Bats and moths flew in and out, and loud laughter rang down the garden, and over the new green fields to the happy cattle who had come to their own again. From across the grass it looked like a scene out of a play, a theatre interior with only the dark trees as audience and the thin crescent moon the light in the roof, turned down for the play to begin.
Susan hovered about the doorway, Becky brought out some cheese, and Margaret came to see they had all they wanted. Tom stood with his hands behind his back, chatting, and enjoying himself. A weight was off his mind, the rain had kept off, and the crop was fairly good. Not like two years ago when it rained for weeks, and the men left good hay to turn black in the fields, only fit for bedding, whilst they did odd jobs, mended walls, cut hedges, and hung about in the cart-sheds, with sacks on their shoulders and watched the streams of rain ruin all. One thin field they had even left uncut, and he had to buy tons of hay to last through the winter. But he had known it would be fine to finish up this year, for on St Swithin’s Day he had gone out in the early morning to watch for the sun. The Irishmen were all in the fields, but he was anxious about the weather.
The rounded cherry trees, like nosegays of pointed leaves, each leaf a curved spout for the dew, were bright with red cherries, and he shouted at the blackbirds and starnels which fluttered among them, wasting as much fruit as they ate.
The apple trees, with irregular green apples slightly flushed with brown where they faced the south, clustering in twos and threes along the branches in the orchard, like lovebirds with their heads under their wings, filled the orchard, rustling their boughs together, so that the roof was green.
He had sat there alone, looking for the sun. It came from behind a cloud and sent long straight rays dazzling through the foliage. He stood a moment looking at it, with thankfulness in his heart, and then went indoors.
‘It’s all right,’ said he. ‘It’s all right,’ he cried to Margaret. ‘The sun’s through the apples, we shall have a good crop, and if rain keeps off today we shall get the harvest in.’
It had kept dry, and the harvest was safely gathered, but no one knew what was in store. He went through life prepared for good or evil, taking what was given, losing today and gaining tomorrow, accepting all with cheerfulness.
After supper the men dragged the forms outside and gave their last concert. The mowers had gone some time before, and these men would follow them to the great farms in the east before they went back to Ireland.
The next morning everyone was up at dawn, to say goodbye. They stood in a group with their clothes tied up neatly in their bundles, saying the last few words. Susan nearly cried, she loved them so much, and now they were going.
Everyone said, ‘Next year, next year,’ and the swallows echoed, ‘Next year,’ as they skimmed over the barns, but Margaret whispered, ‘If all’s well.’
Susan stood on the bank with her mother, waving her hand to the men as they lurched down the hill, turning to wave back and shouting blessings as they went round the corner which hid them from view. She walked slowly, twisting her pinafore, into the Irishmen’s Place for a final smell. Dan carried out the bags and benches, Tom put away the picture, and they prepared the cow-stall for the Alderney which was due to calve in a few days.
Susan quickly recovered her spirits, there were the wide fields all waiting for her to visit them, and the trees eager for a talk. She took her skipping rope and raced down the prickly cut grass to the hedges and the giant trees by the gates. She visited every corner and every tree that week after school, and told her stories, and practised her new learning upon them.
Mrs Garland took her to tea on Saturday with Mrs Wolff at Oak Meadow Farm, for the harvest was finished there, too, and it was a time of rejoicing and tea parties.
The garden at Oak Meadow was very lovely, for roses grew like weeds; great dark roses like wine, and pale pink ones like airy ladies in silken dresses, red moss roses actually enclosed in wreaths of moss, and white roses, heavy and mysterious, as if they held something inside their petals, a gold heart or a green elf. Susan was going to look, if they left her alone.
There was a spring jutting up in the garden, to the water trough, clean fresh water, which Miss Mary took her to see. All round were bright stones, little blue and green pieces of china and glass, bits of flowery plates, a patchwork of pottery and a china man with a flute among them, all hiding among ferns and moss, like a votive offering to the goddess of the water.
