Mrs Fytton's Country Life

by Mavis Cheek

  He rattled the gate and two of his fattest pigs came waddling over to be scratched. He scratched one, Angela scratched the other. He read the invitation and sighed. 'You asking Gwen?' he said.

  'Could do.' They stood there in silence for a while. 'Did you ever use rush lights, Sam?'

  He nodded. 'Hard lighting,' he said and wiped at his nose again.

  'There's a forge over at Cleeve End, isn't there?' 'Fancy stuff for fancy folk,' he said. 'Play-acting.' He did not say another word, so she left off the scratching and cycled briskly home.

  Mrs Dorkin replaced the telephone and danced a jig all round the bar of the Black Smock. But she wouldn't say why. And then she carried on cleaning with a renewed vigour that took the landlord's breath away. The baptism would have to be postponed, that was all. But not for very long. No matter what happened - and it was either God or the devil looks after his own - no matter what happened, that ceremonial would still go ahead. After all, it was what Mrs Tichborne herself had wanted.

  'Had wanted?' said the landlord of the Black Smock.

  But more Mrs Dorkin would not say.

  Later, when everything was calm, Angela slipped out into the ink-black, starry night, her boots making no sound along the frosty lane. All was dark shadows and rustlings as she made her way to the Tichborne House, as if the land were wrapping itself deeper into its winter sleep. She was right about one thing when she decided to come down here - you really could walk the lane at night without fear. The people here were entirely good. Entirely.

  The curtains of the Tichborne House were drawn and all was still. Just as it should be, she thought, for a house in mourning. As she reached the gate someone swished out in front of her. She gave a little squeak. But it was only the vicar.

  'A sad day’ he whispered.

  'I will cancel my party, of course’

  The vicar. 'Oh, I think not’ he said. 'The good doctor wants everything to go on exactly as it was before. Indeed, he insists upon it.' And then he added, rather miserably, 'Even the baptism.'

  'Older people don't like change’ she said.

  The vicar looked perplexed. Truth was, his bereaved parishioner seemed to welcome it with open arms. When the vicar suggested that he discontinue the baptismal lessons at the vicarage from now on, Dr Tichborne became quite animated in his insistence. Even making light of it. His exact words were, 'One less chair by the fireside and all the more crumpet for me’ But then, death took people very strangely.

  'How is the doctor?'

  'Being brave’ said the vicar. 'Very brave. Immersing himself in a game of chess.'

  She slid down the dark path and slipped her note of condolence through the letter box. She was puzzled, with a strange sense of deja vu, to hear again the words, 'Black king to white queen. Checkmate’ before she slipped silently and swiftly away.

  Safe and warm in Church Ale House once more, Angela Fytton pondered on death in the country. As one candle was extinguished another came to take its place. Or that is how she decided it would be. Candles being a feature of her life for the next few busy days.

  25

  January

  In poorer homes people made their own candles and rush lights from kitchen fat. Mutton fat was preferred as it was the hardest. The thin rushes were gathered by women and children from the edges of streams and stripped till only the soft white pith was left, supported by one thin strip of green rind to hold it together along its length. This served as a wick. Such a taper would not fit the socket of a candlestick and was clasped in the scissor-like jaws of the rush-light holder. marjorie filbee, A Woman's Place

  The tombstone is about the only thing that can stand upright and lie on its face at the same time.

  mary wilson little

  On the day of Dorothea Tichborne's funeral, Mrs Angela Fytton of Church Ale House in the county of Somerset was very busy, as she had been for several days. Secretive as Wanda had once been, she invited no one in and kept her doors closed. She attended the service in the church but declined to go back to the house. Just as well, some thought, for a very peculiar smell hung about her.

  The funeral was a large one. Grand cars lined the lane and black-clad ladies and gentlemen of quality filled the pews, the women wearing full veils and the men wearing overcoats made to last a lifetime. They sat, as from time immemorial, at the front.

  The Elliott family took up nearly an entire bench to themselves, with Craig put very firmly at one end and the fabulous Anja at the other. The three children crayoned throughout, though not, alas, on the paper their mother had provided.

  From time to time Craig would bend forward and look restlessly down the length of the pew at the perfect profile displayed by someone who was not his wife. The someone who was his wife noticed this, of course. And reminded herself, pale as she was already, that she really must not eat any of the refreshments on offer at the Tichbornes' afterwards. It was either those trousers or her.

  At the back of the church, where Angela chose to sit, were the lowly folk, like Sammy and Mrs Dorkin, the potman from Ye Olde Black Smock and the jobbing handymen and gardeners that attended the Tichbornes from time to time.

  Two tall candles burned either side of the bier, giving off the strong, cleansing scent of rosemary. Wanda had made them. She went very pink in the cheeks with all the compliments that abounded and just about stopped Dave from handing out their business card. She had, he felt, gone very proper all of a sudden, with all this talk of truth.

  A space was saved close to the front, given the grandeur of their profession, but the Rudges sent their apologies. They had to be in court...

