Deadham Hard by Lucas Malet

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CHAPTER VII

A CRITIC IN CORDUROY

William Jennifer, who successfully combined in his single person the
varied offices of ferryman, rat-catcher, jobbing gardener, amateur
barber, mender of sails and of nets, brought the heavy, flat-bottomed
boat alongside the jetty. Shipping the long sweeps, he coughed behind his
hand with somewhat sepulchral politeness to give warning of his presence.

"Sweethearting--lost to sight and hearing, espoused to forgetfulness," he
murmured, peering up at the two cousins standing in such close proximity
to one another upon the black staging above.

For William Jennifer was a born lover of words and maker of phrases,
addicted to the bandying of pleasantries, nicely seasoned to their
respective age, sex and rank, with all he met; and, when denied an
audience, rather than keep silence holding conversation with himself.

The hot morning induced thirst, which, being allayed by a couple of pints
at Faircloth's Inn, induced desire for a certain easiness of costume. His
waistcoat hung open--he had laid aside his coat--displaying a broad
stitched leather belt that covered the junction between buff corduroy
trousers and blue-checked cotton shirt. On his head, a high
thimble-crowned straw hat, the frayed brim of it pulled out into a poke
in front for the better shelter of small, pale twinkling eyes set in a
foxy face.

The said face, however--for all its sharp-pointed nose, long upper lip,
thin gossipy mouth, tucked in at the corners and opening, redly
cavernous, without any showing of teeth, a stiff sandy fringe edging
cheeks and chin from ear to ear--could on occasion become utterly blank
of expression. It became so now, as Tom Verity, realizing the fact of its
owner's neighbourhood, moved a step or two away from Damaris and,
jumping on board himself, proceeded with rather studied courtesy to hand
her down into the boat.

"Looks as there might have been a bit of a tiff betwixt 'em"--Thus
Jennifer inwardly. Then aloud--"Put you straight across the ferry, sir,
or take you to the breakwater at The Hard? The tide's on the turn, so
we'd slip down along easy and I'm thinking that 'ud spare Miss Verity the
traipse over the shore path. Wonnerful parching in the sun it is for the
latter end of September."

"Oh! to the breakwater by all means," Tom answered with alacrity.

For reaction had set in. Not only was the young man still slightly
flustered, but vexed by the liveliness of his own emotions. Everything
to-day savoured of exaggeration. The most ordinary incidents distended,
inflated themselves in a really unaccountable manner. So that, frankly,
he fought shy of finding himself alone with Damaris again. She seemed so
constantly to betray him into ill-regulated feeling, ill-considered
speech and action, which tended to endanger the completeness of his
self-esteem. Therefore, although admitting his attitude to be scantily
heroic, he welcomed the prospect of the ferryman's chaperonage until such
time as her father or her discarded lady-in-waiting, the innocent and
pink-nosed Bilson, should effect his final deliverance.

"Yes, it is uncommonly hot," he repeated, while, with both arms extended,
he worked to keep the side of the boat from bumping against the range of
piles, backing it clear of the jetty into the fairway of the river. He
found exertion pleasant, steadying.

"Neither Miss Verity nor I shall be sorry to be saved the walk along
that basting path. That is," he added, smiling with disarming
good-temper, "if we're not blocking business and keeping you too long
away from the ferry."

But Jennifer, mightily pleased at his company and having, moreover,
certain scandalous little fishes of his own to fry--or attempt to
fry--waved the objection aside.

The ferry could very well mind itself for a while, he said; and if
anyone should come along they must just hold hands with patience till he
got back, that was all. But passengers were few and far between this time
of year and of day. The "season"--as was the new-fangled fashion to call
it--being now over; trippers tripped home again to wheresoever their
natural habitat might be. The activities of boys' schools, picnic
parties, ambulant scientific societies and field-clubs--out in pursuit of
weeds, of stone-cracking, and the desecration of those old heathen
burying barrows on Stone Horse Head quieted off for the time being.
Deadham, meanwhile, in act of repossessing its soul in peace and
hibernating according to time-honoured habit until the vernal equinox.

Not that he, Jennifer, as he explained, owned to any quarrel with the
alien invasion. Good for trade they were, that tripper lot, though
wonnerful simple, he must say, when they came to talk, blessed with an
almighty wide swallow for any long-eared fairy tale you liked to put on
them. Mortal full of senseless questions, too, fit to make anybody
laugh!--Whereat overcome by joyous memories of human folly, he opened the
red cavern of his apparently toothless mouth, barking up audible mirth,
brief and husky, from the depth of a beer-slaked throat.

