by Evie Grace
‘What was in your basket?’ Ma asked a little later when the family – apart from John, who was still working out in the fields, making the most of the fine evening – were eating supper at the kitchen table.
‘My bonnet, of course,’ Catherine said. ‘I collected it from school.’
‘How strange when you could have carried it home on your head,’ Pa observed, chewing noisily on a crust.
‘She’s always bin a peculiar child.’ Ma passed him a second slice of ham to add to the bread and butter on his plate.
Ma’s remark reminded Catherine of what Matty had said about her being a changeling and later, as she repaired the tears in Emily’s bonnet by the flicker of candlelight so that they wouldn’t show, she began to wonder what he meant by it.
She wondered too if the harvest would be a good one.
She laid down the bonnet and snuffed out the candle before retiring to bed. All was silent apart from the occasional creak of a rafter in the old house and the regular ticking of the longcase clock in the hall. It didn’t seem possible that anything would ever disturb the peace and tranquillity of Overshill.
Chapter Two
The Harvest
On the Sunday morning, Catherine walked into the village with Pa, Ma and her brother, a tall, handsome man of twenty-five with hair the colour of ripened barley, bright blue eyes and good teeth. He was wearing his corduroy jacket, matching trousers and recently blacked boots.
‘John has put an unusual amount of effort into his appearance,’ she remarked.
‘He looks quite the dandy,’ Ma agreed.
‘You’re making me blush, Ma.’ John turned and grinned before walking on with a spring in his step.
Catherine doubted it. Her brother was used to compliments. He’d always had his pick of the village girls because of his light-hearted attitude to life, his charm and his prospects, but now it seemed that he’d settled for Mary Nobbs.
‘It’s a pity that you had to let us down by wearing that grubby bonnet on the Sabbath, Catherine,’ Ma went on. ‘It’s in a terrible state. It looks like the cat’s put her claws through it. I’ll have to have a word with Pa about buying you some more clothes.’
Catherine smiled to herself as they reached the mill where the aroma of meat cooking in the bread ovens, ready for some of the other villagers to collect after the service, rose into the air. She knew exactly what Pa would say about the prospect of a new bonnet. Not until after hop-picking when the money came in.
The Millichips joined them on the street. The miller was wearing a suit that seemed to bear a light dusting of flour, and his sour-faced wife wore a grey dress and cape bound with red braid. They greeted Pa and Ma Rook, the men shaking hands, and the women nodding politely. Emily linked arms with Catherine and the pair of them dropped back behind the rest of the party.
‘Did your ma say anything about your bonnet?’ Catherine said.
Emily raised her finger to her lips and shook her head.
‘Did you snitch on Matty?’ she asked quietly.
‘I spoke to Pa, but nothing will come of it. And then I tried to make up for what I’d done, and now Matty hates me. His family is so very poor. I didn’t realise what a struggle they have to make ends meet.’
‘I’m sure you meant well,’ Emily said, turning towards the carriage that had stopped outside the church. Mr Hadington, the lawyer who owned Churt House, held the door open for his wife and grown daughter, who stepped out in their finery and feathers. With his smart coat, curly whiskers and brown teeth, he reminded Catherine of a rat, sniffing out opportunities to enhance his fortune. He stared at the girls, his eyes settling on Emily. She glanced away, but he continued to stare.
‘Don’t you think that Mr Hadington is rather odd?’ Emily whispered. ‘He’s always looking at me. Last week when we came out of the church, I could feel his eyes burning into my back.’
‘Don’t take any notice. We’ll never need to have anything to do with him.’
‘Do you remember how we used to stand at the bottom of the drive and crane our necks to catch a glimpse of Churt House?’ Emily said. ‘You told me how you wished you were a rich man’s daughter.’
‘Imagine how different life would be if you had too much money rather than just enough,’ Catherine said wistfully. ‘I’d help all the poor families in the village.’
‘If they’d let you,’ Emily pointed out. ‘The people around here might be poor, but they’re also very proud.’
