The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (21 page)

She had not gone a quarter of a mile before she realised that it had been the desire to get to Muchanger which had enabled her to walk there. Now, with no desire to go anywhere--least of all home where she must break the news about the donkey to Shad and the news about Damask to Amos--every step became more painful. She began to cry again, and was shuffling along, now and again wiping her eyes with the edge of her shawl, when she heard the clop-clop of hoofs and the rattle of wheels behind her. On such a day it was almost too much to expect that she might fall in with somebody kind who would give her a lift to the cross-roads, so it was with a hopeless kind of hope that she lifted her head when the vehicle drew level. And it was Matt Ashpole.

He reined in quickly, but he had gone a little past her already. Twisting round in his seat, he shouted in an astonished voice:

'Julie Greenway! Why, for God's sake, Julie, what're you doing here? How'd you get here? And what're you howling for? Here, come along now, give us your hand.' He helped her into the cart and made room for her beside him. 'There now, there now,' he said in a soothing voice. 'Tell us whass gone wrong.'

'Oh, Matt,' she sobbed, 'I never was so glad to see anybody in the whole of my life. There's my Damask gone from Muchanger, nobody can tell where. And I've killed Shad's poor old donkey and I didn't think I'd ever get home.'

'Giddap, Gyp I' Matt said, shaking the reins. 'There now, you stop blaring, Julie. We'll see you safe home. You tell me all about it.'

She did so, omitting only the reason for her concern over Damask's well-being, merely saying that she had missed her Sunday. By the time she had ended her tale they had reached the scene of the disaster. 'And there he lay,' she said, pointing.

Matt drove just past the wreck and drew to a halt.

'Well, now I've seen all,' he said in an interested voice which somehow seemed to make the whole thing less tragic. 'That ought to be put on show, that do! They say you never see a dead donkey, and I never did afore--not in all my days. Well, well. Now we gotta get him home, I reckon; can't leave him here on the highway. Besides, Shad'd never believe you; he'd think you'd swapped him for half a pound of tea!' He swung himself over the side of the cart. There was no one on earth, Julie thought, comforted, better able to deal with a dead donkey and a broken cart than Matt.

First he loosed the harness and turned the little cart and hitched it behind his own. Then, with a grunt, he lifted the little grey carcase into the cart which it had drawn so many miles. His movements were competent and sparing of effort, and in no time at all he was climbing back into his own vehicle.

'Well, here we go, missus! Reg'lar Lord Mayor's Show; ain't we? Giddap, Gyp!'

Shad's grief and rage knew no measure.

'You med him run, thass what you did,' he shouted at Julie. 'Thass women all over; no sense, no patience. I let you hev him out of the goodness of my heart, and you kilt him. He'd hev lasted out my time but for you. You're a murderer, Julie Greenway, same as if you'd killed a pusson--and there's a heap of them could hev been better spared!'

The commotion brought everybody out of the cottages; even Amos looked out to see what was afoot. Seeing Julie wilting in the centre of the group, he came and joined her, hammer in hand, half a dozen brads held in his teeth.

When Shad renewed his accusations Amos was moved to loyalty; spitting the brads into his hand, he said: 'Come, come, man, thass no way to talk. Poor old Neddy been due to die this last five year. 'Twas just bad luck my missus happened to be out with him.' He put his arm through Julie's and she leaned on it gratefully.

'How'm I gonna make a living without my old Neddy?' Shad demanded.

'We'll cap around for you,' Matt said. 'All of us here, eh?' There were murmurs of assent, varying in enthusiasm, but unanimous. 'And I'll ask all the chaps down at the old Horse and all about. I'll start you off with a shilling,' Matt said, reckless with generosity, 'and I'll keep my eyes open for a nice cheap donkey for you.'

Amos drew Julie towards their cottage. There his manner changed.

'I told you,' he said, 'but you would go running off. Now there's a shilling gone outa what I was saving for the chapel! You being out with the creature, we can't very well give less than Ashpole. And if you'd just stayed here you've hev seen Damask.'

'Seen her? You mean to say she was here?' 'No more than ten minutes arter you'd gone galloping off. She've changed her job and gone just acrost the road to Miss Parsons. Said she'd hev come over afore to let us know, but the house was in a terrible state and there worn't nobody to leave the old lady with till lately.'