There were marigolds, the first Susan had seen, with seeds like little green cheeses, and petals like an angry sun. There were rows and rows of skeps, far more than at Windystone, and the air was full of little hums and talks and murmurs. The barns were thatched with straw, the cow-places huddled together, as if they were whispering secrets, as well they might, they had stood there among the oak trees so long. They were all as clean as a pin, for Miss Mary, Mrs Wolff’s old daughter, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, particular Miss Mary, who was forty if she was a day, ran after each cow with a brush and a cloth, so everyone said.
Susan loved Miss Mary, but she had never been quite comfortable with Mrs Wolff since she had first suspected her of eating lambs, and young children. There might easily be a wolf under the old lady’s flowered petticoats and little tight bodice, for she was like the one which ate Red Ridinghood’s grandmother, and sat up in bed. It happened at Oak Meadow, and Susan did not care to be alone there.
There was also a picture in Mrs Wolff’s capacious neat kitchen, a picture Susan feared, it reminded her of that hell which she contrived so often to forget. It was the Tree of Life and Death, an enormous green tree, with its roots in hell, and horrible fruit of drunkenness and many vices which Susan couldn’t understand, hanging on every outstretched bough.
But the tea was good, the little cakes and jam turnovers, the damson cheese and cream, which she ate as she listened to Miss Mary and Mrs Wolff tell Margaret all the news of the life to come, of the wicked theatres they had seen on their holidays, and the bold brazen wench who had stayed at their lodgings.
But, ‘Little pitchers have big ears,’ and Susan was sent out to the garden, free to wander among the flowers and orchard trees until Margaret came out and they walked across the field paths and through the coppice towards their own home again.
Holidays came and Susan celebrated them by going down to the station every morning in the milk-cart, and sitting quietly in the little station yard among the many carts of the neighbouring farmers, who sent their milk for miles, whilst the milkchurns were rattled and banged across the railway line, and the train came slowly puff-puffing to a standstill. She stared at the travellers whom she could see from the cart, stout women going early to market, with baskets of fowls, big men with heavy sticks in their hands, going to buy calves and pigs, and spruce little men who were out for orders for cake and grains and meal.
The train steamed away, and Dan returned and drove home again. She had seen a little of the big world, as much as she would see, for no one from Windystone intended to go away for a holiday. They had fresh air enough, God knows, and plenty to eat and drink, and a tea party now and then, and soon the fair was coming to Mellow. What more could they want?
So Susan spent her days in the fields and garden, making scent from the rose leaves which lay in carpets of red and cream on the grass plots, adding a little spring water and bottling them in small medicine bottles she found in one of the lofts. The smell was never quite right, but she hoped for the best and tried again. She returned to Robinson Crusoe, and played the solitary game which never staled, in the stackyard, or on the grass plot with the monkey tree for the lookout, and the stone chamber for her cave. She made a haystack of pulled grass for Robinson Crusoe’s fiery onager, Fanny, which ramped and curveted in the small croft, and she fed her on windfalls from the tall lonely apple tree. She shot pirates and cannibals with her father’s walking stick when they came creeping from behind the trees. She accompanied Becky to a prayer-meeting at her chapel and went with Tom to a cattle
market.
Then Job Fletcher, the thatcher, came to do the stacks. He made the haystacks into well-roofed houses, which looked as if they were built to last for years. He was a talkative old man, whose head ‘wasna dazed by the heights’, and he worked with much pride and satisfaction at his job. ‘There’s nubbody can thack like me,’ he said many a time, and Susan stood below near the woodpile watching him with a peg in his mouth and the tarred thacking-twine on the wooden sticks in his fingers as he deftly twisted the line round the bright new straw. The smell of the twine and the hay kept her near like a bee at a honeypot.
At every gable he made a stiff little bunch like a turret, or a sheaf, and tied it round its middle with straw, to bring good luck to the stack, to keep it from fire, lightning and tempest, and when it was finished Susan looked up and saw these little messengers like angels on the roof, yellow against the blue sky. Job had a drink of beer and a couple of rabbits to take home with him when he straddled stiffly down the ladder and straightened out his legs.
