‘I think I will have to,’ I say to him. ‘You see, I have lost my purse, so have no means of paying for a bed for the night. In fact, I don’t like to ask, but could you see your way to sparing me a piece of bread?’ My face flushes hot as I ask this question. If Mama could see me now, she would die of shame.
‘A piece of bread, eh?’ The man looks at his wife and winks. ‘Think we can spare a bit for this poor lost soul?’
The woman elbows him in the ribs. ‘Oh, leave her be, George,’ she says. ‘Now listen,’ she says to me. ‘I can’t have you wandering the countryside on your own at night. We can spare you a bit of supper and there’s a bed in the attic. I can see you’re from good breeding, so once you get to this sister of yours, maybe she’ll see a way of paying us back for our hospitality. Now, come on. Let’s get you inside.’
And then it is all kindness, as I sit at George and Ada’s table and share a simple supper of bread and jam and a glass of beer. The beer is new to me and not to my liking, but I am so grateful that I even accept a second glass. There is no need for me to speak much, as George and Ada do nothing but chatter. They talk of the weather, their pigs, the chickens and a neighbour who has just lost a wife. I think they have forgotten I am here. But then George drains his glass and leans back in his chair. ‘So, Spaxton, eh?’ he says. ‘S’pose your sister’s told you about all the goings on there then?’
I shake my head. ‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I don’t believe she has mentioned anything. Although … ’ I hesitate for a moment. ‘She did mention a place called the Abode of Love.’
‘Did she now?’ he says. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I hear they’ve even had the newspaper men from London nosing around down there.’
‘And why would that be?’ I ask. I am all ears now.
‘Well, seeing as though you’re asking, then I’ll be a-telling.’ He takes up a pipe and taps it on the edge of the table. ‘Pass the baccy will you, Ada?’ he says.
‘I’ll pass you the baccy, but you can shut up with your gossiping,’ she says sternly. ‘There’s no need for this young lady to be hearing things like that. It’s not decent. And anyway, I think it’s time we turned in now. Come on, my dear,’ she says to me, ‘I’ll fetch you a blanket.’
I rise from my chair reluctantly. I want to stay and find out more about the Abode of Love. I want to know what George was going to tell me. But the moment has passed, and besides, I am a guest in their house and it is not for me to question.
Ada leads me up some rickety stairs to a tiny room in the eaves of the cottage. ‘There you go,’ she says. ‘I’m sure you’ll be comfortable enough.’ I turn to thank her, and suddenly she leans forwards and kisses me on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Forgive me for that. Only we had a daughter of our own, your age, up until last year, and it’s just so good to have a youngster in the place again.’ She blinks quickly. ‘Well, goodnight then, my dear,’ she says.
The walls of the house are thin, and as I settle under a blanket that smells of horses, I watch through the window as the end of the day slides into night. The last thing I hear before falling asleep is Ada muttering, ‘She’s dressed in mourning, you old fool, didn’t you notice?’
Twenty-three
The sun is high in the sky when I wake. I blink into it and curse Lillie for opening the curtains and letting me lie for so long. Now I will have missed breakfast and Mama will send for a plate of scraps and force me to eat yesterday’s peelings and bacon rind, so that I will learn to respect mealtimes and the value of freshly prepared food. My belly shrinks at the thought.
I sigh and drape my arm over my face to shield my eyes from the sun. Where are the leather straps? I suddenly think. Why didn’t I wake when Mama came to release me?
Then it all comes rushing back and I catch my breath as I remember. Papa is dead and buried. Mama has washed her hands of me. I should be locked behind the doors of the madhouse, but instead I am here, in the dusty attic of strangers. Everything will be all right in the morning, Papa always used to say to me. But it never was. And it still isn’t.
I clamber from the bed and look around for my mourning gown. It is nowhere to be seen. But folded neatly on a stool are a plain wool dress and a clean chemise and petticoat. I pull them on quickly and slip my feet into my boots which I see have been cleaned of mud and polished. I need to be on my way. I have to get to Spaxton and find the Abode of Love. Henry Prince is the only one who can help me now. Receive me as the Son of God and your flesh will be liberated from sin in this world.
I will receive him, and I will be forgiven. I can start my life again and this time no one will think me bad or send me away to rot in the madhouse.