'Well, thank God for that,' Julie said, almost crying again from relief.

'Thass right enough to thank God,' said Amos in his pulpit manner, 'but you should trust Him too. "Trust in the Lord and wait patiently for Him", as the Good Book says. If you'd hev done that, Julie, the chapel'd be the better off by a shilling!'

'I'll put my wits to work and try to think out some way to make that shilling right with you, Amos,' Julie said meekly. 'Did Damask look well? Did she seem like herself?'

'Now I come to think of it, she didn't. Well enough; but her hair was all over the place and her dress worn't suitable. I remarked about it, but she said it was Miss Parsons' wish she should wear it.'

Tunny she should be there,' said Julie meditatively. 'Her time at Muchanger wasn't up till Michaelmas.'

'Seems Miss Parsons wrote to Mrs Cobbold and asked for her. There, I've told you all I know, and she said she'd be running over again very soon. Now I gotta get back to work; I've wasted enough time as it is.'

The death of the donkey and the collection of contributions for a new one remained a focus of interest among the Waste dwellers for just a few days and then dropped into limbo suddenly. For on the next Sunday morning there was the preliminary notice about the intention to enclose tacked on to the church door.

Those Waste dwellers who through piety or policy attended Morning Service brought back the shocking news.

'Well, now,' said Matt, when he heard it, 'I reckoned he'd do it, but I never reckoned he'd move so fast. You'd think he'd wait till he'd settled his bum in the old chap's saddle afore turning everything topsy-turvy. Well, boys, this is serious. We gotta move fast too; and we gotta move all together if what happened at Greston ain't to happen here.'

Amos, who was preaching at Summerfield that Sunday morning and attending chapel at Nettleton in the evening, first heard the news at about six o'clock on the Monday evening. He had been hard at work all day and Was just about to set off for Bridge Farm to squeeze in an hour's work on the new chapel before darkness fell. Never in his life before had he so deplored the shortening of the daylight hours which came with summer's end. Very soon, he decided, he would change the programme of his days. He would work on the chapel in the morning and do his ordinary work at home by candlelight; but that change must be postponed as long as possible because then he would work alone and his progress would be very slow. It took two to handle the timbers properly.

As he opened his door he was confronted with a group of his male neighbours, headed by Matt Ashpole.

'You off somewhere, Amos? We was just coming to see you. We want a bit of help?'

That was an appeal which Amos could not ignore, pressed for time as he was, so with an inward sigh he asked what it was they wanted of him; and Matt, who had taken on the role of spokesman, explained that everybody on the Waste must join in the endeavour to resist the enclosure, and that his neighbours were counting on Amos for help, 'You being handy with your pen, Amos, and glib with your tongue, as we all know.'

More concerned with the waning of the light than with the future of the Waste, Amos said hurriedly that he'd think it over; it was a thing which needed thinking over anyway, and just now he had a job to do. They could come and talk to him about it again, towards the end of the week.

'But we've gotta look lively, Amos,' Matt protested. 'This is a serious business.'

'So is my chapel.' Already he thought of it as his. The idea to build had been his; he had persuaded Shipton to give the plot of land; he had thought up the way of getting round the timber problem by buying the old ship's timber's; and he had done by far the greater part of the work. His chapel seemed near and urgent, this enclosure business something distant and concerned with the future. So, having said he would think it over, he pushed his way through the group and hurried away, but he did not go fast enough to be out of earshot when Matt said disgustedly, 'Him and his blasted chapel! Can't the silly sod see this is his tater patch in danger as well as ours?'

That speech may have helped Amos, when he came to think the matter over, to decide to dissociate himself from the resistance effort. He certainly thought over the question of time. If he were to ply his trade diligently enough to feed himself and Julie and keep up his contributions to the building fund and also go on with the building he would have no time to run hither and thither trying to prevent something the Squire had set his mind on and which would thus happen in any case. So when next approached about the matter he said that he had thought it over and had come to the conclusion that this was one of those situations covered by the text, 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things which are God's.'

