The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (23 page)

Quite happily Miss Parsons allowed herself to be led home.

That Mr Turnbull--Mr Lawyer Turnbull, as many people called him--was a kindly man was evident in the way in which he received his roughly dressed, roughly spoken visitor and allowed him to sit down and tell his story without interruption. But when Matt had finished the lawyer allowed his amusement to show plainly.

'Really,' he said. 'One of the most ingenious ideas I have ever encountered.' He leaned back in his chair and gave Matt an appreciative look. 'Whose idea was it?'

Matt was not quite sure of the meaning of the word 'ingenious' or of 'encountered' so he hesitated for a moment before committing himself, and then said cautiously: 'It was me that had the idea something might be a bit odd-like, sir.'

'And I suspect that you hoped that if the signature were questioned at this last moment everything might be held up for another year.'

'Well, if it did that it'd be all to the good. Arter all, a year's a year when you look like losing everything.'

'Indeed yes. Leaving the matter of Miss Parsons' signature aside for the moment, tell me--how many of the Clevely Waste-holders have anything to show in the way of a claim?'

The Squire had asked the very same question. Watching the lawyer very closely, Matt said: 'Matt Juby dug up a paper, and Amos Greenway-- though he ain't with us in this thing--did come down to tacks and spell it out for him; and that told how way back his careful old great-great-grandad did get leave from the Squire to build a cottage and graze his beasts. And only yesterday Bert Sadler's wife hunted out one that looked just the same to my eye, but we ain't had time to get Amos's word for it yet. Thass about all, I reckon.'

No glint of pleasure shone in Mr Turnbull's eye; he looked serious and concerned and Matt was encouraged to say: 'Maybe we all had papers in the past; but you know how it is, sir--folks that can't read or write don't set such store by papers as them that can. And there ain't much space for hoarding such things----'

'No, unfortunately. Well, I'm afraid that in that case the most the rest of you can hope for will be a charitable allotment. And that rather depends...'

He broke off, thinking how much better the small people of Clevely would have fared if the old Squire could have been persuaded to enclose, or by some means forced to enclose. Sir Charles's very horror of the results of enclosure would have led him to mitigate its evils as far as possible. Mr Turnbull's dealings with Richard had led him to conclude that the new Squire was pleasant, but not at all inclined to be sentimental.

'That depend,' Matt said, 'on what the owners say, you mean? And that was what I had in mind when I went to see Squire. Then I reckoned I'd put it to Miss Parsons too; and, as I just told you, she said she was against the whole thing and never had signed no paper. Yet there her name is, plain as print. So I thought I'd ask you what you made out of it.'

'I think that it was genuine forgetfulness on her part. She is very forgetful. Or it might be that your request embarrassed her and she didn't want to promise you anything and at the same time didn't like to refuse point-blank, and so took refuge in...well, an untruth. I've known women tell far worse lies than that merely to avoid a moment's unpleasantness; haven't you?'

'There is such a thing as forgery, as you should know, sir,' Matt persisted.

'Indeed there is. But to forge a signature and then expose it in a public place under the very nose of the person whose signature it was supposed to be would be unusual, to say the least. And to whose profit would it be to commit forgery in this case? Nobody would gain anything...'

'Except somebody as wanted to enclose and knew the old lady was dead against it,' Matt said shrewdly.

'Now, now,' said the lawyer warningly, 'you mustn't start making such suggestions.'

'And mark you,' Matt pressed on, 'anybody that thought of it could count on the old...lady never seeing it. She don't go about. The chance is she never would of known the paper was there, not 'less I went and told her. And I don't reckon there's many folks in Clevely know how Miss Parsons write. But that you do, sir, and so I reckoned I'd come to you.'

'Well, if it would ease your mind at all, I'm willing to look at it; but I'm sure my opinion will only confirm it. I visit Miss Parsons once a quarter. I'll come next week, on Tuesday.'

'Thass very good of you, sir; and I'm sorry to hev took up your time.'

