The Steward of the Land

Sarah Bernstein

She removed the pig sticker from its bracket on the wall and passed it around the dinner guests. The weight, you see, she said, balanced here in the hand. Her grip on the instrument was impressive. Mother, said Billy, Please. To which she added, From horseback naturally. Aim between the shoulder blades. She had herself, it was said, as a girl, on the least biddable mare, while her parents presided over partition. One had found her admirable, it was also said. Dinner is served, said a girl, appearing from a dark corner of the room. The guests followed in a solemn line.

We arrived here, she went on, as Billy crept up behind them to pour out the wine, to find all the men smoking at the gable ends, the local spirit sickening, which of course they denied. The folk, as they liked then to call themselves, bless them. Direction! she shouted. Billy coughed. The wind! she yelled, clutching with her left hand the pig sticker now held upright in the crook of her right arm.

Billy, second son, sales agent to the nation’s sovereign, had the air of a man who had lately commissioned and caused to be executed his own portrait in oil, hopeful of seeing it hang one day in the National Galleries. For what, he seemed to be saying as at last he sat down to his soup, what after all had he not done for his country, what had he not suffered. A colonel in the army of our nation’s etcetera, shining these many long years the boot buckles of the same, in the tropics marching the Gurkhas into battle and staying up nights with the old King to play chess. And yet as for the portrait somehow one knew it never would hang. He leaned forward, peering into the bowl on the table before him.

Being neither of the folk nor above the folk, being rather beside or between, beneath or even perhaps about the folk, there they sat, sipping the broth of a pig. Light your fires! she hollered, thumping the floor with the dull end of the pig sticker, causing the dinner guests to jump and the soup tureen to spill. That’s what I said to them, barely one foot on this bog. Light your fires! I said. Order! I said. Industry! She paused then, peering round at the company.

Rent? Billy supplied.

They never did pay rent, no, she said, observing the pig sticker sadly. Of course the sheriffs.

Of course, Billy said, with equal emphasis.

Well of course they were moved, she went on, smiling shyly now at the pig sticker, her chignon having loosened, strands of white hair floating softly by her face. She was flushed, like a girl.

Moved on, Billy added.

Moved on, she agreed.

Business, she said.

Of course they objected, Billy said.

Ridiculous, she said.

Of course Mother’s feelings were very hurt, Billy said.

Vewy huwt, she said, with a pout.

The dinner company was assembled and various. One had been planting a tree or a series of trees on the banks of the burn when she came galumphing across the heath. Illegal! she bellowed, causing the tree-planter to look up from her labours. The view! she cried, clutching the crown of the silver birch in her fist, having pulled it from the ground. The man seated to her left she found in the vicinity of her family’s sea farm. Sabotage! she was heard to roar, gliding by in a kayak. Still another of their number she discovered on the hillside undertaking a habitat impact assessment. Expert! she bawled, tweaking the woman’s ear. The rest she apprehended nearby, engaged in similar operations. Her physical agility, to say nothing of her ubiquity, impressed them all.

They had known her by reputation as a great letter-writer, submitting commentaries to the village newsletter, the local, the regional, the national papers; to the House of Lords and elected members of the various parliaments; to civil servants and police commissioners; to mayors and ombudspersons; to the beadle and the under-beadle, to the rector and his wife, yes, she wrote long and passionate letters, asserting her legal and moral rights over the land and the so on and so forth. There was no denying where the accused stood in the eyes and mouth of the law, no question whatsoever so far as that was concerned. The heath was hers by deed of law, the burn also, the hill, the barrenness, all that was hers, it was explained to the defendants singly and severally. You can’t own a burn, they said, weeping. This they were told was a philosophical and not at all a legal problem, and not, said the solicitors supplied by the state to represent them, to be raised again.

Before dinner she treated the guests to a slideshow of her botanical photography. The five of them were directed to sit down on a commodious sofa as Billy dimmed the lights. The projector was contemporary, even advanced, in terms of technology, which at least once of their number found disappointing. She projected the images directly onto the wall. Most of the photos appeared to be of wild orchids she had found on her local and international perambulations. Startling blossoms, never beheld before, they thought, remembering something, picturing her stomping through the tall grass in stout leather boots, a collecting tin slung around her neck, or fording a river in spate, atop a donkey, the rest of her tour watching in fear and awe. Behind some of these flowers loomed tall, snowy peaks, valleys full of trees and, yes, rivers, one supposed, deep in the valleys, in the woods. The guests felt a vague yearning. She had not introduced herself, nor indeed had Billy, and none of the rest of them had met before, residing as they did on opposite edges of their hostess’s estate. They did their best to follow along.

