On emerging from church she saw the stranger again, shuffling off down the village street.
‘One of Cranton’s people,’ commented a good-wife to whom Ellen had just said good morning.
‘Oh? I thought they never came to church.’
‘Best not, if they can’t come decent.’
A shadow of uneasiness fell upon Ellen’s sunny mood. Nobody visited Cranton’s people. They were not parishioners. They were not tenants. Nobody knew what went on in that black valley. Who cares for them? she wondered. Poor people need somebody to care for them. Their lot would be too hard else.
This qualm of doubt subsided when Latymer offered her his arm. It was the first time that any gentleman had done so. There were so few of them in her life, and their arms were always laden with more important women. Now she had one all to herself; there was not even an older sister on the other side to monopolise the conversation. She might still be in the schoolroom, she might be wearing a close bonnet, but she had taken a marked step towards maturity. She waited for him to say something, which was unusual with her, since she loved to chatter. But he walked on in silence, rather faster than was necessary. The arm on which she hung grew stiffer and harder, as though some barrier was rising between them.
He was, in fact, struggling with a desire to kiss her, an impulse of which he felt heartily ashamed. Only a scoundrel would entertain such a notion so soon after kneeling with her at the altar. She was too young to be kissed. She was too old to be kissed. He must be more guarded in his conduct. In four days he would be gone, never to see her again or hear of her again, for he doubted whether Brandon would care to keep up the acquaintance. Had she been his sister … but he could not help preferring that she should not be his sister. Had she been three years older … What if she had? He was too poor, too friendless, to entertain hopes of that sort. He sighed.
Ellen, hearing the sigh, nearly burst into tears. In four days he would be gone to a life of forlorn solitude, away on the sea, with no Mama to write him letters.
‘But you have a sister!’ she exclaimed.
Startled, he turned to look at her.
‘She’ll write to you. But not from home. Only from Jamaica. She won’t be able to say that the snowdrops are out or that the hay is all in.’
‘Yes, yes! That’s what one wants from home. News of the garden and the neighbours and the dogs.’
‘Is there nobody … down in Yorkshire?’
‘Nobody now. But I’m luckier than many. Plenty of fellows get no letters at all, not even from a sister in Jamaica.’
‘No letters at all? How shocking!’
‘They can’t read. Their families can’t write. They must get a friend to write for them and that’s not the same thing. I remember one … he brought me a letter he had had, and asked me to read it to him. It was to tell him that his wife was dead, and their first child with her. Some pompous fool had written the letter. It was full of fine phrases … melancholy occasion … pious resignation … the dear remains … and so forth. But I don’t think he minded it as much as I should have in his shoes.’
‘Oh dear! How very sad.’
She pictured the little scene, pitied the poor man, but thought him lucky to be in the same ship with Latymer.
‘Should you like it,’ she asked suddenly, ‘if Mama were to write to you?’
‘Oh, I could never think of troubling …’
‘It would be no trouble to her. She loves writing letters. Especially to people who will answer. She even writes to Romilly, who never answers. I know Stretton is not home. But it’s a place in England and you’ve seen it. You know how it looks, and who all the people are.’
And I should hear of you again! thought Latymer.
‘We could tell you all the news. We can tell you if that wicked man, who has got Dr. Newbolt’s book, repents upon his death bed and sends it back. We can tell you …’
We! We!
‘If it would give you pleasure, I’ll suggest it to her.’
‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure.’
Careful! Something a trifle unguarded about that?
‘I mean … I should be delighted … too kind of your mother … but it would be asking too much….’
‘No indeed. Consider what we owe to you! If it were not for you I daresay we should all be ground down under the tyrant’s heel. Like Europe.’
Latymer, with great complacency, accepted credit for the entire British Navy. If Mrs. Brandon were to write, his conscience would be clear. If we meant that Ellen slipped in a note or so, her mother would know of it and could discourage it if she disapproved. Nor should anybody accuse him of negligence in reply. Such a correspondence might give him an excuse for coming back. On his next leave … preferment … prize money … no longer so very ineligible … and Ellen would be older.
His arm grew less stiff. He looked at the distant house with affection. It was not home. It was more than home, since it sheltered the dearest creature in the world. Even had that first home at Braythorpe still existed he might now be more eager for news of Stretton.
Whatever might lie before him, he was aware of one great gain. He had been cured of the illusion that a Miss Mary Baines had broken his heart. She was not, she never had been, the fancied creature whose image he had cherished for so long. He thought of her now, a little apologetically, as ‘poor Mary’ as though she had been a deceased acquaintance, remembered with good-will but without distress.
‘You’ll want to know how Rom goes on,’ continued Ellen. ‘How long do you think he will stay here?’
‘I don’t know him very well, remember. He seems to be fond of changing his mind.’
‘He never knows what he wants. That’s the trouble. It’s very tiresome, having him here, though it’s a shame to say so, poor Rom! Everybody wishes he would go, even Mama, though she won’t own to it. She’s so afraid he will marry Venetia Newbolt.’
‘Should you be telling me this?’
