‘They took my man Will an’ then spread bliddy lies about me so they can vinish their war without my help!’ she said. Claire was puzzled by her truculence, remembering her not so much as the wife of Will Codsall but as the shy daughter of old preacher Willoughby tending chickens at Deepdene and Elinor’s casual use of the favourite male adjective in the Valley was an indication of the changes that had engulfed the Valley in the last two years. She persisted, however, pointing out that the wounded men at Shallowford were ex-comrades of Will and therefore entitled to her concern and when Elinor protested that she had young children to care for in addition to thirteen-year-old Mark, Claire said that she might bring the toddlers to work with her each day and leave them in charge of Thirza, who had charge of the nursery for encumbered helpers. Elinor said she would think about it but when Claire artfully remarked that she looked years younger with her short hair, and reminded her of when they were girls on neighbouring farms, the widow’s surliness disappeared and she even shed a few reminiscent tears, brushing them away with the query, ‘What’s to become of us all, Mrs Craddock? That’s what I’d like to know, what with the Squire gone too at his time o’ life!’ and Claire hiding a smile, made a mental note to write and tell Paul that at least one of his tenants had ceased to think of him as ‘Young Squire’ and had already advanced him to his dotage.
Claire then enlisted the two Potter girls who grasped the opportunity to move within the orbit of eighty convalescent males, despite the fact that most of them were free with snapshots of wives and children. Time was pressing on the unmarried Potter sisters these days, for Cissie was thirty-three and Violet not much younger and although each could boast of a small spread of handsome, healthy children, neither could lay claim to a separation allowance or even a shared pension in respect of Jem, who had gone to his death unable to make up his mind which of them he would wed. As Violet put it to her sister, the night after Claire had offered them a pound a week each for a daily five-hour spell at the Big House, ‘Us’d better taake ’er up on it, Cis! Tiz reg’lar money and us dorn zeem to be gettin’ far with the boys zince they shifted that dratted camp the t’other side o’ the Valley!’ to which Cissie replied, thoughtfully, ‘Aye, and us baint gettin’ no younger neither, be us? They zay half the men downalong are short of a limb but they can’t all be married, can ’em? Maybe tiz time us thought o’ zettling down like Panse; after all, if theym took us’ll get the pension, providin’ us can get a pair of ’em to church, that is!’
And so they went and were soon in their element among the more cheerful and active of the patients and as more and more men arrived, and nearly half the women of the Valley were absorbed in shift work about the wards, kitchens and washhouse, they suggested to Claire that she signed on their sister Hazel, whose second child had been stillborn early in the New Year and whom they now described as ‘Uncommon low in spirit on that account’. It was a sharp reminder to Claire that she had not called on Hazel since she had lost her baby but before going along to Mill Cottage she consulted Maureen on the possible usefulness of Hazel on the staff. Maureen’s response surprised her. She said, shortly, ‘Leave her be, she’s not fit for any kind of work, although I daresay pottering about helping the sexton doesn’t overtax her.’
‘Do you mean she’s ill, that she hasn’t recovered from losing her baby?’ Claire asked but Maureen only sucked her lips, looked irritated and said grumpily, ‘Oh, she’s well enough physically, and if I was asked for a professional opinion I should say her wits were sharper than they had ever been but having Ikey home for a long spell and then losing him again had a bad effect on the poor little wretch.’
‘Well, since you’ve told me that much you might as well tell me the rest,’ Claire said. ‘I should have thought working here might cheer her up. She’ll be with other people all day.’
