Jude

by Betty Burton

  She brisked herself to her feet. The show of self-pity over Jaen was done with.

  That evening they sat late, talking over the rearrangement of farm-work and chores. When they had settled everything Bella said, “It’s not been a bad year taken all in all. There hasn’t been a bad day at Blackbrook market this eighteen-month, but we been lucky.”

  She talked on about the cow, the butter and cheese-making, about eggs, hens and geese, chutney, and the pickled walnuts for which Bella Nugent had a good local reputation. It was small enough business talk, but to Jude it was important. Talking about Croud Cantle on an equal basis, woman to woman. Jude was already a worker on the farm, now she had taken over Jaen’s place as partner.

  Nothing that Bella said was new to Jude. She had sat on the hearth throughout her childhood listening to Bella mulling over the pros and cons of buying, selling, barter and exchange. Whether to make more apple wine and less cider or whether to put down a glut of eggs in preserve, or to pickle them in vinegar. Croud Cantle was, and would always be, Bella’s main preoccupation. Now Jude’s turn had come to have a say in how they kept their head above water.

  Jude was at the undefeated age, when crocks of gold may be found in the roots of trees, ambitions achieved; a wish needed only to be made at the right moment for it to be fulfilled.

  As they were going to bed, Jude took the bull by the horns.

  “Mother?”

  “Jude, you’re as clear as Dunnock Brook. When you say ‘Mother?’ like that, you’re after something.”

  “All right then – Bella.”

  Bella gave her a that’s-enough-of-that-cheek! look.

  “I want to learn to read and write. Gilly went to school till he was eight . . . If I could a done that . . .” Bella’s unresponsive expression made her trail off.

  “I don’t mean for me to go, but there might be somebody who could tell me how to do it.”

  Bella’s non-committal, “Oh yes?” followed by silence, was her stock response to any question needing more thought.

  “I want to write things down.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “In a book.”

  Bella sat gazing into the fire. Without realising that she was doing so, Jude breathed shallowly and intermittently, her hopes hibernating until the spring of Bella’s answer.

  If I could write. If I could write. And read! She did not know exactly what she would do when she could write, the answer to that would come. The most important thing was to learn how to do it.

  It is like everything you want to know being a prize at the centre of a huge ball of cord that is all tangles and knots. You can see the prize, but you don’t know what it is, and you can’t get it because of the tangle. You work at undoing the knots by asking people things. Every question answered is a bit of the tangle straightened out, and a pin-hole glimpse at the prize. But the ball of cord is so enormous and the tangles are so great!

  Jude saw the ability to read and write as the knife to slice through the tangle, and she had been thinking about it since she was about five years old, when Bella had taken them to Rathley.

  It was the first journey that Jude had ever been on. It was extraordinary and out of routine, but even so the memory of it was hazy, except for two clear impressions. One was the awful soreness of her feet. The other was a picture.

  Bella had got them clean and dressed early in the day. They wore gaitered boots. Bella had done a deal over the boots with a packman a few months before they were needed, and Jude’s feet had grown. The boots rubbed her toes and the backs of her ankles. Just as they were about to leave, the little studs around which the laces were wound had popped off one by one. Bella had got cross because the studs would not have popped off if Jude hadn’t gone kicking at stones in the yard. Bella had got some twine and Jude had gone to Rathley with the gaiters bound to her legs like corn-stooks.

  Jude never knew why they went to Rathley. Bella took a roll of papers with her, she remembered that, and they had gone into a big place full of shelves with more rolls of paper. Jaen had held her hand and said they must be good. Jude was, her small feet and legs wanting nothing better than to be left alone, dangling from the high bench on which she and Jaen had been placed.

  The only thing to see was a painting hanging on the wall opposite to where they sat. It was of a life-size group, and seemed enormous to the small Jude.

