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

by Mary E. Pearce

‘It would not have led to this,’ she said, ‘if you hadn’t been such an apt pupil.’

  When he took the newspaper home, his father and sister read the letter over and over, again and again. They could not believe their eyes, and Rufus in particular was fascinated by the sight of his name, and Martin’s, in print on the page, together with the name of the quarry.

  ‘That’s a good letter. You’ve wrote it well. What’s more, it tells the truth.’

  During the following weeks there was further correspondence in The Gazette on the subject of brick versus stone, all of it endorsing the stand taken by ‘Messrs Hunt and Cox’ and urging that stern measures be taken to ‘halt the incursion of alien brick at present threatening our Cotswold towns.’ During these weeks, too, as a result of Martin’s letter, a number of people from various parts of the county found their way to Chardwell and walked or rode up Rutland Hill on purpose to see Scurr Quarry. Most came simply out of curiosity. ‒ ‘Nosy parkers!’ Rufus said. ‘Asking fool questions and wasting our time!’ ‒ But one was a builder from Sharveston, Robert Clayton by name, and he had recently been asked by the Cullen Valley Turnpike Trust to submit a tender for repairs to the old bridge over the Ail, between Chidcot and Newton Ashkey.

  ‘I thought it would mean getting the stone from Bowden Hill, but you are so much nearer to Newton Ashkey, I decided to come and investigate the claim your son makes in his letter, that you can supply good quality stone.’

  Also, Clayton had doubted whether a quarry worked by two men would be able to meet his requirements, but when he saw the reserves of stone, already cut and dressed, his doubts were removed. There remained only the problem of transport.

  ‘One cart and one horse? Is that all you’ve got?’ he said in some amazement.

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Rufus said. ‘I can always hire horses and carts to get the stone down to you. That’s what I’ve always done in the past, when I’ve had a big order like this.’

  ‘In that case perhaps we can discuss quantities and reckon out a bill-of-costs? I can then send my tender in, and if so be I am given the work, we are well on the way to doing business together, Mr Cox.’

  In due course, Clayton secured the contract, and placed his order for the stone; Rufus hired extra horses and carts, with reliable men to drive them; and over the next three weeks or so, more than fifteen hundred tons of stone were delivered to Newton Ashkey for use in repairing the old bridge.

  On meeting Martin for the first time, Clayton had been surprised and amused to find that the author of the letter published in The Chardwell Gazette was only a boy of fifteen.

  ‘You’ve got a good businessman in the making there, Mr Cox.’

  ‘Yes, and I know it,’ Rufus said.

  A few weeks later, when repairs to the bridge were finished, Clayton promised that if ever he had more work in that area, he would again come to Scurr for his stone; and time was to prove him a man of his word. Through Clayton, also, Rufus received a few orders from other builders in the Cullen Valley and was altogether well pleased with himself, because these benefits were the result of the ‘schooling’ Martin was getting at Railes.

  ‘I did the right thing, sending you there. I knew some good would come of it.’

  The Tarrants, too, were delighted that Martin’s letter had brought such results.

  ‘Does it mean you’ll be rich?’ Ginny asked.

  ‘Seemingly not,’ Martin said.

  He could not understand why it was that in spite of these extra sales of stone they were living as frugally as before. No better food came to the table; nor was there money to buy better clothes: Nan had to make-do-and-mend just as she had always done. And still they continued to live in the quarry, in the cottage, scarcely more than a hovel, built against the rock-face. Martin brooded long over this until one day, in a burst of anger, he spoke to his father about it.

  ‘When are we going to be able to live in a proper, decent dwelling-house, down in the town, with other folk, instead of up here by ourselves, like primitive people in a cave? Surely we’re doing well enough to rent a proper cottage by now?’

  ‘You think so, do you?’ Rufus said. ‘Just cos we’ve got a bit of extra coming in just now, you think we may as well throw it away? Seems to me you are forgetting all the extra expense I’ve had, hiring extra horses and carts and men to drive them to and fro.’

  ‘Don’t we make any profit, then?’ Martin asked sarcastically. ‘Do our expenses swallow it up and leave us just as poor as before? Strikes me there must be something wrong if we can sell off all that stone and be left with nothing to show for it.’

