Poor Law (The James Blakiston Series Book 2)

by R J Lynch

  ‘He is certainly more ready than farmers hereabouts to care about those in need.’

  ‘Not surprising, since he was one of us before he went to the Americas,’ said Drabble.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Blakiston, ‘I suggest, Snowball, that you address yourself to Mr King.’

  ‘Mr Blakiston,’ said Snowball, ‘would you speak to him on my behalf?’

  Blakiston could think of no reason why he should offer assistance to a man he did not care for but on the other hand he could think of no reason why he should not. Life was hard for labouring men and it was easy – too easy – to ignore hardship simply because there was so much of it all around him. ‘I will see what he has to say on the matter.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘And now, help Jeffrey Drabble and Dick Jackson make good this cart. When that is done, carry out whatever other work the constable directs you to do. And let me hear no more of tiffs and bad temper.’

  Chapter 16

  It was early evening when Blakiston reached home and the warmth of the sun made him regret that he had but a small yard and no spacious garden, such as he had enjoyed in his childhood home, in which to relax and simply enjoy the peace. As was his custom, he stabled Obsidian and prepared to walk across the road to the inn to take his supper. The horse’s need to feed came before his own and while he was seeing to this a man he did not recognise left the spot where he had been resting in the shade of the village cross, doffed his round hat and stood in a manner that indicated he wished permission to speak. The man’s livery suggested that he was in service but Blakiston did not recall seeing him in any of the houses in which he had dined.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Sir, I am Mister King’s man.’

  ‘Yes? You wish to speak to me?’

  ‘Sir, Mister King wishes to know if you will do him the honour of dining with him tomorrow at six of the evening?’

  Blakiston considered the invitation. ‘I believe Gaskell Lodge has a handsome garden?’

  ‘It has, Sir.’

  ‘Then please tell Mister King that I shall be pleased to accept his invitation.’ The man hesitated and Blakiston said, ‘You have something else to say?’

  ‘Sir. You see to the stabling of your own horse? Have you no man of your own?’

  ‘No, and no need.’

  ‘Sir, I have a younger brother…’

  ‘I am very pleased for you, but so long as I am single I do not need the attentions of a servant. When I am married, things will be different, but choosing a servant then will be a task for my wife and not me. Now be about your business.’

  As he crossed the road, he thought about what he had just said. It was true; Kate would need her own staff – at the very least, a maid to do the heavy work involved in keeping the place clean and more than that when children began to arrive – and it was something they had not discussed. He had better see that they did so for today was Monday, their banns would be called for the last time on Sunday and the week after that they would be wed.

  The inn was a simple place. It catered for people passing through and single men like Blakiston who had enough income to eat there and no cook of their own. There was a public room in which the poorer men of the parish (women were rarely seen there other than as serving maids) could enjoy a penny pint of ale brewed on the premises, and a comfortable saloon in which the more solvent ate. The innkeeper’s wife was known for keeping a clean house and they employed a gardener whose duties mostly involved raising vegetables for the kitchen and hops for the brewhouse.

  The food was, in general, as simple as the inn and Blakiston found it none the worse for that. The centrepiece of tonight’s meal was a rabbit pudding in which chunks of meat were joined with pieces of carrot and turnip in a thick and tasty gravy. When the innkeeper stopped by his table to fill his mug with beer he asked, ‘Are you enjoying the pudding, Mister Blakiston?’

  ‘Delicious. You know, where I lived before I came here, this rabbit would have been baked in a pie for I rarely saw puddings until I journeyed north. I must say, your cook has an excellent way with the pudding.’

  ‘As good as Rosina’s at the rectory, that we hear so much about?’

  ‘Ah, now, there are few as good as hers. But this is most enjoyable in its own right.’