  At first she could think of nothing but her feet, but as they cooled she began to see the picture. She became interested because there was a woman with red hair, like her mother’s, holding the hand of a small child whose hair was the same colour as Jude’s own. They were standing behind a man. The mother and the little girl had obviously come in to look at him. The woman held her head on one side and looked at the man with admiration. The child was looking cross. The man was in the middle of the canvas, seated at a table with a board resting upon it. He wore dark-blue, strange clothes and was holding a piece of chalk. The entire board was covered with marks, letters and numbers. The man had a pleased look in his eyes, and his mouth was turned up in a smile. He had been captured in the act of looking up, and he looked directly at Jude. He was pleased and excited; he had been searching for the answer to something and had at last discovered it. He must be saying, “Ah yes! Of course!”

  When the soreness in her feet subsided a bit, Jude slid from the bench and moved closer to the picture. The man’s gaze followed her. “Ah yes! Of course!” She walked up and down, until Jaen had hissed at her to sit down. Wherever she moved the man looked at Jude and said “Ah yes!”

  Of course, none of this actually presented itself as immediate inspiration to the five-year-old Jude – only the impression that the man had found something wonderful in what he had written on the board.

  There were some people, like the man in the picture, who got at the prize within the tangle.

  After a long silence, Bella said, “Why d’you want to do that?”

  “I don’t know. But sometimes I find things out that seems important, and I want to keep them, and then I get afraid that I shall forget and they a be lost for ever.”

  Bella fell silent again and Jude was afraid that her mother would dismiss it, suddenly jump to her feet and say, “This won’t do,” and the right moment would never come again.

  She was eleven, and she hadn’t much time.

  What she really wanted to say was, “I don’t want to just work like we do now. I don’t want to grow up grumbling about dust motes getting on things, and cleaning floors so they can be walked on, and spinning and making clothes that wear out, and drawing pails and pails of water. Nor making food which goes as soon as it’s made so you have to make some more, and as soon as that’s made you have to make more and more and more.” She really wanted to say, “I don’t want to be like you, Mother, where everything you do has to be done over and over again, for ever. I want to find out things and put them in books so they will be there, for ever.”

  But she just said, “I know that there’s books about all different things, and I should like to have a read of them. I want to find it all out.”

  “You’ll get over it. When I was about your age, I was always drawing things and making figures. I used to make people out of anything – scrape away with a knife at lumps of chalk, any lump of old clay – used to draw things everywhere. I used to be just like that. I wanted to make little figures, or make pictures. I made a pig once, with a whole litter on her teats. I remember my father putting it on the top shelf. He said, ‘We shan’t get a lot of ham out of they, but they’ll give us another pleasure.’ He seemed quite proud of my pig. It stayed on the shelf for years. Never knew what happened to it. You’d a liked my father.”

  She returned her attention to the present and looked at Jude as though she had forgotten something. “He could write, you know,” Bella said.

  Then, rubbing the small of her back, she stretched and said, “This won’t do!”

  “Please Mother. Let me learn writing.”

 
“It’s no good Jude. I told you, I know how young people feels, but you’ll get over it. Just ask yourself, what good would it be? If you learnt to read, where would you get books and that? Any case, there an’t anybody round here as could show you how it’s done.”

  “But your father could. Somebody must have taught him.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  It was useless arguing about it. There was not a single school in the four parishes, and they knew no one who would be able to teach her. But that would not stop her trying.

  She had expected to feel desolate without Jaen, this first night without her, but the wedding-morning seemed now to be much further in the past than just those few actual hours. When she got into bed, her mind was so much given over to how she was going to find somebody to show her how to write, that she fell asleep before she became aware of the empty place at her back.

  Next morning was bright, clear April. When Jude awoke, less than a day after the grey misery on Tradden Raike, and so soon after her disappointment of the previous evening, she felt almost guilty that she should feel cheerful.

  The sky was just lightening. Jude loved to be first up. She quickly dressed, went to the rain-water butt and splashed her face and arms. She blew up the fire. Added milk to the wheat-grain that had been standing overnight, making a thick fermity which she put on the side to heat up.

