For about an hour I wandered among the pens of mountainous pigs and haughty sheep; the rows of Shorthorn cows with their classical wedge-shaped grace, their level udders and dainty feet.
I watched in fascination a contest which was new to me; shirt-sleeved young men sticking a fork into a straw bale and hurling it high over a bar with a jerk of their thick brown arms.
Old Steve Bramley, a local farmer, was judging the heavy horses and I envied him his massive authority as he stumped, bowler-hatted and glowering around each animal, leaning occasionally on his stick as he took stock of the points. I couldn’t imagine anyone daring to argue with him.
It was late in the afternoon when the loudspeaker called me to my final duty. The Family Pets contestants were arranged on wooden chairs drawn up in a wide circle on the turf. They were mainly children but behind them an interested ring of parents and friends watched me warily as I arrived.
The fashion of exotic pets was still in its infancy but I experienced a mild shock of surprise when I saw the variety of creatures on show. I suppose I must have had a vague mental picture of a few dogs and cats but I walked round the circle in growing bewilderment looking down at rabbits—innumerable rabbits of all sizes and colours—guinea pigs, white mice, several budgerigars, two tortoises, a canary, a kitten, a parrot, a Mynah bird, a box of puppies, a few dogs and cats and a goldfish in a bowl. The smaller pets rested on their owners’ knees, the others squatted on the ground.
How, I asked myself, was I going to come to a decision here? How did you choose between a parrot and a puppy, a budgie and a bulldog, a mouse and a Mynah? Then as I circled it came to me; it couldn’t be done. The only way was to question the children in charge and find which ones looked after their pets best, which of them knew most about their feeding and general husbandry. I rubbed my hands together and repressed a chuckle of satisfaction; I had something to work on now.
I don’t like to boast but I think I can say in all honesty that I carried out an exhaustive scientific survey of that varied group. From the outset I adopted an attitude of cold detachment, mercilessly banishing any ideas of personal preference. If I had been pleasing only myself I would have given first prize to a gleaming black Labrador sitting by a chair with massive composure and offering me a gracious paw every time I came near. And my second would have been a benevolent tabby—I have always had a thing about tabby cats—which rubbed its cheek against my hand as I talked to its owner. The pups, crawling over each other and grunting obesely, would probably have come third. But I put away these unworthy thoughts and pursued my chosen course.
I was distracted to some extent by the parrot which kept saying “Hellow” in a voice of devastating refinement like a butler answering a telephone and the Mynah which repeatedly adjured me to “Shut door as you go out,” in a booming Yorkshire baritone.
The only adult in the ring was a bosomy lady with glacial pop eyes and a white poodle on her knee. As I approached she gave me a challenging stare as though defying me to place her pet anywhere but first.
“Hello, little chap,” I said, extending my hand. The poodle responded by drawing its lips soundlessly back from its teeth and giving me much the same kind of look as its owner. I withdrew my hand hastily.
“Oh you needn’t be afraid of him,” the lady said frigidly. “He won’t hurt you.”
I gave a light laugh. “I’m sure he won’t.” I held out my hand again. “You’re a nice little dog, aren’t you?” Once more the poodle bared his teeth and when I persevered by trying to stroke his ears he snapped noiselessly, his teeth clicking together an inch from my fingers.
“He doesn’t like you, I can see that. Do you darling?” The lady put her cheek against the dog’s head and stared at me distastefully as though she knew just how he felt
“Shut door as you go out,” commanded the Mynah gruffly from somewhere behind me.
I gave the lady my questionnaire and moved on.
And among the throng there was one who stood out; the little boy with the goldfish. In reply to my promptings he discoursed knowledgeably about his fish, its feeding, life history and habits. He even had a fair idea of the common diseases. The bowl, too, was beautifully clean and the water fresh; I was impressed.
When I had completed the circuit I swept the ring for the last time with a probing eye. Yes, there was no doubt about it; I had the three prize winners fixed in my mind beyond any question and in an order based on strictly scientific selection. I stepped out into the middle.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, scanning the company with an affable smile.
