The Devil in Clevely (Afternoon of an Autocrat) (38 page)

This was worse than finding the chapel lopsided; more shocking, more bewildering. Without a word Amos turned and went into the workroom and fell on his knees by the bench. 'Take it to the Lord in prayer,' the hymn said, and he did that--all the troubles and the puzzles and the hurts. Damask, he felt instinctively, was at the root of the trouble; he prayed for her, and he prayed for strength and guidance to help him to deal with her----

His chance came on the following Saturday. He had felt for a long time that her visits were deliberately timed to avoid him and he saw no harm in a little subterfuge. He went out as usual, in case his movements were watched, and then came back again.

The tea was made by that time and Julie and Damask were sitting over it, their elbows on the table, their heads together. Damask had asked at once what had happened to the little brown teapot and had been told.

'We ain't spoke a word to one another since,' Julie said, rather piteously. Her rage had flared and then died down like a fire of dry sticks with no log to kindle and she would have been glad to make peace if Amos had given a sign. If he had just admitted that he was hasty over the teapot she would have broken down and cried and apologised for the way she had spoken; but Amos remained silent, prayed more than ever and regarded her coldly.

'That seem so queer,' Julie said, 'to live aside anybody as close as we do and not talk. Not that he ever minded what I said, or answered much...But if I give in now he'd think he was right, and I know he ain't. I know there ain't no harm in a cup of tea for instance; nor in you letting your hair curl, natural.'

'I'll bring you a new teapot. There are several never used. Which would you like--a china one painted with flowers, or a pewter, or a silver one?'

Some slight uneasiness flared in Julie.

'I thought, maybe, just an old one, past use. I mean...well, I couldn't go taking a silver teapot.'

'Why not? Everything in the house is for me to do as I like with. Now that you've once stood up for yourself and don't have to hide things away any more I'll bring you lots of things. Anything you like--blankets, a down quilt, cushions for your chair. Why not? There's room after room in that house fully furnished and never entered except now and then for dusting.'

'But...still all Miss Parsons',' said Julie timidly, anxious not to offend.

'We share it. I look after her and she provides me with what I need; and if I need things for you, then I can have them.'

Before Julie could express any of the wondering gratitude which she felt, the sound of the outer door opening reached their ears.

Her recent declaration of defiance had not rendered Julie immune from a feeling of guilt; she started and said, 'Oh! There's your father!'

'Never mind. Just go on drinking your tea and take no notice of what he says.' She put her hand briefly upon Julie's misshapen one and Julie smiled and was calm, much as Miss Parsons was when similarly handled; she was obedient too, and lifted her cup just as Amos opened the inner door.

He said 'Hullo, Damask' just as he always had done upon finding her at home. Then he added 'I'm glad you came tonight. I've got things to say to you.'

She said 'Hullo, Father' and her red lips shaped a smile; above them the golden eyes were cold and deadly.

'One thing,' Amos said, 'is this here tea. Your mother says there's no harm in tea and I ain't saying there is, apart from it being a luxury and an indulgence of the flesh; but there's harm in bringing things out of your employer's house--and you never have yet looked me in the face and said that Miss Parsons give you leave to bring it. And there's harm in breaking your word, which is what you and your mother atwixt you hev made me do. No more tea in this house, I said, till the chapel is finished. The Lord expect a man to keep his own house in order and wouldn't take into account that you both went behind my back. That's one thing,' said Amos, checking off a point made, much as he did when he was in the pulpit. 'Then there is this business of your neglecting your worship. Great pains I took, time you first went out to work, to fix for you to come to chapel regular. Without a word to me you went and changed your job and never been in- ' side the chapel since. That ain't right, and you know it. I don't know what manner of servant you call yourself nowadays, but you seem to hev a lot of freedom; and do Miss Parsons value you as highly as you make out, she'd give . you time off to get to chapel once a month. And if you don't care to ask her, I will. I been sadly lax, letting all this time pass without doing nothing, but now I seen the error of my ways. That's the second thing. And now we come to the matter of your appearance. 'Tisn't seemly that you, my daughter, a well-brought up, godly girl, should go about decked out like the whore of Babylon-- that dress you're wearing this minute ain't decent, Damask, cut so low I can see where your breasts begin. Every time I see you you look more of a scarlet woman--I ain't saying you are, but you look like it. And if, as you said to me the first time I spoke, 'tis Miss Parsons' wish you should look like a trollop, then there's only one thing to do, and that is give in your notice.'