But the getting together, the waiting to see whether Amos would speak for them, the visit to the Squire, the visit to Miss Parsons, the framing of the intention to visit the lawyer and fitting in that visit, had all taken time; Matt, like everybody else, had to devote some attention to making a living. So there was a Sunday between Matt's visit to Mr Turnbull and Mr Turnbull's visit to Clevely, and that Sunday was the third of the three demanded by the Act for the public display of the notice. There it had hung for the required time, no formal objection had been brought forward by anyone important enough to be considered, and by the day of the lawyer's visit the notice, with certain other relevant papers, was well on its way to London, where, upon receipt of it, Sir Thomas Blyborough, M.P., was ready to set the machine in motion. 

As soon as he had done his part towards promoting the enclosure of Clevely Richard was free to turn his attention to the next item of his programme of reversing his father's policy--the alteration of the Manor House itself.

Had she had the power, to oppose him Linda would have done so; as it was, at the first mention of his schemes she allowed herself to say, most indiscreetly, 'Oh, but it is so lovely as it is.' He made the predictable retort: 'Doubtless to you, my dear; but then your experience has been unfortunate.' He then spent a happy ten minutes pointing out the practical inconveniences and the aesthetic faults of the building she thought 'so lovely'.

Compared with Flocky Hall, Bridge Farm, the house where the Fullers lived and many other buildings in the parish, the greater portion of the Manor was in its infancy. Richard's grandfather had been in the middle of a building spree when the financial disaster of 1730 overtook him. He had added a Queen Anne facade, done away with many leaded casement windows, removed or concealed many heavy Tudor beams. Sir Charles, with his love of antique things, had often said, with truth, that he preferred Flocky Hall and had had a perennial joke with Mrs Abram Clopton--one day, when they both had time for such an upheaval, they would change houses.

Richard only compared his home with Greston Park, which Mr Montague, vastly enriched by his enclosure, had been able to demolish and rebuild in the Palladian style; he craved the wreaths and swags and medallions of the new plasterworrk made fashionable by the brothers Adam, the closed hearths with basket grates, the pillared entrance.

His own mother, during her brief reign, had succeeded in persuading her husband to have the dark panelling painted--the drawing-room white and gold, the dining-room a pale blue-green; and Linda, arriving forty years later, thought both rooms very beautiful, even though the unrenewed surface of the paint had faded and developed a myriad of cracks, fine as a cobweb. Richard said that the panelling must go, and both rooms be lengthened by fifteen feet. Fluted and carved marble fireplaces were ordered.

The prospect of steady work all through the winter for local labourers did a good deal to compensate for the loss of popularity among the poorer people which the move to enclose had cost the new Squire. It became evident, for instance, that Mrs Sam Jarvey at the inn no longer welcomed the discussions and grumbles about the proposed enclosure in which Matt Ashpole and the other Waste-dwellers spent their time. The work at the Manor brought a good deal of custom to her house, carpenters and bricklayers and plasterers earned good money and spent it recklessly. One day she spoke out, as she had told Sam she would if Matt and his lot kept on bellyaching about the Squire; she leaned over the bar and said clearly, 'Now that'll do, Matt Ashpole. This is a decent house, I would hev you to know, and I don't like your language.'

'I ain't using no language, Mrs Sam, that I ain't used these thutty years gone by. Hev you gone Methody or something?'

'No, I ain't. But I don't like to hear Sir Richard miscalled. He may not suit you, but he suit some all right.'

'Meaning he suit you! Well, you don't want to be shortsighted, missus! All that new trade'll go back where it come from. Us from the Waste'll still be here, and if we don't hev a spare ha'penny for ale you'll feel the draught the same as us, and you'll only hev the bloody Squire, what suit you so well, to thank.' Having made this reasonable statement, and seen it received without sympathy, with in fact a sour disapproval, Matt went on, 'What is more, if my language don't please your fancy, I'll find a place where thass welcome, along with my custom. Come on, chaps! My old Hoss and cart is still good for a jog into Nettleton.'

Once he had given his orders and made sure that the builder, a man called Farrow, understood them and was capable of carrying them out Richard suffered an attack of boredom. Having deliberately sought and gained the goodwill of his neighbours, he now found their company tedious in the extreme; the hunting and shooting with which they wiled away their country winters demanded an energy and fortitude towards cold weather which he did not possess, and the prospect of returning to his old haunts in London--this time with money in his pocket-- was irresistible.

