by John Masters
He got up, folding the paper. He was already dressed in breeches and Newmarket boots, for he had thought he would be riding … and now he knew where – to the cottage; to see his daughter, the bride; and tell her that Johnny’s Aunt Isabel Kramer was coming down to spend the weekend at the Manor, in two days’ time.
4
Walstone, Kent: Saturday, February 26, 1916
A cold wind from the north blew down the furrows, and there was a hint of snow in the air, the low sun half obscured by a denseness of the atmosphere close to the ground. Probyn Gorse and his grandson, Fletcher, sat under a hedge at the corner of Howard Ashcraft’s thirty-acre field of winter wheat, their backs to the hedge, facing the sun. The lame lurcher, Duke of Clarence, lay silent at Probyn’s feet. The men had been poaching partridges.
‘Are they going to take Bert to court?’ Fletcher asked.
Probyn sucked on his teeth and watched the edge of the wood opposite. Without turning his head he said, ‘Can’t do anything to a man for blowing off his own big toe. It’s his, not theirs.’
‘But they can say he did it so they couldn’t take him for the Army, can’t they?’
‘Don’t know, boy … but they won’t. Too many men doing it already, in France. They’ll want to keep it quiet.’
I’ll go and see him in hospital tomorrow … They’ll be sending for me, soon.’
‘You won’t like the Army, boy.’
‘That’s what I think. But I’ll give it a while … a month or two. Perhaps it won’t be worse than picking hops, and I do that every year.’
‘Only for a week or two. Well, one thing, Fletcher, don’t you go blowing off your toe or finger. Bert doesn’t want his – all he uses is his mouth … but you need all your toes and fingers, and always will. So listen to me, eh?’
‘I will, Granddad. I won’t do anything like that … Think Florinda’s married yet?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. That fellow’s drunk enough to change his mind a dozen times, from what Florinda told us … Time we went home.’
The two men rose to their feet, dropped into a sunken lane, and headed for Walstone. Round a bend a minute later Christopher Cate came walking toward them, wearing a thick tweed suit and cap, with a Norfolk jacket, a stout blackthorn stick in hand. On one side of him walked Betty Merritt, and on the other the older, rich American woman Probyn had talked to at the wedding, Betty’s aunt, Mrs Kramer.
He stopped, touched his forelock, as the three came close. Cate acknowledged the salute with a smile and a touch of his finger to the peak of his cap. ‘Morning Probyn, morning Fletcher … You know Mrs Kramer and Miss Merritt, don’t you?’
Fletcher nodded. The girl was good-looking, light brown hair, tall, the breasts small but high and firm, a freckle or two on her face – moved well, as though she lived in the country and walked a lot … her eyes were the best thing about her, dark blue, large, deep – looking at him now.
Cate said, ‘A fox got into our chicken run last night, Probyn.’
Probyn said, ‘There’s too many foxes around, since the hunt sold the dog pack … only meets twice a week, too.’
‘They didn’t sell the dogs,’ Cate said sadly. ‘No one would buy them. They had to put them down.’
‘Oh, what a shame!’ Mrs Kramer cried.
Probyn said, ‘Some of the farmers be shooting the foxes, now.’
‘Can’t say I blame them,’ Cate said. ‘Fletcher, I was going to walk down to the cottage later to give you a book, but we’re close to the Manor now. Come along with me, and I’ll give it to you now.’
‘Thanks,’ Fletcher said.
‘I’ll go on home,’ Probyn said, touching his forelock again. Fletcher watched him go, then fell in beside Betty Merrit, behind Cate and Mrs Kramer, cheerfully aware of the weight and bulge of the three partridges in the deep pockets at the back of his coat. In front of him Mrs Kramer, too, walked well, in her fashionably cut tweed coat and skirt. She looked as though she could handle a gun or a horse, for all she was much shorter than the girl beside him … but handle a man? The squire?
Betty said, ‘I haven’t forgotten our trip to the sea, Mr Gorse – but we’ll have to wait till the weather improves, won’t we?’
‘Suppose so,’ he said. He liked her accent, sort of flat; and calling him Mr Gorse! Wait till he told granddad about that! He added, ‘Maybe I’ll be in the Army by then.’
She turned and faced him full as they walked – ‘Are you looking forward to going into the Army?’
