In the Heart of the Garden

by Leah Fleming

  Now Hetty was busy with the evening meal, a stand pie filled with meat scraps and vegetables and new fangled potatoes from their vegetable plot. How she wished she could be at her drawings or planting out the cuttings from Parson Thomas’s own collection of specimens, instead of herding away a gaggle of noisy children before the master’s return. If he saw them there would be trouble.

  She could see Ephraim walking slowly up the path. The kite had flown past and she knew the boy would be upset at its loss. He hated her having a Dame school, hated sharing his private world with such rough children, but their pennies were needed for the escape fund and for extras which the meanness of the master would never provide. How else could they walk to the city with sacks of green herbs to sell or purchase ribbon for her bonnets, paper for their drawings, treats to make this existence bearable? No one in the city recognised her as Mehetebel Salt, only as Goody Barnswell, herb hawker, in her scarlet hood and cloak. Her beauty was faded now as the dark bruises faded to yellow on her cheeks, her once glorious mane of red-gold hair paled to a bleached straw under her black chip hat.

  Abel laughed on market days to see her trussed up like a peasant. If he knew she tucked paints and pens, paper and drawings in her herb basket on her return, he would have ripped them off her and torn them to shreds. She was his rightful possession, sold to him on condition there were no heirs to make demands. He found this part of the old bargain hard to keep as he speared her with his lust, rolling his heavy body on top of hers, spilling his seed over her in contempt.

  ‘No issue, Hetty Salt, or I don’t get the rest of my inheritance. I’ve waited ten years for those bottom fields to be mine. If you spawn a brat out of me… I’ll rip your guts apart with my own bare hands and tear it out of you!’

  His foul breath stank of ale and baccy, his trousers of piss and stale wind. He used her body then flung her aside. There was no reasoning with him when the strong brew addled his brain.

  He looked upon his son with scorn and loathing, kicking him like a puppy, but Ephraim would never cry out. Sometimes Hetty thought they would be better dead and freed from this tyranny but somehow death would be Abel’s ultimate triumph over her. The Salts would be rid of their nuisance forever. She would never give them that satisfaction until the escape fund was big enough to support their flight and feed them while she found work far away. Until then she must go on saving and scrimping and hoarding under his roof – under her own family roof for Fridwell House was always a Salt residence, once belonging to Great-aunt Lucilla, burned down in the Troubles and left to rot for years.

  Sometimes in church she could feel village women staring at her with curiosity, wondering how Squire Richard and his lady, Drusilla, could allow their daughter to be wed to a humble ditch drainer and jobbing farmer with scarce a few fields to his name and no traceable connections. Hetty would smile politely, knowing she needed the village matrons to support her school. It had taken all her resources to repair the parlour roof and stairs and clear away the debris of years to make a small room with benches, limewashed walls and a stout table. She was not allowed to light a fire until the master came home.

  Childhood was short enough in these parts and her few lessons of instruction in letters, scripture, a little finger work, stitchery and baking for the girls, garden work for the boys, was as much as any of them wanted. The only luxury was the inlaid walnut spinet which she had been allowed to bring to Fridwell on her marriage. Sometimes Hetty sang and played to them as a treat for her voice was still clear and true. At midday she ladled out broth, bread and cheese. The pupils had to learn to sit still and say Grace, use a knife and be quiet before their elders, especially if the master was within earshot.

  Sometimes Hetty wondered what she had done that was so wicked as to keep her in this miserable state. At eighteen she had danced at the Assembly Balls with the best in the county, attended Miss Smith’s Academy for young ladies, worn silks and brocades, paraded around the race course in the season to catch the eye of some suitable young gentleman. This achieved she was courted and wooed ardently by John Stamford, an ambitious young lawyer in a city practice, an Oxford scholar who met with much approval from her mother and aunts for she was the youngest of three sisters and of little importance.