  As the little well still had plenty, she drew water from there. Bella would almost always go to the deep well, swearing that its water had special properties – she never seemed to be able to bring herself to make her life easier. Perhaps Mother was right and the water in the deep well was better. Jude would have liked to know.

  She went to let the hens out, just as a red eyelash of rising sun showed above Tradden. It spread a flush on the blackthorn that was in bloom on Winchester Hill and down Bellpitt Lane. From within the hen-house she saw the great sweep of the hill, its ancient ruined fortifications framed by the open hatch.

  “When I was your age, I was always drawing things . . . You’ll get over it . . . Just ask yourself, what good would it be?”

  What good was anything then? Why did people have to get over it? Gentry didn’t. She had seen ladies and gentlemen who stayed with Old Sir Henry sitting in the park with paints. Not just children; ladies and gentlemen as old as Mother. They went about drawing and painting: why did her mother have to get over it?

  Her answer came in the heavy tread of the men’s boots as they came in at the gate, and a clatter from the dairy as her mother started the scouring of milk-pails.

  There being nobody else to confide in, she silently told the hens, “I an’t never going to get over it. I shall learn to read and write.”

  The hens pecked around, nodding their jerky heads in agreement. Jude laughed aloud. “I’m glad you agree,” she said.

  “Glad somebody’s got summit to laugh about. I thought you’d be ready for market, Miss.”

  “Am I coming?”

  “I thought we settled all that last night. I thought you was so keen taking over Jaen’s . . .”

  “Oh yes, yes. I just never thought about going to market.”

  “Then you’d best begin thinking now.”

  “Who is going to see to . . .”

  “Johnny-twoey. You was seeing to the beasts and that on market-day when you was seven. He an’t no stupider than you.”

  Jude rushed everywhere at once in her enthusiasm. It was seldom that she had taken part in going to market. Bella saw no fun in it – the heavy loads; wondering whether there would be better stuff than hers on sale; worried when the weather was warm in case the cream might turn or the butter go rancid or oily – but to Jude it was next to Fair Day for excitement.

  For all the interruption of routine by yesterday’s wedding and the evening spent talking, Bella was ready for market, and half an hour after sunrise was waiting with the donkeys harnessed and packed.

  She called, “Ready!” in the voice that Dicken always reckoned could rattle the bones in Rathley graveyard.

  Jude flew from the house. She had changed from her rough dress and put on a cotton-print skirt, clean white apron and bodice, and the shoes with a buckle that had been bought for the wedding. As they walked down Howgaite Path, Bella leading both donkeys, Jude finished pinning her hair and put on a muslin cap that had been Jaen’s.

  Bella looked down at Jude’s feet.

  “What you think you got on your feet then?”

  Jude looked down at the shiny buckles.

  “Go on, back and put your boots on. They shoes a be in shreds before we gets as far as Motte.”

  Jude ran back, put on her boots and brought her new shiny shoes for Blackbrook market to see her in.

  The Dunnock was low for April, the clear water flowing gently round the stepping-stones at the ford. Cantle women there, scooping and carrying water, exchanged a brief nod of greeting. Jude would have liked it if they had uncurled their backs, smiled and waved, put down the heavy pails and asked what she was doing going to Blackbrook. She wanted to share her prospect of pleasure. At least she carried her shiny buckles in full view.

  As they crossed from Howgaite on to the Dunnock track, they passed The Reverend Mr Tripp, incumbent of St. Peter’s, Cantle. As the Living was in the gift of the Goodenstone family, Tripp was returning from the Big House, Park Manor, where he went each morning to kneel with the servants to ask God to look favourably on Old “Sir” Henry Goodenstone, and to plead that they, Tripp and the servants, be worthy to serve Sir Harry dutifully – and God, of course.

