R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield

by To Serve Them All My Days

  ‘But I do, if I’m to learn the truth about myself. I only know that I did try. I tried damned hard, Davy.’

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that neither of you was to blame? That you weren’t the least bit in love with one another?’

  ‘It’s possible. I was flattered to be singled out from all those other girls, most of them much prettier, and all of them more sophisticated than I was. Maybe he needed sophistication, and felt cheated when he didn’t find any. Do you suppose that was… what’s so funny about that?’

  ‘You are! Lying there without a stitch on, trying to make one guinea pig out of me and another out of yourself. All right, I’ll humour you. Most men don’t look for sophistication. They think that’s their prerogative. What they like to find in a woman is generosity and you’ll never run short of that. So cut the inquest on imaginary shortcomings. Ever hear what Napoleon said to his valet, Constant, after his first night with Marie Louise?’

  ‘You mean that Austrian girl he married? The one who could wiggle her ears, and had never been allowed to own a male animal?’

  ‘That’s her. He said, “My friend, marry a German. They are the best of all women, sweet, gentle, fresh and innocent as roses!” In your case, for “German” read “Yorkshire”.’

  ‘That’s nice of you but it was boorish of him. To come down rubbing his hands and discuss the bride with his valet, I mean.’

  ‘Well, he was feeling smug, and had to discuss it with someone. Constant was the only one around at that time.’

  She turned impulsively and her arms went round him. He sensed, somehow, that he had succeeded in dispelling some of her doubts, and it may have been this that set the tone of their relationship as lovers all the days they spent alone by the lake. And because of an overwhelming tenderness, that multiplied in him day by day, he came at length to prize her in a way that would have seemed extravagant a week ago, when he was still subconsciously comparing her to Beth. What intrigued him, what sometimes amazed him, was the range of her personality, only now fully extended, with good humour as its base, and variants all the way from a gentle withdrawal to a gaiety capable of enveloping them both in a sense of release that was balm to a man scarred by war, by a deep personal tragedy and currently holding anxiety at bay.

  As the time passed it seemed to him foolish that she could have ever doubted her capacity to induce anything but restorative peace in a man, any man, that is, with his wits about him. In her arms he found an enlarged confidence in himself, and beyond this a depth of relationship in another human being that had eluded him ever since the day Beth had died.

  This sense of attainment reached him from many sources. From her effervescent sense of humour, seldom absent from their most intimate moments, from a freely offered body that he came to venerate, but mostly from her ability to communicate. He had no doubts now but that he returned her love, that she could, in essentials, fill the gap left by Beth. In her arms, in her company even, Bamfylde and Bamfylde’s concerns moved a great way off, a place where he had suffered and learned, but he did not believe Bamfylde alone would ever satisfy him now. It would have to go about the task with Christine as the bridge between him and personal fulfilment. Time, a wide variety of interests, physical fitness, stemming from the active life he led up there, these things and the obsessive problems of his housemastership, had healed the last of his trench scars, but his emotional re-awakening, within the embrace of this girl, went a good way beyond that. It was a process of rejuvenation, stimulating the nerves and quickening the imagination, so that what lay ahead for him seemed unimportant unless it was linked to her. He had thought himself deeply in love with Beth through that first, peacetime spring more than twelve years before, but Beth had grown on him, season by season, so that he had no clear memory of an onrush of affection such as this, a tumult of the senses that sometimes seemed too violent to last.

  One afternoon, when they were lying on the bed watching the curtain of rain move across the lake, he voiced this doubt.

  ‘It’s an ideal, Davy, and something to be fought for, but face it, lad, it won’t sustain us for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Now that’s a depressing thought!’ he grumbled, but she went on, ‘It’s a statement of fact, no more and no less. We’ll need luck, and a lot of patience, so don’t ever forget it.’

  ‘Patience, maybe, but what kind of luck, other than fìnding a way of getting the divorce? And that isn’t the moon. Knowing our own minds is the vital factor, and I know mine as regards you. I’d be very happy to take Bamfylde plus you, but you take precedence.’

