Midsummer's Eve (8 page)

Jacco came out, Digory with him.

There was a gasp through the hall, and I had never heard such silence.

My father laid a hand on Digory’s shoulder.

He went on. “This boy, Digory, is now a member of my household. I hope that is clear to you all.” He turned to John Ferry, the head groom. “Ferry,” he said. “You’ve got a spare room over the stables. The boy can use that until we decide what he is going to do here.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ferry.

“Take him now. He’ll no doubt need to learn a lot if he is going to work with the horses.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacco said: “You can go with Ferry. He’ll do as my father says.”

Digory still did not speak. How different he was from that truculent boy I had met in the woods.

John Ferry said: “Come on, me lad.”

He grasped Digory by the shoulder and they went to the door, Digory still walking as though in a trance.

My father said: “Oh … Ferry?”

Ferry paused and turned. “Yes, sir?”

“Remember what I said.”

“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

At a sign from my father the servants were dismissed.

“You two come into the drawing room and talk to your mother and me,” he said to us. “There’s a great deal I want to ask.”

So we went and we sat up late telling them all that had happened on that terrible night.

I felt happier than I had since it happened. It was wonderful to know that my father was there to take care of everything.

In the days that followed I thought that was the perfect solution in view of everything that had happened. Digory had a home; he was assured of good meals every day, and he had my father’s protection.

But, of course, there are no perfect solutions. Digory had lost his grandmother and he had taken a great pride in her and the fact that she was not only the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, but she was also a footling—she had been born feet first and that meant she had special powers. Moreover she claimed to be of a Pellar family—one of those whose ancestor had helped a stranded mermaid back to the sea and for such services had been blessed with special powers. A fearful disillusion had come to Digory and added to his misery, for her powers had proved useless against the mob, and she had been unable to take her revenge on them. His pride was shattered and his freedom lost.

He loved horses and would rather work with them than with anything else; but he was no longer free. He was at the beck and call of John Ferry, and although there was no persecution—for that had been most forcefully forbidden by my father—at the same time there was no friendliness either.

He was a wild spirit and if his granny was a Pellar, so was he.

He was morose and said little to the other stable boys; he did what he had to do grudgingly and his love was for the horses and never spilled over to his fellow human beings. Perhaps for Jacco and me he had a certain feeling. He did not forget that we had probably saved his life on that memorable night. Apart from us he appeared to have no friendly feeling for any others.

He was different; he was apart.

Moreover his presence was resented, although none dared show it. But resentment was there all the same. Nobody could really forget that he was the Witch’s Varmint.

Jacco and I had made him our protégé. We were fond of him because we believed we had saved his life, and every time I saw him I experienced a glow of satisfaction and pride because of this. And I was sure that Jacco felt the same. There is nothing which endears such a person to one so much as the knowledge that one has done that person a great service—and what greater service could there be than to save a life?

He never sought company. I fancied he lived in a little world of his own where he, the Pellar boy, was all-powerful. He had a deep-rooted pride in himself; he did not need other people—unlike the rest of us, who seemed to depend so much on one another.

He liked the Dogs’ Home. There was a little window in it. He broke it and climbed through. He made it his little sanctum, the place where he could be quite alone. When Jacco discovered the broken window he had it repaired and gave the key of the place to Digory. I think that key became his dearest possession.

He might have felt some gratitude towards Jacco and me but he had been too deeply wounded to trust anyone completely; he avoided us, and I believed that was because he hated to feel indebted to anyone; for just as we had that glow of satisfaction for having saved his life, his pride was hurt because he had been so dependent upon us.

Every day I waited for the return of Rolf. I longed for it and dreaded it. I wondered what I would say to him. I would demand to know how he could have behaved in such a way. Already I had begun to think that all that had happened on that memorable night was because of him. He was a natural leader and he had taken charge. He had goaded them on because he wanted to see if people of our century reacted in the same way as they had in an earlier one. At times I could not believe it of him and then I reminded myself that I had seen it happen.

He did not come back. Mr. Hanson came to dinner. He said Rolf was going straight to the University without coming home first. He doubted he would see him for some time.

Rolf had always had his absences. Mr. Hanson talked of his son as though he were a law unto himself. He spoke with such pride and affection. I wondered what he would think if he knew.

I was glad in a way that I did not have to see him. While I did not, I could pretend to myself that there was some explanation.

It was a sad summer. My mother tried hard to hide her unhappiness and she did to a certain extent outwardly; but I could sense how deeply she mourned her father.

The memory of what had happened on Midsummer’s Eve hung over us all. I did encounter some of the people who, I was sure, had been present in the woods and I could not believe that they were the same who had taken part in that fearful atrocity. They had become as strangers to me … just as, I told myself, Rolf had.

Change had come from all sides and my life would never be the same again.

My father’s presence helped a lot. I went riding with him and he talked about what was going on in London.

“One day you’ll have to go up to London and have a season, Annora,” he said.

“Must I?”

“I suppose so. You have to see something of the world. You’ll have to find a husband. You’re not likely to have much choice here.”

“That’s a long time away.”

“Yes. But time passes quickly. Your Aunt Amaryllis will soon be busy with Helena.”

“Oh, Helena is a lot older than I.”

“Is it six years? It seems a good deal now but when you get older it will seem nearer.”

“I’d rather stay here.”

“See how you feel later on. Life here might seem a little restricting to a lively girl.”

“You like it here.”

“Don’t forget I’ve settled down. It’s a good place to settle down in. When you are young you want to go out into the world. It makes you appreciate this more.”

“What a life you’ve had.”

