Conference at Cold Comfort Farm Page 11

  Reuben looked at his cousin. She was pale from the lateness of the night (for Flora was one who must have her eight hours) and a dark gold curl had fallen over one eye, but she was returning his sombre gaze with a cheerful one of her own. His brown face suddenly rippled with feeling, like peaty waters beneath the wind.

  ‘Ee do wish well ter me an’ mine, Cousin Flora,’ he said hoarsely.

  Flora inclined her head. It was nearly half-past one.

  ‘Ee has allus wished th’ farm well, tu.’

  Again Flora inclined her head.

  ‘There’s no self-seekin’ in ee nor yet hasty grabbin, nor yet do ee tear up th’ innercent liddle grasses,’ flinging a glance at Urk, ‘for to make nasty medicines.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Flora.

  ‘That bein’ so,’ concluded Reuben, with a throaty groan, ‘I’ll tell ee, Cousin Flora.’

  ‘Thank you, dear Reuben,’ said Flora calmly, and prepared herself to listen to a rambling confession.

  However, Reuben had first to bow his head upon his clenched hands. Then he looked up at the ceiling. Then he looked down at the floor and heaved his shoulders up and down.

  After watching his groanings and forehead-slappings, Flora said:

  ‘Do buck up, Reuben. It is getting extremely late, and I am so sleepy. What would Nancy say if she could see you going on like this?’

  Reuben shuddered, drew a deep breath, and muttered:

  ‘’Tes true. I mun force th’ words past me lips.’

  Then he did some more shudders and breathings.

  ‘Reuben! I shall get really annoyed in a minute!’

  ‘Nay, Cousin Flora. I wull speak, but all in good time, all in good time,’ and he went on shuddering.

  The grandfather clock struck two.

  At last, with a convulsive effort, Reuben brought out the words:

  ‘Reuben Starkadder! Aye, ’twas to Reuben Starkadder I sweered th’ Oath! I sweers it to meself!’ and fell back in a chair, which almost upset beneath his weight.

  ‘Then there will be less difficulty about unswearing it than I anticipated,’ said Flora briskly. ‘No, Reuben, you don’t want to disturb Nancy and the children fetching out Aunt Ada’s copy of The Milk Producer’s Weekly Bulletin and Cowkeeper’s Guide at this hour. Just unswear it quietly, to yourself, please, while I draft these cables to send to Grootebeeste.’

  For some time she wrote briskly upon leaves of her notebook, while Reuben indulged in a ceremonial which appeared to involve calculations upon his fingers and much silent slapping of his forehead. Urk lingered, gnawing his nails, and alternately darting glances at Reuben and gazing sullenly at the floor.

  ‘There!’ said Flora, as the clock struck half-past two. ‘I will send these off first thing to-morrow morning (this morning, that is), as soon as Howling Post Office is open,’ and she waved the sheaf of pages at Reuben. ‘Please have the buggy ready at ten minutes to eight, Reuben, to drive me down.’

  ‘Hev ee sent a message t’ each o’ th’ lads, Cousin Flora?’ asked Reuben wonderingly.

  ‘Yes. It means extra expense, of course, but I thought it the wisest thing to do. A single cry for help addressed, for example, to Micah, would not bring them all home.’

  ‘Ee speaks true, Cousin Flora. They be main jealous o’ one another, be th’ lads.’

  ‘So I seemed to recollect. So I have sent a special appeal to each one, saying that he, and he alone, can save the farm from a fate worse than ploughing under.’

  ‘Gorms, Cousin Flora! What fate could be worse nor that?’

  ‘Each Starkadder will decide that for himself, Reuben, and I feel pretty confident that all tomorrow we shall be receiving cables from the – er – lads, announcing their immediate return. Mud is thicker than water, you know, and remember how muddy Cold Comfort is in the winter.’ Then she turned to Urk, and said:

  ‘Will you look in on Saturday morning, Urk, and we will arrange about your climbing down the well to remove the bricks.’

  ‘I shall most certainly do nothing of the kind, Mrs Fairford. To start with, I doubt if the Central Herbalists Federation would permit me to do such a thing.’

  ‘I cannot see why they should object to your popping down a well to shift a few bricks. It is not as if you were herb-picking out of hours.’

  ‘And it would probably get me into trouble with the Well-Brick Removers Union,’ Urk continued, but in a less decided tone.

