by Jean Chapman
She needed someone to unburden herself to, and mourned her brother at that moment as much as at any time since his death. Then, thinking of Harry, she knew where she must go, where Harry himself had taken her in times of childhood problems when they had needed a lone-suffering listener.
She ran and walked by turns, remembering the scout pace Harry had taught her - twenty walks, twenty runs. There were tears on her cheeks as she remembered Harry in his scout uniform. He had been so ridiculously proud of his knee-length shorts, his belt with its metal scout clasp, necker and wide-brimmed hat, long staff.
It seemed whichever way she turned that day, some emotion would be aroused, for now she came to the stile where Cato had first spanned her waist with his hands to jump her down. Then she came to the path. Here Belle paused. This path, this boundary, had become the symbol of all that had gone wrong between the Greenaughs and the Abbotts, between herself and Cato. It was as if it had acquired some malevolent life of its own. She felt she hated it – but it gave quick access to Levi Adams’ cottage.
Since the time she became a weekly boarder at school and acquired ‘airs and graces’, as Levi called them, she had found Levi’s personal remarks sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes inconvenient, but always honest — benevolent, even. He pointed out the errors of her ways without any personal acrimony, without any loss of affection between them.
An odour of wood-smoke now mingled with the misty evaporation of the rain. She registered mild surprise that Levi should try to light a fire so soon after a downpour. But how to begin her story occupied her more - her father — Meg Silver - Mordichi Evans - Derbyshire - it was all such a turmoil in her mind.
Totally engrossed in what he was doing, Levi came from his cottage carrying an armful of dry kindling. This he took to the bonfire he had obviously just lit in the middle of a bare patch of ground. Carefully he stoked and encouraged the flames. Belle paused near his gate, curious now. No one, above all Levi, recklessly burnt any of their precious store of winter firewood for any frivolous reason.
He stooped and picked up a much thicker stake, plunging it into the centre of the flames. Sparks shot up, and the fire crackled its protest as the great hedging stake with its metal burden was worked and pushed into the centre of the blaze. Levi circled his fire, stooping to throw back the kindling that had fallen away, piling it high around the stake. She drew back behind the hedge, heart thumping.
Levi – burning away the stake so he could more conveniently dispose of the trap? Concealing evidence? The action of a guilty man? Anyone who did not know the old man as she did would immediately judge so. The unexpectedness of this was final straw to the day’s traumas. She began to shiver, both with cold and with disappointment. Another childhood model was, it seemed, about to topple from its pedestal. So many questions raced around in her brain. Only one thing was clear: for a second time that day she had been about to make an appeal, and for a second time she found it impossible.
Belle drew back and made her way quietly, as she had come, to the path. She stopped there, concentrating on the listening stillness in her own mind. She was like a wild creature taking scent of the hounds that hunted her so she knew which way to run. An evening breeze quickened, caught and dropped her brown serge skirt, blew her hair forward over her face. Impatiently she scooped it back, pressing her hands hard to the sides of her head, tired of being ordered and tossed by actions and forces other than her own. Decision came with the anger. It was time she took control of her own life — time she moved on.
The thought of moving on developed only slowly. To her mother’s greeting of ‘Well!’ as she re-entered the farm kitchen that evening, she answered, ‘I couldn’t find him. Her father’s conspiracy of silence about their fleeting encounter at the basket-maker’s cottage incubated the idea a little more. By the next morning, rested and with her mother’s firm restatement of her intention to take her north the following Saturday, the idea crystallised into the decision to run away from home.
Now the clothes her mother was carefully selecting for a Derbyshire winter, she slyly approved of as the best for her own purpose: a room in the town somewhere. Cato would be told of her intentions. This was the best form of escape she could think of, in the first instance. Then, she hoped, Cato would propose something more permanent, perhaps that they should move much further away to make a new life for themselves.
