The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (26 page)

Linda was surprised at the interest which Richard evinced in the underground place; he had shown none at all in the ruins of a temple reputed to be two thousand years old, nor in a deserted city said to be even older than that, nor in an aqueduct which had last served its purpose in Akbar's time, all of which had been the object of visits from other white people in India. She, of course, had joined the expeditions and stood and stared and exercised her sense of wonder to the full.

His attitude towards this antiquity she attributed to Mr Mundford and reflected that there was novelty also in Richard's relationship with this man. Never before had she known him to be on such terms with anyone. Acquaintances he had in plenty, but no friends, and she had often hated herself for taking advantage of her knowledge that one way to amuse Richard was to decry or make mock of his acquaintances. This Mr Mundford was different; no word of criticism must be used concerning him, as she quickly learned. Towards him Richard had something of the reverence which a young schoolboy has for one older, stronger and more popular.

It was all very strange and perhaps a little comic, but although she disliked Mr Mundford and found him physically repellent she could not regret Richard's friendship with him. It seemed to have eased something which had always been provoking Richard to be unpleasant, to take pleasure in being unpleasant. One might think it strange that friendship with such an ugly, dull-seeming little man should oil the rasping wheels of their marriage, but it seemed to do so; Richard was much kinder to her than he had been for longer than she could remember and actually said that she had behaved sensibly over the find. 'Many women would have thought only of getting the house refronted and would have had the hole filled in at once.'

And that made her think of Hadstock, who, on the evening after their visit to the place, had abandoned reserve and formality long enough to say that if he had his way he would have the opening closed over at once. And she had said, 'I feel the same.' Their relationship, at that moment advanced a step.

For two days after their arrival Richard and Mr Mundford went up and down the marble stairs and into and out of the house. They said little about the find in Linda's presence, but sat up late, talking. On the third day, much to Farrow's relief and joy, Richard gave orders that the hole was to be closed. At that point the foundations were to be deepened and strengthened for safety's sake; then the building would go on as usual and no one would ever guess what lay just by the long sash window-- one of three--in the new dining-room.

No one questioned Richard's action. 'A queer old place, full of statchers, all of 'em naked and some of 'em nasty,' as Farrow described it, had been found on a gentleman's private property; the gentleman had come from London to look at the find and had sensibly decided not to let it interfere with his building plans. The days of publicity lay far ahead in the future and every one of the few people most nearly concerned would have laughed to be told that if, one hundred and fifty years later, one fragment of one of the statues should come to light it would receive nation-wide attention. Mr Avery, the rector, was heard mildly to lament that a friend of his at Cambridge had not been able to view the find; but even he realised that nothing must stand in the way of Sir Richard's new dining-room. To the workmen Job's sudden disappearance into the earth and his lucky escape were far more matter for wonder and talk than the discovery to which the fall had led.

Richard and his new friend went back to London and in a few days it was all forgotten.

Hadstock resumed his evening visits. During the first of these Linda asked the question which had lain in her mind since their inspection of the temple.

'You were the first person to identify that place,' she said suddenly, 'How did you know?'

'I guessed.'

'Anyone could have guessed. I could have guessed-- but I shouldn't have been right. You were. You must have had something to go upon.'

'I read a little, my lady.'

Although, in its wording the sentence might have been an opening towards conversation, its tone had a finality and Linda asked no more questions. She began, however, to entertain a curiosity about Hadstock, who lived alone, who held himself apart from everyone, and who 'read a little' and was informed upon matters about which one would have expected a farm bailiff to be ignorant.

Once, in a short November afternoon, the last of the month, she walked along Berry Lane and stood and stared at the cottage as though it could afford some clue. It shared its occupant's secretiveness; its two small windows--one up, one down--were curtained with some ugly drab material, and the tiny garden was untilled, thickly buried under the leaf-fall of a solitary, age-twisted apple tree. When she had passed and could see, looking back, the space behind the cottage, she had a view of a linen line slung between two posts. Limp in the windless air hung two of Hadstock's shirts--his working blue, and the white one into which he changed in the evening-- three handkerchiefs, and two pairs of socks. Did he do everything for himself, she wondered, or did a village woman work for him? The idea of Hadstock washing, perhaps even ironing, his clothes was amusing, and yet pathetic.