  Next day, Blakiston took care to finish his round of farms in time to get home, wash his face at the pump and change his clothes before once again getting on Obsidian’s back and riding to Gaskell Lodge where the horse was taken into the house’s own stable. Job King came out to greet him. ‘Mister Blakiston, I am so glad you felt able to take up my invitation for you wished to speak of farming as it is conducted in the colonies and we did not have the chance to talk about that. But James tells me that you have an interest in the garden. We have a shady bower close to the house. Would you like to eat there?’

  ‘I should like that very much, Mister King.’

  ‘Then let us take our seats and I shall call for wine. Or would you like beer?’

  ‘Whatever you prefer, I shall join you in it.’

  What King had called a bower, Blakiston knew as an arbour. A seat large enough for four wide behinds was surrounded at the back and on both sides by a rose that rambled over a wooden trellis. While King was in the house giving his instructions, Blakiston listened to the birds; their calls may have sounded like idle chatter but he knew that in fact they were warning of the interloper. The scent of roses hung on the air. When King bustled back into the garden, he was followed by servants: men carrying a table and maids with glasses and bottles of red wine. King took charge of the pouring, before raising his glass to Blakiston. ‘Sir, your health.’

  ‘And yours, too, Mister King.’

  Dinner at Gaskell Lodge was rather more elaborate than the pudding Blakiston had eaten at the inn the previous evening, for there were proprieties to be observed in entertaining guests and King was aware of them. A number of servants waited on them and Blakiston knew that King could not have so many house servants. Indeed, their style of dress made it clear that those who had carried the table were more regularly employed in the gardens or on the farm. Whatever their regular work, the serving men and women stood well back so that they could not hear what was being said at the table but could be called by a beckoning finger at any moment.

  Blakiston was struck by the difference between King’s behaviour and what happened elsewhere. The custom at the rectory was the same as it had been in his Sussex home while he was growing up – servants were invisible and no one cared what they might hear. When he thought of it in these terms he felt shame, but it was a fact that the lower classes were not noticed by the circles in which he moved. Blakiston realised that it would never be possible for Kate to treat servants that way; for Job King, too, it could not be, for King would recognise these people as his own. In fact…Blakiston looked closely at the footman who had brought him here. ‘That man…is he…?’

  King smiled. ‘His father was my father’s brother.’

  ‘I see. And the serving maid at the far end?’

  ‘His sister.’

  ‘I do see. So you prefer to have your own kin about you?’

  ‘It is not a matter of preference, Mister Blakiston. Times are hard, people starve and I do not wish any more of those who are close to me to be among them.’

  ‘Any more?’

  ‘My family has suffered too many deaths. It is one thing when the diphtheria comes or the influenza or when a man gets between a she-bear and her cub, which is how one of my neighbours in the colonies died. There is no escape from disease or the fury of an animal. But starvation is a different matter. When you watch someone fade away and die, a thing that takes months, for no cause but that they have not enough to eat – that is almost as painful for the watcher as for the watched. You may never have been that watcher. But I have.’

  ‘And that is why you went to Virginia?’

  ‘It was that or change from watcher to watched. Become one more who w
asted away to skin and bone and ended in the churchyard. But enough. I did not invite you here to listen to tales of sadness. Let us try the soup.’ And he lifted a hand to signal that service should begin. ‘And my dear man, I have allowed you to sit with an empty glass. What sort of host will you think me?’

  The soup was good. When it was finished, bowls and tureens were cleared away and then the table was spread with dishes – salads, vegetables, roast chicken, boiled beef, fish and a selection of sweet things. Blakiston fell to with a will. ‘Your cook. Is she, too, a family member?’

  ‘No, Mister Blakiston, for I would not take risks with the quality of the food I am served. I kept on the cook who was here before.’

  ‘But you rent the house? You have not bought it?’

  ‘When I arrived I was not sure whether I would stay or return to the colonies. And so I came to an arrangement to rent for twelve months at the end of which, if I stay, the rent I have paid will be set against the purchase price.’

  ‘And will you? Stay?’

