Long Summer Day (21 page)

Paul, primed in advance, chose a fresh partner every time and steadily worked his way through a rota of Mrs Codsall, who was in rare good humour, Rose Derwent, who found it difficult to allow herself to be led after breaking so many horses, Meg Potter, the stern-faced gypsy, who marched round the room like a Hanoverian Grenadier, and the shy, eager Elinor Willoughby, who blushed scarlet when he took her hand, and mumbled replies to all his polite remarks. After that he joined Eph Morgan’s set for the Lancers, and when it was over, perspiring from his enormous exertions, he sought out Claire and dragged her on to the floor for the Military One-Step. ‘I’ve earned more than this tame dance,’ he said, swinging her round in a final flourish and she replied, breathlessly. ‘We’re not going home yet, are we?’ and he left her to announce that, after the statue dance (which carried a prize), there would be first supper for those who were not remaining until morning and after that fireworks in the paddock, and finally a second supper for the bitter-enders. There was a good deal of ooing and aahing at this, and when the orchestra climbed down about forty of the middle-aged guests pushed their way into the hall, where a buffet supper was laid for them on trestle tables reaching from the hall door to the porch. After a hasty swig of lemonade the tireless trio returned to play supper music but the piano and fiddles were soon swamped in the roar of conversation and the rattle and clash of plates, cups, spoons and forks.

Mrs Arabella Codsall was holding court below the big fireplace. Words flowed from her with her usual spontaneity but her tone was comparatively honeyed, for her subject was the new Squire, and she wanted it known that, so far, she wholly approved of him and all his works. There were some present, she qualified, that Mr Craddock might well have overlooked when compiling the invitation list. Nobody, for instance, would have missed that scoundrel Potter and his draggle-tailed brood but she supposed that dear King Edward, God bless him, had been called to rule over even such as these and she was ready to forgive a new man’s difficulty in assessing the Potters and the Willoughbys for what they were. Martin Codsall, much embarrassed, whispered, ‘Shush, Mother!’ but as Arabella’s audience consisted of Martha Pitts, and the din was so great that even she heard less than half the words uttered, the warning was unnecessary.

Arabella Codsall’s good humour was due, in the main, to the absence of her errant son Will but had she been privileged to see round corners it is doubtful whether any amount of cider cup would have prevented a shift in the wind. At the moment Will Codsall and Elinor Willoughby were face to face in the shadow of a stone buttress on the east wing, as far as they could get from the ballroom without breaking cover, and Elinor was having some difficulty in preventing a scene that would have anticipated the promised fireworks display.

‘Dornee think I’d
like
’ee to cum inzide, an’ ave ’ee swing me round, Will?’ she said earnestly, ‘but where’s the zense in it? Your mother’ll up an’ leave an’ new Squire will want to know why, and where will us be then?’

‘Dammit, woman, she knows I’m livin’ over your place, don’t ’er?’ demanded Will. ‘Us ’ave made sure us can’t get married ’til January, when I’m twenty-one, unless us goes to court and if us does that the whole Valley’ll know anyways!’

‘I daresay,’ Elinor said shrewdly, ‘but let ’em get to know in dribs and drabs, not all at once with us bang in the middle of it! No, Will, us’ve talked it over with father, and he’s promised to marry us in chapel on your birthday, so do ’ee let well alone an’ go along home to baid, like you promised me!’

The distant music and the softness of her body under the little gingham dress she wore, tested his resolution but he abandoned his protests and kissed her almost reverently on both eyes and the tip of her nose. Then, with a desolate, Oh, Will …!’, she left him but he did not return home, as he had promised. Instead he continued to skulk within earshot of the party, scowling at the rustlings and gigglings that emerged from the rhododendron walk where Pansy Potter was sporting with a young fisherman from Coombe Bay—‘Having her turn’—as she put it, for the Potter girls, although enjoying far more personal freedom than any of their contemporaries, realised that Tamer would disapprove of a family exodus from the ballroom and had agreed to take the air one at a time. Violet and Cissie were now back in the house and Pansy would be returning shortly in order to let Cissie take another stroll, perhaps with the same young man. The Potter girls were practical Communists. They shared men much as they shared rabbit pie, helping themselves to wedges whenever they felt like it.

