by Joan Smith
Chapter Thirteen
There were two unforeseen and totally unexpected developments in the near future. Closest to home, Edward returned from his tour cured of being a poet. What a blessed relief it was! He looked so ragged when he came in the front door I took him for a beggar, and was about to send him out around to the kitchen. His hair, always long, had not been trimmed since his departure, nor had he been shaved for a few days. His jacket was torn and dusty, and his trousers ready for the dust bin. His skin was decorated with the remains of old bites from insects and red welts from fresh ones. There was no talk of pellucid waters, majestic trees, or primitive rocks. He spoke of flies, midges, snakes, and mostly of all, hunger. He had not enjoyed a good square meal in days. The money, running low towards the end, had not allowed of it.
He was sent to soak in a tub while Nora and I directed the preparation of a feast to welcome the prodigal brother. His first speech after joining us in a clean shirt was, “How do the herd go on, Chloe? They are having a bad time of it with blow flies over towards Thirlmere.”
I would hardly have been more shocked had he enquired about the kitchen stove, or the state of our linens. He had not asked about his herd since coming down with Poetry Fever two years ago.
“We have been hard hit. I had to order an extra dip.”
“How many did we lose?”
“Seventeen, but the extra dipping cost us a good deal.”
“It had to be done. Much trouble with foxes?”
“Ulrich says there is a pair that are keeping him on his toes.”
“We’ll have a fox hunt this week,” he said calmly. Less and less did it sound like my brother speaking. Not a month ago all creatures great and small had been exempt from his hand.
“Scout was killed, Edward,” I told him.
“Oh, lord, how did that happen? I hope you got a good replacement.”
While he was in a business-like mood he heard about the stone walls, and before he left the table Nora pointed out that the silver tea service was not in its customary place on the sideboard. We did not often use it, as it was heavy and cumbersome, but it was one of life’s little pleasures to look at it while we ate.
I hardly know whether Edward Repentant was more likable than Edward Poetic. “This is my fault, and I shall get it back for you, Chloe,” he told me. “I think it was foolish of you to have pawned it, for those stone walls are not so important as you seem to think. They were built long ago to save the trouble of redefining the boundaries and are not so very important in keeping the herd assembled. However, it is done, and I know you meant it for the best. It’s not your fault that you know so little about these matters.”
We took tea in the saloon. The conversation changed with the setting. “You have not asked after Emily,” I reminded him, with a nervous look towards Nora, who was already reaching into her blue rattan netting box.
“That was a madness on my part,” he said, in the accents of a sheep farmer. “A madness most indiscreet. I cannot marry a penniless girl.”
Nora glanced up, her eyes betraying some sorrow at losing that illustrious “Lady” for the family. I must own I was a little sorry myself. “Gamble has offered for her,” Nora told him.
“An excellent match. Good for them both. Indeed it was almost inevitable, was it not?” he asked blandly.
“She has not accepted him. I think she would listen if you ...” I began, then stopped. What madness was I indulging in, urging Edward into offering for her? I was becoming as foolishly romantic as my aunt, but really I had felt somehow that things would work out better for us all.
He directed a cool, penetrating gaze on me. “I came to my senses out on the fells, Chloe. I will never be a poet of the first rank. I have wasted two precious years of my life, time which should have been spent putting our affairs into order. I have sloughed my responsibilities off onto your willing shoulders for too long. Due to my own foolishness I am in no position to offer for Emily. Fortunately for her, she has found another to replace me. That must be my consolation. I am no longer a child, but a man ready to assume the yoke of duty, responsibility ...”
I realized then something that had not been clear to me before, though I should have seen it long ago. Edward was an actor. This was a new role he was slipping into—a noble doer of duty, a shunner of life’s frivolities. He was not only a man, but an old man finished with love. It was a pity he had not got the part earlier, before we sunk into such dreadful debt and hard times.
I thought his first move in the morning would be to go up to Ulrich and survey his herd. Instead, he saddled up a mount (not the tinker’s wagon, his more usual mode of travel when a poet) and went into Grasmere to have his hair cut off short. He returned looking like a soldier just out of uniform. I swear his shoulders sat at a different angle, his back was more erect, while his tread was certainly firmer. Even Nora noticed that.
“I have paid the mortgage, Chloe,” he told me. “I know you always worry about it.” This worthy deed had been made possible by my own arranging of money to cover our other recent expenses, which he did not mention, but he was only a novice worthy after all, and deserved encouragement. I encouraged him to his heart’s content.
“I also have some bad news, I fear,” he said. “Your silver tea service has been sold. It is gone from Oldham’s.”
“I knew that, Edward. Tom bought it.”
“Tom Carrick?”
“Yes, for me, but I could not accept it. And in any case, we could not have bought it if it were still in the shop. We have no spare money.”
“I must arrange some funds, some operating money.”
“How will you perform this miracle?” I asked, alive with curiosity. It sounded so very simple the way he said it.
“Sell off a bit of the herd. Do you know of anyone wanting sheep?”
“Mr. Gamble spoke of setting up a herd,” I told him.