As her mother sorted clothes for the belated washday, Belle’s own plans quickly took shape. She would travel to town on the Friday carrier’s cart, sneaking her case to the furthest barn the night before. She would pick this up on her way to the village, supposedly for the weekend newspapers and her father’s tobacco. This errand she was sure she would be able to persuade her mother to let her do a day earlier than usual. She could always plead Friday was her last day, and she wanted to buy extra magazines for the journey, or even small presents for her aunt and uncle — some irresistible reason she was confident she could invent — that was no problem.
Belle’s thoughts were distracted by the sight of Levi and her father coming through the farmyard mounted bareback on Bess and Anne, two of her father’s Clydesdale mares. Belle felt they needed suits of armour to make them look a little more the right size for their mounts. The marcs must both be in season together, she thought, realising that they were being taken to the stallion, King of the Dales, she had seen at the market, and which was still serving marcs in the area. As the stallion was usually stationed near some local public house, these days were regarded as real treats. It gave an opportunity for the local ‘horse’ men to talk hard and drink freely. Good humour and hilarity usually heralded such trips, but today both Levi and her father were preoccupied, and without a word or gesture of departure for anyone, they left the yard. Belle wondered if it was thoughts about Meg Silver and the mantrap that kept them so solemn that morning.
She wandered away from her mother’s irritability about the late washday, and went out to the slabbed side-yard. Here Tweeny was wringing a white sheet from the final tub of rinsing water and lowering it into the bath of cold water, which had been brought to a good bright shade with the blue-bag. As usual, the small yard was awash with water, and by the look of Tweeny’s apron and skirt she must be wet to the skin. It was always a blessing when washday was dry enough for Tweeny’s share of the work to be done outside, otherwise it was the back kitchen that became awash and took so long to dry that it caused frayed tempers all day.
‘Come on, Tweeny, I’ll help you mangle that, and then hang it out for you,’ she said, as even Tweeny’s sturdy back sagged downwards with the heavy wet sheet.
They lifted it from the bath, draining bright blue translucent water. Belle took one end and between them they twisted more of the weight of water from the thick twill sheet, then ran with it to the empty bath which stood in front of the huge iron-frame mangle. Belle ted in one end as Tweeny turned the handle in an arm-wide sweep to activate the dinner-plate size cogs, which moved the wooden rollers with a sound reminiscent of a cart-wheel over a hard-trodden path. Once roughly through, they then folded the sheet corner to corner, and corner to corner again, and again. This time Belle had to give Tweeny a start by carefully feeding first a thin fold, before the mangle would take the bulk. Belle gave all her attention to this task; she had no wish to go away with blackened nails and split fingers, a common washday accident. The rollers came together with a fine loud clump as the sheet came through compressed and neat the other side.
Tweeny went to fetch the peg-bag as Belle dropped the sheet into the clothes-basket. She stood listening, sorry that this last washday she expected to spend at home was a day late. On fine mornings, with the breeze coming from the direction of the village, it always fascinated her to hear the sound of washday. Even a mile across the fields it was possible to hear the thump, thump, thump, as the village housewives wielded their wooden dollies or metal punches in their wash-tubs. It always seemed as if they found a rhythm and added enthusiasm by keeping together, she though
t – but today there was silence. She sighed deeply and looked over to Tweeny as she came, carrying the red check peg - bag. But Tweeny’s gaze went beyond Belle, her mouth grinning foolishly.
Belle turned sharply and started as she saw the outline of a head swathed in a black shawl, a woman’s figure leaning over the low wall of the yard, watching her. ‘Such a sigh, miss.’ The tone was mocking, and Belle recognised the voice more than the figure. If any gipsy was capable of looking demure that was how Meg Silver might appear that morning – to anyone else, but Belle saw the irony in her eyes, the challenge. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded of Meg as her mother came out into the yard.
‘I was asked to bring this to you, lady.’ Meg offered a parcel swathed in a piece of clean white cloth, but as her mother came forward Belle snatched it, and in doing so revealed the clothes she had left at Glebe Farm. They had been washed, pressed and folded between sheets of new tissue paper, but all Belle could think of was some way to humiliate Meg, some way to show her anger that she dared come to Hall Farm — all she could sec in her mind’s eye were the gyrations, the sensuality, of the performance for her father.
