The Blacksmith's Girl

by Rosemary Aitken

Vee gave her a very swift account. ‘You want to do something – you mind the little ones. Give them a bit of breakfast and get the girls off to school in time. I don’t know what Pa’s planning doing – I doubt he’ll work today. Pattie was his favourite, out of all of us. But get him to eat something if you can.’ A moment later she was down the stairs, out of the gate and hastening down the hill.

  It was funny to be out on private business at this time of day, instead of going into the factory, especially when she passed a group of workmates on the way. ‘Me sister’s taken bad,’ she told them. ‘Shan’t be in today – or not till later on,’ and hurried off before more questions could be asked.

  Aunt Dorcas was eating breakfast by the kitchen hearth – toasted bread and dripping and a cup of tea – but when she heard Vee’s errand she pushed the plate away. ‘I’ll just get my hat and shawl,’ she said. ‘And you pop out and tell Terry where I’m gone. He’s outside chopping kindling for the fire.’

  Verity did so, and when she came inside, found her aunt already in her bonnet and her shawl. She looked at Verity. ‘You’re looking famished, lover. Come out without a bit of breakfast, I’ll be bound. Want to finish off that slice that’s on my plate, a minute? There are a few things I need to fetch.’

  Vee was so embarrassed she almost wanted to refuse, but her stomach had been rumbling at the delicious smell – as her aunt had very likely heard. She muttered thanks – to both Dorcas and the Lord – and stuffed the tasty morsel in her mouth. She had hardly swallowed it before her aunt was back, carrying a covered basket on her arm.

  ‘Now then, I’d best get over to Ephraim’s farm and see what I can do. Never easy for a woman, first time round – but it’s the child I worry for. If it’s much too early it won’t survive the birth – but I’ve a suspicion there might be just a chance for it. But it will be very small. I’ve got some knitted clothes here that I made for Mercy’s doll. I was going to give them to her, Christmas – but they’ll be just the job – and I’ve put in an eye-dropper. Always carry one at a time like this, in case the baby isn’t strong to suck. There’s a bit of soft blanket I’ve looked out, as well – if this infant lives, it’s going to be important to keep it very warm, Don’t suppose that Pattie’s got anything together for it, yet?’

  Vee shook her head, not so much in answer as in astonishment. She knew that her aunt was really talking to herself, but it was shocking to realize that, within a day or so, there might really be a tiny baby needing all these things. When Faith and Hope and Mercy had been born, it was just a question of handing clothes and cradles down – and you were used to Ma having babies now and then. But this was different – imagine, any minute she could be Aunt Vee – and as for there being Aunty Faith! The thought was sobering.

  Aunt Dorcas, (who might be Great-Aunt Dorcas, very soon!) was clearly anxious to be on her way. ‘Take me some time to get there,’ she declared. ‘Good thing your mother’s with her. Just pray I’m not too late!’

  Verity had been doing little else, but she nodded. ‘Want me to come with you? I wouldn’t be much use, but I could fetch and carry and put the kettle on.’ She knew from Ma’s confinements that hot water was required.

  Dorcas shook her head. ‘Too many hands already if the midwife’s sent for too. Mind, she knows what she’s about, and I’ll be glad to see her if Pattie’s struggling and losing lots of blood. No, my ’andsome – you’ve done all you can. Best go to work, now – your ma’s a bit more strapped now, with one earner less, though I know she wouldn’t say so for the world.’

  Verity hadn’t really thought of that before, but of course it was likely to be true, and it gave her purpose as she parted company with Dorcas (whose quickest route lay ‘over fields’) and set off down the cliff road towards the dairy factory. It was late by this time – she had heard the school bell ring some time ago – and all her fellow workers would be well into their shift. She only hoped the couple that she’d met had explained to Mr Grey, otherwise there was likely to be trouble later on – she’d very likely be docked an hour or two in any case.

  She was just rehearsing what she would say to him when – of all things – she saw the man himself, trotting past her in that pony trap of his. By the time she realized who it was, he was already twenty yards along the lane, and though she called and waved her arms, he did not notice her.

