by John Masters
‘That’ll be true of a lot of other concerns,’ Overfeld said. ‘The British and French are buying one heck of a lot of goods from us … on credit.’
Stephen nodded. Overfeld was a shrewd man, for all that his formal education had ended at the 12th grade. He had seen what was only just beginning to be apparent even to experts: that America might be drawn into the war to protect her own investments. It was not a likelihood – yet: and it never would be if the US could sell to both sides equally … but the British blockade prevented all but a tiny trickle of sales to the Central Powers. Without firing a shot the Royal Navy was slowly forcing her towards a position of support for the Allies, and who could prophesy how far that support would finally have to go?
Johnny said, ‘I think that if we can hold Ypres, and prevent the Germans getting round our flank – the northern flank – we’ll be all right.’
‘We, Johnny? ’ Overfeld said, ‘OK, OK, I was only having you on.’
Johnny stood up, stretching. ‘I’m off to bed. Any reason why I shouldn’t go down to Walstone for the weekend, Dad?’
Stephen thought. ‘None at all. When will you go?
‘I’ll bicycle down tomorrow evening, when we’re finished here. Mrs Cate has invited me to come whenever I want to, and yesterday I got a letter from Stella, asking if I would like to come down this weekend – they’re going cubbing on Saturday.’
‘What’s that? ’ Overfeld asked.
‘Killing fox cubs, with the foxhounds … I’ve read about it. Sunday I don’t know what we’ll do; walk on the Downs perhaps. Go to church, I know. Mr Cate always goes. I’ll be back here in time for dinner Sunday night.’
‘All right. One thing, Johnny. Stella’s a sweet girl I’m sure, but make sure she’s not involved too closely in her mother’s Irish affairs before you get too involved with her.’
‘Mrs Cate hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Johnny said shortly.
‘They have not yet been able to prove that she has,’ his father corrected him. ‘Perhaps because of items like this. ’ He pushed a copy of the London evening paper towards Johnny, his finger on the back page. Johnny read: the item stated that a man found murdered yesterday in an alley near Paddington had been identified as an Irishman, and was rumoured to have been a Sinn Feiner who was also a police informer.
Johnny said, ‘Mrs Cate wouldn’t know anything about that, even if it’s true.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Stephen said, ‘but don’t forget what I said. Be careful … Good night, Johnny. See you at breakfast – eight o ’clock sharp.’
‘Good night, Johnny,’ Overfeld said: but stood up before speaking, to show that he knew he was talking to the boss’s son.
The Rowland purred northwards out of Beighton. It was a quarter to ten, and there were nine miles of narrow country road ahead. The acetylene headlamps bored into the half-darkness, for clouds dimmed the stars and an almost-full moon. It had stopped raining, and the celebrations and reenactments of Guy Fawkes ’ ghastly deed of November 5th, 1605, were over for the year. Perhaps they’d be the last for a long time, Alice thought. The explosives used could not be much, in terms of what the army was using in France, but next year they might all be going over there, to kill, rather than celebrate.
She sat beside Stafford on the front seat, huddled into her winter coat, a big scarf pulled down over her hat to frame her face and keep her ears warm, her hands in a fur muff.
She thought that Susan had looked more lonely than ever. And Richard, though so busy with the plans for the Jupiter Motor Company, was not happy. It was a tragedy when people who loved each other could not have children. So often they seemed to turn against each other in secret ways. And what did she know about that, someone might ask, seeing that she had not even known a man, as the Bible put it, let alone given birth or suckled a child? She was withering on the vine, many thought … unwatered, drying up. She didn’t feel like that, in herself; but perhaps she seemed like it, to others. Much that she would like – such as marriage, and children, even such as the position Richard had offered her – was apparently never to be hers. So she had better think of other matters, or she would start feeling sorry for herself.
She said to Stafford, ‘Our men are putting up a wonderful fight at Ypres, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, miss. I sometimes think I ought to be there with them. I’m young.’
She sighed, not wishing to answer or speak to the implied question. It was for the young men who would be killed to decide, not to women and old men safe and warm in England.
