Danny thrust the uncomfortable thought away and said more briskly:
‘You live on the Waste, Amos. Can you tell me—did Fred Clopton plough his piece or leave it for grass?’
‘I never noticed.’
‘Oh well, I can but ask. I never did like Fred and I used to show it like a fool, and I dare say there’ll be a bit of humble pie to swallow; but I reckoned he might hire me ten or twelve acres. I don’t know who else to ask.’
‘What do you want it for?’
‘I held on to my best beasts when we quitted, but it’s been the devil’s own job finding them pasture, everybody
ploughing up on account of the corn prices. Four moves they’ve had in the last seven weeks. Maybe I was daft to try and keep them—but I had in mind that I might one
day hire some land again, or find a bit cheap–-‘ He
laughed derisively.
‘I got twenty acres—I mean nineteen, Danny, that I aim to sell. ‘Tain’t fenced, and ‘tain’t very good. Maybe you know it.’ He described its position. ‘I’d take a pound an acre for it.’
Danny stood still in the road.
‘I could manage that! My God, Amos, that’s wonderful!’
‘Now there’s no need to be taking the Lord’s name in vain, Danny. You’d hev to fence it, and be quick. But Matt Ashpole’d do it for you, and cheap too if you’d let his old horse run along with your beasts.’ ‘That’d be wonderful,’ Danny said. ‘What is more,’ said Amos, with growing eagerness, ‘if you keep your beasts there all winter you’ll want a shed. I’ll help with your building if you’ll help with mine.’ ‘Why, what are you building, Amos?’ ‘A chapel, of course! Thass worked out wonderful. Them that trust in the Lord shall never be confounded— no truer word was ever writ.’
Nineteen pounds to spend on timber, and a far better site than the old one, stuck away there behind Shipton’s barn. The new chapel would be very conspicuous; he’d have some big notices outside it so that those who could read could read out for those who could not edifying remarks such as ‘THE WAGES OF SIN ARE DEATH’; and on Sunday evenings when the men and boys gathered to lounge on the Stone Bridge and gossip and spit into the water the sound of the good hymns and prayers would rise up and reach them.
Danny was dreaming too. He’d heard about the wonderful things that were being done with drains up in the fens near Ely, and maybe he could drain his piece, grow better pasture, rear more beasts, somehow or other get back into farming again.
They walked along for quite a distance without speaking again. Once Amos did open his mouth to say, ‘All things work together for good for them that love God’, and that he did not say the words aloud was in no sense due to doubt of their truth; it was because he remembered that this scheme was going to benefit Matt Ashpole and his horse, Danny Fuller and his bullocks–-
Danny’s nineteen-acre plot, now known by the name which it was to bear for many years—Cobbler’s Corner— was fenced by the end of May and his bullocks and Matt’s horse installed. Matt, owning only limited human sight, had no idea that his original scheme for ensuring his horse a home had seemed to fail, had gone underground and then burrowed its way to open triumph again, so he regarded the whole transaction of the fencing and Danny’s return as a piece of lucky business. He was quite willing, therefore, to hang about Baildon Market each Wednesday and Saturday and wait until the auctioneer’s office closed and then give Danny a lift to Clevely, and on Saturday nights he also provided what he called a ‘shake-down’ so that Danny could stay over and spend Sunday with the bullocks. By late June the shed which was to shelter the beasts through the winter was under construction, and so was Amos’s chapel; the two men helped one another with the planting of their corner posts and Matt helped with the hauling of the timber. There was marked amity.
On Wednesdays Danny had to walk back to Baildon after his evening’s labour, and the exertion, stripping the flesh from his bones, brought out the marked resemblance to his father, causing Mrs Fuller to fret a little. Lethargic as she had become in other ways, she always stayed up on Wednesdays to serve him a late hot meal. One Wednesday, seeing him off to the market, she said, ‘You’ll be going to Clevely, I s’pose?’ and then added one of her wistful remarks, ‘I reckon that pink rose by the parlour window’ll be all in bloom now. I planted that the year afore you was born.’
That evening Danny left off work while there was still
light in the sky, crossed the highroad and entered Berry Lane. He intended to ask the new tenant of the house to allow him, as a favour, to gather half a dozen of the pink roses. To his surprise the house still stood empty, the garden thick with a summer’s unchecked weeds, the nettles beginning to invade the little yard. The door of the byre that had been the kitchen was open and Danny could see the ill-fated manger and rack.
He pushed his way to the front of the house and gathered a big bunch of the sweet pink roses and then walked rapidly through the dusk towards Baildon. But on the Waste he stopped and had a word with Matt Ashpole, who would know, if anyone did, why the house was standing empty. Matt knew. The tenant who had hired the holding was building a new house.
‘The land, you see, Danny, when they shuffled it about, was all in a piece down by the Lower Road, so he reckoned it best to live there. He’s a warmish chap. Grigg his name is—son to old Grigg, the biggest butcher in Bywater, so he could afford to build like. Come in, boy. Hev a bit of a set down and a sup of my brew. I’ve took to making me own in these hard times. Ain’t got it right yet, but it’s a drink.’
‘No, thanks,’ Danny said. ‘I reckon … No, too late tonight. Mother will sit up and she’d fret. On the other hand, if I wait till Saturday somebody might go and snap
it up–-‘
‘Whass bothering you, boy?’ ‘That house. I’d like to see Mr Hadstock.’ ‘About hiring it again, you mean? Well, I wouldn’t go rapping him up about that this time of night, might make him rorty. Tell you what, Danny, if you like I’ll hev a word with him tomorrer morning. I got a errand up at the Manor ‘smatter of fact. He ain’t a bad chap in hisself —apart from owd Seizer, I mean. I’ll put in a word for you, and let you know Saturday.’
Hadstock, who had always considered the Fuller family ill done by, promised Matt that he would do what he
could to arrange the tenancy, and that evening spoke to Linda about the matter. Matt had told a glib story: there was Mrs Fuller, he said, ‘peaking and pining away, fretting for her owd home’ and there was Danny ‘killing hisself running backwards and forrards’. Linda said it would be very nice for Mrs Fuller to come back to Clevely. ‘I never did understand that business,’ she said. ‘In all other matters my husband went dead against old Sir Charles’s arrangements, but he confirmed the Fullers’ notice to quit. I thought it strange at the time. And of course he may object to their return.’
‘I wonder,’ Hadstock said. ‘Five pounds rent is better than having the place empty until it rots. There’ve been no other applicants. And I hear that old Wellman is now intending to build a new house in the middle of his holding. Others will too, as they can afford it. There won’t be much demand for houses without land. I wonder…’
‘I think we’re both thinking of the same thing,’ Linda said, smiling. ‘Just to write and say a suitable tenant has offered to rent the house–-‘
‘That was in my mind,’ said Hadstock, returning the smile.
‘Let’s try it,’ Linda said. There are relationships in which such a humble, harmless piece of connivance is more significant than a passionate embrace; their was one such.
Richard did not even trouble to reply to the letter which informed him that a tenant for a five-pound-a-year property had been found. Why should he? Why should he keep a bailiff if not to attend to just such trivialities? Besides, he had other things to think about. He was discovering how right Alec had been when he said that consistent good luck could be embarrassing and in the end tedious. He ignored the unpopularity which resulted, for his touchy temper and perverse behaviour had rendered him unpopular before his luck changed; the trouble now was to find a game. At Angelina’s the tables were either filled against him or the players, after a game