He leaned forward while speaking, resting chest and elbows on the
oars--only now and again dipping the blades in the water to steady the
boat in its course as it moved smoothly onward borne by brimming stream
and tide. From out the shadow of his thimble-crowned hat he looked up
knowingly, with the freemasonry of assured good-temper at Tom, who stood
before him hands in pockets, friendly and debonair, class distinctions
for the moment quite forgot. For, let alone immediate convenience of
chaperonage, the young man found unexpected entertainment in this typical
South Saxon, relic, as it struck him, of a bygone age and social order.
Might not that tough and somewhat clumsy body, that crafty, jovial, yet
non-committal countenance, have transferred themselves straight from the
pages of Geoffrey Chaucer into nineteenth-century life? Here, was a
master of primitive knowledge and of arts not taught in modern Board (or
any other) Schools; a merry fellow too, who could, as Tom divined, when
company and circumstances allowed, be broadly, unprintably humorous.

So, in this last connection perhaps, it was just as well that Damaris
still appeared somewhat implacable. Coming on board she had passed
Jennifer--who rowed amidships--and gone right forward, putting as wide a
distance as conditions permitted between her cousin and herself. Now, as
she sat on a pile of red-brown seine nets in the bow of the boat, she
kept her face averted, looking away down the cool liquid highway, and
presenting to his observation a graceful, white-clad but eminently
discouraging back. Her attitude repelled rather than invited advances, so
at least Tom, watching her, certainly thought. This justified his not
following her but staying where he was, and leaving her to herself.
Whereupon annoyance again beset him; for it was very little to his credit
to have mismanaged his dealings with her and alienated her sympathies
thus. With her, it was very evident, he had not been at all a success.
And it pricked his young vanity very shrewdly not to be a success.

From these unsatisfactory reflections William Jennifer's voice, prefaced
by a warning cough, recalled him.

"Making any long stay in these parts, sir?" he enquired.

And when Tom explained that a few hours from now would witness the
termination of his visit, and that, in all probability, many years of
absence from England lay ahead--

"Indeed, indeed, to be sure. Who'd have thought it for a young gentleman
of the quality-like yourself! But, there, some are born under the
traveller's star, sir--created with a roving spirit. And the Lord help
'em, I say, for they're so made as to be powerless to help themselves
seemingly. Rove they must and will, if they are to taste any
contentment--an itch in their feet from the cradle nought but foreign
lands'll serve to pacify. The sight of the ocean now, seems fairly
tormenting to 'em till they can satisfy themselves of what's on the far
side of it."

But, here, the boat being unduly drawn aside by the suck of some local
current, Jennifer was constrained to apply his mind to navigation. He
dipped the long sweeps, and with a steady powerful pull straightened the
course to midstream. Then raising the glistening blades, off which the
water dripped white and pattering, he leaned forward again, resting
elbows and chest on the butt-end of the oars, and once more addressed
himself to polite conversation.

"Not as I've been greatly troubled that way myself. Had my chance of
going to sea and welcome many's the time when I was a youngster. But
always a one for the land, I was. Never had any special fancy for salt
water, though I do make my living of it now, as you may say, in a sense."

During this biographical excursion Tom Verity's attention wandered. His
eyes dwelt on Damaris. She had altered her position turning half round as
she scanned the strip of sandy warren with its row of sentinel Scotch
firs bordering the river. Seen thus, three-quarter face, Tom realized
suddenly not only how really beautiful she was--or rather could at
moments be--but how strangely she resembled Sir Charles her father. There
was likeness not of features alone; but, for all her youthful freshness,
a reflection of his strength, his inscrutability. Whereupon rather
unworthy curiosity reawoke in Tom Verity, to satisfy which he was tempted
to descend to methods not entirely loyal.

Damaris, sitting to windward, must be out of earshot assuredly, yet he
lowered his voice as he said:

"By the way, talking of going to sea, can you tell me anything about the
young sailor whom you took across the ferry just before fetching Miss
Verity and me? I am pretty sure I have met him before and yet I can't
place him somehow."

