Long Summer Day (27 page)

‘Ah, that’s a real trouble in places like this,’ Grenfell said. ‘Most of them are so out of touch that nobody can make them accept their responsibilities as democrats. Even when the Tories bundle them into carriages, and haul ’em off to poll, they haven’t the least idea what earns them the free ride, although most of ’em put a cross for the man who pays the fare out of a sense of fair play. I wonder what the Chartists would think about it all, or going further back, men like Hampden, and old John Ball? Sometimes I’d like to call a party truce for five years—the life of a Parliament, say—so that both parties could drive home the fact that the most important single gain of the British people over the centuries was the Reform Bill, and the Redistribution Act that followed it.’

‘How would you personally go about it?’ Paul asked, and Grenfell’s eyes blazed as have said, ‘Why, by real blood-and-thunder methods! By the use of magic lantern slides, showing how much blood was shed by Englishmen from the fifteenth century onwards! By lectures on incidents like Peterloo and the Tolpuddle Martyrs! By borrowing the techniques of the halfpenny press, to drive the lesson home in all kinds of ways—plays, pageants, debates and the use of every mechanical gadget on the market! Then, when everybody had been pricked in one spot or another, we’d have an election and the result would astonish us all! Maybe they wouldn’t have one or other of us, or the Fabians either, because people would see the main issues more clearly and not let themselves be fobbed off with party propaganda.’

‘What are the main issues?’ Paul asked and Grenfell suddenly stopped crumbling his bread and placing both hands on the table looked across at his host: ‘There are only two that concern me,’ he said. ‘One is tolerance and the other has been written into the first paragraph of every political tract of the last four hundred years—that men are born equal, and should enjoy equality of opportunity! Everything worth a farthing in politics is rooted in those principles.’

The sparkle left his eyes and he smiled his winning smile as he stood up and extended his hand. ‘You failed to keep your promise, Mr Craddock! You agreed to stop me if I began preaching. However, it has been delightful meeting you, delightful and … yes, I must say it, extremely encouraging!’

‘I don’t promise to vote for you,’ Paul said and Grenfell replied, ‘I told you—I didn’t come here to solicit!’

Paul ordered Grenfell’s trap to be brought to the front and when it was bowling down the drive, with the little man crouched on the high seat flourishing his whip in farewell, he thought it was a long time since he had enjoyed such pleasant company at his table.

III

W
ill Codsall and Elinor Willoughby were married very quietly at the Congregationist Meeting House, in Coombe Bay, on the first day of December, when the seasons were still delicately poised between autumn and winter and the Sorrel Valley was awaiting the north-east wind to strip the last leaf from the Priory thickets and for the blue water between beach and sandbars to turn its wind-whipped winter grey. It was a day of strong gusts and the threat of sleet, no day for a wedding, or for anything more than the fitting of draught boards to cottage doors and a cursing of finches who had weakened the thatch in nesting forays throughout spring.

Paul and Mrs Handcock drove over to Coombe Bay and took their places in the back pew of the whitewashed chapel, Mrs Handcock gathering her coat about her, as though close contact with so many dissenters was a physical hazard. She was here at the insistence of the Squire, reinforced by her dislike of the groom’s mother who, or so Squire had warned her, had advertised her intention of causing a riot. Paul himself would have preferred John Rudd as a buffer between himself and Arabella but Rudd’s ribs were slow to mend and he had now postponed his return until New Year.

Word must have gone round that there was likely to be free entertainment at the meeting house, for during the interval between the arrival of Will (buttoned into tight blue serge and wearing a three-inch collar that kept his chin at a sharp angle) and that of the bride, every pew filled with Valley folk, each of whom entered quietly and cautiously, as though expecting the roof to collapse at any moment. The Potter girls were there and with them Walt Pascoe, who would be a bridegroom himself in the New Year. Rose Derwent tiptoed in and bowed her head, just as if this was a real church, and Farmer Willoughby’s minister from Whinmouth a real priest. Paul smiled across at Rose but she did not return his smile and he wondered briefly about Claire, and her interminable stay in Kent but not for long, for he was far too apprehensive and his fears were not entirely allayed by having posted Ikey Palfrey at the head of the village street to warn him of the approach of the enemy. Arthur and Martha Pitts arrived late, causing everyone to look fearfully over their shoulders, and then came Willoughby’s hired hand, who had obviously been detached as scout by the bridegroom, for he sidled up to the waiting groom and shook his head, indicating that so far there was no sign of Arabella. At this Will’s chin shot up another point or two, and he ran his forefinger round the inside of his collar, sighing so loudly that some of the girls began to giggle. His embarrassment, however, did something to relieve the tension in the chapel, so Paul leaned towards the housekeeper and whispered, ‘Maybe she’s thought better of it!’ but Mrs Handcock said nothing. She was wishing herself anywhere but here, abetting a young man whose kindheartedness was likely to be exploited to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the Valley.

