The Green Gauntlet (34 page)

It was a dramatic gesture but quite unnecessary. Nelson, appalled by the sergeant’s yells and also by the speed of his exit, had no thought of striking her but was concerned only with the possibility of having committed murder. He was almost sure that he had and in the moment of terrible panic that followed he saw himself standing in the dock at Paxtonbury Assizes pleading the unwritten law. Then he managed to break free from his wife, leaving her clutching a pair of muddy gumboots, and the relief of seeing Sergeant Morrisey conscious and rocking himself to and fro at the foot of the ladder was stunning. He said, briefly, ‘Get down out of here, you bloody whore, and fetch Bernard and Jock. Say we were skylarking and he slipped. I’m going to phone ambulance and Squire.’

She stared up at him and he thought he had never seen anybody look so ridiculous, a woman in her mid-thirties, kneeling on a truss of hay embracing a pair of gumboots. Her skirt was rucked up to her thighs and her suspender clips were broken so that her stockings, stockings brought her by Eddy, had wrinkled down to her shins. Straw was clinging to her disordered hair and all the time she knelt there she continued to scream, so that it was not necessary to summon Bernard and Jock for they came running, together with Nelson’s aged pigman, Walt Davey, who was thus able to give a lively account of the tableau that night in the bar of The Raven at Coombe Bay.

‘There ’er was,’ Walt was to declare, ‘screaming ’er ade off, like ’er was mazed! And there was the Yank, hollering bliddy murder at the bottom of the ladder! You never zeed zuch a carry-on, and then down comes Young Maister, white as a vish-belly, steps right over the Yank like he was a bale o’ straw, and rins out to the vone! Well, us straightened him out as best we could, and Bernard put a splint on his leg, and then down comes the missis showing all ’er’s got, and not giving a damn neither for ’er was that scared. ’Er stood looking at him for a minute without so much as a wink an’ then ’er zees us looking at
her
an’ suddenly whips round and out and that’s the last I zeed of ’er.’

It was the best story told in the bar for a generation. They plied him with cider and he went on to describe the removal of the cursing, bellowing Yank to the Marine sickbay, but he was unable to tell them of the subsequent interview between Squire Craddock and Nelson Honeyman for it took place at the Big House, whither Nelson went as soon as the injured sergeant had been driven away. The result of that conversation, however, and others that followed it, was brought home to him when it became known that Nelson Honeyman and his wife—‘Prudence-Pitts-that-was’ as the Valley folk called her in the manner they referred to all girls who had married locally—were breaking their tenancy and taking a sheep farm in Dorset, and that Home Farm would now be run by Squire Craddock or one of his relatives.

It was no light decision for the badly shaken Nelson but although the Squire did his best to dissuade him from leaving his mind was made up by the certainty that the story had already passed into Valley legend, and also perhaps, by the attitude of his father-in-law, Henry Pitts of Hermitage.

Henry, called in at the second conference, was abruptly silenced by Paul when he broke out, ‘Tiz all a bliddy fuss over nought! You catches her under one o’ they bliddy vorriners, an’ you does what any man would do, lambasts him with a pick handle an’ throws the bugger downstairs. But you forgot something after all. You didn’t give my bliddy maid a tannin’ ’er woulden forget in a hurry, and because you didden’ and because it’s too late in the day for me to do it, you’ll never have the upper hand of ’er now. Giddon, when I was your age …’

But this was as far as he got, for Paul said, bleakly, ‘Hold your tongue, Henry. This is 1945 not 1895 and if Nelson lays a finger on his wife it won’t do his case any good if the American prosecutes. He could, and probably would if he thought Prudence would back him up in court! Personally I think you’re wrong to clear out, Nelson. These things are soon forgotten I can assure you, but for God’s sake don’t take it out on her until he’s out of the country.’ He had never liked Nelson as much as his father but it saddened him to see a long family tradition broken by such a stupid incident. He went on, ‘Why don’t you leave the American to me? I’ll get in touch with his unit and tell them the facts and in the meantime you can think it over.’

Nelson said glumly, ‘This Dorset farm is going cheap. You won’t be able to buy it for double the money when the war is over and I’d like to get clear away from here, Squire. By now everybody knows what happened and everybody’s sniggering behind my back.’

