A Spell of Swallows Read online

  ‘No, Saxon, you are—everyone says so.’ With this she kissed him.

  He had already opened the study door when he turned back and asked, more to dispel his uncomfortable feelings than out of any real interest: ‘What does the day hold for you?’

  ‘Flower ladies this morning. And this afternoon I’m going into the village. It’s my day for the school and I really should drop in on Mr Proudie.’

  ‘That’s very noble of you.’

  ‘I like to!’ She pulled an amusing little face. ‘The school, anyway.’

  Mystifying though it was, Saxon knew she meant it.

  He went into the study and closed the door. Sitting down at the desk he once more unveiled the book and dropped the wrapping into the waste-paper basket.

  Beyond Self by S.J. Mariner

  He opened the book at random and glanced down at the right-hand page almost sideways, hoping to catch the poem unawares, to come at it as a stranger might, reading it for the first time. The words that caught his eye made him hot with the memory of their inspiration—so personal, on this cool, printed page!

  . . . unknowable darkness; an angry pleasure

  And a sweet defeat . . .

  Almost superstitiously, before he could be disappointed, he closed the book again and sat still for a moment, with his heart pounding.

  Ashe did not immediately take up the landlord’s advice, but called instead at the post office.

  ‘Excuse me—the big house, a couple of miles to the west of here—do you know what it’s called?’

  The postmistress was extraordinarily busy shuffling bits of paper. Her hands trembled; she cleared her throat. Ashe waited patiently for her to collect herself. This was why he wore a collar and tie, and spoke nicely: to help people feel comfortable. In the end she managed to answer.

  ‘Eaden Place.’

  He smiled, snapped his fingers. ‘Ask a silly question . . . Who lives there?’

  ‘The Delamaynes. Sir Sidney and Lady Felicity.’

  ‘Of course.’ Ashe scanned the shelves and pointed to a jar of treacle toffees. ‘I’ll have a quarter of those if I may.’

  ‘Yes, certainly you may . . .’

  Mrs Jeeps, glad of something to do and somewhere else to look, busied herself getting down the jar and weighing out the toffees. Ashe was used to providing people with these breathing spaces. This woman had probably been told about him, but hearing was one thing and seeing for oneself quite another.

  ‘So . . .’ he said casually, as she slid the toffees on to a sheet of paper and spun it twice to twist the top, ‘a house like that must be a good employer. Does anyone from the village work up there?’

  ‘One or two, yes . . . girl from Low Farm’s in service there . . . that’ll be a penny halfpenny, thank you, thank you . . .’ She dropped the coins in the till and for the first time was sufficiently collected to bring her postmistressly skills to bear on him. ‘If you’re thinking of looking for work they’re not taking on any more at the moment, the place is given over to convalescents. More like a hospital at Eaden Place just now.’

  ‘I see. Well, never mind.’

  Mrs Jeeps gave him a sideways look. Now that she was herself again Ashe sensed a crafty, sagacious personality worthy of his mettle.

  ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘I’m after a room in the village.’

  ‘I’ll keep my ear to the ground, then.’

  He favoured her with a smile. ‘I’m not as bad as I look. But then I couldn’t be, could I?’

  ‘You poor thing,’ said Mrs Jeeps, rather flattered to be taken into this stranger’s confidence. ‘It’s not your fault. War, was it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It’s an honourable scar!’ she declared. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of.’

  Ashe forbore, on this occasion, to point out that he was not in the least ashamed, and went to the door. ‘Let me know if you hear of anything.’

  ‘I will!’ she called cheerily. But her eyes, following him out into the street, held a gleam of speculation. She had a spare room.

  Lady Felicity Delamayne—‘Please, Lady D will do!’—was undoubtedly church flower arranger-in-chief, but liked to see herself as one of a team, a mere toiler in the vineyard under the supervision of Vivien Mariner. This set up an exquisite tension, because the fact remained that almost all the blooms and greenery used came from Eaden Place, and arrived with their owner in the back of Felicity Delamayne’s car before being sorted, subjugated and advantageously displayed by their mistress.