They walked up the steps into the churchyard and joined the throng entering the church, curious to see the new vicar and his family. Catherine glanced around at the familiar sight of the elegant stone pillars that separated the nave from the aisles on either side, and at the soaring arches that formed the roof. There were stone bosses where the ribs met: one in the form of a nun’s face, another of a rose, and her favourite of a man with a beard of leaves. She turned to look over her shoulder at the west gallery above the entrance to the church where the choir were shuffling around, taking their seats behind the carved wooden screen.
‘Catherine, stop your daydreaming and come and sit down.’ Ma’s voice broke into her consciousness.
‘Wake up, little sister. You can’t possibly miss out on this great occasion.’ John winked at her as he escorted her along the nave, then whispered, ‘It’s only fair that we all suffer in equal measure.’
Catherine suppressed a chuckle.
‘That’s her. That’s Mrs Browning,’ Ma said loudly as they settled in their pew, the Rooks alongside the Millichips and three rows back from the squire, the lawyer and other dignitaries of the parish. ‘That’s her daughter, Jane.’
Catherine gazed towards a girl of about her age who was dressed demurely in a bonnet and dark blue dress with long sleeves and lace gloves. She kept glancing behind her with a smile playing on her lips. Her upturned nose gave her an air of superiority.
‘And that is her son, Hector, who has a most handsome countenance, don’t you think?’
Several heads had turned at the sound of Ma’s voice. Catherine wished she would keep quiet.
The boy was a year or two older than her, pale and uninteresting, she thought, with his chestnut hair neatly combed and his shoulders rounded as he slumped in the pew with his head in his hands. His mother gave him a nudge as the new vicar, dressed in cassock, surplice and stole, stepped up to the lectern. His hair was brushed forwards onto his fat cheeks and he wore silver spectacles with pebble lenses. He raised a tin vamping horn to his lips – the villagers used to use it to call the cattle home in the days before the lands were enclosed, but the last time Catherine could remember hearing it was when the parish clerk called for help after a candle fell over in the vestry and set the vestments alight.
‘Pray, silence,’ the vicar lisped through the vamping horn. His voice echoed around the vaulted ceiling, sending a ripple of amusement through the crowd. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of Overshill! Silence! I cannot hear myself speak.’
A loud thud from the west gallery caught the congregation’s attention instead. George Carter, who was with the other members of the choir, had dropped the trombone. There was a chuckle, followed by deep, booming laughter.
‘You oughta be more careful, Pa.’ It was Matty’s voice from behind the wooden screen. ‘You’ve broken it.’
‘I ’aven’t.’
‘Yes, you ’ave. Look at it there. No, there.’
‘Well, maybe I ’ave just a little bit, but equally you could say that it broke itself on the way down. No matter. The churchwardens will pay for the repairs, for what use is a choir without its instruments?’
‘We will see what use this choir is by the end of the service,’ said the vicar. ‘Sit down, sirs. Open your ears and hearts to God’s Word, and pray forgiveness for your sins of drunkenness and lack of respect for the hallowed Church of Our Lady.’
The choir began to settle as the vicar preached and prayed about salvation and wickedness, and each time Catherine thought he was about t
o say, ‘Here endeth …’ he continued. His lisping delivery became louder as he became more fired up with wrath against a congregation that had only returned to the church for one purpose: to observe their new vicar.
Eventually, he stopped and the singing of the psalm began. The Reverend Browning was not happy with it. He raised both his hand and the vamping horn, and sprang up on the balls of his feet to call for the choir to pause.
‘I cannot hear the singing,’ he complained, and Catherine wondered if it had more to do with the state of his ears than the efforts of the choir. He handed the horn to one of the village boys who carried it up the stone staircase to the gallery and gave it to Jervis Carter.
Jervis, who was taller and rangier than his brothers with knotted brown hair and a poor impression of a beard, put it to his mouth. George beat the rhythm with his hand, the trombone being out of action. Stephen played the clarinet and Matty drew his bow across the strings of his fiddle.
Jervis’s voice sang out, high-pitched like an angel’s, while George joined in with a lusty bass. The music began very slowly, too slowly for the congregation, making the sound most mournful, but as the psalm progressed, George gradually beat a faster rhythm until it was more like a sing-song at a beerhouse.
