by Leah Fleming
‘The evening do is for everyone up the dale and they’ll come down hungry and expecting a feast. Then the fiddler will strike up and we’ll dance till we drop.’ The teacher shook her head.
‘I’m not sure it would be proper for me to take to the floor.’
‘Why ever not? You can always dance the quadrilles with Mercy as your partner. Surely that would be teaching her how to dance? You have to have some time off from being a serious missionary, surely? Do tell me again about the man who read poetry at yon funeral. The one who stood head and shoulders above the rest and looked so winsome, you said?’ pleaded Ellen once they were alone outside the farmhouse watching the guests arriving by horse and cart or on foot, strolling across to the shearing and chattering in groups as the sun glided westwards behind the hill.
‘Oh, he was so handsome and spoke with such feeling,’ Zillah replied coyly, watching Ellen blush into a beetroot smile.
‘I know, I wish he were at the dancing tonight. It would fair cheer up my evening. Instead I’ll be tripping over Sunter’s feet again. He makes my flesh creep. Sometimes I think he’s wrong in the head. He keeps saying he’ll be leaving the dale and if I don’t wed him that will be the end of High and Middle Butts. Good luck, he can go tomorrow as far as I care. I told him I’d drown mesen rather than wed him. I’ll not be blamed for his doings.’
‘Oh Ellen, you wouldn’t drown yourself?’
‘Not likely. He’s not worth a splash of water and he knows my fancy is elsewhere now but please don’t tell a soul I said so,’ she whispered.
Zillah put her fingers to her lips, about to smile until she spotted the arrival of the Vicar of Scarsbeck parading his finery amongst his congregation; another silk shirt and fancy waistcoat and riding breeches which curved tightly across his buttocks without the decency of a long jacket to hide the rear view. Had the man no decency, dressed in such casual attire exposing his fleshly contours? He was teasing old Miss Wildman and slapping her on the back with his pipe. He waved to Cleggy and his wife who stood stiffly waiting for the last of the tables and chairs to be placed close by.
Everyone from the village seemed to be gathering here, watching the sun go down over the hill and bats darting from bushes in the still air. Perhaps they were all pretending that the countryside was still theirs alone, that the scaffolding was not criss-crossed over the bottom of the main street, that they were not tasting brickdust on their tongues or that the navvies were not ensconced on their favourite benches in the taproom of the Fleece.
Zillah wished she had brought down her fan for she felt a stifling flush on her face as the vicar caught her eye for a second and turned away and looked again as if taking in her pretty dress and loosening hair. It was such a pity they would never be allies for she could do with his help in getting Bulstrode to take on Billy Widdup.
Her first plan had been to get him into the church choir where he was bound to be noticed but the poor child sang so out of key there was no use even bothering Mr Bulstrode on that score.
She stood next to Blaize and Warwick Lund, tapping their feet as the dancing chords were struck, and witnessed Ralph Hardy march up to Mrs Braithwaite who looked like a fluffy sheepdog with lots of curling hair and a low-slung dress with barely a modesty fichu to hide her swollen breasts. The farmer’s wife laughed at her partner and they chattered as they danced. Ralph Hardy smoothed back his hair and fiddled with the gold pin in his cravat. The man was positively preening himself and Zillah could not help noticing what a handsome couple they made as he swung the girl around the grass. His face had the intense animation that springs to life in a man who is conscious of an audience and is displaying his dancing skill with a pretty partner on his arm for all the other men to admire. His eyebrows arched up quizzically as if in surprise. He slid his tongue over his lips and gave the young woman a devastating smile like a hungry tiger on the prowl. Zillah was transfixed by their synchronised movements, how his hips swayed in the jaunty swinging steps, watching the farmer’s wife smile back at him brazenly.
She had the wide-eyed, heavy-lidded glance of a vixen, shooting forth bold knowing stares straight into his eyes. A message was given and one was received. Zillah turned away, embarrassed at this display. Blaize Lund nudged her husband.
