Dead Man Riding (11 page)

‘It would be Byron, wouldn't it,' Imogen said. ‘He belongs in another age, the Old Man.'

‘I see what you mean. As if Queen Victoria never happened.'

Assuming him to be in his mid-seventies now, he'd have been a lad when she came to the throne more than sixty years ago, in an age when gentlemen at least didn't have to care too much about being respectable. Perhaps that explained a lot of things, including Dulcie.

‘Poor Alan.' Imogen breathed it on a sigh. Midge and I looked at each other.

By the house we debated whether to collect our towels and decided against it. We'd get dry in the sun, Midge said. We saw nobody in the yard or on the track down to the big field where the mares were grazing. The grass in there was still uncut, so soft and cool looking that a few steps through the gate I took off my boots and stockings and went barefoot. After a while the other two did the same. We went in single file down to the river with the mares staring at us from the shade of the alders and willows, whisking their tails against the flies. The bathing place was a long way down the field. By then the brook had collected a few tributaries and become a little river. A bridge crossed it, made of flat stone slabs on supports of rocks piled up without mortar. Below the bridge the river broadened and deepened into a pool perhaps four or five feet deep and so clear that the pebbles at the bottom gleamed like jewels in a shop window. Nearly mad from the heat, I tore my clothes off and slid into the water. It felt bitingly cold. I struck out to the middle of the pool, turned downstream and went slowly with the current, moving just enough to keep afloat. A splash and a cry behind me and Midge was following, striking out at the water like a happy spaniel. We turned and took a few strokes upstream to where Imogen was still sitting on the bank with her skirt drawn up to her knees, dabbling her long white feet in the water.

Midge said, ‘Isn't it nice without men.'

We stood with water up to our shoulders and teased Imogen to join us. After a while she said all right, stood up and started unbuttoning her skirt but so slowly that we could tell she didn't want us to watch her undress. We went off downstream again and when we came back she was standing there with the water up to her knees but the same dreamy look on her face she'd had since we got there, as if the coldness of the water made no impression. Midge and I grabbed a hand each and pulled her in, screaming, which at least took care of the dreaminess for a while. We had a mock water fight as if we were about nine years old, slapping the surface to send sprays of drops over each other, diving to grab at ankles, laughing and screeching so much that the mares turned their heads to see what was happening.

When we'd had enough we climbed out on the bank and slapped at ourselves with our skirts to dry off the worst of the water. We got back into our petticoats, chemises and blouses, loosely buttoned, but left our hair down and our skirts spread on the bank to dry while we lay in the sun, half asleep and half awake. For a while, with my skin still cool from the water and the scents of river and crushed grass all round us I felt totally, mindlessly happy as I hadn't felt for years. Then Imogen spoke.

‘What am I going to do?'

I said, ‘He thinks he's offended you. He asked me what was wrong.'

‘What did you say?'

‘That you were tired.'

She smiled up at the sky. ‘It's funny, I've never felt less tired. I don't think I slept a moment last night or the night before, just lay there thinking – no, not even thinking, just being.'

‘Interesting point,' Midge said. ‘Are you suggesting that when we go to sleep we stop being?'

‘No. I've had enough of philosophical discussion. I'm asking you both, what I'm going to
do.
'

‘One way or the other,' I said, ‘you're going to have to say something to him before he goes melancholy mad.'

‘I know. That's why I've been avoiding him. I can't talk to him about the weather, or his uncle or anything else. If I speak to him at all I'll have to come straight out with it. “Alan, when you said you loved me, but I didn't understand, I understand now and I love you too.”' She said it staring up at the sky. We didn't speak. She got impatient. ‘Come on, say something. Isn't that what we all agreed a woman should do when she loves somebody? No coyness, no pretending not to understand, no little tricks to make it look as if it's all his responsibility, not hers. Simple, honourable statements from two people who happen to love each other – wasn't that it?'