She forgot her misgivings, however, when a stir at the rear of the church heralded the arrival of the bride and Elinor entered on her father’s arm, a little wisp of a thing, in a white muslin gown, with a Honiton lace veil embroidered with true lover’s knots held in place by an evergreen wreath. Edwin Willoughby looked very solemn as the two walked the length of the aisle and Will, nudged by his groomsman, jumped up with a clatter of boots and looked around helplessly, as though expecting to be told what to do next. Help was at hand, for Elinor, half lifting her veil, smiled at him reassuringly and it was her smile that touched Mrs Handcock as it did every other woman in the church. She looked so fragile, so pretty and yet so confident of her destiny.

After that the ceremony went off very smoothly, responses being uttered in voices that contained an element of defiance, and when the couple walked down the aisle to the chapel door, where they were showered with clammy handfuls of confetti by the Coombe Bay folk waiting outside, there was a general sense of anti-climax. Paul kissed Elinor on the cheek and shook hands with a beaming Will, who seemed almost dazed with relief that nothing had occurred to shame him or spoil the occasion for Elinor. There was no reception; the couple simply drove back to Deepdene in a hired Coombe Bay gig and the bride’s father followed in his trap and everybody stood about in the wind until Paul, sensing that something was expected of him, issued a general invitation to everyone to join him at The Raven and drink the young couple’s health in beer or cider. Mrs Handcock whispered urgently, ‘Now, dornee indulge ’em, Mr Craddock!’ but she came along nevertheless and drank tea with Minnie Flowers, the landlord’s wife, in the kitchen, whilst Paul entertained the groomsman, Walt Pascoe, and a dozen others in the bar. It was Walt, feeling himself half initiated in the mysteries of bridal rites, who expressed general disappointment with the ceremony when he said, cheerfully, ‘Well here’s your health, Squire, but ’twas all a bit of damp squib, wasn’t ’er? I would ha’ wagered half-a-sovereign to sixpence old Arabella would ha’ sailed in and set about poor old Will with her umbrella, but ’er must have been tied to a chair last minute by Martin!’ This was received as a great joke, Martin Codsall being recognised as the most hagridden husband in the Valley, yet there was a grain of truth in Walt’s guess after all. Arabella had certainly intended making good her threat and it was Martin who had, in fact, prevented her.

Word had reached Arabella that the wedding was timed for 2 p.m. and at one o’clock she came into the kitchen dressed in her high-buttoned best with elastic-sided boots and a huge fruit hat, a kind of horned cornucopia made of hard, black straw and glutted with plums and grapes and cherries, that swung like so many coloured bells when she turned her head. Martin, also in his Sunday clothes, awaited her, having spent the entire morning in earnest attempts to dissuade her from disgracing the family. Arabella knew Martin well but not so well as she imagined, or she might have noted his unnaturally high colour, as though the wretchedness of providing a public spectacle and destroying the last bridge between him and his firstborn was already bringing blushes to his cheeks. He was unusually neat and tidy too, even for churchgoing, his greying hair damped down and his gold pin and boots twinkling in the firelight. He remained silent when Arabella consulted her bodice watch, saying that it was time to go if they were to arrive at the chapel in good time, but as they seated themselves in the high-slung trap he made a final appeal to her dignity, saying, ‘Then youm still bent on every layabout in the Valley laughing their silly heads off over us, Mother?’, but all she replied was, ‘The sooner we get there the sooner it’ll be over an’ done with!’

