The Tale of Applebeck Orchard

by Susan Albert

  Mr. Harmsworth spit on the ground. “And I’m givin’ thi fair warnin’, Mr. Captain Justice of t’ Peace Woodcock, sir.” He raised his fist. “If anybody comes onto me land to take down me fence, he’d better come ready fer trouble. I was a keeper onct, and t’ son of a keeper, and I’ve got m’self a good shotgun. I knows how to use it, too. So if tha values thi health, keep off. An’ that goes for t’ constable, too.”

  Captain Woodcock frowned. A former military man himself, with more experience of war than he liked to remember, he hated it when someone threatened to take up arms against other men. But he only said, coolly, “You’re attempting to intimidate a representative of the Crown?”

  “I sart’nly am.” Mr. Harmsworth smiled with grim satisfaction. “An’ it gives me a great deal o’ pleasure to do it, that it does.” He picked up his wooden maul in one huge fist and the board in the other. “Be off!”

  The captain left, shaking his head at the stubbornness of the man and wishing that the whole matter would simply evaporate.

  Adam Harmsworth, quite satisfied that he had won this battle, if not the war, went back to his work on the farm cart.

  Neither man noticed the slender girl in the dark gray dress who had crept to the back of the barn and stood there, her ear pressed against a crack in the wooden boards, listening, her eyes widening and her breath coming faster at the mention of the gun. And when the captain left, she followed him a little way, keeping to the shadow of the shrubbery, but keeping close, as if she might be hoping to catch him up.

  The captain was walking with angry strides, and she had to run. She was nearly within reach of him by the time he came to the dooryard gate and was opening her mouth to call out to him. From our vantage point, watching beside the path, I can’t help but wonder. What would have happened had she spoken, had he turned, had they talked?

  Would she have told him something that would have kept everyone from being involved in actions they could not resist but would inevitably come to regret?

  Does she know anything that might keep a gun from being fired, and someone from being hurt—or even possibly killed?

  And most important, what sort of courage is required for a girl so young to step forward and speak to a stranger—to a justice of the peace, an official representative of the Crown, the symbol of law and order in the land? Does she have it in her? If not now, will she be able to find it?

  These questions certainly deserve an answer, but I’m sorry to tell you that we’re not going to hear it—at least, not at the moment. But stories are often like this, aren’t they? The entire outcome of a tale can hang on a single word, spoken or withheld. And life—well, it’s just the same. One movement, one smile, one shake of the head—a very small thing can change the course of an event, or a nation, or history, or what have you, in a very large way.

  And that is exactly what happened at this moment. For just as the girl was stepping forward to call out to the captain to please stop, she was prevented by the sound of a window flung open and a shrill, strident voice shouting: “Gilly! Stop that hangin’ about like a gawky goose! Whyn’t tha in here moppin’ t’ floor, like tha’rt told?”

  If the captain heard the woman’s shout, he did not give a sign. Perhaps he was too occupied with his angry thoughts to hear anything else but the words in his head—what he should have said to Mr. Harmsworth, what he was going to say the next chance he got, and so forth. I’m sure you can imagine all that he was thinking, for it’s very much the same thing we’ve all thought after we’ve been in a heated argument with someone and find ourselves thoroughly out of temper.

  But the girl heard. She bit her lip angrily, narrowed her eyes, and with dragging feet, went into the house.

  And whatever she was going to say went unsaid—at this moment, at least, which I think is a great pity. It’s clear that Gilly has something on her mind and wants very badly to talk to someone. It’s too bad she isn’t able to talk to Captain Woodcock.

  10

  At Applebeck Farm

  If you don’t mind, let’s follow the girl into the house. Gilly Harmsworth is an important character in our story, and I think it’s time we got acquainted with her, and with her uncle and aunt as well. What we know so far is only what we have heard from Margaret Nash, who had the girl as a student. Gilly is an orphan, Miss Nash said, and hopes to find another place to work—and presumably, to live—away from Applebeck Farm.