School began and the days passed too quickly into the colours of autumn. First a bough on a beech tree and a cluster of leaves on an oak brought the message that the back-end was approaching. The golden splashes spread, nuts ripened, green walnuts fell from the great trees, apples reddened in the orchard and garden, the brown pears on the house were ready for picking.
Becky had a letter from the oatcake man asking her to go with him to the Wakes on Saturday.
‘Can I go, Missus?’ she asked Margaret, proudly holding out the note addressed to Miss Rebecca Moss.
‘Yes, when you’ve finished your work, and suckled the calves,’ answered Margaret, laughing, ‘and you can take Susan with you.’
All the week Susan and Becky thought of Saturday. Each night they walked across the fields and looked over the valley to the dim mist in the folds of the hills where Mellow lay. Now a glow like a powder of gold hung in the air above the masses of trees, and when the wind was very still they could hear hoots and trumpets, faint and faraway like the sounds of gnats in the sky.
Dan brought news of the fair, of the fine dobby horses, and a merry-go-round bigger than ever, with ostriches as well as horses. He went down there at night when he had finished. He swilled his face at the slop-stone till it shone in the firelight. He rubbed sweet-smelling oil on his hair, and parted it carefully at the side before the little rose-framed mirror. He put on a clean pink-and-white rubber collar, and carried a stick in his hand, and a rose in his cap. Becky’s work was never done and she looked enviously at him. Even old Joshua went down one night, and Tom Garland drove through to have a look at things.
‘There’s a fat woman’, he said triumphantly when he returned, ‘with arms near as big as my thighs, and a head like a great pudding. She’s a comfortable-looking body, though, in spite of her fat. And there’s a calf with two heads, and a chicken with four legs, and a kind of little theaytre where they act Pepper’s Ghost, as I’ve seen many a time.’
Susan’s eyes were agog with excitement, and she hurried through the wood each night hoping she would live to see the wonders, praying little prayers for safety, and stepping like a feather on the soft leaves and earth between the stones.
Becky’s thoughts were on the oatcake man. Would he ask her to wed? Of course not, she hadn’t known him long enough, but she would be with him and perhaps he would treat her to the swingboats.
The day came at last, and Becky went upstairs to change to her blue silk body and her black skirt with braid round the bottom, although Margaret protested she was too grand for the Wakes. Susan wore her brown coat with astrakhan trimmings, and her last year’s beaver hat. Mrs Garland had decided to go with them to bring Susan back when Becky was with Gabriel Thorn. She packed a bottle of cream, and a pot of potted meat and a few apples for an old friend in the village in the basket which Becky carried on her arm.
They had an early tea and left the table set for the milkers, milk and sugar in the cups, a plate of thick bread and butter, a pot of marrow jam, and in the oven a dish of stewed pears and cloves, for Tom and Joshua, and Dan’s tea on the dresser end.
Margaret looked back to see if everything was there, the teapot on the hob, the chairs drawn up ready. Becky made a roaring fire, and Susan ran to her father to ask for a penny to spend.
‘Goodbye, goodbye. Take care of yourselves. Don’t be late,’ he called. ‘Tell the oatcake man we shall expect some oatcakes for nothing.’
Messages floated from them as they went down the hill.
‘Don’t forget the stewed pears.’
‘Don’t give Dan any marrow tonight, he has cake.’
‘Don’t forget to send Joshua to meet us up the hill.’
‘Don’t forget to send the lantern.’
‘Be off with you all,’ came roaring from the farmer, who looked at the sky, and noted the curly wind clouds sweeping its great heights. Then he turned back to the house with his hands behind his back.
They walked by the rippling river, Susan in the middle, giving a little skip to keep up with them. A cart rattled by and then drew up.
‘Would you like a lift?’
They gratefully accepted and climbed in, squeezed three on a seat with Susan on Becky’s knee, and the basket on the floor. The horse was a spanking beast, a high stepper, with clicking hoofs, and the noise, as they rattled along, drowned the music of the river. They flew past the watermill, with its dripping wheel, the old ivy-covered tollgate, and the church. Susan looked up at the rooks wheeling overhead to the elms, the ducks in the backwater, sailing with ruffled feathers like white-sailed ships, the robin on the yew hedge round River Cottage, the elm tree like an immense monkey, delightful by day, but terrible and menacing at night.