Downstairs in the cottage all is quiet, save for the gentle simmering of a kettle hanging over the fire. It is all so peaceful and ordered. The floor is swept and the table is scrubbed white. The door is open and a light breeze carries in the scents of stone and earth, the sweet smell of cows and grass and the dust of old grain. I should find George and Ada and thank them for their kindness, but suddenly I am in no hurry to leave. I breathe in the calm of it all. I have walked into someone else’s life and I want to live it for a while.
Just then, Ada comes huffing through the door clutching a weight of something in her apron. ‘Ah, here you are, my dear,’ she says. ‘I left you sleeping. Out for the count you were. Thought you must have needed it, mind. I took the liberty of washing out your gown for you. Mud scrubbed off just fine it did. It’s hanging outside drying beautifully.’ She pauses for breath and carefully empties the contents of her apron into a bowl. A dozen pale brown eggs clack into a pile.
‘Now then,’ she says. ‘I ’spect you’ll be ready for some breakfast. Eggs do you?’
I sit at the table and let Ada bustle around me. There’s no need to talk. She does enough for both of us. ‘It’s so good to have some company,’ she says. ‘Don’t get me wrong. George is a dear. Good heart on ’im he has. But he’s a man! And they’re only good for so much, aren’t they?’ She chuckles and cracks half a dozen eggs into a blackened pan and adds a dollop of butter. She whisks the eggs briskly and within a moment I can smell hot butter and melting yolks. She winks at me as she splashes some yellow cream into the pan. ‘Don’t tell George, will you? He only gets cream in ’is eggs on a Sunday.’
Soon, there is a plate in front of me, piled high with glistening scrambled eggs. Ada cuts a chunk of bread and drops it next to the plate. ‘Eat up, then,’ she urges me. There are no napkins and she makes no attempt to say Grace, so I do as she says and I spoon the eggs into my mouth. They are hot, buttery and delicious and a world away from the cold, tasteless eggs at Lions House. I eat every scrap and the bread too. Ada sits beside me and slurps a cup of tea. ‘That’s it,’ she chuckles. ‘You get it down you.’
I feel somehow as if I am doing her a great favour. And it is a good feeling.
After she has cleared the table, Ada asks if I would like to look around the farm. ‘If you’re not in too much of a hurry, that is?’
I tell her I would love to and her face lights up, like a pauper child who has been thrown an unexpected coin. She natters away, nineteen to the dozen, as she leads the way across the farmyard. I am introduced to all five of George and Ada’s cows and every single one of their dozen chickens. There’s a goat too, pegged out beside the barn. It is bleating plaintively. Ada fetches a bucket and with deft hands she milks the goat. She dips a cup into the bucket and offers me a taste. The milk is warm and thick with a strong tang of grass in it. I am not sure I like it all that well, but I tell Ada it is delicious anyway.
We walk past the barn to the small garden behind and I help Ada pull some weeds from between the rows of onions, carrots and turnips. ‘Our Mary used to do this,’ she tells me. ‘Before she passed on.’
‘Mary was your daughter?’ I ask.
Ada nods. ‘Such a good girl, she was. I miss her so much’
The words are like a slap in my face. I never knew this M
ary and the poor girl is dead, but even so I cannot help but feel envious that she had a mother who loved her.
I stand and shake the soil from my skirt. ‘I must get on,’ I say. ‘My sister will be expecting me.’
Ada face falls. ‘So soon?’ she says. ‘But you must wait for George. He’s out in the field today. There’s fences need mending. Stay for another meal with us, at least.’
And because she smiles at me so honestly and because she makes me feel so wanted, it is as easy as that for her to persuade me to stay.
The morning winds into afternoon. I help Ada make a pie for supper. ‘I’ve been meaning to wring her neck for ages,’ she says of the henpecked chicken that goes into the pie.
Everything is so easy and drowsy. Ada asks no questions. She expects nothing of me, only my company, and by the time we sit down for supper, somehow, it is taken for granted that I will sleep the night again.
I want to ask George more about the Abode of Love, but Ada won’t hear of it. ‘We’ll have none of that talk,’ she says. And I think it is because she doesn’t want to be reminded that I will soon be on my way.
