The mill-house was yet two hundred yards off. Until now he had been approaching it with a sort of complacency, for it seemed, like the upturned shallops, to have shrugged off the storm entirely.
Beyond the mill, where the eastward trend of the dike reached its limit and turned, he made out something odd in the shape of the embankment. For a distance of fifteen or twenty yards, part of it had subsided.
When they got to the spot they found that the mortar and boulders on the seaward face had been dislodged, revealing the earthen body of the dike. Only the retreat of the tide had prevented it from being breached.
Last night, somewhere above the storm, there had hung a new moon, a perfect and invisible circle of blackness. Its consequent spring, the highest tide of the year, was due today, an hour after dusk. If repairs were not carried out to the dike beforehand, the sea would come into the pen, break through the excavations and assail the screen from behind. The proofing might be lost. In any case, the hardcore underpinning the foundations would be washed away. Then, within a few hours at most, the building would collapse. Linsell would be ruined. He would never be able to repay what he owed the Baron.
“Ralf —”
“I know what to do.”
“As many as you can.”
“What about more baskets?”
“Don’t bother. We’ve got the barrows. No chance of bringing horses. But fetch some food out here, and water. I’ll make a start while you’re gone.”
Ralf turned and, in his flapping coat and sodden boots, started running for the village.
* * *
Eloise had drawn on the deepest reserves of her lifelong schooling for the court. She had summoned all her native powers. Her external calm could withstand any scrutiny. As this dreadful day had begun to unfurl she had even surprised herself. Till now she had not realized how thoroughly she had been groomed to shape and deliver lies, of fact and omission, and, even subtler, by implication. Godric’s questioning had been turned aside. He had been fended off. For the present he seemed satisfied that the affair had stopped.
Imogen was another matter. She was like the rupture that had appeared in the shingle-bank. Catastrophe must follow, whether she spoke to Godric or to her own parents.
Eloise moved serenely through the Hall, attending to her parents and their guests. She had helped yesterday with the decorations for the church and house, with evergreen wreaths and sprays of box, ivy, pine, yew, and berried holly, or “Christ’s-thorn”, as the older serfs still called it.
Her mother had deputed her to supervise preparations for tonight’s feast in the Hall, to which some of the neediest as well as the most prominent villagers had been invited. For this reason Eloise had risen especially early. Many details remained to be settled.
Such was her aplomb that she had mastered her urge to see, be with, and talk to Ralf. She hoped he had had the good sense not to expect her at the workshop last night. Storm or no, she had been unable to get away. Her mother had changed the sleeping arrangements. For lack of space, one of her cousins, a boy of fourteen, had slept in the parlour. It was through the parlour window that Eloise went out at night.
All her brothers and aunts were here, together with her paternal uncle and his family. There were three other house-guests, two bachelors and a widow.
At first the guests had not understood the gravity of the news brought by the Steward. They had regarded the storm as merely picturesque. Even the two lime-trees that had crashed across the lawn had excited little more than amusement. Her father, ever the host, had not seen fit to disabuse them. After all, this was not the first time in the history of his manor that the shingle had failed. The marsh had been under water before. As soon as the wind had blown itself out, as soon as the sacred day had passed, the villeins would be directed to rebuild the beach. The flood would seep away, and by spring there would again be black cattle peacefully grazing the turf.
Unlike the house-guests, Eloise had an idea of how much labour and money it took to move shingle about. The yielding surface of the stones doubled the effort. Only with difficulty could be they be shovelled. It was almost as quick to gather them by hand. Movable boardwalks, jointed with rope, had to be laid for the wheelbarrows. These required great quantities of planks which afterwards were fit only to be burned. Eloise did not know how much it would all cost but, from the worry in her father’s eyes, even as he smiled and reassured his guests, she saw that he did.