The chauffeur said, ‘I hope the Commander turns up, miss. So does Mr Summers and Mrs Baker and the girls. We was all so shocked when Mrs Rowland told us, in the servants ’ hall.’
‘I hope so too,’ she said, ‘and I do believe he’s all right. I just can’t believe that he’s dead. Or Major Quentin. One day soon we’ll get a telegram from the Admiralty saying that the Commander was picked up in the sea … perhaps by a tramp ship that didn’t have wireless, so couldn’t report anything till it reached port.’
‘I certainly hope so, miss.’
Then soon they were in the outskirts of Hedlington, slowing down, for the streets were ill-lit, and liable to be full of drunken men and women, and others, not drunk, but going home from the pubs, full of beer and not as careful as they should be. They passed through the centre of the town, past the South Eastern Hotel and the station, turned off and in a few minutes came to Garston Road. Laburnum Lodge was the fourth house on the left, going up.
A lamp-post stood outside the gate to the driveway. It was burning, its gaslit mantel throwing out a sphere of light to illumine the leafless trees, a patch of roadway, the open wrought iron gates to the drive, the shiny leaves of the laurel hedge – and a shape dangling from the green painted horizontal metal crossbar just below the lamp, where the town lamplighters used to prop their ladders when they lit each street lamp by hand, before the present system of pilot lights was installed, and the main gas turned on all over town from the central gas station.
‘Stop,’ Alice said. ‘What’s that … on the lamp post?’
Stafford brought the car to a stop, in the pool of darkness between that lamp and the one before it. He jumped down from the driver’s seat, and Alice climbed down on her side. They walked back together, into the light, and looked up, staring into the hissing mantel.
‘Oh … oh … oh!’ Alice choked, unable to speak, not knowing how to swear.
‘It’s a dog,’ Stafford said. ‘Well, I’ll be … someone’s hanged a dog, miss. It’s one of them long dogs. Oh my God, it’s not … ’
‘It’s a dachshund,’ Alice said, feeling she would burst. ‘And it is ours. It’s Freda.’
‘Oh, miss … the swine, the dirty swine! The poor dog!’
‘Don’t be sorry for Freda,’ Alice choked. ‘Be sorry for the people who did this. Get a ladder from the house, please, Stafford. I’ll wait here.’
Daily Telegraph, Friday, November 6th, 1914
VICTORY OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY
The German Retreat
Quarrels with Austrians
Petrograd. Thursday, The following official communiqueé from the Great Army HQ is published here today: ‘We continue to progress on the East Prussian front. The Germans are falling back along the whole front, only keeping a fortified position in the region of Wergboliwo. On the left bank of the Vistula, the Russian army is continuing its vigorous offensive, pursuing the retreating enemy. The crossing of the San by our troops continues with success. The Austrians are retreating. In the Black Sea region no change is reported. ’ REUTER.
Cate read on: the Germans and Austrians were arguing over the conduct of the war, and over responsibility for the defeat – according to the report. He remembered the triumphant communiques of August about the all-conquering Great Army, the snivelling dissension-torn Teutons … and then, Tannenberg! War was terrible; and one of the most terrible things about it, in the long run, was the cynicism it was breeding. The Rus
sians seemed to be the biggest official liars – or self-deluders – but he could not absolve his own government from some of the same folly.
He went to the study and sat down at his desk, thinking. That had been a good celebration of Guy Fawkes ’ Day in Walstone yesterday. Young Tommy Snell had burned his hand quite badly, picking up a firecracker on a dare; but that was about average for the occasion. PC Fulcher had reported that old Mrs Watson’s thatch caught fire, but he and a few others had been able to put it out without much damage done. Magistrate’s court this afternoon … one motor car speeding, and one poaching case, not Probyn, thank heaven. He hadn’t seen Probyn for quite a time … ought to go down and see how he was … help him get a dog, perhaps … but that would only help him poach the more efficaciously. What business was it of his what Probyn did with a dog, until he’d done it? There were several sets of small puppies about in the village, he knew … and some of them the right breeds, teachable as gun dogs, and for, er, silent work at dark or dusk …
Frank Cawthon had made up his mind to change the Abbas herd to Friesians. It was a bold step … in the forefront, just like Richard and John Rowland, in their ways. British farmers didn’t take kindly to foreign breeds of cattle, any more than they did to foreign ideas; but Frank had showed him facts and figures, and proved his case. And the aim was what the aim of every man, woman, and child in Britain, who wasn’t in the fighting line, should be – produce, make, save!
