The Blacksmith's Girl

by Rosemary Aitken

  Which she would do, she decided – whatever Toby thought. In fact, on second thoughts, why should he ever know? If Pattie did not go blurting it out in front of him, that is. She was still wondering about this, when a knock came on the door – and this time the caller did not come in until Martha answered it.

  It wasn’t Pattie stealing from the factory. Verity was finally convinced of that, because – despite security – occasional losses had begun again, though on a smaller scale, and one ‘dishthreepency’ had been reported just this week. So it wasn’t her. But whatever it was that Patience had actually done, it had certainly altered the atmosphere at home.

  Take today, for instance. When Vee and Pru got home from work, it was to find another full-scale argument going on. This time it was Aunt Dorcas’s fault, apparently. She had done as she proposed and called this afternoon – about the wedding, to know was there anything she could do to help – and Pa was livid. The other girls were sitting round the kitchen table, cowed, while he thumped his fist and roared. He paid no attention as the working pair came in.

  ‘Turn my back for half an hour and what happens?’ he was demanding, of no one in particular. ‘Comes uninvited and you ask her in. You know my views about what she has done! Has a man no say at all about who comes into his house?’

  And Ma, for once, was standing up to him. ‘She’s my sister Toby, and she came to offer help – trying to save me trouble, not creating it. And Edna from next door was here, besides – what would she have thought if I had slammed the door on my own flesh and blood? In any case, what has Dorcas done so much? Married a good man who loved her. Is that such a sin? I can think of worse ones.’

  Pa looked more annoyed than ever, but the barb went home. He humphed and sat down on the stool beside the fire to take off his working boots, turning his back on everybody else. (It was an indication of how cross he was, that he’d come in with them – normally he removed them at the door.)

  Ma went up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Not everyone can be so fortunate as we two, Toby.’

  The soft words calmed him – as Ma generally could. He shrugged her off, but put his stockinged feet against the hearth and wiggled his ten toes – a sure sign that the worst was over now. ‘Well, what’s past is past, I suppose,’ he grumbled, ‘so there’s nothing to be done. But she needn’t think she’s coming to this wedding, all the same – your father would walk out, never mind if we were in chapel at the time. He’s a man of principle, even if I’m weak.’

  ‘You mean he’s stubborn – “proud and stiff-necked”, I think the Bible says,’ Martha said with feeling. ‘While you are prepared to forgive those who trespass against you.’

  Vee lingered at the doorway, pretending to hang her bonnet on the hook behind the door, but watching Pa’s expression carefully. He could clearly find no answer to what Ma had said, so he changed the subject. ‘What did Ma Chegwidden want, in any case? Come to borrow sugar, or something, I suppose?’

  Ma looked at Pattie, but she was pretending to be busy with some sewing on her lap, so Ma said quickly, ‘Wanted to share some news about her Ned, I think. He’s going to be transferred again to some other hospital – which means he’s making better progress now. I only got the gist of it, cause just then Dorcas came – and Edna, not wanting to be in the way, just said hello a minute, then hurried off, claiming that she’d left baking on the griddle iron. I didn’t even remember to give her back that bowl she left behind, when she came here Christmas with those nuts for us – Vee, would you do that for me? It’s there on the corner of the shelf. I was going to give it back to Sam to take to her – but now I’ve missed him and she might be wanting it.’

  Vee was astonished. For one thing her parents didn’t generally like her going next door, and for another Ma Chegwidden clearly wouldn’t need that bowl. It was a big one, and there were only the three of them these days – (and Ned had said his father did not have much appetite – something to do with working on the calciners at the mine). But she knew when she was lucky. She seized the bowl, and without even pausing to put her cape back on, was out of the door before Pa had a chance to say, ‘Why Verity? And what’s the sudden rush? Constance can slip round with it, when we have had our tea!’

  But if he did say something of the kind, by then it was too late. She was already down the path and opening the gate and running the few steps along to where Ned used to live.

  It was a tiny cottage, much smaller than their own but, with fewer people in it, it seemed very spick and span. No pots of salted beans underneath the chairs, or piles of mending on the windowsills – Mr Chegwidden, a wizened little man with an appalling cough, had been very handy in his day and there were lots of hooks and shelves around the walls, with a place for everything.

