Green and Pleasant Land Read online

  ‘I was up at Cambridge with the older of the Fellafield boys – Charles.’ Toby’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Why of course you were. I’d forgotten.’ She laughed a little at his boyish grimace of distaste. ‘Charles is so very like his father, isn’t he? They’re both the kind of people you can’t imagine having been young! But don’t let that prejudice you against young Hugo. Believe me, they’re absolutely nothing alike. It astounds me sometimes that they’re brothers –they’re like chalk and cheese. Hugo’s the one who’s taking over the Fellafield side of the wine business. James adores him and he’s quite one of the nicest young men I know.’ She laughed again, affectionately. ‘A bit weak, I suppose. And totally daft sometimes. Yet—,’ she stood, considering for a moment.

  Toby glanced out of the window at the sunshine and the wide fields.

  ‘He hasn’t had an easy time of it, really. He’s been dominated by his father and that dreadful prig of a brother, virtually abandoned by his mother—’ She glanced again at the picture of the house, nestling in its tranquil, beautiful gardens. ‘Who can blame him if he isn’t the strongest of characters? But he’s a dear. I’m very fond of him.’ She caught Toby’s sly, slanted glance and laughed aloud, ‘In the most motherly possible way! Wait till you meet him. Then you’ll see.’

  ‘All I hope is he can bowl as well as he’s cracked up to.’

  ‘I’m sure he can.’

  He rapped at the banisters with his knuckle, full of energy, dying to be off. ‘Right, then. See you later.’ He ran down the first flight of steps, long hand trailing the banister rail.

  Fiona leaned forward. ‘Toby?’

  He stopped, looked up. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Despite her efforts her woman’s curiosity could not be contained. ‘This Daphne you think you’ll marry?’

  He looked a little surprised. Thought for a moment. ‘Plain. Sensible. A year or so older than me.’ He stopped, obviously casting round for any other snippet of information that might be of interest and, failing, grinned like a boy. ‘That’s about it. See you at tea.’ She watched him run down the wide, shallow stairs, whistling. He did not look back.

  Plain. Sensible. And nearly thirty years old.

  Good God. Poor woman. Did she know what she was taking on?

  A small thoughtful line bisecting her usually smooth brow, Fiona made for her husband’s luxurious bathroom and a long, cool soak.

  * * *

  ‘Why do you keep the pheasants’ eggs but give the partridges’ back? It doesn’t seem very fair.’ Philippa Van Damme ploughed sturdily through the short, moist grass of the ride, almost running to keep up with the long-legged strides of her companion.

  Gideon Best, dark face shaded as always by his battered keeper’s hat, hitched the canvas bag he carried higher onto his shoulder. ‘Told you before, didn’t I? Partridge is a good mother, pheasant a bad. Damn flighty things’ll abandon a brood if they’re scared off. Partridge’ll stick with ’em.’

  Philippa stumbled, caught herself. Gideon did not ease his pace.

  ‘But why do you take the partridges’ eggs in the first place then? If you give them back when they’re pecking or whatever you call it—’

  ‘Chipping.’

  ‘Chipping, then – why not leave them in the nest for the whole time?’

  They had reached the clearing where the coops were situated. Around each coop was a small pen where the young pheasants pecked and scratched. The hens that had been set to hatch and adopt the alien brood crooned and clucked.

  Gideon strode to the lean-to where the heavy copper stood, stirred the glowing embers of the fire he had lit at dawn that morning, poured fresh water into the copper. ‘Varmints,’ he said. ‘Rats. Crows.’ He tipped the measured rice and wheat into the water and stirred it. ‘They’ll clear a nest as fast as a bird can lay.’

  ‘So, you take the eggs and give them to a broody hen, then just as they’re hatching out you put them back in the nest?’

  ‘Tha’ss it.’ The man cast a sardonic glance at the young, earnest face. ‘Thinkin’ of applying for a job?’

  Philippa giggled. ‘Of course not. I just wanted to know, that’s all. You put wooden eggs in the nest, don’t you?’

  ‘Pot eggs.’

