by Val Wood
‘Will I like it?’ she asked, gingerly taking a sip. Then she shuddered. ‘Oh, it’s strong!’
He nodded and pulled on another handle, half filling a glass with darker ale. ‘Try this,’ he said. ‘You might prefer it. This is porter, not as strong as stout and a bit sweeter.’
Bella took another sip, and then licked her lips. ‘Mm. I like it better than stout, but I couldn’t get a taste for it.’
‘Some of ’older customers like it,’ her father said, ‘and ’younger men like bitter; that’s ’most common one and has a stronger flavour of hops. Then there’s mild, and that’s a different flavour cos there’s less hops in it. You’ll soon get used to ’regulars and what their preferences are. They’ll expect you to know and have a pint ready for ’em afore they get to ’counter.’
Bella stared at her father. ‘But – am I old enough to serve them?’
Her father nodded. ‘Aye, just about, but not old enough to drink, not on licensed premises anyway. Not till sixteen. But what anybody does in his own home is nowt to do wi’ anybody else.’
‘You don’t allow Joe or William to drink beer even though they serve it,’ she said. ‘Is that because we’re on licensed premises?’
‘Aye,’ he agreed. ‘It is. Even though they live here, I wouldn’t want to risk my licence by letting them drink alcohol. If they were out in the fields or in somebody else’s house, then that’s a different matter. But not here.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘So just remember that, Bella. No underage drinking in ’Woodman.’
‘Yes, Father,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember.’
Bella had cause to remember just a week before Joe’s sixteenth birthday, when she found him behind the counter on a Sunday attempting to draw a glass of bitter.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘What does it look like?’ he said, wiping his beery hands on his breeches.
‘Who’s it for?’
‘Me.’ He glanced at her with a defiant look in his eyes. ‘You’re not ’only one can draw a pint. I’ve done it often enough.’
‘But you don’t draw it right, you allus make a mess; and anyway you’re not allowed to drink on licensed premises.’
‘Who says? I’m nearly sixteen, so I can.’
‘Father says not. He could lose his licence if ’magistrate found out. You might as well wait,’ she urged. ‘No use risking it. Father would be mad about it.’
Joe paused for a moment, and then sniffed disapprovingly. ‘When I’m ’landlord you’ll be out of a job,’ he said tetchily. ‘I’ll not have you telling me what to do.’
‘You might not be ’landlord,’ she retaliated. ‘We might all share ’tenancy, and anyway, Ma will be ’landlady if—’
She stopped, suddenly aware that Joe didn’t know the full story of their father’s illness.
‘If what?’ he asked sharply.
She shrugged. ‘Just if anything should happen to Father; not that it’s likely to,’ she added quickly, fearful of making it happen by speaking of it. ‘But Ma would be ’landlord then.’
Joe sneered. ‘How can Ma be a landlord when she’s a woman? She’d be ’landlady.’
‘Innkeeper,’ Bella argued. ‘She’d be ’innkeeper, and then it doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or a woman. And she’s licensed,’ she added, pleased to score over him. ‘Haven’t you noticed ’plaque over ’doorway?’
Joe’s mouth turned down, but he stood his ground. ‘Well, anyway, I can still have a glass of bitter if I want to.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Their father’s voice came from the doorway and they both turned, startled; Bella wondered how much he had heard.
‘You don’t drink till you’re sixteen,’ Joseph continued, ‘and then onny in moderation. There’s nowt worse than a drunken landlord.’
Joe gave a foxy grin at Bella, as if his father had acknowledged that he would be landlord one day.
‘It’s onny that it’s hot,’ he complained. ‘I’ve got a right thirst on me.’
‘Then tek a sup o’ water or tea; beer’s for nourishment and pleasure, not onny for quenching your thirst.’ Joseph came over to the counter and surveyed the floor where Joe’s mishandling of the pump had spilt the ale. ‘Nor is it for washing ’floor. Get that cleared up now, and if you can’t draw it better than that, then keep away from it altogether.’
