Summer's End (18 page)

‘Yes. Mother belongs to the Anti-Suffrage League and wrote a letter to the
Morning Post
on that issue.'

‘And do
you
believe women like Aunt Tilly should be birched?' She was appalled that Reggie spoke so matter-of-factly.

‘Of course not.' He was indignant.

‘And that they should not have the same rights as men?'

‘I don't believe in
all
women having the vote. Do you see Ruth Horner voting wisely?'

‘But do you believe in all
men
getting the vote?'

‘There is more of a case for it, because all men work. Women do not. I don't believe the vote should be given just to property owners any more, but wage-earners as well. Women are not wage-earners.'

‘More and more are.'

‘Then there is a case for those who do.'

‘Are women not equal to men?'

‘In some things yes, in others no.'

‘You don't think me equal?'

He looked at her gravely. ‘I can't answer that. I look at you and see the girl I love. I look at you and see the girl I've always loved, though
I was too idiotic to realise it. I look at you and see the girl I'm going to marry.'

‘Oh, Reggie.' She went to him, and he embraced her, his lips on her eyes, her hair, her cheeks and then urgently seeking her lips. It didn't seem to matter where his hands were then, provided she could be with him, clinging to him, a rock in a tumultuous sea. He drew away, took off her jacket, then his own, and took her again into his arms. ‘I can get closer now.' It seemed at some point a good idea to sit down on the grass bank above the lake and then at some point after that to lie down. What a wonderful – but strange – sensation to see his face above her, bending over her, then kissing her, almost lying on her, and then face and sun were blotted out. When she felt his hand inside her dress, she shifted slightly, puzzled, then embarrassed. ‘Reggie?' She didn't want him to stop, but he did, rolled away and sat up.

‘Did you really say going to marry?' she asked almost shyly.

‘Of course. You didn't think I'd let Mother stop me, did you?'

Why was he sounding so gruff? Had she annoyed him?

‘On the other hand,' he continued, not looking at her. ‘I'm the heir to Ashden. You'll have to live there. Even if you don't like each other, you and Mother must learn to work together.'

‘Must we?' Dismay hit her. She hadn't given it a thought. Why did
outside
have to intrude
inside?
Marriage should be private – though Isabel and Robert's certainly wasn't going to be that.

‘So what I suggest,' he turned over on his stomach, supporting himself on his elbows so that he could see her, ‘is that we keep our engagement quiet while I work on her for a time and until she's got over the shock of Tilly. Could you bear to? Have you told your family?'

‘Only Mother and Father know.'

‘Your father was top-hole,' he said fervently. ‘He and my father understand each other. If only women were more like men!'

‘I'll make you regret that.' She promptly kneeled at his side, and pelted him with a handful of grass. ‘See how you like birching.'

He put his hands up protestingly. ‘Hey, I surrender.' He lay down with her again and kissed her more lightly, but after a while said idly: ‘There's no chance of your turning into an Aunt Tilly, is there?'

She considered this gravely. ‘It all depends.'

‘On what?'

‘On what you do to annoy me.'

Agnes dressed with care, even more than if she were off to see Jamie. She didn't want to look too prim and be laughed at, nor did she want to look too cheap, because then she'd lose the advantage of being morally in the right. She wanted to look, she had decided, as if she might be an ally, even a friend. As if she'd ever be a friend of the likes of Ruth Horner! On Saturday night when Miss Tilda shouted out so queerly, Agnes had only belatedly realised what she might be meaning. She debated whether she should ask Miss Tilda if she knew something Agnes didn't, but realised that if she did so, the Rector too must know, and would surely have told her. Miss Lilley might only be guessing, but nevertheless it was a guess that sent Agnes's hopes soaring, if only she could establish the truth. She took one last critical look in the foot-high swing mirror on her dressing table, and departed to fight the foe.

‘Evening, Ruth. Can I have a word with you?' she whispered. Ruth was setting the table for supper when she arrived, and Nanny, as usual, was snoozing by the fire. Ruth's shape was very obvious now, and in Agnes's imagination grew ever larger, a monstrous barrier to be overcome. Suppose that thing in there was part of Jamie? Suppose he
had
put it there, whispered to Ruth what he did to Agnes, kissed her like he did her, put his hands over those great lumps of bosom – she tried to avert her eyes – like he did Agnes's own small chest, not underneath of course, over her blouse and stays, but it was nice – or had been till her thoughts had become obsessed with imagining her Jamie and Ruth's repulsive mountainous flesh together. She struggled for control as Ruth jeered:

‘And I've a word for you.
Yes.
Yes, it was Jamie. That do?'