  Well, well. It was no matter where you positioned yourself. It would take more than the light of two of Wanda's candles to warm these walls. Whether princes or paupers, all shivered as they sat and stood and sent the last of the Devereuxs upon her way. They had held the land for generations, they had taken arable into dairy, wool into milk, laid the ploughed fields to grass and changed the nature of the landscape entirely in their time. They had hunted over it, bequeathed it, loved it and hated it. And then they had sold it. That life would be no more. And this ended life, sealed up in its coffin, was the final, sighing breath of it.

  The vicar gave a good sermon on the qualities of his patronness. And he reminded the congregation about Sir Christopher Wren's memorial in St Paul's: 'If you seek my monument look around you.' In the same way, he said, with the gracious Dorothea, St Hilary's would bear a plaque saying, 'If you seek my monument feel around you’ for the place would be warm for the first time in its 600-year existence. This she had apparently whispered to her faithful, sorrowing husband, in the last moments before she died. 'Let the church be warmed’ she had said. 'And let the young people come there and play their music and be happy.'

  Now that same faithful, sorrowing husband stared up at the pulpit, meeting the warm gaze of the young man who spoke. He nodded very gently at the words 'And let the young people come there.. ‘ Come anywhere, he very nearly shouted. But he was constrained by his neighbour, who would need, he felt, no encouragement. For next to him, in a position quite out of favour with the rules, and in a move orchestrated by her mother, sat the horrible Dorkin girl. Put there to aid him, so Mrs Dorkin unequivocally said. Stay close. Stay close.

  Sandra Dorkin did so, but she was also gazing raptly at the vicar. Of the marble memorial to the father of Dorothea Tichborne, nee Devereux, with its cold, life-size effigies and seven illustrative carvings of his prowess, there was now no mention.

  The Devereux face, borne by the devil, stared down from the perfectly restored wall-painting and there were those among the mourners who saw it and hid their smiles, including Sammy Lee, though he often hid his smile anyway, it being without teeth. What, as he would tell the world if they made comment, had he to bother with teeth for? There was no one to see who mattered.

  Daphne Blunt, who sat with Angela Fytton, feeling that a funeral was too solemn to be ignored, had kindly hung a sheet over the first of t
he revealed corporal works. ‘To Clothe the Naked' did, indeed, display an unclothed woman, and the woman did indeed have the cast of Mrs Dorothea Tichborne about her. As Daphne leaned over and said to Angela, 'It's just as well Mrs Tichborne is sealed up in her coffin, or she might have had a heart attack.' Angela Fytton looked solemnly down at her hands.

  They sang 'God Moves in His Mysterious Ways', old Dr Tichborne giving it all he had got, which was quite correct under the circumstances, everybody felt. And then Angela was free. Outside the rain poured from the leaden sky as she hurried away to make her own place in the scheme of things. Behind her the gargoyles, familiar faces on the tower of St Hilary's, sent cascades of water safely away from the fabric of the building.

  Back through the door of Church Ale House she went. Bash. She removed her wet clothes and put on dry ones, covering them all over with a boiler suit found in the sewing room in a ‘ very stylish greeny grey. She then tied back her hair, rolled up her sleeves and continued her secret work. She strung a washing line across the entire width of the kitchen and pinned pegs all the way along. Then she took a large pan, put it on top of the Aga and placed into the pan yet another quantity of mutton fat. Which gradually melted. She picked up a bundle of rushes from the back door and brought them in and began to strip them while the fat slowly turned to liquid.

  Back at the Tichborne house, where the Dorkins had now reverted to servant mode and were handing around the sherry and the sandwiches, Mrs Dorkin took a little extra in the way of Oloroso, for her nerves, and then summoned up the sinews.

  She applied her mouth to the vicar's ear and told him of Mrs Dorothea Tichborne's second-to-last dying words. The very last thing that the mistress had said to her Sandra was that the baptism would be a great and holy moment in her life, and - though uncomfortable - full immersion was the only way. In the well.

  The vicar repeated this to the bereaved husband. Word for word.

  'In the well?' said Dr Tichborne, his eyes lighting up for just a second. 'As in down it?'

  Mrs Dorkin, hovering, flapped her hand dismissively. 'On it, round it, down it - what does it matter?'

  'Black king to white pawn,' muttered Dr Tichborne.

  Mrs Dorkin took another shot of sherry. 'Would you like my Sandra to stay with you tonight, doctor?' she said. 'In case you come over all queer?'

  By the end of the funeral baked meats, it was agreed that the baptism would take place as designated. That the vicar would thank Mrs Fytton of Church Ale House for her offer and be pleased to accept a drop of water out of her well for the-ceremony. And as for the total immersion factor, that shouL be left - as a blood kin's right - to the organizational skills of Mrs Dorkin.

  'You'll have to make the church warm,' said Wanda, overhearing.

  'Not necessarily,' said Mrs Dorkin. 'Not necessarily.' And her eyes gleamed from a depth that was deeper, even, than the sherry bottle.

