by Joan Aiken
‘I shall ask Bernardina to give this to you when you are grown, as I do not think I shall last much longer, and death may take me suddenly when it comes. Dear boy, when you are a man, I think you should make an attempt to be reconciled to my family. Perhaps my letters to my father miscarried – or perhaps he will have died by this time and Charles come into the title. Charles is a good fellow and he would take you in – he always had a kind spot for me. He is clever – not like me – all I wanted was horses and music and fighting. And your mother! I shall soon be with her.
‘So, Felix, when you are grown, go to England, go to the town of Bath, take the road that runs westwards to Bristol past the Rose and Ring-Dove Inn, and that will lead you to Asshe. And there, I am sure, for my sake, the family will welcome you.
‘My dear boy, I have been a simple fellow all my life, but you, with your mother’s spirit in you, have the makings of something more, I am sure. Do well – live bravely – choose the best things – be happy. And you will spare a kindly feeling for your loving
Father.’
Mr Burden’s voice shook as he read aloud the last lines. I looked up with blurred eyes, and saw that his face was working. Silently, he handed me back the pages, and I bent my head over them.
Now that I knew what the contents were, I was just about able to make out a word here and a word there.
Mr Burden presently said,
‘Now do you understand why he did not tell you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ said I slowly. ‘He felt unable. But oh, I wish he had not! It is as if he had been playacting to me, all my life.’
Mr Burden reflected a while, then said,
‘Try to think of it in this way. – You speak English very well. But perhaps you are more fluent in Spanish? Perhaps that is the language in which you do your thinking?’
I did some thinking, found that it was in Spanish, and said yes.
‘And yet,’ he said, ‘you are able to hold a conversation with me in English – luckily for me! Since, I blush to confess it, I have no Spanish.’
‘Yes, sir – but what has that to say to anything?’
‘Your father made use of the only language in which he could speak to you – that of Bob the groom? Do you see? But because a person is speaking in a tongue not his own, that does not make what he expresses in it any less true, or less loving.’
I thought I understood a little of what he meant, and said that I would try to think of it in that way. But I still felt a sore sadness within me, which would take long to heal.
Then I asked,
‘Senor Burden?’
‘Yes, my dear boy?’
‘How did you know that I would be coming to the Rose and Ring-Dove? And giving the name of Brooke?’
‘Because the priest at Santillana wrote of your intentions to the Conde your grandfather. And he wrote to us.’
‘I see.’ I felt somewhat awestruck at the workings of providence which, it seemed, playing back and forth like a shuttle on some great loom, had woven this web between England and Spain without my being in the least aware of it.
What could be the purpose of this mysterious pattern? And what part had I in it?
Just then a clock somewhere overhead chimed the hour of three, and Mr Burden, glancing at me kindly, said,
‘You have much to think about, my dear boy. And I, too, have work to which I must apply myself. I am writing a history of the Carisbroke family. – I began it for your grandfather but since he, poor man, is no longer able to profit by it – since he has given up reading – it will be my pleasure to finish it for you.’
I thanked Mr Burden for his thought, and looked about me rather dismally, wondering what to do with myself in the house of Asshe.
Here I am, I thought, at the end of my journey, and what do I find? An angry old madman, a house even more silent than Villaverde, an estate that is conducted like a merchant’s counting-house by a group of lawyers and business-men; I am neither wanted nor needed. Asshe, indeed!
But then I thought: I had better wait patiently and see what God had in store for me.
Mr Burden, as if divining my thought, said,
‘Believing that you might like to see over some of your estate, I told Jem Merriwether to bring round one of your grandfather’s riding-horses and escort you wherever you care to go. Your grandfather (who, like your father, was a famous horseman) still has some fine mounts in his stable. – And I know that Jem has a longing to talk to you of your father.’
We returned to the main entrance where, sure enough, Jem awaited me, riding a black mare and leading a most beautiful fiery little chestnut, not large, but so graceful and spirited that he looked ready to bound clean up the great flight of steps, did Jem let go of his bridle.
So I thanked Mr Burden, and rode off with Jem across the park.
