A Traveller in Time

by Alison Uttley

  At last the letter was sealed and I slipped it gently into the box with a fervent prayer. Then I stood for a moment by Chelsea Church, thinking of Sir Thomas More and his children who had perhaps walked there when Chelsea was a village and gardens and fields spread around. I thought of them so long, somebody stopped and asked me if anything was the matter, and blushing furiously, I hurried home again. It was always difficult to find a place to think without being noticed and questioned.

  A few days later the expected letter came from Thackers. I lay in bed with a sore throat, listening to the noises in the street below, the cat’s-meat man, the newsboys, the rumble of barrows and flower-carts. Then the postman’s step came tapping down the street, and I was sure there was a letter for us. I flew downstairs in my bare feet to the dining-room where my parents were having breakfast alone.

  “Go back to bed at once,” scolded my mother, but I begged to stay and curled myself by the fire to hear the news when the postman stopped at our door.

  Dear Niece Carlin [my mother read],

  I was very pleased to receive your letter. I am sorry the children are badly. I have talked it over with Brother Barnabas, and we shall be glad to take them. I wish I could do it for nothing, but we have had some losses of stock. We had to buy hay, the crop was so light, and the hard winter has made everything dear. We will meet the children if you let us know the train, and we will do our best to make them happy.

  I have no more news at present, dear Niece Carlin.

  Your affec. aunt,

  CICELY ANNE TABERNER.

  Alison and Ian had come down, and we all shouted together: “Hurrah! When can we go?” My sore throat miraculously disappeared, so that I was quite well the very same day.

  Our clothes were washed and ironed and mended. Our suitcases were brought out of the corner of the top landing, and carried to our room where they stood gaping wide their mouths and swallowing all we put inside. Alison and I folded the garments, our best frocks, Alison’s coral-coloured, mine green, and two small aprons with gay French stripes which Mother made for us from a piece of linen she had bought on her honeymoon. These were for housework she said, and I felt I could do anything wearing my little apron, but I never guessed where it would accompany me.

  Ian hunted about seeking darkly for catapults and knives. Alison took her workbasket and chose her favourite authors. As for me I took my sketch-book, and Hans Andersen.

  At last all was ready and we set off, carrying our bags to the bus for St. Pancras. We settled down in the express which speeded north through the centre of England. We had to change at Derby and a different atmosphere enveloped us as we got into the slow train. It was market-day, and people crowded into our carriage, stout folk with baskets of cabbage plants and bags filled with sausages and pork pies and fresh herrings, and as each large person peered in at the open door at the already full seats, the others called: “Come along in, there’s plenty of room for a little one.” They all knew one another, and we three, squeezed together in the space of one, listened to their talk. A stout lady offered us humbugs from a paper bag, and Alison stiffly refused, but I was glad to eat them. An old bearded man brought red pears out of his bulging pocket, nearly dislocating the whole carriage as he struggled to draw them forth, and again I took some and the others refused.

  “And where do you three young people come from?” asked one. “You’re not belonging here, I can tell.”

  “From London,” said Alison proudly, as if she had said “From Buckingham Palace”.

  “London! Harkee there, John. They’ve come from London. Eh! It’s a tidy big place. Not like here-abouts. My sister lives there in Camden Town. I don’t expect you’ve ever set eyes on her, but she’s the very spit of me.”

  The others agreed the two sisters were as alike as two peas in a pod, and they talked of that lady in Camden Town, how London had rubbed the corners off her and now she was smooth as silk.

  Ian began to laugh but Alison nudged him to be quiet.

  “And where may ye be going?” asked a farmer, and he settled his large shape by my side and lifted his full pockets out of the way so that they did not hurt me.

  “To Thackers Farm, near Hollow,” I told him. All eyes were turned on us, and those who had not heard were now told.

  “Thackers. To old Barnabas Taberner’s. He wasn’t at market to-day. Well I never! Be ye related?”

  “Miss Cicely Taberner is my Great-Aunt,” replied Alison primly.

  “And Mister Barnabas Taberner is my Great-Uncle,” I added.

