Daughter of the River

by Daughter of the River (retail) (epub)

  Daughter of the River

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Copyright

  To Andrea and Faye

  Chapter One

  1869

  It was a bright Devon spring Sunday when the Bradworthys brought their latest baby to Stoke Gabriel church for the first time. From her seat in the pew behind them Maddy watched as the child’s mother, Janie, beamed with pride at her son and pulled her fine new paisley shawl more comfortably about her shoulders.

  A pretty penny that bit of frippery must have cost, decided Maddy. No doubt ’tis her reward for having given Rob a boy at last, after disappointing him with three girls.

  Then she felt ashamed. You’m turning into a jealous old maid, Maddy Shillabeer, that’s what you’m doing, she scolded herself. Thinking such things, and in church, too! Rob were always a generous soul. Why shouldn’t he buy Janie something pretty after her lying-in?

  Steadfastly she tried to turn her concentration back to the service, but for once the intoning of the Reverend Bowden, imploring divine protection for ‘our blessed Queen Victoria and the royal family’, could not hold her attention. Her eyes kept straying back to the sleeping infant, and the sight of him brought back a dull ache of loss such as she had not experienced in a long time. The new babe might so easily have been hers, along with his three chubby, flaxen-haired sisters, for Rob Bradworthy had been her love long before he had looked at Janie.

  But that was before Maddy’s mother had died. After that everything had changed. It had also been a long time ago. Maddy was now resigned to the fact that it was her lot in life to look after her father and her brothers. Only occasionally, such as on the sudden appearance of the newest Bradworthy, was she caught unawares and thought of the sort of life she might have enjoyed if circumstances had been different.

  She looked along the pew at the five men who now dominated her life: Father, Bart, Lew, Charlie and young Davie. Her brothers looked sullen and mutinous, as they did every Sunday.

  Regular attendance at church was one of the few things that their father insisted upon. He had a superstitious fear that if the regular Sunday observance was not maintained then God might punish them by stopping the salmon from running, or, worse still, cause the great silver fish to avoid the Shillabeer net and cast themselves into someone else’s.

  The church band, led by Henry Beer on his fiddle, struck up with the final hymn, ‘Rock of Ages’, and the congregation did its best to join in. The trouble was that old Henry was self- taught and had very individual ideas on timing. Despite the vicar’s determined baritone trying to keep to a more accepted rhythm, Henry led his small band of musicians in the way he meant them to go.

  The discord woke the Bradworthy’s new baby. Convinced it was feeding time, he announced his hunger at the top of powerful new lungs, all but drowning out the vicar’s final words. Thus the service came to a noisy end. Normally, after the departure of the vicar and choir, everyone waited for the squire and his family to leave the church first. On this occasion, however, the squire halted beside the Bradworthy pew.

  ‘Janie,’ he roared genially above the cries of the infant. ‘Never let it be said that I stood in the way of such a promising young trencherman. Off you go and feed the poor child.’ And he stood aside while, flushed and laughing, the Bradworthy family collected up the children and hurried out.

  The incident brought smiles to the faces of most of the congregation. It also brought chaos, for the customary order of filing out of church was quite disrupted. Hemmed in the pew by the crush, Maddy cast a look behind her. Of her father and brothers there was no sign. They would already be on their way to either the Church House Inn or the Victoria and Albert – whichever hostelry could provide them with the swiftest pints of rough cider.

  Eventually she squeezed her way out into the aisle, and found herself jammed shoulder to shoulder with Calland Whitcomb and his mother. They did not speak. Although they were kinsfolk, the Shillabeers and the Whitcombs had not spoken to one another, except in dire necessity, for over sixty years. There was not room for them to move forward together, so Maddy stood back to let Mrs Whitcomb go first. The stuck-up Whitcombs were never going to be able to accuse her of having no manners. Mrs Whitcomb acknowledged her action with a slight inclination of the head and a glare of disapproval.