  It’s not hard to think why she wants to get away. The old farmhouse, while it may once have been a comfortable home to a loving family, is not that kind of house now. Sadly neglected, it is in dire need of painting, the windows require repair (one pane is broken, another is mended with cardboard), and the cracked roof slates and chimney caps should be replaced. I subscribe to the belief that the exterior of a house tells us much about the condition of life within, so I don’t hold out high hope for the Harmsworths.

  The inside is just as dark and gloomy and forbidding as the outside. A meager coal fire burns in the stone fireplace, under an iron kettle half-filled with potato-and-mutton soup, the main course for today’s dinner. The blue slate floor is bare of rugs or carpets, the wallpapered walls are dingy and smoke-stained, and the furniture—awkwardly placed and either too large or too small to fit comfortably into the room—looks as if it would like to run away somewhere and hide. There is a scrap of curtain at the window to filter the western sun, but no pictures on the walls nor pretty china on the shelves, no vases of flowers nor pieces of framed fancywork nor polished brasses. There are no books except for the Bible—no, that’s wrong, for there is one other, although it is hidden away. The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck , by Miss Beatrix Potter, which Gilly won in the school spelling contest, is a dearly loved possession, almost as dear as the photograph of her mother and brother, in a tarnished silver frame beside her bed. But she has never told her uncle or aunt about Miss Potter’s book, fearing it might be taken away from her. So she keeps it under the straw pallet that serves as her mattress.

  The stairs are steep, narrow, and uncarpeted. Upstairs are two bedrooms, each with a single window: Mr. Harmsworth sleeps in one room, Mrs. Harmsworth in the other. On the upstairs landing is a wooden ladder to the attic, where Gilly sleeps, in the narrow room, scarcely wider than her narrow cot, that was once occupied by the unfortunate madwoman, locked away by her husband. I doubt if Gilly knows about that poor mother, or about the child who drowned. If the Harmsworths know, they wouldn’t likely have told her. And if she wonders who carved the desperate words in the wooden windowsill or drew the ugly pictures on the wall of her tiny attic room, she hasn’t asked.

  But you and I, looking at those words and drawings, might very well understand why the villagers believe that Applebeck Orchard is haunted, if not by unquiet spirits, then by failed dreams, sad recriminations, and a despairing sense of loss. But the ghost itself must be real, for a great many people have seen it, including Gilly. She doesn’t always go to sleep when she is bid to bed, you see. On nights when the moon is bright, she reads her book beside her casement window, or simply looks out and marvels at the moon turning the orchard to a shimmering silver.

  So whenever Gilly sees the ghostly figure in a black bonnet and long gray cloak drift out of the willows along the beck and move gracefully, almost floating along the footpath, carrying an old-fashioned candle lantern, she is less afraid than intrigued, feeling that the spirit is as much a part of the orchard as the moon and the silvery trees. She watches the figure—a woman, surely—as it becomes completely transparent, then takes form again, and at last fades formlessly, silently into the rising mist, like a waking dream. Gilly imagines that there is a certain sadness about her—the Gray Lady, she calls her—and loneliness. Yes, loneliness and deep regret, as if she is searching for a thing she has lost and still dearly loves. Once, when the Gray Lady raised her bent head and looked straight up at the window where Gilly crouched, she fancied that she glimpsed a faint, wistful smile in the shadow of the bonnet. And when one blac
k-mitted hand was raised in a gesture of greeting, Gilly raised her own in return, as though there were a bond between herself—the lonely child alone in the attic—and the lonely creature in the gray cloak.

  Perhaps Gilly is not afraid because she knows, she can feel, that the Gray Lady means her no harm. Or perhaps she is not afraid because she is a self-contained young person who watches and observes and keeps her feelings hidden deep within herself. She finds herself angry much of the time—can you blame her?—but she is not one who is easily frightened, even by a ghost she can see through, like a will-o’-the-wisp. (Some grownups may scoff at the idea of ghosts and fairies and dragons and suchlike, but I confess that I am not one of them, especially when it comes to the Land Between the Lakes, which is an undeniably magical place. Here, almost anything can happen, and generally does. Ghosts that you can see through are not out of the question.)

