Late Harvest

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  It was Eastley who said: ‘I’ll stop yur with the coffin. Mr Silcox, do ’ee take the ladies into my shop. Fire’s banked in the parlour at the back; keep ’un warm there.’ He cocked an eye towards the receding crowd of mourners. ‘My boy and girl be up there with the rest: shut the shop today, we did. Here’s my keys.’ He pulled them out of a drooping, overused pocket in his fleece-lined coat, thrust them at Mr Silcox, and then from the same capacious pocket tugged out pipe, tobacco and tinderbox and settled himself in the shelter of the hedge, alongside the bier. ‘Go on with ’ee now!’

  ‘You can’t stop here under that hedge in this cold! You’ll catch your death!’ protested Mr Silcox.

  The retired grocer wrapped his stout coat more firmly round him, yanked his best black hat down almost to his eyebrows and said: ‘No, I shan’t. Been up at dawn all my life and out in all weathers; we’ve allus had geese and hens and a pony along of the shop. You’ll be the one catching your death, not me. Go on with ’ee now!’

  Mr Silcox took the proffered keys, and we went.

  The place was empty. We seated ourselves in the back parlour and Mr Silcox, leaning forward to poke the fire back into life, said: ‘I was a bit shocked, ladies, seeing the Brights go off like that, without a by your leave. Young James didn’t as much as glance your way, Peggy, and you two are supposed to be half engaged! I shall have a word with that young man. He was once a pupil of mine, same as you, and I hoped I’d taught my boys and girls good manners!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said uncomfortably. ‘They’re like that. We’re all like that, suppose. I might have rushed off with them too, only it’s my father out there on that cart.’

  ‘We understood,’ my mother agreed, warming her hands as the fire responded to Mr Silcox’s urging. ‘Maybe Samuel is up there, lookin’ down on it all and cheering them all on. He’d have done the same, in their place, I’ve no doubt of it.’

  ‘I was born in Bristol and sent to school in London and then to Oxford,’ Mr Silcox said ruefully. ‘Maybe I don’t fully understand the folk hereabouts. It’s as if Exmoor’s a different country with its own customs! All the same, good manners are good manners in my opinion and I shall have that word with James – and his father too. If you and James are serious, Peggy, it’s time to settle things and today is no bad day to start the process. Your life, and yours, Mrs Shawe, won’t be the same now and today is none too soon to think of the future.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right,’ said my mother. She looked tired and her widow’s black didn’t suit her. Like me, she had a good complexion, but today, for the first time, it was showing lines, and her eyes were heavy, as though she had cried in the night and perhaps she had. ‘But I can’t think,’ she said. ‘Not yet. Not till this is over.’

  ‘No more can I,’ I said. ‘Later, Mr Silcox. Not today.’ I looked at him, meeting his kindly grey eyes, and added: ‘I know we’ll need help, a man to take charge and give the orders and so on, but somehow I’m not sure I’m quite ready to marry.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mr Silcox, much as Mr Eastley had done, pulled out a pipe and tobacco, fished further into his pockets and came up with a piece of paper, which he twisted into a spill and lit from the fire. His face had a reminiscent expression. When his pipe was drawing, he said: ‘I can remember, when you were at my school, Peggy, how you used to enjoy hearing the stories I used to tell, about people in times past. It was a way to keep you all interested, to make you understand that in the past, people were still people, like us. Your eyes used to brighten so.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I loved those tales.’

  ‘I know, and I sometimes wonder,’ said Mr Silcox, ‘if I was wise to fill your heads with them. Because quite often, the men and women whose names have come down to us in stories were not people like us. They were important people, powerful folk. They didn’t live like us. They did heroic deeds, fell madly in love and died for love or made wars because of it – I told you of Helen of Troy, didn’t I, whose beauty caused men to fight over her? And I told you about Antony and Cleopatra, and how Shakespeare wrote a play about them, and I recall one year, I made my class read through Romeo and Juliet.’

  ‘I remember that,’ I said, and for a moment I forgot how sad a day this was and my voice became eager. ‘I really did enjoy those tales!’