'Seizer,' said Matt. 'Who the devil ...? Oh, I see. Ha, ha. Thass a good 'un, Amos! Squire, he means, boys. Ah, he's a seizer, all right. And naturally I'm all for letting Seizer hev what is Seizer's: what I ain't in favour of is letting him hev what is ours and was our father's afore us, even if we don't hev no bloody papers to prove it.' There was a murmur of assent, then somebody said: 'Ah, boy, but how're you going to stop him?'

'Thass what we've got to think out. But I can remember back when they cut up Greston Common and so many folks was in misery, heving lost their all. Something was said then about they left it too late to put their case. One chap'd even got his paper--little old black scrap of stuff that was too, and nobody could read it; but he went and dug up the damn thing too late--fences was up then. I've hunted my place like a dog hunting fleas, and I ain't found no paper; but I shan't let that daunt me.'

Talk turned for several minutes upon papers; how diligently they had been hunted, the unlikely places that had been searched. Only Matt Juby had found anything that looked as though it might have value in this connection.

'Well then, all the rest of our grand-daddies were damned careless old fellows. And maybe as well they were--don't, we shouldn't be here to tell the tale!' At this point Amos turned away and went on with the stitching upon which he had been engaged when they entered his workroom to ask whether he'd thought things over.

'So we ain't got no paper,' Matt went on, 'but we still can try. And to start with we should tackle Squire and state our case. If Amos here 'on't go, I will.' He ran his bright little eyes over the gathering and halted them on Widow Hayward's son, lately come back from his soldiering and lacking an arm. 'You shall come with me, Dicky. You got a case. There you are, fought for your king and country, give your arm for England--where'll you be without that bit of Waste to grub in and grow taters and keep a pig? I don't say Seizer'll listen, I don't say he'll take no notice; what I do say, we'll hev tried.'

Richard received the deputation civilly enough, listened to what Matt had to say, promised to bear it all in mind and sent them away to drink beer in the kitchen. Dicky Hayward was satisfied and reassured; but then he was a simple soldier and had not Matt's lifelong experience of horse-dealers and other tricksters to draw upon.

'He was all right, very smooth-talking,' Matt said. 'But I noticed something I didn't like. He says, "Hev any of you got anything to show in the way of papers?"; and I says, "Only Matt Juby", and a sort of glitter showed in his eye, like it will in a chap's that hev just sold you a broken-winded nag smartly doctored. Arter that I couldn't stomach his talk about not wanting to ruin anybody and most like we could all count on allotments. If he didn't want to ruin anybody, why should he be glad we hadn't got no papers? Still, there we are; we ain't done yet. I'm going to talk to the next on the list, and thass Miss Parsons.'

'Fat lot of good that'll do. She's dotty.'

'She ain't too dotty to write her name. She'd hev the next loudest voice to Squire's when the time come, and maybe she's dotty enough to speak up for us.'

So it was from Matt Ashpole's tongue that Miss Parsons learned that her signature was on the paper after all.

The September evening had turned chilly and Miss Parsons and Damask were sitting by the fire in the library. Damask was shortening another dress to her own length--a velvet one this time--and Miss Parsons was reading aloud from Robinson Crusoe to entertain her as she sewed. Upon this quiet domestic scene Bennett came to say that two men were at the back door, asking to speak to Miss Parsons, and that one gave his name as Matt Ashpole.

'Oh yes, I know him. He often does odd jobs for me. Let him come in.'

Matt, to whom shyness was unknown, stepped in boldly, followed, more diffidently, by Dicky. Miss Parsons said, 'Good evening, Ashpole'; and Matt said, 'Good evening, ma'am.' And then he saw Damask, and, as he later said, he could have been knocked down with a feather. He did almost for a moment lose sight of his errand. Mindful of his manners, he said, 'Excuse me, ma'am', and then turned to Damask accusingly. 'So thass where you got to! Why'n't you let your pore old mum know? There was she rushing over to Muchanger, killing Shad's old donkey and crying her pore eyes out; and you only just acrost the road all the time.'

('And then,' he said, reporting the incident later on, 'she ups and give me a look and says, "I went across and told my father where I was at the first opportunity". Now them's ordinary words enough, ain't they, and she said them quite pleasant, but the look she gave me went clean through me like a cold knife.')