The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (20 page)

Her attention thus distracted, Miss Parsons muttered something about not wanting any more interruptions and resumed her mixing in the bowl. Richard, almost reduced to similar childlike obedience--'I'll take him away', indeed!--stepped forward and opened the door and then followed Damask through it.

'I had no idea,' he said, as soon as they stood in the hall. 'She seemed to be so rational, and then suddenly ...'

'You must have done something to upset her,' Damask said, stating the fact without blame, but equally without excuse.

Richard felt fury begin to move in him again. That detached cool manner of hers was extremely annoying; the more so because she was young and pretty and should, he felt, have been either apologetic and flustered by the whole incident or inclined to giggle about it. He looked her over before he spoke again. There was nothing prim about the tight-waisted, full-skirted muslin dress, yellow in colour and tied with an amber velvet sash, nor in the clustering bright brown curls among which the amber ear-bobs swayed, nor in the necklet of heavy amber globes tied with a matching velvet on the nape of the smooth white neck. Everything about her looked as though it had been chosen and donned with an intent to charm---and she could have been charming, should have been charming; yet her glance and her manner towards him, acceptable perhaps from some sour elderly female, was, from her, subtly insulting.

Yet, because she had handled the old woman so well that in the circumstances it might be wise to enlist, or attempt to enlist, her aid, he spoke smoothly.

'Perhaps I did; but if so, unintentionally. The unseemly scuffle which you interrupted--and I am grateful I that you did--was, as I said, merely my attempt to prevent her tearing up a list of signatures which has taken me some time to collect and which I have no time to gather again. You, of course, handle her marvellously, if I may say so. You have had much practice?'

Who was she? He imagined a relative, a great-niece or something to the old lunatic. There was, now he came to think of it, something rustic about her; it showed, not in her looks or deportment but in her voice and...yes, her hands! He had noticed them as she soothed the old woman; her hands and about half her forearms, between wrist and elbow, were not as white and smooth as one would have expected. Some poor young relative perhaps, chosen to act as companion and caretaker; and that queer manner might be the result of shyness.

Yet there was nothing shy about the girl's voice as she said--ignoring his question--'What was it you wanted her to sign? May I see?'

'Certainly. I don't suppose you will understand it, but I can assure you that to sign would be to your ...' He waited for just long enough for her to supply the missing word, but she did not...'Miss Parsons' advantage. And, as I say, she was on the very point of signing when her mood changed and she began to tear it instead.'

As they talked they had moved, by a progress so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, away from the library door and now stood almost opposite another. Damask ignoring the paper which he held out towards her, leaned forward and turned the knob of the door and pushed it open upon the large square drawing-room whose furniture and two chandeliers were shrouded in ghostly linen and whose shutters were closed.

She went over to one of the long windows and flung back the shutters so that the sunshine streamed in. Just for a moment she stood in its path, a golden gleam and shimmer; really, he thought, a most attractive little creature but for that manner which reminded him of somebody about to pull one's teeth. Shyness? Ignorance? It occurred to him that no introductions had been made.

'Permit me,' he said, 'to introduce myself. Sir Richard Shelmadine, at your service, ma'am.'

'My name is Damask Greenway. May I see the paper?'

'A very lovely and unusual name,' he said. Damn it, he was doing his best! 'And if I may be permitted to say so, extremely suitable.' To that there was no response. He handed her the paper and, assuming ignorance on her part, began to explain. She cut him short.

'I understand about enclosure. I have lived in Clevely all my life and heard enough about it. And about Greston...'

"Where forty decent poor families were thrown upon the parish",' he said, just as he had said it at Sir Stephen's table. She did not smile. She said: 'So this is how it all begins. And it ends by making all the farmers as prosperous as Fred Clopton.'

He thought then that he understood. Not a relative; some farmer's daughter with just the necessary smarter of education. Back home, helping in the dairy and with the hens and then gladly escaping, taking a post of amanuensis to a daft old woman...much as Linda had been to her cousin Maud.

