by Joan Aiken
As they started for home past the churchyard, a raucous shout startled them.
Above the graveyard rose a kind of steep knoll, covered with thorn bushes, which merged into a thicker wood of ash and sycamore ascending the side of the valley. Among the thornbushes could just be distinguished the figure of an old man, rangy and white-haired, who shook his fist at them and hurled out a stream of angry words, not one of which was intelligible to Alvey.
“Who is that?” she said, startled. “What is the matter with him? Is he mad?”
“No, not really. Come along,” said Meg. “Take no notice of him.”
They hurried on, and were soon out of earshot.
“He looked like an Old Testament prophet,” said Alvey. “Who was it?”
“Old Herdman—Annie’s father. He has always had a bit of a grievance against our family—something to do with a ditch which was diverted and, he said, robbed him of a yard of his garden; and there was something else about his brother, I believe. And now I suppose it will be worse. He is a disagreeable old man. I hope he will not turn up and make a nuisance of himself at my wedding.—Ugh, is not Mr Thropton a horrible hypocrite! I am glad that, after Saturday, I shall have seen the last of him.”
Nish and Tot, as soon as they left the village, had bounded ahead up the footpath, and Meg went on, giggling, “Thropton told me that the only way to be a good wife was to obey my husband implicitly in all things—but it is said in Hexham that he caused the death of his own wife from ill-usage. He half-starved her, the story goes; and she had to wear cotton and sit in a room without a fire. She died ever so many years ago. And he has been on the catch for another ever since, Fanny Beaumont says, one with money so as to pay for his diggings and delvings—but no one will have him.”
“Why not?”
“Need you ask? Because his hands are like damp toadstools, because his breath stinks, because he sprays you with spittle when he talks—”
“I wonder what was in that box?”
“So did he! He could hardly wait until we were gone to prise it open. I wish him joy of the dirty thing,” said Meg.
Chapter VII.
James Winship was travelling north in the company of his long-time school and army friend Major Guy Fenway. The Major’s final destination was Edinburgh, so it had not been difficult to persuade him to make the slight detour which would take in Birkland Hall; indeed he would have suggested the plan himself, had he not been a person of infinite tact. James, only just past the stage of convalescence and well enough to undertake such a long journey, was happy to have company on the way—skilled, sympathetic and expert company too, for the Major was a medical man; while his friend was unfeignedly curious to meet James’s family.
“So many years as I have heard you talking about them all: Grandmamma, and the little ones, and all those sisters! But you were always so curmudgeonly about inviting me. I began to think I was not good enough for your friends, that you were ashamed of me.”
“Oh, good God, no! It was just the other way round.”
James came out of a gloomy reverie to meet the teasing smile of his friend and smiled himself, reluctantly. “Well: you know how any boy is ashamed of his family. My father, interested in nothing but hunting—”
“Capital. He and I will find much in common.”
“And my stepmother—”
“Ah yes. She must hate you, of course. And you, naturally, in return, detest her?”
James’s fair brows came together in a frown. “No,” he said after some thought. “I do not believe she hates me; though indubitably she does not love me. But then, she loves nobody—certainly none of her own children. Except, perhaps, when they are very small, still babies . . . And no, I do not detest her; how can you detest somebody who is there so little? Her mind is in her garden; and so is she, most of the time.”
“Does she not love your father?”
“I doubt it. They rub along tolerably well, I suppose. But her true devotion is for horticulture. Even when I was a boy she was always out of doors, digging away, in her green gown and old hat. What kind of a parent is that to present to one’s school friends?”
“So you invited no one home.”
“Besides, Northumberland is such a deuce of a journey.”
“And your half-sisters? Are they all beautiful and talented? But that goes without saying—’All very accomplished and pleasing, and one very pretty.’ Which one is that? To which shall I lose my heart?”
“They are uncommonly dull girls,” said James. “I do not recommend that you lose your heart to any of them. Best wait until you can sample the beauties of Edinburgh.”
