by James Smiley
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Chapter Sixteen — Third day brings a sad tale
On my third day in harness at Upshott, another saga began. It scarcely seemed possible that here in the blissful bosom of nature, so far removed from the sprawling conurbations with their dense throngs of migrants, packed factories and ambitious bosses, there could exist the complicated nonsense to which I was now reluctantly becoming accustomed. Yet, defiantly, complicated nonsense existed aplenty here in Upshott, and whereas yesterday’s carousel had dizzied me with the horrors of a railway accident, malodorous fertiliser, bigwigs warning of complaints about me, a fractious squire and the abstract menace of the telegraph, today’s was to visit upon me an additional burden. This one, being wholly less palpable, was destined to prove by far the most difficult to deal with. I refer, of all things, to a ghost!
Of this misery I shall reveal more later. First allow me to relate to you the greatly unjust circumstances of Mrs Smith, she being the delightfully fragrant Mrs Smith whom I had earlier dubbed the belle in white lace, and of whose ill hap I learned while visiting Widdlecombe. For the purposes of this recollection I shall set the station clock to 07.15am on the Seventeenth of June, 1874, at which time I was to be found deedily touring the platforms of my station nurturing an ill fated keenness to avoid yet more trouble.
I had come to believe that I would perish, spiritually speaking, if I did not endeavour to become a little more pervious to the peacefulness of my surroundings and make a point of dismissing from my mind occasionally the railway and its perplexing setbacks. To this end I tarried upon the footbridge and gazed aloft at the birds littering the pale blue sky. Here the great and graceful could be seen wheeling effortlessly among the small and spritely, rather like a stationmaster among his porters. I was unsettled by the allegory when it extended to a wren regaling me frenetically from atop a finial. It seemed that even the birds sang faster in this hectic railway backwater. Unsettled by it I descended the steps to the platform where Snimple’s flowers greeted me with a swarm of frenetically buzzing insects. Upshott’s rigours were inescapable.
I tripped over a broom. Humphrey was sweeping up some loose straw.
“I were right about that coal, sir,” he informed me, abandoning his offensive weapon. “They left the whole lot in the ditch. If e asks I, we ought to send Snimple down there with a couple of scuttles before it all disappears, for we has a shortfall to make up.”
“I think not, Humphrey,” I replied stoutly despite my culpability. “I cannot have a lone member of my staff scaling that dangerous slope with such a burden.”
Humphrey shrugged his shoulders and resumed sweeping the flagstones while I attempted to synchronise myself more effectively with my surroundings, tarrying to admire the fruits of Snimple’s labours. My Second porter’s flowers were simply ablaze with colour, all humming harmoniously with bees of every size, while in the scented breeze above these legions swirled butterflies like fragments of broken rainbow, with names such as Common Blue, Peacock and Wall Brown. Indeed, I half expected to see the porter chasing about with a net, himself pursued by a gaggle of admiring maidens. One day I would ask the porter to show me his collection, for pinning butterflies to cork and labelling them with their peculiar Latin names was a fancy of his. Peace and fulfilment was to be found by some, at least.
Humphrey drove his broom into my feet, and when I did not move he chortled and swept around me.
“His Lordship be lookin’ for another draper to manage the shop in the High street,” he warbled, seemingly unconcerned that I should hear him. “Arr, but he won’t find anyone local. Took months to fill the post last time, it did, and even then he had to make the rooms above the shop habitable for to get someone in from Barnstaple.”
I expressed the required degree of astonishment and strolled to the end of the platform, my period of meditation not yet complete. From here I beheld the cultivated lower slopes of Ondle valley where colours were more subtle, the uniform brown of winter becoming hued with sprouting crops. I could guess the composition of these fields, so countless and so small. There would be clover and grass for making winter silage, oats, Kale and tic bean for fodder, and wheat for milling into flour or feeding poultry. I had heard that a little brewer’s barley had been sewn this year, but with the railway importing quality ingredients from the fertile home counties it seemed unlikely that the local yield would stretch beyond the animal trough.