  Mr Silcox shook his head. ‘I know; I saw it. But maybe I should have told you then – the real world, the here and now, our world, is nothing like that, young Peggy.’

  ‘I should think not!’ said my mother. I had repeated the plot of Romeo and Juliet to her and it hadn’t found favour. ‘Daft young things,’ had been my mother’s verdict. ‘Life’s hard enough and death comes untimely quite often enough as it is; no point in rushing on it headlong all over some dreams about true love. Juliet should have listened to her parents and married Paris. She’d have forgotten Romeo fast enough when she had a baby to rear and a good man to look after them both.’

  Now, she said: ‘Mr Silcox is right. Today’s not the day to talk of such things but quite soon, yes, I think the banns should be called for you and James. All these great love stories be pretty tales enough but not for people like us. Folk like us take what’s to hand and suitable and mostly it works out well.’

  ‘I know,’ I said soberly. ‘I expect I’ll feel ready to settle things before too long. My father, having that accident … it’s been a shock, that’s all. So much to do, to think about …’

  ‘The spring is coming. Everyone feels differently in spring!’ Mr Silcox said encouragingly.

  ‘We’ll have to keep wearing black for a while,’ my mother said. ‘But for you, Peggy, three months will be enough. You’ll leave off your black in April and I’m going to see as you go to the May Day dance here in Exford. James will escort you. And maybe …’

  Her voice tailed off, though the unspoken words were audible to us all. On May Day, perhaps, James would propose and I would accept and there would be an announcement. I tried to imagine it, but it refused to seem real. By some kind of tacit agreement, we began to talk of other things. And eventually, the mourners came back. We went out to join them.

  They were excited, having witnessed the kill, and the last trudge up the hill to the churchyard gate was none too dignified because they were all chattering eagerly about the chase. The stag had been a twelve-pointer, apparently, a fine head and one of the huntsman had said he’d given the hounds a splendid run. However, at the gate, the vicar met us, clad in his clean white surplice, and the somewhat dishevelled cortege reorganized itself into a semblance, at least, of propriety.

  Six bearers, John and James Bright, Bert Page and another of our farmhands, the Eastley son and Mr Silcox, took the coffin from its handcart and bore it into the church in the proper manner, where it was laid on a high trestle, and the service proceeded. Then we followed it out and it was lowered into a newly dug grave. My mother and I held each other and turned away as my father, hitherto such a power in our lives, was lowered into what I could only think of as a nasty wet hole.

  Reverent words were said, a clod of earth was cast on top of the coffin and I saw that it was done by Mr Josiah Duggan, who had been already in his seat in the church when we arrived there. I noticed that he had two younger men with him though from where I stood beside the grave, I could only see them in profile. They would be the boys that my mother had mentioned to me. The Brights stood opposite to me and my mother, facing us, and this time James did catch my eye and gave me a slightly apologetic smile.

  Then we must all turn away, and begin on the long trudge home, where there would be cold ham and hot pies, both fruit and meat, and freshly made bread with butter and honey, and to drink there would be not only hot tea, but also brandy and mulled wine, most of which had been delivered by one of Mr Duggan’s men two days previously.

  The Brights walked with Mother and me, and James, gruffly, said to me: ‘Sorry we all rushed off after the hunt like we did. Mr Silcox has spoken to me, says we shouldn’t have done it. But y
our dad would have done the same – wouldn’t ’ee, now?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘He probably would,’ and my mother, overhearing, sighed.

  I had no feelings about the incident. Nothing mattered except that my father had been left behind in the churchyard, in that hateful wet hole, and we had had to turn away and go home without him. And the wind was so cold. We would all be thankful to get back to Foxwell.

  Our farmhouse was old, thatched, built of reddish-coloured stone and looking more as though it had grown out of its hillside than been constructed there. Dormer windows peered from the roof, somewhat overhung with thatch, as though the roof needed a haircut; there was a massive front door which was so rarely used that we had had to oil the hinges so the coffin could be carried through it in proper formal fashion. Most of our indoor life took place in the enormous kitchen. The parlour was usually ignored and had had to be cleaned and dusted specially for this sad occasion.