“Oh, come! There must be something to be said for the poor girls. One of them is to be married, after all.”
“Meg, yes, well, she was the prettiest. But bone selfish, and not two ideas in her head—”
“Fie! I daresay she is as sensible a girl as ever wore shoe leather. And the others—what are their names again?”
“Isa is goodnatured enough, but so plain! And takes after her mother; she is not interested in people, only in landscapes. Louisa I have not seen for years, but she used to be insufferable—sanctimonious, priggish, conceited—”
“Her looks?”
“Well-enough; nothing out of the common. And always an expression in her eyes as if you were an ignorant hobbledehoy, not fit to black her boots—”
“I shall enjoy that,” said his friend.
“Parthie—she is the one about whom you were inquiring—”
“Oh, the fifteen-year-old, yes,” Guy said nodding.
“As insufferable as Louisa: pert, self-satisfied, meddlesome, always thrusting herself into the middle of any group. As to the younger four, Tot, Nish, Betsey, and little Kate, I know little; them I have hardly seen. What chance can they have to be interesting? Nobody pays heed to them.”
“I shall find them all exceedingly interesting,” said Guy with vigour. “A whole family! And I with only one elder sister. It will be a new experience. But now: how are you feeling, old fellow? How is the leg? Does it pain you much?”
“No, no,” said James impatiently. “I hardly feel it.”
“I think you are lying. We had better spend the night at Durham.”
“It is not my leg,” said James. “If it were only that! I feel so lost—so empty—the whole of life suddenly so meaningless. Oh!” he cried out with furious impatience, “And to cap it all I can only express what I wish to say in such trite language—the language of those trashy Minerva romances that the children’s governess used to read.”
“My dear old boy,” said Guy with exemplary patience, for he had said the same thing perhaps twenty or thirty times during the journey, “believe me, you will feel better with the passing of time. I, who have broken my heart on at least a dozen occasions, can tell you this with confidence. Also you can at least comfort yourself with the reflection that you have behaved just as you ought. Moreover, in a little while, you will be able to cheer yourself further by thinking that if my wretched sister had had a grain of sense—if she had been at all worthy of you—she would not have released you, she would never have let you go, she would have clung to you all the tighter despite your altered prospects. So—take my word for it—you may congratulate yourself on a lucky escape. I daresay Meta herself may be sorry one of these days, when she is safely wed to her Marquess—then, no doubt, she will look back and regret the pearl she has lost in you.”
“But I love her so!” said James wretchedly. “And she said—she told me she herself would have made nothing of my altered prospects—but she was bound to respect your father’s wishes in the matter—”
“Oh, of course!” said the other with irony. “A most dutiful daughter! Papa, I daresay, never said two words on the subject. He is very fond of you, old fellow—thinks you are worth a dozen of Alderney. Too good for her i
f the truth be told. She is sweet—and shallow—and you are better off without her. I am not even sorry to lose you as a brother, for we shall always be friends; whereas Meta would, by and by, have placed that relationship under severe strain.—Now I am sure you will be the better of a good dinner—and I know I shall, so let us put up here at the Three Tuns, and I will foment that leg of yours while dinner is preparing. My uncle Griswold, who used to be Bishop here, told me they do an excellent saddle of mutton at the Three Tuns—”
The girls set off for Hexham early on the day of the Assembly, for, as Isa had predicted, there were a number of household errands to be executed, most of them in connection with Meg’s wedding, now only a few days distant.
Parthie had begged and pleaded to be allowed to accompany them. “There would be room for me in the post-chaise—indeed there would!”
“Indeed there would not!” said Meg. “What—four of us all crammed together with our bandboxes? Besides you are too young to go to the Assembly—and, in any case, have not been invited to the Beaumonts.”
Lady Winship with vague but crushing authority confirmed this veto. Parthie was quelled, but deeply resentful.
“You are all hateful wretches. I hope that it snows, and that you get overturned in a drift.”
