Maddy guessed she was referring to Cal and his father. Despite its comfort and prosperity, Oakwood Farm had clearly not been a happy place for a long time.
Ellen rubbed hard at an imaginary fingerprint on one of the cupboard doors. ‘They fal-lals and trinkets! Mr Christopher were forever buying them for his ma, whether the money were there or not. I idn’t calling him, mind. As nice a fellow as you could meet, but he were a man of straw.’
‘He didn’t have his brother’s strength of character?’
‘No, not by a long chalk. He meant well, but he weren’t up to naught.’ Ellen paused, her duster in her hand. ‘I tells you, Mr Cal have told me there be a home yer for me till my last breath, so I sleeps easily at night. If Mr Christopher had said the same thing I’d be lying awake worrying, ’cos I knows I’d be knocking on the workhouse door sometime or another. That were the difference atween the two.’
Firm footsteps sounded on the passage flags, and Cal entered. At the sight of Ellen he frowned. ‘What are you doing, dusting when there is a guest in the room?’ he demanded.
Ellen ignored his stem tone. ‘Shillabeers idn’t guests, and any road, don’t blame me. This wadn’t my idea.’
‘It doesn’t matter whose idea it was, kindly take your duster and be off.’
With an indignant sniff Ellen did as she was told.
As he closed the door behind her, Cal grinned. ‘I don’t know why I bothered to send her packing,’ he said. ‘She’ll listen at the door. The best informed member of the household, is Ellen.’
‘She’s devoted to you,’ said Maddy.
‘That’s true. It doesn’t stop her giving me a good scolding if she thinks I need it, though. You are entitled to scold me too, at this moment, for keeping you waiting.’
‘I don’t think I’ll risk it, I haven’t Ellen’s courage,’ Maddy replied.
Cal chuckled. ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’ Then he grew serious. ‘Now to business.’ He produced a black ledger, and for a while the conversation was about deliveries, checking, and keeping tallies. ‘There,’ he said at last. ‘Do you think you understand everything?’
‘I think so,’ said Maddy.
‘If you’ve any problems, come to me.’
‘Thank you.’ Maddy hesitated. ‘I appreciate being given this job, you know, especially with times being hard and the fact that I’m a Shillabeer…’
‘Surely it’s high time that old feud was forgotten? It’s been feeding on resentment and prejudice for long enough, don’t you agree?’
‘I do, though I suppose it’s easier for our generation. Our parents feel it more because they were closer to the dispute.’
‘Does your father disapprove very strongly about you working here?’
‘Yes,’ said Maddy with a smile. ‘But as my stepmother approves equally strongly, he keeps quiet and pretends it isn’t happening.’
‘How fortunate for you,’ Cal said ruefully.
‘Your mother disapproves of me being here, I know.’
‘And sadly she does not do it as silently as your father. But as you say, their generation was more involved in the quarrel, and I suppose it’s natural for my mother to feel bitter since she blames the money going away from the farm for ruining her life.’
‘The money? You mean my wages?’ asked Maddy in surprise.
‘No,’ smiled Cal. ‘Some of it was the money which Great-grandfather left your grandfather.’
‘But my grandfather got nothing!’
‘I am sorry to contradict, but that isn’t true. My grandfather, Matt, inherited Oakwood but your grandfather, John, was left eight hundred pounds.’
‘Eight hundred pounds! He was left eight hundred pounds?’ Maddy was astounded. No one had ever mentioned any inheritance at all, let alone one involving so much money. Certainly there was no evidence of such riches now.
‘You don’t believe me? I have the will locked up in my strongbox if you want to see the proof.’ He would have left the room to get it if she had not detained him.
‘I believe you,’ she said.
‘You knew nothing of this money before?’
She shook her head.
‘How amazing! Did you think that Great-grandfather was so unfeeling that he left your grandfather penniless?’
The general opinion in our family was that the old man had grown weak witted and that Matt, your grandfather, put pressure on him to make the will in his favour.’
