Apple Blossom Bride

by Marina Oliver

  'No. Why would I give them away? I daresay the Earl had the same sort of accidents when he was younger.'

  'How old is he? And is he married?'

  'How old? I don't know. Late twenties, perhaps? And I don't think he's married, since Amelia said she was expecting a match would be made for her with him.'

  'Oh, shame, Eve. He'd have been better for you than the little parson.'

  Eve sighed. 'Yes, but almost anyone would be better than him! Don't tell anyone, but Rachel has promised to invite me to London after Christmas, and who knows, I might meet someone there. She did, when her Godmother asked her to stay.'

  'Viscount Benson? But isn't he old? And he was married before?'

  'He's in his forties, I think. And yes, he has two daughters. But Rachel said he was kind, and he's wealthy, gives her lots of pin money. And Papa wanted her to marry Nicholas before she escaped.'

  'So you have to do the same.'

  Before Eve could agree, the Earl approached.

  'Mistress Eve, will you permit me to come with you tomorrow? Lady Blake tells me your farmer will be processing your apples, and I have a wish to see how it is done. I cannot believe that apple you let me bite can ever be made into anything palatable.'

  Eve giggled. 'Farmer Blunt will still have some cider left from last year that you can sample. Mine won't be ready until hay-making time.'

  'Then I can come?'

  *

  Eve spent a good deal of the night wondering why she had agreed to the Earl's accompanying her. Nicholas, who had overheard them making the arrangements, had been most disapproving, and would have insisted on joining them if he had not been committed to a meeting with the Bishop in Hereford that morning. He complained to her father, but Sir Frederick said he was glad someone responsible would be with Eve, for he did not entirely trust her to control the fat cob who pulled the cart she used to transport her apples.

  Eve suppressed her annoyance. She had already driven the cart full of apples to Farmer Blunt's cider house three times during the past week. What did Papa expect poor old Dandy to do – suddenly bolt with her, when his fastest gait these days was a reluctant trot, and that only when he was going downhill and the laden cart was pushing him.

  When the Earl appeared on the following morning, the Rectory party was still at the table. Sir Frederick always insisted on a substantial meal when breaking his fast, and he ate slowly. Rather to Eve's surprise Amelia was with the Earl.

  'I've never seen a cider mill,' she announced, 'so I came too. I hope you don't mind, Eve?'

  'Of course not. I'll ask Cook to give us some food, and we can picnic by the river. It runs right past Farmer Blunt's fields. It can be rather boring to watch the poor old horse going round and round with the mill, but we have to wait until it's all ready to see how they make the cheese.'

  'Cheese? I thought they were making cider?'

  'Oh Amelia! You've lived here all your life and you know nothing about how they make cider?'

  'I'm not like you, Eve. I like watching the lambs and the foals, but nothing else.'

  'I'm afraid I am woefully ignorant of the cider-making process too,' Nicholas said. 'I wish I could join your expedition, but perhaps, Mistress Eve, you will allow me to accompany you another day?'

  'I think this will be the last pressing,' Eve said. She had no desire for Nicholas's company.

  'I can't think why my daughter has to be so fascinated with it,' the Rector said. 'But if you are going, you may as well start. I trust, my lord, you will ensure she gets back home before it grows dark.'

  'Of course, sir, and Amelia and I have to get back to her home too.'

  'Oh, how could he!' Eve raged as soon as she was out of the house. 'You did not offer to be my escort, and I've been to the farm alone for years! It's only two miles away!'

  The Earl was laughing. 'Peace, child! I'm perfectly happy to play escort, and it's a full moon, so how late we get back is not important.'

  'Of course not, and riding home in the moonlight is romantic,' Amelia said. 'Lead the way, Eve, and we'll follow.'

  *

  CHAPTER 2

  Justin was amused. Amelia, who until now had rather despised what she referred to as bucolic nonsense, had demanded to be included in this expedition.

  'I've never seen how they make cider,' she'd said at dinner the previous night. 'Don't you think I ought to learn?'

