Long Summer Day (82 page)

He found sleep impossible and watched the dawn draw the curtains on his window. Away across the fields, in the yard of the Home Farm, a cock shrilled and birds began to rustle and sing in the creeper above the porch. He got up, sluiced his face and dressed, leaning his elbows on the sill and looking across Big Paddock to the river. It was still only five-thirty and he had an hour or so before people crowded back into his life and addressed him, expecting lucid, everyday replies. He knew that before then he must find some kind of solution to his problems and he thought, for a moment, of flight. Then he remembered that there was no immediate urgency, for a baby, so they said, was nine months in the making and with this thought came another, a recollection of something Tovey Major had said about virgins being unable to have children. He was unsure how much reliance could be placed upon this or in what measure it affected him, but he began to cheer up a little, a very little and returned to his bed, lying fully-dressed on the rumpled sheets with his hands clasped behind his head as he searched among his memories for significant details. He found none but some of his fears, and a little of his guilt, began to recede and as the room grew lighter he found to his astonishment that he could look back upon the incident with a certain amount of detachment. The more he succeeded in doing this the less urgent it seemed and slowly his panic began to subside so that he could think of Hazel with tepid warmth and of his savage use of her with a certain amount of awe. He said, half-aloud, ‘I shall have to leave here at once for if I don’t I know very well what will happen, I’ll go to that damned cave again and it will happen as often as I go with or without that jar of hedgerow wine the little fool introduced into the place! After all, it was the liquor that began it all for without that stuff inside me I should have stopped short after kissing her, or maybe fondling her a little. Surely the best thing is to disappear and I can tell Squire first thing I’ve decided on the R.E.s, and that I need three months’ cramming before sitting Army Entrance! I can give him the name of Manners’ crammer, near Eastbourne, and go there at once.’ But then, as he rejoiced in this easy escape route, he remembered Hazel Potter’s brown eyes looking across the rim of her mug when he was supping his second gill and he knew that he could not leave without explaining to her why and where he was going. He would have to see her once again, and tell her how sorry he was, and perhaps kiss her but very gently and impersonally on the cheek. He hoped she would understand and agree that things could not be left as they were. If she did not then he would go away, leaving her to make the best of it.

He knew where he could find her at this hour. If she had not slept at the cave then she must have gone to the Dell and after what had happened he guessed that she would not remain there long but would make her way back to the woods at first light. He would try the Dell first and if he drew blank he would go to the cave. He slipped out and down the backstairs, cutting round the house and crossing the sloping meadow to enter the scrub on the west side of the Bluff where the field path joined the Dell track. Having made a decision he felt almost lighthearted and it was difficult to remain gloomy in the early morning woods, where it seemed as if every bird in the Valley had congregated to swell the clamour. He waited here, watching a woodpecker at work, and presently he heard her coming along the track and moved behind a bush for his curiosity regarding her had increased rather than diminished and presently she came in view, dawdling along and actually crooning to herself, as though she found the world a particularly pleasant place that morning.

‘Damn it,’ he said to himself, ‘here’s me, worried half out of my wits about her and feeling the biggest cad on earth and here she comes strolling along singing! What the devil am I so bothered about?’, and he called, ‘Hi there! Hazel!’

She stopped, turning her head slowly and her mouth curved in a warm, welcoming smile as he edged out of ambush and stood uncertainly in her path.

‘Youm right early, Ikey!’ she said, as though she had half-expected him, ‘Ave ’ee come from my little house?’ and he said, sulkily that he had not, that he had awakened to find her gone and blundered home in the dark but had not slept a wink because he was worried about what had happened. ‘It was that awful stuff of your mother’s,’ he excused himself, ‘and I … I’m sorry, Hazel, upon my honour I am! It was a cad’s trick and that’s a fact!’

She was puzzled by his troubled expression and far more so by his words, for there was nothing, as far as she could remember, to be sorry about. His manner, however, must have enlisted her sympathy for she took his hand as they moved along the path towards the squirrel oak, saying, ‘Lord, Ikey, what’s ’ee long-faced about, boy? You on’y got tipsy, didden ’ee?’

‘I … I don’t mean about getting drunk on that stuff,’ he protested, indignantly, ‘I mean … well … you must
know
what I mean! I wasn’t so drunk that I can’t remember what happened and it was the first time ever, you understand?’

‘Well,’ she said, mildly, ‘’twas the first time for me but what of it? It baint nothing to worry over, be it?’

