Kate's Progress (27 page)

‘Wait till he knows you better,’ Susie said, but with the sort of smile that said she was teasing, ‘and starts improving you. I used to smoke till he bullied me out of it.’

‘You must admit that it
was
an improvement,’ Ed said. ‘Don’t you feel better?’

‘Not when I see Eric smoking away and I can’t. It was my one little pleasure,’ she said mournfully – and, Kate guessed, untruthfully.

Eric threw down his cigarette butt and ground it out. ‘Enough of that. Any minute now he’ll start on me,’ he objected, ‘and I’ve too much to lose! Are we going to have this race, or are we going to stand here gassing all day?’

They mounted up and checked their girths, and Kate threw Ed a covert look under her eyelashes. He seemed thoughtful – not that he wasn’t always, but in a different way. She thought Susie really had hurt his feelings a bit. Who
would
like to be called a sour puss, even in fun?

‘Right!’ said Eric, and then there was no more time to think about anything, because the race was on.

‘That was simply amazing,’ Kate said to Ed as they drove back to The Hall. ‘I can see why people go in for it – racing, I mean. Completely addictive! The speed, the adrenalin rush …’

He gave her an amused sideways look. ‘I thought you were having a good time. You weren’t nervous?’

‘I thought I might be, but no. Though it may be different with more people, and strangers.’

‘I don’t think so. You know you can do it now. And you don’t have to try and win. Just get her round, for the experience.’

Kate wondered if it would be possible to race and not try to win. ‘The Ordes are fun, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, they’re good sorts. I’ve known them all my life,’ Ed said absently. Was he thinking again about what Susie said?

‘So, they’ve always lived at Northcombe?’ Kate asked, to keep him talking.

He roused himself. ‘On the land,’ he said. ‘There was an old house, further up the valley towards Stockham – the family seat, if you like – and Eric’s family owned all the land round these parts. Sold most of it, of course, and the house got into disrepair and cost too much to keep up. Eric was working in the City, making his fortune, but he didn’t make it quickly enough to save the old place. By the time he came back there was only five hundred acres left, and the house had fallen down. So he built the new place.’

‘It must be sad for him, to lose his family home,’ Kate suggested tentatively.

‘I don’t think he cares,’ said Ed. ‘A lot of people have decided trying to keep up the old ways is too much of a burden. Sell up and get out, make your money some easier way, live a more comfortable life. It makes sense.’

‘Not to you,’ she suggested.

‘Not to me,’ he agreed. ‘But then according to Susie I’m a responsibility junkie.’

‘I don’t think being responsible is anything to apologize for,’ she said.

He looked at her for a moment curiously, and she thought he might say something, reveal something about himself: the moment seemed poised on the brink of intimacy. But the gates of The Hall came into view, he had to concentrate on backing the trailer into the yard, and the moment passed.

Bradshaw came out. ‘How did it go?’ he called to Kate as she jumped out.

‘Marvellous,’ she said. ‘She went beautifully. It was just like flying.’

‘Ar, she’s not a bad lass,’ Bradshaw said. ‘Needs more exercise, that’s all. Crying shame letting a nice horse like that go to waste.’ He went round to drop down the back of the box and lead the horses out. ‘I’ll take care of ’em,’ he told Ed. ‘You must want your lunch. Go on, I’ve had mine.’ He included Kate in the glance.

Seeing he was determined, Kate let him take over. With nothing more to do, she hesitated, saying, ‘I suppose I’d better be on my way.’

Ed had been in a brown study, and came out of it abruptly at her words. ‘Um,’ he said. She had never seen him hesitant before, and waited, trying to exude willingness for whatever he had in mind. ‘I need to take those dogs for a walk. And Camilla said not to bother Mrs B about lunch. I suppose you wouldn’t like to come with me, help me walk them, and get a sandwich or something in the pub?’

Kate could think of nothing she’d like better, but she tried not to show her joy for fear of frightening him off. ‘I’d be happy to. Which pub? The Royal Oak?’

‘I’m not keen on the Oak, and there’s nowhere for the dogs. There’s a pub up the valley towards Withypool, the Barley Mow. They’re dog friendly and they have a garden we can sit out in. It’s a nice walk, too, across The Barrow and along the brook on the edge of the wood.’