As a professional railwayman casting his eye about a district served by a railway, the continuation of such diversity struck me as tardy. With access to the metropolitan markets no farmer needed to be self-sufficient and produce a little of everything. He was now better off turning his hand to bulk husbandry, producing only that which flourished in his corner of England. Clearly, in Ondle valley, the coming of the railway fourteen years earlier had not inspired many smallholders to break with tradition or even contemplate the ultimate cost of ignoring progress.
Feeling ready to face my duties again I allowed my mind to crowd with questions once more. Foremost, who had complained about me and why? Had I been uncivil to someone from Blodcaster surely I would recall the occasion, or at least recall one upon which my conduct might have been misconstrued. Yet apart from the foreigner with the handless fobwatch, whom I had since dismissed as a dream, I could think of no accountable incident.
Perhaps the foreigner had been real and all else was the dream? In search of cold reality I looked across the station forecourt and feasted my eyes upon Upshott’s luxuriant trees, their ancient boughs outstretched jealously in stewardship of the serene community beneath them, and wondered if I would have been less tormented as a shopkeeper or commercial traveller. Upon hearing the station goat tearing up grass and chewing it industriously I even wondered if I should have sought the simple life of a goat herder.
I turned my attention to Mr Maynard’s four horses peering out of their stalls. Tormented even more than I, the poor creatures were nodding their heads like a display of clockwork toys to escape the flies that swarmed to their eyes. Thus it was that with sunshine warming me gently I perceived in summer’s magnificent bloom an invitation to abandon my woes and take flight, and in a fit of instant elation borrowed one of Mr Maynard’s nodding horses and rode away on it quite madcap.
Having put the station behind me I turned left and followed Natter Lane down to the arch beneath the tramway. Here, stooping to avoid the low headroom of a cast-iron way-beam, I slowed up, for I was without a destination and it was too early in the morning to go visiting. Or was it? Folk tended to make allowances for the busy stationmaster so I decided to go visiting anyway. I gave my mount a flick of the crop and we gathered speed through the reverberant second arch under the railway proper, a somewhat more dank and gloomy one than the first, then galloped back out into the daylight. Upshott wood was now on my left and Fallowfield common on my right, and from here in the company of a talkative brook I descended the valley towards Widdlecombe to see Mrs Smith.
My mare’s ears twitched with each whisper of the countryside as I trotted her down Natter lane towards the river Ondle, for she seemed as glad as I to be at large. Her name, by the way, was Campion, and I discovered that Campion like to be advised about this and that along the way.
Upon reaching the river I decided to take a shortcut and searched the shallows around Willow island for the old ford. Campion enjoyed the splash, and having been revitalised by it she bounced jauntily across the springy turf of Ondle common to deliver me to Widdlecombe in no time.
Looking out for the name ‘Woodacott’ I located Mrs Smith’s cottage not far from the railway station. It was a small dwelling with pink, cob walls and a roof yellowed with lichen encrusted tiles. I tethered Campion to a fence post within reach of some succulent grass, regarded her with a pat on the neck, and entered the garden where I spotted Diggory sitting on a stool taking the morning air. I was glad to see the lad’s colour had returned. Indeed, were it not for his sticking-plasters and one minor
bruise, one would not have known that he had been involved in a railway accident only the day before. After exchanging pleasantries with the bony specimen of youthhood, I asked:
“Are you so transformed by your thoughts, lad, that you do not hear a train approaching?”
“No, sir,” he replied. “Yes, sir,” he revised his answer. “I mean, yes I didn’t hear the train, but no it wasn’t because I was transported, sir.”
I dare say my lack of comprehension was charted upon my face. Thus I did not challenge the logic of Diggory’s answer, if indeed there was any, preferring instead to wait for him to qualify it.
“All I could hear was the wind rattling in my ears, Mr Jay. It’s always blowy on the viaduct.”
“Quite so,” I concurred.