  The parlour, however, was also big. In previous generations, the Shawe family had often been large and the parlour had been extended at some time, so that it could be used for sizeable gatherings, with space for dancing. It had a fine hearth, and the maids had a good fire going, for the parlour was where the food and drink was set out. As soon as we were within, I ran upstairs to shed my outdoor things and then hurried back down, to help with the hot dishes. Then, along with my mother and the maids I began to move about in the throng, offering plates of this and glasses of that, until I was intercepted by Mother, who was talking to Mr Duggan.

  He and I exchanged polite greetings, and my mother said: ‘Well, it’s just me and my Peggy now, and neither of us will be wanting much in the liquor way in future, but we’d better always have a keg of brandy to hand, in case of someone needing help after an accident, and we’ll have to have supplies of tea. If someone can call now and then, we’ll let you know what’s wanted.’

  ‘It will be my pleasure,’ said Josiah Duggan, and then, looking round him, said: ‘Where are my boys? I dare say one or other of them will act as my messenger sometimes.’ He reached out with a long arm and pulled a youth, who was talking to someone else, unceremoniously away. ‘This is Philip, my younger lad. Philip, meet Mrs Jenny Shawe and her daughter Peggy.’

  Mother and I dutifully acknowledged bows from a round-faced young man who said he was pleased to meet us. Neither he nor his father offered any explanation for the curious fact that he had a black eye.

  ‘Now, where’s my eldest?’ Duggan said restively. ‘I can never keep track of him. He’s just done a boatbuilding apprenticeship up north – a much better idea than training him myself; sending him away meant bringing new ideas back, and that I’m all in favour of. And he’d get no favouritism in someone else’s yard, and that’s healthy. But he’s come home mighty independent. I can never put my hand on him … There you are, Ralph!’ He caught a passing elbow and pulled a second young man into our group. More introductions were exchanged.

  The elder Duggan son had a head of thick, rather untidy black hair and a lean brown face. As we looked at each other, he smiled at me, with a glint of beautiful teeth. His dark eyes took part in the smile, glowing with it as they looked into mine.

  And the whole world changed.

  Recognition

  When I was at school, one of my fellow pupils was a girl called Emma Sands, the same age as me. We left school together. Two years later I met her by chance in Exford, and she told me she had fallen in love. It was instant, she said, between one moment and the next, like falling down a well, except that the well was full of stars and wild, glorious music. She had never known it was possible to feel like that. Her parents didn’t approve of the young man but she hoped to talk them round. She would beg and plead, she said, for he was the only man for her.

  I never found out why her parents disliked him, or even who he was but I did learn, some months later, that she had run away with him. I never heard any more. Perhaps she was happy, perhaps it was all a disaster. I shall certainly never know now.

  My experience of love at first sight was nothing like Emma’s. I did not feel that I had fallen down a well; stars and wild music – or any sort of music, come to that – were entirely absent. Instead, it was calm and warm. It was the same feeling that people have when, unexpectedly, they meet an old friend whom they haven’t seen for years and there is the pleasure of recognition, the desire to sit down together and talk and talk, to catch up with all that has happened since last they met.

  It was the same for him although he didn’t tell me so then. He simply said: ‘Miss Shawe, here you are handing dishes round but you must be exhausted after such a sad morning. I have heard how you and your mother were left deserted while the rest went off after the hunt. I’m appalled.’ Like his father and brother, he had the Exmoor accent, but used words in an educated fashion, as Mr Silcox did. ‘Let me help you to some of what I believe are called the baked meats.’

  Mr Duggan, having introduced us, was telling my mother how disappointed he was that his younger son wasn’t interested in shipbuilding and shaking his head at an embarrassed Philip. Ralph drew me away and I don’t think any of them even noticed us go. I was escorted to the laden table and there Ralph competently loaded plates for us.

  ‘And here’s some mulled wine,’ he said, dipping glass beakers into the bowl. Mrs Page had thoughtfully provided a pile of trays, augmenting ours by lending three of her own and borrowing more from the Brights. Armed with a tray each, we could carry our booty with ease. Ralph led me out of the crowd. ‘Now let’s sit down and eat and talk.’

