Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Cookson, Catherine

  As she felt the old surge of temper rising in her she swung the horse around, saying to the children, ‘Come! We’re going for a ride.’

  Obediently they turned their ponies and trotted by her side, and when they cut on to the main drive and went towards the main gates neither of them cried as they might have done excitedly on another occasion, ‘Are we going to ride far, Mama?’ They remained silent.

  At the lodge she drew rein and called, ‘Jimmy! Jimmy!’

  She knew it was Jimmy’s day off, and when he appeared at the door dressed only in his trousers and shirt he quickly buttoned up the neck of his shirt as he came down the path, saying, ‘Yes, Ti . . . ma’am?’

  ‘Would you mind going back to the stables and telling Arthur or Myers, whoever is available, to saddle a horse and follow me as quickly as he can.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, ma’am, yes, of course. Which way will I tell them to go?’

  ‘I’m making for the village.’

  The young man’s eyebrows shot up as he said, ‘The village!’ and he repeated in amazement, ‘The village!’

  ‘Yes, Jimmy, the village. Tell him I’ll wait at the turnpike. Go at once will you as I’m in rather a hurry.’ As she spoke she took out her watch and looked at it, and after gaping at her for a moment, Jimmy turned and, just as he was, he rushed up the drive.

  Her watch said half past eleven. Most of the villagers would be at the service, and all the children too, and if Parson Portman was anything like the usual preachers it would be three quarters of an hour before the church emptied.

  Jimmy, in obeying her orders so promptly, had forgotten to open the gates, and she had to dismount and open them herself. It did not matter for, not wearing a habit, her remounting proved no obstacle.

  Out on the road, she walked her horse, and the children’s ponies followed suit. They had gone some distance when Willy asked tentatively, ‘Are you vexed with me, Mama?’

  She turned her face towards him and swallowed the lump in her throat before answering softly, ‘No, my son, I’m not vexed with you.’

  ‘Who are you vexed with then?’ This question came from Josefina, and Tilly, now looking at her, said, ‘Not you, my dear, either.’

  ‘Are you vexed with the village?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose you could say I am vexed with the village.’

  ‘Are you going to chas . . . chas . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose in a way you could say I am going to chastise them, dear.’ And she added bitterly to herself as she looked ahead, ‘And not before time. For once I’m going to live up to my name. God forgive me!’

  They hadn’t been waiting long at the turnpike when Tilly heard the sound of galloping hooves behind them and Arthur Drew came riding up to them.

  Drawing his horse to a halt, Arthur breathed deeply for a moment before he asked, ‘You all right, Tilly?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m all right, Arthur.’

  ‘There’s something you want me to do?’

  ‘Yes, Arthur.’ She paused. ‘I want you to ride say two or three lengths behind us as I go into the village, and when we stop you stop. I simply want you as a show of strength, if you get my meaning, sort of prestige, the lady of the manor taking her children for a ride accompanied by the groom. Do you follow me, Arthur?’

  He didn’t quite, but he knew she was up to something. The Tilly he knew never put on airs, but she was playing the lady now all right, and he’d support her with everything in every way he knew how.

  ‘I should have got rigged up in me best,’ he said.

  ‘You’re all right as you are.’ She looked at his breeches tucked in his top boots. The boots could have had a better polish on them, but what matter, he was the servant following his mistress. That’s how it should be today.

  ‘Have you got a large white handkerchief on you?’ she asked.

  ‘Aw’ – he made an apologetic movement with his head – ‘I’ve got a hanky on me but I’m afraid it isn’t very white.’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, Arthur; I have the very thing.’ She unloosened the top button of her riding jacket. It was without revers and was made very much in the style of a Texas Ranger’s coat, buttoning right up to the neck. Pulling a narrow cream silk scarf from around her neck and leaning towards Willy, she said, ‘Take off your cap, dear.’