He looked at her then, gazing into her eyes. Inquisitive, she was, like most women. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want to go to gaol either. Or blow my toe off, like my Uncle Bert.’
‘I should think you’d be a good soldier. You can shoot very well, Mr Cate says … and move about in the dark without being seen.’ She was definitely smiling at him now, teasing, flirting.
He said, ‘I can do those … but I don’t know about standing still while fat sergeants shout at me … be told when to eat, when to sleep, what clothes to wear …’ If she was asking him questions, he’d ask her some. He said, ‘Visiting the squire, miss?’
‘My aunt was coming down for the weekend, so I came down too – from Hedlington. Between you and me, I’m chaperoning them – Aunt Isabel and Mr Cate.’ She winked at him.
He smiled lazily at her. She was interested. He could tell. He said, ‘Ever seen any ferreting, miss?’
‘Never. What is it?’
‘Killing rabbits with ferrets. They’re like weasels, only bigger, and tame, sort of.’
‘Is it … very bloody?’
He shrugged. ‘You kill the rabbits with your hand, less the ferret gets one underground.’
‘I’d love to see it once,’ Betty said. ‘I can’t tell whether I’ll like it till I have, can I? When can I come?’
‘This evening?’ he said. He raised his voice – ‘Mr Cate, mind if I take a couple of rabbits from that big warren by Cawthon’s copse? Miss Merritt here would like to see the ferreting. I’ll take her this afternoon … about four.’
‘A good idea,’ Cate answered over his shoulder. ‘Do you want to go too, Mrs Kramer?’
‘I’ve seen it,’ she answered, ‘and it’s cold, and may be snowing. Let the young enjoy the sport, I’ll enjoy your fire.’
Cate said, ‘Good. I’ll warn Cawthon after lunch.’
Then they were coming up to the Manor, walking across the cold lawn, the wind blowing harder, steel-grey snow clouds hurrying overhead, not yet ready to drop their burden.
Inside the house the women excused themselves to go upstairs, and Fletcher followed Cate into his library and music room. Cate wandered up and down the shelves while Fletcher waited, the partridges weighing down the skirts of his coat, his back to the window. Cate muttered, ‘The collected works of John Milton … not quite right, uplifting, but … no. Shelley … Keats … both guaranteed to bring on acute attacks of homesickness … the Restoration poets … no. The Canterbury Tales … Homer, in translation … perhaps, but a translation is only as good as the translator, and the fifteenth Earl of Derby, though a worthy nobleman and statesman, was not a great poet … Tennyson … Swinburne … Kipling, even … no. Well, as I said, I am thinking, really, that you will have this book by you when you go out on this adventure so vital for England, and for yourself. It will be the greatest event in your life, Fletcher, so it deserves the greatest … William Shakespeare.’ He pulled down a leather-bound gilt-tooled volume and handed it over – The Collected Works.
Fletcher looked with a keen sense of pleasure, as though at a flying cock pheasant in the sun, at the artifact in his hand. Cate sensed his feeling and said, ‘It’s even better inside.’
‘Thank you,’ Fletcher said. And then, after a pause, ‘I’d best be going. I’ll be back by four.’
‘Better make it half-past three, Fletcher. You need more time before it gets dark.’
Fletcher nodded and walked out into the passage. Betty Merritt was coming down the st
airs and paused, one hand on the banister, as he passed. He looked up, and for a moment their eyes locked. As he went out of the front door Fletcher thought, I’ve got her … or maybe she’s got me! It was a strange sensation for him, and he didn’t know whether he liked it or not. No woman had ever put the tether of even a single silken strand of her hair on him before.
Probyn Gorse sat in the chair by the scrubbed deal table, thinking. He’d have to go out when it was well dark, and retrieve the gun and kite, and it was likely to snow: cold work for a cold night. Well, the constable would be in his cottage rather than walking the village, and the keepers, the sort they had now, would be sitting over their fires. He said gloomily, ‘It’s getting too easy … taking a brace of pheasants these days. Or snaring a hare, like I did day before yesterday … keepers gone to war, or taken work in towns, for more money … old fellows hired, instead, or sick men who don’t know nothing … no chance of a thump on the back of the head some windy night, these days … might as well be buying it at the butcher’s.’
The Woman said, ‘With berries for coins, like?’