  All the same, it was always welcoming. It was Sam who came to answer her uncertain knock today – still holding a piece of bread and butter in his hand – and the room was full of the delicious smell of rabbit stew. Mrs Chegwidden rushed over to shepherd her inside, while her husband looked up from his plate to smile and say, ‘We’re having supper, but there’s a bit to spare? Want a bit, do’ee?’

  Verity had been raised to know that to accept such offers was to make the family go short. ‘I dursn’t!’ she replied. ‘Pa wouldn’t like it. It’s a wonder that he let me come at all. I’ve just come to bring your bowl.’ She put it on the table. ‘But I hear that you’ve had word from Ned?’

  ‘Here, my lover, read it for yourself.’ Mrs Chegwidden was already getting down the card from its pride of place above the mantle clock. ‘Some good news, id’na?’

  Verity nodded, her heart too full for speech. Ned, back in England. Maybe coming home. How could she get to see him? ‘Let’s just hope he doesn’t come the week of Pattie’s wedding!’ she exclaimed.

  Mrs Chegwidden nodded. She glanced around the room, then motioned Verity towards the door. ‘Thank you for the bowl. I’d clean forgotten where I’d left ’un to.’ She ushered Vee outside and said, in a low voice. ‘Tell me, my lover, is everything all right? With your Pattie, that is? She don’t seem glad to me. Wouldn’t have Sam and Freddie hear this for the world, but … it isn’t a case of having to get married, I suppose?’

  Vee looked at her, perplexed. ‘Well, she had to marry a Strict Adherent, I suppose – or that’s what Pa would say. But she didn’t have to have him – she’d said no before.’

  Ma Chegwidden shook her head. ‘That isn’t what I meant. I just wondered … Not that I suppose it can be, since it’s Ephraim Tull?’

  ‘Wondered what?’ The woman was talking in riddles – like Pru the other day.

  Ned’s mother shook her head again. ‘Never you mind, my lover. I should not have said.’

  ‘But I do mind,’ Verity burst out. ‘People keep asking questions and not saying what they mean – and make me feel a fool cause I don’t understand.’

  ‘It isn’t that you’re foolish, it’s that you’re innocent – and that’s a fine thing, my ’andsome.’

  ‘But I’m not a child!’ Vee protested, ‘I’m nearly seventeen. I can see there’s something up. But Pru won’t tell me, she said to talk to Ma – and when I tried to, Ma got flustered and said “another time”. And Pattie’s no help – she just keeps bursting into tears. Though I still don’t know what I said to make her cry.’

  Mrs Chegwidden looked long and hard at her. ‘You’re right, my ’andsome. Perhaps you ought to know. There’s no great mystery. People are bound to wonder – I was wondering myself – if poor Pattie was in the family way. Though, as I say, it isn’t likely – not with Ephraim Tull.’

  ‘But how could she be in the family way, in any case?’ Vee was more perplexed than ever, now. ‘She isn’t married yet.’ You had to be married to have children, everyone knew that (and it was difficult and painful, she knew that too, because she’d seen them born) though quite how it came about, she was not exactly sure. Something to do with kissing, Constance thought, because you weren’t a
llowed to do that ‘in case it led to things’ – though Vee was more inclined to put it down to miracles.

  Ma Chegwidden was looking amiably at her. ‘Oh, my dear lamb. No, of course you’re right. But if your ma don’t tell you more than that before you wed, yourself – even if you don’t get married to our Ned, as of course we hope you do – you come and see me. Will you promise that?’

  Vee heard herself say, ‘Course I will,’ but she hardly paid attention to the words. Marry Ned? And the Chegwiddens hoped she would! She almost floated back to Blacksmith’s Cottage, and though Pa grumbled, ‘Took your time! What were you up to, with your supper getting cold?’ she accepted the scolding meekly and didn’t mind a bit.

