The Old House at Railes: A heartwarming rags to riches Victorian family saga

by Mary E. Pearce

  ‘You should have sent him to school,’ Tarrant said.

  ‘Yes, well, maybe I should. But I needed the boy to help me. And schools, if they’re to be any good, cost a whole lot of money, I believe.’

  ‘Damn it, Cox!’ Tarrant exclaimed. ‘You’re not so hard up as all that, I’m sure! An independent craftsman like you, well known as a first-class mason, working your own quarry at Scurr, which, as I’ve heard you boast all these years, yields the best freestone this side of the Cullen? ‒ You can’t be a pauper, I’ll be bound!’

  ‘No, not a pauper, I’m thankful to say. I never said I was that, Mr Tarrant, any more than you said it yourself when we was talking about your account. But ‒ well, you’ve never sent your own boy to school, have you, Mr Tarrant, sir?’

  ‘My boy is asthmatic, that’s why, and the doctor says he’s better at home. I’d have sent him to school, otherwise, even if it had taken every last penny I had.’

  ‘I’m sure you would, sir. I’m sure you would. So would I with Martin the same ‒ if I had that last penny, whatever it was. But these are difficult times, as you say, not only for gentlemen like yourself but for all us other sorts as well. There isn’t much building done these days, and that means there isn’t much call for my stone, due to the present depression in trade. The newspapers say things are picking up, and I pray God they’re right, but down there in Chardwell and all around, there’s not much sign of it happening yet. But getting back to my boy Martin ‒’

  ‘Yes, by all means,’ Tarrant said, and as it was perfectly obvious that Rufus wanted something from him, he now came straight to the point. ‘I’m not quite sure what you want him to learn but it seems to me that the best thing would be for you to let him come to us. I don’t employ a governess now ‒ we have to cut out expense where we can ‒ and Katharine teaches the twins these days. So, if you’d like to send Martin along, we’ll see what she can do for him.’

  ‘That’s uncommonly good of you, sir. It is, that’s a fact. And it may be just about the sort of thing I had in mind.’

  ‘Then I’m glad I thought of suggesting it.’

  ‘As to what the boy should learn, well, for one thing he needs chamfering.’

  ‘Chamfering?’

  ‘Ah, that’s right. He needs the edges taking off.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ Tarrant said.

  ‘General knowledge, that’s what he needs, but also a few other things besides. I want him to know how to deal with folk … how to conduct himself, as they say … so that whatever sort of men he may meet, he need never think himself less than them.’

  ‘And how long can you spare him for, away from his ordinary day’s work?’

  ‘I dunno. That’s hard to say. I’ll have to think and figure that out.’

  ‘Well, send him on Monday at half past eight, and we shall see how he gets on. I’ll have a word with my children about it and let Kate know what you have in mind. She will soon see for herself what he needs, I daresay, and you can be sure she’ll do her very best for him, just as she does for her brother and sister.’

  ‘I know she will, sir. I know she will.’ Rufus pulled at the brim of his hat. ‘And Martin will do his best for her. Else, if he doesn’t, I’ll want to know why! Half past eight on Monday morning. I’ll see he’s there, sir, on the dot.’

  ‘Right you are, Cox. That’s settled, then.’ And Tarrant turned away with an affable nod.

  Smiling to himself at the roundabout way by which Rufus had struck a bargain with him, he entered the house by the back door and went upstairs to the schoolroom, knowing he would find his children at tea. It was something of a custom with him, to join them two or three times a week, to chat with them about their lessons and to take a cup of tea with them. Today, however, he was in a hurry, having an engagement elsewhere, and although he accepted a cup of tea, he drank it quickly, standing up, explaining the purpose of his visit at once.

  ‘Kate, I’ve got a new pupil for you. ‒ Rufus Cox’s boy, Martin. It seems Rufus has got the idea that Martin’s in need of some special schooling, to give him a better chance in life. I said you would take him in hand. I hope you have no objection to that?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Katharine said, ‘but when will he come?’

  ‘Half past eight on Monday, then further arrangements will rest with you.’

  ‘And what am I to teach him?’

  ‘Well, Rufus was rather vague about that, but I think what he really wants is for Martin to be given a little polish. It may be an uphill task, I’m afraid, but at least the boy is intelligent. And well worth helping, I think.’

