Jude

by Betty Burton

  Maytes, with the baggage, alerted the servants to Master Harry’s arrival, so that they were assembled, a humble guard of honour for him. They bobbed and curtseyed in a manner suited to a house in which lay the corpse of its late master.

  “Thank you. Thank you,” was the only response from the new master to the expressions of sympathy.

  The day of the burial of Henry George Goodenstone JP was wild. The wind blustered up and around the downs, rattling the empty shells of last year’s beech mast, and making little waves on dew-ponds and horse-troughs.

  “Do we have to go?” Jude asked.

  “Of course we have to go,” Bella answered.

  “Why?”

  “Why! Jude, there wasn’t ever anybody like you for ‘why?’ Out of respect.”

  “You never had a good word to say for him.”

  “Respect for the dead.”

  Jude was not serious in her argument. In such matters she lost to Bella even before they began.

  “The dead don’t need respect – especially one like him. He never had any respect for a soul around here.”

  “Respect for the family then.”

  “Young master Goodenstone – touch your forelock and bow your knee and say Sir! He never liked his father any more than anybody else in Cantle.”

  “You don’t have to like people you do your duty to. It’d be a sad day when people forget their duties,” was Bella’s last word.

  All the while she was protesting, Jude was pinning on a bit of black crape to a straw hat with a large brim. At the last moment, too late to do anything about it, she found that the ribbon needed replacing and rather than have Bella chide her again about her laxity in caring for her clothing, she tucked the ribbon up into her hair behind her ear.

  But Bella saw everything.

  “Oh Jude. You are worse than Hanna. When will you get to be a bit more . . .” She had intended saying “ladylike”, but Jude would have laughed. “And it’s that windy, you’ll have to hold on to it all the while.”

  They left Hanna in the care of Johnny-twoey and went off to see the last of Henry Goodenstone JP, MP. Jude idly talking, to counter the prospect of the dismal ceremony.

  “In some countries they wear white at burials.”

  “Oh Jude, you do say some things.”

  “It is true. And they put the bodies on platforms and set them alight, and everybody watches to see the soul fly up to heaven.”

  “Then pray the Lord that good Christians may save them.”

  Jude laughed aloud and was shushed by her mother as they approached the solemn and grand occasion.

  Jude lowered her voice. “I think it’s a lot better than rotting in the ground.”

  Bella glowered. “If you let us down, Jude . . .”

  They joined the procession of villagers and followed the cortege up to the church.

  Quietly Jude said in Bella’s ear, “When the fire is well alight, all the wives leap into the flames.”

  They walked solemnly on, Bella pretending to be deep in prayer.

  “Imagine if widows here had to do it. Imagine flinging yourself into a grave.”

  As Bella could not close her ears, she closed her eyes.

  The prayers said for the late magistrate by the visiting Canon of the Abbey of St Mary and Ethelflaeda, Blackbrook, were many and ponderous, but eventually the sexton unlatched the door to allow the passage of the coffin and its attendants. Suddenly the wind gusted through the little chapel and whipped the door from his hands, sending it thundering back against the porch.

  “The devil has come to claim the soul,” said Jude.

  When Jude was in this sort of mood she would make jest of anything. Bella forced out between goffered lips and latched front teeth a “Jude!”

  When they were free of the gloomy church, Jude took Bella’s elbow.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And so you should be.”

  “It’s just that I cannot bear all this, so I have to say silly things.”

  Jude indicated the dark spread of the yew trees; the cold, dead, grey stone cross with its green slime and yellow lichens; the heavy tombs of other Goodenstones.

  “All the black. Look at it. Crows.”

  Bella looked about her. The wind dragged and flipped at black crape and fine wool; it flittered black satin bonnet-strings and black lace trimmings and plucked at threadbare shawls. The canon’s full skirt and cloak sounded like sails and flapped like wings. Shiny black jerky movement. Crows. How did such things come into Jude’s head? But she was right when you looked at it.

