Summer's End (19 page)

‘You're as daft as he is if you think I'll do that. You'll not be catching me.'

The smoke outside, caught by sudden winds, was fanned into flame, leaping perilously near the thatch, and blowing new fumes into Tom's leering face that sent him collapsing back in a heap of coughing, gasping for breath on the floor.

‘Dibble, come here!' The Rector thrust his head out, and Percy, spurred at last into action, rushed into the cottage to his master's aid. ‘Swinford-Browne, extinguish those fires or you'll kill us both. The man's old and he's sick.'

Smirking, Swinford-Browne said something to his men, who slowly began to fling earth and sand on the burning hay.

‘Help me get him to the trap, Percy. We'll take him to Dr Marden.' Percy looked with distaste at the heap on the floor, then at the Rector's face. He remembered his Christian duty.

‘He can come to the missis, afterwards. We'll care for him till you get him sorted, Rector,' Percy offered handsomely, taking half Tom
Cooper's weight as they half led, half dragged him from the cottage.

The Rector nodded. ‘Thank you,' He had not doubted it. The Dibbles were forever a trial in fair weather but a lifeboat in stormy seas.

‘I showed the old bugger, didn't I, Rector?' Tom crowed hoarsely as Poppy plodded into Station Road.

‘You did, Mr Cooper, you did.'

Saturday morning found Tom fully recovered, eating his way jauntily through a plateful of kedgeree with a side plate of kidneys returned from the Rectory dining-room chafing dishes. He announced he would be walking back to his cottage now if that was all right with the Rector. It took all morning to persuade him that a man of his fragile constitution should be in a nice warm almshouse and not in a damp, ill-maintained cottage. At last, unexpectedly, he agreed. He claimed to have been swayed by the voice of God speaking through the Rector, but in fact it was Elizabeth's apparently casual comment, as she passed through the morning room, that the empty almshouse was the one next to old Mrs Pilbeam, young Aggie's grannie, that saved the day. On summer evenings they could sit outside their respective front doors and have a chat, Tom reflected. Or inside, come to that. There might be the odd pudding in it, or stew.

‘You done me a lot of good, Rector,' Tom informed him generously. ‘So I'll do something for you now. That new cemetery you want. Tallow Field. Rented to Swinford-Browne, ain't it? I heard tell he won't give it back and you can't force him.'

‘Correct. Gossip, it seems, is the speediest means of travel in Ashden.'

‘You can tell him it's yours any time you like. He reckons because he pays his rent it's his for aye. Not so. 'Tis glebe land held by candle auction. That's why 'tis called Tallow Field.' Tom paused to pour tea daintily into his saucer and slurp it approvingly.

‘I've never heard of it. What is it?'

‘'Tis your right to hold one every two years. He who makes the last bid before the candle goes out gets to rent it for two years. No more. The old rector afore you came, he were a lazy blighter. Liked his fishing more than attending his faithful flock, and he couldn't be bothered to keep holding auctions. He fished on the Towers estate so
he let the owner rent the field without troubling about him. It'll come as a shock to Silly Billy Swinford-Browne, won't it?' he cackled.

‘Is there any proof of this?' the Rector asked doubtfully. ‘I've seen no records.'

‘You wouldn't. I got 'em. I've always been one to let sleeping dogs lie, and besides, me son had his eye on Tallow Field for new hoppers' huts. But now he's been given the order of the sack, why should I care? Him being a lettered man, my dad were churchwarden, see, at the time o' the last auction, and he kept all the papers, and I found 'em arter he were gone. The old Rector weren't interested, so I hung on and forgot 'em till this 'ere cemetery come up.'

‘Where are the papers?' A sudden thought struck the Rector.

‘There's a china ornament my old mother won at Brighton. A cottage, tedious noble it is. Lift the roof off and there's all the papers. I'll be off now to pick it up.'

The Rector started to laugh. He couldn't help it. He almost doubled up with the pain in his sides, as tears of mirth rolled down his cheeks.

‘Smoke still getting to you, Rector?' Tom asked anxiously.

‘No,' the Rector spluttered. ‘I was thinking of your former landlord. His last threat was that he was going to carry all your possessions over to the almshouse today. I trust he takes care of the china.'

