The Old House at Railes: A heartwarming rags to riches Victorian family saga

by Mary E. Pearce

  ‘On some other occasion, perhaps. At present it would be too boring for Dick and Susannah if they were forced to listen to their elders raking over the distant past.’

  ‘Oh, but you are too modest, Martin! How could they be bored by such a story as yours, which is worthy of Samuel Smiles himself? For who would have thought that the stonecutter’s son, once so glad to receive charity from us, should one day be lord and master here and that we should be nothing but guests and retainers, accepting his hospitality?’

  ‘Ginny, please!’ Katharine said.

  ‘Why, what’s the matter? Am I speaking out of turn?’ Ginny turned to Martin again. ‘Am I causing you embarrassment, Martin, by speaking of the past in this way?’

  Martin, unsmiling, met her look. He knew this excitable mood of hers. He remembered it from the days of their youth.

  ‘I’m aware that such is your intention,’ he said, ‘but if you will only reflect a moment, you will see that whatever embarrassment you are causing me, it is nothing to the very real distress you are causing your sister.’

  For a moment Ginny stared at him, a bright flush invading her cheeks, a sharp rejoinder on her lips. But she knew she had earned this reproof and although she was angry she was also ashamed. The rejoinder remained unspoken. Instead, she turned and spoke to Katharine.

  ‘Mea culpa,’ she said, in a small voice, and made a gesture with her hands, of humility and submissiveness. ‘Impose whatever penance you choose. Come, now, Kate, don’t shake your head! I insist on a penance, if you please, otherwise how shall my guilt be purged?’

  ‘Very well. So be it.’ Katharine picked up a plate piled high with rock-cakes and offered them to her sister. ‘You must eat one of these,’ she said.

  ‘Is that a penance?’

  ‘Yes. Cook has forgotten to put in the sugar.’

  There was a good deal of laughter at this, and the rest of the tea-party passed off without untoward incident, much to the relief of the two children. And although in a while their aunt Ginny, recovering her sang-froid, engaged in further badinage, again at Mr Cox’s expense, she was careful to keep within those bounds that his earlier rebuke had set for her.

  ‘In fact, if you ask me,’ Dick said, alone with Susannah afterwards, ‘far from hating him, as she pretends, I think she likes him very well.’

  ‘And does Mr Cox like her, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, well, as to that, everyone likes Aunt Ginny, of course.’

  Ginny was often at Railes after that, and although she continued to make remarks about her sister’s position there, she soon came to accept it. Even, in time, to approve of it.

  ‘At least you don’t dress like a housekeeper ‒ that’s something to be thankful for. And I must say you are looking heaps better now than you have done this long while past. Perhaps it was not such a bad thing, after all, your coming back here. You were always good at adapting to change, and the children seem to be, too.’

  Always, on these early visits, Ginny came alone, driving herself in the Denbigh carriage, with her prized team of silver greys.

  ‘No, I have not brought your uncle George,’ she said, in answer to the children’s enquiry. ‘He’s a very tiresome man these days and when we’re together we’re bound to quarrel.’

  Katharine, in private, tried to dissuade Ginny from speaking of George in this way when the children were present, but Ginny only scoffed.

  ‘Dick and Susannah must already be well aware that marriages are not all made in heaven. It is all part of their education and may teach them to take care whom they choose when the time comes.’

  ‘What is it you and George quarrel about?’

  ‘He’s always complaining that I spend too much of his money.’

  ‘And do you?’

  Ginny shrugged.

  ‘As he refuses to tell me what his income is, how can I possibly know whether I spend too much of it? But it isn’t only money, of course. He’s bitterly disappointed in me because I haven’t given him the son and heir he longs for so desperately. Naturally, he takes it for granted the fault is mine. But that is quite enough about George. Let us talk of other things. Sherard said Martin was out. Will he be back soon, do you know?’

  Martin was glad of Ginny’s visits because as a result of her goodwill a small but difficult problem was solved.

