Jude

by Betty Burton

  I did not read that part about Hanna, for we said very little about her. I rode over to Newton Clare as often as I could without appearing too intrusive, but Mother never came at all. They were not visits in the true sense of the word, for Hanna still appeared distant and Jaen seemed often dispirited and apathetic and not inclined to talk much.

  I do not know what to tell you of the work that I do here. Sometimes it seems that a year’s work has achieved nothing except a few lists of names. But I think we must not expect too much too soon. Men who are having to cope with an entirely new way of life; of working shut up, of working cheek-by-jowl in a crowd, of living in rows of cottages strung together, are not too concerned with any long-term betterment of their lot. Many are satisfied with the few pence more than they got labouring on the land. So we must work slowly and diligently. Eventually it will be seen that every working man needs to join with every other and that is all that they have to bargain with against the Power and the Gold.

  His letter went on much in that vein and I could hear his voice in every word and sentence. I lost much sleep over it.

  Fred came often to help me. He rolled up his sleeves and together we scrubbed the room behind Annie Bassett’s.

  When I was little and Rob Netherfield worked at Croud Cantle, he seemed like quite an old man, with his bushy black beard and balding head. He was actually not much more than a dozen years older than myself and now that I was adult and, in everything but name, mistress of Croud Cantle, there was a kind of equality between us.

  “Here, young Jude. Be that right you’m starting a Sunday school?”

  “Not a Sunday school.”

  “At’s what Dicken reckons. He’ve told everybody in the Fount. The whole place knows Young Harry’s paying you to get a Sunday school going.”

  I could well believe that the whole place knew if Dicken was telling. I had already heard from Maisie that Dicken had put about and later had to deny that, “The’m all sixes and seb’ns up there, ’cause Master Jude’s getting wed.”

  “The whole place is going to have a surprise then,” I said.

  Because I knew that he was more loyal than Dicken, and did not have cronies in the Dragon and Fount who would be told before the Goodenstones made their intentions known, I told Rob the true reason for the changes taking place at Croud Cantle.

  “It’s a ill wind, Jude.”

  I did not understand his wry smile.

  “Young Harry – he’m going to stand for Parliament in the Four Marks seat, what old Sir Nobby as got drowned have held this thirty year.”

  “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “I should ha’ thought it was all over Blackbrook.”

  It was true, I had heard nothing about it. But I did see what Rob meant by it’s an ill wind. Opening a school for the children of his estate workers would show Harry Goodenstone as forward-thinking and modern. It was becoming the very thing for men to be thought enlightened. Perhaps the original idea had been the Hon. Amelia’s, but Rob was probably right in suggesting that Harry Goodenstone had seen that it was not a bad scheme to become involved in. But I did not much care how my school came about, so long as it did.

  Rob became very enthusiastic and a great help.

  “I shouldn’t a minded learning to read, Young Jude.”

  “There won’t be an age limit. You can have a front seat.”

  “I’m a bit old in the tooth, but I shall see my two little’ns gets you to learn them. Can you do numbers, too?”

  “Not that well, but good enough.”

  “It’s numbers at be as important as reading and writing. You have to know how many beans makes five so you don’t let no Sir Nobbys or Young Harrys put nothing over on you if you can help it, or if they do, at least you knows how they’m doing it.”

  I got to know a side of Rob Netherfield which I never suspected existed. I do not know how we got round to it, but one evening he told me of events that he had been involved in north of Hampshire; of one or two small gatherings of farm and estate workers which had been held in the heart of woods on common land at dark of night. Men and women talked of banding together so they might approach landowners and magistrates to get wages raised to something above the starvation level they were at present. They talked of banding together, united, so that no one person would have to face the wrath of their masters alone, or be penalised individually.

  “But we was all so afraid, Jude. Even there in the pitch of night, with our faces all muffled up, we were afraid that there was arse-lickers, if you a pardon the expression, or folks with little’ns so hungry that they’d sell us out to the magistrates, who’d have us as riotous assemblers or summit.”

  I told him what Will was doing in the North.

  “Ah, Young Jude. If he’d a wanted to get people together to make use of the power of our numbers and our labour and our skill and that, then he ought a stopped round here. It a be a bloody sight easier getting people united when they all lives and works close. It’s when they’m scattered in penny numbers like we are in these here villages round here that it gets hard.”

  He mended windows and boarded up holes and helped me lime-wash the walls. Gradually, by flickering light, slowly, with our breath streaming white in the cold of the January evenings as we worked together, we talked, got to know one another, gained a respect for one another. Rob Netherfield was unread and could not always find the best words to explain his ideas, but he was as radical in his views as Will and Fred, and fiercer than either, for Rob had always lived much closer to hunger and poverty than either of the other two.

  It was the first day of March when I walked up to Park Manor to tell my benefactors that the schoolroom was ready. Although I was eager to be there, I walked slowly. It was more like late April, calm and warm. Where Chard Lepe flows out in winter on to parkland, marsh marigolds were out.