“Not many men in my position can boast of having been a prisoner of Mother England.” I saw the faraway look in his eyes which came when he referred to those years in Australia. “I’ll tell you what,” he went on. “One day you, your mother, Jacco and I will pay a visit to Australia. I have some land out there. Would you like to see where your father toiled in the years of his captivity?”

“We’d all go! Oh, that would be fun.”

“One day we will.”

We were riding when this conversation took place and then suddenly we turned a bend and Cador came into view. It always amazed me when seen from a distance for it was then that one appreciated its grandeur.

“It is magnificent,” I said.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It looks so grand … so bold. As though it’s saying, ‘Come and take me if you can.’”

“That was what it was meant to say in the days of the marauding barons.”

“Nobody ever succeeded in taking it.”

“No. There were skirmishes. Gallons of boiling oil must have been poured from those battlements. You can see the marks of the battering rams on the gate. But you’re right. No one succeeded. It would take more than brute force to get a footing in Cador.”

“Then it is safe.”

“Yes. Only cunning could find a way in.”

“You’re proud of it, Papa.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

As we rode home he went on talking about the house, how one of the towers had been damaged during the Civil War when the King had sheltered there, for no Cadorson could ever be anything but a staunch royalist. Cadorsons had stood firmly beside Edward IV during the Wars of the Roses and had played a big part in that conflict.

“Much of the history of England is written on this house, Annora. It’s something to be proud of.”

Mr. Hanson came to dine with us frequently. Rolf did not return. There was always a great deal of talk over the dinner table and at this time there was trouble in various places. We were a backwater and sometimes seemed apart from the rest of the country, but as my father said, what happened in London would affect us all eventually.

Jacco and I had taken the meal with our parents ever since we were out of the nursery. My mother said she had dined with her parents at an early age and she thought it was good for us to listen to adult conversation. We were delighted with the arrangement and I was sure she was right and we did profit from these occasions.

Having stayed in the Capital, my father had returned with a greater awareness of what was going on. A year or so ago the old King had died. He had been ailing for a long time and was almost senile. He had been dominated by his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, who was rather a sinister character and had been suspected of trying to murder the little Princess Victoria who was living with her forceful mother at Kensington Palace.

All these scandals and intrigues fascinated me. I daresay a great deal of it was exaggerated but it did give me an interest in what was going on in the country.

As soon as the old King died, Cumberland was dismissed by the new monarch, William IV, who had married the Princess Adelaide and they were shortly to be crowned.

“Perhaps we will go to London for the coronation,” said my father.

“There’s a lot of trouble up there, I believe,” said Lawyer Hanson.

“Oh yes,” replied my father. “It’s due to this Reform Bill. And not only that. There is unrest everywhere among the working classes. They are determined to revolt and form unions against the employers. My wife’s relation, Peter Lansdon, is right at the centre of it.”

“Oh, that Peter Lansdon,” said the lawyer. “If he goes on as he is now he could be Prime Minister in due course.”

“Peter is a very ambitious man and seems to succeed in everything he touches.”

There had always been a lot of talk about Peter Lansdon. The family connection was rather complicated, which was mainly due to the fact that Grandfather Dickon had married Grandmother Lottie late in life when he already had two sons by a previous marriage. My mother’s half-brother, David, was the father of Amaryllis, so my mother was almost the same age as she was and they had been brought up together more like sisters than niece and aunt. It was always difficult to explain these relationships to people.

It was Amaryllis who had married Peter Lansdon, and their children were Peterkin and Helena, who were sort of second cousins to me.

However, Peter Lansdon was a very colourful character. He was an enormously successful businessman. He exported rum and bananas, I think from Jamaica, where he had spent his childhood. Having succeeded magnificently in business, he had turned his attention to politics and, as was to be expected, he rapidly began to make himself heard.

My mother had a great aversion to him. She never spoke of this but I could see how she felt whenever his name was mentioned; then a certain stony expression would creep across her face and she would become very silent.

The rest of the family admired him; and Jacco and I thought it exciting to have a relation whose name appeared in the papers now and then and of whom it was said that he might one day hold the highest post in the Government.

“Peter thinks there will have to be reform,” my father was saying. “Not only with franchise but with the workers. He thinks it would be better to placate them now than to have them forming societies which will attempt to force employers to do what they want.”

The lawyer nodded gravely. “All very well,” he said, “but the more these people get, the more they will want.”

“They haven’t very much at the moment,” my father reminded him.

My mother said: “I don’t think workers on the land realize how lucky they are when they have a benign squire who is prepared to look after them.”

Mr. Hanson agreed. “They have that and at first they are grateful. But people grow accustomed to what they have and start to want more. It’s a difficult situation. If they are given more, mark my words … once they get it they will want more and more.”

“What is generally known as the vicious circle,” I put in.

Everyone looked at me and my father smiled. “You have hit the nail on the head, Annora,” he said.

Rolf came back in August. I was riding with my father when we met him. He looked no different and smiled at me in that warmly affectionate way as though everything was as it had always been.

He told us that he was interested in a house his friend’s family were buying. They were restoring it and he had been helping them to make decisions. It had meant exploring old records, for the place was very run-down and much of the original character was in danger of being lost.

It was hard to believe that he was the same person who had leaped over the bonfire and led the mob to destroy an old woman.

He came to dine with us and the talk was all about the Reform Bill and the unrest among the workers. Then it turned back to property and Mr. Hanson’s desire to buy more land. He talked with pride about the pheasants they were breeding in their woods. “We’ll have a good shoot this autumn,” said Mr. Hanson proudly.

“Luke is determined on that,” said Rolf.