‘Not the kind of people we have here,’ Maureen said, ‘men lacking an arm or a leg and shell-shock cases! Hazel isn’t a child any more. She was never really half-witted you know, just retarded and always, I thought, in a rather privileged way. For one thing time meant nothing to her. The months separating That Boy’s visits were only days, perhaps even hours. She was never a prey to doubt, jealousy, or even fear of death in the way ordinary folk are bothered about these things. The fact is she’s now beginning to grow up and could prove as much a shell-shock case as some of the lads yonder! Leave her be, Claire, I’ll be responsible for her!’ and with that Maureen rushed off on her rounds leaving Claire regretting that she had not found time to call at Mill Cottage the day Meg brought news that Ikey’s daughter had been born dead shortly after his return to France. She resolved to go at the first opportunity but that night one batch of men left and another came in so that she was occupied every waking minute of the next two days. On the third day, as she was setting out, she met John Rudd trudging up the drive with news that put Hazel Palfrey out of mind. He reported, gloomily, that there had been a second rick fire during the night, this time at Deepdene, and that, following upon the first fire at High Coombe earlier in the week, it seemed probable that a pyromaniac was at large in the Valley.
II
John had had his suspicions after seeing the burned out ricks at High Coombe. He had a long experience of rick fires and this one, breaking out in the middle of the night after a week of drizzle, baffled him. Spontaneous combustion would have been preceded by smouldering and Hugh Derwent told him that he had passed the ricks only an hour before and would have certainly smelled smoke on such a windless evening. There were so many ways a stack could catch fire that John assumed that the outbreak was due to carelessness with cigarettes on the part of the soldiers taking shelter there earlier in the day. When news came of a second fire, however, this time at Deepdene, he realised that it must be deliberate and made a report to the police, circulating all the farms in the Valley to keep a sharp lookout and report the presence of any stranger in the lanes and tracks after dark. No information came in but within forty-eight hours there had been two more outbreaks, one on the extreme boundary of Four Winds and another on the eastern edge of Hermitage. John recruited a patrol from the officer at the Nun’s Bay camp and for a week or more no new outbreaks occurred. Then, in the first week of April, smoke was seen coming from a large stack of pit-props in the plantation beyond the badger slope north of the woods and this time evidence of kindling was discovered and there was a whiff of lamp oil about some of the half-burned billets. John was in the act of telephoning the police when Claire told him that Meg Potter was asking for him and had expressed a wish to say something of importance to ‘Squire’s agent and the Lady Doctor’.
‘What the devil does she want with Maureen?’ John demanded and then, a thought striking him, added, ‘I’ll get her in any case, she’s down at the lodge now.’
They assembled, all four of them in the library, the old gypsy standing with her back to the door, arms folded, face impassive, like a queen receiving an embassy. She said, without preamble, ‘I can tell ’ee where to look for the rick-burner!’ and when they exclaimed, went on, ‘I dorn say I will but I could! Providing us keep it clear o’ police an’ foreigners!’
John said, sharply, ‘Look here, we can’t promise anything of that kind! The matter has already been reported to police and the military. The whole damned place is in uproar!’ Then, when her expression did not change, ‘Is it one of the patients here? A shell-shock case?’
‘No it baint!’ Meg replied stubbornly, planting her sandalled feet widely apart as though to resist a combined onrush. ‘It’s along o’ my girl, Hazel!’
‘Great God!’ John exclaimed and Claire rose from her seat but Maureen sat still looking at the floor. ‘Are you certain of that? You’ve seen her at it?’
‘Nay, I’ve not seen her,’ Meg said, ‘but tiz Hazel right enough. The point is, what’ll become of her if the police learn of it? Will ’er be shut up, same as my boy Smut backalong?’
Maureen said: ‘Not in a p
rison, Meg, I could make certain of that!’
The gypsy turned, ignoring the others and said, ‘Where then? In one o’ the asylums for mazed folk?’
‘She’d have to be,’ John said, ‘you couldn’t expect us to leave her free to do worse. Suppose she started setting fire to cottages with people asleep in them?’
‘She’ll not do that!’ Meg replied grimly, ‘tiz just the ricks and handy kindling, like the props up yonder.’
‘How can you know that?’ Claire asked and Meg said bluntly that she knew it well enough, implying that she had no intention of saying more than she could help.
‘Listen Meg,’ Maureen said urgently, ‘suppose I could promise Hazel a course of expert treatment? I’ve got a friend in Bristol who runs a clinic. It isn’t an asylum, or anything like an asylum. It’s a place where they treat all kinds of people who have cracked under war-strain. I don’t think this is a permanent derangement, it’s linked to the girl’s post-natal physical condition and maybe a sudden awareness of what’s going on in the world. We’d get her well, given time.’