Mr Caffyn, dripping rainwater in the lobby, had brought more bad news. She had overheard him saying that both he and Mr Kenway thought the church dike might not bear repeated fillings. It had been designed to resist floodwater from the east, not the west. Prolonged rainfall would have weakened the dike just as it must have weakened the shingle, loosening and lubricating its structure. If the pent-up waters were released there was a chance they would breach the eastern dike. The manor’s largest and most valuable field could be inundated, its strip-boundaries lost and its fertile topsoil washed away or poisoned with salt.
More than this, a flood would race eastwards to invade the Severals and the unfinished mill-pen. The workings for the sea-gates and culvert had left the foundations of the mill-house open to the elements.
If the sea demolished the mill, Master Grigg would be responsible for rebuilding it. But did he have the means? Had he bought insurance? In view of the tender price, Mr Caffyn did not think so. The manor might sue him in the King’s own court, but what use was a debt that could not be recovered? The Steward had roundly cursed himself for his lack of foresight, at which her father had touched his forearm and told him not to be foolish. This storm was exceptional.
And it was not yet over. According to Mr Kenway, the lull this morning might only have been that. The wind had not dropped much below gale force and, ominously, was turning east of south.
There was more trouble inland: buildings damaged in both Mape and Eyton, poplars lost, livestock killed and injured during a panic in the Long Barn.
Learning all this, Eloise had been unable to stop an unworthy thought from entering her mind. She knew that her father was depending on the mill for her dowry. Without it there would be no wedding next October.
No sooner had this idea occurred to her than she had dismissed it as disgusting. What kind of daughter could rally at the thought of her father’s misfortune? The same kind, she supposed, who could deceive him in every other way; who was untruthful, weak and dutiless, who sought only her own gratification; and who had not even considered the fate of Master Grigg.
Perhaps it was for the best that Imogen was about to bring matters to a head. Eloise did not think she could last out until October. Without Imogen, she had faced an impossible dilemma: should she confess beforehand, or should she let the ceremony proceed? Should she then throw herself on the mercy of her new husband? Which shame would be less for her family? Which course would be more likely to protect Ralf and his parents?
She had become so wretched and heartsick, so tired, that she had given ear to a disturbing trend in Ralf’s talk. He had not said as much, but he was thinking of making the coward’s escape.
Damnation awaited them whatever happened. They were sinners, and sinners went to hell. Repentance might save them, but her redemption would be an act of self interest, because her father would have to pay its price in disgrace. He would be laughed out of court, or worse. For such a high-minded man, the contempt of his inferiors would be insufferable. It would rob him of his purpose in life, his service to England and the King.
So Eloise had not silenced Ralf, as she should. Indeed, she had been tempted by the prospect he had held out. Yesterday, after her break with Imogen, and particularly, somehow, during the Nativity play, she had begun to consider it in earnest.
Imogen was motivated by a desire to defend her brother and parents, whom she loved most dearly. Eloise did not doubt that she would act. Imogen was so direct, so open and uncomplicated, so pure, that she had immediately identified and seized the heart of the cank
er that threatened her family. Eloise must stop seeing Ralf. It was as simple as that.
In Imogen’s disappointment and pain Eloise had seen that she had cared for her too, had perhaps loved her; perhaps even still.
Last night, as the storm had racked the roofs and tower of the Hall, Eloise had seen a way out. Going again and again over what Imogen had said, the memory of her face, her lustrous grey eyes, her beauty, had become suffused with seraphic radiance, as if she were a herald sent to put Eloise’s feet in the path leading to salvation for Ralf and release for Robert Ingram, for her father and the King.
At dinner there had been talk of the route followed by pilgrims through Alincester to Bishop’s Waltham and Portsmouth, across the sea to the sanctuary of Mont St Michel and onward to Santiago de Compostela, where St James the Apostle was entombed. Godric had told his uncle about a gruelling detour into the mountains taken by a handful of the most righteous, to a remote and inaccessible crag above Luz. Here, over a hundred years ago, a Carthusian convent had been established, renowned for its piety and rigour.
