‘Not on your hand?’
She smiled. ‘Some of the new Maddy’s problems be the same as the old Maddy’s – menfolk as’d want to know the why and wherefore of everything.’
‘In that case, you would be wiser to wear it on a ribbon,’ said Patrick gravely. ‘For my sake as well as yours. I have had one set-to with your brothers. It’s not an experience I wish to repeat. Though if they would crown me with my fiddle merely for talking to you, what would they consider to be a suitable punishment for this?’ Taking her in his arms he kissed her.
It amazed Maddy how a gesture so gentle could convey so much emotion and arouse in her such a welter of feeling.
‘Oh lucky day, when I came to this place,’ he whispered. ‘When I think how easily I might have missed meeting you. If I had come to the village by some other route, or at another time…’
‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, her hand gently covering his lips. ‘Don’t think of un, ’tis too terrible.’ She shuddered at the horror of it. A world with no Patrick! It would be like a world with no sun. True, in never having known him she would not have realized what she was missing, but that was worse, somehow. Not to know what it was to feel as she felt at this moment; not to know the overwhelming happiness, the joy of loving and being loved. Such an existence would have been bitter and empty indeed. Her one regret was that she could not tell Patrick how she truly felt. He could say things to her that were so beautiful they brought tears to her eyes, but she could not reply in kind. She did not have the words.
One day, she promised herself, one day I’ll be able to say everything that be inside me, and then he’ll hear about love as he habn’t never heard it before. They poets and writers he talks about, they won’t be naught to me, because I’ll be telling what be real.
That day was some way off, but she had made one step towards it by buying a book; during a trip to Totnes market she had plucked up her courage and gone into a secondhand bookshop. Far from being proud and haughty, the proprietor had been most helpful and for her meagre tuppence had found her a copy of Jane Eyre. Battered, dog-eared and with its one surviving cover hanging by a few threads, Maddy carried it home, astounded by her own audacity and conscience-stricken that she had spent hard-earned money so frivolously.
That afternoon she sat down on the bench in the garden and began to read. Within five minutes she decided that she had never laid out two pennies to better effect. Within ten minutes she was so absorbed she did not care what she had paid.
‘Gawd help us, maid, be you’m deaf all of a sudden?’ Annie’s insistent tones penetrated her consciousness.
‘Hullo, Annie,’ she said, not happy at being disturbed. ‘You’m wanting something?’
‘That be more like it.’ Her friend looked quite relieved. ‘I were some worried there for a moment. Three times I spoke and got not one flicker from you. I feared you was having a fit or summat.’
‘No, I be just reading,’ Maddy said, adding half proudly, half apologetically, ‘I bought a book up to Totnes market this morning.’
‘You never did!’ Annie was astounded. ‘What be it about, then?’
‘It starts with this young maid from up-country going to school, and poor little soul, your heart bleeds for her…’ Maddy noticed the immediate interest in Annie’s face. ‘Tell you what, you sit yourself down and I’ll read aloud, shall I? Start from the beginning?’
‘Won’t you mind going over the same bit of story again?’ Annie asked, but already she had settled herself on the bench.
‘No, there was one or two long words as I didn’t get first time round. I can’t read for long, mind. I wants to clear out the fowl-house this afternoon, afore the menfolk gets back.’
‘That’ll do me fine.’ Annie sat waiting expectantly.
Maddy began to read; and the magic of Jane Eyre enfolded the pair of them.
A shrill steam whistle made them both jump.
‘Tis never that late!’ protested Maddy aghast.
‘It must be, the Newcomin be just arriving.’
Round the bend in the river came the steamer, her paddles already going into reverse to slow her down, her whistle summoning William to fetch the passengers who wanted to be put ashore at Duncannon.
Maddy and Annie looked at one another shamefacedly, then they burst out laughing.
‘A whole afternoon us’ve wasted,’ Annie declared. ‘And shall I tell you what? I don’t care! That book be proper grand. I don’t recall when I’ve enjoyed aught so much.’ And she wiped away the tears that had been streaming down her face for much of the reading.