  Three

  It was Sergeant Jeffries who found the cottage in the end. Effie had genuinely meant to ask around, but the one enquiry she’d made – to the postmistress who had a notice up about a ‘pleasant small house and garden in Penzance’ – had quoted a rent of full ten pounds a year. Costs seemed to have sky-rocketed since before the war and even Alex’s pension (which she’d received at last) would leave her little spare if she paid as much as that. The experience had discouraged her, and – not wanting her step-mother to feel obliged to offer her a room, and lacking the energy to take further interest – she had mentally resigned herself to going to Falmouth after all, and hadn’t really said anything more to anyone.

  So she was surprised to see the policeman ushered in.

  ‘Sergeant Jeffries, madam, should I make some tea?’ Amy said and busied herself with making it, just as if the kettle wasn’t on the hearth three feet from where Effie was sitting on the chair.

  As a grieving widow she was not bound to rise, but she did so anyway, smoothing her black skirts down nervously. ‘Sergeant!’ She hadn’t seen him since the funeral. Was that really just a few short weeks ago? Already it felt as though a lifetime must have passed since then. ‘What errand brings you here?’ It must be something serious for him to call on her – a widow on her own. She could not help remembering the last time he had called – but no, she would not think about that awful telegram.

  ‘Good news, at least I hope you’ll think so, Mrs Dawes,’ he said. ‘You mentioned you were thinking of starting somewhere new. Well, I’ve heard a little rumour.’ He tapped his nose, and sat down – uninvited – on the other chair. ‘There’s a cottage coming vacant, out Penvarris way. Belongs to a farmer, used to have it for a man who’d been with him for years – an older fellow with a family and not wanted for the war. But now that chap has died – a granite post that he was moving fell down and crushed him flat; their boy went for a soldier at the beginning of the war and the widow’s going to move in with her married daughter down St Just – so the cottage is coming up for rent.’

  He paused, but she said nothing.

  ‘Thought it might just suit you,’ he went on, ‘it’s quite a modern place. Got a Cornish stove to cook on, and flagstones on the floor, a proper privy and a pump outside the door. And the furniture is in it – so that there won’t be that to find, which might have been difficult, things having got so short. It might not be exactly to your taste, of course, but there’s enough for you to manage, in the meantime anyway.’

  He looked quizzically at her, but she could make no reply. She wanted to shout, ‘Please let me be! I can’t think about such things!’ but her brain was not connected to her tongue. Just as well, perhaps, since this was kindly meant and he did have a right to be interested. This was his cottage and he’d soon be wanting it himself.

  Her silence might have led to awkwardness but Amy chose that moment to pour out the tea, and the Sergeant was occupied with selecting sugar lumps, and declining the last of Jillian’s potato-flour buns. By that time Effie had regained her wits enough to say, ‘It’s very good of you to think of me.’ She sounded like an automaton, even to herself, but she’d managed at least a semblance of civility.

  He stirred his tea – two whole lumps of sugar, when they were so scarce! – and sipped it gingerly. ‘Glad if it turns out any use to you. Only trouble is, this cottage – almost a house, I suppose you’d say – is outside the village, half a mile or so. Might be a bit lonely, if you’re not used to it. You’d want a live-in maidservant, at least – I wouldn’t be happy to think of you out there alone at night. Mind, it’s on my beat and I’ll be passing every evening, round six o’clock or so – long as I’m still a policeman, anyway.’

  Perhaps it was the idea of being on her own that made her take a sudden interest – being away from people and well-meaning sympathy. ‘Oh, I’m sure I could manage, Sergeant.’

  ‘Pardon me for interrupting, ma’am …’ Amy paused in the act of refilling the pot. ‘But I couldn’t help overhearing what was said. If you do decide to go and you want live-in help, I’d be happy to oblige you, for a year or so at least. Me mam is always saying how I ought to get another place, something full-time where I get my keep – make more space round the table and less work for her at home. I was wondering how to tell you.’ She glanced guiltily at Effie. ‘I hadn’t wanted you to think that I might let you down, but maybe this would suit the both of us? And I’m sure the Sergeant’s right. You wouldn’t want to be out there in the dark all on your own. You never know who might be wandering about – drunk men and all sorts, out there on the cliffs.’

  ‘And you don’t think that would frighten you?’ Effie said gently.

