by Janet Tanner
Amos Pugh had occupied this position now for almost twenty years and his solid expertise had ensured those three hundred acres were the most profitable and best run in the valley.
He was a countryman through and through, a reserved and softly spoken man with mild brown eyes not unlike those of the lumbering Friesian cows which grazed the pastures around Chewton Leigh House and a skin weathered to a leather tan by constant exposure to winter wind and summer sun alike. Amos rose before dawn and went to bed with the sun and if he had a single ambition beyond running the Morse farm to the best of his not inconsiderable abiltity then no-one in the valley ever got to know about it.
His wife however was a very different kettle of fish. Bertha Pugh was a shrew, so local opinion ran, and how a decent man like Amos had come to fall into her clutches they could not imagine.
Bertha was a large woman with a bustling manner. Her hair, scraped into a loose bun, frequently escaped to hang in bushy tendrils around her rather stodgy face and she had big capable hands and enormous feet which she shod in the kind of sensible boots which coped easily with farmyard mud. Here however the resemblance to the archetypal farmer’s wife ended. Bertha’s eyes were small and mean and made smaller and meaner by the folds of flesh which surrounded them and her voice was shrill and complaining, when she was not adopting the hectoring tone she so often used to her long-suffering husband.
Amos Pugh might be the most efficient farm manager on the estate; privately Bertha considered him a fool – and she treated him as such most of the time. He must be a fool, she reasoned, or he would own, or at least rent, his own farm instead of merely remaining an employee of the Morses. When she had married him, fifteen years earlier, he had already been installed as Gilbert’s farm manager, but she had been sure he was destined for greater things and had believed that with her to push and encourage he would achieve what she felt was her right – a farm of their own which would be the envy of the neighbourhood. But no amount of bullying and nagging had been able to bring her one single step closer to her objective. Amos was perfectly happy as he was – and Amos with his mind set against something was as immovable as the craggy rocks of Cheddar Gorge some fifteen miles away to the south.
Nor was Amos’s stubborn resistance to self-improvement his only failure in his wife’s eyes. Fifteen years of marriage had failed to provide her with the family she felt would give her status in the present and insurance for the future. Never once did it occur to Bertha that their childlessness might possibly be her own fault. She blamed Amos fairly and squarely for her inability to conceive. Added to his total lack of ambition it seemed to her he had turned out to be a poor specimen of a husband and her frustration feasted upon itself and grew until it came close to being an obsession.
‘Why ever I married you I don’t know!’ she would say to Amos whenever some action or omission irritated her into giving vent to the barely controlled fury which simmered inside her large ungainly body. ‘ You’re the most useless man I ever met!’ And Amos would fix her with those patient brown eyes, shake his head and find some job about the farm that demanded his urgent attention so that there were only the hens who strutted placidly around the farmyard and wandered into the kitchen when the door was left open to the summer sun to hear her.
That warm evening in late June however there was no escape for Amos though, with the hay almost ready to be cut in the long meadows beneath Home Farm, there were a hundred and one things he could think of that still needed doing. He stood at the window of the big flagged kitchen looking out at the sky that was deepening from blue to violet above the tall elms and listening to his wife’s voice reaching scratchy fever pitch.
‘Why, Amos? Why did you tell Gilbert Morse we’d have that Thomas child here?’ she demanded and the fact that she had already asked the question half a dozen times since he had come in from the fields in no way detracted from the ferocity of the attack. ‘What ever were you thinking of?’
‘I didn’t have no choice, Bertha,’ Amos replied solidly. ‘ Mr Morse come to see me when I were working over in Top Meadow and he put it to me straight. The poor little soul’s mother is dead an’ she’s got nowhere to go an’ that’s an end of it.’
‘But why should he think we’d have her here?’
‘Well, we’ve got plenty of room, I s’pose,’ Amos reasoned. ‘ T’ain’t as if we got nippers of our own, be it?’
The reminder only added to Bertha’s annoyance.
‘What’s that got to do with it? She’s nothing to us. Just because we haven’t got family of our own that don’t mean we’ve got to take in every waif and stray for miles around.’