‘Look at those two, bold as brass, the young hussy, at it again. I don’t know how old Dicky Braithwaite puts up with all their goings-on. Parson’s a bit free with his parish ladies, time he got himsen a wife and stopped his gallivanting even if Liddy Braithwaite was never nothing but a trollop for all her fancy ways . . .’
Zillah turned from the dancing as the music stopped but was stalked by the vicar who breathlessly caught her up. ‘I saw you watching us, come and join us all . . . these country jigs get the blood beating faster.’
‘No thank you,’ she snapped as Mercy ran up and pleaded for a turn. She shook her head again, trying to look unflustered at this unwanted attention.
‘Don’t be so stuffy, Miss Herbert, a little levity might crack your enamel now you’ve decided to dress like a human being, not a plaster saint. I do apologise about the other business if that’s what’s bothering you. Let me escort you in the next dance to show we are friends again to the villagers.’
‘We are always civil to one another, I hope, but my civility does not warrant any further contact. I am still disappointed by your lack of interest in my mission—’
‘This is no night for sermons, please excuse me. Your preaching grates on my ear at every turn. I generally find those who take too hearty an interest in religion usually lack for satisfaction in other parts of their lives. It’s not healthy in a woman so young.’
‘Really, Mr Hardy. Could it be that I am at the receiving end of another of your boring homilies? Please do not tire yourself on my account . . . and yes, I will be doing the next dance but with Mercy Birkett at my side, not you.’ She smiled impishly, flashing the merriest of eyes in triumph, knowing she looked twice as elegant and neat as that Braithwaite woman. Now it was his turn to stand at the edge as she swung past, her long dark hair unfurling down her back, leaping joyously into the affray with Mercy darting hither and thither to the thumpety-thump of the music. Hardy looked quite discomfited by their sparkling exuberance and that knowledge put springs on Zillah’s heels for the rest of the evening.
Chapter Fifteen
‘You’ll be going to the Feast this afternoon, son?’ asked Blaize Lund wearily as she watched Sunter slump over his lunch bowl in the dark kitchen of High Butts farmhouse.
‘Nah, can’t be arsed. If you’ve seen one fair you’ve seen the lot, St Oswy’s Feast is allus the same. A few cages of manky animals, a juggler and magician, them fat ladies, dobbie horses and swings. Feasts is for babbies.’
‘Eeh lad, I were only trying to cheer you up, you look as flat as a kippered haddock and no mistake with a mouth on yer like a cat’s bum. Come on, buck yerself up, show a bit of gumption and you’ll get more. Make summat of yerself like Grandpa Lawson tellt you. Do summat and have summat and then folks’ll respect thee!
‘Look, the jockey is set fair on the weather glass. ’Twill bring folks down the dale for a mixing at the fair. Yer cousins will be going too. Why don’t you offer to cart them down and make theeself useful for a change? See that Ellie don’t get up to any mischief while Auntie Annie is struck down with one of her heads. Annie’s that worried she’ll end up like one of them Ingomells girls from the estate lodge . . . got herself in trouble with a navvy and run off, so we are told. Her not sixteen. I bet Reg Ingomells is not so keen on railroads now!
‘Come on, shake out of it and put yer best shirt on, plaster yer hair down neatly. It’ll do yer good to mix in young company. They’ll be selling ginger biscuits and you know how you like them crackly snaps. Remember when you were little how you used to follow that sweet man with his tray and shout, “Taste and try before you buy!” all over the green for him? You used to count the days to St Oswy’s Feast and save yer farthings to spend on the coconut shi
es and rifle range.’
‘I’m a big lad now, Mother, feasts is boring,’ Sunter snapped.
‘It’s you that’s boring, our Sunter. What’s eating into you, are you still fretting about that do outside the Fleece with the Jock? Put that behind you, son. We had such hopes of you when you were a scholar and so did Mr Bulstrode. Then you just upped and left him in the lurch and let us down before the village. What went wrong with yer book learning?’
‘I’m not going to go into all that again. Shut it, Mam. It’s a closed book now. Bulstrode is not all he’s cracked up to be, believe me. He let me down and all. It were him who withdrew my name from the scholarship exam. He makes me sick and he owes me. One of these days I’m going to pay them stuck-up Patabullys a visit. They can’t just treat me like dirt . . .’ Sunter jabbed his knife into the table.
