Long Summer Day (11 page)

‘That’s so,’ pursued Rudd, ‘but my point is things are changing far too quickly. People can’t absorb the social and economic changes of the last century. When technology leaves the mass of population far enough behind there’s going to be a God-Almighty explosion.’

‘What kind of explosion?’

‘How do I know? Go back to your history books. A revolution of some kind, or a war.’

‘We’ve just finished a war,’ Paul argued, ‘and it hasn’t turned civilisation inside out.’

‘I’m not talking about colonial wars,’ Rudd said, ‘I’m talking about Armageddon.’

They rode on in silence for a spell, the flashing stream on their left and the church spire of Coombe Bay rising clear of Codsall’s corn-stalks. It occurred to Paul that there was an affinity of a kind between Rudd and Zorndorff, both of an age, both addicted to sensational generalisations. He wondered what each man expected of him, and whether Rudd would be interested in Zorndorff’s advocacy of the purchase of the estate but before he could continue the discussion they entered the steep village street of Coombe Bay and he found himself looking about him for any signs of Grace Lovell riding her neat bay mare.

There were none. Coombe Bay was deep in its afternoon siesta and the broad, single street was quite deserted. It was not much of a village, a double row of thatched cottages curving away from the river and, lower down, a straggle of tiny shops, and a few Georgian terrace houses, with window boxes and polished knockers.

Rudd told him that the estate owned some of these houses, let at fifty pounds a year, and that a larger house on the headland was occupied by Grace Lovell’s father, the family parasite. They ambled down to the beach where the Sorrel, no more than thirty feet across, gushed into the sea under a rounded, sandstone bluff. There was a boat shelter, one or two blue jerseyed fishermen pottering about their nets, and further west, where the sand swept in a wide curve as far as a landslip, some children paddling and shrimping under the breakwater. It was all very quiet and still under the hot afternoon sun, so quiet that Paul could hear the plash of tiny wavelets falling on the white sand. They sat there resting the horses and Paul would have liked to have dismounted and bathed his stiff leg in the sea but was too lazy to dismount and pull off his boots. Presently a yellow gig, driven at a spanking pace, swept out of the High Street and turned west along the waterfront, disappearing up a side-street beyond the inn, which had a double-headed bird on its signboard and the name ‘The Raven’ in Gothic lettering.

‘That’s Doctor O’Keefe,’ Rudd said, ‘he never drives that poor beast at anything under a canter. He does it to spread the impression that he’s conscientious when, in fact, he’s usually half-pickled. He’s a likeable old rascal though, and I daresay you’ll meet him if you stay long enough. Came here years ago, after some kind of scandal in his native Dublin but he’s a good doctor, drunk or sober. I’ve seen him do some remarkable patchwork in my time here,’ and then, as though he had suddenly made up his mind to be done with small talk and come to the point, ‘How do you feel about the place as a whole, Mr Craddock? Is it anything like you imagined? Are you still serious about taking up your option?’

‘Which question do you want answered first?’ Paul asked, smiling, but Rudd said, rather peevishly, ‘It makes small enough odds to me one way or the other. You won’t need an overseer like me if you intend living here and not leaving us to our own devices for years on end like the Lovells.’

‘Well,’ said Paul, ‘as to making up my mind I’d rather leave it until tomorrow if you’ve no objections. I’d like to think over what I’ve seen so far and I owe it to Mr Zorndorff to discuss it with him. Is there a telephone on the estate?’

‘Good God, no!’ said Rudd, ‘what would anybody here want with a telephone? The nearest one is in Whinmouth Post Office, nine miles to the west.’

‘Very well,’ said Paul, ‘I’ll decide before the sale opens tomorrow. As to what I feel about the place, I admit it intrigues me. It’s so utterly unlike anything I imagined after reading that article in the
Illustrated London News
’

‘Can’t you be a bit more specific?’ asked Rudd, and because he seemed genuinely concerned Paul added, ‘I think it’s a private world, populated by a few hundred castaways from a wreck about a century ago! On your own admission its commercial prospects are very thin but frankly I’m not much concerned about that. I should expect to put money into any property I took and it boils down to this in the end; but what kind of person are these farmers and their families looking for as a landlord, or “squire” if you like? What would be his responsibilities to them? Or theirs to him? Wouldn’t they prefer to buy their farms cash down or over a period? Do they really want a city stranger breathing down their necks?’

Rudd’s spurt of irritation had spent itself, as it usually did in a matter of seconds.