  ‘You just go ahead and move those bricks, Urk. Then they can argue it out between them. You will probably be a Test Case.’

  ‘I do not wish to be a Test Case, Mrs Fairford.’

  ‘Nonsense. You know you will love it. And now, as we have arranged everything satisfactorily, and as it is nearly three o’clock, I suggest that we all retire. We shall need our strength for tomorrow, which will be a busy day. Good night to you both.’

  Reuben and Urk seemed inclined to linger and discuss the night’s work (when was a Starkadder ever ready for bed, except in certain circumstances?), but Flora waved them off with her sheaf of cables, and presently had the satisfaction of seeing them tramping across the grey fields in opposite directions. Then, with the intention of brewing for herself some hot milk, she went yawning into the Greate Kitchene.

  All was silent in the light of the summer dawn except for someone snoring uncomfortably in a corner whom Flora did not bother to identify. She scalded the milk, and was just carrying the tray along the corridor leading to the attic staircase when a bedroom door opened and out bounced Mr Mybug.

  ‘Hot milk! “Smashing”!’ he exclaimed, and was about to help himself from Flora’s little jug when Flora wafted it away, saying firmly:

  ‘This is for me, Mr Mybug. There is plenty of milk downstairs if you want some: I understand that Lady Hawk-Monitor sent us down a churnful from Misdemeanour yesterday evening. How, if I may ask, did you know that I had hot milk to spare?’

  ‘Saw you in the Greate Kitchene out of my window. I couldn’t sleep,’ and Mr Mybug’s voice took on a more sombre note as he plomped himself down (greatly to Flora’s dismay) upon the bottommost stair of the flight leading to her attic. Mr Mybug then gazed up at Flora, reminding her of a dog she once owned named Nimbo who had always looked in need of help. Mr Mybug wore pyjamas too small for him and a dirty old macintosh.

  ‘This week has been Hell for me,’ he began cosily. ‘I didn’t think it could happen to me. I thought I was safe in a sublimated ethos of my own devising. Well, I’m awake now,’ and he gave a brutal realistic laugh.

  This was unfortunately true. However, Flora could not very well climb past him, so she drank some hot milk and glanced at one of the many grandfather clocks ticking about the farm nowadays. It said a quarter to four and the birds were singing.

  ‘It’s a platitude, of course, that time is measured in terms of our own response to it, but this week I’ve proved it in “blood, sweat, toil and tears”.’

  Not toil, thought Flora, drinking some more milk. She did not say anything; she did not even wonder what was coming next, for years and years of listening to people had taught her that if she just kept quiet and sipped or sewed and never looked shocked, there was literally no limit – no limit at all – to what people would tell her.

  Sometimes, however, she did have to put in a word, in case people should round upon her and savagely accuse her of being a happy pudding, and as this invariably meant the prolonging of the monologue, and as she rather suspected that Mr Mybug would do one of these pounces in a moment, she waited until he had finished a rambling Freudian analysis of Mdlle Avaler’s powers of attraction, then slipped in cordially:

  ‘Yes. It must be awful for you.’

  But it was too late.

  ‘“Must” be? God, what does a woman like you know about Life?’ snarled Mr Mybug. ‘What do you know of those thwarted ardours that keep the flesh palpitant, the senses astretch? Married to a parson, mother of five children! Pah!’

  There really did not seem to be a
ny answer to this, so Flora drank some more milk. The sunlight was now pouring in through the windows.

  ‘The last day!’ said Mr Mybug bitterly, and to Flora’s relief he got up off the stairs. ‘And tomorrow . . . I shall be back in Fitzroy Square.’

  ‘Have they done the ceiling yet?’ enquired Flora, beginning to mount. ‘I do hope so; nothing is more uncomfortable than workmen in the house.’

  ‘I neither know nor care. Rennett sees to that sort of thing; Rennett interviews the builder; Rennett is the practical, the unadventurous, the prosaic side of me.’

  ‘I am so glad she is well. She must come to tea as soon as I am at home again, and bring Clifford and Alastair and Trafford,’ said Flora. ‘Good-bye for the present,’ and she smilingly shut her bedroom door and turned the key rather noisily, leaving Mr Mybug alone with his sufferings. She then went to sleep for four hours before meeting Reuben at eight o’clock, feeling that she deserved her rest.

