by Val Wood
Curiously she delved further into the chest, Mr Trott was still whistling and rattling in fine form and she knew that he would sleep for hours. There was another blanket stretched across the length of the chest and she lifted a corner. Beneath it were two parcels wrapped in calico, she opened them and inside were waxed bags. She pulled one out and sniffed it. ’Baccy, she grinned. I knew it. ’Old lass has got a bit o’ business going. She pulled up the other one. The smell wasn’t so strong so she tore a corner with her finger nail and put her nose to it. Tea! She breathed in the aroma and sat back on her heels.
Her back was to the door and she didn’t hear it being pushed further open, but she saw the shaft of light against the floor and then the shadow as Toby stepped into the room.
‘What are you doing? I didn’t think you’d be back yet.’ He stood over her as she quickly pushed back the bags and straightened the blanket on top of them.
‘Nowt,’ she stammered. ‘I’m just putting Mrs Trott’s blanket away. She forgot,’ she added lamely, ‘I’m just tidying up for her.’
He put his hand over his mouth to hide a laugh and glanced towards the bed. ‘You? Tidying up? Come outside.’ He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the door.
‘Now tell me what you were really doing, Annie? You were searching in Mrs Trott’s chest. What for?’
She hung her head and scuffed the ground with the toe of her boot. He didn’t sound cross, just stern and disappointed.
‘When we went to some of ’customers, they asked if Mrs Trott had sent them owt, I told them I’d bring what they wanted next time. Only I wasn’t sure what it was they were after, well, only partly sure – I guessed it was tea and ’baccy.’ She lifted her head defiantly and stared him in the face. ‘So I thought I’d look. I knew she put things in ’chest, cos I’ve seen her do it. One night when she thought I was asleep, I saw her. It was ’night she opened ’henhouse door for thee.’
He gasped and she knew that now they were on an equal footing.
‘I’ll not tell on thee, Toby. Tha’s been good to me and I’ll not forget it, but if I’m to work for thee, I want to know ’risks.’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, Annie. The selling that you and Robin do, has nothing to do with the other. Mrs Trott must have been selling for herself, and I didn’t realize – no really,’ he added as Annie pulled a cynical face.
‘I wondered why she was so against you going in her place.’ He leaned against the wall and stared blankly into space. ‘She’s helped me, I have to say, with hiding stuff, and I’ve paid her in kind, with tea and tobacco, or linen. I thought she was keeping it for herself. She’s a hoarder, she always was. And all the time she’s been taking such a tremendous risk.’ He put his hands to his head. ‘If she’d been stopped and searched!’
Annie laughed. ‘Nobody would have stopped her. She’d have given ’em ’sharp end of her tongue if they had. But what about thee? What about risk thy’s taking?’
He grinned, his eyes merry. ‘I told you before Annie. Life can be fun. It’s also exciting. I get a tremendous thrill inside when I’m pitting myself against authority, when the chase is on and it’s them or me. And,’ he said in mitigation. ‘I’m not hurting anybody, I’m helping those who can’t help themselves. These are hard times and the people can’t afford to pay taxes on tea and tobacco; it’s only his Majesty and his Government who are losing out, and they can well afford it.’
There was silence between them, then he reached towards her and pulled her towards him. She gasped as he put his arms around her and spoke with his mouth against hers.
‘So. What do I do about you, Annie? You could tell the authorities about me and collect a reward. Or you can join me and live dangerously.’
She struggled free from his arms and pushed him away. ‘I telled thee afore. I’m finished wi’ men, so don’t try owt.’ She flushed, his arms had felt strong and safe. ‘Tha said afore we could be like brother and sister.’
‘And so we can, Annie.’ His face told her he was teasing. ‘I was only giving you a brotherly hug.’
‘And – and besides, I heard that tha was finished wi’ all that.’
‘Finished with all what?’ He looked puzzled.
‘Women and that.’ She felt embarrassed. She had never come across a man who was ever finished with it.
‘Has someone been saying something?’ He looked angry.
‘Somebody said that tha’d been crossed in love, and had vowed to be er—,’ she searched for the word.
