The Steward was as fluent in Latin as Ralf was in English. His voice, like his deep-set eyes under a prominent brow, gave an impression of authority and intelligence. Otherwise, he was unprepossessing. His squat body sat clumsily in the saddle. His large, pale head, made paler by its remaining fringe of chestnut hair, seemed to be supported directly, without a neck, by shoulders which, from years of sitting, had become hunched. But, as Ralf now observed, his hands were remarkably well formed.
Mr Caffyn put aside the third drawing and, holding it closer to the lamp, examined, with a bland, impartial expression, the next.
“Who did these?” he said to Linsell.
“My boy. He drew them. All of them. That’s why I wanted him to be here.”
The Steward’s forefinger traced the proposed line of the bund. “We’re talking about a lot of earth.”
“We don’t know how much, sir. We still need to find the volume of the pen. The bigger the pen, the more power you’ll have. Up to a point.”
Ralf detected, on Mr Caffyn’s clean-shaven face, the faintest of faint smiles. “How much calculation have you done?”
“Some. Ralf went to the harbourmaster’s, for the tide heights. The lowest neap at Rushton is twelve foot one. The highest spring is sixteen foot two. They say it’ll be much the same here.”
“At what point in the rising tide would the wheel stop turning?”
“Rotation would stop altogether once water had reached the axle.”
“So how long would you be milling in each tide? In each period of twelve and a half hours?”
“We think five hours.”
“Ten hours a day, six days a week?”
“Yes. All year round.”
“Interesting. More than that. But I’m worried about this bund. It’s a major undertaking. The bund has to be the same height as the existing dike, of course.”
“That’s right.”
The obvious site for the mill was at the end of the eastern dike. There, on the far side of the Severals, the dike turned at an oblique angle, following the beach, and ran on, reducing as it went, until it disappeared into rising ground. Linsell’s idea had been to use the angle of the turn for two sides of a triangular pen, or millpond. The bund, or embankment, forming the third side, could be constructed partly from spoil taken from the pen-bed.
“A hundred and forty yards, you say.”
“About that. For an acre pen. An acre might be too much, or too little.”
“You’re the engineer, Master Grigg. Make a better guess than that.”
“I’m scarcely an engineer.”
Mr Caffyn tapped the first drawing, a sectional view of the mill showing its sea-gates, sluice and wheel. “This is the work of an engineer.”
“As I say, Ralf did it.”
“Then you tell me, Ralf,” Mr Caffyn said, his smile now unmistakable. “How big a pen do we want?”
“Quite big, sir.”
Linsell said, “I’m told the consumption at Finmere is about ninety thousand gallons an hour. They’ve got an overshot wheel. Ours would be undershot, which is less efficient. Then again, our wheel would be a good bit smaller. I’ve talked to some people. They’re not milling engineers, but they say two hundred thousand would do it. Over a five hour shift you’d need a million. That comes out at about six thousand cubic yards.” Ralf watched his father extricate the last parchment, the one with all the calculations. They were beyond Ralf’s understanding: even his father had struggled in places, and had been helped by Diccon. “If the lowest neap gives you a four-foot head, the pen surface has to be about an acre. That’s why we say we need a hundred-and-forty-yard bund. But the consumption might be different, and without the survey we don’t know the angle of the turn or what head of water we’ll get.”
The Steward took the page of calculations and studied it. “I can see you’ve been giving this a great deal of thought.”
