The Country Gentleman

by Hill, Fiona

  “Three hundred twenty-five,” said he at once, then returned to his speculative glare.

  “Good; yet since I have no information as to how many workers it generally takes to cut a single acre, I continue in the dark. Can you inform me?”

  “Depends how quick you want it done,” said the laconic Mr. Rand.

  “How quickly need it be done?”

  He shrugged. “If it will not rain, there is no hurry. They can start day after tomorrow, and four or five men might do. But if it will rain, then I should say ten or a dozen.”

  “But since we cannot tell whether it will rain—” Anne commenced.

  “Ah, there it is!” Rand answered wisely.

  Trying a new tack, “How many men did you hire last year?” she asked.

  “Eight men, four women.”

  Starting to move down the corridor again, “Good, then, that’s settled. Hire so many this year as well.”

  “But last year we had but two hundred acres planted to grass,” he called after her, arresting her.

  “Mr. Rand.” She did not care to look at him angrily, for it displeased her to show he had roused any feeling in her, yet she could not help herself. “Let us hire in proportion, then,” she snapped. “We have half again as many acres, hire half again as many workers. Twelve men, six women. Do you understand?”

  Evidently she had handled herself a little better than he expected, for the man looked sulky as he replied, “Yes.”

  Pressing her advantage, “Pray find me in one hour and a half in—” She faltered, realizing she still did not know the house well enough to appoint a convenient meeting place. “In the dining-room,” she finished lamely. Then she turned and walked as quickly as she could out of the corridor, lest the insolent man should attempt to precede her.

  She took her nuncheon in her bed-chamber, lying down a little afterwards and even sleeping briefly. She woke from a dream in which Ensley had come to Holies Street to offer her an enormous, golden Cheshire cheese. It was painful to open her eyes on the unfamiliar windows, the white walls, the bare floor. “What time is it?” she asked the quiet room, suddenly in mortal fear lest she had missed her appointment with the intimidating Mr. Rand. She found her watch and discovered it was not so, blew her nose several times, and got up, smoothing her skirts and splashing her face with water from the blue-and-white basin. “I must get hold of some books on farming,” she murmured to herself as she hurried from the room. “I wonder whether my great uncle has some in his library. I wonder if he has a library,” she continued as she descended the staircase, thus startling Susannah, who had been trimming the wicks of the lamps in the hall below. “I must look over the house…”

  But Mr. Rand had it in mind that she should look over the grounds first (“While the light holds,” he argued unanswerably), and so it was. Anne invited Maria to come with her, the two ladies changed into riding dress, Mr. Rand ordered horses to be brought round for them, and they set off. Anne mounted grumblingly; but as they rode on her spirits lightened, soothed by the pale sky, the sunlight, the lush greens of midsummer. It was in a mild, quiet way a lovely property: The house stood on a gentle hill just high enough to command miles of flat, hedged (the estate had been inclosed for more than twenty years) field and meadow, and in the near distance, a substantial park. Sheep and cattle grazed in a dozen spots within easy view. The farm buildings, when they came to them, were new and solid. The dairy was clean and cleverly ventilated, run on principles laid down, Rand proudly noted, by Mr. Harley of Glasgow; and it was complemented by one of the new pig-sties, a quite well-tenanted one. The barn was of good timber, the granaries ingeniously set up to keep out vermin, the sheep yard sheltered and guttered (Mr. Rand further pointed out) to prevent the dilution of manure. Miss Guilfoyle would observe, in fact, that the whole pattern of the buildings had been carefully laid with manure in mind. Miss Guilfoyle was not shy of his mentioning manure, he hoped? She knew the saying, no doubt, “Nothing like muck”? Truer words were never spoke, in Mr. Rand’s opinion. Indeed, one of Mr. Guilfoyle’s last experiments had been to purchase oilcakes for the cattle. And, Mr. Rand assured her, the resultant muck had been richer than any he had known, well worth the price of the fodder in improved wheat and barley harvests. But perhaps Miss Guilfoyle would not care to keep up the experiment? Perhaps Miss Guilfoyle had some better idea as to how to improve manure?