‘Eh, I thowt as much!’ said Jem after a few minutes. ‘Ye’ve your father’s seat an’ your granfer’s hands – proper owd wizard ‘e be in the saddle to this day, though ‘e be flown in ‘is wits. Now what manner o’ mounts would you have had in Spain, then, Master Felix?’
In no time I was telling him all about Villaverde, and he was telling me all about my father’s pranks when a boy; and soon my soreness was somewhat healed. For I saw, firstly, that Jem had loved my father and grieved for him when he left – and now, too, I knew where my father had learned the ‘language’ in which he had spoken to me in my childhood. It was from Jem! And perhaps, I pondered, even as I told Jem about the bad-tempered mule, and how she had saved me from the morass (’Arr!’ said Jem. ‘Wunnderful clever beasts, mules be!’) – perhaps it was because my father had received more love from Jem than from the Duke, his own father, that he had chosen Jem’s language in which to speak to me.
We rode through great russet drifts of dead leaves in the beech-woods, and along by the river, and then up, along a grassy crest of hill from which Jem said, we could see five counties, and the hills of Wales in the distance, across the Bristol Channel.
‘I’ll be putting up some jumps for ’ee tomorrow, Master Felix,’ said Jem hopefully, ‘and then we’ll have ’ee out hunting, come Christmas!’
His face fell when I told him that I was being sent to school in Bath, but he sighed and said,
‘True ‘tis, there bain’t enough young company for ’ee here. Still, ‘ee’ll be home for the holidays, I dessay.’
I said I hoped so, and thanked Jem for the ride.
Back at the house I found my way to my chamber, where Watchett had laid out more clothes for me, and then I dined with Mr Burden and the rest of my trustees – Dr Larpent, Mr Dinsdale, and Mr Tweedy had retired to their respective homes. During the meal Mr Burden told me something of the history of the Carisbroke family – how they had come to England with the Normans in 1066, and how they had been granted this manor by the Norman king, William the First, and how, since the house owned by the previous Saxon lord was but a smoking ruin, it had by its new owner been given the name of Asshe. And he had married the Saxon land-holder’s daughter, whose name was Aelfrida, and from that day on, four out of six in the Carisbroke family had her small stature, flax-fair hair, and bright blue eyes.
Indeed there were many portraits of them hanging round the walls, as I soon saw – short, fair-haired, blue-eyed men astride of their horses or with hawks on their wrists – a great number of them as like to my grandfather as one pea is to another.
And like to myself also.
Is it not strange then, that, remembering how alien I had felt to the portraits of the lanky, black-haired Cabezadas, I should now feel so homesick for Villaverde?
After the meal I asked Mr Burden if I should visit my grandfather again for a while, and he said yes. But the Duke was playing with a box full of shoe-buckles, sorting them and stirring them, picking out one, looking at it, and putting it back. He glanced up at me and said irritably,
‘Go away, boy, go away! I have never cared to have boys about me – tiresome, noisy, fidgety, ill-conditioned p
ests, all of them!’ And back he went to his buckles.
Mr Burden told me softly, as we walked away, that my grandmother had died shortly after the birth of my father so that he, like myself, had never known his mother. And my grandfather, grieving for his wife, had shown scant patience with the younger of his two sons, leaving him mostly to the care of his tutors.
After I had cheered myself with a little music I went up to bed, for I was both weary and sad. But yet I could not sleep. I lay tossing in my great bed, in my great chamber, hearing nothing, for there was a solemn hush in and around the great house, as though all life had come to a stop there.
How shall I endure it? I thought.
And to God I said, Why did You bring me here? What is to happen now? Please help me to understand all this for I am very unhappy.
I remembered a little song that Sam would sometimes sing laughingly,
Ay, Dios de mi alma!
Saqueisme de aqui!
Ay! que Inglaterra
Ya no es para mi!*
* Ah, God of my soul
Take me here
Alas, England
Is not the country for me!
12
In which I am sent to School, and come to a Decision
I spent a week at Asshe, until my trustees considered me suitably equipped to go to school. Mr Burden escorted me into Bath several times, to buy clothes and schoolbooks, and furnishings for my room, and I was as much taken with this town at a close view as I had been by a distant one.