The weather, after some days of rain and gale, had turned sharply cold, and, for their journey to Hexham, the travellers were obliged to wrap in many layers of capes and shawls.
“My hair will come out of curl,” said Meg worriedly, pulling on a fur hood.
“Isa: sit up, and pull your shoulders back,” commanded Alvey, when they were packed into the carriage.
Isa laughed at her.
“Ever hopeful, sister Capability!”
For the last week, Alvey had been conducting a campaign to improve Isa’s appearance; she had washed the lank hair with egg and rosemary-water, and stiffened it with a preparation of bandoline, concocted, with the help of Mrs Slaley, out of rum and gum tragacanth. She had enforced a daily hour on a backboard to straighten out the hunched, rounded shoulders, applied a paste of fuller’s earth and lemon juice to clear the patchy complexion, and obliged Isa to endure numerous trying-on sessions, while Mrs Galt, the sewing-woman, with Alvey’s counsel and assistance, constructed a ball dress for her, simpler and by far more elegant than the one she had been proposing to wear.
Isa had submitted good-naturedly to all this discipline, but the maid Grace had observed Alvey’s régime with a grimly ironic eye.
“Hech, hinny, ye’ll ne’er change Miss Isa; she’s kittle cattle to drive.”
“I fear that is true,” sighed Isa. “I sincerely mean to comply, but I forget; so many other things seem so much more important.”
“Fiddlededee! It is merely a question of acquiring good habits. Suck your breath in, girl, and stand straight up while I pin this. There! Now at least you look like a lady, which you certainly did not in that bunchy garment with the floss dangling about it.”
“But,” said Meg, as the carriage bore them towards Hexham, “what difference does it make? Isa’s posture will not affect her chances of obtaining partners at the Assembly; her hand is bound to be solicited because she is Miss Winship of Birkland.”
Meg spoke with the confidence based on knowledge of a London ball gown in the hamper and the awareness that as a forthcoming bride she must be the acknowledged belle of the evening. Alvey glanced at her in some irritation.
But Isa said, “It is exceedingly kind of you, sister Emmy (if a little out of character) to take all these pains over me, and I hereby vow at least to try and follow your precepts; not to put you out of countenance.—Why, look at the Tyne, how full it is—within four feet of the roadway! Let us hope that the water goes down, not up, tomorrow, or we shall be cut off in Hexham and Meg will have to postpone her wedding.”
The Tyne was indeed high, dark as brown ale and roaring; they had heard the surge of it a quarter of a mile off.
“But I could get married in the Abbey,” Meg said quickly. “After all, John will be on that side too.”
“Hexham bridge has been washed away twice in the last forty years,” Isa told Alvey as they crossed it. “This one was built in ‘93. So far it has held firm. The town, fortunately, is up on the hill above flood level.”
Alvey looked up with interest at the houses on the height above them, crowned with their handsome abbey. Hexham was a thriving, but not a large market-town; within five minutes Archie had driven up a steep approach road to the main square alongside the abbey church, which was built of dark-brown stone.
In the square a lively cattle-market was taking place: there were pens of beasts and poultry, stalls selling grain, eggs, butter, and meat, a few boxes of vegetables and fish, besides other commodities, leather, gloves, tools, cloth, crockery, and wooden shoes. The market stalls and activities leaked out of the abbey square into adjoining streets.
Among the pushing crowds the carriage made but slow progress, and Meg said, “You had best let us get out here, Archie, and you take on our things to the Canon’s house, or we shall waste half the morning.”
Rather reluctantly he agreed to do so, and the three girls descended eagerly into the bustle, and set about Lady Winship’s various commissions.
When the household purchases had all been made, Meg undertook to carry the articles to the Canon’s house and give them to Archie, who would be resting his horses before the return journey.
“Are you sure you can manage?” asked Isa.
“Oh yes. I am tired of the cold and the crowds. And I want to talk to Fanny.”