Probyn said irritably, ‘’Tisn’t the money. It’s boring, that’s what it is … not like when I was a lad. I mind when Fishlock – he was head keeper at the Park before Skagg, and this was when he was young – I mind when him and me stalked each other five hours one night, all up and down the Scarrow. He knew I was there, with a brace of pheasants, and I knew he was there, with a gun, and I knew he meant to put a charge of shot so close to my head I wouldn’t have to cut my hair for a month after. I never saw him, and he never saw me … but we knew, we knew. These keepers now … bah!’ He cleared his throat and spat accurately into the fire.
The door opened and his grandson, Fletcher, came in carrying a leather-bound book. ‘Squire gave it to me,’ he said, laying it down on the table, and then, fishing in the skirts of his coat, he brought out three partridges and laid them beside the book. ‘One’s for Garner,’ Probyn said. ‘I’ll take it up, when I go out to get the gun and kite.’
Fletcher said, ‘I’m going out, too, to show the young American lady ferreting … in Cawthon’s copse, the big warren there. ’Tis squire’s game.’
‘You ain’t going to take my ferrets. Mrs Keppel’s coming in heat and won’t be no good. Queen Alexandra has the colic.’
Fletcher said, ‘I promised to show the lady ferreting. What can I do?’
Probyn scratched his ginger-dyed hair with a dirty nail – ‘Can’t use the long net … need another man for that. Running a noose for a hare won’t show her nothing … Might sneak into the Park and get a brace or two of pheasants out of the trees, with the flashlight and the gun.’
‘That’s poaching,’ Fletcher said. ‘Mr Cate don’t want us to teach her how to poach … I know what! I’ll take her to Winsford Pool and tickle a couple of trout!’
‘If you can find ’em, should be all right,’ Probyn said grudgingly. ‘The water’s low enough, but they lie tight at this time of year. Don’t let anyone see you though, or they’ll have you shut up in the Hedlington Asylum, tickling for trout on a night like this’s going to be, in February. And take the toasting fork, in case you can’t get one out of the water tickling.’
‘Right,’ Fletcher said. He cocked an ear. Probyn had heard it too – the sound of a large, expensive motor car engine, coming to a halt in the road outside the cottage … now light footfalls along the path through the nettles to the door. The door opened and a glorious apparition stood in the entrance, arms outspread – a full-breasted young woman with flaming auburn hair piled high on top of her head, held in place under a little hat with two emerald-headed pins. Her dress was of dark green silk, down to an inch above the ankles. She wore two diamond and emerald necklaces, and a diamond brooch. A black sable fur was tossed lightly over one shoulder. Her shoes were green patent leather, the buckles embellished with emeralds, the heels three inches high.
She flung out a hand, encrusted with rings, notably a huge ruby on the third finger of her left hand, outside a plain, heavy gold band.
‘Stand up, my good people,’ she cried in a theatrical contralto. ‘You are in the presence of the Most Noble the Marchioness of Jarrow.’
Fletcher jumped up and hugged her, ‘So the old bugger did it, after all? When?’
‘This morning, at Caxton Hall. Two of his friends held him up and another guided his hand for the signature. Then they took him home and put him to bed … and I came down to see you. What’s for lunch?’
‘Mutton stew.’
‘Why not roast partridge, Granddad?’
‘Those birds have got to hang a while. What about the chauffeur, or did you drive yourself down?’
‘I drove some of the way, I’ve learned how … but the chauffeur came, too.’
‘Send him to the Beaulieu Arms. We’ve enough for you, but not for him,’ the Woman said.
The Marchioness of Jarrow, née Florinda Gorse, went to the door, opened it and shouted out, ‘Woodward! Go into the village and have your lunch at the Beaulieu Arms. Be back in an hour and a half.’
Fletcher, watching through the door, saw the chauffeur, an oldish man in livery and peaked cap, standing beside the coronetted door of a huge shiny car, take off his cap, bow slightly, and answer, ‘Very good, m’lady.’
Florinda closed the door, flung herself on the other hard chair and spread out her hands so that they could admire the glittering rings. ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘And wait till you see what Cantley gave me, before he passed me on to Jarrow … it’s a painting of women with funny faces, and Cantley said it would one day be worth more than anything Jarrow might give me. It’s by a Spaniard called Picasso, and it’s the first version of something called “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” whatever that means.’ She spoke with the upper class accent quite naturally now. Fletcher listened, and knew she would never go back to the way she used to speak, for she would never go back to the way she used to live.