‘Stop that! I wish you would settle down to farming like all the other lads in the dale. Take an interest in all yer father’s been building up, help him recover from all them dead sheep we lost last April.’
‘I hate this bloody farm, I hate sheep even more and get off me back, yer bugging me. I want to leave this dale for good.’
‘No one’s stopping you, son, but it’ll break us hearts if you do. It’s not anyone’s fault we had no more bairns after you. You know yer father caught summat at Hawes market which blew up his privates when you were a babby and ever since then I never could get caught. Don’t let us down. There’s plenty of other lassies to wed. Don’t moon over cousin Ellie, she’s that big she’ll sit on you but don’t say I told you. You know how yer father has plans for Middle Butts. I want you to be happy. Still, you could take yer old mam to the fair, give her a treat for once away out of these dark walls. Before we turn round it’ll be backend and another winter’ll be upon us again. I could do with an outing.’ Blaize sighed softly and turned to her chores. Sunter rose reluctantly. ‘Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm.’
The village was a mass of colourful tents and booths, awash with striped awnings lining each side of the beck in a walkway of coconut shies and market stalls, crammed with tables of fancy goods and trinkets to take home as a fairing. The fairground was parked up at the end of the street in a field and horses grazed on the common land while their painted wagon huts rested in the shade.
In the fierce heat of late July, the villagers were out in force in their Sunday finery parading down the main street, avoiding the cowpats and horse dung and the smell of the sad tigers which stared from their small cages with weary eyes, covered with flies, lazing in the heat, panting for water. There were navvy families too, dressed up in white moleskin breeches and clean shirts, carrying children on their shoulders for a better view.
St Oswy’s annual Feast was held close to the patronal festival of St Oswald of Northumbria on the fifth of August. For as long as folk could remember there was a fair held in Scarsbeck to honour the saint after haytiming was finished. The travelling vans made a detour to set up their stalls in the hidden dale.
For a few weeks, haytiming drew all the local boys home to their separate dale farms and gangs of Irish hired workers from the camps downed their spades to earn extra spends while the sun shone. In three days fields were scythed, turned and spread to dry off, then the hay was forked onto sledges drawn by carthorses and dragged back to the barns to be stooked. Now the task was done on all but the laziest of farms, everyone was in holiday mood and the local brass band in military braid jackets blew gustily into their instruments to open the festivities.
As the sun beat down on the necks of visitors and villagers alike, some sought the shade of the trees edging the walled gardens of the finer residences, others sheltered under the scaffolding under the gantry boxes at the far end of the street where workmen, still on shift, waved and whistled at their audience. Others purchased flimsy paper parasols sold by one enterprising stallholder who quickly sold out.
Mercy Birkett was covered up in a wide sun bonnet and skipped among the stalls ahead of her sister. There was so much to inspect before she parted with a single penny. Which roundabout horse would she choose, what sweets and trinkets could she afford? Did she need to pay for the peepshow or the freak tent? The boxing ring at the end of the green was not going to get her custom as she peered up at the red face of the Birmingham Basher who stood like a colossus in embroidered green satin shorts and grubby white tights.
Ellie sifted through the trinket stalls with gaudy pottery statues of famous figures of history and paused over the figurine of Bonnie Prince Charlie on horseback. He looked just like Fancy Mac and she crossed her fingers, wishing him to be somewhere at the fair. Then she felt so guilty she bought a little jug for Mother and smiled to Miss Herbert who was talking earnestly to some of the navvy parents of her schoolchildren under the trees.
For one afternoon animosity between villagers and navvies was temporarily suspended as everyone enjoyed the fun of the fair. Outside the Fleece men spilled out onto the green with their tankards and ran the gauntlet of a pair of temperance workers with blue ribbons on their lapels, waving pamphlets at the men who snatched them up and chucked them down as soon as the Band of Hopers moved away.
