought I must call again, on my way over to Coombe Bay. Tuesday is my Coombe Bay day, you see, when I call on Ephraim Morgan, my chairman in the Valley. He did some work for you I believe, so I have the advantage of knowing rather more about you than you know about me!’ Paul murmured something polite and Grenfell went on, ‘Morgan is a bit of a hothead but I really don’t know how I should fare in this political desert without him! When I first came here I couldn’t count on a single vote south of the railway line. Now I’m certain of at least fifty! But I believe you are numbered among The Great Uncommitted, Mr Craddock?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Paul, a little breathlessly, for the man’s assurance was formidable. ‘I’ve never had a chance to vote; I was overseas on my twenty-first birthday and in hospital during the last election.’

‘Very well, Mr Craddock, then let’s put you at ease straightaway. I’m not here to solicit, I came because I was curious! My intelligence service is the strongest part of my organisation (the weakest being finances) so I’ve already heard them speak of you.’

‘To my credit or otherwise?’ Paul asked, smiling, for he found the little man engagingly original.

‘Both,’ Grenfell said, ‘but somewhat loaded in your favour!’

‘Look here,’ said Paul on impulse, ‘why don’t you stay for lunch? What time are you due in Coombe Bay?’

Grenfell said, with genuine humility, ‘You’d really like me to stay?’

‘I would indeed,’ Paul said. ‘I’m getting tired of my own company. Rudd, my agent, is laid up with an injury in Portsmouth, and the two other friends I’ve made since I settled in are also away. I haven’t talked anything but pigs, crops, poultry and sheep in weeks.’

Somewhat to his surprise Grenfell hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, slowly, ‘maybe I oughtn’t to take advantage of you. They said you were a friendly chap but I didn’t expect this civility.’

‘It seems to me an ordinary enough civility,’ Paul said rather huffily but the little man lifted a protesting hand and said, smiling, ‘Look here, Mr Craddock, don’t take offence I beg of you. The fact is, entertaining me might easily damage your relationships with certain influential people round here. Ordinarily I wouldn’t give a damn, but as you’ve admitted, you’re uncommitted.’

‘And I daresay I shall remain so,’ Paul said, ‘but what the devil has that to do with inviting a casual visitor to have a bite to eat and a glass of sherry?’

‘Nothing whatever,’ said Grenfell, chuckling, ‘I’d be delighted to stay and if I begin riding one of my hobby horses, just cut in and cap it with experiences in the Transvaal.’

Paul told the girl Thirza to inform Mrs Handcock that the visitor was staying for luncheon and then, as they drank sherry, they fell to discussing the recent peace-treaty terms which Paul knew in outline but Grenfell, he soon realised, knew in great detail. When lunch arrived, served by a blank-faced Mrs Handcock, Paul told his visitor something of the reaction among rank and file volunteers concerning the herding of Boer families into camps that had been sited without regard to water supplies or sanitary facilities. He found Grenfell a good listener and went on to tell him of the change in the attitude of most of the civilian-soldiers after actual contact with the Boers, speaking without regard to the hovering Mrs Handcock, whom he guessed was saving every titbit of the conversation for the oracular Horace. When she left them to their cheese and coffee Grenfell said, with a laugh, ‘I presume the excellent Mrs Handcock is an enemy camp-follower?’, and Paul recounted his housekeeper’s simplification of politics, adding that her husband Horace had never yet used his vote.