  Drat! It was the strongest word she knew, but this seemed to call for it. He was travelling towards Penvarris, too, which meant that he would probably be gone some little time and Vee would have to give her apologies and explanations twice – Mr Radjel would insist on her seeing Mr Grey, and that would be half the morning’s earnings gone.

  Just as she was thinking that things could not get worse, she was almost run over by a bicycle – it whooshed up behind and rang its bell at her so that she leapt into the ditch, covering her skirts with strands of sticky weed. Her fault, no doubt, she hadn’t been listening out or looking where she went, but surely the fellow did not have to ride so fast?

  Because it was a fellow, and as he disappeared from sight she realized with a lurch which fellow it had been.

  It was the man that she’d encountered out here twice before. He didn’t have his bowler hat on, but she was almost sure of it. She hurried after him – she was going in that direction anyway, but she was suddenly anxious to see where he was going. And she was rewarded, as she came up to the bend, she saw him dismounting and going into a field – but a moment later he reappeared, jumped on his bicycle and pedalled back again, nearly knocking her over as he passed.

  It was decidedly peculiar. She went up to the stile where he had crossed into the field, but there was nothing whatever to be seen, except a few broccoli waiting to be dug. She stood a moment, wondering if she dared follow him again, when all at once she heard a voice from across the hedge.

  ‘Verity? Miss Tregorran? I thought that it was you. I saw you from the writing room upstairs. Have you come for crates? You’ll need to come this way.’ And there was Mrs Dawes, the policeman’s widow, standing – all in black – at the gate of the little cottage right next door.

  Two

  Effie was answering those letters at long last, while Amy was out in the back garden beating mats. She was just writing the final paragraph, when – glancing up, she was startled to see a woman standing in the lane, apparently attempting to peer over her hedge. A second glance told her that it was Verity Tregorran – which surprised her even more. Had the girl come specially – either in answer to her invitation or perhaps on the excuse of picking up some crates – and then at the last minute had a loss of nerve? It would not be surprising, given the reception she’d received last time, but this was an opportunity to make amends.

  She got up and hurried down to the front door. Verity was not walking up the path, she was still simply loitering outside in the lane. Plucking up courage to come and knock the door? Effie went out to the gate and called her name, ‘Verity? Miss Tregorran? Verity?’

  The girl seemed genuinely astonished to see Effie there – almost as surprised as Effie had been to see her – but she answered pleasantly enough. ‘Mrs Dawes?’

  ‘You’ve come to visit me?’ Effie prompted, and then – with a little twinge of guilt – she added, with a smile, ‘At least, I hope you have. I told your sister she should ask you to.’

  Verity shook her head. ‘I just happened to be passing. Didn’t even realize which your cottage was – though I suppose I should have done. I knew this one had recently been let.’

  ‘Your sister found it – as I expect you know.’

  ‘Asked Crowdie, I suppose. Said she was going to.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘She’d want me to say thank you for the crates.’

  ‘How is she, by the way? She looked a little tired the day she came out here.’ Effie chose her words with tactful care – one didn’t comment that a woman was with child.

  A stricken look crossed Vee Tregorran’s face. ‘Truth is, Mrs Dawes, she isn’t well at all. That’s
how I’m here, this minute. Came to ask Aunt Dorcas to go and see to her.’

  Effie nodded gravely. ‘The aunt you went to visit when you saw that man on the cliffs that time?’

  ‘So you remember that?’ The girl gave her a sudden, sharp appraising glance. ‘Funny you should mention it, in fact … I’ve just this minute seen him – out here in the lane.’

  Effie frowned. The girl had a ‘flighty’ reputation after all. ‘You’re sure it’s the same man?’

  ‘I’m certain sure of it. And he’s acting strange again. Went into that field next door to you, though he didn’t stop there long. Just walked in, turned round and walked straight out again. I saw him from the road.’

  ‘Lost?’ Effie wondered.

  ‘Not him. He had his bicycle out waiting by the stile. And it wasn’t a call of nature or anything like that.’ She shook her head. ‘Up to something this time too, I’m almost sure of it – but I couldn’t for the life of me make out what it was. Nothing but broccoli there that I could see.’