  ‘Oh, yes, most certainly. I’ve spoken to him a number of times, about the work he’s been doing for us, and I’d say he’s very intelligent indeed.’

  ‘Excellent! Excellent!’ Tarrant said, and, having finished his tea, he set the cup and saucer down on the tray. ‘I knew I could rely on you.’

  Ginny, having listened in silence so far, now spoke with some hauteur.

  ‘You don’t ask Hugh or me, Papa, whether we mind having Martin Cox here.’

  ‘If you wish to please your father, my child, you will make it your business not to mind. The work Rufus has done for us is going to cost me a good deal of money and he has been good enough to say that he’ll give me plenty of time to pay. So, one good turn deserves another, and helping Martin is our good turn.’

  ‘Will he come to us in his apron, Papa, all covered in stone-dust and smelling of sweat?’

  ‘However he comes,’ Tarrant said, ‘you will please be civil to him.’

  ‘The question is,’ Ginny said, ‘will the boy be civil to us?’

  ‘I have always found him to be perfectly civil in every way.’

  ‘So have I,’ Katharine said.

  ‘Well, I’ve never spoken to him,’ Ginny said.

  Her brother Hugh gave a little snort.

  ‘You may not have spoken to him, my girl, but you’ve found excuses often enough to walk through the yard when he’s been there, and you have always made quite sure that he was bound to notice you, ‒ flaunting yourself in your finery.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘I went to see what work had been done.’

  ‘Is Ginny a flirt, then,’ Tarrant asked, ‘and she only just turned fifteen?’ But his surprise was only pretence, for this youngest daughter of his had sought and secured admiration from the time she had first begun to talk. ‘God help the young men of our neighbourhood during the next few years!’ he said. ‘There will be mischief done among them, now that this girl is growing up. ‒ Beginning, it seems, with Martin Cox.’

  ‘Pooh!’ Ginny said, disdainfully. ‘A stonemason’s son? What’s he to me?’

  ‘Stonemason’s son or not, he is rather a fine-looking boy, I think.’ And Tarrant, turning to his eldest daughter, said: ‘It will be up to you, Kate, to protect Martin as best you can from Ginny’s wiles.’

  Katharine merely smiled at this but Hugh spoke up in reply.

  ‘We’ll see that he gets fair play, Papa, though from the little I know of him, I would say he can take good care of himself.’

  ‘I think it’s just as well,’ Tarrant said. ‘And now I really must be gone.’

  As soon as the door had closed behind him, Ginny burst out anew.

  ‘It’s all very well for our papa, bringing clodhoppers into the house, but it’s we who will have to put up with him ‒’

  ‘Only one clodhopper so far, if you must use such a word,’ Katharine said.

  ‘And how will you manage to teach such a lout when he is so far behind us?’

  ‘That I’ll be able to judge better when he comes on Monday morning.’

  Outside, in the stable-court, Rufus had finished clearing up and was waiting impatiently for his son to return with the horse and cart. When the boy arrived at last, Rufus went forward at once, to take hold of the horse’s bridle and bring him round carefully till the cart was backed close to the workbench.

  �
�What kept you all this time? Been gossiping with your sister, I suppose.’

  ‘One of the lime-kilns was giving trouble cos part of the chimney had fallen in. I stayed and built it up again.’

  ‘Is it all right now?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘What do you mean, you suppose?’

  ‘I mean it’s as right as it was before, which means it still works, after a fashion, just like the other old kilns up there.’

  ‘H’mph!’ Rufus said, with a sharp glance. ‘The answer was yes, then, wasn’t it? Now give me a hand with shifting this bench, and not so much old rigmarole.’

  Together he and his young son lifted the big flat slab of stone that formed the top of the workbench and eased it carefully into the cart. Then they took up the smaller blocks that had formed the pillars supporting the bench and laid them on top of the slab. Rufus put in his bag of tools, climbed up onto the box, and took the reins. Martin got up beside him and they drove slowly out of the courtyard, each taking a last look round at the stable-block, especially the coach-house and harness-room, where the greater part of their work had been done.