  ‘Over-simplification, Davy. Follow that through and what am I left with? Half of David Powlett-Jones, and that barn of a place on my conscience, where it would sit more heavily than Rowley. No thanks, Davy. I like you very well as you are, doing a job you enjoy.’

  ‘That’s a different line from the one you took in the church less than a month ago.’

  ‘Yes it is, but I know you much better now, really know you. You’d never be happy or fulfilled in politics, or doing anything but what you are doing, so let’s plan ahead from there.’

  It did not seem worth an argument. The important thing was they both had direction and this seemed enough to be going on with. He said, lazily, ‘That’s the trouble with the Welsh.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Love of discourse, especially on abstracts and imponderables. What could happen if something else happened. We run up the pulpit steps at the drop of a hat –

  Myself when young did eagerly frequent

  Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument…

  Trust a Welshman to indulge in great argument, even when he’s in bed with a girl like you.’

  ‘Even a Welshman needs a breather now and again.’

  He laughed and kissed her. It was easy enough to set imponderables aside with a woman like her in his arms. The future could take care of itself for a change. He was more than satisfied with the present.

  Two

  * * *

  1

  THE BLOW FELL ON THE DAY OF THEIR FIRST EXPEDITION across the lake to Bowness, indeed, to anywhere save the fells, Lodore Falls, or the village where they bought stores. Three weeks had elapsed since they had read a daily paper and there was no wireless set in the chalet. ‘We might,’ she said, ‘be living on Juan Fernandez. I’m sure my constituency wouldn’t approve of me being in purdah this long. Why don’t we hire a skiff, pull over, and find out what’s going on, if you can row that far after your frightful exertions,’ and when he suggested that they might leave well alone until it was time to collect Grace and go home, she said, ‘We won’t stay. Just an hour’s shopping, lunch somewhere and back here for tea.’

  They tied up to the jetty about eleven and the first reminder that they were back in circulation was a newspaper contents bill, clamped to a billboard outside a tobacconist’s shop. It announced, ‘MACDONALD TO HEAD NATIONAL GOVERNMENT’.

  The starkness of the statement precluded exclamation or comment. They stood quite still, backs to the kerb, mouthing the words once, twice, three times, as though neither had the courage to acknowledge what it could mean in terms of their future. Then, releasing her hand, he went in and bought a paper, re-emerging to find her standing in the same stunned position outside the shop door. He read the headlines aloud, ‘MACDONALD HEADS NATIONAL GOVERNMENT’, ‘LABOUR PARTY SPLIT – PROSPECT OF OCTOBER ELECTION’, and other double-column headlines, all concerned with cataclysmic occurrences that had, it seemed, been piling one upon the other during the twenty days they had spent three miles east of this same, steep street.

  She said, ‘You know what this means, Davy?’ and he replied, doubling the paper, ‘To everyone or to us?’

  ‘I must go back at once. You surely see that.’

  The abrupt end of their idyll outraged him. ‘No, I don’t! Or not until we’ve had time to digest it, to… plan something about what happens from here.’

  ‘How could we plan, with this hanging ov
er us? I’m an adopted candidate. Dedicated people have put their money on me. Give me the paper.’

  ‘We could have lunch, talk things over… you don’t even know about trains, when you can start…’

  He was talking to himself. Already, reading as she walked, she was retracing her steps down the hill to the boat and he followed, pausing to light a cigarette when she plumped herself down in the stern of the skiff and went on reading. He said, at length, ‘Well, what’s it to be? A private airplane? Or would a hire car do?’

  She folded the paper and slipped it into her handbag. Her expression told him that he had lost her, temporarily at all events. ‘He’s sold us all out,’ she said. ‘He and Snowden. Traitors, the pair of them! Jimmy Thomas, too, and who knows how many others?’

  ‘But if he’s going to the country…’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she shouted at him, ‘this is the worst thing that could happen to us as a party, worse than being beaten at the polls ten times in a row! Ramsay Mac, the first Socialist Prime Minister. The man who stood out against everybody, when men like you were up to their necks in mud and blood. He’s sold out lock, stock and barrel. Don’t ask me why he did it. To keep office, I imagine, but it makes nonsense of everything we’ve believed since the war.’