  ‘Oh, so you think there’s something wrong? And what do you know about it, boy, when it comes to the way of running things and attending to the business side?’

  ‘I know nothing at all,’ Martin said, ‘because you never tell me anything!’

  ‘And what is it you want to know?’

  ‘Well, what you just said yourself, about the business side of it all … Profits and losses and things of that sort, and how they balance out in the end.’

  ‘So, at fifteen years old, my son, you expect to know as much as me. And no doubt in another few months you’ll be wanting to take over the reins and run the whole perjandum yourself!’

  ‘No, I don’t expect any such thing ‒’

  ‘Just as well if you don’t, my son, ‒ you’d be in for a disappointment, else. Now listen to me and mark what I say. This here quarry is leased to me. The lawyer’s papers are in my name. I’m the one that pays the rent. When I’m dead, the lease’ll be yours, and you’ll be running the quarr yourself, but until that day comes, I’m Master here and you’re just Jack, and you had better remember it.’

  ‘Have we got to wait till you die, then, before we ever stand a chance of getting a decent place to live?’

  ‘No, no, not as long as that. But a while yet. Be patient, that’s all. I’d like to feel a bit more secure and get a bit more savings put by before thinking of taking a house.’

  ‘It doesn’t cost all that much to rent a cottage in Chardwell.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ Rufus said. ‘Been looking into it, then, have you?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a nice cottage in Shady Lane to let for eighteen pence a week.’

  ‘And can you afford eighteen pence?’

  ‘I could if you paid me for my work.’

  ‘What work?’ Rufus asked. ‘Half your time is spent at Railes, sitting at a table, studying, or lounging about in the gardens there, learning snippets of this and that. Only the other half is spent doing a proper job of work and what you earn from that, boy, just about covers the cost of your keep! You’re not a grown man yet. Not by a long chalk you’re not! And when you are ‒ well, we shall see!’

  Martin, although shamed and defeated, had one last defiant speech to make.

  ‘It was you who sent me to Railes in the first place and now you talk as though you think I am just wasting my time there. But I did write that letter to the paper, remember, and you said yourself it did us some good, bringing Mr Clayton to buy our stone.’

  ‘I yunt forgotten the letter, my son. You did well and I’m proud of you. And because I know you’re a good boy at heart I shall do my best to overlook the saucy things you’ve been saying to me. But I am your father, don’t forget, and it is your duty to honour me. I’m a lot older and wiser than you and I know better what I’m about. Take this matter of quarrying, now. ‒ How many times have you asked me, “Why must we always be cutting stone when we don’t hardly sell none of it?” And how many times have I answered you, “One of these days our luck will change. The stone will be needed. You mark my words”? Well, now you know that I was right, and you can be sure it’ll happen again, which is why we must always make sure that when it’s needed in a hurry, we’ve always got it ready to sell. So you just get on with your proper work and give your tongue a holiday.’

  The fine summer came to an end and the evenings began drawing in. Autumn at Railes me
ant rust-red leaves fluttering past the schoolroom window, from the vines and creepers that clothed the walls. It meant white mist spreading out over gardens and parkland, with the trees towering up out of it, many of them aflame with colour: the beeches all burnt sienna; the American maples crimson and vermilion; the tulip trees pale lemon and gold. Autumn meant a nip in the air, log fires lit in the house, and the smell of woodsmoke everywhere.

  ‘I love the autumn,’ Ginny said, coming in late from her morning ride. ‘Which season do you like best, Martin?’

  ‘I don’t know … All the seasons are beautiful here.’

  Even November, cold, wet and dark, seemed less gloomy at Newton Railes, because of its welcoming comfort and warmth. However early he arrived, the lamp would be lit on the schoolroom table, casting a cheerful circle of light over the red velvet table-cloth, and a fire would be burning in the grate. And soon after he arrived, the maid, Annie, was sure to come in with a cup of hot chocolate for him to drink. Often, arriving early like this, he had the schoolroom to himself, and would settle down to half an hour of private study before Katharine and the twins arrived. They had granted him this privilege and he valued it very highly indeed.