Nanny's eyes flew open. ‘You go and talk to Agnes in the kitchen, Ruth. She can't eat you.'

‘Pity she don't want this lump.' Ruth looked down at her stomach.

‘I'll thank you to remember you're in a maiden lady's house,' Nanny snapped. ‘Get into the scullery, the two of you. I'm listening to me memories, and won't hear you over the babble.'

Face to face with Ruth it seemed much harder to establish the friendly atmosphere Agnes had planned in the privacy of her own room. ‘I don't want to be your enemy, Ruth,' Agnes began. ‘I just
need to sort myself out, that's all. We're both in trouble. Mayhap we could help each other.'

‘Share his bed?' Ruth sneered, though only half-heartedly now.

‘I don't share his bed, but I want to,' Agnes said firmly, feeling on safer ground now Ruth was talking, ‘so I thought I'd come to ask – well, if it
was
someone else and you daren't say who, I could maybe help, get justice done –'

‘I want a husband, and the husband is going to be Jamie Thorn.' Ruth sounded as if she were reciting her ten-times table.

‘There's folks saying it's Mr Swinford-Browne who's done this to you. Forced you, maybe. And now he's forcing you into saying it's Jamie.'

‘See here, Agnes,' Ruth replied quite kindly, ‘you're just a bit upset and I don't blame you, surely. But no men are angels. You've got to realise that. Jamie ain't, Mus Swinford-Browne ain't, none of 'em. But I love Jamie, I laid with Jamie, and look what's happened.'

‘But why,
where?
It was January. It
must
have been Mr Swinford-Browne.' Agnes was beginning to get desperate.

‘In the old gentleman's cottage. Ebenezer Thorn.'

‘But that's ours, me and Jamie's,' wailed Agnes, unable to believe her last dream had been soiled. ‘You're fibbing.'

‘You don't believe me? Listen, the old gentleman's sofa is green cloth and it's got red plush cushions with moth-eaten dogs on 'em.'

‘You could have seen the sofa at any time, not with Jamie at all.' Agnes began to cry.

‘You're a fool, Agnes,' Ruth shouted. ‘What more proof do you want? Do you want me to tell you Jamie has a scar just above his johnnie, about –?'

Agnes yelled out, she couldn't help it, or she knew she'd be sick. She yelled again and again. Nanny Oates had to hobble in to soothe her down. What terrified Agnes most, even through her sobs, was that Ruth wasn't even triumphant. She was looking as though she were sorry for her.

‘The Rectory!' shouted Mrs Dibble into infinity as she lifted the telephone from its hook as gingerly as a live crab, after the infernal machine went off. Unable to leave her post, so tightly was she gripping the receiver, albeit held six inches from her ear (Percy having read in the newspaper about the dangers to ears from that
electricity hidden inside the howler), she bawled, ‘It's Squire.'

The Rector came at once. As soon as he had hung up, he shouted for Elizabeth, who appeared immediately. ‘I may miss luncheon, my love. Old Cooper's barricaded himself into his cottage. Swinford-Browne is there with his men determined to evict him.' The Rector's hat was instantly produced for his head, his stick and a Bible thrust into his hands. The latter had been known to help in such cases. ‘If I know Tom Cooper, he'll have built up his walls like Jericho.'

‘And you're the trumpet to bring them tumbling down?'

‘I'm the policeman to see Cooper doesn't tumble down himself.'

‘It's Phoebe's birthday luncheon.'

‘Tell her –' Laurence sought for a way to reconcile the horizons of youth with the agonies of age – ‘it concerns the picture palace.' He was already debating whether he should take the trap, call to Tilly to beg a drive in the Austin (no, red rags to bulls) or rely on his own two feet in order to travel quickest. He decided on the trap, and rang the bell sharply enough for Percy Dibble to obey promptly. He might be glad of Percy's stolid presence.

