The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (14 page)

Her voice was carefully casual when she asked, 'Will you be seeing Damask tonight?'

'Yes,' Danny said; something wild and shy taking fright within him.

'It was only that I had a mite of pork I'd no use for, and I thought you might take it along with you. They don't rear a pig, do they? No, that'd be too sensible for Amos. They'll be glad of it then. Don't go off without it.'

That was all she said and it was well-meaning and innocent enough, but it sent Danny off scowling to wash and change his clothes.

What a situation for him, of all people, to get himself intol Like being stricken with the falling sickness; like running mad in the full of the moon; like stepping into Filby Bog and sinking in up to the neck. Up to the neck --but he'd still kept his head out, just his head; and now even his mother was trying to shove him under.

He had never, in all his life, been in such a muddle. He could look back over seven years of being set on girls and see that all his affairs had followed the same pattern, or rather the same pattern with one variation. He'd be set off for one reason or another, he'd chase the girl; they'd have fun--for most girls, in the end, let him have his way with them, though one or two had been cautious--that was the variation; they did, or they didn't--but whichever way it went the end had always been the same; with lightning suddenness his interest had waned and the whole thing was over.

This affair hadn't followed the pattern; it had lasted six months and he was still mad for the girl; she was hard to please, but he'd tried to please her, and every time he kissed her she turned into a block of stone. And the outside world, which hitherto had merely watched his affairs with amusement, was now all agog, trying to be helpful. Great lumps of pork. Invitations to Sunday dinner! Trying to push his head under, trying to marry him off to the one girl he'd ever known who didn't care one bit about him. And there he was, unable to help himself; dead set on a girl who didn't care one bit about him----One day he'd give up the fight; he'd ask her to marry him and she would, and he'd end up the most hen-pecked man since Reuben Farrow, who, after a lifetime of saying 'Yes' and 'No' as his Martha bade him, went to rest in Clevely churchyard under a tombstone which bore the words: 'Here lies the body of Reuben Farrow. God made him man I made him mannerly.'

Everybody who thought at all about that epitaph thought of Reuben as small and cold-blooded, of Martha as large and vital. Danny Fuller knew differently. Reuben had been big and lusty and hot--Martha small and cold. It was always the ice that made the fire look silly.

It shouldn't in this easel Damn it all to hell, he'd done everything he could to please her, and she hadn't been pleased. The one thing he had not done was to ask her to marry him; and he wouldn't, he wouldn't. Not until she had given him some sign.

And he wished to God he'd never met her; and he wished to God that he could be cured of this 'set off' as he

had of all the others.

And he shaved himself carefully, carefully; and cleaned his nails and brushed his hair and donned his best clothes, self-immolate, votary of the unknown goddess.

He remembered the pork; which assured Mrs Fuller, and, ten minutes later, Mrs Greenway, that all was well. He drove Damask to Muchanger; he kissed her; she turned into stone. She let him call for her; she chatted away, as friendly as could be; and then as soon as he touched her she turned into stone----

That night, rattling home over the Stone Bridge, he saw Sally Ashpole standing back in one of the recesses to let the cart pass. There'd been a time when he had been set on Sally Ashpole, black-haired, easy-going, good-natured trollop that she was, and she was not one of the girls who turned nasty when he ceased paying her attentions; they were still on terms of friendly banter. Sally had been anything but cold and hard and demanding, he remembered. With a feeling that he was making a gesture of defiance--though against whom or what he could not have said--he stopped the cart and called, 'Hi, Sally...'

That was towards the end of March, and once March was over the year moved rapidly into spring. Mrs Green-way persuaded herself that the warmer weather eased her stiff bones and stitched away diligently, entertaining herself with secret thoughts about three of everything, about a golden-brown lindsey dress, about Damask attaining the security and comfort that she herself had missed. Mrs Fuller, with her pullets beginning to lay, her broody hens beginning to sit, and all the bother of the calf-rearing season approaching, stitched away with equal diligence at the quilt and entertained herself with thoughts of grandchildren.