  Jaen. Marsh marigolds and Jaen and watching tadpoles; tucking our skirts between our legs like women gleaning, so that Mother would not know that we had been down near the Chard pond; the greeny smell of the clear water; watching caddis-fly larvae lumbering along the bottom; my skirt always, at the last moment, dropping its hem into the water; running in the wind to dry it before going home.

  If I were God, I should not reward goodness with an eternity sitting on my right hand, I should give the reliving of times of complete happiness and peace. With the smell of bruised lush grass, and the sight and feel of the marsh marigolds, those hours with Jaen would be heaven enough.

  One thing that I had not even thought about till that morning was how much time I would have from now on to go off wandering over Tradden and Winchester. Harry Goodenstone said that he expected the schoolroom to be open whenever children could have an hour away from their work. It was an unsatisfactory arrangement, for few parents would say that there was ever an hour when there was not something to be done. Although I could not have described it as such when I was younger, I have always felt as though my brain was being fed when I wandered over the downs with no purpose other than to wander.

  At the Big House, Mrs Cutts disapprovingly led me into the presence of the Goodenstones. Dicken’s gossip had foundation: there was to be a next generation of Goodenstones, and Young Harry reminded me of nothing so much as a bantam cock fussing about a large red hen. I sensed at once that Mrs Goodenstone’s enthusiasm for village children who became wayside preachers had waned in her absorption with herself and her own child.

  Rob had seen what might happen. “What a you do, Jude, if it’s all a five minute wonder?”

  It was not possible. It was a wedding gift, a token of affection between the two. The lady wanted her schoolroom so much that she had asked for it as that token.

  “Ah well, just so long as you don’t expect too much,” Rob had said, “then there’s no harm done.”

  “Ah, Henry, of course, it is the reading girl come. I had forgot,” said Mrs Goodenstone.

  I felt a flush of humiliation rush to my face. I accepted that I was Bell
a Nugent’s girl, the market girl, pie girl, or even that queer Nugent girl up the lane, but the way she said “the reading girl” made me feel like a two-headed calf in a booth at Blackbrook fair.

  You thinks too much of yourself, my mother would have said.

  I think that Harry Goodenstone saw my discomfort and said, all jolly, “She’s Miss Nugent. They have the little farm on the other side.” Adding for my benefit, “Which I assure her I have no interest in acquiring.”

  Mrs Goodenstone smiled, intent on threading and knotting coral beads for the baby.

  “We will leave Mrs Goodenstone to rest, and talk in the library.”

  I bobbed as much of a curtsey to her as I could manage and followed him out.

  “Mrs Goodenstone has been required by her physician not to tax her strength in any way and to keep her legs raised.”

  Even legs encased in silk and resting on fine embroidery may not escape the disintegration brought about by carrying a child, and for a moment I loathed Harry Goodenstone for having brought that upon her. It was ridiculous, for quite obviously the lady was entirely taken up by the wonderful creation she was involved in.

  “Of course, Mr Harry,” I said.

  The little bantam seemed to preen himself. “ ‘Sir’ Henry before very long. Before the child is born. And quite likely, Sir Henry Goodenstone JP, MP.”

  I said that I was very pleased to hear, all the while aware that they were going to abandon me and the schoolroom. I could not bear to hear him go through all the preamble that would lead to the inevitable excuses and explanations.

  “Then I expect you will find it difficult to take much interest in the little schoolroom?”

  At least Harry Goodenstone thought that he should make an excuse. His wife, I believe, would have simply forgotten that she was ever interested in such a scheme.

  “It is not so much that I shall not take interest and I, we, certainly should like to see you getting the children starting to read. But we shall be spending a great amount of time in London, and we also intend to visit and interest ourselves in our plantations and estates on the other side of the world.”

  “What do you want me to do then, Mister Harry?”

  “Well, you have no doubt gone to some trouble and we,” he giggled as he used to do with Mrs Trowell, “The Lady Amelia and myself, will arrange for a sum of money to be held by my Agent to keep you going for a year.”

  A year! It would take that amount of time to get half a dozen children even to make a start. It would take years; slow, hard years, to make anything like a school in a place like Cantle. Apathy, poverty, suspicion; all had to be worked upon.

  “I had hoped for longer than that,” I said. “We have made some big changes at home, extended some rooms, taken on some more labour.”

  “That is a very good thing to do, improve your property. Never wasted money, and labour is cheaper by the day: get twice the work out of any one man these days. Nothing like low wages to get the corn growing. Your mother will know that, she’ll be glad of the extra labour.”

  Only a few short months ago I had thought what a change for the better there had been. I had found a spark of regard for him. A disturbing spark, because he then no longer fitted easily into my opinion of him as a silly, immature man. Now, however, he had returned himself to a place where I could regard him without any warmth at all. He had become everything that Old Sir Henry had been, and I knew exactly where I stood with him now. I knew, too, that I needed the money he had promised, so I swallowed my pride.

  “Well, Sir Henry.” He made a deprecative gesture, but enjoyed my flattery in the premature use of the title. “I was relying upon you to get children into the classroom. I think it will be difficult if you don’t let it be known that you expect your estate workers to allow their children to come there. I think that once it becomes accepted we shall not find it so difficult, but at first it will be your . . .”