‘Not every one, Bertha. Just young Sarah.’
‘I think it’s a nerve to even suggest such a thing! And what’s it to do with him anyway?’
‘You know her mother worked for Mrs Morse – and Mrs Rose Morse before her. The Morses always look after them as work for ’em.’
The idea of patronage added fuel to Bertha’s fire. Her ruddy countrywoman’s complexion deepened to a blotchy unattractive puce and her heavy jowls quivered with indignation.
‘If he’s so bloomin’ concerned, why can’t he have her up there with them at the Big House?’
Amos half turned to look at her, his mild eyes expressing amazement that she should even think of such a thing.
‘Up at the Big House o’ the gentry? Oh, talk sense, Bertha, do!’
‘And what’s so daft about it I’d like to know?’ She skirted the table, angrily banging the pickle jar which she had been too preoccupied to clear away after supper. ‘I suppose Mrs High and Mighty Blanche Morse wouldn’t want a common ragamuffin whose mother was no better than she should be. But I’m expected to take her in under my roof.’
Amos ran a hand through his thinning thatch of hair so that it stood on end like badly baled straw.
‘It ain’t like that, Bertha, and you know it. It wouldn’t be fitting. Anyway, like I said, we got plenty of room. And I didn’t think you’d take on like this. I thought you’d be … well, quite tickled to have a girl about the place to help you. You’re always on about how much you’ve got to do and not having any nippers of your own an’ that …’
For Amos it was a lengthy speech. He lapsed into silence as if surprised by his own verbosity.
‘An’ what good will a girl like that be to me I’d like to know?’ Bertha demanded. ‘I don’t s’pose she knows the first thing about hard work! And what if she turns out like her mother? That would be a pretty kettle of fish!’
‘Her mother was a nice enough woman.’
‘Nice? Nice? Oh, she was nice to somebody, right enough.’
‘Her husband died in India, didn’t he?’
‘So she said. Did anybody ever set eyes on him? No, they did not. She comes here to a respectable place with a baby and no husband, putting on her airs and graces and then … What did she die of, eh? That’s something I’d like to know!’ she added darkly.
The implication had the effect of sending Amos back into his shell. If there was one thing he disliked more than Bertha’s constant nagging it was gossip and aspersions cast without foundation on the character of those against whom he held no grudge for Amos liked to think only the best of his fellow human beings. Perhaps it was this inherent good nature which had enabled him to endure Bertha’s tantrums for fifteen years without ever turning on her and telling her to stop her clacking. Faced with a disagreement, or what he called ‘ unpleasantness’, Amos simply walked away – or if he was unable to do that, retreated to a mental sanctuary where there were no decisions to be made except those that concerned the land, no enemies but the foxes, the crows or inclement weather and certainly no shrill-voiced Bertha.
‘I hope the weather holds out for another day or two,’ he said thoughtfully, gazing out at the purpling sky. ‘Another day or two and we can get that hay in. But I don’t care for the look of the sky. It’s very black over Bill’s mother’s.’
The blatant change of subje
ct infuriated Bertha past the point of control and she banged on the table in a frenzy so that the sugar basin raided and the knives and forks jumped up and down on the plates.
‘Amos Pugh, sometimes I don’t think you’m all there! You let Gilbert Morse walk all over you and then when I’m trying to talk sensible to you about what you’ve gone and done all you can think of is your hay!’
Amos did not reply. He could have told Bertha the hay was the single most important thing at the moment; without it the animals would go hungry when winter came. And she had been a farmer’s wife long enough to know that life revolved around the weather. But to point this out would be to add fuel to the fire; leave Bertha alone and she would burn herself out in the end, though she had worked herself up into a rare old tizzy this time and no mistake!
He was still staring solidly out of the window when he heard the bub-bub-bub of an engine and Gilbert Morse’s ‘motee car’ turned into the farmyard. Gilbert was behind the wheel, clad in his cap, goggles and dustcoat, and beside him on the bucket seat was the small forlorn figure of Sarah.
‘They’m here,’ he announced impassively.
‘What?’ Bertha’s voice reached a new pitch.