The streets were as lively as those of Oviedo – but very different – and there was such a variety of shops, and such remarkable things to be seen in the shop windows! In a bootmaker’s window I saw a pair of boots immersed in a glass bowl of water, so as to show that the boots could not be harmed by wet; an apothecary’s window had a collection of worms from human intestines, curiously bottled, testifying that patients had been relieved of these worms by the medicines sold within. There were plaster busts, painted to the life, displaying the newest forms of wigs (though most of the younger Englishmen do not wear wigs preferring their own hair); alabaster lamps, fine jewels, beautiful books, and birds in cages, reminding me of my dear Assistenta.
Since in some parts of the town there is no carriage road, sedan chairs are used instead of carriages; these are made of leather, and are carried by two chairmen who wear large coats of dark blue. I would not wish to be carried in such a chair! for I observed that when it rained, the chairmen all come out, hoping for custom, and the chairs become wholly soaked with wet, outside and in.
Bath has many dogs, and Mr Burden informed me that many of them are turnspit-dogs; they are long-backed and short-legged; they are set in a wheel, and a hot coal with them, so the poor things cannot stand still without burning their feet; so they are kept upon the gallop until the roast is done, which may be two hours or three. This seemed very cruel to me. Mr Burden told me that one day, when all the dogs had followed their masters to church, the preacher spoke on a text from the book of Ezekiel regarding a chariot. When he said the word wheel, all the dogs in the church pricked up their ears in fright; at the second use of the word they uttered a doleful howl; and at the third repetition every one of them scampered out of the church with their tails between their legs.
Mr Burden was as kind as possible to me during the week, and so was Jem, who, as he had promised, built brushwood jumps for me in the park and encouraged me to leap my grandfather’s horses over them, higher and higher. My rides with Jem were the pleasantest part of my life at Asshe.
Also I explored the great empty house with its pictures and its statues and its handsome furnishings. All was so neat, orderly, and silent that I found myself longing for the shrill voices of my great-aunts, with their clicking fans and rosaries.
I told Mr Burden the tale of my adventures on the way from Spain, and he, I suppose, told some part to the other trustees. For on the second or third day Mr ffanshawe, deciding, perhaps, that a boy who has survived such adventures could not be wholly stupid, began to explain to me about the workings of the estate, how the land was administered; how the tenants held their lands and paid their rents, and from what sources, tin mines, slate mines, timber, grain, and cattle, my grandfather’s revenues were drawn.
Then my clothes were sent home from the tailors – black short jackets and long trousers, not unlike those I had worn in Spain – and I was pronounced ready for school. Watchett packed my box with the new clothes and Lynton made me up a box of provisions – currant wine, almond cakes, biscuits, fruit, and a great ham – ‘For,’ said he, ‘we all know as how they starves young gen’lemen in them places!’ And, after consulting Mr Burden, I helped myself to a number of books from the library.
‘I should dearly like it,’ said Mr Burden, ‘if you would allow me to borrow your father’s book, for I long to read it again – I will preserve it for you most carefully.’
Of course I said yes, and he recommended to me several novels, which, he said, he knew my father would have enjoyed and he thought I might also: The Monk, and The Black Veil, and The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Northanger Abbey.
Thus equipped, and with the horse that had been purchased for me led behind the chaise, I was driven into Bath on a dark rainy evening, and delivered to the Master of the Pulteney Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen and the Nobility, which establishment occupied a large blackened mansion at the foot of Queen Square,* which is one of the handsomest squares in Bath, and full of houses as large as palaces.
The master, a Mr Alleyn, a lean, grey, gloomy man like a melted candle, received me civilly enough. I said a sad goodbye to Jem, who brought in my box, and then led my horse away to be stabled in a mews nearby. Then Mr Alleyn, having shown me my chamber, which was very tiny and right under the leads, since all the best ones had already been allotted (but with a pleasant view of the square), undertook to introduce me to the rest of the boys, who, at this time of day, were engaged in preparation of their tasks for the morrow.