  ‘But you always agreed you couldn’t survive long as a minority government. You must have suspected something like this would happen, sooner or later.’

  ‘I thought he would resign, and try for a real majority.’

  ‘He’d never get one, with the country’s finances in the state they are. You’ve said that too.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered. It was the honourable thing to do, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You don’t look for scruples among politicians, Chris.’

  ‘I do. How will this look to the electorate? Leading Socialists, who can be bought and sold.’

  ‘You intend to throw in with the backbenchers?’

  ‘Good heavens, of course I do. You’ve learned that much about me, haven’t you? Is a National government, overweighted with Tories, likely to do a damned thing for the unemployed. You’ve only glanced at that paper. There’s talk of a ten per cent cut in unemployment benefits. There’ll be hell to pay everywhere.’

  ‘If Ramsay and some of the others are still in office they’ll block unfair economies.’

  ‘As prisoners of bankers and industrialists? Don’t be naïve, Davy. And anyway, we’re wasting time. I’m going to phone my Chairman. Go over to the station and find out about trains.’

  ‘You intend going back today?’

  ‘Of course I do. With an election in the offing I can’t waste an hour. I’ll head for London and try and catch the paper train out of Paddington early tomorrow.’

  She climbed out of the skiff and moved towards a telephone kiosk outside the harbourmaster’s, opening her bag as she went. He watched her for a moment, then went off to the station to study a timetable pasted to a hoarding in the yard. There was a London train via Kendal and Birmingham at twelve-thirty. It would give her plenty of time to cross to Paddington and catch a late evening train for Taunton, then on to Bilhampton. She could, with luck, be back in her constituency by breakfast time tomorrow.

  She was still in the kiosk when he returned, talking earnestly, one elbow propped on the bracket, one leg raised and resting on the ledge. She seemed smaller and remote somehow, a serious, animated girl, but removed from him, deep in her own concerns. The sudden change in their relationship made his heart ache.

  She rang off at last and came out, flushed and distant. When he gave her the times of alternative trains, she said. ‘I’ll catch that twelve-thirty. You go back, collect our things, lock up, and give the key to Witherby’s clerk.’

  ‘But you haven’t even got a toothbrush, woman. Besides, it’ll be damned cold travelling all night down to that Godforsaken place.’

  ‘I’ve got a mac. How much money have you on you?’

  ‘About three pounds.’ He gave it to her. He knew her well enough to know that a protest would only mean they parted with acrimony and this he was determined to avoid. ‘Could you bring my things on? Leave them in the left-luggage office at Taunton, then send me the ticket? There’s no mad hurry in that respect. I’ve got a change at the digs.’

  ‘I can bring your bags to you on my way back with Grace.’

  Her expression softened. For the first time since she had read the poster she looked at him as a friend and not a stranger who happened to be standing around. ‘No, Davy. It’s sweet of you, and I’m terribly sorry it had to happen like this, but you don’t get yourself mixed up in this election. Not until you see how things work out at Bamfylde.’

  ‘But that’s silly. Term doesn’t begin for a fortnight. I’ll have time on my hands once I’ve parked Grace.’

  ‘No, Davy, this is my show. You’ve got a battle on yourself, remember? Don’t give them ammunition to fire at you. This election is going to be very bitter indeed. All kinds of smears are going to be laid on, all kinds of abuse thrown about, so stay clear of it until you straighten things out back there. If they make life impossible for you, and you decide to pack it in, I’d be very glad of your help. But not otherwise.’

  He made one last effort. ‘Look here, you know you can’t possibly win that seat now. Everyone will be waving the Union Jack like mad in Tory-held constituencies. Is there any point in it, really? I mean, why don’t we concentrate on getting Rowley off our backs and marrying as soon possible?’

