“Very lucky indeed,” Stephen asserted a little louder.
“What do you think of it, Lily?” Muriel asked. It was the first sentence she had spoken since Stephen’s news. She was alert at once to Lily’s reserve. “You can’t want to live in the country, surely! All your friends are in town, and all your singing engagements. I should have thought you would have hated it.”
Lily turned a pale mutinous face to her mother-in-law. “I don’t like it,” she said simply. “The farm is dirty and falling down. The house is tiny. The roof has great holes in it. There’s no bathroom or running water.”
John Pascoe gave an embarrassed laugh. “Better think again, Stephen,” he said pleasantly. “Can’t make a home without the little bride’s consent! I’ll tell you what, I have a friend who is an agricultural surveyor. I’ll get him to have a look over it. He can tell you a fair price for it and then you can proceed as the two of you wish. There’s nothing so risky as being a gentleman farmer, you know. It’s a pricey hobby at the best of times. And the way the country’s going this is no time to play with your capital.”
Stephen tried to smile but his face was too tense. “The deal is done,” he said. “I’ve shaken hands on it and paid a deposit. I’ve bought it. I am a farmer already, not a gentleman farmer. I am a farmer. I own a farm.”
Muriel rang the bell suddenly and noisily and Browning came in and cleared the soup plates though no-one had finished eating. She put the leg of mutton on the sideboard and Stephen, with a triumphant glance at Rory, rose to carve the meat, as the master of the house. Browning carried the plates to the table. Stephen deliberately gave Lily a large portion with a thick slice of pale flabby fat. He returned to his seat and Browning took the vegetables around and then served wine.
Stephen had one glass, and then another.
Muriel watched him. “I remember now!” she suddenly exclaimed. “You used to play farms with Christopher. You had some lead animals and a little die-cast farm with a farmhouse and a lead farmer and his wife.”
“Oh yes,” Stephen said.
“How you two would squabble!” Muriel reminisced. “And then you would throw the animals across the room and Christopher would say that you would never be a farmer because you had no patience!” She smiled at the recollection. “And you said that you didn’t care because you didn’t want to be a farmer in any case, that farming was for people who could do nothing else, who hadn’t the brains to go into the law, who knew nothing better than to lean on a gate all day and watch a herd of cows!” She laughed lightly, one eye on her son.
Winifred smiled. “Young men often get these fancies,” she said. “Nothing comes of them.”
Stephen opened his mouth to argue but then nodded to Browning for another glass of wine.
“My brother was going to run away to sea!” Winifred said. “I think he would have found it a good deal too uncomfortable! He works in a bank now.”
“It’s not even a very nice farm,” Lily volunteered. “The yard is all pot-holed and dirty. The cows had marks on their coats. There was a dog chained up and it was all sore around its throat where the collar rubbed.”
Muriel smiled encouragingly at her. “We’ll talk him out of it!” she said with a roguish smile. “No man in the world can stand against a mother and a wife when they are in agreement!”
“I should think not!” John Pascoe laughed, trying to overcome the uneasy atmosphere. “I should think not indeed!”
Stephen pushed back his chair and sat back. He nodded for another glass of wine. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that!” he said again. “The deed is done! The farm is mine! All the arguments in the world can’t stop it.”
Winifred’s bright gaze went from Muriel’s flushed face to Lily’s pale one. She gave a soft excited laugh. “Oh dear! Quite a scene!”
Stephen shot one hard look at her and drank from his glass. Lily pushed the fatty meat to one side of her plate and put her knife and fork together.
“What do you think, Mr. Winters?” Winifred asked.
Rory raised his heavy head, formed his lips ready for speech. His mouth opened, he drew in a breath. “No,” he said simply. His family was silent, waiting for him to say more. His jaw moved, the muscles sluggish to obey, then suddenly he found the power to speak. “I cannot allow it,” he said simply; and the decision was taken against Stephen.
