The Blacksmith's Girl

by Rosemary Aitken

  ‘Oh Ma!’ Patience leapt up and tried to give her an embrace, but Martha shook her free.

  ‘I aren’t doing this for your sake, Patience. You’ve sinned and that’s a fact. I’m doing it for your father’s sake, and for the other girls.’ And for that unborn baby, she added silently, as she set off to talk to Ephraim Tull.

  Two

  It was a steep walk across the fields to where Ephraim kept his farm – though ‘farm’ was rather a fancy word for it these days. Since his wife died of fever, many years ago, Ephraim had taken little interest in the place. Crowdie (who was not a Strict Adherent, naturally) had once remarked that if Ephraim Tull spent fewer hours on his knees and more on his harrow, he would please the good Lord more, and – though she had been scandalized – Martha could see exactly what he meant.

  The whole place badly needed a coat of whitewash on the walls and through the open doorway she could see a woeful mess within – piles of unwashed cloam was piled up in the sink, graying laundry drooped from a line above the hearth and nobody had taken a broom or duster to the place for years. The flypapers that dangled from the beams were thick with the insects they had trapped and even the framed texts on every wall had smeary glass. In his place, she thought, she would have been ashamed – how could a godly man have let it get like this? No wonder he never invited anyone to call.

  ‘Ephraim! Brother Tull?’ she called, and tapped the door, but there was no reply.

  She looked around. There were a few bedraggled chickens clucking in the yard – Ephraim clearly kept them for the eggs – and a bad-tempered sow was grunting in the pig’s-crow opposite, but there was no sign of their owner or even of his dog. Not that he could have much use for the poor thing nowadays; it was said that he only kept a dozen cows and half-a-dozen goats – and apart from a few carrots and potatoes for himself, he only bothered with cabbage and broccoli to sell. It was fortunate that the farm had been handed down to him, and he was not a tenant – like most folk hereabouts; any landlord would have had a thing or two to say.

  ‘Sister Tregorran! Greetings in the Lord. What are you doing here?’ And there was Ephraim, rising from behind a corner of the wall, where – judging from the piece of stone he held – he’d been repairing it. He was a tall, gaunt man with dark unsmiling eyes, and such a habitual disapproving frown that for a moment Martha almost wished she hadn’t come. But he had seen her now and there was no escape.

  He dusted off his hands and came around to her, taking off his cap in deference. He wore a waistcoat, open to the waist, a shirt without a collar and a pair of brown trousers tied close around his heavy boots – quite a contrast from the suit and tie he wore to Sunday Meetings. ‘Come to tell me that Toby’s changed his mind and will consent to let me marry that eldest girl of yours?’ His voice was deep and rasping but it was not fierce today and there was even the vestige of a smile around the deep-lined lips.

  The remark was intended as a bitter joke, of course. Ephraim had offered for Patience more than once – but even Toby had seen that it was not a perfect match. In fact it was Martha who had dissuaded him, ‘There’s no affection there. He just wants a wife to wash for and clean for him,’ she’d said, and Toby had agreed. And now she would have to argue just the opposite!

  But the jest had given her an easier opening than she could have hoped. Martha gave the man her brightest smile. ‘I think the Lord put those words into your mind, Brother Tull. That is exactly why I’ve come to call. I need to talk to you. But not out here, perhaps?’ She gestured vaguely to the farmhouse.

  Ephraim looked doubtful. ‘It is not good for a man and woman to be alone together in a house – save they be married.’

  Martha shook her head. That was not a text – she knew her scriptures and was fairly sure of that – but Ephraim always managed to make the simplest things sound like biblical quotations. ‘I aren’t going to lead you to temptation, I suppose. Besides, “blest are the pure in heart” the Good Book says,’ she countered.

  Ephraim looked nonplussed. ‘Well then,’ he said, after a moment, ‘you’d better come inside.’ He led the way into the kitchen she’d already glimpsed. The room was earth-floored and smelt of damp, but there was a vestige of a fire in the stove, and evidence that the man had tried to make a meal. He moved some mending to clear a chair for her, running his arm across the seat and table as if conscious of the dust that lay on everything.