For several minutes he could make no reply. The gulf between them, between her view of life and the tight, circumscribed code of people who lived in houses, sat at tables and made polite conversation with one another was unbridgeable and the realisation of this renewed his feelings of guilt and apprehension. He said at length, ‘Look, Hazel love, I … I’ve got to go away, I’ve got to study to be a soldier and I’ll be gone some time. That’s why I came to meet you— I thought, well, that maybe you’d think I was staying away from you because of what happened.’

She was undismayed by the news. Ever since she had known him he had always been going and coming and the passage of time meant very little to her. He had been with her last evening, he was here now and would be gone tomorrow but he would come back, sooner or later, as he always did and today she felt particularly sure of him. They stopped on the edge of the wood where the heavy timber began its march down the slope to the mere.

‘You’ll come zoon as ’ee gets ’ome?’

‘Yes, of course I will.’ Suddenly, and inexplicably he felt totally reassured and with reassurance came tenderness and concern. ‘Hazel’, he said, urgently, ‘why don’t you go home and live with Meg and the girls? And why don’t you go back to school at Miss Willoughby’s? You can’t always live in the woods, you know, you’re grown up now!’

She said wonderingly, ‘Go back home? Wi’ all that ole racket? Go back to skuel? Now whyfore should I do that?’

‘Because I should like you to,’ he said, ‘because I want you to … I want you to read and write like everyone else. Will you think about it while I’m away?’

‘Ooahh,’ she said, lightly, ‘mebbe I will, tho’ I doan zee much zense in it! Dornee like me as I be?’

‘Yes,’ he said desperately, ‘of course I like you but … well … I’m thinking about what’s to become of you if you go on living rough and wandering about the way you do.’

She interpreted this as caution on his part against the possibility of some other young man in the Valley waylaying her and demanding of her what he had been granted and the thought made her smile.

‘Giddon,’ she said scornfully, ‘I baint afraid o’ no one an’ a worn’t let none of ’em come near me, same as I told ’ee last night! I c’n run faster an’ any humping gurt man in the Valley and I keeps meself to meself, mostly! Will ’ee be goin’ outalong now? Or shall us go to my li’l house?’

‘I’m going now,’ he said, sighing, and she said, ‘Oo-ah,’ putting up her face to be kissed.

He kissed her gently. Not, as he had promised himself, on the cheek but on the mouth. Her breath was as sweet as the morning air and he held her for a moment until he began to tremble again and stood back, dropping his hands to his sides and looking at the ground, but she did not seem to notice his confusion and said, gaily, ‘Well, dornee forget then, zoon as ’ee comes back. I’ll save what’s left in the jar for ’ee. T’won’t ’urt fer waitin’!’ Then, as in their early days, she was gone, melting into the foliage and he was alone, as bewildered as when he set out but no longer weighed down by shame and fear. He thought, ‘There’s nobody like her, nobody the least like her but I wouldn’t have her any different so to hell with everything!’ He went slowly down the field to the sunken lane and into the orchard by the stile.

Chapter Eighteen

I

C
laire must have set her heart on going to London for the Coronation. She had spent the long autumn afternoons of her pregnancy turning the pages of catalogues of children’s emporiums, paying particular attention to little girls’ frocks and bonnets and when her third child was born, towards the end of the old year, she was delighted, although not much surprised, when she heard Doctor Maureen exclaim, ‘Glory to God, it’s a girl!’

Paul was not in the district when the baby arrived, about 2 o’clock on an unseasonably mild afternoon. He had accepted Maureen’s assurances that the event would not occur until the New Year and had embarked, with James Grenfell, on a whirlwind tour of the areas north of Paxtonbury to fight a second election within twelve months. He had been reluctant to go but both doctor and wife persuaded him, the one because, in her own words, ‘I hate having husbands under my feet at a time when they are less use than a wet clout’, the other because she knew that Grenfell would be fighting the battle of his life and had real need of Paul.

Local passions over the People’s Budget had not cooled throughout the summer and Grenfell regained lost ground after the announcement that a Woman’s Suffrage Bill was to be placed before Parliament; so Paul rode off in the trap, promising to be home before New Year’s Day.

The baby gave them very little trouble although she was a plump little thing, tipping the scales an ounce short of seven pounds, more than either of the twins had weighed at birth. She had, Claire noted, an abundance of dark hair, darker even than Paul’s and her eyes, now cornflower blue, looked as if they intended to stay blue and not change to grey, as had the eyes of the boys within six months of birth.

‘Well, Maureen,’ she said later that night, ‘you have to admit she’s pretty and Paul will certainly spoil her. He’ll be in a real tizzy when he comes home and finds we managed without him.’