Undeniable. We had discussed it – not all the time, of course, because there were plenty of other things to worry about – as part of the question of how a modern woman should manage her life.

‘Haven't you ever felt like this, either of you?'

Midge shook her head from side to side against the grass. I said, also looking up at the sky, ‘Once, four years ago. There was this young German I met when my mother and I were in the Alps for the summer. It was crazy, I can see that now, but nothing and nobody else existed.'

‘What happened?' Midge asked.

‘His father found out and made him go back home. Just as well, probably.' Only it hadn't felt like that at the time.

‘Well, Alan's not going away,' Imogen said, ‘so I've got to make up my mind. Can either of you give any good reason why I shouldn't tell him?'

We gave her several: that things were complicated enough already, that her nerves were still too jangled to make proper decisions, that if she really loved him she'd still feel the same when they were back in Oxford in October and she could tell him then. She made the same point in reply to all of them: that she could hardly go through the next few weeks without speaking to Alan, and if she did speak to him, it would be impossible to tell him anything but the truth. All right, we said, go away. Next train south out of Carlisle and we'll come with you if you like. Total resistance there too. How could any woman who loved a man go away and leave him with an undoubtedly mad, probably murderous great uncle? All right, we said, the two of us will stay if you like and help protect him and write to you. She didn't even bother to reply to that.

‘So when it comes to it, neither of you has got any argument against telling him.'

‘We've given you half a dozen,' Midge said, ‘only you won't listen.'

‘So it's decided then, at the first opportunity, I tell him. Then what?'

Midge said, ‘I suppose you get engaged but don't tell your colleges, ask your parents for permission and get married when you've done your finals.'

‘But that's a year away. Anyway, my parents will hate it. Mummy's got half a dozen fledgling ambassadors lined up for my inspection next time I'm in India. Penniless scholars need not apply.'

‘Penniless, is he?'

‘Pretty nearly. Anyway, I'm twenty-one in October and he's twenty-one already. We could get married whether my parents liked it or not.'

‘Leaving you penniless too,' Midge said.

‘We're all going to work for our living, aren't we? Or have you gone back on that too?'

‘We haven't gone back on anything,' I said. ‘But there is the question of the colleges.' Students were not allowed to marry. Very occasionally exceptions were made for the young gentlemen, but this wouldn't be one. Somerville woman marries Balliol man was more likely to set alarm bells than joy bells ringing.

‘I could leave and get a teaching job. Anyway, it's not as if they even let women take degrees.'

‘You won't get much of a teaching job if you leave before you take your final exams.'

Imogen said, ‘Oh, this is nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it at all. Why worry about finals or jobs or money. I love him and he loves me now, now, now.' With every ‘now' she beat the grass beside her with clenched fists.

‘So,' I said, ‘you go to him and you tell him you love him and nothing else matters?'

‘Yes.'

Midge said, ‘And you both wait until you can get married?'

Imogen turned her head to look not at Midge but at me and gave me a lazy smile, much more relaxed than she'd been so far.

‘Did you wait, Nell?'

‘I told you, he was sent—'

‘Before you had time to—'

‘Yes.'

‘And if you'd known he was going to be sent away?'

‘That's a hypothetical question.'

‘That means yes, doesn't it? You're blushing, Nell. Yes?'

‘It's hot.' I turned my head away.

She laughed. ‘Yes.'

After a while we wandered back up to the barn, stopping before we got there to help each other put up our still-damp hair. The men pretended they'd been discussing Plato all the time we'd been away but we didn't believe them. Nathan was making a kind of chair from hazel rods and a section of tree trunk he'd found in the woods, Kit and Meredith were reading and Alan was pacing aimlessly up and down. Imogen's eyes followed him.

‘Do you think he's worrying about what the police will say tomorrow, Nell?'

‘Probably.'

‘Do you mind if I don't come down to the town with you and Midge. I don't want…' Her voice trailed away. I wasn't sure if she couldn't trust herself in a wagonette with Alan or if she wanted him to keep his mind clear for a difficult interview.