‘What?’ His voice was sharp, devoid of humour and she knew that here was a different man.
‘Celibate,’ she whispered. ‘Though I’d never believe that of any man, none that I’ve ever known anyroad.’
They both turned as they heard the creak of the paddock gate and Mrs Trott came into view. As she tussled with the catch and her umbrella, Toby took Annie’s hand and hurried her around the corner of the house.
‘Quickly. Don’t let her see us.’ They ran up the slope at the back of the house and into the shelter of a belt of trees.
‘She’ll come looking for me. I haven’t done ’vegetables like she said.’
He peered out from behind a bush. ‘She won’t come up here; and anyway it will give her some satisfaction if she has to do the work herself. She told me that you wouldn’t be any good in the house.’
Annie bridled and then laughed. ‘She’d be right.’ She thought that his good humour had returned, but she was mistaken for he pulled her down onto the ground beside him and pinned her down.
‘Now, tell me what’s been said,’ he demanded. His eyes were cold and bore into her.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Toby.’ She started to cry. ‘I should have known tha’s just like all ’rest. And I’d thought tha was a proper gentleman – all this talk of being brother and sister,’ she sniffed away her tears as he still had hold of her hands. ‘And it means nowt.’
He let go of her hands and taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he gently wiped her face. ‘Have you been ill-used, Annie? Your husband?’
‘Was a bully to me and me bairns, and I wished him dead many times, God forgive me.’
‘And it’s him who’s searching for you, not someone else’s husband, as you said?’
She sat up and wiped her nose on her skirt and shook her head. ‘Nay, he’s dead all right. He died at sea. It’s somebody else who’s chasing me, but I daren’t tell thee who.’ The tears started to fall again as she thought of the punishment due to her. ‘I’ve to live wi’ this for ’rest of me days.’
‘I didn’t mean to frighten you, Annie. I’m sorry. It’s just that there have been so many rumours about me. Mostly I don’t mind for it stops people wondering what I really do. But sometimes I get angry at the insinuations.’
Annie looked at him and saw a childlike, lonely sorrow on his face and impulsively she leant forward and kissed his cheek. ‘Let’s be friends, thee and me, Toby. I think I can trust thee and I’ll do nowt to harm thee, if tha wants to confide.’
They sat within the shelter of the trees and smiled as they heard the sound of Mrs Trott calling Annie’s name. Ahead of them down the slope and beyond the cottage was the glint of the river, dark today and murky.
‘I fell in love,’ he began. ‘There was a young lady visiting a family near to our home. I was introduced to her and we fell in love. Foolishly, I told my father that I wanted to marry her when I came of age. He laughed at me and said that I’d better get some experience first. I was sixteen; my brother who was two years older had already left home, and I had no-one that I could turn to for advice. My father had always had women, cheap women, and even so-called ladies; they used to visit him at our home or he would go to theirs. He was quite blatant about his excesses: I suspect that my mother had been forced into marriage with him, she could never have chosen him of her own free will.’
He shuddered and Annie looked at him curiously. She had always imagined that people of class, with money
and nice houses, lived happy lives; that only those in poverty, like herself and of her ilk, had suffered abject misery. Yet Toby, in spite of his merry manner, had had an unhappy childhood and an unloving father.
‘My father had a regular woman visitor called Hetty and of all the women she was quite pleasant towards me. I decided to confide in her. I told her of the young lady and my feelings towards her, and what my father had said. She said that she would make plans for me, that I should leave it all to her.’
He looked so unhappy that Annie took hold of his hand and kept it clasped in her own while he went on talking.
‘She took me to York. We went in my father’s carriage so he was obviously a party to it, and she introduced me to a woman who kept a house there. It was a fine house, small, yet clean and well furnished, and there by the charms of a particular young woman I came into manhood.’
Annie stifled a yawn. What was he coming to. Wasn’t that what all men did, one way or another?
‘She gave me the clap.’
He shook his hand away from Annie as if he might contaminate her, and glared at her, defying her to judge him.
She nodded. ‘Aye, she would.’
He stared at her. ‘Aren’t you horrified? Isn’t it so degrading?’