If Linsell had been giving it a great deal of thought, Ralf had been giving it more. The mill had already come to obsess him. Night after night of febrile imaginings had left him unable to sleep. The more he thought about the mill the more seductive the idea became and the more it took hold. The more it took hold the more closely identified it became with Eloise: the mill with Eloise, Eloise with the mill, until the two were one and it seemed in his fever that this was to be his declaration, his offering, his way to reach her. The avuncular harbourmaster had explained in detail how the tides followed the moon. The moon, ever changing, cold, remote, rising in the east over the Point, climbing above a sparkling sea and setting over the marshes, the moon drew the tides: and it was to her rhythm that the sea-gates would open and let the water gush in; her force alone that later in the cycle would thunder from the sluice to drive the wheel, the gears, the whole pulsating machinery of the mill. Thus captured, the goddess moon would grind the sun-grown corn, the manor would grow fat, and Ralf would find favour, renown, wealth: and her. Half awake or in his dreams, all obstacles had already been ground away. He had seen, from the beginning, how the mill could release his father and himself from Rushton. They could start work together immediately, just as soon as the mill was sanctioned, just as soon as advance payment could be made to pay debts and get the licence back: and Ralf’s father would be a master again, Ralf’s mother a master’s wife, and Ralf’s sister a master’s daughter no longer exposed to the lewd and outrageous sons of serfs. The mill was everything.
Today, on returning from Rushton, his father had gone straight to the Hall to arrange the appointment with Mr Caffyn upon which it all hinged. Something in Linsell’s manner must have moved him to grant this most unusual and urgent request, to make time for an out-of-hours meeting on a Saturday evening, when normally he was free to put concern from his mind and stay at home with his family. With no trace of annoyance, he had lit the lamp and listened patiently to Linsell’s opening exposition. Then he had been shown the roll of drawings.
The Steward sat down, his back to the lamp, and indicated the Reeve’s seat. “Please, Master Grigg.”
Ralf leaned against the edge of the table.
“The mill-house,” Mr Caffyn said, addressing Linsell. “How much would it cost? Roughly.”
“Depends how it’s made.”
“What would you recommend?”
“Box-frame construction, with a ventilated basement to keep everything dry above. Finish it in tarred weatherboard, like that net-shed down by the staith. Thatched roof. Decent footings and sills. I’d suggest green oak throughout, and let it season in place. German for the floors and weatherboard. Their sawn stuff is cheap at the moment. Half a dozen windows, shutters, doors. All that might cost about fifteen pounds, I’d say. Fifteen more for the sea-gates, penstock and machinery. Five for the screen. Thirty-five or forty all in. Very roughly.”
“Materials and labour?”
“Labour included, yes.”
“What about the pen?”
“With a hundred and forty yards of bund, it might come out at, I don’t know, sixty pounds. Something like that. Less if you use the manor’s labour.”
“Quite. But every man we put to digging has to come off something else.”
“We understand that, sir.”
“In all, you’re saying the mill might cost a hundred pounds. Not counting an access track.” For a moment Mr Caffyn regarded Linsell without speaking. “Would you really be able to build it?”
“Yes.”
“You have the necessary knowledge for the earthworks?”
“I can get it. I know someone.”
“What would you say if I were to put this out to tender?”
“That’s your prerogative, sir. We’ve given you the idea. Now it’s yours.”
Mr Caffyn looked again at the drawings. “You’ve built houses before?”
“Dwelling houses, in Alincester.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Can I see them?”
“I’ll give you a list.”
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“And the machinery. What do you know about it?”
“The marine work, the penstock and all that, we know. I worked on the Broad Pond, on the culverts.”
“Really? In Alincester?”
“Yes.”
“For the Bishop?”
“Under Master Hampden.”
“Are you talking about John Hampden? At the Cathedral?”
“I was his apprentice, on a long indenture. Fourteen years.”
“Do forgive me, Master Grigg, I’d almost forgotten.”
“As for the gears and stones, we’ll find out. Get someone in if need be.”
“Now, there’s this question of your licence. May I ask how much is outstanding?”
“Three pounds twelve.”
“And you’d need this sum in advance, over and above the tender price?”
“Yes, sir. But my tender would reflect that. I’d want no more than to eat while the contract lasted.”
“How much notice would you need to cost this properly?”
“Two months, perhaps three.”
