Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Cookson, Catherine

  ‘I know you were, but it isn’t polite.’ She now half smiled at Simon; then looking down at Josefina, she said, ‘This is my adopted daughter. Say how do you do, Josefina.’

  It was Josefina who stepped forward now and, as politely as Willy had done, she too said, ‘How do you do, sir?’

  Simon made no reply, he just stared down at the tiny elfin figure below him, searching the brown face, the black eyes, the straight hair for some resemblance that would connect her with Tilly. And he imagined he saw it in that indefinable something that Tilly possessed, added to which the child looked much younger than her son and was hardly half his size. The fact that she spoke clearly mattered nothing: children often spoke well at two years old, and the strong foreign burr gave the impression that she was older. But she wasn’t older than the boy. Anyone with half an eye could see that.

  He almost started as the child said, ‘Don’t you want to take my hand, sir?’

  He looked at Tilly. She was looking at him, her face stiff and just as he was on the point of putting out his hand the child suddenly and impetuously threw herself against him and, gripping his leg below the thigh, looked up at him as she cried, ‘You are very big man and you smell like Poncho . . . ’

  The next second the child would have landed on her back on the floor had not Tilly sprung forward and caught her. In one motion she swung the slight form up into her arms, and glaring at Simon, she said bitterly, ‘You should not have done that!’

  ‘Why not? I could understand that one’ – he nodded towards Willy who was now squinting up at him, the lid of his good eye working rapidly – ‘but I think you went too far with this one. I’ve heard it said that the Indians rape women; well, if they did you, then you should have come into the open and people would have understood. You must think folks are simple, or as ignorant as pigs, but the dimmest knows that no white adopts a black bairn. Buy ’em for slaves, aye . . . or house boys as they are called, but adopt, no! And for you to look down your nose on me for my one mistake. My God! You’ve got a nerve. I’ll say you have that . . . ’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘Aye, I’m going. I knew this would happen.’

  Tilly again reached out towards the bell rope, and as she did so he turned towards her, his lip curled in disdain. ‘You needn’t ring for your lackeys, I can walk out without them aiding me. An’ let me tell you one thing afore I go. I’m sorry I ever put the word love to you. Beddin’ with your own kind I could understand, or being taken down by a wild man I could understand that an’ all, but not to try to pass it off as you’re doing. Do you know something, Tilly?’ Glaring at her, he thumbed towards Josefina. ‘That makes me want to spit.’

  He had pulled the drawing-room door open, but he did not close it behind him, and she watched him marching past both Peabody and Biddle. She watched him turn his head and bark some words at Peabody, then he was gone.

  She didn’t move until Peabody entered the room and, closing the door behind him, said softly, ‘Are you all right, madam?’

  Slowly she lowered Josefina to the floor, saying, ‘Yes, thank you, Peabody.’

  He came and stood quite close to her. ‘Are you sure, madam? Look. Sit down, madam, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea’ – he put his fingers on the silver teapot – ‘it’s still hot.’

  She sat down and when he handed her the cup he said, ‘Do not trouble your mind about such a man, he’s no gentleman. It is the first time in my career that I have been referred to as a lackey.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Peabody.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, madam, that some men cannot help but behave as louts. I will take the children now, madam, and see that Biddle takes them walking in the garden. The rain has stopped. We’ll wrap them up warmly.’

  ‘Thank you, Peabody. Go along, children.’ She made a small movement with her hand and they both quietly did her bidding.

  Alone she sat with her eyes closed. She saw herself sitting in the wagon supporting Matthew’s bloodstained body, and she could hear his words, ‘Go home. Take Willy, and leave her behind.’ Matthew had known what he was talking about. Yes, yes, indeed, he had known what he was talking about.