  At the graveside, the fashionably expensive chief mourner was watching the expensive coffin slide into the tomb, when suddenly he was hit directly in the face by a flying straw bonnet with a broken string.

  In many cottages, in the milking-sheds, barns and alehouses of Cantle and Motte on the evening after the funeral, there was a great deal of close-lipped merriment. Any joke that could be bent around the word, “bonnet”, received unstinted appreciation. Old men who had picked stones from the Goodenstone fields when they were children had long, sore memories: a story like that was cool self-heal balm.

  Like the time lightning struck the house and brought the bounty of work to masons and bricklayers. Or when Old Sir Henry’s collection of rare plants took blight and died. And best of all when he got his shoulder all ready for the touch of the king’s sword and it didn’t fall. There was not a great amount of malice in them, but thereafter he was always referred to as “Sir” Henry – behind his back.

  Ah, the satisfaction of saying, “Serves ’m right,” about a Goodenstone – very quietly, out of the corner of the mouth.

  On their walk home, Bella was torn between feeling that she should chide Jude for making a spectacle of herself, and wanting to tell her the joke: “Well, that was a slap in the face for Harry Goodenstone, and no mistake.” In the end, like the rest of Cantle, she had her laugh at The Estate, and she and Jude arrived home in good spirits.

  About a month later, Jude was working on the Parish Records in the church vestry, when she heard the deformed accent of Harry Goodenstone. He and the Reverend Mr Tripp were walking down the side aisle towards where she was, discussing a suitable site for a plaque to commemorate the old squire, the church’s late benefactor. Jude stopped rustling papers and hoped that they would not come into the vestry. She had apologised briefly on retrieving her bonnet and hoped that finished the matter.

  They came into the vestry.

  Tripp had forgotten that Jude was there.

  “Ah, so it’s you here, girl,” was all that he could think of saying.

  The girl had caused a muddle on a solemn occasion, an important solemn occasion. Under the eyes of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Ethelflaeda. There was something very unsatisfactory about the Nugent girl: he had thought so ever since the day she had raced up to him and asked to be taught reading, and she had been only a child. The mother was an honest and hard-working enough woman, but any family without the authority of a man was bound to suffer. This girl lacked proper humility. The vicar was annoyed and embarrassed to find her there.

  Not so Harry Goodenstone.

  “Ah, the far-flung bonnet,” he said.

  “I was sorry if it appeared disrespectful. But I have learnt a lesson: I shall not neglect to secure ribbons again,” said Jude with a humility that the vicar could not fault, except in its sincerity.

  “I cannot see that you are wholly to blame, for the wind was very strong.” He appeared very gracious, seeing that Jude was a village girl.

  Bright, red-gold hair shone through with sun, coloured by the church window: discovering a village girl studying old documents in a dusty vestry was considerably more interesting than a dutiful plaque.

  On their entry into the vestry, Jude had collected her belongings and put away the records she had been using. She was now ready to leave.

  To Reverend Tripp she said: “Thank you, could I use them again next week?”

  “Wha
t are you doing here?” asked Young Harry.

  “Everything, really.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, I don’t ever know what I’m looking for until I found it. There’s such a lot in these old books.”

  Tripp nervously fingered the pages of a Parish Register, wondering, perhaps too late, whether it was wise to let a girl loose with such documents. They were public documents, true, but nobody had ever asked to see them before. Where would they all be if The Estate removed their patronage? Perhaps there was information here about past Goodenstones that The Estate would not want to see the light of day. The old squire had been generous, but this young man was an unknown quantity.

  Harry Goodenstone did not seem perturbed. In fact he smiled at Jude. “Well it is no doubt a good thing, but I must say it looks somewhat dreary – births, marriages, burials.”

  “It’s people’s lives,” said Jude, “How can that be dreary?”