  For a moment Martha felt a pang. Not only for Ephraim, but for Patience’s sake – yet hadn’t the guidance text foretold this very thing? ‘In the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust.’

  That recollection strengthened her resolve – this match was clearly ‘meant’ – so when Ephraim said, ‘So what did you want to tell me? Patience changed her mind?’ she was so convinced that things would be all right that she simply told him. Not quite everything, of course, but the gist of it – with no actual untruths. ‘And when we found the guidance text I came to you at once,’ she finished, breathlessly.

  There was a long silence, then Ephraim got slowly to his feet. ‘And you came here supposing I would marry her, now defiled and carrying some stranger’s child? Have you not read the scriptures, woman? “A bastard shall not enter the courts of the Lord”.’

  Martha was so astonished that she could hardly think. This was not what she’d envisaged. ‘But it would not be a bastard – not officially – if you gave it a name. And Patience—’

  ‘That girl has brought this on herself!’ the farmer said. ‘Haven’t I seen her, Sundays, with ribbons on her skirts? What’s that for, if not to flaunt herself? And showing her petticoats by crossing on the stile. And I’ve seen her pinch her cheeks, when she thinks that you aren’t looking, just to turn them pink. Outside chapel too – and we all know that vanity’s a sin.’ He had already reached the open door and he stood beside it gesturing her out.

  ‘Then how come you offered for her, Ephraim Tull?’ Martha was also on her feet by now.

  He made a lofty face. ‘I felt that she was young. I could have forgiven her and taught her otherwise, but now she’s lost her virtue. And a fallen woman is a snare. “Remove thy way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house.” So, there’s your answer Martha. I’m surprised you came. I think you’d better leave.’

  ‘But what about the guidance texts? I thought …’ she faltered. ‘A Christian man like you—’

  ‘Should not keep company with fornicators,’ he retorted, bitterly. ‘That’s what the Bible says. And if you follow it, Sister Tregorran, it’s clear what you should do. “If your eye offend thee – pluck it out.” For the sake of your salvation! Turn this reproach away. “A good name is better than precious ointment.”’

  ‘It’s our good name that I am thinking of! If you took Patience, who would need to know, except the three of us – and Toby, I suppose? But now the world will be full of wagging tongues, laughing at Strict Adherents I wouldn’t be surprised!’

  He didn’t move. Just gestured to the door. ‘I will pray for you. And for that unborn babe.’ He didn’t mention Patience, who most needed it!

  Martha found that she was very angry, suddenly. She marched past Ephraim and – once outside in the yard – whirled around to look him in the eye. ‘Well, Brother Tull, I’m leaving. But I’m surprised at you. I’ve thought you a Strict Adherent through and through, but you are nothing but a hypocrite. Did I not hear you preach, this very Sunday past, on succoring the widow and the fatherless? And what is the unborn child but fatherless? Yet when I come to you – following the very text that we’d been given – you wash your hands of us. I’ve heard you pray to God to have a wife and heir – and when God provides one, almost ready-made, you turn it down because it’s not in the form you hoped. Well, God moves in a mysterious way. You’re always saying so. But if that’s the kind of man you are, our Patience would be better in the workhouse than doing penance here. And penance it would be!’ So saying she turned and stomped off to the gate.

  ‘Those who twi
st scripture do so to their own destruction, Sister Tregorran,’ Ephraim shouted after her, but she did not look back.

  She was breathing hard and fighting back the tears as she walked home. What had she done? She had been so confident! And now, Ephraim would call Patience out for sure and shame the family in front of everyone. News would be all round the village in an hour. And she hadn’t even had the chance to talk to Toby yet!

  At her own gate she paused and braced herself, straightening her shoulders before she went inside. The younger children had come back from school – together with Verity, apparently, and Patience was obediently frying sprats.

