The Weeping Ash

by Joan Aiken

  “But I wish to go in the carriage!” she kept bawling. “Papa said that I might! It is not fair! It is too bad! I wish to see Lady Mountague’s house!”

  “Do not be such a little goosecap!” exclaimed her sister. “You cannot think that Lady Mountague would wish to see you like that!”

  “No, my dear, I fear you must wait for another time,” Fanny assured her. “Dr. Chilgrove says you are not well enough to go on an outing at present. You would not enjoy it. You must remain in bed.”

  Fanny, indeed, was greatly exercised as to whether Thomas, on his return, would not feel that she had committed a dereliction of domestic duty if she deserted Patty to keep her engagement to Lady Mountague. Ought she to stay at home with the child? But as Thomas had particularly desired her to pay the visit, duty seemed to pull in two directions. And she was reinforced in her decision to go by Dr. Chilgrove, who said bluntly:

  “The child is in no danger, ma’am. Bless me! What’s a touch of nettle rash? You go off and enjoy yourself—Lord knows, you get out little enough. Besides, haven’t you a whole parcel of women in the house—Susan Strudwick and little Tess and the baby’s nurse girl and that other female, what’s-her-name? If they can’t look after one spoiled brat among them, you had best turn them all out of doors and hire some others!”

  So the departure of Fanny and Bet on their day’s pleasuring was rendered uncomfortable and discordant by the shrieks of little Patty, held forcible in her chamber by Tess and Mrs. Strudwick.

  “You are the greatest beasts in nature and I will never forgive you,” she yelled from the window, running to hang out in her night shift.

  “If she can bawl like that there’s not much amiss with her,” remarked Dr. Chilgrove callously, hopping up onto his cob.

  Despite this adverse beginning, the day was full of unexpected pleasures.

  The drive to Cowdray Park was a delight. They took the road to Midhurst, which ran along the side of a gently sloping rise of land all the way, giving a view southward over the wide valley of the River Rother to the curving grassy Downs some five miles distant.

  “Jem says the smugglers come along that river,” said Bet, pointing to the gleam of distant water.

  “Ah, they do that,” said Jem, who was driving.

  Fanny was quite astonished.

  “But surely they do not continue smuggling, when the French may land at any moment?”

  “Bless you, ma’am, a free trader bain’t a-going to leave off trading and lose a fair profit just acos the government say we are at war wi’ the Frenchies,” Jem told her pityingly. “In any case, ’tis the moonlighters as brings word most often as to what the Froggies are up to over there. Why, who do you think the Sea Fencibles are, as Prime Minister Pitt praises uphill and down dale? They’re none but the Gentlemen, given a new name! When they flits back from Rouen or Lille with a dallop o’ tea and a keg or two of eau de vie, they brings back a whole passel o’ news about the disposition of the French forces. See, mum, now we be a-passing through Cowdray Park.”

  Owing to the country’s state of war, some of the green rolling slopes of Cowdray Park had been plowed and sown with a crop of wheat which in that hot summer was already well grown and shimmering under the cloudless sky; but presently they came to a shady stretch of oak and beechwood, massive trees, under which grazed fallow deer, strolling gracefully in and out of the shadows.

  “Oh, Stepmama, are they not pretty!” exclaimed Bet, but Fanny sighed, remembering the deer in Petworth Park that had been the instrument of her first meeting with Liz Wyndham.

  Now, emerging from the wood, they beheld a sad spectacle: a great stone mansion, almost a castle, some distance to their left, which had been completely gutted by fire; only a central portion, some casements and chimneys, and a few blackened pillars of stonework still remained. Fanny was very much struck; and Bet broke out in exclamations, protesting that the ruins of Cowdray Castle exactly resembled the scene of a novel that Martha had once borrowed from Mrs. Dawtry, the harp teacher.

  Jem, obviously well informed as to Lady Mountague’s place of residence since the destruction of Cowdray Castle, now turned the carriage down a cart track that led into a copse to the left of the road, and soon they pulled up in front of a small thatched house.