And a tall sailing ship with her hull packed with tea, with bales of silk and muslin from India, to which had been added a consignment of pepper, nutmeg and mace, taken on from the Dutch East India post at the Cape of Good Hope, came buffeting up through the Bay of Biscay on the last lap of her long journey. The pheasants in their wicker cage were quite tame now and would take food from Linda's hand.

The third Saturday of May in that year 1796 was one of those perfect early summer days which come all too rarely. In the pastures the hay, white with marguerite daisies, misted red with sorrel, stood knee high; the ditches frothed with meadow-sweet and all the air was sweet with the last rich fragrance of the lilacs and gillyflowers. While Damask made the beef-pudding Julie rather timidly displayed the result of her month's stitching--timidly because it included some feather-stitching and a little drawn-threadwork here and there. And to her great relief Damask only said, 'How pretty. You must have worked very hard.' Not a word about vanity.

Then Danny had called, on foot and early, bringing with him fresh evidence of his mother's approval in the shape of a plump roasting fowl which Mrs Fuller, forgetful of Steve's words about Methodist ways, had thought would be nice for Sunday dinner. Julie was emboldened to open the little tin which served her as a tea-caddy, and which had been opened only once--on Christmas Day-- since Amos had issued his veto on tea in October. Amos and Abel Shipton had gone down to Bywater to inspect some old ships' timber in a breaker's yard there. The search for cheap timber had so far proved disappointing and disillusioning and they were being driven to try makeshift methods.

The heat of the day and the exertions of her work had brought a flush to Damask's cheeks and loosened her hair a little; she looked quite pretty, her mother thought, still regretting the colour and fashion of the ugly dress which Damask had chosen and made for herself. Danny described, with some homely wit, his mother's attempts to cook out of doors now that the weather was warm and the parlour, used as kitchen, unbearably stuffy. Mrs Fuller had said that if gypsies could cook over an open outdoor fire so could she; but she had made the fire too near the house and the thatch had begun to smoulder. Altogether it was a very merry tea-drinking.

'We'd better start,' Danny said. 'Father wouldn't let me bring the horse out, he's resting up for his hay-carting] labours. My legs aren't so valuable in Father's eyes.'

Damask said quickly, almost as though she had been awaiting the opportunity to say it: 'You needn't walk all that way with me, Danny. It'll still light; I can quite well go by myself.'

They both looked at her curiously; Danny in simple puzzlement, Julie with a flash of unusual cynicism. Was the girl really very clever, and deep and cunning? Was the secret of her success, where so many had failed, the simple expedient of pretending not to care whether Danny came or went?

'But of course I shall go with you. What d'you think I'm here for?' Danny said.

Julie looked at him--the handsome merry face, the thickly growing vigorous hair, the size and power of him --and something long buried stirred in her defeated heart and withered frame. She remembered her own youth, the good-looking boisterous young cobbler whom nobody had thought a good match for a farmer's daughter who'd finished her apprenticeship and was clever with her fingers and lively and smart. But she'd known where her joy was to be found; and though it had lasted so short a time it had been sweet...She hoped that Damask would find that same joy and that it would last longer.

'I thought we'd cut alongside the Waste and go through Layer. The bluebells should be out; it'd be pretty,' Danny said. 'And it isn't much further--we don't have to go all the way along the ride. I know a short cut.'

'All right,' Damask said, with no pleasure in her voice.

To cover the lack Julie said, 'It should be a lovely walk. When I could get about I used to go to Layer every year just to see the bluebells----'

Even Mother--closer as they seemed these days to one another--had no notion, Damask thought. No notion how, all day, from the moment when she had risen in the dew-soaked, bird-loud dawn, she had been doing battle with herself; how every call of the cuckoo, every petal and leaf, every ray of sunshine had been lining up on the Devil's side, putting such thoughts into her head as nobody would believe.

They set off through the soft lingering light. One cuckoo in the depths of Layer Wood and one in the dense shrubbery of the Dower House were keeping up their eternal question-and-answer, and in the comparative coolness which had come with the evening all the scents of the summer had magnified.