  He was now on his way back to St. Peter’s to give thanks that he had been called to be a theological, rather than a practical, shepherd in Sir Henry’s employ, because the Reverend Tripp loved comfort. Every day he was grateful that, when God shared out wealth, privilege, power and ability, he had not overlooked Archbold Tripp: not that God had been profligate, but He had at least looked after His own by giving Archbold Tripp a better living than he had ever expected – after intercession by a Bishop friend of Rev. Tripp Senior’s.

  Jude and Bella bobbed a curtsey which Tripp acknowledged with a nod.

  “Mother!” Jude gripped Bella’s arm and whispered urgently. “Mr Tripp can read and write.”

  “Oh Jude, be sensible.”

  “We could ask.”

  “No we couldn’t.”

  “I will.”

  By now they had crossed the ford and were losing sight of Mr Tripp.

  “Please, mother. Let me just ask. You go on, I’ll run fast to catch up,” and, without waiting for her mother to answer, Jude ran back to Mr Tripp and caught him up outside the church.

  He turned to see the cause of the running breathlessness.

  “Mr Tripp?”

  He stopped.

  Jude had no idea what to say.

  “Mr Tripp, I want to learn how to write.” Sudden, subconscious inspiration: “And read, so I can read the bible for myself.”

  “Do you not listen at morning service?”

  “Yes, Mr Tripp.”

  “Well? There is no more in the bible than what you hear from me. The Lord’s words are the same whether heard by the ear or seen by the eye.”

  Jude knew that it was no good – it was in his voice – but she pressed on, hoping that something might happen.

  “And I should like to be able to write.”

  “Girl, there are many things that we should all ‘like’. Had God wished you to read and write, then he would not have made you . . .” He did not wish to say, “made you one of the lower orders”, for he prided himself on having a certain sensitivity in some matters. We are all God’s children, created in His image, and Tripp himself would not have liked to be called “lower” anything. “Had God wished you to read and write, then He would not have made you such a strong right hand to your mother. We each must use what He has given us.”

  Jude ran faster than necessary to catch up with Bella. She wanted to rush away from the anger that was rising within her
. She snapped off a hazel switch; slashed at the bitter-sweet which grew self-satisfied along the hedge; whipped at the smug celandines: serve them right!

  All Bella said was, “One of these days your temper’s going to get the better of you,” which made Jude want to give her mother a slash with the hazel-switch too.

  For five or six months of the year, the journey from Cantle through Motte and on to Blackbrook had to be made up the dragging incline of Bellpitt Lane and over Winchester Hill. But early spring had been dry this year, so that they were able to follow the track that ran north beside the Dunnock and around the back of Winchester Hill.

  Walking steadily and quite fast beside the donkeys, they were through Motte and on the outskirts of Blackbrook in good time. As they neared the market-town, they became part of a stream of carts, women with hugely laden baskets, girls with small flocks of geese, and drovers who had perhaps come fifty miles or more with their herds, spending the night in some hired meadow, and now completing their journey. Villagers and townspeople, who wanted to get in early for the best and freshest produce, swelled the stream on its way to the market.

  Bella and Jude exchanged very few words on the first miles of the journey, but after Jude had rid herself of Mr Tripp, she tried to get her mother talking about the market.

  “You’ll know when we gets there,” or, “Don’t you never stop talking Jude?” soon shut Jude up, leaving her to speculate and wonder about the day.

  Blackbrook, like Cantle, was in a valley, though the enclosing hills had gentler slopes. People had lived there in small settlements from the earliest times, building their huts and wooden churches close to the river; but it was not until the building of the great stone abbey, after the Normans came, that it grew in size and importance. By the eighteenth century, it was the centre for the buying and selling of all livestock in that part of Hampshire.

  The cattle-market was away from the main square, and on market-day anyone using the side-streets was liable to find droves of cattle or flocks of sheep racing towards them. Occasionally the call, “Bull loose”, would be heard, when the streets would clear in seconds. Close to the market was a slaughterhouse, where the shrill of pigs and the smell of blood and dung caused unexpected adrenalin to flow momentarily through passers-by.