“Hellow,” responded the parrot fruitily.
I ignored him and continued. “These are the successful entrants. First, number six, the goldfish. Second, number fifteen, the guinea pig. And third, number ten, the white kitten.”
I half expected a little ripple of applause but there was none. In fact my announcement was greeted by a tight-lipped silence. I had noticed an immediate change in the atmosphere when I mentioned the goldfish. It was striking—a sudden cold wave which swept away the expectant smiles and replaced them with discontented muttering.
I had done something wrong, but what? I looked around helplessly as the hum of voices increased. “What do you think of that then?” “Not fair, is it?” “Wouldn’t have thought it of him?” “All them lovely rabbits and he hardly looked at them.”
I couldn’t make it out, but my job was done, anyway. I pushed between the chairs and escaped to the open field.
“Shut door as you go out,” the Mynah requested in deepest bass as I departed.
I sought out Tristan again. The atmosphere in the beer tent had changed, too. The drinkers were long since past their peak and the hilarious babel which had met me on my last visit had died to an exhausted murmur. There was a general air of satiation. Tristan, pint in hand, was being addressed with great solemnity by a man in a flat cap and braces. The man swayed slightly as he grasped Tristan’s free hand and gazed into his eyes. Occasionally he patted him on the shoulder with the utmost affection. Obviously my colleague had been forging deep and lasting friendships in here while I was making enemies outside.
I sidled up to him and spoke into his ear. “Ready to go soon, Triss?”
He turned slowly and looked at me. “No, old lad,” he said, articulating carefully. “I’m afraid I shan’t be coming with you. They’re having a dance here on the showfield later and Doreen has consented to accompany me.” He cast a loving glance across the counter at the redhead who crinkled her nose at him.
I was about to leave when a snatch of conversation from behind made me pause.
“A bloody goldfish!” a voice was saying disgustedly.
“Aye, it’s a rum ’un, George,” a second voice replied.
There was a slurping sound of beer being downed.
“But tha knows, Fred,” the first voice said. “That vet feller had to do it. Didn’t ’ave no choice. He couldn’t pass over t’squire’s son.”
“Reckon you’re right, but it’s a bugger when you get graft and corruption in t’Family Pets.”
A heavy sigh, then “It’s the way thing are nowadays, Fred. Everything’s hulterior.”
“You’re right there, George. It’s hulterior, that’s what it is.”
I fought down a rising panic. The Pelhams had been Lords of the Manor of Darrowby for generations and the present squire was Major Pelham. I knew him as a friendly farmer client, but that was all. I’d never heard of his son.
I clutched at Tristan’s arm. “Who is that little boy over there?”
Tristan peered out glassily across the sward. “The one with the goldfish bowl, you mean?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s young Nigel Pelham, the squire’s son.”
“Oh Gawd,” I moaned. “But I’ve never seen him before. Where’s he been?”
“Boarding school down south, I believe. On holiday just now.”
I stared at the boy again. Tousled fair hair, g
rey open-necked shirt, sunburned legs. Just like all the others.
George was at it again. “Lovely dogs and cats there was, but squire’s lad won it with a bloody goldfish.”
“Well let’s be right,” his companion put in. “If that lad ’ad brought along a bloody stuffed monkey he’d still ’ave got fust prize with it.”
“No doubt about it, Fred. T’other lads might as well ’ave stopped at ’ome.”
“Aye, it’s not like it used to be, George. Nobody does owt for nowt these days.”
“True, Fred, very true.” There was a gloomy silence punctuated by noisy gulpings. Then, in weary tones: “Well you and me can’t alter it. It’s the kind of world we’re living in today.”
I reeled out into the fresh air and the sunshine. Looking round at the tranquil scene, the long stretch of grass, the loop of pebbly river with the green hills rising behind, I had a sense of unreality. Was there any part of this peaceful cameo of rural England without its sinister undertones? As if by instinct I made my way into the long marquee which housed the produce section. Surely among those quiet rows of vegetables I would find repose.