• • •
Stephen and Coventry got quietly drunk in one of the old pubs at the waterfront by the old fortified walls. Stephen was as silent as Coventry, staring into his glass of beer, the whisky untouched to one side.
“They won’t be satisfied until they destroy me,” he said softly. “All of them. Lily’s with them now too. They don’t want me, they never wanted me. They want Christopher. Now they’ve got another Christopher I mean nothing again. What I want, what I need—all that means nothing to them.”
He sipped from his glass of scotch and then downed a gulp of beer. “Damn them to hell,” he said. “I won’t forgive them this. Everything I’ve ever wanted came second to Christopher. They sent me out to the Front because he had gone. They sent me to a rotten school because he was at a good one. I had to go into law because he wanted to try for the Foreign Office. Someone had to work in the firm and he wasn’t going to do it. Who should be the one then? Why, Stephen! No-one cares what happens to him!
“And now I find a place I want to live, and a life I want to lead, and they’re all at me, nibbling away at me until I could scream. And my own wife—my damned own wife—smiles at my mother as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and says the cows are dirty and she doesn’t want to live in the country!”
Stephen suddenly kicked out at the table, spilling the drinks and sending the glasses crashing to the floor. The landlord, who had been rinsing glasses behind the bar, looked up, lifted the flap and moved purposefully towards them. “That’s enough now, Sir,” he said.
Stephen hesitated for a moment, squared up to the man, and then, seeing his bulk and his slow progress forwards, dropped his fists and let his shoulders slump. “What’s the use?” he demanded. “What the hell is the use of anything?”
He turned and went out into the dark noisome yard outside. Coventry thrust his hand deep into his trouser pocket and handed the landlord a fistful of coins. “Thank you, Sir,” the man said ironically and closed the door behind them.
Stephen was leaning against a wall, his face turned up to the night sky. “They think I’m done, but I’ll get them,” he said. “They think they’ll get their own way, bend me to their wishes, but I’ll get them. I can get them. I know what they want. I know what’s precious to them. They can be hurt, I’ve seen people hurt. I’ve seen things that these shirkers wouldn’t believe.
“I care for nothing now. Juliette is dead and Lily’s ganged up against me, hanging over the cradle night and day. Everyone’s in love with Christopher and no-one allowing me what I want.
“Well, I won’t have it. If they stand in my way I’ll show them. They think that they can stop me, well, I can make them wish that they had given me everything I ever wanted. I can give them nightmares—like they have given me. I can give them nightmares that last all day—nightmares like I have. Nightmares that will last all my life if I cannot have my farm and get away from all of this.”
Coventry took him gently by the shoulder and turned him towards the street. The car was parked only a little way away. Stephen slumped in the front seat. Coventry glanced at him uneasily, as if Stephen were an officer again, whose orders might mean death in a moment, whose whim had to be obeyed.
“I shall give them nightmares that last all day,” Stephen said again. His head lolled on to his chest and in moments he was asleep.
34
IRONICALLY, THE NEXT DAY, while Stephen was still heavy with his hangover and sulky, the salesman for Morris Motors telephoned him at his office to tell him that the Bullnose Morris he had ordered for his wife had arrived.
Stephen told the man to take it rou
nd to number two, The Parade at midday. Coventry drove him home for lunch and the two of them looked over the car with approval.
It was a neat little silver-grey car with a folding hood of grey canvas on wood. It had the attractive rounded bonnet and radiator of the Bullnose Morris with the temperature gauge in a glass dial mounted on the top of the bonnet so the driver could see easily the red needle moving from freezing to boiling.
It had a self-starter, which was essential for Lily, who would be driving to concerts and tea parties on her own. It had three gears plus reverse. It had simple controls with a tiny red-painted accelerator and two large pedals for the brake and clutch on either side of it. There was a fat horn on the driver’s side and a good-sized wing mirror. There were windscreen wipers and electric lights. It was the very latest model and cost Stephen a cool £525.
