by Joan Aiken
The perfunctory tea-drinking session was soon over; Mrs Winship came in, but Sir Aydon did not, and the girls, directly after, went upstairs to bed.
“Goodnight, Sister Emmy; I am glad we have you with us,” said Isa cordially in the wide passageway, and really seemed to mean her friendly kiss, thought Alvey with gratitude.
Bearing their candles, Isa and Parthie set foot on the upper stair which led to their chamber on the next storey. At the shadowy turn of the stair Alvey heard a scuffle of feet; Isa gave a gasp.
“What in the world are you two doing still out of bed?”
No answer but the hasty patter of bare feet up the stairs.
“Little monkeys!” exclaimed Isa, laughing. “I suppose they wanted to take another look at Emmy!”
I wonder why? pondered Alvey, sleepily arranging her hair for the night. They did not seem so eager to greet me downstairs; on the contrary.
Accustomed, in the dormitory at school, to make a quick toilet, Alvey was in bed long before Meg had finished her lengthy operations and blown out her candle.
The bed was old, wide and comfortable; the coverings thick and warm. In the distance, as Isa had promised, the voice of the river could be heard, murmuring among its rocks.
Nobody even bothered to take a second look at me, thought Alvey, sinking into sleep. Because of the trouble in the house they all accepted me without the least question.
And she drifted into unconsciousness, peacefully unaware that she was wrong.
Chapter V.
“Grandma, do you think our sister Louisa is better then she used to be before?”
“Better? What do you mean by better, child? In health, in complexion, in spirits, in manners, in morals? You must learn to be exact in your speech. Pass me that orange-flower water, and a clean towel.”
Parthie obeyed, making the second errand an excuse for a prolonged visit to the irresistible water-closet.
“Make haste, miss! Give over dilly-dallying in there!”
“Grandmamma,” said Parthie returning at leisure with the towel, “why will Mr Thropton not bury Annie in the churchyard?”
“Because she was a suicide, child. She took her own life, and the Bible tells us that is a sin. It is throwing away God’s gift.”
“So she has to be buried at Worship Hill crossroads, while wee Geordie is put in the churchyard,” said Parthie pensively. “Annie would not be pleased if she knew that, would she? After she carried wee Geordie all that way up the moor to throw herself off Pike’s Force.”
“Better she thought of that before putting an end to herself,” said the old lady curtly. “Although,” she added, more to herself than to Parthie, “after all, what can it matter where our bones are deposited? I am sure I don’t care what they do with mine.”
“Oh, Grandma! How can you?” Parthie had very clear plans about the size and splendour of her own marble slab and the type of letters in which it should proclaim that PARTHENOPE, dearly beloved and deeply mourned wife, daughter, sister, mother, etc etc was laid below. She had frequently studied the stones in the graveyard at Birkland village and gazed in pity and disdain at that one which stated that John Surtees, his son Jack, his wife Hester, and nine more unnamed small children lay below. What a way to be dismissed from the world! Parthie intended her own obsequies and memory to be attended by as much pomp as possible.
“About Annie,” she went on, hoping to extract from her grandmother the information that her sisters had refused. “Why was my father so very grieved? Anybody would think that wee Geordie was his child, I heard Mrs Umfry say.”
She stared at her grandmother with limpid, pale eyes.
“Then,” said the latter, “Mrs Umfry is a poison-tongued, hen-witted old woman, and you’d no business to be listening to servants’ gossip.”
“Mrs Umfry isn’t a servant.”
“No, she is a spiteful old farm-woman. I am glad that our servants have more sense and decency than to be talking so,” said Mrs Winship, resolving to tell Charlotte to send the woman about her business directly, now that little Kate had learned to take milk from a spoon.
“Your father was distressed because wee Geordie was the first child he had ever truly loved and taken notice of,” the old lady went on, deciding that to be allowed a portion of the truth might satisfy Parthie and deflect her prying, probing mind. “At the time when James was a baby, your father’s life was wholly given over to regimental duties, and when Tot was that age, Papa was entirely absorbed in hunting. So he never had the time or attention to spare for the boys that he has given to wee Geordie. And of course he never took interest in you girls—”
“I know that,” said Parthie.