  Often he felt guilty, enjoying such comfort and luxury while his sister Nan remained at home, a prisoner in the quarry cottage, where rain trickled down the inner wall, soaking the stone-chip floor underfoot, and where smoke billowed out from the fire-face, filling the kitchen with its smuts.

  ‘I don’t know why I am singled out to receive such good fortune,’ he said to her. ‘But one thing I do know ‒ that as soon as it is in my power, I shall make it up to you in every way I possibly can.’

  ‘You needn’t feel guilty about it, Martin, when you’re sharing your good fortune with me. ‒ Teaching me everything you learn. Telling me all about Newton Railes. I feel I know it as well as you do. And I feel I know the family.’

  Nan could never hear enough about what the Tarrants said and did: what dresses the two girls wore and what their favourite colours were; what music they played and what songs they sang. Every detail was manna to her, and Martin, well aware of this, would do his best to remember those things that gave her the greatest pleasure. Sometimes, he would tease her, too.

  ‘Master Hugh takes sugar in his tea but the girls do not. They all take milk, of course, and it has to be poured in after the tea. You must be sure and remember that if you are ever lucky enough to get milk to put in your tea.’

  ‘I hope you won’t tell them that I’m always asking questions about them.’

  ‘Of course I won’t.’

  One day at the end of November Rufus gave Martin a grubby sealed envelope for him to give to Mr Tarrant.

  ‘That’s my account for the work we done back in the early summer,’ he said. ‘He asked us to give him time to pay and it’s now six months. Seems to me that’s long enough.’

  Martin took the envelope and looked at it with a sombre frown.

  ‘I suppose that means no more lessons, then?’

  ‘Eh? Why should it?’ Rufus asked.

  ‘Because, from what I understood, that was what you arranged with him. ‒ Lessons for me in exchange for allowing him time to pay this bill.’

  ‘Miss Katharine still teaches her brother and sister, don’t she? Then she can still teach you just the same. I can’t see it’s any bother to her. Nor to her father, neither. That don’t cost them nothing, does it?’

  John Tarrant, receiving the bill that afternoon when he joined the young people for schoolroom tea, looked at Martin in surprise.

  ‘Your bill-of-work? God bless my soul! Is it due for payment so soon? How quickly the time passes these days.’ He laid the envelope aside. ‘Tell your father he shall have my draft just as soon as it can be arranged.’

  When he left the room, however, the envelope remained on the table. Katharine saw it and picked it up and, a little while later, took it to him in his study.

  ‘You won’t forget to pay it, will you, Papa?’

  ‘Of course not, my dear. But Rufus won’t hurt for waiting a while. I’m rather hard-pressed just now, what with Ginny outgrowing her frocks so fast and Christmas only a few weeks away ‒’

  ‘It will be Christmas for the Coxes, too. And it is all wrong, Papa, that you should spoil us with luxuries while that bill remains unpaid.’

  ‘I doubt if it will make any difference to the way the Coxes spend Christmas, whether I pay this bill or not.’

  ‘I fear what you say is probably true and it grieves me very much indeed. But I feel the bill should be paid all the same. That work was finished six months ago and it is not honest of us, Papa, to delay payment any longer.’

  ‘Us?’ Tarrant said, with a quizzical look, and shook his head at her, ruefully. ‘When were you ever dishonest, Kate, in all your nineteen upright years?’ He opened the bill and looked at it and gave a little weary sigh. ‘Very well. It shall be paid. I give you my word most faithfully.’

  Accordingly, when Martin next came, an envelope lay on the schoolroom table.

  ‘My father asked me to give you this, with his thanks and compliments,’ Katharine said.

  Ginny, sitting with Hugh at the table, was watching Martin with prim satisfaction.

  ‘Now you know, Master Cox, that gentlemen do pay their bills.’

  ‘Yes,’ Martin said, absently. He put the envelope into his pocket.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ Katharine asked.

  ‘Well, it’s about my lessons,’ he said, and because he was troubled in his mind, he spoke roughly and clumsily. ‘Now that the damned bill is paid, I don’t rightly know where I am, or whether I’m to come any more.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘Then I’m happy to go on teaching you.’