‘That sounds nice,’ said Kate – oh, understatement!

‘You’re not too tired?’

‘No, a walk’s just what I need to loosen me up. I just need to change into my own clothes.’

‘Yes, I must change too,’ he said. ‘Can’t walk in these boots. I’ll meet you back down here in five minutes.’

If you’re hoping to get to know someone, going for a walk with them is by far the best way. There’s something about the gentle exercise – probably coupled with the slight anonymity of being side by side and not face to face – that gives rise to relaxation and confidences.

The dogs were having a whale of a time, running around them, racing away and coming back, sniffing deeply in the hedges and undergrowth, marking every tree until Kate wondered if they were carrying a secret spare tank. Everywhere she looked Kate saw waving tails and doggy grins of delight.

‘They
need
to walk,’ Ed said. ‘It’s a social occasion – a pack thing. Running round by themselves in the field at the back of the house is not the same.’

Kate threw a stick for Ralph, the setter, and he pretended to go after it to be polite, but stopped before he reached it, arrested by a compelling smell in a clump of grass. Chewy was bouncing puppy-like all over Esmé, but she was a different dog out of the house, kept her end up, and looked much less frail and cowed.

‘They look happy,’ Kate said. ‘Mind you, it’s such a lovely day, who wouldn’t? And those woods – I love the colour of the new leaves. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”’

‘Robert Frost,’ he said. ‘But that was woods in the snow.’

‘It applies all year round. There’s something about them that just makes you want to plunge in and explore, don’t you think?’

‘This particular wood is not all that deep. If you plunged in, you’d have plunged out the other side before you knew it. But I know what you mean. There’s always a sort of mystery about them.’

‘Do they belong to you?’ she asked.

‘Not to me, but to the estate, yes,’ he said; a shadow crossed his eyes and she was afraid she’d spoiled it. But it passed, and he said, ‘We don’t have much on this side of the valley any more, but The Barrow – that’s this hill – and the wood, and the quarry over that way, they’re still Blackmore. Everything up as far as that footpath over there – can you see the line? It runs back down to the road and comes out opposite the Barley Mow. That used to be an estate pub as well, once upon a time.’

‘How big is it all together – the estate?’ she asked.

‘A bit less than thirteen thousand acres.’

She opened her eyes. ‘That sounds enormous!’

‘It’s fair. But you have to remember that most of that is not premium land. It’s high moor, rough grazing at best. The Blackmore fortune was originally based on wool – and there was a time when wool really did produce a fortune. Most of the churches were built on wool money, and the big houses, and the old schools. “White gold”, they used to call it. But it’s not a valuable commodity any more. Sometimes you can’t give it away. Which was why my great-grandfather built the factory, to process and weave our own wool, and sell the cloth. Blackmore tweed is still pretty famous. Not as famous as Harris tweed – but not as scratchy, either.’ She saw it was all right to laugh. He didn’t laugh, but he looked pleased by her amusement. ‘We make a certain amount of clothing as well, for a few exclusive markets, mostly in London and New York.’

‘So, does it pay now?’

‘The cloth makes a good contribution to the estate, and we’re hoping to improve on that. Tweed is becoming fashionable again, and in particular the Chinese market for top-quality English cloth is opening up and promises to be huge. The clothing is probably marginal. It’s labour-intensive and it needs a lot more expansion to get the overheads down. That’s where I hoped Jack would make his mark – getting out and talking to people, finding new markets. People like him and he gets on with everybody. He has charm. He could sell ice cream to Eskimos if—’ He stopped abruptly.

It was easy for Kate to guess the end of that sentence, and to understand Ed had stopped himself out of loyalty. Jack
could
do it, if he would put his mind to it, if he stopped lounging about and spending money and put in some solid hard work instead.

‘He
is
charming,’ she said, allowing the ‘but’ to show in her intonation.

Ed sighed. ‘It’s in his own interest to buckle down to it. The estate has to provide for all of us, and the better it does the better
we
do.’

‘Surely he must know that?’ she said tentatively. She didn’t want anything to break this delicate thread of trust between them.