At that point even his logwindedness, practised in exhortations, gave out.

Julie sat sipping her tea, and sipping her tea as though her very life depended on it. Save for the slight noise as she swallowed, the room was very still when Amos's voice ceased.

Damask put her elbows on the table again, shaking out the lace of her sleeves as though deliberately flaunting it; she linked her fingers and set her chin on them and eyed Amos steadily for a moment. Then she asked, with exaggerated sweetness: 'Have you quite finished? Then I have two things to say to you. The first is about Danny Fuller.'

Despite the admonition to be calm, Julie gave another slight start at the sound of that name; and she would have put her cup down but seemed unable to. Another sip would steady her, she thought, and drank again. 'I don't mind what Danny Fuller did,' Damask said; 'it was a good thing for me, in every way. But he could have made me look silly, walking me home from the chapel and fetching me from here on my free days and then marrying Sally Ashpole. It just happened that I was saved from looking silly; but any decent father, with natural feelings for his daughter, would have thought twice before selling Danny Fuller the land he wanted. That's one thing,' she said, with a sudden brutal mimicry of Amos's pulpit manner. 'It isn't the important one, though. That's the way you treat my mother. Years and years she's had no comforts-- not because you couldn't earn the money but because you was...' Oh dear, what a slip! How did that happen? '...were too good and holy to tend to your trade. Nobody minded that. But now that things have changed and she could have a few little pleasures and an easier time you just grudge it. Your chapel didn't go lopsided because Mother had a cup of tea, and if you were honest with yourself you'd know it. And you didn't break her nice little brown teapot because you thought tea-making was wrong. You broke it because you had to take your temper out on something. You were angry with God, really; so you smashed a teapot!'

She thought that would make him flinch, or at least shake his calm.

'You're wrong there, my girl. 'Tain't for me nor any man to be angry with the Almighty. God was displeased with me, and rightly, as I've been pointing out to you.'

He looked straight into her eyes. Something like fury moved in her. She remembered the Squire; even Mr Mundford had said that he had felt his knees weakening. She gathered herself for the test.

'You'll apologise to Mother for breaking her teapot.' she said. 'Go on; apologise, Amos Greenway.'

'Now that,' said Amos, 'is no way to speak to your father. That look to me as though you're forgetting the fourth commandment as well as a whole heap of other things. "Honour thy father and thy mother", I must remind you. Honouring ain't calling your father by his first name, nor honouring your mother ain't smuggling things out of one door into another just to pander her. What else is in that basket?'

'No concern of yours. Put that basket down; put it down.'

'Bottles,' said Amos.

'Now what do they contain?'

'Medicine. Stuff she should have had to ease her years ago if you'd been half a man.' She was breathless with anger. Twice he'd defied her. 

'Who paid for it?'

Insultingly she told him the truth, heedless of the result for Julie. 'It went on the bill with the doctor's fees for tending Bennett and the stuff Miss Parsons had for her cough. Pay for it yourself if you feel badly about taking it.'

'You know I can't do that. Doctor's medicine ain't for poor people. But you earn money seemingly. You pay for what you bring your mother--tea and sugar and all; and until I know you do don't you let me see anything else brung into this house.'

Once more she mustered all her forces and tried to beat down his eyes, but he outfaced her and she knew that this battle must be fought out on the level with ordinary human weapons. She had one ready, bright and sharp.

'You weren't so particular, were you, about making twenty acres of land you'd no claim to. Everybody was asking how you came by that, but I didn't notice you concerning yourself. You can grab as greedily as anybody else when it's something you want. Maybe that's why the chapel went lopsided, built on ill-come-by ground!'

Now he was shaken; his face went grey and seemed to shrivel in on itself. He reached out his big work-scarred hands and set them on the back of a chair as though for support. Julie knew another pang of that same pity and let out a sound,-half moan, half protest. Damask watched him with an almost visible amusement, gloatingly. He had defied her; let him suffer.