  “Is this it?” exclaimed Bet, quite laughably dismayed. “You cannot mean to tell me that Lady Mountague resides here?”

  But Jem had already jumped down to open the carriage door, and a curtsying maid was waiting to lead them into the house.

  Lady Mountague’s establishment was certainly quite other than Fanny had foreseen, and she could not help suspecting that it would shockingly disappoint Thomas’s expectations of an aristocratic household where, unlike Petworth House, matters were managed with propriety and respectability. Propriety there was, but on such a small scale! It charmed Fanny but greatly disconcerted Bet. Lady Mountague, with her cook and footman, lived in a cottage not half the size of the Hermitage, and they were ushered into a tiny room, half filled, it seemed, with plants and birdcages. Since several large windows had been introduced into the south wall, the sunlight was dazzling, and it took several minutes before their eyes were accustomed and they could discern the occupants of the room. These were Lady Mountague, exactly as she had been at Petworth House, smiling, composed, and dignified in a wing armchair and—to Fanny’s extreme astonishment—her stepdaughter Martha and a strange young man.

  “My dear Mrs. Paget!” said Lady Mountague as Fanny curtsied to her. “I am so delighted you can spare the time to come and visit an old recluse such as myself. As a reward for your goodness I have prepared this little surprise for you—I hope it is a pleasant one!” she added, laughing. “One never quite knows what will be the result when close relatives meet.”

  But it was plain that all the participants were happy with the present reunion. Fanny had always found it easiest to get on with her middle stepdaughter—though recently, to be sure, Bet’s nature had improved as a result of not having to compete with her prettier sister.

  Martha now ran to Fanny and gave her an exuberant kiss.

  “Stepmama! Now I can make my husband known to you! Oh, I am so happy that Lady Mountague has been kind enough to arrange this meeting. This is Charley! Is he not a fine fellow! A real nonpareil! Aha, Bet! You little thought, last time you saw me, that on our next meeting I would be able to take precedence of you! I am an old married woman now—Mrs. Penfold, if you please!—and may go ahead of you up the stairs!”

  “Only there are no stairs to be climbed at present,” said Lady Mountague, smiling. “Martha, my dear, why do you not take your sister and your husband to feed my peacocks—you will find a basket of stale crusts there on the sill.”

  So, after Fanny had greeted her new stepson-in-law—he seemed, indeed, a pleasant, well-set-up young man, who behaved to her with the greatest civility and respect, but had a lurking smile in his eyes which seemed to suggest that when not on best behavior he could enjoy a joke with the best—the three young people walked out through a French window, leaving Fanny alone with Lady Mountague.

  “Ma’am, I am so very much obliged to you for this!” exclaimed Fanny as soon as her stepdaughters were out of earshot. “My husband had strictly forbidden any inquiries to be set on foot regarding Martha—he will not hear her name mentioned, indeed!—but I have been exceedingly anxious about her. I am so delighted to discover that she has reached such a comfortable and safe harbor. How did it come about?”

  “Oh, Charley Penfold is quite a favorite of mine,” said the old lady, smiling. “He was the son of my husband’s steward but worked hard at his books—my husband had him sent to the Midhurst Grammar School and destined him for the church. But then he turned out a little wild, we discovered that he was engaged in running contraband goods with the local free traders, so it became plain that a clerical career was not for him. A couple of months ago Charley came to
me in a very proper spirit, informed me that he had quite amended his ways and become a captain in the local Sea Fencibles. He told me, too, that he had married, and asked if he could rent one of my cottages on the Cowdray estate. I was glad to allow this, and even more so when I found that he had married Captain Paget’s daughter. Indeed he is very anxious to be reconciled with his wife’s family if it can be arranged.”

  Fanny thought that Thomas’s objections might not be insuperable once he learned that the young man enjoyed Lady Mountague’s favor, however she could not engage to answer for her husband, and said as much. Then she inquired cautiously:

  “Can the young man support a wife, ma’am?” remembering what Jem had said of the Sea Fencibles, that they were, in fact, merely the smugglers promoted to a more respectable-sounding name.