Farm accounts for income tax purposes … they could wait. He took out a sheet of the heavy white notepaper printed in black Roman capitals with WALSTONE MANOR, KENT; and then Tel: Walstone 1. He pulled the ink pot a little closer, dipped his relief nib in the blue ink, and began to write:
November 6th, 1914
Dear Laurence,
Thank you for your letter of last Sunday. You will have heard that the police came to arrest your mother that day, and to search the house for explosives and treasonable documents. They found nothing, and your mother will be released tomorrow, I am assured. She would send you her love if she were in a position to do so, I am sure.
We are delighted to hear that you have been tried for the Second XI. Most public schools have long since turned to Rugby, but soccer is a good game, too, with more finesse, and more opportunity for the boy (or man) who is not of great size to excel.
The Montagu’s harrier I mentioned last week seems to have left. No one I’ve asked has seen it since. It would be rare for one to stay on in England after late October, so I suppose it has gone to the Continent. I hope none of the farmers has shot it. Cubbing has been going well, and …
16 Walstone: Saturday, November 7, 1914
Probyn Gorse sat at the little table, eating Irish stew off a cracked china plate with an old wooden spoon. The sheep that formed the base for the stew had been quite old when its fellows accidentally pushed it over the edge of a chalk pit on Beighton Down. The shepherd might have sold the carcass to a butcher in Hedlington, telling his master that foxes had got it, or that it had been stolen by the soldiers now manoeuvring every day all over the Down: but he never seriously considered that course. Instead, he thought of his friend of many years, Probyn Gorse, who could always be relied on to do a man a good turn when he had the chance; and he divided the carcass in two, and sent word by a passing baker’s van to Probyn to come up to the Down. Probyn had come, at dusk, with an empty sack, suspecting what might befall, and this was the fifth day the family had been eating the sheep – and the last. They’d had sheep’s head and brains, cooked over the open fire; and roast leg of old ewe, very tough but tasty; and cottage pie and shepherd’s pie; and a Kentish form of haggis which was part of Probyn’s Woman’s mysterious store of cooking lore; and now, at the end, Irish stew, the potatoes, onions, and carrots provided in part by the bounty of the Cates, and in part stolen by Fletcher, or ‘borrowed’ by Florinda from the kitchen garden of Walstone Park.
The twins were hunched over the wood fire, Florinda reading and Fletcher writing, by the light of a candle set on the table behind them. The Woman stood motionless nearby, watching Probyn eat. Her own food was still in the pot: she would eat later. It was four o’clock and getting dark, but not raining.
Probyn had been out of prison not quite a month. He had somehow avoided going to prison before, due mainly to the good will of Squire Cate. Now he wondered whether he had been right to avoid it so assiduously. The food wasn’t good, but it was edible and there was usually plenty of it. The bed there was more comfortable than the bed here: no woman to keep his back warm, but much time to think, of stars and earth, of animals and birds, of the life he lived, and of the death that would come.
He pushed his plate away, done. Fletcher heard the sound and looked up. People seldom spoke to his grandfather when he was eating. He said, ‘Saw the hounds today. Cubbing in Felstead Woods.’
‘Squire out?’
‘Yes. And Stella and a young fellow who was talking funny. American, maybe. He looked sweet on Stella.’
‘She’d best be careful, if she can,’ Probyn said.
The Woman said, ‘I heard today that Bob Stratton only likes the ones with no hair on it.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘In a pub in Hedlington. I was there this morning … From a woman I know. A whore, she is.’
‘Don’t believe everything you hear from whores,’ Probyn said. He shook his head. ‘It ain’t natural till it’s got hair on it … but them poor buggers can’t help themselves. He’ll finish up in Dartmoor for life, likely … Stella was with an American?’