“Annie’s boy chanced to come under his eye at a time when, because of his hunting accident and increasing gout, he did have time on his hands—so he developed a partiality for the child—”
“And Geordie was his grandson, after all, was he not, Grannie? Everybody says that grandparents dote on their grandchildren, much, much, much more often, than they did on their own sons and daughters—just like you and me!” cried Parthie, taking up the idea with such suspicious alacrity that Mrs Winship gave her an extremely narrow look before answering drily,
“That’s as may be! And that is quite enough on the subject!”
For the first few weeks of her sojourn at Birkland Hall, Alvey found herself in a continual state of confused rapture, shot through with anxiety and guilt. How could she possibly allow herself so to fall in love with the place, when her own position in it was so invidious, so undeserved, so anomalous? The better she loved it, the more uneasy she felt. How could she walk about, so bemused with delight, at a time when some other members of the household, it was plain, were so guilt-ridden, so wretchedly unhappy, so uncertain? Yet there was no way in which she could moderate her own feelings, or will herself out of love.
She had never before in her life been surrounded by beauty. New Bedford had been pleasant, the school at Reading homely and friendly; she had been unaware of any lack. But now she began to understand and sympathize with Isa’s words: “How could Louisa bear to live away from all this? I never, never could.”
The house itself was so pleasing, graceful, furnished with handsome, shabby articles—damask, mahogany, gilding, carving—that had been the best of their kind fifty or a hundred years ago, and with portraits of ancestors which, when no one was by, Alvey studied with deep interest and astonishment, because some of their faces were so like her own. For her the charm of the house lay not only in its appointments, or in its size and spaciousness or luxury, but in its tranquil animation, the human warmth of a large, active household, well-governed, harmoniously composed, with all its members content and at ease in their stations. From whence, precisely, this harmony derived, she found it difficult to decide. For, taken separately, its elements were faulty enough: Sir Aydon was short-tempered and, at present, melancholy and morose; he thumped with his stick, bawled at the dogs, banged drawers and slammed doors. His wife was seldom to be seen within doors save at meal times when she wore a sad, perturbed expression and hardly spoke; if asked a question she would start as if roused from some unhappy trance. The old lady’s remarks were usually of a dry and acrid character; the sharpness of her eye often made Alvey very uncomfortable. Yet somehow this odd triumvirate succeeded in creating a serenely cheerful efficient establishment around them.
And then, out of doors! Once she had surmounted the shock of cold—and each time she stepped out, it was like a dive into icy water—Alvey was in a continual state of enchantment with everything she saw about her. This is the place, the country for me, the land of my choice, she thought, over and over. The clean sweep of the high hills, the windcarved outline of ragged thorn-hedges, the stately slanting avenues of great beech trees, the grey walls round fields and along roadsides, massively built of loose granite stones, the dark purple curves of moorlan
d, the rivers and brooks burling and flashing among rocks, the willows and clumps of rush and whin along their banks—all these things filled her with a deep, inexplicable delight. It was like being fed when she had been unaware of hunger. I belong here, she thought.
On the first morning Isa had said: “Come; you will want to look at everything. But first put on a warm pelisse.”
Nothing owned by Alvey had been adequate. Isa had seized a cloak from the rack near the front door. “Here is an old one of Mamma’s; it is too short but it will do.”
“Won’t she—?”
“No, she always wears her old green gown for gardening. And she goes nowhere. We shall have a task getting her respectably dressed for Meg’s wedding. It’s lucky that Strother, the Hexham tailor, is coming for a few days; he can make you a thick cloak.”
“I can make one myself; Cousin Hepzie and I made all my things.”
“You forget: Louisa would never do that.”