‘You must have seen as much for yourself.’
‘She’s very handsome … Miss Venetia. And clever, I imagine?’
Ellen hesitated and then said:
‘A lady should never criticise another lady to a gentleman. Especially if she is very handsome. The other lady, I mean.’
‘They do sometimes,’ remembered Latymer.
‘They’d better not. The gentleman is always likely to take the side of the handsome lady. You would, I’m sure.’
He protested rather half-heartedly.
‘Female jealousy, you’d think. So it’s of no use to tell you that Venetia is quite horrid. She’s completely selfish. It’s all scheming and pretence, whatever she says or does. Even Amabel is beginning to see it, though she was taken in for a while, because she’s a bit of a schemer herself, and people of that sort, you know, deceive one another more easily than they do us. Now … say it!’
‘Female jealousy!’
He jerked her arm so as to give her a little shake. They both laughed.
‘But I’m sure Rom knows it. He don’t really like her. He pays her attention so as to scare us all into perfect submission.’
‘He’d better look sharp then. I fancy the lady knows what she’s about, even if he doesn’t.’
‘I’m not so sure. In some ways she has behaved very stupidly. She was so insolent to Mama yesterday that she gave Charlotte an excuse for ordering her out of the house. She’s been told not to come here any more unless she is invited. I don’t call that clever, do you? Not if she’s really after Rom.’
‘Does he know of it?’ asked Latymer thoughtfully.
‘Oh no. And nobody is going to tell him, naturally.’
‘Still … if he finds out … he’s so much inclined to oppose Lady Baddeley, whatever she does … might he not …?’
‘Insist on bringing Venetia back? I suppose he might. And that would be quite a victory for her. Oh dear! You don’t suppose that Venetia got herself turned out on purpose? In order to …’
&n
bsp; ‘Oh no!’ said Latymer. ‘I never meant that. But I think Lady Baddeley has played into her hands.’
‘It would be just like Venetia to do it on purpose. She’s horridly clever. And Rom is so easily … he’s just the sort of man to marry a very disagreeable woman, quite by mistake. I’ve often wondered why so many of them do, when they have a large choice of agreeable ones. But I begin to see.’
‘Yes,’ said Latymer. ‘There’s nothing in the world safeguards a man’s happiness so well as to be quite sure … perfectly sure … of what he wants.’
Ellen looked at him. Their eyes met. Flushing scarlet he turned his head away to stare, with fixed intensity, at the canal. His arm became quite rigid. Only a scoundrel would exchange glances with a tender young creature in a close bonnet.
4
ROMILLY HAD INTENDED that morning to grin and to shake hands, on his way out of church, with a grace and affability which should erase all former impressions. He had no wish to distress his mother or to be known through the neighbourhood as a boor. He merely wished to do these things at his own time and in his own way.
Thanks to Charlotte the whole business was conducted in a manner calculated to enrage and humiliate him. She gave him no chance to take the initiative. She and Bet planted themselves half-way down the path, so that he could not possibly get by. Having thus cut off his retreat they beckoned people forward whilst his mother, in frightened undertones, reminded him of their names. It was made plain to the world that his family were forcing him to behave himself.
When, at last, they let him go he flung off to the stables, got a horse, and set off at a gallop towards the Welsh hills. Some time passed before he grew calm enough to remember that there was nothing to be hoped for, in the way of dinner, west of Stretton. The villages were small and the inns wretched. Nobody of any consequence lived in that direction except the Freemans. They would be glad enough to see him, they were always glad to see anybody, but he would have to be civil to them, and some hours must elapse before he could put on a civil face again.
He turned and made for Slane Forest. Gradually his pace slackened as he debated means for getting even with Charlotte. This was no new occupation. They had squabbled in their cradles. Many follies which he now regretted had been provoked by her domineering ways. The fact that she always came off victorious did not, even now, discourage him.
The scarlet fever scare seemed to have subsided, yet she showed no signs of going. He was beginning to doubt whether attentions to Venetia were really the most effective form of attack. His ladies were obviously much alarmed; they knew exactly how often he called at the Parsonage and how long he stayed there. But this very panic might have determined Charlotte to remain, in case they needed support. He must take active steps to render her sojourn uncomfortable whilst giving her no grounds for declaring it necessary. He would drop his visits to the Parsonage but, in future, any order given by Charlotte should be reversed as soon as he heard of it. She should be obliged to ask his leave before taking so much as a donkey chair round the park. If she wanted to visit the greenhouses she must come to him for the key. He would, moreover, support his mother and the girls, whom she bullied abominably, in any gesture of rebellion.
He had ridden far into the forest before he realised that any scheme for dining in Severnton must be given up. It was much too far away. He was growing very hungry, nor was he certain of his direction. The only good road went up the hill by Cranton’s pottery. He had entered the forest by a lane several miles to the south of that point. It was a rough track but it seemed to be leading somewhere, since it was clear of weeds and rutted by wheel marks. Sooner or later he might reach a hamlet where he could ask the way.