  “Then ye’ll be the childer of Penelope’s daughter, Carlin, as married a Scotchman, up Edinburgh way, and went to live at Lunnon. Well I never! Well, ye’ll liven ’em up. It’s a quiet spot, Thackers. Quieter than most, but ye’ll do well there. It’ll put some roses in your cheeks, and ye need ’em.”

  He pinched my cheeks in a friendly manner, and then turned back to the others. Soon they were all talking of market prices, and the poor prices of cattle, and the frost of winter and deaths and births. We sat silent, looking out at the darkening landscape, with a village here and there, and woods and hills and the little wild river which ran foaming alongside.

  At each station somebody got out and the rest cried good-night, and sent messages to those at home. We felt they were all one family, they knew everybody and were friendly together. There was a general lifting down of packages and searching under seats for sacks of provender, and we joined in the chorus as we watched them set off with hands laden to be met by others who nodded and smiled back as if they knew us.

  Then we came to our station, and our fellow travellers said good-night, and started us towards the station yard where they said the cart would be waiting. As we walked down the platform with its tiny roof and little stone booking-office we were hailed by an enormous old man wearing a great top-hat and widely flapping trousers. His red smiling face was wreathed in whiskers, and he waved a large hand and beckoned to us.

  “Be ye Niece Carlin’s childer from Lunnon?” he asked, and we said we were.

  “I’m your Uncle Barnabas,” said he and he shook hands, imprisoning our fingers in his great palms so that mine ached for half an hour afterwards.

  “Welcome,” said he. “I’m right glad to see ye. Come along, for ye’ll be starved after your journey. Come along to the cart that’s waiting over there.” He nodded to the darkness, and swept up all our bags as if they were straws. I sniffed the cold, scented air as if I could never get enough of it. There was not a light in the countryside, never a house, nothing at all except the river which we could hear roaring in its rocky bed. Then we saw the cart with its couple of lamps, and rugs and cushions piled upon the seat. Uncle Barnabas went to the horse’s head and spoke to her, and the solitary porter carried some packages from the van and stowed them under the seat with our luggage.

  “Get up, all on ye,” said Uncle Barnabas. “We’ll have to squeeze tight, for I didn’t know you were so bigly growed. The little ’un must sit on the stool as I luckily brought down with me.” He drew out a scarlet stool and I perched myself upon it. He wrapped us round with rugs and tucked us up tightly. When he settled himself on the seat he nearly overwhelmed us with his vastness, and sent the shafts of the cart down so that we had to rise again as he readjusted the seat. At last we were all ready, and the horse, which had been looking round to see what all the pother was about, started off.

  Through a long winding valley we drove, between wooded hill-sides, with here and there a cottage or a farm with its point of light. We left the river, and turned into another more open valley, with scattered cottages. At last we came to a sharp bend by a little brook which had wandered about by our side, singing and chattering, for some time.

  “It isn’t far now,” said Uncle Barnabas, who had been silent for most of the drive. I found out later when I knew him better that he seldom spoke when driving, for he wished to share the peace of the country. “It isn’t far, just round the edge of the road. That’s our brook, fed
by our springs. Thackers brook that is.” He nodded to it as to a friend and I nodded too.

  We drove slowly up a hill, where a dark, mysterious mass of buildings and roofs was reared against the side of the valley. Near it, pricked out in black on the sky was the square tower of a church, and a huddle of pointed haystacks and gable ends of barns, clear in the primrose glow which lingered in the high parts of the hills.

  The horse stopped and waited as if it wanted something, and turned its head like Balaam’s ass about to speak.

  “Out you get, except the little lass,” said Uncle Barnabas. “She can sit still, for she’s tired. Young folk like you walk up the hills. The horses wynd here, you see. Out you get, my dears. Me and the little lass and Sally goes up here alone.”

  So out sprang Alison and Ian, and joyfully stretched their cramped limbs.

  “Shall I push and help the horse?” asked Ian.

  “Aye. Give a good hard shove. Sally will be grateful.”

  They pushed and pressed the back of the cart and I wished I also could walk, for I was slipping off my stool all the time. There were lovely smells of flowers and wet moss and trees, and adorable noises of shuffling horses in the fields through which we passed. Creatures ran to the walls, and the lights of the cart fell upon eyes watching us over ivy-tufts, and we saw the long head of a horse or the horns of a rough-haired bullock.