  King put down his knife, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘When I came here, I thought I should probably end my days in the place where they had begun. But now…I believe Virginia is the right home for me.’

  ‘Because…?’ Unlike King, Blakiston had not stopped eating during this conversation. He was enjoying the meal too much. The food was as good as he had had anywhere and the pleasure of eating outdoors as great as he had expected.

  Perhaps encouraged by Blakiston’s obvious enjoyment, King returned to his meal. ‘I think I was there too long. I am more American now than I am English. I can never be as comfortable here as I was there.’

  ‘And yet you said, when we dined at the rectory, that the colonies were simply England removed.’

  ‘Yes, and that is true. But it is England with a difference. People do not speak there of nobles and the middling classes and the mass of common working people, and nor are those common people held in scorn by people who think themselves their betters. Our rulers believe they can maintain in the colonies the same abject submission they expect here and they are wrong. There is trouble coming, Mister Blakiston. And when it comes I would rather be with the colonists.’

  ‘But surely…the British Army…you do not suggest that a bunch of farmers can stand against that?’

  ‘Well, we shall see. But do not imagine it was the redcoats alone who defeated the French in the recent wars. Without the settlers they could not have done it. Our leaders do many stupid things but one of the stupidest was to reject Washington.’

  ‘Washington? I have not heard the name. I believe there is a place called Washington not far from here.’

  ‘That may be where the family went to Virginia from but they have been there a hundred years or more. George Washington is a big man. He hunts on horseback in a red coat, like any English squire, which is how I think he sees himself. He owns several thousand acres and keeps more servants than anyone hereabouts, not excluding the Blacketts or Lord Ravenshead. He is a slave owner, too. But what I am talking about is his military prowess. He fought as a Colonel in General Braddock’s army against the French. He helped the British capture Fort Duquesne and win control of the Ohio Valley. But when he asked for a commission in the British Army, they laughed at him. That ridicule may return to haunt them.’

  ‘You believe trouble is likely, then?’

  King topped up Blakiston’s wineglass once more. ‘If the government here fails to understand the feelings of people there, we shall have war. If they continue to insist that colonists shall have no say in how they are governed, we shall have war. It will be civil war, the very worst kind. Englishman against Englishman. I dread it. But if it must be, I had rather be with those Englishmen over there than with their countrymen here.’

  ‘And your kinsfolk who work for you at Gaskell Lodge? You will leave them once more to the tender mercies of the better off?’

  ‘They will go with me. Not, as I did, to be indentured at the end of a free passage. No, I will pay their fares and they will travel with me. It will not be comfortable, for crossing the Atlantic is never comfortable, but when we reach the Susquehanna River they will see that the journey was worth the making.’

  As Blakiston rode home, it occurred to him that the object of the meeting had been for him to learn something about colonial farming practices and that these had not been mentioned, so absorbing had the conversation on other matters been.

  Some time ago, he had reflected on the unlikely circumstances that had brought Tom Laws to the position of farmer instead of labourer and he had wondered how many more of those raised in poverty could do well if only the opportunity were offered. Now here in Job King he had another example. For the country to thrive, it surely needed to make maximum use of the capabilities of all its people. As, to listen to Job King, the colonies were doing.

  But he had better stop thinking this way, for in the reign of King George it was probably treasonous even to entertain such thoughts.

  Next day was Wednesday and after breakfast Blakiston saddled Obsidian and rode to Chopwell Garth. Kate met him with a smile and, as he always did, he found himself smiling automatically in return. ‘Kate. My love.’

  ‘James. Is it Tom you are here to see? Or me?’

  ‘I shall see Tom Laws before I leave, but my business is with you. A maid.’

  Kate’s smile became broader. She knew what Blakiston was about to say but saw no harm in teasing him a little. ‘Yes, James, I am still a maid. In two weeks or so, you will have the church’s blessing to alter that. And mine, too. James, you have gone bright red.’