Jennifer shot a sharply enquiring glance at the speaker; for here, at
first sight, appeared rare opportunity of that same coveted and
scandalous fish-frying! Yet he debated the wisdom of immediate indulgence
in that merry pastime, inherent suspicion of class for class, suspicion
too, of this young gentleman's conspicuously easy, good-natured manner,
preaching caution. A show of friendliness supplies fine cover for the
gaining of one's own ends.--Hadn't he, Jennifer, practised the friendly
manoeuvre freely enough himself on occasion? And he did not in the least
relish the chance of walking into a trap, instead of jovially baiting
one. So he dipped the oars again, and answered slowly as though the
question taxed his memory sorely, his face vacant of expression as an
empty plate.

"Brought him across before I started to fetch you and the young lady,
sir, did I? To be sure, there, let me see. I've had several sea-going
chaps of sorts back and forth this morning. Come and go most days, they
do, come and go without my taking any particular account--the Lord
forgive me, for it ain't over civil--unless strangers should hail me, or
someone out of the common such as Miss Verity and yourself. A passing
show, sir, half the time those I carry; no more to me, bless you, than so
many sand-fleas a-hopping on the beach.--Mr. Blackmore--coast-guard
officer he is--I fetched him across early, with one of his men coming
round from the Head. And that poor lippity-lop, Abram Sclanders'
eldest.--Pity he wasn't put away quiet-like at birth!--Terrible drag he
is on Abram and always will be. Anybody with an ounce of gumption might
have seen he'd be a short-wit from the first.--I took him over; but that
'ud the opposite way about, as he wanted to go shrimping back of the Bar
so he said."

Jennifer paused as in earnest thought.

"No, not a soul to merit your attention, to-day, sir, that I can call to
mind. Unless"--with an upward look of returning intelligence--"but that
ain't very likely either--unless it should be Darcy Faircloth. I'd clean
forgot him, so I had. Cap'en Faircloth, as some is so busy calling 'im,
now, in season and out of season till it's fairly fit to make you
laugh.--Remarkable tall, Johnny-head-in-air young feller with a curly
yaller beard to him."

"That's the man!" Tom exclaimed.

He had distrusted Jennifer's show of ignorance, believing he was being
fenced with, played with, even royally lied to; but this merely served to
heighten his curiosity and amusement. Something of moment must lie, he
felt, behind so much wandering talk, something of value, purposely and
cunningly withheld until time was ripe for telling disclosure.

"Darcy Faircloth--Captain Faircloth?" he could not but repeat, and with
such honest puzzlement and evident desire for further enlightening as to
overcome his hearer's hesitation.

"No--not a likely person for you to be in any wise acquainted with, sir,"
Jennifer returned, wary still, though yielding--"even if you didn't
happen to be a bit new to Deadham yourself, as I may put it. For been
away mostly from his natural home here, young Faircloth has, ever since
he was a little shaver. Mrs. Faircloth--owns the Inn there and all the
appurtenances thereof, sheds, cottages, boats, and suchlike, she
does--always had wonnerful high views for him. Quite the gentleman Darcy
must be, with a boarding school into Southampton and then the best of the
Merchant Service--no before the mast for him, bless you. There was a snug
little business to count on, regular takings in the public, week in and
week out--more particularly of late years in the summer--let alone the
rest of the property--he being the only son of his mother, too, and she a
widow woman free to follow any whimsies as took her about the lad."

Jennifer gave some slow, strong strokes, driving the lumbering boat
forward till the water fairly hissed against its sides. And Tom Verity
still listened, strangely, alertly interested, convinced there was more,
well worth hearing, to follow.

"Oh! there's always bin a tidy lot of money behind young Darcy, and is
yet I reckon, Mrs. Faircloth being the first-class business woman she is.
Spend she may with one hand, but save, and make, she does and no mistake,
Lord love you, with the other. Singular thing though," he added
meditatively, his face growing wholly expressionless, "how little Darcy,
now he's growed up, features old Lemuel his father. Squinny, red-cheeked
little old party, he was; thin as a herring, and chilly, always chilly,
sitting over the fire in the bar-parlour winter and summer too--small
squeaky voice he had minding any one of a penny whistle. But a warm man
and a close one--oh! very secret. Anybody must breakfast overnight and
hurry at that--eat with their loins girded, as you may say, to get
upsides with old Lemuel."

He ceased speaking, and glanced round over his shoulder calculating
the distance to the breakwater, for the boat drew level with the
sea-wall of rough-hewn pinkish-grey granite along the river frontage
of The Hard gardens.

"There's some as 'ud tell you it was the surprise of old Lemuel's life to
find himself a parent," he added, eyeing Tom slyly as he spoke, his mouth
remaining open as in preparation for coming laughter.

