‘Well, I’ve got a small fortune, a couple of small fortunes.’
‘Does that m . . . m . . . mean you’re g . . . g . . . going to stay, I mean settle here?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that; Uncle wants me back there. In the meantime, getting the old mine going again would give me something to exercise my wits, otherwise I’ll become like the rest of them around here, riding, drinking, whoring. Not that I’d mind the latter.’
‘Oh, Matthew!’
‘Oh, Matthew!’ He mimicked John, then said, ‘You’re too good to be true you know, brother.’
‘I’m n . . . not too good to be t . . . true. You don’t know anything about me really. B . . . B . . . But I think, there’s a lim . . . limit; one must draw the l . . . line.’
‘And where would you draw the line?’ Matthew was grinning at him now.
‘Oh, you! You!’ John pushed out his fist towards him. ‘You’re im . . . po . . . po . . . possible.’
‘Are you going to get that tray or have I to ring for a female?’
As John went out of the room, his head moving from side to side, Matthew settled deep into the chair. Presently, thrusting his foot out towards the end of the log from where the resin was dripping on to the iron dog, he muttered between his teeth, ‘Trotter! Trotter!’
‘Well, he’s on his last legs I think, lass.’
‘Yes, it won’t be long now.’
‘Now, lass, you mustn’t grieve.’ Biddy put her hand on Tilly’s shoulder. ‘He’s an old man and by all accounts he’s enjoyed his life. All he seemed to want was his books, an’ he’s had them. And he’s been lucky to have you an’ all to see to him.’
‘I’ve been very lucky to have him, Biddy.’
‘Aye well, six and two three’s, if you look at it like that. And you’ve got a roof over your head for life if you want it. It was as little as he could do to leave it to you, not that I think it’s a fit settin’ for you but it’ll do in the meantime. I get a bit mad at times.’ Biddy went now and picked up the long black coat from a chair and as Tilly helped her into it she said, ‘Your place is over yonder, an’ your child’s place an’ all. Eeh!’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t make him out. He comes back from that pit, glar up to the eyes, lookin’ worse than my lot ever did. They say he goes into places where none of the others’ll venture. And yet he’s so bloody high-handed. The master never acted like he does: gentlemen take it as their right to have the whip hand but at times he speaks to you as if you were dirt ’neath his feet, then the next minute he goes outside and hobnobs with the lads, talks to them as if they were equals. One minute he’s playin’ the lord and master, the next it seems to me he doesn’t know his place. Now Master John, he’s a different kettle of fish altogether. He even tried to apologise for t’other one, said that in America they live differently. Well, I could understand it if he remained the same with everybody, but with the lasses and me he’s as snotty as a pollis . . . But I say, lass’ – she thrust her head towards Tilly – ‘what do you think of Master John an’ the miss he’s hooked on to?’
‘I think they’re both very lucky.’
‘Aye, an’ I think you’re right. I’ve only seen her once, that was from a distance, she looked bonny. She was in the yard lookin’ in the stables. He didn’t bring her into the house but, as Katie said, he likely didn’t want her to encounter Master Matthew ’cos that bloke’s got a thing against women. I’d like to bet he had an affair out there that went wrong.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder, Biddy.’
‘Oh, what am I keepin’ jabbering on about, you’ve got your hands full.’ She pinned on her hat now, wound the long woollen scarf around her neck, pulled on a matching pair of gloves, then said, ‘I’ll be off then, lass. Katie or Peg’ll look in this afternoon. You know, that’s funny’ – she turned from the door and stabbed her finger into Tilly’s chest – ‘he knows I come along, he’s seen our Arthur fetch me. He’s even passed us on the road on his horse. An’ twice or more Katie’s said that he’s watched her going down the drive. She was sure he followed her one time to see in which direction she went. Now, he knows we come here an’ he’s never said, “Stop.” Aw! he’s a funny fellow. Well, bye-bye, lass. You say the doctor’ll be along the day?’
‘Yes, Biddy; he promised to look in.’
