The Story of Lucy Gault

The Captain paused, remembering a procession through the fields he had reached, his father with the tea basket held formally in front of him, his mother with rugs and a tablecloth, his sister carrying all their bathing-dresses and wraps and towels, he and his brother trusted only with their wooden spades. Then Nellie came running after them, shrill in the sunshine, her apron and the skirts of her black dress flapping, the ribbons of her cap floating out behind her.

For a moment Everard Gault thought he was a child again. He thought he saw the sunlight glinting on a pane of a window, but he knew that could not be so, because the glass was behind timber boards. Walking on, he counted the cattle he had made over to Henry, twice as many now as he had left behind. One cow was curious, lumbering close to him, head stretched in his direction, sniffing. Lazily, the others followed, shuffling along. There was a crop of mangolds in the O’Reillys’ field beyond the pasture land.

Again, the sunlight glinted on glass. Walking on, he saw a curtain fluttering. ‘You left your parasol!’ Nellie had cried that day, waving it above her head. ‘You left your parasol, ma’am!’

He had read once, in the Corriere delia Sera, of a cattle disease in Ireland, and had worried at that threat to the herd. ‘We always have our little herd at Lahardane,’ his father had said, showing off the cows to someone who’d called in. Seen closer now, not a single window was boarded.

Lost in bewilderment, he passed through the white-painted metal gate in the railing that separated the fields from the gravel in front of the house. Again he stood still, his gaze held for a moment by the deep blue of the hydrangeas. Then slowly he walked towards the open hall door.

*

In the yard Henry lifted the churns off the trailer and rolled them over the cobbles. In the dairy he ran the water, filling each churn to its brim before he hung the hose on the hooks again. He could have done it in his sleep, he used to say to Lucy when she was a child, making her laugh when she imagined that. ‘Lucy, Lucy, give me your answer, do!’ he used to sing, making her laugh then too.

Bridget called him and he called back, saying he was in the dairy. She’d have known that, seeing the pick-up and the trailer not put away yet. He wondered why she didn’t know, why she just called out.

‘Leave off,’ she shouted and from her tone he knew that something was wrong. ‘Leave off and come in.’

The sheepdogs were settling down again at the foot of the pear tree, having been roused by the rattle of the churns. Another few weeks and the daily journey to the creamery wouldn’t be necessary; the milk lorry would come to the head of the avenue. Nearly a year back he had completed the platform that was necessary.

‘Henry! Will you come on in!’ Bridget shouted again, not appearing in the back doorway.

There was a man’s voice speaking when Henry reached the dog passage, but it was so low he couldn’t hear more than a mumble of words. ‘Glory be to God!’ Bridget was whispering when he walked into the kitchen. As red in the face as she used to go when she was a girl, she was sitting at the table. The tips of her fingers kept touching her lips, drawing away, then touching them again. ‘Glory be to God!’ she kept whispering.

Henry guessed before he recognized the man, and afterwards wondered why he hadn’t been at a loss for words, why he was able to say at once:

‘Have you told him?’

‘She told me, Henry,’ the Captain said.

He’d been there a while. There was tea poured out, Bridget’s not touched, the Captain’s finished. Henry went to the range for the teapot and poured the Captain another cup.

*

Lucy came back by the strand, walking close to the sea as her father had, coming from the other direction. Her footprints, though, remained, as his had not, for the tide was going out now. She turned towards the cliffs, carrying a shoe in either hand, dawdling on the damp sand. She sat down when it became dry and softer. The great family characteristic of the Stanhopes, she read, might probably be said to be heartlessness; but this want of feeling was, in most of them, accompanied by so great an amount of good nature as to make itself but little noticeable to the world.

She could not for a moment remember much about the Stanhopes and then remembered perfectly; as foolish to forget, she told herself, that Mr Harding was the Precentor or Mr Slope chaplain to Bishop Proudie. She read again, but no sense came from the sentences of one long paragraph. ‘How lucky I am!’ Ralph’s wife remarked as they turned back on their evening stroll.

*