Marlford (5 page)

‘Oh, but, no – surely…' She blanched at such a terrible proposal. ‘There must be some aspects of study that interest you. Especially with history. There's so much – there's always something to inspire you.'

Gadiel smiled. ‘I think I prefer practical stuff.'

Ellie stared at him and then, realizing her rudeness, blinked and turned her attention to a loose thread of baize.

‘Well, anyway, I'd like to hear about your travels,' she said.

‘No – it's nothing. We've just driven around a bit, you know. It's just – well, it's the same as everyone does.'

‘Everyone?' She was forced to look at him again, astounded, trying to place herself in such an extraordinary
statement. But she found that what she came back to was Marlford, and a niggle of resentment.

She drew her thumb round the tip of her cue to clear loose chalk. ‘When Dan asked Papa that question – about the money… I'm sorry he didn't answer. But you mustn't think he was embarrassed about my grandfather or about the mines or the industry or anything.'

Gadiel seemed relieved by the abrupt change of subject. ‘Look, that was Dan. He's just like that sometimes. He has ideas. He's politically engaged.' He laughed lightly. ‘Ignore him.'

‘Braithwaite Barton was a genuine philanthropist. The model village at Marlford—'

‘It's fine. You don't need to explain.'

‘But Papa's rather sensitive…'

‘Really. It's fine. Take no notice of Dan – he just gets bees buzzing in his bonnet like crazy. That's all. It's not you. Let's just play.'

‘He lost all the money, you see. Everything.'

Gadiel pulled out of his shot and stood up straight. ‘Really? You mean—' He waved his arm as though to signal the extent of the Marlford estate and Ernest's losses.

‘Yes – Dan rather touched a nerve.' Ellie smiled, sadly. ‘Braithwaite Barton made ample provision for the village. And, when he died, he left funds for a great many improvements and expansions – new roads, for example, and an open-air swimming pool for the children to use in the summer.'

She thought she could smell the scent of Dan's tobacco smoke drifting in from the portico but she could not be sure, and she tried to concentrate instead on the tight pattern of angles suggested by the balls.

When Gadiel spoke again, she started.

‘Do you mean you don't have any money now? Despite all this?'

Ellie frowned at an obstructed pocket. ‘We have very little money,' she replied.

Gadiel smiled. ‘Dan'll be pleased to hear that.' But he could not be sure she understood his joke. ‘No – look, I didn't mean… it must have been some disaster, though, to lose that much.'

Ellie was scathing. ‘It was a remarkable achievement.'

The ferocity of her tone embarrassed him. He pulled uncomfortably at one of the string bags beneath the pockets of the billiard table. The game seemed to have drifted to a halt.

‘To lose everything on the turn of the dice… or something.' Gadiel whistled, a kind of admiration.

‘No, no – it wasn't that. It wasn't gambling.'

She tried to settle the facts of the old story, always brittle to her, fragments from lives long past, before Marlford was ever conceived, an incongruous prehistory.

‘Well, if you want to tell me, then think of it as a history lesson,' he prompted. ‘I might learn something.'

The light spat, momentarily throwing them into darkness before flicking on again and settling, its brightness dimmed. Ellie slid her cue onto the table, laying it along the cushion.

She sighed. She saw Gadiel's eagerness, something other than mere curiosity, an irresistible desire to know her.

‘Papa was – well, an adventurer, like those old-fashioned explorers that lost themselves in the jungle or were eaten by savages.' She smiled wryly at her father's eccentricity.

‘Well, which was it?' Gadiel asked. ‘He doesn't look like he got eaten by savages.'

She laughed. ‘He got involved with all kinds of strange schemes, and in the end he put up a great deal of money for a British expedition to Canada. He had to take out extra loans to finance it. It was scientific, in its way – it was a genuine expedition. He had support from the British Geological Survey, the War Ministry – all kinds of officials. If it had been a success I believe there might have been a substantial return on the investment. But it was terrible timing: it was 1939, and when war broke out… well – he had to sell everything… almost everything. Except the house.'

