by Betty Burton
His workers – they would touch their brow and feel irritable for the rest of the day.
From the day his new tailor mentioned how seldom it was that he had the pleasure of dressing such a good figure, Harry Goodenstone took care to live up to the good figure. He held his head well clear of his shoulders, whatever the occasion; his back was straight; he stood whenever he could. When riding, he kept his backside thrust out, moulding the fine cloth of his breeches about his buttocks and thighs. “The Master sits a horse like a button-hook,” as one stable-lad commented. He kept his long chin and short upper lip clean-shaven of the hair that hardly grew there, and allowed mouse-brown curls to show beneath fashionable headgear.
Fred Warren often had business with The Estate. One day, there being a Bill that needed signing, Goodenstone took him into the library.
“Don’t reckon I’ve seen any finer library than this, Master Harry.”
“Interested in books?”
“Indeed, when I have the time.”
“Look nice in a room, but I have never discovered a great deal of pleasure in reading. Like to see books on a wall, though. I’m about to clear this lot out. Going to make it into a room for performing arts and the like.
“You can take some books if you care, Warren. The new library shall be on a good deal smaller scale than this. Be a fine room though, having in one of the best London architects to design it . . . along with my other room. I will arrange it . . . the books. Come when it suits you.”
“That’s extraordinarily generous of you, Sir. Any books in particular you want to be rid of?”
“Don’t take those.” He indicated a wall full of red morocco, raised bands and silk headers. Jolly nice colour.”
To Fred Warren, the prospect of the pleasure of selecting books was enormous. The offer was made so casually that, with the exception of the red calf, he was unsure which and how many it was appropriate to choose. On his first visit he took six.
When Warren visited The Estate office again, Harry Goodenstone asked him when he was going to come in for the books. On hearing that Fred had taken only an armful, he said, “Good God Warren, I want a whole wall cleared.” Fred offered to make an inventory of what was there before anything was removed, as obviously Master Harry would want to keep the best of the books.
“Good fellow, Warren. You do what you like. I never got on well with that kind of thing. Never did learn a word of Latin. Tried to cram it in – fell out again.” Young Harry Goodenstone laughed at himself.
“Would you mind if I brought someone with me? A village girl. I’ve taken an interest in her, taught her to read and write. She’s a rare one for reading, but never gets enough to keep her going.”
“Do you mean the girl from over yon? The one with the hair? I saw her in the vestry one day. Odd girl. Writing a history of farm-hands or some such. Extraordinary hair. Like russety hair.”
Fred Warren had never thought much about Jude’s hair.
“Judeth Nugent. I never met anybody who could pick up things as quick as Judeth.” As always when he talked of Jude, he felt the pride that he would like to have felt about his own children. “She has such a brain under that hair. She would love to come to your library, I’m sure of it.”
“Tell her to come to the house. Come when she wants.”
April 1787. It is seven years today that Jaen got married to Dan Hazelhurst.
Sometimes I can scarce hear to look her straight in the eyes, she is so full of misery. She keeps her face in the shape of a smile, but it is all false.
It is natural for women to give birth, we are made to do so, yet why is there such pain? Some animals will not suckle their young. It seems to be a natural thing.
I wish that I was not so ignorant. I want to ask about such things, but who to ask? I hardly care to write them secret, let alone talk. In any case I do not even know how to say the things that come to me. Most it is feelings that a thing is wrong yet I do not know what it is that makes it wrong. Like Jaen who, I believe, is in terror of giving birth, even suckling and holding the children. Yet she is a woman and our bodies are made for this.
J. Nugent
What I wrote above about animals. I stopped myself putting it down because I was afraid to admit my thoughts, but what is the use of thoughts if we run from them.
Animals couple, it seems without being able to help it. If Jaen went with him in that way then that is natural and good. Most animals give birth and feed their young, and if you hear a cow lowing for a dead calf you know that it wants that calf very much. However, there are some creatures that do not accept their young. They will not suckle them and will often devour them. Perhaps there are women who cannot abide their own young, but have no choice.
J. Nugent 1787
May 1787. Further thoughts on this subject.
It would be better if we were to be more open and say that there are women who find it hard to take to the children they gave birth to. And men who are the same, for Dan is pleased that Hanna is away from them. There is nothing wrong in that, yet I know that it must never be talked of.
It seems that even women, who ought to give tender support to one another, join in the hurt of women like Jaen. If Jaen does not want her children, then it must be natural to her. If it is natural to her, then she should not be blamed.
Jude Nugent
The morning was bright and fine when Fred Warren at last found time to call at the holding and tell Jude about the books.
Jude, in her rough dress, head uncovered, hair straggling from its string, was leading the old donkey with Hanna seated upon its back. Hanna was giggling and trying not to fall off as Jude jumped and tickled her.
As always, Jude was delighted to see her old tutor. He looked as though he had become quite the gentleman. His hair was cut fashionably to the collar and was still powdered, although he wore no false queues or curls. His coat was elegantly cut away and his neck-cloth was of fine lawn. His black leather boots with turn-down cuffs looked far too shiny for country wear.