“Gamble! I wish it were anyone else but he! Oh never mind, it is only business after all, and at least he will pay cash. I’ll go to see him.”
“You really ought to see Emily, too, to let her know for certain you will not be offering for her. She is awaiting your return before she gives her cousin his answer.”
“Yes, I must do it,” he agreed, chin up, eyes glowing nobly. Oh, he was revelling in his new role. He would enjoy the renunciation to the hilt. I was not at all sure how Emily would enjoy it.
I never did hear from Edward what she had to say, but I saw for myself the new intimacy developing between her and her cousin John Gamble. They went everywhere together—to church, to the village, driving, usually in her blue phaeton, walking and climbing over the fells. It could be but a matter of time, and not much time at that, till the announcement was made.
The second unforseen development that followed close on the heels of Edward’s return had to do with Gamble and Wingdale. They became quite the bosomest of bows. When Jack was not with Emily, he was with the Captain. If local gossip were to be believed, he took as many meals as Wingdale Hause as he took at home. More than once I saw Gamble in the yet undeveloped area to be known in the future as Wingdale. I almost began to wonder whether it would not be re-christened Carn Dale, for it seemed to me the point of all this friendship must be for Gamble to involve himself and his fortune in the business of developing the new village.
Ladies’ gossip on business affairs is not always to be credited, but as Edward had now become a man of business, he was privy to what was actually going on in such important places as banks and registry offices. “Did you know Gamble has got hold of the lakeside property just below Grasmere, there on the western side of the water?” he asked me one evening as we sat in the saloon. Edward was perusing a farming periodical, to which he now subscribed. He didn’t do things by halves.
“I wish I could have a chance to give him a piece of my mind!”
“I wish you will not do that, Chloe. I am involved in business negotiations with him, you see.”
“Selling him som
e sheep does not require the whole family to save his feelings. Did he give you a good price for them?”
“Yes, but that was not what I referred to.”
“What do you mean then?” I asked, full of curiosity.
“I don’t want you to worry your head about the business end of our affairs any longer. I have burdened you for too long already. This is man’s work.”
I felt sure it was no more than permission to graze on our heaf till Gamble got his own pasturage that was involved in this important men’s business, and let it pass. It would not be long before Edward was treating me like a mindless female whose affairs were to be discussed in front of her as though she were not even present as Ulrich and his like did. Life was dull enough at Ambledown without being cut off from business. If I were to be turned into a mere domestic creature, though, I would exert myself to bring some order and if possible elegance into our home, that had deteriorated so badly. My thoughts often turned longingly to those new draperies and carpets at the Hall. How long it had been since we had afforded a new anything!
The operating money Edward had got from the sale of the sheep could not be spent on my tea service, as Tom did not come to see us these days, and I refused to allow Edward to go after him. The silver was safe in Tom’s attic, whereas there were things wanting done in the barn and stables. I was not at all sorry to hear Edward planned to do them. It was pleasant to hear the banging of the hammer in those usually silent spots, to see decaying boards being replaced, and the roof mended. How I wished we might bring the carpenters to the house proper for some repairs on loose windows, sagging doors, and peeling paint, but I knew there was not enough money for these luxuries.
I little thought when I so often let fall my admiration of Gamble’s new carpets that Edward was hatching a surprise for me. When I returned from a meeting of the ladies charity sewing circle at Johnsons in the village, my eyes were greeted by a spanking new carpet in the saloon. It was not a cheap one either, though I would have selected some other colours than red and blue, which must bring to mind my night of horror at Wingdale Hause. When I mentally redid the room, I fancied it in gold and green, but Nora had gone with him to make the selection so I dared not utter a thing but loud praise and admiration. It was not so different in pattern from the old threadbare covering that had preceded it. In fact, I came in time to dislike it quite intensely, but I appreciated the thought, and it was better than the old.
I worried that Edward had overspent, but the closest questioning did not reveal either how many sheep he had sold, what price he had got for them, or how much all our newness cost in pounds and pence. I was no longer to be worried with a knowledge of such things; I was to worry in ignorance instead.
Edward did not speak of Emily. He was deep into his new role, strutting about his domain, smiling at the mended barn, and as the season progressed, bringing in the hay and the fruit from the orchard. He stood about on market day with the other farmers, discussing the price of mutton and the drought, good for nothing but hay, which is not all that vital a commodity in our district, where winter grazing is possible, as it is in some others. I thought he had fairly forgotten Emily, but on a Saturday in late August I went to the village with him, and we met her shopping with Hennie. They passed us with a chilly smile and a “Good day, folks,” as though we were little better than strangers. There was a look on Edward’s face that betokened more than a former interest.
“She was very pretty, was she not?” he said to me in a wan voice.
“She still is, Edward. She is not dead.”
“She is dead to me.” was the stoical response.
“There are plenty of pretty girls around,” I said to cheer him.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he agreed, without a single iota of interest.