Gadiel was struck by the coolness of her manner. ‘Couldn't they just have postponed it?'

‘It was too late, I think. I don't entirely understand. There's never been many details. Perhaps it was a secret. It was something to do with finding a new supply route, but several of the ships were sunk by German U-boats just south of Rockall – I know that much. My father was on board one of them; he was one of the survivors.'

‘But that's terrible.'

‘I've never considered it worthy of much sympathy.'

Gadiel stepped back and stared at her. He caught the flicker of something hardly visible behind the steady primness of her face, the tiniest of movements; he could not even say what it might have been, a twitch of the cheek, perhaps, or a fleeting spark in the eye. It was like a stifled cry. He felt he should help her.

‘Another game?' It was all he could think of to offer.

*

When he potted the last ball, Ellie was standing by the table, blinking.

‘Oh.' The sound crept from her, an involuntary moan. ‘Well played.' Gadiel offered her his hand but she did not take it.

She had never considered that she might lose the game. Having her flaws exposed in such a casual, friendly manner seemed perilous.

‘Yes, I suppose.'

He grinned. ‘You're supposed to say “Well played”, too. It's traditional.'

‘Yes, of course. You played well. You did. I see that. I didn't mean to be ungracious. It's just—'

‘It's just that when you play by yourself, you always win.' He winked at her and offered his hand again, almost touching her. She stepped away and before she could speak, Dan came in to join them again, polishing his spectacles briskly on his T-shirt.

‘You know, I think the best thing is if we just push the van somewhere out of the way and I get someone to come for it.' He was newly purposeful after slipping through the histories of the house in the scented dark. ‘That'd be OK, wouldn't it?'

Ellie anchored the base of her cue into the forgiving old wood of the floorboards. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Yes, I don't see why not. I don't see that Papa will mind. Why don't you… you can put it in the stable yard, if you like – there're no horses any more.'

‘What, no string of thoroughbreds?'

Ellie shook her head. ‘No, just rats. And some birds. A few old saddles, I think.'

She wanted to laugh at her assessment of Marlford's livery, to show she understood how ridiculous it all was, but the boys were already hurrying out of the house, pushing at each other, jostling, Dan making a fuss of looking for his keys in his pockets, their quick footsteps crunching on the front gravel. She was left behind.

She did not join them again until they had heaved the vehicle under the archway and stowed it safely in the yard.

Dan brushed his palms together, creating a brisk series of claps. ‘That should do it, man.' He appraised the van's garaging arrangements as the echoes of his gesture subsided, then looked hard at Gadiel.

‘We'll be off, then,' Gadiel said.

Ellie sensed his wariness, but did not understand it. ‘It's been very kind of you to visit.' She held out her hand.

This time Gadiel touched her, but she hardly noticed.

‘It was most pleasant,' she said. ‘I'm so glad you could come. I'm sure Papa enjoyed your company a great deal.' She looked off to one side, impolite in the speed of her farewells. Her head was full of something painful: their faces there in front of her – coarse, she thought, gloating in the dusk – seemed too close and intrusive. It was such a terrible confusion.

She scurried away, leaving them.

The boys stood together, watching her go.

The dark was settling quickly, blurring the lines of the old stone. The stable clock struck ten. Dan looked at his watch. ‘This place is mad. Even the clock's set to a different age. It's nearly eleven.'

Gadiel tapped the side of the van. ‘What are we going to do, then? Are we sleeping here?'

Dan ignored him. There was something set in the wall at the far end of the yard that seemed to attract his attention, but Gadiel could see only the uneven texture of the old bricks, a couple of metal fixings and a half-closed window.

‘What about heading into the village? We could find somewhere – there'll be a pub, I bet, and there'll be the Apollo stuff – if we can find a television.'

Dan was still.

‘Come on, Dan,' – Gadiel shoved at him – ‘astronauts, you know… men on the moon? Hanging around here all evening, we've missed the best of it.'

Dan stepped out of reach.

‘She should have come to see the van.'

‘You're not going to hold that against her, are you? It's just a van. Girls don't get that kind of thing.'