Stephen sent Coventry up the steps to ring the doorbell and summon Lily out into the street. She came out into the sunshine slowly, not expecting a treat, remembering Stephen’s ill-concealed anger from the night before. But he was smiling and waving to her to come to him, and his broad gesture took in the little car.
“I told you,” he said. “I told you I would buy you a car. Actually, it’s arrived early. D’you like it?”
Lily beamed. “It’s lovely,” she said. The salesman opened the driver’s door and helped her into the seat. “Does Madam know how to drive?” he asked politely.
“Oh yes,” Lily said confidently. “I drive my husband’s Argyll sometimes. But tell me what the switches are.”
He pointed to the two matching switches. “This is the starter switch. You have to retard the spark by adjusting this lever.” He moved the lever on the steering column. “Is Madam familiar with retarding the spark?”
“I think Madam can just about grasp it,” Lily said.
He nodded. “Then the switch turns . . . so. The second switch is for the lights if Madam is driving after dark.” His tone implied that Lily would be much better off at home at nightfall.
“This is the speedometer, and at your feet are the usual pedals. There are three gears, I think you will find them light and easy to use. And the handbrake is here.” He hesitated. “On hills it is advisable to leave the car in gear to avoid accidents, and if leaving it for any length of time I prefer to put bricks beneath the wheels.”
“Bricks,” Lily repeated.
“Should there be any trouble with starting the car with the electric switch then you may use the crank handle, which is stored in the handsome tool box on the running board.”
“Crank handle,” Lily repeated.
“And finally, please observe the calonometer. Easily seen from the driver’s seat, it will show you when the car is running at the correct temperature and when it is in danger of overheating. If the needle points to the red, pull over, and let the car cool down. Add cold water to the radiator only when the needle is back inside the normal temperature or gone to cold.”
“Don’t worry about it, Lily,” Stephen said. “Coventry will see to all that. D’you want to give it a run?”
Lily smiled politely at the man. “May I?”
“Of course, it is Madam’s car, I am merely delivering it,” he said politely. “But perhaps I can demonstrate the car for you, and perhaps your husband will show you again how to drive it later on.” He turned to Stephen. “One can’t be too careful with the ladies. Their temperament does not suit them for things mechanical.”
Lily smiled. “I think I should like to try driving it now,” she said politely. Stephen got into the front seat beside her. Coventry watched them from the garden gate, smiling at Lily’s well-concealed irritation.
“Are you sure you would not feel safer initially with me?” the salesman asked. He lowered his voice to address Stephen. “The ladies’ natural nervousness sometimes makes them drive very slowly. One has to be patient.”
“I think I can manage,” Lily said.
“Now remember!” the salesman said archly. “Retard the spark! Turn the switch! Select the gear, and gently, gently, gently let in the clutch. And don’t feel you have to go fast. We understand. You are bound to want to go slowly at first.”
Lily flicked the retard lever, turned the engine over, revved it hard, let in the clutch and scorched off down The Parade in a cloud of blue smoke and dust. The salesman leaped backwards to save his toes. “My hat!” he said faintly. “She does know how to drive.”
Coventry leaned on the gate and laughed silently.
Lily drove Stephen down to the Eastney Barracks and then back again. They went into lunch in favourable accord and Muriel and Rory, waiting for them at the lunch table, wondered if the quarrel was ended.
No-one asked Stephen if he was going to bow to his father’s interdict and give up his plan for the farm. Lily took Charlie for a spin in her new car in the afternoon. Rory sat in the drawing room and watched the people walking by the Canoe Lake, and Muriel went out for tea with Jane Dent. No-one had the words or the confidence to tackle Stephen.
Stephen went to see his bank manager to raise a mortgage on the place. The man was pessimistic. Stephen offered his quarter share of the business as security, and his expectation of inheriting number two, The Parade when his father died. The bank manager was respectful but could not hide his belief that four thousand pounds was an extravagant amount of money for a farm while land prices were tumbling, and that a trained lawyer who had never been near a field except for picnics was not likely to make a profit from a farm which even the vendor admitted was run-down.