  She now proceeded to wind the scarf twice around his head, slanting it downwards to cover the cut at his temple, and when he protested, saying, ‘But, Mama, it isn’t bleeding,’ she said ‘I know that, Willy, but I want you to keep this on. Here, give me your cap.’ She now placed his cap to the back of his head leaving the scarf much in evidence.

  Again she looked at her watch, saying now, ‘There’s plenty of time, we’ll take it slowly.’ She glanced back at Arthur explaining, ‘I want to be in the middle of the village when the church comes out.’

  Arthur made a slight motion with his head. His mouth opened and closed, and then he said, ‘Why? Why, Tilly?’

  For answer she said, ‘How long will it take us to get there, fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Aye, that should do it.’

  ‘Very well, off we go. And children’ – she looked from one to the other – ‘don’t ask any questions until we are back home. You understand?’

  Willy was the first to say, ‘Yes, Mama.’

  But Josefina said, ‘No questions, Mama?’

  ‘No questions, Josefina, not until we reach home.’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘Well now, come on.’

  Her head up, her back as straight as a ramrod, she now urged her horse forward. It could have been that she was leading an army into battle, and in a way she was. She knew that when she faced her enemies what she would put into them would not be the fear of God, but that of the devil. It was the only weapon she had, and she meant to use it for the sake of her children.

  The village street was curved. Some of the houses were very old, their foundation stones having been laid over two hundred years past. The houses at the end spread out to form a square in the middle of which was a large round of rough grass where at one time had stood the market stone, but all that remained of it now was a flat slab, itself almost obliterated by the grass. At one side of the square were small cottages fronted by gardens, the opposite side was taken up by a number of shops, in the middle of which stood the inn.

  Not all the villagers attended church, some went to chapel. The church and cemetery lay back from the road at the east end of the village; the chapel, a new erection, was, as it were, cut off from the village by being situated down a side lane; but whether by accident or design both services began at the same time on a Sunday and also ended approximately at the same time. It was laughingly said that the minister of the chapel had a runner waiting outside the church to inform him when the parson was drawing the service to a close. However that may be, both sets of worshippers, at least those on foot, generally managed to straggle into the village square at the same time as they made their way home.

  So, as usual today, in twos and threes they emerged in their dark Sunday best either from the side lane or through the lychgate, but all of them stopped in their tracks, only to be nudged forward by those behind them, for there in the middle of the green was a woman sitting on a horse; she was flanked on each side by a child on a pony, and behind her at a respectable distance sat a man in the clothes of a groom.

  It took but a few minutes for the older inhabitants among the thickening throng to recognise the rider. The younger ones had to grope in their minds, but even they soon realised this was the woman that all the stir was about.

  After their first pausing some of the villagers began to move towards their respective houses, defiance in their step which was lacking in their faces, and it was as the first couple entered their gate that Tilly, in a voice that was not loud, but each word clear and distinct and which carried to everyone present, turned to her son and, pointing across the square, said, ‘That is the inn, Willy, where Mrs Bradshaw used to serve.
You know, her daughter came to look after you and struck you and stole my jewellery, so I had to dismiss her. And next to it is the baker’s shop. The Mitchams lived there.’

  She was aware that her son was straining to stare at her, his mouth slightly open, his face red. She was also aware that most of the people had stopped and that they, too, were staring at her, and most of them too had their mouths agape, and their eyes stretched wide. But as if she were unaware of them and now moving her arm to the side, she said, ‘Willy, where you see the board swinging that is the wheelwright’s shop. The wheelwright’s name was Mr Burk Laudimer. His son has now taken his place.’ She could have added at this stage that these people blamed her for killing his father, but she went on, her finger now pointing here and there, ‘That is the carpenter’s shop. Mr Fairweather owns that and he lives in a cottage’ – she turned her head and her body moved slightly in the saddle as she pointed behind her, adding, ‘over there.’ In her turning she saw Arthur Drew’s face. His eyes, too, were wide, almost popping out of his head.