‘She can't shake old habits, can she? Playing billiards after dinner – all that stuff.'

‘The billiards was good. You'd have liked it. You shouldn't have lied about not being able to play.' Gadiel shook his head. ‘Come on, let's get going. It'll be more fun in the village. And Ellie let me in on some family secrets – I'll tell you as we go. Come on, Dan.'

Dan turned to him, finally. He was solemn, excited. ‘I've got an idea,' he said.

Five

E
llie cleared the kitchen, stacking the washed dishes on the shelves and tying up the sack of peelings for the farm. She worked quickly, with something like anger in the abruptness of her movements, then she changed into her wellington boots, tied a scarf over her hair, took her raincoat from the pegs by the back door and slipped outside.

The van was shunted against the wall; there was no sign of the visitors. Bats criss-crossed above her head, looping and diving; something moved in the old stalls, disturbing the rancid hay. She walked up to the van, her booted footsteps slopping loudly against the cobbles in the stable yard, and she touched the side of it, rubbing her hand along one of the sweeps of colour. In the rustling twilight, it seemed as though the vehicle should be magical, a genie's lantern perhaps, but when she repeated the movement and looked around, there were still just the old walls on all sides, a heavy sky above, disappointment sinking within her.

She started at a dull sound and turned quickly. By the narrow back entrance the men were standing, watching her.

‘Oh. Good evening. Have you been here all the time? I didn't see you.'

In reply, Ata pointed to the stable roof. Hindy nodded.

‘A tile has slipped,' he said.

Ellie followed their gaze. There were tiles missing all over, holes gaping open to show the rotting wood beneath; some had fallen at unsettling angles into the clutch of the sloping gutter.

‘I don't see how you can know.'

But they did not respond. For a while longer they scrutinized the roof, then Luden broke from their ranks and came towards her, his bent figure cracking the shadows. He, too, touched the side of the van, gingerly, as though it might burn him.

‘It's – it's awaiting repair,' Ellie explained. ‘It's temporary.' She watched as Luden poked at the paintwork. ‘It's only just arrived. Just this afternoon.'

He looked along the length of the vehicle, bending down stiffly to examine something beneath. Whatever the result of his investigations, it seemed to satisfy him. He returned slowly to Hindy and Ata.

‘Really – there's no need to worry about it. It's being towed away, for repair.'

They did not seem in the least interested in her explanations. Hindy put a consoling hand on Luden's shoulder; Ata shook his head slowly, with great sadness.

She waited, knowing they would speak in the end.

‘You should go to apologize to Mr Quersley,' Hindy said. ‘He'll be on patrol at the mere.'

She sighed. ‘I'm very tired.'

‘I'm not sure that makes a difference.' He looked to
Luden and Ata, who both shook their heads. ‘No, as I thought, you see – unfortunately, that makes no difference. Apologies need to be made. And in good time. You have a commitment to join Mr Quersley in your duties at your grandfather's library – and that commitment was broken this evening.'

‘But I wasn't to know they would come. They simply arrived – their van broke down on the road and they pushed it up here, all the way. I had every intention of going to the library but… well, it just happened. Unexpectedly.'

It felt like throwing pebbles at a wall, her words dinking back at her without making the slightest impact.

‘Miss Barton.' Luden was stern. ‘You know what we expect – of you, of the mistress of Marlford.'

‘We had hoped to make that clear, over the years,' Ata added, smiling.

Ellie looked again at the van, its looping rainbow faint now in the distorted dark.

‘Can't it wait until tomorrow? I am really very tired.'

‘It has to be done now,' Hindy pressed. ‘So that we can be sure there's no further disruption.'

Ellie placed her hand very slowly on the vehicle's side.

‘Miss Barton,' – Hindy's tone was a warning – ‘we never offer our advice without consideration.'

‘And yet, if I may, we've recently sensed some resistance,' Ata added. ‘Would that be accurate to say? Some opposition on your part?' He smiled again. ‘Despite our good intentions.'