  Katharine, since coming to Railes, had not attended church service due to the awkwardness of her position. That she, a paid housekeeper, should sit with her employer in the Newton Railes pew was plainly out of the question. But equally difficult was it for her ‒ daughter of the old family ‒ to sit at the back of the church with the servants. Not only would it have caused talk, but the servants themselves would have been distressed.

  Now, the problem was gently removed: Ginny and George, in the Chacelands carriage, called for Katharine and her children; and in church they all sat in the Chacelands pew. And although, on the first Sunday, this caused a stir in the congregation, the feeling conveyed was, on the whole, one of understanding and approval.

  There was another reason why Martin welcomed Ginny at Railes: she brought Katharine and the children out of their self-imposed seclusion. Her high spirits enlivened them; her nonsensical chatter made them laugh; and as the family quartet usually took tea with him, the children came to know him better; became more relaxed in his company. Dick had a passion for the Classics and Martin was able to draw him out on the subject of the Iliad.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’ the boy asked. ‘Is it just pure myth or is there some real truth in it?’

  ‘I cannot say. Even the experts disagree. But there is a new work on the subject, by Professor Scudamore, which summarizes the theories so far and draws some interesting conclusions. I have the book in the library and you are welcome to borrow it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but Mama said we must not be a nuisance to you.’

  ‘You will not be a nuisance,’ Martin said.

  As Dick had been given the use of the library, it was only right that Susannah should enjoy the same privilege; but brother and sister were careful to use it only when Martin was not there; and Susannah, who read more quickly than Dick, was scrupulous in leaving a note of the books she had taken.

  ‘Dear Mr Cox,’ she wrote once:

  ‘I have returned Idylls of the King and taken volume one of Barchester Towers. Dick is still reading Scudamore’s work based on Renard’s translation of Welcker’s investigation into early Greek sources on the life of Homer. He is sadly determined to be a scholar, I’m afraid; quite different in every way from ‒

  ‘Yours truly, Susannah Yuart.

  ‘P.S.: If you are free at four o’clock today, would you care to join us for schoolroom tea?’

  Schoolroom tea, as Martin knew, was an old tradition at Newton Railes, and the invitation pleased him. Although his role was now greatly changed, the occasion itself was much the same as in early days, and brought back many memories. Katharine’s children were encouraged to discuss whatever interested them, just as the twins had been, and Dick broached a subject that was prominent in the news just then.

  ‘What are your views, sir, on this question of the slavery of Negroes in America? Are you an abolitionist?’

  ‘Yes. I am against slavery on the cotton plantations just as I am against it here in England, in the mills and factories and coal-mines, especially where young children are concerned.’

  ‘But surely, sir, it is hardly the same thing, now that working hours have been improved here?’

  ‘The improvements have not gone far enough. Thousands of men, women, and children still work in appalling conditions that maim, kill, and cause disease. But yes, the matter of the Negro slaves is atrocious. ‒ That certain men should buy and sell their fellow human beings is utterly unspeakable.’

  ‘It would seem from recent news that war is certain to develop. Do you think, sir, that Great Britain will offer its support to the North?’

  ‘So far our Government has been content merel
y to censure the Confederate States. I have not knowledge enough, I’m afraid, to speculate on its future policy.’

  ‘Our papa’s in America,’ Susannah said unexpectedly.

  ‘We don’t know that! Not for sure!’ Dick said, rounding on her; and he pushed his empty plate across the table towards her. ‘Will you be so good, Susannah, as to give me another slice of cake?’

  Plainly the boy did not think it right that their absent father should be discussed in Martin’s presence and he scowled at his sister for her lack of reticence. But then, on one of those impulses that make human behaviour so contrary at times, he suddenly burst out in a way that laid his own feelings bare to the bone.

  ‘We’ve no means of knowing where he is, seeing that he never writes to us!’

  And, suffering yet another reversal of mood, he turned his face away in shame, to stare out of the nearest window.

  Katharine, pale but composed, spoke quietly to her children.

