The Power of the Dead (34 page)

As for the master, all the village had heard about the money of the prize he’d won. And zum was zaying it was wonnerful, my dear zoul, vancy winning a hunner pounds for writin’ of a book about a water-hotter.

“Vancy it happening to Mr. Madd’zn, whoever would have thought it, but there it be, up on the paper. But what be I about, forgettin’ the post. There be scores and scores o’ letters corned, and several telegrams for the maister.”

He left them unopened, and walked down to the village, hoping that no-one would speak of money. He met no-one, and went into the churchyard, to sit beside the grave of his cousin; and returning, said to Lucy, “Would you put in some plants for me, when you go there next? What grows test on chalk?”

“Oh, pinks and carnations, and love-in-the-mist. And there’s cornflowers, of course. Shall I get some in Colham? The ’bus goes in tomorrow.”

“Would you? Leave the wild poppies, won’t you? They’re not in bud yet, but will be soon.”

Phillip was up early, to walk as usual through the meadows beside the brook to the Longpond. The rainbows were feeding on some underwater nymphs, or perhaps minnows. Did minnows ever leave the shallows? Anyway, the trout were not feeding on surface flies. Swirls arose, little humps of water spreading out like shallow craters. The fish were after shrimp or minnow, perhaps.

He felt suddenly happy about the Longpond. The black
overhanging
, water-logged boughs of the willows could be sawn off, new trees and bushes planted. Peering into a shallow clarified by the low sun behind him, he saw the delicate lines on the oval shells of several large fresh-water mussels, some nearly six inches long. A kingfisher flew over the surface above its vibrating
chest-nut
-and-blue image.

It was six o’clock. The water reflected patches of blue in the white of passing clouds. Swallows were flying high, sometimes letting out ringing cries. The morning mists below in the combe were lifting with the sun. Above slowly drifting nimbus could be seen motionless scales of cirrus.

He went on to the beech hanger, and looked down upon the vale. Far away a layer of smoke showed that kitchen fires had been lit. It was time to return and examine the letters and telegrams, most of which had been opened and glanced at the previous evening, while Lucy had gone to find out how Uncle John was. On her return she told him that they were invited to supper the following evening.

“He isn’t very well, but he hopes to be better when we go there tomorrow. I knew you would like to see him, so I accepted. He sent his congratulations, and asked you to forgive him for not writing a letter.”

About forty more letters were lying on the table. Most of them were from strangers, a few from old acquaintances. He flung them,
read and unread, into the bushel measure he used for waste-paper, then swallowed his breakfast. Meanwhile Billy picked out the letters and arranged them in a linear pattern on the parlour floor, pretending to be the postman delivering one letter to each cottage. He gathered them up and went to the night nursery when Peter crawled over and started to post them in the bushel measure.

Phillip carried Peter up the stairs and divided the envelopes between those addressed by hand, which he gave to Peter, and those which were typed, to Billy.

“We must see what’s inside them, so come down and I’ll open them on the parlour floor.”

Afterwards each boy had his packet to play with, while Phillip scanned the letters. One was from Anders Norse telling him that the galleys of
The
Phoenix
would be sent to him direct from the printers at Plymouth, as Coats wanted to get the novel out in the early autumn. Anders went on to say that he had placed the short stories he had by him, seven in all, at forty guineas each. The English editors had agreed to hold them until American publication was arranged. He was confident of doing this through his New York agent, who was asking a thousand dollars a story.

Phillip calculated, and said to Lucy, “There’s a possible thousand pounds from America, and a definite three hundred pounds from English magazines.”

In the post next morning was a score of letters, one from his agent.

“Shall we invite Cabton?”

“Why not? It will be nice for you to have someone to talk to, and go for walks with.”

He opened more letters. After glancing at half a dozen, he pushed the remainder aside.

“Fancy
me
having begging letters. Someone with forty-two cats wants me to help pay for their food.”

“Let me fry you some more bacon. Yours has gone cold.”

“How ironic it all is. The Grasmere Memorial will make Nuncle feel that I have betrayed him. No word from him as yet.”

She flushed, and said, “I honestly don’t see why he should object to your writing in your spare time. After all, a farmer shouldn’t
have
to work all the time as a labourer.”

“I quite enjoy working with my body. The trouble is, I can’t write unless I remain broody. And then I get irritable and over-sharp.”

“Well, you deserve a rest now. Let Ned carry on with the farm work. You have a holiday, now all the fuss is over.”

“What about yourself?”

“Oh, I get along quite happily.” She was big with a child due in September.