She carried the bundle at arm’s length over to the tub of rinsing water and, opening her hands in a gesture of one ridding oneself of something unclean, dropped the lot into the water.
Tweeny giggled nervously in the moment’s silence that followed.
‘Belle!’ Her mother’s voice exploded with anger. ‘Have you gone completely mad, girl? After they’ve been carried right back to the door.’
‘Ah, now never mind, missus. I was given a penny to bring the parcel anyhow, and young girls can be high-spirited at times.’
‘High-spirited!’ Mabel exclaimed. ‘That’s not what I call it… .’
‘If ’twas the spring I’d sell you herbs to cool the blood.’ Meg held out her basket of dried fruits and leaves, which it seemed to Belle she used as a passport to wander wherever she would over all and sundry’s land, and into all and another’s lives.
‘It’s yourself you should be dosing with those,’ Belle retorted, ‘and all the year round!’
‘Go indoors!’ Mabel ordered.
‘Stop treating me like a child.’
‘Stop acting like one, and a rude, ignorant one at that.’
‘Ignorant! No, Mother, it’s you who’s ignorant,’ she said, and pointing at Meg added, ‘Ignorant of her and of her wiles and tricks.’
‘Why,’ Meg laughed with convincing amiability, ‘the girl’s love-crossed, that’s what her trouble is. But you must excuse me, missus. If I don’t earn my living I won’t be eating or lodging comfortable this day.’
The enormity of the lie made Belle gasp, but Mabel ignored her as she said, ‘Come and have a cup of tea in the kitchen before you go. I can at least buy a few herbs to make up for some of my daughter’s rudeness.’
‘Mother! Don’t, just don’t!’ Belle put all the warning she could into the words. As Mabel turned to open the gate into the yard, she felt a pang of pity for her, she was so naive, too good perhaps, to believe as Belle did that this gipsy meant them all nothing but harm and mischief.
Meg came briskly through, and with an air of sharing a confidence said, ‘Never mind, missus. You’ve no need to worry - the young man who turned her head is off away from these parts early tomorrow morning.’
‘Cato? He can’t be!’ Belle’s protest at such an upset to her plans came without thought, and only gave pleasure to Meg, who nodded to confirm her statement. A dozen questions sprang to Belle’s mind but a furious glance from her mother prevented her from uttering them. After a moment’s silence her anger exploded, just as her father’s so often did, without pause for rational thought for her own good, or anyone else’s.
‘So madam.’ She rounded on Meg, deliberately eyeing the woman and standing before her so she could not enter the kitchen. ‘Today you toady to my mother. I’d hardly recognise you for the same person who flaunted herself before my father.’ She saw her mother glance at this neat, shawl - wrapped woman and dismiss the idea as one of her daughter’s fancies.
‘Go to your room, Belle!’ Mabel opened the door wider for Meg to pass through. ‘My daughter is about to be taken in hand by my sister, who’s brought up three sons and should be able to deal with her perhaps better than I have.’
The look that Meg covertly gave to Belle was one of malicious joy. Belle narrowed her own eyes to shutter both the hate, and the determination to be away, that Meg’s information had given her. If it had to be that night, then, as her mother was so fond of saying to underline life’s certainties, so be it.
Belle went to her room and replanned her moves. The suitcase, crammed with clothes and everything she thought she could carry in a more leisurely escape, had to be reassessed. Two strong crocheted string bags were now more practical. Into these she packed first the clothes she liked best, then practical clothes and shoes. There was the question of money. She still had what her mother had given her on market day, for she had spent nothing: four florins and a shilling piece, and… she ran to her dressing-table drawer… a ten shilling note from her aunt Lucy… and the same from her mother. There was also some family jewelry originating from her great-grandmother which she knew she was supposed to have when she came of age. She did not expect to be anywhere around when she was twenty-one, but she could hardly ask for it.
