by Nicola Upson
19 April
Slept little, and even my dreams were angry. I cannot stop thinkin’ about what Maria said, and my work was badly done all day. We have grown up together, she and I, and neither of us has a better friend, but we are so different, and we hope for different things. It w’d be nice to be warm, I suppose, and always comfortable, and for people to be agreeable and to see more places and do more things, but there w’d be no pleasure for me in the life Maria craves. Or rather, the life she is forc’d to look to because of what has gone before. I c’d not marry above me – not for money nor even for love – and be a lady with everyone lookin’ at what I did and what I said and how I dress’d, and all of them havin’ somethin’ to say about it. There is no freedom in that, whether you are born to it or no, and altho’ I am tied to this house and my time belongs to someone else, I am me.
It was remarkable how little a certain type of friendship changed through different times and different circumstances. There was a special bond between women who had grown up together, a bond that might fade with the years but that was never entirely replaced by anything else. The sentiments expressed in the diary were not so different from the letters that had passed between Hester and Josephine’s mother, and she wondered if Hester had based the entries – consciously or otherwise – on their squabbles and reconciliations. The rift continued for some time, and the next few months concentrated almost entirely on the narrator’s work and growing closeness to Samuel; other than a brief sighting with Corder at a summer fair, Maria was not mentioned in the diary again until the autumn. By then, she needed a friend more than ever:
8 September
Maria is with child again. She came to the back door in tears and I knew right away what she had come to tell me, but the Missis was about and I had to get Maria out of the house quickly before anyone saw her in such a state. Fetch’d my basket and gather’d blackberries for a pie, which gave me an excuse to talk to her outside. Not that there was much I c’d do, ’cept hug her and promise her that it w’d be all right when God knows it will not. How can it be? Maria has not told William yet but he will never marry her. He has not got the courage to go against his mother, and she w’d cut him off sooner than see him marry so low. Maria will not admit it, but I know she is afraid that William will abandon her, and another bastard in the house will go against her with her parents.
To bed at 11, but every creak on the landin’ disturbs me. The Missis must never find my diary. This is the first time I have ever had somethin’ to hide. I wonder if that means I have led a blameless life, or a dull one?
11 September
Walk’d to the fields wi’ some breakfast for the hay men. We have had fine warm days, even for the time of year, and if the weather holds they are sure to get the harvest in early, which will be a blessin’. Goin’ out like this of a mornin’ has meant I can see more of Maria. She has had to tell her parents – her stepmother has had too many children herself not to guess Maria’s trouble – and she says they are pressin’ William to marry her every time he goes to the cottage. It is as much as he can do to be civil to them, but he fears what they will say about him in the village. He comes back to the house in a sore temper, but at least he has not denied that the child is his. He has kept it from the Missis, and I am happy to oblige him by doin’ the same, for her sake and Maria’s if not for his. There is talk in the streets, but the Missis has grown frail of late and is barely seen about ’cept in church. Samuel is workin’ all hours on the harvest and I have seen very little of him.
24 September
All to church this mornin’ to give thanks for the harvest. William went with his mother and never left her side for fear she w’d speak too long to someone. It hurt me to see how touch’d she was by his attentions when I knew they were for his own ends. They visited the master’s grave, and it is wicked of me to say if it is not true, but I c’d not help thinkin’ that she wishes she was in the ground with him, and w’d be there for certain if she knew what ½ the village knows.
Went to the Cock later with Samuel and the other harvestmen, and if the amount of ale down’d is any measure, God will surely know how thankful we are. Samuel took my hand and we walk’d back to his cottage in the moonlight. He told me that the Missis had given him more work, and said he w’d be Bailiff before long. Then he laugh’d and kiss’d me and we sat there for a long time.
8 October
Summer has gone, but the sun pays no regard to the calendar and shines as she will. The Missis poorly wi’ the flu, so pick’d some dahlias from the garden and put them in her room to cheer her, and she said how nicely I had done them. Plump’d her pillows and got her comfortable, and notic’d how pale her skin is against mine. She has seen no summer. She watch’d me, as tho’ there is somethin’ she wants to say to me, but perhaps I imagin’d it. Tried not to linger all the same, in case she finds the courage to ask me somethin’ I do not want to answer.