  The couple walked in the gardens of Longhall, carefully chaperoned yet managing to hold intimate conversations out of earshot. Her greatest mistake was to trust Mr Stamford’s word when he persuaded her to sneak away alone and meet him secretly in the summerhouse bower where his kisses took on an urgency which shocked her. He imposed himself strangely and caused her much pain and discomfort but she told no one until it was obvious that something was awry. She informed her mother, not understanding the true nature of her condition or its consequences, such was her innocence of such matters. It was after all only a matter of time before they would be wed.

  John Stamford was summoned and denied any knowledge of such intimacy, calling her dreadful words: ‘a wanton trollop, baggage, drab and a liar’. He said he wanted no scandal to ruin his career and so would not seek further satisfaction on this slur to his honour. He removed himself to London and made an advantageous marriage there. Hetty was kept locked in her room and spoke to no one.

  One morning she was led down the curved stairs of Longhall Manor into a side room where a rough man in dark country tweeds stood cap in hand, not looking at her. He was introduced as Abel Barnswell, farmer of Fridwell, who would escort her to church forthwith and marry her on condition she withdraw all claim on the family. This whole unfortunate matter was never to be spoken of again.

  Her trunk was packed, her dowry written up as a piece of Fridwell House and field, meadow and orchard, and if no further issue were forthcoming, Farmer Barnswell would receive three more enclosed fields: Banky Piece, Far Orchard Field and Meadow Pleck.

  In such a manner was Hetty dismissed and her former life destroyed, reputation sullied forever, parents estranged. She was to be disposed of quickly in the church porch by the new Parson who asked few questions.

  Hetty arrived at Fridwell House to a damp musty reception of mice and mould. The Salt Estate had mended the property just well enough to suit the needs of a small farmer’s wife. In due course the babe came, rumoured to have been born early; he was red-faced like a skinned rabbit and from the minute she held him Hetty felt a fierce love for him. She found no difficulty in feeding him herself.

  Abel took one look at him and sneered, ‘That bastard is as ugly as the sin that begot him.’ He rode down to the ale house at Barnsley Green to get roaring drunk and stayed away for a week or more, leaving his wife to fend for herself. Hetty knew then that she would always be alone.

  For ten years she nurtured the boy, the house and the garden. The Dame school became her life line to sanity. It filled the hours when she could not garden, sew or draw. With Ephraim tied in a shawl around her chest, she had hacked and dug, weeded and planted, brought the neglected garden back to life. In summer she took her parchments and pens down to the orchard to record all the trees. Hetty had an eye for the smallest detail of leaf, stem or flower, and a fine delicate touch with a brush. She could capture the way the poppies danced in the breeze, the delicate shape of goat’s beard. She cleared the old kitchen bed to grow green herbs and strewing herbs to sell in the market. On wet days she would bring out her dried plants and take pleasure in drawing their distinctive features.

  It was the repetitions of patterns and shapes which fascinated her. How the old village field strips had given way now to a patchwork of fields enclosed in hedges like picture frames. The pattern of bricks on the new tower above the larger stones of the old parish church walls. Wherever she looked there was pattern and shape. She liked to plant out in order, one colour followed by another, tall and short, thick and thin.

  The old garden was a hotch-potch of shapes and curves and borders; some she straightened out, others were let be.

  By the light of the one candle she was allowed in the evening she shaped fabrics
from her scrap box into circles and triangles, fan shapes and squares, to make Ephraim a quilted counterpane for the cold nights. She looked at these pieces and saw the scraps of her life laid out before her on the table; a pitiable sight. There were muslins sprigged with rosebuds in palest pink from childhood, a piece of blue-gold brocade which reminded her of summer fields and blue skies, a scrap of lilac taffeta from her first ball gown – not the one worn the night she met her seducer. That she had burnt in disgust. There were scraps of her sombre wedding gown, its russet brown a reminder of that first terrible night with her husband, and a few high and mighty bits of curtain fabric from her other life. From now on her lot was cheap off cuts, plain sturdy weaves, sludgy earth shades to hide the mud. These filled in the quilt blocks, together with shirting and sheeting, coveralls and aprons. It would be a hotch-potch of colours, mostly drab and with little gaiety like her life now, but she would make something beautiful for Ephraim or die in the attempt.