Ellie laughed at the sight of old Cleggy the sexton in his uniform, blowing his cheeks into balloons as the brass section of the village band parted company with the conductor and the drummer. The conductor waved his baton furiously and fell off his box in the effort to reunite the music as it danced away across the crowd in opposite directions. Mercy put her hands over her ears to drown out the din.
It was getting hotter and stickier and Blaize sought relief in the chapel tearoom with other farmers’ wives. Only the children darted in and out of the stalls, across the beck stones, racing each other tirelessly; babies wailed in their baskets on wheels and stallholders mopped their brows, shouting their wares to passers-by. The navvy families were the ones with the money and their children seemed to be indulged on every stall, babies carried in shawls around the women’s backs. Ellie was quite shocked at the shortness of their skirts and the toughness of their black boots. Some wore twisted scarves around their hair like common gypsies, with tanned leathery complexions and faces old before their time. She was glad they were an unattractive bunch. Fancy would not be looking in that direction.
Further down the gangway Mally Widdup was treating Tizzy to a toffee apple and some spun-sugar candy and herself to a pretty cotton square for round her neck. The bustle was just like being back in Leeds on market days. Tizzy chased one of the schoolboys and bumped into Fancy Mac swinging his jacket over his shoulder. He cuffed her tousled curls teasingly. Since she cut off her braids to disguise herself the hair had grown back into tight wiry coils which were the bane of her life to flatten even with a cap on.
Suddenly Fancy stopped in his tracks and saw ahead the object of his desire: the tall fair farmer’s daughter browsing at the ribbon stall, completely alone for once. He sprang over to her side in two strides. ‘I’ll be buying that for the lady . . .’ He nodded in her direction, delighted to see her dart back with surprise and smile warmly.
‘Thank you, Mr MacLachlan, but I can’t accept your offer. It was for my mother, she’s unwell.’
‘Then we’ll have two of them, one for you and one for her. Please, it’s only a wee bauble.’ Fancy winked.
‘I shouldn’t, not from a stranger. It’s not proper.’
‘How can I be a stranger when you’ve seen me naked as the day I was born!’ Fancy laughed.
‘Shush! Someone will hear you,’ Ellie giggled, blushing, but wanting the moment to last forever. They locked eyes and lost themselves in the staring so much so that Fancy forgot to pick up his change and the stallholder coughed to bring them back from fairyland.
‘Where can we talk?’ whispered Fancy, touching her elbow, sending shock waves through to her stomach.
‘Walk on ahead under the viaduct and follow the beck up to the foss through the glade.’ Ellie wasted no time protesting. This was her chance and nobody was watch
ing to spoil it. She had rehearsed this scenario many times as she lay abed making plans. ‘You go first and I’ll follow behind in ten minutes.’ She pointed discreetly towards the viaduct. For once that dreadful edifice had its uses for it made a perfect screen to their tryst.
Fancy drifted off, his pirate’s tail bobbing, glinting like burnished copper in the sunshine, swaggering past the boxing booth where the ringmaster called out, ‘Come on, lad, try yer luck. Beat our champion for a prize.’
‘Ach away!’ he laughed, hoping for his own private wrestling match. He followed the beck into the shaded wooded glen where alder and willow arched over the limestone slabs of the river bed.
Ellie tried to look calm and casual as she ambled slowly in the same direction, hoping that no one would notice her absence. Just as she left the cover of the stalls, Mercy darted into view and tugged at her sleeve. ‘Can we have our tea now, you promised! Where are you going to?’
‘Just for a walk to cool off in the shade.’
‘Can I come too?’
‘NO!’
‘Why not?’
‘Am going me own gait, go and play on the swings.’
‘ ’Ave no pennies left. So I’m coming with you,’ Mercy sulked.
‘Here, have one of mine. Go on, shove off and spend it on what yer like.’ Ellie tried not to sound desperate.
‘Ta very much. Shall I come on after yer, then?’
‘Please, Merciful, leave us alone for half an hour and I’ll find you.’
‘Who’re you walking out with then? I won’t tell, honest.’ Mercy was dragging her heels.