‘They’m here – Mr Morse and young Sarah.’
She flew to the window as if refusing to take his word for it, her anger becoming something close to panic.
‘Here? You didn’t say nothing about them coming tonight! Oh my lord, just look at the state we’m in! Whatever is the matter with you, Amos?’
She rushed to the table, bundling the plates together with the knives and forks still between and depositing them hastily in the big stone sink. She could not bear to be caught at a disadvantage – she kept a good tidy house and she certainly did not want the Squire to think any different. As she dropped the half-eaten loaf of bread into the crock in the pantry she heard the knock on the back door; quickly she brushed the crumbs from the breadplate with her hand and stacked it on the slab behind the cheese dish.
Amos had gone to open the door and she returned to the kitchen untying the strings of her apron as she went.
‘Ah, Amos, we haven’t interrupted your supper I hope?’ she heard Gilbert say.
‘No. No, we had that some long time ago,’ Amos said placidly and she experienced a fresh desire to strike him. Surely with the evidence of supper still on the table he could have had the sense to pretend they had only just finished! She bustled forward, bad temper conflicting with the lifelong habit of ingratiating herself with ‘ the gentry’ she so despised.
‘Good evening, Mr Morse. You’ll excuse the mess, I hope. We’ve been so busy talking I’m all behind hand.’
‘I wouldn’t even notice, Mrs Pugh,’ Gilbert said equably. ‘May we come in?’
‘Well yes – do!’
‘Now, this is Sarah. You know Sarah, Mrs Pugh?’
Bertha lowered her eyes from the tall figure of Gilbert to the child at his side. She looked very small and forlorn standing there clutching a reticule and somehow the contrived neatness of her added to her vulnerability. Her hair was tied up with a length of slightly crumpled ribbon, her pinafore was freshly washed and starched and there was a shine on her boots as if she had spent a very long time making them presentable. But as Bertha scrutinized her the small firm chin came up and the eyes that met hers held a look that might almost be defiance.
She’s a little madam, I can see! Bertha thought. Aloud she said, ‘I understand you want us to take her in, Mr Morse.’
‘Yes. It’s a great deal to ask, I know, but Sarah has no relations she knows of and nowhere to go. The Sticklands, her neighbours, have been taking care of her since her mother died but they don’t have the room to make a permanent arrangement of it and unless some kind soul will give Sarah a home she will have to go into the Union until she is old enough to go into service. I’m sure none of us would want that for her. She has lost enough without having to leave her friends and familiar surroundings to go and live among strangers in … well, less than ideal conditions.’
Bertha gathered herself together, bristling slightly. Easy to see how Mr Morse had talked Amos into agreeing to his suggestion; he would not get around her so easily!
‘Don’t think I’m not sympathetic, Mr Morse – I am,’ she began. ‘But we’re not used to children here. Amos is out all day and I …’ she gave a little laugh, ‘I’ve got my hands full. Wouldn’t she be better off in a family where there are others her age? There must be somebody who …’
Gilbert Morse’s elegant head tilted slightly as if he was perturbed.
‘I was rather relying on you, Mrs Pugh. I gave the matter a great deal of thought before I approached your husband and I could think of no-one more suitable than yourselves. You have the room and Sarah won’t be any trouble, I know. And there is something else,’ he went on, lifting his hand to brook what had promised to be Bertha’s interruption then letting it fall protectively around Sarah’s thin shoulders, ‘I really would like Sarah to be close enough to the house for me to keep an eye on her. Sarah’s mother, as you know, worked for us for a good many years and I feel a sense of responsibility towards her. If Sarah is nearby I shall be able to take a hand, perhaps, in her upbringing. A sort of honorary guardian, if you understand me. I’d like to make it clear I have no intention of simply depositing her at your door and taking no further interest. Sarah needs us – all of us. We are not going to fail her, are we?’