The two girls followed the cobbled path around past the pele tower, the way Lady Winship had taken last night. It led them to the end of the terrace Alvey had seen from her window last night, which ran along the back of the wall. At the distant end of the terrace was a wrought-iron gate in a wall. Isa hesitated.
“I think we will not go into Mamma’s garden just yet. I will take you down to the Hungry Water.” They bore right across an extensive stable-yard, passed through a gate, and followed a cart-track downhill past orchards and a meadow grazed by black-faced sheep and rough-coated horses.
“I never thought to ask,” said Isa, chuckling a little. “But can you ride a horse?”
“After a fashion, yes. We sometimes borrowed horses and rode out to visit an old friend of my cousin’s at West Point.”
“Thank heaven for that! Your having forgotten how to ride would be hard to account for. And the only way to get about this country is on horseback.”
“How far is it to the nearest town?”
“Hexham? About twenty miles. Southward. Over that way.”
On the bank of the river Isa turned left.
“Another day I will take you a scramble up to the top of Blackshaw Crag.” She gestured at the heather-crowned slope across the river, with its distinctive patch of dark forest. “But today you are tired, not in trim yet for a ten-mile walk. Also the servants will be wishing to talk to you; you have not seen Mrs Slaley, or Carey, or Janet.”
“What should I say to them?” asked Alvey nervously, looking at the bubbling dark-brown water, laced with coffee-coloured froth.
“Oh—ask how they are. Ask after Janet’s aunt Alice. She used to make us treacle humbugs. But she died last winter.”
They followed a zigzag sheep-track along the riverbank. Alvey’s anxiety at the forthcoming ordeal was lulled in some degree by the brilliance of the sun on the quilted water, by the cries of birds.
“What is that bird-call that goes up and up?”
“A curlew.”
“It is the most beautiful sound! Like somebody crying out with joy.”
Isa laughed.
“Keep those remarks for my ears. Louisa took no interest in birds.”
“Isa! Look at those little islands, all covered with moss and flowers and shining stones. Why, one would think somebody had been carefully arranging them.”
“Oh, they have. That is Tot and Nish’s work. They spend half their time playing in this river.”
“But what a labour!”
Alvey inspected the carefully adorned islands, her heart deeply touched. How much care, how much time had been spent on them!
“Why are they not here now?”
“Papa said they must be punished for playing truant yesterday. It was the day when they should have gone to Mr Thropton for their Latin lesson. So they are to remain indoors and learn a hymn by heart.”
“Poor little things! But should not I be teaching them?”
“Oh, not on your first day. See; here is the lower end of Mamma’s walled garden. And there is my mother herself, working away.”
Down the steeply sloping field from the house ran a wall, stopping at the river, crossing a tributary brook by means of a stone arch. A plank bridge crossed the brook and a wooden gate made an entrance to the garden, the one that Alvey had seen from her bedroom window. Lady Winship, wearing a shepherd’s tweed hat, her old green gown kilted up, and a pair of stout fisherman’s boots protecting her feet, stood up to her knees in water, planting bulbs along the banks of the stream. She looked up and briefly acknowledged the entrance of the girls by a jerk of her head.
“May we pass through your garden and return to the house this way, Mamma?” called Isa.
“Yes; you may.” Lady Winship slowly straightened. Her large, flat face was flushed from stooping, but she looked more amiable than Alvey had seen her yet. “Find Carey on your way—he should be in the vegetable-garden—tell him to come down here with a hand barrow for my weeds. And tell him to bring another hundred yellow iris corms.” She rubbed her cheek with the back of a gloved hand, leaving an earthy smear. “How do you like that?” she said gruffly to Alvey, nodding at the sloping garden. “It is all new since you left home.”
“Very beautiful,” Alvey said truthfully.
The slope was smooth turf scattered with rocks cunningly set to look natural—perhaps they were natural; among these were clumps of flowers, blooming still, despite the lateness of the season, in this sheltered, south-facing gully: asters, small hardy roses, geranium, valerian, bell-flowers and scented shrubs. Absently Isa pinched off a sprig from a low-growing, feathery bush and held it to Alvey’s nose. It had a stinging, aromatic fragrance.