  “I can see that you will make an excellent mother-in-law, my dear! Yes, Charley does any amount of work for me on my estate, in between his Fencible activities—and most capably, too; so I pay him the wage of a junior steward, and they have the nicest little cottage, down by the Easebourne gate. At first I was not too inclined to take to your stepdaughter, I thought her a flighty young minx, if the truth be known; but marriage has improved her out of all recognition, and it has worked wonders for Charley too; they seem to deal together admirably and are becoming quite steady and sensible.”

  During this speech Fanny had been greatly startled to see a mouse run across the floor, climb the bulbous legs of a Jacobean table, and begin busily nibbling some grain that had fallen from one of the birdcages on the table top. Lady Mountague paid no heed to it, did not even move aside her gray brocade skirts.

  “Ma’am! Is not that a mouse?”

  “Yes,” replied the old lady calmly. “They come in after the birds’ grain. That is why I keep my plates of kickshaws on vases.”

  Fanny had indeed wondered why two or three plates containing tarts and wafers were balanced somewhat precariously on the tops of long-necked jugs and candlesticks.

  “The mice are very clever,” said Lady Mountague, with an affectionate smile at the one which was nibbling crumbs two inches from her sleeve, “but I am one too many for them there! Now, shall we go out and join the young people? I thought we would take our nuncheon in the grape arbor.—I say young people, but you are as young as any of them, my dear,” she added, taking Fanny’s arm as she moved somewhat limpingly to the garden entrance. “How does your baby go on? When shall I come to see him? And the other little girl? Have you not a third stepdaughter?”

  Discussing Fanny’s household, she passed along a grassy path which led down to the river Rother. This was a sizeable stream, wide and deep enough to take a coal or timber barge; Fanny could understand how the smugglers made use of it. Indeed Lady Mountague informed her, with a certain pride, that most of the houses in the town of Midhurst, which could be seen from where they stood, had long underground passages leading from their cellars to the riverbank, for the easier transport of contraband.

  “But do you countenance smuggling, ma’am?” inquired the startled Fanny, following Lady Mountague over a footbridge.

  “Bless you, yes! I doubt if the tea you are about to drink has paid duty. Foolish laws lead to inevitable infractions.” Beyond the river lay the formal gardens of the ruined Cowdray Castle, where Martha, Bet, and Charley were feeding three peacocks and a couple of swans which had floated to the riverbank. A velvety lawn led to a grape arbor, where a table and chairs had been set, and to this cool and tranquil haven Charley and a footman brought baskets containing a light repast—cakes, fruit, and wine. A syllabub was made on the spot by leading up a brindled cow from a neighboring field and milking her (Charley did this) into a dish of white wine; Fanny thought she had never tasted anything half so delicious.

  While Lady Mountague was giving some instructions to her gardener, after the repast, and the two girls were exchanging all the sisterly gossip that, apparently, they had been missing for the last two months, Charley addressed Fanny in a low voice.

  “I didn’t know whether to trouble you with this, ma’am, or not,” he said. “I talked it over with Marthie, and she thought maybe ’twasn’t needful; she says she don’t care if she never sets eyes on her pa again—and she don’t care what becomes of him. But I’m one that likes all things shipshape; if I’d thought there was any chance of the old gentleman giving his consent to the match, I’d have asked him, fair and square. But Marthie said he’d never give his permission in a year of Wednesdays—and I’ve heard the same about him from others, in Petworth—so there was nothing for it but to elope.”

  Fanny, somewhat startled to near Thomas referred to as “the old gentleman,” could only agree with Martha that he would never have given his permission but said that for her part she was delighted to discover that Martha had found such a kind husband. However she feared that she could not promise to procure a paternal forgiveness.

  “No, no, I’m not making up to ye for that, ma’am, don’t take me up wrong,” said Charley quickly. “If Cap’n Paget’ll forgive Marthie, very good; if not, I’ll not weep millstones. We do very well as we are. That wasn’t what I was asking ye; no, I was wishful to warn ye. I’ve many Petworth friends, and it has come to my ears as how there’s some in Petworth wishes ill to the cap’n, an’ I believe he should be put on his guard.”