  Eaden Place had once had its own chapel, dating from before the Reformation, but it had long since fallen into desuetude. The Delamaynes now had a family pew at St Catherine’s and contributed generously to the upkeep of the parish church. The north wall of the chancel was thickly clad with plaques of brass, copper, stone and marble in memory of Delamaynes past who had lived and died with various degrees of distinction in parts of the world as diverse as China and Tennessee. In the churchyard stood a cluster of lichen-scabbed tombstones marking the last resting place of assorted Victorian Delamaynes, amongst them Sir Ranulph, who, when the original Norman church tower collapsed in a storm in 1852, had replaced it with the present whimsical tiled turret. His name was engraved on the single remaining bell, tolled by Saxon himself on Sunday mornings. It was the sole way in which he chose to show himself as a man of the people, not realising that his thin, corded arms, sweat-bedewed face and silent, masochistic absorption served only to make his flock feel appropriately sheepish as they sidled past him in the south porch. Felicity Delamayne never felt sheepish, but she considered it just as well his wife was waiting in the doorway with a warm smile and a hymn book to make the parishioners welcome, or they might have been tempted to slink away again.

  Vivien did not dislike Lady Delamayne, but she was wary of her. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to use the ‘Lady D’ appellation (she would have preferred Felicity, but that was not on offer), and so tended to use nothing at all. On arriving at St Catherine’s this morning, she found her already there and well under way. The other member of today’s team, Mrs Spall, had not yet arrived.

  ‘Hallo, hallo!’ carolled Felicity from her stepladder by the pulpit, where she was threading forsythia through the seventeenth-century carving of birds and beasts. ‘I thought this would look rather pretty!’

  ‘It does,’ agreed Vivien.

  ‘I’ve given the lion a lovely fancy mane, what do you think?’

  ‘Oh yes . . .’ Vivien drew closer to admire the effect. ‘What a clever idea. The children will love it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Hang on—steady the Buffs—’ Lady Felicity came down the steps and stood back. ‘It’ll do.’ She fixed Vivien with her terrifying smile, lips drawn back from an implausible number of strong, yellowish teeth, eyes narrowed in a way probably intended to convey a teasing jollity, but which Vivien thought more like someone looking through the sights of a gun. She was a handsome woman, smart and tough as the riding boots she wore so well. She usually spurned the chauffeur in favour of driving herself, often at speeds of over thirty miles an hour, drank American bourbon and was frightened of nothing and nobody. At some time in her early (it was said, misspent) youth, she had learned to tap-dance and had been known to do so both off and on the table at Eaden Place. It was generally felt that her husband Sir Sidney had much to contend with, but had known very well what he was taking on.

  ‘Interesting woollie,’ she said now to Vivien. ‘Did you put the roses on yourself?’

  Vivien was quite sure the term ‘woollie’ was not one Delamayne commonly used, but she was saved from having to reply by the arrival of Mrs Spall. Mr Spall was the butcher, but his wife was thin and pale as if years of proximity to fresh red meat and ripe game had sucked the blood from her. Still, she was of a no-nonsense cast of mind and Vivien was grateful for the diversion.

  ‘Morning, Molly, how are you? Look what Lady Delamayne’s done with the pulpit.’

  ‘A poor thing but
my own,’ said Felicity.

  ‘It’s very nice your Ladyship.’ Molly Spall’s tone was merely polite, but Felicity Delamayne didn’t need, or even notice, the approbation of others. Her amour propre was enough to keep her blazing away on all cylinders.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘to what shall I turn my hand next?’

  ‘I think I’ll look at the font,’ said Vivien, making for the back of the church where lay sheaves of early bronze and white chrysanthemums, daffodils, narcissi, primroses, more forsythia and a great heap of greenery. Molly Spall went first to the cupboard for vases and then, with cadaverous aptness, to decorate the old wooden bier that stood inside the north door.

  ‘Look at us!’ cried Lady Delamayne from her position beside the altar. ‘You in your small corners and I in mine!’