Chapter Fourteen
Gamble was known to be assembling his herd from various points, becoming a fairly common sight around Grasmere, where his novelty was wearing thin. The children no longer pointed and stared when he passed by, but only stared. We saw virtually nothing of him at Ambledown because of some residual embarrassment and resentment over the Emily-Edward affair. It became my custom, in the dog days of that hot, hot summer, to take my sewing into the garden after dinner, to catch the evening breezes, and the evening antics of a pair of cardinals who cavorted in the beech trees nearby. Their sweet warble sounded so very human that I was mistaken more than once into thinking a person was approaching when they gave their first song of the evening. Strangely enough, when a gentleman came whistling up the lane I thought him a cardinal, and whistled back, in fun. I was carrying on quite a flirtation with the papa of the brood. Imagine my consternation to see Mr. Gamble come striding around the corner.
“Good evening, Miss Barwick. Is Edward at home?” he asked.
“He is visiting a neighbour, but he should be back soon.”
“Good, then I shall have a chance to rest, with your kind permission?”
I nodded, happy to discover he had not realized it was I who had answered his whistle. “I am endeavouring to copy something of your pretty country garden at home,” he said, looking at our tangled little jungle. “I cannot get quite the lush look of this one, somehow.”
“That will require several seasons of studious neglect,” I told him. After we had both looked our fill at what remained of summer splendours of sweet peas, roses, and honeysuckle, I broke the silence by asking after the ladies of Carnforth Hall, and, of course, the old earl.
“Uncle is about the same, not improved, but we have halted his decline by cutting him off the loll shrub. Not quite off entirely,” he added, “but we have cut him down to a bottle a day. The ladies are fine. How do you all go on here?”
“Very well,” I said, and sat wondering what subject I could introduce that would not erupt into a violent confrontation, for what weighed on my mind, of course, was his association with Wingdale, and his enclosure of the lakeside area.
“Dancing a great deal lately?” he asked, out of the blue, as it were.
My heart jerked, for I took the absurd notion that he was going to ask me to join him and Emily again, and the very memory of that evening always upset me. “I have hung up my dancing slippers,” I said in a strained voice.
“Surely you are not past your dancing days yet!” he said, drawing a set of cards from his waistcoat pocket. “Invitations for you and the others,” he went on, handing them to me. “We are having a ball. Emmie wants one, and if we wait much longer we will be into a year of mourning.”
I thanked him, excited at the thought of so novel an entertainment as a real ball. Such heady entertainments do not come every season, or even every year, in our quiet community. I was not so excited that I failed to notice Emily had become a cozy ‘Emmie,’ which sounded a significant change to me. Perhaps significant enough to indicate the ball was to announce an engagement.
“Are you still manageress of Ambledown, or has Edward usurped your place?” he asked. “I know he takes considerable interest in it now, in any case. I think it is a change for the better. Not to imply you were an inferior manager, but solely for his own sake. Poetry is well enough as a diversion, or a career for the few extremely talented who do not have a living to earn. For such as Edward, it is a waste of precious time.”
“I am happy to say he is cured of poetry. I have been put aside completely, relegated to the household chores.”
“Now you will be free to marry and set up your own household,” he said in a casual, uninterested way, looking up at the cardinals. “I don’t have any such colourful birds as these in my garden either,” he added, in much the same way. “Pretty little things, aren’t they? I wonder what’s inside their heads.”
It was odd to think of that walking piece of wickedness. Black Jack Gamble, sitting in a derelict garden and smiling at the birds, but as I regarded him, I saw he was indeed happy with these simple pleasures. “You missed the English countryside while you were away, I expect.”
“Missed it? I nea
rly went crazy. You’ve no idea how desolate I felt for the first months—years really. It took years to get into the way of a totally different life. And about a month to settle back into the old. I felt hot this afternoon, for the first time since I came back.”
“You’ll be winning the Fell Run again one of these years.”
“My youth is behind me. I think Edward could take me today, and he—well, he is still an ex-poet anyway,” he finished with an apologetic smile.
“Why did you stay away so long, if you missed home?”
“It’s a long way home, and a very unpleasant journey. I don’t like quitting what I have started. I went to make a fortune—it took a little while.”
“What line of work were you in, Mr. Gamble?”
“I thought we had decided you would call me Jack,” he reminded me. “To answer your question, I shipped over with John Company—that’s the East India Company—as a writer—clerk to you. I soon realized wielding a pen was not my métier. I made a bit of money in trading and bought into a tea plantation up north, at Darjeeling. When old Harkness, the major owner, had a couple of bad years, he sold out to me at a reasonable price. The weather improved, as did my income. I expanded into cotton—that gown you are wearing might very well have been grown on one of my plantations. I see it is Indian muslin. Once you have accumulated a bit of a fortune, other enterprises open up to you. Trading with England, and so on. My rise was not so simple or rapid as I make it sound, when you stop to consider I spent fifteen years of my life there. The best fifteen,” he added in a strange voice. It was not grim, exactly, nor quite sad, though those two elements were included in it.
“You are still a young man, Jack.”
“Young?” he asked, surprised. “I am thirty-five. Thirty-five,” he repeated, shaking his head in wonder. “I can’t afford to spend another fifteen years becoming established here at home.”