'Yes,' he said, 'it will be a great thing for the farmers. But, of course, if Miss Parsons remains obdurate everything may be held up indefinitely. All the land-owners are supposed to be unanimous--to give their consent. Two of the freeholders have refused to sign; but their opposition can, I think, safely be overlooked. This is different, Miss Parsons owns a good deal of land, and unless she changes her mind very quickly she will delay the whole scheme for another year at least.'

She gave her attention to the paper, reading it, he observed, in the slow, careful manner of the unpractised, and frowning as she read.

'I'm sorry to bother you about it,' he said as pleasantly as possible. 'It is not, I know, a matter about which a pretty young lady should be asked to concern herself.'

'Oh, it concerns me,' she said. 'It concerns me very much.'

Expectations from the old woman's will, no doubt.

'I can assure you the enclosure will be greatly to Miss Parsons' advantage. For one thing, enclosed land is always of greater value than land in open fields--farmers become more prosperous and rents go up; for another, her share of the Waste would be considerable. It will be divided proportionally, you see.'

'My father is one of those who lives on the Waste.'

'Your father?'

'Amos Greenway, the cobbler.' As she spoke she raised her eyes, and for the first time he saw her gaze tinged with some expression; it was one of mockery. It was as though she said, Now change your manner to me; and see if I care!

'I see,' he said. 'Well, of course he could be safeguarded.

He may, of course, have a claim of some sort--the commissioners, that is the men who make the division, have grown more lenient of late. But suppose he can produce no shadow of claim it would be very easy for me to make him some allotment. What would you suggest?'

'I can't tell you because I can't picture in my mind how big an acre is. He must have enough.'

'That could be arranged. If you would bring a little persuasion ...'

'That isn't all. There is a man called Fuller.' 'Ah yes, I know. But he is a tenant. The enclosure would not affect him--except, of course, that his land would be all in one piece and fenced around.' 'Yes. That is what he has always wanted.' 'Well, then...?'

'That is what I don't want him to have.' She brought out the words with a deadly simplicity. 'He shouldn't have it, either. The very last thing Sir Charles did was to give him notice. On the day he died. His lease ran out on Lady Day and he should have gone then; but nobody knew, of course, and he hoped nobody would know. I'm not going to coax anybody to sign anything that will make the Fullers as rich as the Cloptons and set Sal...Mrs Fuller up in a gig!'

The spite in the last sentence brought a smile to Richard's lips. Some girlish squabble which the other female, Sal...Mrs Fuller, had probably forgotten, brooded over by this cold-eyed little cat and resulting in that venomous statement. How very odd and amusing.

But he remembered something which Miss Damask did not know--that Miss Parsons' refusal to sign was not, as he pretended, just an arbitrary mood. From the few things she had said he had pieced together another story; long ago, sanely and quite cunningly, the old woman had set herself to carry on his father's opposition to enclosure. He'd tried to trick her into signing, but she wasn't mad enough to be easily tricked. It seemed as though his one hope lay with this girl. 

'You think you could persuade Miss Parsons to sign this?'

'I could try.'

'On condition that your father is provided for and Fuller sacked?' She nodded. 'Very well, that suits me. Fuller, I understand, is an excellent tenant, but that is no rarity. When do you think you can let me have the paper?'

'Tomorrow.'

'That would be excellent. And I promise that if you manage to persuade Miss Parsons to sign I shall keep my side of the bargain.'

She looked at him again with that calm, expressionless stare; and again he was disconcerted. Once outside, mounted and on his way home, he smiled derisively at the idea that this mere girl, a cobbler's daughter, could, without saying a word, have threatened him, Richard Shelmadine. Nevertheless, at that moment, as their eyes met, some definite communication was made to him, some warning given, as though something quite apart from the girl, and infinitely powerful and knowing, had said, 'You would be wise to do so.'

During that last week of August which followed Damask's free Saturday Julie worried about her daughter a good deal. During the next week she found herself looking forward to the moment when Amos would return from chapel on the Sunday evening and, if questioned closely enough, tell her whether the girl was looking well or poorly. When that time came, however, all that Amos had to report was that Damask had not been to service at all and he entirely failed to share Julie's concern over her absence.

