‘But surely it’s Murtlock’s cult, not Widmerpool’s.’
‘We shall see. Gwinnett thinks that a struggle for power is taking place. That is one of the things that interests him. Gwinnett’s angle on all this is that the cult, with its rites and hierarchies, is all as near as you can get nowadays to the gothicism of which he is himself writing. He has seen something of the semi-mystic dropout groups of his own country, but feels this one offers a more Jacobean setting, through certain of its special characteristics.’
‘Does Gwinnett approve or disapprove? I expect he doesn’t show his hand?’
‘On the contrary, Gwinnett disapproves. He talked quite a lot about his disapproval. As I understand it, one of the tenets of the cult is that Harmony, Power, Death, are all more or less synonymous – not Desire and Death, like Shakespeare. Gwinnett disapproves of Death being, so to speak, removed from the romantic associations of Love – his own approach, with which his book deals – to be prostituted to the vulgar purposes of Power – pseudo-magical power at that. At the same time he wants to examine the processes as closely as possible.’
‘Some might think it insensitive of Gwinnett, in the circumstances, to visit Widmerpool, even in the interests of seventeenth-century scholarship.’
‘On that question Widmerpool himself has made his own standpoint unambiguously clear by going out of his way to invite Gwinnett to come and see him. You said that Gwinnett, when writing about Trapnel, saw himself as Trapnel. Now Gwinnett, writing about gothic Jacobean plays, sees himself as a character in one of them. I regret to say that I shall not be in England when Gwinnett pays his visit to Widmerpool, and therefore won’t hear how things went – that is, if Gwinnett chooses to tell me.’
‘You’re taking a holiday?’
‘Polly and I may be going to get married. We’ve known each other for a long time now. In the light of the way we both earn a living, neither of us liked the idea of being under the same roof. We might be changing that now. She’s coming to have a look at my Creole relations.’
Delavacquerie raised his eyebrows, as if that were going to be an unpredictable undertaking. I said some of the things you say when a friend of Delavacquerie’s age announces impending marriage. He laughed, and shook his head. All the same, he seemed very pleased with the prospect. So far as I knew anything of Polly Duport, she seemed a nice girl.
‘We shall see, we shall see. That is why we are visiting the Antilles.’
During the next month or so I did not go to London. Over and above the claims of ‘work’ – put forward earlier as taking an increasing stranglehold – attention was required for various local matters; the chief of these – and most tedious – the quarry question.
One of the neighbouring quarries (not that recalling the outlines of Mr Deacon’s picture) was attempting encroachment, as mentioned earlier, in the area of The Devil’s Fingers. The matter at issue had begun with the quarrying firm (using a farmer as ‘front’, at purchase of the land) acquiring about seventy agricultural acres along the line of the ridge on which the archaeological site stood. The firm was seeking permission from the Planning Authority to extend in the direction of the monument. Among other projects, if this were allowed, was creation of a ‘tip’, for quarry waste, above the stream near The Devil’s Fingers; the waters of the brook to be channelled beneath by means of a culvert. If local opposition to workings being allowed so near the remains of the Stone Age sepulchre could be shown to be sufficiently strong, a Government Enquiry was likely to be held, to settle a matter now come to a head, after dragging on for three if not four years.
The quarry-owners were offering undertakings as to ‘landscaping’ and ‘shelter belts’, to demonstrate which an outdoor meeting had been arranged. Men carrying flags would be posted at various spots round about, indicating both the proposed extension of the workings, and related localities of tree-plantation. The assembly point for those concerned, timed at nine o’clock in the morning in order to minimize dislocation of the day’s work, was a gap in the hedge running along a side road, not far from the scene of action. A stile led across the fields to the rising ground on which The Devil’s Fingers stood, within a copse of elder trees.
‘Quite a good turnout of people,’ said Isobel. ‘I’m glad to see Mrs Salter has shown up. She won’t stand any nonsense from anyone.’
