Ne'er Do Well Page 2

  “In the twinkling of an eye?” said Baldric.

  “That’s my belief.”

  Baldric frowned.

  “And the roof of Odd Acre’s new barn is only half on.”

  “I think you’ll have time for that. I don’t think it’s coming just yet. I may be wrong, of course. It may come tonight. But somehow I don’t think it will. But when it comes, I think it’ll come in a flash.”

  “And fall upon us?” said Jenny.

  “Yes, my sweet. Get us, and they’ve got the lot. Wipe England out, and the rest will be at their disposal.”

  Baldric nodded.

  “Machines do not a warrior make.”

  “Nor boasts a man-at-arms.”

  Mansel continued, smiling.

  “And we’re painfully vulnerable. But, as I’ve said, I don’t think it’s coming just yet. I’ve nothing to go on, of course.”

  “But it’s bound to come?” said Natalie.

  “That’s my belief,” said Mansel. “America will almost certainly turn the switch. Trip over the wire, if you like. But the dump is there, waiting. The end of this civilization is overdue. We’ve flouted the laws of Nature for several years. As for the laws of God…”

  “Jonah,” said Baldric, “I’m with you all the way. Nine of the ten Commandments are simply ignored today. The only one honoured is the second – which people can’t be bothered to break.”

  “And we can do nothing,” said Natalie.

  “We can go on behaving. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “An Act of God,” said I, “could stop the rot.”

  “It could, indeed – if its effects were wholesale. They would have to be so crippling that over-civilization would go by the board. So there’s really not much in it. We’ve got to get back to the laws of God and of Nature. When the world obeys those laws, the world will be happy again.”

  With that, we left the house, to return to husbandry: for our pleasant host and hostess drove us about the estate. During the tour, my admiration for the Baldrics rose very high. Only devotion to duty could have produced such results – a very rare devotion; but that was theirs. And men and beasts were plainly so pleased to see them wherever they went. Let me at once admit that without their inherited wealth they could not have so maintained the Buckram estate: but when it is remembered that they could, had they pleased, have kept a most handsome home and have led a luxurious life, I think it does them great credit that they would not so much as employ a deputy.

  As we drove back to Maintenance –

  “More meat for the demagogues,” said Mansel. “You see, they’re landed gentry. That they work like galley-slaves is beside the point. They are the master and mistress of Buckram Place.”

  “That’s Communism,” said Jenny.

  “All demagogues,” said I, “are convertible Communists.”

  “How d’you convert them, darling?”

  “Make them landed gentry,” said I. “But I don’t think they’d live in two rooms at Buckram Place.”

  The Earl and Countess of Avon drove over to luncheon with us on the following day.

  They were a gentle pair. Nol Avon was more than half blind from a wound in the first great war: it was Julie’s pride and pleasure to lend her husband her eyes. To see them together was moving – each loved the other so well. For the last few years, except to visit close friends, they seldom moved outside their beautiful Hampshire home. I except their visits to Canada, where Avon had a fine ranch.

  “I’m ashamed of you, Nol,” said Mansel. “Stripping Lockley like this.”

  Nol Avon laughed.

  “For The Master’s Lodging, you mean? We’re not giving very much. Besides, the stuff will go to a very good home. What is the sense of keeping it to be sold?”

  “Oh, I know,” said Mansel. “Have you really made Boy free of your beautiful library?”

  “Jonah, as you probably saw, six months ago old Raven of Maidenhair died. When his library came to be sold, a dealer measured the shelves with a three-foot rule – and purchased those handsome volumes at so much a yard.”

  “My God,” said I.

  “It’s true,” said Nol. “And we’re sentimental enough to feel that such fine and faithful servants shouldn’t be treated like that.” He sighed. “The children should be all right. They’re taking to Canada. Not what I’d hoped, of course. But I think it’s best. And we shall get through somehow… The staff and the tenants are safe – I’ve seen to that. It’s best to do these things while yet there is time. And the Public Trustee has been extremely helpful. The Income Tax people are cross, but we’ve nothing to hide. We’ve been living on the family silver for more than a year.”