  Ten

  Christine Peabody turned out to be a very good nursemaid and a girl with a pleasant personality, so much so that she overcame Biddy’s initial dislike of her; she happened to be the butler’s youngest daughter and Biddy had prophesied she was the thin end of the wedge for his other three daughters, but that remained to be seen. The girl was very good with children. She could be playful, but she could also be firm. She was so good with them that Tilly had a great deal more free time on her hands, and this enabled her to read more and . . . ride more. She was finding an increasing enjoyment from her association with horses. Accompanied by Peter Myers and Arthur Drew, she even went to a horse sale. Myers, having dealt with horses all his life, had a knowledge of horseflesh and on that occasion helped her to choose a three-year-old mare well broken to the saddle. The mare was lively and needed exercise, which necessitated her taking it out daily.

  On a number of occasions during the months that followed she met other riders. The first time it was a group of six gentlemen, all well mounted but both horses and riders bespattered, indicating they were returning from the hunt. They all moved to the side of the road to allow her to pass and each one of them doffed his hat to her while keeping his eyes riveted on her face, albeit vitally aware that she was wearing breeches and sitting astride a horse like any man.

  The occasion she met up with a party of four, two ladies and two gentlemen, the gentlemen again moved to the side, but the ladies had kept to the middle of the narrow bridle path, and in order to pass them she had to take her horse into the ditch; true, it was a shallow ditch, but the fact that they would not make way for her told her more plainly than any words how she was considered by the gentry of the neighbourhood.

  There was a joy in riding: the feel of the horse’s muscles beneath her legs, the power of its stride, the idea that it was soaring her heavenwards when it jumped a hedge and the exhilaration it created in her as it galloped over a free field, the wind whistling past her ears, down her throat and up her nostrils seeming to have a cleansing effect on her. However, after a time her rides became merely physical exercises, so leaving her mind free to grope; and she knew she wanted a companion.

  Anna preferred to ride behind the horse in the comfort of a carriage; when she sat on the back of one it was merely to trot. But John sometimes accompanied Tilly; and these occasions she found most pleasurable, the end of the rides finding them panting and laughing, very rarely talking.

  There was, she knew, another companion she could have had on her rides.

  Sometimes, when returning from a ride, she had come across Steve, and he had accompanied her back to the coach road, but no further, for almost always he would be black.

  The last time they had met in this way he had said laughingly, ‘I’m getting a feeling for horseflesh; I think I’ll go to the market one of these days and get me one with four legs, not that I’ll do away with old Barney here because we’ve come to an understanding. We have long conversations, you know, old Barney and me.’

  It was strange about Steve, he could make her laugh. This mature Steve could make her laugh whereas the young Steve had mostly irritated her; but this she knew had been because of his pesterings of love.

  Of late, she’d had to curb a desire to take a ride or even a walk to the cottage and just to sit quietly there. She knew where he put the key. It was the same place where she herself used to leave it, a good hidey-hole. There were no doubts in her mind why she wanted to go to the cottage and to talk to Steve; it was simply for the company, someone of her own ken as she put it, someone who understood her language, the language she used when she hadn’t to stop and think. But that was as far as it went, and this being so she knew it was unfair to put herself into his presence unless there was a good excuse for doing so, for after all, at bottom, he was still Steve and underneath th
e man was the lad who had loved her. And he might still be there; it wasn’t fair to bring him to the surface.

  Biddy said, ‘Why don’t you have a party at Christmas, lass, and come out of yourself? Look; you’ve been in black long enough. As long as you still wear black you’re still in the grave with him. Let the dead bury the dead, as the saying goes. Get Master John over and Miss Anna. And don’t tell me she can’t leave her aunt, her with two nurses to see to her. They could, you know, wrap her up and bring her over. The bairns would soon bring her out of herself and get her off her couch if I know anything. How old is she anyway?’

  ‘Oh, late forties.’

  ‘God Almighty, and puttin’ herself on a couch! But then it always happens. I’ve seen it again and again: women who’ve never had a man, they’ve got to have attention from somebody, so they take on a sickness, and other people, mostly their relations, have got to run their legs off up to their knees an’ are often in their own boxes afore their charges. Oh aye, I’ve seen it happen, in mud huts and in mansions.’