Cal laughed. ‘Weak witted? Why, the story is that the old man was querying the doctor’s bill on his deathbed. I can’t verify that, mind, but upstairs I have documents which prove everything else. From what I was told, John had said more than once that he had no interest in the farm or farming. His father took him at his word and left Oakwood to Matt, and eight hundred pounds to him. Not the value of the farm, perhaps, but it was a goodly sum and all the money available. And that was the root cause of our problems.’
‘Problems?’ This was the first time Maddy had heard of difficulties at Oakwood. The stories she had been fed had claimed it was a prosperous place, thriving while her side of the family declined into poverty.
‘Yes, that money should have been the working capital for the farm. My grandfather had a very hard time of it with no buffer against poor harvests or falling prices or any of the other farming hazards. Despite his efforts, he would have gone under if he had not married a girl with a bit of money of her own. Times got somewhat easier and my mother was born, but it was still a hard struggle.’
‘You said that my grandfather’s eight hundred pounds was part of the money.’
‘Did I?’ Cal looked unconvincingly vague.
‘Yes, you did. What other money was there?’
‘Nothing of importance. You don’t want to hear it.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Maddy insisted.
‘Well, if you are sure,’ Cal said with reluctance. ‘Sometime after Great-grandfather’s death – quite a while, it must have been, for my mother was about seventeen or eighteen by then – your grandfather got into financial difficulties. I do not know the details, only that it was a business venture that went wrong and there was a risk of him going to prison. Rather than let that happen his brother, Matt, bailed him out. It was just a matter of a few hundred pounds but it happened at a time when there had been a run of poor prices. As a result Oakwood found itself on the brink of disaster yet again.’ Maddy was astounded. Her grandfather must have gone through a fortune. ‘And – and how did Oakwood survive?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘The same way it survived before, by an advantageous marriage. My mother was obliged to wed my father.’
‘Obliged?’
‘What else could she do? If she refused then the farm was lost and the family ruined.’
‘She did not do so willingly?’
‘I believe there was a young man whom she cared for, but my father was prosperous, though a fair bit older than she was; she had no option but to wed him.’
Maddy was stunned into silence. The story explained much of Mary Whitcomb’s stubborn resentment against her side of the Shillabeer family. Because of them she had lost her chance of happiness and been forced to marry a man she did not love. Maddy could sympathise with her feelings, she too knew about lost happiness.
‘The ironic thing was that my mother’s sweetheart went to Australia and made his fortune as an engineer,’ Cal continued. ‘When he came home he could have bought Oakwood from his loose change.’
‘Then if she had waited…’
‘But she wasn’t allowed to wait.’
Mary’s bitterness had obviously continued throughout her married life. Moreover, she had let her rancour poison her relationship with her younger son simply because he looked too much like his father. This was something Maddy found harder to understand. Then she remembered: Mary Whitcomb had been born a Shillabeer, and if there was one thing the Shillabeers were good at it was bearing a grudge.
If what Cal had said was true, her grandfather h
ad fostered a feud against his own brother for no better reason than… Why had John felt such bitterness towards Matt? Because he was jealous of his brother’s steadiness and ability to survive? Because he was resentful at having to go cap in hand to him for help? To mask his shame at his own failure? Suddenly the reasons for the feud that she had unquestioningly accepted since childhood seemed less straightforward. John had rejected his right to Oakwood, and instead had been amply provided for financially. He had no cause to complain, and still less to resent his brother for the rest of his life. Maddy was sure her father knew nothing of this story and she wondered what he would make of it. Poor soul would probably be even more bemused by it than she was.
* * *
Jack’s immediate reaction to the tale was predictable. ‘Pack of lies,’ he snorted.
‘Farmer Whitcomb have the papers to prove un, seemingly.’ Lew was less dogmatic. ‘Us could ask to have a look at them.’
‘Wouldn’t give un the satisfaction,’ Jack retorted.
‘Eight hundred pounds,’ said Joan wistfully. ‘Your father could’ve set up a thriving shop with that money, Jack. Something like Cutmore’s only with more choice on the shelves…’
‘Did you know anything about this money, Father?’ asked Maddy.
‘Not a word of truth in un,’ Jack retorted.
By his refusal to give a straight answer she felt certain that the news of the inheritance had come as a shock.
