by Mavis Cheek
Nigel was perfectly happy for Molly to be there and be still. He could watch her through his binoculars, and dream. The bruises had all but faded now, as indeed had Julie. Molly was all. Nigel contemplated spending every free hour he possessed at her command. Her white knight – that is what he would be. He’d seen Extreme Jousting on the television and liked the idea of wearing favours and rescuing maidens. It was unfortunate that Extreme Jousting incorporated the riding of a large and speedy horse, but he put that out of his mind. Fantasies were never difficult to move around, where Nigel was concerned. If real life was somewhat unrewarding, his other life was quite acceptable. Molly would want him one day. There was bound to be something she needed rescuing from while she was up there. He would be prepared.
He heard his father’s footsteps on the stairs. Into the room he came just as Nigel hid the binoculars up the back of his sweater. ‘I want you to give the wood on that gun a damn good oiling today – delicately, mind – no dripping it or putting too much on at once. If we get it right it will be the perfect gun for Sir Roger – and he might take better care of this one.’
‘He does seem to go through them quite a lot, doesn’t he?’
‘Nobody likes to miss an easy shot,’ said his father defensively.
‘But he jumps up and down on his gun. That’s hardly good breeding, is it?’ Nigel gave his father a sly look. He knew perfectly well that his father would like him to get friendly with Marion Fitzhartlett but Dryden ignored the jibe so Nigel continued, ‘And a gun like our one is a beauty, collectible you said. Is it fair to future generations to ruin a fine gun?’
His father bristled, as Nigel knew he would. ‘The Fitzhartletts come from a long line of great Englishmen; if he wants to jump on his gun, then he is entitled to. If noblesse oblige is privilege with responsibility, then a man of distinction can do the opposite sometimes, and behave – behave less nobly.’ He pointed to the stairs. ‘Now, will you kindly get going with the gun oil? And only the oil, mind, none of your fiddling with the workings.’
As he walked past his father Nigel muttered something along the lines that if he jumped up and down on a gun – or anything, come to that – and broke it, he’d be for it.
Dryden, following him down the stairs, said that if he married Marion Fitzhartlett he could behave as badly as he liked – use his guns as stilts if he wanted to.
‘I’d have to,’ Nigel said mournfully. ‘She’s not only got turnip hair and a strange look, she’s very, very tall, whereas M—’
But he got no further. Best keep to himself where his love now lay, at least for the time being. How wonderful is the eye of a lover; Molly Bonner was scarcely one inch shorter than Marion Fitzhartlett. If you removed the horse.
Nigel might have given up on Julie but Julie had not given up on Nigel and it was with a certain nervousness that he moved about the village nowadays. But it was worth it, he decided, worth the risk of Julie’s wrath. He pictured again how Molly sat so sweet and still and thoughtful above him, and with a light heart he picked up the oily rag and began to feel happy again. He looked at the gun. He felt his muscles pump. Why leave it to his father? He could mend what was wrong with it in a twinkling. His father never gave him credit for anything.
Dryden had noticed and approved the new sense of discomposure surrounding his son and the barmaid. You did not spend a lifetime with beautiful objects made for superior people without a good deal of the nobility they had absorbed over the centuries rubbing off on you. He had but one son, and that son must – would – marry well. He had made a promise to a dying woman to make Nigel happy and marriage seemed the solution. He was beginning to think that the dead woman would never rest until their son tied the knot with someone acceptable. Julie was not the right material. Not at all. The disapproval expressed on his deceased wife’s face at the prospect had said that very clearly.
There had been enough blue-blooded people in Dryden’s life – selling off the family silver and other fine old things was the way they kept themselves afloat nowadays – for him to feel almost akin to them. When you have mopped the tears of a dowager as she parts with her last pair of Worcester candlesticks, you may be justified in considering yourself almost one of them. Antiques were not trade, not really, they were about being a guardian of heritage. And what if, Dryden thought, wincing a little, what if he also purveyed objects of a lesser nature sometimes? Objects such as old brooms and flatirons and the like? These were what the less grand visitors to the village could afford, and they were the crumbs from his table that paid the boring little day to day expenses like council tax, insurance and similar mundanities. Though it always beat him how an American could expect to fly back home with a flatiron hidden in his suitcase. Especially now.
Nigel had no mother and so Dryden must make the match. Nigel’s mother, Dryden’s wife Lottie, had been a sweet-faced country girl whom he loved in his youth; but somehow, and he could not say how, when they inherited the shop and the business she became less satisfactory – he winced at that thought, too – so she stayed at the back of the shop and never raised her voice. And gradually she seemed to just fade away. Dr Porlock might have said gruffly that it was myopathy and not neuropathy and tried various cures that all came to nothing, but Dryden thought he knew better. When Nigel drew his mother with turnip hair and stick arms, it was not very far from the truth. By the time Dryden saw that truth – saw that it was something akin to neglect – it was too late. What made it all the more shameful was that, as he stood in the churchyard (he had already bought a family plot, which he felt raised his status) he experienced only relief. And he heard a little voice saying in his head that now she was gone, he could get on with the pursuit of becoming a man of higher degree. Unfortunately for Dryden, he also seemed to hear another voice, a more familiar one, once so sweet and low but now so pleading, pleading … and those eyes …
He would never marry again.
