Tattycoram

by Audrey Thomas

  So how did I fall victim to this terrible thing? We never knew. It started with a piercing headache and chills in the middle of the night, then terrible cramps and violent purging. When Jonnie came home, he found me on the floor, moaning, with Digger anxiously whining beside me and licking my feet. I was too weak by then even to raise myself to my bed. I thought it must have been something I’d eaten, but Jonnie sent for the doctor immediately. He gave me paregoric and said I must drink plenty of fluids, but I could keep nothing down. I begged Jonnie to go away at once and save himself. “I’m not afraid,” I whispered to him, “I’m not afraid.”

  By evening I had slipped into unconsciousness, and Jonnie sent Old Albert to the post office with a message for Sam to come quickly; I was dying.

  Twenty-three dead on our street alone. The little boy next door, his mother and father, his grandmother. Only his sister survived. The publican and his wife. But I knew none of this then. People fleeing the city carried the illness into the suburbs. Neighbourhoods such as ours were put under quarantine in the hopes that would stop the spread of the disease. The well-to-do, who remained shut up in their houses, were, for the most part, spared.

  Death moved through the nearly empty streets.

  In my delirium I heard a barrel organ and could not resist my desperate urge to follow it. It took both Jonnie and Old Albert to hold me down. Sometimes I thought I was back at the Foundling and dreamed of sitting at Sunday dinner once again with the fashionable ladies mocking me.

  I saw Grip; I saw a dozen ravens, all trying to bite off my eardrops and carry them away for hiding. “Tattycoram,” they screamed, “Tattycoram.” Some of them had human faces, with long noses and narrow chins.

  I wept and confessed to sins I had not committed; I cried aloud for my mother.

  Sam came and I did not know him. The doctor came again, with a white handkerchief over his nose, they said, in case he breathed in the pestilence. He gave me some pills of opium to calm me, shook his head and went away.

  The opium pills seemed to make my visions even more hideous — I screamed and tore my hair — so they were abandoned. My brothers took turns sponging me and changing my linen. They burned sweet herbs to purify the air. One or another was always at my side, squeezing a few drops of brandy and water between my cracked lips.

  Each day they expected to be my last — for cholera kills quickly — but there was something in me, even as I shouted and begged them to let me go, that refused to give up. On the third night the crisis passed and I fell into a deep sleep. From then on it was almost miraculous how quickly I recovered. I was soon sitting up and able to take a bit of broth, some bread and custard the day after.

  But just as we were celebrating my wonderful recovery, Jonnie went down with the cholera and died the next day. We sat there beside his lifeless body, too stunned to accept what had happened.

  “Why?” I kept repeating. “Why?” It should have been me.

  They came and took his body away, for we were not allowed to bury him in the proper manner, the authorities by that time being so afraid of contamination. After they left, Sam said, “When the quarantine is lifted, Hattie, you must leave this place. Jonnie himself would not want you to stay here now that he is gone.”

  “What about the birds? I have to look after the birds.”

  “I think we should give the birds to Old Albert, don’t you?”

  “How will he sell them when he can barely walk? How will he catch more, once he has sold these?”

  “I have an idea about that, which I will discuss with him. And I can give him the money to hire a boy to catch more birds. Jonnie’s reputation is so high, I don’t see why Old Albert couldn’t sell the birds from home. We could even get a board-man to walk up and down, at first, to advertise for him. Old Albert could sell only to the dealers.”

  The crippled man, devastated by Jonnie’s death, hardly came out of his hut. Sam went to talk to him and returned an hour later.

  “Will he agree to it?”

  “Most of it, but there is one part he wants altered.”

  “What is that?”

  “He wants us to set free all Jonnie’s birds.”

  “Set them free?”

  “Yes. He has some idea that Jonnie won’t rest until this is done.”

  I could not help smiling through my tears.

  “Jonnie would probably say, ‘I’ve worked bleedin’ ’ard to catch and train them birds, don’t you dare set them free.’”

  “Well, Old Albert is of a different opinion, and I think we have to go along with it.”

  And so, a week later, a chaise rolled out towards Highgate with three people inside and a hundred birds in cages strapped to the top. On Highgate Hill we got out, and Sam carried the cages into a field close by the cemetery. He undid the fastenings and opened the doors.

  The birds just sat there.

  “Perhaps it won’t work,” I said. “Perhaps they’ve been cooped up too long.”

  “Aye, I’ve seen men like that in my time, afraid to leave the prison they are used to. You may be right.”

  But no, a little goldfinch hopped out onto the grass, tested its wings and flew to the top of a high bush. Then another. Then another. Thrushes and bullfinches, emitting frantic little cries, jostling each other now in their rush for freedom. It was an amazing sight. Then, some already singing, they flew away.

  ”Are you satisfied now, Old Albert?” Sam asked the crippled man. He nodded, too overcome to speak.

  “I think we need a restorative,” Sam said, “when we get back home.” The cages, empty now, were once again strapped to the top of the chaise, the driver shaking his head and muttering, “Lunatics.”