Stewardship, she said, lisping a little now, pressing her cheek to the pig sticker. Question of! The fish course arrived, over which Billy stood to pour a yellow sauce. The guests observed this respectfully. Billy had it was supposed found religion on the battlefield, or in any case on the eve of battle, afflicted by a fit of rapture in the form of a stomach ailment. He returned to his family’s lands to evangelise to the natives. He sat back in his seat at the minor end of the table, sauce boat still in hand, and, turning in his chair, licked surreptitiously at the lip of the boat.

Billy, she murmured.

He replaced the tureen upon the table.

Mother, he said, is of course a great defender of the landscape. She smiled sweetly.

Very keen on the view.

The view, she agreed, nodding. The guests waited. She waited, too.

Of course she is also and famously a lover of animals.

Sheep, she said. Cracking. Deer or two in my time.

Picture Mother on the hill, in a line of butts, after the grouse. This he said looking intently at his fish.

Picture it! she bellowed.

They did, for a moment.

And the dogs, she said.

And the dogs, said Billy. Mother has had many dogs. Spaniels primarily.

She looked around genially.

This dialogue. How long would it go on? What purpose did it serve and where, and wherefore was it headed? My god. A fear passed through the assembled company. Swift as a swift. The silence seemed to spur on the hostess and her son, but though they tried the guests found themselves unable to speak a single word. There was no stopping it.

She had pursued the charges but, the judge said, had asked His Honour for leniency in sentencing. Trespass, said the judge, peering down from his bench, it is not a virtue.

Property! she barked, from the gallery.

Respect, said the judge, continuing, is the law of this land. And privacy. Paramount. Those rights, he said, looking down at the fountain pen in his hands with an expression of paternal disappointment. They hung their heads.

Justice, said the judge. Probation… A cough from the gallery. He pursed his lips. Reparations? His voice went high. He paused. Reparations, he intoned. To be determined by the wronged party.

At that they were free to go.

But for weeks nothing was forthcoming from the wronged party. Summer rolled into autumn, the heath turned purple and then orange, no trees grew or leaves fell. The deer went into rut in the gardens. A great red moon rose over the sea. All this time something was coming. They felt it coming. But what arrived was a creamy envelope on the doormat with their names on it in antique script. The time appointed, date appointed, dress code precise. And so they presented themselves. And so here they were. And so here they sat, very still in the high-backed chairs, waiting.

The house, its dressings, its objects and arrangements, all was luminous with the accumulation of history. Any person with a passing knowledge of the nation’s past would be able to place this house, in picking up and peering at one of the pieces of silverware, one might see into it, follow the tunnel down to the gold that procured it, and through that gold get all that way back to the beginning, to where it all started. And the past continued to roll on, through its own traces, into the present, asserting its customs over and over and again, asserting its orders. One would never get out of it. Not ever.

Why had she brought them here? And why had they come? Was it a lack of volition, only a desire to see how things played out? But the guests seemed fit in body and in mind, not at all ridiculous, eminently sane. One could not suppose why. Were they there to kill her, perhaps? To end it, for good and all? One remembered Billy and despaired.

Indeed, she and Billy were still at it.

Your generation, she was saying, wagging her finger at the five guests, who were of such disparate ages it was clear she was using the word to mean something quite different.

No character, said Billy, forking a large potato into his mouth.

This too seemed to refer to something else.

No spirit, she said, smacking the back of Billy’s hand. No backbone.

This the guests accepted, partially. They had let’s say intermittent spirit, and courage was a question mark for them all, who were at the mercy of this woman who was herself supported by the law of property, itself enforced by the court and its agents.

That morning on the estate, two white chickens found drowned in a rain barrel. One tried not to judge. There was the problem of agency, the agency of the chickens and also of their keeper, and then there was the problem of constraint. And of history. Of course. Such was the proximity of one thing to another, the neighbour to the chickens, the chickens to their keeper, constraint to freedom, freedom to constraint, that they were and would remain hopelessly entangled with one another. One could only do what was possible, only follow the opportunities the world afforded one.

Bird flu, she said.

One doesn’t hold with it, said Billy.

Not at all, she said. No. Foreign.

The man who had been apprehended in the kayak cleared his throat. Billy stiffened.

If I may, the kayaker said. Their hostess swung her head around to peer at him, through her spectacles, as if from a very great distance.

If you may, she said. It was not an invitation.

If I may, he said, I wonder—

You wonder? she said. She had very long front teeth.

Yes, I wonder if you could tell us, please.

Dreadful turn of phrase, said Billy.

Of course we are enjoying ourselves immensely.