‘… Or he could’ve bought three or four good houses.’ Joan could not get her practical mind away from the possibilities of such a sum of money. ‘Nice places where he could’ve asked a decent rent and got respectable tenants, not the sort as hide in the privy come rent day. He could’ve been set up for life, and us too.’
A silence fell upon the room. Financial security, the dream of them all, could so easily have been theirs.
Suddenly Joan gave a deep sigh. ‘There idn’t no point thinking on un,’ she said. What’s gone’s gone, and us idn’t never going to get un back again. Us must just be thankful as Oakwood Farm did fall to the Whitcomb side or, along with everything else, us’d be short of Maddy’s eight and six into the bargain.’
Jack’s response was to snatch up a lantern and mutter something about going out the back. Maddy felt sorry for him. It was hard enough for her to come to terms with the fact that it was Grandfather John who had been the chief cause of the dissension all these years. How much more difficult it must be for her father to accept it. No one mentioned the fact that Matt’s intervention had saved their grandfather from going to prison. The family had coped with enough disclosures for one night.
These new revelations had a profound effect on Maddy’s attitude towards the Whitcombs. She had long ago dismissed the idea that Cal Whitcomb was a villain, yet at the back of her mind had lurked the notion, instilled in her since childhood, that no Whitcomb was completely trustworthy. That had gone completely now, replaced by respect for a family who had managed to pull itself back from the brink of ruin more than once. She even felt a grudging sympathy for Mary Whitcomb. Cal’s mother was a trying woman, but she had had some cause. Maddy’s compassion for her would have been absolute if only she did not have the knack of making other people’s lives miserable, particularly her son’s.
There was no time to dwell upon the past, however. The future, in the shape of the forthcoming salmon season, demanded everyone’s attention; it was then that Lew made his announcement.’
‘Mollie and me, we’ve decided to wed. There be a cottage empty up by the school us’ve spoken for, and us reckons to set the date next month.’
Everyone stared at him.
‘Be you mazed, boy, getting wed just as the salmon be coming upriver?’ demanded Jack.
‘I’ve heard it be possible to fish and be a married man at the same time,’ Lew replied. ‘I haven’t tried un, mind, but I knows them as have, and they seem to manage.’
‘Saucepot!’ Joan aimed a mock blow at his head. ‘This be a bit sudden, bain’t un? You sure there idn’t no reason for the haste?’
‘Reason? What reason could there be?’ Lew asked innocently, then his good humour faded. ‘Idn’t no one pleased? I thought you liked my Mollie.’
‘We do.’ Maddy leapt up and gave him a hug. ‘It’s just that you’ve taken us by surprise. Married in a month! That doesn’t give us much time to get our wedding finery together.’
‘Go on! With the money you’m earning up to Oakwood you can afford to rig yourself out in silks and satins,’ teased Lew.
‘That’ll be the day,’ Maddy retorted.
‘I don’t knows about getting rigged out,’ said Joan. ‘But I’d best go over to Mrs Chambers first thing tomorrow and offer some help. Poor woman’ll be at her wits’ end, having to do a wedding feast in a month, and at this time of year. Couldn’t the pair of you have chosen a time when things was plentiful?’
Lew’s reply was a sheepish grin, confirming what everyone suspected: there was a pressing reason for such a speedy wedding.
A wedding so early in the year might have been imprudent, though necessary, but such a cheerful celebration raised everyone’s spirits, seeming to mark the end of the long harsh winter and the beginning of a more hopeful spring. Joan was in her element, dashing between Duncannon and the Chambers’ house to help with the preparations.
‘I can’t think what to wear,’ was Annie’s lament when Maddy called one evening. ‘What about you?’
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Maddy replied. Then they both burst out laughing, for they knew the indecision was pure wishful thinking. Annie would wear her fawn twill, while Maddy would wear the dress with the blue-green stripes.
‘I suppose I’ll be wearing the same old bonnet, too,’ said Annie, regarding Maddy out of the comer of her eye.