‘Yes, you looks un,’ grinned Maddy. ‘But I agrees. Once you starts ’tis hard to stop.’
‘I never realised what a fine thing reading was. Takes you right out of yourself, don’t un?’ Annie was suddenly regretful. ‘I wishes I had the skill. I can write my name and a few bits of things like that, but naught fancy. You’ll be reading more of that book sometime, maybe?’
‘Yes, tomorrow if I gets a few minutes. I’ll give you a call, shall I?’
‘I’d like that, indeed I would,’ Annie said, beaming. ‘I be desperate to know how poor little Jane gets on.’
‘One thing,’ Maddy called to Annie as her Mend made her slow way to her own door. ‘Tomorrow you’d best bring your alarm clock with you.’
‘I will,’ promised Annie grinning. ‘Us can’t keep depending on the Newcomin to rouse us, eh?’
Maddy’s fowls had never been cleaned out with such speed as they were that afternoon. They squawked and grumbled as she raked out the muck and put down fresh straw, moving them from house to run and back again as she did so. Because of their noise she did not hear anyone approach, and as she turned back to the cottage she was surprised to see the solid figure of Constable Vallance sitting on the bench outside the door.
‘I be sorry, Constable, I didn’t knowd you was there,’ she said.
‘That’s all right, Maddy. I didn’t want to disturb you, seeing as you was busy.’
From past experience she knew that his arrival in full uniform boded ill.
‘Is there aught I can do for you?’ she asked. ‘A drop of cider or a cup of tea?’ Despite the fact that his presence was ominous, she knew he was a fair man. It did no harm to treat him with courtesy.
‘No, thank you, my dear, not when I’m on duty.’ At the word duty Maddy’s heart sank. As he continued it sank further. ‘Your brothers out fishing, are they?’ he asked. ‘Then if you’d just give them a message, please. I’d like to have a word with them. Straight after tea’d do.’
’What be they done now?’ asked Maddy with resignation.
‘Same as usual, by the sounds of it. Had too much scrumpy and gone daft.’ He rose to leave. ‘Be sure to tell them, won’t you? And by after tea I don’t mean halfway through the night. I’m not using up constabulary candles on their account.’
He would say no more than that, and Maddy was left fuming with impatience and anxiety until her father and brothers returned.
‘Constable Vallance was here,’ she informed them.
‘What the hell did he want?’ asked Jack.
‘He says he wants to see the boys straight after tea. What you’m been up to?’ she demanded, swinging her attention towards her brothers.
‘How should us knows?’ said Bart with a shrug. ‘Didn’t he say more than that?’
‘No, just that you’m not to be late.’
‘If he can’t be bothered to say what ’tis about I reckons us can’t be bothered to go.’ Bart pulled off his boots and let them fall with an exaggerated thud. ‘He wants us then let un damned well come back for us!’
‘’Tis your business,’ said Maddy calmly. She knew that his words were mere bravado. Straight after tea, her brothers would be heading up the track to the village and the police house.
Sure enough they departed as soon as their meal was over.
‘You’m idn’t going with them?’ she asked Jack.
‘They’m big enough t
o get into trouble, they’m big enough to get out of un,’ was his phlegmatic reply.
It was late, long past dark, before the four of them returned. Their faces were grim, and Bart’s was suffused with anger.
‘That Whitcomb!’ he exclaimed, throwing himself into the chair nearest the fire. That bloody high and mighty Whitcomb! I’ll swing for him one of these days, I swear I will.’
‘Why, what’ve happened?’ demanded Maddy.
‘He’m bringing us afore the magistrates up to Totnes, that’s what’ve happened. And for naught! Absolutely naught!’
‘It must’ve been for something,’ Maddy persisted.
‘Us was only having a joke,’ cried Davie. ‘Can’t the fellow take a joke?’
In her brief encounter with Cal Whitcomb, one thing that had struck Maddy about him was his sense of humour. Knowing her brothers’ taste in jokes, she began to fear the worst.
‘What did you do?’ she asked.
‘Us threw some rubbish over his hedge,’ said Davie. ‘As us were coming out of the Church House the other night there were this dead cat in the hedge and us reckoned it’d make a nice present for Cal Whitcomb.’
