by Val Wood
Jenny went to the door and screwed up her eyes. It was hot, a bright May day, and the freshly washed sheets, which she had draped over the hedge to dry, were throwing off a dazzling brilliance. Though she didn’t know the man who was making his way to her door, she at once knew, by the manner of his dress, why he was there. He wore a dark frock coat and a top hat, and in his hand he carried a measuring staff.
‘Good day to you, madam.’ He airily touched his hat. ‘Is your husband at home?’
‘He’s out somewhere,’ she answered. ‘What is it you want? If it’s about the railway line –’
‘It is indeed about the railway line.’ He gestured towards the man waiting by the gate, who was holding, Jenny now saw, a length of chain, a flag and another piece of equipment, which she didn’t recognize. ‘My man and I wish to take some measurements of the land.’
‘Of our land,’ Jenny corrected him. ‘Of my husband’s land!’
‘Indeed, indeed,’ he answered with an ingratiating smile. Taking a notebook out of his pocket, he consulted it. ‘Of Mr Laslett’s land.’
‘St John Laslett,’ she said reprovingly, and had the satisfaction of seeing him take an open breath of awe.
‘Ah!’ He made an amendment in his book and asked in a fawning tone, ‘Where may I have the pleasure of finding Mr St John Laslett?’
She hid a smile and said sternly, ‘I’m afraid it won’t be a pleasure, if you do find him, Mr …? For he won’t wish to speak to you.’
‘Stockton, madam,’ he pronounced, ‘Isaac Stockton, surveyor for the North Eastern Railway Company. It is a matter of urgency that we survey this land. Mr Las— Mr St John Laslett has not been co-operative so far.’
‘Well, he’s coming right now,’ she said, pointing up the meadow to where she could see Stephen striding towards them with a crook in his hand and his dog at his heel. ‘So you can speak to him in person.’
‘Off my land!’ Stephen shouted before he had even reached the hedge which enclosed the garden. ‘I know why you’re here and the answer is no!’ He came out of the field through the bottom gate. ‘I sent the last fellow off and told him he couldn’t survey it.’
‘Sir,’ Stockton said. ‘We must survey the terrain. The railway is coming whether you like it or not. The Hull to Hornsea line is now open and we cannot let single individuals prevent progress in this area. Beverley needs this line. It does not necessarily mean that we will build on your land. The parliamentary committee decide whether or no!’
‘Off!’ Stephen said. ‘Or I set my dog on you.’
The man glared at him and turned away. ‘We can survey it without your permission,’ he said before marching back up the path. ‘We can do it first thing in a morning or last thing at night. You can’t be everywhere at the same time!’
‘Why not let them come?’ Jenny asked as they went back into the house. ‘Let them take their measurements and tell them about the grave. Perhaps then they would make a detour.’
‘I know where they would want it to be,’ he said testily. ‘They’ll cut the land in two. It’s hard enough trying to make a living. How can we farm the land with a railway line running through the middle of it? The sheep wouldn’t know it was a railway line; there’d be dead mutton all over the place!’
‘All the same,’ Jenny reasoned. ‘You should tell them about ’grave and maybe they’d rethink.’
‘Perhaps,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘Perhaps I will. I’d like to think the issue will be resolved soon.’ He gave her a smile, his fractious mood evaporating. ‘We have other things to think of. How are you feeling today?’
‘Better!’ she said with feeling. ‘’Sickness has gone, thank goodness.’
They had waited until Jenny had recovered from the birth of the stillborn child, but she had conceived quickly and was now in her fourth month of pregnancy. Her sickness had dissipated and she felt healthy and vital and was back helping Stephen with the chores. Christina wanted to help too and was allowed to feed the hens.
‘It will be good for Christina to have a brother or sister to play with,’ Stephen mused. ‘I’d never felt isolated before, but now I realize that we are, and that she should have company.’
Jenny agreed. Christina was shy of any strangers who called, such as the packman, or tramps looking for work.
‘Perhaps,’ Stephen deliberated. ‘Perhaps when the child is born I’ll write to Arabella and ask her to call.’