Cooper's cottage lay on the edge of the hop gardens, reached most easily by a long track from Station Road. The nearest way from the Rectory lay up Bankside and along Mill Lane to a steep track down the hillside, but Poppy was too old to risk her obstinate refusal at steep inclines. As she laboured over the track where lack of rain was exposing the stones and flints, the Rector pondered on his approach. There would be no talking Swinford-Browne out of this one, not with the law on his side. He would be even more determined to win his way over the picture palace to impress Ashden in view of Tilly's outburst. Tilly had been contrite – naturally not for speaking out, but for breaking her promise to him; the damage had been done, however, and no one could be sure where it might lead.

‘They be good hop-poles!' Dibble cried, outraged, seeing the barricades Cooper had erected round his beloved, if tumble-down, cottage, and across the door and windows. ‘Hell and Tommy, they got baby hops on 'em. He must have torn 'em out. Tedious waste, that is.'

‘He is an old and bitter man, Percy. We both might feel the same.' The Rector glanced at the black Daimler drawn up further along the track, outside the pale of the cottage. In front of it, nearer to them, was a wagon, four farm-hands sitting waiting. The wagon appeared
to be otherwise empty, save for farm implements, a hop dog, pitchfork … then he saw why, as he stepped down from the trap and went to the gate. The barricade here had been broken down, and round the cottage were bales of dry straw. His heart sank. He would not be called on as mediator, for there was to be no mediation; all he could do was protect the guiltless.

‘Not about good hops, surely,' Dibble grunted.

From the upper window the Rector could see Tom glaring down at his landlord's Daimler. He could see a bottle in his hand, not for drinking, but, judging by the number of pieces of shattered glass lying around, ready to be aimed at any intruder. He wouldn't put it past Cooper to use even more dangerous ammunition when the bottles ran out.

‘Tom,' he yelled.

‘I hear you, Rector. I don't be daffy yet.'

‘The law's on his side, not yours.'

‘'Tis a bad law, then.'

‘No matter. You will lose all. I'll find you somewhere else if you don't like the almshouse for a home.'

‘I got a home. 'Tis 'ere, Rector, like I told Squire, and like I told 'im.' A contemptuously jerked finger indicated Swinford-Browne, sufficiently emboldened by the Rector's presence to climb down from the motor-car.

‘See, the Rector's on my side, Tom,' he shouted.

‘Then he can have a bottle over his head and all, William,' yelled the infuriated Cooper.

The Rector hastily backed away. ‘It's
your
side I'm on, Tom. But I don't want to see you hurt.'

‘Good for you, Rector. I won't be hurt, staying in me own home, biding me own business.' Another bottle crashed to the ground in the lane just in front of Swinford-Browne, who retaliated swiftly.

‘Smoke him out.' He turned to his three men, keeping well in the background.

‘You can't do that.' The Rector was outraged.

‘Why not? It's my property.'

‘Suppose he refuses to leave, and the thatch catches fire?'

‘I'll rebuild. I want him out. Chop down the rear door, Stokes,' he ordered the bailiff. ‘If the man doesn't come out then, it's his own risk and you're all witness. Hear that, Rector?'

Tom replied for him with a string of oaths followed by a shot fired in the air.

‘Light up,' roared Swinford-Browne.

Appalled, the Rector watched as bales of straw were dampened and set alight, acrid smoke immediately curling into the air under the open cottage window, its fumes even reaching him at the gate, making him cough and splutter. Angrily, he made his way into the rear door of the cottage, smoke already snaking lasciviously under doors and into windows. He rushed up the stairs to find Tom.

‘Don't be a fool, Rector.' Swinford-Browne's shouting voice outside held a note of alarm, not, Laurence knew, for his own sake, but for Swinford-Browne's reputation, as the Rector was almost universally popular with church and chapel alike.

Crouching by the window, Tom winked at him. ‘Give as good as I get, eh? I'll have that bugger in the belly next time.'

‘Your language, Mr Cooper.'

‘Think I should speak nice and behave dirty like that Fat Jack outside, eh?' he jeered, pulling himself up and making faces out of the window through the smoke.

‘You have made your point, Mr Cooper.' Coughing, the Rector tried to humour him. ‘Come, now I have joined my lot with yours, so you must at least consider my life and let me lead you out.'