She might never have known any more about the man than she did on that November afternoon had it not been for the accident which took place during the second week in December.

During his brief visit Richard had ordered, or had told Hadstock to order, a new bull. The two men who had delivered it, each holding a pole hooked into the ring through its nose, had warned Hadstock of its savage disposition. A stout leather collar had been slipped over its head and attached by a chain to one of the solid posts by the side of the manger, but even thus shackled it had, in a few days, managed to intimidate anyone who attempted to feed it. Hadstock had undertaken the job himself '...until the creature has settled'. The stockman, in his first entrances, had always gone armed with a pitchfork; Hadstock, believing this to be provocative, had relied upon the bull-pole, slipping the hook through the ring as the great head turned upon his entry and, by pressing on the pole, warding the creature off while he emptied the food into the manger within reach.

The days were now so short that the evening feeding had to be done by lanternlight; and on the second Thursday in December Hadstock entered the bull-stall, a skep of food embraced by his left arm, the lantern and the bull-pole held in his right hand. He set the lantern down and in the murky light advanced, slipped the hook, as he thought, into the ring, pressed, felt some resistance and edged himself towards the manger. But the hook had missed the ring and was pressing against the bull's nose. It moved its head slightly, the hook fell away, and there was Hadstock, close to the manger. He realised instantly what had happened and without releasing his hold on the skep--a stout wicker basket capable of holding a bushel--leaped away. The skep saved his life, deflecting the full force of the impact of the animal's attack. One horn struck the upper part of his arm, tearing it to the bone, and as he fell backwards he hit his head on the edge of the manger. But the fall carried him out of reach of further attack and the bull's supper fell back too and was scattered on the floor. So there was Hadstock

lying senseless and the bull, held by the chain, prevented from doing murder and also from enjoying his supper. Very soon the bull began to lament in a loud voice the folly of his recent action; he could smell his food, but he could not reach it.

'Di'n't Mr 'Adstock feed that there owd devil?' Tim Palmer asked Boy Jarvey as, having finished their rounds, they were on their way home.

'I see him go off with the skep. Ain't sin him since.'

''E don't generally make that row time 'e's eating,' Tim said, leaving it to Boy's wit to know that he was referring to the bull, not the bailiff "Old your lantern out of the way a minnit, Boy. Ah, I thought so--there's a light in the beast's stall.'

'He's talking to him,' said Boy with that deep irony of which only the very simple are capable. 'Soothing, like he towd me time he see me fending him off with a pitchfork. Come on, Tim, thass gonna freeze cruel. Less get along.'

'I don't like the sound of yon,' said Tim, who was not without experience. 'You don't reckon the owd devil got Mr 'Adstock down, do you?'

'Serve him right if he did,' Boy said; but the callousness was superficial, for he added immediately, 'Mebbe we'd best take a look.' There was, also at a superficial level, curiosity, the chance of drama, and below that, deeply rooted, the old loyalty, man against beast.

They entered the bull-pen cautiously and pulled Hadstock out by the legs, Tim Palmer, even at that moment, sparing attention and breath to address the bull sardonically, 'Thass right, you go on a-blaring, you owd------. Reckon anybody'll feed you arter this?' Then he said, "E's 'urt bad, Boy. Run along to the 'ouse and tell them.'

'But of course he must be brought in here,' Linda said. 'And somebody must go for the doctor.' So Hadstock was carried into the room where Mr Mundford had slept during his brief visit and somebody rode, helterskelter, for the doctor who lived in Baildon and came somewhat unwillingly, since he, like Boy Jarvey, expected frost and had, by careful questioning, made quite sure that neither Sir Richard nor his lady was in need of his attentions. And when, much later, he arrived, there was nothing that he could do, because Lady Shelmadine had already bandaged the gash in the man's arm, and when he suggested bleeding the patient in the hope of restoring him to consciousness she said, 'Oh, but he has bled a great deal already----'

The doctor was comforted, however, by presently being set down to an excellent game pie and as much port wine and brandy as he could take, and a little later he had the satisfaction of watching the victim of the accident return to his senses--or at least show signs of life.