He went on and let the charm, the silence, of the forest soothe his irritation. He had always loved these trees. They seemed to be so old, as though they had stood there for ever and owned no man as master. Presently he began to laugh a little at himself and Charlotte and the morning’s fiasco. She could not stay for ever. Baddeley would want her back, or think that he did: if he did not she would be off in a great bustle to discover why not.
The track plunged downwards. He could smell wood smoke. There must be houses down below, he thought, and then got a glimpse of them. A few cottages clustered at the bottom of a deep ravine. Slane St. Mary’s! He remembered it now, though it was not a spot which he cared to remember. But he went on because there was nothing else to do. He would have recognised the lane before had it been in better repair; ten years ago it had looked more like a road. Plenty of roaring company used to clatter down this hill when old Knevett was alive, but nobody was likely to come there now, and the Manor House was deserted. The present owner preferred to live elsewhere, which was not surprising.
Knevett’s death had been very horrible, for his creditors had invoked the law to refuse him burial until his debts were paid. All the servants fled, leaving the corpse on the great bed upstairs. When, after some months, matters were settled, it was found that the rats had left very little to bury. Nobody could speak of Slane St. Mary’s without a shudder.
There was nothing astir in the village when Romilly came down to it, no evidence of human life save a thread of smoke from a chimney or two. The cottage walls were crumbling, the thatch weedy and broken, and the little gardens full of broken earthenware, ordure and rags. They had always been a brutish lot down there; little better could be expected with such a squire. Nor had they any resident parson. The living was held by an absentee, who sent a curate over occasionally to gabble Divine Service in a dank and empty church.
There had been an inn, by the bridge. It was still there, the Knevett arms hanging crooked by the door, but when he peered through one of the broken windows he saw that it, too, was deserted. He remembered it as a lively sort of thieves’ kitchen. The servants of the Quality visiting the Manor House used to carouse there, night after night, along with half the village whores in the county.
The lane went up again to Slane Bredy, over the hill. A few minutes later he passed the gates of the Manor House but did not linger as the whole region smelt abominably of pigs. It was hard to believe that he had, at one time, often turned in at those gates. He had been numbered among Knevett’s boon companions who were mostly either old and dirty or young and callow. For that folly he had mainly Charlotte to thank. She had incited his father against him and promoted attempts to choose his acquaintance for him. Slane St. Mary’s was forbidden, a by-word, never mentioned without disapproval. Thither therefore he went, so soon as the old man tried to curb his independence. He had, in truth, liked Knevett as little as he had liked Scrutty Phelps, ten years later, but the same perversity drove him to both. The debauchery of Long Bickerton, however, had been elegant, refined, compared with the rustic saturnalia of Slane St. Mary’s. Scrutty’s guests were drunk every night. Knevett’s guests were never sober. Scrutty’s Seraglio had at least been introduced to soap and water. The forest nymphs, occasionally summoned from their roost in the ale house, were for ever scratching their heads. It was a short-lived folly. A few months, between his break with Jenny and his departure to London, saw the beginning and end of it.
As he left the place behind he thought of Stretton, and for the first time in his life felt some gratitude to his father, and his father’s father, for preserving so fair an inheritance. He could himself take no credit for it but he began to be glad that he had contrived to look like a respectable squire after church that morning. If the women would but refrain from hints and covert reproaches he might, in time, go further. To improve the lot of his people might well become an Object and, once he set about it, he would certainly outshine his stick-in-the-mud forebears. He might study the newest methods of agriculture and come up with suggestions which would startle old Giles. There must be a great deal, in that way, to be done. The thought of it compensated for the fact that he had, as yet, done nothing.
The smell of pigs still hung on the air but grew fainter as he inwardly defended himself. He might so far have don
e no good in the world but he could not allow that he had done any harm. His folly, idleness and occasional dissipation had hurt nobody. No victims would rise to accuse him at the Last Day. He might, moreover, have been more actively good had he not been so totally out of sympathy with his seniors. He was, at heart, a reformer. To preserve the status quo, even though it was pretty tolerable, would never satisfy him: for them it was the whole duty of man. His mind must inevitably run on changes, on improvements. To change anything at Stretton was an unpardonable crime.
Old Newbolt now, he thought, whistling a little tune as he rode, Old Newbolt now … an excellent man in his way … but never wanted to leave things better than he found them. Content to see that they grow no worse. Shuts his eyes to any alarming evil. Enthusiasm! With him that’s another name for lunacy. Now I, by nature, am an enthusiast. That’s my trouble … in a nutshell. Yes … yes … education, rank … the age … bid me flinch at the word, but I’m an enthusiast. Once an Object appeals to me … if there had been anyone who entered into my thoughts … my feelings … no companion … I have always been very solitary … Oh once I had a kind companion … even now they don’t know me. They’ve not the least idea … Oh go and leave me if you want to! That will never trouble me … Ellen, perhaps, might in time become a companion … a kind companion … I shall take her out of the schoolroom. She shall come with me on these rides. I shall talk to her … tell her … and in my grave I’d sooner be.
A Night in Cold Harbour Page 8