A Green Bay Tree Read online

  Captain Alexander Lowell had gone into exile with Prince Charles. When King Charles came back to claim his own, faithful Alex had been suitably rewarded.

  Henry Lowell and Peter Darrow were both country squires, both dyed–in–the–wool Tories, but there any resemblance ended. Squire Lowell had vision. Realising industry was the key to the future, he had invested in mines and factories and mills. A keen agricultural improver, he was also busily enclosing his open fields and turning his peasants off their common land.

  But Peter Darrow seemed unaware that the eighteenth century had begun, let alone was more than half over. A heavy drinker, a spendthrift when it came to hunting dogs and the new breeds of faster horses, he was a miser in every other respect.

  The expense and fatigue of agricultural reform ensured there would be no changes on his property. As far as he was concerned, the peasants were welcome to cut firewood and keep pigs on the common. Provided, of course, they left his game birds alone.

  Left very much to their own devices, his tenant farmers called him a fine squire and a good man. Henry Lowell's tenants, respect and fear him though they might, called him a grasping, heartless devil. Since the Searle affair, he was branded a reckless libertine, too. It was his fault the village had lost its forge, after all.

  Mrs Lowell did not long survive the misery of her husband's public betrayal. She wasted fast. Refusing to eat, she dosed herself on opiates, and washed these down with brandy. She died in the winter of 1760, soon after Ellis had returned to Easton Hall for the Christmas holidays, and just before the birth of the little child whose conception had hastened her demise.

  Alex was with her when she died. That night he'd crept into her room and smuggled himself under the bedclothes, staying there while she dozed.

  Usually, Anne Lowell was a fidgety sleeper. Tonight, however, she lay like a statue. ‘Mama?’ whispered Alex. He was concerned that she lay so still. ‘Mama, can you speak?’

  Mrs Lowell did not reply. Only her hand, which Alex had taken in his, gave his fingers an answering squeeze.

  He held her hand throughout that night. It was only in the early hours of the morning that he realised it no longer generated any heat of its own. That the wrist above it was cold.

  Sent to stay with the Darrows while the inconsolable widower indulged his private sorrow, Alex was first of all white and silent. He refused to speak to anyone, even Ellis.

  But soon he progressed to the second stage of grief. Clinging to Ellis for hours together, he wept his heart out for his poor, gentle, ill–used Mama. Covering his face, he rocked to and fro, keening like a beaten dog.

  Like a pair of human bookends, Lalage and Ellis sat one on either side of him, trying to comfort him with simple animal warmth. Every night, the three of them curled up together in Ellis's large, sagging bed.

  Snuggled up close one early morning, Ellis took Alex's cold hand in his. He chafed it. ‘We're to go to school, Alex,’ he said. ‘Your father will pay. I saw his letter to mine.’

  ‘I want to come.’ Wedged against Alex's side, Lalage woke with a start. Now, afraid she'd missed the chance of some wonderful treat, she turned her great, dark eyes on the boys. She grabbed her brother's arm. ‘Ellis, I want to come too.’

  ‘You can't. It's only for boys.’

  ‘That's not fair!’

  ‘Nothing's fair.’ Ellis pushed her away. ‘Don't be such a baby.’

  ‘I'm not a baby.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You're a smelly, noisy brat.’ Ellis glared at her. ‘Just shut up.’

  ‘Shut up yourself.’ Lalage scratched his hand. She scowled.

  Alex, meanwhile, was trembling with apprehensive dread. At the very mention of school, visions of floggings, of himself as a tormented fag — of his fingers broken or burned by older boys, of his back raw from the birch — rose like horrid spectres in his mind. ‘School, Ellis?’ he croaked, appalled. ‘Truly?’

  ‘Truly.’ Wanly, Ellis grinned. ‘Don't look so horrified. We'd have had to go sometime.’

  ‘Oh. Ellis?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You won't tell anyone, will you?’

  ‘Tell anyone what?’

  ‘That I cried. For Mama.’ Blushing, Alex buried his face in Lalage's sticky nightgown. ‘Ellis, you must promise me that.’

  ‘I shan't tell.’ Ellis sighed in sympathy. ‘I love my mother. I'd cry if she died. Although I know you'd laugh at me if I did.’