As it happened Tamer had not missed them. He was in the yard with Sam, enjoying real beer from his own cask that he had brought along in the cart and offloaded into an outhouse. Tamer distrusted other people’s liquor and on occasions such as this liked to top off every now and again with a brew on which he could rely. He was also glad of the opportunity to have a chat with Sam, always his favourite, and father and son were discoursing on the local changes that had been wrought since the end of the summer drought.

‘Be’m proper mazed do ’ee think, Sam?’ Tamer asked, nodding towards the house, ‘Is ’e goin’ to keep this up, or will us vind us all have to pay for it, bimeby?’ He found it difficult to believe that benevolence, on the scale practised by new Squire, could endure unless it was buttressed by an increase of rents all round but Sam reassured him. ‘Dornee worry about Mr Craddock, Father! He’s got religion, I reckon, on’y it don’t show like it do in looneys like ol’ Willoughby, who won’t part with a bushel of maize unless youm prepared to pay in prayers an’ hymns! No, he’s different, for he don’t want nothin’ back for it, if you get my meaning! Think on this now—he rides up to my cottage a week ago and asks after Joannie, saying our tacker will be the first born to a tenant zince he took over. Brought along a bag o’ seed for the patch and told her she was to have all the milk an’ eggs she liked from the Home Farm, until we was zettled in, and had goats an’ vowls set up at the back! Now could a man zay fairer than that? And him a gentleman, already paying for the roof over our heads?’

‘No,’ said Tamer, impressed but not wholly convinced, ‘I don’t reckon he could, but to be on the zafe zide you’d best ask him to stand in as godfather when Joannie’s nipper shows up! That way mebbe you’ll get free milk an’ eggs for the rest of your life!’

Sam nodded, admiring his father’s far-sightedness. ‘Reckon I’ll do that, Father,’ he said, ‘and now me an’ Joannie had best get back along. Us can’t bump along over they ol’ tracks, with her zo near her time,’ and he carried Tamer’s cask back to the outhouse and camouflaged it with straw.

Meg Potter sat with her back against the cue-rack, under the spot where Hazel squatted on her pedestal. Her expression was inscrutable, so that it was difficult to tell whether or not she was enjoying the spectacle of the dancers or despising their enthusiasm for the polka. The tactics of her elder daughters to mask their constant comings and goings had not fooled her for a moment but she was not concerned with their reputations or whether their repeated disappearances into the shrubberies resulted, nine months hence, in the appearance of yet another mouth to feed in the Dell. She took an extraordinarily broad view of life, all life, not simply that part of it prescribed by changing codes of social behaviour, for although she had left her tribe at sixteen to settle as the wife of a squatter, she was still very much a gypsy, with a gypsy’s contempt for settled living. As long as the girls provided enough pence for necessities it was all she asked of them, or of her husband and sons. She was loyal to their clan but she did not love or respect them as individuals. All her respect was reserved for her second son Smut, who alone had inherited the spirit of her ancestors and was ready to challenge authority in every form and remain wholly free, not partially so, like her husband and the others. Smut had always been the exception. He looked like a gypsy, with his crow-black hair, swarthy complexion, and his curious, bouncy walk, as though wherever he trod he anticipated the snap of a mantrap. Mantraps were against the law now or so they said but Meg didn’t believe it. A man like Lord Gilroy probably sowed them in his coverts, just as he was known to have issued orders to his keepers to shoot poachers on sight, but these hazards did not keep Meg awake at night, when Smut was out across the Teazel. She had faith in his skill and speed, in his ability to hear and interpret any movement in any patch of undergrowth and judge the thickness of shadows, and the distance of sounds. Smut could smell a Gilroy keeper at seventy yards, and move over the ground at night faster than any fox and almost as silently. So she sat erect, watching her favourite child casting his spell over Margy Voysey, the Coombe Bay butcher’s daughter, reflecting that he was a rare boy for his work, for even on a gala night such as this his mind was on his markets. She wondered if Smut would ever marry and decided that if he did he might do worse than pick someone like Margy, who could at least provide a legitimate outlet for his game. She watched him take the dumpy butcher’s daughter by the hand and lead her gallantly on to the floor, and then she fell to a contemplation of ballroom dancing in general. It was not really dancing at all, she decided, just a sweaty clasping and a prancing about, like a lot of fox cubs at play. She could remember real dancing, in the light of pine torches and great, blazing fires, on the occasion of gypsy weddings long ago and for a moment she regretted the passage of the years. Then Smut and his partner swept by and her eyes glowed with pride; Smut was worth all the hard work and loss of freedom of the last two decades.

