‘Well! well! do you hear her?’ The tall woman turned to her husband, and he replied, ‘Aye. Aye, I hear her. Steppin’ out of your boots, aren’t you, Lizzie?’
Emma looked from one to the other, noting that the man’s voice wasn’t as unkind as his wife’s. But her eyes came to rest on the woman in the doorway. She was much shorter than the farmer’s wife and inclined to be plump. She was wearing a linen bonnet with a frill at the back. The strands of hair showing on her cheeks were fair. Her eyes were a vivid blue and full of anger…And this was her grandma, and she was saying, ‘Put beggars on horseback an’ they ride to hell.’
The farmer’s wife’s voice now startled her, crying at her, ‘Get up out of that and go with your granny!’
She did not immediately obey the command but looked towards the smaller woman as if waiting for her to speak. And after a matter of seconds she did speak, saying, ‘Come away with you.’
Quickly she lifted up the bag and walked towards her grandmother who without looking at her, for her eyes were on the farmer’s wife, placed her hand in the middle of her back and pushed her forward into the yard. Then moving ahead she muttered something which Emma couldn’t catch, but she followed her, having to trot to keep up with her, past a row of cow byres, some stables and a large barn, then round a corner and by two pigsties. These were placed at the head of a field in which there were long hen crees. After crossing a space strewn with old farm implements, both wooden and iron, they came to an open flat piece of ground on which stood a cottage.
Even to Emma it looked a very small cottage. It was made of rough stone which had been cemented together haphazardly. There was a window, and a door, in the front of it. It had a slate roof out of which a chimney stuck.
Once inside the room, Emma blinked her eyes in order to take in her surroundings. She noted there was another window, a smaller one, and a door at the far end of the room, and on the wall to the side of it was a big cupboard. To the right of her, and seemingly stuck in the corner of the walls, was a fire grate with a round iron door above it, and in the middle of the room stood a small wooden table. It had one chair under it and to the side of it was a rocking chair. On the wall to the left of her was a low narrow cupboard with shelves above it, and near it a ladder leaned against the wall. There was no sign of a bed.
They stood confronting each other in the dimness, Emma staring at her grandmother and her grandmother staring at her.
Emma wanted to speak, she wanted to touch the woman in front of her and, in some extraordinary way, comfort her.
Her grandmother was the first to break the silence. She said, ‘He shouldn’t have done it. He had no right to send you.’
‘He’s dead. My dada is dead.’
‘I know that, else you wouldn’t be here. But still I say he had no right to send you. You’ve got no claim on me. I washed me hands of her when she went off with him. Slaved to bring her up decent, then to go off with a fair man…Scum.’
Up till now Emma had not heard the word scum, and did not know its meaning, but she gathered from her grandmother’s tone that she hadn’t liked her dada. And so she said in a voice that trembled but held defiance, ‘My dada was a good man. Everybody loved him, and he was clever. He could stand in for nearly everything except the fire-eatin’.’
She watched her grandmother now close her eyes and turn her head away. Then turning back to look at her again, she said, ‘What am I gona do with you? I’m past takin’ on responsibility of another one. And she’ll make you work. By God! she’ll make you work. Do you understand that?’ She poked her head down towards Emma.
‘I can work.’
‘You can work?…Huh! What would you know about work goin’ round with a circus, a lazy, thieving crew?’
‘They weren’t. They weren’t.’ There was no tremble in Emma’s voice now. ‘They were all good an’ nice and I didn’t want to come.’
‘Then why did you?’
‘’Cos Dada made Uncle Tummond promise to send me to you.’
‘Oh, dear God.’ Emma now watched her grandmother shake her head wildly from shoulder to shoulder, then sit down in the rocking chair and, gripping the sides, rock herself backwards and forwards for some minutes before stopping suddenly and saying, ‘Well, you’re here. Get your things off, and the quicker you know the ropes the better it’ll be for you.’
Emma took off her coat and hat, and when she went to open the bag her grandmother said, ‘What have you in there?’
