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

by Mary E. Pearce

  By now Katharine and the twins had arrived, and Martin, turning quickly towards them, bundled the wriggling puppy-dog into Ginny’s outstretched arms. Hugh went and picked up Tessa. Katharine stood staring at the snake. Then, as Martin went quickly towards it, she called out to him in alarm.

  ‘Martin, don’t! It’s dangerous! Leave it and Jobe will deal with it!’

  But Martin was already on the snake, treading it down with one booted foot while he stamped on its upreared head with the other, a great crushing blow that killed it outright, though its body arched itself into a coil and its tail flipped the grass two or three times before it finally lay still.

  At that moment Jobe and one of his boys arrived, drawn by the commotion, and Katharine gave orders that the whole of the garden should be searched in case there were adders elsewhere. The little group then withdrew, their first concern being for Tessa, whining and squirming in Hugh’s arms and pressing her face against his chest. She was taken straight to the stables where the groom, Jack Sherard, tended her, cutting open the swollen area surrounding the snake-bite on her cheek, squeezing out the poisoned blood, and soaking the wound thoroughly with a strong solution of lunar caustic.

  ‘Will she be all right?’ Ginny asked. ‘She’s not going to die, is she, Jack?’

  ‘I reckon she’ll be all right, Miss Ginny, so long as we look after that wound and keep her quiet for a day or two. But it’s lucky it wasn’t the pup that got stung cos I doubt if he’d have stood a chance. Older dogs, they’re tough as a rule when it comes to adder-bites, but young ones, well, that’s another matter, and they’re generally dead in a two-three hours.’

  So Martin, unexpectedly, became something of a hero, and the story of how he had saved the puppy, without thought of the risk to himself, was soon being told to Cook and the maids, and, in a while, to John Tarrant, coming home from business in Sharveston while the little drama was still fresh and warm.

  ‘It appears from what my children say that you acted with great presence of mind, and I am grateful to you, my boy. I hope, if there are any more adders in the grounds, Jobe will deal with them as efficiently.’

  Martin, though gratified, was also rather self-conscious at finding himself the centre of attention. He did his best to make light of it.

  ‘There was no danger to me,’ he said. ‘No adder could’ve stung me through these great thick boots of mine.’

  ‘There was a danger,’ Katharine said, ‘because when you snatched Sam away, the adder might have stung your hands.’

  ‘Of course there was danger!’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘You might have been stung most dreadfully, and Jack says that an adder’s sting can cause the most terrible agony.’

  She had scarcely spoken till then, for the incident had frightened her, and Martin’s prompt action in killing the snake had impressed her in such a way as to render her thoughtful and subdued. Now she had found her voice again and there was a note of respect in it. She was looking at him in a new way; even with a hint of admiration; but, knowing that this abrupt change of face was bound to draw teasing remarks from Hugh, she added with a touch of asperity:

  ‘It’s silly to try and be modest about it. You were very quick and clever and brave, and you may as well own up to it.’ She picked up the puppy, Sam, who was being kept on a collar and leash until the grounds were declared safe, and, turning his small muzzle towards Martin, she said: ‘You’re a very lucky puppy-dog. Say thank you to Martin for saving your life.’

  Thus, after this incident, Ginny treated him differently. She was devoted to the dogs, just as all the family were, and Sam was her special favourite. So she was in Martin’s debt and henceforth she would be his friend. She still scoffed at him, of course; still criticized his manners and speech; but now, instead of trying to make him feel foolish, she wanted only to see him do well. She would help him with his lessons now and say encouraging things to him, though she always rounded them off with a touch of the old mockery.

  ‘You’re getting to be quite clever,’ she said, when he gave a good account of himself, answering her questions on the Wars of the Roses. ‘We shall make a scholar of you yet.’

  As a farther sign of her favour, she would ask him to do certain things for her.

  ‘Martin, will you sharpen my pencil? You do it much better than I do. And would you mind fetching my sketchbook? I’ve left it in the summer-house.’