‘It was our Bella’s fault,’ Joe complained. ‘She came in and interrupted me.’
Bella opened her mouth to protest, but remembering that her father was supposed to keep calm and not have any upset she closed it again, and decided that she would get even with her brother at some other time. She wasn’t going to allow him to lord it over her, just because she was younger and a girl.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SUMMER WAS almost over; children were reluctantly preparing to go back to school, the casual workers were leaving, and Bella was kept busy stripping the vacated beds, washing sheets and towels and hanging them out in the paddock to sweeten before putting them away until the following year. She swept out the dormitory, washed the windows, and in the evening helped her father serve the customers. Joe and William were supposed to take it in turns to help, but more often than not they went missing when there was a job to be done. By now, Bella was becoming used to the regulars’ particular preferences.
Johnson, a former plumber, whose arthritic hands were so deformed he could no longer hold a wrench, liked a certain tankard that he claimed as his own, even though Joseph told Bella that it belonged to the inn.
‘Keep it by for him,’ he advised. ‘If somebody else gets it instead of him, he’s grumpy and onny buys one pint. He’ll buy two if he can have it in his favourite tankard.’
Mrs Green came in with her husband every Friday night; Bella knew them by sight, as she’d seen them in their cottage garden near the school. He had a pint of porter and she a neat gin in a straight glass. They always sat in the same seats near the fire and neither spoke. Bella had tried to talk to them but they never answered; it was as if they didn’t hear her. But on leaving they always bade her good night.
A man in his thirties came in every Thursday at eight thirty, drank a pint of cider and left at a quarter to nine. He nodded to whoever was serving and did the same as he left. His name was Took, Joseph said. Then there was a young man who came in once a fortnight on a Friday evening. He was tall, slim and dark-haired, and always wore a white shirt with dark trousers, waistcoat and jacket and drank a glass of mild.
Joe speculated on who he was and what he did for a living, for he thought that he wasn’t much older than him. He didn’t think he was local to the area, but they couldn’t find out without asking him outright what his occupation was, or thinking of a way to turn the conversation so as to require an answer. William, who might have been able to, wasn’t interested in him, and Joe hadn’t acquired that ease of interrogation that invited confidences without appearing nosy. Besides, the young man usually took himself off to a corner to drink his ale, though he often kept an interested eye on a game of dominoes.
‘He’s a toff,’ Joe pronounced. ‘Bet he’s a landowner’s son.’
William shrugged and then said, ‘Still at school, I’d say,’ and at that Joe laughed hilariously at his brother’s stupidity for who would stay on at school at his age.
Bella missed the good-natured banter of the casual labourers now they had left. They were always complimentary to her, telling her she was a right bonny lass, and enquiring if she was walking out with a lad, and that if she wasn’t wouldn’t she choose one of them.
She always replied in a similar vein, telling them that she was too young for courting, and never getting too familiar, as her mother had warned her not to.
‘Never forget you’re ’innkeeper’s daughter,’ she told her. ‘Keep a step apart. Friendly, but not too friendly; keep a barrier between you.’
William, when he did help, politely served the customers with whatever they asked for, but never communicated with them; never chatted about
the weather or the harvest or the price of cattle or corn as his father did; nor did he sit with them and have a glass of ale as Joe often did when his father wasn’t there.
‘He fancies himself as ’landlord,’ William said to Bella one evening. ‘Look at him.’ He glanced towards one of the tables where a game of dominoes was in progress and Joe was sprawled in a chair at the end of the table with a tankard in one hand and gesticulating with the other.
Bella shrugged. ‘He’s old enough to drink now. I hope he doesn’t get too much of a liking for it.’
‘He has already,’ William muttered. ‘He’s had a fair amount of practice down in ’cellar.’
Bella turned her head to look at William. ‘Are you joking?’
William shook his head. ‘No. He’s been having a tankard of ale most nights for a twelvemonth or more.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘But now he’s sixteen, he thinks he can have a drink whenever he wants.’