  It was not until that moment that Martha realized that she’d forgotten to buy a cabbage and bring it home with her.

  Peter Kellow walked glumly down the street towards Nancarrow Village Institute. He was rather early, because he hadn’t stopped for tea. He had no appetite. Cap’n Maddern always arranged his shifts for him, so he could get off sooner when it was evening class. Usually Peter enjoyed his night-school – he was good with a slide-rule and his marks were excellent. But tonight the prospect held no joy for him.

  It had been a mistake to call on Walter Pengelly and his wife, though he’d been welcomed at the house. The older man had become a sort of friend during the long months which followed his awful accident. Peter had visited him very often then, brought him news and stories from the mine and even helped him find his feet again when the splints had been removed and the damaged leg had set. But even then, if he was honest with himself, it had been Effie who had drawn him to visit quite so much – just as she’d drawn him to pa’s present home this afternoon.

  Of course he’d known that she was likely to be there. Walter had mentioned it, a day or two ago. So Peter had hurried over as soon as he was free.

  For what, he asked himself? So that she could be embarrassed and refuse to talk to him, then scoot off home far sooner than she would have done if he had not been there? What kind of idiot did tactless things like that? And it was not the first time either.

  It wasn’t dignified. For her, as well as him. Each time he did it, he swore that he would stop. Effie was a married woman, and a happy one. It was like putting your tongue into a sore place in your teeth – painful, but somehow you kept on doing it.

  He had to face reality, he told himself. She loved that Alex, and the policeman loved her back. You only had to see the two of them together to know that. She was out of his league now, anyway, with a maid and everything! And that would just get worse. One day that Dawes would inherit a small fortune, wouldn’t he? Anybody decent would be pleased at that. It meant that Effie would be well provided for.

  Peter had done his level best to be pleased on her account – even made a wedding present with his own two hands. It had been wrong, of course – PC Dawes’s awful mother had made that very clear. ‘The thing is hideous!’ he’d overheard her say, when he ventured to the police-house to deliver it. And he hadn’t even had the chance to talk to Effie then – though she had kept the bowl, and even sent a nice note thanking him. He still had that, folded in the pocket of his coat. The only bit of Effie he was likely to possess.

  He was so busy with his thoughts as he walked down the street, that he scarcely noticed the woman in the hat who crossed the road and was approaching him. He went to step aside, but she moved in front of him.

  ‘This is for you, you coward!’ she declared, taking a white feather from a basket on her arm and thrusting it towards him with a black-gloved hand.

  For a moment he was mystified. He looked around. There was another woman on the far side of the street, just as stout and red-faced as the one confronting him, watching with folded arms and nodding her approval of the little scene. She had a basket too upon her arm, and was dressed in the same kind of long coat and monstrous hat, except that hers was trimmed with feathers rather than a bow. Both of them were strangers, whom he’d never seen before.

  ‘You tell him, Mildred,’ the feathered one said. The voice was from up country, not a local one. ‘Show him what we think of cowardice. Should be at the war, a strapping lad like that.’

  No point in explaining that wolfram was a precious war resource, or that tin was needed for cans to keep the soldiers fed – these two were not disposed to argument. The bow-trimmed woman took another feather out and stuck it in the upper button-hole of his coat, where it was visible. ‘You look at that, wherever you are going,’ she said, in a voice that was clearly intended to be heard for miles, though there was no-one in the street except the three of them. ‘And think about our sons and nephews at the front, and see if you feel quite so smug about your evening, then!’

  And with that she turned and joined her companion on the other side. Peter stuffed the feathers in his pocket out of sight, and went on walking to the institute.

  His friend Jack Maddern from the mine was there awaiting him. ‘What’s up with you then? Lost a shilling and found sixpence?’

  Peter shook his head. ‘Don’t know why I bother coming here at all. What good does it do me?’

  Jack looked astonished. ‘Weren’t you just telling me last week, how you were hoping to be made up leader of your pare? You said how they were picking younger men these days, if they had certificates, on account of some older ones have gone away to war!’