  Hugh, looking up as Martin passed, offered a dry observation.

  ‘Winning my sister’s goodwill is proving a mixed blessing, I fear. She will have you running errands for her until your legs are worn to stumps.’

  ‘Oh, Martin doesn’t mind,’ Ginny said. ‘He likes to do these things for me.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Martin said.

  ‘Well, whether you like it or not, if you want to learn a gentleman’s manners, you must just put up with it!’

  One morning when Martin arrived late for his lessons, he found that the Tarrants had visitors. He had entered the garden by a side gate and was stepping onto the terrace before he perceived the little group strolling on the parterre below. He would have withdrawn immediately, but Ginny had already seen him and in a moment she was there, taking him firmly by the hand and leading him down the terrace steps to meet the four visitors. These were Mr and Mrs East with their grandchildren, George and Leonie Winter, who had driven over from Chacelands, the estate adjoining Newton Railes; and if they were somewhat surprised at having this youth in his ill-fitting clothes presented to them in this way, they were too polite to show it.

  ‘This is Martin Cox,’ Ginny said. ‘He comes and has lessons with us and he’s very good at killing snakes.’

  The story of the adder was then told and Tessa, now quite herself again, was called so that the visitors could see where the snake-bite, although healed, had left a bald scarred patch on her cheek.

  ‘I do hope,’ Mrs East said, with a nervous glance around the garden, ‘that there aren’t any more adders here.’

  ‘Rest assured,’ Tarrant said. ‘The servants searched the grounds that day and have kept a vigilant eye ever since. There is no danger, I promise you.’

  The family and their visitors strolled along the green walk and down as far as the round pool, and Martin found himself strolling with them, included in the company as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Natural, that is, as far as the Tarrants were concerned; not so for Martin himself; and he was still looking for a means of escape when Ginny drew close to him and slipped her arm into his.

  ‘Even if there were more adders,’ she said, ‘nobody need be the least bit alarmed, since Martin is here to deal with them.’ And she gave his arm a little squeeze.

  As the party strolled on, it somehow divided into groups, Tarrant and Katharine leading the way with Mr and Mrs East; Hugh a few paces behind with George and Leonie; while Ginny and Martin brought up the rear. Leonie Winter was roughly the same age as the twins, her brother a few years older, and this young man, all the time as he walked, kept glancing back at Ginny and Martin.

  ‘George and Leonie are our oldest friends, and our nearest neighbours,’ Ginny said. ‘Their parents both died some years ago and Mr East is their guardian. The Easts live at Chacelands with them but George is sole heir to his father’s estate and next year, when he comes of age, he will take full possession of it. The Easts will return to London then and Leonie talks of going with them. George is my oldest beau. He is also the richest ‒ so far, that is.’

  ‘Shall you marry him, then?’ Martin asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Ginny said. ‘It would be very nice, of course, to be mistress of Chacelands and live right next door to Railes. But I’ve known George all my life and … there are so many men in the world … I feel sure someone more dashing and rare is waiting for me somewhere, if only I had the chance of meeting him.’ She gave a sigh, followed soon by a little laugh. ‘Poor George! He’s thoroughly hipped. D’you see how he keeps looking at us? He’s jealou
s because I’m walking with you.’

  ‘Isn’t that why you’re doing it? And why you’re hanging on to my arm?’

  ‘Of course!’ she said, unabashed, and looked up at him, wrinkling her nose. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t care twopence,’ he said. ‘But if I was the other chap ‒’

  ‘Yes, what?’ Ginny asked.

  ‘It’d be a different matter, that’s all.’

  A few minutes later the party re-grouped and Martin, talking to Mr East, heard Ginny urging George to go with her to the Tudor garden, to see what a good crop of mulberries they had on the old tree that year.

  His sister Nan was delighted to know of the change in Miss Ginny’s behaviour, particularly on hearing that she had made a great point of presenting him to the visitors. Rufus, too, was impressed by this, and had a few questions to ask.