‘I don't oppose you.' She was surprised at the sudden anger that sparked in her as she spoke. She pressed her hand harder against the cold flank of the van.

‘Resentment, perhaps,' Ata continued, reasonably. ‘At the menial work to be done at the hutments.'

‘I've always done that. I don't think of it.'

‘At the way we monopolize Mr Barton's time, then?'

‘You shouldn't take Papa's money.' She spoke quite calmly. ‘You take too much. When there's nothing to begin with.'

Ata smiled again. ‘A run of luck, I'm afraid. The turn of the cards.'

‘But there's three of you and only one of him. You're bound to win. At least three times as often, you're bound to win.'

Ata opened his hands and shrugged, his smile steady.

‘There's no good reason for her wilfulness.' Hindy shook his head. ‘It's just a phase, I imagine. We should just press on. You'll come round, won't you, Miss Barton?'

‘Her mother was just the same. You remember? The trouble we had? At first?' Lunden clenched his lips, something of a smile.

‘I remember,' Hindy replied.

‘But she was a bright woman, and sensible,' Luden continued. ‘She understood.'

They looked at each other, the warmth of nostalgia holding them apart from Ellie for a moment.

‘I have to go.' Her anger was still sharp. She pulled away from the van and smoothed the folds of her raincoat.

‘Ah, good – yes.' Hindy broke from his reminiscences. ‘You'll rectify matters with Mr Quersley, then.'

‘No,' she replied. ‘I'm going in to bed.'

She sensed the way they stiffened.

‘I've had enough. Enough of all your – foolishness.'
The word seemed visible for a moment, glowing faintly between them. ‘I don't see that there's any urgency. There's no reason why Mr Quersley should object to my absence. It was perfectly justified. I'll explain that to him, the next time I see him.' She found her breath was coming noisily, too fast.

‘Ah now, wait, Miss Barton—' Ata began, smoothly.

‘No. I'll not wait. I'm perfectly able to decide these things. For myself.'

There was a long moment of quiet. Something scuffled again in the stables. Ellie glanced towards the sound, as though it mattered.

‘You see, Miss Barton? You see how these visitors have disrupted us?' Hindy finally asked.

‘Corrupted, I would say,' Luden added.

‘No. No. It's nothing to do with them.' She clutched her hand to her stomach as if she could calm the uneasy sensation there, the slow growl which had come on with the arrival of the van earlier that day, like an odd hunger, insistent now and gnawing. ‘I've not been in the least disrupted.' Her voice was rising high. ‘There's just no reason why I should do as you say.'

They smiled, all three of them, at her resistance. Ata scratched thoughtfully at his head.

‘But you see, of course, there is,' Hindy said. ‘I believe we've explained this before, Miss Barton, several times. I believe we've been clear. You do understand, do you not?'

There was an instant, perhaps, when Ellie might have continued to resist, but it was too fleeting.

‘We know what is best for Marlford,' Hindy went on.

‘You'll understand that we've given it a great deal of
consideration. On the whole, we don't like to bother you with our deliberations, of course, but this evening we clearly need to ensure your relationship with Mr Quersley remains on a good footing. On an excellent footing, indeed. So, as we suggested at the beginning, an apology will be quite the right thing.'

She could hear the frogs, their song quiet, a distant consonance, the mechanical repetition indistinct. The sound seemed to lure her residual anger from her and all she felt was the weight of an old weariness, unshiftable.

‘It would only take a few minutes, I suppose,' she said.

‘Time well spent,' Ata agreed.

‘It's just this evening, with everything…' She sighed. ‘But I suppose I could go.'

‘If you would, Miss Barton. Straight away,' Hindy urged. ‘It's for your own good, you know that.'

‘That's what you always say.'

‘And isn't it always true?'

Ellie slumped into the deep grooves of an old conversation. ‘Perhaps.' She shook her head.

The men watched her closely for a moment without speaking. When they were satisfied her resolution would hold, Hindy smiled. ‘Excellent. Our exchanges are ever a pleasure, Miss Barton. We will leave you to your task and bid you good night. It's rather late.'