‘I can do that,’ Jenny said. ‘The invitation would be better coming from me; but we don’t need to wait. She won’t come in the winter anyway. She could come and stay, couldn’t she? She could have Christina’s room and Christina could sleep with us.’
‘In our bed? I suppose so.’ Stephen seemed dubious. ‘I never ever saw my parents in bed,’ he said. ‘I only ever saw them fully dressed.’
Jenny gave a pealing laugh. ‘How very strange! We often slept four or more to a bed, with Ma and Da at ’top and us bairns at ’bottom.’
‘Us bairns!’ He grinned. ‘You don’t often say things like that!’
‘I try not to,’ she said bashfully. ‘Christy used to tease me sometimes, whenever I forgot.’
‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘But if ever – well, if ever you became mistress of my father’s house, perhaps it might be important to try to remember.’
‘But Arabella is mistress, isn’t she?’ Jenny frowned. ‘She wouldn’t want me there, and’, she added quietly, ‘you once said that you couldn’t live in your father’s house and leave Agnes here!’
‘I know I did.’ He bit hard on his lip. ‘I know that’s what I said, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot, especially since we buried the child there too – but as for being mistress,’ he changed the subject rapidly, ‘Arabella would be subordinate to you.’
‘Subordinate?’ Jenny asked hesitantly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that she would be below you.’
‘But that doesn’t seem fair!’ Jenny said. ‘She’s lived there all her life. How can another woman come along and take over?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s the way it is, I’m afraid, so unless she marries …’ Again he shrugged, and then smiled teasingly at her tense expression. ‘You would be in control, Jenny. You would be mistress of the house.’
Jenny thought about it over the next few weeks and when she received a reply from Arabella in response to her letter, saying she would like to come to visit, she felt a sense of guilt, even though the situation hadn’t arisen and might never arise. Am I bound always to live in a house where another woman has belonged? she thought. Though I like this little house, it did once belong to Agnes.
‘Someone come!’ Christina shot into the house in scared excitement one morning and clung to Jenny. ‘Quick! Quick!’
‘It’s all right, Christina,’ Jenny assured her. ‘It will be someone come to help Papa.’ Stephen had been to Etton a few days before to ask if there was a labourer available to help cut the hay in the meadow.
‘No, not help Papa,’ the little girl piped. ‘Another Mama.’
Jenny went to the door. The gypsy woman who had called once before was there with her little girl at her skirts and a baby strapped to her chest. ‘Hello,’ Jenny greeted her. ‘I remember you. Won’t you come in?’
‘I’ll not come in, lady, but can I beg some milk for the chavi?’ She pointed down to the dark-haired child. ‘And for myself.’
‘Yes. Yes, we have plenty.’ Jenny was quite relieved to talk to someone other than Christina. Stephen had been out since early morning, only coming in for a quick breakfast at eight o’clock and then going out again. He had started on the haymaking alone, as he hadn’t had any offers of help. Everyone was busy at this time. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘It’s cooler in the dairy.’
The gypsy agreed to come into the dairy where she sat at the wooden table, on the chair nearest the door. Jenny gave her and the child a beaker of milk each, and then stroked the little gypsy girl’s dark curls, darker than Ch
ristina’s straight glossy hair. The two children looked at each other.
‘What’s your name?’ Christina asked shyly.
‘Kisaiya Lee,’ the little girl said, lowering her dark lashes.
‘Can she play with me?’ Christina asked her mother.
The gypsy hesitated for only a moment, and then nodded and the two children clasped hands and ran outside. ‘We have gorgio family,’ she told Jenny. ‘My mam has a cousin who is half Romany, half gorgie. Sometimes we see them at Hull Fair.’
‘What is gorgio?’ Jenny said, puzzled. ‘Someone who isn’t a gypsy?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘Someone who lives in a house, not a bender as we do.’
Jenny poured her another beaker of milk. ‘Will your husband help us with the haymaking?’
‘Yes, and our son. He’s big enough now.’ The woman, though her feet were bare, was covered entirely by her long skirt and shirt with a shawl over her head. She unfastened her blouse and began to feed the baby. ‘Your manush said we could stay on your land for the summer.’