  But the house was near, dogs were barking and rushing out, and there was pandemonium for a few minutes as I climbed down among them, and Uncle Barnabas tried to silence them. Ian stroked them, but I shrank back for a moment.

  “They won’t hurt ye. Hi! Roger! Sam! Flossie! Off ye go!” called Uncle Barnabas, and the dogs ran back to the great white porch of the house.

  Then Aunt Tissie came out through a gold fire-lit doorway, and clasped us in the darkness. We were surprised how small and odd she was. She was a little old woman, with a clear skin and rosy cheeks and eyes as bright as stars. Her back was rounded with carrying heavy weights, but her foot was neat and trim, and she walked very swiftly, with little quick steps, like a tripping fairy.

  She gave us smacking kisses, and led us into the great hot kitchen, where the fire blazed in a wide, open hearth, and a kettle sung and lights came sparkling and glittering from brass and copper and grey pewter. Such a smell of cooking there was—a brown fowl baking in front of the blaze, sausages sizzling in the frying-pan, and the logs hissing and spluttering on the hearth.

  “Let me have a look at ye all,” said Aunt Tissie. “So this is Ian! Ah! He’s nearly a man!” She shook Ian’s hand as heartily as Uncle Barnabas had shaken it, and he swelled with pride.

  “And what’s your name, my dear?” she asked, turning to Alison. She kissed her again and looked admiringly up at my tall sister.

  “And the little wench? She’s a Taberner any one can see! Penelope? Why there’s always a Penelope in our family. Us’ll be friends, Penelope, won’t us?” she said, and I replied fervently: “Yes, Aunt Tissie.”

  “Now come up to your bedrooms at once, for I’ve got a fine tea ready for you, and I’m sure you’re clemmed,” she went on in her soft rolling voice.

  She took us through a narrow doorway to the back stairs, for the front stairs were for visitors, and we were relations. It was a crooked twisting stairway, with steps worn and hollow, and we stumbled up them following the flickering light of the candle to the landing.

  “Here you two girls will sleep,” said Aunt Tissie, throwing open a door into a large bedroom. “And next door is Ian’s room. If you want anything, my room is at the end of the passage.”

  She set the candle on the flowered chintz dressing-table and then lighted another candle from ours and took Ian to his room.

  “Mind your head,” I cried as Alison bumped into the oak beam which spanned the sloping ceiling, and we both laughed for we had never hit a ceiling before.

  It was a lovely room with the most delicious smell of lavender and strange bitter herbs, an aroma which filled the house. I sniffed round and round, opening drawers and peeping under the glossy chintz which covered the dressing-table like a frilled skirt, and I sat on the rocking-chair and ran my fingertips over the curious carvings of the great chests and oak boxes.

  Alison had an enormous wooden bedstead with “Sleepe Welle” carved on the head, and a diapered blue-flowered curtain hung in thick folds from the bed-tester over the snowy pillows. I whooped with excitement and sprang on the piled-up feather bed which sank under me like a snowdrift.

  “Now, my poppet,” said Aunt Tissie, coming in again. “Don’t you be lepping and cavorting on the beds. You’ll spoil ’em for sleeping,” and I sidled off, ashamed.

  My own bed was dark oak, smelling of beeswax, with wooden balls on the four posts. It stood on a raised platform so that I had to go up a step to get into it. There was an exquisite patchwork quilt over it, but I had no time to look closely at the myriad colours, for Aunt Tissie told us to hurry downstairs and have a hot wash and come to tea. So we brushed our hair and changed our shoes and ran to peep at Ian’s room.

  It was as exciting as ours, with its yellow wooden bed, and a bunch of lilies and roses painted upon the head in a circle. A patchwork quilt covered it, but it was plainer than mine.

  “Just lift this up,” said Ian.

  “It’s like padded armour,” I cried, for it was quite heavy and seemed to be stuffed with blankets.

  I looked round at the corner washstand with a bowl sunk in a hole, and the sheepskin mat on the bare, white boards.