‘Dada’s whips an’ mine, and his knife belt.’
‘What?’
Lizzie Crawshaw now watched this new granddaughter of hers lifting out from the bag what looked like a piece of polished black wood about fourteen inches long around which was twisted a leather thong, thick in parts then tapering off to an almost thread-like end. This was followed by two similar ones but on a smaller scale. Next, she brought out a roll of soft leather from which protruded a number of wooden handles.
‘God in heaven!’ Lizzie’s head was moving in small jerks as she asked softly, almost in awe, ‘What were those for?’
Emma’s face looked bright as she answered, ‘To throw. He could throw them all around Mama, an’ me an’ all. And I can throw them. He was showing me. Only mine didn’t always stick.’ Her smile broadened. Then thrusting her hand down into the front of her dress, she struggled for a minute as she unpinned the chamois leather bag.
Holding it in her outstretched hand, she went towards the rocking chair, saying, ‘These are for you, you can have them.’ She watched her grandmother look down at the bag before taking it into her hand; she then moved it up and down as if weighing it; after which she undid the string and tipped the contents into her palm, then sat gazing down on the twelve sovereigns. Her lower jaw slowly sinking, she looked from them to the child standing before her, the child who showed no resemblance to her daughter. And now she muttered, ‘Sovereigns?’
‘There’s twelve of ’em. There were fourteen, but I gave one each to Auntie and Uncle Tummond, because Dada liked them and they were very kind. They said these were mine, so you can have them.’
Emma now watched her grandmother’s eyes close tightly, then her chin droop down towards her chest as she muttered something. But it was so low that Emma couldn’t catch the words until her grandmother lifted her head again and said, ‘Twelve sovereigns, over two years work. Twelve sovereigns.’ Then nodding towards Emma, she went on, ‘Do you know, I’ve never seen so many at once in all me working days. It all had to go home until he died, me dad, three years gone; then the following year I went mad and spent all me earnings, five pounds in one go.’ She closed her eyes again and shook her head, then muttered, ‘What am I sayin’? But child’—her voice changing, she eased herself towards the front of the rocking chair and she put her hand on Emma’s shoulder, only to take it off again as if it had burned her, and she swallowed deeply before muttering, ‘Don’t mention this money to her, the missis. Don’t mention it to anybody. Do you hear?’
‘Yes.’
‘But do you understand?’ The hand came on her shoulder again and this time it stayed. ‘If they thought I had this much they’d have if off me one way or another. You know somethin’?’ She screwed herself back on the chair now, saying, ‘I could up and walk out of here this minute.’
There followed a silence during which Emma waited for her grandma to go on and she watched her smiling to herself, before of a sudden her chin drooped again and she murmured, ‘But I wouldn’t, I can’t, I’m tied, in more ways than one I’m tied.’ And now she rose to her feet and, going to the table, she stood with her hands flat on it looking down on them, and Emma stood looking at her.
Presently her granny asked, ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there’s mutton an’ bread in the cupboard an’ milk in the jug. It’s over there.’ She pointed. ‘Go and get it; the sooner you make yourself useful the better…By the way, what do they call you?’
‘Emma.’
>
‘Emma…well, that’s plain enough. And here, before you do anything else take that label off your coat. And in future don’t call yourself by that name.’
‘Not by Emma?’
‘No, your surname, the foreign name. I don’t want to hear it. From now on you’ll be known by your mother’s name, Crawshaw, Emma Crawshaw, you understand?’
No she didn’t, not fully, and she liked her name, but she wanted to please this grandmother. Yes, she did, she wanted to please her because she felt in time she could like her, so she said, ‘Yes, Grandma.’
On the name the woman again closed her eyes.
Four
During the next few days Emma was introduced into a new life. She learned that she had to call Farmer Yorkless’ wife missis, and Farmer Jake Yorkless mister. The twelve-year-old twins she could call Barney and Luke, and after her introduction to these two she realised that she liked Barney but she didn’t like Luke. The eleven-year-old Pete and the ten-year-old Dan she looked upon as being almost her own age for, whereas Barney and Luke were tall, the latter two appeared undersized.
