Now she had set her house in order. Danny had the land to make amends for the wrong she had done him and his family; Amos would have his chapel; she had even arranged that Julie should have her tea and her medicine and the creature comforts which she—being a weak member—craved. The Dower House was sold. (Fred Clopton had bought it as a wedding present for his daughter Ella, who was marrying young Thurlow Lamb at Easter. ‘After all, Fred,’ Mrs Clopton had said, ‘we must do our part, and it’s cheap and it’ll make an impressive present. And if Danny Fuller can ride in and out every day surely Bertie could manage it in a gig. And I could keep my eye on Ella.’)
Damask was free now. And she knew where she was going. To Georgia, where Wesley himself had once worked among the slaves and the convicts. That was logical; Captain Parsons had made his money in the slave trade. Damask had read ‘Papa’s Journal’ while she sat by Miss Parsons’ death-bed. And if half of what he
wrote were true, no people on all the face of the earth were more in need of the one thing she could give them: the absolute assurance that this world was just a passing shadow show, a sort of dark tunnel through which the spirit must pass, blinded by its physical eyes, deafened by its physical ears, made stupid by its bone-caged, limited mind. Slaves, whose physical life was a misery, would welcome the truth … the one thing which all her experiences had taught her. She thought of her mission as she crossed the Stone Bridge. The snow which Danny had predicted was falling, large crisp flakes slanting down the wind’s current. The ground was whitening, but the river ran dark. She thought, What I knew then, both those times, is like the snow on the water, swallowed up and gone; but it was real and it is still part of me. And it was not of the slightest importance that she had forgotten so the broken voice in which she said it and the real tears that came into her eyes showed her sincerity.
‘And I was right, wasn’t I, to say no cheering,’ said Matt later, glaring at those who had suggested it. “Twouldn’t hev been seemly. And mark you, I never said “Happy Christmas”. “Compliments of the season” I said, as being more suitable in the circumstances. I trust you marked that.’
‘One thing you did wrong, Matt,’ said Bert Sadler boldly. ‘You said bitch. You never ought to hev said that, not in front of Lady Shelmadine pore-ladyI’
Matt was not, at this stage, going to admit that the word had slipped out.
‘Why, you iggerunt lump, you, don’t you reckon I thought that all out aforehand. Couldn’t very well say “lady dog”, could I, when I was talking to a lady!’
‘Anyway,’ said Mrs Palfrey, ‘that don’t matter. She was pleased, and the dog and a houseful of young ‘uns’ll cheer her up, poor lady.’
Mrs Palfrey walked heavily towards the Gardiners’ cottage where she had left her two youngest. She was herself very happy. There was a great lump of beef on her
food shelf, they’d all have a good Christmas dinner. And they’d got back their potato patch. By Good Friday this latest young ‘un would be born—and if it was a girl it would be named Linda—and Mrs Palfrey would be free to get on with her digging. How she would dig!
The big white dog sat in the gig between Hadstock and Linda. Her arm lay around his neck and every now and then he turned his head, shot out his tongue and licked her face or ear with an ecstatic shiver.
‘Well,’ Hadstock said, breaking silence, ‘that’s over. I admit to moments of grave anxiety, but it seemed the only way.’
‘How did you manage it?’ Her voice was still inclined to shake and her eyes kept brimming and spilling tears.
‘As Ashpole said. He said he reckoned you’d been main fond of your dog and missed it and he wished he had one to give you. He’s pretty shrewd, he said he reckoned it might be some time before you felt like getting one for yourself. So then I said I knew where there was a dog for sale, cheap; a real French poodle, grown a bit too big. You must remember that his name is Beau, and if he shows any signs of resuming old habits he must be checked at once. I’m sorry he had to be made such a figure of fun. But it seemed to me that any big white dog might be open to suspicion. I’d been racking my brains for some way of getting him back for you.’
She sat very still with that last sentence ringing in her ears. And Hadstock was silent too, regarding with some dismay the gap which this one short outing had made in the protective fence of formality which had reared itself between them since the night of Richard’s death. On that night, when he broke the news to her, she had clung to him weeping and he had held her and comforted her, even kissed her, as though she were a frightened, overwrought child; they had truly been alone then. But almost immediately she had spoken about her old love for Richard, about the necessity for concealment; the world had asserted itself, and there they were concocting the
story with which to deceive it. Since the morning when he had ridden off to fetch Sir Edward they had hardly been alone at all; Linda had been ill, Lady Fennel and other well-meaning females had been in attendance, and the few times when he had been in her presence had been devoted to talk of affairs. She had been apathetic and he businesslike. Something had fallen over their relationship, as a thin, tinkling, transparent sheath of ice will form over a tree when a night frost follows a day of rain.
There were times when Hadstock caught himself wishing that he had arrived in the subterranean temple before the blow was struck. Then, at least, he had something to offer—a refuge, however humble, from horror and disgust; but whenever his thoughts tended that way he remembered that moment when he had tried to plan a future for them both, and how unsatisfactory his plans had been. He was realist enough to see that the situation had been an impossible one from the very first.
He was staring that sombre realisation in the face once more when Linda moved her hand from the dog’s neck and laid it on his arm.
‘I do love you, you know,’ she said. ‘This probably isn’t the time or the place, and perhaps I shouldn’t speak first; but I do love you, and I don’t see why I should go on pretending—not when we’re by ourselves.”
He shot her a startled glance and then looked away; but he moved his hand so that hers lay in it, curved like a shell. He gave it a swift crunching pressure and then laid it back on the dog’s neck.
‘That’s the trouble. People never are by themselves. There’s always the world to be reckoned with. I love you. You know that. But being in love isn’t an end in itself, however much the poets may pretend that it is.’
‘It’s something to begin with. Enough to make me feel that nothing else matters so long as we are together.’
‘Being together means marriage,’ said Hadstock bluntly, ‘and that involves several other things. Mild scandal for one. “Imagine Lady Shelmadine marrying her bailiff I” Social ostracism as a result. I’m used to that, but
I should hate it for you. Also—we might as well face it— I don’t think I should fit into the role of kept man with much grace.’
The bitterness of his voice shocked her, but she said lightly, ‘I can’t imagine anyone who would do it worse. You’re much too masterful and set in your ways.’
He did not answer, nor turn his head. He sat slightly hunched, the reins slack in his fingers, his craggy profile blocked in against the gathering dusk.
She thought about the little she knew of his history, and realised that his whole life had been one long affront to his pride, blow after blow falling on the same sensitive spot, and this last was the heaviest of all. A vast aching pity like a physical pain set in her flesh. She could have assuaged it by putting her arms about him and dragging that proud, humbled head down to her breast. But that, she knew was not the way. A line from a poem read long ago began to chant in her mind. ‘Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.’ Arrogant Samson brought low could not be comforted by pity…
‘That night,’ she said, ‘if it hadn’t ended as it did, I was going to ask you to take me away, to let me cook and mend for you. Would you have taken me?’