She was not self-analytical enough to realise that in truth her nature was sensuous and amorous, that even her 'conversion' was all confused with the scent of hay and honeysuckle and the way the light had fallen on a man's hair; but she knew that the season's beauty, the world's loveliness this evening, would just make it more difficult to behave as she should.

They spoke little, and the few words they used had a brittle, unreal sound.

The bluebells were out, misting with blue the distances between the trees and contributing their own peculiar scent of honey to the evening's incense. They wandered along, idly gathering the flowers until their hands were full.

'You take these,' Danny said, pushing his bunch into her hands. 'I'll pick another bunch for Mother. She often talks of gathering them when she first came to Clevely to live.'

Suddenly Damask found herself staring down at the flowers through a dazzle of tears. The words sounded so innocent and so disarming--and she remembered that she hadn't wanted to come through the beautiful wood at all; and there was no danger, nothing wrong except the wickedness of her own heart. She looked at Danny's big, brown, work-scarred hands gently gathering the flowers and her love for him was a physical pain. Oh, how she loved him; how she wished that he would ask her to marry him.

Twilight seemed to rise from the ground, blotting out the distances and blurring the trunks of the trees while the upper branches were washed with light. The cuckoos ceased their calling, and immediately a wood-dove resumed its long lament. Quite suddenly, without a word spoken, they both stopped, dropped their flowers, and turned to one another with a gesture older than time.

Their identities dropped with the flowers; no more Damask Greenway, no more Danny Fuller. Just a man and a maid in a summer wood.

All the old pagan gods came rustling up through the flower-filled thickets; they understood human nature, indulged it, exploited it, were tolerant of it because they could mould it so easily and held it in contempt. Just one more couple with the summer in their blood.

But one of this couple had, for almost five years now, been in the service of another God who also understood human nature, had small indulgence for it and no contempt, because of it He had fashioned saints and martyrs and other curious creatures, such as girls with natural appetites leashed to touchy consciences. Just at--from the moralist's point of view--the right moment Damask's conscience jerked the leash. She cried breathlessly, 'No. No. It'd be wicked.'

She unclasped her arms and, putting both hands against his chest, began to push herself free. He tried to pull her close again and said in a thick strangled voice, 'I'll marry you, Damask. We'll get married as soon as we can fix it. Aw...Damask----'

He had now spoken the words she had been longing to hear, but the time was not right; she knew her Devil and recognised his trickery. It was just like when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, saying, 'If thou, therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.' She struggled more violently and freed herself, sobbing with effort, and with the shock of having found herself so nearly in the pit of sin.

Her bodice was undone, and she fastened it with unsteady fingers, brushed the bits of crushed leaf and petal from her skirts, pulled a twig from her hair. And all the time Danny did not move or speak. As she had pulled away from him he had rolled over and put his face on his folded arms. She imagined that he was also ashamed. Presently she said, very gently: 'It's all right, Danny. I'm not angry.'

He did not answer immediately; then he said: 'I'm sorry, Damask. I should have known better.' A more perceptive ear than hers might have heard less of apology than ironic comment in the words.

She retrieved the flowers, noticing that they were wilting already, and laid the stems into two neat bunches.

And still Danny did not move. He lay there quite overcome by the strangeness, the utter uniqueness of the thing which had happened to him in the last few minutes. He was cured. When she had said 'I'm not angry, only politeness had held back his true rejoinder, 'I don't give a damn whether you're angry or not.' He now lay savouring his relief, his joy at being his own man again. But he was still puzzled; this affair had begun in a curious way, it had followed an unusual course, and it had ended in a fashion, which, only half an hour ago, he would have said was impossible. Such a rebuff at such a moment should, by all the rules, have quickened his desire; but it hadn't, it had killed it stone dead. It was as though he had been bargaining for something and the seller kept putting the price up until in the end he'd no longer wanted it. When he had wrenched out the words about marriage he'd ached for her; when she pushed him away again it was suddenly all over. He'd been mad, he'd gone stark mad in October and now he was sane again. He lay face downwards and looked forward to a future when he hadn't to go to chapel and could go into the Black Horse. 'It's getting dark, Danny.'