Billy Proctor the cowhand she saw as an old man because of his side-whiskers. Her grandmother she saw as an old woman, yet she had no wrinkles on her face.
On the morning following her arrival she had been given her place in the farm. The farmer’s wife had evidently arranged it overnight. She was to get threepence a week. The tasks allotted to her were odd jobs in the farm kitchen such as sweeping the floor, scouring the pans and washing up the crockery, all under the supervision of her grandmother. Outside, she had to attend to the hens. Besides gathering their eggs and replacing the straw in the boxes, she had to scrape the floor of droppings. This would be made easier she was told if she would take the ashes from the hearth and sprinkle them in the crees. Apparently this job had previously been in Dan’s domain.
She took to the work and she learned fast. She liked working in the hen crees best of all because this took her outside, for during the time she spent in the kitchen she felt she couldn’t breathe properly.
Then there was their form of eating. Her grandma helped to prepare dinner but neither of them sat down at the table; instead, their meal was ladled into a bowl by the farmer’s wife and they took it across to the cottage and ate it there. The same procedure applied to Billy Proctor, only he hadn’t any cottage. He, Emma discovered, ate his meal in the smelly room where the pig boiler was, that’s if it was raining or cold, otherwise he ate it where he slept in the loft above the stables.
As it was still summer everyone returned to the fields after the evening meal. The stooks had all been brought in but now there was raking and gleaning to be done, and Jake Yorkless saw that the last wisp of straw was lifted: he was apt to reiterate in a sing-song voice, ‘Waste not want not, for there’ll come the day when you’ll need that lot.’
In the fields the farmer was a jolly man. He would slap his wife on the buttocks and call her Dilly, and cuff his sons around the ears and make them laugh. And he would joke with Billy Proctor. The only one he didn’t joke with and didn’t laugh with was her grandmother.
She was slightly afraid of the farmer and his wife, and of Luke too; that was until she used the whip for the first time when the fear left her and defiance took its place.
She had now been at the farm for five weeks. The weather had changed: the keen winds were coming in from the sea, there was a slight rime on the grass in the mornings, and when she went over the yard to the hen crees she ran to keep herself warm.
She had got into the habit of talking to the hens. They were a mixture of White Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds, and all dominated by one cock. He was a fine fellow and he had got used to her approach for he would strut towards her when she came through the gate. With the exception of two, she liked the hens. These two were thickly feathered Rhode Island Reds and they had almost stripped a White Leghorn of its plumage. The poor bird’s head and behind were quite bare, and on this morning when she entered the field she saw that they had started on their victim again, tearing at its breast now, and the poor thing was running round in circles squawking its head off.
As she ran to separate them she shouted at them, ‘You’ll find yourselves in the pot, you two, if you’re not careful. Leave her alone! Poor Betsy.’
When, after being chased away, one of them returned and attacked its victim again, there crossed Emma’s mind the picture of Miss Newbourn training the rook. She would lasso it to bring it back into line, for Miss Newbourn could also use the whip. As she had explained to her, you had at first to get them to do what you wanted, but you had to do it gently.
Well now, that’s what she would do with these two beggars, she would train them to behave themselves.
Running, she made for the cottage, not towards the door but round to the side where a broken and rickety ladder led through a hatch into a space below the roof which couldn’t, under any circumstances, be given the name of loft for at its highest point it was only five feet, tapering to two feet at each side. And this was where she slept. Her grandmother slept in the big cupboard bed that let down from the wall in the room below; she wouldn’t have her sleeping with her, she had said so on that first night, and she had taken a bale of straw up into the roof space, where apparently at one time she herself had slept. Inside the cottage you entered the roof space by the other ladder and a trapdoor.
