Coming Home (25 page)

‘Yes, I'd love to. But you don't need to bother; I mean, I'm all right on my own.’

Diana, clearly thankful to have everything settled, overrode her feeble objections. ‘Of course you can't be on your own. It's a lovely idea, provided Jeremy's parents won't mind him spending the entire day here. After all, you are only down for the weekend, and they'll be longing to have a sight of you…’

‘I'll go back after tea. Father's on call today anyway. But we'll have the evening together.’

Diana beamed. ‘Well, isn't that splendid? Everything settled and everybody happy. Judith, you'll love the cove, our own darling little beach. But put on a jacket or get Mary to lend you an extra jumper, because it's always cold down by the sea. And, Loveday, don't forget your hard hat. Now…’ She pushed back her chair. ‘Why don't we all go to the drawing-room and have a cup of coffee.’

The invitation, it seemed, did not include the two girls. When the grown-ups had gone, they stayed in the dining-room to help Mary and Nettlebed clear the table, and only then went upstairs to prepare for their expeditions. Extra pullovers were produced for both of them, and Loveday's jodhpur boots, her string gloves, and her hard hat all run to earth.

She said, ‘I hate this hat. The elastic's too tight under my chin.’

But Mary was adamant. ‘It's nothing of the sort, and you're to keep it on.’

‘I don't see why I should have to wear it. Lots of girls don't.’

‘You're not lots of girls, and we don't want you bashing your brains out on a rock. Now, here's your crop, and two toffees for your pockets.’ She took a glass jar from the mantelpiece and doled out a toffee each.

‘What about Jeremy and Walter?’ Loveday asked, and Mary laughed, and gave her two more, and sent her on her way with a pat on the behind. ‘Off with you,’ she said. ‘And when you get back, I'll have tea ready for you both, here, by the fire.’

Like puppies escaping, they galloped downstairs and along the passage which led to the drawing-room door. Outside this, Loveday paused. ‘We won't go in,’ she whispered, ‘otherwise we'll get
caught up.
’ She opened the door and put her head around it. ‘Jeremy! We're ready.’

‘I'll meet you in the gunroom,’ came his voice. ‘In one minute. I'll bring Pekoe with me. Tiger's there already, drying off after this morning.’

‘Right. Have lovely bridge, Mummy. See you later, Pops.’ She closed the door. ‘Come on, we'll go to the kitchen first and get some sugar lumps for Tinkerbell and Ranger. And if Mrs Nettlebed gives us sweets, don't tell her Mary's already given us toffees.’

Mrs Nettlebed did not give them sweets, but tiny fairy cakes fresh out of the oven, which she had just made for drawing-room tea. They were warm, and too good to keep, so they ate them then and there, raided the sugar basin, and went on their way. ‘Have a good time now…’ Mrs Nettlebed's voice floated after them.

The back passage led to the gunroom, which smelt pleasantly of oil, and linseed, and old mackintoshes and dog. Locked cabinets of guns and rods stood all around the wall, and gaffs and waders and rubber boots had their own special racks. Tiger, snoozing in his bed, had heard them coming and was up and ready for them, and raring to go for another bit of exercise. He was a huge black Labrador, with a square nose and dark eyes and a tail that wagged like a piston.

‘Hello, darling Tiger, how are you? Have you had a lovely morning finding dead rabbits and shot pigeons?’ Tiger made pleased noises in the back of this throat. He was enormously friendly, which was a good thing, because he was too big and strong to be anything else. ‘And are you going to come for a lovely walk?’

‘Of course he is,’ said Jeremy, coming through the door behind them with Pekoe under his arm. He put Pekoe down on the floor, and while he pulled on his jacket, which he took from a hook on the wall, the two dogs made much of each other, Tiger nuzzling at the little Peke, and Pekoe lying on his back and waving his paws, as though he were swimming upside down.

Judith laughed. ‘They look so funny together.’

‘Don't they just.’ He grinned. ‘Come on then, girls, no hanging about. Walter will be waiting.’