  ‘It looks a whole lot better now than it did when we started,’ Rufus said, ‘and that new stone we’ve just put in will last a lot longer than the stuff we took out.’

  ‘Yes,’ Martin said reflectively. ‘That’s something I don’t understand ‒ that people owning a house like this should have added to it with such shoddy stone, when all the old part is so well built.’

  ‘They was people who thought they could cheat on the place, and they was wrong,’ Rufus said. ‘You can’t cheat with stone. Not for long, anyway. If it don’t find you out in your own lifetime, then it’ll find you out in your son’s. Cheap always comes dearer in the end, especially when you’re building in stone.’

  They drove under the archway, out onto the carriage-road, and Martin, glancing up at the house, caught a movement at one of the windows, of a slight figure in a pale blue dress, drawing back and turning away. Brief though the glimpse had been, he knew who it was by her fair hair and by a certain flounce in her manner, and although she was no longer visible, he felt she was still watching him, secretly, from the shadows somewhere, probably with that lift of the chin he had noted in her at other times. Well, she might watch him if she liked, but he would not allow her to think that he cared about it one way or the other, and so he turned his face away, firmly resisting any impulse to glance up at the window again.

  The long carriage-road at Newton Railes led, by a series of sweeping curves, gently downhill through the lush parkland where, just now, in the first summer warmth, the chestnut trees were in full flower, their branches borne down low by the weight. On reaching the first of these curves in the road, the boy allowed himself to look back, turning sideways in his seat so that he could see the house, now two hundred yards away, standing at the top of a gentle rise, and sheltered by the higher ground behind. Its grey stone walls and lichened roof had a warm mellow look in the afternoon sun, and its mullioned windows, where they faced south and west, gave off varied, glancing reflections, due to the small rectangular panes, which were set unevenly in their leads. Wisteria, with its pale mauve blossom, grew over the west porch, and Virginia creeper, now in full leaf, hung like a green rippling arras from top to bottom of one gable wall. And all through the gardens surrounding the house were the ornamental trees and shrubs; some exotic, like the cedar and the oleaster; others homely, like the maple and beech; the honeysuckle, lilac, and sweet briar.

  There were, Martin thought, many finer houses, larger and more imposing than this, to be found in the southern Cotswolds, ‒ he could have named half a dozen at least ‒ but there was something about Newton Railes that touched some deep chord of feeling in him. He could not explain what it was. Nor why he should feel like this. He only knew, as the cart drove away, that when the house became hidden by trees, he felt a tender ache in his heart, and a sense of loss.

  ‘So that’s goodbye to Railes,’ he said, facing forward in his seat. ‘At least for another year or so, until Mr Tarrant wants us again.’

  ‘It isn’t goodbye for you,’ Rufus said, ‘because you’re coming back on Monday morning to start having lessons in the schoolroom, along with Miss Ginny and Master Hugh, with Miss Katharine as your governess.’

  ‘Lessons? What lessons?’ Martin said.

  ‘Lessons to learn you a few things that’ll be some use to you later on. Things that’ll help you get on in life and make a place for yourself in the world. Just think of the Tarrants and what they are like … Always so tarnal sure of themselves … Never at a loss for the right word … Never in doubt about what to do … It’s study and schooling does that for them, and they can pass it on to you.’

  Martin stared straight ahead, his brows drawn together in a deep frown, his lean-jawed face, with its high cheekbones, set in lines of rebelliousness. The prospect of returning to Railes, and the reason for it, had caused a conflict of feeling in him: first a quick jolt of excitement; then a cold, plunging fear. Nor, despite what his father said, did he fully understand the motive that lay behind the proposed arrangement.

  ‘Shall you be paying for these lessons?’

  ‘Indeed I shall not,’ Rufus said.

  ‘It’s a favour, then?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that I want to go, ‒ being beholden to folk like that, ‒ receiving charity at their hands.’

  ‘Beholden be damned!’ Rufus said. ‘We’ve just done more than twelve weeks’ work, making good those stables back there, and not a penny piece shall we get for another twelve weeks at least! And that’s the way it always is. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry, Cox, sending in your bill-of-work. Things are difficult just at present.” Well, I was ready for him this time, and thought I’d get something back in return. So don’t talk rubbish to me about being beholden to them, cos if there’s any question of that, the boot is on the other foot!’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that we are not to be paid for our work, nor for the stone we’ve supplied, for so long as six months or more?’ Martin’s rebellious thoughts were now given extra fuel. ‘And how are we supposed to live while we wait so long to be paid?’