And the men left her, going back one by one through the narrow entrance and disappearing silently, only the faint echo of their words lingering.

There was no sign of Oscar Quersley. Ellie followed the bank around to the ruined boathouse, disturbing a pair of
ducks that flapped away, panicked and raucous. Beyond it, the trees and thickets of bushes were too dense, the weeds too overgrown; she was forced to retrace her steps.

When she finally found him, he was sitting on the damp ground under an ancient yew, his back against the buried wall of the old ice house, swishing his stick uselessly in wide arcs through the air in front of him.

‘Good evening.'

He jumped to his feet, brandishing the stick stiffly like a weapon. ‘Ellie – my God, Ellie, it's pitch dark. What on earth are you doing?'

‘It's not quite dark.' She gestured to the dip of the mere: a moon was rising low over the water, making it ripple silver. ‘It just seems darker under here.'

‘Nonetheless.' He tucked his stick under his arm. ‘I didn't think you ever came here. I didn't think you liked the mere.' Stepping past her, he resumed his slow patrol, marshalling the historic quiet with the arrhythmic swish of his stick. He was angular in the chill gloom.

Ellie hesitated. ‘I wanted to apologize for not coming this evening for library duty.'

‘It was a quiet evening. There were no readers.'

‘That's as I thought. But the men suggested I come to explain. To apologize.'

‘Think nothing of it, Ellie. You weren't required.'

‘They thought you might be… I don't know – offended, I suppose.'

‘I was not offended.'

She could not say anything after that; she could not reply to his brusqueness, so she just walked alongside him, listening to the beat of his stick.

‘They're quiet tonight, aren't they?' she asked, after a while. ‘The frogs.'

He did not answer.

‘They're probably waiting for the rain. It feels like it's going to rain, doesn't it, Mr Quersley?'

He might have nodded, she could not be sure; it might simply have been his movement through the clumps of long grass. Somehow it mattered.

‘Don't you think so? Don't you think it might rain, Mr Quersley?'

He stopped, cocking his head. A frog very close to them began with the lightest of groans. In response, a chorus started up all around, strident, undeniable, filling the night with urgent desire.

Oscar held his stick aloft, not quite still. Ellie could see the shiver of the brutal metal tip. For a moment he was poised, then he took one long, quick step sideways, turning, bringing the stick down in a graceful arc, driving the point of it hard into the ground. Ellie saw something flailing.

He straightened himself, pulling the stick out of the earth with a sharp tug and holding an impaled frog towards her. Its legs waved at her frantically, swimming through the damp air; a dark slime squeezed over the bulge of its stomach.

‘Aha! You see?'

It was a slight trophy, but he stood squarely behind it, proud. She put her hand up to keep it away. The frog became still.

With a deft flick of his wrist, Oscar loosened it from the stick and let it drop to the ground. He put his heel on
it, twisting his foot several times. Then he looked up at her. ‘That doesn't happen very often. A clean strike.'

He wiped the sole of his boot on the long grass and Ellie moved away, avoiding the crushed body of the frog. The rain started, slow, heavy drops, intermittent. She pulled the edge of her light scarf over her fringe.

‘You'd better go home, Ellie. It's going to rain hard. After this hot weather, too, there may even be a storm.'

The drops fell harder.

‘But I just wanted to tell you, Mr Quersley…' In a sudden burst, the rain descended furiously, rumbling against the ground and the deep water of the mere. She raised her voice. ‘I wanted to explain. In case you thought I'd simply forgotten to come, or that I couldn't be bothered—'

He, too, was shouting against the noise. ‘Really, I told you, Ellie – it's of no matter. I… in fact, I hardly noticed your absence.'

His words were squandered by the gusting breeze and he strode away, purposeful.

Ellie stood in the rain, hanging her head, seeing nothing, her scarf clinging now to her hair.

It was several minutes before she began to trudge back through the trees, her pace slowed, perhaps, by the uncomfortable flap of her wellingtons. By the time she reached the manor, she was soaked.

It felt like she had been punished for something.