Eloise possessed enough jewellery, her own property which she could sell, to get passage to Bordeaux. If there were any money left over she would buy a horse or an ass; otherwise she would walk. She would prostrate herself at the feet of the prioress and beg for admittance, beg for the chance to leave her worldly clothes and cares behind, to take the tonsure and dedicate herself to penitence and God.
In her bed, she had been certain of this plan. It had given her an hour or two of peace. She had even forgotten the gale, and slept.
But this morning doubt had begun to arise. Was there really merit in this course? She had never before considered a life of contemplation. Unlike Godric, she had no predisposition to it. What would a nunnery be to her, unless another form of craven escape? How could her flight help her father?
It was an alternative to suicide. That was all. Eloise would never kill herself, unless to save another. Approaching the kitchen, she finally put the horrible idea from her mind for good. That Ralf had even thought of such a thing was a sign of how grievously they had sinned. Ralf, strong, youthful Ralf, who was energy and optimism incarnate, Ralf who so brimmed with life, who was so gentle and brave and kind; that Ralf had been brought to this was her doing. She would never be able to atone for that.
But she could make a start, and the start could be made now. She decided to renounce him. Never again would their bodies and spirits merge. They had kissed for the last time.
As she inspected the pots and the turning spits, as she listened to the complaints of Aelfleda, the chief cook, she could feel the size and weight of her loss growing inside her. It was worse, far worse, than she could ever have imagined. Her future without him had begun.
“Them there shallots is rotted, Miss, and that’s the truth.”
The shallots had been harvested too late. “Onions are every bit as good,” Eloise said, agreeing with her. “Nobody will mind, I’m sure, as long as you don’t use so many.”
She wished she could speak to Imogen. Then again, perhaps too much had been said already. Actions – or lack of them – were what counted now.
As Eloise was leaving the kitchen, Hubert ushered in a figure from the lobby of the west door. He was forty feet away: she did not recognize him. His averted face was hidden by the brim of a tallowed sealskin hat, and his shoulders were covered by the reinforced yoke of a rainproof dreadnought, much spattered and begrimed. His leggings were filthy. His mud-caked boots left grey footmarks across the flagstones. The newcomer’s bearing spoke of urgency, disaster. Eloise’s father was already advancing to meet him. There was command in the upright way the man carried himself, in the sureness of his movements: in the very way he took off his hat. With a jolt of surprise, of realization of what had been hers and what she had given up, she saw his shaggy blond hair and knew him to be Ralf.
* * *
“Are you sure about this?” said Ralf, half turning and raising his voice above the wind, so that he would not have to repeat himself again.
“Just keep going,” Godric said, breathlessly. Following Ralf’s lead, he lengthened his step to avoid a crumbling section of the path.
Again Ralf glanced ahead, at the turbulence of the offing, a mile and more away, visible between the transformed landscape of the Point and the end of the dike. The fishermen were rightly wary of the undertows there, where eastward currents from the Point shore met the outflow from the estuary. Ralf could not even begin to imagine how much water had fallen last night on the downs, or how many millions of gallons were sliding each minute into the harbour. Accelerated by the ebbing tide, fresh water was colliding head-on with salt. The strengthening wind had turned even more towards the south-east, and was itself contributing to the tumult.
And now the rain was again becoming heavy.
He heard Godric say, “I’d do it anyway,” he said, “for your father as much as mine.”
Ralf was touched, even though he doubted that Godric was strong enough to be of much use. It might have been better had he stayed home.
But behind Godric, also wearing rainproofs and carrying a shoulder-bag crammed with food and drink, came his strapping brother Gervase, their uncle, and two other noblemen, the de Maepes’ guests, whose names and titles Ralf had already forgotten. Henry, Mr Tysoe and the Bailiff were some way back; Jacob had gone on ahead, and would by now have reached the site. Mr Caffyn, Mr Kenway, the Doorward, and the Baron himself were still in the village, trying to raise volunteers.
