The Quality of Mercy (33 page)

By the end of the day he had learned a great deal about the working of the colliery and the methods of extraction. He had also learned, from Roland Bourne, the full name, and the address, of the notary in Hartlepool.

But the great moment of his visit came early next morning, when he rode alone to the mouth of the Dene and saw that, though the sides were steep and thickly wooded, the path that led down from the opening of the ravine to the stream below descended by much more gradual degrees, and that the land immediately adjoining the stream continued roughly level on either side, at least for the mile or so that he walked along it.

He arrived in Hartlepool toward midday and had no difficulty in finding Mr. Bathgate’s place of business. The notary was a tall man, advanced in age, stooped a little at the shoulder, with a solemnity of utterance and manner belied by bright, quick-glancing eyes.

“Pray be seated, sir,” he said. “How can I be of service to you?”

Kemp had been kept waiting for twenty minutes or so in an outer room while the notary continued to converse with a client already there, who looked like someone in a small way of business, perhaps a shopkeeper—in any case, a person who should have been ushered out immediately when he, Kemp, had arrived on the scene. This, coupled with the fact that he felt free for the moment from Spenton’s presence and the constraint this entailed of appearing agreeable and obliging, brought out a strain of arrogance in him that was never far away.

“I am a guest of Lord Spenton,” he said, ignoring the offer of a chair. “I have need of information regarding his lordship’s estates.”

“Have you so?” The notary regarded his visitor for some moments, taking in the expensive and fashionable cut of his riding suit, the stiffness of his bearing, the dark eyes that were turned from him. He had registered the high-handed manner without
being set in awe by it; he was not a man easily set in awe. “You will have a paper of some sort?” he said.

“A paper? What do you mean?”

“Some note from his lordship authorizing you to make these inquiries.”

“No, I have nothing of the sort. I cannot see that it is necessary. I informed Lord Spenton that I was in need of certain information and I obtained your name from him.”

“I see. So I am expected to take it on trust. I am afraid that sets certain limits on the nature of the information I can give you.”

Kemp checked the angry reply that rose to his lips. For the first time he deigned to look directly at the notary and found himself being regarded with a certain curiosity but without any hint of deference. Belatedly he realized that it had been a mistake to take such a peremptory tone; the fellow was insolent beyond what could have been expected in a provincial lawyer. “Well, it is nothing of a particularly confidential kind,” he said more mildly. “The valley known as the Dene, does it give access to a stretch of shore that forms part of Lord Spenton’s property?”

The notary maintained a silence for some moments, looking down at his hands, which lay clasped on the desk before him. Then he said, “The line of the shore is common land, sir, for fifty yards from the tidemark.”

“I understand that Lord Spenton has once already encroached on common land in order to enlarge his park, and this without penalty to him.”

“That is so, yes.”

“It is likely that he would have the same power of expropriation in this case.”

“It would be a reasonable assumption. The Spenton family have had the land in their possession for four generations. Possession confers rights, sir, that is the way of things.”

On this Kemp took his departure. He was reasonably satisfied with the interview, though bearing away an unfavorable opinion of the notary. Even if compensation for the enclosure had to be
paid, it could not be so very much for a short stretch of shore. It would be money well spent in any case—it would give unimpeded access to the sea and with that the right to construct wharves and a harbor.

Occupied with these thoughts, he did not think to consider that Bathgate might have learned more from the interview than he had himself, but such in fact was the case. As the notary remained at his desk in the silence following upon Kemp’s departure, certain questions exercised his mind. Why would his visitor, not a local man and apparently wealthy, wish to make such an inquiry? Why had he ridden a dozen miles to do so when Spenton, whom he had claimed as his host, could easily have furnished the information? Why just there, just at that point, where the Dene opened out?

They were different sorts of question, but there was an answer that fit them all.

The morning of the handball match was clear and sunny and practically windless, a cause for general rejoicing as it meant that the game could be played in the open, allowing a much greater number of spectators than did the covered court.

It was a day of heavy responsibility for Michael Bordon. The hopes of the village were centered on him; there was a good deal of money—hard-earned money—resting on the result. Lord Spenton himself had shaken him by the hand that morning and wished him success. Two days before, Elsie had told him she had cause to believe herself pregnant, and he had asked her to marry him, and she had said yes.

So as he waited with his opponent in the shed behind the court while the spectators took their places, it was with a sense that much depended on him and a determination to do his best not to disappoint. He was matched with Charlie Dickson, the man who had won the year before, three years older than himself, stocky but very light on his feet—he was a notable dancer in his village. The two spoke little as they waited, cultivating a certain hostility in the silence.

There was seating for twelve persons only in the area immediately facing the wall of the court, and these were reserved for people of rank. Colonel and Mrs. Pemberton were among them,
and Roland Bourne, but Kemp, seated beside his host, noted that Lady Spenton had not made an appearance. Behind this row of seats the court opened widely and sloped upward, so that the ranks of spectators, standing close together, were able to get a clear view.

While these ranks were forming, Spenton explained something of the game to his guest. “This court was constructed in my grandfather’s time,” he said. “It is the Irish game we play here.” His face wore the same expression of lively interest it had worn when he was explaining the mechanism by which the water nymph was hoisted and lowered.

“Why is that?”

“There was an influx of migrant workers from Ireland at the turn of the century. They came to look for work in the mines here. They brought the game with them, and it caught on with the Durham men. At first they would play against any wall, on a clay floor. We have tiled the floor and marked out the lines, but it is still played by the same rules and with the same type of ball, very hard, a wooden core covered with strips of rubber. They don’t wear gloves, you know—they can bandage their hands if they like, but usually they don’t choose to. The ball has to be struck, catching and throwing are against the rules, but the feet can be used. The ball must always be struck directly against the wall and taken on the rebound.”