‘Damn it,’ protested John, ‘what proof have we anyway? To put the girl away we should have to catch her in the act, wouldn’t we?’
‘Has she admitted the facts to you, Meg?’ Claire asked.
‘No,’ said Meg, shrugging, ‘I’ve not spoken a word to her on the matter and neither will I, except maybe to warn her should you and Mr Rudd set the police on her. I baint forgot what the police did to my boy backalong or the kind of place they kep’ him shut up in for taking a deer and fightin’ free o’ Gilroy’s men! Tiz like Mr Rudd says, you’ve no proof and us’ll zee you don’t come by none!’
‘Then why are you telling us?’
The gypsy shrugged. ‘Because you an’ Squire always played straight with me an’ mine!’ she said and left it at that.
There was silence for a while. In a way, Claire thought, it was almost as if she was gloating over their impotence, yet if this had been so she would hardly have come here with information that her own daughter was a pyromaniac. She said at length, ‘The Doctor could go and talk to Hazel, then report back to the four of us. Would you do that, Maureen?’
‘It if served any purpose,’ Maureen said, ‘but it wouldn’t, I can tell you that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, since her baby died, she doesn’t trust me. I’ve tried talking to her, I’ve tried explaining about the war but it was easy enough to see she thought I was romancing. The only German she ever knew was the old Professor over at Coombe Bay. When I said Ikey was away fighting Germans she laughed in my face. She thinks of the Germans as a race of fat, wheezing professors, so it isn’t surprising she finds it hard to believe Ikey and everyone else is fighting them. No, I could do something for her with Ikey’s consent but she wouldn’t admit anything to me.’
‘She might tell her mother,’ Claire said but the gypsy shook her head. ‘I’ve generally known what the girl is about but there’s no bond between us,’ she said. ‘In the old days I had to stand with Tamer, him being my man, and as for the others, they stood together. But Hazel, she’s different, she stood alone ’till The Boy took up with her and now tiz his concern I reckon.’
‘Could Ikey get special leave under these circumstances?’ Claire asked John and John said he might, providing the facts were laid before the military authorities. Claire caught Meg’s eye and said, ‘We won’t break faith with you, Meg, not unless we have no alternative,’ and to Maureen: ‘Would it do any good if I tried to talk to her?’
‘It might,’ Maureen said, ‘she’s always trusted the Squire, and you’re Squire’s deputy. Maybe, if you let her know that you know, fear of the consequences might stop the next rick going up. What do you say to that, John?’
John said, gloomily, ‘I’m hanged if I know. It would depend on whether Meg was prepared to back us, providing, that is, Claire extracted some kind of confession from the girl. If I’d known when I came in here that it wasn’t a shell-shock patient I’m damned if I would have given half a promise to keep the police in ignorance for at least they could have kept a watch on the cottage. My duty has always been to the estate and it still is. I don’t clutter myself with personal responsibility for everyone who lives on it!’
‘No,’ Claire reminded him, ‘but Paul does so it seems to me I ought to try and put myself in his place. Would you agree as regards that?’
John blew out his cheeks and groped for his pipe. ‘Yes,’ he said reluctantly, ‘I suppose I’d have to agree to that. I’ve worked alongside the man fifteen years and flatter myself I know him that well. Go and see what you can do but if you run into trouble don’t stay and handle it yourself, come straight back here for help!’ He got up and went out, saying he would tell Chivers to bring the trap round to the front and Claire thought she had never seen him look so old and tired.