  The parlour had wide window seats. We sat down on one, as easy together as though we had known each other all our lives. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘how did your brother come by that black eye?’

  ‘Now, if my father had given it to him, that would be a tactless question,’ said Ralph, grinning.

  ‘In that case, I think your father would have tried to explain it – told us a tale about an accident of some kind, I dare say,’ I said.

  Ralph laughed. ‘You’re right, at that. No, Philip’s been in a fight. Over a girl. A very tiresome and silly girl, too. I said to him: you might at least squabble over a worthwhile wench and not that daft Maisie Cutler.’

  ‘Who is Maisie Cutler?’

  ‘Seventeen-year-old lass who works on a smallholding just outside Dunster. Ever been to Dunster? Where the Luttrells’ castle is – it overlooks the village from a hill.’

  ‘Yes, of course. There’s a regular yarn market at Dunster – Mother and I have bought yarn there. It’s that village a couple of miles from Minehead,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s it. Used to be a port, once, but it got silted up. The sea’s retreated. Avill Smallholding, where Maisie works, is just outside, at the inland end. A few cows, a few pigs, a lot of vegetables. Not much of a place but Maisie’s employed for the house and the dairy and she does a bit of hoeing and weeding, Philip says. Probably doesn’t work any harder than she has to. She’s pretty and plump and as vain as a peacock, and flirting’s the only idea she has in her little golden head, and Philip’s mad for her. Only he has a rival.’

  ‘And the rival blacked his eye for him?’

  ‘That’s it. Laurence Wheelwright, farmhand, from a place near Timberscombe – you know, the village further up the Avill valley. He’d be a good match for her,’ said Ralph, becoming thoughtful. ‘Said to be saving up for a place of his own, and got half of what he needs already – a legacy from an aunt or something. He’s dead serious about her. He and Philip came to blows two days ago. She didn’t turn up to meet Philip somewhere and then he came face to face with the two of them, out walking near where Laurence works. Well, there was trouble and Philip lost the fight. You should have seen the state he was in when he got home! No, maybe you shouldn’t. According to him, Maisie just stood back beaming, loving it because two men were fighting over her.’

  ‘That didn’t change his mind about her?’ I asked.

  ‘Not a bit of it. He still
thinks she’s wonderful. She’s young, he said, almost cooing; all that’ll pass. Philip is more interested in agriculture than shipbuilding. He looks after our little patch of garden very well, I admit – he’s got green fingers, for sure. He said if only Dad would help him set up in a smallholding of his own, he’d put a ring on Maisie’s finger the next day.’

  ‘Would she let him?’ I enquired.

  ‘That’s just it. Dad thinks she wouldn’t, and he won’t come across with any money to help Philip get the likes of her for a wife. What are we talking about Philip and Maisie for? Let’s talk about us. I hear there’s to be a May Day dance here in Exford. Will your mother let you come – I mean on account of being in mourning, and so on.’

  ‘Yes. She’s already said so. She … she will expect me to be escorted by James Bright. That’s him, over there.’ James and his brother John were together, deep in talk with Bert Page. A few words drifted towards us, something to do with a promising Red Devon bull calf, a likely future sire that somebody called Francis Quartly had for sale, except that apparently he wasn’t willing to sell it. ‘Got ideas about using it hisself,’ James was saying. ‘Wants to improve the breed, so he says. Reckon he’s just tryin’ to push the price up …’

  ‘James’ father farms not far from us,’ I said. ‘It would be suitable, everyone says, and we were at school together and …’

  ‘I know,’ said Ralph. ‘There is supposed to be an understanding that you and James Bright will marry. The Fellow – Mr Silcox – who told my father about the way you and your mother were left deserted by the roadside, also told him that. Mr Silcox was horrified because even the young man who is supposed to be interested in marrying you still ran off to watch the hounds, leaving you and your mother and the coffin under a hedge. I assure you that if I had been there, I would not have abandoned you to go after the hunt.’

  ‘I understood why it happened,’ I said lamely. ‘Even my father himself might have done the same thing …’