The previous night had been hot and muggy, a feeling of electricity in the atmosphere. The day, still loaded with electrical currents, warm, was uncertain in weather, bright and cloudy in patches. Cars were parked against gates, or up narrow grass lanes. All sorts were present, representatives of the quarry, officials from local authorities, members of one or two societies devoted to historical research or nature preservation, a respectable handful of private individuals, who were there only because they took an interest in the neighbourhood. Mrs Salter, noted by Isobel, was in charge of the Nature Trust. A vigorous middle-aged lady in sweater and trousers, whitehaired and weatherbeaten, she carried a specially designed pruning-hook, a badge of office from which she was never parted.
‘Who are the three by the stile?’
‘Quarry directors. Mr Aldredge and Mr Gollop. I don’t know who the midget is.’
The small energetic henchman with Mr Aldredge and Mr Gollop, almost as if he were shouting the odds, began to pour out a flow of technicalities on the subject of landscaping and arboriculture. Mr Aldredge, pinched in feature, with a pious expression, seemed at pains to prove that no mere hatred of the human race as such – so he gave the impression of feeling himself accused – caused him to pursue a policy of wholesale erosion and pollution. He denied those imputations pathetically. Mr Gollop, younger, aggressive, would have none of this need to justify himself or his firm. Instead, he spoke in a harsh rasping voice about the nation’s need for non-skid surfacing on its motorways and arterial roads.
‘I shall not make for Mr Todman immediately,’ said Isobel. ‘I shall choose my moment.’
Mr Todman was from the Planning Authority. Upstanding and hearty, he had not entirely relinquished a military bearing that dated from employment during the war on some aspect of constructing The Mulberry. That had been the vital experience of his life. He had never forgotten it. He had the air of a general, and brought a young aide-de-camp with him. Mr Todman was talking to another key figure in the operation, Mr Tudor, Clerk of the Rural District Council. Mr Tudor’s appearance and demeanour were in complete contrast with Mr Todman’s. Mr Tudor, appropriately enough, possessed a profile that recalled his shared surname with Henry VII, the same thoughtful shrewdness, if necessary, ruthlessness; the latter, should the interests of the RDC be threatened.
‘I can’t remember the name of the suntanned, rather sad figure, who looks like a Twenties film star making a comeback.’
‘Mr Goldney. He’s retired from the Political Service in Africa, now secretary of the archaeological society.’
There were quite a lot of others, too, most of whom I did not know by sight. The thicket of The Devil’s Fingers was not to be seen from the stile. We set off across the first field. It was plough, rather heavy going. Mr Aldredge, the quarryman putting up a policy of appeasement, addressed himself to Mrs Salter, with whom he had probably had passages of arms before.
‘Looks like being a nice Midsummer’s Day. We deserve some decent weather at this time of year. We haven’t seen much so far.’
Mrs Salter shook her head. She was not to be lulled into an optimistic approach to the weather, least of all by an adversary in the cause of conservation.
‘It will turn to rain in the afternoon, if not before. Mark my words. It always does in these parts at this time of year.’
Mr Gollop, the pugnacious quarryman, took the opportunity, a good one, to draw attention to rural imperfections unconnected with his own industry.
‘We quarry people get shot at sometimes for the fumes we’re said to cause. It strikes me that’s nothing to what’s being inflicted on us all at this moment by the factory farms.?
??
The smell through which we were advancing certainly rivalled anything perpetrated by the Quiggin twins. Mrs Salter, brushing away this side issue, went into action.
‘It’s not so much the fumes you people cause as the dust. The rain doesn’t wash it away. The leaves are covered with a white paste all the year round. After they’ve had a lot of that, the trees die.’
Mr Tudor, a man of finesse, must have thought this conversation too acrimonious in tone for good diplomacy. He had steered the Council through troubled waters before, was determined to do so this time.
‘We do receive occasional complaints about intensive farming odours, Mr Gollop, just like those we get from time to time regarding your own industry. The Council looks on animal by-products as the worst offenders, even if poultry and pig-keepers cannot be held altogether blameless, and some of the silage too can be unpleasing to the nostrils. The air will be fresher, I hope, when we are over the next field. There’s a lovely view, by the way, from the top of the ridge.’