  ‘Of course you must still come!’ Ginny said. ‘You’ve got a great deal to learn yet before we shall have done with you!’

  But soon much of the schoolroom talk was of preparations for the festive season. There would be a party on Christmas Eve, with carol singers from Newton Childe, and a second party on Boxing Day, with dancing and a hired quadrille band. There would also be a round of visits to the homes of friends in the neighbourhood, all of which meant that formal lessons would be suspended for two weeks at least. Martin received an invitation to the party on Christmas Eve but this he declined with an awkward excuse.

  ‘Too busy?’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘Why? Shall you be entertaining at Scurr?’ Then, seeing the look on his face, she was all contrition at once. ‘Oh, Martin! Don’t look like that! It was only a joke. I meant no harm.’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ he said with a shrug. ‘There’s no bones broken. It’s you that’s upset.’

  ‘But why can’t you come on Christmas Eve?’

  ‘For one thing, I’ve got no decent clothes. Besides, I’m not fit for fine company.’

  Ginny tried to persuade him but here Katharine intervened. ‘Martin knows his own mind. We shall only make him uncomfortable if we persist.’

  ‘Well, at least you can stay to supper today, seeing it’s just the family, who are not such very fine folk,’ Ginny said. ‘And now let us go down and begin decorating the house.’

  Taking Martin by the hand, she led him down to the great hall, where, on one of the Tournai carpets, lay an enormous heap of holly, and where, at that moment, a side door opened to admit two of the garden boys, both grinning from ear to ear as they squeezed their way through with shuffling steps, carrying a wooden tub containing a tall green Christmas tree.

  ‘Have you ever seen one before?’

  ‘No, never,’ Martin said.

  ‘You can help us to dress it,’ Ginny said.

  Christmas at Newton Railes, Martin thought, as he walked home that evening, would certainly be a different affair from Christmas at Scurr Quarry. There, little was made of it, beyond what he and Nan might do to brighten the cottage with greenery. They had no money for buying presents. Nan always knitted mittens or
scarves for her father and brother, using wool she had spun herself from wisps collected in the hill pastures, and Martin would give her a picture he had sketched or something carved from a piece of stone. But all Rufus ever did was to bring in a paper cornet of nuts and raisins, or a few sleepy apples, bought for a penny in the market last thing on Christmas Eve.

  Still, at least their Christmas dinner this year would be much better than usual, for the Tarrants had given Martin a goose, with fresh vegetables and herbs to go with it, and a plum pudding in a white cloth. Nan almost wept on receiving these gifts. ‘Oh, what a feast we shall have!’ she said. And sure enough, on Christmas Day, when she served up the big handsome bird, roasted on the open hearth, the sight and smell of it on the dish, surrounded by sage and onion stuffing, with roasted potatoes and mashed swede, brought a murmur of appreciation even from Rufus himself.

  ‘I yunt had goose for I don’t know how many years,’ he said. ‘But whoa, whoa, go carefully, girl! That bird won’t last us no time at all if you carve slices so thick as that.’

  In addition to the welcome gifts of food, Martin had received a personal gift from the young Tarrants: The Last Essays of Elia, in soft brown calf, printed on delicate rice-paper, its pages gilt-edged. On the fly-leaf, in Miss Katharine’s hand, there was an inscription: ‘To our friend Martin, Christmas 1844, from the family at Newton Railes.’ He in return had given them an ammonite: one of the fossils he so often found when cutting stone; the largest and best from his collection, being almost a perfect coil, which he had polished assiduously until it had the delicate glow of an ornament in palest amber.

  ‘Were they pleased with it?’ Nan asked.

  ‘I don’t know. They seemed to be. They know I’ve got no money, of course, so they understand how I’m placed.’

  Brother and sister were out on the hill. Their father, unused to eating so well, had fallen asleep in his chair by the fire, and they had quietly left him there. They walked together up the track, pushing against a strong north wind that had a few flakes of snow in it.

  ‘Have you ever thought,’ Martin said, ‘that Father may not be so poor as he has always made out to us?’