Much as I was tempted to question the young porter about his poor timekeeping, this was not the right moment. Instead I enquired of his mother’s whereabouts. The lad was sitting close to the cottage, and feeling weary he leaned against the cob for support, at which point I discovered that we were not alone.
“Mornin’ Diggory,” a toothless someone whistled through the hedgerow.
Diggory straightened up as if startled.
“Got over yer fright yet?” another voice enquired.
It appeared that my Junior porter was a popular young fellow in his home village. I stood aside politely while pleasantries were exchanged then doffed my hat to the well-wishers, although all I could see of them were their eyes squinting through the thicket.
Hearing the rattle of the morning Giddiford train drawing into the station high upon Widdlecombe bank I checked my timepiece. The ‘up’ train was on time, it being 7.59am, and I crossed my fingers that timekeeping today would not be allowed to go awry by that hopeless new stationmaster at Upshott.
I left Diggory talking to his yokel friends and crossed the herb garden to the cottage. The door was ajar so I peered inside and announced my presence. Mrs Smith called back from the kitchen where she was at the range bringing some medicinal frumenty to the boil. She invited me in.
“Please excuse my appearance, Mr Jay,” she apologised, brushing herself down frantically. “I was not expecting company.”
Notwithstanding Mrs Smith’s disorientation, by virtue of her sartorial simplicity she looked perfectly adorable. I espied beneath her apron a cream coloured dress printed with pale green oak leaves, and a collar pinned down with an amber brooch which in the morning light matched the colour of her eyes. Her charming hair I could not see because it was secured beneath a goffered cap of cream linen, but this deprivation prompted me to expose my own hair to put her at her ease.
“Will you take tea?” she asked delicately while watching my hat come off, as if the offer might cause offence.
I accepted, and a dimple of satisfaction took residence upon her blushed cheeks.
We began talking of Diggory’s accident and of his behaviour generally, for I was deliberately steering the conversation towards these matters. I took the opportunity to express my concern that the lad had no father to guide him through the stormy passage to manhood, and Mrs Smith explained that Diggory was indeed missing his father at present.
At this point I became aware of Mrs Smith’s mastery of English, for as I understood it she was French by birth. Her speech sounded as English to my ear as that of any local person, not that Exmoor folk accorded the Queen’s English much fidelity. However, with a little concentration one could just detect a foreign accent surviving from childhood, though occasional inflections revealing her native tongue were so alloyed with the west country dialect as to not register in the casual hearing.
When the moment was right I taxed Mrs Smith directly concerning Diggory’s presence on the viaduct at a time of day when he should have been at his post. This enquiry, I hasten to add, I made with a good measure of caution and sensitivity.
“If I might make so bold, Mrs Smith,” I ventured, “I believe young Diggory is troubled by something. And if I am not mistaken, this something accounts for his late start for work yesterday.”
“Your observations do you justice, Mr Jay, she responded openly. “My son is beside himself lately, and no mistake. But the explanation is lengthy.”
Having journeyed across the valley, Mr Maynard’s work-worn old saddle had taken its toll of my posterior and I was not ready to return just yet, so I was at pains to hear this lengthy explanation and offered my forbearance in exchange for a comfortable seat. In response, Mrs Smith sat me down upon an oak settle and insisted that I partake of a toasted muffin with my tea.
With the refreshment set out, my hostess finally joined me and sighed deeply while filling the cups.
“When my husband died he left me penniless,” she commenced heavily. “So to make ends meet I turned to lace and quilt making, and my son abandoned his schooling to find gainful employment. At first Diggory worked for the rat catcher. Then, under the smithy at Upford forge, he made good his ability to strike and shoe. Finally he found still better prospect on the South Exmoor railway.”
“But what happened to your late husband’s business?” I interrupted. “Was Mr Smith not the farrier hereabouts?”