‘And not pay for it,’ Bella murmured, and wondered how she could warn her father without being a sneak, and whether it was worth the aggravation that would ensue if she did tell him. So she told her mother instead, saying that she was a bit worried that Joe was getting a liking for ale.
But her mother was indulgent. ‘He needs to try it out,’ she said. ‘If he doesn’t know ’strength of it, how’s he going to know when ’customers have had enough?’
‘Well, I know,’ Bella answered. ‘And I don’t drink. Mr Hemp was drunk ’other night and me and William had to help him out of ’door.’
‘Where was your father?’
‘Oh, it was almost closing time and I’d told Father we’d clear up. Joe pulled Mr Hemp another pint.’
Bella didn’t add that she’d noticed Joe hadn’t charged the customer or that he’d topped up his own tankard at the same time.
‘I don’t want you all bickering,’ her mother griped. ‘We’ve got to work together.’
‘Yes, Ma. I know,’ Bella said, but felt frustrated and not a little peeved. Though she realized that her brothers were working hard during the day, she too was busy in the house during the day as well as in the inn at night; Joe seemed to blatantly indulge himself by chatting to the customers, William often didn’t turn up to do his share, and their father didn’t appear to notice.
‘Father,’ she said one morning when they were alone in the taproom. ‘Could we work out a rota for the evenings?’
‘How do ya mean?’ Joseph asked. He sat down on one of the benches.
Bella hesitated. ‘Well, so that we could each have a night off now and then; I mean now that we’re not so busy, now that ’labourers have gone. If, say, Joe and William came in together, then you and I could take a full night off, and if you and me were in, then William and Joe could take the night off.’
Her father frowned. ‘But they do come in together. They were both in last night.’
‘They were both in, yes,’ Bella answered. ‘But Joe wasn’t serving. He was having a game of shove-ha’penny with some of ’customers, so William and I served.’
Her father wouldn’t have noticed, she thought, as her mother had looked in, seen that Bella and William were managing and called Joseph to come to the kitchen and have some supper. Then he’d gone to bed.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘Not sure if either of them is up to looking after ’customers on their own.’
‘Well, then, I could come in with William and Joe could come in with you,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t need all four of us every night of ’week. It would be a good business if it did,’ she added lightly. ‘We’d be made of brass then, wouldn’t we?’
Joseph nodded. ‘Aye, we would that.’ He looked at Bella for a moment. ‘You’ll do all right, Bella,’ he said. ‘I’ve no worries about you. None at all. How old are you now?’
‘I’ll be fourteen in two weeks, Father. On October the fourth,’ she said quietly. She had met her friend Alice only recently, and Alice had told her about her job as a skivvy in a farmhouse two villages away. She had left school when she was twelve to look after her younger siblings whilst her mother worked as a washerwoman. The children were now able to fend for themselves, she told Bella, the ten-year-old looking after the younger ones after school, which was paid for by the governors of the parish.
‘I’m proper grown up,’ she said. ‘And earning a living.’
Although Bella didn’t say so, she thought that Alice must be nothing but a drudge, but she also knew that Alice’s mother would be glad of her wages. They were a very poor family with a father earning little as a farm labourer.
She regretted not being able to fulfil her own ambition to be a teacher. I like little children, she thought, and remembered how only a year or two ago she used to read Nell a story when she went to bed, to help her sleep; Nell was afraid of the dark and Bella would sit in her room with a flickering candle and read a few pages from her favourite book. But Nell soon got bored and would lie there, huffing and puffing and sighing and grumbling, and then would regale Bella with what she was going to do when she was grown up. It was always tales of travelling and singing and dancing, at which she said she was the best ever. Nell had no doubts of her own ability, or that she would always be able to do whatever she wanted.
‘Aye, all right,’ her father said, to Bella. ‘But you’ll have to sort it out and I don’t want any arguing between you; and don’t forget that ’lads have to go to work early of a morning so they won’t want to do a late shift.’