‘Well, there’s nothing he can do, but it’s nice to know he takes such pains. He’s different to old Kemp. Bye-bye again, lass.’
‘Bye-bye, Biddy. Mind how you go. If Arthur isn’t at the crossroads you wait for him; don’t attempt to walk all the way.’
‘Aye, aye; don’t worry.’
When Biddy was lost to sight, Tilly shut the door on the icy wind and, going towards the clothes basket set near the fireplace, she bent down and took her son’s face between her palms and shook it gently, and he gurgled at her and grabbed at her wrist. He was in his fifth month and thriving. He was so bonny awake or asleep, he brought a thrill to her heart. She put a small linen sugar bag into his mouth and he sucked on one end while grabbing the other in his small fists.
She now went to the hob and stirred the pan of mutton broth that was simmering there. She didn’t feel like eating and it was no use putting any out for Mr Burgess, he hadn’t touched food for two days now, he no longer required it. She pulled the pan to the side, dusted her hands one against the other, then went down the kitchen and into the bedroom.
The old man was lying propped up against his pillows. He did not turn his head when she came into the room but, sensing her presence, his fingers moved, and when she took his hand he murmured, ‘Trotter. Dear Trotter.’
She put out her other hand and pulled up the chair close to the bed. She did not speak, and when he turned his eyes towards her and smiled at her she felt a constriction in her throat.
‘Time’s running out, my dear.’
She made no reply.
‘Been a very fortunate man. I . . . I must tell you something, Trotter.’
She waited, saying nothing; but when he told her in words scarcely above a whisper the bump in her throat expanded until she felt she would choke, for what he said was, ‘I have loved you, Trotter; like all the others I have loved you, but more like he did in so many different ways. When he died, his hands in yours, I thought, if only I could be so . . . so fortunate. There is no God, Trotter, it would be utterly childish to imagine there is, there is only thought and the power of thought, and my thought has arranged it so I get my wish.’
The last word was scarcely audible and she could no longer see the expression on his face for her eyes were so blinded with tears as soundlessly she cried, and brokenly she whispered, ‘Thank you for coming into my life.’
The parson’s wife had taught her to read and write, but she could never have imbued her with the knowledge that this old man had, for to her he had been the storehouse of all knowledge. There was no subject on which he couldn’t talk, yet he was so humble he considered himself ignorant. Once he had said to her, ‘Like Socrates, I can say I haven’t any knowledge to boast of but I am a little above other men because I am quite aware of my ignorance and I do not think that I know what I do not know, but what I do not know I make it my poor business to try and find out.’
She had been fortunate, she knew, in having been the companion of a gentleman for twelve years, yet it wasn’t he who had taught her to think. But he had taught her to love, and that was a different thing; he had taught her that the act of love wasn’t merely a physical thing, its pleasure being halved without the assistance of the mind. But it was Mr Burgess, this old man breathing his last here now, who had taught her how to use her mind. Right from the beginning he had warned her that once your mind took you below the surface of mundane things, you would never again know real peace because the mind was an adventure, it led you into strange places and was forever asking why, and as the world outside could not give you true answers, you were forever groping and searching through your spirit for the truth.
She remembered be
ing shocked when he had first said to her there was no such thing as a God. There were gods, all kinds of gods, and different men brought up in different spheres created these beings in accordance with the environment about them. As for Christianity, he likened it to a slave driver with a whip and this whip had many thongs called denominations and all made up of fear that had the power to thrust souls into everlasting flames, flames that would sear them for all eternity. Who, he had asked her, would not profess a belief in this particular God who, if he withheld his forgiveness of your sins, could cast you into this everlasting hell. Why! he had told her, had he not begun to think for himself he, too, would have believed in this God, for he did not relish pain, either in this world or the next. Such ideas had now ceased to shock her.
She still could not see him when she felt him lifting her hand to his cheek, and she leant forward, resting her other forearm on the bedside; and she remained like this until her arm became cramped.