‘Tha’d get over it. Everybody gets it at some time, unless tha’s a monk and I wouldn’t put it past them to get a dose now and then.’
He got to his feet and looked down at her. ‘Don’t you understand Annie? I was infected with this terrible disease, and my father and Hetty laughed. They thought it was a huge joke that it should happen on my first encounter with a woman. But what was worse, was that they told the father of the lady I loved. He too thought it was a great joke, until he heard that I had planned to marry his daughter, and then that was a different matter entirely. He said that if I was such a dissipated rake at sixteen, then there was no hope for me and he banned me from seeing her.’
‘Oh, that was daft. Tha’d have got over it eventually, she probably wouldn’t have caught it from thee.’
She knew that was true. Her husband had got it from some whore, but he hadn’t passed it on to her. But then, she’d managed to get him so drunk every night until he went back to sea, that he didn’t come near her.
Toby sat down and put his head in his hands. ‘I loved her so much. Her father told her why he wouldn’t let me marry her and she was repulsed by the thought of it and said that she would never marry me anyway, even if her father said that she could. I vowed then that I’d never touch a woman again, never in my life.’
What a lot of fuss about nowt, Annie mused. It seems a waste though, a handsome man like Toby. I suppose that’s what folks might call principles. Principles. She turned the word over in her mind. She liked the sound of it. She didn’t think that she had ever had any; she shook her head as she pondered. Nay, not me, principles are not for ’likes of me.
Toby had begun talking again. ‘So you see, Annie. This is why I play a dangerous game.’ His eyes glittered. ‘I revel in defying authority. I pay back society for the way I’ve been treated. And one day,’ he said bitterly. ‘I’ll get even with my father.’
‘Tha might get found out. What if ’military catch thee?’ She told him of her meeting with the soldiers.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve nothing to lose but my life, and no one who would care.’
Shocked, she said, ‘I’d care, and ’Trotts ’d care, and what about thy brother?’
‘Ah, my brother. Yes, you must meet my brother, Annie. Are you with me? Will you join me in this mad game? Will you put some excitement into your dull life?’
He was merry again, she thought. It was as if he had locked away all the cares that had previously troubled him. As if he had not even spoken about them. Perhaps she should do the same.
‘Aye, Toby. Happen I will. Like thee I’ve nowt to lose.’
8
When Toby called the next day and told Mrs Trott that Annie was to join the team she could barely keep her anger under control. She’s fair spitting, Annie thought as she watched her wrinkled neck and then her face turn scarlet.
‘’Rest of ’team’ll not be happy about it. We know nowt about her. She could be spying on us and then we’ll be done for.’
‘What rubbish. And anyway,’ Toby’s voice rose and he stared long and hard at Mrs Trott. ‘I run this team and I make the decisions. If anyone doesn’t like what I choose to do, then they don’t have to stay.’
Mrs Trott squirmed and spluttered but Toby stood his ground. ‘We need someone else, you know that. We need someone to watch the river. It’s too cold for you to be doing it now that winter is coming.’
He patted her arm and said in a gentler tone. ‘I’m thinking of you, Mrs Trott. You should be tucked up in your bed at night, not wandering along the river-bank.’
She thinks of him as hers. Annie watched as Mrs Trott had a change of mood and fussed over Toby, cutting up bread for him and slicing cheese. He’s like a son she never had. That’s why she doesn’t like me. She’s jealous. She thinks I’m going to take him away from her.
‘Who’s ’rest of ’team?’ Annie asked and unbidden helped herself to cheese, whilst Mrs Trott glared at her. ‘I thought it was just thee and Robin and Mr and Mrs Trott.’ And whoever it was with thee by ’henhouse, she mused, and Mrs Trott doesn’t know yet what I saw there.
‘No!’ A harsh whispered duet came from Toby and Mrs Trott.
‘Mr Trott knows nowt, and don’t thee dare tell him.’ The old woman pushed her face close to Annie’s. ‘He knows nowt. Does tha hear?’
Annie backed away. ‘I hear thee. I hear thee. And Robin?’ She turned to Toby.
