by Leah Fleming
Once on one of his journeys he turned off the turnpike to Stafford and climbed again the steep hill up to Fridwell. He was so bent and worn and aged that no one recognised the figure walking in the churchyard and pausing at the hump in the grass where Abel Barnswell lay. Through the thicket he could see the orchard and Ephraim’s swing but no child now rocked back and forth or scampered around the trees.
For old times’ sake he took the path up the slope from the churchyard, pausing on the bank of the stream which was full of marsh marigolds and dog violets. There was no smoke coming from the chimney stack, the grassy mounds were overgrown with meadow grasses, sheep were grazing in the orchard. Nothing of Hetty’s presence remained; only a few straggly roses, a wilderness of chickweed and couch grass in her herb beds, no sign of life. He turned away with tears in his eyes for it was a good building now gone to ruin. He knew the village folk feared that a spirit of violent death still roamed the garden. What a waste of a sturdy roof! If no one was inside he would avail himself of a free night’s lodging, share his scraps with the mice. If he searched he might find stray berries and fruit, and there would be fresh water from the spring to wash away the dust.
There was a sad smell to the dwelling. Upstairs a flock mattress lay plucked for nesting on the bare boards. It felt like a lifetime since he had seen those exiles who now lived on the other side of the world. He sat on the stairwell and fingered the one precious letter she had sent on her arrival which had been delivered by a sea-faring man a year after it was written. He carried it around with him always and knew every word by heart:
Dear Benjamin Thomas, Brother in Christ,
I greet you as a grateful daughter, for in this life you have been of all men the most loyal and faithful in my troubles. Without your aid we would have been lost and my child would not have the wonderful life he now enjoys here in the New World.
It is hard to believe we are but an ocean away from the tears and sadness of life at Fridwell. Yet I bear the place no grudge for the few times of peace and tranquillity there with you often come to mind. Without your letters of introduction to this Christian community here, and the gracious kindness of General Oglethorpe, my life would have been little better than those who are transported against their will and yearn to return once more to England.
In the eyes of God’s law I am no better than they and our crimes are grievous indeed but I think again of the verse which once I knew as truth:
How wretched is a woman’s fate
No happy change her fortune knows
Subject to man in every state
How can she then be free from woes?
By His Mercies I am transported indeed into another state, another country, where opportunities can take hold here in the smallest patch of earth and thrive without tending. Ephraim speaks again and works hard as a scholar, training also as a militia man for there is much unrest and division in the Colony as to whether we be better off independent from His Majesty’s government or no.
We have settled in the garrison town of Frederica, close to the coast by the Savannah river, a site of much beauty with its gracious parks and squares. Our journey here was long and not without danger. Ephraim was sick in the storms but my stomach was cast in iron. There is much to do yet to make our lives comfortable and safe amongst the convicts. I spend many hours with the wretched women newly released from bondage, teaching them the basics of stitchery, and we cut out patterns from paper and transpose them on to cloth for them to make dresses of their own. The scraps I gathered in England you will be pleased to hear are never wasted for we gather in groups at nightfall to praise God and pass around the pieces, sewing them together to make quilts. There’s little time now for painting or drawing. Besides, they remind me too much of my other lives.
I grow a few of their strange vegetables. There is no space for flowers in my yard patch but be not sad for now I grow gardens in my quilts and shape the patterns into flowers of all hues, piecing up scraps into the flowers of my memory: roses, tulips, scrolls of leaves. It gives me pleasure that the gardens I grow in cloth provide far more warmth and comfort than ever did my Fridwell piece of ground.
I have placed a packet of wild flower seeds within these pages as a token of our gratitude. You are often in our prayers. May God, who looks into the heart and sees our deeds, have mercy on us all.
Your dear friend in Christ, Mehetebel (Hetty) Thomas
PS: As you see we have shed that cursed name and chosen your surname for ourselves, to honour all your kindness to us both, the name which Ephraim, God willing, will make us all proud to own in due course.