He led me downstairs again to a large, bare room on the ground floor, from which, even before the door was opened, I could hear the most amazing noise, like all the parrots in Africa.
‘That is the boys reciting their lessons,’ said Mr Alleyn with his thin smile.
He opened the door and called out, ‘Here is your new classmate, young gentlemen – Lord St Winnow. You may be excused the last ten minutes of preparation, in order to become acquainted.’
Then he left me with them.
Fifty pairs of eyes were fixed on me. Some of the boys, all seated at rows of desks, were smaller than I; most were my own size or bigger.
Addressing the boy nearest me, who had a pale spotty face, brown eyes, and a good deal of ink on his waistcoat, I said, ‘How do you do?’ that, Mr Burden having informed me, being the correct English way in which to begin an acquaintance.
‘Hello!’ cried a dozen voices. “Tain’t for you to speak, Johnny New! New bods don’t speak here until they are spoken to.’
And a taller boy, who looked about fourteen, stepped up to me and roughly unbuttoned my jacket, ripping off a button in the process.
‘New bods ain’t allowed to go around with their jackets frogged up,’ he said, scrumpling my hair and giving my right ear a tweak at the same time.
I was so amazed at this treatment that without pause for reflection I shot out my fist and knocked him flying. He fell to the floor, taking a desk with him, and the ink poured all over his head. From the way he yelled, you would have thought he had been cut in half. A general clamour of horror went up from the other boys; in the middle of which, the door shot open again, and Mr Alleyn hastened back.
‘Boys, boys! Too much noise! What is going on?’ said he.
‘Oh, sir, the new boy has knocked down Fitzwarren!’
‘What?’ said Mr Alleyn, turning on me a most grave and reproving face. ‘What is this, Lord St Winnow? Not two minutes in the school and already you are at fisticuffs? This is a bad beginning, indeed! I un
derstand that you have just come from Spain, but I would have you understand from the start that we will not tolerate uncivilised behaviour here! No fights are allowed in this school. The penalty for infringement of this rule is to miss a meal, and that, I fear, must be your fate, St Winnow! No supper for you tonight. Now, boys, time for prayers!’
The desks which filled the great room were pushed to one side and the boys stood in rows while Mr Alleyn recited some prayers in such a rapid gabble that I could not understand him at all.
Meanwhile I was subjected to various minor annoyances – I was pinched, tweaked, jostled, my hair was pulled, my ankles were kicked, as the boys moved past me to their places. This, it seemed, was their way of welcoming a newcomer.
After the prayers, supper was served in the same room: pieces of oatcake, broken up, and a mug of coffee for each boy. I, being debarred from this, asked if I might go to my room and unpack my belongings, but Mr Alleyn said,
‘No, St Winnow. Boys are not allowed in their bedrooms during the daytime. You may stay here and continue to make the acquaintance of your classmates.’
This process consisted of their all firing questions at me, which I answered as best I could.
‘Where’s your father, new bod? Where’s your mamma?’ I said they were both dead.
‘What were you a-doing in Spain?’
But my answer to this was drowned by the jeering voice of a pasty-faced boy with jam on his collar, who called out;
Winnie Winnow is a Dago
Pipes his eye and lives on sago!
which verse won instant popularity and was taken up by the whole roomful of boys in a loud chorus.
‘Winnie Winnow!’ they shouted. ‘Winnie Winnow! By gob, he’s a frog! He eats fried worms! He only washes once a year!’ and other stupidities.
I tried to ignore their insults, as I was not allowed to fight them; stuck my hands in my pockets, and thought of the far worse dangers which I had come through: the terrible people in the mountain village, the threats of the gente de reputacion and the alcalde; the shipwreck and the Comprachicos. But the prickling annoyances of those boys were tiresome beyond belief, and hard to disregard. They shouted, ‘Take your hands out of your pockets, new bod! New bods ain’t permitted to put their hands in their pockets! Ya, boo, Johnny Dago!’ and so on, until I was nearly mad with irritation, and heartily relieved when an under-master, or usher, named Mr Crackenthorpe, came into the room and rang a bell which meant that it was time for bed.