19 October
Wet and windy night, and the rain has broken down all the plants in the garden so it is a sorry sight. Missis is much better but her illness has left her carin’ little about her food, so slipp’d out to fetch somethin’ to tempt her. Saw Maria with William up by Bell Hill. He has begun to go about the village with her now, as if he means to stand by her, and I know she is darin’ to hope for marriage. People still talk behind her back but they are less certain of themselves and I have notic’d they speak with envy now, not scorn. If he loves her and does right by her, no one will be more glad than I to be proved wrong, and it is the child what has made the difference. She has often talk’d of wantin’ a little brother or sister for Thomas Henry. She is such a good mother and no child of hers w’d want for anythin’ if only she were supported as she sh’d be. I have never seen her so happy as she is now, with a man on her arm and the little one inside her, and I wonder if we do not want the same things after all.
21 October
Maria brought me some roses from her garden to give to Samuel. It is the anniversary of his wife’s death, and it was kind of her to think of it. They are blood-red with the sweetest scent and every flower is perfect. I took them over to him this afternoon and stay’d wi’ Molly while he went to the grave because he says it is no place for children. That is not how he wants her to know her mother. He was gone a long time and I thought I sh’d not be there and felt awkward, but he seem’d happier when he got back and ask’d me to stop and have tea wi’ them. He kept some o’ the roses in the cottage and when I left he put one on my coat and told me that flowers sh’d be for the livin’. I can smell it now. It makes me think o’ the people I love.
31 October
All Hallows’ Eve. A windy day, with the air full o’ dust and scurryin’ leaves. Missis back to normal, so the bell rang at ten for the orders. Walk’d over to see Samuel this evenin’. We sat by the fire and Molly pester’d me for a story. I remember’d how I loved ghost stories at her age, and how nice it is to be frighten’d when you are warm and safe and with people you love, so I told the ones I knew and she ask’d for more. Then I was sorry, because Samuel’s dead are real and not the stuff of stories, especially at this time of the year, but he did not take it wrong and told some himself which were better than mine.
10 November
Sh’d have gone into Layham this afternoon to collect somethin’ for the Missis, but Master John was taken sick and I stay’d at home to look after him. He has been troubled with a cold these last few weeks and the Missis has been frettin’ about him but it takes a lot to bring him to his bed. He grows thin and weak, and his coughin’ shakes the house late into the night.
13 November
Went to fetch the doctor first thing as Master John was much worse. He is short of breath and has pains in his chest, and is pale one minute and flush’d the next. The doctor ordered quiet and rest and cod liver oil, and I did not like the look on his face. How much work there is with illness in the house!
23 November
James is takin’ like his
brother now, and the doctor has order’d him to bed so the Missis now has her oldest and youngest boys to fret about. It is not for a servant to have favourites, but I am fonder of James than of the others. He is a sweet-natured boy, gentle and kind, and it w’d grieve me if anythin’ happened to him. He acts brave and does not take sympathy for his illness, but he likes me to read to him when I have time. Have not seen Samuel, nor Maria. The house turns in on itself with so much work and worry and there is no time for the world outside.
28 November
The Missis has hir’d another girl from the village to take some work off me while I look after James and John. Her name is Sally, and she is pleasant enough, I suppose, altho’ it takes more of my time to show her how things are done than it w’d to do them myself. Still, the Missis meant well and I dare say we shall rub along. Thomas and William are out all day doin’ the work o’ 4, and we are all prayin’ that the Missis will not fall ill. She is not strong enough to bear it at her age.