The place was almost empty but as I made my way down the long lines of tables I came upon the solitary figure of old John William Enderby who had a little grocer’s shop in the town.
“Well how are things?” I enquired.
“Nobbut middlin’ lad,” the old man replied morosely.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Well, ah got a second with me broad beans but only a highly commended for me shallots. Look at ’em.”
I looked. “Yes, they’re beautiful shallots, Mr. Enderby.”
“Aye, they are, and nobbut a highly commended. It’s a insult, that’s what it is a insult.”
“But Mr. Enderby…highly commended…I mean, that’s pretty good isn’t it?”
“No it isn’t, it’s a insult!”
“Oh bad luck.”
John William stared at me wide-eyed for a moment. “It’s not bad luck, lad, it’s nowt but a twist.”
“Oh surely not!”
“Ah’m tellin’ you. Jim Houlston got first with ’is shallots and judge is his wife’s cousin.”
“Never!”
“It’s true,” grunted John William, nodding solemnly. “It’s nowt but a twist.”
“Well I’ve never heard such a thing!”
“You don’t know what goes on, young man. Ah wasn’t even placed with me taties. Frank Thompson got first wi’ that lot.” He pointed to a tray of noble tubers.
I studied them. “I must admit they look splendid potatoes.”
“Aye, they are, but Frank pinched ’em.”
“What?”
“Aye, they took first prize at Brisby show last Thursday and Frank pinched ’em off t’stand.”
I clutched at the nearby table. The foundation of my world was crumbling. “That can’t be true, Mr. Enderby.”
“Ah’m not jokin’ nor jestin’,” declared John William. “Them’s self and same taties, ah’d know them anywhere. It’s nowt but a…”
I could take no more. I fled.
Outside the evening sunshine was still warm and the whole field was awash with the soft fight which, in the Dales, seems to stream down in a golden flood from the high tops. But it was as if the forces of darkness were pressing on me; all I wanted was to get home.
I hurried to the stewards’ tent and collected my measuring stick, running a gauntlet of hostile stares from the pony people I had outed earlier in the day. They were still waving their certificates and arguing.
On the way to the car I had to pass several of the ladies who had watched me judge the pets and though they didn’t exactly draw their skirts aside they managed to convey their message. Among the rows of vehicles I spotted the man with the moustache. He still hadn’t taken his terrier away and his eyes, full of wounded resentment, followed my every step.
I was opening my door when Helen and her party, also apparently on the way home, passed about fifty yards away. Helen waved, I waved back, and Richard Edmundson gave me a nod before helping her into the front seat of a gleaming, silver Daimler. The two fathers got into the back.
As I settled into the seat of my little Austin, braced my feet against the broken floor boards and squinted through the cracked windscreen I prayed that just this once the thing would go on the starter. Holding my breath I pulled at the knob but the engine gave a couple of lazy turns then fell silent.
Fishing the starting handle from under the seat I crept out and inserted it in its hole under the radiator; and as I began the old familiar winding the silver monster purred contemptuously past me and away.
Dropping into the driver’s seat again I caught sight of my face in the mirror and could see the streaks and flecks of blood still caked on my cheek and around the roots of my hair. Tristan hadn’t done a very good job with his bucket of cold water.
I gazed back at the emptying field and at the Daimler disappearing round a distant bend. It seemed to me that in more ways than one the show was over.
12
AS I LOOKED AT the group of sick young cattle on the hillside a mixture of apprehension and disbelief flooded through me. Surely not more trouble for the Dalbys.
The old saw “It never rains but it pours” seems to apply with particular force to farming. The husk outbreak last year and now this. It had all started with the death of Billy Dalby; big slow-smiling, slow-talking Billy. He was as strong and tough as any of the shaggy beasts which ranged his fields but he had just melted away in a few weeks. Cancer of the pancreas they said it was and Billy was gone before anybody could realise it and there was only his picture smiling down from the kitchen mantelpiece on his wife and three young children.