And why would Dryden never marry again?
Because he was afraid of ghosts.
In the days after Lottie’s death he saw her frequently: on the stair, in the dimness of the shop, slipping down the village street at dusk. And always admonishing. Her appearances became fewer over the years but you never knew. Dryden could never bring himself to speak to her when she appeared, on the grounds that he did not wish to encourage the visits. He decided he could cope with the sporadic ghost of Lottie in this condition. But it was quite likely that if he remarried the ghost of Lottie might change its attitude. Bad enough dealing with the spectre of a dead wife to whom it was daily business as usual, but the spectre of a dead wife who felt a bit uppish about everything was unthinkable. Dryden had dealt in enough old objects to know that they hold their secrets but that someone, if only a ghost, will always be privy to what the objects have seen and known. Therefore Nigel, his son, must take on the task of noble union for him. Nigel, his son and heir, must marry well. Lottie had wished for her son to be happy and Dryden chose to think this would be through a good marriage. The only benefit from Nigel’s many liaisons, especially with the barmaid Julie, was that it proved to Dryden that his son was not a homosexual. A very great relief.
Julie Barnsley knew she must fight and she was definitely not happy.
When she confronted him later that day, Nigel denied everything. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am not ogling her, I am doing what my father has asked me to do, which is to keep an eye on her.’ When Julie Barnsley asked him why his father had wanted him to do that, he – who was not known for his quick-wittedness, was fairly convincing. ‘Because,’ said Nigel, ‘she might be up there finding something old and valuable.’
Julie wondered. Could that be the truth of it? After all, they were in business for the selling of old things and it made sense. And although she had seen plenty of interest shown on Nigel’s side, the archaeologist woman had shown little in return. Now Julie, who had been so sure that all was lost, was confused. ‘Do you still love me, then?’ she asked, playing her trump card.
The funny thing was, she thought, as she pushed her way through the door, the funny thing was that she quite liked being a barmaid. Very often she found that the morning had racketed past and it was lunchtime already. By the time she had laughed at the absurdities of some of their trippers with Peter, taken disgusting compliments from a collection of the retired agricultural workers from round about – gnarled, sunburnt, wet-eyed old men who looked at her and remembered their youth and chasing the girls in the fields – been propositioned by loud young men and pulled the pumps, she felt fit as a flea. And in the evenings, when she took special care with her looks (the more so since the arrival of Miss Molly Toogood) she basked in the pleasure of Peter’s gaze, which was always approving, and of being chatted up by all sorts – old and young, rural or town, rich or poor – for the Old Holly Bush was a favourite for five or six miles around. Not only did it breathe a pleasant, easy-going atmosphere and rustic charm (largely made up of old chairs and tables that had seen much service in the last fifty or sixty years and Peter saw no reason to change them) but it had a cheerful propensity to break the law where smoking was concerned. Perhaps breathe was not quite right, perhaps it coughed a pleasant, easy-going atmosphere for it had a little room at the back, a snug, where smokers could go and avoid the chill of the day or the cold of the night and no one let on, and certainly not PC Brown who, it was said, could smoke for England.
Julie wondered, as she set up the bar, what would it be like to be married and a lady of leisure? She decided that it would be grand. Never anything to do ever again. Nigel said, when he first proposed to her, that he would never let her lily-white hands anywhere near work – neither restoring furniture, nor serving in the shop, nor even going to auctions (which he was never allowed to do, actually) and she, though not entirely convinced since her hands were far from lily-white at the best of times, rather more rose-pink towards red from the bar work and a little chewed around the edges, decided that she would like it that way. As she opened the shutters she saw the top of the Hill and the figure once again, still crouching, still thinking. She must be cold, thought Julie, pleased. And damp. Who’d want to do that for a living? She felt cheerful, once more contemplating her future life as a lady of leisure. Nigel loved her. He would keep her in the way she would like to become accustomed to. Totally idle. Julie Barnsley had not, at this point in her life, read Madame Bovary. Julie Barnsley was a prime example of why the book should be presented to every new fiancée who fancied that married life would be easy.