  Sometimes when he was a babe she would creep up to his tiny chamber and watch him sleep so peacefully. He had the Salt fair skin, sandy hair and grey eyes. Refined features which only drew attention to the jowly dark face of his ‘father’. Sometimes she feared for his future for she believed that a child was Nature’s fresh picture, drawn newly in oil, and much mishandling and violence would dim or deface him if she did not take care. His soul was yet a blank sheet of paper but in this terrible place his freshness could be marred and spoiled forever.

  Yet Fridwell House was good for them; hidden away so no one observed her grief or her bruises, the garden her solace and task master. It had drawn her into the world of plants and botanical science. Hetty even managed to beg a store house for her tools and dried herbs which quickly became her refuge and studio.

  Only Parson Thomas knew the truth of her endeavours and his lips were sealed. Through him she was learning about the science of botany, the art of seed propagation, hybridisation and the newly formed Botanical Society in the city, under the guidance of no less a figure than Dr Erasmus Darwin himself. This was her greatest but secret triumph. The good doctor was impressed with her drawings and was commissioning her to illustrate his own collection of exotics. How could she bear to contain her excitement? Hetty sometimes feared it would burst forth everywhere like dandelions in the spring.

  The Water Gardens

  At Parson’s Farm the Reverend Thomas woke with a start. ‘Have I shut the glasshouse door? Is there a frost outside?’ Once awake he donned his night cap and padded coat, shuffled for his slippers and a candle, leaving the warmth of his bed for the chilly stairs and the back door. All this fuss for a few hot house plants when it was others in need he should really be worrying about.

  Outside the night sky was bright with stars and misty swirls of cloud. The glasshouse door was fast and he felt a twinge of guilt to be nursing his new shoots like babes. Across the village there was hardship and suffering with the loss of the common lands and strip fields. Men were losing their livelihoods. But one woman and her child needed his support in a different way.

  Why was a woman of obvious virtue and piety so cruelly shunned for just one lapse of the flesh? His spirit was troubled by the sight of those scars on her face, her tight-lipped silence and loyalty to that bully Barnswell. The Parson himself would not like to face that drunken hulk on a dark night. Something ought to be done.

  In his opinion Mistress Hetty did not disgrace the Salts like the other painted Jezebels in the family, displaying a shrubbery of foliage on their high headdresses, fluttering fans the size of windmills, trailing flounces and frills, their faces painted white and rouged like harlots in a stew house. How could Drusilla Salt sleep in her bed knowing her abandoned child and grandchild were so ground down in misery?

  But why was he laying all the blame with the Salts when it was he who had agreed to marry the couple, to his eternal shame? Yoking a race horse to a mule went against the order of Nature. It made him uneasy to consider the consequences of such a union.

  What could you have done, Benjamin? he told himself. Be honest, you were in no position to give orders or refuse your patron’s demand. You were new in your post, disgraced for being a follower of the Reverend Wesley and his band of enthusiasts. You were grateful to old Salt for giving you a living, but there’s always a price for favours. Squire Salt knew you had connections in the district, that your grandfather, Penitence, son of Micah Bagshott, was a Dissenter and his daughter, Kitty, married to another Dissenting clergyman. How many times does Richard Salt spit in your face that the old rebel who rescued his great-aunt from certain death as a child was ‘a Captain amongst those seditious varlets who went against Church and King, to their Eternal shame. A fine pedigree for a Vicar indeed!’

  Benjamin Samuel Thomas never intended to take holy orders but at Oxford had come under the influence of the ‘Holy Club’, following the progress of the famous field preachers, George Whitefield and the Wesley brothers. His mother had named him Benjamin in the hope that the Almighty would spare the last of her brood of twelve and then he would be dedicated to the service of the Lord. There was never any choice in the matter for him: Oxford, a curacy, marriage and the birth of twin sons, and always the lure of scientific study eluded his grasp. The nearest he could get to study was a little amateur dabbling in astronomy, botany and zoology, and this glasshouse under the stars linked to the end of the old farmhouse off the village green. Here he nurtured his blossoms, swapped seeds, pollinated his prized auriculas with the frilled edges, envied those who could afford the fee of ten pounds per annum to subscribe to botanical expeditions and seed catalogues.