  ‘Ah, now you’re asking me something, my son! We have to live as best we can, by scrimping and saving and going short, and making what little I’ve managed to save go just about as far as it will. And that’s why we have to watch out for a chance of getting something back, to make up for the way we’re used.’

  ‘I’m damned if I want lessons from them! I’d sooner we was paid our dues so that we might live decently and have decent food on the table at home. Yes, and live in a decent house, instead of that shack we live in at Scurr! Oh, when I think what our lives are like, compared with people like them! Why, even their dogs are housed better than us! And yet they ask for time to pay what we have earnt by the sweat of our brow!’

  ‘Yes, well, there you are,’ Rufus said. ‘That’s how it is in this world of ours. The likes of us get trodden down. I’m just a simple mason, that’s all, clever enough, working with stone, but got no proper schooling behind me, because of the way I’ve had to work. But you’re only just fifteen and this is a chance for you to get on. ‒ Get some learning into you, so that your life can be better than mine.’

  ‘But how will it help me, when I’m only a mason, too?’

  ‘I don’t know how, exactly, my son. A lot of that will depend on you. All I know about anything is that schooling is a valuable thing and this is your chance of getting it.’

  ‘And what about my proper work? We’re due to begin on that new byre over at Dipsikes on Monday, first thing, and after that there’s those repairs to the stove-house at Brink End.’

  ‘It’ll only be in the mornings, that’s all, as and when I can spare you. It’ll mean some sacrifice on my part, but it’s one I’m well prepared to make, to let you have your chance in life. And you must be sure and pay me back by
making the most of it while you can.’

  ‘I still don’t know that I want to go,’ Martin said in a deep growl, and he looked out over the parkland, stretching away on either side.

  ‘You will do as I say, my son, and that’s all-about-it,’ Rufus replied. Then, glancing at the boy’s sullen face: ‘I should’ve thought you’d have wanted to learn. You’ve asked enough questions, all your life, on every subject under the sun, and I don’t know how many times I’ve caught you reading one of those old books Parson Talbot gave you that time. Well, now you’re to be given the chance of learning in the proper way, with people who know what they’re about, and it seems to me the least you can do is show a bit of gratitude when I’ve taken such trouble on your behalf.’

  ‘But I shan’t feel easy with folk of that sort! Not meeting them in the house itself.’

  ‘It’ll be strange at first, I know, but the more you go among folk of that sort, the less strange it will be to you. It isn’t only the stuff out of books ‒ it’s a whole lot more besides. You can learn useful things from the Tarrants and their kind, just by rubbing shoulders with them, and one of these days ‒ who knows? ‒ something worthwhile may come from it. So no more argument, if you please, cos it’s settled whether you like it or not.’

  On leaving the grounds of Newton Railes, they turned to the right outside the gates and drove down the hill towards Chardwell. Before reaching the town itself, they crossed the bridge at Fordover and turned left into a lane that led up the side of Rutland Hill. A mile or so up the hill, the lane divided into two tracks, one turning right to Hey-Ho Farm, the other left into Scurr Quarry, carved out from the side of the hill.

  The flat, open part of the quarry was like an arena, and because it faced southwards, the pale stone-dust that covered its floor glared blindingly in the sun, with the heat shimmering above it in waves. Around the quarry’s inner side, the rock-face rose in rough terraces, the stone of the lower parts clean and new, where it had been most recently dug; that of the upper parts darkened by weather, its ledges sprouting wild grasses and plants. Below, on the floor of the open arena, five or six huge lumps of stone, quarried a few weeks before, lay in a row, drying out, waiting to be rough-hewn into blocks, and in front of these lumps stood a number of blocks already hewn, each of them roughly a yard square. A good distance away again, on either side of the working area, were ranged the endless reserves of stone, cut and shaped, ready for use, and stacked according to their style: pole-face, burr, and chisel-finish; rubblestone, kedge, and sawn ashlar.