Daughter of the River

by Daughter of the River (retail) (epub)

  Surprisingly, most people were taken in by her outwardly calm demeanour, even Annie, who was usually most perceptive. ‘But that don’t bother you none, eh?’ she would say when some news of Patrick and Victoria, usually unsubstantiated, found its way back to the village. ‘You’m grateful you’m shot of yon Patrick and no harm done, I daresay.’

  And Maddy would nod and pretend to agree. Only at night, when she was alone in her attic, did she allow herself to admit her misery. Now she fully understood the meaning of the phrase ‘a broken heart’; it described perfectly the numbing, aching pain that was always with her. She would lie wakefully in the darkness, suffering, yet still unable to find relief in weeping.

  One morning, noticing that her supplies of flour were low, she went to the mill by the quay to order a sack of flour. On the way home she decided it would be more pleasant to take the path across the fields. The last person she expected to meet on her walk was Cal Whitcomb. He, too, looked surprised, but not displeased.

  This is an unexpected pleasure,’ he said. ‘May I walk with you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Maddy. She knew it was unlikely that he was wandering aimlessly about the countryside, so she added, ‘if it will not divert you from your business.’

  ‘My business is at an end, thank you,’ he said, falling into step beside her. ‘I have been down looking at the old quarry.’

  ‘You aren’t thinking of opening it up again, are you?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not exactly. I’m thinking of setting up a second cider press, you see, and I need stone to extend the building.’

  Two presses, thought Maddy. His cider business must be prospering. Aloud she asked, ‘And did you find your stone?’

  He shook his head. ‘It would be too difficult to get out, and take too many men. Penn’s Quarry is closer to Oakwood, of course, but these days they seem to concentrate upon sending stone up to London to build more roads. They aren’t interested in providing a few tons to extend a farm building. No, I must look elsewhere. Not that there is any urgency. This is a plan for way in the future.’

  ‘Then I will mention it to no one.’

  ‘I know I can depend upon your discretion. You have already proved it.’

  As he spoke he had a mischievous twinkle in his eye which prompted Maddy, remembering her visit to his home, to ask, ‘And how is your mother?’

  He laughed aloud. ‘Very well, thank you, and all the better for not knowing that you and I deal quite amicably together on occasions.’ Then the laughter faded from his face as he said, ‘Yes, I know you have discretion and tact, but more than that, you have great courage.’

  Maddy stiffened. Something in his tone disturbed her. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you do.’ His response was quite brusque. ‘You are the bravest creature I know, Maddy Shillabeer, but I beg you, do not go on being brave, covering up your feelings for the sake of appearances. You must give way to what is inside you. Those who think you don’t care or “have got over it” are fools who cannot possibly know you. When someone cares for another the way you cared for that Howard fellow, how can they be expected to shrug off their feelings in a minute? Like most of the village I always considered him to be a rogue and a vagabond, not fit to tie your bootlaces, but that makes no difference. Admit you grieve for him, before you make yourself ill by keeping your distress to yourself.’

  Maddy was struck dumb. Cal Whitcomb was the last person she would have expected to have seen beneath her protective charade. Looking up she saw concern on his face, but it was the sympathy in his expression that proved too much for her.

  Although it had been his perception of her own state that had shaken her, irrationally it was against his criticisms of Patrick that she railed. She might resent her fickle lover’s behaviour, but no one else was going to find fault with him.

  ‘How dare you speak in such a way about Patrick!’ she cried. ‘You and the rest of the village, you know nothing about him. I don’t care what you say, he is not bad! He is not! In addition, you are impertinent. What right have you to meddle in my affairs, Mr High-and-Mighty Whitcomb? Concerned for me, were you? In future, I’d be grateful if you would mind your own business.’

  She spun round on her heel and stalked off, leaving a grimfaced Cal looking after her. Her indignation lasted until she had climbed over the next stile and was hidden from his view by a high hawthorn hedge. Then she crumpled up against the hedge bank and, for only the second time since Patrick had deserted her, she gave way to tears. The much-needed storm of weeping swept over her, leaving her limp and tired, but the tension in her nerves and muscles had gone. The unhappiness remained, though. It would be a long, long time before that went away. Until that happened she had no alternative but to try to carry on as normal.