  By the end of the day the Fytton boiler suit was a piebald version of camouflage gear - stiff with grease and soaked with sweat. The floor was glazed with the foul-smelling rendering and all in all it was not the fancy craft-fair experience she had anticipated. From the washing line dangled a few dozen thin tapers of hardened mutton grease. She hoped it would all be worth it. She closed the door on the proceedings and was just about to go to bed when someone knocked at the front.

  'Anybody there?' yelled the slightly blurred voice of Mrs Dorkin.

  Angela let her in.

  'Mmm,' she said, flopping down in the parlour. 'Lamb.' And she proceeded, rather convolutedly, to put her case for taking the top off the well for the purposes of baptismal ritual.

  Angela nodded. 'It would be an honour,' she said, and meant it. Though she was too weary to notice that the date set for the ceremony was the same as the one set for her own party.

  On leaving, Mrs Dorkin gave Angela's shoulder a hearty squeeze. 'No reason why a woman living all on her own shouldn't have a Sunday roast all to herself if she wants it,' she said.

  Which took the matter of the date out of her mind completely.

  By the time she did rise again, and realized it, the word had gone round that Sandra Dorkin's baptism would take place on 2 February. Candlemas.

  'What can I do?' she said glumly to Daphne.

  Daphne shrugged. She was beginning on panel number two: 'To Harbour the Stranger'. 'Why not combine them? In fact -' she turned and pointed across to the carving on the bench ends - 'why not follow the instruction manual? The vicar will know all about the baptismal rituals -'

  ‘I wouldn't be too sure of that,' said Angela, remembering his somewhat shifty demeanour of late.

  'Of course he will. In any case, baptisms are all about lights and candles and fresh beginnings, so it will dovetail in quite nicely. And if you copy what's going on in those carvings -well, it'll be . . .' She stared up at the roof beams, as if for inspiration.

  'Be what?' asked Angela.

  'A nice thing to do.'

  It was with a light heart, therefore, that she set off to collect a very particular item from Cleeve End smithy. Play-acting, indeed. Sammy Lee could be too sour sometimes.

  When she came back she put her precious package down on the grease-soaked kitchen table and went straight round to the vicarage, where she got quite soaked all over again since the vicar took so very long to open the door to her. And even then he only opened it a crack at first. Just for a moment she thought he was not going to let her in. But once he saw who it was he seemed very pleased. Inordinately pleased. He virtually yanked her inside.

  Ten minutes later she left, feeling very pleased herself. A combined baptism and Blessing of the Ale, with all due accord to Mrs Dorkin's wishes, was just right.

  ‘It will be a unity, vicar’ she said.

  'Cool’ he said. 'And do call me Crispin.' He looked less imposed-upon than relieved. 'A burden shared is a burden halved’ he said.

  'Something for the whole community.' She nodded.

  'The more the merrier’ he agreed.

  Old Dr Tichborne walked past, whistling and looking very jaunty.

  'He's being so brave’ said Angela, on the doorstep. 'He certainly does seem to be stepping out a lot’ agreed the vicar. And he waved. So did she.

  If she were not so wholly well disposed towards the kind old man, she could have sworn he glared at her with something approaching murder in his expression.

  On then to the Dorkin cott. Mrs Dorkin was all for it. It would, she felt, give her daughter an added stardom. And it would also mean that she did not have to either make, supervise or distribute the baptismal feast. A boon for the servant classes.

  And thus it was agreed.

  And thus the whole community looked forward to the joint celebration of the Blessing of the Ale and Sandra Dorkin's baptism. With full immersion.

  26

  January

  Witchcraft was hung, in History, But History and I Find all the Witchcraft that we need Around us, every Day.

  emily dickinson

  It was extraordinarily hot in Australia. Even if you went to the beach and drank and drank and drank, it was still too hot to ever get cool. And beer was not cheap. The youth hostel in Sydney was Oh Just Bad, and sleeping on people's apartment floors was not much better. Unless you wanted bar work, there was nothing to do to earn money, and the bar work was no good because they wanted you to work the hours when you wanted to be out with your friends. So there was nothing for it really but to get rid of your thirst by having a few beers. Do the barbies on the beach. And check into an hotel. As Claire said to Andrew, it was hardly likely that if Binnie and their Dad were here they'd be staying in a youth hostel. So why should they? And Andrew, who had suffered the mortification of being called a pale-skinned pom by the first girl he tried to chat up, agreed.

  So they checked into the Harbour Hotel, worked out that they could manage to live there fairly well for two and a half more weeks, and rearranged their flights home accordingly.

  It seemed appropriat
e that they should keep the date of their return a surprise for their father and Binnie. They did, however, telephone their mother, who agreed that it was a very good idea. Who then rang them the following day to tell them that it was a terrible idea. And who rang a third time to tell them to be sure not to tell their father that they had let her in on the secret of this possibly good, possibly terrible, idea.