On a branch of box which encircled a flower bed perched a wren singing so sweet a song, so short a trill of pure music that Susan would not have been surprised if she had seen a wee man in a green coat fluting on a pipe. She watched its tiny throat throb as it gazed back into her eyes, unflinching and brave. Cock Robin could not be far away from his wife, Jenny Wren.
There he was, hopping up and down on the wall, waiting for her to move, stamping his feet on the brown clubmoss, dipping in the shade of the grass and stonecrop.
Becky came out, carrying a tin full of bread soaked in water, and the robin fluttered near. ‘The bold little madam,’ she cried, ignoring his sex, ‘there you are,’ and she threw a piece on the grass.
Susan ran up. ‘Are you going to the three chambers, Becky? Can I come with you? Do let me.’
Together they went down the flagged path, past the yew trees, along the grassy square, past the pig-cotes and their little garden, past the bleaching ground, to the stackyard. They climbed up the steep outer steps over the big cow-house, with ferns filling every corner and cranny, higher and higher, till they reached the stone platform at the top. They stopped to rest and look over the half-cut stacks to the young larch trees, pale green and silver, and the immense beech wood which stretched before them. Great white clouds rolled across the sky. ‘Blown by God’s breath,’ said Becky, and Susan saw God with puffed-out cheeks leaning down from heaven and blowing as she blew a dandelion clock.
A steep field rose in front of them, a rounded, curving field, with the contours of a baby giant, which climbed up to the beech wood and disappeared in a mist of forget-me-nots and bluebells under the wall at the top. Its little smooth hills hid mushrooms and puff-balls, rabbit holes and fairy rings.
Its grass was short and fine, it had always been a pasture, for no one could mow its hills and valleys, but it was scored by a thousand little footpaths, the smallest paths for field mice, tiny tracks for rabbits whose burrows shone red, and larger paths which curved regularly round the sides of the hillocks for sheep. The paths criss-crossed in a maze, a regular town of streets.
Across the upper part, under the beech wood, went an old Roman road, which travelled up the fields and over the crest to a village where some remains had been dug up from the gardens, an altar stone, a broken lamp, a little figure of a heathen god. Two centuries before it was the pack road used by travellers between the remote high villages, but now it was an unknown grassy lane bordered by briars and gorse, by mountain ash trees and broken rocks.
Near the bottom of the field was the cow road, which led through several of the fields, along which the cattle wandered to the pastures, and the hay carts crept in the heat of summer with their unsteady loads.
In every field there was a water trough, for springs and underground streams were plentiful, but in this field was a different water supply. The trough was deeply sunk in the ground, with rocks round it and boggy land below, where the water drained, but the water was orange-coloured, tasting strongly of iron, always cold, always fresh and never running dry. The little plants which covered the bottom were orange too, and one could bring up a handful of tawny gold slime, soft as velvet, which dried on the grass like rust. Susan went there with a jug for water to bathe old Joshua’s eyes, or to give to the herb woman who came round each spring for a bottle of iron-water.
Susan and Becky could just see the yellow trough over the ridge and down the hill as they stood on the steps, a brightly coloured oasis in the green of the pasture, and the noise of the water came faintly across the field. A mare stood drinking, lifting her head and drinking again. Then she shook off the clinging drops, lifted her great hoofs out of the squelching mud, and walked towards them.
Becky took the key from her pocket and unlocked the door. She slipped a finger through the round hole in the upper half and lifted the latch. The chirps which they had heard all the time they gazed across the fields became frantic with excitement as they entered, but nothing could be seen at first.
Three large chambers, which spread over the cow-house, a barn, a cart-shed and a storeroom, lay before them. They were lighted at either end by windows, cobwebbed and dusty, it is true, but the cobwebs were delicate and grey and the dust was pearly. That to the south looked across a valley by the house and farm to the hills, and that to the north faced the groves of beech trees and the open calf-sheds, the far fields and the hilly woods.