How much kinder it would have been if illness had taken Mrs Corder when it threatened the household. Josephine pictured the row of Corder graves in the churchyard, a mother’s name the last to be added to the family, one son for ever missing from the line. It was hard to imagine the bleakness of that time on a day like this, but the diary did a good job of creating a very different Polstead, where sadness threatened with the darker days of winter and fortunes turned with the weather. Josephine looked up at the sky, glad that she had come to know the village at this time of year, that the beauty of this particular season would be fixed in her mind throughout the months to come. Hester’s words seemed heartfelt, and Josephine had no doubt that she would see another, less hospitable side to Red Barn Cottage if she chose to spend time here during the bouts of rain and mud and bitter cold that stretched ahead.
4 December
The first snow of winter, and so cold I c’d almost see the trees shiverin’ from my window. The room is icy and the draughts come through gaps in the window frame so wide that it scarcely matters if they are open or shut. At least Sally is in with me now, so there is the warmth of another body at night. It is the most useful thing she has done since she got here.
12 December
Sally has left. The Missis caught her takin’ stuff from the pantry and told me to see her out o’ the house. December is a wretch’d month to be out o’ place in and I felt sorry, but she sh’d know better. It is not like the Corders to forgive. I help’d her pack her things and gave her a shillin’ of me own. She left then, but she did not take the Missis’s temper with her, more’s the pity.
22 December
It is the anniversary of the Master’s death, and we have all been fearin’ more sorrow to come before the year is out, but Master John rallied a little and the doctor seemed pleased with him. Pray God that James will follow. The first snowdrop is out in the garden.
The misplaced note of optimism marked the last entry of the year, and Josephine put the pages down reluctantly. A warm, cheerful light had lingered into the afternoon and she was tempted to carry on reading, but her sense of duty got the better of her and she went inside. Hester’s book would have to wait until she had done some more work on her own; it was shameful for a woman of her age to need incentives to get on with something she supposedly enjoyed, but a few entries of the diary would be a nice reward when she had earned it.
She made herself a sandwich and took it through to the study. A peacock butterfly fluttered against the window, its wings raggedy and faded, and she let it out into the sunshine to enjoy its last few days, then settled down at her desk, determined to remind herself of how it felt to write a thousand words in a single sitting. After three stilted paragraphs, during which she had struggled to explain Claverhouse’s military training to a bewildered mythical reader, she was distracted by the sound of a bicycle and the lunchtime post. There were two letters: one was a polite enquiry about publication dates from her publisher, marked urgent and forwarded with an apologetic note from her father; the other was not for her, but the envelope had a London postmark and she had seen the handwriting before. She had intended to write to John Moore to let him know of Hester’s death, but it had slipped her mind; now, when she read the bookseller’s latest letter, she was glad that it had.
My dear Miss Larkspur,
I trust this finds you well, and very much hope that the last volume I sent met with your approval.
As I mentioned in my note, something genuinely unique has recently come into my possession and I am now in a position to offer it for sale. I would rather show it to you personally, but let me say for now that it harks back to Maria Marten’s time and is, in its own way, as fascinating as Curtis’s account of the circumstances surrounding her murder. Without wishing to sound too presumptuous, I am certain it is something which you would be pleased to own.
I would be extremely grateful if you could find time to view the item here at Leather Lane – or, if it is not convenient for you to travel to London at the moment, I will of course be more than happy to bring it to you. It is more than a year since we last met, and I look forward to seeing you. I must ask, though, if you would contact me at your earliest convenience; the item in question has a very special interest for collectors such as yourself, and – as much as I hope that its home lies with you – I cannot hold it indefinitely.
Yours very sincerely,
John Moore
The pitch was expertly delivered, despite being couched in such courteous terms: nobody with a passion like Hester’s would have been able to resist the bait, and even Josephine was intrigued. She looked at the letters side by side and played with the idea of killing two birds with one stone. Clearly she needed to devote herself more seriously to the research for Claverhouse, and it made sense to go to London now, while she was south of the border, and spend some time in the libraries there. And if her memory served her well, Leather Lane was easily walkable from the British Museum; she could deliver the news of Hester’s death in person, and find out what John Moore was so pleased about. Best of all, she would be able to see Marta again, sooner than either of them had dared to hope. Her decision made, she cast a sheepish glance at Bonnie Dundee and walked into the village to telephone her club.
