The Power of the Dead (4 page)

“It’s the Turney crest.”

Hilary had his doubts about the so-called Turney crest.
According
to his brother Richard, old Turney was not entitled to a coat of arms.

“Well, it’s your mother’s family, and as such you’re not entitled to wear it.”

“It was my twenty-first birthday present during the war.”

“Who’s idea was that?”

“Mine.”

“Why?”

“Many of the officers I knew had signet rings, so I thought I’d like one. Father said he didn’t pay the armorial bearings tax, so I wasn’t entitled to the Maddison one.”

“Uncle John has several rings belonging to your grandfather, and I’ll ask him to let you have one. It will cost a guinea a year, if you wear it. Anyway, such things are out of fashion since the war, with crested envelopes and writing papers. They belong to the last century. Now tell me, have you had many callers?”

“A few, all of them Lucy’s relations.”

“Of course you’ve returned the calls?”

“Lucy has.”

“What sort of cards have you got?”

Phillip opened the drawer in the table, and showed the packets.

“H’m, Day & Co., Bond Street. What made you go there?”

“They were a wedding present from Lucy’s father.”

Soon after the marriage, when they had just settled into the farmhouse, a parcel had arrived with a London postmark. Inside were three packets of ivory pasteboard, one of large cards, and two of smaller cards, engraved and printed by hand from copper plates.

“Why didn’t you let Mr. Copleston know in time that your name was spelt with two ‘l’s?”

“I’d no idea he was going to have them done.”

“Well, I suppose as they’re a wedding present one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“The gift horse was followed by a bill.”

“What, from Lucy’s father?”

“No, from Day & Co. However, it was a kind thought of Pa’s. Perhaps he thought if it was left to me I might get some cheap ones done with fancy letters, all twirly, every other inch a gentleman, in fact.”

“He’s an old man, you must remember. Old men forget little details.”

A butterfly wandered through the open window, and out again.

“Tell me, have you done any fly-fishin’ since you’ve been here?”

“I really haven’t had any time. Also, I find I’m more interested in watching birds and fish.”

“You used to fish, I remember.”

“Yes, before the war. But since then, somehow, I don’t want to fish, or to shoot.”

Hilary had bought, in March of that year, a thousand two-year fish from a hatchery on the Thames. Five hundred brown trout had been put in the brook, and the same number of rainbows in the Longpond, an artificial lake filled by the spring-head of the brook gushing out below the downs.

“If you don’t fish, and it gets about that you don’t, poachers will clear out the stock, you know. You should learn to fish with the dry fly, and get some trout for Lucy’s breakfast. What sort of a rod have you?”

“I haven’t any rod, Uncle.”

“I’ll let you have one of my split-canes. I did think of going out for the noon rise today, but it’s rather late in the season, and the fish will be preparing to spawn. Have the papers arrived yet?”

“Yes, Uncle,” said Lucy, coming into the room. “They didn’t forget your
Post.
”

“Ah, thank you, my dear.”

He didn’t feel like fishing; he was tired, his nephew always seemed to have that effect on him; so settling into the leather
armchair
, a whisky-and-soda to restore him, he read his paper, friend of many years, before switching on to hear the midday weather report.

The anti-cyclone was continuing; good, he would stay another day, and perhaps get Lucy to carry the net for him on the morrow. She must learn to fish, if Phillip was such an ass as not to enjoy some of the best dry-fly water in the county.

*

Hilary had always been an early riser. Phillip found him
standing
by the Ash pool soon after 7 a.m. the next morning. The cows had already been brought to suckle the calves in the yard, their tracks wandered through the red and blue dew-glints on the grass. Hilary was content; he had walked round the farm the previous evening and seen that all the corn-ricks were thatched. The sides had not been raked clean, they were decidedly ragged; but that would have been a waste of time, with all the thistles in the corn. He had decided that the arable must be ploughed quickly, and mustard sown. Mustard would hold the pheasants, he told Phillip.

“It’s a catch crop, and provides good cover. Also it’s useful as feed for a ewe-flock, before the tups are put in. A sort of
aphrodisiac
, if you know what that means.”

