Dear Romilly,
Somebody should tell you about Dickie Cottar. I fear that nobody will. He is a boy of nine years old. He lives on your land. And he has no friend. His mother was Bessie Cottar. She used to be a barmaid in Slane St Mary’s. She went off, nobody knows where, soon after Dickie was born. He was reared by his grandmother, who lives on Corston Common.
At nine years old, you know, poor children are expected to keep themselves. Dickie cannot get work from any of your people. He will, therefore, be obliged to go to Cranton’s. Have you ever been to Cranton’s? Before you say: ‘Why should he not?’ pray go there and observe the children who work there. Many of them die. But not all suffer, while they live, as Dickie will. He’s a clever child. He can read and write. He will feel it more. Observe the children and don’t say: ‘They look as though they were dull-witted creatures. They are probably fit for nothing better.’ Think of yourself at that age.
He will be lucky if he dies soon. He will but live to be a maimed and tortured creature. Or else he will run away, thirsting for freedom, and fall in with wild, lawless people, and end on the gallows. I think it is a longing for freedom which oftenest makes people break the laws. It is wrong to break laws, but we must never have the minds of slaves. God ordained our need for liberty.
He has a remarkably good ear for music. I believe he might do well if apprenticed to a musical instrument maker. I would do this for him, if I had any money.
Nobody will speak of this to you because it is said, amongst the village people, that Dickie is your son. To take notice of him might, it is thought, offend your family. But for this story my father would, I believe, give him employment here. People are so much concerned with a possible injury to you that they forget a certain injury to Dickie. Yet which of you suffers most from such a story? It’s a cruelty which you would set right, I am sure, if you knew of it.
I have a schoolfriend who is a relation of the Broadwood family. I can find out from her what it would cost to apprentice Dickie to such work as that. I could let you know the cost. If you think you can afford the sum, you can give it to me, and I will arrange it all. Will you let me know what you think of this scheme?
It would be cant to say that these measures will make Dickie perfectly happy. He’s too clever to be happy. Nor can we, in this world, do anything to secure happiness, for ourselves or for others. But we must challenge misery, even though it is always too strong for us. We must still defy it, and cry out against it.
Ever your affectionate friend
JENNY NEWBOLT.
This letter she folded, sealed, addressed, and hid in a place where Venetia would never find it.
Next morning, the transport over, she wondered at her own boldness although she could not repent of it. If she were now to attempt such a task she would most certainly waste a week in miserable indecision over the very first words: ‘Dear Mr. Brandon’? ‘Dear Sir’? ‘Sir’?
She would be confused by the stranger now at Stretton Priors and would torment herself with fears lest he should fail to respond. Such an appeal could only be penned at one of those moments when Truth, Justice, and Mercy sat solidly amongst the clouds and when she knew, without the least shadow of doubt, that he was not changed — that he would recognise a command from those voices and instantly obey.
PART III
THE ENTHUSIAST
1
NO APPEAL TO Romilly, on Dickie’s behalf, proved to be necessary. Jenny’s letter was left in its hiding place. Within a week Dickie was established as knife-and-boot-boy at the Parsonage.
Dr. Newbolt decided to pay his pastoral call on the disreputable Mrs. Hollins at a late hour on Wednesday, when he might hope to find her at home. He did not mean to stay above fifteen or twenty minutes, and expected to be back again before dark.
People were trooping home from work when he came to the scattered collection of hovels in the black valley. They stared at him, but answered more civilly than he expected when he asked for the house. How he found it he could not afterwards remember, but he must have found it, and found a post to which he could hitch his horse. During this visit he received a shock which was to change the whole course of his life, shatter his well-being and drive him, in the end, to a hard death in Cold Harbour. It had, at first, the effect of some physical injury or blow. He was, for some time afterwards, dazed and confused. Some incidents were erased completely from his memory.
Daylight was gone when he emerged from a strange aching fog to find himself sitting in a small room lit by a rush candle. He was asking, rather testily:
‘Poised? What does she mean by poised?’