‘He will surely,' Tom said gloomily, unable to see the joke himself. ‘Mus Swinford-Browne won't want to pay me no compensation, will 'e?'

The day of the tennis match had turned the cranking handle to the summer. The cool cloudy days of early June had ignited into the resplendent sun and warmth of the later half. A strawberry half June, Elizabeth had announced with satisfaction, as the first punnets appeared in the village from Hector and Eileen Roffey's market garden.

For Caroline June was blazing a trail along which she moved supremely happily, swept along by the special momentum of the Ashden summer this year made glorious by her own personal joy. The month was crowned by Reggie's birthday on the 27th, following the village pageant in the afternoon. Every year the Manor held a midsummer dance with a real band for Reggie's birthday. No uneven paving slabs here, but, unless they were very lucky, no Huggie Bears
or ragtime either. Even Lady Hunney, however, could not stamp her aura over the entire evening; it was as if the Manor permitted her to indulge in her role of social hostess, then persuaded her to step back and allow the real Hunney atmosphere to take over.

Aunt Tilly's Austin lurched up the long drive to the Manor. The others were walking, but her aunt had declared that Caroline should arrive in style. Perhaps she had guessed? Oh, May is for the lilacs, but June puts forth the roses. Caroline sniffed appreciatively as the Austin crunched to a stop. No roses were allowed to ramble here where they would, as in the Rectory. Here, before the Manor, they stood to attention like the liveried footmen, a household cavalry drawn up to salute their monarch. It didn't seem to spoil their rich smell. Nothing could spoil tonight's glory. Sir John made a special point of coming forward to greet them in the entrance hall, and not to be outdone, Lady Hunney herself. How odd the dictates of society were. You are not good enough to marry my son, Caroline, and I thoroughly disapprove of everything you do, Miss Lilley, yet I shall greet you as though you do us the greatest honour imaginable by visiting our home. Social life was like a stately dance: when the music stopped one found oneself alone, she reflected.

In the ladies' withdrawing room they found Isabel and Eleanor, the former enthusing about Eleanor's dress – which was strange, firstly that Isabel should notice and second because the dress, Caroline surmised with practised eye, was Lady Hunney's choice: black net over a terrible biscuit-coloured taffeta. Wonderful for her ladyship but hardly for Eleanor. The dress looked as if it had a mind of its own, and Eleanor was not to its fancy. Eleanor winked at her. ‘Ghastly, isn't it?' she said mournfully. ‘You should have seen the one she
really
wanted me to have, though. Even a zebra would have balked at it.'

‘Mrs Swinford-Browne wouldn't.'

‘Really, Caroline.' Isabel drew herself up, offended. ‘You are a bad influence on Eleanor.'

Caroline tried to feel contrite, as Isabel, followed by a giggling Eleanor, left them alone. ‘It's not like Isabel to stand on her dignity.'

‘I expect she's envying you,' Tilly put forward.

‘She doesn't know about me. And I didn't know you did.'

‘The Rectory walls leak more than damp.'

‘Phoebe, I suppose,' Caroline said, resigned. ‘What she
doesn't
know is that Lady Hunney has put her elegant kid-shod foot down.' Would Aunt Tilly guess the reason?

‘Are you sure you want to become another Lady Hunney?'

‘I'm going to be the first of the Free-Thinking Lady Hunneys.'

‘A suffragette squire's wife?'

‘Look at the Countess of Warwick. She's become a follower of the Socialist cause.'

‘Only now gentlemen have stopped following
her
.' Notably his late Majesty, King Edward, Tilly might have added, but as usual, refrained. The less you spoke about inessentials, in Tilly's view, the more you would be listened to on matters of importance.

‘If Reggie and I truly love each other, as we do, we can carve life in our own ways and find a meeting point. There is an answer, there
always
is.'

Tilly said no more.

Isabel slid her hand into Robert's. ‘We must entertain like this.'

Robert looked round at the gracious surroundings of Ashden Manor, mentally compared them with The Towers, and laughed uneasily. ‘Mother and you could do it together.' It wasn't the best of efforts on his part and it failed miserably. He longed to talk of Wimbledon, but Isabel never seemed interested.