‘O’ course they be,’ Henry muttered, ‘but they’d zoon stop if you took a beanpole to my maid like I said—all right, Squire, us knows times ’ave changed, and everyone along with ’em, but I’m ’er father and she was always a bliddy handful, so why can’t I have my say zame as you two?’

‘Because it’s a damn silly say,’ Paul told him, ‘and you keep away from her, do you hear?’ Then, to Nelson, ‘Has she agreed to go to Dorset?’

‘Not yet. I haven’t told her. She’s keeping out o’ my way as you can imagine, but—well, I’d like you to discuss it with her while I’m seeing the solicitors. I daresay you could talk more sense into her than I could at the moment.’

‘All right if that’s what you want,’ Paul said, although by no means relishing the task and he left with a warning nod at Henry and crossed the paddock to the farm where he found Prudence drinking port and lemon in the kitchen. He said, briefly, ‘Nelson’s been up at the house and told me and your father what happened over here. He wants to leave, and take a bigger farm in Dorset. It seems he’s had his eye on it for some time. How do you feel about backing him?’

She looked, he thought, unhappy and thoroughly ashamed of herself, and suddenly he remembered that she was one of his numerous godchildren. She said, slowly, ‘I’ll make a fresh start with him if he wants to try.’ Then, ‘We’ve never really hit it off, Squire. I only married Nelson because I thought I was in the family way. To my mind that was worse than what happened with Eddy, but when he realised the truth he never made this kind of rumpus. Can you explain that?’

‘It’s very easy to explain,’ Paul said, recollecting that he had always had his suspicions about the marriage. ‘The first was a private matter but this makes him a Valley laughing stock and that’s why he’s determined to get out while he’s got the chance.’ His resentment for her moderated as it always did when he was not faced with cant. These people in their early thirties were subject to pressures that had not been exerted on his own generation. The first war had damaged the structure of the old civilisation but it had not rotted it, as had the Depression and the years of drift that had resulted in Hitler. Back in 1917 and 1918 one had always felt one was fighting to preserve something worth preserving, that once things had settled down everything would be much the same, but this wasn’t true any longer. The whole fabric of community and family life was in tatters and there did not seem to be much hope of repairing it. Would it seem such a dastardly thing to her to betray a colourless husband like Nelson Honeyman, trading a few sweaty moments in a loft for an armful of household goods that no housewife in the Valley would have wanted thirty years ago? He didn’t think so. This kind of thing was in the atmosphere one breathed nowadays. It was in politics and business. It showed in the black-market traffic of men like Smut Potter and Henry, and in the business activities of his own son, Andy. Who the hell was he to condemn her for copulating with a Yank, when his own daughter-in-law had done the same thing with her brother-in-law and the passage of a year or so had resulted in his own wife’s passive acceptance of the situation?

He said, ‘What’s that muck you’re drinking? Haven’t you got a real drink to offer me?’ and she crossed to the big dresser, returning with half a bottle of Scotch and poured him a few fingers.

‘I suppose this is a bit more lease-lend?’ he said glumly, and she said it wasn’t but the last of half a dozen that Nelson had got from Stacey, the Whinmouth wine merchant, in exchange for a crate of eggs and a few pounds of butter. The information widened his area of tolerance and he said:

‘That Yank could sue for assault and Nelson would find himself in serious trouble,’ but she replied, ‘Rubbish! Eddy would have to cite me as a witness and can you see me forgetting to tell the magistrates he got me up in that loft on false pretences?’ He chuckled, then straightened his face. ‘I don’t want you and Nelson to go. His father was farming here when I came and he was the third Honeyman to work the Home Farm. Will you be any happier among strangers?’

‘That’s for Nelson to decide,’ she said. ‘One farm is as good as another for my money.’

There it was again, this rootlessness, this yawning renunciation of tradition and the claims of a community, and even Rumble had been infected by it to some extent. It was frightening to a man who would be sixty-six in June.

‘What is it you
want
?’
he asked, suddenly, ‘not just you but the whole lot of you who grew up here between the wars? What
means
anything to you?’ She looked at him steadily and he was reminded of her great strapping mother, Gloria, whom he had seen courted, married and buried.

‘Time to play,’ she said, with a candour that surprised him, ‘I don’t seem to have had any since I was a kid. Soon I’ll be forty and then what? Somewhere there must be fun around and I want a piece of it.’

‘What kind of fun?’ he persisted.