“I’ve read about them, but thought they were a pornographic invention.”

“Not at all. The most sought-after among African natives is powdered rhinoceros horn.”

“I always thought that was a fourth-form joke. Have you had any luck?”

Hilary looked at his nephew sharply, suspecting sarcasm. “What do you mean?”

“Have you caught any fish?”

“Oh yes.”

He showed Phillip a long, slim trout in his basket.

“It’s a hen, I’m afraid. Pricked the tongue—no use putting a fish back when you see blood. Got it on a large badger. One of the native fish. No yellow spots, you notice, which the stew-fed hatchery fish retain until they assimilate a full gorge of summer flies.”

“You know,” Hilary went on, “I’ve an idea that we should regard this farm as in hand mainly for the sporting it provides, for the next year or two, anyway, until markets improve.”

“That’s what the foreman was telling me. He’s afraid of losing his job, I think. Can you tell me why a Conservative Government doesn’t conserve British farming?”

“Because we’re mainly an industrialised nation, dependent on our export trade, Phillip. We also lend money abroad, in the form of loans. Part of the interest on those loans comes back in the form of foodstuffs——”

“Then a Conservative Government is a government mainly of usurers?”

“That’s a catchpenny Labour phrase, Phillip. It doesn’t alter the fact that Great Britain, despite the war, is still financially strong. We export the products of our heavy industries all over the world, and of course we require to be paid for what we sell. There’s a great deal of British capital tied up in Argentine railways, for example. So we take a part of their agricultural products, in the form of maize, wheat, and frozen meat, which are sold in the City for sterling and so provide the interest to the stock- and
bondholders
.”

“Money comes first, then; in other words, the interests of the rich?”

“Money is merely a token of energy, properly applied. Now don’t bother your head with matters you don’t understand. And the sooner you get rid of all this socialistic clap-trap, and apply yourself to hard work here, on the land where you belong, the sooner you’ll get your reward. By the way, how are Lucy’s brothers doing with the Workshop?”

“Not too well at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“D’you remember what I told you when I came over in the spring, just before your marriage to Lucy?”

“Yes, you told me, before they properly got started, that they were bound to fail. I’m afraid you were right, Uncle.”

At the unexpected concordance, Hilary remained silent. Having dried the fly on amadou, he began to wave it gently to and fro, in
order to spread the long fine hairs bound to the shank by yellow silk. Then, giving it a touch of odourless paraffin from a little bottle with a box-wood cap to the cork, through which a brush was fixed, he waved the fly again.

“That will make it float, with the hackles resting lightly on the surface. Now don’t let me keep you from your work,” he said, pulling out enamelled tapered line.

“Before I go, do you mind one more question—it’s not about politics. Do you think the farm economy can afford a tractor?”

“You’ll have to make do with what you’ve got for the time being, Phillip. I’ve looked at the range of tractors. They’re no good. They’re cumbersome things, and their weight pans the ground. D’you know what that means?”

“Yes. A few inches under the top-soil there’s a hard pan of chalk which has been neutralised by carbonic acid brought down by the rains of centuries.”

“Where did you get that from?”

“I’ve been reading
The
Farmer
&
Stockbreeder
regularly.”

“Good man. I agree that later on, bit by bit, we may have to break that pan, but it will be a gradual process.”

“Well, I’ll be off. I mustn’t spoil your fishing.”

“No great hurry. I think you should know that I’ve gone into the matter of tractors with Arkell fairly thoroughly. We’ve looked at the Fordson, the International Titan, and the Saunderson, and agree that they’re all in the experimental stage. For one thing, their weight disposition is unsound. They tend to rear up under load. On this hilly land they’d be dangerous. You can’t beat horses to plough with. The movement cracks and crumbles the furrows, if you notice. There’s a lea-breaker still serviceable in the barn, by the way, you might try your hand with that.”

“Yes, I’ll do so, Uncle. Breakfast in an hour’s time?”

“The fish won’t rise any more after the sun gets over the hanger. I’ll be leaving about ten, and if I can I want to take back a basket of trout for your Aunt Viccy.”