  They both would, though they looked rather astonished when Eve appeared driving what looked like a box on two wheels. It was a square high-sided box, wider at the top than the bottom, made of rough planks of wood without any paint. There was a sort of door or gate at the back, and a step, presumably to aid people climbing into it. Eve was standing on this step, and Amelia cried out in alarm.

  'Surely that's not safe!'

  Eve laughed. 'Of course it is. I can scarcely sit on top of the apples. That would be uncomfortable, and would probably knock most of them off.'

  'We'll pick you up if you fall off,' Justin said, laughing, 'though I don't promise to do the same for the apples.'

  As they followed Eve, slowly because the cart she was driving was being pulled by a slow, fat pony, Justin wondered how a pretty girl like her had come to be so fascinated by such a thing as making strong drink for yokels. From what his friend Bernard had said the previous evening, it was drunk mainly by farm labourers in the fields, mainly at hay making and harvest, when the work was hot and heavy. It was certainly not a drink for anyone else.

  They reached their destination eventually, and Eve turned along a rutted track that led, not to the main farm buildings, but to an isolated building from which a low rumbling noise came.

  Eve called out and a young man emerged from the building. He grinned at Eve, said something Justin could not catch, which caused her to blush, and turned towards the two on horseback.

  'If you please, sir, I'll take the horses and stable them.'

  Justin slipped from the saddle and handed over the reins, then went to lift Amelia down. Eve was already talking to an older man, gesturing to the apples in the cart. He laughed, and she turned to beckon Justin and Amelia into the building.

  The first thing they saw was a sturdy horse trudging laboriously in a circle, being followed by an elderly man who was alternately tapping the horse's rump and pulling apples down from the central heap into the trough at the edge of the circle. The horse had on a yoke harness which was attached to a pole which in turn seemed to be driving a solid stone wheel round the trough.

  'Come in here, and you can see,' Eve invited.

  'What is he doing?'

  'Amelia? Oh, see the apples piled in the middle, that's called the pier, they are pulled down into that trough on the outside, which is called the chase, and the millstone is the runner which crushes them. They've always been called that, and I don't know why.'

  'But where's the cider?' Amelia asked.

  'The apple juice? It's not ready yet,' Eve explained. 'It has to be pressed first. This milling is only the first stage. They scrape out the pulp and make up the cheese. You'll see what that is, and I don't know why it's called that either. They'll do the pressing this afternoon, and put the cider into the casks. I hope my apples will make two casks this year, it's been a heavy crop. But we can go and have our picnic first.'

  *

  She picked up a basket that had been in her cart. Justin took it from her.

  'Let me. Now, Mistress Eve, lead the way.'

  She followed a well-used path down through a belt of trees until they came to a grassy patch on the bank of the river. The path ended at a small landing stage to which were tied two coracles.

  Amelia shuddered. 'Do you remember when you tried to make me go out in one of those?'

  'And you were afraid. They are perfectly safe. They are used on all the rivers here, for fishing, mainly.'

  'Do you go fishing from them?' Justin asked. This girl was more amazing by the minute.

  'Yes, but I have to give any I catch to Farmer Blunt. I
can't take them home or Papa would know what I had been doing, and forbid me to use a coracle again.'

  Eve was busy laying out the food from the basket. There were slices of mutton pie, bread and cheese, three large apples, and a bottle of what she said, laughing, was apple juice.

  'Not cider. It's not fermented, just the juice. Papa does not approve, and we only have wine at Christmas and when we have visitors. He only permits the farm workers to have it at hay-making time, or harvest, because it's the traditional method of payment, and he wouldn't get anyone to work for him otherwise.'

  'How did you become interested in cider making?' Justin asked as they sat on the grass munching the pies. He could understand farm wives being involved, but why should a girl of Eve's background be sufficiently interested to take part, if only by picking the apples.

  Eve frowned. 'I suppose it all started when I was about eight years old.'

  'That was young.'

  'Yes, but that was when I saw the "Cider Bible".'

  'The what?'