The general opinion was that Mrs. Dalby should sell up and get out. You needed a man to run this place and anyway Prospect House was a bad farm. Neighbouring farmers would stick out their lower lips and shake their heads when they looked at the boggy pastures on the low side of the house with the tufts of spiky grass sticking from the sour soil or at the rocky outcrops and scattered stones on the hillside fields. No, it was a poor place and a woman would never make a go of it.
Everybody thought the same thing except Mrs. Dalby herself. There wasn’t much of her, in fact she must have been one of the smallest women I have ever seen—around five feet high—but there was a core of steel in her. She had her own mind and her own way of doing things.
I remember when Billy was still alive I had been injecting some sheep up there and Mrs. Dalby called me into the house.
“You’ll have a cup of tea, Mr. Herriot?” She said it in a gracious way, not casually, her head slightly on one side and a dignified little smile on her face.
And when I went into the kitchen I knew what I would find; the inevitable tray. It was always a tray with Mrs. Dalby. The hospitable Dales people were continually asking me in for some kind of refreshment—a “bit o’ dinner” perhaps, but if it wasn’t midday there was usually a mug of tea and a scone or a hunk of thick-crusted apple pie—but Mrs. Dalby invariably set out a special tray. And there it was today with a clean cloth and the best china cup and saucer and side plates with sliced buttered scones and iced cakes and malt bread and biscuits. It was on its own table away from the big kitchen table.
“Do sit down, Mr. Herriot,” she said in her precise manner. “I hope that tea isn’t too strong for you.”
Her speech was what the farmers would call “very proper” but it went with her personality which to me embodied a determination to do everything as correctly as possible.
“Looks perfect to me, Mrs. Dalby.” I sat down feeling somewhat exposed in the middle of the kitchen with Billy smiling comfortably from an old armchair by the fire and his wife standing by my side.
She never sat down with us but stood there, very erect, hands clasped in front of her, head inclined, ceremoniously attending to my every wish. “Let me fill your cup, Mr. Herriot,” or “Won’t you try some of t
his custard tart?”
She wasn’t what you would call pretty; it was a rough-skinned red little face with tiny, very dark eyes but there was a sweet expression and a quiet dignity. And as I say, there was strength.
Billy died in the spring and as everybody waited for Mrs. Dalby to make arrangement for the sale she went right on with the running of the farm. She did it with the help of a big farm worker called Charlie who had helped Billy occasionally but now came full time. During the summer I was called out a few times for trivial ailments among the cattle and I could see that Mrs. Dalby was managing to hang on; she looked a bit haggard because she was now helping in the fields and buildings as well as coping with her housework and young family, but she was still fighting.
It was half way through September when she asked me to call to see some young cattle—stirks of around nine months—which were coughing.
“They were really fit when they were turned out in May,” she said as we walked across the grass to the gate in the corner. “But they’ve really gone down badly this last week or two.”
I held the gate open, we walked through, and as I approached the group of animals I grew progressively uneasy. Even at this distance I could see that something was far wrong; they were not moving around or grazing as they should have been but were curiously immobile. There would be about thirty of them and many had their necks extended forward as if seeking air. And from the bunch a barking cough was carried to us on the soft breeze of late summer.
By the time we reached the cattle my uneasiness had been replaced by a dry-mouthed dread. They didn’t seem to care as I moved in among them and I had to shout and wave my arms to get them moving; and they had barely begun to stir before the coughing broke out throughout the group; not just an occasional bark but a hacking chorus which seemed almost to be tearing the little animals apart. And they weren’t just coughing; most of them were panting, standing straddle-legged, ribs heaving in a desperate fight for breath. A few showed bubbles of saliva at their lips and from here and there among the pack groans of agony sounded as the lungs laboured.
All Things Bright and Beautiful Page 11