Daughter of the River

by Daughter of the River (retail) (epub)

  ‘How could I? I was seeing to the fowls,’ objected Maddy. ‘I thought you were watching them, seeing that you were indoors.’

  ‘I were indoors, I don’t deny, but I were upstairs doing the bedrooms. You knows I always does they of a Thursday.’

  And a Tuesday and a Saturday, too, if you get the chance, thought Maddy, for her new stepmother was proving to be a compulsive cleaner. Aloud she protested, ‘You only did the bedrooms a couple of days ago.’

  ‘I do un when they needs doing, I doesn’t wait for no special day no matter what state they be in.’ The implied criticism plus the slight emphasis on the I made Maddy’s hackles rise.

  ‘I’ve had no criticism about the cleanliness of the bedrooms in the past, doing them once a week,’ she protested.

  ‘What do men know about cleanliness?’ said Joan scathingly. ‘Most wouldn’t notice if they had to shovel their way in.’ Then a look of horror spread across her face. ‘Oh my gawd, just look at the mud! Habn’t you sense enough to take off they boots of youm afore you traipsed muck across the floor?’

  ‘I didn’t stop because I thought the house was on fire,’ retorted Maddy indignantly. ‘How was I to know it was just the potatoes you’d forgotten?’

  ‘The potatoes I’d forgotten?’ Joan’s voice rose.

  The next few minutes were lively, and finished with Maddy stalking out, dirty boots and all, and returning to the fowls in a fury.

  When she had cooled down she recognised that the burnt potatoes had been no particular person’s fault, they had been the victims of having two women in the same kitchen. Nor were they the first such casualties in the few months since her father’s marriage. But the hinted suggestion that she had not kept the bedrooms clean had rankled. The trouble was that town-bred Joan was trying to maintain urban standards in the country. Maddy, who had been accustomed to fighting both country dirt and river mud all her life, had long ago accepted that a certain amount would find its way indoors. Joan had not yet reached this conclusion and was waging a hopeless war in the cause of spotless floors.

  For most of the time Maddy got on well with her stepmother. She felt sympathy for her, too; life at Duncannon must have seemed far more quiet and isolated than anything she had experienced in the bustling resort of Paignton. She was also some distance from her children and grandchildren, yet Joan never complained. It was only in matters of cleanliness that her tongue grew sharp.

  ‘Her habn’t been turning out again?’ complained Lew later as he prepared to go to Mollie’s house for supper. ‘I can’t find my white muffler nowhere, and I be going to he late.’

  ‘Look in your locker,’ Maddy advised. That’s the proper place for it in Joan’s opinion, not hanging on the bedpost.’

  ‘I put un there to dry off after I got caught in the rain,’ he protested. ‘Lor,I idn’t saying naught about the woman, her’m a nice body, truly, but her don’t give the spiders a minute to settle.’

  ‘And when were we infested with spiders?’ retorted Maddy indignantly, caught on the raw.

  ‘I never said us was infested,’ replied Lew soothingly. ‘I just meant as those us did have was contented little souls.’

  Maddy had to laugh. ‘All right, perhaps I didn’t dust away every single cobweb. I never seemed to have the time.’

  Lew gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘It can’t be easy for you, having to move over for someone else,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not.’ Maddy could admit it to him alone. ‘Joan is very good. Most of the time we manage well enough. It’s only when something untoward happens, such as today, when the potatoes burned.’

  ‘You’ll get used to un, given time,’ said Lew.

  Maddy doubted it. She had found an independent streak in herself she had never realised she possessed, a streak which resisted being told what to do by anyone else. This was a problem she feared time would not solve.

  Time had not solved her love for Patrick, either. How long had it been since he had gone? Four – five months? Yet she still missed him, and although the agonising pain of losing him had eased to a dull ache, it remained with her. No one had any definite news of his whereabouts or of Victoria’s. Rumours abounded, and from time to time Mr Fitzherbert, despite his pronouncement that he no longer had a daughter, would ride off somewhere in a flurry of oaths and sparking carriage wheels. But soon he would return alone in a more foul mood than before.