Claire Derwent carried her glass of lemonade to a corner of the backstairs where she could remain detached from the throng but stay within reach of it. She wanted a few moments alone in order to savour her triumph, for it was clear by now that the party—
her
party as she thought of it—was a triumph. She had been worried by its sluggish start, assured that an anticlimax would dowse her in ignominy, and undo all the good work that had been achieved since the moment of her inspiration three weeks ago. But there was nothing to worry about now; Paul was launched as Lord of the Valley and it was she who had, so to speak, broken the champagne bottle. Every day since he had answered her letter she had been growing more indispensable to him and now it was obviously a pleasure to him to seek her advice. She was equally sure that she was deeply in love with him, there could be no doubt as regards that, either. Of all people in the Sorrel Valley she alone understood his potential, and luck, encouraged by her initiative, had chosen her as his impresario, so she sat on, enjoying her moment of solitude and wondering if he would come seeking her during the supper interval. Fireworks were due in twenty minutes so perhaps he could then spare a few minutes from his obligations as host to stand close to her in the dark, watching the first rockets soar over the avenue chestnuts.

Paul did not appear but her sister Rose found her, elbows on knees and glass in hand, and because there was a deep affection between them Rose recognised the satisfaction in Claire’s eyes, saying generously, ‘It really
is
a success, Claire! Everybody says so, even Father!’ and then, cautiously, ‘I
do
hope Mr Craddock appreciates all you’ve done! I don’t suppose you’ve had time to talk to one another tonight.’

‘We had one dance,’ Claire said, so dreamily that Rose laughed. ‘I expect he’ll stand with me to watch the fireworks. Do you think you can get Father and Liz to leave soon? After all, you’ll be staying, so he oughtn’t to mind with so many people about the house.’

‘Oh, he’s on your side all right,’ Rose said, and then, fearful of probing too deeply, ‘Has … has he
said
anything, Claire? After all, you’ve been over here a great deal lately.’

This time it was Claire who laughed. ‘Oh, there’s always been somebody else around for a party this size doesn’t organise itself! No, he hasn’t actually said anything but does he have to? I mean, at this stage?’

‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,’ said Rose, and Claire, because she was feeling more elated and secure than she ever remembered, threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her, exclaiming, ‘Dear Rose! I’m so lucky to have you! And someone will show up for you, just see if he doesn’t! I’ll tell you what, if—when—anything does happen, I’ll persuade Paul to fill the house with chunky, hard-riding, sporty men, the kind who always have taken more notice of you than me. We’ll select our victim and stalk him and he won’t stand an earthly against three of us!’

‘Oh, rubbish!’ said Rose, sincerely, ‘I’m quite content to stay single but you wouldn’t be! I only hope Paul Craddock has the sense to appreciate you before somebody else grabs you! Come on, he’ll be looking everywhere for you, and the fireworks are due to start any minute.’

They went downstairs hand in hand and met Paul coming up. Claire shouted, ‘Paul, dear!’ but Rose, perhaps because she had ridden so many half-broken colts, was immediately struck by the exuberance of his stride, so that a prick of uncertainty punctured her serenity. His expression was odd too; the tolerant might have called it radiant, the more sophisticated fatuous. He said, without any attempt to conceal his excitement, ‘They’ve arrived! They’re
here
!’,
and when Rose asked who had arrived he caught Claire by the hand and said, ‘The Lovells! Grace and her stepmother! They’re downstairs, drinking hot cocoa! They drove over in an open gig!’, but by now Claire’s serene expression had clouded and the shock was considerable as she read into his voice and manner a great deal more than Rose. She withdrew her hand from his and said quietly, ‘I’m sorry! We’ve run out of glasses, Paul!’ and scuttled away, running back upstairs and down the corridor, as though making for the room they had converted into an extra cloakroom. He looked after her so blankly that Rose, in a sudden rage, wanted to strike him across the face. His insensitivity maddened her and she could have cheerfully flung him down the stairs. Instead she excused herself and hurried after Claire, so that he thought, briefly, ‘They’ve had a tiff over something,’ and went downstairs again, joining the group standing round the open fire, listening respectfully to Celia Lovell’s praise of the decorations.