‘She means kicked, sir.’
Mrs. Hollins spoke in a hoarse whisper. She had formerly worked as a scrubber and the flint dust had affected her throat.
Poised? he thought. I never heard the expression. North-country perhaps. Could there be a connection with pieds? I must make enquiries. What’s the French for kicked?
He leant forward to examine huge bruises on a skinny little back.
‘I was feared for her ribs, sir. But I believe they’re sound.’
The child, who had flung her gown over her head to show him the bruises, now pulled it back again. Her sharp little face peered up at him under a mop of filthy hair.
‘But why did he poise you, my dear?’
‘He sent me for a candle. I ran as fast as I could but they hadn’t no candles to spare in the muffin room. I had to go to the saggers. He said I was a lazy bitch and he threw me down and poised me.’
‘They gets very fierce, the jiggers,’ whispered Mrs. Hollins. ‘It’s hard for them. They’re paid by the piece. If it’s said a piece is spoiled they get naught for it, though Cranton may sell it later.’
The wizened child climbed on to a pallet beside two smaller creatures who were fast asleep.
‘The jiggers, they all poise us,’ she said with some pride.
She opened her mouth wide. Mrs. Hollins, who sat in front of the bed, on a stool, a bowl of soup in her lap, put in a spoonful. The other two were then roused and forced to swallow a little, although they whimpered and protested.
Dr. Newbolt wondered how long he might have been there. He need not have waited for the evening to call on Mrs. Hollins. In that house only the children worked.
‘Do they all work for jiggers?’ he asked.
‘No, sir. Only Sukey. Polly’s a dipper. Tommy, he’s a mould runner. Ah now, Polly, rouse up and get your victuals!’
‘They are too much exhausted to eat!’
‘But they must eat, sir. At six in the morning I’m forced to rouse ’em again and drive ’em off to work. Sukey! You leave that alone! That’s Tommy’s sup.’
‘Tom don’t want no more, Mam.’
‘He must get his victuals.’
Something should be done, thought Dr. Newbolt. I came here to … I came here to … why did I come here? Her pastor … I had intended to tell her … what? … Her dress on Sunday …
‘You are a church woman?’ he said.
She explained that she had been country bred and had gone to church as a child, a long time ago. She could not account for her sudden appearance at the altar at Stretton Courtenay. She had, she said, taken a ramble for once, and had heard the bells.
‘I must speak to Mr. Cranton,’ he said.
This terrified her.
‘Oh no, sir! Pray don’t, sir! We’d only be turned off, and then what should we do? If we was to come upon the parish the children might be taken from me and sent … sent …’
‘But this whatdyecallit? This jigger!’
‘He’s no worse than many, sir. Maybe Sukey was slow. She might have run faster. Nor I’m not the only one. There’s plenty places where the children get work, and men and women is turned off. Children comes cheaper, you see. Sukey! If you try for Polly’s sup again …!’
‘Polly don’t want it. She’d sooner sleep.’
‘They must get their victuals. They can sleep Sunday. Polly! Polly! Eh de
ar! I can’t wake her….’
In despair the wretched woman began to cuff and claw the children violently, cursing them because they could not take their victuals. Dr. Newbolt rose and took the bowl from her.
‘Rest a little,’ he said. ‘Let me try. Polly …!’
He felt more certain, now, of what he had come to do. He did not leave the house until the soup had been shared equally between Sukey, Polly, and Tommy. Then he rode homewards through sweet moonlight, the smell of hawthorn all about him.
‘Very late,’ he thought dreamily. ‘As near as nothing too late, Poised? I never heard the word before. But I must get home before the moon comes nearer.’
The moon was growing in size. It was coming down out of the sky. The light was intolerable, burning him to the quick. That passed, and he was lying under a hedge with hawthorn petals on his face. His horse on the greensward nearby cropped peacefully.
Alarmingly late, he decided. I was nearly overtaken by Perpetual Light, I believe, and I am far from ready for it.