The chambers were separated by heavy stone archways and the curved roof with its oaken beams was like the roof of a Saxon church. Susan never got over the feeling of awe and mystery in the Three Chambers. The south window looked like the window over the altar in church and the sun streamed through, lighting up the fine particles of dust and white meal which for ever floated in the air, so that they were streams of gold.
There was a trap door in the floor of one of the rooms which went into the barn below, through which the chop was poured. There was the wonderful chopping machine in the third chamber, with a belt through the floor and a horse walking round and round, like a circus pony, in the field below. She decorated him with blue streamers of vetch, and, with a wreath of daisies on her head, rode on his back, like the lady who jumped through the hoops.
There was the great empty space, the feeling of splendour up there, level with the tops of trees and haystacks. She skipped with a halter up and down without hindrance to show Becky what she could do. There was the smell of hay, and delicious oil-cake which was stored in long slabs in a corner.
There was danger here too, she was never allowed up alone, for two doors opened on to nothing whatever, and the trapdoor in the floor had knives and a cutter underneath, whilst the chopping machine would cut her into little pieces if she went near.
But in the spring there was the added attraction of yellow downy chickens, which were kept here to be safe from hawks and rats for a few weeks. The hen coops stood in the beams of the sun, and in front of each ran a score of chicks, chirping and chattering, unconscious of harm. Between the wooden bars peered anxious-eyed, stout, fluffy mothers, with warning, querulous voices full of cares. Becky fed them all and talked encouragingly to the hens, who refused to be pacified.
‘There! There! Don’t take on so! What ails you? I’m not going to eat your tiddly ’uns.’
‘Hens are like women,’ she said to Susan, ‘too fussy over their little ’uns, never content, never settled. It’s for all the world like a school treat with the mammies calling their childer, each one thinking her own’s the best.’
Susan climbed down the stairs, with a hand on the wall to steady herself, and brought back a tin of water from the trough at the door of the cow-house, clean cool water for ever trickling in the mossy trough at one corner and out at the other.
She could spend all day here, looking at the chicks, listening to the quietness of the Three Chambers, in which the chirps seemed like the voices of the choirboys at church; but Becky had to go and Susan too had work to do. They closed and locked the door, leaving the glinting dust and the happy tiny creatures under the high arched roof.
As they walked through the stackyards Becky stopped to hunt under the straddles. Sure enough there were some eggs, where a hen had strayed, the black slender hen, ‘the Piece’, who never did as she was bidden.
In the field where the cocks and hens wandered down to the little oak wood were some older chicks with their mothers. A brown hawk from the beech woods sailed overhead and hung motionless, a speck in the sky. But the hens saw her and screamed a warning to the mothers in the coops. The chickens ran with outstretched tiny wings, as the hawk swooped. Becky shouted, ‘Shoo, shoo, shoo,’ and clapped her hands, and Susan screamed. The hawk swerved away and soared up to the sky. Susan ran to tell her father. He lifted his gun down, loaded it, and stood leaning over the wall like a grey shadow until the hawk returned.
A crack shivered the air and echoed against the buildings. The hawk fluttered and fell, turning over and over to the ground, for Tom never missed when he took up his gun.
He fetched a hammer and nail and hung it on a tree as a warning to other hawks who would see it and beware.
Afternoon came and milking time. Dan and Becky flung open the gates of the farmyard and called the cattle. Tom wouldn’t have them hurried and mithered with a sheep dog, who would chase round them and trouble their calm.
Young lambs played with each other, leaping in ecstasy, or buffeting with their knobby foreheads. The sheep lay under the velvet shadow of the black stone. Dan walked out into the field singing, ‘Coo, coo, coo, coo-up, coo-up.’ The cows in the distant field lifted their heads and listened, and then began to move slowly, eating as they came. ‘Coo, coo, coo-up,’ called Becky in her high voice. Susan ran down the fields, one, two, three fields away and opened all the gates.
Under the deep sunshine the cows walked in a procession across the fields, with great swinging udders full of milk, biting off clover and daisies as they passed through the wide-open gates, which Susan shut after them, up the hills, down the little valleys, now disappearing, now shining out with their satiny coats, across a stream, and under the trees to the farm.