  ‘Pot eggs. Doesn’t the partridge guess?’

  ‘If she does she’s never let on.’

  ‘But you leave the pheasant eggs with the hens and they hatch them.’

  He straightened. Long, lean, shabbily dressed. ‘Tha’ss right.’

  ‘And you feed them and look after them until you can take the coops into the woods—’

  ‘Coverts.’

  ‘Coverts. And then you still have to look after them for a long time.’

  He grunted. He was rolling the wheat mush into small pellets with stained, dark-skinned fingers.

  Philippa considered. ‘It does seem like an awful amount of trouble to go to just so that Sir James and his friends can shoot them.’

  Gideon cocked one black eyebrow.

  She grinned, slid her finger across her own throat, rolling her eyes ghoulishly. ‘Whoops. High treason? A hanging offence?’

  ‘Near enough.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She sounded not the least repentant. ‘Can I help you feed the chicks?’

  They worked in easy silence for ten minutes or so – an oddly assorted pair, the man tall, broad shouldered and rangy, the angular, Romany face in repose guarded and impassive as a shuttered window and the girl smallish for her fifteen years, stocky, clear-eyed and smiling, the bright cotton of her flowered summer frock a splash of colour in the sunlit clearing. Their acquaintance but a week old yet they were friends, these two, of the truest order. Not many could say that of Gideon Best.

  They sat afterwards upon a fallen tree trunk, drinking strong tea brewed upon the fire and sharing Gideon’s bread and cheese in a friendly quiet as they watched the young birds eat. A family of rabbits hopped cautiously to the edge of the clearing, then satisfied with the peace sat unconcerned, nibbling.

  ‘Shoosi,’ Gideon said.

  Philippa cocked her head. ‘What?’

  ‘Shoosi.’ He jerked his head. ‘Rabbit.’

  Philippa grinned. ‘Shoosi. I like that.’ She lifted her voice a little, calling to the rabbits. ‘Sar shin, shoosi?’ She giggled. ‘Gosh, that’s hard to say!’ The rabbits had disappeared, white tails bobbing in alarm. ‘I did get it right, though, didn’t I? Sar shin – how are you?’

  ‘Aye.’

  She thought for a moment, then counted upon her fingers, ‘And kushto is “good” and wafodu is “bad”—’ She glanced at him enquiringly. He nodded. ‘And dordi, dordi means “dear, dear!”’ She glanced at him again, thoughtfully, as the faintest of smiles touched the austere line of his mouth. ‘I’m not too sure about that one; I suspect it’s lost something in the translation. But you wait – I’ll go back to school speaking a whole new language! My friends will be pea green with envy!’ She bit into a lump of cheese with enjoyment.

  The sun was sinking. Gideon eyed the shadows that had crept across the coops and pens. ‘You not expected at the Hall?’

  Philippa shrugged offhandedly. ‘There’s an army of people up there. They won’t miss me. If I show my nose Toby’ll dragoon me into playing tennis or something. He’s such a bundle of beastly energy.’

  Gideon slanted a glance at her. Rumours of Toby Smith – and of Toby Smith’s intentions with regard to the annual cricket match – had, as is the way of such things in a small community, already reached him. He bit into a doorstep of bread and cheese. ‘He’s your brother, this Toby?’

  Philippa, ravenous after her day in the open air, was matching him bite for bite. ‘Oh, Lord, no.’ She spoke with her mouth full. ‘Well – not my real brother, that is. I suppose sort of – adopted.’ She hesitated, aware that rather than answering his question she had created another. She took another bite, hoping he would not pursue the slightly uncomfortable point. Wh
en she glanced at him, however, he was still watching her, waiting. She fidgeted a little.

  The somewhat odd relationship between herself, Toby Smith and Rachel Patten, whilst never seeming over-complicated to them could, she knew, confuse outsiders. Not related by blood, their ties were emotional. Each born into very different backgrounds through force of circumstances they had been brought up together in the London orphanage run by Rachel’s father and grandfather, and Philippa, her own father dead before she ever knew him, had considered them to be her family for as long as she could remember. Why Gideon, who usually never showed the slightest interest in her chatter about the guests at the Hall, should pick on Toby as an object of interest she had no idea; what she knew with certainty was that there were things in Toby’s background that he would be less than pleased to have disclosed.