For those same scandalous little fishes were well into the frying-pan,
now--sizzling, frizzling. And this was a vastly agreeable moment to
William Jennifer, worth waiting for, worth scheming for. Unprintable
humour looked out of his twinkling eyes while he watched to see how far
Tom Verity caught his meaning. Then as the young man flushed, sudden
distaste, even a measure of shame invading him, Jennifer, true artist in
scandal, turned the conversation aside with an air of indulgent apology.

"But, lor, there, you know how people'll talk in a little country place
where there ain't much doing!--And it ain't for me to speak of what
happened back in those times, being barely out of my teens then and away
cow-keeping over Alton way for Farmer Whimsett. Regular chip of the old
block, he was. Don't breed that sort nowadays. As hearty as you like, and
swallered his three pints of home-brewed every morning with his breakfast
he did, till he was took off quite sudden in his four-score-and-ten
twelve months ago come Michaelmas."

Upon the terrace, by the pyramid of ball and the two little cannons, Sir
Charles Verity stood, holding a packet of newly written letters in his
hand and smoking, while he watched the approaching boat. Damaris rose
from the pile of red-brown fishing-nets and waved to him. Jennifer, too,
glanced up, steadying both oars with one hand while he raised the other
to the brim of his thimble-crowned hat. A couple of minutes more and he
would part company with his passenger, and so judged it safe to indulge
himself with a final fish-frying.

"Mortal fine figure of a man, Sir Charles even yet," he said to Tom
admiringly. "But anybody should have seen him as a young gentleman. When
he used to visit here in old Mr. Verity's time, none in the country-side
could hold a candle to him for looks, as you may say. Turned the females'
heads he did. Might have had his pick of the lot, maids and wives alike
for 'arf a word. Well, good-bye to you, sir"--and, as certain coin
changed hands--"thank ye, sir, kindly. Wish you a pleasant voyage and a
rare good picking up of honours and glories, and gold and silver
likewise, there across the seas and oceans where you're a-going to."

BOOK II

THE HARD SCHOOL OF THINGS AS THEY ARE

CHAPTER I

IN MAIDEN MEDITATION

It was afternoon, about five o'clock. The fine September weather, hot and
cloudless, lasted still. The air was heavy with garden scents, the
aromatic sweetness of sun-baked gorse and pine-scrub on the warren, and
with the reek off the mud-flats of the Haven, the tide being low. Upon
the sandy skirts of the Bar, across the river just opposite, three
cormorants--glossy black against the yellow--postured in extravagant
angular attitudes drying their wings. Above the rim of the silver-blue
sea--patched with purple stains in the middle distance--webs of steamer
smoke lay along the southern sky. Occasionally a sound of voices, the
creak of a wooden windlass and grind of a boat's keel upon the pebbles as
it was wound slowly up the foreshore, came from the direction of the
ferry and of Faircloth's Inn. The effect was languorous, would have been
enervating to the point of mental, as well as physical, inertia had not
the posturing cormorants introduced a note of absurdity and the tainted
breath of the mud-flats a wholesome reminder of original sin.

Under these conditions, at once charming and insidious, Damaris Verity,
resting in a wicker deck-chair in the shade of the great ilex trees,
found herself alone, free to follow her own vagrant thoughts,
perceptions, imaginations without human let or hindrance. Free to dream
undisturbed and interrogate both Nature and her own much wondering soul.

For Sir Charles was away, staying with an old friend and former
brother-in-arms, Colonel Carteret, for a week's partridge shooting over
the Norfolk stubble-fields. Sport promised to be good, and Damaris had
great faith in Colonel Carteret. With him her father was always amused,
contented, safe. Hordle was in attendance, too, so she knew his comfort
in small material matters to be secure. She could think of him without
any shadow of anxiety, her mind for once at rest. And this she enjoyed.
For it is possible to miss a person badly, long for their return
ardently, yet feel by no means averse to a holiday from more active
expenditure of love on their account.

And Theresa Bilson--pleasing thought!--was, for the moment, absent also,
having gone to tea with the Miss Minetts. Two maiden ladies, these, of
uncertain age, modest fortune and unimpeachable refinement, once like
Theresa herself, members of the scholastic profession; but now, thanks to
the timely death of a relative--with consequent annuities and life
interest in a ten-roomed, stone-built house of rather mournful aspect in
Deadham village--able to rest from their ineffectual labours, support the
Church, patronize their poorer and adulate their richer neighbours to
their guileless hearts' content.