Susan walked behind the last one, gently tickling her with a sycamore wand, which she peeled as she walked, to make a white stick. Suddenly the cow realized she was going to be the last. She started to run up the slope, and the others hurried too, hustling, pushing like a lot of eager schoolgirls, each one striving to be first at the gate.
Becky shut the gate after the first, in the faces of the others who looked at her with aggrieved gentle eyes.
‘No you don’t, then. One at a time, my ladies,’ she cried. She opened the gate so that two or three were admitted to the yard. They drank deep at the cow-trough, and then each returned to her own stall, where Joshua and Dan waited for them with the heavy chains which they hooked round their necks.
Joshua foddered them from the big barn into which their faces peeped through square openings in the walls. Susan ran along behind him, saying a word to each animal, patting its neck, rubbing its curly forehead, giving it an extra wisp of hay, and looking into its mournful eyes. She was sure they were talking to her, and she whispered back very low, so that no one could hear.
Tom Garland entered the yard with the heavy oaken yokes across his shoulders, walking with the swaying motion of those who have lived long days on the open hills. The shining empty pails, which Becky cleaned and rubbed each day, rattled together like bells, two on each side. He hung up his yoke on a nail outside, beside the men’s yokes, and walked into the big cow-house.
‘Come on, Susan,’ he called. ‘Where’s the lass?’
‘Here, Father, feeding the cows,’ came Susan’s voice from the barn.
‘Come and make yourself useful. I want you to hold the cows’ tails, flies are biting tonight.’
She obediently hurried into the cow-house, and stood on the raised path, facing the row of cows’ tails, swishing backwards and forwards like pendulums. Tom Garland and Dan each sat on a four-legged oaken stool, milking, with their heads pressed against the cows’ silky sides, and the can held between their knees. Joshua and Becky were in another cow-house, milking the meek-eyed Alderney and Jerseys.
Susan took a curly protesting tail-end in each hand and held on tightly. The cows stamped now and again and tried to swish their tails suddenly away, so she must never relax her grasp. Two swift streams of milk sang into each can, ding dong, ding dong, like little silver church bells. The white froth rose higher, and nobody spoke, for the cows liked peace and quietness when they were milked. They couldn’t bear a loud noise, a sudden movement or strange hands. Becky’s voice could be heard singing, ‘Shall we gather at the river’. Becky always sang, she said the cows gave more milk, and certainly they kept very still as if they were enjoying it as they yielded their milk to her hands with ease.
Tom sometimes whistled below his breath, a tiny sound, but soothing, and Dan chirruped and talked to the ‘old girls’.
Susan gripped tightly till her fingers ached, as the cows twitched their tails. Flies settled on her face, and she could not drive them off; she was in the same fix as the cows, Tom said, when she complained, and must bear it.
Suddenly a tail slipped from her grasp and whacked Dan’s face with a stinging lash.
‘Here, come off there,’ he cried angrily. ‘What are you doing? Why don’t you hold it tight?’
‘I couldn’t help it, Dan, it pulled away,’ she answered, grabbing the tail again and standing well back, for one cow was a kicker and had sent the pail of milk on the floor more than once.
Then came the quiet stripping sound, tong, tong, tong. The bell had nearly ceased. The cans of frothing milk were hung up in a trough to cool before they went to the troughs by the house, and Susan stirred them round whilst the men got other cans for the next cows. She held more and more curly-ended tails, and her little legs were weary of standing so still, and her arms ached right up to the shoulders. She slipped away when her father entered the second cow-house, and went to watch Becky and Joshua.
Becky sang another hymn in time to the jets of milk which rang in her pail, and Joshua listened and thought of his young days when he sang like a lark, with carol singers and chapel and at the Harvest Home, over sixty years ago. Now his voice was cracked, a tinkling pot.
Susan stopped a few moments, but any time she might have more work to do, so she stepped out into the splendid sunshine, opened the gate softly, and ran down the fields.