  ‘Toby and Rachel and I were all brought up together,’ she said. ‘My mother—’ she stopped. She could hardly tell even Gideon that Toby Smith had been found, a homeless urchin, wandering the streets of London, ‘—adopted him when he was very young. Quite a long time before I was born. We lived with the Patten family – that’s Rachel’s family – in London. They ran an orphanage – Aunt Hannah and Uncle Ralph still run it – they aren’t my real aunt and uncle of course, though I think we must be vaguely related because Mother married Aunt Hannah’s cousin—’ She let her voice tail off, took another hefty mouthful of bread and cheese, uncomfortably aware that Gideon, uncharacteristically, was watching her still, waiting for her to go on. Again she wondered what it might be about Toby that had aroused this unprecedented and somehow vaguely hostile curiosity. ‘Toby and Rachel fight a lot,’ she offered, hopefully, a neutral comment that might satisfy, ‘they always have. And—’ she pulled a resigned, half-resentful face, ‘—they both treat me as if I were still ten years old.’

  ‘But you aren’t actually related?’

  Philippa shook her head. ‘No. Well – as I said – only a bit. Rachel’s father is Ben Patten. He’s quite a famous doctor – he’s done a lot of research into gangrene, and infections and things. Rachel’s mother lives in the country somewhere.’ She gestured, vaguely, with her sandwich. ‘I was born in Belgium just before the war. In Bruges. My father was Belgian. I never knew him – he died at the beginning of the war while I was only a baby. He was killed in the defence of Brussels. Uncle Ben—Rachel’s father – came to sort of rescue us. He got us back to England on a troop ship. I don’t remember any of that, of course. Now I live in the north with my mother and her husband Eddie – he’s a pet – and Rachel and Toby live in London. Not together, of course,’ she added, grimacing, half laughing. ‘They’d scratch each other’s eyes out in no time. Toby went to Cambridge after the war. He’s some kind of lawyer – company law – and Rachel – well, Rachel doesn’t actually do anything, I don’t think.’ Uncomfortably aware of something close to disloyalty she added hastily, ‘Not that she isn’t awfully clever – she’s terribly artistic and clever with her hands. She makes the most gorgeous clothes – designs them and everything. But I don’t suppose there are many jobs going in that sort of line. She’s a bit—’ she hesitated, searching for the word, ‘—eccentric.’ She was pleased with that. Rachel herself, she knew, would have approved.

  ‘So where did this Toby Smith come from, then?’

  Floored, Philippa looked at him blankly. Gideon was a listener, not a questioner and she was certain she had diverted him from the awkward subject of Toby’s parentage.

  With deft fingers Gideon tucked paper, mugs and left-overs into his bag. Lifted his sharp, dark eyes that gleamed like cut topaz in the sun.

  Philippa to her own disgust found herself stammering awkwardly. ‘He –well, I’m not sure exactly who his parents were. My mother found – that is adopted – him when he was very young—’

  Philippa was no dissembler. Never having had any problems with her own mother’s somewhat obscure origins – explained to her meticulously and with love as soon as she was old enough to understand – she knew from experience that Toby, for all his ease and his laughter, for the most part guarded his past with understandable care and she had the sure and uncomfortable feeling that he would not take kindly to her discussing his improbable background with Sir James Paget’s gamekeeper. And anyway, despite occasional disturbing misgivings raised by the quite appalling heartlessness – not to say ruthlessness – he could sometimes display to others, to her he had always been the big brother she had never had, and she loved him dearly. He deserved better from her than gossip to an outsider, however much a friend she might consider that outsider to be.