  She was again pointing in front of her, but now leaning towards Josefina as she did so and saying, ‘You see that cottage there, Josefina? There lives the gravedigger. You know what a gravedigger is? He is a man who buries the dead.’

  She could see that Josefina was on the point of asking a question, and so she turned from her and went on naming names, pointing out houses; and lastly she pointed along the street to where at the end of the row of shops was the blacksmith’s, and it did not escape her that outside the door stood George McGrath and his son, taller now but whom she recognised as the boy who had broken the cottage window and accused her of killing his Uncle Hal and calling her witch.

  She had lost count of the people she had named, she only knew they were all standing transfixed gazing at her, as they might have done at something at a fair, but without the enjoyment that sight would have elicited. And it was at the precise moment when she was about to give them an ultimatum that there pushed through the crowd, his black robes flapping, Parson Portman.

  She had, of course, heard of Parson Portman but she had never met him; apparently the manor was out of bounds to him, but now there he was standing not three yards from her looking up at her and she down at him.

  When she spoke to him her voice was polite and had the inflexion of the gentry, which surprised him. He had heard so many tales of this woman and none good, yet she had the face of a . . . he dare not say angel, so substituted in his own mind, a beautiful creature with the strangest eyes he had ever seen in a woman.

  Parson Portman was an educated man. He was a bachelor from choice, for he had seen too many of his kind struggling to support a wife and yearly increasing family. He loved the creature comforts which included good food, wine and a large fire, and a man in his position didn’t usually come by these things unless he had been able to buy himself into the church. Being one of eight brothers, his people had educated him but that was all they had been able to do for him. And so, knowing on which side his bread was buttered, he aimed to keep in favour with his more wealthy parishioners and no-one of these but had held the Manor and its occupants in disdain for years.

  He had been assigned to this parish following his predecessor’s departure in disgrace through his wife’s escapades, joint escapades, so he understood, with this very woman here. She had corrupted the parson’s wife, so the tale went, but now working it out for himself, this woman in front of him could have been little more than a child or a very young girl when the incident happened. Yet from the look of her he could imagine that she could have a strange power over both men and women: possessed of the devil they said she was, and that death attended her wherever she went.

  What was he to do? How was he to deal with the situation? Why was she here, attended by her children and her groom? What did his parishioners expect him to do, put a curse on her?

  What she had said to him was, ‘Good morning, sir.’ And now some moments later in answer to her greeting, he replied, ‘Good morning, madam. Can I be of any assistance to you?’

  She seemed to consider for a moment, then said in no small voice now, ‘Yes, oh yes, Parson, you could be of great assistance. You will I am sure have heard of me, and, of course, you will know that I am a witch and have been persecuted because of my particular talent.’ She now looked over his head and around the gaping faces; then looking down on him again, she went on, ‘Not only have I been persecuted, but my son also. Perhaps you are aware that my son’ – she put out her hand now towards Willy – ‘is almost blind. This was done by one of your parishioners. He has just a little sight left in one eye. Well, not satisfied with this, the children of the village have been sent . . . directed apparently to finish what their parents started.’ Now she swiftly put out her hand and whipped off Willy’s cap showing his bandaged head and, her voice rising, and again looking at the scattered crowd, she cried in a voice that the young Tilly might have used ‘A well-aimed stone tried to finish the job. Well now, sir’ – once more she lowered her head and looked at the parson – ‘I have come to the village to give them an ultimatum: the persecution stops or else I shall use the powers that they ascribe to me, and the first one in future who lifts his hand against us, or even his tone, I shall deal with in my own way.’

  The whole square was silent; the fact that a mongrel dog stood immovable on the edge of the green staring up towards her only added to the eeriness.