Individual members of the party being concerned with different aspects of what was proposed, the group began to string out in all directions. Isobel, discussing with Mr Goldney the contrasted advantages of stone walls and hedges, a tactical feint, would quickly disengage herself, when opportunity arose, to obtain a good position to command the ear of Mr Todman, the figure likely to be most influential in the outcome of the morning’s doings. Somebody, who had not joined the party at its point of departure by the stile, was now coming across the fields from the west. When he drew level this turned out to be Mr Gauntlett. He would usually appear on any occasion of this kind. Today he was wearing an orchid in his buttonhole.
‘Good morning, Mr Gauntlett.’
‘Morning, Mr Jenkins. Beautiful one too just now, tho’ t’won’t last.’
‘That’s what Mrs Salter says.’
‘Not where the clouds do lie, nor the manner the rooks be flying.’
Mr Gauntlett’s professional rusticity did not entirely cloak his faintly military air, which was in complete contrast with Mr Todman’s soldierliness. Mr Todman suggested modern scientific warfare; Mr Gauntlett, military levies of Shakespearean days, or earlier.
‘How are you keeping, Mr Gauntlett? Haven’t seen you for a long while.’
‘Ah, I can’t grumble. There was a sad thing last week. Old Daisy died. She was a bad old girl, but she’d been with me a long time. I’ll miss her.’
‘I remember you were looking for her – it must have been two years ago or more – when those strange young people came to see us in their caravan.’
Still feeling rather self-conscious about being caught by Mr Gauntlett with the caravan party, I said that with implied apology. Mr Gauntlett brushed anything of the sort aside.
‘Daisy was just where your young friend said. She’d whelped, and there was one pup left alive. It were a good guess on his part.’
‘So he was right?’
‘It were a good guess. A very good guess. He must know the ways o’ dogs. Well, what are we going to be shown this morning, Mr Jenkins?’
‘I wonder. There’s quite a fair lot of people have come to see. It means local interest in preventing what the quarry want to do.’
Mr Gauntlett laughed at some amusing thought of his own in this connexion. When he voiced that thought the meaning was not immediately clear.
‘Ernie Dunch won’t be joining us today.’
‘He won’t?’
There was nothing very surprising about this piece of information. It looked as if Mr Gauntlett had cut across the fields from Dunch’s farm, which was out to the west from where we were walking. Mr Dunch farmed the meadow on which The Devil’s Fingers stood. He was not the farmer who had acted as figurehead in purchase by the quarry of the neighbouring fields, his land running only to the summit of the ridge, but his own attitude to quarry development was looked upon as unreliable by those who preferred some restriction to be set on the spread of quarry workings. Dunch was unlikely to bother much about what infringements might be taking place on territory with scenic or historical claims. Idle curiosity could have brought him to the meeting, nothing more. He would be no great loss. For some reason Mr Gauntlett found the fact immensely droll that Mr Dunch would not be present.
‘Ernie Dunch didn’t feel up to coming,’ he repeated.
‘I don’t expect Mr Dunch cares much, one way or the other, what the quarry does.’
‘Nay, I don’t think ‘tis that. Last Tuesday I heard Ernie saying he’d be out with us all today, to know what was happening nextdoor to him. I said I’d drop in, and we’d go together. I thought I’d see, that way, Ernie did come.’
Mr Gauntlett laughed to himself.
‘That’s natural enough, since the quarry would extend quite close to his own land. I’m glad he feels himself concerned. What’s wrong with Mr Dunch?’
Obviously, from Mr Gauntlett’s manner, that question was meant to be asked. He had a story he wanted to tell. I was not particularly interested myself why Dunch had made his decision to stay away.
‘Ernie’s quite a young fellow.’
‘So I’ve been told. I don’t know him personally.’
‘Two-and-thirty. Three-and-thirty maybe.’
Mr Gauntlett pondered. We plodded on through the heavy furrows. Mr Gauntlett, having presumably settled in his own mind, within a few days, the date of Ernie Dunch’s birth, changed his tone to the rather special one in which he would relate local history and legend.
‘I’ll warrant you’ve heard tell stories of The Fingers, Mr Jenkins?’