Fletcher nodded, adding, ‘And she’s flirting with a wounded officer, too. She must have been to Hedlington half a dozen times, to parties and dances at the barracks, since he came out of the hospital. I don’t know his name.’
‘Irwin,’ the Woman said, ‘Captain Irwin. Wounded in the legs. He was bad for a time, and still walks with a cane. He’ll be at the barracks for another couple of months at least. Mary told me. She was selling some of her needlework, in the saloon, getting money to buy a book that’ll learn Willum how to read, she hopes.’
‘Wonder who’ll get Stella on her back first,’ Fletcher said. ‘Him, or the American?’
Probyn found his pipe on the mantelpiece, filled it from a battered tin of tobacco, and began to smoke. The Woman filled a bowl with stew, and ate it, standing, bowl in hand.
Fletcher got up with a single lithe movement, but the Woman had moved slightly and his shoulder knocked the bowl from her hand. Fletcher swore aloud, then said, ‘Sorry.’
The Woman scraped up the mess, and took what little was left in the pot to refill her bowl. Fletcher stood frowning, staring into the fire. He said suddenly, ‘This place is getting smaller every day, Granddad.’
Probyn did not answer. There was nothing to say. Fletcher was no longer a boy or a youth, but a man. Now everything he had known as a boy would seem to shrink. And he wanted a place of his own, to bring his girls, and write his poetry, think his thoughts. It was natural. But there was nothing he could do about it. Fletcher would have to do it himself.
Fletcher said, ‘I reckon I’ll go and live in the woods, and write poetry.’
Florinda said, without looking up from her book, ‘And take Sally or Jane with you, so’s you won’t have to lie on the ground … or gather wood … or pluck … or cook … or draw water …?’
Fletcher said, ‘Or Mary, or Ada, or Babs down at Mortlock, it could be.’
‘And eat grass?’ Florinda said.
‘If I work at the hop picking every year, I can save enough money to buy what I need, but can’t find, for all year.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, my dear man,’ Florinda said, ‘you know perfectly well you can’t do such a thing.’ The other three looked up startled, for it was Florinda speaking, but the voice had been the voice of the Countess of Swanwick, perfect in tone, intonation, accent, timbre, and the words chosen. Probyn looked down again with a shake of his head. She had always been a good mimic and,
in the years since she and Fletcher had come to live with him, he ought to have got used to it; but he hadn’t. And now she was better than merely good, she was perfect. Florinda continued, ‘And I must say, Probyn, that I agree with this young man. This cottage is really too small for words … and it’s positively indecent that I should have to sleep with a man, at my age … even worse, the man in question is none other than my brother.’
It was quite dark outside now. Probyn listened. Still not raining. Good. The rabbits didn’t like to come out too early if the grass was wet.
Fletcher said to his sister, ‘You got nothing to worry about. You only live here your day off. You got a great big room of your own at the big house.’
‘My dear fellow, have you ever seen the rooms allotted to the staff at Walstone Park? Minute, positively minute! And the roof of mine leaks directly over my bed. Every morning it appears that I have suffered an involuntary emission of urine … bed wetting, my good man, bed wetting …’ Her voice changed – ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Gorse, good afternoon, Florinda … I have brought you some vegetables from our garden … How is Probyn? And Fletcher? Both well, I hope … Well, I must be getting along. Goodbye, goodbye …’ Her voice returned to natural – ‘She’ll be coming round again now, I suppose, now they’ve let her out of prison.’
‘Who brought the carrots and potatoes?’
‘Garrod. Blyth’s past seventy, and Squire’s going to have to get a new butler any day – but where’ll he find one?’
The Woman said, ‘He won’t, with this war. Garrod’ll do the job. She ought to know how – been at the Manor over thirty-five years now.’ She went out, closing the door behind her.
Fletcher said to his sister, ‘You never told us how you like it, at the Park.’
Florinda grimaced. ‘Ah, it’s a bore. Lady Swanwick’s not a bad old dame, but the job … I learned it in a week, working for Lady Barbara, and it’s nothing. Look after her clothes, brush her hair, tell her what to wear. Being a lady is easy work, once you’ve got the hang of it. How to eat nice, talk nice, walk nice, and act dirty.’