I have to be up early too, Bella sighed. But in any case they won’t take any notice of me; at least William might but Joe won’t, not even if I tell him that Father says. She had only thought that if she could have a little time off, she could read a book to improve her mind, or even just for pleasure. She paused as she wiped down a table. But it’s not going to happen. Her mother wasn’t well, although she didn’t complain, and Bella knew that she would have many more responsibilities once the child was born sometime in November.
William had had his fifteenth birthday in September and had whispered to Bella that only another year and he would be off to join the army.
‘I shan’t have finished my apprenticeship but the army won’t mind that; I’ll be able to shoe horses and fix bolts and hinges on waggons and carts ’n’ that.’
‘But will Harry ’blacksmith mind?’ she asked. ‘Father’s paid him and he’s training you up. It’s a waste of his time and Father’s money.’
‘No, it’s not!’ William’s unusual show of retaliation proved to Bella that his conscience was uneasy. ‘I’ve learned a lot already.’
‘You’ve not been there five minutes,’ she snapped back. ‘You onny started at ’beginning of summer.’
‘Aye, but in another year I’ll know all there is to know. Or at least as much as I’ll need to know to get into ’army,’ he added.
And that was that, she thought. The army was William’s dream and nothing was going to stand in his way. As for Joe’s dreams, she didn’t think he had any, except to be the innkeeper at the Woodman and he expected that as his right because he was the eldest son and not because he was prepared to work for it.
A week before Bella’s birthday her mother told her that she and her father had decided she could take a day off.
‘You’ve been working hard,’ she said. ‘Mebbe you’d like to tek a walk whilst ’weather’s still fine. I know you like to do that. Heaven knows our winters are long enough and we can’t get out.’
Bella beamed. Yes, she would like that very much. She’d call to see Miss Hawkins and explain her situation a little better in person than she had in the hastily written note she had sent, telling the teacher that she couldn’t take up her offer of training to become an assistant.
She rose early the next morning, intending to prepare breakfast and do the dishes before going out. It would save her mother having to do it, for she seemed rather sluggish and slow nowadays and often had to sit down in the afternoons, although her excuse was that if s
he sat down then so would Joseph.
Joseph complained when his wife and Bella insisted that he take a nap. ‘I feel fit as a lop,’ he grumbled. ‘Nowt wrong wi’ me. Damned doctor’s barking up ’wrong tree. It was just a bit of a funny turn I had that time.’ He grunted. ‘Worrying everybody and putting ’fear o’ God in me!’
It was true he did look better, although he had developed a persistent cough, and if he got out of breath when climbing the cellar steps, well, they were very steep, he argued, so it was to be expected.
The kettle was simmering at the side of the range; Bella took a frying pan out of the cupboard and put it over the flame. She sliced a loaf, put bacon rashers in the pan to sizzle and then went to stand at the bottom of the house stairs, listening to hear if Joe and William were up. She could hear nothing apart from a creaking floorboard in her parents’ room, and guessed that it was her mother getting up.
‘Ma,’ she called as the bedroom door opened. ‘Lads aren’t up yet; will you give them a shout? I’ve started breakfast. Is Father getting up? Shall I put a couple of rashers in for him?’
‘He’s up already.’ Her mother came to the top of the stairs. ‘I didn’t hear him get out of bed. Is he outside?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bella said. ‘I’ll go and look in a minute. Shall I cook you something? Will you have a boiled egg?’
‘No, no, just a slice of bread and a cup of tea.’ She turned to go up the two steps which led to the boys’ room. ‘I’ll waken these slug-a-beds; they’re going to be late for work.’
Bella turned over the bacon slices and went to the back door. It was still locked and bolted from the night before, so her father couldn’t be outside. Was he in the taproom? She went to look but he wasn’t there either and the curtains were still closed. She scurried back to the kitchen and the crisping rashers and cracked two eggs into the pan, and then went through another door from the kitchen into a narrow corridor which led past two small rooms where customers could drink or play dominoes in private to the rear door of the inn and the cellar door, which was always kept locked except when in use. It was open.
