“Neither had I, until the thing was almost settled. D’you know how it is, Dom, when you want a thing against pressure, and want it like the dickens—and then the pressure’s withdrawn, and you find you don’t really want it, after all?”
“Oh, yes,” said Dominic readily, “of course! But I don’t—”
“Well, after all, we seem to have made all this fuss about twenty acres of second-rate pasture. It got to looking like the fattest agricultural land in the county to me, while the fight was on. What do you think we ought to have done? I’ll bet you had an opinion one way or the other. If you didn’t, you’re the only person over the age of five in Comerford who didn’t.”
“Well, I don’t know much about it,” said Dominic doubtfully. “It does look an awful mess when the land’s being worked, but the old colliers say the shallow pits made a worse mess in the end. And it’s all shallow coal, isn’t it? So if it’s ever going to be got at all, it’s got to be one way or the other, hasn’t it? It seems almost better to have the mess now, and get it over. It doesn’t last so long as when the ground caves in, like under those cottages out on the Comerbourne road— all pegged together with iron bars. And even then the walls are cracking. I know a boy who lives in one. The bedroom floors are like this,” said Dominic, tilting his hand at an extravagant angle.
Charles looked at him, and the odd, finished peacefulness of his face broke into a slow, broad smile. “Out of the mouths—” he said. “Well, so you think we raised a song and dance for next to nothing, and on the wrong side?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I only said— And I told you, I don’t really know much about it.” Dominic was uncomfortable, and found it unfair that he should be pinned into a corner like this. He scrubbed at the bunched curls of the spaniel’s forehead, and said placatingly: “But anyhow, in the end it seems the Coal Board didn’t want it as much as they thought they did, either. Especially after they started to have such rotten luck. If it was luck! You remember that grab that went over the edge? I was talking to one of the men off the site once, and he told me
“I never heard that story,” said Charles.
“Oh, he wouldn’t dare tell it to anyone responsible, he’s known for an awful old liar. Anyhow, the whole unit will soon be packing up now, I suppose, so there isn’t any point in guessing.”
Charles looked at him, and smiled, and said: “Maybe they won’t, after all. It rests with them entirely.”
“But—they’ve nearly finished the rest of the site, and now that they’ve allowed the appeal—”
“Oh, I took it to a further appeal, Dom. I told you, I stopped being indignant as soon as I got my own way. I’ve been walking round having another look at all my grandfather’s wreckage this evening, since we heard the result. I’m going to withdraw my objections, and waive the result of the appeal. Tomorrow, while I know my own mind. They can carry right on, and be damned to grandfather and his methods.”
Dominic, staring with open mouth, perceived that Charles meant what he was saying. This was no joke. The tired, satisfied, almost self-satisfied glow which Charles had about him this evening emanated from this decision, and he wanted someone to share it so that it would be irrevocable, underlined, signed and sealed, with no room anywhere for another change of heart. For which role of witness even Dominic had sufficed.
He asked, swallowing hard: “Does Mr. Blunden know?”
“Not yet!” Charles laughed, a large, ruddy, bright sound in the evening, breaking the sequence of gunshots, far and near, which were now the commonplace of the season, and almost inaudible unless one consciously thought about them. “Expecting me to get a thick ear? Don’t you worry, if I know him he’s lost all interest since he heard he’s carried his point. That’s what mattered with the old man, to have his own way. I suppose it’s in the family. Besides, it’ll please his cussed nature, making ’em sweat blood losing the ground to him, and then chucking it to ’em when he’s won. Take his side of any argument, and he’s sure to hop over to yours. No, this is really hot news, young Dom. You’re positively the only one who knows it yet.”
As a consequence of which accident, he was now unusually pleased with Dominic, and suddenly fishing out a half-crown from his pocket, flipped it over into his startled hand. “Here, celebrate the occasion, while I go and break the news.” He swung his legs over the stile, hoisting the shotgun clear of the gate-posts, and gathered up his birds from the grass. Dominic was stammering delighted but rather dazed thanks, for he was not used to having half- crowns thrown at him without warning, or, indeed, at all. The cost of living, so his mother said, was turning her into a muttering miser, and causing her to cast longing eyes even on her son’s weekly one and sixpence, and occasional bonuses.
“That’s all right!” said Charles, laughing back from the shadow of the trees. “Buy your girl a choc-ice!” And he whistled the spaniel to heel, and marched away into his dark woodlands with his half of the momentous secret.
Three
« ^ »
Pussy and Dominic hunted all the evening, inexhaustible, obstinate, refusing to be discouraged even by the fact that they were hunting what appeared to be a different country. After a night of thunder and heavy rain, the bowl behind the well, the frozen sea of clay, had thawed most alarmingly. It was now a glistening expanse of yellow ocherous slime, indescribably glutinous and slippery, with swollen, devious streams threading it muddily; and the overflow from the back of the well was a tight, bright thrust of water as thick as an arm, jetting out forcibly with a mule’s kick. It was always strong of course, but this was storm pressure, and would soon diminish. In the meantime, they had chosen the worst possible conditions for their search, as they found after the first skid and fall on the treacherous greasy slopes going down into the bowl. Pussy got halfway down, and then her feet went from under her, and down she slid, to rise with the seat of her gym knickers one glazed gray patch of wet clay. Dominic, trying to enjoy the spectacle and pass her at speed at the same time, made a terrifying spin and left long ski-tracks behind him, but merely came down on one hand and arm to the elbow, much to the detriment of his jacket. He had also to work his way sidelong a dozen yards by the current sheep-track to find a tuft of grass big enough and dry enough to wipe his hands fairly clean.
As for their shoes, in a few minutes they were past praying for, clay to the ankles; but at the time they brushed these small catastrophes aside as of no importance. In any case, after the first fall there was not much point in being careful, and they began to stride recklessly about, skidding and recovering, slithering on to their behinds and climbing precariously up again, with their tenacious minds fixed on their objective, and fast shut to all regard of consequences to their clothing or skins. They’d come to look over the ground yet once more, and look it over they would, even if the rain had transformed it overnight and a fortnight of time made the quest practically hopeless in the first place.