She said, ‘Wait till you see the family tree they invented for me, in tomorrow’s paper.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘Oh, an old pouf … another drunk, friend of Templeton’s – my husband, Alexander William Templeton Eastman Foudray, 4th Marquess of Jarrow … I like him – Gerald, the pouf. He told the papers that I am from an extinct line of Gorses who were barons in the peerage of Ireland till the male line died out …’
‘So, what are you going to do?’ Fletcher asked. ‘Spend money? Sit about sipping sherry, like Miss Stella?’
‘Does she, already?’ Florinda said. ‘That’s sad. Marriage can be boring, for some women … Yes, I’ll spend money. I won’t be able to help it. You don’t know what money is, or rather isn’t, until you’ve seen someone like Jarrow. He gets half a million a year from his mines and lands … that’s about thirteen hundred quid a day, I worked out. I used to think the Swanwicks were rich, but they aren’t.’
‘Will you still be living in London?’
‘Yes. In the town house – 27 Berkeley Square. Or sometimes at Blaydon House, about two hundred rooms, up north, near Newcastle. He spends more time there than in London … But what I’m going to do is go on the stage!’
The Woman said, ‘Dancing or singing?’
‘Both,’ Florinda said. ‘I’m going to start singing lessons next Monday, and dancing lessons a week later. The manager of the Gaiety says he’ll take me on as soon as I’ve had some teaching.’
‘But you may sound like a corncrake,’ Fletcher said.
‘I won’t. And I can dance. I’ve always been a good dancer.’
‘That you were,’ Fletcher said. ‘And now you’ll show them your legs up to … here.’ He touched the inside of his thighs, an inch or two below the crotch – ‘And you’ll have all the old battle axes looking down their noses, or sniffing at their smelling salts, even more than you have already.’
‘Going on the stage will make it better for them, easier to understand,’ Florinda said. ‘Actresses can do th
ings labourer’s daughters can’t.’
Probyn said, ‘It’s the title the Gaiety man wants. He knows he’ll get all the skivvies in to see the Marchioness of Jarrow, even if she just stood there.’
Florinda felt inside the handbag that had been hanging from one wrist, and took out a tight bundle of notes. She held it out to her grandfather – ‘Here, Granddad, this is for you, to buy something to celebrate my wedding.’
Probyn looked at the bundle and shook his head, with a curt, ‘We’re all right … Is the food ready, Woman?’
‘Just near,’ she said. ‘Florinda, wash those bowls and spoons and set them down. And put some more wood on the fire.’
Fletcher walked down Scarrow bank, on the edge of Cate’s land, Betty Merritt at his heels. She was wearing the same tweed suit she had worn this morning, but her hair was encased in a bright red knitted woollen cap – American, Fletcher supposed; he had never seen anything like it before.
‘Hope it’s not too cold for you,’ he threw over his shoulder.
‘Cold?’ she answered. ‘It’s only 36. We have it 20 below zero sometimes, where we live, but it’s a dry cold, compared to this … Mr Cate told us you are a poet, Mr Gorse. What kind of poetry do you write?’
‘What I can,’ he said shortly.
‘I’d love to hear some, some time.’
Fletcher grunted non-committally. The village girls never wanted him to read his poems to them – only that he should stroke their hair. They walked on under the leaden sky. The sun was invisible, and the bare trees cast no shadows. The ground was tussocky and hard underfoot, dead leaves making a thin carpet over the coarse grass. Lights gleamed in the windows of the houses across the field, and behind them the clock in the flint tower of Walstone church struck four in damp, muffled tones.
Fletcher stopped. ‘Here’s the Pool, miss. This half belongs to Mr Cate, the other half to Lord Swanwick.’
‘The fish are protected, like the birds?’
‘’Course,’ Fletcher said, ‘they belong to the landlord … unless someone else gets ’em first.’ He grinned at her and she smiled back. ‘An’ you heard Mr Cate – we’d best not be seen, ’cos though they’re his fish, no one’s allowed to take them out of season. Season don’t begin for another month, six weeks … but he wants you to see the tickling.’