  “O wise Lord Avon,” said Mansel.

  “Say rather ‘prudent’, Jonah.”

  “Or méchant,” said Julie. “Quand on l’attaque, il se défend.”

  “Very good,” cried Jenny, clapping her hands. “You’ll be known as the wicked Lord Avon in days to come.”

  “To that, my sweet, I am prepared to submit. And you, Richard?”

  “We’re living on capital, too. If we weren’t, we shouldn’t be here. Nor would the staff. And they don’t want to leave Maintenance. Of course we don’t hunt any more, but we do what we can with the farms and I think we shall just make out.”

  “And Berry and Daphne, Jonah?”

  “They can’t come back,” said Jonah. “Berry would never survive a winter here. He’s quite all right by Lisbon. And Jill and Boy won’t leave them. I’m very thankful to winter there myself.”

  “How wise you were to make over White Ladies when you did.”

  “It broke our hearts,” said Mansel, “but we felt it was right.”

  “And that will survive; but Maintenance, Lockley and Buckram will disappear. I don’t like the present much: but I like the look of the future a good deal less.”

  Mansel nodded. “In twenty or thirty years, the process of levelling down will be complete. That is, if no catastrophe occurs. Nothing worth having will be left. There’ll be no one and nothing to look up to, no examples to follow, nothing whatever to strive for except existence itself. Life will be painfully dull. And those in power will treat all the others like dirt. And then, after much tribulation and many years, the great days will come again.”

  “The price of equalization,” said Nol, “is painfully high.”

  There was a little silence.

  “I remember,” said I, “the first time I saw White Ladies…”

  On the following morning, Tuesday, Mansel and I were in the coach-house, considering the dog-cart and gig.

  “Not many left,” said Mansel. “And there used to be thousands. I suppose they were all dismantled or broken up.”

  “The gig came from Cockcrow,” I said. “I bought it through Shere, when old Lord Scarlet died. It was George that got the dog-cart – I can’t remember where.”

  “And as good as new,” said Mansel. “They built stuff that lasted then. The broughams, too! What exquisite things they were.”

  Jenny came stepping across the stable-yard.

  “Darling,” she said, “Beecham’s rung up from Clarion, to ask if I’ll come.”

  Beecham was a very good vet.

  “If it’s Adamant,” I said, “you’re not going. I’ve only one wife.”

  Mansel looked at me, and Jenny put a hand to her mouth.

  “Who’s Adamant?” said Mansel.

  I sighed.

  “Adamant,” said I, “is a stallion. He’s Colin Delaney’s pet. But for Adamant’s temper, he might have made a great name: but he does very well as a sire. The trouble is he’s a rogue. And when the fit is on him, he’s really dangerous. He’s damned near killed one lad and he’s maimed another for life.”

  “I know,” said Jenny, “I know. But he is such a lovely fellow. I know he goes off the deep end, but that’s only because he’s so terribly highly strung. Come with me, darling, and tell me what I may do.”

  All thre
e of us drove to Clarion, a very pleasant establishment, sunk in the downs.

  As I brought the car to a standstill, Colin Delaney came forward, with Beecham behind.

  “What’s the trouble, Colin?” I said.

  “It’s his eye,” said Colin. “It’s shut and weeping and sending him out of his mind. The trouble is, of course, he won’t let us look.”

  “He’s got something in it,” said Beecham. “It may be only a seed. But you know what Adamant is. I can’t get anywhere near him. As for everting the eyelid…”

  He threw up his hands.

  “Let me talk to him,” said Jenny.

  “Very well,” said I. “But please don’t ask me to let you go into his box.”

  “I wouldn’t let her,” said Colin.

  The five of us made our way to Adamant’s box.