People were standing round him, calling out that it was Parson, and asking what ailed him.
‘A light,’ he muttered. ‘A command …’
Had he fallen? Was he hurt? Was he sick? Had any person attacked him? What light? What command?
‘Feed my lambs!’ he shouted suddenly, and fell to weeping as though his heart would break.
2
AT THE PRIORS, that night, they were dancing. Ellen had sought out her brother, soon after breakfast, and wheedled him into a genial mood.
‘Mr. Latymer … it’s his last night and … and he loves dancing … and he has not danced once, his whole time ashore. If we could collect eight couple …’
‘Impossible! Not in this desert.’
‘Oh yes. We don’t want for girls, and then there are all the Freemans. It’s so obliging in that family to be all men. And you. And Ed … Mr. Latymer …’
‘Not I. My dancing days are over.’
‘Really? Charlotte said so, but I refused to believe it.’
‘Ho? Charlotte said so?’
‘Oh yes. She’s all against it and said that you would be against it too. And Mama … you know how it is? She is sorry for Mr. Latymer, and would like his last night to be cheerful. But she’s afraid of Charlotte. So … if you are against us too, there’s an end of it!’
‘I never said I was against it, only that I won’t dance. Charlotte has no business to interfere. Collect eight couple by all means. The scheme has my blessing.’
‘Oh, Rom!’
‘But not if you call me Rom.’
‘Oh, brother!’
‘That’s going a little far the other way.’
‘How good … how very good of you! It can be managed very easily. Jenny and Miss Wilson will play for us by turns. If you’ll be so kind as to speak to Mama, I’ll send word of it to the Newbolts.’
‘I will,’ he said, returning to his book.
‘There’s no time to be lost,’ she persisted. ‘Pray go to her now. We must send a message to the Freemans at once, if they are to know in time. It’s a long ride for them, but they are always ready for a frolic, and they’ll have a full moon to light them home.’
Ellen’s bright eyes were impossible to withstand. Romilly shut his book with a bang, got out of his chair, and promised to lose no time. The thing, if done at all, should be done handsomely. Could they not get a fiddler? A governess at the instrument sounded a trifle tame. Ellen, in ecstasy, declared that there was an old fiddler near Corston.
‘We’ll have him over. And then … supper? White soup? Syllabubs? All that sort of thing?’
‘Charlotte would never …’
‘Confound Charlotte. She shan’t send my guests away hungry. Don’t be uneasy, child. I’ll see to everything.’
Having sponsored the enterprise he found that he had let himself in for a troublesome day. Innumerable difficulties emerged, most of them, he suspected, contrived by Charlotte. No servant could be spared to carry a note to the Freemans. The fiddler was said to drink. There was no stock for white soup.
Doggedly he fought down all these obstacles. By eight o’clock the long saloon was cleared for dancing. The fiddler was reported to be in the kitchen, cold sober. The Freeman boys came whooping and galloping up the drive.
The Arbuthnot girls were upstairs, removing cloaks and adjusting ribbons.
‘We shall be one couple short,’ declared Ellen, doing a swift chassée down the whole length of the saloon. ‘One man too many, without Venetia. So we will excuse you, Romilly, if you really don’t care to dance.’
‘What? Are the Newbolts not coming?’
‘Jenny is here. She’s upstairs with the Arbuthnots. But she never dances: she’ll play any tune we may call for if the fiddler gets drunk.’
‘But what has happened to her sister?’
Ellen looked embarrassed.
‘I scarcely know. She won’t come. Charlotte …’
‘Charlotte again?’
‘I believe Charlotte dropped her a hint not to come here unless she was invited. I suppose she has taken huff.’
‘But she has been invited. By my mother. You said so, surely, in your note?’
‘Oh dear! I never thought it necessary. I wrote: “We are to have a little ball tonight. Pray come….” She must have known we had Mama’s permission. But perhaps she’s offended.’
‘I don’t wonder,’ said Romilly. ‘I shall go down this instant to the Parsonage and bring her back with me.’