*
Winifred, who had read Madame Bovary and spent the following forty years too busy to remember it, turned away from her window. Her heart was heavy with an ache that she knew was probably envy, though it was not her customary experience. Something about the advent of that girl had quite jumbled her up. She flopped into the soft, fat sofa cushions (antique gold cotton velvet, Premble & Rawlings, 1973) that furnished the cosy television room (Sony HD 22-inch six months old, DVD/video recorder/player ditto), and wondered what could have brought Flaubert to mind now. Probably, she thought, pushing in an ancient video selected from a pile at her feet and upping the volume to drown out her thoughts, it was a matter of age. That was what Donald thought, and he was, after all, a doctor. The picture flickered to life and she put the girl on the Hill out of her mind and concentrated on the girl that she once was … ‘And now,’ said the agreeable presenter to camera, ‘we go to the final part of our story about the history of the making of the British landscape, and head for the South-West …’
Donald did not know whether to be pleased or anxious about his wife’s sudden fancy to watch daytime television. On the whole he thought it was a good move. The sort of thing women who were under strain about being women would find helpful. He did not know what sort of programmes she watched – there seemed to be all kinds of things going on – no car chases or sex scenes or noisy violence, which was encouraging – and the actress looked familiar, he thought, as he passed the sitting-room door each morning on his way out. ‘All right, dear?’ he made a point of calling. But she had the sound turned up very loud. The woman on the screen had a nice voice, though. Calming. Just what Winifred needed. She needed something, all right. He did wonder if he should ask Charlotte to come for a visit but, frankly, the embarrassment of having a daughter who wore enough metal about her person to stick her to a large magnet and who would invariably take her mother’s side, was not an appealing thought right now. He closed the door softly behind him and tiptoed down the path to the car, the town and his surgery. Once in the street he straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. He was a man of importance, out here at any rate.
Peter and Marion were standing together in the yard behind the pub and both of them were talking about the Hill and what was happening to it.
‘Why,’ said Marion, stroking Sparkle, ‘if we had to have something on a hill, couldn’t it have been a horse instead of a man?’
‘Hardly a man,’ said Peter.
Marion’s eyes lost their customary neutral look, and a light of something similar to amusement shone in them. Peter wondered if he had ever seen Marion’s eyes light up at anything other than a horse before. He looked at her questioningly. She said, ‘I should have thought it was quite the reverse.’
‘Of what?’
‘His being hardly a man. The way I see it –’ she returned her gaze to the Gnome, ‘he’s every bit the man, and hardly a Gnome …’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll never go near him again, that’s for sure. My little tumble was all his fault – and that – that – thing of his. Horses,’ she said, ‘never let you down. I like horses more than I seem to like men. Anyway. Or at least the ones I know. Apart from you, that is.’ This was said without guile and with no subtext beyond friendship, and was received as such. Peter and Marion had no romantic thoughts about each other and the world left their easy relationship alone.
‘Do you meet many men?’
‘Not really. Except Father’s shooting pals. And all the younger ones of those are awful. And they hunt as well – I can’t stand the hunt. I once saw the MFH get on his horse the wrong way round. Too much stirrup cup. It’s cruel, whatever they say.’
Peter knew all about these would-be countrymen. Most of them ended up in the bar after a shoot, all loud voiced and given to drinking more than any gun should, haemorrhaging tweed and talking about the sort of hedges that didn’t grow in the country. If Julie asked them what they wanted they snorted with knowing snorts and clearly thought they were the first men ever in the land to come out with the old joke about sex and barmaids. Peter had given up saying anything as Julie claimed she never even heard the words they spoke now – just the relevant ones like ‘Pint of Old Romany’ or ‘Double gin and tonic.’ Not all of them were like that, of course, but many were. The nicer ones seemed to slope off early.
‘Those aren’t men, either,’ he said.
‘They always want to talk about trust funds. And none of them ride, none of them. Though they think they do. Then I take them into Hinterjack Wood and they fall off. And they get very annoyed and swear a lot and – oh well – they’ve got no stamina. Whereas Sparkle,’ she turned and looked up at the horse with love in her eyes, ‘Sparkle is the perfect mixture of reliability and risk, modest good looks, and knowing how to treat a lady without going all silly. Doesn’t even get jealous when I ride Coco for a change. You wouldn’t get a man behaving so well.’
‘I’d slow down a bit for you,’ she said.
Peter laughed. ‘You’d have to nowadays.’
‘We are friends, aren’t we?’ she said.
Peter nodded. ‘I hope so.’
They turned their eyes back to the Gnome and the crouching, contemplative figure of Molly Bonner. ‘She’s amazing,’ said Peter. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Ah yes,’ said Marion faintly. ‘Amazing. Perhaps she will marry you and take you away from here.’ Her horse gave a little whinny. ‘I should miss you.’
‘Maybe she would,’ he laughed. ‘Marry me and take me away from here and all my debts.’
Marion nuzzled even further into Sparkle.
‘But I wouldn’t go. I just don’t fancy her and I can’t work out why.’
‘She is amazing,’ said Marion. ‘Very amazing. Perhaps it’s because you – fancy – someone else?’
It was Peter’s turn to blush. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean …’
Marion laughed and patted her horse’s neck. ‘I never for a minute thought you meant me, silly. I know better than that. And I know who it really is. And I know who she’s got her eye on.’
‘Not me,’ he said. ‘Not any more. That’s for sure.’
Marion patted his arm as if it were an equine flank. ‘Who knows what will happen?’ she said.
Peter nodded. ‘Well – I’d better go and open up.’