Benjamin Thomas sighed as he fingered the fading letter, folding it carefully. He peered out of the dusty window on to the wilderness below. Once he had hoped to see new life blossoming in this beautiful garden, and to have lived out his own span in the comfort of the Parsonage. His plants he’d shared out far and wide amongst gardeners in the district before he left. Nothing was lost. His off shoots would flourish but he could not stay here amid the colour and scents, the red earth and the bird song. Sacrifices were made for the best. He snoozed until dawn and walked again down to the medlar tree which Hetty once sketched for him. He thought he saw her crouched over her pad but it was just a trick of the light and his fevered brain.
This was too lovely a spot to lie unloved and untended. He knelt by the bank to pray for forgiveness once more. Did the soul of Abel Barnswell wander here in torment? If so he must lay the ghost to rest and pray for its repose. Would the Lord of all mercies look down favourably and restore His peace once more?
He rose painfully from the cold earth, leaning on his stick. He must not idle about here but make for the sign of the Red Lion and the route north. His heart seemed lighter for this detour, the words of the Hebrew scriptures springing from his lips as he marched onwards:
Praise, for the earth restored to goodness;
Praise, for men and women restored to themselves;
Praise, for life fulfilled in sacred celebration.
The Shed Garden
Iris
The church clock chimes nine and it’s still light. Miss Bagshott watches Lady sniffing the trail of a hedgehog under the bushes. She lifts one paw, not sure of her prey. At the orchard gate Iris leans out over the silent meadows and sees the twinkling lights already lit in the camper van which is parked for the night further downstream in Mill House field.
She hopes the young couple have had another good day in the Archive Office tracing their ancestors, a friendly earnest pair of Americans all the way from Phoenix, Arizona, spending their honeymoon vacation tracing the bride’s relatives in the parish registers and rolls, searching among the ancient tombstones for Barnsleys, Bagshotts, Baileys, Salts, her forebears; not, they assured Iris, in the hope of finding themselves akin to nobility but to ensure those past souls would not miss out on their eternal inheritance within the Church of the Latter Day Saints who baptise their forefathers and hold the world’s largest genealogical archive.
Aileen and Barney had knocked on her door and asked if they might park their van and Iris invited them in for tea, telling them all she could remember about the history of the village. In truth village history was not her strong point but she could remember some basic facts from her classroom talk on ‘Our Village’. The couple declined her Earl Grey in favour of orange juice and clung to her every word with gasps of, ‘Ahh! Yeah?’ Iris sighs at the thought of such a worthy quest.
Perhaps someone some day might include me in the blessings of an afterlife. I suppose I ought to have an opinion on the matter and this garden teaches me I’m mortal enough every time I bend down to push the wheelbarrow. So many generations have tended this land and passed away but the garden’s life just goes on. What is this soil but bits of other people’s dust, chalky bones, generations of plants and animals; the compost of many lives?
Have I clung to this place all these years in some pathetic attempt to root myself deep, leave my mark in an everchanging world?
Did all the gardeners before me hope to leave something of themselves behind in it, some object, tree or bush, ornament or flower? Is this what our immortality is all about? What will I be leaving behind here: a hotch-potch of plantings, no grand design for sure. But I’ve put my heart and soul into the place, repairing, restocking, changing bits. Isn’t that enough?
If I sell up and move away, will I float rootless once I’m detached from this special corner of the world which has both smiled and spat on me… the place where I was spawned? Is that what I dread most of all?
There’s a definite nip in the air. Time to move back to the warmer end of the house, up the shrub path again and around the side to the working end which fronts on to the lane. This is where Bagshotts have shown their workaday face to the world, a no-nonsense, no frills wooden gate opening into a cobbled courtyard-cum-driveway for Landrovers and carts. The old oak front door is never opened except for strangers yet Iris softens the bareness of the steps up to it with a display of terracotta pots of ‘Raspberry Ripple’ pelargoniums, like sentries on escort duty, and on the wall a wrought iron manger is festooned with trailing begonias alongside some old drainpipe funnels planted up with silver foliage and scarlet verbenas. She is quite proud of this continental effect, hoping it will take the eye away from the shambolic scene around the corner.