‘How can I answer that?’ he said, smiling. ‘They haven’t confided in me all the time I’ve been here. I was little more than a rent-collector for the Lovells.’

‘That isn’t quite true,’ Paul told him, ‘because it’s obvious that you’ve formed an opinion about every one of them. Is Derwent the only one keen to become a freeholder? Wouldn’t Mrs Codsall jump at the chance of being her own squireen?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Rudd, ‘she likes the link with Quality, you being Quality if you follow me. Derwent is an exception, and I daresay he’d quibble at the price you asked him. Neither Potter nor Willoughby would care to stand on their own feet, and Arthur Pitt is happy with things as they are. No, they’d jog along if they got a man prepared to put the estate in order. They’d all rather leech on somebody like you, so I’m afraid you would have the monopoly of obligations, Mr Craddock.’

‘Well, that’s honest enough,’ Paul said, ‘and I’ll bear it in mind when I give you my answer tomorrow. Have you got a hip bath up at the lodge? I’ve overdone it a bit I think, and I’d like to soak this leg and take it easy for the rest of the day.’

Rudd was instantly solicitous and swung his cob around.

‘I’m an idiot!’ he exclaimed, ‘I ought to have thought of that but the truth is I’ve enjoyed myself today in an odd sort of way. It’s long enough since I saw Shallowford tenants hang out flags. We’ll go home and Mrs Handcock will fix you up with some soda.’

An hour later Paul was enjoying a soda soak in the wash-house behind the lodge and after a high tea, and a smoke in the parlour, the ache of his wound left him and he surrendered to a pleasant drowsiness as the shadows moved across the paddocks. Rudd, sharing the silence with him, avoided reopening discussion on the sale but when Paul, on the point of going to bed, asked if the grey would be available early in the morning he promised to have Honeyman’s lad see to it and tether the horse in the yard behind the wash-house by six-thirty. Paul thanked him and after a moment’s hesitation said, ‘I should like to own that horse in any case, Mr Rudd. He isn’t included in the sale, is he?’ and Rudd said no, although the stable tack was, adding that Ralph Lovell had bought the gelding for fifty pounds shortly before he left for South Africa.

‘I’d gladly give that for him,’ Paul said, ‘he’s quiet and very well-mannered for a young horse, and I don’t intend to take any chances until my leg is right.’

‘Then consider it sold,’ Rudd said, ‘you might go further and fare a great deal worse!’, and with that Paul left him sitting in his big armchair, looking out of the open window across the paddock. ‘It’s odd,’ he thought, as he mounted the little stair to his room, ‘but the prospect of leaving here is making him miserable notwithstanding all his grousing about the Lovells.’

Chapter Three

I

T
he cock at the Home Farm awakened him soon after first light and on going to the window he saw that it promised to be another scorcher. A curtain of pale, blue mist veiled the downslope to the sea and wisps of cloud, coral pink over the sandstone cliff of the Coombe, were translucent and very still. Over in the rhododendron thickets the bird chorus was beginning and as Paul dressed the steady rhythm of its twitter built into a continuous murmur, like the patter of rain on glass. He stood at the window sniffing the morning and thinking that this might be a day he would remember all his life, yet he was free of qualms and felt as fit as he ever remembered, with little stiffness resulting from his twenty-mile ride the previous day.

The grey was tethered to the rail of the big paddock, stirrups high on the leathers, reins tucked under the crupper, and as he climbed into the saddle he thought that Honeyman’s boy must be a very early riser, for it was still only six-forty and the boy was already a figure on the skyline, plodding the mile or so back to the farm.

He crossed the ford, now barely two inches deep, and followed the track they had taken to Coombe Bay the previous afternoon, and it was only when the spire of the parish church showed above the corn that he realised why he was riding this way. His memory of the Lovell girl was no more than a vague impression of dark curls growing close to a small, neat head, and the swell of a sturdy figure under the blue riding habit, yet this was enough to persuade him, now that he was alone, that the girl was linked to his ultimate decision and somehow the conclusion did not seem illogical or facetious. By the time he was half-way down the village street, and passing the gardens of the Georgian houses, he had ceased to make excuses for himself and looked eagerly across to the wooded slope that enclosed the village on the east, searching for the house where Rudd had said she and her father lived, overlooking the harbour. He could see a couple of detached houses, each half-hidden in trees and facing due south but there was no sign that anyone else was astir, although from somewhere in the yards behind the cottages he could hear the scrape of boots on cobbles and the metallic clank of a pail.