  Miss Guilfoyle, with a sidelong glance of amazement at Mrs. Insel, replied that—as of this moment at least—she had not. “What a stench,” she whispered, as they finally rode away. “One is positively grateful to have a cold!”

  As the afternoon stretched on, Mr. Rand escorted the ladies all over Linfield’s home farm. They were informed of the crop course (turnips, barley, wheat, barley, clover for three years, peas, and turnips again) favoured by Mr. Guilfoyle—and of course asked if they knew a better one; they were introduced to sheep whose complicated lineage, Anne remarked, fairly cried out for an ovine Debrett’s (her great uncle had been a frequent visitor to Mr. Bakewell, Mr. Ellman, and Coke of Holkham, and had taken sheep from them to cross-breed himself). They observed the clipping of the milk ewes. They learned how many pounds of wool were to be got from each, and how much more money ewes generally had fetched last year than this. Mr. Rand made some morose observations concerning plunging corn prices. He informed the ladies that several of the tenants were expecting poor crops this year—and even Linfield’s were not up to the mark. Still…and again the steward waxed loquacious, this time on the subject of seed-drills and marling and drainage. As he spoke they all rode on, and on, and on, till at last (though it went against her pride) Anne could not help asking how much farther they had to go.

  “Not much. Five or six mile—unless you care to visit the tenant farms today as well?”

  “Five or— How large exactly is the home farm?”

  “One thousand acres,” said Rand, rolling the syllables out on his tongue with a pleasure more proprietary, Anne thought, than custodial.

  “And how many tenant farms are there?” asked she.

  “Twelve,” replied the steward, with more of that same satisfaction. “Farmer Gough there, Haydon there, Morris…” He went on through the dozen, pointing east, west, and south. “North lies Fevermere, with twenty of its own—that’s thirty-two families for the school.”

  “The school?” Miss Guilfoyle was startled into echoing.

  “Certainly.” Mr. Rand, who had been riding a little ahead of the ladies (for the pleasure of making them trot to keep up, Anne suspected), reined in a little and dropped back. “Didn’t you know? Mr. Guilfoyle and Mr. Highet share in the keeping of a school for the children of the tenants. ’Tis an idea Mr. Guilfoyle stole of Mr. Robert Owen. Mr. Guilfoyle said the one thing a good man ought to steal is a good idea.”

  Anne, who was beginning to tire a little of her great uncle, was nevertheless curious to see this school. It distressed her to reflect that the enterprise tied her affairs inextricably to those of the endless Henry Highet. Still, to one for whom learning mattered so much, the school must be of interest. She asked Maria if it would tire her excessively to pay a call there. Mrs. Insel declaring herself game, Miss Guilfoyle bade Mr. Rand conduct them to the place. The steward wheeled his horse to the north. The ladies followed.

  Anne thought as they rode of her old life, setting it mentally next her new one. What would have occupied her at this hour, had the Maidstone never sunk? This was Tuesday, her at-home day. The drawing-room at number 3, Holies Street must have been filled with visitors: politicians set at liberty by the prorogation of Parliament, scholars, scribblers of all sorts…Ensley must have come (she felt a stab of loss), unless Lady Juliana had prevented him (the metaphorical knife turned in her breast). Still, the Blue Saloon would have buzzed with talk about court and country, the events of the day, pleasant projects for the end of the Season—not a whiff of muck in the discourse, not a blade of barley. While instead she rode along a field of—clover, she thought Mr. Ra
nd had said—in his company and that of Maria, with no one to invite to tea save the labourers who boldly and sceptically stared at her when Mr. Rand (“They work for you. You want to know them”) introduced them.

  A habit of honesty obliged her to append the names of Henry and Mrs. Highet to the list of invitables. And in the next week or so, no doubt, the rector, the squire, and the families of the county would come to call and enlarge her circle of Cheshire acquaintance. It piqued her to realize that the squire at least would do so more or less as a matter of amiable condescension—for Miss Guilfoyle in the country was not what she had been in town. Here she could claim no more than her old family, and the lapsed baronetage, to distinguish her. The brilliant society she frequented in London signified nothing to gentlefolk hereabouts, and her connexion to Ensley must inspire stricture sooner than admiration. Even this bumpkin Highet ranked ahead of her here, she supposed, for Fevermere she now perceived to be considerably larger and finer than Linfield. She had not been accustomed to think of herself as vain of her position—but that had been before she lost it. Easy to shrug off what falls again to one’s shoulders on its own. Here she felt stripped and exposed.

