‘Shall we have rain?’ I asked, shading my eyes.
‘No, lass. Not yet.’
‘The clouds are a little darker over there, though – look.’
‘We don’t get rain from that way. We allus get our rain from Corwelby way.’
At home Grandfather had already told me it wouldn’t rain; I only asked Granfer for the pleasure of it, for the way his words sounded so certain about what was to come, and made me feel certain, too.
‘Now, who’s this lady writer who’s got your mother in a bate?’
‘Oh, Constance FitzAllen. She told Mother she should make butter, I think – no matter that we don’t even keep a cow. She believes in local sufficiency, and she says it’s a shame that the traditional skills are all passing away.’
‘Good riddance to ’em, I say. I take it she’s not the type for to do any dairying herself?’
I laughed and shook my head.
‘And she’s a spinster? How old, would you say?’
I tried to picture her, but it was hard; she was more of a series of vivid impressions in my mind then, with none of the detail that came later.
‘I don’t know. Mother’s age, or thereabouts?’
‘Well, perhaps she lost a sweetheart. The War made a lot of spare women, you know, child. What’s she like? Is she a nuisance?’
‘I don’t think so – although I’ve only met her once. She seems rather cheerful. It’s just – she says exactly what she means.’
‘Aha!’ he chuckled. ‘Like your mother. Well, that do explain it.’
I thought about that. It didn’t seem to me as though the two were anything alike: Constance with her man’s attire and her easy manner, Mother with her chapped red hands and constant fatigue. And yet I could dimly perceive something in it, for despite their wildly differing situations they were in some way evenly matched.
‘Now, do you walk ahead and open that gate for me. I find they latches wonderful stiff these days,’ the old man said.
We had brought two bales of hay and some ash hurdles with us, and before we left I helped Mother unload them from the cart and stack them by the gate to the little paddock. Then I led Meg from the paddock back to the trap, the little goat bleating at the loss. Granfer began buckling her back into the traces, and I smiled to see the sun glint off a pretty brass chain that lay across her forehead.
‘I see she has a new bridle, Granfer. Howsoever did that happen?’
‘Ah, well. Your’n was rotted clear through, nearly, and one of they blinkers gaped. Don’t she look smart for it!’
‘She does.’ I touched the smooth, close-grained leather of the harness, which was stamped on the brow-band with the letters M, C and P.
‘From the old place,’ he said. ‘The mistress died in child-bed, you see. We weren’t ever to use her things again after that – it all had to go. I took the tack to the saddler, but he said it were bad luck, wouldn’t even give me a shilling for it; in the end I’d to drive her barouche clear out of the county to sell it. But it looks well on your girl, and I’ll not see good leather go to waste.’
Mary came to the door of the carriage to wave us off, for she meant to stay a little longer. As we got into the cart Grandma handed up a basket heaped with herbs, goat’s cheese wrapped in muslin and a dark, stoppered bottle of liniment, and I took it on my lap, inhaling the fragrance the sun drew from it.
‘Go safely, child,’ she said, taking Granfer’s hand where they stood.
‘I will, Grandma,’ I replied. Then Mother shook the reins, the axles creaked and we were on our way.
V
One morning I came back from Middle Ley, where I had taken the little landrail chick to learn to forage, and found Constance in the kitchen with Mother. I stopped in the doorway in surprise; Mother was kneading dough and talking, and Constance was leaning up against the dresser and listening respectfully. Her eyes flicked over to where I stood and she winked theatrically and grinned. I knew she’d been at the farm the day before and had spent some hours with Grandfather, but it was wash-day and she’d gone by the time I’d finished helping Mother hang out the sheets and clothes to dry.
I smiled back, and realised that I was glad to see her. I felt as though she perceived me more clearly than my family did, for they all took me for granted, whereas she seemed curious about who I was and what I thought. Although I did not know her well yet, I felt more real, more interesting even, when I saw myself through Constance’s eyes.