There was more activity down by the waterfront. Fishermen were at work hauling a boat down to the water’s edge and far out across the bay he could see two or three other small craft, pulling into the sun. Gulls flew squawking from the harbour wall when he edged his horse down the slipway, and along the beach to the hillocks beyond high-water mark, but the long, curving shore was deserted. As he climbed the hummocks to a sandy plateau above the tideline he made another effort to concentrate his thoughts on what he would say to Rudd at breakfast, or what he should write to Zorndorff that evening. He had a sensitive man’s horror of appearing ridiculous in public and an awareness of his unfitness for responsibilities of this kind. Rudd had warned him that he would have a monopoly of responsibility in this small, tight community, made up of such unpredictable people as the sly Tamer Potter, uncompromising Derwent, and the voluble Arabella Codsall, their families and their hired hands. How many were there for heaven’s sake—thirty, fifty, a hundred? And who knew what currents of jealousy and rancour lay in wait for him under their smiles of welcome and deferential greetings? Of the families he had met only one, the Pitts of Hermitage, seemed uncomplicated, whereas the Potters and Codsalls might present all manner of problems to an inexperienced young man savouring his first taste of authority. He sat astride the patient grey, his eyes squinting into the sun so that it was not until the horse threw up his head and whinnied that he was aware of movement below and to his right, where the white sand stretched as far as the distant landslip.

She came out of the west at full gallop, pounding along the flat within yards of the sea, the bay’s hoof-thrusts sending up little spurts of sand, the rider pitched forward in the jockey’s huddle that Yeomanry riding-masters had been at pains to eliminate from the seats of recruits. She was wearing a white blouse and a grey riding skirt and she was hatless, thus breaking another riding-school rule in her madcap gallop along the water’s edge. As he saw her she set the horse at a drift-log and sailed over it and then, without checking her stride she swung left, heading directly for the hummocks on which he stood, whirling in a flurry of sand and breasting the incline at such a pace that it seemed to Craddock she would sweep past him on to the sand-hills beyond. He tightened his rein, thinking that the grey might bolt in pursuit, but suddenly she brought the horse up short, rearing it back like an Arab executing a mounted salute and he saw then, from his position twenty feet above, that she was smiling and had recognised him before he had seen her approach along the beach.

She called, in a loud, clear voice, ‘Mr Paul Craddock, I believe!’ and he raised his hat as the grey sidled forward and descended to the beach.

‘I saw you half-a-mile away,’ she said, with her tight, slightly ironic smile. ‘That’s a good horse you have! When you get his fat down and corn him up he’ll carry twice your weight all day! Where’s Rudd?’

‘Still asleep in bed,’ Paul said, ‘or he was when I left him.’

Was it his fancy that a change of expression registered a little of her suspicion when she realised he was alone? He felt unsure of everything about this hard, compact parcel of energy but she continued to look straight at him, as though his presence here on a public beach early in the morning required an explanation. He knew then that this was the sign he had been awaiting, that, notwithstanding his uncertainty and fear of ridicule he would this very day be master of Shallowford, and Grace Lovell’s landlord to boot. He said, gravely, ‘I’m buying the estate. I’m taking over Shallowford,’ and was surprised by the firmness of his voice. ‘Will you be attending the sale?’

She stared at him, not resentfully as in the nursery, or ironically, as when she had whirled to the foot of the hillock but with a frank curiosity, as though he had been a curious object left on the beach by the tide.

‘You’ve been a farmer?’ she asked at length, dropping her glance to his breeches and military boots.

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘I don’t know a thing about farming. I’ve been overseas nearly three years and after that I was in hospital but from what I hear the Lovells weren’t farmers either!’

She laughed at this, throwing back her head and squaring her shoulders. He said, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. You were a relation I believe?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘not really and anyway it’s true. Neither Sir George, nor Hubert, nor my Ralph cared a row of beans about what went on here, so long as rents were paid, but I suppose you’ll be buying it for the hunting?’

‘By no means,’ Paul said, ‘though I shall hunt, providing I have time.’

She looked genuinely surprised at this. ‘Why shouldn’t you have the time? If you can afford to buy Shallowford you must have all the time in the world.’