In the hedges the chaffinches and tomtits sang their merry songs, shook their peals of bells, and tripped and fluttered their wings. She wished she had her triangle to add to the music, but it was in the house, hanging over the toasting-fork by the fire. She stood listening, trying to whistle in the same way. Then she stooped to the ground. Ferns with little folded hands waited to open. She uncurled one and tiny green fingers clasped hers, and dropped back again when she removed her hand. The knotted crab tree with its sloping, twisting trunk was full of pink bloom, and the hawthorn was out, long lines of May, like washing spread out on the hedge to dry.
She brought a branch down to her face and drank deep draughts of the almond smell, but she did not offer to pick any of the white speckled flowers. Instead she gathered the young bread-and-cheese, off the spiky twigs, and ate it with sour dock and wood sorrel from below the hedge. How delicious it was! She stayed her hunger with the sweet-sour tastes, and looked for birds’ nests, just to peep and touch.
She remembered that when she was six she was just tall enough to reach the boughs of May. She had stood on tiptoe, in this very place, a little girl in a blue sun-bonnet, panting, excited to be so far from home alone, breaking off the sprays and tossing them on the ground.
‘Won’t Mother be pleased, all these pretty flowers! Won’t Father be pleased! And Joshua. Everybody will be pleased with little Susan.’
She had gathered up the blossoms in her pinafore, scratching her arms with the thorns, but heedless as she thought of her mother’s bright eyes. She ran home, with her short legs clambering up the steep hills, squeezing through the stiles, always holding her pinafore round her treasure. She crossed the meadow, out of breath, happy, intoxicated by the smell and her own cleverness. She peeped at the glory in her pinafore. It was all there, she hadn’t lost one tiny bit of the creamy flowers starred with red.
She rushed hot and joyous to the south parlour where her mother sat sewing. She looked up surprised and smiling as Susan ran to her.
‘Mother, Mother, Mother. Look what I’ve brought you. Pretty flowers.’ Then a most bewildering thing happened which Susan could not even now explain. Her mother’s smiles died away when she saw the flowers, and her face paled. Her eyes dilated in that special way, and Susan shrank back.
‘Take them out this minute, this very second,’ she cried, pushing Susan back through the hall and across the kitchen to the back door.
‘Don’t you know what they mean? Bad luck and worse. They mean death.’
Susan had stared, but th
e words remained.
‘You must never, never, never bring those flowers in the house.’ She threw them all away, over the wall, down the cliff, among the rabbit holes and clinging ivy.
Susan wept. It was worse than when she had picked all the geraniums from the garden that her father had just planted. Margaret nearly cried too, Joshua looked grave and her father had said ‘Dang’ when he heard it.
They all knew people who had died within a year when May was brought into the house. So never again would Susan pick even one little flower, or she would be a murderer.
Instead she looked for lords and ladies. She opened their green hoods and peeped inside at the secret hidden ladies in their brown dresses. She always expected to find someone else there, the lord, perhaps, a face, a pair of brown eyes, a broad nose and a laughing mouth, but never had she found him. Every spring she hunted for that someone whom she could not discover, hiding in the strange mysterious green flowers.
17
The Garden
Susan sat hiding on the damp moss-covered seat at the end of the garden between the sage and the herb garden. No one could see her there, for the bush of sage was like a small tree, a sure sign that the farm was governed by petticoats, said Tom.
She had come to sit and think, about trees and God, and hell, about animals talking and what was over the edge of the world. She knew she should be in the house helping, and she was deliberately sinning.
The kitchen garden was a pleasant hiding-place, and one in which she had never been found, for it was full of bushes among which she could crouch unseen in her dark frock. All round were fruit trees, blackcurrant bushes and red currants alternately along the top border, for like everything else it was on a slope. There were large single roses, bushes of fragrant cottage roses, behind them close to the wall, and tall cherry and pear trees in between. Gooseberries grew along the other sides of the square, separated from the thick hedge by flagged paths. There were little hairy sweet gooseberries, great red globes which looked like blood when they were held up to the light, smooth yellow balloons filled with wine, such gooseberries as grew nowhere else, so old were the bushes, so gnarled and twisted.
The Country Child Page 17