  For the next half an hour the three women worked away contentedly. The font was an easy option, which was why Vivien, lacking Felicity’s firm hand with flowers, had chosen it. It didn’t take long to fill it with daffodils and primroses and to arrange some of the spindlier greenery to trail down the sides. When she’d finished the other two were still occupied and she bundled up her cut stems and sodden leaves in a sheet of newspaper to take them outside.

  It was another day of perfect spring sunshine. Lady Delamayne’s motor, maroon and black with gleaming silver headlamps, stood in the road near the neatly prepared site for the war memorial. Vivien wondered whether, if she were to go home at lunchtime, she could persuade her husband to come out for a walk. A poet needed, surely, to be exposed to the beauties of nature. She sometimes worried that Saxon’s undoubted talent might wither away for lack of light and air, but perhaps it didn’t work like that.

  She went to the far corner of the churchyard to dump her rubbish. When she’d done so she rolled up the damp newspaper, pushed it into the pocket of her skirt, and removed her cardigan, beneath which she was wearing one of Saxon’s old shirts with the sleeves cut and hemmed just above elbow length. It was wonderfully comfortable, and she’d rescued a couple more that he was about to throw away.

  It was as she came back round the corner to the main entrance that she saw the man, hanging about in the road by the car, and recognised him by his manner, which was almost proprietorial. He was walking round the car slowly, hands in pockets, stopping now and again to draw his head back and admire the whole, or lean forward to inspect some detail. Vivien was unsure whether to say something; after all he didn’t look or behave like a man who was about to do any damage, let alone jump in and drive the car away. But still—

  ‘Superb machine.’

  It was he who’d spoken to her, and who had caught her staring for the second time. She did hope, as she walked over, that he would not recognise her from that first occasion.

  ‘I don’t know much about cars, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Take my word for it.’ He remained in profile, gazing at the car. Vivien could not place him on the social scale; he was well spoken and did not sound like a labourer, but neither did he look quite like a professional man. His tone was even and civil, a tone used between equals.

  ‘Yours?’ he asked.

  ‘No. My husband owns a car but I don’t drive it. This belongs to Lady Delamayne,’ she said and added, because for some reason she wished to make it clear that she was not alone, ‘She’s in the church.’

  ‘Delamayne . . . From Eaden Place, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whoever polishes this for her does a good job,’ he said, bending forward. ‘You can see your face in this.’

  Afterwards, Vivien thought that he was giving her a veiled warning, because when he straightened up and turned towards her it was the first time she’d seen him full face and at close quarters, and she could not help herself.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Instinctively, she removed her glasses and put her hand to her eyes.

  ‘John Ashe,’ he said, as if correcting her.

  ‘I do apologise . . . I’m so sorry. Mr Ashe . . .’ Covered in confusion she replaced her glasses but was literally unable to know where to look. But his expression, on that half of his face which could express anything, was mild.

  ‘You have the advantage of me,’ he said imperturbably.

  ‘Vivien Mariner.’ She was still struggling to collect herself. ‘I really can’t apologise enough for that silly, thoughtless reaction.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m used to it. It’s other people I feel sorry for.’

  ‘How dreadful.’ Vivien shook her head. ‘The war? I feel so awful.’

  He ignored this. ‘Mrs Mariner—you live at the vicarage.’

  It was a statement. She realised that hers was the second name he had successfully identified and placed.

  ‘Yes. Yes—we’re in there doing the flowers.’

  ‘You and Lady Delamayne.’

  ‘There are three of us.’

  ‘I’d better let you get on,’ he said and would have walked away then and there.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Ashe.’

  With studied politeness, he paused.

  ‘Mr Ashe, I must ask—only we haven’t met before and I thought I knew most—do you live in Eadenford?’

  ‘Let’s see . . .’ he said, gazing for a moment at the ground. When he looked back up Vivien didn’t flinch, and congratulated herself on her small victory.

  ‘I do now,’ he said.

  Felicity Delamayne appeared in the south door as she returned.

  ‘There you are, we wondered where you’d got to . . .’ She peered over Vivien’s shoulder. ‘Who’s that, I wonder?’

  Vivien felt an impulse to protect her new acquaintance from Felicity’s suspicion.