“Mr Warren, you do look fine.”
He looked pleased at the compliment. “Well, it’s nice to be some people, playing games in the sun with little fidgets like this.” He picked up Hanna and gave her a toss in the air. “I been up and on the road since sunrise.”
“Then you lazy thing Mr Warren,” said Jude. “I was up even before the sun.”
“I’ll believe you there, Judeth, knowing how you can’t bear to waste time sleeping.”
“It do seem a bit of a waste when we haven’t got much time on this world. Come into the house. It’s all right,” she laughed at the question in Warren’s raised eyebrows. “Mother’s finished her scrubbing down. She’s gone down to tether the new kid in the orchard.”
“I’ve got somebody with me. Showing him the ropes. We are getting so much business, Mr White decided to get me an assistant.”
“Well he can come too, can’t he? Where is he?”
“Round the front, holding the horses. Jude, I got the best news for you. Books, Jude!”
Jude loved Fred Warren’s enthusiasm whenever he had some tract or pamphlet to bring her, or news of a meeting he had heard of. She returned the grin he gave her when he said, “Books!”
Jude and Hanna went in through the back door and cut some tart and fetched a jug of cider. Then Fred came in, followed by a young man of about twenty-five.
“Jude, this is Will Vickery.”
That Will Vickery was of middle height and had brown, unpowdered hair was all Jude took in of him. They each made polite acknowledgement of the other, he accepted refreshment and sat quietly eating.
Fred Warren was exuberant. “What would you say to having free rein in a library full of books? I know what you’re thinking – what else would a library be full of? Except this one won’t be full of anything much longer, apart from play-acting. There’s books to read and to bring away by the armful, Judeth.”
He held his knees together like a child in anticipation of Jud
e’s response.
“There’s never going to be an open library in Blackbrook like the one you saw in Southampton?”
“No, nearer than that. Here in Cantle. Up at Park Manor. You can use the library there, and have what books they don’t want. In return we shall make a catalogue for him.”
Fred Warren waited for the effect he expected from her.
“There! I knew it’d knock the wind out of you.”
“I don’t know that I could do that,” she said.
“Lord girl, why not? Old Sir Henry bought the books by the yard to make an elegant room to be up with his friends. Harry Goodenstone isn’t one bit interested in books. He’s taken up with theatres and plays and is going to have a stage built in the library and wants a good many of them gone.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say.”
“I could come over with you a time or two till you got used to it.”
“I haven’t got time. I can’t be always off on such things when Mother’s got so much to do.”
Fred Warren looked quite crestfallen.
“Jude, you cannot possibly turn down this opportunity. There’s books there . . . I can’t tell you . . . poetry, bound engravings, plays – William Shakespeare, imagine that, everything that he wrote. Jude there’s books in that library that has never seen the light of day.”
There was a clatter outside and Jude was saved from answering as Bella came in and Jude remembered she was supposed to be preparing food for the men. She busied herself swinging the stew-pot over the fire, then putting out cheese and cutting bread into large hunks.
After she and Fred had exchanged the time of day and the young Mr Vickery introduced, Bella sat with bread in one hand, cheese in the other, as she always sat at this time of day, unrelaxed and ready to spring at the next job, as though she had not a second to spare.
Fred Warren knew that the best approach to Bella was always the direct one. “Could Jude be spared for the odd half a day, to do some reading?” he said.
Bella shrugged her shoulders. “As well as writing down the whole world?”
“Why,” said Mr Warren, “I had quite forgot that.” He turned to where his new assistant sat unobtrusive and quiet, Hanna at a distance, weighing him up with the solemn expression of an old lady.
“D’you know, Will, the first time I met Judeth – you were coming up twelve, isn’t that right?”
Jude nodded.
“She asked me to teach her to write so that she could put down everything in one big book.”
“Two,” said Jude.
“Well, if that’s not just the best kind of ambition I ever heard say of.”
Until now Vickery had said no more than a quiet “Good morning”, but the words he now uttered caused both Jude and Bella to turn in his direction. His voice was quiet but clear and he put stress on words quite unlike anything they had ever heard.
“You’re not from round these parts then,” said Bella.
“I was born in Motte. My father was a groom on the Estate there. He got taken to Ireland by his master – I was two at the time – and lived there ever since.”
“Ireland! Oh, Ireland,” said Jude, with just as great an interest as though he had said Iceland or India. “I have always wondered what it was like there. Is it all so green? I’ve heard it said that it is all green.”
“It is green. There’s a lot of grass, and surely plenty of rain.”
Fred Warren looked enormously pleased. “That’s a bit of information for your book, eh?”
Will Vickery asked, “Do you really do that?”
Jude laughed. “I only just put down some things that people may forget, things that might be worth knowing in a hundred years.”
“Judeth’s got brains,” said Fred Warren.
“They don’t remind her to see to the broth though,” said Bella, jumping up to clatter the iron spoon against the soup-kettle.
Immediately, Fred Warren sprang to his feet.