They stood, the doctor flushed and expansive, Linda pale and tense, by the foot of the bed when Hadstock's eyelids flickered, and he said, in a voice which surprised the doctor, who had, after all, only the working clothes and some gasped-out words about a bailiff whom a bull had gored to go upon: 'So there you are. I knew that somewhere in the Elysian fields...it could not be otherwise, or how could Heaven be?' The blurred gaze focused, sharpened, came to rest on the doctor's flushed face; and then, very slowly but surely, the curtain of reserve dropped again. 'I was wrong,' Hadstock said: 'I should have taken a pitchfork.'

Next day, though ghastly pale and obviously in pain, Hadstock suggested going home to his cottage.

'But you can't. You couldn't look after yourself one-handed.'

'Then I'll hire an old crone.'

'But why do you want to go home? Aren't you comfortable? Is there anything I can do? Books? I have several--some quite new; let me fetch ..."

'I wish to go home.' Hadstock said, in a manner only just short of rude and ungrateful.

'I forbid it. You must stay at least until the doctor has been again and we are sure that the wound is not inflamed.

Then, if you must, and I am sure that some able-bodied woman is there to look after you, I will allow you to go-'

It was obvious, from the way he set his mouth, that it was with an effort of will that he prevented himself from speaking words of anger. They looked sternly at one another. Then Linda said, with dignity: 'There are plenty of servants; you give no trouble. And if you wish to be alone you can have solitude here quite as well as in Berry Lane. Alfred will look after you; and if you wish for anything just tell him.'

'Now you're angry,' Hadstock said, surprising her. 'Don't be angry. I'm not .ungrateful, I assure you. I know you mean kindly, but you don't...It's just that, for a sick man, home is the only place.'

'Then just for a day or two you must regard this as your home.'

She walked to the fireplace and laid on two logs and then went out of the room. She did not enter it again that day, nor the next, but contented herself by ordering light, nourishing invalidish meals, telling Alfred to tell Hadstock that she had made kind inquiries about his health and sending him two of her newest and most entertaining books.

On Sunday morning her caution was justified. Alfred reported that Mr Hadstock was out of his mind, mumbling and muttering and carrying on very strange. Later in the day the doctor, fetched from Baildon in a hurry, had his moment of sweet self-justification. He was able to say, 'I expected this', and to do his bleeding after all, audibly hoping that it was not too late.

The bleeding, and certain nostrums which he administered, silenced Hadstock for a while; but presently he began his mumbling and muttering and carrying on again, and Linda, having listened to him for a while, took the sensible precaution of sending Alfred away for a well-earned rest. It would never do to have Alfred exercising his simple mind on the subject of what Hadstock was talking about. A good deal of it was well out of his range--Shakespeare's sonnets, so much quoted, for example: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely ...', 'Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire?' That was all innocuous enough; but Hadstock, wildly quoting, wildly commentated too. 'The hours and times,' he said--'shall it be the time when I'm all in a muck, and sweaty and stinking, or later on when I am, if nothing else, clean? Just as you wish, Hadstock, of course it is nothing to me. Clean or dirty, all one! She'll offer you tea, however much you stink. Oh, most gracious. "I know many men despise it"--just for a minute setting you alongside the rest of them: a man, like the others. I will not take the Borgia draught. Lower the fence and let the tiger in? Halt by the shop window and stare, wet-lipped with longing? Not I!'

It went on and on.

There was fear in the house. Everybody knew someone, or someone's close relative, who had been gored by a bull and died. Even though he had had the benefit of a doctor's attentions the bailiff would go the way of all the rest. There was a special venom about a bull's horns, as about a toad's tongue, a serpent's tooth and a cat's claw. Accidents went in threes, and death was catching. As the year moved towards its dark nadir everyone was content, indeed deeply glad, to leave it to Linda to sit in the sickroom, to thrust spoonfuls of black syrup into the sunken mouth, to lay wet cloths on the burning brow and listen to the interminable ravings.