'She've missed Sundays afore this. When I fixed for her to hev a Sunday every month nobody said which one. She'll be there next week.'

'I'm worried,' Julie said. 'A shock like that don't show all at once. I remember that time when a girl, Jennie Brook her name was, set aside of me, sewing on the same skirt, and dropped dead. I never shrieked nor anything, then two days later I started to shake so I couldn't hold a needle. Had to go home and take a fortnight off. S'pose it took Damask that way.'

'You're too fanciful,' Amos said.

'Fanciful or not,' said Julie with unusual firmness, 'one of us has got to go to Muchanger and ask. Will it be you, or shall I hev Shad's donkey-rig?'

'You'll just make yourself look silly,' Amos said.

Taking that as permission, Julie arranged to borrow the donkey next day in the afternoon.

When he helped her into the low flat cart Shad handed Julie a stout stick and said, 'Now thass no use just a-tap- on't show all at once. I ping him, missus. Nowt on earth'll make him run, as you well know, but a whack'll keep him moving. And I'm sure I hope you'll find the little maid all right.'

'Thank you, Shad,' said Julie. She took up the reins and made the sort of sound likely to encourage a donkey.

'Go on, fetch him a whack; don't, he'll never start,' Shad cried.

Julie used the stick, timidly at first and then firmly, and the donkey moved away. Even at his slow pace Julie felt the jolting of the cart in all her stiffened joints, and when he stopped, as he soon did, she waited for some moments before rousing him to action again. Between home and the cross-roads where the grave was, bright this afternoon with scabious and knapweed, he stopped twice more and Julie began to be conscious of time's passing.

'Oh, get along, get along,' she cried. 'I surely ain't so heavy as some loads you take!'

The slow, intermittent progress continued and at last three-quarters of their journey was done and Muchanger only another mile away. Then the donkey stopped once more, and Julie hit him as usual. This time, instead of moving along, he seemed to crumple, went down on his knees and then keeled over sideways, tilting the little cart. A shaft snapped and the cart righted itself, so Julie escaped without even a bruise; but Shad's donkey, that legendary animal, the wonder of six parishes, had stopped for the last time.

This would happen to me, with Amos so against me borrowing him and all, she thought as she climbed awkwardly out of the cart and looked down at the little grey heap. She was sorry about the donkey too; for as long as she could remember he had been part of the landscape of the Waste. And she regretted that last blow.

'I'm sorry, Neddy, but I couldn't know, could I? And what am I going to do with you now? And how'm I going to get to Muchanger and back?'

She looked helplessly up and down the road. Nobody in sight. She was now miserably sure that bad news awaited her at Muchanger; this was an ill omen, surely. Tears filled her eyes.

Well, it was no use standing there crying. She must get to Muchanger somehow and know the worst. She set out to hobble the last slow mile.

The mere mention of Damask Greenway's name infuriated the Muchanger cook, always an irascible woman.

'She ain't here, thass all I know and all I can tell you. Went off a fortnight ago for her free day and never came back, and me with a dinner-party on my hands on the Sunday. Thass your creeping Methodist what had to hev a Sunday off every month so's she could go to chapel.'

'Didn't nobody get a word?'

'Mrs Cobbold got a letter and said to me that little Greenway ain't coming back. And I say good riddance.'

'Is Mrs Cobbold at home?' Julie asked, humbly.

'No, she ain't; the master neither. They're in Norfolk.'

'So nobody knows. Was it Damask wrote the letter? She can write.'

'Oh, she can write.' The woman's voice was sour. 'Always above herself, she was. How should I know who wrote the letter? I worn't told a word but what I've told you, and 'twasn't my place to ask. My job was to muddle along short-handed till another girl was found--and not a Methody this time, thank God.'

As Julie turned to hobble away the cook fired her final shaft: 'Gone to the bad, like as not. Them quiet sort is always the worst.'

Hearing it put like that, Julie knew that that was what she had, all along, feared without admitting it to herself. She had never been able to rid herself of the memory of the way in which Damask had poured the brandy into the tea; it had indicated a deliberate face-about----