There were no problems. He lunched early at a pub outside Cambridge and reached Saltacres well before dusk, early though the sun set at that time of year.
He had schooled himself to believe that there might be some haunted quality about the cottage when he had it all to himself, but this was disproved as soon as, with the key for which he had called at the house agent’s on his way up, he let himself in. Except that the place seemed smaller, darker, dingier and damper than he remembered it, all seemed familiar and reassuring.
Having dumped his luggage and unloaded his provisions, he parked his car in the accustomed place a little further up the street, returned to the cottage, lit the gas fire in the parlour and then made an investigation upstairs in order to decide upon his sleeping-quarters. He had never been inside the larger bedroom, but as soon as he looked at it he favoured it.
He went into what had been Camilla’s room, but it evoked no painful memories. Downstairs the studio couch, well-worn but offering no suggestion that it could also do duty as a bed – and Morag’s bed, at that! – and his little work-table still in the window, were reminders of the previous holiday, but he experienced no traumatic reaction. He unpacked his typescript and placed it on the parlour table, put his portable typewriter beside it, drew the curtains and lit the gas-mantle. Then he got himself a meal and afterwards finished the evening at the warm and friendly pub.
‘This is the life,’ he said to himself, and had thoughts of throwing up his job at the end of the summer term, buying the cottage, if the agent would sell, and living on his savings plus a little assistance, perhaps, from an indulgent government while he blossomed out into full, professional authorship.
In the morning, after breakfast, he went out for the walk he had decided to take daily for exercise, but, after a couple of miles, the biting wind made walking so unpleasant that he was glad to return to the cottage for the rest of the day. During the night the wind dropped and the snow fell. He woke to a shining, white-blanketed, silent world. Gone were the wild wastes of the marshes as he had seen them. The apparently illimitable wilderness was still there, but the alchemy of the snow had changed it into something so rich and strange that he was awed by it and, at the same time, he was filled with the liveliest anticipation and delight.
He stepped out of the cottage feeling like the first man on the moon, and tramped over the crisp, virgin purity of the snow with the pleasure of a child who recognises the magic of his own footprints.
‘I never thought of snow for chapter ten,’ he said aloud. He returned to the cottage and settled down to record this new phenomenon of an enchanted, utterly unexpected world. ‘Just what I needed, and I never thought of it!’ he repeated joyously.
He continued to take his morning exercise, but his walks grew shorter every day. No more snow fell, but what was there remained. He worked on his book from nine until half past twelve each morning, then got himself some lunch and after he had washed up his plates, cutlery and the glass he had used, he went for a short drive more for the sake of the car than because he wanted a change of scene and occupation. After that, it was back to his work again to check over the morning’s output and to make any corrections, alterations and embellishments which seemed necessary. He did not think he had ever been so happy. His evenings he spent at the pub. A couple of pints was his self-imposed ration, and he made them last, his ear alert for any tit-bits of conversation or news which might be worthy of inclusion in the opus.
The days passed quickly. On Christmas Day he went to church. It was the first time he had ever been inside the building. Its size was a tribute to a bygone age when the village had been a prosperous township and port, and the congregation at this latter day was almost ludicrously small, although he assumed that it was larger than on any other occasion except at the pagan festival of thanksgiving for the harvest.
Like the church at Stack Ferry, this one proclaimed its former trade relations with the Netherlands by its dedication to St Nicholas, the Dutch Santa Claus. Palgrave spent most of the service by taking in, surreptitiously but fully, the hammer-beam and arch-braced roof, its traceried spandrils and flowers, the dropped window-sill of the sedilia in the south wall at the end of the chancel, the Easter sepulchre and the Stuart communion table. The chancel, he noted, was a couple of centuries earlier than the vast and columned nave.
The church must certainly go into his book, he decided. He indulged in a daydream. He and his heroine – he had made her a fascinating combination (he thought) of Morag and Camilla – should marry his hero (himself, Colin) in this most suitable edifice. He sat back in his pew and reflected on what might have been.
The vicar did not detain his small congregation very long. By twelve the Christmas service was over. There were half a dozen misericords under the choir stalls. Palgrave inspected them, but hardly thought they compared with others he had seen at Ripon, Wells, York and Christchurch, let alone the later, more sophisticated and sometimes extremely explicit examples he had seen in French churches. However, he had enjoyed his Christmas morning, for he felt he now had another chapter for his book.
He joined the men of the village in the holly-decked, paper-chained pub before returning to the cottage for his tinned ham and tinned chicken. Then he roughed out a simple marriage ceremony which was to take place in the church, now to be incorporated in a later chapter of his book, and after that he went for a drive over the still snowbound countryside. On the following evening he drove to the most expensive hotel in Stack Ferry for the Boxing Night dinner-dance which he had booked. He was almost struck dumb when Cupar Lowson and Morag came up to his table and suggested that he should join them at theirs.
‘Cupar doesn’t dance,’ said Morag, as though this explained everything. She looked delightful, he thought. He was glad that the fifth and sixth-form girls had insisted upon teaching him the South American style of dancing so that he could stand up with them at school end-of-term parties, but he was better pleased when the hotel orchestra put on some sentimental waltz tunes. It went to his head a little to have Morag in his arms again. He ordered champagne. The other two were staying in the hotel, so neither he nor they left the scene until the dinner-dance closed down at two in the morning.
He drove back to his cottage in moonlight. The effect, over the snow-covered marshes, was fantastic and disturbing. Camilla’s ghost must be out there somewhere, he thought. He took his mind back to Morag. The utterly unexpected meeting with her had been equally fantastic and disturbing, especially as it had followed so quickly upon his daydreams in the church.
He began to believe that there was something strange about the book he was writing. Something or somebody was doing the job for him. Suddenly he found he did not like the thought of something which was beyond his control. The book was writing its own story, and not the story he had in his notebook.
He reached his cottage, went in and poured himself a drink. Then he took out the script and had a look at it. With what he recognised as a superstitious reaction, he crossed himself, put the script away and went to bed. In the morning he took his book out again and this time his reaction was different. He began to read and, as he read, he said aloud, ‘But this is damn’ good stuff. Damn’ good. Morag is going to like this when I show it to her.’
CHAPTER 14
THE FLAT-MATES
‘Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart-strings.’