  For the first time in her life Maddy began to learn what it was to have time on her hands. With only two men in the house and two women to look after them there were often not enough domestic chores to go round, even allowing for Joan’s mania for housework. Maddy, as the now-subservient female, would wander over to help Annie or to read to her. She took to knitting stockings for William, since, with two sets of needles busily employed in the Shillabeer household every evening, Jack, Lew, and Charlie, who was still working on the stone barges, were more than well provided for. But Maddy was restless. Looking back she could remember innumerable times when she had longed for a lessening of her duties, and time to herself. She could have as much as she wanted now, and she found she did not like it. In fact, she resented it.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t suppose it be easy for you,’ remarked Annie when they had finally closed the pages of Wuthering Heights and were having a cup of tea.

  ‘What isn’t easy?’ Maddy asked.

  ‘Having another woman in the house after all these years.’

  ‘We’ll manage well enough,’ Maddy said, determined to be loyal.

  ‘I dare say it can’t be easy.’ Annie took a sip of tea. ‘But when things is bad look on the bright side; your father couldn’t have taken up with a better woman than Joan. Her’m sober and hard working, and though her tongue can be sharp her idn’t no shrew. And things can’t always be simple for her, you know, coming into the house where there’s already a grown woman in charge.’

  Maddy knew that she spoke the truth yet she could not help still feeling restless.

  ‘It’s as if I’m no use any more,’ she complained to Lew.

  ‘No use? How d’you make that out?’ he had replied. ‘When Mollie and me are married you’m going to be the only one left at home. Then you’m going to find out how much use you be.’

  Was that to be her future? As a companion to her father and Joan for a few years and then, as they grew steadily more frail and elderly, their sole support and succour? Lew had been right, she would certainly be needed then, but it was not the idyllic future she had dreamed of with Patrick.

  Soon she and Joan, both women used to being occupied every minute of every day, were reduced to looking about for things to do, particularly when the inclement weather prevented them working out of doors.

  ‘You’ll be holystoning the logs and scrubbing the fowls soon,’ commented Maddy one day as Joan began polishing the already gleaming brass yet again. She had meant it as a joke, but her stepmother took it the wrong way and made a retort about hoity-toity females who had nothing better to do than be sarcastic. The result was one of the squabbles which were becoming more frequent. The trouble was that they were cooped up together too much – the incessant rain saw to that.

  Then the wind swung to the north-east, turning the rain to snow and bringing with it searing gales. No one could remember such severe and continuous storms. The large estate of Sharpham, across the river, lost stand after stand of fine mature trees, and the river ran swift and murky, carrying along with it great baulks of timber which smashed into small boats and anything else that got in their way. It became too dangerous for the quarry boats to sail and since the stone could not be moved there was no point in cutting more; in any case the work was becoming more and more dangerous in the icy conditions. Jack and most of the other workers were sacked. Lew was out of work too.

  ‘There idn’t no boats going in or out of Dartmouth, so there idn’t no cargoes to bring upriver, nor to carry down,’ he explained. ‘Mr Chambers’ll send for me soon as he can, but for the time
being his boat be laid up. Laid up and snowed up,’ he added with wry humour.

  It was a situation that had arisen before from time to time; on this occasion week slipped into week. Joan’s face began to grow grave, and Maddy knew the reason why. Her stepmother had taken charge of the housekeeping money, but Maddy was well aware how difficult things were becoming.

  ‘There, I can’t find no more.’ Jack turned out his pockets and produced a few pence. ‘What about you, boy?’

  Lew’s search unearthed a shilling and a sixpence. The entire family’s finances, plus the contents of the Delft jug, came to a little over five shillings.

  ‘That be all us got,’ said Joan anxiously. ‘What be us going to do?’

  ‘Well, this weather idn’t going to change for a spell, so us habn’t no hope there,’ Jack pronounced gloomily. ‘And if there were aught in the way of jobs going, don’t you think us’d ave taken un? We’m going out every day looking, idn’t us, boy?’