  The upper leaf of the stable-door was open: when we peered cautiously in, a truly pitiful picture met our eyes. The embodiment of defiance, the magnificent black was standing with his quarters to the opposite wall. His glorious head was up, and he made me think of some warrior facing death. His right eye was flaming – there is no other word. But the left was closed and twitching, and tears were steadily trickling over his jowl. As Jenny came up to the door, I moved directly behind her, holding her body lightly under the arms and ready to throw her in an instant to right or left. At a nod from me, Colin Delaney and Beecham stood, one upon either side, all ready to catch my wife. Mansel was a little behind us, standing perfectly still. And so we all stood in silence for two or three minutes or more.

  Then –

  “Why, Adamant,” said Jenny: “I’ve come to help you out. I got a fly in my eye about a month ago, and it hurt like anything. I couldn’t get it out – that’s one of the things that no one can do for himself. But Richard got it out for me, and then I was quite all right. Come here, old fellow, and let me have a look.”

  In this strain she spoke to the horse, as though he were an acquaintance, recalling other occasions on which they had met; and after five or six minutes Adamant moved very slowly up to the open leaf.

  Nobody moved a muscle, as his head came out of the box.

  Then Jenny put up her sweet face, and the stallion poked his head, blew on her once or twice and then nuzzled her brow with his lips.

  Jenny took his head in her hands…

  Twenty-five minutes later, she picked a stubborn hayseed from under the upper lid.

  Then she sponged the eye with warm boracic water which Mansel had brought, and, speaking very gently, told Adamant that all would be well.

  “You’ve been simply splendid,” she said. “I know how dreadful it is to have one’s eyelid lifted: and yet you stood like a rock. And now you’ll have your reward. I expect that now it feels as though it’s still there: that’s always the way: but in five or six minutes you’ll find that that lovely eye of yours is as good as new. And now goodbye, old fellow. I’ll come back and see you soon.”

  With her hands about his muzzle, she kissed the velvet nose.

  As I drew her back into safety –

  “He’s been through a lot,” she said. “D’you think, Mr Beecham, he might have a quart of beer?”

  “I think so,” said Beecham, weakly. He wiped the sweat from his face. “To be perfectly frank, I could do with a drink myself.”

  I never drink champagne in the daytime, but that day I broke my rule. Colin was most insistent. Besides, of course, I had to drink Jenny’s health. And to be as honest as Beecham, it helped me up.

  Sitting in the library that evening, Mansel regarded his palms.

  “What I witnessed this morning,” he said, “makes our exploits seem rather thin.” He looked at me. “I don’t blame you for letting her do it, for no man has the right to withhold a miracle. But – ”

  “Jonathan, darling,” said Jenny, “there wasn’t any danger, once Adamant knew it was me.”

  “I know, I know,” said Mansel. “Still, if he’d thrown up his head…no more than that…” He put a hand to his eyes. “Well, William knows what I mean.”

  “By God, I do,” said I. I took Jenny’s hand in mine. “You see, my darling, you’re rather precious to us, and to let you hob-nob with violence shakes us up. Never mind. Let’s talk about – well, Shapely.”

  Mansel shook his head.

  “Shapely was no more a crook than Crippen was. But he had a powerful motive for what he did. Of that, he made no secret – he pointed it out to the police. But his alibi was cast iron – or so he thought. The murderer always has a motive: the crook’s is usually obvious; the man he kills is the man who embarrasses or has witnessed his commission of felony: he rarely kills out of spite. If he’s an able crook, he’s very much harder to get, for he knows all the tricks of the trade. Just look at the runs which the men we’ve been talking of had. ‘Rose’ Noble, Gedge, Brevet; Pharaoh, The Shepherd and Forecast; Barabbas and Friar: they’d all been at it for years and all were murderers.”

  “And the police couldn’t deal with them?” said Jenny.

  “Our police were weighted out by restrictions and rules: the continental police made next to no effort to get them. Take The Wet Flag in Rouen: the place was a blasted scandal: that café became so exclusive that no one, who wasn’t a crook, could go in – and come out alive. Yet it was never raided, much less closed. For that, there was no excuse, for the French police are not hampered as are the English police.