Jenny smiled. ‘Good. We don’t see much company and my husband will be glad of the help. What’s your name?’
‘Floure Lee. I was a Boswell, but I married a Lee. We are from the very best Romany families.’
‘Oh,’ Jenny said thoughtfully. ‘That’s nice. I’m not anybody, though my husband is – was.’
Floure Lee glanced at her and then changed her baby to the other breast. ‘As your chavvies will be.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jenny said.
‘I mean your children. They’ll belong to the best families, though that doesn’t mean they will be better people. Have you a son?’ she asked, a frown deepening above her nose. ‘You have two children?’
‘No.’ Jenny felt a shiver down her back. ‘We lost a child, a girl.’
‘Ah! The stone on the hill.’ She shook her head. ‘We don’t camp there. There’s a spirit watching, though it is not unfriendly.’
‘Agnes!’ Jenny breathed. ‘Yes, she’s there with our child.’
Floure gazed silently at her. ‘You’ve had some unhappiness, lady? There’s something troubling you about your past life!’
Jenny took a breath. How much did the Romanies know? Were they really able to look into the future and see what was coming?
‘Sometimes we can read fortunes,’ the gypsy said, and Jenny looked at her in astonishment. ‘And sometimes we can sense another person’s feelings. My grandmother Shuri could do that, and I have inherited the gift of duckering from her.’ She fastened up the buttons on her blouse and, putting the now sleeping baby on her shoulder, gently patted her back. ‘You’ll have changes in your life and not always what you expect. Some disappointments and sorrow, and you’ll go back to where once you were happy.’
‘Go back?’ Jenny said. ‘To where?’
Floure shook her head. ‘I can’t tell. I only knows that you will.’ She leant forward and took hold of Jenny’s hand and turned it over to look at her palm. She drew in a sudden breath and her eyes widened. Jenny pulled her hand away, clenching her fingers so that the gypsy couldn’t see.
‘I’m not sure that I want to know what’s in front of me,’ she said.
The gypsy rose to her feet, wrapping the baby under her shawl. ‘It is not what is coming,’ she whispered, and her eyes flashed nervously. ‘It’s what has already been.’
Jenny felt uneasy after she had gone and watched her as she tramped up towards one of the fields where the gypsies had camped. What had she seen? Could she really see anything? Her thoughts slipped back to Christy. She surely couldn’t know about that? Could she read? Had she heard rumours? But she can’t have, she assured herself. No-one up here knows about me or where I come from. But the encounter unsettled her and Stephen commented on it that night as they ate their supper.
‘Are you unwell?’ he asked. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘I never thought that I was ever anything else,’ she said.
‘It’s true, you are inclined to be reserved,’ he agreed. ‘But I meant quieter than usual. Is something troubling you?’
‘The gypsy woman asked the same thing,’ Jenny said, but then remembered that the gypsy had pinpointed the past, rather than the present, which was what was concerning Stephen.
‘You shouldn’t encourage her,’ he said sharply. ‘She’ll be round every day, begging for something or other!’
‘I don’t think so. She only ever wants milk for ’children. She’s never asked for anything else.’
Stephen grunted. ‘Well, count the chickens before you close them up for the night,’ he said.
‘Would you begrudge them?’ she asked. ‘They’ve got nothing much.’
‘They have as much as we have, apart from the land,’ he said grumpily. ‘They have a roof, of sorts, over their heads and a chance to work, which they do only when it suits them. If they asked for a chicken they could have one, as long as they worked for it. I can’t afford to give anything away.’
He sounded so sour that she looked at him in alarm. ‘Are we so very poor?’ she said, and when he nodded, she asked, ‘What can we do?’
‘Go cap in hand to my father,’ he said bitterly. ‘He’s sitting on a fortune that could be mine if I grovel on my knees before him.’
‘But you won’t?’
‘No. Not yet,’ he asserted. ‘I’d rather he came to me. And one day he will!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was the end of summer and there was a scent of autumn in the air, of dying foliage and wood smoke. Arabella sat by the fire in Lavender Cott sipping tea. ‘It is a pity that one cannot choose when to have a child,’ she said thoughtfully. Since she had arrived for her visit, she and Jenny had strolled in the meadows, she had watched the cow being milked, had thrown corn for the hens, and enthusiastically joined in with Christina’s games. ‘It would be more pleasant – I imagine,’ she added, blushing slightly, ‘for of course I wouldn’t know, to have a child in the summer instead of the winter when it is so cold and the roads are bad.’