  ‘A Mr John Ashe. He’s new to the village and he was admiring your car.’

  ‘I could see that.’ Felicity was if anything even more suspicious. ‘Why on earth would anyone new come to Eadenford? The streets are hardly paved with gold. Oh well, there’s no accounting for taste . . . As long as you caught him at it.’

  ‘Honestly, you had nothing to worry about,’ said Vivien. ‘He was a—’ She hesitated, the word ‘gentleman’ not being quite accurate. ‘He’s just a motor-car enthusiast.’

  ‘I dare say.’ Felicity stretched her neck and settled her fine shoulders in a horse-like movement. ‘I’m glad you spotted him.’

  They went into the church together. Molly Spall was putting a cushion of primroses in moss on one of the south windowsills. She stepped carefully off the pew.

  ‘I saw him yesterday,’ she said. ‘That man, in the street. Yesterday and again this morning.’

  ‘Did you, Molly?’ Vivien was glad to have found an ally to bear out her view that Ashe was harmless. ‘Awful, isn’t it, what’s happened to his face.’

  ‘What’s the matter with his face?’ asked Felicity.

  ‘Nasty,’ agreed Molly, which to Vivien’s practised ear seemed to imply neither pity nor sympathy, but a suggestion that disfigurement was a sign of moral turpitude.

  ‘Enlighten me,’ said Felicity, looking from one to another.

  Mrs Spall waved a hand. ‘You wouldn’t want to know, your Ladyship.’

  ‘The whole point is that I would.'

  Vivien wondered how on earth to describe the terrible twist of the features, the gnarled shiny skin and the gash of a mouth. ‘He’s very badly scarred,’ she said lamely. ‘Only on one side, but it is frightening when you see it for the first time—isn’t it Molly?’

  Mrs Spall twitched, and said again: ‘Nasty.’

  ‘I feel so sorry for him having to live his life behind that—having to suffer other people’s reactions all the time. I’m afraid mine was simply appalling, it gave me such a shock—I was positively rude.’

  ‘I wouldn’t give it another thought.’ Felicity patted her arm confidingly. ‘He probably enjoys it. You’d be surprised,’ she sighed with a world-weary air, ‘at the things men get pleasure from.’

  This was one of those exchanges, freighted with a complex cargo of social nua
nce, where Felicity might say pretty much what she liked but it would have been entirely inappropriate for Vivien to respond in kind. No matter how much she wanted to reply that no, she wouldn’t be in the least surprised, such an answer would have been unthinkable. Instead, she busied herself with the tidying up, and ten minutes later they left the church.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a cold drink? Or some coffee?’ she asked.

  Mrs Spall said thank you but she must be getting back, but Felicity proclaimed an agony of indecision.

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t . . . no, I mustn’t . . . On the other hand, why not?’ Vivien stood silently by during this soliloquy. ‘Yes—you’ve persuaded me.’

  Vivien declared herself delighted. ‘I’m afraid I must take you in at the back door, I don’t have my key.’ She hoped to be forgiven for this white lie; the front door was not locked, but she didn’t want to expose Saxon to the possibility of interruption

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ said Felicity, following her across the grass to the kissing-gate. ‘Is that clever husband of yours at home?’

  ‘Working in his study,’ said Vivien and couldn’t resist adding: ‘He got the first copy of his new poetry collection this morning.’

  ‘Oh! How simply wonderful. I’m in complete awe. And he’s so modest, he hides his light under a bushel. I don’t imagine there’s more than half a dozen people in the village know that their vicar’s a famous poet.’

  Vivien opened the back door. ‘I’m not sure he’d accept “famous”. “Distinguished”, perhaps.’

  ‘All right, all right, what do I know? I’m the first to admit I’m not a poetry reader, or novels either. Not much of a reader, in fact. But I still think it might wake the congregation up a bit if they knew what he gets up to!’

  Saxon heard the unmistakable tones of Felicity Delamayne and held himself quite rigid for a moment until he was sure Vivien had taken her into the drawing room. He trusted his wife implicitly not to breach his privacy, but that woman was a force of nature, and might do anything.