“At Rington,” she confirmed, and added bitterly, “but upon being widowed I lost the premises. A young businessman from Exeter laid claim to them, something for which I was completely unprepared, Mr Jay. Indeed, I was no more expecting a stranger to contest my husband’s will than was I expecting my husband to die in the first place. Before I knew it, the estate was in chancery and it came to light that the business was not my husband’s to bequeath. As a result I lost the forge, the stables, the dispensary, and even the dwelling in which my husband and I had lived all our married lives. Having lost the roof over our heads, Diggory and I packed our chattels and repaired to this rented cottage.”
“But how could this happen?” I asked incredulously. “Surely your husband held the deeds to his property.”
“No!” said she with a sense of shock not dulled by the years. “The business had been handed down from father to son without such documents. My husband’s forebears had taken possession of the forge when its founder disappeared on a trip to Portsmouth in Seventeen-Eighty.”
“Disappeared?” I puzzled, then gave the story some thought. “Mmm, the fellow was probably press-ganged.”
“It is wicked that such things can happen,” she agreed.
I sipped my tea knowingly.
“Those who made poor sailors seldom survived the ordeal of going to sea, and those who made good sailors were seldom released ashore again,” I remarked.
Mrs Smith’s tea, by the way, was ghastly. Not only was it weak, it tasted excruciatingly sour. I suspected that she had bought it cheap from a street vendor. There was one pedlar in particular who sold used tea-leaves salvaged from the kitchens of the big houses in the district. His trick was to purchase the expired tea from a scullery maid, dry it out and colour it with vegetable dye to make it look fresh again, then sell it to folk who could not otherwise afford the luxury.
“So who was this Exeter businessman?” I asked, setting down the cup with a sickly grin.
Mrs Smith did not hear my question. She was gazing distantly through the box window. I watched her face contract delicately with sorrow, the resulting gravure a chronicle of disappointment, then yield to the traces of a smile. Now was the flicker of a precious memory suddenly alive in the room. Presently she steeled herself to tell me more.
“My pappa, God rest his soul, was a horse dealer,” she said pensively. “He owned stables in a suburb of Paris, and it was on a trip with him to England that I met Thomas.” At this point Mrs Smith interrupted herself. “Thomas was my husband, you see. My fate was sealed from the moment pappa decided to take advice on English law from the same practice as Thomas. Ironically, Mr Jay, my fate was sealed in more ways than one by this practitioner.”
“Go on,” I prompted her and forced down a little more of her dreadful tea.
“Well, as I have implied, it w
as in this lawyer’s office that I met the man who was to take me for his wife, but it was also here that the seeds of my present predicament were sewn. Thomas, Mr Jay, was not like his forebears. He did not take good fortune for granted, and although I did not know it at the time he was looking into the legality of his proprietorship. Indeed, I did not come to know the purpose of his legal consultation until after he died, for my husband believed it improper to burden me with his business concerns. After Thomas’s death I learned that the lawyer of whom I have spoken had occasioned him to believe that his possession of the forge was valid in the eyes of the law, whereas, in fact, it was not.”
“Upon my soul,” I gasped. “So the lawyer’s advice was wrong. What, precisely, did he tell your husband?”
“Well, he said that because the founder of the business had disappeared with no known next of kin he had thereby ceded ownership of the premises to my husband’s grandfather. My husband’s grandfather had been running the business for many years as the senior smithy, you see.”
“It is a complicated story,” I remarked, and drained my cup with a gasp of relief.
Mrs Smith offered me more tea. I declined.
“Apparently,” she continued, “when Thomas’s father inherited the business he built up trade quite considerably, so that by the time Thomas himself inherited it, albeit without title deeds, it had grown to a sizeable concern.”
“To be badly represented by a lawyer is scandalous,” I consoled her.
Somewhat bewildered, I joined Mrs Smith in a spell of wistful silence. This gave me an opportunity to marshal my thoughts, and while doing so I surveyed the parlour and noticed a calotype hanging above the hearth. It seemed that Mr Smith had been distinguished enough to have his photograph taken, and had signed his name discreetly in a corner of the print.
