No Man’s Land. Simon Tolkien
everyone was feeling the pinch and the union opened up a soup kitchen on the green.
But it was hard for Adam to share the general sense of despondency. Throughout the week he was away in Gratton where the school provided meals and the teachers lauded his academic prowess. And on Sundays after church he would go over to the Parsonage and drink a glass of sherry with the parson in his study. Soon this became the highlight of Adam’s week. To begin with they talked about Greece and Rome, looking over the books that Mr Vale had kept from his university days. Adam had always loved books, associating them with the magical childhood world that he had shared with his mother when she read to him in the house in Islington, and he was flattered by the way that the parson seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say when they sat talking on either side of the fire in Mr Vale’s study with the carefully tended lawn glistening silvery green in the winter sunlight outside the bow window.
And later, as they got to know each other better, the parson would talk to him about the present as well as the past. It was a frightening world that they lived in, he said. Everywhere there was conflict – not just between the miners and the mine owners but between all the workers and their employers. There was talk of the trades unions banding together to threaten a general strike, while in London the prison authorities were force-feeding the suffragettes through tubes thrust into their nostrils, and the Ulstermen in Ireland were openly preparing for rebellion. And beyond the shores of England the great powers jostled against each other, defining and redefining their competing spheres of influence.
‘One spark could set it all off,’ said the parson. ‘And once a war has begun they won’t be able to stop it even if they want to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the continent of Europe has become like a house of cards. Once one falls, they all do. The countries are prisoners of their alliances and the armies are too big to call back once they have begun to mobilize. And yet everywhere the rich and powerful go on as if they haven’t a care in the world, spending money like water, living only for pleasure. Perhaps they sense the end is near. I fear for our future, Adam. Truly I do.’
‘What can we do?’
‘We can pray. I don’t think our country has ever stood in greater need of the good Lord and his teachings.’
But these moments of gloom were few and far between at the Parsonage. Generally Adam found Mr Vale to be good company, and there was also the exquisite pleasure of the time he was able to spend with Miriam. She would often come and sit in the corner of the study and listen to her father and Adam talk, supporting her pretty chin on the back of her hand as she stared at each of them in turn, absorbed in what they had to say. Adam wanted to include her in their conversations but she was naturally shy and he desisted when he saw how confused she became when he asked her opinion. But that was because she was in awe of her father; on the few times that they were left alone she was quick with her questions. And she asked them not for form’s sake but because she wanted to know: about London, about the house in Station Street, about the strike and about his disastrous visit to the mine. She laughed when he told her about the ignominious way it had ended but that was because he had deliberately made his unconscious exit in the bottom of the coal tub appear comic, and indeed the experience seemed more absurd than terrible when he was in Miriam’s company, and he laughed too at the memory.
But their laughter got them into trouble, leading as it did to Adam’s first encounter with Miriam’s mother. Adam had never seen her in church for the very good reason that she never went there. As a self-declared permanent invalid, she never left the Parsonage, but she was nevertheless keenly interested in everything that went on in Scarsdale and at the Hall, relying on a network of contacts in both places to keep her informed, periodically rewarding them with small presents from her purse. She knew all about Adam’s rescue of her daughter from the church on the day of Whalen Dawes’s demonstration but she didn’t feel grateful to him like her husband. On the contrary, she saw Adam as a possible emerging threat to her plan to marry Miriam off to a rich, well-connected man. Her own husband was respectable but he had no independent means, and she wished that she had detected his sad lack of worldly ambition before she made the mistake of marrying him. She was not one to waste time on past regrets, but she was determined to use the family’s most precious asset, her daughter’s beauty, to achieve financial security for her old age, and she was certainly not going to allow a penniless young man to get in her way.
‘Miriam, where is your father?’ she asked, not coming into the study, but standing in the doorway, looking at Adam with beady light grey eyes that were utterly unlike the beautiful heavy-lashed garnet-brown eyes of her daughter.
‘He had to go over to the church. One of the bell-ringers needed him. He said he’d be back very soon,’ said Miriam, getting up nervously from her chair. Adam was struck by the dramatic effect that her mother’s appearance had had on her. She was suddenly forced instead of natural, and she seemed to be making excuses when she hadn’t yet been accused of anything. It was Miriam’s curse that she could not be herself with either of her parents. With her father whom she loved she couldn’t think of anything to say, whereas with her mother whom she feared she couldn’t stop talking.
‘This is Adam Raine,’ she said, pointing to Adam who had also got to his feet. ‘His father works at the mine—’
‘I know who he is,’ said Mrs Vale, interrupting coldly. ‘And Mr Raine’s business is with your father, not you, as I’m sure you’re well aware, Miriam.’
It was part of the beauty of Miriam’s face that it vividly reflected the changes in her emotions; she had no art of concealment, and the pain that she felt now in response to her mother’s harsh reprimand and rudeness to their guest was plain to see. Adam was distressed by it; he wanted to ride to her defence but he was clear-headed enough to see that anything he said would only make things worse for Miriam.
‘I am sorry that my husband has caused you this inconvenience,’ Mrs Vale said, turning her attention back to Adam once her daughter had passed by her out of the door. ‘I will speak to him about it.’
And clearly she did because Adam and Miriam were never left alone together after that. But the parson also went out of his way to encourage Adam to continue his Sunday visits and Miriam sometimes still joined them, although this occurred less frequently than before. From all of which Adam concluded that Ernest had been exaggerating a little when he said that it was the parson’s wife who wore the trousers in the marriage, although he had a vested interest of course in wishing that not to be true.
Early one Saturday morning Adam was shaken awake by Ernest, who was standing fully dressed by the side of the bed.
‘Can you keep a secret?’ he asked.
‘What are you talking about? What kind of secret?’ asked Adam. He was still bleary-eyed from sleep and he wondered if he was still dreaming. It was dark outside the window and the guttering candle in Ernest’s hand was throwing weird shadows on the walls.
‘No, that’s not the way it works,’ said Ernest. ‘You’ve got to tell me you’ll keep it first. You’ve got to promise.’
‘All right,’ said Adam doubtfully. ‘I promise. So what’s the secret?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get there,’ said Ernest, laughing. ‘Now get dressed. We’re supposed to be there in ten minutes.’
Everyone in the house was still asleep and they crept down the stairs quietly and closed the door softly behind them. The sun was just beginning to rise in a pink mist over the far hills, dimly illuminating the silvery crystals of the hoar frost hanging on the trees and hedges, and their breath hung white between them in the cold air as they got on their bicycles and went freewheeling down the hill past the station, where they could see the silhouettes of the coal trucks that had been lined up empty and idle on the sidings since the strike began.
The mist was thicker, grey