Mr Caffyn turned in his seat and leafed through the drawings. “I have to say that on legal grounds your scheme is unlikely to succeed. Nonetheless, I shall lay it before His Lordship.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re wasted in that boatyard, Master Grigg.”
“I shan’t be there for ever.”
“Your plan is?”
“To go back to the city and open another shop. With Ralf here.”
“I wish you well with it.”
Ralf did not realize that the interview had ended, but his father was already on his feet.
“When will you need the drawings back?”
“Keep them as long as you want.”
“I shan’t delay in letting you know His Lordship’s response. Should it be favourable, I’ll ask you for that list of houses.”
* * *
What became the staith-track began at the village green, skirted the Hall, crossed the river, and for a quarter of a mile led downwards between grazing on one side and arable on the other. At the bottom, near the sheds and landing-stage, shingle had been spread on the track to keep it passable in winter, and here it had also been widened so that carts had space to manoeuvre. From this widening, a footpath ran behind the sheds and followed the eastern dike all the way to the Severals.
The afternoon was sunny, and though the wind felt keen and there was still mud underfoot, spring had indubitably arrived. The cool white stars of stitchwort had shone here and there in the staith-track verge; some of the thorn bushes were in leaf; and Ralf had already heard two blackcaps singing. He and Imogen had just seen the flicking wings and white rump of a wheatear, which, having thrice moved ahead when disturbed, now reproachfully flew out over the foreshore and looped back behind them to regain its original place. It had had the dike to itself: hardly anyone came here on Sundays.
The path soon left the top of the dike and continued among the trees of the windbreak. To the left, under its canopy of skylark song, the big arable field eventually yielded to scrub. As the scrub became wetter the hawthorns, willows and brambles gave way more and more to reeds, and then to rushes, mud and the open water of the lagoons themselves. By now the path had regained the top of the dike.
“This is the place,” Ralf said, becoming aware of the wind in his ears, varying from second to second, the inconstant wind that made Mape’s music of wildness and isolation: and in all the manor nowhere was more wild or isolated than this. He looked up at the spring sky, and out across the ruffled estuary to the long, low, mysterious line of the Point. Behind him the reed-scrub and lagoons spread for a quarter of a mile to a greening bank of scrubby woodland, and after that rose the mass of oak forest, framed by the downs, which climbed to the edge of Mape Manor and on into the next.
This was indeed the place: the place for the mill. The elbow where the dike turned was fifty yards off. Beyond it, beyond the end of the Point, the sea showed dark-blue. High water this morning had come at about three o’clock. Now, as the tide again neared its flood, much of the seaward slope was hidden by lapping waves.
“We’re a long way from the village,” Imogen said.
“I know.” The cost of a track was yet another uncertainty. “But it’s got to be out here or we won’t get enough water.”
The dike was built of earth, faced on its outer slope with imported granite. The boulders, largest near the base, had been packed with flint and lime cement. Three ill defined zones, merging with one another, divided the slope. The boulders at the bottom were largely bare. Further up, for another five or six feet, salt-plants, now submerged, showed the twice-daily presence of the sea. The remaining ten or twelve feet of slope were clothed with orache and sea meadow-grass to which clung lines of dried seaweed. Although the path at the summit and the grassy inland slope were littered with wrack, shells, and even storm-driven shingle, it seemed that the tide normally came no nearer than about four feet from the top.
The reclaimed ground behind the dike was higher than the foreshore, but if it were dug out to provide the earth for the bund, at neap tides they would easily achieve a four-foot head of water in the pen.
Earlier, Ralf had paced out a distance of one hundred and forty yards, so that they would have a clear idea of what it looked like. Most of the area to be enclosed was covered by reeds and scrub, but part was occupied by the edge of the nearest lagoon. In all, it seemed a possible site for a millpond.
“I think it might work,” he said.
“O Ralf, I so hope it does.”
Imogen was now nearly as excited about the project as Ralf himself. If it went ahead the family would be reunited and their return to the city brought that much nearer.