Except for Jacob, not one of the serfs had agreed to help. Even Edwin Maw had refused a direct appeal. He had said this was the holiest day of the year. It would be blasphemous to do as the manor asked.
Only the serfs’ religious objections had been voiced, but others had been uttered just as clearly, in the sullen and gloating language of their eyes. At bottom they were still Saxons held down by the usurping Normans. Didn’t the Seigneur make enough demands on his people during the rest of the year? Even slaves were entitled to a holiday. Besides, what did the mill signify to them? It was being built by His Lordship for his own benefit, not theirs. What did they care if the damned thing fell down? Some were probably hoping it would, because that might mean more day-labour and more silver pennies to hide under their beds. As for the two-hundred-acre field, that had flooded before, and would certainly flood again. Mape was by the sea. What did the Baron expect? It served him right, him and his miserly ways. The eastern dike should have been reinforced years ago; the church dike too, and the shingle. Any prudent landowner would have done as much.
When Ralf had reached the village, he had gone straight to the Steward’s office. Finding it empty, he had pounded the bronze dolphin against its plate on the west door. That entrance to the Hall was reserved for the family, for persons of rank and invitees. It was at the north door that he should have applied to speak to the Baron, but that would have taken longer for them both to reach, and every moment lost was one less in which the evening tide could be defeated.
Ralf had seen Eloise in the great hall, and she had seen him. She had kept away from the gathering of the menfolk. When it had become obvious that not only the Baron’s sons and chief retainers but the Baron himself meant to accompany Ralf back along the dike to the mill, the adult male guests had offered their services, not fully understanding, perhaps, what was required: brute labour, menial and possibly dangerous, to be kept up all day in rain and wind. Any flippancy in their manner had disappeared once they had heard the Baron and Mr Caffyn issuing orders.
Back at the Hall after his fruitless attempts to rouse the serfs, and while the others had still been getting ready, Ralf had for a minute been left alone with Godric. He had been expecting Godric to allude in some veiled way to Eloise. Instead he had been his old, his usual self. The scandal was surely dominating his thoughts; but, every inch the aristocrat, he was permitting no trace of it to show.
As they proceeded along the dike, Ralf began to see the real reason why h
e wished Godric had stayed behind. Godric should have spoken. He should have been angry, told Ralf to leave his sister alone, threatened him with violence. Ralf had betrayed Godric and his whole family. He had repaid their trust by seducing their youngest daughter and jeopardizing the patriarch’s reputation. Godric’s urbane silence went against human decency. It was not civilized, but effete. In such silences did the nobility conduct themselves. In such did high-born daughters wed the unseen sons of dukes; and in the same miasma of deceit did embassies to foreign courts seal their corrupt and decadent business. At least the serfs made no bones about their feelings, even if they did have to mind their tongues.
Ralf began to find Godric’s presence intolerable. There was not much he could do about it now, for they had finally passed the mill-house and were nearing the place where Jacob and Linsell were at work on the dike.
Linsell was at the base of the outer slope, crouching precariously among the ruin the sea had made of the granite facing. Jacob had just brought a barrowload of ragstone. Chunk by chunk, he was tossing it down for his son-in-law to pack.
The barrow was one of those used in the pen, with a ribbed and broadened wheel. It had already left four ruts in the muddy path along the top of the dike, interrupted by and remade across the imprint of sea-boots.
Clambering as quickly as he dared up the slope, Linsell reached the top in time to meet Ralf as he arrived. “Is this all?” he said, looking beyond Ralf’s shoulder, ignoring Godric. “Is this all you’ve brought?”
“The serfs won’t come.”
Jacob said, “I told you they wouldn’t.”
“But – there must be others. This isn’t enough. We’ll never do it in time.”
The Tide Mill Page 30