It was sometime later when her tears had stopped and her vision had cleared that she gently withdrew her fingers from his hand and, bending over him, she put her lips to his brow although she knew he could no longer feel them.
Dear, dear, Mr Burgess. Dear, dear friend. The eyes that were looking straight into hers were smiling at her. Slowly she closed the lids and when she went to cross his arms on his breast she hesitated, as in death so in life. He did not believe in any cross and wherever his spirit was winging to now it would certainly not be to a hell. If there was a God, and she, too, had her doubts, oh yes, grave doubts, but should there be such a being He would at this moment be taking into account all the good that this man had done in his life. True, she had only known him for fifteen years but during that time his one aim in life had been to help people, help them to help themselves. He had certainly helped her to help herself. His going would leave a void in her life that would never be filled.
But as she drew the sheet up over his face she experienced for a fleeting moment a strange sense of joy. She imagined that they were there, both of them, talking and laughing as they had done so often, Mark and the tutor of his children.
She would cry no more for his passing.
Two
It was a very small cortège that attended the funeral. Arthur, Jimmy, and Bill Drew and Fred Leyburn carried out the oak coffin, and when they had placed it in the hearse and the driver had urged his horse a few yards along the lane, Matthew and John Sopwith entered their coach; behind that, the four men got into the second coach, if it could be called such. It was merely a covered vehicle used mostly for carrying stores from the town and occasionally pigs’ carcasses and vegetables to it. But today it was very welcome to the men for the wind was cutting and the sky was low, its leaden colour portending snow.
Biddy, standing beside Tilly at the window, said softly, ‘He’ll be lucky if he’s underground afore the snow comes, I can smell it in the air. Come on, lass; no use standing here any longer.’
Biddy turned from the window but Tilly remained looking out on to the narrow empty lane. The joyous feeling she had experienced at the moment of his passing had not remained with her; there was on her now a deep sadness. She felt alone again, as she had done at Mark’s passing. Biddy’s voice came to her from the fireplace, saying, ‘I didn’t expect his lordship to show up. Is that the first time you’ve seen him?’
For a moment Tilly didn’t answer, then as if having just heard the question, she said, ‘Yes, yes, the first time,’ and she recalled now the surprise, even shock, she had experienced when not a half hour ago he had stood in this room facing her. There was nothing remaining of the Matthew sheremembered; the boy, the youth, the young man, had always carried an air of arrogance, but this had deepened, widened, as his body had done. She had imagined him to be taller; perhaps it was his growing so broad that had taken off his height. His shoulders were thick, seeming to strain the Melton cloth of his greatcoat. His face was broad, his eyes more deep set, and his hair, the hair that had been golden and inclined to curl, now looked like a thick unruly matt. It was cut in the most odd way; she had understood Biddy’s description of his hair when she had likened it to that cut under a pot-pie basin, for his neck was bare of hair, and none of it she imagined was more than two inches long. She could not believe that he was only twenty-five, he could be taken for a man of thirty-five; and his voice and manner gave the impression of maturity, hard maturity.
He had stared at her unblinking for almost a minute before speaking, and then it wasn’t to give her any kind of greeting, he simply said, ‘We all have to die sometime, and the old fellow had a good run for his money.’
His words, so unfeeling, so out of place, brought sweeping through her that rare feeling of anger, and it was as much as she could do not to turn on him, even order him out. John, on the other hand, had been courtesy and kindness itself and his stammer, bringing with it the balm of oil, said, ‘I’ll m . . . m . . . miss the old man, Tr . . . Tr . . . Trotter, b . . . b . . . but not as much as y . . . y . . . you will; and he w . . . was very f . . . f . . . fond of you.’
She had not answered John, she had not opened her lips while the two men were in the room; not even when the men were carrying the coffin out did she speak, nor yet show any emotion, for tears shed in front of Master Matthew would, she felt, have certainly evoked some derisive or sarcastic remark.