“Mrs Nugent. I have overstayed my welcome. The men will be in soon.”
Jude began collecting the mugs they had used.
“What do you say then? Half a day? It’s a chance too good to be missed.”
“She’d have to stop all that in the vestry,” said Bella.
“I don’t know that I can go up there,” said Jude.
“But why, Judeth?” asked Fred Warren.
Jude hesitated; she was not wholly sure why. It was, of course, partly to do with her recent encounters with Goodenstone. It was also partly that she was not sure what she was getting into. Not that she thought that there was anything amiss in being allowed access to the Manor library, but it was, to say the least, extraordinarily unusual for a village girl to go up to the Manor in any capacity other than servant. Perhaps that was it, it was not being able to place herself. You were safe when you knew who you were and what you were.
“I thought you would jump at the chance,” said Fred Warren.
“Well, it’s being May and all that. There’s all the bean planting, the carrots and beets; the fruit has to be thinned. This time of year . . .” She trailed off.
“You don’t work every hour God sends?”
“Mostly.”
Fred Warren looked at Jude with mild concern. “Come Judeth, why? All the times you’ve wailed and moaned about not having enough books. He’s giving away books.”
Jude felt unhappy. She had great affection for her tutor.
Had it not been for him, she would not know the excitement she felt every evening when she took out her books with the blank pages.
“I don’t know. I think I should feel beholden to people I don’t want to be beholden to.”
There was a moment’s silence and into it the younger man said: “It seems to me that if there’s anybody should feel beholden, it’s for the likes of them. Is there a one who ever did a day’s work in their whole life. Where did the books come from? Where else except from the sweat of the brows of the people round here. Books don’t get bought by riding to hounds, nor by entertaining and dinner-parties, nor by sitting in theatres and the like. Those books got bought by the sweat of people who have worked all their lives and . . .”
He stopped mid-sentence. Bella had stopped stirring and Jude looked at him as though his words were pictures streaming from his mouth.
He looked down at his own hand, which had slapped the table for emphasis, as though it did not belong to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My tongue has always been quicker than my brains.”
Bella was leaning slightly forward, as though something quite new and strange had caught her interest. She squinted her eyes and compressed her lips in case they should smile too much.
“No,” she said, “you’m right. That kind of thing have been in my mind all my life. My father used to talk like that, but I never heard it put in such words before.”
She did not look at any of them as she spoke, but her eyes raked the whole room as though gathering in thoughts that had been waiting there for her to collect. Bella looked as though the entire mystery of the universe had been revealed.
“Why, Mister Vickery, a course the books is ourn.” She smiled broadly at the young man. “And I reckon Jude ought to get a read of them.”
That evening, the days having lengthened towards summer, Jude and Bella worked late. Hanna had traipsed about after them all day, Bella petting and praising her, indulging her as she had never done Jaen and Jude.
“Goodness, what a hard little worker you are my lovely.”
“Look Jude, see how many potatoes Hanna have put in their holes.”
“Well, my Lord! Did you pick all that lot of snails off they cabbages? Tell Jude you shall have that bit of ginger-bread that was left.” And so on.
Now late on the warm May evening, Hanna had fallen asleep curled up on some sacks. Jude carried her into the house and put her to bed as she was.
Right from the beginning there had always been a bit of competition for putting Hanna to bed and an uns
poken agreement had grown up between Bella and Jude that they would do it turn and turn about. In winter they would sit on the hearthside, perhaps rocking and singing, taking time washing her face and hands, counting fingers and toes. In warm weather Jude enjoyed carrying the little girl upstairs, and then sitting squeezed up on the sill of the dormer window.
The upper floor of the Croud Cantle house was really one large room divided with hurdles and laths that had been daubed and whitened. The part that Jaen and Jude had once shared was now Jude’s. Hanna was in with Bella. The three of them shared a space that the vast majority of Cantle families would have considered great luxury. Not only that, they had a good roof and the walls were dry.
Tonight it was too dark outside to sit in the window, and as Hanna had not been disturbed when being transferred from sacks to bed, Jude went back down without lingering. The light had faded, and it was too dark to see to work any longer. Jude brought some food out on to the porch for the two of them, and left Johnny-twoey’s bit of bacon and some bread ready in the scullery. He was an odd boy: eating – like a wild creature – when his body told him, rather than at regular intervals. They left his food ready and he took it when it suited him.
What Jude had said about all the May planting to be done was true. However hard and long you worked, there was always something else waiting. Every green haze of germinated carrot seed had its accompanying haze of groundsel. As beans appeared overnight, so did slugs and blackfly. Traps baited with ale had to be sunk along the rows, and solutions of hard, yellow soap were in constant need to deal with aphids.
The soil was warm now and dry enough for sowing a succession of the vegetables that would be needed to keep them going for the rest of the year. Like every villager who had muscles and joints that worked, Bella and Jude dug and raked and hoed; planted, weeded and thinned; carted muck, pulled rhubarb, thinned carrots and earthed up the potatoes for their own table – all done after a good day’s work.