Through bits and pieces her grandmother had let fall she had gathered that the tiny cottage had at one time been attached to the original farmhouse that had stood here, and that part of the cottage had been used for the animals. A fire had destroyed the main building and most of the stone had been used to build the present farmhouse. That was nearly a hundred years ago.
She didn’t mind sleeping in the confined space because she could push the hatch outwards, and lie on her side and look up into the sky and it was just like sleeping in the tent.
Now she scrambled up the ladder, crossed the roof space on her hands and knees to where her cloth bag was lying and, delving into it, she brought out the smallest of the three whips. Untying the thong from around the handle, she worked her wrist back and forth to get the leather into play again for it had become twisted when rolled up. It had never been out of use so long since her father had made it for her.
Down the ladder once more, across the yard and into the field she went. The two bullies were at their victim again. Standing some little way from them, she began to manipulate the whip. At first her wrist was stiff and as her small hand weaved this way and that, she told herself she must practise or else she would forget all her dada had taught her.
Suddenly it seemed that the six foot thong came alive. It flicked low down over the ground, its end curled and the Rhode Island Red’s legs were tied together and the bird let out such a squawk that the cock, giving voice, came flying to her assistance. Then the whole company of fifty hens set up such a cackling, screeching, and squawking that she yelled at them, ‘Shut up you lot! Shut up!’
She had not noticed Luke’s arrival on the scene and as he stared at the big red hen lying on its side, its legs held by the end of the whip, he yelled at her, ‘What do you think you’re doin’?’
And she yelled back at him, ‘Training it. It’s pickin’ Betsy to death. Look.’ She pointed with her other hand.
‘Let it go. You’re barmy, you can’t train hens.’
Still shouting above the chorus of the hens, she cried, ‘You can, you can train anything. Miss Newbourn said so.’
‘Da! Da!’
She heard his voice calling now and saw him standing on the low brick wall that edged the field.
In the next minute it seemed to her that the farmer must have sprung the two fields that divided them; and Luke’s yelling had also brought his mother from the house, together with Dan from the barn.
‘God in heaven! Let go that hen.’
Taking small steps, her arm still taut, she circled the squawking hen while looking up at the farmer and saying, ‘
It was pickin’ Betsy to death.’ She indicated the almost nude Betsy with a sideward movement of her head.
‘Let go the bloody thing.’ The farmer made to grab her hand and her arm jerked and the hen, being pulled some inches along the ground, became hysterical.
Now Jake Yorkless was gripping her wrist as in a vice, but he had to force her fingers from the handle of the whip and in this he was aided by his wife who was now holding her, crying as she did so, ‘You little vixen you! There’ll be no whips used here unless it’s on you, madam. Oh yes, unless it’s on you. And that’s what you want. I’ve said so from the beginning.’
Emma stood aside now holding her wrist that seemed to be broken, and she watched the farmer take the handle of the whip and bring it across his raised knee, her teeth became tight in an effort to stop herself from screaming.
The tears were raining down her face as he flung the broken whip at her feet, yelling, ‘You use that again, me girl, and I’ll take it across your back. You hear me?’ Then looking at the hen that was now staggering on its feet, he said, briefly, ‘One of the pullets.’ And his wife answered, ‘Yes, a good layer.’
‘Will it be all right?’
‘I doubt if she’ll lay after this fright. We’ll see when I try them the night.’ And nodding now towards Emma, she finished, ‘If she doesn’t lay regular you’ll pay for her eggs with your threepences, miss.’
Threepence a week, Dilly Yorkless reckoned, amounted to a shilling a month. She was no fool was the farmer’s wife where counting was concerned. Moreover, with regard to the hens she knew how many eggs were to be expected each day, for on the previous evening she would make the rounds of the hens, trying them, as she termed her method of feeling how far the egg was ready to lay, so there was no chance of anyone helping themselves.
As they left the field, the farmer’s wife’s last words to Emma were, ‘You’ll go short on rations the day, me girl. That’ll learn you. An’ wait till your granny comes up from the cottage, I’ll have something to tell her.’
The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 4