  A startling idea occurred to Effie, suddenly. Amy had mentioned a trodden path across that field, leading to that shed! Was it possible that Sergeant Jeffries had been wrong and the girl had really seen something all along? Well, there was one way to find out. ‘Come in for a moment, Miss Tregorran. We can speak in private then.’ She stepped back to let the girl inside and ushered her into the middle room. As she did so, Amy came hurrying from the back, flustered and murmuring an apology.

  ‘I’m sorry, madam, I didn’t hear the door …’ But Effie shook her head and placed a warning finger to her lips. Amy looked puzzled for a moment, shrugged and obediently disappeared again.

  Effie followed her visitor into the middle room, but Verity hadn’t noticed the presence of the maid. She was too busy gazing nervously around. Effie indicated one big easy chair, and settled herself in the other one. ‘Do sit down, and welcome to my little cottage.’

  Verity sat down awkwardly on the very edge. ‘You got it looking lovely, Mrs Dawes. But I ought not to be here really – and I can’t be long, I’ve got to go to work and I’m already awfully late.’

  ‘All the same, I’d like you to repeat what you said outside. You saw that man again? The one you thought was acting suspiciously before?’

  The younger woman nodded. ‘It’s not the first time either. That’s why I tried to call on you before. I’d seen him on the cliffs – though he seemed quite normal then, apart from having an argument about a right of way. But he’s acting suspicious this time. Or odd, in any case. Why would he ride like seven demons getting to a field, walk into it and out of it again, and ride away like seven demons back the way he’d come? Nearly knocked me over each time, too.’

  ‘Was that deliberate?’

  ‘I don’t believe he even noticed me – though I was in full sight, I wasn’t trying to hide or anything. I think he was just too busy with his thoughts! Not nice ones either by the look of it. He was scowling like the deuce!’

  ‘He wasn’t carrying anything, by any chance?’ Effie asked, thinking about those drag-marks in the dust. ‘Boxes, for example?’

  Verity was shaking a decided head. ‘Not even a lantern this time, Mrs Dawes.’ She gave a rueful laugh. ‘I suppose you’ll think I’m daft – but it does seem peculiar, the way he carried on.’

  ‘It isn’t daft at all. I only wish that I’d pursued this earlier. I think it’s possible your stranger is a smuggler, after all.’

  ‘Never!’ Verity was staring at her in disbelief.

  ‘It’s just a theory.’ She explained about the pigsty and the drag-marks in the dust. ‘What’s more, there is a trodden path to it across the field – though the one this side was completely overgrown. The farmer who owns this cottage told me that the pigs-crow had been disused for years, but somebody’s been storing things in it, and fairly recently. Suppose your suspect knew that it was there – it would make a perfect hiding place for contraband …?’ She tailed off and shook her head. Even as she said it, it sounded ludicrous.

  Verity, though, was seriously weighing the idea. ‘It could be, I suppose. It was close to here I saw him, first time round – though it wasn’t your cottage where I sheltered from the rain. It was the next one down the lane, just opposite the stile.’ She shook her head. ‘But that don’t make much sense of what I saw today. Why would he start to go in there and then turn back again?’

  Effie had already thought of that. ‘Perhaps because my maid was in the garden beating mats, and he thought he might be seen?’

  ‘And how would that be different from any other time? Place was being lived in before you rented it.’

  ‘I don’t think the woman who was here before went out there very much – certainly not for the last few months or so, after her husband died. The place was a proper tangle when I first arrived – though my father’s made improvements since, with a little help from Sergeant Jeffries.’ She looked at Verity. ‘Speaking of Sergeant Jeffries, should we tell him, do you think?’

  The girl made a disbelieving face. ‘Tell him what? That I thought I saw a man I thought I saw before, walk into a field, do nothing, and disappear again? You can imagine what the Sergeant would have to say to that! He thinks I’m flighty anyway, I told you that before.’

  It was so heartfelt that Effie had to laugh. ‘When you put it that way, I suppose we’d better not. And of course I have no proof that the man’s been in my little shed – today he didn’t go near it and it’s empty anyway, or it was until I put my crates in there. But I am quite serious – I really think that’s where he meant to go, and if he has been using it without permission, I have a right to know. That would be trespass, if it’s nothing else. I’ll keep a watch for him in case he comes again.’