  Amy shook her head. She said stoutly, ‘Oh madam, don’t you worry about me. I’ve got five brothers, and I’m used to it. I can stand up for meself – and you besides, if it came to such a thing.’

  The idea of Amy – all of five foot two – as a protection against marauders, almost made Effie smile.

  Sergeant Jeffries, however, pulled at his moustache. ‘In fact, perhaps, on second thoughts, it isn’t suitable. Ideally you’d want a man about the place. There’s quite a garden too.’

  That did it, Effie thought. Pa would love to have a bit of allotment of his own again, where he could grow a few vegetables like he used to do, but there was no space for that where he was living now. She put her cup down and sat bolt upright. ‘Well, Sergeant Jeffries, however much I need a man around the place I haven’t got one now. Amy and I will simply have to manage as we are. I presume the rent they’re asking is affordable?’

  ‘Does that mean, madam …?’ Amy interrupted eagerly, but the Sergeant silenced her.

  ‘I believe the farmer wants four guineas for the place – with payments quarterly. That’s quite a lot, I know – rents have been rising like bread-dough every month – but it should not go up again. The government has put a lid on things. From now on if a place comes vacant and you let to someone else, you can’t put up the price. Often that means it’s pegged at what it was before the war. People try to get around it, naturally – I’ve been called in to investigate the problem more than once.’

  Effie was hardly listening. Four guineas. Less than half the Penzance house. Of course, out here, there would be no gas for lights, either in the house or in the street, and no night-cart to clear the privy every month. But the same was true of this cottage they were in, and until she’d had that telegram she’d been quite happy here.

  ‘Can you give me directions, Sergeant?’ she enquired. ‘It may not do at all, but I will, at least, go out and have a look.’

  He had thought of that already, it appeared. ‘I’ve spoken to the man who owns the place,’ he said. ‘I’ve had dealings with him once or twice about the farm – all the regulations about feeding animals – and I told him about you. I spoke very highly of you – as of course I would – and he said, if you would like to go and take a look, he’d come here in his cart and take you over there.’

  Sergeant Jeffries put his teacup down. ‘I’m not suggesting you go unchaperoned. You could take your step-ma too.’

  But Effie was reluctant. She’d have to take somebody, for form’s sake, naturally, but suddenly she wanted to do this on her own. ‘Better I take my maid wi
th me if she’ll be coming there.’

  Jeffries nodded. ‘On Friday, he suggested, around noon if that would suit? He’s got to come in to the blacksmith anyway, get the carthorse shoed that day.’

  And so it happened that on Friday afternoon she and Amy went out to the house. The farmer – a thickset, melancholy man, as unlike Crowdie as it was possible to get – drove in virtual silence for a quarter of an hour, then drew up by an entry and motioned with his whip.

  ‘There ’tis. Nawthin special, but I’ve had un painted up and put a new ’inge on the door that creaked. Yours if you want’n. B’lieve you knaw the terms. I’ll sell ’ee milk and eggs and curdled cheese, if you would like, but don’t ’ee come calling at my house otherwise. My wife’s a blimming termangent – I’d never hear the end. Bad enough my letting the place to a widow as it is. Only that she heard you were a p’licemen’s wife.’ He waved the whip again. ‘What d’you think, then?’

  Effie looked, and knew at once it was the place. It was a strange little cottage, with crooked whitewashed walls and tiny window-panes, and a little stable-type front door that opened in two halves. The small tiled porch above it looked like a moustache above an open mouth, while the tiles came down like eyebrows over the upstairs casements, and gave the whole house an expression of amused surprise. The garden was a riot of blackberries and weeds, and a gravelled path meandered to the door between scruffy bushes that leaned sideways in the wind.

  She had enough wit to demand to see inside: a kitchen-cum-scullery with a flagstone floor and Cornish stove (exactly as the Sergeant had promised there would be), two little sitting rooms with an enormous fireplace each, and a staircase steep as Jacob’s ladder leading to three further tiny rooms upstairs. There were gloomy pictures on the walls and the place was full of gloomy furniture, but it hardly mattered – the thick walls seemed to put their arms round her, and she felt at once that she had found a haven and a home. If Alex was looking down on her, she thought, he would have liked it too.