They trooped out, by way of a second door which led into the cobbled yard where the white pigeons fluttered around their dovecote. It was a bit like walking out into winter, and Judith was taken aback by the cold of the air. Indoors, inside the centrally heated house, so filled with pale sunshine and the scent of flowers, it was easy to be lulled into the belief that warm spring had truly arrived, but a nip in the wintry air instantly dispelled any such illusion. It was still bright, but there was a sharp east wind coming in off the sea, from time to time blowing dark clouds across the face of the sun. Judith reminded herself that it was, after all, still only the middle of February, but, despite her extra sweater, she shivered. Jeremy noticed the shiver and said, in a comforting manner, ‘Don't worry. Once we get moving you'll be as warm as toast.’

The stables lay a little way from the house, screened from sight by a coppice, discreetly landscaped, of young oak trees. A gravelled roadway led towards these, and as they approached, the stables came into view, purpose-built and very trim, forming three sides of a square, and with a yard in the middle. In this yard, the two mounts were ready and waiting, already saddled up and tethered to iron rings set in the wall. Tinkerbell and Ranger. Tinkerbell was a charming little grey pony, but Ranger was a great bay, seeming, to the wary Judith, the size of an elephant. He looked frighteningly strong, with powerful quarters, and muscles fairly rippling beneath his polished, groomed coat. Approaching, she decided to keep her distance. She would pat the pony, and even feed it a lump of sugar, but would give the power-house of the Colonel's hunter a very wide berth.

A young man stood with the animals, engaged in tightening the girth strap of the little grey. He saw them coming, finished his task, slapped down the saddle-flap and stood waiting, with a hand resting on the pony's neck.

‘Hello, Walter,’ Loveday called.

‘Hello, there.’

‘You're all ready! Did you know we were coming?’

‘Mr Nettlebed sent young Kitty down with word.’ He ducked his head at Jeremy. ‘Hello, Jeremy. Didn't know you were down.’

‘Got a weekend off. How are things with you?’

‘Oh, not too bad. Coming out with us, are you?’

‘No, not today. We're going down to the cove. Taking the dogs. This is Loveday's friend, Judith Dunbar.’

Walter turned his head slightly, and nodded at Judith. He said, ‘Hello.’

He was an extraordinarily good-looking young man, slim and dark and sunburnt as a gipsy, with black hair that covered his head in curls, and eyes dark as coffee beans. He wore corduroy breeches, a thick shirt striped in blue, and a leather waistcoat. Around his brown neck was knotted a yellow cotton handkerchief. What age was he? Sixteen, or seventeen? But he looked older, totally mature, and already sported a man's dark shadow of a beard. He made Judith think of Heathcliff in
Wuthering Heights,
and she could perfectly well see why Loveday was so keen to spend her afternoon riding Tinker-bell. Even Judith could understand the lure of the horse if one was to have the dashing companionship of Walter Mudge.

They stood and watched them mount. Walter eschewed the offer of a leg-up, and swung himself up into the saddle with an effortless grace that suggested that he might, just slightly, be showing off.

‘Have fun,’ Judith told Loveday.

She raised her crop. ‘You too.’

Hooves clattered across the yard, and then changed sound as the horses reached the gravelled road. In the bright, cold light, the little entourage made an attractive sight. They broke into a trot, disappeared around the oak coppice. The hoof-beats faded.

‘Where will they go?’ Judith asked.

‘Probably down the lane to Lidgey, and then on up to the moor.’

‘It makes me wish I liked horses.’

‘You either like them, or you don't. Come on, it's too cold to stand.’

They went the way that the riders had taken, and then turned off to the right, where the path sloped down through the gardens towards the coast. The dogs shot ahead and were soon lost to view. ‘They won't get lost, will they?’ Judith, feeling responsible for their well-being, was anxious, but Jeremy reassured her.

‘They know this walk as well as anybody. By the time we've reached the cove, they'll be there, and Tiger will already have had a swim.’