  “In the old days in London – say, seventy years ago – every three months the police would raid Seven Dials, a well-known resort of ruffians of every kind: and they’d round up all the men into Bow Street Police Station’s yard. There pulpits had been set up. In the pulpits were plain-clothes men. And they would look the crowd over and pick out the wanted men. All these were detained; and the rest were told to get out. And they went in gratitude, thanking the police at the gates and touching their hats; for all were guilty of something and feared that their hour was come.

  “Now that reminiscence is true: and it’s typical of the freedom the English police enjoyed. But now they can’t do that. If they did, on the following morning they’d be served with writ after writ for false imprisonment – and that, by the scum of the earth; and questions would be asked in the House; and the Commissioner would have to resign. The Continental Police have great freedom, but they show no initiative. They’ll kill a dead case all right, but, when a case is alive, they don’t go after their man.

  “In spite of their many handicaps, I think the English police do extremely well. They’re wonderfully quick off the mark, nothing is too much trouble and they never let go. We both know Falcon – I know him very well. He always was outstanding. He could, I am sure, had he pleased, have been an Assistant Commissioner years ago. But he’ll have to retire before long. And when he does, he will be a terrible loss.”

  “He lunched with us,” said Jenny, “about six months ago.”

  I nodded.

  “He just drove up to the house and asked if we’d give him lunch. ‘Stay the night,’ said I, ‘and we’ll give you a bed.’ ‘I wish I could,’ says he; ‘but I’ve got to get on.’ He was plainly terribly tired, and we made him lie down after luncheon and rest till four. That he should have turned to us did me a lot of good.”

  “I rather fancy,” said Mansel, “that Falcon felt the same.”

  “He thanked us so sweetly,” said Jenny. “When he was leaving, he took my hand in both his. Then he said, ‘Mrs Chandos, there are only two doors in England at which, if I needed comforting, I should knock. And the other door hangs in Cleveland Row.’”

  “It’s nice to know that,” said Mansel. “Falcon means what he says.”

  ‘Talk of the Devil,’ they say…

  Be that as it may, the very next afternoon Bell came in to say that Superintendent Falcon was on the telephone.

  “Chandos here, Superintendent.”

  “Six months ago, Mr Chandos, you gave me a generous inch. Now I am taking an ell. Will you be so very
kind as to lodge me for two or three nights?”

  “With very great pleasure, Superintendent.”

  “I shan’t be an ordinary guest, for I’m on the job. Out and about all day. My men will manage all right at The Crown at Ne’er-do-well: but it’s going to be rather more crowded than I should like.”

  “Arrive when you please. Your room will be ready and waiting in half an hour. We’re all alone, except for Colonel Mansel.”

  “What more can I ask? Goodbye.”

  When I told the others, Jenny clapped her hands and dashed off to prepare a room and Oakham ran barking behind her and Mansel began to laugh.

  “O fortunate Falcon!” he said. “And where is Ne’er-do-well?”

  “Some ten miles off. It used to be rather nice, but it’s more of a bus-stop now than anything else.”

  “What brings him there, I wonder?”

  “I can’t imagine,” said I. “It must be important, though, for him to come down.”

  “Highly important,” said Mansel. “Never mind. We’re going fishing. Sufficient unto the hour is the richness thereof.”

  I was never much of an angler, although I enjoy the pursuit: and if my surroundings are fair, I get as much pleasure of them as I do of the taking of fish. Which means, of course, that I am not a fisherman born, as Mansel is. Still, though my catch was nothing, I recall with infinite pleasure that Wednesday afternoon.

  The water was retired and private, and we were the only people to move by its precious banks. A slowly moving mirror, it rendered all that it captured as never did glass, refining the gold of the sunshine, clothing with mystery the shadows and making magic out of the sway of a leaf. Jenny lay still between us, watching the life of the stream, and Oakham lay couched beside her, his eyes on her eager face. The turf was so fine and verdant, the neighbouring woods were so full, the air was so sweet-smelling, and the pattern of light and shade so ancient and so rare. ‘Now came still evening on…’

  In the last twenty minutes Mansel landed two trout, but I had nothing to show when we made our way home.