‘Every kind. A car that’s not half a hearse. Travel maybe—there’s lots of places I’d like to see before I die, good food in my belly after being made to feel like a criminal for using half a dozen of my own eggs in a pudding and—well, let it pass!’

‘No,’ he said, ‘we won’t, what else?’

She looked across at him slyly, with a gleam of Henry’s mischief in her eyes. ‘I suppose to feel a real woman now and again,’ she admitted. ‘Poor old Nelson, bless his heart, never had it in him to succeed in that direction.’

‘Did anyone else? Anyone special?’

‘No, or if they did I’ve forgotten. I don’t expect you to believe me but this was the first time I went off the rails. Really off them, I mean.’

He believed her. Deep down, he suspected, she was as loyal as most of the young wives about the Valley, but she was also in open rebellion against the theft of her youth, not only by the war years but by the dullness of Young Nelson, and as if confirming this she looked at him with another flash of her father’s mischief and said, ‘The war on one side, Squire, life isn’t all acre yield and tractor hours, is it? We all know it isn’t with you and God knows, you’re dedicated enough.’

‘Now just how am I to interpret that? he asked, smiling at her impudence.

‘Well,’ she said frankly, ‘you’ve got a long family and you don’t have any trouble with Mrs Craddock.’

He laughed openly at this and she laughed too, so that the tension that had been present in the room all but disappeared. He found his sympathy for her mounting. She was one of the prettiest girls the Valley had ever produced and he caught himself contemplating the opportunities Nelson must have neglected. ‘By George,’ he thought, ‘she’s so frustrated I believe she’d welcome a man my age if I went the right way about it. That would really set the Valley by the ears!’ But then, checking himself with a silent, half-humorous admonition, he said, ‘You can hardly expect me to give Nelson that kind of advice at his age. Do you think this has a bearing on you not having any family?’

‘It might have,’ she said, ‘but I can’t honestly say I feel deprived in that respect. It’s a lot more complicated. I had a pretty good time before I was married and I’ve always gone out of my way to dodge that dowdiness that seems to creep up on most Valley women the moment they’ve hooked a man bringing home good money.’ A kind of defiance entered her voice as she stood up, leaning her weight against the black oak overmantel. ‘Men still look at me the way they used to ten years ago. Even men of settled habit do. But Nelson doesn’t. I don’t mean by that he isn’t masculine, but there’s something guarded about him. Maybe it’s a Puritan streak, although some so-called Puritans I’ve met …’ and then reticence caught up with her and she completed the sentence with a shrug.

He stood up, feeling the conversation had gone as far as it could without some kind of deeper, personal involvement on his part, but honesty obliged him to make some final attempt at summarisation.

‘Look here, Prudence,’ he said, ‘the real solution to this rests with you. This thing has been a hell of a shock to Nelson—it would be to any man who valued his self-respect—but it needn’t be final and it could even be beneficial in the long run. He’s a dour chap, like his father and grandfather, but he’s very fond of you. I’d say more. He’s damned proud of you, even if he hasn’t shown it until he belted that Yank. I don’t have to tell you how to manipulate a man. You’ve been doing it effectively since you wore long plaits. My advice to you is—lay it on thick. If you don’t feel any real remorse make him think you do, but don’t overdo it either. That is, don’t adopt the
mea culpa
approach. Go for him as soon as he gets back here and keep on going for him. Don’t give him time to brood. Give him what you’ve never given him on account of his inhibitions. Make him sit up and say, “My God, see what I’ve been missing!” Does that make sense to you?’

She was smiling openly now, not so much at the homily but at the exasperation with which it was delivered.

‘It makes a bundle of sense,’ she said, ‘and what can I lose anyway?’ Then, more soberly, ‘Do you go around giving this kind of advice to all your tenants?’

‘No I don’t,’ he said, relieved at her approach, ‘but I’m qualified to. In that Yank’s shoes, fed up and far from home, I don’t suppose I should have cared a damn about the niceties of the situation if I got the come-on sign from a girl like you.’

He drained his whisky and moved to the door. ‘To return to the mundane,’ he concluded, ‘try that bigger farm and start fresh in new surroundings. This place will change but not as fast as you seem to want it. Leave Nelson to me and if you do find you’re homesick, tell him to write. I daresay you’ll come back in the end. Most of them do when they hear the clock ticking.’