  In the midst of everything, her rudeness to Cal Whitcomb troubled her. Maybe he had been outspoken, but she sensed he had been trying to help. It was with relief that she encountered him a few days later on the Aish road. At the sight of her he half checked his horse, then seemed to change his mind and made to ride on.

  ‘If you could spare a minute, Mr Whitcomb, I would be most grateful,’ she called.

  He reined in the gelding and said stiffly, ‘Good day, Miss Shillabeer. How can I help you?’

  ‘By accepting my apologies for being so rude at our last meeting. To be honest I don’t know what got into me, shouting insults at you like that. I am very sorry.’

  He fidgeted with his riding crop before replying, ‘I should think that what got into you was rightful indignation. I was personal, rude, and downright impertinent.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Maddy protested. ‘You were showing concern for me, and I replied by turning on you like a shrew.’

  ‘I think I upset you very much, and that was not my intention. I should not have interfered.’

  ‘I am glad you did. You were right, I had been holding my feelings too close within myself. Getting angry at you… had a most beneficial effect.’

  He looked relieved. ‘You have no idea how glad I am to hear it. I have had many uneasy minutes since then worrying in case I had made things worse.’

  ‘You did not do that.’ She could have added that nothing could have made things worse.

  He smiled, ‘That is a weight off my mind, and having been interfering once I may as well continue and say the sun will shine again for you one day, you know. Never doubt it.’

  How often had she told herself that. After Davie. After Bart. And now after Patrick. ‘I know it will,’ she lied, and bade him farewell.

  * * *

  If the sun were ever going to shine, it was taking a long time, in Muddy’s opinion. The high summer sun may have burnt the surrounding cornfields golden and ripened the swelling apples in the orchards, but it did not enter her life. Her chief cause for optimism during those long warm days was her father. It had been an extremely good salmon season, which had cheered Jack considerably and now, in August, with the end of the netting approaching, he was beginning to accept that he had a good crew. Enough, at any rate, to ask them to join him for the following year. He was beginning to go out again. If Lew or one of his friends suggested a pint of scrumpy up at the Church House Inn, he accepted with enthusiasm. He was beginning to take more care about his appearance too.

  Lew noticed the change and teased his father. ‘I be the one as is reckoned to be courting,’ he joked. ‘Be you trying to put me in the shade?’

  ‘Cheeky young devil!’ Jack aimed a half-hearted blow at his head which Lew laughingly avoided with ease.

  There was a cheery camaraderie between father and son these days that Maddy was delighted to see. At first, she put it down to Lew being the last boy left at home, but sometimes she caught a knowing glance passing between them as if they shared some mischievous secret.

  ‘Men!’ she exclaimed on such occasions. ‘Always up to something!’ Maddy watched her father growing more and more like his old self, and she rejo
iced. With Lew now accepted as Mollie’s recognised suitor, and Jack growing more cheerful by the day, she felt the future must hold better times for them if not for her.

  ‘I be glad you’m both staying in for a change, ’cos I wants a word with the pair of you,’ Jack announced one evening.

  ‘You make it sound as if we’re out gallivanting seven nights in the week,’ protested Maddy. ‘Come on, what’s this mysterious word that’s so important?’ She was intrigued; he looked decidedly sheepish. He was also trying to suppress a grin, so it could not be anything disastrous.

  ‘The truth be – in truth – I be thinking of getting wed again,’ Jack blurted out.

  There was an astonished silence, then, ‘What?’ cried Maddy.

  ‘I— I wants to get wed.’ He sounded hesitant, almost as if he were asking their permission.

  ‘Well done, Father!’ declared Lew.

  So many questions crowded into Maddy’s head that they tumbled out in a stream. ‘Who is she—? How long have you been courting—? Why haven’t you mentioned her before—? Have you fixed a date—? Oh goodness, I’ll have to clean the house out before she comes.’