  But now, Lalage decided there'd been enough chat. Reaching across Alex, she nudged her brother's leg with her own left foot. When Alex tried to push her away, she jumped on top of him, and grinned.

  ‘Lally! I wish you'd ask Nell to cut your toenails.’ Ellis spat on the scratch. ‘Let's tickle her,’ he said. ‘Alex, get her arms. Hold her wrists.’

  ‘No!’ Squealing like a piglet, Lalage squirmed away. When Ellis tried to grab her, she dug her sharp fingernails into his neck.

  The scrum which followed put all thought of school right out of Alex's head. The three children went down to breakfast rosy, cheerful, and in fits of barely supressed giggles.

  * * * *

  January saw an intense amount of activity at Easton Hall. The boys’ clothes were prepared, their luggage packed, and sent off by stage coach. It was decided Alex should leave for Harrow from Ellis's home, rather than face the double disruption of a return to the Lowells’ estate, followed by the long journey down south.

  ‘Tomorrow we go.’ Staring gloomily out of the bedroom window, Ellis looked down on the snowy scene below. ‘It'll be damned cold in that coach,’ he muttered. ‘But it'll be even colder when we get to school.’

  ‘Will they beat us hard, do you think?’ Since his arrival at Easton Hall, Alex had felt no need thrash his friend. Instead, he was tormented by visions of grinning ushers armed with huge canes and other weapons of assault, all bent on beating him senseless.

  ‘Don't know about beating.’ Ellis turned round. ‘My father had his leg broken at Winchester. Some monitors crushed it in a doorframe. He still limps.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Alex paled. ‘Ellis, you don't suppose — ’

  ‘But no one's going to break my legs.’ Forcing bravado, Ellis laughed. ‘Don't worry, Alex,’ he said. ‘I'll look after you.’

  ‘You?’ Alex sniffed. ‘I can give you a hiding with one arm tied behind my back. How can you look after me?’

  Ellis grinned. ‘Well then, we'll look after each other,’ he replied.

  * * * *

  Over the next few years, Ellis grew tall and broad, becoming much bigger than his friend. Remembering Mr Sandford's oft– repeated prophecy that one day Master Ellis would be larger and stronger than him and would hit him back, Alex was inclined to be wary of his tall, broad–shouldered companion.

  But he need not have worried. Ellis would have scorned to hit anyone smaller than himself.

  Another year went by. Two years. While Alex still looked like a child, Ellis was fast becoming a young man. Ellis was the first to suffer the embarrassment of his voice breaking, the first to wake to find himself soaking wet but not with Lally's piddle, the first to take a razor to his previously smooth cheeks. He was also the first to lose his innocence, to a chambermaid who made a speciality of deflowering virgin gentlemen.

  ‘Did you?’ Fascinated and horrified by his friend's latest exploit, Alex lugged Ellis off to the privacy of the school chapel. There, they discussed it. ‘You did the whole thing?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes.’ Ellis yawned. ‘Nothing to it, you know.’

  This was a blatant lie. Far too nervous to concentrate on what he was doing, Ellis's ignorance had astonished even the chambermaid. Now he shrugged, nonchalance incarnate. ‘She's an obliging girl,’ he said.

  ‘Will you see her again?’

  ‘May do.’ Ellis yawned again. ‘If I have time.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alex frowned. ‘Ellis, this girl — is she clean?’

  ‘Oh, certainly.’ Ellis grinned. ‘She's spotless. Unlike you!’
/>
  Chapter 3

  Alex had no ambitions. No plans for his future. Lazing his way through life, he did just enough work to safeguard himself from beatings. He was like a frog on a lily pad. Inactive himself, he was washed gently this way and that by the flow of the tide.

  But Ellis had designs, ideas and schemes. While Alex took most pleasure in doing nothing at all, Ellis had — as Alex scornfully called them — enthusiasms. He took everything so seriously that he made Alex yawn with fatigue.

  Outside lessons, boys were left very much to their own devices. They might play, study, or doze their lives away, just as they pleased. Ellis was constantly occupied.

  He loved all kinds of games and sports. Unlike Alex, he did not simply endure the new and, in Alex's opinion anyway, insufferably tedious abomination of cricket. He organised matches, he captained the house team, and he always played to win.

