· · ·
There are numerous collective nouns for rooks. In some parts people say a parish of rooks.
Part I
Verily, the rook sees far more than we give him credit for seeing,
hears more than we think he hears,
thinks more than we think that he thinks.
—THE REVEREND BOSWELL SMITH, FROM BIRD LIFE AND BIRD LORE
CHAPTER ONE
Six days out of every seven the area along the Burford Road resounded with the clattering, booming, clanging, rattling, thundering noise of Bellman’s Mill. The shuttles that hurtled back and forth were the very least of it: there was also the churning, crashing roar of the Windrush as it turned the wheel that powered all this hectic to-ing and fro-ing. Such was the racket that at the end of the day, when the shuttles were brought home to rest and the mill wheel ceased to turn, the ears of the workers still rang with the vibration of it all. This ringing stayed with them as they made their way to their small cottages, was still there as they climbed into their beds at night, and as often as not, continued to sound through their dreams.
Birds and other small creatures stayed away from Bellman’s Mill, at least on working days. Only the rooks were bold enough to fly over the mill, seeming to relish its clamor, even adding a coarse note of their own to the music.
Today though, being Sunday, the mill was peaceful. On the other side of the Windrush and down the high street, the humans were making noise of another kind.
A rook—or a crow, it is hard to tell them apart—alighted with aplomb on the roof of the church, cocked its head, and listened.
“Oh come and dwell in me,
Spirit of power within,
and bring the glorious liberty
from sorrow, fear, and sin.”
In the first verse of the hymn, the congregation was tuneless and disorganized as a herd of sheep on market day. Some treated it as a competition where the loudest wins all. Some, having better things to do with their time than sing, rushed to the end as quickly as they could, while others, afraid of getting ahead of themselves, lagged a safe semiquaver behind. Alongside and behind these singers was a mass of mill workers whose hearing was not what it had been. These created a flat background drone, rather as if one of the organ pedals had got stuck.
Thankfully there was the choir and thankfully the choir contained William Bellman. His tenor, effortless and clear, gave a compass bearing, according to which the individual voices found north and knew where they were going. It rallied, disciplined, and provided a target to aim at. Its vibrations even managed to stimulate the eardrums of the hard of hearing, for the dull drone of the deaf was lifted by it into something almost musical. Although at “sorrow, fear, and sin” the congregation was bleating haphazardly, by “Hasten the joyful day” it had agreed on a speed; it found its tune “when old things shall be done away,” and by the time it reached “eternal bliss” in the last verse it was, thanks to William, as agreeable to the ear as any congregation can expect to be.
The last notes of the hymn died away, and soon after, the church door opened and the worshippers emerged into the churchyard, where they lingered to talk and enjoy the autumnal sunshine. Among them were a pair of women, one older and one younger, both abundantly decorated with corsages, brooches, ribbons, and trims. They were aunt and niece, or so they said, though some whispered otherwise.
“Doesn’t he have a fine voice? It makes you wish every day was Sunday,” the young Miss Young said wistfully to her aunt, and Mrs. Baxter, overhearing, replied, “If you wish to hear William Bellman sing every night of the week, you need only listen at the window of the Red Lion. Though”—and her undertone was audible to William’s mother standing a little way off—“what is pleasant to the ear might be less so to the soul.”
Dora heard this with an expression of benign neutrality, and she turned the same face to the man now approaching her, her brother-in-law.
“Tell me, Dora. What is William doing these days, when he is not displeasing souls who loiter at the window of the Red Lion?”
“He is working with John Davies.”
“Does he like farmwork?”
“You know William. He is always happy.”
“How long does he intend to stay with Davies?”
“So long as there is work. He is willing to turn his hand to anything.”
“You would not prefer something more steady for him? With prospects?”
“What would you suggest?”
There was a whole story in the look she gave him then, an old story and a long one, and the look he returned to her said, All that is true, but.
“My father is an old man now, and I have charge of the mill.” She protested, but he overrode her. “I will not speak of others if it angers you, but have I done you any injury, Dora? Have I hurt you or William in any way? With me, at the mill, William can have prospects, security, a future. Is it right to keep him from these?”
He waited.
“You have not wronged me in any way, Paul,” she said eventually. “I suppose that if you don’t get the answer you want from me, you will go to William directly?”
“I would much sooner we could all agree on it.”
The choristers had disrobed and were leaving the church, William among them. Many eyes were on William, for he was as agreeable to look at as he was to the ear. He had the same dark hair as his uncle, an intelligent brow, eyes capable of seeing numerous things at once, and he inhabited his vigorous body with grace and ease. More than one young woman in the churchyard that day wondered what it would be like to be in the arms of William Bellman—and more than one young woman already knew.
He spotted his mother, widened his smile, and raised an arm to hail her.
“I will put it to him,” she told Paul. “It will be for him to decide.”
They parted, Dora toward William, and Paul to go home alone.