  We drank a toast to Jonnie and then, that very afternoon, leaving Old Albert in charge of the business and with a local boy already hired to help him, we took up Digger and my few possessions (Sam had arranged for my trunk at Urania Cottage to be forwarded) and left the city for home, I in my black dress and Sam with a black band around his sleeve.

  “Ah, Hattie,” Sam said, “thank God we have each other.”

  13

  And now, although my life slows down, my narrative speeds up. Sam had leased a small farm on the outskirts of Shere, near Coombe Bottom, and there we settled down to look after one another, as well as a few sheep and chickens. I added my money from the savings bank to my brother’s hoard, and we were quite comfortable. Sam had inherited his grandfather’s talent for carving, and although this was not his original intention, he made his living not from the sheep but from this gift that had been handed down to him. It was wonderful to see those big hands pick up a knife or a chisel and begin to fashion something, a newel post, a table leg, a screen. Most of his commissions came from the big houses round about the parish, but he also made coffins, both simple and grand. If a child died, there was always a little lamb carved into the top, and for the adults, if requested, he would create a motif that celebrated what they had been in life. When the old sexton died, Sam carved a garland of shovels. He never charged the labouring families extra for this work, although he was very businesslike with the rich folks.

  We walked to church together every Sunday and then spent a quiet time in the churchyard, where there was now a little plaque honouring our brother: his name and his dates and a skylark soaring up to Heaven. There were some, newcomers as well as old families, who avoided us because Sam was a returned convict, but most welcomed us and made room for us at every festival and wake.

  Digger proved hopeless as a sheep dog and so we bought a collie from a man in Guildford. Fortunately he and Digger became great friends, although there seemed to be an unspoken rule between them that when Angus was rounding up the sheep, Digger was to keep his mouth shut and follow directions.

  I do not know the exact moment when I realized I felt more than a sister’s love for Sam. Perhaps it had been there from the time I awoke from my swoon in that awful lodging house and found Sam holding my hand and looking down at me with such conce
rn and tenderness. I only know that once I discovered this in myself, I was determined he should never know. He had told me of his rough life in Australia and confessed that he “had sinned as much as any man there,” though he was sorry for it now.

  “It’s a strange thing what loneliness will do to a man, Hattie. A kind word, even from a harlot’s lips, is sometimes all that keeps him going. I hope God forgives me now, and that you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I don’t want you to think I’m better than I am.”

  “Were there many of these women out there?”

  “More than enough, more than enough. When a man had done his time and was released, he had choices. If the hard work didn’t kill him, it made him strong. There was plenty of land, you know. My God, was there land! Work as a labourer, a jackaroo, anything, until you had put by some ready money, and then strike out on your own. Farmers needed wives, of course, and the strongest girls were snatched up. Claim a few acres, buy a few sheep — lovely sheep, those merinos — and if you had any brains at all you were on your way. And the officers’ wives needed servants, whom they tended to treat badly, by the way. Then there were shops, but most of those were run by men. However, there were bars in the settlements, more bars in the towns — more bars than churches — and so there were bar-maids, but again, these were the toughest girls, the girls who could give as good as they got. As for the others, broken in health or spirit, how were they to live?”

  “Were there beggars, Sam?”

  “Of course. What does the Bible say about the poor? That is a land that has no time for the weak and helpless. Not many society ladies wanting to help out there. No society ladies at all, really, although the officers’ wives and the clergymen’s wives tried to put on airs, dragging their pretty dresses through the dirt, working at keeping their skin pale and out of the sun. The sun in Australia is fierce.”

  “You never thought of staying, when your time was up?”

  “I thought about it. Australia is a land of opportunity, and except to a few, it makes no difference how you ended up there. I did stay a while, carved out a little farm for myself — I had become interested in sheep — but at night, once the sun had gone down, too tired to sleep, all I could think about was home. I wanted to find my brother, if he was still alive, and my parents, Grandfather, you. I missed the gentle climate, the old familiar birds, the Hurtwood, the stream.

  “I could have made a go of it. I was making a go of it, even if my nearest neighbour was fifty miles away on a bush road. There are fortunes to be made out there, and it’s exciting to be in on the beginning of things. If only I could have wiped out those memories, those yearnings. Jonnie would have loved it there, the parrots and the cockatoos, all the different birds.”

  “I thought of going there once,” I said.

  “You?”

  “Yes. I knew Mr. Dickens and Miss Burdett-Coutts would help me. And once I found Jonnie, I thought about it a lot, although I had not yet mentioned it to him. I thought about North America as well, but I always hesitated. Not out of fear. I suppose it was out of the thought that you might return some day and find everyone gone. But if I hadn’t run into Jonnie . . .”

  He pressed my hand. “I’m glad you hesitated.”

  “And I am.”

  He smoked his pipe and whittled away at the handle of a rattle he was making for a farmer’s baby. We read to one another from my small library, which Mr. Dickens had augmented every year until this last one. I had written to tell him that Jonnie was dead and Sam returned and that I was leaving London, but I had no reply. He might have been abroad again, or perhaps he now felt that his obligations to me were over. At the end of a chapter, I closed the book, took my candle, kissed Sam’s forehead and went up to bed. It was a pattern established early on. He would stay downstairs for a while after I had retired for the night. Digger and Angus stayed with him, asleep at his feet. I slept so well, now, knowing he was there below.