Here there are sheds to be locked up, tools to be collected. The hen run lies empty now. Iris finished selling eggs years ago when that salmonella scare brought in too many regulations. The tithe barn stands silhouetted against the night sky, holding firm against the rigours of wind, storm and dry rot. It has served many purposes in its lifetime: grain store, stable, garrison and garage. Perhaps this is the only bit of the property she should sell. Arthur Devey says it has commercial value and there would be grants. It’s self-contained and close to the road, but an ancient building going back to the old Priory would be plastered with preservation orders.
The edges of stone and brick, cobbles and rubble, are thankfully softened by her strays, bless them! Orange mountain poppies and pink chiffons again, feverfew and more Alchemilla mollis, verbascums and a thistly clump of ‘Miss Wilmot’s Ghost’ have mysteriously appeared among the workshops, lean-tos, the greenhouse with more broken panes than whole, a whole collection of distressed outbuildings which have seen better days, like fading gentlefolk in dire need of charity.
This was the scene she could see from her attic bedroom window as a child, the end of the garden which grew sheds and washing, spare parts and old engines; a garden of remembrance. How could she possibly think of selling all this?
PART SEVEN
THE SHED GARDEN
1918
‘For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You find the tool and potting sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold frames and the hot houses, the dungpits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts and drainpipes, with the barrows and the planks’
—‘The Glory of the Garden’, Rudyard Kipling
‘The Poppy
The wild poppy or corn rose is plentiful enough and many times too much so in corn fields of all counties in this land… The herb is lunar; and of the juice of it is made opium; only for lucre they cheat you and tell you it is a kind of tear or some such thing that drops from poppies when they weep’
A Chime Hour Child
The Sopwith Camel rose up from the aerodrome in the valley, circling high over the shrinking woodland of the Chase, levelling out to circle over Fridwell like a huge bird with ice-cream wafer wings. Every creature below stopped to hear the pish and stutter of the engine as it looped and circled overhead; the deer in the outer forest froze at the strange noise, the dogs barked, the birds scattered back under cover. In the open fields the sheep raised their heads from the grass; the hedge trimmers looked up, scratching their heads in wonder that man could defy the elements and fly like birds.
Women hanging washing from the posts on Fridwell Green thanked God their own sons were safe on the ground even if they were in trenches in some foreign land. They hoped this poor mother’s son would get himself safely down again in yon contraption, glad it was not one of them Zeppelins come to drop bombs on the Midshire’s factories, striking terror in every heart at the sight of its huge bulk breathing fire like a dragon.
The pilot, in goggles and flying scarf, leant out to wave as he saw the crocodile of school children walking along the lane up towards the heathland, pointing excitedly.
‘It’s one of ours!’ yelled Iris Bagshott.
‘’Course it’s one of ours, yer daft bugger!’ laughed Dippy Devey, shoving his nose into her face with a sneer.
‘Well, I’m going to be a flyer when I grow up,’ she piped up, undeterred.
‘Girls can’t be flyers… yer too fat! It’d never get off the ground with you in it, Baggypants.’
‘I’m not fat, I’m bonny, and my gran says I can be anything I want, so there!’ Iris punched him in the back.
‘It wouldn’t be lady-like to go up in a machine, Iris,’ interrupted Agatha Salt, smoothing down her starched smock and shaking it so that it stuck out like cake icing, crisp and white. ‘Ladies don’t drive machines.’
‘Your mam does, I’ve seen her at the wheel of yourn.’
‘That’s different, there’s a war on and she drives parcels and comforts for the Red Cross.’
‘No more talking at the back!’ Old Dog Barker, the headmaster, was on the warpath and Miss Weston was gathering up her infant stragglers at the back. ‘Get a move on, we’ve not got all day to do our bit.’ The little red brick school which stood out on a limb by the crossroads lay far behind them now. It was time for all the Fridwell contingent to serve King and Country and help their brothers who were serving with the Midshires regiment somewhere on the Western Front.