  ‘Only wish I’d done the same,’ Peter said morosely. ‘Joined that Tunneller Company – while I had the chance.’ He took out the crumpled feathers and showed them to his friend. ‘Here I am, working my eyes out, doing doublers half the time – two shifts in succession to meet the war effort – and what’s the thanks I get? Some fat goose of a woman shouting names at me. Better off in France. Specially if they’re still paying six shillings every day. ’Tisn’t even as if I’ve got a wife to think about – or likely to have one, either.’

  ‘Here, boy, what’s the matter?’ Jack put his hand on Peter’s arm. ‘You’re some down tonight. Don’t let they two daft biddies spoil your day.’

  Peter shook the hand away. ‘T’isn’t only that. I’m fed up anyway.’

  ‘Romantic troubles, is it?’ His friend made a sympathetic face. ‘I know you lost that girl you were so keen about, but there are other women.’

  Peter turned away impatiently. ‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘Now you coming into class or aren’t you?’

  Jack said nothing further and followed him inside. But after the lesson – in which Peter did not shine as much as usual – he sidled up beside his friend again.

  ‘None of my business really, and you can tell me so – but if you’re serious in what you said, might be a chance that you could join that unit yet. Well, next best thing, at least. I heard today they’re going to form another company – looking for people who can deal with dynamite. Have to go to London probably, and it might be already too late, but there is a recruiting office in Penzance. They could tell you, if you went and asked. If you’re really serious, I mean.’

  Peter felt inside his pocket, where the feathers were – and a folded piece of paper that was Effie’s thank-you note. He screwed the items – all of them – into a savage ball and threw it into the waste-paper basket by the door.

  ‘I do believe I might,’ he said, as coolly as he could. ‘Mother won’t like it, but there’s nothing for me here.’ He managed to keep his voice from wavering.

  ‘Here, Vee! Wait a minute,’ Pru muttered in her ear that evening, when they had finished putting the younger girls to bed.

  It had been a strange, strained household over the bread and sprats tonight, what with Patience looking more woeful than a sheep, Ma strange and silent and Pa demanding what was wrong with everyone. Even the younger children had picked up the mood and there had been no laughing and gossiping tonight. The girls had simply done their chores – boots and spoons were polished, ironing damped and rolled, squares of paper threaded onto strings to put out in the privy, and Mercy’s spelling for tomorrow checked – all in virtual silence for a change. And when the clock struck seven
the young ones went to bed, scuttled off at once without the least complaint, as if glad to be out of the atmosphere downstairs.

  But now Pru paused on the landing with the nightlight in her hand and was tugging at Vee’s sleeve. ‘You were home here earlier,’ she whispered. ‘You must have heard. Whatever is going on?’

  It ought to be flattering to be asked for news and treated like an equal by the older girl for once, but suddenly Vee didn’t want to talk to anyone. ‘I aren’t altogether sure, myself,’ she said. ‘I was here earlier but I never came on in. I just heard voices in the kitchen – Patience having a wigging by the sound of it – so I turned and went again.’

  ‘But what was it about?’ Pru whispered, so fiercely that she almost blew the candle out.

  Vee shook her head. ‘I decided it was better to keep out of it. I went over to Auntie’s, met up with Con and Faith, picked up the others and then came home with them. So I don’t know much more than you do.’ She wriggled from Pru’s grasp. ‘And you haven’t said what happened down the factory, come to that. Have they found this “dishthreepence”?’ She didn’t mention her fears that Patience might have been involved.

  Prudence shook her head. ‘They still can’t work out where the stuff is disappearing from. Our packing-room, they think. The bosses have been in and they’ve started a new system of checking orders out – something the police suggested, it appears. From now on every chitty will be double-signed – and they’re going to put another supervisor on. That ought to put a stop to it, but they don’t have the slightest notion who it was – and …’ she broke off as there was a tapping on the door.