  But Aunt tinkled a bell at the bottom of the stairs, and we scuttled down laughing with our bobbing candles to the great kitchen, to wash at the sink in rain-tub water, which made me think of moss and autumn leaves, to rub our faces on lavender-scented towels from an oak press in the corner, to warm our hands in front of the blazing fire, where logs crackled and hissed. Tea was on the round table in front of the hearth, and we all sat down to the spread of toasted oatcakes, roast chicken, and yellow cheese-cakes, and queer little knobbly loaves as big as our fists, and golden pats of butter with pictures of corn-sheaves upon them.

  There sat Uncle Barnabas with his round, red face, framed in whiskers, and little Aunt Tissie who looked as old as ninety, I thought, but her face was fresh as a girl’s and she was spry as a goldfinch and nipped about the room as quickly as a mouse as she opened the oven door and drew out a plate of spiced tea-cakes, or ran to the dairy for a jug of cream. She told me to carry the candle for her, and I felt the cold stones under my feet as if I walked in the Tower of London. I smelled the iciness of the dairy like a dungeon under a castle, but it was all white and beautiful with cheeses and bowls of milk and dishes laden with pats of butter, and I could hardly resist leaping up and down with excitement, and a shivery thrill which came over me.

  “Now, my dear, don’t do that! You’ll spill the candle grease. Don’t be a flibberty-gibbert, my dear,” said Aunt, and I followed as sedately as I could after her, but my feet wouldn’t move quietly, they felt they must dance as if they were bewitched by the strangeness of everything.

  That first evening was a glow of firelight and golden reflections, a babble of voices with rich warm accents, and the all-pervading odours of herbs from the bunches round the ceiling. I talked little, nor did I listen, but I sat by the hot fire in a corner watching the sticks crackle, and the lights flutter on the copper dishes. Uncle Barnabas was near me and I found myself pressing close to him, for he had a smell of something delicious. Afterwards I discovered it was cow-cake, but I leaned against his rough coat and shut my eyes. Candles were lighted, we stumbled upstairs. With us went Aunt Tissie, bearing the copper warming-pan filled with red ashes from the heart of the fire. She rubbed it up and down over our sheets and kissed us good-night. Somehow I got undressed and tumbled into the snowy bed which lay with arms waiting to enfold me.

  2. I Pass Through the Door

  When I awoke the next morning I lay wondering who was clattering in the street below, for there was a r
attle of wheels and the click of a horse’s hoofs on cobbles under the window. Then I remembered that here was no street but Thackers with its farmyard and fields and woods around it. I sprang from my bed and leaned down from the casement window with its sprigged curtains. Below was the yard, and beyond a little grassplat and a bed of daffodils nodding their heads at the lambs playing in the croft beyond the wicket-gate.

  Ian waved to me from the stable door.

  “Hello Pen! I’m going down with the milk. You can go too if you’re quick as lightning.”

  I tossed on my clothes, dipped my face and arms in the cold spring water, and gave my hair a rapid brush. Then I rushed downstairs to the kitchen, where Aunt Tissie was frying bacon in the largest frying-pan I had ever seen, over a roaring blaze which crackled and spat in the wide fireplace.

  “That’s just like the frying-pan at Drury Lane,” I told her as she turned round, and she gave me a resounding kiss.

  “This old pan here has always been at Thackers, from ancient days,” she told me. “Drury Lane? Where’s that? Whose farm’s in Drury Lane?”

  “It’s a theatre, where they have pantomimes,” I explained, laughing at her astonished eyes.

  “Theayter?” she asked. “I don’t hold with no theayters. As for pantymimes, we’ve a plenty of those here.”

  “Have you pantomimes?” I asked doubtfully. “Where?”

  She pricked and turned the bacon and then made little pancakes which she tossed in the dark chimney and caught in the wide frying-pan before she piled them on a dish.

  “In the yard, where the hens are fed and one gets a morsel and the others chase after for all the world like a crowd of humans. In the fields when the lambs leap and dance on their hind leggies. In the pigcote when the little pigs get teasing the old sow. Ah, you’ll see many a pantymime here!”

  “Buck up, Pen,” shouted Ian, running in for the whip.