  ‘Mr East, did you say? Him that runs the Chacelands ’state on behalf of the young squire-to-be? How did you get on with him?’

  ‘He was very friendly to me.’

  ‘Ah, that’s right. That’s good, that is. You want to get in with all that sort.’ Rufus sucked at a loose tooth. ‘Did you tell him about the quarry?’

  ‘Yes, because Mr Tarrant had mentioned it to him and he said he thought he’d heard of us.’

  ‘Did you ask if they ever had need of stone for building and such at Chacelands?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘Then you was a fool,’ Rufus said. ‘You missed a good opportunity.’

  ‘Mr East told me that Chacelands repairs are always done by the Fowlers of Pibblecombe who get their stone from Hawker’s Hill.’

  ‘He could always change to us.’

  ‘If I had spoken to Mr East, cadging for custom like that, he would have thought it a breach of good manners.’

  ‘A breach of good manners!’ Rufus exclaimed. ‘And what sort of mouthful of words is that? One you learnt from the Tarrants, I suppose?’

  ‘I thought that’s why you sent me there ‒ so that I should learn from them.’

  ‘I sent you there to learn something useful, not a lot of precious cant. Mr East’s got a ’state to run. That means he is a man of business and business is something you’ve got to discuss. It don’t just happen by itself.’

  ‘He is also a gentleman and when gentlemen discuss business matters there are certain rules they observe.’

  ‘Oh, is that so?’ Rufus said.

  ‘Furthermore,’ Martin said, ‘when Mr East told me that Chacelands work is done by the Fowlers, it was his way of warning me not to expect business from him.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I could see what was in his mind. Because he meant me to see it, that’s how.’

  ‘H’mm,’ Rufus said, still sceptical, and his gaze remained fixed on Martin’s face. But he was impressed in spite of himself and after a while he gave a nod. ‘Yes, well, so be it, my son. I daresay you’re in the right of it. I put my trust in your judgement and hope, in the fullness of time, some sort of good will come of it.’

  Rufus had a genuine respect for this young son of his: it was why he expected great things of him. The boy had a certain quickness of mind and a certain sensibility that enabled him to understand other people’s feelings and thoughts in a way that Rufus himself could not. He was also adaptable and already, in a matter of months, Rufus detected a change in him, brought about by his lessons at Railes. For one thing his speech was much improved; he had shed some of his Gloucestershire burr and could even talk quite fine when he chose; but, more important than that, was his ever-growing fluency. Under Katharine Tarrant’s tuition, he was learning how to express himself; to get his tongue round difficult words and to frame his thoughts in sentences that no one could fail to understand. All of which gave him confidence, so that nowadays, when he talked, it was with a certain authority.

  All this Rufus observed, though his satisfaction was tinged sometimes with a kind of resentment; a feeling that the boy was too independent; that he had too much to say for himself and needed to be kept in check. Perhaps it was because of this that Rufus tended to heap scorn on those aspects of Martin’s studies that were outside the range of his own experience.

  ‘Poetry! What use is that? Where will it get you?’ he would say. ‘It won’t put bread into your mouth, nor clothes on your back, so why waste time on such flummery?’

  This was a frequent complaint of his since overhearing Martin and Nan reciting their favourite passages from Romeo and Juliet while working together in the quarry.

  ‘Filling your sister’s head with such stuff! And some of it not even decent!’ he said. ‘ “Well, Juliet! I will lie with thee tonight”! Now what kind of talk is that?’

  ‘It isn’t indecent, it’s sad,’ Martin said, ‘because Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and he intends killing himself so that they may lie together in the grave.’

  ‘And is the girl dead or not?’

  ‘No, just asleep. But when she wakes up and finds he has taken a cup of poison, she stabs herself with his dagger.’

  ‘Is she dead this time?’

  ‘Yes, they both are.’

  ‘Just as well for them if they are. They’d find themselves in trouble, else. It’s against the law to take your own life. Didn’t they think of that?’

  ‘It’s only a story,’ Martin said. ‘None of it happened in real life.’