They had forgotten in was a Thursday, the day for the weekly war game over at the camp. Troops swarmed on the rising ground beyond the Four Winds’ border, and the peace of the river road was shattered every now and again by a convoy of lorries, the ear-splitting rush of a despatch-rider’s motor-cycle, or the passage of the big Crossley staff car that advertised its approach by a series of imperious honks. Claire cursed them one and all as she jogged along towards the cottage, for the noise and bustle put an additional strain on her nerves and the presence of transport here, where it had always been so quiet and changeless, underlined the fearful urgency of the war, as though a great bird of prey was beating its way up and down the Valley in search of fresh victims. She reined in beyond the ford to let the staff car rush by and did not answer the cheery wave of the officers in the back. The car disappeared in a cloud of exhaust towards Coombe Bay and she went on to the point where the lateral track joined the road beside the cottage, tethering the pony to the gatepost. In the garden she saw the child Patrick absorbed in the task of nailing pieces of wood together with a hammer that seemed almost as large as himself. She was struck not only by his neatness and cleanliness but also by his likeness to Ikey. There was little of the Potter stamp about his face or build for he was very slender, with a dark, slightly sallow complexion and sharp, intelligent eyes. He stood up when Claire asked him if his mother was in the cottage.
‘Arr,’ he said, in the broad Valley burr, ‘ ’Er’s upstairs, ma’am. Leastways, ’er was!’ and then, with an unexpectedly engaging smile, ‘I’m making a nairyplane! I’m gonner fly in un when ’er’s done!’
She had come without the least idea of how to approach the matter but now she saw that, with a little luck, she might use the child to win Hazel’s confidence. She said, ‘If I sent my Simon over for you would you like to come up to the Big House and play with the twins? They’re making aeroplanes too.’
Patrick considered. He had, Claire thought, his father’s charm as well as his polite but definite sense of privacy. ‘Arr,’ he said finally, ‘I’d like that! When will ’er come, then?’
‘I don’t know, I’ll go and ask Mummy,’ Claire said and went into the cottage.
It was, she thought, very neat and clean. It seemed a lifetime since she had spied in at the window watching Paul read Ikey’s letter aloud, her heart torn with jealousy, but today a different kind of confusion assailed her and she stood just inside the door, wondering where to begin. Everything in the room shone and twinkled in the afternoon sun and the hearth had been newly swept. It did not look like the home of a crazy woman who ran about the estate at night setting fire to ricks and the responsibility of her mission dragged at her so that, not for the first time since Paul had left, she was conscious of her own inadequacy to deal with problems of this kind, her uncertainty reminding her of his strange talent for administration. Every man, woman and child living in the Valley trusted him implicitly and he would have had such a headstart on an occasion like this.
She went up the short stair and found Hazel sitting beside the
window looking out across the stubble fields beyond the river. There was something birdlike about the way she sat perched on a milking stool, her knees and hands pressed tightly together, her expression not exactly tense but very alert. She said, as Claire entered, ‘Be’m still searching, then? I zee the soldiers go by just now,’ and Claire wondered if this remark was a defensive diversion, as though Hazel understood very well why she was here and was hoping to forestall interrogation. She said, gently, ‘I should like your boy to come over and play with my twins. If I send Simon over will you let him come? Tomorrow afternoon, say?’
‘Arr,’ Hazel said, readily, ‘you could have un over to stay for a bit if youm minded, for I fret sometimes on account o’ leaving ’un alone o’ nights. ’Er sleeps like a winter squirrel mind but if ’er did awake, to vind the plaace empty, I daresay he’d be lonesome!’
‘You have to go out? Of a night?’ Claire asked, and was dismayed to find herself trembling.
‘Oh arr, sometimes,’ Hazel said cheerfully, ‘on account o’ lighting they beacons. Tiz a praper ole nuisance but seein’ theym all lost it has to be done, dorn it now?’
‘Yes,’ Claire said, feeling her way step by step as one might descend an unfamiliar staircase in the dark, ‘I suppose it does, but does nobody ever help you light those beacons, Hazel?’
The girl looked sharply at her but then suspicion left her eyes and she smiled.
‘Giddon no,’ she said, impatiently, ‘for there’s no one can vind their way about in the dark like me! I’m accustomed to it, you zee. There baint no plaace yerabouts where you could lose me!’
It was her emphasis on the word ‘me’ that gave Claire her first real clue and for a moment compassion choked her. She reached out and took the girl’s hand. It was very soft, she thought, for a woman who had lived rough all her days and spent every morning in the churchyard helping the sexton dig graves and cut grass.
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