  ‘Hold hard! Hold hard!’ exclaimed Jack. ‘Don’t start no cleaning just yet. And let me answer one question afore you throws another at me. To start with, her’m called Joan Carey.’

  Maddy had never heard of her. ‘She’s not from Stoke Gabriel, then?’ she said in surprise. That her father had chosen a new wife was astonishing enough, that he had chosen a ‘foreigner’ from beyond the village boundaries was astounding.

  ‘No, her’m a widow woman from Paignton.’

  ‘But how did you meet her?’ As far as Maddy could recall her father had not been to Paignton for months.

  ‘Her’m working up to the Church House Inn. Lucy Ford be her cousin, and her’m come over to help out, them having been short-handed lately.’

  So that was it. Maddy had heard that Lucy Ford had a relative helping her, but she had never met the woman.

  ‘The Church House!’ Maddy turned on Lew. ‘Then you knew!’

  ‘I did have an inkling, what with Father smelling of April and May,’ admitted Lew. ‘And Mrs Carey always filling his cider mug way over the brim.’

  ‘And you never said anything!’ Maddy protested.

  ‘Wadn’t up to me to speak out. ’Twere Father’s business.’

  Maddy had to admit he had a point. ‘How come we’ve never seen this Mrs Carey? Not even in church,’ she demanded.

  Jack shrugged. ‘Her’m got married childer over to Paignton as her goes to see of a Sunday. Doubtless her goes to church there.’

  ‘How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you tell us anything?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you naught, ’cos there wadn’t naught to tell, not until recent, anyhow. What be the matter, maid? Don’t you approve?’ He sounded so anxious that Maddy was filled with remorse.

  ‘Did I sound a bit sharp?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It’s just that… well, you have taken the wind out of my sails, rather. As for approving, of course we do, if she’ll make you happy. If she doesn’t…’

  ‘Our Maddy’ll go for her with the copper-stick while you and me hides behind the door,’ Lew finished for her.

  Maddy gave him a thump, wondering if, like her, he was remembering their mother, and thinking that here, yet again, was a msgor change in their lives.

  ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ she asked, suddenly anxious. ‘Is it up to us to ask Mrs Carey to tea so we can meet? Or is it more proper for her to say when she wants to come?’

  ‘I don’t knows about no ettyket,’ said Jack. ‘I think it’d be best to find out when Joan be free and act according. And if it be your courting night, boy, then you’m going to have to go without for once.’

  ‘We’d better have Mrs Carey on her own first, don’t you think?’ Maddy asked, as Lew pulled a face. ‘So we can get to know each other. We can have her family over some other time.’

  ‘Lor, us can’t be having her lot in one go, there idn’t room. Her’m seven childer living, all married and increasing fit to beat the band, far as I can gather,’ said Jack.

  ‘I knows you’m been complaining about a lack of company of late, Father,’ commented Lew. ‘But idn’t you going to extremes? At this rate I can see us sitting down to eat in shifts, like the Church Tea.’

  In answer Jack aimed another mock blow at his son’s head, which Lew again nimbly avoided.

  ‘Do you know what we’ve forgotten?’ Maddy’s appalled voice stopped them both in mid-battle.

  ‘What?’ they both asked in alarm.

  ‘To toast the happy couple! Lew, get the best glasses down while I hunt out the wine. We’ve got some of last year’s elderberry that should be perfect.’

  ‘Idn’t it a bit odd, us doing this without no bride?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Us be only practising this time round,’ said Lew, setting out the glasses. This way us gets two celebrations instead of one.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jack approvingly, watching as Maddy poured out the rich ruby-red wine. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  Maddy was happy for her father, truly she was, but she was human enough to have some misgivings. Firstly came the natural pang of regret at the thought of another woman taking her mother’s place. But this was the way of things, her mother was dead and her father could not be expected to live a bachelor existence for the rest of his days. Less easy to come to terms with was the fact that she would be losing her status in the home. For years now she had been in charge of the housekeeping, and that was going to change. How would she tolerate being subservient to someone else after all this time? She confessed to herself she was not looking forward to finding out. But before that the first hurdle had to be tackled. Her new stepmother had to be invited to tea.