  With such gloomy thoughts as these filling her mind, Anne scarcely noticed at first the actual clouds, low and grey, drifting into the pale sky above her. The afternoon was well advanced and the sky quite dark by the time they came within view of a small brick edifice Mr. Rand identified as the schoolhouse. No chorus of young voices floated out from it to meet them, and as Anne dismounted, and took in the dreary sky, and remembered Ensley, and felt new aches from the long ride and old ones from her cold, her spirits dropped to a lower pitch almost than any time she could recall.

  But they were soon to turn, and her thoughts to find a diversion; for behind the bland brick walls of the schoolhouse sat Mr. Lawrence Mallinger: young, fair, kindly, intelligent, single, and unaware even then of the fate that had come a-riding so far to find him.

  Four

  “Mr. Rand!”

  Startled, Lawrence Mallinger sprang to his feet and hastily swept his long, light hair into a semblance of order. At the same time he unsuccessfully attempted to cover the book he had been studying with another. Except for himself, the schoolroom was empty. The children had their lessons early in the day. The room was an open, pleasant one, wide and lofty, with a dozen windows and two good fireplaces ready to keep out the chill of winter. Mr. Mallinger looked open and pleasant as well, with a deepening pink blush on his pale skin and a pair of large blue eyes in his lean face. He was lean altogether, and tall. Miss Guilfoyle, curious to know what reading matter could inspire such furtiveness in him, went a few steps nearer to the desk behind which he had been sitting and was able (thanks to her long and intimate acquaintanceship with the alphabet, even if upside-down) to identify the work of Thomas Spence.

  She was not surprised. She had never read Spence herself, but she knew him for a radical—like all the other dangerous fools her great uncle had evidently admired. She and Ensley had no opinion of the sort of claptrap these rabble-rousers put about. She began to be quite grateful the late Mr. Guilfoyle had come so seldom to London.

  “We have surprised you,” she said now, smiling civilly and bringing Maria forward with herself. She put out her hand. “I am Miss Guilfoyle, and here is my friend Mrs. Insel. You must be Mr.—?”

  Mr. Mallinger obligingly supplied his name.

  “We must apologize for appearing so suddenly,” Anne went on, perceiving that the schoolmaster’s blush of surprise still had not ebbed. “Mr. Rand has been showing us Linfield. I expect you knew my great uncle well?”

  Collecting himself with an effort—was he always so shy? Anne wondered—Mr. Mallinger replied, “Indeed. Though not nearly so long as I could have wished. My deepest condolences, ma’am. Your uncle is sadly missed by all who knew him.”

  “Great uncle,” Anne corrected with a touch of impatience, thinking, “Good God, another devotee.” But her eye happening to wander over Mr. Mallinger’s desk, the direction of her thoughts changed sharply and she cried out, “Great heavens, the London paper! Bless you for a good man.” She reached out greedily. “You will permit me? I have not seen one since…” But she had already bent her head over it and was scanning it before he could answer.

  “Indeed, pray carry it away with you. Mr. Highet sends his over to me each afternoon, when he is finished with it. Very obliging of—”

  He was not destined to finish his sentence. Miss Guilfoyle had looked up again and was exclaiming, in the most indignant accents, “But this is Friday’s number! I saw it before I left town!” Her tone suggested some thing beyond mere disappointment—betrayal, perhaps.

  Taken aback, Mr. Mallinger none the less managed to say amiably, “They are a while in getting here, unfortunately.”

  “A while? Say rather an age, and I agree with you.” As if revolted by it, Anne tossed the paper onto his desk again and sat abruptly in one of the pupils’ little chairs. Here she fell into a silence supplemented by a speaking look of dejection.

  A little embarrassed by her friend’s stormy words and ill-concealed moroseness, “Poor Miss Guilfoyle,” Mrs. Insel explained. “Not to know the news from London vexes her dreadfully. It signifies so very much to her, you know.”