  And whether Gilly knows that the Gray Lady once lived in her attic room makes no difference at all, for what Gilly knows or doesn’t know about the Applebeck past has nothing to do with her present life there. Her mother died when she was four. She lived with her father and younger brother in Liverpool. When her father died, her brother went to live with their mother’s sister on a small farm in the Midlands, and Gilly was sent to live with her father’s brother and his wife at Applebeck Farm.

  Mr. Harmsworth would have preferred to have taken her brother, of course—boys are always at a premium on farms—but he was only eleven and sickly. Upon inspection, Gilly proved to be both strong and tall, and Mr. Harmsworth decided that she could probably do the work as well as an ailing boy, who (he said) might take it into his head to die at any moment. He was right. The boy died of consumption not long after he went to live with his aunt, whereupon Mr. Harmsworth congratulated himself (in Gilly’s hearing) upon his astute judgment. I am sure you can understand Gilly’s bitterness when she heard this callous remark, for she loved her brother very much.

  The work, of course, was Mr. Harmsworth’s chief consideration in all of this, since neither he nor Mrs. Harmsworth was inclined to give a home to a homeless child out of the goodness of their hearts. No, indeed. The girl should have to work for her living, like the rest of the world. The Harmsworths did not even mean her to finish school, but changed their minds when Miss Nash called at the house and made it clear that the school officials expected all children in the district to complete their educations. When the term was done, that was the end of that.

  So, like most girls and boys in England at this time (and in America, too, for that matter), Gilly went to work. And very hard work it was—or at least, we would think so. In fact, we might find this kind of life very hard to imagine, since our own boys and girls are asked, at the most, to clean their rooms and keep their toys picked up. Gilly got up before dawn and milked the three Applebeck cows while it was still dark outside, then did the breakfast washing-up, made beds, swept the floors, and dusted. After that came the work of the day, overseen by Mrs. Harmsworth: washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, mending on Wednesday, marketing on Thursday, cleaning on Friday, and baking on Saturday. The Harmsworths were chapel and observed a strict Sabbath on Sunday, which meant that there was no reading (unless it was the Bible) nor amusements of any kind. But while meals were eaten cold, the milking and washing-up still had to be done.

  In addition to her household duties, Gilly was also expected to work in Applebeck’s separate buttery, a stone building with a wooden roof, where much of the household’s work—baking, washing, pickling, churning, and cheesemaking—went on. This was also where the great oak casks were kept, holding oatmeal and barley. There was a stack of wooden buckets and a cheese press, too, and cheese-rims and shelves full of cheeses, and a large wooden up-and-down butter churn (old-fashioned by this time and replaced in most households by the box churn and oval churn, but still in use at Applebeck). It was Gilly’s job to milk the cows, separate the milk from the cream by pouring it into flat pans and skimming off the cream that rose to the top, then churn the cream into butter, and make the cheeses.

  In her spare hours (they must have been few!), she was sent to work in the garden—by itself, a demanding job, since all the potatoes, cabbages, beans, and greens that appeared on the table were grown on the farm. Mrs. Harmsworth prepared breakfast, dinner, and tea (like many farm families, the Harmsworths ate their main meal at noon and had a hearty tea, something like what we would call an early supper), but Gilly did the washing-up. Every evening was spent beside the fire, mending, darning, and knitting socks. Bedtime was early, for they were all very tired. (I don’t wonder at this, do you?) And since Gilly was not allowed to take a candle to the attic—candles were expensive, and there was always the danger of fire—she could not read her book, except (as I said) on nights when there was a very bright moon.

  In our time, children asked to do even a fraction of this work would certainly rebel and go about pouting all the time or threaten outright to run away from home. But it was not the work that made Gilly want to leave Applebeck. No, not at all. Children who lived on farms worked on the farms, and children who lived in factory towns worked in the factories, and both girls and boys grew up expecting to live a life built around work. What’s more, Gilly had a special affection for the Applebeck cows, and enjoyed making butter and cheese from their milk, a magical process, or so it seemed. Dairy work, she thought, was a very pleasurable occupation. If she could choose, she would gladly spend all her time at it. No, it was not the work that troubled her, but the people she worked for, of whom I will have more to say a page or two further on.