  'Cider Bible. It's in Hereford. Papa took me to meet the Bishop, and after a while I was passed over to someone for her to look after me. She may have been the Bishop's daughter, or a niece, or just a visitor, but she wasn't very pleased to have me thrust on her and told to entertain me. She was very superior, and asked me if I could read yet. I was cross, so I told her I'd read all the Bible.'

  Justin chucked. 'And had you?'

  Eve grinned, and divided the bread and cheese. 'Well, I'd heard so much of it in church, it felt like it! And Papa made me read some every day. It was almost the only book in the house, apart from a few that Papa said were improving books. Why, the only novels I've read have been those you gave me, Amelia! And I had to read them in secret. He wouldn't permit me or Mama to join one of the circulating libraries!'

  'What did she say to your claim? Did she believe you?'

  'She said she would show me something that wasn't in my Bible. She took me to see what they call the "Cider Bible", because where it should say John the Baptist would drink "neither wine not strong drink" they translated the strong drink as cider, though they spelled it s-i-d-e-r.'

  Justin laughed. 'And that made you interested in making it?'

  'Not exactly, but I always remembered it. Then a few years later one of the parishioners left Papa his books, and there were copies of Sylva, John Evelyn's book about trees, and Vinetum Britannicum by John Worlidge. I discovered about half of the trees in our orchard were cider-apple trees, and that Farmer Blunt made it, so I asked him to teach me. I could make a great deal more, but that one tree, the best, makes just enough for our own use. I pay him with pears.'

  'Why pears?'

  'We have one ancient pear tree in the orchard, it's well over two hundred years old, but I don't want to make perry, and Farmer Blunt does. So he comes and picks the pears when it's time.'

  'I see,' said Justin, and picked up one of the apples. He looked at it somewhat dubiously. Eve laughed.

  'That's a good sweet eating apple. You are safe to bite it.'

  'What do you mean?' Amelia asked, and Justin told her how he'd bitten one of Eve's cider apples.

  'And she didn't even warn me, which I call unfriendly. But this one is delicious.'

  It was tempting to sit all afternoon in the warm October sunshine, but Justin reminded them they were about to see the other process of cider making, so they gathered up the remains of the picnic and went back towards the farm.

  *

  Rachel was with her maid Annie inspecting her clothes, trying to decide which of them would do for the following Season. Most she tossed aside, saying that fashions had changed.

  'I shall have to have new ones made. I wonder if it is too risky to have them made now, in case the fashions next year are different? Yet if I leave it until we go to London in April, the seamstresses will be too busy.'

  Her husband, Viscount Benson, was wealthy and generous to his young bride of almost a year, but he refused to spend more than a few weeks in London during the Season. Those ladies who went during March would be having their gowns made before she even got to town. And she was hoping to be taking Eve, as well, if their father did not change his mind after his first reluctant agreement to her proposal, and would have to provide her with gowns. She'd never get them all made before it was time to come home to Worcestershire. She knew from her own experience that the dresses Eve already possessed were dowdy and years out of date.

  'Fetch me the latest copy of La Belle Assemblée please.'

  When Annie returned Rachel sat by the window leafing through it, and sighing.

  'Oh dear, look at these illustrations. Fashions are always changing. I think I'd better wait until we go to London.'

  'Some of these would make over for your sister,' Annie suggested. She was looking over Rachel's shoulder at the magazine. 'If we changed the trimming, sewed different coloured ribbon, perhaps added some lace, they would do for a start. People don't expect young girls to be wearing the height of fashion, like the older ladies, do they?'

  'No, I suppose not.'

  Annie was busy sorting the discarded gowns. 'Here's a white morning dress. And a lemon one, and this pink evening gown is pretty. And you'll need a new pelisse, won't you? It's fortunate you and Miss Eve are the same size. Is she coming to stay soon, did you say?'

  'If Papa will permit, but then he doesn't want to let her go she is essential to him, running the house and helping with all sorts of things she hates, like decorating the church for harvest festival. I suppose that's what she'll be doing now.'

  'You were fortunate to escape.'