  ‘Then where’s the point of it?’ Rufus asked.

  ‘Well … a story takes you out of yourself and sets you thinking,’ Martin said. ‘You see it all happening in your mind and you feel it as though it’s happening to you. It gives you something to think about when you’re doing dull, monotonous work. But it isn’t just the story alone … it’s the poetry too … the way the words are put together so that they sound exactly right. It’s like a language all its own, that gets down deep, to the heart of things … the things you’ve often thought and felt but never been able to talk about.’

  There followed a long pause in which father and son eyed each other, one with a hard, satirical stare, the other self-conscious but defensive. Finally Rufus gave a grunt.

  ‘That monotonous work you spoke of earns us our living, don’t forget.’

  ‘Our living, yes. Such as it is.’

  ‘If you would improve it, my son, you should get Miss Katharine to learn you something worthwhile, that’ll be some proper use to you, instead of giving you poetry and other such trash to read.’

  But Miss Katharine was teaching him useful things, among them the art of writing letters, and Rufus, seeing the few samples that Martin had written so far, gave his approval unstintingly.

  ‘That’s good, that is. There’s sense in that. You’re doing well and I’m proud of you.’

  The first of Martin’s sample letters were written to Miss Katharine’s dictation and were meant to test his spelling and punctuation while conveying the rudiments of a letter’s construction. Some were written as though to tradesmen: one to a nurseryman, for instance, ordering twenty apple trees; another to a firm of clock-makers, requesting a copy of their catalogue. But others were written as though to friends: one accepting an invitation to dine; another refusing, with regret, and giving the reasons therefor. Later, Katharine set him to study a page of readers’ letters published in The Chardwell Gazette and, as an exercise, to write his own answers to them. It happened one week that there was a letter from a Mr Hunt, deploring the use of red brick in the building of three new cottages on the outskirts of Wembleford, a village which until now had been built exclusively of stone.

  ‘I have heard it said that good quality Cotswold stone cannot now be obtained from anywhere nearer than Bowden Hill and that consequently the expense of transporting it such a distance obviates against its use. But surely all right-minded men engaged in the building trade in this district should be prepared to meet the extra expense involved so as to ensure that their work is in harmony with what already exists?’

 
This was a subject close to Martin’s heart and he wrote supporting Mr Hunt’s complaint with strong, simple eloquence. Miss Katharine, as always, corrected the letter and improved on the sentences here and there, but the substance of it was his own, and when a fair copy was made it ended with these words:

  ‘Obviously it is too late to prevent the use of red brick in the cottages Mr Hunt mentions, but whoever has said that good quality Cotswold stone cannot be obtained nearer than Bowden Hill has either been misinformed or been guilty of falsehood, and I beg to put the matter right. Stone of first-rate quality can be obtained from Scurr Quarry, on Rutland Hill, near Chardwell, leased and worked by my father, Mr Rufus Cox, a banker-mason of skill, experience, and good repute. As this quarry is less than a mile from Wembleford, the cost of transporting stone thereto would be less than that of transporting bricks from the Kinnington brick kilns.

  I am, dear sirs, yours respectfully, Martin Cox.’

  Miss Katharine was much impressed by this letter; so were the twins; and although Martin had written it purely as an exercise, Katharine now suggested that he should send it to The Chardwell Gazette.

  ‘Yes, why don’t you?’ Ginny said.

  ‘Is it really good enough?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll get you a stamp.’

  A week later, the letter was published. The Tarrants saw it first, of course, for they had the paper delivered to them, and when Martin arrived for his lessons, Katharine put it in front of him, open at the relevant page.

  ‘There!’ Ginny said, watching his face. ‘I knew they were sure to print it! What a clever boy you are, to be sure! You’re really quite a credit to us.’

  Martin, flushed with pleasure and amazement, gave credit where it was due.

  ‘It was Miss Katharine’s doing by rights.’ And he turned towards the older girl. ‘It was all your idea that I should learn how to write letters.’