  Ellis was also determined to be the best scholar in his form. So, although his education at home had hardly been of the finest, he now worked very hard indeed, catching up with and passing most other boys in his year with ease. Not only that. When there was any scheme of riot or mischief among his peers, Ellis was generally the ringleader, and usually took the soundest thrashing afterwards. Which, of course, made him more popular still.

  He made Alex sick.

  ‘You'll burn yourself out by the time you're twenty,’ he said, as he loafed against a wall watching Ellis fastening the latchets of his shoes, in preparation for yet more cricket.

  ‘I shan't rust away, like you. Idle devil you are.’ Picking up his bat, Ellis gave him a slap on the back which sent Alex flying. Calling to another white–flannelled idiot, he strolled away.

  * * * *

  One Christmas holiday, Ellis was rummaging around in his father's library when he discovered a book of woodcuts. A musty, leather–covered volume, badly bound and worse printed, it was called The Beauties of England. Three of the faded illustrations depicted Easton Hall in its Elizabethan heyday.

  The printing was appalling, but the intrinsic quality of the woodcuts themselves was excellent. Obviously, they were the work of a master. Ellis stared at them, entranced. In 1580, evidently, the roof of the manor house had not sagged in the middle. Its walls had not bulged outwards. Its lines had been perfectly straight, and its tall, intricately constructed chimneys had been set at ninety degrees to its roof. Its now worm–eaten carvings and sculpted gable ends had once been things of great beauty. The house had been surrounded by ornate, formal gardens, which set it off to perfection.

  Looking at the pictures again, Ellis compared the crumbling ruin which was now his home with the pristine charm of the original house. He realised the Hall was, in fact, an architectural gem.

  The long, low, deliberately irregular building, rising gracefully from the foundations of the original Norman fortress, was in the form of an ornate capital E — for Elizabeth, of course. This was an elaborate compliment to the Virgin Queen. It was built of mellow, rosy–red bricks, which served to enhance the great, grey beams which formed the framework. The small, leaded windows were set with pleasing symmetry in the red walls. The elaborately pantiled roof perfectly balanced the whole.

  When it was new, thought Ellis, the Hall had surely been splendid. ‘One day,’ he decided now, ‘it will be splendid again.’

  Having hated his home for a great, cold, echoing barn of a place, Ellis now found he rather liked it. He set out to examine every part and aspect of it, from its beautifully carved staircase to its dozens upon dozens of dark, panelled rooms. All these were admittedly rather small for modern taste, but they were well–proportioned and, for the most part, had the most marvellously elaborate plaster ceilings — many of them in urgent need of restoration.

  The long gallery on the first floor, which Ellis and Lalage had always used as an indoor race track and whose scuffed, pitted walls bore witness to many a collision and bump, was certainly deserving of preservation. As Ellis looked up at the yellow, crumbling plaster of the cornices, he decided that when he could afford it, this would be the first room he would tackle.

  The day Ellis found the black metal box, which contained the original plans and drawings for the construction of Easton Hall, was the day which crystallised his ambitions. Excitement fizzing and buzzing inside him, he had to share them. The Hall's present owner was the obvious person to see now.

  ‘Sir?’ he began, startling his father who was dozing over a late breakfast of strong coffee and slops. ‘If you please, sir? I've been looking at the designs for the house.’

  Mr Darrow glanced up. ‘Designs for which house?’ he enquired, blearily. He'd had a heavy night, and the three bottles of port he had consumed were making their presence felt in the area of his gouty foot. ‘What the devil's the boy talking about?’ he asked his wife. Who, as usual, did not deign to answer him.

  ‘I've been studying the original plans and drawings for Easton Hall.’ Unperturbed, Ellis sat down. ‘I think we ought to discuss some refurbishment. Some restoration. I've made some rough calculations, and I — ’

  ‘What?’ His father's sarcastic snort stopped Ellis in mid–sentence. ‘Restoration?’ he demanded. ‘Refurbishment? Has the boy run mad?’

  He thrust his red, bloated face into his son's. ‘So who do you think is going to pay for this — this restoration of yours? Who's going to find the ready cash?’

  ‘I just thought — ’

  ‘Well, child, you can just stop thinking.’ Scowling, Mr Darrow slid down into his chair. ‘If I had my way,’ he muttered, ‘I'd sell this mausoleum. Buy myself a decent, modern house. But it's entailed on you. So I damned well can't.’