Stephen came home from the meeting with the bank manager tense with temper. His father, smiling placidly, was in the drawing room. Stephen refused tea and went straight to the dining room to pour himself a drink.
“Where’s Lily?”
“Out in the car.” Rory spoke the words carefully, one at a time.
“And Mother?”
“Out to tea.”
Stephen nodded. He sat in the window seat. On the Canoe Lake people were boating. A pair of children were skimming the water carefully with shrimping nets, hoping to catch crabs.
“I’ve just seen old Hardwick at the bank,” he said carelessly. He sipped his whisky. Rory watched the level of the glass and his son’s tense face. “Damn fool won’t help me at all,” he said.
Rory nodded.
“I can’t raise a loan for the farm without someone to stand as security,” Stephen said. “At least not with Hardwick. I suppose I could go to another bank but I’d rather stay with him, of course.”
Rory nodded again.
“I was going to ask you,” Stephen said. “Ask you to act as guarantor, you know. For a loan for me to buy the farm. A mortgage on it really.”
Rory sighed.
“You may not like the idea,” Stephen said. “But I’ve set my heart on it. I’d carry on working at the practice. Lily and I need a place of our own. I want to live in the country. I have a right to my own life.”
Rory met his son’s sharp look. Stephen turned away and poured himself another whisky. “I’ve done enough, surely!” he exclaimed. “Two years at Ypres! Wounded! Mentioned in dispatches! I’ve done enough to deserve the place!”
Rory looked at him with a gaze full of pity. “You’ve done enough,” he said gently. “But the farm’s no good.”
Stephen looked at him with impatience. “But I want it!” he said. “I’ve set my heart on it.”
Rory shook his head. “It’s a dream,” he said, mouthing the words carefully. “You can’t farm. Lily don’t agree. It’s no go.”
“I tell you it’s a good working farm! I’ve wanted to farm since I came back from Belgium. You don’t know what it would mean to me to build a farm up.” Stephen was breathless, trying to convince his father, trying to convince himself. “There are things which happened over there which have to be put right . . .” he said. “The farm where I went that night, the women, the deaths, and the little baby stuck in the cradle with a knife—it was b . . . b . . . b . . . bad
, I want to ch . . . ch . . . change it. I want to forget it.”
Rory looked at his son with deep pity. “Nothing changes it,” he said slowly. “You did what you did.”
Stephen’s head jerked up, his face was white. “What d’you mean?” he demanded. “What d’you mean—what I did? What d’you think I did? What are you saying? I tell you the Germans massacred those women and we went in and cleaned them out. It was an act of war. I was mentioned in dispatches.”
Rory was alert, listening to Stephen’s rapid anxious speech.
“What d’you mean?” Stephen asked again.
Rory shook his head. “Only . . . past is past,” he said. It was an effort for him to speak to Stephen. He was pale with the struggle. “War is over.”
He leaned over and pressed the bell-button at the side of the fire. Browning came at once and, at his gesture, fetched Coventry to carry him upstairs to his room. “Rest now,” he said wearily. He smiled gently at Stephen. “Sorry about the farm,” he said.
• • •
That night Stephen dreamed of the farm Little England. It was there he had learned for the first time that the Belgian countryside was lovely. Arriving at night, marching to the Front in a haze of fear, had blinded him to the place. But at Little England he had time to stop and look around him and see a place that was not just a setting for war, but a place that people worked with love.
The land had been fought over for hundreds of years. The Romans had fought the German tribes all over it; Stephen could dimly remember passages of translation from school. The Spanish had fought there for some reason, Stephen could not think what they were doing, so far from home. And of course Marlborough and then Wellington had marched all over the place—and won. Stephen could see how the rolling slow contours would suit a cavalry charge like Marlborough’s, like the Iron Duke’s. Horses would just fly across those smooth rounded fields, and there was no cover for the infantry at all.
Fallen Skies Page 47