  These plants were his family now that Mary, his wife, had departed to her higher calling and his two sons served as missionaries overseas. Yet there was an emptiness at the core of his being which churned his stomach like a hunger pang.

  Had he sinned against the Holy Spirit, the one unforgivable sin? Was he denying the inward witness of that spirit, the knowledge of his personal salvation? He had followed the field preachers from afar, watched them rouse the rabble from riot to reverence, facing danger head on without so much as a sign of outward fear. How could he sit safe in this backwater tending his blooms, when the world should be his parish, as Wesley so often said?

  The old man put him to shame, touring the country on horseback in all weathers, preaching the Gospel of scriptural holiness throughout the land. What had happened to his own vocation? Sometimes Ben felt it had been his mother’s, not his own, foisted on him like a heavy mantle weighing him down.

  I am weak, Lord. I should have examined that couple more closely before I wed them. But I did my patron’s bidding and turned my face from her suffering. What little I do now is to salve my own conscience, that’s all, though I am half in love with her beauty. When I see her bent at her painting or at peace in her garden I am reminded of the lovely lines:

  There is a garden in her face

  Where roses and white lilies grow…

  Stop this! Who do you fool? You’ve hidden in this backwater out of fear and laziness, your sermons are as flat as kippers, your heart is heavy. Where’s that burning spirit which John Wesley gave to you on the night your ‘own heart was strangely warmed’ by the certainty of salvation? It has cooled like any burning ember cools when fallen from the fire. You fled at the first whisper of criticism from your Bishop when he called the Methodists ‘Hypocrites, Jacobites and mere Enthusiasts’. The cold blast of derision soon dulled your ardour for revival!

  Sometimes when he stared down from the pulpit of St Mary’s with its meagre congregation in boxed pews and benches he tried to imagine his sermons whisking up a fervour of revival in the village; joyous singing, good works springing up like fountains, eager students of the scriptures poring over the Bible. How might it be if they all burst with the joy of personal salvation instead of sleeping through his words, bored and fidgety?

  But Ben Thomas knew he deserved this fate for he had disobeyed the heavenly vision, as Saint Paul so righ
tly put it. He was lukewarm, preferring plants to preaching, his own comforts to life on the open road. Was he not nearing sixty and his knees puffy and sore, not with kneeling in prayer but planting bulbs? He would see his life out in this dreary place, keep his head down, write up the minutes of the local Botanical Society and do what he could to support Mistress Barnswell.

  It was not as if he did nothing in his parish like so many lazy vicars who rode to hounds and dined with the gentry. There was his catechism class, and the jobs he did personally to ease the work of his two maids and yard boy on the farm. He visited the sick and searched the scriptures for consolation for them.

  But only in the privacy of his glasshouse did he lose all sense of time and allow his troubled spirit to be eased.

  *

  ‘Where are you gadding to now, woman?’ snapped Abel Barnswell, watching his wife fussing over baskets and posset bowls, handing them out to the assembled line of children.

  ‘Just out roving for a few blackberries and the like. The weather will hold. The Parson knows of a new patch far out and we must collect them before the devil kisses them with frost and they rot on the briars.’ She smiled weakly, hoping this would satisfy his nosiness. For one who cared so little about her welfare he was mighty curious as to her daily doings, resentful if he thought she took any pleasurable respite from her household duties.

  ‘The runt can come with me then. Time he earned an honest penny instead of clinging to your apron strings. Berry picking is women’s work…’ Ephraim hid behind her in fear.

  ‘No, Mister Barnswell, the Parson comes to give them all instruction while they’re picking mushrooms, hips, haws, sloes. I’ll make fine hedgerow wines and we can sell the surplus at market. Many hands will get the job done. Why not leave your digging and delving and join us?’ Hetty offered, sick with the fear he might take up this invitation.