  Rachel nodded. Annie was more than a maid, she'd been Rachel's friend for years, since her mother died. She had accompanied her to London to stay with old Lady Connisbere, when she had met her husband. She hadn't, Rachel knew, been welcoming for the marriage, but Lord Benson, though elderly, was rich and kind, and Rachel had been desperate to get away from the stifling misery of the Rectory and her father.

  'Yes, let's sort out the ones we can alter. We'll go into Worcester tomorrow and buy lots of trimmings. That will keep us busy for a few months!' And, she thought, it would keep her from worrying about the dislike her new step-daughters showed her, when their father was not present, and her husband's more recent fits of abstraction, when he seemed scarcely to know she was in the room with him.

  *

  Eve led them to another shed, and explained how the men were using what were called hairs, cloths which were made from horse hair.

  'They put a hair on that stone, and spread on the pulp. It has to be very even, or the must, the pulp, will spill out when it is pressed. Then they fold over the sides of the hair, and pile another of them on top of the first, and go on until they have about a dozen. See the big wooden screw? When the cheese is ready they screw it down on a plank of wood and it presses out the juice. This is collected in that trough, and baled into the casks. They'll do that tomorrow, when as much juice as possible had been squeezed out. There must be no air, which would spoil the cider, so when the cask is full a bung is put in. It will be ready to drink in about nine months.'

  'Just in time for haymaking. I really must come back to Herefordshire then, to sample it. Do you carry the cask back in your little cart?'

  So she would perhaps be seeing him again. Eve knew it was unusual for gentlemen to be so interested in these country matters. As well as being friendly and attractive he was someone she could talk to, and really she knew very few of those. None of the other families in the village, apart from the farmers, cared about such things, and her father thought it was demeaning for her to be involved.

  'No, it's too heavy for me. Farmer Blunt brings it when he comes to harvest the pears.'

  'You have a good system, Eve.'

  She looked a thank you for his praise. This was a rare experience for her. He thanked the farmer for permitting them to see the milling and pressing, and said they ought to be setting off.

  'Can I have a word wit
h Miss Eve first, my lord,' Farmer Blunt said.

  'Of course, we'll wait for you, Eve.'

  'And I can ride inside my cart this time,' Eve said. 'You can come and have the wine and cakes I didn't give you yesterday.'

  *

  'Have you thought about making more cider next year?' Farmer Blunt asked. 'There are dealers now who'd take the surplus.'

  'I'd like to,' Eve said. 'I hate to see the rest of the apples going to waste. But it's all I can do to pick this one tree, and we can't use more cider ourselves. Papa would be horrified at the thought of selling it.' To him, she thought, it would be entering into trade, and tradesmen were far below him on the social ladder.

  Farmer Blunt perhaps did not appreciate this. 'As I said, there are dealers. If you'll let me, I'll send men over to pick the other trees, and cart the apples here. And give you half the profit.'

  'I'm not sure Papa would permit it. He only allows me to do this much because it's the tradition, and he'd find no one willing to help at harvest if he didn't give them cider.'

  'Would he agree if some of the profit went to the church? Or, perhaps, so that he isn't seen to benefit directly, given to the poor of the parish?'

  Eve shook her head. Her father did not approve of charitable donations apart from those given to what he considered deserving cases, such as new widows with children who were not old enough to earn more than the odd pennies gleaning after harvest. If the money went towards a new window, or new vestments, though, he might agree.

  'I'll ask him,' she said at last, 'but I don't think he'll agree.'

  'Then there's another way. He can't turn the pigs into the orchard while all those rotting apples are on the ground. Perhaps, if my men cleared them away by picking them before they fall, he'd be able to have more pigs.'

  Eve chuckled. Keeping livestock to put on his own table was not, in Papa's view, trade. She recalled that first occasion, when her father had started to keep pigs, and had left them rooting in the orchard while the apples fell. She and Rachel had been almost hysterical with laughter to see the poor animals staggering about, drunk on the fermenting windfalls. Her father had been predictably furious when one of his parishioners, a farmer, had chided him for not knowing better than to let his pigs scavenge in the orchard at such a time.