In the matter of marriage, Paul had tried to avoid his father’s mistake and his brother’s. Not for him a foolish wife with bags of gold, nor love and beauty that came empty-handed. Ann had been wise and good-hearted—and her dowry had just stretched to the building of the dye house. By being sensible and choosing the middle path, he had ended up with a harmonious domestic life, cordial companionship, and a dye house. But for all his good sense and solid reason he chided himself. He did not grieve his wife’s passing as a loving husband ought and in painfully honest moments he admitted in his heart that he thought more of his sister-in-law than was proper.
Dora and William went home.
The rook on the church roof gave an unhurried flap, lifted effortlessly from the roof, and soared away.
· · ·
“I’d like to do it,” Will told his mother in the small kitchen. “You won’t mind?”
“And if I do?”
He grinned and put an easy arm about her shoulders. At seventeen, there was still novelty in the pleasure of being so much taller than his mother. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you if I could help it.”
“And there’s the rub.”
· · ·
A while later, in a secluded spot screened by sedges and rushes, Will’s easy arm was around another shoulder. His other hand was invisible beneath a mass of petticoat, and the girl sometimes placed her hand over his to indicate slower, quicker, a change of pressure. Clearly he was making progress, he thought. At the start she had kept her hand over his all the time. The girl’s white legs were whiter still against the moss, and she had kept her boots on: they would have to make a run for it if they were disturbed. Her breath came in sharp gasps. It still surprised Will that pleasure should sound so like pain.
She fell abruptly silent and a small frown of concentration appeared on her face. Her hand pressed so hard over his it was almost painful and her white legs clamped together. He watched closely, fascinated. The flush on her cheeks and chest, the quiver of her eyelids. Then she relaxed, eyes still closed, and a small pulse beat in her neck. After a minute she
opened her eyes.
“Your turn.”
He laid back, arms behind his head. No need for his hand to teach her. Jeannie knew what she was about.
“Don’t you ever think you’d like to come and sit on top of me and do it properly?” he asked.
She stopped and wagged a playful finger at him. “William Bellman, I mean to be an honest married woman one day. A Bellman baby is not going to get in my way!”
She returned to her task.
“Who do you take me for? Do you think I wouldn’t marry you if there was a baby coming?”
“Don’t be daft. Course you would.”
She caressed him, gently enough, firmly enough. It was just right.
“Well, then?”
“You’re a good boy, Will. I’m not saying you’re not.”
He took her hand and stopped it, propped himself up on his elbows to see her face properly.
“But?”
“Will!” Seeing he would not be satisfied without an answer, she spoke, hesitant and tentative, the words born straight from her thoughts. “I know the kind of life I want. Steady. Regular.” He nodded her to go on. “What would my life be if I were to marry you? There’s no way of knowing. Anything might happen. You’re not a bad man, Will. You’re just . . .”
He laid back down. Something occurred to him, and he looked at her again.
“You’ve got someone in mind!”
“No!” But her alarm and her blush gave her away.
“Who is it? Who? Tell me!” He grabbed her, tickled her, and for a minute they were children again, shrieking, laughing, and play fighting. Just as quickly adulthood repossessed them and they set to finishing the business they were there for.
By the time the leaves and the sky came back into focus above his head, he discovered his brain had worked it out for him. It was respectability she wanted. She was a worker, unimpressed by the easy life. And if she was killing time with him, while waiting, it meant it was someone who hadn’t noticed her yet. There were not so very many candidates the right age, most of them you could eliminate for one reason or another. Of the remainder, one stood out.
“It’s Fred from the bakery, isn’t it?”
She was appalled. Her hand flew to her mouth then, more aptly, but too late, covered his.
“Don’t tell. Will, please, not a word!” And then she was crying.
He put his arms around her. “Hush! I won’t tell. Not a soul. Promise.”
She sobbed and hiccoughed and then was quiet and he took her hand in his. “Jeannie! Don’t fret. I bet you’ll be married before the year is out.”
They parted, heading off in different directions in order to arrive home by different paths.
Will walked the long route, upriver and over the bridge, down the other side. It was early evening. Summer was clinging on. It was a shame about Jeannie in a way, he reflected. She was a good sort of girl. A rumble came from his stomach and reminded him that his mother had some good cheese at home and a bowl of stewed plums. He broke into a run.
CHAPTER TWO
William extended a hand. The hand that met it was like a gauntlet, thick pads of skin as unyielding as cowhide. Probably the man could hardly bend his fingers.
“Good morning.”
They were in the delivery yard, and even in the open air the stink coming from the Spanish crates was high. “Unpacking, counting, and weighing all go on here,” Paul explained. “Mr. Rudge is in charge, he’s been with us—how many years is it?”
“Fourteen.”
“Six men here with him today. Some days more, some days less. It depends on the deliveries.”