Jenny raised her eyebrows. It surprised her that Arabella, a well brought up unmarried young woman, should choose to discuss such matters, but she did, quite often asking questions on subjects which shouldn’t have concerned her.
‘I was sorry to hear that you have lost a child,’ Arabella continued. Glancing around the room, she remarked, ‘I do hope you will excuse my saying so, but, although it is very sweet here, it is a little primitive. Perhaps the child would have survived if the conditions had been better?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with ’conditions,’ Jenny replied rather sharply. ‘I had ’services of Dr Hill and a midwife. The child never drew breath, there’s nothing can be done about that. It wasn’t meant to be, that’s all.’
Arabella nodded. ‘Well, perhaps the next child will be a son,’ she said sagely. ‘Then it will have been worth the wait. Did you give the other child a name? Is that permissible?’
‘Yes, of course. We named her Agnes, after Stephen’s first wife.’
‘Oh!’ Arabella’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Did you mind that?’
‘Not at all,’ Jenny answered quietly. ‘She always wanted a child.’ She swallowed hard. ‘And so we gave her one.’
‘And buried her with her!’ Arabella exclaimed. ‘I think that was very sweet and kind of you, Jenny. I declare, I don’t think I could have been so benevolent to another wife. And the child that you are carrying – if it is a son, what will you name him? After Stephen? Which is also our father’s name,’ she added, ‘though Papa is known as John, his middle name. Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I think he would be pleased to have his first grandson named for him.’
‘We haven’t yet considered names,’ Jenny said. ‘I don’t want to bring ill luck by naming him before he arrives.’ Why did I say him? she wondered. The gypsy asked if we had a son. Was it her influence?
‘When you have given birth,’ Arabella said chattily, ‘I shall broach the s
ubject of your visiting us with my father. He does sometimes ask if I have heard from Stephen, and if he has a son yet. He will, I think, look favourably on you, Jenny, in spite of your background.’
‘Because I am a bearer of children?’ Jenny replied, but if there was a trace of sarcasm in her voice Arabella did not appear to notice.
‘Why yes,’ she smiled. ‘He does quite like his grandchildren. My sisters have three children each, all girls, and Papa dotes on them. Laura and Maud are both expecting again, and if one of them has a boy, then the estate will go to him if you don’t produce a son.’ She leant towards Jenny. ‘I do hope that you do,’ she confided. ‘I can’t stand my sisters’ husbands, they are so very arrogant. If any one of them has a son, they would want to run Father’s estate until their child is old enough to do it.’ Her face puckered. ‘And I don’t know what would happen to me then!’
‘Surely your father would leave you well provided for?’ Jenny said. ‘Especially if you were unmarried.’
‘He’s very old-fashioned.’ Arabella’s eyes became moist. ‘He would leave me an annuity, I expect, but I wouldn’t have a house. He would expect my sisters and their husbands to have me live with them. And they won’t want to.’ Her bottom lip trembled. ‘I know that they won’t.’ She took out a lacy handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. ‘That’s why I am desperate to get married, Jenny,’ she confided. ‘It’s such a pity that you haven’t a good background, for it would have helped me enormously if you had had friends of the right kind. My sisters do not help at all, they are so wrapped up in their own lives.’
Jenny gave a sudden laugh. ‘You poor thing, Arabella! There must be thousands of people wishing they were in your shoes, wearing your clothes and enjoying your comfort, instead of struggling to find work, pay their rent and buy food for their families. If they only knew how difficult it is for you, they would be so very sorry for you!’
Arabella gave a huge sigh. ‘They would. They really would. Nobody understands my situation.’ She gave a brave smile and took hold of Jenny’s hand. ‘But perhaps you do, Jenny. I think we could be friends, you and I, in spite of our differences, and if ever you should come to live at my father’s house I will treat you very kindly.’