On the way back they discussed yet again, at length, all but one of the other implications of the mill; all but the most important to Ralf. But, since last night, his feelings on that subject had changed.
This morning’s sight of Eloise in church, so eagerly anticipated, had only served to make him more confused. For one thing, she was not as he had remembered. She looked almost plain, and Ralf began to understand that the Eloise of his memory was an idol he himself had assembled. She was more complicated and mutable than that. She was alive: she led an inner life which had nothing to do with him, in which he figured not at all. During the sermon he saw her raise her eyes to the altar, to the rood above, and contemplate the figure on the cross. Her expression, if such it could be called, was unreadable: her pensive gaze soon subsided to the floor, where it largely remained. Not once did she look in Ralf’s direction, neither during the service nor afterwards in the churchyard, where, because Godric was back at the Abbey, there was no excuse for Ralf to obtrude himself on the Baron’s family. And why should she have looked his way? What was he to her?
In the open air, in the April sunshine, she was beautiful again, achingly so. As Ralf passed under the tiled roof of the lich-gate and left her behind, he was beset by a pain which could have had its origin nowhere but in his heart.
This disease, this madness, this lack of sleep could not go on. Arriving home after church, he had resolved to cure himself and act more sensibly. He would put her from his mind. Nothing connected her with the mill, except her father. The mill was an ambition in itself, to be pursued for practical reasons. If he continued to indulge himself in this infatuation with the Baron’s daughter, with his best friend’s sister, with this young woman he hardly knew, he would only succeed in making himself ill.
Imogen therefore caught him off guard when, walking back along the staith-track, she said, from nowhere, “Have you got a sweetheart?”
He shook his head.
“Not Mary?”
“Not even her.”
“She’s going with Aholiab, anyway.”
“I know.”
“Is he the one who hit you?”
“Never you mind.”
Imogen gave him one of her serious looks and linked her arm wit
h his. “Do you love anyone?”
“You.”
“Don’t be silly, Ralf. You know what I mean.”
He said nothing.
“I think you’re in love. That’s why you mope about like you do. That’s why you’re not eating.”
“I don’t mope about,” he said, trying to quell his alarm. He had supposed himself opaque. If Imogen had noticed, then what about his parents? His mother? “I ate all my dinner.”
“No, you didn’t.”
They took a few steps more and Imogen said, “Who is she? A girl in Rushton, I’ll bet. Is she pretty?”
Her persistence should have annoyed him, but he now discovered that it had the opposite effect.
“Is she pretty?”
“Very,” he said, unable to stop himself.
To have spoken at last, to have acknowledged her existence, afforded inexpressible relief.
“Does she love you?”
“No. She doesn’t even like me.”
“She must be mad. What’s the matter with her?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter with her. That’s the trouble.”
“Does she know how you feel?”
“No.”
“Tell her, Ralf. You’ve got to tell her. I’d want to know, I —”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
To his great surprise, Imogen said, after a moment, “All right,” and gave his arm a squeeze of sympathy. The love he had always felt for her suddenly intensified. In his absence she had become far more grown-up and understanding than he had given her credit for.
Walking with her for a few yards of companionable silence, reflecting on her warmth and Eloise’s lack of it, a logical inconsistency snagged at his mind. Was Eloise really as he supposed? He thought of her wistful gaze this morning in church, of her unaffected behaviour at the recital on Lady Day: of the smile with which she had spoken to Godric and bent her head to catch his reply. She was Godric’s sister, just as Imogen was Ralf’s. Could Eloise really be so different from her brother? There now came to Ralf’s memory more incidents, many more, in which he could have misconstrued her conduct towards everyone except himself. Why did she treat him as she did? As far as he knew, he had never given her grounds for resentment. Even had he insulted or injured her, she would surely treat him with at least the civility due to one of her brother’s friends, however low born.
The Tide Mill Page 12