‘No, I don’t mind a tin loaf now and again, they are so good for sandwiches,’ Mother was saying. ‘But really, I prefer proper bread. Even if I use a tin I make it church and chapel.’
‘Church and chapel?’ Constance asked, licking her pencil and returning her attention to the little notebook she held. ‘Whatever’s that?’
‘Oh, you know. Neither one thing nor the other. I take a small tin and fill it right to the top so the crust rises over, like a mushroom. Look –’ and she handed Constance a top-heavy loaf which she turned over to see the square shape of its base.
‘Oh no – you mustn’t –’ said Mother, reaching out and turning the loaf back the right way up. ‘It’s – well, it’s bad luck to turn a loaf. If you believe in that kind of thing, of course,’ and she laughed.
‘Fascinating,’ said Constance, scribbling minutely in her notebook. I began to climb the stairs.
‘Is that you, child?’ Mother called as the old oak treads creaked. I turned and came back down.
‘Yes, Mother. Hello, Constance.’
‘And how’s the little one to-day?’ Mother asked, setting the dough on its board on the kitchen windowsill to rise. ‘Are you managing? I do think perhaps it would be better if John –’
‘It’s doing rather well, actually, Mother. Look –’ and I scooped the chick gently from my skirt pocket and set it on the kitchen table. It wobbled briefly, then settled its downy feathers and began to look about.
‘Oh, how charming!’ said Constance, leaning forward with her hands in her pockets and peering at it. ‘What is it?’
‘A landrail. Corncrakes, I think some people call them.’
‘Is it an orphan?’
‘Yes. Well, the mother might still be about somewhere, but we don’t know where. We found the nest when we were haymaking, and hatched it from an egg under one of the hens.’
‘How marvellous. Will you keep it as a pet?’
‘Oh no – it’ll be gone in a week or two, I should think. Off to find its friends.’
‘There’s certainly no shortage,’ said Mother. ‘The sound of them fair keeps me awake this time of year.’
‘What are your plans for the rest of the day, Edie?’ asked Constance.
I shrugged, and looked at Mother. ‘I’m not sure. Why?’
‘I thought a bicycle tour of the valley might be in order; Ada’s been telling me about some fascinating places – some interesting people, too. What do you think? Will you show me around?’
Where exactly did we go that warm June afternoon – which roads, which lanes did we take? I can’t be sure, now, if we cycled up to the ridge that day or on another afternoon, or whether we went as far as Monks Tye, where Mary lived. That summer we spent so much time together that it seems to me now as though we were out bicycling every day, she with the wind whipping at her hair, calling to me over her shoulder as though I was an old friend of hers, as though I could understand everything she said.
In reality, of course, Connie and I can’t have cycled out more than a dozen times, for there were many afternoons she spent at other farms, other houses; days when we saw nothing of her, because she was out with her notebook elsewhere. She changed in those weeks, began to ask better questions, ones that didn’t already contain what she believed the answer might be; she learned, too, to rein some of her brashness in. And people took to her; even at the start, even with all her opinions and her tactlessness. She was, despite everything, somehow innocent – that’s the only way I can describe it. There was something
about her that wasn’t pretence.
‘So you and Mother are friends now,’ I called out that afternoon as we reached the end of the lane. Swallows swooped around us, hawking for clegs and crane flies; the air was full of their chatter. The day was warm and still.
‘Of course we’re friends! Now, which way?’ She asked, slowing at the four-a-leet.
‘Right – let’s go through the village. What happened?’
‘What do you mean?’
It struck me that she had perhaps not realised that she had ever given offence. ‘Well –’
‘Oh, you mean the butter! Oh no, that’s quite forgotten. She’s a dear, your mother, really she is. I wouldn’t offend her for worlds.’
I thought it best to let it drop; perhaps Mother would throw some light on their reconciliation later.
‘Do you have any brothers and sisters, Connie?’
‘Just Jeffrey. He’s a year and a half older than I am.’
‘And have you always lived in London?’