‘That will be nice, of course,' Isabel replied after a moment. ‘But on our own would be even nicer. Not so many people, of course.' She was trying to analyse just what it was about Ashden Manor and the crowds here this evening that differentiated them from her own engagement ball. She gave up the struggle, deciding there was no difference and she had merely been tired on the evening of her own ball. She'd make up for it after she was married. It would be wonderful. And it would be
just
like this. How about a Michaelmas ball? She couldn't possibly wait until Christmas.

Phoebe pirouetted in the garden, happy with herself and the evening. She was feeling as though she wanted to cry and laugh both at the same time. It was so still out here it felt as if the evening were holding back, waiting for her to join it. She supposed she was restless because this was almost the last time she'd see Christopher Denis, and although it was satisfactory to think his precipitate action might possibly be due to her charms, it was annoying to think he did find
her resistible. Now there'd be a new curate, Father said, someone known to Sir John was coming.
That
was bad news for a start, for he would be sure to be a lot older than her. On a night like this
someone
in the world must be waiting for Miss Phoebe Lilley. If only, if only, she could reach him, tear through the garden, the fields, the woods, and rush into his arms. But what if those bushes, so still and mysterious, hid a Len Thorn, just waiting, waiting, for her? Ever since their encounter in the stables she had been half fearful, half intrigued at the idea of seeing him again. Sometime she would bump into him again and he'd look at her, his eyes watching her, roving over her from top to toe. What
for
? She could see that look on his face now, the half smile, a knowing smile. But what could he know, he of the powerful rippling body and the strange, scary eyes?

‘Knossos hasn't long been discovered, of course. Evans only started digging around the turn of the century, and then there were lots of delays with the Cretan authorities. They were too busy having wars to care about the past. But when they did, there it all was –
is
rather – and I'm going to see it. A labyrinth, just as the myth relates, and pictures drawn on the walls of a whole civilisation no one knows much about. The Minoan, gone in a flash in an earthquake – or the roaring of the bull monster, however you like your myth –' Daniel broke off, aware that lectures on Greek mythology were not what most eighteen-year-old girls would want to hear on a sultry June evening. ‘I don't know why I'm telling you all this.' He threw a pebble into the pond and a moorhen, disturbed from sleep, squawked in protest.

‘I like to know,' Felicia said somewhat indignantly, upset he treated her as just another girl.

‘You're surprisingly easy to talk to.'

‘Why surprisingly?'

‘I've never been sure what to talk to you about. Or what you're thinking.' Tonight Felicia had acquired a mystery together with beauty.

‘I'm not thinking, I'm
absorbing
,' she told him seriously, ‘so that when you're away I can imagine where you are.'

‘I'll be somewhere else by then.'

‘Where, for instance? Tell me where.'

‘All right, Desdemona.' He gave in. ‘I'd like to go to Turkey. I want
to stand where Schliemann stood at Hissarlik, look down and say, “This is Troy. Helen's Troy. Priam's Troy.”' He looked at Felicia's dark hair, her pale oval face, the eyes fixed on him so intently, and continued, his voice a little husky now. ‘I'd like to fasten the golden necklaces around your neck, the diadems on your hair, and say as Schliemann did: “These are Helen's jewels.”' Then he hurried on, afraid: ‘I want to go to Greece, to see Mycenae –'

‘Agamemnon?'

‘Yes. His tomb, at least. Go to Mount Athos. Perhaps I'll enter a monastery and become a monk.' He shot a sideways look at her.

‘I would think God might turn you away and say, “Go, my son, there is work for you in the world.”'

And women, he thought. He summoned in his imagination lines of dark Greek maidens to sway in grace before him, French soubrettes danced to ensnare him, black Africans beckoned, dusky Polynesians laughed, and when all was done then English roses should put forth their perfume. So much time, plenty of time. Out there waiting for him were old civilisations, new emerging countries, and the lure of the East; each had their own way of life, their own culture. He had to
know
his own was best, that Felicia was best; that the promise of her lips as he kissed her was no illusion and would last. After all, he had not yet set out on his long journey. Odysseus was half-way home when he heard the sirens call.