  ‘Oh, Biddy!’ Tilly looked across the settle where she was sitting in the kitchen to where the big-boned elderly woman was rocking herself briskly backwards and forwards in the rocking chair. This was the time of day she looked forward to: the children were in the nursery asleep, the rest of the staff had gone to their rooms, except perhaps Peabody or Biddle or whoever’s turn it was to lock up, and at this time of the evening she would sit opposite Biddy and they would talk or rather she would listen, for Biddy seemed to store up all the odds and ends of the day and pour them out on her and, as was her wont, she would jump from one subject to the other. But no word she said was idle chatter; there was always the wisdom of common sense in most of what she said or, as now, a subtle hint, a subtle plea for one of her daughters.

  ‘It never did anybody any good to live unto themselves. Gives them too much time to think about what’s not happenin’ or what’s going to happen. There’s only one thing sure in this life and that’s death, but most people meet it halfway, even get ready for it in their middle life by making a nightgown for their laying-out or a shirt for their man. Then they sit and think about it comin’. Half the trouble in the world comes through people who have time to think. As me mother used to say, our mind’s like a hen’s nest, every egg you put into it is hatched. If the egg’s been tread properly then the chick will be all right, but if it’s not, sitting on it, brooding on it, what do you get? Just a big stink. What I’m sayin’ is that it’s not right to live alone, nor live in the past . . . Now there’s Steve over there in that cottage living by himself. ’Tisn’t right. If our Peg had her way he wouldn’t be long alone.’ She nodded at Tilly, saying, ‘Aye, that’s how it is with her. And she been married and widowed. But the want is strong in a widow. And it’s funny, isn’t it, it was the same with our Katie. Our Katie would have walked on hot cinders for Steve but he never looked the side she was on. Of course, there was you in those days, Tilly.’ Again she nodded.

  ‘But now things are different, positions are different. Our Peg would make him a good wife if he had the sense to see it. I think he only wants a nudge, somebody to tip him the wink. Aye, well’ – she looked at the clock on the high mantelshelf – ‘it’s about time I was making for me bed. Aye.’ She pulled herself upwards and ran her finger round the shining globe of a copper pan, one of a set of eight all in a row on the mantelpiece, and she nodded her head at it, saying, ‘I’ll get that Betty working on those pans the morrow. Look at the dust on them!’ She held out her finger towards Tilly, but Tilly could see no difference between the colour of the gnarled finger and any dust. Rising to her feet she said, ‘You’re too finicky, Biddy.’

  ‘Aye, well, you’d have something to say, ma’am, if you found a dirty kitchen.’ Biddy had said the ma’am with a grin and Tilly flapped her hand at her, replying in kind, ‘All right, my woman, see that they’re clean tomorrow.’

  They smiled broadly at each other before Tilly, turning away, said, ‘Goodnight, Biddy.’

  ‘Goodnight, Tilly lass. By the way . . . ’

  Tilly paused and Biddy, loosening the strings of her white apron, said, ‘Don’t you think it’s about time I had a letter from our Katie?’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry; you’ll be gettin’ plenty of mail for Christmas and more than mail I suspect.’

  ‘What do you mean by that, more than mail?’

  ‘Never you mind. Wait and see.’

  ‘She’s not comin’, is she?’

  ‘No, no; not that, Biddy. I told you perhaps next year.’

  ‘Aye. Aye. Goodnight, lass.’ She turned away on a sigh, and again Tilly said, ‘Goodnight, Biddy.’

  In her room, Tilly sat before the dressing table taking down her hair, and she paused with a hairpin in her hand and stared into the mirror. What was she to do, give Steve a hint that Peg was there for the asking? Perhaps he was aware of it already. Anyway, from what she knew of the man Steve, he wouldn’t appreciate any hints like that; if he wanted something he would go after it. If he had wanted Peg he would have had her before now.