On they dashed and Susan and Becky held their hats from flying away, and Margaret put up a hand to her little velvet bonnet.
They turned the last corner, and the horse was pulled up sharply before the ‘Green Man’. ‘Whoa, steady there, whoa,’ shouted their unknown driver, for it was startled by the noise of rifles in the shooting-booths, the chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff of the little engine, the music and the shouts.
They climbed down with the cart swaying and backing, as the restive horse struggled to get away. They called their thanks and the man touched his cap and smiled as he drove away from the village along a road to the right.
Mrs Garland settled her bonnet and Becky pulled down her skirts and shook herself.
The open marketplace was packed with a large merry-go-round, all gold and glitter, and a small one for little children. Stalls stood along the pavements pressed close to the baker’s and tin-smith’s and cobbler’s shops. The druggist looked out from his embrocations and bottles to the shooting-booth, and the little bow-windowed draper’s shop was near the fat lady’s tent and Pepper’s Ghost. In front of the blacksmith’s forge were the swing boats; from ancient time they had their stand there, for the forge was low and the boats could swing out to the overhanging elms. Old gabled houses, now turned into granaries for the corn chandler, looked on with sightless windows, through which bags of grain like fat white women peered down at the unaccustomed life below.
Margaret and Susan strolled through the village, with Becky behind with the basket. They bought brandy snap and peppermint rock, gingerbread men with currant eyes and candied peel mouths, and Wakes cakes, spiced and sugared with caraways on the top. Then Margaret gave Becky a shilling to spend at her discretion on Susan and herself and walked through a little green gate, up a narrow path edged with chrysanthemums, knobby and small, and dahlias, red, orange, and yellow, to a green door. She tapped at the brass knocker and a white-capped maid opened, and the house swallowed her up.
Susan looked after her. She saw the sitting room with its canary and fierce little dog which never made friends, the wax flowers under the glass shade, the carved box which was sent from Norway, the fireside with gleaming brass fender, and the old lady herself with her lace cap and purple ribbons.
But the fair c
alled her, and the dobby horses. She and Becky stood waiting till the horses and the wonderful fierce-eyed ostriches stopped, and then they climbed up. Round and round they went, never getting off when the music stopped, but waiting proudly above the heads of the staring crowd below.
There the oatcake man found them and paid for further rounds. The music ran in Susan’s head, the smooth dobby horse was cool and beautiful under her fingers, she felt herself a queen. She had nothing to do with the ostriches, they were too outlandish and foreign.
In a dream she watched the shooting, and the oatcake man tried his solitary hand at coconut shies and Aunt Sally’s. Susan’s thoughts were with the roundabouts and she watched her own steed with a stout party on his back, and knew he wanted her to come and talk to him again. But the oatcake man led them on to the fat woman, the calf with two heads, and Pepper’s Ghost, which frightened Susan so that she pinched Becky’s fingers, and frightened Becky so that she forgot her modesty and clasped Gabriel’s hand.
‘It’s not real,’ he explained in a lordly way, ‘it’s only illusion, done with looking glasses and such.’ But it made it worse, that a harmless looking glass could do such a thing, as show a spirit, one of the dead-and-gone. Becky and Susan had always known there was something queer about a looking glass in which you could see behind you. They were relieved to come out and walk round the booths, where the oatcake man bought trinklements for Becky and a toy flatiron for Susan.
Night dropped down from the overhanging cliffs and woods. The showmen lighted more flares, and lads and girls streamed into the marketplace. Becky took Susan up to the gate of old Mrs Wheat’s cottage and left her. She walked timidly up the path and rapped at the knocker. The ferocious dog barked savagely, and darted at her boots, when the old servant opened the door. It was an ordeal to go to Mrs Wheat’s house, for the old lady and her maid peered through their spectacles like witches.
The Country Child Page 22