He said, convincing himself rather than her, ‘I’m partially disabled, but at twenty-three I don’t care to look forward to a lifetime of idleness. I suppose that sounds pompous but I don’t apologise. Months on your back gives a man a chance to think and there should be a better use for capital than to make more money, and dissipate the interest cutting a fashionable dash. I believe I might be using mine on a place as old and potentially fruitful as this valley and I think I’d enjoy doing it.’

It was strange, he thought, that he could speak so freely to her, whereas he had been unable to clarify his thoughts to experienced men of the world, like Zorndorff and Rudd, both people who wished him well. It occurred to him that this might be because she was of his generation and then his mind fastened on her words ‘my Ralph’ and this, he thought, might be the key to her brooding presence in the nursery, implying as it did that she too was confused and, to an extent, dissatisfied with her life. She interrupted his conjecturing with, ‘How badly are you disabled, Mr Craddock?’

‘Enough to deny me the chance of doing what I wanted to do, take a permanent commission. I had a bullet through the knee joint. It’s healed now, and in time I shall be ninety-five per cent fit, but it was enough to get me thrown aside as a crock!’

‘You’re bitter about that?’

‘No,’ he admitted, truthfully, ‘I’m not bitter, or not any longer.’ He returned her steady gaze and asked ‘Are
you
bitter? About Ralph Lovell getting killed?’

The question disconcerted her. He saw that at once, for she looked past him and seemed to be considering whether to protest at his curiosity.

‘I don’t know what Rudd’s told you about Ralph,’ she said, ‘but whatever it was it was prejudiced. Rudd hated the Lovells and I imagine he had good reasons for hating them.’

‘Yes, he did,’ Paul told her, ‘and I happen to know those reasons, Miss Lovell, for he made a clean breast of them as soon as I arrived.’

She seemed surprised at this, so he went on, before she could comment, ‘They never let him forget an incident that led to his resigning his commission, but I’ve been under fire myself, and if Ralph Lovell had survived I daresay he would have found it easy to understand Rudd when he came home. I like Mr Rudd and I mean to keep him on as agent.’

‘I see; and have you got any plans for your tenants?’ she asked, slyly. ‘I’m one, you know, at least my father and stepmother are; we live up there,’ and she pointed with her crop.

‘Well, I won’t put up the rent, if that’s what you’re hinting at,’ Paul said and she laughed so that Paul thought it was a long time since he had heard a more musical note. Her laughter had resonance, and sounded as free as the birdsong he had heard at the window an hour before.

‘Look here, Mr Craddock,’ she said, ‘I’d like you to know that I honestly wish you luck, and also that I’m sorry I was very rude back at the house the other night. I ought to be grateful to you really, I’d gone there to eat another helping of nostalgic pie. Your appearance gave me something else to think about.’

‘You were unhappy over Ralph Lovell’s being killed? That’s nothing to apologise for, is it?’

‘Ralph was killed a long time ago,’ she said, ‘and I haven’t had your chance to come to terms with the future. I’ve been feeling altogether too sorry for myself and it really doesn’t do to start living in the past at my age. You’ll be attending the sale, of course?’

‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘I shall bid for some of the things I might need up there. Furniture, fittings and tack especially. I daresay Rudd will advise me now that I’ve finally made up my mind.’

‘You mean he doesn’t know?’

‘That’s right,’ Paul said, ‘I really came here this morning to decide. You just happen to be the first to hear, Miss Lovell,’ and he smiled.

The hand holding her crop shot up to her mouth and her lip touched the ivory handle, so that she suddenly looked like a child, puzzled by an unexpected turn of events. Then he saw the two bright spots appear on her cheeks once again and before he could say another word she clapped her heels to the flanks of the bay and dashed past him to the top of the sandhill. The grey whipped around, almost unseating Paul so that he was obliged to concentrate on the horse for a moment; then, looking up, he saw her again, sitting her horse in the precise spot where he had been when he had watched her gallop along the water’s edge. She was smiling down at him like a child who had confounded her elders by a piece of showing-off and as he pulled the grey around she lifted her hand in a salute and swinging round galloped over the crest of the hill and out of sight in a few seconds.

II

R
udd received the news calmly enough until Paul added that he would like him to remain as agent on a three-year contract at a starting salary of three hundred a year. Then the agent’s phlegm deserted him and he got up, standing by the open window with his face turned away and his hands clasped behind his back.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ he said gruffly, ‘you could manage very well on your own after a year.’

‘I should be an idiot not to take advantage of your experience,’ Paul told him. ‘You would be doing me a favour by staying.’