  Maddy waited her turn and would have continued waiting until Cal Whitcomb had passed, but he was evidently eager to prove that a Whitcomb could be as polite as a Shillabeer. He came to a halt, then gave a bow to indicate that she could precede him. Trust him to do something as fancy as bowing. Unlike his mother, he did not seem to find the situation irritating. Maddy was certain there was a glint of amusement in his eyes as he stood there, obliging her to step in front of him.

  He found her funny, did he? No doubt he was looking down his nose at the shabbiness of her cape and dress and at the unadorned state of her Sunday bonnet. The way he was dressed was certainly high and mighty enough – the carefully brushed suit, the pure white shirt with its perfectly starched collar, and boots that were reckoned to be the most highly polished in Stoke Gabriel. Even the squire was not so well turned out, yet Cal Whitcomb was just an ordinaiy farmer, nothing more.

  Certain she was being mocked by one and criticised by the other, Maddy was forced to leave the church sandwiched between the Whitcombs, mother and son.

  As she did so she became aware of a pleasant scent of cedar wood overlaid with some sharper fragrance such as lemon or verbena. Cal Whitcomb was wearing cologne! The sheer pretension of it almost made her laugh aloud. She could not wait to tell her brothers; they would never get over it. Then she changed her mind and decided not to mention it. There was enough trouble between the Shillabeers and the Whitcombs without stirring up more. Besides, she did not object to the scent of decent cologne on a man; it was a good deal more agreeable than anything she would encounter at home.

  Once outside the church, there was no stopping to gossip or pass the time of day for Maddy. The dinner was waiting among the hot ashes of the hearth, and the vegetables were still to be cooked. The menfolk would expect their meal to be ready and waiting for them when they got in. Walking briskly, her cloak swirling about her slim figure, she hurried homewards. Making her way past cottages of cob and stone, and apple orchards already misted with the pink of opening buds, she turned into a lane away from the village.

  When she was beyond the observation of critical eyes she threw propriety to the wind and began to run. It was not at all the thing for a staid old maid of twenty-five to do, especially on a Sunday, but she revelled in the freedom. It was the one occasion when she was unhampered by shopping or other burdens. In her downward flight she did not notice the banks thick with primroses and violets, it was too exhilarating gathering speed on the steep path, her boots slithering, her skirts flying – until she came to a skidding halt against the wall of her cottage. Her bonnet was awry and her fair hair, wildly unruly at the best of times, stuck out about her head like a wayward bird’s nest, but she did not care.

  ‘One of these days you�
�m going to miss and finish up in the river,’ remarked a voice. Annie Fleet, her neighbour, and wife of the local ferryboat man, was regarding her with amusement.

  ‘If I do, you’ll be there to fish me out,’ panted Maddy, grinning.

  ‘Not if the tide be out I won’t. If you falls in that mud ’tis there you’m staying, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘A fine friend you’m turning out to be.’ Maddy noticed the empty bucket in Annie’s hand. ‘You weren’t going to get water by yourself, were you?’ she said reprovingly. ‘Why didn’t you give me a shout afore I went to church?’

  ‘You’m enough to do, maid, without taking on my fetching and carrying.’

  ‘One of the boys could’ve done it.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Annie Fleet’s tone told exactly what she thought of that idea.

  ‘Yer, give me the pail.’ Maddy took the bucket from the other woman’s gnarled grasp and hurried past the three cottages which nestled on the river foreshore to the spring beyond.

  Slowly and painfully Annie followed her for a step or two. Barely ten years older than Maddy, she had been struck by rheumatism cruelly young, making her joints distorted, her movements painfully slow. Maddy had deposited the water pail in the Fleets’ kitchen and was on the path to her own home before Annie had reached the cottage end.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea, shall us?’ Maddy suggested, already untying her Sunday bonnet as she stepped over the threshold. ‘I can drink mine whilst I gets on with the dinner.’

  Steadfastly Annie followed her into the Shillabeer home and sank thankfully into a chair beside the scrubbed deal table. ‘Did you see the new folks who’ve taken the White House?’ she demanded. ‘I hear they’m powerful grand.’