He asked Linda whether she wished to accompany him. The question sent the clever little tightrope-walker in her mind out on another tricky little trip. There had been a time when it had been possible for her to get what she wanted by the simple expedient of expressing a wish for the opposite; but Richard had seen through that device and was apt now to say, 'Very well, so it shall be.' She knew what she wanted in this instance; all summer she had known that she could be very happy--by her modest standards--in Clevely if she could be free of Richard's company. She liked the house, and the village; she liked most of her neighbours. She had, after all, been born and reared in the country and had now, after long exile, come home. But to say outright that she wished to remain here would be to invite frustration. So she said, dully: 'For me it is a choice between two boredoms. In London you will, I imagine, spend most of your time in Soho Square, so I should be alone with nothing to do; and here I shall be alone with nothing to do.'

'That,' he said, 'is where you make your mistake, my pretty one. You will be here, alone except when Mrs Cobbold and Lady Fennel and others of the sisterhood come to cheer your solitude by drinking tea with you, but you will have plenty to do. For one thing, you will see that the workmen carry out their orders. And if it is not asking too much, I wish you to keep an eye on Master Hadstock.'

'But I don't know anything about farming,' she said quickly.

'No. For a country girl you are singularly ignorant of the practical side. But then if you were as capable as Lady Fennel I should hardly have been obliged to engage a bailiff. I know nothing about farming either, but I know that Hadstock is as self-opinionated as he is competent; that is why I shall arrange for you to overlook him. It'll do him good to be obliged to consult with and report to you.'

Really, she thought, his ability to contrive discomfort for others had a smack of genius. In the three or four months since Hadstock had been engaged to supervise the agricultural side of the estate he and Richard had had several violent differences of opinion. Hadstock was always right, Richard wrong; and Richard knew it, but derived great pleasure from provoking the man just up to the verge of saying, 'Run your farms yourself then!' At that point Richard, knowing Hadstock's worth, would withdraw and, without actually making an apology, smooth over the difference with a false and mannered courtesy which again seemed to put Hadstock in the wrong. To arrange that this man, so knowledgeable and experienced, should consult with and report to a completely ignorant woman was the kind of plan which it delighted Richard to devise. It was on a level with the manner in which he had amused himself by causing domestic friction ever since their return. He had managed to combine a perpetual complaint and carping about the food and service with a campaign of charm directed to the servants, so that every complaint appeared to originate from her. He had thus, in a subtle manner, made use of the natural suspicion and reserve with which all the old retainers greeted the new regime. Naturally the new Squire could not be a patch on the old, now sanctified by death and a model of all virtues; so somebody had to be disliked, and since the Squire was so smiling and charming, his lady constantly making suggestions for improving this and that, in no time at all the dislike was concentrated upon her. 'Linda bore it with the wry resignation with which she had borne so many other things. And now Richard was off to London and she would be left alone in peace at Clevely; she could rehabilitate herself.

On the day of his departure Richard made an early start, for the autumn days were short. It was a mild November morning with a slight bluish fog shredding away as the sun rose. Linda stood by the side door which, during the alteration to the front of the house, was used as a main exit and entrance and watched the carriage disappear along the avenue. Her relief was so profound that she was almost ashamed of it. Deliberately she looked back, remembering the time when she had looked forward, with such eagerness, to his coming; had thought him so wonderful and looked upon his attentions to herself as nothing short of miraculous. Charmed, and dazzled and flattered, completely under the spell she had been, and oh, so humble! Now she was glad to see him go.

She walked round to the front of the house where the work was in progress and knew a shame even deeper. Not only was she glad to see Richard go; for one shocking moment she had entertained a wish that he'd gone for ever. Looking upon that scene of activity, now in its most destructive stage, she had thought for a moment how wonderful it would be if Richard were never coming back; then she could stop it all, tell them to close in the two pleasant rooms now so indecently exposed, replace the old panelling, put back the heavy old door with its fanlight and portico, restore as far as possible the portion of garden now trampled and dug up and ruined, and go away. No, not quite so abruptly. Before they went she would give them a job that would be a genuine improvement--they could put windows into some of the servants' bedrooms, those dim little warrens high under the roof at the back, some of which were lighted by two panes of glass in the ceiling and provided with air by a grating high in the door. In the summer when, soon after her arrival, she had made a careful inspection of every corner of the house she had been aghast by the atmosphere in some of those apartments. Richard had pooh-poohed the suggestion that while the builders were on the premises some windows which would open could be made.