Gentility exuded from the Miss Minetts, and--if it is permissible
slightly to labour the simile--their pores were permanently open. Owing
both to her antecedent and existing situation, it may be added, Theresa
Bilson was precious in their sight. For had she not in the past, like
themselves, sounded the many mortifications of a governess' lot; and was
she not now called up higher, promoted indeed to familiar, almost hourly,
intercourse with the great? Miss Felicia Verity was known to treat her
with affection. Mrs. Augustus Cowden, that true blue of county dames and
local aristocrats, openly approved her. She sat daily at Sir Charles
Verity's table and helped to order his household. What more genuine
patents of gentility could be asked? So they listened with a pleasure,
deep almost to agitation, to her performances upon the piano, her
reminiscences of Bonn and the Rhine Provinces, and, above all, to her
anecdotes of life at The Hard and of its distinguished owner's habits and
speech. Thus, by operation of the fundamental irony resident in things,
did Theresa Bilson, of all improbable and inadequate little people,
become to the Miss Minetts as a messenger of the gods; exciting in them
not only dim fluttering apprehensions of the glories of art and delights
of foreign travel, but--though in their determined gentility they knew it
not--of the primitive allurements and mysteries of sex.

The moral effect of this friendship upon Theresa herself was not,
however, of the happiest. Fired by their interest in her recitals she was
tempted to spread herself. At first almost unconsciously, for by instinct
she was truthful, she embroidered fact, magnifying her office not only in
respect of her ex-pupil Damaris but of Damaris' father also. She
represented herself as indispensable to both parent and child, until she
more than half believed that flattering fiction. She began to reckon
herself an essential element in the establishment at The Hard, the pivot
indeed upon which it turned. Whereupon a rather morbid craving for the
Miss Minetts' society developed in her. For, with those two credulous
ladies as audience, she could fortify herself in delusion by recounting
all manner of episodes and incidents not as they actually had, but as she
so ardently desired they might have, taken place.--A pathetic form of
lying this, though far from uncommon to feminine and--more
especially--spinster practice and habit!

Still Theresa was not so besotted but that lucid intervals now and again
afflicted her. One seized her this afternoon, as she prepared to bid
Damaris good-bye. Either conscience pricked with unusual sharpness, or
the young girl's smiling and unruffled acquiescence in her departure
aroused latent alarms. She began to excuse her action in leaving her
charge thus solitary, to protest her devotion; becoming, it may be added,
red and agitated in the process. Her thick, short little fingers worked
nervously on the crook handle of her white cotton umbrella. Her round
light-coloured eyes grew humid to the point of fogging the lenses of her
gold-rimmed glasses.

"But why should you worry so now, just as you are starting, Billy?"
Damaris reasoned, with the rather cruel logic of cool eighteen in face of
hot and flustered nine-and-thirty. "Only at luncheon you were telling me
how much you always enjoy spending an afternoon at the Grey House. I
thought you looked forward so much to going. What has happened to turn
you all different, like this, at the last minute?"

"Nothing has happened exactly; but I have scruples about visiting my
own friends and letting you remain alone when Sir Charles is from home.
It might appear a dereliction of duty--as though I took advantage of
his absence."

"Nobody would think anything so foolish," Damaris declared. "And then you
knew he would be away this week when you made the engagement."

Theresa gulped and prevaricated.

"No, surely not--I must have mistaken the date."

"But you were quite happy at luncheon, and you couldn't have mistaken the
date then," Damaris persisted.

Whereupon poor Theresa lost herself, the worthy and unworthy elements in
her nature alike conspiring to her undoing. In her distraction she
sniffed audibly. A tear ran down either side of her pink shiny nose and
dropped on the folds of shepherd's-plaid silk veiling her plump bosom.
For, with some obscure purpose of living up to her self-imposed
indispensability, Miss Bilson was distinctly dressy at this period,
wearing her best summer gown on every possible occasion and tucking a
bunch of roses or carnations archly in her waist-belt.

"Do you think it kind to insist so much on my passing forgetfulness?" she
quavered. "The habit of criticizing and cavilling at whatever I say grows
on you, Damaris, and it so increases the difficulties of my position. I
know I am sensitive, but that is the result of my affection for you. I
care so deeply, and you are not responsive. You chill me. As I have told
dear Miss Felicia--for I must sometimes unburden myself"--

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