  ‘Certainly us be,’ said Lew. ‘Us idn’t the only ones, that be the trouble. I reckon at least half the men in the village be out of work, thanks to the weather.’

  ‘We know you try hard,’ said Maddy. ‘No one was suggesting otherwise.’

  ‘If there idn’t work for men there might be summat for females,’ said Jack. It was evidence of the seriousness of the situation that he should swallow his pride enough to suggest such a thing.

  ‘There’s nothing casual to be had. I know. I’ve looked,’ said Maddy. Ironically, in this bad winter there had been no usual mild epidemic that might have given her occasional work.

  ‘What be stopping you looking for summat full time, then?’ stated Joan, adding defensively, ‘I don’t know why you’m looking so surprised. I can’t go out to work, can I, not with the house to see to? If anyone goes it must be Maddy.’

  Strangely enough the idea of looking for a full-time job had never occurred to Maddy. Accustomed as she was to being tied to the house she had thought in terms of the part-time or casual employment that she had always done. She was no longer needed in the house, was she? She had been ousted from that position and was now free to take up work anywhere.

  ‘I haven’t heard of anything round here,’ she said. ‘I could ask the parson’s wife or the squire’s. They might know of someone up-country who needs a servant.’

  ‘No!’ Jack spoke so emphatically that everyone looked at him in surprise. ‘You idn’t working for no strangers,’ he said firmly. ‘When I mentioned you females finding work I wadn’t thinking of no one going away. There’ve been enough childer lost to me of late, I idn’t losing no more. Oh, the boy there will get wed directly and leave home, I dare say, but that be different. I idn’t having my only maid wandering off goodness knows where. Her’m biding yer, and her’m going to go on biding yer, and that be final.’

  Maddy was touched by his unusually determined attitude; nevertheless, she noticed that, although he accepted marriage as a legitimate reason for Lew leaving home, he clearly considered there were no such prospect for her. She agreed with him, but the thought stung just the same.

  ‘Right, I start looking for work tomorrow,’ she said.

  It seemed reasonable to begin the search for employment among the larger houses in the village. She went out as far as Aish and Waddeton and Sandridge. The one place she avoided was the Fitzherberts’ residence; but it made no difference, there was no work to be had. It was tricky tramping about the countryside, the surface of the snow had frozen to a glacial treachery, causing her to slip and slide at every step.

  She had to admit that perhaps her appearance was against her, swathed in cloaks and shawls as she was against the biting cold, her boots bound with sacking to get some grip on the icy lanes. Rejected by the gentry, she hoped the farmers’ wives would be less fussy about the looks of those who offered themselves into service, but here again she was disappointed. With the severe conditions restricting their dairying and their marketing, no one, not even Janie, Rob Bradworthy’s wife, could offer her employment. The thought never entered Maddy’s mind to try at Oakwood; the idea of working there was too preposterous to be considered.

  Exhausted by her arduous wanderings and dispirited by her lack of success, Maddy would have headed straight home if, by chance, she had not passed the Victoria and Albert. Mrs Watkins was sweeping dirt out through the open door, a sour expression on her face. The sight of the landlady doing such a menial task brought Maddy to a halt.

  ‘I’m looking for work, Mrs Watkins,’ she said. ‘Do you need any help? I’m strong, reliable, and willing to tackle anything.’

  ‘You’m idn’t wanting to live in, I hopes?’ Mrs Watkins leaned on her broom and glared at her.

  ‘No, thank you, I’d prefer to live at home.’

  ‘Thank gawd for that. Last stupid wench never knowd which bed were her’n. Got in with the ostler once too often. I had to pack her off back to her mother. When can you start?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Right, be here at seven.’

  ‘And the wages?’

  ‘Five shilling and your dinner, and make that seven o’clock sharp, mind.’

  ‘When do I finish?’

  Mrs Watkins looked surprised. ‘When you’m done,’ she said.

  Five shillings a week was poor wages by anyone’s standards, even including the food, and Maddy had a strong suspicion she would earn every penny.