  ‘But, sir — ’

  ‘But nothing, boy.’ Mirthlessly, Peter Darrow grinned. ‘The entail ends with you,’ he growled. ‘So, forget about restoration. Hang refurbishment. You can have the pleasure of pulling the place down.’

  With that, he got up and stumped out of the room.

  Ellis was not disheartened. He lugged the black box up to his bedroom, from which Lalage was nowadays firmly excluded, and spread out his treasures.

  There they all were. The ground plans and the elevations. The designs for the carvings which embellished the gables, the patterns for the plasterwork ceilings, the sketches for all the various kinds of panelling. Ellis smiled. Now he had some concrete guidance. He could see what he should be attempting, and work out what to do.

  As he walked through the long gallery, he passed the portrait of an earlier Ellis Darrow, the courtier who had caused the old castle to be razed and the new Hall to be built. Ellis stopped. He grinned up at this ancestor who, serious and dignified in his embroidered jerkin and starched ruff, gazed solemnly down at him.

  ‘Don't look at me like that,’ said Ellis. ‘You just wait until I've finished. I'll give you something to smile about. You'll see.’

  * * * *

  ‘But why?’ asked Alex, when Ellis confided his plans. ‘Why not let it all rot? Then pull it down and start afresh?’

  ‘I couldn't do that.’ Ellis was appalled. ‘It's my heritage,’ he said. ‘It's going to be mine. Then it will be my son's. Alex, families like ours have duties as well as privileges.’

  ‘Do they?’ Rubbing his eyes, Alex yawned. ‘Such as?’

  ‘We are the guardians of our nation's history. Of its traditions, of all that's best about it. Our homes reflect this. We — ’

  ‘God, Ellis. What a pompous bore you are.’ Alex grinned. ‘You'll be insufferable by the time you're thirty.’

  But Ellis was not to be silenced. ‘Alex,’ he went on urgently, ‘you'll marry. You'll have children. Your sons will expect — ’

  ‘Don't.’ Alex shuddered. ‘I hate children,’ he muttered. ‘Puking brats. Whining babies. Odious! Ellis, when I marry — if I marry — it certainly won't be in order to beget heirs.’

  ‘But you — ’

  ‘It's not my duty. Don't be ridiculous.’ Alex grinned again. ‘Anyway, I've many things to do befo
re I wed.’

  ‘For example?’

  ‘I want to travel.’ Alex laughed out loud. ‘I want to see the whole wide world!’

  So, while Alex went on the Grand Tour of Europe, ransacking France, Germany and Italy for fine furniture, ancient pictures and marble statuary, and developing his amatory skills in the beds of foreign whores, Ellis Darrow stayed at home in Warwickshire.

  Here, he relieved his father of the fatigue of managing a country estate. He saved the wages of a land agent, too. Intent on understanding exactly how an estate like this was run and how profits could best be made, Ellis took over the agent's duties himself.

  He made plans, plans, yet more plans. Constantly frustrated by lack of money and his father's pig–headedness, he gradually learned how things might be improved. When he finally inherited, he was confident he could become a rich man.

  As Ellis soon realised, the land itself was excellent. Prime agricultural acreage, in fact — but it was under–used, with much of it actually gone to waste as common and furze. Enclosed, it could yield splendid profits. So Ellis bothered and badgered his father into taking steps to implement those changes which recent legislation allowed him to make.

  ‘I'll leave Westcott Common alone,’ he said, as Squire Darrow muttered about the huge expense of fencing, not to mention tenants being dispossessed. ‘There'll be no evictions. But we have forty acres of bracken out there, simply going to waste. We could have sheep on that land. Cattle, even. Why not go ahead?’

  ‘Oh, very well. Very well.’ Sick of being harangued by his son, the squire sighed his agreement. ‘But I tell you now. Things are perfectly well as they are. All this running after innovation is a waste of time. It makes me tired.’

  Mr Darrow went back to his bottles. Now, he spent all his time hunting, pickling his liver or sleeping off his hangovers. Ellis became master in all but name.

  * * * *

  If Ellis irritated his father, he upset his sister even more. A young lady well into her teens, Lalage was disgusted by her brother's uncouth behaviour. His lack of interest in the world of fashion made her want to hit him.