13 An Unsettled State
Cal’s days fell into a steady rhythm. He spent Mondays dealing with the Staineybank woods, marking trees to be felled, trimmed or coppiced with differently coloured ribbons.
Posts were used to mark out ditches or streams to be cleaned out or dug deeper, and more coloured ribbons delineated brambles to be cut back or torn out altogether.
His workers, led by a brother of the village smith, then needed minimal supervision to get on with the work.
On one day a week he went into Brinchester to do his shopping for items not available from the village, and another day was spent on his projects for the hut — another bench, to face the rising sun, more shelves inside, and a longer project, building the shed against the northern wall.
He already had an open section to store his wood, but he needed a closed shed for his lathe and other tools, which presently cluttered up a corner of the hut itself.
That left him two days to continue his explorations of Frickham Wood, an adventure which was turning out to more than compensate for the loss of the Priory woods.
Each time he went there he discovered more treasures in a place that seemed to have been untouched for decades.
Apart from a few incursions around the edges when the locals had foraged surreptitiously for firewood or autumn berries, there was nothing but wilderness.
He had to take a machete to carve out paths, but then he would find a quiet glade and sit on a fallen log to simply watch and listen and smell the forest around him.
Sometimes he brought back a bag of mushrooms or wild strawberries or a few flowers to brighten his dinner table, but he always returned with his spirits lifted.
It was better than church for making a man feel at one with the world.
As he walked home on one of these occasions, he noticed a woman of about his own age in the garden of the witch’s house, or Woodend Cottage, as it was marked on the map.
She was hanging washing over a bush and having trouble with it, for there was a stiff breeze, and the damp linens preferred to wrap themselves around her rather than lie quietly on the bush.
“Do you want a hand with that, madam?” he called out.
She turned and stared at him, her stance so like that of a startled deer that he was quite sure that she would run away. But after a moment, she called back, “Aye, I’d be glad of it.”
“I washed in the stream, so my hands are quite clean,” he said as he drew nearer, scattering chickens, and trying to avoid the brambles that were flourishing everywhere. “Coat’s a bit muddy, but if I take it off, I won’t mark your washing.”
She smiled then. “Ta very much.”
As they manoeuvred the sheet, she said, “I’ve seen yer passin’ by. From Woodbridge, are you?”
“Staineybank. Gardener and woodsman to his grace. Cal Garford’s the name.”
“Betty Skinner. Yer pro’ly know my boy, Timmy. ’E’s in the kitchen at Staineybank.”
“I know him. A good boy, a hard worker, so folk say.”
“Aye, ’e’s a good boy. Good to us — me an’ ma. She’s an old lady now, an’ we’ve not much ’ere, but Timmy ’elps, an’ ’is sister an’ all.”
When the last items had been draped over the bushes, Cal said, “Would you like a line for the washing? Easier than this. I can rig something up for you.”
Her face closed up. “Why? Why’d you do somethin’ like that?”
“Just being neighbourly. I have plenty of wood at the moment for poles, and rope’s cheap enough. I like making things.”
“We can’t pay nothin’. No money to spare.”
“I don’t want paying.” He stood, hands on hips, gazing round the overgrown garden. “You’ve a good bit of land here. You could grow plenty.”
“If I’d the time,” she said sourly. “Take in washin’, see.”
“I could clear a few weeds for you. You’ve a good orchard at the back there, and I can see where the vegetables are, but it’s a bit choked up.
And no,” he added quickly, seeing her expression change again, “I don’t want anything from you, just the pleasure of grubbing in the dirt now and then. You got tools?”
“Aye, in the shed be’ind the ’ouse.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow to make a start.”
The dinners with Cora became a regular event, too.
Every Thursday, unless there were guests, she walked out to his hut and ate with him.
He had rigged up a narrow shelter over the bench and table so that they could sit outside even when it rained, and on fine evenings they watched the sun descend behind Staineybank in a range of fiery colours.
Only once was it too wet and cold to sit outside, and she left early to be back before full dark.
Very often Cora was waiting for him at the end of his working day, sitting at the bench with a cup of tea and a cake from the kitchen.
Sometimes she brought him little parcels of books, part of her husband’s Greek and Latin collection, and he would read the sonorous words to her, and translate them as best he could.
Three times she brought letters for him from Violetta, excited epistles marred by blots and crossings out of all her adventures in London. He read these aloud to Cora, too.
And sometimes she walked out to see him late in the evening, after dinner.
She came through the gallery and orangery, and if he was sitting outside, he would see her through the big gallery windows and know that she was on her way.
He was not sure what to make of these visits, but she behaved just as usual, making herself a cup of tea, and then sitting companionably beside him on the bench.
Afterwards, he lit the lantern and saw her back to the orangery where she had left a candle.
She had a key to the door, so she could come and go as she pleased.
He wondered what she told her family when she did this.
Did she say she was going to bed, and then quietly slip away?
Or did she tell them she was going out for a walk and where she was going?
He couldn’t guess, and didn’t want to ask.
If she was lying to her son and daughters in order to secretly meet him, he could not be comfortable about that.
But then, he didn’t want to bring her visits to an end, either.
Worse than that, he wanted… he could not even articulate what he wanted.
Something… that was all he knew. Another kiss, perhaps.
Another declaration of love. Because for a woman in love, she was remarkably restrained.
Was she waiting for him to make a move? She would wait a long time.
How could he possibly presume to offer for such a woman, so far above him in every way?
Besides, she gave no sign of wanting to marry him.
She still sought his company, so that they met almost every day, but there was not the least hint that she was yearning for anything.
He was unsettled, though, and as the spring gave way to summer, he wondered just how long this placid existence could last, or whether it was building to a summer storm.
***
Cora was not sure whether she was making progress.
She had a very clear goal in mind, but there was one final step to take and she hesitated.
It had to be the right time, she told herself.
The conditions had to be perfect. She would know when it was safe to proceed…
or would she? Was she, perhaps, fated never to be released from her cocoon?
All the while she moved through the days in a dream, sustained by the almost daily meetings with Cal.
When they did not dine together, she could walk out to see him late in the afternoon, and if that failed, there would be an evening walk to the hut.
She had provided herself with a spare key to the orangery door, and in a cupboard nearby, she kept an old cloak and a lantern.
After one particularly wet walk, she added an umbrella.
In the long hours when there was no Cal, she filled her time with letter-writing, reading and practising on the instrument in the Music Room.
Her heart was not really in it, though. Sometimes she would come to herself with a start and realise that her hands had grown still while her mind was elsewhere.
How many minutes had she sat thus, immobile, lost in thought? Impossible to say.
She was not unhappy, but she was not quite happy either unless Cal was there, and the ache inside her when they were apart grew a little more painful with every day that passed.
The summer was in full flower and if she did not act soon, she would find herself heading into autumn and no further forward.
Yet how to progress, that was the question.
The residents of Staineybank, their number depleted by the exodus to town, began to increase again.
Mr Pyott, the comptroller, returned from his annual visit to his mother.
Mr Godley returned, rather damp, from a walking holiday in Wales.
Mr Lancelot Chamberlain arrived from town to begin work painting the ceiling of the new gallery.
He was a particular asset, for he had a lively personality with a lightly flirtatious air that had even Charlotte smiling.
Cora had never quite forgiven her for turning down Mr Chamberlain’s proposal, after all Cora’s efforts to bring him up to scratch, but she was mellower this year.
She could allow that Charlotte and Mr Chamberlain remained good friends and both seemed happy.
Besides, as she was herself striving for the freedom to live life on her own terms, she could hardly deny Charlotte the same right.