Ellen began a protest, but checked herself. To argue with him was always fatal.
‘If you can persuade her to come,’ she said doubtfully, ‘it would be much pleasanter. It seems quite unkind to be dancing without her. But what shall we do? We are to begin in a few minutes, and you may be ever so long before you come back. She’ll need to put on another gown if she comes. Yet we can’t begin without you.’
‘Oh yes. You are a couple short, in any case, unless she comes.’
‘But you are the host! Oh dear! I wish Charlotte was at the bottom of the sea.’
‘I should be quite content if she was in Berkshire.’
He hurried upstairs to change his shoes and then set off. The fiddle struck up as he left the house. St. Leger’s Round! For a moment he forgot his irritation and smiled to think of Ellen frisking away with Latymer. She was a good little creature. The thought of her put him out of humour with his errand, for he had no real concern for Venetia’s feelings. He was only going in order to defeat Charlotte.
Half-way across the bridge he hesitated. Should he turn back and content himself with the innocent victory already secured? Thanks to his intervention Ellen and Latymer might skip up the middle and down again, and that was an excellent achievement. To introduce Venetia might impart a flavour of hemlock to the syllabubs. Nobody would be the happier. But then the earliest nightingale, whistling four times from a distant tree, settled the matter. Nettlerash! he remembered furiously. He went on.
She was sitting in the Parsonage garden on that round bench under the tree. Without any great appearance of surprise she rose to greet him, explaining that her father was from home, visiting some person over at Cranton’s.
‘I’ve come,’ he said, ‘to persuade you, if I can, into accepting poor little Ellen’s invitation. She’ll be quite miserable if you don’t come, and so shall I. There seems to have been some misunderstanding … she wrote on my mother’s behalf of course. But she’s very young. Unused to these things. I’m sure you’ll forgive her.’
Regretfully she shook her head. She was sorry, exceedingly sorry, but the other ladies of the family had made it so clear that she was unwelcome….
‘No, no,’ she finished. ‘Believe me, I’d better not come.’
‘It’s all Charlotte’s doing. You know what she is. I’ll engage she shall be civil to you, if only you’ll come.’ Venetia smiled and sat down again.
‘I don’t intend to take any risks. It must not be said that you
forced me upon your family.’
He sat down beside her, looking obstinate but unable, for the moment, to discover any compelling answer to this. After a while she went on:
‘If I come with you … only think what a tale the world would make of it! Everyone believes that I’m trying to catch you. Everyone can see that you pay me marked attentions. I don’t take them seriously. It’s all to serve your own ends: a kind of threat to your family. I shall have served my turn if they come to heel. Your attentions will then cease. If you fail, you’ll go back to London. In either case, every person within thirty miles of Stretton will believe that I have suffered a signal disappointment. I’m not at all sorry for this opportunity of showing my indifference. If you go back now without me …’
She laughed a little. Romilly, disconcerted, protested that she must think very badly of him.
‘Not as well as I did,’ she said ruefully. ‘At first I thought you a match for Lady Baddeley. I really believed you might contrive to be master in your own house. Now … I doubt it.’
‘I’m determined to take you back with me.’
‘Only to satisfy your own vanity.’
‘And nothing will satisfy yours, short of …?’
‘An offer?’ She laughed. ‘What would that be worth? You’d never be allowed to marry me.’
And yet, he thought, they had much in common. She had no heart. His was a burden rather than a blessing. Only a wife, it seemed, could rid him of the Brandon Arabian. She had taste. Fragonard! That was a striking piece of natural insight. She was a beauty. She would adorn his dinner table, although he might not want to see her face on his pillow when he woke up in the morning. She could keep her own quarters, which he would visit whenever he felt inclined. She would, he was sure, be content with marriage unhallowed by tenderness.
‘I believe,’ she said, ‘that you are debating Mrs. Malaprop’s great maxim: It’s always best to begin with a little aversion.’
‘Where do you stable your broomstick?’
A Night in Cold Harbour Page 10