Despite the outcome, the episode managed to bring a grin to her brothers’ faces.
‘But us decided one mangy cat carcass wadn’t much of a gift,’ Lew continued the story. ‘So us got a couple of sacks from the back of the inn and us had a look round to see what else us could find. Then us went out to Oakwood and slung the lot into the garden.’
‘And you’m being brought before the magistrates for that?’ Maddy was appalled. It was a stupid prank, and she had no illusions about her brothers’ state of sobriety after leaving the Church House, but calling in the constable for such a petty offence seemed extreme.
‘Us didn’t even leave the sacks,’ said Davie indignantly. ‘Us put them back where us got them.’
‘That be disgraceful!’ declared Maddy. ‘Father, you’m to go up to Oakwood tomorrow and give Cal Whitcomb some straight talking. He’m to withdraw the case against the boys. You make him, Father.’
‘I idn’t setting foot on Oakwood land!’ protested Jack. ‘Not unless us be moving in, bag and baggage.’
‘You could talk to him,’ she insisted. ‘Maybe he did un in the heat of the moment. He’m had time to cool down.’ She nearly let slip that she had found him a reasonable man.
‘Talk to Cal Whitcomb?’ cried Bart, before his father could answer. ‘Be you’m off your head, wench?’
‘Besides, I think ’tis out of Cal Whitcomb’s hands,’ put in Lew. Of the four he looked the least indignant and the most troubled. ‘Us’ve each to pay a bond, to make sure us don’t go traipsing off afore the hearing.’
‘A bond? How much? And who said so?’
‘Fifteen shillings each. And ’twere the squire as said it,’ said Lew quietly.
‘Fifteen shillings each! Three whole pounds! How are we to pay that much?’ Maddy was appalled, then gradually other thoughts began to creep into her mind. If they had been brought before the squire, the local Justice of the Peace, then there had to be more to the prank than they had admitted.
Lew saw the expression on her face and spoke up. ‘It were dark, you understand, and us couldn’t see everything as us was putting in the sacks. Us didn’t realise us had picked up some yew with some old hedge trimmings.’
‘Did that matter? You just slung un in the garden.’ Maddy was bewildered.
‘We thought un were part of the garden. As un happened t’were a bit of an orchard for the house, like, and…’
‘And?’
‘Well, us didn’t know in the dark, us couldn’t see them, but Cal Whitcomb had three of his best cows in there with their calves.’
‘Oh no!’ Maddy gave a groan. ‘Did they eat the yew? Was they poisoned?’
‘One did, and it came close to dying; by all accounts it be fair enough now.’
Maddy let out a long sigh of relief. It was going to be bad enough finding the three pounds bail. If they had had to pay out for a cow into the bargain she did not know how they would have managed. Slowly she went over the events in her mind.
‘As I sees it ’twere an accident,’ she said. ‘Oh, you was daft to get drunk and throw the rubbish, you deserves a clip across the ear for that, the lot of you. But the yew and the cow, that weren’t deliberate.’
‘You try telling that to Cal Whitcomb,’ snapped Bart. ‘From what was said tonight he’m had the ear of the squire good and proper. Us idn’t going to get no justice, I can tell you that. They farmers and landowners, they stick together. When us gets up to Totnes afore they magistrates they’m going to take one look at us and pronounce us guilty.’
‘It won’t be as bad as that,’ said Maddy. ‘You’ll be let off with a caution, you’ll see.’ But in her heart of hearts she feared he might be right.
* * *
The atmosphere in the cottage was strained in the weeks until the brothers appeared before the magistrates, with nerves frayed and tempers short. Ever since the incident in the churchyard, Maddy had harboured feelings of guilt because of Cal Whitcomb. Although she would never have admitted it, she had found it hard to see him as the ogre her family thought him. However, his persecution of her brothers had changed all that. Now she felt able to regard him with the intense dislike proper in a Shillabeer.
She had never expected to speak to him again, but one day they met head on. Normally they would have passed by each other without even a nod of recognition. On this occasion she stepped into the middle of the lane, causing him to rein in his horse abruptly.