  ‘No, no…I mean, you will need a maid when we are wed.’

  ‘Do you think so? Your house is not large. There will only be the two of us to look after. I am used to harder work than that.’

  ‘Please, Kate, do not be difficult. You will need a maid. You must have one. It should be someone of your choosing.’

  ‘Well, of course I have known that this conversation was coming. Do you remember when I told you about Rosie Miller?’

  ‘I do. It was at the rector’s tithing party, when I was still looking for the killer of Reuben Cooper. I was about to send Jemmy Rayne to make enquiries in Staithes.’

  ‘But I am not allowed to know that.’

  ‘But you are not allowed to know that. It was also that sad time when I had not yet declared my love for you…’

  ‘…and I had come to believe that you never would.’

  ‘You told me that Rosie Miller had gone to work in the kitchens at Matfen Hall and that you feared for her safety at the hands of the Blackett men.’

  ‘I should like to ask Rosie if she would come to work for us as our maid. She may not wish to, because she was my friend when both of us were poor and…well. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘I do. She might not be happy taking orders from someone who was once her friend.’

  ‘And, I hope, still is, whatever differences there will be in our life. But if she will…if she says yes…then she will be safe from the Blacketts. Our mam says that Mary Stone was a sweet girl just like Rosie until the Blacketts got hold of her, and you know how she turned out.’ She peered up at Blakiston from beneath the brim of her cap.

  ‘Why are you smiling like that?’

  ‘Mistress Wortley told me that I should never say Our Mam. And I do not. I said it to tease you and to remind you that the girl you are about to wed is not worthy of you.’

  ‘Really, Kate, you do talk nonsense sometimes. It is I who am not worthy of you.’

  ‘Yes, well, we could spend the next two days each saying to the other, no, no, it is me; I am the one who is not worthy. In any case, how do you feel about Rosie Miller as our maid?’

  ‘If she is who you want, she is who I should like you to have. How will you get word to her? For I confess I do not wish to be anywhere near Sir Edward Blackett.’

  ‘I have wanted to ask you about that, James. Is it true that he off
ered you marriage with one of his family? And a home and money to go with it?’

  ‘Good God! Does everyone know everything about everyone else’s business in this place?’

  ‘So it is true. Why did you refuse his offer?’

  ‘For the same reason, I should think, as you rejected the stream of farmers asking for your hand. I wished to marry for love. As I shall do the week after next. But I asked you a question.’

  ‘That will be easy. Her mother is here, still close to where I lived not so long ago. I shall ask her to get a message to Rosie. And now that we have settled that, would you like to wait for Tom? He has been in the fields three hours now and will soon be here for breakfast.’

  Blakiston did not, in fact, have any pressing business with Tom and the reason he allowed himself to be shown into the kitchen was that time at Chopwell Garth was time in the presence of the young woman he loved. When Lizzie attempted to move him into the parlour, Blakiston said, ‘Parlours are for ceremony. Kitchens are for family. I should like you to think of me as a kitchen person.’ He could not fail to see the doubt in the way Lizzie looked at him and he smiled in response.

  Little Louise, kept safe by an arrangement of wooden bars, was grizzling quietly and Kate picked her up and plopped her down on Blakiston’s lap. Blakiston, who had never held a baby in his life, rushed to place his hands around her before she should fall. The grizzling stopped and two eyes, grey as was normal among the Greeners, stared upwards at this face she had not seen so close before. Tiny hands reached up towards him. Mesmerised, Blakiston lifted the child with great care. A surge of love possessed him when the little hands began to pat his face.

  He was aware of three pairs of eyes on him. Kate’s expression radiated uncertainty about what she had done in placing a babe so casually into the care of a man – and a member of the gentry at that. On Lizzie’s face he could see conflict between worry over Louise’s safety and a desire to laugh. Florrie, on the other hand, showed nothing but concern at the way their guest had been treated.