He took the letters upstairs to his room, to reply first to Edward
Cornelian saying that he’d be pleased to put up Cabton, and show him the country. If Cabton liked the district, he would be able to get a room out. ‘Or he can use our tent and camp beside the brook, while having his meals with us, as he prefers’.

By 7 p.m. all the letters were answered, except that from the woman with forty-two cats, who said that they were living in her house, like the otter she had read about who had lived happily with his dogs, cats, and birds; unless she could get money at once to provide food for them all, the order of the Court to have them destroyed would be enforced. Also her landlord had threatened to turn her out, as her rent money had been spent on the cats’ food. Please would he send her
£
30 at once, and also advise her what to do?

Phillip made several attempts to reply, but as each degenerated into farce he threw it in the bushel measure, feeling guilty.

They had supper with Uncle John. Phillip noticed how thin he was getting. The old fellow complained of finding it hard to breathe, but did not speak of himself beyond saying that he had found the nursing home a bore. “Now tell me, Phillip, have you heard from Hilary?”

“No, Uncle John.”

“Perhaps your success will make him reconsider his opinion of your abilities. Have you any ideas for future books?”

“I’ve a novel coming out in the autumn. That ends the tetralogy.”

“What becomes of Donkin?”

“He comes to the end of his self-tethering.”

Nothing more was said about the novel.

“I’m asked to write about a trout’s life. But I know nothing about fish.”

“Well, this is the country for trout, Phillip.”

“Yes—it’s all here, Uncle John.”

The next morning, and the next, he walked beside the brook to the Longpond. Yes, it was the place for the story of a trout. He owed it to his work to ‘be idle’, to sit about and watch. Reaching the little wooden landing-stage, he saw that the row-boat from the barn was sunken, but secured by a rope to one of the posts which supported the fifteen-inch-wide elm plank. Obviously the boat required to be swelled, to stop it leaking.

As he lay on one elbow, feeling happy and free, he noticed that the water appeared to be sliding about. Fish were on the move.
A back-fin wavered above the surface, followed by the curled edge of a tail. As he stared he saw arising from the water the slow pale-green flutter of a newly hatched mayfly.

Kneeling on the bank and peering over the reeds he watched a grey, shrimp-like object crawling up a stem. It was about an inch and a half long. Then he saw others moving up the reeds. They remained still a few inches above the water, masked nymphs fixed as though glazed: but only for a moment: the celluloid-like sheaths split, and heads with bulbous eyes came forth, the bodies bent. He moved nearer, resting himself on his arms in water to the elbows, to watch one growing, as tremblingly it unfolded gauzy wings.

A swallow dived beyond the fringe of reeds, to dip its breast in the water and then, sweeping up, snapped a mayfly, and then it flew in a direct line to the farm premises down the valley. Was it going to call its mate? Many mayflies were now drifting all over the water, little spheres of pale-green light making scarcely any progress as they moved in a daze of a new and uncertain existence. Insect after insect rose slowly, each in a whirl of new wings, some to reach the willows and cling to leaf or twig. Their eyes were now large and dark, the three whisks from the end of the abdomen were upheld in anticipation of the climax of life, of love high in the air—later a drifting down the sky to drop the egg-burden on the mirror’d water—finally to fall spent into that which had given it life.

He lay on the bank, hands behind head, in a dream of sunshine until, hearing noon being tolled from the village clock—fitted into one face of the tower for a memorial to the dead in the war—he wandered home, leaving the Longpond to all kinds of small birds gathered to the feast.

*

“Billy and I were just going to look for you,” said Lucy. “We thought you must have gone up to the downs. Two telegrams came with the post, one from Uncle Hilary, the other from that girl who wanted to interview you. I’ve left them on the table.”

“Oh yes, the one I met with Piers in London. Shall we ask her over?”

Lucy telephoned, and left a message for Miss Ancroft to come over whenever she wanted to: and then dictated Phillip’s reply to Uncle Hilary’s telegram:

After lunch, Lucy took the little boys to see Uncle John, leaving Phillip to reply to letters in his room, and feeling that he was wasting the light of the sun now beyond Whitesheet Hill in the distance. Remotely he was aware of an unsilenced engine
muttering
in the lane below, and then there arose a sequence of raucous noises on a klaxon horn. Was this some drunken cattle-dealer come to the wrong farm? He listened. There was an interval before the klaxon began its grating again. This time it seemed to have a rough rhythm of dots and dashes, like a contact
observation
biplane circling over infantry.

There was a pause, and it began again. Phillip read the Morse Code.