The sound of her mother’s voice raised in excitement drifted up to her room. She was sure her father was being regaled with the story of the gipsy and the clothes dropped in the tub.
As Belle had shrewdly suspected, there were no recriminations from her father at midday, and when they met again at the supper table, their conspiracy only seemed to grow. Sam revealed that Dr Robson had related his experience to the local constabulary. They had sent a man to find the Evanses, and a mantrap was now being sought.
‘You know,’ Mabel began, ‘we used to have —‘
‘No - not now,’ Sam quickly interrupted, ‘not noticed it for years.’
Belle glanced at her father, and felt they both knew more about this than they were willing to reveal. What, she wondered, had Levi done with the trap? Why trouble to burn away the stake? Did he believe the fire would purge all the evidence? Did he intend to put it back where it had hung for so many generations? How could anyone set such a terrible thing where anything, or anyone, might have been caught? They said the Langtons had a mad uncle, Belle pondered - Ben must take after him. She had no doubt of the real culprit, but now Levi had risked trouble trying to cover up for him.
The police will probably come here to interview Belle… if nothing more,’ Sam was saying.
‘As long as they do it before Saturday,’ Mabel said sharply.
Sam did not answer, but left the supper table and went to his fireside chair, Belle took the opportunity to go to her room. She paused at the bottom of the stairs to take what she felt might be a final look at her parents. She was angry with herself for feeling tears threaten; it was not the emotion she had expected after her mother’s remark. Her voice wavered a little as she said quietly: ‘Good night.’ Neither answered, and she was suddenly furiously glad. It gave her anger and resolve a new footing.
Would they call me a thief? she wondered, as she crept straight to her parents’ bedroom, where the pristine white bedspread glowed in the moonlight. The small top drawers of the Victorian mahogany dressing-table were raised on squat bulbous legs cither side the central mirror. In the left one, gold and silver pieces of jewellery were kept; in the right, the amber, jet and seed-pearl ornaments Mabel wore more regularly to village functions and for shopping in town. The drawer slid out silently, but her groping fingers moved the pieces inside noisily. She froze, fingers poised, listening intently - now she really felt like a thief - but the only sound was the crack and creak of the house cooling. The same noises she heard every night, yet now they seemed louder, threatening even, as she gathered the gold brooch, the fob watch, the long necklace of old copper-red gold,
a ring of rubies flanked with pearls and another of graduated sapphires set deep in a high relief of gold acanthus leaves. These were her inheritance; she had been shown them often, and disciplined sternly once when as a child she had made an appearance wearing them all for a Christmas family dinner party. She remembered trying to voice her resentment for being chastened for wearing what she had been told was hers. It made her acquisition seem less criminal — now she was many years nearer to legal possession. Even so, when she regained her own room, she found she was trembling.
Before she lay in her bed she hid the string bags, her handbag and the warmer clothes she would put on later. If her mother came into her room before she retired, then she would see nothing.
By ten o’clock Belle could hear an occasional snore from her father. Her one fear now became that she might fall asleep, and be too late to catch Cato before he left. Early, Meg Silver had said, but how he was going, and where he was going…? At midnight she rose, lifted the glass chimney of her bedroom oil-lamp, turned up the wick and struck a match. It seemed to echo through the house more like a slate slipping from a roof than a small match on emery-paper. She would have to be very careful. She dressed silently, then passed some time distributing the jewelry about the clothing she was taking with her: a brooch here, a pin there, the fob-watch on the blouse she was wearing. She put a pillow down the middle of the bed, gently pummeling it until it looked like a sleeping figure with the sheet drawn high over its head. Then she went through the contents of all her drawers and cupboards; was there anything else she really felt she must take with her? The matching oval frames either end of her small wrought-iron mantelpiece caught her eye. One contained a photograph of her parents, the other a portrait of her brother. She picked up Harry’s picture and pushed it into her bag.