‘Of course he knows it.’ There seemed to be more coming, but instead there was silence. She looked sideways at him. He was frowning, obviously thinking something through. She waited with bated breath. At last he said – quite low, and almost as if not to her but to himself – ‘The estate ought to be doing better than it is. I can’t understand it. But I’m going to get to the bottom of it.’

‘You mean – make it more efficient?’ she asked carefully.

‘That too,’ he said. ‘But there’s something else going on.’ A pause. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m not giving up on it. There have been Blackmores here for five hundred years. I’m damned if I’ll let us be the last.’

They came out on to the footpath he had mentioned, which ran gently downhill to the road, and Kate could see the Barley Mow on the other side of it, snugged down under the lee of the steep wooded hill that rose up to Lar Common. It had a thatched roof and tall chimneys, small windows and deep eaves, so it looked like someone with a fancy hat pulled down very low over their eyes.

Ed called the dogs to him and leashed them, and with the leads held between them they crossed the road and went in. It was a small place, cosy and unpretentious, with a big fireplace, slightly battered comfortable furniture, a few pictures on the walls: it felt exactly like what a ‘public house’ originally was – someone’s home into which the public were welcomed. The landlord, a chunky man in his fifties, came out to greet them – they were the only ones in there – and said, ‘Hello, Ed. Long time no see.’

‘I’ve been rather busy lately – too busy. All right with the dogs?’

‘Of course. Good dogs always welcome.’ He smiled enquiringly at Kate, and Ed introduced her, then exchanged a few comments with the landlord that proved they had a long and comfortable friendship. Kate, looking round, could see, without having thought about it before, how this would be Ed’s natural milieu, just as the Blue Ball was Jack’s. Strange that two brothers could be so different.

They ordered sandwiches and pints, and carried their glasses outside. There was a small, sheltered garden on the south-west side of the pub which was warm in the sunshine: an area of lawn; a flower bed, edged with forget-me-nots and lady’s mantle, in which iris and achillea rose up from a riot of marigolds and multicoloured snapdragons; and a tangle of white jasmine hanging over the boundary hedge that was just coming into flower. Posh and manicured it wasn’t; but it felt homelike and easy and safe. They unleashed the dogs, and sat down at one of those table-and-bench combinations with their backs to the warmed white wall of the cottage, and Kate felt completely, utterly happy.

As the level of the pint sank, Ed seemed to relax more. They talked, carefully at first, but gradually with increasing ease, like friends. The sandwiches came – crusty white-bread doorsteps of local cheese and ham – and he talked about the estate. He told her things out of its history, the people who were its stay and its purpose, great characters from the past when most estate workers never went more than a few miles from the place they were born. He recounted things about the area, folklore and festivals, recalled great celebrations and never-forgotten disasters, brush fires and storms and escaped bulls. He talked of dogs and horses he had loved; dug out funny incidents from his childhood, stories involving Jack and various friends who had grown up with them. She saw his tense dark face relax and grow animated, heard his voice lighten as the warmth and humour that was normally suppressed came into it. He didn’t quite smile, but she could see what he would look like if he did.

She talked about her childhood, too. It seemed the safer place for them both to be – the past, before their separate hearts were broken.

‘It must be wonderful to come from a big family,’ he said. ‘Five sisters, eh?’

‘That’s how I learned to dance,’ she said. ‘Waiting for the bathroom.’

And he laughed. He stopped immediately, but she had proved it was possible.

‘It must be lonely for you here, stuck in that cottage all by yourself,’ he said.

‘I’ve hardly had time to be lonely,’ she said. ‘People here are so friendly, I have to be quite stern to get a moment to myself.’

‘I’m glad you find it so,’ he said. He hesitated. ‘Jack is – a friendly fellow.’

‘We’ve agreed he has great charm,’ she said cautiously.

He frowned and chewed his lip. ‘This is probably none of my business. I don’t want to …’ He looked at her, and then quickly away again – a flash of blue barely seen, like a kingfisher on a shadowy river.

‘We’re just friends,’ she assured him, cutting through his difficulties. ‘I had a very upsetting relationship in London with a man of great charm, so I know what to look out for. I’m not in any danger. I like Jack enormously, but in a purely friendly way.’

‘I’m relieved,’ he said, and for a moment her heart jumped, her fertile imagination racing on to how that sentence could end –
because that means I have a chance with you myself
.