‘It’s a dangerous habit, jumping out in front of horses,’ he said.
He towered above her on his chestnut gelding, immaculate as ever. He might have been a gentleman out hacking instead of a plain farmer doing the rounds of his stock fields. Imposing though he looked, Maddy refused to be intimidated.
‘I didn’t jump out,’ she retorted. ‘And if you bain’t able to control your horse you’m no business riding about the countryside. I wants a word with you.’
‘I think I can guess what about.’
‘No doubt you can. You’m sending my brothers afore the magistrate for something that was naught but a stupid prank. I knows they shouldn’t have done it,’ she said swiftly as he opened his mouth to speak. ‘There idn’t no one as knows better’n me how daft they can get when they’m had a drop too much scrumpy. But they didn’t mean no harm.’
‘Your loyalty does you credit.’ He spoke coldly. ‘I doubt if anyone else in the village regards your brothers as delightful rogues, bent only upon innocent mischief.’
‘Well, ’tis true!’ she exclaimed, stung by his tone. ‘They didn’t mean no real harm.’
‘I call poisoning a good cow real harm, even if you don’t.’
She wished he would get down off his horse. She was at a definite disadvantage, having to look up to him, but she was not going to let that deter her.
‘That were an accident. They shouldn’t have flung the muck over your hedge, there idn’t no excuse for that, but they was only having a bit of fun. It were dark and they didn’t know about the yew being in the rubbish, and they had no notion there was cows in your orchard.’
‘Oh really, Miss Shillabeer.’ He raised his eyes skywards in disbelief. ‘Even allowing for your sisterly affection, you can’t have been taken in by that story.’
‘Be you calling me a liar?’ she demanded.
‘Certainly not.’ His response was instant and genuine.
‘Then it be my brothers you don’t believe?’
‘Now you are getting closer to it.’
She was swept with indignation. ‘Who do you think you be, calling the Shillabeers liars? You’m naught but a jumped-up Whitcomb.’
‘I’m also the man who sat up through the night with a very sick cow because of those delightful rogues, your brothers. It was a miracle she didn’t die, yew is usually fatal. Apart from everything else, how does one explain to a
poor dumb creature – in agony that its sufferings were only a bit of fun? Tell me that.’
‘The boys didn’t intend no creatures to suffer. They’m good-hearted really.’
‘For pity’s sake stop this stupid defence of your wretched brothers before it turns my stomach!’ Unexpectedly he dismounted in a single, swift movement, one hand still holding his horse’s reins. ‘Perhaps I can get some sense into you now that we are face to face,’ he said. ‘You may believe those wretches are innocent but no one else does. Since you clearly need convincing let me place the evidence before you, ignoring such minor matters as the fact that your brothers were heard offering drunken threats against me and my property. For a start I find it hard to believe they didn’t know the cattle were there – even at night cows are not particularly quiet creatures. Also, for your brothers to pretend they thought the orchard was part of our garden is sheer nonsense. Are they trying to persuade folk that they have never gone past Oakwood, not even to gaze at what they consider should be theirs? And why bother to throw rubbish over a hedge? If they did not intend it to do damage of some sort?’
‘They must—’
‘Pray let me continue,’ he snapped. ‘You are quick enough to shout insults at me. Please listen to the truth about your brothers for once. We haven’t considered the question of the yew. Have you any idea which is the closest yew tree to my farm?’ Maddy shook her head. ‘Then let me tell you, for I took the time and trouble to investigate. The nearest is the one in the churchyard, best part of a mile away, and scarcely on a direct route between the Church House and Oakwood.’
‘Maybe they went into the churchyard looking for rubbish and picked up some yew accidental like,’ Maddy suggested.
‘George, the sexton, is most particular not to leave yew lying about on the rubbish heap for fear children or animals might get to it. When he has to get rid of any he either burns it immediately or stores it in a separate sack in his shed until a suitable opportunity. He told me so himself. He also told me something interesting: he had half a sack of yew trimmings in his shed until last week, then someone broke in and stole it.’
Daughter of the River Page 8