14
The Underground train pulled into Chancery Lane with a protest of brakes and Josephine was relieved to get out. The Tube always depressed her, and she could never quite work out if its atmosphere made people dull and listless, or if they were already like that when they got on and had simply been gathered together in a common space. But today it had served its purpose, allowing her to stay longer at the British Museum and still get to Leather Lane before John Moore would think of closing for the day. She climbed the steps to the street and came out at the corner of Gray’s Inn Road and Holborn, where two stone pillars in the road marked the City’s former boundary to the west. It was not a part of town that Josephine knew particularly well, which was silly because the beautiful old courts that lay hidden and unchanged between Holborn and the river appealed to her sense of history and of peace. Even here, on the main thoroughfare, the commercial needs of the present day could not entirely eclipse the past. As she walked, she looked in admiration at a sixteenth-century frontage whose closely set timbers and mullioned windows – each row projecting a little farther over the street than the one below – proclaimed its period as faithfully as any document, and she vowed to get to know the area better.
Leather Lane was a narrow street on the left, linking Holborn to Clerkenwell Road, and Josephine wondered how it had got its name. Gamages, the department store, took up the entire corner block, but its windows – filled with household goods and a glittering array of toys – were the last hint of shopping on a general scale that the road had to offer. Further down, the shops were more specialised in what they sold – jewellery, clock repairs, a bootmaker – but there was a faded individuality about them that, if anything, made them more intriguing. She found what she was looking for about halfway al
ong the street, just before Leather Lane Market. John Moore’s premises were so subtly announced that it would have been easy to miss them. Sandwiched between a pawnbroker and a public house, the tall, narrow building looked more like a dirty, neglected office or private residence. There were no elaborate window displays and no boxes of books lined up along the pavement to tempt people over the threshold. Only the words ‘John Moore & Son, Bookseller’ on a discreet brass plaque by the door gave any indication of what went on inside, and Josephine guessed that spur-of-the-moment customers were few and far between. The obscure location and the tone of John Moore’s correspondence suggested that most of his trade came from clients like Hester, directed by word of mouth to his door for their own specific tastes and nurtured over a period of time.
Above the plaque, there was a white ivory doorbell circled with discoloured brass, but the door was open and Josephine did not bother to ring. Inside, the business was far less modest about its purpose: the front of the shop was filled with boxes of books that spilled out onto the floor, and it was impossible to say if they were new acquisitions that had yet to be sorted or if the effect was deliberate, a version of the market barrows that teased browsers with the hope of a bargain. Elsewhere, the shop was more conventionally arranged, not dissimilar to those she had just left in the streets around the British Museum, where everything was ordered, tidy and catalogued. The bookshelves were organised in such a way as to offer plenty of scope for undisturbed browsing, although Josephine suspected that very little escaped the sharp eye of the proprietor. John Moore – it seemed a safe assumption; she doubted the establishment employed a large staff – was an elderly man, in his late sixties at least, and she wondered how long the firm had existed and whether he was father or son. He was a striking man, even from a distance, with greying sandy hair, a heavy brow and a pronounced squint which a pair of small round glasses seemed to do very little for, and Josephine could not help thinking that if Uriah Heep had been thirty years older, this was what he would have looked like. His right arm, she noticed, hung uselessly down by his side, and she guessed it was a defect of birth rather than a war wound – he was surely too old to have fought. He acknowledged her arrival with a nod, but was too engrossed in conversation with another man to ask what she wanted, and she was grateful for the chance to look round without having to explain herself. The men sat opposite each other across a long, leather-topped desk, and their manner was more redolent of a consultation than a commercial transaction; had they been divorced from their surroundings, she would have said that they were lawyer and client or doctor and patient rather than bookseller and customer. Incongruously, the wall behind the desk was covered almost entirely with a painting of the Battle of Waterloo.