  She said, slowly, ‘We’ll marry, Davy. Some time, some place. That much I promise you, providing you don’t find someone else. And if you did I wouldn’t blame you. I’d always remember you with love, and a lot of respect. But in the meantime I owe it to myself to make a fight. I owe it to those people down there, who backed me against male candidates, but even more to myself. You’ve achieved something, but I haven’t. Not a damn thing so far and here’s what might be my last chance to have another go. Don’t deny it me.’

  There was no kind of answer to that. They walked to the station, hand in hand, and when the train came in he saw her aboard, buying her an armful of papers and journals to enable her to get up to date en route. He said, as the whistle blew, ‘I’m beginning to hate railway platforms. You won’t object to me phoning from town, will you?’

  ‘Phone every night if you can afford it,’ she said. ‘I’ll need that where I’m going.’

  He kissed her and held her hand after the train had begun to move. Then, releasing it, he watched her face until it was blotted out by smoke, just as it had been on most of the occasions they had met since he walked her to the station at Cardiff after that Christmas confessional in a pub.

  2

  The showdown, for him, came within a week of the commencement of the Michaelmas term.

  The old warrior rang late at night, a few moments after he had had his talk with Christine, battling it out against frightful odds at South Mendips. The brigadier said, testily, ‘Been trying to raise you for nearly an hour, they said you were engaged speaking.’

  ‘So I was, Briggy. Long-distance.’

  ‘Well, it’s happened. There was a special meeting of the Executive yesterday, and there’s a full meeting in the library tomorrow. More than half the Board have promised to attend and they’ll hear you both. One at a time of course. You first, I understand. Thought you might like to go over your brief. I’d be kicked off the Board if anyone knew I’d tipped you off!’

  ‘I know that, Briggy. You’ve been a brick, all the way through. Can you give me a hint how it might go?’

  ‘No, I can’t. Might go any way. No precedent for a dam’ silly confrontation like this. But if it means anything at all I’d say it was a point in your favour, them agreeing to meet in this way, I mean. Damn it, you don’t carpet a headmaster every day of the week, do you, and that’s what it amounts to! You’ll get a fair hearing, both of you. That dry old stick, Sir Rufus, will make sure of that. It’ll depend on him in the end. The O.B.
s will stand with you but there’s only three of us on the committee. God knows how the odds and sods will react. Depends on the sort of case you put up, I imagine. I’ve only got one more piece of advice and it’s the same as I’ve given you time and again since this blew up. Stick to the point. Don’t lambast him or his policy. Keep to the personal issue, my boy.’

  ‘Sure. And thanks again, Briggy.’

  ‘Been a pleasure. Can’t stand that fellow. Too bloody pernickety. Best o’ luck.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The phone clicked and David slowly replaced his own receiver, pouring himself a drink and carrying it to the armchair that faced the window. In the summer, and throughout the earliest weeks of the Michaelmas term if the weather was fine, he kept his armchair here, facing south-east across the moor. The moon was full and silver light lay on the pastures, silhouetting the beeches in the drive, trees still wearing their full spread of leaves, for the earliest south-wester lies were still a week or two away.

  It was very still and empty out there. An owl hooted in Algy’s thinking post, his favourite perch because it was within easy killing-range of vermin in the planty. He tried to marshal his thoughts, but instead of rehearsing his brief found his mind ranging over random incidents of the past, back to the night he first sat here as Bat Ferguson’s lodger, a callow, inexperienced youth, beginning to get the feel of the place. Towser, Ferguson’s dog, now twelve by his reckoning, was the only Havelock survivor of that time, apart from himself. He ran his hand over the dog’s head, recalling how his barks had averted what might so easily have been a terrible tragedy the night of the fire. Other memories stole upon him, smoke from a bonfire that had never burned itself out. Beth’s laughter as, five months gone, she had waddled up and down in Yum-Yum’s costume; Stratton-Forbes, earnestly discussing the root causes of bedwetting in the Junior dorm; Chad Boyer, making his final call, with the gift of Bourgoyne’s and Marbot’s memoirs; Carter, offering him a partnership with no strings, Chris’s one visit here last Sports Day, and her light-hearted remark, ‘It’s the only room in the entire place that doesn’t smell like a barracks. It’s got another smell. It smells of bachelors.’