  “Somebody that wishes him ill? Who can it be? Have you any notion?”

  “There’s more than one, ma’am, so the tale goes. One’s a woman—but she’s a poor, crazed being, I doubt she’d do him much harm. But she might stir up those as would. I told Marthie about her and she said directly, ‘Oh, that sounds like our old governess that Pa turned off; Miss Fox, her name were!’”

  “Miss Fox—good God!” said Fanny, aghast. “Why, I believe I have even met her—I myself suggested…”

  She fell silent, remembering her meeting with the strange woman on the morning after Mrs. Paget’s death. “But surely that poor deranged woman cannot harm my husband?” she said presently.

  “There’s another, ma’am, so I understand. As to who it be, I know not, but that there Miss Fox has been heard a-mumbling and a-muttering threats. ‘Now I’ve got me an ally,’ says she, ‘I’ll surely have my revenge on him, and he’ll live to rue the day he slighted Maria Fox. Now I’ve got an ally I have power over him.’”

  “Good heavens. How very shocking! Whom can she have been referring to?”

  “That’s all I can tell ye, ma’am,” said Charley Penfold soberly.

  And, apparently feeling better now that he had disburdened his conscience of this weight, he turned to pick up the nuncheon baskets and carry them back to Lady Mountague’s sylvan cottage.

  Martha was very urgent that her sister and stepmother should visit her cottage and see how nicely it was appointed. “It is all so neat and snug! It is the best little house in the world! And there is even a bed for you, Bet, should Papa ever allow you to visit us.”

  Fanny, however, decided that this visit of inspection must wait for a subsequent occasion. She had two motives for this decision; firstly, she could see that Bet was falling back into her old habit of envying her sister’s superior good fortune. The novelty of the meeting had at first allayed those bad feelings, but now the familiar sour, jealous expression was visible in her face, the grudging ill-natured note in her voice; Fanny feared that the sight of the cottage might prove the last straw and wreck the better relationship that at first had seemed to be springing up. Also, for herself, Charley’s warning had stirred in her a vague but profound uneasiness; she could not wait to be back at home again and make certain that all was well with her household.

  Without further ado she said to Lady Mountague, “Ma’am, this day spent with you has been the happiest for me since—since I left my father’s house. But Martha’s husband has told me something that has made me anxious to return home and make sure all is well there. Also I am persuaded that we ha
ve tired you long enough! But I thank you more than I can express for all your kindness.”

  “My dear, I have enjoyed it quite as much. Come, give me a kiss! And let me see you again soon—I trust your husband will permit?”

  “Of course, ma’am!”

  “Then I shall come and take my nuncheon with you, as informally as you please, one of these fine days.”

  Fanny made such undertakings as she could, kissed Martha good-bye, shook hands very cordially with Charley Penfold, and climbed after Bet into the waiting carriage.

  Bet was somewhat markedly taciturn during the drive home; she huddled her shawl discontentedly around her shoulders. The evening had turned cool and cloudy; a dark gray thunderous bank in the western sky promised a storm later; and a light rain was beginning to fall.

  The streets of Petworth were empty as they drove through the town. Fearing the storm, doubtless, the townspeople had retired early; the place seemed unnaturally quiet. But, strangely enough, as they passed down the Hermitage lane the sound of voices could be heard ahead—quite a number of voices, it seemed.

  “How curious!” exclaimed Bet, listening. “One would think there was a crowd of people assembled in our garden! Do you suppose that Papa can have returned home already? Can they be assembling the troop—or some such thing?”

  “We shall soon see,” said Fanny, who found herself unaccountably trembling.

  When they rounded the curve of the lane and came in sight of the house, they could see that, indeed, quite a large group of people had assembled in the garden—all the members of the household, Tess, Jemima, Mrs. Baggot, Goble—besides a number of other persons whom she did not know. They were all crowded around the well.