Kemp listened with an interest at first assumed, then growing genuine as his host’s enthusiasm was communicated to him and the sounds from the people assembling behind them grew in intensity. Spenton had to raise his voice as he pointed out the zones of play, the serving area, the short line that divided the court in two, the sidelines and the long line at the back. Points gained by the server were added to his score; a fault in serving or a failure to return the ball meant that the service would pass to the other with the score unaltered. There were three strokes only, apart from the kick: the underhand service stroke, the overhand for balls that bounced high and the sidearm. One player could not
block another from playing the ball; if he did, the ball was judged dead and had to be served again. The first man to reach twenty points won the game. Five games were played; the winner was he who had the best of the five.

“But who is it that does the judging?” Kemp asked. “There must be someone, surely. Otherwise the time would be consumed in dispute and quarrels.”

“There is a man chosen to be the arbiter, one who knows the rules and is accepted by both sides. He must not come from either colliery—the man we have today is from a colliery north of the Wear.”

“He is there in the midst of the court, then? He will need to be quick on his feet to keep clear of the ball and the players.”

“He keeps to the sidelines,” Spenton said. “He will come in with the players … Here they are now.”

There was a sudden shouting from the packed ranks behind them as the three men appeared and made their way onto the court. The arbiter was dressed in suit and cap, clearly his best; the players were bareheaded, in shirtsleeves, their trousers tied round at the ankles with twine. The shouting was followed by an absorbed silence as the two began some minutes of warming up, taking turns to serve.

“That is our man, Bordon, the slightly taller one,” Spenton said.

Kemp, who had seen the putters at work some days previously, found it hard to imagine how anyone could emerge from such heavy labor in such cramped conditions and move with the lightness and speed both men were showing now as they circled round the court. He could see nothing in either that might be taken as a determining advantage. Bordon had an inch or two of height and perhaps a wider reach, but the other was thicker in the shoulder and altogether stronger-looking in build, and he seemed to move no less quickly for this.

The arbiter spoke to the two men and they came together in the center of the court to toss a coin and determine who should serve first. It came down in Michael’s favor. The minutes of
practice had warmed him, but he was still nervous and tense, as always at the beginning of any contest in which he was involved. He had not found the coolness of mind that might already have given him some clues as to his opponent’s style of play. For this first serve he stood well forward in the service area, as close as possible to the shortline that marked the division of the court. He dropped the ball, struck it on the first bounce with the palm of his hand. It came high off the wall, and Dickson, who had stayed well back, was able to leap and strike it with great force. The rebound was very fast and very high—too fast and too high for Michael, who had stayed too near to the wall to get his hand to it. With this he lost the advantage of the service.

Dickson won the next six points in a row, then lost the service through a fault, setting one foot outside the service line as he dropped the ball. Michael meanwhile had understood that he could not hit the ball with the same force as his opponent and that he would lose the match if he allowed it to become a trial of striking power. He was being obliged to stay at the back of the court, a position which deprived him of initiative. Dickson seemed to be assuming now that the contest would take this form, remaining in midcourt where he could use the sidearm stroke to slam the ball hard against the wall.

Only a short bounce was any defense against this tactic, and Michael served from as far back as possible, almost a lob. It struck the wall rather low, obliging Dickson to move forward very quickly. So near the wall as this, with the ball dropping, there was little he could do but strike underhand at it and so present Michael with a perfect passing shot.

This exchange in the first game set the pattern for the next two. Dickson gained most of his points with a slamming forearm stroke, delivered across court to widen the angle of the bounce; Michael lured his opponent forward and then passed him with shots that were out of his reach.

Three games had been played and Dickson had won two of them before Michael realized another crucial difference in their
styles of play. Dickson had so much force in his rig ht arm and was so quick on his feet that he based his whole game on these strengths, counting always on getting across the court fast enough to deliver the sidearm blow. Michael knew that he lacked the other man’s power in driving the ball, but he was a two-handed player, and his returns on the left were hardly weaker than those on the right. In the fourth game he adopted the strategy—which involved high risks, especially as he was a game behind, and behind on points in this one—of striking the ball straight forward instead of aiming at angled shots, using his left hand whenever possible, hitting the ball as low and as hard as he could. By these means he was able to achieve a number of what were known as kill shots—shots that came off the wall so low as to be virtually impossible to return—and he won the game by a margin of two points.

Dickson’s play in the fifth and final game was as aggressive as ever, but Michael sensed a certain wildness in it and thought he knew why: his opponent had made the mistake of counting victory as assured, as a foregone conclusion. He had been winning by two games to one and well in the lead in the fourth game; a win here would have given him the match. Now, by a change in the other’s tactics that he had not been flexible enough to respond to, he had seen this lead melt away and the two of them return to an equal footing.

The decisive point in the fifth game came when the score stood at fifteen to twelve in Michael’s favor. Dickson served strongly across the court, bringing the ball rebounding at a sharp angle and very low, no more than a foot from the ground on Michael’s left side. There was only one stroke possible if the ball was to be kept in play. He struck upward with clenched fist in a kind of blow that was half hook, half uppercut, felt a sharp pain in his knuckles, saw the ball come off the wall, saw it spin and bounce short, saw Dickson lunge at it and miss, deceived by the bounce.

With this it was all over. The serve passed to Michael, and he
closed the game with a series of five wins over a now demoralized opponent.

A great storm of shouted applause came from the ranks of the Thorpe men. The two opponents shook hands with an appearance of good grace. Spenton, beaming with delight, got up from his seat and advanced into the court to shake Michael’s hand; Colonel Pemberton followed suit, having first, however, congratulated his own champion on a hard-fought match.