Maureen said that after breakfast next morning she would post Thirza to watch for Paul at the gates, so about 10 a.m. Thirza was despatched to the ford to give warning of the Squire’s approach. An hour or so later he came spanking along the river road at about twice the pony’s normal pace and seeing Thirza hopping about between the great stone pillars, shouted, ‘Has anything happened? Is Mrs Craddock all right?’ and Thirza gasped, ‘It’s a girl, Squire! Prettiest li’l maid ever did zee!’ and without a word he dragged her into the trap and drove furiously up the drive to the forecourt where he left Thirza, now giggling hysterically, to lead pony and trap round to the yard while he went up the stairs three at a time and thumped on the bedroom door, as if alerting occupants of a burning building.

Maureen came out scolding him for his impatience, and telling him that, as the father of four, he ought to know better but then she relented and said, laughing, ‘As God’s my witness she’s an angel from heaven, the prettiest baby any of us ever saw, and there’s no doubt who’s the father! Wait a minute, lad, I’ll tell Nurse and you can go in, for they’re both doing marvellously.’

A moment later he was looking down at the child with an awe that he had not experienced on either of the previous occasions. Thirza and Maureen had not exaggerated. There was nothing of the brick-red, puckered look about this child; she had perfectly formed features, a peach bloom complexion and exquisite little hands and feet. He stood gazing down at her so long that Claire said, ‘Well, don’t I count any more?’ and although aware that she was teasing him he blurted his apologies and kissed her a dozen times, saying, triumphantly, ‘By God, Claire, she’s a treasure! She really is! I’ve always had to pretend to like new-born babies but this one …! Damn it. I’d quite resigned myself to another lump of a boy! Did you have a bad time? Maureen swore she wouldn’t arrive for days—I wouldn’t have thought of going if I’d dreamed you were so near!’

‘She came very quickly and it was about ten times as easy as the twins,’ Claire reassured him, ‘so much so that I can’t still persuade myself that it’s all over. Do you know, Paul, I’ve got the pleasantest feeling about her. Something tells me she’ll never be any trouble to any of us! There’s something … well … something reasonable about her and I’m glad she was born earlier than we reckoned because 1910 was a wonderful year for us and what happens in 1911 is anybody’s guess.’

He said, stroking her hair, and wondering at both her radiance and resilience, ‘Every year with you is a good year, Claire, and 1911 will be better than 1910, more sensational anyway, for James is getting us places on the House of Commons stand for the Coronation. Had you forgotten that bargain we made at Ikey’s Sports Day?’

‘Certainly not,’ she said, ‘in fact I’ve already picked out a dress! It’s in the catalogue on the study table, with the corner of the page turned down, so look at it and tell me you approve. But how can James get us seats unless he’s re-elected?’

‘He’ll be re-elected all right,’ Paul said grimly, ‘we’ve got them on the run again! A year on the local doorsteps has worked wonders and I’ll wager he goes in with five hundred majority!’

The nurse came back then and shooed him out. Downstairs, before she dashed off to complete her rounds, Maureen told him over a stiff brandy that the birth had indeed proved one of the most casual in her experience and said, raising her glass, ‘Well, here’s long life to the pair of you and that’s no conventional toast either! She’s a healthy, happy girl and she’s made you a wonderful wife, so don’t forget to count your blessings, lad!’

‘I’m not likely to,’ he said seriously, ‘as John could tell you. You never did meet Grace so you can’t imagine how different they are but the odd thing is I don’t think I should have ever fully appreciated Claire if I hadn’t been so much in love with Grace. There’s a conundrum to work into one of your fancy theories.’

‘It’s not much of a conundrum,’ Maureen said chuckling but refused to be drawn and hurried away, promising to send John up to ‘wet the baby’s head’ immediately after supper.

Paul sat by the log fire stroking the retriever’s head and feeling his hand nuzzled for she loved having her ears fondled. The dog was his one permanent reminder of Grace and of the hours they had spent together in this room. Simon, her child, had never interested her much but the dog she had sent him had always remained hers and although she had long since attached herself to Paul she always behaved as if she half-expected Grace to walk through the door again.