  She returned to the farm well content on the following morning, having sent off the cables at Howling Post Office, and as she was entering the Greate Laundrie in search of breakfast she was greeted by a voice, at once pert, self-satisfied, and not quite sure of itself:

  ‘Marnin’, Mis Fairford. Don’t expect ee reckernizes me.’

  ‘How are you, Rennett,’ replied Flora, shaking hands with Mrs Mybug and feeling relieved that Mr Mybug would now have to mind his p’s and q’s. ‘How nice to see you again. Have you come down for the Party to-morrow evening?’

  ‘Natcherally. I comes by th’ milk train. There’s no keepin’ me away, Hubby says, when there’s junketin’s and prancin’s afoot. I’ve brought me ball-gownd, an’ all. ’Twas a friend o’ Hubby’s did design it an’ be-wove it tu. It be all over masks of fiends.’

  ‘How original,’ said Flora, thinking that nowadays moss-rosebuds would have been far more original and deciding that she could not think Rennett’s new style (bun, black sweater, red dirndl) an improvement upon her old one (bun, stuff gown, elastic-sided boots). However, when living in Fitzroy Square one must do as the Fitzrovians did, and in those circles Rennett was doubtless considered a beauty. ‘Have you brought the children?’ she went on.

  Rennett nodded towards three little boys with red cheeks and black curls who were playing near at hand.

  ‘Natcherally. There they be. Hubby do love ’em dearlie,’ she said, with lowered voice and some return of her former timid manner, ‘but he would sooner die nor tell.’

  ‘I hope you have breakfasted?’ said Flora, preparing to go into the Greate Laundrie for her own breakfast.

  ‘Natcherally. Wi’ th’ lasses in th’ Greate Barne. They begins to show their years, don’t ee think?’

  ‘“Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick”,’ quoted Flora, with a note of reproof. ‘They have not enjoyed your advantages. But their time of waiting is nearly over. By Sunday morning the Starkadders will be home again.’

  ‘So I hears,’ said Rennett. ‘And th’ lasses is wild wi’ joy, trimmin’ bonnets an’ puttin’ frills on petticoats. ’Tes a brave sight, surely.’

  Flora was pleased to hear her say so, for it proved that the best qualities in Rennett Starkadder’s nature had survived both the arty-smarty veneer imposed upon Mrs I. Mybug and the lachrymose looseness of outlook which was de rigueur in the Crushed Grape, a public-house in Charlotte Street frequented by Mr Mybug and his friends.

  The morning passed comparatively peacefully, though a feeling of expectation, like an insidious perfume, was beginning to pervade the farm. It was diffused both by the delegates, some of whom were looking forward to the Party on the following evening, and by the Starkadder maidens, whose excitement mounted steadily as the day drew on. Wild snatches of song containing references to true hearts, long years, and the humbler types of field vegetation burst occasionally from the Greate Barne or broke the silence in the farm bedrooms. Sheets and blankets were laid out to air on the meadow grass. So were mattresses, pillows, bolster cases and quilts – honeycomb, marcella, and patchwork. It occurred to Flora, seated in the shade of the runner-bean rows and slicing beans for luncheon, that in fact most of the lasses’ attention was being paid to future sleeping arrangements at the farm.

  Who should approach her, to her extreme dismay, when she had been at work for some twenty minutes, but Mr Claud Hubris, accompanied by a small Operating Executive.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the small Operating Executive politely to Flora. ‘Have you seen Mdlle Avaler?’

  ‘She has gone for a walk with Mr Jones,’ Flora replied.

  Mr Hubris turned copper-colour, and the small Operating Executive braced himself to catch him in case he fell. Mr Hubris managed, however, to make a movement of his great hand, and the small Operating Executive, still keeping himself braced, again addressed Flora:

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘About ten minutes ago. They went,’ added Flora, ‘towards that wood over there,’ pointing. ‘The far one,’ she added, ‘not the one near the road.’

  The small Operating Executive now gazed fearfully at Mr Hubris, waiting for the next order. Flora placidly continued to slice beans. Mr Hubris directed a glare like a blow-lamp in action upon the far wood and was silent.

  After this had been going on for what seemed a pretty long time, Mr Hubris waved away the small Operating Executive, who made off at the double, and surprised Flora very much by sitting down upon the bench at her side. She would have felt more at ease with an honest-to-god tiger, but she immediately decided to pursue her accustomed course of action when confronted by an unexpected and disagreeable situation – namely, go on in silence with whatever she happened to be doing.