Paul and Mr. Rudge talked for ten minutes, underweight crates and settling and the Valencia supplier and the Castilian one. Paul followed the order of the work: The crates were levered open and tipped up, the fleeces dragged out—their stink with them—to be attached to the hook; then all the business with the weights, the fleeces rising, suspended like grubby clouds, and when the balance was found, Rudge—talking to Paul all the while, speaking of Valencia and Castile as though they were places just beyond Chipping Norton—noted the weight and signaled for the next. Then the fleeces returned to earth to be carted away for cleaning. William studied the work, all eyes, keen to take in every detail. And as he watched, so he was watched in turn. None stared openly, all appeared to be looking at their work. But out of the corners of their eye and out of the backs of their heads, he felt their gazes all over him.
Paul and his uncle followed the donkey to the next stage.
“Let me introduce my nephew, William Bellman,” said Paul Bellman. “William, this is Mr. Smith.”
A rough hand in his. “Good morning.” William watched. William was watched. And so it went on all day.
The wool had to be cleaned, dried, and picked. William concentrated hard. Willying, scribbling, oiling, carding, slubbing: he tried to commit it all to memory.
“Sometimes it goes on from here to the dye house, to be dyed in the wool, but since it can also go as finished cloth, we’ll leave it till later.”
There came an introduction with no handshake. In the spinning house the eyes that scrutinized him were all female ones—and they were not shy of looking either. He gave a half bow to Clary Rigton, the most senior of the spinsters, and giggles burst out in the room, immediately repressed.
“Onward!” Paul said.
To weaving, where the shuttles traveled so fast the eye could scarcely keep pace and the cloth grew so fast you might believe the rattling rhythm alone was enough to beget cloth. To fulling, with its urine and hog’s dung fumes, filth to clean filth. To the tenterfield, cloth stretched out on frames, yard upon yard of it, drying in the fine weather—
“Unless it’s wet, in which case,” and off they strode again. Paul opened a door on the air house. “Self-explanatory, really,” and gave William a glimpse of a long, narrow room, perforated all along the walls. “And once it’s dry, the cloth next passes—”
On they went.
“—to finishing,” but they were not finished at all, for finishing meant scouring and more fulling and more drying and raising, where William was too dazed to do more than stare as the cloth passed through a machine and emerged with a haze of fiber on its surface, like felt.
William’s nostrils were on fire with the smell of it all and his ears were ringing with the noise. His feet ached, for they had crossed the site a hundred times, from north to south, from east to west, from field to yard to house to shed, one building to another, following the cloth.
“Shearing,” Paul said, opening another door.
The door closed behind them and William was stunned. For the first time that day, he found himself in a place of hush. It was so quiet in the room that his ears seemed to vibrate. There were no hands to shake. The two men—equal in height, in stature—barely glanced up, so great was their concentration. They worked their blades along the cloth from end to end, in a silent and precisely choreographed ballet, and where the blades passed over the cloth, they left not so much as a memory in the pile. The haze was cut away, it drifted like down, slowly to the floor, and what was left behind was perfect and firm and clean and sound: finished cloth.
William didn’t know how long he stared at it. He was in a numb reverie.
“Mesmerizing, isn’t it? Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Gambin.”
Paul looked at his nephew. “You’re tired. Well, that’s enough for one day, I should think. There’s only pressing after this.”
William wanted to see the pressing.
“Mr. Sanders, this is my nephew, William Bellman.”
A handshake. “Good evening.”
Sheets of heated metal had been inserted between pleats of folded cloth and were cooling. Along the wall packaged lengths of cloth awaited dispatch.
“There,” said Paul as they came away. “So now you’ve seen it all.”
William’s eyes were glazed with looking.
“Come on. Get your coat. You look worn-out.”
William held his coat between his hands. Cloth. Made from fleeces. It was nothing short of miraculous.
“Good evening, Uncle.”
“Good evening, William.”
Before he was quite out of Paul’s office, he spun on his heels.
“The dye house—!”
Paul lifted a weary hand in the air. “Another day!”
· · ·
“So, how was it?”
Dora understood not one word in three of her son’s reply.
He hardly chewed her food before swallowing, but nineteen to the dozen he talked, and his mouth was full of billies and jennies and burling rooms and double giggs and fulling stocks and she knew not what else. “Rudge does deliveries, and Bunton has charge of cleaning. The senior spinster is Mrs. Rigton and—”
“Was Mr. Bellman there? The old Mr. Bellman, I mean?”
He shook his head, his mouth full of food.
“Mr. Heaver is the fuller and Mr. Crace is in the tenterfield—no. Is that right?”
“Don’t speak with your mouth full, Will. You know, your uncle doesn’t expect you to know everything on the first day.”
In fact the chop and potato was already cold, but that hardly mattered. William ate without tasting. In his mind he was still at the mill, seeing it all happen, working out how it all fitted together, every process, every machine, every man and woman, all part of the pattern.
“And the others? Everyone else? Did they take to you, do you think?”
He gestured to his mouth and she had to wait.
She never learned the answer. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and his head began to nod.
“Up to bed, Will.”
He jerked awake. “I said I’d go down the Red Lion.”
She looked at her son. Red eyed, white with tiredness. She didn’t know when she’d seen him happier.
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