“Delicious! What is it?”
“You must remember Old Man? It used to be your favourite. Southernwood, Lad’s Love?” Lady Winship frowned.
“Of course! It is—it was so long since I smelt it.”
“What do they have in the Abbey School garden?”
“Not much. It is so trampled by the girls. A few roses and wallflowers—a medlar tree—Mrs Camperdowne makes medlar jelly—” Here, at least, Alvey was on firm ground.
“Ah, a medlar. I’ve always wanted one. But they won’t grow here. Well—tell Carey to make haste with those bulbs.”
Dismissed, they strolled on up the winding path, which crossed and re-crossed the tumbling brook by a series of small bridges, Alvey frequently exclaiming in pleasure at the sight of some tiny brilliant or tall handsome plant.
“No frosts here yet,” said Isa. “But in another week or two—”
“Your mother can work here all winter?”
“Oh, no. Autumn is her busiest time—until the snows begin. Then she does become frustrated.”
It was interesting, thought Alvey, that this intense love of the outdoor world had been transmitted from Lady Winship to Isa, in the form of Isa’s passion for landscape, and to the younger ones as an urge to decorate miniature islands.
She said something of this, and Isa laughed.
“There speaks the writer—always tracing out connections.”
“But it is true.”
“Oh, to be sure. And you will find it in my brother James—and in Papa, for that matter—we inherit it on both sides. Papa’s lifelong addiction to hunting was because it gave him an excuse for galloping over the countryside six days a week.”
“When did his accident take place?”
“A little over a year ago—at the very beginning of the season, poor man. He had a raw, half-schooled colt—it stumbled, jumping a wall, and fell on him. The horse was so badly injured it had to be shot, and both my father’s legs were broken, and have not set as they should; so he is as you see.”
“How terrible for him.”
“Yes, it is terrible,” said Isa moderately, “for he has no resignation, no strength of religion to uphold him, no mental resources, no indo
or occupations. He is not a thinking man. And my mother is of no help to him. Indeed, one must admire him—somehow, despite these things, he contrives to live his life—”
They had reached the upper gate and left the garden; Isa turned right into a square walled enclosure containing potato and cabbage beds, leeks, currant bushes, parsley, horseradish, celery and cauliflower in neat rows. Against the high wall were glasshouses, and here they found a man in a sacking apron pricking out boxes of seedlings.
“Carey, my mother wants you and a hundred iris bulbs in double quick-time.”
“Aathing her leddyship wants is double-quick,” said Carey cheerfully, tugging his forelock to Alvey. “Welcome hyem, Miss Lou. Gud to see ye.”
“Thank you, Carey. It’s good to be here.”
“We’ll go in the kitchen way.” Isa led Alvey along the broad terrace, into the stable-yard, and through a back entrance past pantries and stillrooms into a large, lavishly appointed kitchen which seemed warm as a bakehouse after the tingling chill of the outside air.
Glancing round her, Alvey was able to take note of shining white-tiled walls, exquisitely whitened hearthstone, two long scrubbed tables, a whole wall of ovens and ranges, another hung with dazzling copper pots and pans, enough for an army, herbs and flitches dangling overhead and a pervasive scent of hot baking, before she was being greeted by a smiling round-faced woman, plainly Mrs Slaley the cook.
“Ee, Miss Lou, but ye’ve grown a likely and a bonny lass sin’ ye’ve been awa’! Aa rackon yer mam and dad should be prood of ye! And is it gud to be back?”
“Good? I can’t tell you how good!” said Alvey, and she was so touched by this friendly welcome, by far the warmest she had received so far, that, completely forgetting the unforthcoming character of Louisa, she stepped forward impulsively and gave the smiling woman a warm hug, which was returned as heartily.
“There! I said as ganning to school wud do ye a deal of gud. Didn’t I Becky, didn’t I Janet?” Mrs Slaley demanded of two maids who had been busy respectively beating eggs and grinding something in a kern.