‘Not in the least. You can have a nice quiet time here reading Greek with Meredith.'

I usually try not to be waspish, but it was hot and I'd had enough. Luckily she wasn't paying me much attention. I walked up the field to look at the view and get myself back in a good temper. The sound of Midge's and Nathan's laughter followed me. I think he was trying to persuade her to try sitting in his chair. Further down, a solitary figure was walking away from the house, along the track towards the mares' field, the sun glinting on his silver hair – the Old Man going about his business, apparently unconcerned with all of us up there debating what should be done about him. A surge of sadness came over me that he might be taken away from his land and his horses and I knew I wanted to do something to prevent that happening. It was a question that had very little to do with liking and nothing at all with any definition we'd found so far of justice. A question of rightness, I supposed, though I was glad nobody was asking me to define it.

Late that night, well after midnight when Midge and Imogen were asleep on their hay pallets on either side of me, I heard soft footsteps in the tack room below then the door to the stable yard opening. I looked out to see the glow of lamplight on the cobbles of the yard and the familiar figure, horsewhip in one hand, lamp in the other. It was the Old Man again, keeping watch against enemies who might or might not exist. I remembered a sentence that Imogen had translated from the Greek:
For, Socrates, old age lays only a moderate burden on men who have order and peace within themselves.
I thought he had made a kind of order for himself, but it didn't look like peace.

Chapter Seven

I
WAS IN THE
STABLE YARD
AROUND SEVEN
the next morning when Alan came to ask the Old Man for the loan of the wagonette.

‘Take it, my boy. My house is your house. Only you'll have to hitch up Bobbin yourself. Robin's up in Sid's paddock seeing to the fence.'

We went down in a bunch to collect the placid cob from where he was grazing by the river. Alan and I buckled the head collar on and led the horse up to the yard. He and Nathan pulled the wagonette out from the cart shed while Midge and Imogen collected the harness from the tack room.

‘Which way round does it go?' Midge stared at the mass of straps and buckles.

‘Let me see it.' I had hold of Bobbin at the time and, forgetting about the arm, handed the head-collar rope to the nearest person who happened to be Kit. He almost dropped it.

‘I'm not good with horses, in any case. Unpredictable animals, cherished by irrational people.'

He was keeping as much distance as he could between himself and the cob. Without fuss, Meredith took the head-collar rope from him. We managed to get Bobbin harnessed to the wagonette, although I noticed Imogen too was keeping her distance.

‘I'm not good with horses either. I prefer bicycles.'

Meredith took the reins, Alan climbed up beside him and Midge and I sat facing each other on the seats at the back. Nobody said much on the way into town. We arrived there at about half past nine and decided to stable Bobbin and the wagonette at a public house with livery stables at the back. Meredith went inside to negotiate while we waited in the yard and, I guessed, to test whether there was any open hostility. He came out looking relieved, followed by a grinning groom.

‘They'll look after him. I've said we'll be back in a couple of hours or so. Will that be enough for your shopping?'

We said yes and agreed to meet in front of the public house at midday. Meredith had already got directions to the police station and we watched as they walked away through the arch into the street. Alan looked pale and nervous but then calling on the police to ask if a family member might have murdered somebody would put a strain on anyone. Midge took the shopping list out of her pocket.

‘Where shall we start?'

‘I thought we might go and have a look at the police court.'

‘Oh?'

‘I'm sure the magistrates will be sitting on a Monday. There are bound to be a few cases of fighting or drunkenness over the weekend, even in a little town like this.'

‘And that interests us?'

‘The magistrates do. About the only thing we know about the person the Old Man's supposed to have murdered is that he's a magistrate's son. If Mawbray senior is on the bench, I'd like to see him.'

‘How will that help?'

‘I don't suppose it will, but can you suggest anywhere else to start?'