Catherine and Emily began to sway. Mr Millichip began to tap with his foot. The vicar’s forehead became lined with discomfiture and Catherine could almost feel his relief when the singing came to a drawn-out end complete with one final toot of the clarinet.
Reverend Browning continued with his sermon while the farm servants yawned in the pews – most of them had been up at dawn, putting in three or four hours’ work before church. John was fidgeting and sighing. Ma was fiddling with a piece of lace. Pa was writing with a stub of pencil on a piece of paper inserted into his psalm book. Every so often, he would put the stub behind his ear and sit, frowning. When Catherine peered across, she could see that he was making notes and drawings on improvements for the farm: cropping; planting; a fantastical machine with pulleys and belts and smoke belching from a chimney on the top.
The light glinted through the stained-glass window of Our Lady onto a brass of some old knight in armour on the floor. Above that, set in the wall, was a white marble plaque that marked the lives of Squire Temple’s ancestors, the men all of courage, the women entirely virtuous, and their children pure and innocent.
Squire Temple himself was asleep – she could tell from the slope of his shoulders and the way his head jerked forwards now and then. Jane kept her eyes down and head bowed in supplication as though praying for her father to stop and let them out into the bright sunshine to enjoy their day of rest.
Catherine thought of the meal they would have later: roast beef and taters. And her stomach rumbled. When would it ever end?
‘I were praying for him to stop,’ Pa said on the way back to the farm after the service. ‘Doesn’t he realise the harvest is almost upon us? It’s no wonder that people don’t go to church any more when the parson don’t even offer a prayer for good weather. It’s all very well preaching the virtues of temperance to the choir, but it won’t make no difference. That was time wasted when I should have been setting up for the morning. What do you think, Ma?’
‘I think I shall reserve judgement, you being a churchwarden and that,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel better when you have some food in your belly.’
‘I’ll feel better when everything – the grain, the hops and the rest of the apples – are safely gathered in.’ A smile crossed Pa’s face. ‘And then it’ll be time for ploughing and planting, and threshing with the new machine. That will be the making of us, you’ll see. By next year, every farmer who’s seen it in action will want to hire it and I’ll have made enow money to buy another, and maybe more. Our future is golden like the barley in the meadows.’
The next day at dawn in the two-acre field behind the farmhouse, the reapers were already at work under Pa’s watchful eye when Catherine turned up with John, who was carrying his scythe on his shoulder in readiness for mowing. She was to act as one of the gatherers until it was time for her to help Ma bring the midday meal out for the workers.
‘Matty will fetch and carry too,’ Pa said, and Catherine frowned at the thought of having to face him again, knowing that she would feel awkward and embarrassed.
The shadows shrank as the sun rose in the clear sky. John took his place alongside the other men and began to cut the corn. He swung his scythe close to the ground with ease and rhythm, moving from his hips and waist. The cradle on his scythe caught the barley which fell onto the ground in a neat swathe.
Catherine walked after him, taking handfuls of stems and laying them on the ground so she could place some of the barley that John had cut on top. One of the bandsters followed behind her, binding the swathe with knots of straw to make a sheaf. Mary Nobbs, the farmer’s daughter from nearby Sinderberry Farm, and Drusilla had also been drafted in to help with the harvest.
It was Mary who took her place behind Catherine so she could impress John with the speed of her knotting, and keep her eyes on him as he scythed his way through the barley. Her dark hair was braided and her lips were full and pink, and she was exposing far more of her bosom than Catherine thought necessary. As she bent down to tie the band around each sheaf, her bodice could barely contain her flesh.
‘John, keep straight,’ Catherine called to her brother as the windrow began to waver across the meadow.
‘I am going straight,’ he shouted back.
‘You aren’t – you’re all over the place like you’ve bin drinking Pa’s cider.’
‘I’ve bin doing nothing of the sort.’
‘Then something’s distracting you. Or someone.’ She placed her finger on her lips, pretending to think. ