‘So when it comes to it, neither of you has got any argument against telling him.’
‘We’ve given you half a dozen,’ Midge said, ‘only you won’t listen.’
‘So it’s decided then, at the first opportunity, I tell him. Then what?’
Midge said, ‘I suppose you get engaged but don’t tell your colleges, ask your parents for permission and get married when you’ve done your finals.’
‘But that’s a year away. Anyway, my parents will hate it. Mummy’s got half a dozen fledgling ambassadors lined up for my inspection next time I’m in India. Penniless scholars need not apply.’
‘Penniless, is he?’
‘Pretty nearly. Anyway, I’m twenty-one in October and he’s twenty-one already. We could get married whether my parents liked it or not.’
‘Leaving you penniless too,’ Midge said.
‘We’re all going to work for our living, aren’t we? Or have you gone back on that too?’
‘We haven’t gone back on anything,’ I said. ‘But there is the question of the colleges.’ Students were not allowed to marry. Very occasionally exceptions were made for the young gentlemen, but this wouldn’t be one. Somerville woman marries Balliol man was more likely to set alarm bells than joy bells ringing.
‘I could leave and get a teaching job. Anyway, it’s not as if they even let women take degrees.’
‘You won’t get much of a teaching job if you leave before you take your final exams.’
Imogen said, ‘Oh, this is nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it at all. Why worry about finals or jobs or money. I love him and he loves me now, now, now.’ With every ‘now’ she beat the grass beside her with clenched fists.
‘So,’ I said, ‘you go to him and you tell him you love him and nothing else matters?’
‘Yes.’
Midge said, ‘And you both wait until you can get married?’
Imogen turned her head to look not at Midge but at me and gave me a lazy smile, much more relaxed than she’d been so far.
‘Did you wait, Nell?’
‘I told you, he was sent—’
‘Before you had time to—’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you’d known he was going to be sent away?’
‘That’s a hypothetical question.’
‘That means yes, doesn’t it? You’re blushing, Nell. Yes?’
‘It’s hot.’ I turned my head away.
She laughed. ‘Yes.’
After a while we wandered back up to the barn, stopping before we got there to help each other put up our still-damp hair. The men pretended they’d been discussing Plato all the time we’d been away but we didn’t believe them. Nathan was making a kind of chair from hazel rods and a section of tree trunk he’d found in the woods, Kit and Meredith were reading and Alan was pacing aimlessly up and down. Imogen’s eyes followed him.
‘Do you think he’s worrying about what the police will say tomorrow, Nell?’
‘Probably.’
‘Do you mind if I don’t come down to the town with you and Midge. I don’t want…’ Her voice trailed away. I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t trust herself in a wagonette with Alan or if she wanted him to keep his mind clear for a difficult interview.
‘Not in the least. You can have a nice quiet time here reading Greek with Meredith.’
I usually try not to be waspish, but it was hot and I’d had enough. Luckily she wasn’t paying me much attention. I walked up the field to look at the view and get myself back in a good temper. The sound of Midge’s and Nathan’s laughter followed me. I think he was trying to persuade her to try sitting in his chair. Further down, a solitary figure was walking away from the house, along the track towards the mares’ field, the sun glinting on his silver hair – the Old Man going about his business, apparently unconcerned with all of us up there debating what should be done about him. A surge of sadness came over me that he might be taken away from his land and his horses and I knew I wanted to do something to prevent that happening. It was a question that had very little to do with liking and nothing at all with any definition we’d found so far of justice. A question of rightness, I supposed, though I was glad nobody was asking me to define it.
Late that night, well after midnight when Midge and Imogen were asleep on their hay pallets on either side of me, I heard soft footsteps in the tack room below then the door to the stable yard opening. I looked out to see the glow of lamplight on the cobbles of the yard and the familiar figure, horsewhip in one hand, lamp in the other. It was the Old Man again, keeping watch against enemies who might or might not exist. I remembered a sentence that Imogen had translated from the Greek: For, Socrates, old age lays only a moderate burden on men who have order and peace within themselves. I thought he had made a kind of order for himself, but it didn’t look like peace.
Chapter Seven
I WAS IN THE STABLE YARD AROUND SEVEN the next morning when Alan came to ask the Old Man for the loan of the wagonette.
‘Take it, my boy. My house is your house. Only you’ll have to hitch up Bobbin yourself. Robin’s up in Sid’s paddock seeing to the fence.’
We went down in a bunch to collect the placid cob from where he was grazing by the river. Alan and I buckled the head collar on and led the horse up to the yard. He and Nathan pulled the wagonette out from the cart shed while Midge and Imogen collected the harness from the tack room.
‘Which way round does it go?’ Midge stared at the mass of straps and buckles.
‘Let me see it.’ I had hold of Bobbin at the time and, forgetting about the arm, handed the head-collar rope to the nearest person who happened to be Kit. He almost dropped it.
‘I’m not good with horses, in any case. Unpredictable animals, cherished by irrational people.’
He was keeping as much distance as he could between himself and the cob. Without fuss, Meredith took the head-collar rope from him. We managed to get Bobbin harnessed to the wagonette, although I noticed Imogen too was keeping her distance.
‘I’m not good with horses either. I prefer bicycles.’
Meredith took the reins, Alan climbed up beside him and Midge and I sat facing each other on the seats at the back. Nobody said much on the way into town. We arrived there at about half past nine and decided to stable Bobbin and the wagonette at a public house with livery stables at the back. Meredith went inside to negotiate while we waited in the yard and, I guessed, to test whether there was any open hostility. He came out looking relieved, followed by a grinning groom.
‘They’ll look after him. I’ve said we’ll be back in a couple of hours or so. Will that be enough for your shopping?’
We said yes and agreed to meet in front of the public house at midday. Meredith had already got directions to the police station and we watched as they walked away through the arch into the street. Alan looked pale and nervous but then calling on the police to ask if a family member might have murdered somebody would put a strain on anyone. Midge took the shopping list out of her pocket.
‘Where shall we start?’
‘I thought we might go and have a look at the police court.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m sure the magistrates will be sitting on a Monday. There are bound to be a few cases of fighting or drunkenness over the weekend, even in a little town like this.’
‘And that interests us?’
‘The magistrates do. About the only thing we know about the person the Old Man’s supposed to have murdered is that he’s a magistrate’s son. If Mawbray senior is on the bench, I’d like to see him.’
‘How will that help?’
‘I don’t suppose it will, but can you suggest anywhere else to start?’
‘Apart from the grocers, you mean?’
‘That can wait.’
She put the list back in her pocket and we asked directions to the police court. It turned out to be alongside the police station, but luckily there was no sign of Alan and Meredith by the time we got t
here. There was a constable at the entrance to the court. I asked him when the magistrates would be sitting and he said from ten o’clock onwards.
‘Will Mr Mawbray be on the bench?’
‘Major Mawbray’s chairman of the magistrates, miss.’
Later in life I spent a lot of time in police courts, but this was my first experience of one. The public bench turned out to be quite crowded because the main attraction of the morning concerned a fight in a public house between two local poaching families, with most of the evidence delivered in such strong Cumberland accents that it was hard for us to follow what was happening. At least it wasn’t difficult to pick out Major Mawbray. He was the middle one of the three magistrates on the bench, a thin and upright man with sparse dark hair and yellowish skin stretched tight over a broad forehead and narrow jutting chin that gave his head the shape of an angular pear. He was clean shaven, apart from a thin moustache, and when he spoke to ask a witness a question his voice was sharp and soldierly, with no trace of local accent. He kept taking little sips from a glass of water. From that and his complexion I guessed that his health wasn’t good. Digestive problems possibly, which might account for the sharpness of his tone.
Midge and I were squeezed as a buffer between friends of both parties of poachers and kept getting jostled and nudged in the ribs when some particular allegation or piece of evidence made our line hiss and quiver like a breaking wave. At one point the usher threatened indiscriminately to have us all thrown out and Major Mawbray backed up the threat with a glare at the public bench. He noticed the two of us and the glare turned into a puzzled look. He probably knew all the wrongdoers and their relatives in the whole town and country around, and we were strangers. As far as I knew, he had no reason to connect us with the Old Man but we seemed to bother him all the same. We stayed until the end of the case (three months all round, groans and sounds of protest from friends quelled by another warning from the usher, a promise from Major Mawbray, sounding infinitely weary, of more serious sentences if they came up before the bench again) then we walked out into the sunshine.
* * *
It was past eleven by then and we’d have to hurry if we were going to get the shopping done. The day had turned bakingly hot and it was a relief to get into the cool cavern of the grocer’s shop with a yellow tiled floor, bins of flour and oatmeal around the walls, shelves with red laquered tins full of different teas and coffee beans. A smell of ham and coffee hung over everything and soft-voiced male assistants sliced bacon and slid sugar and rice and dried peas from the shiny bronze bowl of the weighing machine into brown paper bags. We ruthlessly edited the men’s shopping list, leaving out luxuries like Carlsbad plums and Gentlemen’s Relish and adding two more legs of ham, several large cheeses and patent soup in slabs. They’d all insisted on Cumberland sausage so we bought pounds of it from the butcher’s shop next door, though we were worried about how long it would keep in the heat. Naturally there were no fruit or vegetables on the list, but we found a greengrocers and added a sack of potatoes, a dozen large cabbages and half a dozen punnets of big golden-skinned gooseberries. As we were doing all this, we got some curious looks from shop assistants and other customers, but at least no sign of hostility.
We were walking back to the public house with ten minutes to spare, feeling pleased with our work, when Midge said, ‘We’ve forgotten the butter.’ We were just crossing a side street and further up it there was a dairy with shining milk churns outside and a blue sunblind. The woman inside had grey hair and quick little hands. She carved a lump of butter out of a big tub in the cool at the back of the shop, weighed it, slapped it into shape on a marble slab with a pair of ridged wooden butter pats then picked up a wooden stamp and pressed the outline of a cow on the top. I said I was afraid the cow would have melted by the time we got it home.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Ah like to mek it conny.’ Her accent was as strongly Cumberland as Dulcie’s, but not so langourous. She asked if we had far to carry the butter. Experimentally, and because she seemed friendly, I said ‘Studholme Hall’ watching to see if her expression changed. She beamed.
‘You’ll be staying with Mr Beston. How is the gentleman? Tell him Dolly Wilson sends her regards.’
Far from being hostile she couldn’t do enough for us and hustled us through to a little garden behind her shop, carrying the butter wrapped in paper.
‘Rhubarb leaves’ll take care of it.’
The rhubarb was growing against an outhouse wall. She pulled three stems and twisted off the floppy leaves, her small hands unexpectedly powerful. As she wrapped the butter in rhubarb leaves to keep it cool I asked if she knew Mr Beston well.
‘He’s always been a very civil man to me and that gannan-lad of his cured our little cuddy when it was ganging cockly.’
Midge gave me a look as much to say, ‘You’re supposed to be the linguist.’
‘Gannan-lad?’
‘The Gypsy lad. The little donkey that pulls our milk cart went lame. Mr Beston saw me in town fair greeting for worry over him so he said he’d send his lad to see to it and now he trots as well as any creature in the county. Say what you will about gannan-folk, they’ve got their ways with a hoss or a cuddy other folk don’t know.’ She secured the rhubarb leaves with a twist of raffia from her apron pocket and handed the little package to me. I offered her some coins, but she shook her head.
‘With my good wishes.’
