The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (37 page)

'Never mind. Try. My name is Alec Mundford.'

All right, she thought, she'd show him. Coming in like that and spoiling everything. An upsurge of anger, which in the circumstances was understandably mistaken for an uprush of power, swept over her.

'Sit down, Alec Mundford,' she said, desperately willing it to happen. But he remained standing.

'No,' he said, 'I am stronger than you--as yet. But you are young. And I confess I felt a weakening of the knees-- Tell me, how long have you practised this art, and to what purpose?'

'It came a year ago, in August. Quite suddenly. A woman was going to throw me out of somewhere where I wanted to stay...and she couldn't; nor could her husband. Then I knew.'

'And what had happened in August a year ago?' 

Sullen again, she said, 'Nothing.'

'Come, come,' said Mr Mundford. 'You remember. You and I must be frank with one another if we are to work together.'

'Work together?'

'Why not? It would never do for us to oppose one another, would it? But we'll speak of that later. Tell me what happened in August last year.'

'I had...a shock. And it was a hot day. I fainted; my mother thought I was dead.'

'And where were you during that time?'

'How did you know?' she asked sharply. He did not bother to answer, he just looked at her and waited.

'In a place,' she said at last. He nodded. 'And there were voices...and light was something you could touch and handle; and colour...colour was something you could taste...and time was...you could see it. It sounds all confused, but that was how it was, and I understood it...then.'

'And you returned with this power?'

'That was how it seemed. Nobody had ever done what I wanted them to do until then.'

He nodded again. 'Now do something for me,' he said. He took from his pocket the lump of pale pink stone. 'Hold this in your hand, will you?'

She hesitated. 'What is it? I don't want anything else to happen to me. You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone--and Sir Richard if he's your friend, though he did cheat me.'

'I'm not going to take anything away from you. I told you, we must work together. Just hold this in your hand.'

Reluctantly she took the stone and held it.

'Now give it back.' He snatched it quickly and looked at it eagerly. 'And colour,' he quoted delightedly, 'was something you could taste.' He slipped the stone back into his pocket. 'Working together,' he said, 'there could be no limit to what we could do.' He brooded for a moment. Then he said, 'Tell me, what do you want most in the world?'

The pulse began to beat in her throat again.

'Something I can never have now...'

'Why not?'

'It is too late.'

'Ah, but you forget. "Time was...you could see it!" Remember? By that measure it can never be too late. What is it that you want? I swear to you--by the things we both know--that if you will work with me you shall have it.'

'But he's married now."

'How young you are,' Mr Mundford said, almost do-tingly. 'How young and how innocent----'

Once the harvest was over the year seemed to go downhill rapidly; the evenings drew in and the usual early October gales stripped the trees and howled around the ill-fitting doors of the Waste Cottages, presaging worse weather to come. Those who had potatoes to dig dug them thankfully, watched by envious eyes.

Matt Ashpole, In that October, received what he called 'a smack on the snout'--one against which even his remarkable foresight had not warned him. He had foreseen and had spoken to Mrs Sam Jarvey about the 'draught' which would blow, cold and bitter, when destitution overtook the Waste-dwellers. He had himself lately felt its breath. Quite a third of his carrier's business had been concerned with taking little bits and pieces of produce to market and buying other little bits and pieces for his neighbours. That trade was now virtually dead. But he had sold all his fencing stakes and he was counting on Shipton's walnuts. So one blustery October morning he drove along to Bridge Farm to come to terms with Mrs Shipton as he had done in previous years.

She was not in the kitchen, so he banged on the door and shouted. Receiving no answer, he took Gyp by the bridle and led him to the rickety fence which separated the yard from the stackyard and left him so close to one of Shipton's haystacks that no sensible horse could have failed to take advantage of the position. He then went, on foot, to take a look at the walnut crop. And there, to his surprise and horror he found Shipton and his missus--her head tied up in a duster--armed with linen props, beating down the nuts with their own hands. 'Hullo, hullo!' he said. 'Ain't late this year, am I?' Shipton gave him a sour, sheepish look and went on with his beating, but Mrs Shipton lowered her prop and stood with it like a standard-bearer while she said, briskly: 'This year we're gathering 'em, sacking 'em and selling 'em, and taking what profit there is to be had, Matt Ash-pole. Letting you do it was all part of the lop-lolly state of affairs what brought us to ruin!'