  ‘No, we have no means of knowing where your papa may be, but wherever he is, let us hope and pray that he is well in mind and body and that we shall soon have news of him.’ She turned towards Martin. ‘If my husband is in America, Martin, could he be in any danger, do you think, if the North and the South do go to war?’

  ‘It is very unlikely,’ Martin said. ‘America is such a vast country that anyone travelling there could easily avoid all those areas where the conflict is likely to become active.’

  Katharine, he perceived, instead of avoiding the painful subject of her husband’s whereabouts, was trying to speak of it as naturally as possible, and he took his cue from her.

  ‘Certainly at present the country must be in a terrible turmoil, but even so, from what one hears, it is still a land of immense opportunities, and just the place where a man of ambition might well repair his broken fortunes. Only recently I heard of two brothers ‒ Worcestershire men, apparently, ‒ who had just returned from South Carolina …’

  Martin’s story eased the constraint. He already had Susannah’s attention; soon he had Dick’s as well; and when the story came to an end it was Dick who enquired whether Martin had ever been to America himself.

  ‘No, never,’ Martin said. ‘My own travels have always been to the old world rather than the new. France. Turkey. Greece … Always, indeed, and for obvious reasons, I have been drawn to those places where, from ancient times onward, men have built their cities in stone.’

  ‘Notre Dame?’ Dick said. ‘Chartres? Reims? Caen? Cologne?’ His eagerness grew. ‘Athens?’ he said. ‘The Parthenon?’

  ‘Excepting Cologne, I have been to all those. Also, nearer home, to Salisbury, Exeter, Bath and Wells. And of course to St Paul’s in London.’

  ‘Oh, yes, we’ve been there, too,’ Susannah said. ‘St Paul’s, I mean.’

  ‘Then it may interest you to know that some of the stone used in its building came from our own Cotswold Hills.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Dick said.

  ‘Neither did I,’ said Susannah. ‘Did it come from Scurr, Mr Cox?’

  ‘No. Quarrying at Scurr only began about seventy years ago.’

  ‘Some Scurr stone has been used on this house, hasn’t it? The end of the kitchen wing, for instance, and the new wing built the year I was born.’

  ‘Yes, and part of the coach-house,’ Martin said. ‘Also part of the stable-block, where some inferior stone had crumbled.’

  ‘How is it,’ Dick asked, ‘that the stone can vary in quality, even though it’s all limestone?’

  ‘That is due to a number of things. The make-up of the molten clay laid down thousands of years ago … The degree of pressure it was subjected to while it hardened … The thickness of the layer of stone … Then, in more recent times, whether the site has been wet or dry. I have some books that will tell you more, if you’re interested, and perhaps one day you might like to come with me to Scurr and see the stone being cut at the quarry.’

  ‘Yes, I should like that very much.’

  ‘So should I,’ Susannah said.

  That evening, when Martin sat alone in the drawing-room, reading, there came a knock at the door and Katharine entered.

  ‘I wondered if I might speak to you.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He rose and ushered her to a seat by the fire. ‘Will you take a glass of wine?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No, not exactly. But I feel it is high time that I made, as it were, a confession to you, because when you called on me in Cryer’s Row and offered me the post of housekeeper here, it was to be until such time ‒ those were your words, I think; ‒ until such time as my husband returned. Martin, I have to tell you that I do not think he will ever return.’

  There was a silence. She looked up at him. Her face, though calm, was extremely pale.

  ‘I should have told you this before but … I lacked the courage.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’ Martin sat down opposite her. ‘How long have you had this fear?’

  ‘I think, perhaps, from the very beginning, when I read the letter he left for me. But he did not say so, in definite terms, and I told myself I might well be mistaken. I waited to see if we should have news. But now, when so many weeks have passed, it seems that my first thought was correct after all. I’ve read his letter again and again and the more I read it the more certain I am that in it he was saying goodbye forever.’

  ‘Would he be capable of that? ‒ Going off, never to return?’