  ‘Want to make some money?’ began Mr Hubris, in a voice rusty from brow-beating fellow directors – but slurring the last word even as a cannibal slurs the word ‘meat’.

  Flora replied cautiously that money was often useful.

  ‘Going to Cornwall this autumn, aren’t you?’ went on Mr Hubris, without condescending to explain how he came to know this fact. ‘What’s the place like? Sheltered? Pretty? Decent sands?’

  ‘Ugly and pebbly. The sands are exposed, and near the shore there is a large and voracious quicksand. The cliffs are overgrown with nettles, and such birds as manage to survive there are quite ordinary,’ replied Flora untruthfully. She spoke at once and with decision, for she wished to end the converstion. Mr Hubris had only begun it because, whenever he was thwarted in any way, his instinct was to offer someone some money (thereby obtaining power over them if they accepted) or set about making some himself.

  He stared suspiciously. He was not quite sure about her.

  ‘’Pity,’ he said at last. ‘Nutritional Necessities Incorporated are permanently alert for development sites. We pay a bonus to any operative recommending one.’

  ‘I could not sincerely recommend Creepworthy Cove. I doubt if anyone could develop it.’

  ‘We should put our team of Amenity Assessors on to it. They would assess it from every angle: soil, water, sounds, light, flora, fauna – everything. Table the advantages. Table the disadvantages. Then plot a scheme.’

  ‘It would have to be a good one.’

  ‘It would be a good one,’ said Mr Claud Hubris, warming to his work. ‘Why, sitting right here without the assistance of the Amenity Assessors, I can think of a scheme. Concrete the cliff-surfaces. Build a grandstand. Run a line of charas to bring people to see people sink in the quicksands. Thousands in it – if thousands are enough for you.’

  ‘But how would you get the people to sink in the quicksands?’ enquired Flora, fascinated.

  ‘Sell ’em tickets. Have a merger with the Euthanasia Society and give it eight and a half per cent of the profits. Or sell the cliff tickets to sadists and the quicksand tickets to masochists. Oh, there’d be no difficulty in selling the tickets. ’Question is, would the profits be on a paying scale?’

  ‘I think I see Mdlle Avaler over there,’ said Flora, gathering up her bowl of beans, �
�and she seems to be coming this way. If you will excuse me, I must take these to the kitchens. I have found our talk most interesting. Good morning.’

  Mr Hubris did not reply, for he was glowering at Mdlle Avaler, who now strolled smiling towards him. Mr Jones was not to be seen.

  ‘Claude, you look ’ot,’ observed Mdlle Avaler, touching Mr Hubris with the very tip of her cornflower-blue ribbon sash, and Beauty led the Beast away.

  After luncheon Flora seated herself in the Green Parlour with a novel by that kind and true-hearted gentleman Henry Kingsley to await the arrival of the replies to her cablegrams. The afternoon was fine, and she would have preferred a walk over Teazeaunt Beacon to visit Elfine, but duty must be done.

  From her window she had the Greate Yarde in view, and early in the afternoon some of the Managerial Revolutionaries drove up in a lorry, laden with alcohol and tobacco to be consumed at the Party, which would officially mark the end of the Conference. It took four of them nearly half an hour to carry these comestibles into the house.

  Entertaining, unlike everything else, has become simpler, reflected Flora. An Edwardian hostess was expected to provide attractive premises, delicious food and drink, perfect service, and a handsome, well-dressed, agreeable company. In the Second Dark Ages a hostess could give a party in a damp cellar all over beetles and attended by insolent half-wits, and if only the supply of alcohol and tobacco were unlimited, no one would complain.

  ‘’Ere’s a wire for Rube Starkadder,’ said a voice at the window, interrupting her thoughts. It was Hick Dolour, already mentioned as driver of the converted jeep and extra-union picker of herbs for Urk Starkadder. He handed the envelope to Flora. ‘My, my. Wot’s cookin’ here?’ he added, surveying the lorry in the yard and various floral decorations in process of erection in the Greate Laundrie, and he rode off on his bicycle, uttering wolf-whistles.

  Flora looked thoughtfully at the telegram. So much depended upon what it said! Should she open the envelope? No, that might enrage Reuben. She gathered up her skirts and went across the fields to his cottage.