  Just after harvest time, in our third year back in the parish, there was a wedding between one of the servants at the manor house and the apprentice at the smithy. Both of these young people were very popular; the girl’s mistress positively doted on her, although this had not spoiled her in any way. The old tithe barn was offered for the wedding breakfast, to which the entire neighbourhood was invited, and later on there was to be a dance.

  The weather was perfect, one of those soft, smoky September days, and as the harvest had been a good one, everybody was in a celebratory mood. The bride and groom were beautiful as they walked to the church, followed by the admiring villagers, a young king and queen of the harvest, the very personification of ripeness and good health. The groom blushed more than the bride as they walked along. (I had been asked to embroider the sleeves of her simple gown, so I had worked harebells and marguerites.) Bells rang out, small boys turned cartwheels, and great cheers went up for the Lord and Lady of the Manor and their family.

  After the simple service, the breakfast: cold hams and haunches of beef, plenty of ale for all, little wrapped pieces of the wedding cake for the unmarried girls to dream on.

  And that night, with two fiddles playing the old tunes, the reels and jigs began. It was wonderful to see the big burly farm boys stomping their feet in perfect time to the music, stepping forward with the girls at just the right moment, joining hands and dancing up and down the line. Candles in sconces cast a buttery light, and shadow dancers copied the patterns on the walls.

  Matrons danced with their husbands dressed in their very best (jackets soon to come off). In the corners little girls danced with one another, babies slept in baskets, and boys ran round and round trying to cause trouble, but no one paid them any attention.

  I had been to weddings in the village before but always alone, as the teacher, sitting with the old ladies, who were already purling away in anticipation of another baby in nine months. I was never asked to dance and felt awkward and shy. This time I was sitting with my brother, my arm linked in his.

  After a while the fiddlers rested, wiped their brows with their neckerchiefs, drank some ale, and then the music started up again. Sam turned to me and said, “Well, Hattie, what about it? That near set lacks a couple.”

  “But your foot?”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Come on.”

  There was nothing graceful about Sam’s dancing, but he knew the figures better than I and we made it through, much to the delight of the rest of the set, who applauded us warmly.

  “Great fun, but that’s enough for now,” Sam said, and beckoned to another couple to replace us.

  Now others came up and asked me to dance. I had no idea what I was doing, but with a good partner who gave me a firm push in the right direction when necessary or a friendly wink if I stumbled a bit, I found I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

  At midnight the trestle tables were set up again for supper, and shortly afterwards we left, although no doubt the dancing would go on until dawn. A harvest moon hung in the sky like a gigantic orange. There was no wind. The horned owl hooted, and nearby we heard the thin wail of Mrs. Coster’s seventh son.

  Sam laughed. “There’ll be more of that around next lambing season, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  There was a bench in front of our cottage, just as in our childhood.

  “I have a great desire to smoke a pipe out here before turning in. Do you fancy keeping me company for a while?” He fetched his pipe and let the dogs out; they had been whining behind the door ever since they heard our voices.

  Sam filled his pipe, lit it, took a few deep puffs and let out a sigh of contentment.

  “You know, Hattie, sometimes I think it helps to have known trouble, for then, when you experience contentment, you recognize it for what it is.”

  “Are you content, Sam?”

  “Oh, aye. Can’t you tell?” Then he paused. “Except, perhaps, for one thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “Seeing all those merry couples tonight made me think that perha
ps I should look for a wife.”

  It was as though the distant moon had turned to ice and a chill wind had sprung up around me. My best silk shawl seemed woefully inadequate to keep out the cold that seeped in. Somehow I managed to keep my voice steady.

  “A wife?”

  “Yes, a wife. What do you think of the idea? Perhaps you could help me in my search. Do you think there might be a woman in this county who would take an aging cripple as her husband?”

  “You, a cripple! Who was up there dancing tonight? That was no cripple.”

  “One set and I was finished. And at any rate, I was only showing off. Now you — you were doing splendidly.”

  “Was I? I had never danced before in my life, except once when Mr. Dickens gave all the servants a whirl on Twelfth Night.”

  “Never before?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, you are a natural and you must do more of it.” He took another few draws at his pipe. “I’ll tell you what, Hattie, here’s an idea. Why don’t we help each other? I’ll seek out a dancing husband for you and you can inquire for a nice obedient wife for me. What do you think?”

  I was grateful for the darkness so that he could not see my face, and yet a sob escaped me, I couldn’t help it. The tears rolled down my cheeks. He turned and touched my face.

  “What’s this? Don’t you like the idea of the dancing husband?” Another sob was all the answer I could give.

  And then he said, “Oh Hattie, Hattie, it is wrong of me to tease. I want no other wife but you, my dear, but I have been afraid to ask. Tonight, when I saw you dancing and enjoying it so, I felt a new sensation — I think its name is jealousy. And not just jealousy, but despair. I vowed I would say nothing, but I could not resist testing you a bit. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Could you really love a battle-scarred, weatherbeaten, one-footed man like me?”