‘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. ‘Walk round the village some warm evening and see how many windows that will open are open,’ he said. ‘Cottage people dislike fresh air.”
Still, to think about what she would do if she had control was surely the most fruitless way of spending time and energy. She set about making the most of her unusual
freedom.
In the afternoon she went for a walk through Layer Wood and was pleased to catch a glimpse of her two golden pheasants. They had been so tame by the time they arrived at Clevely that it had seemed safe to turn them loose in the grounds; there, for some weeks, they had remained, stalking on their delicate feet through the flowerbeds and over the lawns, and coming up, with friendly condescension, to take food from Linda’s hand as they had learned to do on the ship. Then, at the beginning of October they had disappeared. There had been one or two light frosts, so it was not unreasonable, perhaps, for Richard to say lightly, ‘I expect they died. After all, they’re tropical birds; they could hardly be expected to weather an English winter.’ He went on to say that he was himself feeling the cold severely and to ask whether this poor apology for a fire was really the best the house could provide.