  Yet it was right what Biddy said, nobody should live alone. But she’d have to live alone. Yes, for the rest of her life she’d have to live alone. But then not quite, she had the children, she had her son, her own son, and she had in a way a daughter, a little dark much-loved and loving daughter. Yes, and one who would one day grow into a dark young woman, with all the needs of a young woman, perhaps intensified by the nature of that very colour.

  The eyes looking back at her through the mirror became large and as if they had spoken she said to them, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

  Eleven

  November was mild. It was all agreed they were having better weather these past two weeks than they’d had at times in the middle of the summer. On two consecutive Sundays the sun had shone and she had ridden through the park with the children as far as the spot where the cottage had once stood.

  She had already told the children that she had once lived at this spot, and each time they came to it they forced her to stop and plied her with questions about it; as today, when Willy, sitting straight on his pony, his head to the side, looked to where the old outhouses still stood almost obliterated now by the undergrowth and asked, ‘Would my grandmama and grandpapa have loved me?’

  Tilly, surprised at such a question, looked at her small son and said, ‘Yes, yes, of course; they would have loved you dearly, Willy.’

  ‘Would they have made a fool of me?’

  ‘A fool of you?’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What do you mean, make a fool of you?’

  ‘Well, I heard Jimmy say that grandparents always made a fool of grandchildren.’

  ‘Oh. Oh’ – she smiled broadly at him now – ‘what Jimmy was meaning to say was that all grandparents spoil their grandchildren.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mama.’

  ‘Yes?’ She turned to Josefina.

  ‘Would they have loved me, Willy’s grandpapa and grandmama?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Tilly, her voice very gentle now and her head nodding, gazed at the diminutive figure on the small pony and said, ‘Very much. Oh yes, they would have loved you very much.’

  ‘Even though my face is different from Willy’s?’ The child took her hands from the reins now and tapped her cheek.

  The smile slid from Tilly’s face as she said, ‘They would have loved you for yourself.’

  ‘Not because you are my mama?’

  It was a strange question, and Tilly paused a moment before answering this wise and perceptive piece of humanity. ‘No, not simply because I am your mama but because you are yourself.’

  The child now turned her gaze away from Tilly who was peering at her and, looking straight ahead, she repeated, ‘’Cos I am myself.’ Then looking back at Tilly, she asked, ‘Do people always throw stones at people who are not the same colour?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. But who has been throwing stones?’ She l
ooked now at Willy, but he remained silent; then again she was looking at Josefina and repeating, ‘Who has been throwing stones?’

  ‘Christine said not to trouble you, she said they were silly boys.’

  ‘When did they throw the stones?’

  Josefina pursed her lips and shrugged her small shoulders but remained silent, and Tilly turned to her son and, her voice stern, demanded, ‘Willy, tell me who has been throwing stones.’

  ‘Some children, Mama, from beyond the gate.’

  ‘When?’

  He considered for a moment, then said, ‘Sunday.’

  ‘Last Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘Can you remember when?’

  ‘On . . . on fair day, when they were on holiday, they had on their Sunday suits.’ He nodded at her.

  She now reached out and moved aside the hair covering an inch long scar on his brow, just above the jagged line left by the rough stitching of the wound that had caused his near blindness, and she recalled a day some weeks ago when she had come into the hall and found Christine Peabody talking rapidly to her father. The children were standing between them and when she enquired if there was anything wrong it was Peabody who had answered, saying, ‘Master Willy ran into a branch, madam, when he was playing. He has cut his brow a little.’

  ‘Did a stone do this, Willy?’

  The boy’s eyelids were blinking as he muttered, ‘Yes, Mama. But it wasn’t Christine’s fault, she ran out of the gates and chased the boys.’

  Tilly felt her body slumping down into the saddle for a moment, but only for a moment; then she was sitting bolt upright. All her life she had suffered from the village and the villagers and because of Josefina they had another flail with which to beat her back. But Josefina was one thing, and her son another. The village, in the form of Mrs McGrath, had blinded her boy in one eye, and that stone could have taken the little sight that remained in the other, for the cut in his brow had gone deep and it was just above his right temple. Another half an inch or so and it could have been the eye itself.