  As I write this, I find myself feeling very sorry that our story must include Gilly’s unhappy circumstances at Applebeck Farm. I would find it far more pleasant to write (and you to read, I am sure) about cheerful Deirdre Malone at Courier Cottage, who has just been promoted to help Mr. Sutton manage the accounts in his veterinary practice. Or about Caroline Longford, Lady Longford’s granddaughter, who has almost no work to do at Tidmarsh Manor, and should (one might think) be the most cheerful of these three young women. But Caroline is not, as we shall see shortly, for she has immodest ambitions and her life seems strewn with insurmountable challenges. In sum, I believe that Margaret Nash—who is herself not the happiest of women—can be forgiven for her suspicion that most women of her time, no matter their social class, were destined to be unhappy.

  Mrs. Ernestina Harmsworth of Applebeck Farm was certainly amongst the unhappy ones. Born Ernestina Westgate, daughter of a penniless country parson, she had met and married Mr. Harmsworth (on very short acquaintance) just two years before, in the city of Manchester where she was working and Mr. Harmsworth had taken his apples to sell. She was already a spinster when Mr. Harmsworth came into her life, for reasons having mostly to do with her own lack of physical attractions (she was gaunt and bony, with a great beak of a nose and thinning hair eked out with hair-pieces fore and aft) and a certain selectivity where men were concerned.

  It is perhaps ironic that, after exercising such particular care in the choice of a husband, Miss Westgate should so passionately fasten her affections on Mr. Harmsworth, who was neither wealthy nor handsome nor learned nor a gifted conversationalist. But he may have presented himself somewhat differently to her than he has to us. And when we are in love (or think we are), we often see the object of our desire through rose-colored glasses.

  I am not at all sure that it was love, however, that led Miss Westgate to agree to become Mrs. Harmsworth. Perhaps I am being overly mistrustful of the lady’s motives, but I rather suspect that the greater attraction was the prospect of leaving the haberdashery where she was employed as a shopgirl and moving to her very own home, where she would be in full charge of her very own household, which at the time of the proposal included a young maid-of-all-work named Prunie and a dairymaid named Fancy. (Miss Westgate had never enjoyed working in that haberdashery, and in any event would have had to find a new place, because the shop burned, together with the whole block of adjac
ent shops, the day she gave notice. Miss Westgate had watched the enormous conflagration from a distance, and had felt quite satisfied at the sight.) A great many marriages have been made for reasons other than love, however: marriage for financial gain, for social status, for security, for comfort. If Miss Westgate had other motives, they were her business entirely, and I for one will not criticize. I am sure that you would not want anyone second-guessing your decision to marry.

  But whatever Miss Westgate’s motives, they may not have served Mrs. Harmsworth well. When she agreed to marry Mr. Harmsworth, you see, she had the idea that she was coming to a better situation—taking a step up, as she put it to herself. This is not to say that Mr. Harmsworth intentionally deceived her, but rather that she deceived herself, hearing only what she wanted to hear about the farm he owned and the tiny village where it was situated. As a result, Miss Westgate had developed a rather romantic notion of the place, imagining it to be much grander, more substantial, and more inviting than Mrs. Harmsworth found it to be.

  By the time of our story, I am sorry to report, her heart was filled with a bitter disappointment, for she had come to recognize Applebeck for what it was: a bleak, neglected, and unhappy Lakeland house attached to a poor garden, an old orchard (from which Mr. Harmsworth made just enough money to live on), and pasture enough for only three thin cows. In fact, when she first arrived, the new Mrs. Harmsworth was sorely tempted to pack up her things and return to Manchester forthwith—although that (for reasons known only to herself) did not seem like a very good idea. She had been further deterred by the fact that she had not a penny of her own, not even enough to buy a train ticket. And of course, there had been nothing to return to. The haberdashery was gone, the room she had lived in was let, and she would have to look for a new place and somewhere to live—all on no money.