  ‘I meant to, but there was such a crush I couldn’t get a good look,’ said Maddy. She did not like to say that her attention had been so absorbed by the Bradworthy baby that she had forgotten to be curious about the newcomers. Strangers were such a rarity in the village she would have been admitting just how much memories of the past had affected her.

  ‘Oh, you idn’t no good!’ protested Annie, good-humouredly despite her disappointment, for she was always hungry for news of the outside world. ‘I was hoping you’d tell me what they were wearing, the mother and daughter. They’m got some outlandish name. Fitz-something… Fitzherbert, that be it! They’m a handsome family according to our Kitty. Her saw the daughter riding out along the Waddeton road, and her looked a proper picture, Kitty says. A green velvet riding habit she had on, with proper black frogging on the jacket just like the soldiers has. According to our Kitty the wench must have been sewed into it, it fitted that perfect.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’m asking me about the news for,’ Maddy grinned. ‘You knows more of what be going on than I do.’

  ‘That’s only because our Kitty had time off yesterday and dropped by for half an hour.’ Annie’s sister was in service with the squire’s family and an invaluable source of gossip. Annie’s appetite for news was insatiable. ‘Come on,’ she pleaded. Didn’t naught of interest happen at church?’

  ‘Janie and Rob Bradworthy brought their new baby,’ Maddy said, and went on to tell of the resulting chaos.

  ‘Idn’t that typical of the squire?’ chuckled Annie. ‘He’m a proper caution. I bet Janie were ready to sink through the floor.’

  ‘Never mind Janie, what about me, having to leave church squashed atween Mary Whitcomb and her precious son?’ protested Maddy.

  ‘There’s plenty of maids in the village as would’ve been pleased to change places. A fine figure of a man be Cal Whitcomb, and handsome.’

  ‘Handsome? With that red hair?’

  ‘Tidn’t red, ’tis auburn.’

  ‘Makes no difference – auburn be just a fancy name. To me he’m got red hair and always will have until he turns grey or goes bald.’ The idea of a bald Cal Whitcomb pleased her. ‘’Twould serve him right, to lose all his hair. What price his high and mighty airs then?’

  ‘You Shillabeers and Whitcombs! Always on at one another!’ protested Annie. ‘He won’t go bald. He’m the image of his pa, and Old Man Whitcomb always had a lovely head of hair.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Maddy. ‘But ’twas a nice thought while it lasted.’

  And the pair of them collapsed with laughter.

  The sound of voices and footsteps coming down the lane cut through their hilarity.

  ‘This must be your lot arriving home,’ said Annie, rising slowly to her feet. ‘I’d best be off and let you feed them. My William’ll be wanting his dinner too.’

  She reached the door just as Jack Shillabeer approached, his sons following.

  ‘Hullo, Annie,’ he said with a cheerfulness that owed much to the scrumpy he had just consumed. ‘Been visiting our Maddy, eh? My, it must be grand to be a woman and have time for all these cups of tea.’

  ‘Jack, boy, I won’t give the proper answer to that,’ replied Annie tartly. ‘Not on a Sunday!’

  Hearing the exchange Maddy grinned to herself. Not one to be put down was Annie, for all her disabilities. Then the cottage suddenly seemed overfull of male bodies, as it always did when the family came home, and her thoughts flew to the dinner and getting everyone fed.

  ‘No Bart?’ she remarked.

  ‘He’ll be along presently. He’m with his mates,’ said Jack.

  Her heart sank as she dished up her absent brother’s dinner and set it to keep warm on the hearth. Bart would be doing some hard drinking. The others had had their Sunday cider as usual, but generally they knew when to stop. Bart did not.

  Jack and the others had finished their meal and were lazing by the fire, their belts slackened off, before there was any sign of Bart. Hearing the heavy clump of his boots coming down the path Maddy had his dinner on the table by the time he came in through the door. He slung his hat at the oak settle, missed, and sat down clumsily at the table. His face was flushed and his eyes over-bright, causing Maddy’s heart to sink further. With Bart in this state her hopes of a peaceful Sunday departed.