‘Well, we were born in Sussex, where my mother’s people are from. My father – he was a schoolmaster, you know – he preferred to teach the deserving poor rather than seek advancement at the better schools in the area. He took up an invitation to help set up a new school for the sons of clergymen which also admitted forty poor boys each year, and that’s how we came to Tooting.’
‘Your father sounds very admirable.’
‘Oh, he’s quite, quite brilliant, but very much a man of principle. Of course, Mother wasn’t happy about it at all.’
‘Why not?’
‘She thought he should have more ambition – and earn a few more readies, of course. And she hated London, after sleepy old Sussex; she still does, as a matter of fact. No-one will ever persuade her it isn’t as bad as all that. I mean, cities are an abomination, obviously: dreadfully devitalising and artificial. But we lived on a garden estate – one of the very first, in fact, and rather elegant. “Rational architecture” and all that, you know?’
I didn’t; in fact I couldn’t picture it at all. When I thought of London it was either one thing or the other: dazzle or slums. I had very little to relate it to other than Market Stoundham, and I knew that was far wide of the mark. It seemed clear, though, that however decent and well appointed the houses, her family’s circumstances must have been reduced compared to their earlier situation. I was beginning to understand that although she wasn’t like most of the people I knew in the village, she wasn’t gentry either. Perhaps a lack of funds was behind her writing ambitions – she’d mentioned that she lived in a boarding-house when in London, rather than with her family, and I supposed that couldn’t have come cheap.
‘Have you ever done any teaching?’ I asked. ‘Like your father?’
I asked because a few days earlier, a letter had arrived from my old teacher, Miss Carter, asking if she might put my name forward for a position as nurserymaid to two small children in nearby Blaxford; I had replied to say that I didn’t much like children, but I hadn’t quite stopped worrying that I had done the wrong thing.
‘Oh goodness, no. I couldn’t bear it,’ she replied. ‘Jeffrey’s a private tutor, but other than helping my cousin Olive with her violin practice I’ve never taught anyone a thing in my life – unless of course you count the War.’
‘The War?’
‘I was a V.A.D. – you know, with the Red Cross – and by the second time I went out I knew the ropes well enough to help the new girls settle in. Now, I feel I already know Elmbourne well – though I would like to call in at the wheelwright’s one day and watch him work, and I want to talk to the blacksmith, too. But not to-day, I think. Where shall we go, Edie? I’m in your hands.’
The village’s main thoroughfare, The Street, ran along the north side of the river, which was only a stream here really, and slow. There was a post office and general stores, our little schoolroom, a grocer, a butcher, two smithies – one with a crimson petrol pump outside – the wheelwright Connie had mentioned, who was also a cabinet-maker and undertaker, a draper, a sweet shop and the Bell & Hare; once there had been an inn called the Cock, too, but that was no more. We had nearly everything we needed, excepting a bank and a doctor, both of which could be found in Market Stoundham, where the cattle and grain markets were held. There was little need to travel any further, and most people didn’t; likewise, new people rarely moved to the district, and so our day-to-day world was composed almost entirely of people we knew.
Church Lane turned north off The Street to St Anne’s and the rectory, and then west towards Monks Tye; on the corner, across from the Bell & Hare, was our little village green and the pump. Back Lane, which ran parallel to The Street but on the south side of the water, was lined with old cottages and a short brick terrace; there was a fine old half-timbered wool merchant’s house there too, sagging somewhat, but a reminder of a long-ago time when there had been money in sheep. Back Lane had once been part of a separate hamlet, long since absorbed but still marked on the old tithe map on the wall in St Anne’s; a path led through tangled willows and alders between Back Lane and The Street, crossing the river near the old mill by a set of broad stepping-stones.
We pedalled slowly along The Street and left into Church Lane, then turned right towards the peas and beanfields of the valley’s gentle, south-facing slopes. Tall beeches grew here, and the road was white and deep-sunk between shady banks; flints gleamed in the fields on either side. I pointed out a row of three cottages half-ruined; two had been gutted by fire, while on the third moss grew rich and green on the clay pantiles of its roof.