He led the way and she followed, along a winding gravelled path which led in the direction of the sea. The formal lawns and flower-beds were left behind them. They passed through a small wrought-iron gate, and the path narrowed and plunged downwards into a jungle of semi-tropical vegetation; camellias, late-flowering hydrangeas, stately rhododendron, lush clumps and thickets of bamboo, and tall-stemmed palms, their trunks matted with what looked like very thick black hair. High overhead, bare branches of elm and beech soughed in the wind, and were filled with hosts of cawing rooks. Then a stream appeared from the undergrowth of creeping ivy and moss and fern, and bubbled and tumbled its way down a rocky bed, alongside where they walked. From time to time the path crossed and then re-crossed the flowing water, by means of ornamental wooden bridges, contrived in designs that were vaguely oriental and made Judith think of willow-pattern plates. The running water and the wind in the trees made the only sound; footsteps were deadened by a thick compost of dead leaves, and only when they crossed the bridges did the wooden planking ring with their tread.

Over the last bridge, Jeremy paused, waiting for Judith to catch up. There was still no sign of the dogs.

‘How are you doing?’

‘All right.’

‘Well done. Now we come to the tunnel.’

He set off once more. She looked and saw that, ahead, the sloping path plunged into a cavern of gunnera, that monstrous prickly-stemmed plant, with leaves large as umbrellas. Judith had seen gunnera growing before, but never in such daunting profusion. They stood there, sinister as creatures from another planet, and it took a small effort of courage to duck her head and follow her guide, and in the tunnel the light from the sky was shut away. It was like being underwater, so damp was everything, so aqueous and green.

She scrambled to keep up with him, her feet slithering on the steepening path. She raised her voice. ‘I don't like gunnera,’ she told him, and he looked back, to smile over his shoulder.

‘In Brazil,’ he told her, ‘they use the leaves as rain shelters.’

‘I'd rather be wet.’

‘We're nearly out of it now.’

And indeed, moments later, they emerged from the primeval gloom of the tunnel and stood once more in the glittering light of the bright winter afternoon. And Judith saw that they had come to the rim of a disused stone quarry. The path turned into a zigzag flight of roughly hewn steps which led to the foot of this. The stream, which had never been out of earshot, now appeared once more, to fling itself over the edge of the cliff in a sparkling waterfall, pouring down into a rocky crevasse, emerald-green with moss and fern, and misted with damp. The sound of it filled her ears. The walls of the quarry were hung with mesembryanthemum; its floor, littered with rocks and boulders, had become, over the years, a wild garden of bramble and bracken, tangled honeysuckle, ragged robin and butter-yellow aconites. The air was sweet with the almond-scent of gorse, and as well, the cool tang of seaweed, and she knew that they were close, at last, to the beach.

With some care, they scrambled down the precipitous, makeshift stairway. At the bottom the path, now reduced to a narrow thread, followed the stream, twisting its way between the gaunt shapes of the boulders, until they came to the far side of the quarry and the original entrance. Here a shallow grassy bank sloped up to a wooden gate. The stream plunged into a culvert and disappeared, and they climbed the bank and then the gate, and jumped down onto the Tarmac of a narrow farm road. On the far side of this was a low drystone wall, and then, finally, there were the cliffs and the sea. Descending through the grounds of Nancherrow, they had been sheltered by vegetation, but were now exposed to the full blast of the wind pouring in from the south-east. The sun was out, the sea intensely blue, flecked with white-caps. They crossed the road and climbed the far wall by means of a stile. The cliffs were not steep. A turfy track led down to the rocks, through prickly gorse and bracken and clumps of wild primroses. The tide was out, and a curving sickle of white sand came into view. Their friend the stream now appeared yet again, spilling down the cliff and so onto the sands, and there flowing out to join the breakers by means of a fresh water channel which sliced the beach in two. The wind buffeted. Gulls hung screaming overhead, and the thunder of the waves was continuous, creaming up onto the shore, and then drawing away again, with a tremendous hissing sound.

As Jeremy had promised, the dogs were already there, Tiger wet from his swim and Pekoe digging a hole, having scented some buried and noxious scrap of offal. Otherwise, there was no living soul to be seen. Only the dogs and the gulls, and they themselves.

‘Does anybody ever come here?’ she asked.

‘No. I think most people don't even realise that the cove exists.’ He climbed down, negotiating boulders and awkward corners, and Judith scrambled after him. They reached, at last, a wide shelf of rock overhanging the sand, where crannies were studded with sea-pink, and yellowed with lichen.