  “I see, I see. Very well. I shall tell Kyte that the schoolroom has my blessing.”

  I thanked him and went home, but did not tell Mother what had happened.

  A few days later I went to Blackbrook, taking Maisie as well as Johnny-twoey so that I would be able to get away from the stall to see Fred Warren.

  He was in his little office over the grain store. As I entered, sadness swept over me. Spaces left by Mrs Warren and Will had settled gloomy and grey in corners, along with the dust from corn husks and wheat ears. I told him how we had been let down and once more in that room my taut nerves snapped, my voice broke and tears welled up. It was over in a minute.

  “It must be something about this room, Fred. I hardly ever cry anywhere else.”

  “You will try to be strong all the time, Judeth. You should let yourself cry sometimes.”

  “Weakness, Fred.”

  “You are your mother all over again.”

  “Fred! I am nothing like her.”

  He only raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. I thought I remembered someone else using that phrase, but perhaps it was in the dreams. Did people think I was like her? I sometimes caught myself stumping about in a purposeful way very like Bella’s. But it was my leg, still not straight, that made me walk like this. Fred was wrong. Not like my mother. No.

  By the time I left him I felt hopeful again. He said that he knew people who might be willing to put up some money to keep us going.

  “There are two approaches, Judeth. Those men who will help because I shall tell them Young Harry has money in it and they’ll want to be associated; and others who will do so because I shall tell them that he’s backing out, letting us down, and they will want to show him up. I should have thought he would have kept you going until he’s actually got old Sir Noddy’s seat. But then, Amelia Coates is one of the Noddy clan, so there’s not much chance that Young Harry will not get it.”

  In June, almost a year to the day from their marriage, a son and heir was born to Sir Henry and Lady Goodenstone. The birth coincided with hay-making, so another moonlit supper was given for the villagers. There Sir Henry made his first appearance as Member of Parliament for Four Marks and gave a speech, at the end of which he announced that the schoolroom was not, being used as his lady had hoped and urged the people of Cantle to recognise the value of their children being able to read.

  After that, the number of children who came on a very irregular basis rose from eight to eleven. Most of them were quite small children who, I suspected, were being sent to “Annie Bassett’s Reading”, as it had become known, because they were the least able to contribute to the family. But I did not mind. Little children learn surprisingly quickly and quite soon a few of them could recognise some words and make a good attempt at their name.

  Fred would often ride over and sit holding and guiding a child’s hand, making letters, as he had done mine. His own boys were all at school and Peg had settled into her mother’s place. He contributed to the expenses which were very few, apart from what was paid to me. I had suggested that I ought not to take anything, but Fred insisted that it was unprofessional to think of such a thing, and I was amused at first when he said, “People who work without a salary lower the standing of the whole profession.” I hardly thought that one woman, in a small back room, teaching half a dozen ragged, cottagers’ children would undermine the universities, but I agreed to the principle. As always when I needed to sort out ideas, I wrote to Will.

  Dear Will,

  These weeks have been agreeable and pleasant. Although I still have only a few children to teach, I feel that I am doing something useful; something I am good at and have been searching to do.

  It is a usefulness quite different from working on the farm. The wage I receive is very small and I should find it difficult to eke out a living if I did not live at home. But my wage is very important to me. It is a symbol that I can live – a woman can live – using her brains and talent. Independence. It is quite different from being a governess, for a governess is treated like a servant by the family and kept a
t arm’s length by the servants. I should dislike that very much and, with my tongue, I don’t believe that I should last long.

  I continue to work many hours at Croud Cantle. I still help with the baking and go to market. But I t hink of myself as a teacher. I am proud of being such. Independent.

  You see how you have been saved. What a very bad wife I should have made.

  I feel a great urgency about my work. The poverty in this area is distressing. Many people are on the edge of starvation. They live in abundant and fertile Hampshire and Sussex where corn is grown, cattle fattened, milk and cream and eggs produced abundantly: it is almost impossible to believe that they starve amid such plenty, but they do. Many of my children are little bags of bones. They have bow legs and streaming noses, such things that you will never see on the Goodenstone child, nor any other that has enough food to grow on.

  I need to make a spell so that these children of mine will suddenly be able to read fluently and I shall be able to stuff their heads full of ideas, so that they will ask, “Is this fair or right?” and when the answer comes, “No!”, they will go on to ask what they might do about it.

  Is it any wonder that people says, “She’s a queer one, that Jude Nugent!”

  By the end of the summer, Sir Henry and Lady Goodenstone had closed their Cantle house, leaving only a small staff, and had taken a house in London for the coming season.

  Just as the “Amelia Goodenstone Fund” was running out, Fred came up to the farm with the news that Mr Benjamin Hannable was willing to put enough money into the fund to keep the little school going. It would be an entirely new account – “The Benjamin Hannable Foundation”. The title was, like its instigator, typically overdressed, but I did not mind, just so long as I could keep my children going. Recently I had resorted to giving “prizes” to children who came tc school. I brought food down from the farm: pies that had broken and could not be sold; honey-cakes and small tarts. also provided some sort of a plain meal for any of them who came for an entire morning. The age-range and numbers of my children expanded. They began to learn.