A clock was striking midday. Midge signed to me to hurry up, but now we’d found somebody on the Old Man’s side I wasn’t going to give her up so easily. I thanked her and said not everybody in the district seemed to think so well of Mr Beston.
‘Oh, that’s nobbut politics. They’ll get over it in a while.’
‘Some people seem to think he shot Major Mawbray’s son.’
‘Some blatherskites will say anything. If Arthur Mawbray and his gang of gowks go making a shindy and firing an auld man’s byre, they should expect to cop a bit of a shooting.’
‘As I heard it, nothing’s been seen of young Mawbray since the night they set fire to the barn.’ She gave me a sideways look that said a lot. ‘You have your doubts, then?’
She took her time answering, then, ‘It wouldnae be the first time that young man had taken himself off. When he was no more than fifteen, just after his mother died, he quarrelled with his father and went off on a fishing boat. They brought him back from somewhere way up in Scotland and sent him away to college for a fair while, but folk say it didna make any great difference.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Four or five years, maybe. I’m not saying there’s any great harm in the lad, only he’s got no more sensible as he’s got older and he’s given his father a deal of trouble.’
Midge was practically dragging at my sleeve by now so we thanked her again for the butter, promised to give her regards to Mr Beston and hurried to meet Alan and Meredith outside the public house.
* * *
They were waiting for us and Alan was looking impatient and careworn. Before Midge or I could ask any questions he said, ‘Do you mind if we leave it until we’re all together? I don’t want to have to go over it twice.’
That didn’t sound as if the interview with the police had brought any good news and it clearly wasn’t the time to start talking about the woman in the dairy. They’d already been into the stable yard and asked the groom to harness up Bobbin so we decided to drive the wagonette to collect the stores we’d bought from the various shops then head for home. Whatever had happened in the police station, I think we were all relieved that our appearance in public hadn’t resulted in stone-throwing or insults. While Meredith was paying the groom Midge and I got on board and stowed the butter in a shady place under the seat. As I was straightening up, I noticed an envelope. It was coarse in quality, tied to the side rail of the wagonette with a piece of string knotted through a hole punched jaggedly in the top right hand corner. I unknotted it, already apprehensive and saw the name J.
BESTON ESQUIRE in pencilled capitals. Alan climbed into the front passenger seat and saw me looking at it.
‘What is it now?’
‘It’s addressed to your uncle. I have an idea it might not be friendly.’
Meredith finished paying the groom and swung himself into the driver’s seat. Alan showed him the envelope.
‘It might be a threat of some kind. I think I ought to open it.’
Meredith nodded and Alan tore open the envelope and took out a single sheet of notepaper. He read, started to say something, then handed it to Meredith. When I thought he’d had time to finish – and there were no more than two lines of writing – I leaned over and held out my hand for it. If the message to the Old Man were being treated as public property I thought we had a right to see as well. Alan made a movement probably intended to spare my eyes from it, but Meredith passed it over. I held it so that Midge could see too. It was different paper from the envelope, thin and yellowed as if from a pad in a household where not many letters were written. The message was all in capitals with no signature.
DID YOU ARSK DULSIE WHO HER BASTARDS FATHER REALY IS.
Alan had his head in his hands. ‘Oh God, isn’t it ever going to stop?’
I gave the letter back to him and we drove home.
Chapter Eight
THE OTHERS MUST HAVE HEARD US ON THE ROAD because by the time we got down to the yard outside the house Imogen, Kit and Nathan were waiting. There was no sign of the Old Man or Mrs Berryman though Robin appeared, silent as usual but smiling, to take Bobbin and the wagonette when we’d finished getting things out of it. We portered armfuls of bags, boxes and bottles up to the barn and stowed them away in a corner. When we were ready to talk it was still so hot that we stayed inside the barn for shade sitting on our heaps of hay, except for Nathan who’d brought his chair inside and went on working at it. Alan looked round the semicircle, hesitated then plunged in.
Dead Man Riding Page 9