  On the day that Mrs Carey was to visit them Maddy set out the fresh white cloth and the best china, remembering how she used to prepare in just such a way for the coming of Patrick. Her father had always scoffed at her putting flowers on the table; on this occasion, when she set out a jug of Michaelmas daisies, he merely said, ‘They’m handsome, maid.’ He was restless with nervousness, too, and even Lew was fidgety. Maddy guessed they were all thinking the same thing. What if they did not take to one another? She, Lew and Jack – and Charlie when he was home – had their ups and downs, though on the whole they existed amicably as a family. That was one aspect of the new order she hoped was not going to alter.

  Jack walked up to the Church House Inn to fetch his betrothed. At the sound of their approach Lew leapt to his feet. Maddy whipped off her apron, simultaneously checking she had not forgotten to set out anything vital and that the kettle hanging on its crook over the fire was boiling.

  ‘And yer her be,’ announced Jack proudly as he entered with his Joan. ‘This be the future Mrs Shillabeer.’

  Maddy’s first impressions were favourable, for Mrs Carey proved to be a trim, neat little woman, with brisk movements and lively eyes.

  ‘Joan, my handsome, this be Maddy,’ continued Jack, ‘and that long length of naught you know.’

  Joan Carey greeted Maddy with a brisk, firm handshake. ‘I be glad to meet you,’ she said. ‘Jack have told me a deal about you.’ With Lew, however, it was impossible to be so formal. She took his hand also and said, ‘I don’t knows about a length of naught, boy, but you looks as though you’m cheaper to keep a week than a fortnight.’

  ‘Oh, I idn’t much trouble,’ said Lew. ‘A bed under the table and a dry crust from time to time, I don’t needs no more.’

  Joan looked at the table, laden with buttered lardy cake, splits spread with jam and clotted cream, and rich fruit cake. ‘Maddy, my maid,’ she said. ‘I can sees you’m set out a rare tea for us three, but if you pardon me for saying so, where be the boy’s dry crust?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ll fetch him one from the fowls’ dish presently.’

  Lew let out such an anguished wa
il that everyone laughed.

  ‘Don’t you take no heed of they two, they’m mazed,’ Jack told Joan delightedly. ‘Sit you down yer, I dare say you’m ready for summat to eat.’

  All awkwardness dispelled, they settled down to tea. Maddy’s initial anxieties about this big step her father was taking evaporated before his air of pride and the fond way he kept looking at his beloved. From her own point of view she felt relieved her prospective stepmother seemed such a pleasant, good-natured woman. Mrs Carey was bound to have had her own anxieties at meeting them, and Maddy hoped that they, too, had disappeared. There was, however, one matter which still troubled her. She decided it was best to settle it promptly, and this she did under pretext of showing Mrs Carey the garden.

  ‘I hope you won’t be annoyed,’ she said. ‘I mean you no disrespect by it, but please understand that I remember my own mother very clearly, and I feel no one else, no matter how agreeable, could ever take her place. Would you mind if, after you are wed to my father, I don’t call you Mother?’

  ‘Lor’ bless you, cheel,’ declared Joan Carey. ‘I don’t mind a bit. There’m enough as calls me Mother as ’tis, I don’t needs no more. You call me Joan, maid, and I’ll answer. There, be that the only thing as was troubling you, or be there aught else? For us may as well get things sorted out now as later.’

  ‘There’s nothing else,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Then if that be all I reckons us’ll bide together proper handsome.’

  ‘I’m sure we will,’ Maddy agreed.

  There were changes ahead for the Shillabeers, that was certain, but after so much bad luck and misery, Maddy felt that, at last, things were taking a turn for the better.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The pungent smell of burning assailed Maddy’s nostrils from across the garden. Dropping the rake with which she had been cleaning out the fowls, she ran to the house to find the kitchen full of black smoke and the potato pan boiled dry. As she pulled the pot off the fire Joan appeared from upstairs.

  ‘My dear days!’ she cried. ‘All they tiddies spoiled and the pan as well, I shouldn’t wonder. Why didn’t you keep an eye on un?’