  Gideon, with sure instinct, sensed and understood her dilemma and chose not to press her. With an easy movement he stood, swung the bag onto his shoulder, waited, offering no hand as she scrambled from the huge trunk onto the ground. He had heard enough. These past years spent in the protective shadow cast by Breckon Hall had taught him much about his so-called superiors. Toby Smith did not, after all, sound like a man too hard to handle. An upstart, meddling lawyer throwing his weight about. As a matter of pure pride Gideon Best was determined not to wield his bat for the House. He never had. He wouldn’t start now. Not even to himself did he admit how much the brief glory, the belonging, the admiration of his peers, however grudging, each year on the occasion of The Match meant to him.

  Philippa was scurrying along beside him again, face bright with curiosity as she looked up at him. ‘What about you? Did you have any brothers or sisters?’

  He grunted an affirmative.

  ‘How many?’

  Her cheerful persistence brought one of his rare smiles. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘I would. Of course I would!’

  ‘Eight brothers. Six sisters.’

  The dark eyes opened, saucerlike. ‘There were—’ she calculated quickly ‘—fifteen of you?’

  ‘Tha’ss right.’

  ‘Where are they all now?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘You mean – you don’t know? Not any of them?’

  ‘Tha’ss right.’

  She contemplated this for a moment in silence. ‘That seems dreadfully sad. Didn’t you like each other?’

  The flicker of his grin this time was different – knife-sharp and dangerous. ‘Some did. Some didn’t.’

  Philippa detoured around a pile of horse droppings, came back to his side again. The sun flickered, a shower of golden coins through the bright leaves of the trees. A startled, bright-plumaged pheasant rose, chattering its fright and vexation, almost from beneath her feet. ‘And did you all live in a caravan? A proper one, with a horse and things?’

  He nodded. ‘A vardo. Aye.’

  The practical Philippa frowned a little. ‘But how on earth did you all get in? It must have been awfully big to take fifteen of you!’

  ‘There were others. Always somewhere to sleep. Other vardos. A bender or a tan – tents or shelters, I suppose you’d say. A fire to sit by.’

  ‘Uncles and aunts and things you mean? A proper—,’ Philippa hesitated a little over the word, aware of uncomplimentary connotations, but with it on the tip of her tongue could not prevent its coming, ‘—tribe?’

  He slanted a dark glance at her. Nodded.

  She considered for a moment. ‘You must have missed them awfully when you left?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘I mean – living all on your own the way you do – isn’t it lonely? After living with such a big family?’

  Hardly discernibly he lifted a shoulder.

  They had emerged from the woodland onto a track that skirted the trees and edged an open field of lush green com, young and tender-looking, the sun bringing to it just the first fragile touch of gold. A scarlet splash of poppies drew the eye, dazzling in the brilliance of light after the dimness of the woods. Ahead of them, nestled between the cool shadows of the trees and the sea of waving corn stood a small wooden shack, neat, dark and square, shutters and door closed against the sun.
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  ‘Did they mind?’ Once started upon a subject Philippa, like a terrier with a bone, was loath to leave it until it had been well and truly stripped of its meat. Just a day or so before, Fiona – affectionately exasperated – had been heard to wonder aloud if young Flip might not be the reincarnation of a Spanish Inquisitor.

  ‘Your family, I mean. When you left?’

  For a moment she thought he would not answer. They had almost reached the hut. He swung the bag from his shoulder. ‘Yes. They minded.’

  Romany turned gawje. Poacher turned gamekeeper. Traitor. His mouth twitched grimly. Oh yes. They had minded. Still he watched his back.

  The brittle edge to his tone caught Philippa’s not insensitive ear. ‘Oh. I see. So that’s why you don’t see them. Or – why they don’t see you?’ She neither expected nor received an answer. She watched as he unlatched the door. The inside of the shack was cool and dark, neat and spare as a hermit’s cell, the narrow pallet bed made and tucked in as tidily as an envelope, the table bare, the single wooden chair pushed neat and square beneath it, the tall cupboard in which guns and traps and the other paraphernalia of Gideon’s calling were kept, padlocked shut. Neither picture nor photograph decorated the walls, no curtains softened the square, shuttered windows, no carpet lay upon the rough floorboards. The only welcome was in the lifted head and soft brown eyes of a spaniel who sat, alert and eager at her master’s coming, waiting for the gesture that would release her to greet him.