She understood fully now Biddy’s inability to get on with her new master; but then, of course, hadn’t he always been difficult right from the beginning? And Biddy had expressed a hope that now she might return to the Manor. Never! Not under him.
She went towards the table. Biddy had covered it with a white cloth and set out the tea things.
‘We’ll have a cup of tea, lass,’ she said, ‘an’ a bite. There’ll be nobody coming back here. The lads will go straight to the kitchen, Katie will have set a meal for them. But anyway I’ll be back meself by then to see to things. Sit down and get off your feet, it’s over.’
After they had been sitting at the table in silence for some minutes, Biddy asked quietly, ‘What are you going to do with yourself, lass? Stay here?’
‘Yes, Biddy. I can’t see me doing anything else, not until he’s a little older.’ She turned and glanced at the child and he laughed at her and made a gurgle in his throat. Then she added, ‘That’s if they’ll let me be.’
‘Oh, they’ll let you be all right. That’s one thing I don’t think he’d stand for. If not him, then Master John wouldn’t. I can see that lad down in the village with a horsewhip if you had any trouble from that quarter again.’
‘As long as there’s a McGrath in the village I’ll always have trouble, Biddy.’
‘Well, there’s not many of ’em left; there’s only her, and the son.’
‘And his children.’
‘Aye yes; and his children. Bairns are worse than grown-ups sometimes. Anyway, don’t worry about that.’
There was a silence until Biddy proffered the question, and tentatively, ‘What would you say if he asked you to come back?’
‘He won’t, and I wouldn’t.’ Tilly’s voice was sharp. ‘So don’t bank on that, Biddy.’
‘No, you’re right, lass, he won’t and you wouldn’t. But anyway, this is your own house now and you’ve got your own income. An’ if you’re gettin’ rid of some of these books you could make it nice.’
Tilly nodded, then said, ‘I’ll make it nice but I won’t get rid of his books; I’ll put them up at the end of the loft.’
‘He never came for those fifty that he was left, Tilly.’
‘No.’
‘I suppose they’re yours now, as he’s left everything to you.’
‘It could be said they are, but I’ll not claim them.’
Biddy gave a huh! before she said, ‘He’d likely make a court case of it if you tried, he’s that kind of a young bugger. You know, it’s hard to believe he’s still a young fella; he looks older than my Henry and he’s almost kicking forty.’
Tilly made
no comment on this, but she wondered in an aside how life in America could change anyone so much, externally that is, for inwardly she sensed he was the same as he had always been, arrogant, bumptious, spoilt. He had to be top-dog, master of all he surveyed or else somebody suffered.
In the beginning it was the nursemaids, then it would have been her, but he didn’t get off with it; the boarding school seemed to have tamed him for a time but only for a time, for the young man who had visited his father on rare occasions had been what her granny would have called an upstart. And yet this description would not have been accurate because he had not risen from nothing, he had been born into the class. There was a difference.
A week had passed; snow had come and disappeared again leaving the roads slushy. But if this wind kept up and the temperature kept dropping as it had done since noon, there’d be a hard frost tonight and tomorrow the roads would be like glass.
Having told herself that the best antidote against loneliness was work, she had for the past days carried the maxim to the extreme, for from dawn till dusk, stopping only to feed the child and tend to a light meal for herself, she had carried the hundreds of books up the steep ladder to the room above; then crawled to where the eaves met the floor and began the stacking of what she imagined would be close on two thousand volumes.
She had decided she would still keep the end of the loft as her bedroom and clear the main room downstairs entirely of books and turn what had been Mr Burgess’ bedroom into a study. With this in mind she had sorted out the books she intended to keep downstairs and which she told herself she would peruse during the coming months, for once the cottage was straight there would only be the child to see to, and she must occupy her spare time with some undertaking. And what better than reading and learning. Mr Burgess would be happy to think that she was going to further his coaching. Yet even as she planned her future she experienced a sense of dismay that such activity practised without someone to share it, to discuss her progress with, would become stale.
Tilly Trotter Wed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 10