'Ruin, missus?' said Matt, remembering all the fat pigs in the straw, all the stacks in the stackyard. 'Come now, you ain't the one to talk about ruin, surely.'

'I ain't talking about it; I'm dealing with it,' retorted Mrs Shipton.

The old bitch must be mad, Matt thought; and there was nothing to be gained by arguing with a mad woman armed with a linen prop. He shot Shipton a glance, a nice blend of sympathy and derision which Abel affected not to see, and walked slowly back to where he had left his old horse, which, being a prudent animal, had made the most of its chance.

'Come on, Gyp,' he said, climbing into the cart, 'we've gotta find some other way of turning a honest penny. I don't know what things are coming to, that I don't.'

Even his sturdy spirit was cast down for a while as he remembered better days when sometimes--not often, but sometimes--a job would go begging, when Matt Juby maybe would rap on his door and say, 'Matt, do us a favour. Dead rat under the floor at Flocky and I promised to go and hunt it this morning and now my cow is dropping her calf.' Nowadays the smell of a dead rat to be hunted and disposed of, a dead sheep to be buried, an overflowing privy to be emptied, brought half a dozen men running, all ready to accept a cut-throat price for the job. Terrible times we live in, surely, Matt thought. But the rhythm of the old horse's plodding hoofs soothed him, and the sight of the animal itself, narrow-hocked, bony- . Terrible times ribbed, sway-backed, ewe-necked as it was, was a cheering sight. He was better off than most; he still had his old horse, and sooner or later he'd find something to buy and sell again. His leathery lips curved in a smile as he remembered Shipton's face, the rasp in Mrs Shipton's voice. Poor old devil, for all his acres.

The increased poverty among his neighbours would, in the end, affect Amos unfavourably too, since in past years the sale of the pig or the geese or the half-grown calf had generally led to an order for shoes for some member of the family. This year nobody would order new shoes, but a good many people were willing to come and lend him a hand with the chapel-building in return for a patch on an upper or a clump on the sole. The new chapel grew much faster than its ruined predecessor, and after labouring on it all through the evenings Amos worked for hours by candlelight fulfilling his obligations to his helpers. Every evening after he had left the house Julie made a pot of tea and drank it slowly, savouring every drop.

The second week in October, just when he had decided it was time to change his routine and build in the mornings again, the weather turned wet. For days on end it rained relentlessly, heavy driving rain against which even a sack offered little protection, so Amos stayed at home and made up great arrears of work and Julie had no tea. Then a fine morning dawned, and as soon as he had noticed the weather Amos, with a piece of bread meagrely spread with lard in his hand, set off for Cobbler's Corner. Thank God for that, Julie thought piously, and put the kettle on, reached down her little brown teapot and the blue jug of skim milk. Ordinarily they washed down the larded bread with a cup of the milk and hot water, unsweetened; this morning Amos hadn't even waited for that.

With the hot sweet tea even the stale bread and thinly spread lard made a feast, and Julie lingered over it, thinking kindly of Damask. She had just poured fresh water into the pot to liven up the brew when the door of the workroom opened and closed, heavy stumbling steps approached the kitchen door, it opened, and there was Amos, looking so pale and stricken that she cried, 'Oh! Are you ill?' getting clumsily to her feet as she spoke.

'Gone all lopsided,' he said in a terrible voice, and sat down and put his head in his hands.

'What hev?'

'My chapel," he groaned.

'Oh dear me,' she said concealing her inward relief. Thass a sad job.' She looked at his bowed head with a glance void of sympathy but rich in pity. She knew the toil and the self-denial that had gone into that building, not to mention the nineteen pounds. A secret feeling of guilt stirred in her; she had so much resented the immediate sinking of that capital, which had seemed like a gift from Heaven, in the chapel, inevitable as she knew it to be. She had almost wished ill on the place at times.

'What happened?' she asked tenderly, as though interest at this point could retract the grudging of earlier thoughts.

Amos did not answer immediately; he was probably praying. After a few minutes he raised his head.