The evening passes quickly. George and Ada are born talkers and by the time the candles are lit I know all about how George first wooed Ada when he worked as a farmhand on her father’s farm, and how it took him a whole six months and almost a field’s worth of violets to persuade her to walk out with him. Ada laughs like a naughty child. ‘Still brings me a bunch of violets now and then when they’re in bloom. Don’t you, you old softy?’ Her eyes shine when she looks at him.
I know I will have to sneak away come morning. I won’t be able to say goodbye to them. It would be too easy to stay. But they are too good for me; I do not deserve their kindness. And if I stay, I will never get to the Abode of Love and Henry Prince will never be able to forgive me for all my badness.
I yawn behind my hand.
‘Look at you,’ Ada says. ‘Worn to a frazzle. Time to turn in, I reckon.’
I thank her for supper and before I can help myself, I put my arms around her and hug her quickly. ‘Oh, get on with you,’ she says. But her cheeks turn pink with pleasure.
Twenty-four
It is still dark when I wake. But when I look out of the attic window, I see a smear of light across the horizon and know it is time to leave. I dress in my clean mourning gown and leave the wool dress folded on the stool. I creep down the stairs and into the kitchen. There is the remains of a loaf of bread on the table. I hope George and Ada won’t mind if I take it with me. It is a sin to steal, I know. But where I am going, I will be forgiven for it all.
As I close the farmhouse door behind me, I dare to wish for George and Ada to always be happy. It is the smallest of wishes. It is a good wish; a simple wish and I hope with all my heart that no harm will come of it.
I walk briskly, keeping to the fields and hedgerows that flank the Bristol Road. I wonder if anybody is out looking for me. Eli, or Dr Fox and Mrs Abbot. I wonder if anybody has bothered to look for me at all. A coach rumbles past, its oil lamps still glowing in the half -light. But otherwise it is peaceful out here with just the sounds of my boots crunching on the ground and the early morning chatter of birds. It is beautiful to see the sky lift around me, like a lid taken off a cooking pot to reveal a freshly made, untouched day.
I pass derelict barns and small, tight copses, and as I walk, I try not to think of Papa or Eli, or anybody. I only think of what lies ahead and of how I will be made as clean and fresh as this new day. I stop and rest awhile by the side of a stream. I splash my face with weed-green water and eat George and Ada’s bread. George said that first evening that newspaper men from London had been to the Abode of Love. It must be a place of miracles then: a place full of love and forgiveness.
I start walking again. I am anxious now that the sun is up, and I can see the first signs of Bridgwater in the distance. It is strange to think that I have to go back to where I started, before I can begin to move on. My feet slow, but my heart starts to clatter as I spy chimney pots and wispy plumes of smoke snaking their way up into the pale blue sky. I am scared to be seen in case someone is out looking for me, so I skirt around the edges of town hoping to find a stranger who will point me on to the right road. I pass a small cottage with an old woman sitting on the doorstep. ‘Excuse me!’ I shout over to her. ‘Can you tell me the quickest way to Spaxton?’
She grins a toothless grin and waves at me.
‘The quickest way to Spaxton?’ I try again. But it is no good. She is either deaf or simple or both.
Across the lane, outside another cottage, there is a man loading sacks onto the back of a cart. His skin is leathery and brown as the earth. He eyes me as I walk towards him and for one awful moment, I think I see a glint of recognition cross his face. But it passes quickly enough and I tell myself that it is easy to see things that are not there if you go looking for them. ‘Morning, missy,’ he says to me. ‘I heard you asking old Mother over there the way to Spaxton.’
‘I … I did,’ I stammer. ‘But I don’t think she heard me.’
‘Oh, she’ll have heard you all right. Hears everything, that one does. But seeing as how she hasn’t left that cottage for going on fifty years, she wouldn’t have a clue where anywhere was. In fact, she wouldn’t have a clue where her own head was unless it was pointed out to her.’ He laughs at himself and heaves another sack onto the back of the cart.
‘And … and you, sir,’ I say. ‘Can you tell me the way?’
He laughs again. ‘Well. I ain’t never been called sir in my life! But for that,’ he says, ‘you can hop in the back and I’ll take you part-way if you like. Never had any cause to go to Spaxton meself, but I’ll drop you at the crossroads and you’ll see it’s not far from there.’