Hilary returned with the solitary trout. After breakfast he said, “I’ll be back for the shooting in late October or early November, according to how the leaves fall. I’ve discussed all matters
concerning
the farms with Arkell, and he’ll pass it on to Hibbs, who will tell you. The arable will be scarified before ploughing, or cultivated as we say here, and mustard be broadcast. If sown soon, it should be well up by the time we shoot. After the shooting it can either
be fed to ewes, as I’ve said, or ploughed in. I think, for next season, we’ll probably bare-fallow all your upland fields, the marginal land. You’ll have a small acreage for oats and feeding barley, and roots of course, for the stock. But Arkell will let you know all particulars through Hibbs, as I’ve said. Hibbs will continue to come round regularly as before to keep an eye on things.”

“I see. By the way, if it isn’t a secret matter, do your other farms pay? Or is that a delicate question?”

“Not in the least. I’m glad you take an interest. They’re not showing a profit yet, and won’t for three years. We may have to sell the ewe-flocks—this is confidential, mind—I don’t want any trouble with the shepherd. With the sheep gone, the policy will be to grass down as much acreage as is practicable, for milk and stock rearing. That will reduce considerably the labour costs all round.”

Phillip felt regret when the moment of departure came. He hadn’t been much of a companion to poor old Nuncle. Hilary saw doubt and anxiety in his nephew’s face, and when Phillip held on to his hand during the final shake, he said, “Don’t worry too much about present difficulties. These depressions are inevitable, they come and go. Why not go out with Haylock sometimes, when he ferrets the rabbits? I’ve got a good little 28-bore you can have, in the gun-room at your Uncle John’s. Ask him to let you have it. I used to shoot with it when I was a boy.”

“Thanks very much, Uncle.” He didn’t tell him that he had a 12-bore of his own.

“’Twill help you get your eye in. Haylock will have to do a lot of ferretin’, to keep the rabbits down, for I don’t want village cads to feel that they have the run of the woods, which they will do if he has to ask some of them to do the shootin’. They take enough game with their lurcher dogs already, and also use
sweep-nets
for the partridges. What you shoot, of course, should be left for Haylock. Keepers feel that rabbits are their perquisites. He tells me he could trap five thousand every winter, if only I’d give him permission. But I’ve told him that this was a first-class partridge shoot in my father’s time, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t become so again. So go out after the rabbits with him. Have you got any friends you’d like to invite?”

“No, Uncle.”

“Well, I expect you’ll make friends in due course.”

He turned to Lucy, and kissed her. “I’ve enjoyed my visit no
end, and look forward to my return in the fall. I’ll be bringing down half a dozen guests, but we’ll all put up at the Royal Hotel in Shakesbury.” He said to Phillip, “Try to get the ploughing done by the middle of September, broadcast the mustard, and you’ll be surprised at the number of birds that will fly out when we put in the beaters.”

“Yes, Uncle Hilary. By the way, I’m going to shave off my beard.”

*

That evening Phillip re-entered the world of his inner self by which alone he could transmute the burdens of conscience and memory, a world which had been deserted since his marriage.

He began writing, at the point left off the previous June, with intense nervousness. First he looked at his notes; to reject them and wander round the dozen square yards of the room; returned to the low mahogany desk which had been his grandfather
Turney’s
; left to rearrange the fire; returned to glance at the notes. So many pages: where to begin? He was reluctant to read them. They began with Lutra, her tame otter, going down the Maladine stream to the reedy mere, soon after her death … but all he could picture, with sighful despair, was a pale face within a coffin deep in the shaley soil of Malandine churchyard, the oak boards not yet rotted, so that she was waiting, waiting to escape from the cruel, restricting pressures of the earth, when she could forever be of ambient air, clear flowing water from moor and valley; rising again to be with clouds, to fall as rain into the tidal pulses of the sea, sharing the life of fish and shell, of rock and grain of sand. And thus to be with him, her pilgrim still held back from the elements. Lutra’s wanderings were her wanderings, she was with Shelley, with Blake, and all the holy poets who knew that life was a Spirit.