  Verity looked doubtful. ‘But how will you do that? You can’t see the shed from here. Even from the back there’d be bushes in the way. One of the reasons that he might have used it, I suppose.’

  ‘If I’m upstairs in the writing room, I can see, – especially if I move my table to the right a bit. I am often up there, and from now on I’ll keep an eye. Of course it may be wholly innocent – or something trivial like keeping his bicycle in there – but I’d like to know for certain what it was that caused those marks. Come into the garden and see for yourself. I feel I owe you that – for sending you away the last time that you called.’

  The girl had got that hunted look again. ‘I shouldn’t really. I’m already hours late. They’ll have stopped me a morning’s wages as it is, I expect.’

  ‘Then a few more minutes isn’t going to make much difference!’ Effie stood up and led the girl outside. ‘This was your puzzle. I think you ought to see. Here’s the shed,’ she murmured, opening the door. ‘And there’s the …’ She broke off in surprise. ‘Good lord, I don’t believe it! Miss Tregorran, look at this.’

  Martha was upstairs trying to calm Patience when her sister Dorcas came. She glimpsed her through the window, and called down with relief. ‘Up here, my handsome, quickly as you can. The girl’s beside herself, carrying on and bleeding so I don’t know what to do.’ And that was all that she had time to say, because Patience gave another sobbing scream and clutched the bedclothes like a drowning man.

  ‘Make it stop, Ma! Make it stop. How don’t you make it stop?’

  Martha dipped a cloth into the washbowl on the stand, then hurried over and mopped her brow again.

  ‘Tell her I’m praying for her.’ Ephraim had been hovering on the landing ever since she came, still in his nightshirt – though he’d taken off his coat – and now he put his head around the door, wringing his hands as though doing so might help.

  Martha heard her sister’s footstep on the stairs and a moment later Dorcas came into the room. Martha said, ‘Thank the Lord, you’re here. Never been so glad to see anyone in my life. Midwife’s been sent for, but I think she’ll be too late.’ She shook her head. ‘Wicked of me, Dorcas – but I’d rather it was me. Easier to do it, than watch your child in pain. A
nd she won’t let me near her, won’t even let me look.’

  ‘Well someone’s going to have to,’ Dorcas said, stripping off her cloak and bonnet while Patience screamed and twitched. ‘Leave this to me a minute, lover. You look worn out yourself. You go and put the kettle on the hearth, get a bit of water to the boil. I’ll call you when I need it – it might not be long – but she’s better off without you for a little while. You’re suffering with her, and that’s no good at all. Go do something useful and, while you’re at it, make a cup of tea.’ She made a sympathetic face that was better than a hug, and started unpacking the basket she had brought.

  Martha nodded and took a step towards the stairs but before she reached the doorway there was another shrieking groan and there was Ephraim, peering in again.

  ‘Remind her of the scripture. This is the price of tempting Adam with the fruit. “In sorrow shall you bring forth children.” But the Lord is merciful.’

  Martha was so furious she could have pushed him down the stairs but her sister was made of sterner stuff. ‘Then I pray He’ll be as merciful to you. In the meantime, you’ve a farm to tend. A house in travail is no place for a man – not without he is a doctor – so get some clothes on and go and leave us be. If you must quote scripture go and quote it to the pigs, or the cows or the chickens, or anywhere but here!’

  Ephraim was so astonished that he actually obeyed. He seized a pile of garments from a nearby chair and disappeared with them – and when Martha went out to fetch the water from the pump, she heard him clattering in the yard, scattering cooked scraps to the chickens (it was illegal to feed them corn or bran) and muttering darkly about backsliding infidels.

  Martha filled the kettle and put it on the stove. It had cleaned up lovely, and was working handsome now. Proper Cornish stove, it proved to be – little oven where you could cook the meat and bread, or put in a pot of stew, and separate iron rings on top where things could stand to boil. She lifted one of them with the special hook, poked at the fire underneath (though it hardly needed it) then set the kettle back – amazed at how quickly it began to sing. Perhaps all her girls would have a stove like this one day – hard to imagine, but it was the twentieth century after all!