  Well now, thought Harry Goodenstone, a villager who speaks up! And that hair. To Tripp he said, “The position near the porch will be quite suitable. White marble, gold lettering, simple name and date. No eulogising. He was not a saint.”

  The vicar knew this to be true, but he would not allow a disloyal comment. Old Sir Henry had been prepared to put almost as much money into the repair of God’s house as he was into the stabling of his hunters.

  The fabric of estate-workers’ cottages had come very low on his list, but that was not Tripp’s concern.

  Jude quickly put away the Parish Register and left. She had gone about a quarter of a mile on her way home, when Harry Goodenstone, on horseback, caught up with her.

  “Tripp says you spend a lot of time there.”

  “Not a lot, just the odd hour when I can get away.”

  “I don’t see what interest you can have in them.”

  “Them?”

  “Villagers, the common people.”

  “They aren’t them to me – they’re us. I’m a common person.”

  He gave a Bath Assembly Room laugh, automatically, as when a very pretty young woman declares that, really, she has no looks at all.

  “I see nothing common in you.”

  Jude had reached a gap in the hawthorn and bramble which led on to the short-cut. “Good day Mister Harry.”

  Jude squeezed through the space too small for a horse and rider.

  When she reached home from the vestry, Jude immediately started on preparations for the big baking next day. Bella was draining honey from combs and Hanna had already started her part of the operation, which was chopping lard into small pieces and breaking open eggs to see if they were good. Good eggs went into a jug, bad ones into the pig bucket.

  At coming seven, Hanna was a smaller version of both Bella and Jude. Bella – no nonsense, hard-labouring, sharp-tongued Bella – had gone quite soft where Hanna was concerned. Naturally the child had her chores and duties, as was proper and necessary: their living was not generous enough to allow for idle moments or idle hands. The hour or two that Jude spent in the vestry or reading some tract or pamphlet was worked for at some other time. Jude’s good fortune was that in spite of all the hours of physical hard work she put in, she seldom needed to sleep for more than five hours. When she did sleep she slept deep and awoke refreshed.

  Jude tied on an apron and immediately began making pastry for the plate-tarts. Hanna chattered, pausing from time to time whenever Bella popped a morsel of honeycomb into her mouth.

  “What was you doing there today?” Bella asked. She was not particularly interested, but liked to keep track of things and people.

  “I didn’t get much of a chance. The vicar and Fancy Harry came in.”

  Bella gathered up her lips and frowned at Jude, nodding with great meaning across Hanna, who was intent on her lard chopping.

  “You might think it’s clever to talk like that, but we do quite well out of The Estate one way and another, so you mind yourself.”

  “Oh mother, this is our own kitchen. If we can’t talk free here, where can we talk?”

  “Little brooks babble,” said Bella.

  “And little donkeys have got big ears. I know,” said Jude with a “heard it all before” expression.

  “I won’t tell what Jude said,” said Hanna.

  Jude laughed and Bella wagged her head with her you-will-all-be-the-death-of-me-yet look.

  They worked quietly for a few minutes, then Bella said, “Well?”

  “He wanted to know what I was doing.”

  “And?”

  “I just said I was going through some old records.”

  “Didn’t he say anything about,” she looked at Hanna, “the burial?”

  “No. Well, only something about bonnet-strings.”

  “What about?”

  “Nothing. When I left, he came after me up Howgaite.”

  “Came after you? What d’you mean came after you?”

  “He came after me on his horse.”

  “On his horse? What did he ..?”

  “Lord, Mother! In the vestry he looked at me like men do. I’m nearly twenty; lots of men look at young women. They have to, even if they are not serious about it, they have to . . . well, keep going, chasing, hunting, whatever it is they do.”

  Bella gave another signal over Hanna’s head and sent Hanna to collect the day’s eggs.

  Jude went on. “I don’t know why you’re making such a to-do.”

  “It’s not a to-do. But things you say sometimes . . .”