‘You’ve told me quite a few yourself, Mr Gauntlett – the Stones going down to the brook to drink. That’s what we want to make sure they’re still able to do. Not be forced to burrow under a lot of quarry waste, before they can quench their thirst. I should think the Stones would revenge themselves on the quarry if anything of the sort is allowed to happen.’
‘Aye, I shouldn’t wonder. I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Smash up the culvert, when the cock crows at midnight.’
‘Ah.’
I hoped for a new legend from Mr Gauntlett. He seemed in the mood. They always came out unexpectedly. That was part of Mr Gauntlett’s technique as a story-teller. He cleared his throat.
‘I’ve heard tales o’ The Fingers since I was a nipper. All the same, it comes like a surprise when young folks believe such things, now they’re glued to the television all day long.’
Mr Gauntlett watched television a good deal himself. At least he seemed always familiar with every programme.
‘I’m pleased to hear young people do still believe in such stories.’
‘Ah, so am I, Mr Jenkins, so am I. That’s true. It’s a surprise all the same.’
I thought perhaps Mr Gauntlett needed a little encouragement.
‘I was asked by a young man – the one who told you where to find Daisy – if the Stones bled when a knife was thrust in them at Hallowe’en, or some such season of the year.
‘I’ve heard tell the elder trees round about The Fingers do bleed, and other strange tales. I can promise you one thing, Mr Jenkins, in Ernie Dunch’s grandfather’s day, old Seth Dunch, a cow calved in the dusk o’ the evening up there one spring. Old Seth Dunch wouldn’t venture into The Fingers thicket after dark, nor send a man up there neither – for no one o’ the men for that matter would ha’ gone – until it were plain daylight the following morning. Grandson’s the same as grandfather, so t’appears.’
‘If Ernie Dunch is afraid of The Fingers, he ought to take more trouble about seeing they’re preserved in decent surroundings.’
Mr Gauntlett laughed again. He did not comment on the conservational aspect. Instead, he returned to young Mr Dunch’s health.
‘Ernie’s not himself today. He’s staying indoors. Going to do his accounts, he says.’
‘Accounts make a bad day for all of us. You’ve just been seeing him, Mr Gauntlett, have you?’
I could not m
ake out what Mr Gauntlett was driving at.
‘Looked in on the farm, as I said I would, on the way up. I thought Ernie ought to come to the meeting, seeing we were going through his own fields, but he wouldn’t stir.’
‘Just wanted to tot up his accounts?’
‘Said he wasn’t going out today.’
‘Has he got flu?’
‘Ernie’s poorly. That’s plain. Never seen a young fellow in such a taking.’
Mr Gauntlett found Ernie Dunch’s reason for not turning up excessively funny, then, pulling himself together, resumed his more usual style of ironical gravity.
‘Seems Ernie went out after dark last night to shoot rabbits from the Land Rover.’
Rabbit-shooting from a Land Rover at night was a recognized sport. The car was driven slowly over the grass, headlights full on, the rabbits, mesmerized by the glare of the lamps, scuttling across the broad shaft of light. The driver would then pull up, take his gun, and pick them off in this field of fire.
‘Did he have an accident? Tractors are always turning over, but I’d have thought a Land Rover ought to be all right for any reasonable sort of field.’
‘No, not an accident, Mr Jenkins. I’ll tell you what Ernie said, just as he said it. He passed through several o’ these fields, till he got just about, I’d judge, where we are now, or a bit further. He was coming up to the start o’ the meadow where The Fingers lie, so Ernie said, in sight o’ the elder copse – and what do you think Ernie saw there, Mr Jenkins?’
‘The Devil himself.’
‘Not far short o’ that, according to Ernie.’
Again Mr Gauntlett found difficulty in keeping back his laughter.
‘What happened?’
‘Ernie hadn’t had no luck with the rabbits so far. There didn’t seem none o’ them about. Then, as soon as he drove into the big meadow, he noticed a nasty light round The Fingers. It seemed to come in flashes like summer lightning.’
‘Nasty?’
‘That’s what Ernie called it.’
‘Probably was summer lightning. We’ve had quite a bit of that. Or his own headlights reflected on something.’