‘But damme,’ he protested, ‘it won’t do a particle a good to any one of us! Do ’ee think this kind o’ caper will fetch our Will back?’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said calmly, ‘but it’ll make a fool of ’im an’ shame her and that’s all I care about at this stage!’

It was all he cared about too, and it tilted him into mutiny. She had not noticed that Flick, their sedate and ageing pony, was not harnessed to the trap or that Cobber, a recently acquired cob of doubtful sobriety, had taken Flick’s place between the shafts. He was surprised that she had not connected upon this when they came out and even had an excuse on the tip of his tongue but he put her poor observation down to the cloud of spite that had settled on her brain. Saying no more he cracked the whip as the trap moved off down the track to the bridge at a spanking pace, the measured gavotte of Arabella’s cherries and plums changing to a brisk polka and then a reckless can-can, as the cob lengthened its stride and bumped over the ruts at twelve miles per hour. ‘At this rate,’ thought Martin, grimly, ‘us’ll be in Coombe Bay in under the half-hour, providin’ we’m
going
to Coombe Bay this afternoon!’

The first indication that Arabella had of his treachery was when the trap shot across the plank bridge and swung left instead of right, taking the river road that ran under the slope of Priory Wood. She was so astonished that for a few moments she could find no words to comment and this, for Arabella Codsall, implied a very great degree of astonishment indeed. Then it occurred to her that Martin must be so emotionally disturbed that he had forgotten his way to the coast, so she shrieked, ‘Fool! Pull him up, and turn him round!’, but instead of obeying Martin lifted his whip and brought it slashing down across the cob’s haunches, and the cob, already going at a rolling canter, threw up its head and moved from canter to gallop, almost pitching Arabella over the seat rail and causing her to let out a sustained scream that startled every bird in the Valley. She realised then that he had gone mad, for only madness could explain open revolt and she realised too, with a coolness that did her credit in the circumstances, that if they continued in this direction at this pace they would soon pass a point where it would be impossible to retrace their steps in time for the wedding. The thought submerged her fears so that she made a wild grab at the reins, but madness upon madness, Martin switched them to his right hand and fended her off with the butt end of the whip, so that she suddenly abandoned all thought of the wedding in certainty that he was bent on oversetting the trap and killing her and himself. She began to plead, holding tight to the rail with one hand and keeping her fruit hat from flying away with the other. The hat, in fact, was beginning to disintegrate, and cherries were already cascading into her lap. A plum or a large grape, also worked itself loose but this went unnoticed, striking her shoulder and shooting into the back of the trap among some sacks.

The cob was now at stretched gallop, and on the uneven surface of the road the trap was bumping from side to side like a hay trailer, coupled to a recklessly driven waggon. Martin concentrated on preventing the hubs of the wheels touching the bank on one side or the flood posts on the other but Arabella had nothing to do but hang on and scream and this she did, shriek upon shriek issuing from her mouth in an almost continuous sound that sent every river bird wheeling from the reeds and caused a curious buzzard, watching from an elevation of three hundred feet, to back up against the wind currents until it could decide what was happening on the ribbon of road below.

Then, as the cob saw the freedom of the moor before him, he shot off along the upland track that was not even as well surfaced as the river road and suddenly, to cap all, a shower of sleet came down, driving into their faces and tearing Arabella’s hat from her grasp, so that she stopped screaming and began to plead but all Martin did was to lay on with his whip and the cob, that had been enjoying the outcry until now, panicked and swerved, shooting off into heather and then back again but without varying its frightful pace across the moor.

It was when they came to a gradient where neither whip, shouts, nor rattle could induce the blown cob to maintain its pace that the trap slowed to an uncertain walk but Arabella hardly noticed the change. She was sobbing and breathless, her unpinned hair obscuring her vision, her lovely fruit hat a sodden bundle half-a-mile back along the road, her mind tormented by the prospect of living out the remainder of her days with a lunatic husband. The sleet still came at them like a shower of spears but he paid no heed to it, sitting hunched over the footboard, reins and whip in hand, eyes fixed on the crest of the moor ahead.

‘Well, Mother,’ he said at length, ‘I reckon that does it! Us couldn’t get to chapel in time now if us went there behind racehorses so put up your hair and make the best of it! Us’ll take it easy going backalong!’