  “Oh mother! He is fancy. With his buttons and his curls over his ears. He was wearing a cloak with a collar touching his ears and a high black hat with a buckle in front. Why, mother, the hat was near as tall as he was. Nobody can take him serious, not like old Sir Henry. You had to take him serious: you knew he’d a soon ride you down as go round you. Harry Goodenstone is only a man like all the rest. He didn’t have anything better to do, so he rode down Howgaite just to give himself the pleasure of looking down on me from his high horse, then ride away showing off his tight bum-bags.”

  Close-lipped, Bella kneaded dough.

  “He isn’t coming courting,” said Jude drily.

  “There’s times when you behave like a five-year-old, Jude. You seem to have this idea that you can say anything you like and one of these days it’s going to land you in trouble. Harry Goodenstone and his sort can make or break the likes of us.”

  Knowing that when Bella was in full flight it was useless making any comment, Jude continued rolling and cutting the pastry for the plates.

  “Just because we aren’t bound hand and foot to The Estate, don’t mean that we are a deal more independent than the rest of Cantle. They got money, and that’s power. Harry Goodenstone could finish up in Parliament and make up some law to take over people like us. They took over most everything else. It’s only with God’s grace we’re here. I tried to bring you up strong, but you’re a sight too strong if you ask me. You seem to think that just because people is fools, you can treat them like fools. Well you can’t if they’m called Goodenstone.”

  She was running down, but Jude knew that she was not quite finished. Eventually she said, “Tight bum-bags!”

  Hanna came back with the egg-pail and Bella set her to preparing vegetables and herbs. Hanna didn’t at all like the sore eyes the onions caused, but Bella made her persevere, saying that in a couple of years she would be able to chop onions dry-eyed like a proper little woman.

  The irritation that had begun in the vestry when Harry Goodenstone began to intrude upon her – impertinently as she saw it – had been exacerbated by Bella’s homily.

  “We don’t owe the Goodenstones anything. They don’t buy anything from us, and we don’t get anything from them.”

  “Where do our wood come from?”

  “Why, the common mostly.”

  “And what if The Estate claims it and encloses it?”

  “They can’t!”

  “But suppose they did?”

 
; “It wouldn’t be any good to them.”

  “I’m not saying it would. What I’m saying is that they got the money to do it if they took it into their heads, and then we should have to look about us for fuel, shouldn’t we? So we are dependent on them.”

  The argument did not slow down the production of the plate-pies and tarts, and gradually the cold slab became covered with rows of them. For quite long periods they worked silently, Hanna quietly absorbed in making little dough people from the scraps Bella always passed to her at the end of the process. Jude prodded Bella, but Bella wasn’t having any. She’d had her say and did not rise.

  Jude said, “We aren’t here by God’s grace either. This place is yours and we work it very well.”

  Bella scoured the flour from crevices in the soft pine of the table.

  Jude went on, “And you’re wrong: I don’t treat everybody I think’s a fool like a fool. There’s a lot of them can’t help it. It’s fools who wear big black hats and tight bum-bags and think they have the right to ask people anything they like that I treats as fools.”

  After the death of Old Sir Henry, the lives of the working people of Cantle, Motte and The Estate were unaltered with the exception of two beneficiaries under the will, who had the millstone of rent lifted from them.

  Harry Goodenstone was no new broom.

  He looked briefly at books put before him by bailiffs, stewards and head gardeners and at more length at the cellar records. He entertained a great deal and rode about The Estate doing his duty, taking an interest in his land and his people.

  “ ’Morning to you Ned”, “Salmon running yet, Dawkins?” “Good crop of fruit, eh?” in his high voice, and with inflections and tortured vowels that were understood in places like Bath and London, but not in rural Hampshire. He had been made into a gentleman, and was vaguely aware that the men who tended stock, grew cereal and fattened cattle, and the women who milked and churned and stooked, had something to do with his personal comfort. Harry Goodenstone behaved as a gentleman ought, and was gracious to those who served – his workers.