Maddy grinned, knowing only too well what that look meant. ‘I’ll retrim your bonnet, if you like,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d go up to Totnes next Saturday afternoon, when I’ve got time off. I could get you flowers or feathers or whatever you want then.’
‘Would you, maid? That would be real kind.’ Annie beamed appreciatively. ‘I know folks don’t hardly ever see my old bonnet no more these days. Most have forgot what it looks like, but it don’t seem proper, going to a wedding without a bit of new about you somewhere. What about you? What’m you doing?’
‘Retrimming my bonnet too, I expect. I’ll see what I can find.’
What she found was a length of ribbon the exact shade of her dress, and her eyes. Even in the gloom of the haberdasher’s shop, the silk gleamed like sunlit water. The description ‘aquamarine’ came into Maddy’s mind. No one mentioned the word to her any more. There was no one to compare her eyes to the translucent jewel, not now that Patrick had gone from her life. For a moment she considered refusing the ribbon. What was the point of finery if there was no one to appreciate it? Then resolutely she pushed the idea from her. She refused to live her life in the shadow of a lost love. At Lew’s wedding she would wear her Sunday dress and a bonnet trimmed with aquamarine ribbons, and she would feel good because she knew she was looking her best. She did not need compliments to prove it. In this optimistic mood, she purchased the ribbon, selected some very pretty russet artificial flowers for Annie, and left for home.
It happened that her way lay past the draper’s shop, and in the window was displayed a bolt of cream wool. Spurred on by her buoyant mood, Maddy entered the shop.
She left the draper’s clutching a parcel containing the cream wool, half delighted, half appalled by her extravagance. With every step she tried to justify her rashness to herself. She needed something to wear over her dress, it was too thin for this time of year; her cloak was too threadbare; and her shabby old crocheted shawl was not fit to wear at her brother’s wedding. However, if she teased the edges of the square of cream wool into a fringe it would make an elegant shawl, one she could wear on Sundays during the summer, one that would be warm and practical and well worth the money she had laid o
ut… This was what she told herself all the way from Totnes to Stoke Gabriel.
On the morning of the wedding, her doubts evaporated. The blue-green of the dress and the matching bonnet looked good on her and the softness of the new cream shawl draped across her shoulders added the right touch of elegance.
‘Lor, they’m going to reckon us’ve got some quality come to this wedding,’ remarked Joan, pausing in her hectic activity to admire Maddy’s finery. ‘Now where did I put they spoons? Every spoon us’ve got, that’s what I promised Mrs Chambers, and I’m blessed if I can find a danged one. Go see if Annie be ready, there’s a good maid. Lucy Ford’s promised her pony and trap’ll be at the top of the lane for her at a quarter to the hour. The menfolk can carry her that far. Thank goodness this be Charlie’s week to be home. Us couldn’t do with him being up to Lunnon just now.’
‘Not you, Lew. You idn’t to carry me,’ declared Annie, entering the kitchen in her best fawn gown and newly trimmed bonnet. ‘You’m to save your strength.’
‘If you says so, Annie,’ said Lew. ‘I’ll follow close behind, and you can explain to me what ’tis I’ve to save my strength for.’
‘I reckon us be sadly behind with the telling of that tale,’ said his father. ‘Can us get started, or us’ll be late to chapel. And whatever else you’m been early at, boy, you’m idn’t being late there.’
‘I don’t knows what you mean, Father,’ said Lew in well-simulated bewilderment. No one believed him.
The Chambers being Baptists, the ceremony was held in the chapel at the top of the village. It was a good wedding, everyone said so. Standing before the minister, exchanging their vows, Lew and Mollie looked up at each other with such love that Maddy had a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes for much of the ceremony. Afterwards the young couple led their guests downhill to the old schoolrooms, to continue the celebrations.
Despite the harsh times, trestle tables spread with crisp white cloths groaned under the weight of the food. Friends and relations had all contributed, making sure there were boiled hams and roast beef, a huge cheese, and cakes and buns in plenty, as well as the inevitable bowls of rich clotted cream. And of course there was an ample Bupply of cider. Maddy noticed with interest that the barrel bore the Oakwood mark. Jack noticed it too.
Daughter of the River Page 34