  ‘I think, in the circumstances, yes. Some harsh things were said between us that day and it may be that he cannot forgive them. I haven’t spoken of this to the children, of course, though sometimes I think they have doubts of their own, and after what Dick said in the schoolroom today ‒’

  She broke off and drew a deep breath. After a while she spoke again.

  ‘It is possible that my fears are groundless even now. There could be other reasons why he does not write to us. He may be ill … He could even have died. And if that happened, in a distant land, there may not have been anyone who knew about us, to let us know.’ Again she paused, and again she went on; and although she spoke firmly enough, there was a note of strain in her voice. ‘It’s a very peculiar situation to be in ‒ not knowing if I am a wife or a widow ‒ but no doubt I shall get used to it in time.’

  ‘You could, perhaps, try to trace your husband.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think you would need to seek legal advice.’

  Katharine, having considered this, shook her head.

  ‘No. If Charles is alive and well, he must come back of his own free choice. I will not importune him. If he means to stay away forever … well, then, I accept his decision. But that brings me round at last to my reason for speaking about it now, because we cannot stay here indefinitely, my children and I. That much is obvious.’

  ‘It is not obvious to me,’ Martin said. ‘So long as the arrangement continues to suit both parties concerned, I can see no reason for changing it.’

  ‘Well, not just at present, perhaps ‒’

  ‘Then why not allow a definite term? Say six months. Better still, a year. And then, if your husband has still not returned, let us review the matter again.’

  ‘A year. Are you sure? Then my answer is yes. And oh, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be spared the necessity of making decisions! To be granted such a respite as this, here, in safety and peacefulness. If you only knew what it’s meant to me ‒’

  ‘I think I do know.’

  ‘Of course you do. That is why you gave it to us. You knew what we needed. You understood.’

  She looked at him in silence a while: a look that said more than words could do; and then she rose.

  ‘I will leave you now to read your book. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. My daughter asked me to give you this.’

  ‘This’ was a tiny folded letter, sealed with red wax, and Martin, when Katharine had left him, opened it and read the fol
lowing:

  ‘Dear Mr Cox,

  ‘I would like to say how much we enjoyed your company in the schoolroom this afternoon, and although I know you to be a very busy Person, I hope you will join us for schoolroom tea whenever you can spare the time.

  ‘Yours sincerely, Susannah Yuart.’

  After the cold, wet summer, autumn so far had been open and mild, and Dick, still attending school in the town, walked there and back every day, a distance of four miles in all. Recently, he had been troubled with asthma, just as his uncle Hugh had been, and although his condition was not serious, Dr Whiteside advised caution. Fresh air and exercise were beneficial, he said, but the boy should avoid getting cold and wet.

  When late November brought rain, therefore, Martin gave orders that Jack Sherard was to take and collect Dick in the closed carriage; and although Katharine had at the outset been firmly resolved that neither she nor her children should receive privileged treatment, she could not but yield in such a matter and be grateful for Martin’s consideration.

  But this was only one of a number of occasions when she found herself yielding, for Martin had his own ideas on how she and her children should live, and went his own way to bring it about, beginning with the purchase of two ponies for the children to ride. Katharine, in private with Martin, protested most vehemently, but to no avail.

  ‘It is very important that my children should learn to live according to their circumstances. We are not as we formerly were. Nor shall we ever be again. They must accept that and prepare for a future in which they will both have to earn their living and go without what they cannot afford.’

  ‘I agree, of course. But that time has not yet come and I think it would be an unnecessary hardship to deny them those simple pleasures which I can so easily provide.’

  ‘Martin, I am your housekeeper. A paid employee. And it is quite unheard of that a housekeeper’s children should enjoy such luxuries as you in your kindness would bestow on them.’

  ‘You may be a paid employee but you are still Mrs Charles Yuart, formerly Miss Tarrant, and here in this house, which was once your own, you can never be just a housekeeper. It is not possible. The whole of your past life is against it. It is therefore necessary to arrive at some sort of compromise ‒ a balance, let us say, between your life as it was and your life as it is now.’