  Mr. Mallinger gave a sympathetic “Hm,” but seemed rather nonplussed. Mr. Rand, casting a look of frank disgust at his new mistress, said he would wait outdoors with the horses and disappeared.

  “You are not so much at a loss in the country, I think?” the schoolmaster smiled at Maria. There was something in his glance which made her feel uncomfortably conscious. She reached a hand up to pat the smooth coils of her hair before answering.

  “No, in that wise I am more fortunate than Miss Guilfoyle. The sorry truth is, I can do very well for weeks without a word of the Cabinet, or the House of Lords, or—” she waved her small, beringed hand vaguely, “all that.”

  Mr. Mallinger bowed. “Still, no doubt your husband keeps you informed of—all that, as you call it?”

  “My husband—” If Maria had felt conscious before, she was half undone now. In a visible flutter and with a dark blush she would not have cared to think much about, “My husband is…no longer with me,” she said, then murmured suggestively, “A soldier…”

  “I am very sorry to hear it,” Mr. Mallinger rejoined, gazing steadily at the lids of her downcast eyes.

  Anne, emerging from her brown study, thought she had never heard so unconvincing a testimony of grief. It was clear to her that Mr. Mallinger meant to flirt with Maria, and clear moreover that he had caught that lady unawares, and disconcerted her. She jumped to her feet and interrupted without warning, “But you, Mr. Mallinger—you, I trust, are not one who can ignore the state of his country long. I see you reading Spence and know you for a man of ideas.”

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Mallinger, reddening slightly. “But not ideas you are likely to share, I fear.”

  “Probably not,” Miss Guilfoyle agreed. “Still, it is a wide world, and though we come to different answers, at least we concern ourselves with similar questions. I dareswear you and I shall find more to say to one another than I should to—well, for example, Mr. Rand,” suggested Anne, overcoming the temptation to mention Mr. Highet instead.

  It was a pretty escape from conflict, and a civil one, and Mr. Mallinger gladly followed her in it. Smiling and again raking his fingers through his blond, shining hair, “I think Mrs. Insel must also have her share of ideas,” he said, “though they are not political. I see them in her eyes, do not I?” he went on, searching those orbs. “They are so full, I seem to see hundreds.”

  Maria, who had recovered her composure, lost it again at once. “Ideas…” she echoed uncertainly, turning her head towards Anne in such a way as (inadvertently) to present her small, chiselled profile to Mr. Mallinger. “I do not…”

  “More than you or I can count,” Miss Guilfoyle affirmed, as Maria’s voice faded to nothing, and her face pa
led alarmingly. “And such funny ones too,” she added rather mysteriously; but with so much obvious affection that Mr. Mallinger quite forgave her her earlier eccentricity, and even (though not quite) what he supposed was her staunch Toryism. Now, putting her arm round Maria’s narrow waist, Anne went on, “I must take this mouse home, for one of her funny beliefs is that I like her to jaunt all over the country with me, never mind how fatigued she is. Good day to you, sir. I trust we shall meet again soon. Won’t you wish Mr. Mallinger good day, my dear?” she asked the small figure on her arm as she turned her about and rapidly escorted her towards the door.

  “Good day,” came Mrs. Insel’s faint voice from the doorstep.

  Mr. Mallinger was left to reply, and even to bow, to her back—and to puzzle over Miss Guilfoyle’s manner of taking her off, and the significance of Mrs. Insel’s blushes, and a few other matters.

  It was a fair ride home, even travelling directly, as Miss Guilfoyle (secretly worried for Maria, who continued withdrawn and agitated) insisted they travel. She put off all Mr. Rand’s objections, saying she would see what remained of Linfield to-morrow and the next day, and even refused, once they reached the house, to sit with him and look at his records.

  “They can wait,” she told him firmly, dispatching Maria to her bedroom and ringing for Susannah to send some orgeat up after her.

  “Crops don’t wait,” growled Rand in reply. “Even for fine London ladies.”

  “Then they can rot,” said his exhausted and irritated employer. Really, the behaviour her great uncle tolerated in his people! “I have other business to attend to than turnips and bacon, though you might not think it. Kindly carry on with any pressing matter as you would have before my arrival.”

  And Mr. Rand turned away, grumbling something that sounded very much like, “Before—! God grant us such days again.”