Alvey and Isa therefore made their way to the circulating library. This consisted of two commodious rooms in a side street called Priestpopple. The proprietor was a pleasant, balding, studious-looking man aged forty or thereabouts who gazed at Isa with unmixed devotion in his brown eyes.
“Good day, Mr Allgood! I am sure that you remember my sister Louisa,” said Isa cheerfully. He bowed and replied, “It would be an untruth to say that I recognize the elegant grown-up young lady whom I see before me, but I hope we shall continue as good friends as ever we were when at the age of thirteen you used to borrow the lives of the saints and journals of missionary voyages. I am happy to welcome you back, Miss Winship.”
“Thank you,” said Alvey. “I plan to be an even more persistent and demanding customer than the Louisa of bygone days. And, to make a beginning, I wish to purchase some lesson books for the children.”
Eagerly he directed her to a round table piled with books at the rear of the inner room, where, happily browsing among the heaps, she soon came across copies of Moran’s Spelling Book, Goldsmith’s History of England, Rollin’s Ancient History, Lindley Murray’s Grammar, and Mrs Chapone’s Letters on the Improvement of the Mind. As a sweetener she also picked out Dorothy Kilner’s Life and Perambulations of a Mouse and Sarah Trimmer’s History of the Robins—books which a kindly neighbour had given her and which she had adored as a child. As well, she added copies of Rokeby and Waverley, paying for the large pile out of her own purse.
“You will think me dreadfully extravagant; but I am looking ahead to winter when the children will need more entertainment than Blair’s Sermons and Fordyce’s County History of Northumberland are likely to provide,” she told Mr Allgood, who had been conversing with Isa in the front room, where the periodicals were laid out.
Wrapping the books in paper he replied, “My dear Miss Louisa, why should I harbour such uncivil thoughts of such an excellent customer? If you wished to buy a dozen more volumes I should only think the better of you. Ah, by the bye, I have here a treatise on rock-gardens which was ordered by Lady Winship. And there is also a letter for all you young ladies, which has come from overseas; I presume the sender was not sure of your direction, but trusted that such busy readers would receive it soon enough if it were sent to this address.”
He handed Isa a yellow,
sea-stained packet.
“Oh!” she cried, going a little pink. “How very kind of you! Why—why yes, a class-mate of my sister’s is travelling to the Indies—that is her hand—but we had not hoped to hear from her so soon! We are very much obliged to you, Mr Allgood. If—if other letters should come from her—you will not object to putting them on one side until we can come for them?”
“Of course not, Miss Isa!” If this arrangement savoured of illicit romance, not a flicker of Mr Allgood’s benevolent demeanour suggested such a notion. “Any service that lies within my power, I shall be more than happy to render to you and your sisters.”
But more to you yourself than to your sisters, thought Alvey, observing his wistfully intent gaze at Isa.
On an impulse she said, “I do have another favour to ask of you, Mr Allgood—if I may? While at school I have—I have somewhat altered my ambitions, I have resolved upon a career of authorship—”
“Indeed, Miss Louisa?” he said with polite interest.
“—And have, in fact, half completed a story, a work of fiction. Isa informs me that you now have connections in the publishing world—”
“—And you would like the benefit of my advice when your tale is finished. I shall be only too delighted, ma’am,” he replied promptly. “And, as luck would have it, my cousin Malcolm has but lately obtained a position with the Caledonian Press in Edinburgh; he has even asked me to keep him informed of any interesting new material that might come my way. So this will be a pleasure combined with practical business.”
“Of course my work may be quite beneath anybody’s serious notice,” Alvey demurred modestly.
“In your heart of hearts you do not believe that,” he surprised her by saying.
Isa flashed Mr Allgood her unexpectedly conspiratorial smile and said, “We fully expect my sister to astonish the world by her creation, when it is completed. But in the meantime this matter is between ourselves, dear Mr Allgood, if you will be so kind? Our parents are to know nothing of the business until they discover that they have brought forth a prodigy.”