‘That would be very kind of you, sir,’ I say. ‘You see, I’m visiting my sister, and I lost my purse and … ’
‘Don’t matter to me why you’re going,’ he says. ‘Your business is yours and mine’s mine. As long as I get these taters delivered. Now stop calling me sir, and jump in the back.’
I nestle down between the sacks, feeling the warmth of the man’s kindness. I didn’t know there were people like him and George and Ada in the world, and it makes me glad that I am part of it now. The man whistles and clucks at his horse and I lie on the sacks, out of view, and watch the endless blue of the sky overhead that is varied only by the occasional smudge of a cloud or a low-hanging branch. I could stay here forever, caught between what was and what is going to be. I smile to myself to think that a cart full of potatoes is the one place that, so far in my life, I have felt the happiest.
But it ends soon enough, as the man slows his horse and the cart judders to a halt. ‘There you go, missy,’ he shouts over his shoulder. ‘That’s as near as I can get you.’
I climb down from the cart and look around. There are two dusty lanes crossing each other and a thicket of trees on all sides. It is not what I expected and it feels as though we are nowhere. The cart driver clicks his tongue at his horse and waves his arm to the left. ‘Up that lane there, missy,’ he says. ‘Just keep going. You’ll get there in the end.’ Then he is gone, in a rumble of stone and dust, and I don’t even think he hears the thank you! that I call after him.
The lane is steep and narrow with high banks on either side that are shaded by a canopy of greenery. It seems to go on forever, and I am out of breath by the time the lane flattens out and winds sharply around to the left. I keep walking and the lane keeps winding, this way and that, and I just want it to end. I just want to find this place so the churning in my stomach will stop. Then at last, the lane opens up and I find myself on a quiet village green with a cluster of cottages and a low, white building with a painted sign declaring it to be The Lamb Inn. It is all so ordinary. I look about nervously. There is nothing to tell me I am in the right place.
Then the door of the inn opens and two men step outside. They eye me suspiciously and whisper to each other. ‘Lost yer wa
y, girl?’ one of them shouts. I don’t like the way they are looking at me, as though I have done something wrong just by standing there. I carry on walking, but I can sense they are watching me and judging me. I want to shout back at them, to leave me alone, to mind their own business. But that is not me any more. That is only the girl they see with their eyes. They can’t see inside me. They can’t see how much I want to change.
Just past the inn, the lane widens and on one side is a high red-brick wall. I remember Sarah’s words: ‘He has a place in Spaxton,’ she’d said, ‘surrounded by high walls and guarded by bloodhounds.’ I am excited and eager now. The wall is almost twice my height, but I can see from the glimpses of fancy chimney pots and tiled roofs that there are buildings behind it. I come to a small wooden gate, but when I try to open it, I find it is locked. I walk on, and the wall never varies in height. I wonder what it is trying to keep in, or trying to keep out. Further along, I come to another gate, an enormous studded carriage gate with stone pillars on either side. Across the top of the gate is a row of lacy iron spears and, right in the centre is a large metal cross. I know then that I have found where I need to be.
I know I have found the Abode of Love.
Twenty-five
I do not know how to get in. I have walked around the entire perimeter of the wall and there are no other entrances save for the two gates I have already seen. I try banging my fists on the main gate, but soon my knuckles are sore. I walk back to the smaller gate and pick a small stone from the ground. I knock it against the wood, over and over again. Then the barking starts, loud and ferocious, and my blood turns cold at the thought of sharp yellow teeth and mad-dog eyes. But I won’t let them stop me. I kick at the gate in a fury. ‘Let me in!’ I shout. ‘Let me in!’
I slump to the ground in frustration. The barking turns to low growls and then to silence. I lean against the gate. It is warm on my back and I think I might have to stay here forever. There is nowhere else for me to go. Then I hear a scrape, a scratching. Just the tiniest sound. I think for a moment the hounds are back. But there is no growling or sniffing. It is a different sound I hear, a gentler sound. I jump to my feet and put my ear to the wood. ‘Hello?’ I say. ‘Hello. Is there anybody there?’ I hold my breath and I am certain that I can sense a shift in the air. There is somebody behind the gate and whoever it is, is listening to me. ‘Please,’ I say. ‘I know you are there. I just want to talk to somebody.’
The Beloved Page 11