  She was right. She had never doubted her ability to work hard, but by the end of the first day she wondered if she would survive. She had gained some experience of inn work at the Three Feathers in Exeter, but that bore no resemblance to the hard labour she now endured.

  As well as being a hard taskmistress, Elsie Watkins was short-tempered, liable to lash out if things were not to her liking. Maddy tolerated the curses and insults, but when Elsie aimed a blow at the side of her head she decided enough was enough. She saw the clout coming and dodged. Leaping to her feet she faced up to her employer, her fists clenched.

  ‘You strike me one blow, Elsie Watkins, and it’s two you’ll get back!’ she exclaimed.

  Mrs Watkins retreated, disconcerted by the unexpected threat of retaliation. ‘Then just you see you does the work proper, that’s all,’ she blustered.

  There were no more threats of violence, but that did not make the work any easier. A less determined soul would have given up, but somehow Maddy managed to stand it. The family needed the money.

  ‘’Tis too much for you, maid,’ protested Joan time after time, as Maddy slumped exhausted in front of the fire. ‘I knows I was the one as suggested you should find work. I regrets it now, truly I do. I never meant naught like this.’

  ‘I can put up with it.’ Maddy tried to smile reassuringly.

  Joan shook her head. ‘Give un up, my lover,’ she urged. ‘Us’ll manage somehow. ’Sides, better weather’s bound to come soon.’

  Eventually Maddy did give up her job, in quite a dramatic fashion. One morning Elsie Watkins decided the stairs were not being scrubbed to her satisfaction. There was nothing wrong with them, of course. Maddy had got them white as a hound’s tooth, but Elsie was in a bad mood and refused to be satisfied.

  ‘If you can’t clean un proper first time, then you’m going to have to do un again,’ she snapped and, raising her foot, she deliberately kicked over the bucket.

  Maddy was on her knees at the bottom of the stairs when the bucket toppled over and she caught the full force of the dirty water.

  ‘You get they stairs properly clean, do you hear?’ snapped Elsie. Saying not a word, Maddy picked up the empty bucket and went out into the yard to fill it, not at the pump but from the rain tub, where she had to break thick ice first. Then she marched back indoors.

  Elsie was gathering up empty tankards when she entered, and at the sight of Maddy stalking through the bar parlour instead of heading for the stairs, a frown darkened her face. ‘What do—?’ That was all she had time to say before Maddy emptied the entire bucket of
icy water over her head. Elsie could do nothing but gasp at the shock of it, while the customers were convulsed with laughter.

  Leaning over the counter, Maddy took a florin from the till and held it up. ‘I’ve taken my wages,’ she said. ‘You owe me two and a penny for two and a half days’ work, but I’ll let you off the odd penny.’ With that she strode out, collecting up her cloak and scarves with one sweep of her arm as she went. She was so furious she did not notice the cold even though she had gone quite a way before she pulled on her outdoor clothes over her sodden dress and apron.

  At the sight of her, Joan gasped. ‘Maid, the state of you!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’m a sheet of ice!’

  Maddy looked down. Her apron had frozen solid, and her skirts were stiff with the cold. She was forced to stand in front of the fire to thaw before she could undress with Joan’s help, for her fingers were completely numb.

  ‘You’m idn’t going back there, that’s for certain,’ Jack declared when he heard the story. ‘Us idn’t standing no more capers like that from yon Watkins woman.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d have me.’ Maddy grinned at the recollection of the wet and gasping Elsie.

  ‘Maybe not,’ agreed Jack, beginning to smile too.

  Surprisingly, Maddy suffered no ill effects from her soaking, though Elsie Watkins took to her bed for two days. The story put out was that she had taken a chill, but the entire village put her illness down to sheer temper. Unemployment again stared Maddy in the face, and though she tried hard there was nothing available. The only money coming in now was the few pennies for the equally few eggs.

  ‘They fowls be all us has left,’ said Joan. ‘They’m going to have to go.’ But Maddy was reluctant. Although it was sometimes necessary, she hated killing her beloved hens, and besides, once they were gone, so was a source of income, no matter how meagre.

  ‘Give it a few more days,’ she said. ‘Something might happen.’