‘Another ten years and those will have gone home,’ I called out to her as we sailed past. ‘That’s what Father says.’
‘Gone home?’
‘Oh, you know, become a ruin. That’s what we say here when the old cob houses sink away into the ground.’
‘But why let them go – why aren’t they being repaired? Close to the village, and so pretty – surely someone would like to live there? I’m sure I know people who would.’
‘Really? Who’d want to live somewhere like that, with damp walls and no pump in the kitchen, just a shared well and a shared privy?’ I said, pedalling hard in an attempt to draw level with her. ‘Mother says those old places are dark and unsanitary; they should pull them all down, she says. I dare say they would, but there’s an old couple clinging on.’
‘No, Edie! Really?’ She braked suddenly and craned back over her shoulder; I had to pull up pretty sharpish so as not to crash into her. ‘People are living there, now?’
It surprised me that she was so taken aback. ‘Yes – but they’re ancient, they won’t move. They’ve lived there all their lives, and they’ll die indoors if they can. That’s the way of it, you see; and it’s either that or the Poor Law – that means the workhouse, or whatever it is they say we must call it these days.’
Connie took out her notebook and wrote something in it; I think she planned to go back and call on the old couple another day. Whether she did or did not I don’t know, for I never read her book, which came out five or more years from the day we last saw one another, and which was kept from me for reasons I have since come to understand.
Perhaps her writing was the reason she seemed to learn so much about us all, and so quickly; even things we did not know ourselves. For it was she who told me about my grandmother – Father’s mother – and what had happened to her in her last years. This was some weeks later, I think; I’d mentioned the fact that I had had diphtheria, and she’d told me about a new inoculation, and then she went on to describe the modern therapies being used to treat lunatics, like giving them convulsions instead of endless cold baths.
‘Of course, it’s all come too late for your poor old grandmother. Who knows, she might have been cured!’
‘Grandma? Whatever do you mean?’
‘No – Albert’s wife; your father’s mother.’
I felt a shiver come over me, like the blind surfacing of a buried memory, or
the passing shadow of a premonition. ‘Did someone walk over your grave, Ed?’ Mary would have laughed.
‘Do you mean she was a lunatic?’
‘Well – yes, darling. Quite insane. She died in the county asylum, apparently. Surely you knew?’
We must have visited nearly all of the valley’s farms that day, Connie writing down notes in her book in her elegant copperplate hand. I know I introduced her to the Coopers at Holstead, with its fine timbered house and fashionable tennis court, and old Elisabeth Allingham, who farmed alone, growing peas and field beans at Copdock; I showed her the Summersby’s flock of sheep grazing the rough pasture near Holbrook Wood. And I pointed out the distant sugar-beet factory and the vast new open fields that were farmed from who knows where, their owners half a county away.
I showed Connie the woods and copses, too, and pointed out which ones had been planted as cover for foxes – like Hulver Wood, at the end of our lane. Father didn’t like the Hunt coming onto our land, I explained, but as a tenant farmer he had little choice. They compensated him for any spoiled hedges and the chickens that upped and died if the hounds came too near, but beyond that there wasn’t a great deal he could do. I told her how once, years before, a whipper-in had told Father to open a gate for him, and Father had done as he was bid – although Frank, who was there, told me he didn’t reply to the man, or drop his gaze. Doble touched his cap to gentry – and to Connie, as she pointed out – but John always refused to. He said those days had ended with the War.
And then, at the end of our tour, I took her to see Ixham Hall. Built in Tudor times of warm red brick, and topped with tall octagonal chimneys, it was set at the end of a long carriage ride amid some fine landscaping that was at that time beginning to overgrow. There was an enormous barn of the usual black timber, where Grandfather could remember having the Harvest Home, and a private chapel built with stone from a long-gone Norman keep. Fifty years earlier the Hall had had nearly a thousand acres, nearly all of it tenanted, but since then much of the land had been sold.
All Among the Barley Page 6