Iris was puzzled as to where this front was. It seemed to move backwards and forwards very slowly and the Hun kept shoving up against it like a scrum in the school play yard. For four years, nearly all the life she could remember at school, she’d been praying for the Western Front. That was where her big brother Nat was, and the mantelpiece at home was lined with his postcards. Mam had put a special card in their front window which said: SOMEONE IN THIS HOUSE HAS ANSWERED THE CALL OF DUTY AND IS SERVING WITH HIS MAJESTY’S FORCES.
Nat was nineteen and doing his bit kicking the Kaiser up the arse, Granny Bailey said as they sat by the oil lamp knitting scarves and balaclavas so that his other bits would stay warm and dry. Now the school was doing its bit too. Dippy Devey’s brothers were up the front and Iris wished he was old enough to join them. She hated the snot-faced bully for always teasing and jumping out at her from the holly bushes in the lane, scaring her witless by pretending to be the grey lady who haunted the churchyard by night.
Aggie Salt’s brother was doing his bit too but he was an officer and Aggie swanked that his bit was better than the other village men’s because he was more important.
Today, the headmaster announced they were all going on the hills to collect spaghnum moss for the soldiers. He had shown them a piece of the damp green squidgy stuff which they were to search out and put in baskets for the Red Cross.
‘What’s it for?’ asked Iris to her crocodile partner.
‘It’s to patch up the wounded soldiers, silly. Don’t you know anything?’ Aggie sneered, rolling her steel grey eyes fringed with the blackest lashes.
‘You don’t patch up soldiers, do you? Granny patches up Granddad’s trousers and his shirts at the elbows. Dad’s always patching up your dad’s tyres for him. Do they sew it on then?’
‘It’s for the wounds, stupid, to heal the gaps. At the Red Cross meeting they pack up the moss and send it to hospitals with the bandages they roll. I know because my mother told me.’
Why did Aggie Salt switch between being her best and worstest friend every time she opened her gob? She was the biggest knowall in the school but would only be staying there until it was
time for her to go to a private school in the city. The Salts lived in the grandest, newest brick house in the village, down by the old water mill, with their own pond and lawns with gardeners. Iris was never allowed in the house of course but sometimes played with Aggie in the stables.
The Salts were the first to buy a motor car, which seemed to spend most of its time in the Bagshotts’ barn where Dad got under the bonnet, stripping down the engine and buffing up the brasses. Aggie’s brother, Henry, was a friend of Nat’s until he went away to school. He was the big hero of the village: in the cricket team, a popular member of the Hunt. Aggie was always crowing about him. Iris wished it was Nat in the aeroplane doing his fancy stunts above their heads. That would take the shine off Aggie’s apple, to see Iris’s brother up in the air above them all. Everyone knew that Air Force pilots were the bravest of all those doing their bit.
The school party straggled across the heathland, gathering moss into the laundry baskets. Out of sight of their teachers the children raced and hid, fought and scampered in the bracken, getting filthy. All except Aggie who stood aside from any rough play, preferring to gather wild flowers. Soon Iris’s legs ached and her feet were rubbing against her boots which were too tight. She kept sprouting like rhubarb and Mam had to keep letting down her hems and widening her waistband.
‘You’re going to be a big lass for a Bagshott. That must be the Bailey side of you. But you’ve got the dark eyes and shaggy brows, and hair the colour of conkers, just like all of yer dad’s kin. And the cheek as well. No one can talk down a Bagshott when they’re well oiled. Stand up straight or you’ll get a curved back.’
As they walked slowly down the hill back to the village, tired and hungry, Iris could see the smoke rising from Fridwell, washing fluttering in the breeze and the two cottages where all her family lived together, cheek by jowl, Granddad and Granny in the stubby bit they called Friddy Piece and Mam and Dad in the longer half of the stone cottage with its tiled roof.