‘Well …’ Most of the wind had gone out of Bertha’s sails. Almost without her realising it Gilbert had done exactly what she had accused Amos of allowing him to do – cleverly taken the very line which was most likely to penetrate her defences. Bertha cherished a high opinion of her own innate goodness and she was anxious that others should know what a generous and kindly soul she was at heart, if not a fool – no, certainly not that. Taking in an orphaned child was an act of charity which would impress all her neighbours, Bertha felt certain. Besides this there was an element of snobbery in her make-up which had only grown more dogged as her ambition to ‘better herself’ had been more irrevocably thwarted. If Mr Morse himself was to take an interest in Sarah’s upbringing then there would be an element of social contact the prospect of which Bertha found quite irresistible.
‘I suppose we could manage it,’ she said, cradling her heavy chins in the palm of her hand and eyeing Sarah critically. ‘Like I say there’s no provision for children in the house and she’d have to be prepared to muck in and help with whatever wants doing. If you think she’d do that …’
‘Of course she would, wouldn’t you, Sarah?’ He patted her shoulder, smiling at her encouragingly, but Sarah stood mute, her lower lip rucked by her teeth. ‘It’s uncommonly good of you, Mrs Pugh, I must say. You won’t regret it, I’m certain.’
Bertha was unable to resist one last stab. ‘I hope not, Mr Morse.’
He straightened. ‘That’s settled then. Run out and get your other bag from the motor, Sarah.’
She did as he bid and when she had gone Gilbert Morse said swiftly: ‘There’s one more thing. I’ll make you an allowance to meet the child’s keep, Mrs Pugh, but I’d rather she did not know about that.’ He pulled out a wad of bank notes and pressed them into the astonished Bertha’s hand. ‘That should cover her food and perhaps buy any clothes she may need. It seems to me she has very few possessions. Now …’ As Sarah’s returning footsteps clattered on the yard, ‘put it away and not a word to Sarah.’
The child reappeared in the doorway clutching a small suitcase of scuffed brown leather. Gilbert smiled at her encouragingly.
‘Come along in now, Sarah, and don’t be afraid. Mr and Mrs Pugh will be kind to you I am sure.’
Bertha sniffed. Forlorn she might look, alone in the world she might be but fear was not an emotion she would have thought of attributing to the child whom Mr Morse seemed determined to foist upon them.
‘I’ll have to make up a bed for her,’ she said. ‘You had better come with me, Sarah, and I’ll show
you where it is.’
The room was small but painstakingly furnished; for it not to have been would have offended Bertha’s sensibilities though she could not remember the last time anyone had used it. There was a tall narrow wardrobe, a matching chest of drawers and a marble-topped wash stand holding a jug and basin, a soap dish and a small china pot for hair pins. The wallpaper blazed with overblown cabbage roses, a large maidenhair fern in a pot sat on top of the chest of drawers and a framed worked sampler and a picture of Jesus, arms outstretched, with the text ‘Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me’ hung from the picture rail.
The picture brought a lump to Sarah’s throat for it reminded her all too clearly that her mother, though not a little child, had gone to Jesus.
That was how Dolly Stickland had put it to her on the night that Rachel had died.
‘Don’t cry – don’t cry!’ she had said, clutching Sarah so close to her ample bosom that Sarah could scarcely breathe. ‘She’s gone to Jesus, my love. She’s gone to a better place.’
But she had been crying herself, great noisy gulps and snuffles, and Sarah had been bewildered by the sentiments. How could her mother have gone to a better place? What could be better than Chewton Leigh in summertime? And if Jesus was all loving and all knowing as she had been taught in Sunday School, why had he taken Rachel when she did not want to go and when Sarah needed her so? Sarah’s head ached from thinking about it, her heart ached with a leaden grief that was almost too great to be borne and her throat ached with the tears she was desperately trying not to cry.
‘If you are going to stay here you’ll have to do your bit,’ Mrs Pugh said harshly. ‘I haven’t got time to wait on you hand, foot and finger. You’ll make your own bed in the mornings and you can help me get breakfast. Mr Pugh gets up early and he likes to come in to a good feed when milking is done. And I shall find some other jobs for you, so be warned. You could black the grate for me for a start. And dust round the place. Then there’s the flag floor in the kitchen – that gets in a terrible state with all the tracking in and out. That could be your job – washing it down every morning with a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush. Do you know how to scrub a floor?’