‘He knows nothing. He simply sells my legitimate goods. He’s a good cover for me. It gives me a reason for travelling the countryside, to visit my customers. But I wouldn’t want to involve the lad. The rest of the team? Well, you might meet them, and then again you might not.’
He leaned his elbows on the table and looked into Annie’s eyes. ‘We don’t go in for names. Some of the men wouldn’t be happy to give them, though I suspect that they all know each other, but under cover of darkness they make believe that they don’t. This is a dangerous game, Annie, we won’t pretend that it’s otherwise. If the revenue men get wind of a run taking place we have to watch our backs, and if they bring in the military, then we’re doubly careful, for they’re armed. But,’ he said cheerfully as he rose to leave, ‘we’re lucky along this river, there are numerous creeks that they can’t reach and tall reeds to hide us, and we’ve had Lady Luck on our side up to now.’
He said he would collect Annie later that evening. ‘Henry’s at work tonight, isn’t he?’ he asked.
Mrs Trott nodded. ‘Aye. He’ll not be around to notice she’s not here.’
After Toby had left, Annie did her best to ingratiate herself with Mrs Trott. She fetched in wood and drew water, and then swept and washed the floor of the cottage while Mrs Trott sat outside on a stool and sewed a piece of linen.
‘I was never any good at sewing.’ Annie sat down on the doorstep when she’d finished. ‘Me ma never learned me.’
‘Hah. It seems to me tha ma learned thee nowt.’ Mrs Trott smiled complacently. ‘I had a good teacher. ’Best ever.’ She rested her sewing on her knee and gazed out towards the river. She didn’t speak for sometime and Annie peered towards her, wondering if she had fallen asleep.
‘Aye, she was a good teacher, in spite of her being so young. She was not much more’n a bairn when I met her. Master Toby’s mother, I’m talking about.’ She turned towards Annie, speaking slowly and carefully; as if I’m slow in ’head, Annie thought.
‘Aye. I guessed that’s who tha meant. Tha was fond of her, I can tell.’
The old woman nodded. ‘I was onny kitchen maid to begin with, but mistress took a fancy to me.’ She gave a cackling laugh, ‘and she would have me upstairs wi’ her. Her mother and father weren’t too pleased I can tell thee, but she could get anything she
wanted from them. She was that sweet and pretty, they just ate out of her hand. She told them she’d teach me, and she did. I learnt to read and write, and I can talk proper. I haven’t forgotten.’
She stared at Annie and her voice took on a lighter, haughtier tone. ‘I didn’t say thee and thine, but you and yours, and I learned how to serve tea and dress her hair. She was such a lovely lady and when she married, I went with her and helped her with her babbies.’
Mrs Trott rubbed her eyes and sighed and picked up her sewing. ‘Still, all that’s done wi’ now.’
‘But tha’s lucky. Tha’s found Master Toby again, and he’s fond of thee, and tha’s got Mr Trott. Tha’s luckier then me who’s got nobody.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘And I made a promise.’ Annie crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘When me husband died I vowed I’d never know another man.’ She nodded her head meaningfully. ‘Tha knows. In that way.’
It was a lie, but only a small one, for after Alan had died, Francis Morton had swept her off her feet with his promises, promises which everyone else knew to be false. I was so stupid not to see, she thought, I should have known. But never again.
She thought she saw a softening of Mrs Trott’s face at her words and when she added. ‘I’ve found a real good friend in Toby. He wants nowt more than friendship, and as we both know, Mrs Trott, there are’nt too many men around who’d be satisfied wi’ just that,’ the old woman almost gave her a smile as she rose and said she would make them a dish of tea.
Mr Trott had been left for work only five minutes when they heard the creak of the gate. ‘That’ll be Toby,’ Annie said, picking up her shawl. ‘I’d best be off.’
‘Wait.’ Mrs Trott reached to the peg behind the door. ‘Take this. It’ll keep thee warmer than what tha’s wearing,’ and handed Annie a long black woollen cloak.
Annie put it on and felt the warmth. ‘Oh, it’s grand, Mrs Trott.’ She whirled around. ‘I feel like a lady.’