'I must bear in mind, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth". But the shock of the sight of it made me lose heart for a minute.'

'What happened?' Julie asked again.

'Thass sunk, four-five inches all along one side--Danny Fuller's side. I reckon thass all on account of the draining he been doing. Stand to reason, don't it? The ground down there was all plumped out like a fresh apple, he drain, and that shrival like an old apple thass lost its juice. The ground shrivelled and pulled the timber away. One place at the corner it gaped so I could put my hand through.'

Far, far back in Julie's mind framed the sentence-- That's what come of selling land to a chap who jilted your own daughter. The sentence could never be spoken, of course. Instead she said: 'Maybe you should of drained your bit when he did his.'

'Maybe I should. I didn't reckon on his being so hasty. Mention draining he did, the first night, afore he'd even bought the land. And that do seem a queer thing, Julie. There he is working away for the glory of Danny Fuller and me for the glory of God, and his drains work, all the reeds and rushes hev died down and he've got good pasture for the price of rubbish and I hev one chapel burnt and the other gone lopsided. That do seem hard.'

As soon as she knew that he was not stricken with mortal illness she had remembered the tea and moved so that she stood between him and the table. Now pity overcame her caution and she went back to her chair saying: 'You mustn't take it to heart, Amos. Hev a cup of tea. It'll pull you together.'

He stared at the teapot, the jug and the cup and the saucer and was tempted. Julie meant it kindly; and there'd be a relief in sitting here, drinking tea and talking over the mystery of God's ways, accepting the comfort of a sympathetic human being.

It was a temptation; he recognised it as such and thrust it away. A whole jumble of admonitory texts took possession of his mind: A house divided against itself could not stand...the beam must be taken from your own eye before the mote from your neighbours...except the Lord build the house their labour is but vain...He saw exactly where he had been at fault and why he had failed.

'Julie,' he said, 'that tea come from Damask, didn't it. I towd you, months ago, to send her back with what she brought. And I towd you, two years ago, no more tea in this house till the chapel is built. Both ways you disobeyed me and one way you deceived me. I've wrestled with Damask; every time I see her I've towd her about the way she look and act and never come to chapel, but she don't heed me. She've backslidden too. And there's you taking what she smuggle out of the house and don't even try to account for. The Lord no doubt think I turn a blind on these things. Here ..." he said, and reached out 88 pounds and took up the little brown teapot and dashed it into the hearth, where it cracked with a small sound which seemed to be echoed by Julie. 'Oh,' she said, as though something in her had broken too. Yet when he turned he saw on her face no hurt, no pleading look; only a red, almost jubilant anger which held him motionless and speechless with astonishment.

Thass the end,' Julie said. 'I've borne with you and borne you all these years, and on'y a minnit ago I was downright sorry for you and offered you a cup of tea for your comfort. Now you've chucked away the one thing thass been my comfort all these weary years. I never asked much,' she said, her voice rising. 'I've scrimped and screwed and gone shabby when there was no need to, and lived as hard as if I'd married a poor tool like Spitty Palfrey, not a man with a trade to his name; and I've come to the point where all I ask is a cup of tea what didn't cost you anything, nor took anything away from your chapel, a cup of tea my own daughter give me. What if she do curl her hair a bit and wear a pretty dress?' Julie's voice rose again as the old barrier fell and the ancient grievance poured out. 'So did I till you went Methodist, and was I any die worse? My people was all good people. A good farmer my father was and good to them that worked for him, and a kinder woman than my mother you'd be hard put to it to find; but they didn't think a curl or a frill or a cup of tea--or a glass of ale, come to that--was a deadly sin. Nor wouldn't God. Thass just you, with your ideas as lopsided as your chapel!'

Amos was as much astonished as that Biblical character, Baalam, whose ass turned and spoke to him. He just stared.

'I can make tea in a jug,' said Julie, 'till Damask bring me a pot, which she will do when she hear what you did to my little brown 'un, what was a wedding present to me.

She got up, reached down another larger jug and the little tea tin, and pushed the kettle back to the fire. 'I'm gonna make a jug of tea now, Amos; and do you interfere with me I shall pour the water on you, so you'll be the sacrifice. I don't aim to be the sacrifice no longer.'