  When she turned her fierce gaze down onto the parson’s face it looked blanched. She saw him wet his lips, move his head in bewilderment, then put his hands out as if he were about to appeal to her; she did not allow him time for she dug her heels into the flanks of her horse and the beast turned obediently and moved off the green onto the roadway. The children following suit came slightly behind her. Lastly, after he had stared, in his turn, in amazement at the fear-filled faces of those nearest to him Arthur Drew followed his mistress out of the village.

  Tilly, as after any emotional experience, expected to feel slightly sick. She expected her body to tremble, her legs to be so weak that they would not support her, and in this particular case that they would have no strength with which to guide the horse. But she felt none of these things; what she did feel was a great sense of elation which lasted all the way back to the Manor. And when as soon as they were inside the house the children wanted to clamber about her and ask questions, she quietly passed them over to Christine and, saying to Peabody, ‘Have a glass of wine and some biscuits sent up to my room, please,’ she walked steadily across the hall and up the stairs.

  But Arthur Drew in the kitchen sat at the table and wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at the faces of his mother and his sisters as he said, ‘Ma, it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced. I tell you, she sat there on that horse and the things she did! She named everybody in that village, at least all of them that had had a go at her. And then it was like the heavens had opened and there was the parson, and she talked to him, called it an ultimatum. But I tell you, every soul in that village knew she was offering them a curse. Eeh, Ma!’

  ‘Here, drink that.’ Biddy pushed a mug of ale towards him, and she watched him drain the mug dry before she sat down and said, ‘I can’t take it in, the very fact of her going into the village. What brought it on do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ma. The only thing is, as I said, she bandaged young Willy’s head up just as if it had happened this mornin’. But ’twas the way she spoke. I tell you, Ma, I wasn’t on the wrong side of her but she still put the fear of God into me. You know, I can’t help but say it, there’s somethin’ in her . . . Tilly.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody soft, our Arthur!’

  ‘I’m not being bloody soft, Ma.’ He had risen to his feet. ‘You weren’t there.’

  ‘Well, she’s no witch. God! You’ve known her long enough.’

  ‘Aye, I have, an’ there’s nobody I like better, but I tell you, Ma, she’s got somethin’ that the ordinary woman hasn’t. And I
can’t put me finger on it no more than anyone else can, but it’s there.’

  ‘Aye, it’s there, and it’s nowt but attraction as they call it. Some women have it and some haven’t; she’s got a bit more than her share, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, have it your way, Ma; the only thing I can say again is you weren’t there. But I’d like to bet me bottom dollar that there won’t be any more trouble for some time in the village.’

  ‘Well, that’s something to thank God for this Sunday anyway. By! I’ll say it is ’cos she’s had more than her share.’ It was Fanny nodding at him now. ‘From as far back as I can remember people have been at her. I only wish I’d been there.’

  ‘I only wish you had, our Fanny, instead of me. Yes. Yes’ – he nodded slowly at her – ‘I only wish you had. But I’ll tell you this, I wouldn’t want to sit through that again.’

  ‘What did the parson say to her?’

  Arthur had made for the door and he turned. ‘Nowt. Nowt. He just looked as if he had been struck dumb or put under a spell or somethin’. Aye, that’s it. Like the rest of ’em, put under a spell.’

  ‘Good for Tilly, ’cos he’s never crossed the door. It would queer his pitch with the pious nobs he toadies to. Good for her.’

  ‘Ma, I’ll say again, you weren’t there, and to my mind it wasn’t good for anybody.’

  Twelve

  There was a change in Tilly. The Drews had remarked on it, Peabody had remarked on it, and Tilly herself remarked on it. Since the Sunday she rode into the village square and prophesied doom and tribulation for anyone who would dare to persecute her or hers in the future, she had, as it were, brought to the surface her fear of the villagers, and with such a melodramatic effort too, for she was fully aware that she had played on the melodramatic and used it to aid the effect of her warning. Yet as she had ridden out of the village there hadn’t been a vestige of the old fear left in her; in fact, she had the idea that she had distributed it among all those present that morning.