Naturally, said Billy.

A lovely meal.

To be expected, Billy supplied.

And the fish, the kayaker continued, turning up the palms of his hands. But here he found himself unable to carry on.

Raised at the farm, she said.

Homegrown, added Billy. Organic.

This was perhaps too much. Billy himself looked stunned. His mother looked vengeful. The dinner companions sat for a moment looking into their plates. It had been a valiant effort, but ultimately, one supposed, futile. It occurred to them that she and Billy did not want them to ask after the occasion for this little gathering. Their presence in their dining room, in the east wing of their manor, on the west side of their vast estate, was an observable fact, but it was not to be addressed, not so directly, and especially not by the guests, who were so ill equipped to understand it. A vast emptiness of feeling came over the table. If one had learned anything from the press, it was that nothing ever changed because any serious attempt at understanding would be deflected by an increasingly lunatic moral panic. And so they were left with a sea that did nothing but disgorge its dead. Two dolphins that week and the lines of gulls. Hardly worth mentioning. In the bay, underneath the sea farm, the crabs gulped down the salmon faeces and choked. The maerl beds ossified. The herring went. Separately but at the same time each of the diners thought of the land from which one could glean only sheet after sheet of plastic, tarpaulins, feed bags, bin liners. Heather on the surface and beneath the great plastic midden. They could taste it in the water. They drank it down, they drank down the panic which seized them day after day when they walked out the back door in the morning, when they looked out on the great, acidic landscape, tree-less, mangy deer dying of starvation on the hill. Year after year the ticker tape resumed, property, industry, common sense, property, industry, common sense. And the weight of all that depleted language pressed down on them, here, in this Old English dining room, taking the life out of everything.

I believe, said the expert suddenly, a young woman with red hair. I believe—           

This rallied the rest of the guests, and they looked up, ready for another salvo. They adored this expert, unknown to the others personally before that night, they felt suddenly they would die for her. Although their efforts, deemed criminal by the courts, had not been concerted so far as they knew, they bespoke a certain shared sensibility. They were in it together now.

You believe? said their hostess.

What I mean to say is, I believe we are wondering—

Wonder wonder wonder away, said Billy.

Why you ever so kindly—

Ever so kindly, Billy chanted.

Ever so kindly, and we really are enjoying ourselves—

En-jo-ying our-selves. Billy was singing quite loudly now, quite quite loudly.

The expert raised her voice. Why you’ve—

But whether she managed to finish this sentence they never discovered, for Billy had begun to bellow the lyrics to a Dickie Valentine Song.

YOU TOO CAN BE A DREAMAH. He had a surprisingly rich baritone.

From Slough, you know, said his mother.

IF. YOU. TRY. EYE EYE EYE EYE. Having uttered the final syllable, he inclined his head in a bow. His mother wiped a tear from her eye.

Marvellous, she said. Dear boy.

The guests were it must be said beginning to enjoy themselves.

A girl appeared, perhaps the same girl as before, carrying the dessert. Its shape was ambiguous, but it was light yellow in colour, and it wobbled. Pink chunks hung suspended within.

The hostess was saying, Of course they never did listen.

And Mother always knows what’s best, said Billy.

A small tabby cat with a torn left ear hopped onto the table.

Workshy, that’s what they are, she continued.

It’s Mother’s industriousness that gave them something to do. Innovation.

Raising the fish from eggs, feeding them, chemical treatments for lice.

Mother is especially attentive to the happiness of the fish, Billy said.

The cat had begun to chew on the edge of the dessert. It pulled off a corner of the wobbling mass and dropped it upon the tablecloth. It picked up the morsel once again in its mouth, chewing extravagantly, fixing its yellowgreen eyes on Billy, Billy fixing his greenyellow eyes in return.

Ungrateful, she said, petting the cat. That’s what no one understands.

All she’s done, said Billy.

All I’ve done, she agreed, mournfully.

She rose and strode over to the French windows. It was a blue twilight. Before her, the empty land, and beyond the land, the bare hill, in silhouette. And still beyond, more hills. Behind them was the bay. Billy had remained at the table, sharing out the dessert with the cat. His mother turned to her guests with an unreadable expression on her face. She didn’t look like anything, an old woman with a bob and cat-eye spectacles, but, looking at her, the guests, assembled for the evening, felt themselves fade. This was the beginning of something, but what, and where it was headed, they could not tell. The sea kept coming and coming, and the land, well. The land was hers.

Originally published in Issue #29

Sarah Bernstein is a Canadian writer and scholar who now lives in Scotland. Her 2023 novel Study for Obedience was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.