He spoke at last. 'I never thought of it,' he said. 'Matt Ashpole and the rest come here asking me to account for it and I said I couldn't, Thass true I never asked a question, never made a move to find out. Maybe I stand condemned for that. Maybe in your rage agin me, Damask, you said a true word.' He swallowed audibly. 'There it was, it seemed all legal and above-board, and I took it and reckoned it a gift from God.'

He had never, in any pulpit, spoken more movingly or with more dignity.

'I'll go straight to Mr Hadstock tomorrow...and ask,' he said his voice faltering as he realised that the land was sold, the money spent. If something had been wrong about his allotment it was late now to set it right. He couldn't, but God could...'

'This,' he said, more firmly, 'is a matter for the Lord. And I ask you, my family, to come with me now to the mercy seat and ask forgiveness for past sins and errors and guidance in the future.'

He looked from one face to another as he spoke; and then, as though to set an example, went down on his knees.

'I must go now,' Damask said. She laid her hand on Julie's shoulder and whispered, 'I'll come soon and bring you a teapot.' Then she went hurriedly.

Almost as soon as she had gone Julie moved stiffly from her chair and stiffly went down on her knees beside Amos, close enough to let him know that he was not alone in his misery and his bewilderment and his search.

All-Hallows' E'en dawned murkily. Mrs Fred Clopton, leaving the bed of unrest upon which she had worried the night away, peeped out at first light and burst into angry nervous tears. It was going to be foggy and the party-- the most ambitious one she had ever planned--would be ruined. Maternal love had made her bold, and this year she had cast her net wide; except for Mr Avery and the Routs from Wood Farm, all her choicest guests had some distance to travel, and if it stayed foggy...She wept hysterically as she thought of the waste; the floor polished to glassy perfection for the dancing; Miss Trent, the music teacher from Baildon, already in the house; old Lantern and the boy whom he had taught and of whom he spoke so highly, Jacky Fenn, bespoken to bring their fiddles; the elegant cold buffet supper to be served in the dining-room; new dresses for herself and the girls. All to be wasted because the November weather had arrived a little too soon. Crazily she accepted it as a sign. Her plans would fail, Ella and Phyllis would never have another chance; they would marry local yokels, comfortably off, perhaps, but unrefined. It would all be wasted.

'Cheer up, lass,' Fred said, 'Fog afore seven, clear afore eleven.'

'Before,' said Mrs Clopton with a gulp and a sob. 'How can we ever hope to get on with you talking like a workman and then this fog?'

Mr Mundford, looking out only a moment or two later, regarded the change in the weather with pleasure.

He gave no outward sign, he did not smile or rub his hands or make a sound of satisfaction, but something stirred, deep and cold and certain within him. With the discovery of Damask Greenway he had known that all his material needs were met, and his next act had been to work out, by a study of the moon's phases and certain astrological charts, the best possible date for what he still spoke of--modestly--as 'the experiment'. When, after the first casting, that date appeared to fall on All-Hallows' E'en it had so astounded and amazed him that he had worked out all his calculations again, without changing the result. He knew then that success was certain. He had the right place--a place of worship; mellow with the memory of many men's yearning towards the unknown, the superhuman, yet free of the taint of the Nazarene. In that place, so long sealed away, the dark symbolic blood had drenched the altar in a ceremony that reached backwards to the beginning of time. Mithras, old god as he was, in Mr Mundford's sight, a newcomer, but his rites were the old ones. The legendary Abel, second generation of mankind, had sacrificed his animals, and so the blood sacrifice was a close link with that.lost time when Lucifer was recognised for what he was, a rebellious angel, strong enough to do battle with those on the other side, Michael and his angels. Mr Mundford, set upon disinterring the thing which had been overlaid and lost so long ago--lost, one might almost say, in the very Garden of Eden--was able to put the right value upon this tenuous link with that lost time. Yes, the place was perfect.

And he had--again by what seemed an accident--instead of an ignorant stupid female child, half unwilling, half frightened, bullied or bribed into collaboration, Damask Greenway. A mere novice, of course; but the sign was on her, some sort of vision had been vouchsafed her--oh, the naivety of her attempted description! 'In a place...and light was something you could touch and handle; and colour...colour was something you could taste...and time was...you could see it.' She'd had one glimpse, that was all, but she had come back with something: the power to impose her will and the daring to use that power, even on Richard Shelmadine.