  ‘What do you call this mess?’ he demanded belligerently as she removed the covering plate from his food.

  ‘When I dished un up first I called un a decent dinner,’ retorted Maddy.

  ‘I idn’t eating that muck. Cook me something decent!’

  ‘I cooked you something decent once, I idn’t doing it twice!’ Maddy faced up to her troublesome brother. ‘It be that or bread and cheese. Take your pick.’

  ‘Bread and cheese? What sort of a dinner be that for a Sunday? Idn’t I entitled to one decent meal a week?’

  ‘The dinner was here and you wadn’t. That’s the long and short of it,’ snapped Maddy.

  ‘I be having a real dinner and you’m going to cook it, else you’m going to be sorry!’ In his rage Bart had leapt to his feet. ‘I’ll show you what I thinks of this bloody rubbish!’ He made to seize the plate to hurl it against the wall, but having spent the last hour on the trivet above the glowing wood ash it was still very hot. With a curse he dropped it back on the table, blowing on scorched fingers.

  Maddy looked over to her father, willing him to intervene, but it was a vain hope. He was engrossed in lighting his pipe and did not seem aware of the disruptive behaviour of his eldest son.

  ‘If you don’t want that dinner, I’ll eat un.’ It was Lew who spoke up. Next in age after Bart, he was the tallest of the family and always hungry.

  His request had the required effect. Bart dropped back into his chair and began eating. He might not want Ids dinner but he was not going to let anyone else have it.

  Over his head, Lew winked at Maddy. The most good-natured of the lot, it was a pity he was so often under the influence of Bart. Fiercely loyal as she was to all her brothers, she had to admit that there were times when she and Bart did not get on.

  It troubled Maddy that she had not been a better influence on her eldest brother. She and Bart were too close in age, that was the problem. With only a year between
them, he had scorned to take notice of what she said. Looking back she felt she could have handled matters differently. If only she had used persuasive words and laughter from the beginning, as their mother had done, instead of anger and confrontation. But at fourteen she had been numbed by grief at her mother’s death and bewildered by the heavy responsibility suddenly thrust upon her. Her father had seemed impervious to her problems, bowed down by his own sorrow. As time progressed he had made no move to lessen Maddy’s burden.

  ‘You’m doing fine, maid,’ had been his only comment. ‘You’m doing just fine.’

  Maddy had not believed him then, and she did not believe him now.

  Bart’s plate was scraped clean and he pushed it aside, anticipating the immediate appearance of the next course.

  ‘What’d Cal Whitcomb to say to you?’ he demanded, his mouth full of suet pudding and plum jam.

  ‘Cal Whitcomb?’ Jack Shillabeer’s head went up at the sound of the name. ‘Who’s been talking to the likes of he?’

  ‘Our Maddy came out of church with him and his ma this morning, bold as brass.’

  ‘Did you, maid?’ Jack regarded her suspiciously. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He just asked me up to Oakwood to take tea with him and his mother,’ replied Maddy. ‘Then afterwards he said us could go walking down round Byter Mill Copse and do a bit of courting.’

  ‘He never did!’ Young Davie leapt to his feet, his face scarlet with indignation. ‘The cheek of him! I’ll go up to Oakwood this minute and thrash the hide off him. I don’t care if he do be bigger than me, he idn’t insulting my sister!’

  He would have rushed off, too, if Charlie had not restrained him by the seat of his pants.

  ‘I were only joking,’ said Maddy, immediately regretting her attempt at humour. She should have known that Davie, so young and gullible, would believe her. ‘And before you dashes off to thump his head because he don’t consider me worth taking courting, you’d best knows as I wouldn’t have gone even if he’d asked me.’

  ‘I think not indeed.’ Jack gave an indignant snort. ‘There’d not have been much left of he after us had finished with him, not if he dared suggest such a thing.’