It seemed strange to him, sitting here alone with Claire and her new baby overhead and the house quiet after the turmoil of the last two days, that his thoughts should centre not upon Claire but Grace, whose ghost had never been banished from this particular room, although it seemed to have vanished from all other parts of the house. He wondered vaguely what had happened to her, if she had tired of passing in and out of Holloway under the Government’s Cat and Mouse act, or whether, by now, she had another husband, perhaps a fellow campaigner who could share her implacable hatred of the old society. He thought, ‘I wonder if Claire realises how much she owes Grace and how they would behave to one another if they ever came face to face? Claire probably thinks of her, if at all, as a crank, whereas Grace would certainly despise Claire for her domesticity and deference to men. For all that I’m glad Grenfell and his minority have forced the Cabinet to recognise the right of people as intelligent as Grace to vote,’ and he heaved himself up and fetched his beloved estate record to which he usually turned on these occasions. He wrote, on the last page of the 1910 Section,
‘About 2 p.m. on December 29th my wife presented me with a daughter weighing six pounds 15 ounces; she has dark hair and blue eyes’
and then fell to pondering a name embodying the tranquil temperament Claire had prophesied for the child. A string of Biblical names presented themselves—Deborah, Judith, Naomi and Sarah, but none of them appealed and, finally he hit upon the most English of all names, Mary, and savoured it murmuring, ‘Mary—Mary, Claire, Craddock’, deciding that it had a roundness and simplicity that pleased him. He wrote, feeling sure Claire would confirm his choice,
‘I
am calling her “Mary”’
and then, perhaps infected by the inconsequence of Claire’s entries,
‘Everyone about here describes her as a rare pretty li’l maid and so she be!’,
signing his name under the frivolous entry.

The new year opened in triumph, for Paul’s prophecy was fulfilled and Grenfell was returned with over a thousand majority. The sardonic Captain Owen-Hixon disappeared like the Devil in a pantomime but the new Lord Gilroy took his defeat very handsomely, congratulating Paul at the declaration of the poll and promising him ‘a return match’ in the years ahead. ‘Sour grapes notwithstanding I don’t envy your chap,’ he said, ‘or any Government taking office today! They have so many hot potatoes they can’t help but drop some of them! They can’t get a clear majority without leaning over backwards to bribe the Irish Home Rulers or the Labourites and what with Ulster, Home Rule, the reform of the Lords, the Navy League outcry, that ass of a Kaiser and the suffragettes, I wouldn’t wonder if the more thoughtful among them isn’t damned sorry they won!’

The prospects of stormy sessions ahead, however, did not seem to depress James when Paul drove him across the moor to catch the connection for the Cornish express, at Sorrel Halt. A whole year on home ground had revitalised him and his increased majority had boosted his morale, and yet, Paul told himself, he was a very different James from the man who had gone blithely to London after the 1904 bye-election. The struggle to relate conscience and humanity with the cut-and-thrust of life in the House showed in his face, deeply lined at forty-two, and in patches of grey at his temples and he made a jocular reference to the wear and tear of his nerves as they paced the little platform awaiting the train. ‘I’ve always said you have the best of it, Paul, guarding the grass roots down here and I don’t suppose you’d care to change places, would you?’

‘I’d sooner change places with Smut Potter or Norman Eveleigh,’ Paul said. ‘I haven’t been near London since I went there to try and bring Grace home; that was more than five years ago.’

‘Well, you’ll be combing the straw from your hair in June,’ James reminded him, ‘Claire is holding you to your promise to bring her up for the Coronation.’

‘Oh, I’ll do that,’ Paul told him, ‘for I can’t get out of it now but it’ll be a three-day stay and no longer. A drive round to see the decorations, a day watching the toing and froing and another for Claire to show off her new clothes—then home, with the harvest just round the corner!’

‘Well,’ James chuckled, ‘you were born a townsman but they always say converts are more catholic than the Pope! Here’s the train, so good-bye and again, thank you for your loyalty.’

From his seat on the box of the trap Paul watched the train round the long curve and then walked the cob over the moor, congratulating himself on his luck.

II

T
hey had booked a small hotel overlooking St James’ Park and on the day of their arrival, whilst Claire was busy unpacking, Paul sat on the balcony and looked down on the evening idlers moving slowly along the wide paths and across the parched grass. There seemed to be hundreds of thousands of them and the bunting entwined the lamp-posts and the gilded arches catching the last rays of sun in the Mall, reminded him of the day he had crossed a city preparing for Edward’s coronation nine years ago. He thought, ‘I was young and green in those days, with no more than instinct to guide me in leaving this stew and breaking new ground! I hadn’t even made up my mind to buy Shallowford then, but now it seems as if I was born there and my father before me! Well, a devil of a lot of water has passed Codsall bridge since those days. People were still flaying poor old Kruger, and Lloyd George, now turning the country upside down with his precious budget, was no more than a comic turn with the Welsh gift of the gab! I wonder if Claire ever hankers after city life? She tried it for a spell but she soon came home and although she says we’re developing into a pair of bumpkins I don’t believe she really likes cities any more than I do!’, and he heard her call from the dressing room and came in to ask if she wanted to go out before dinner.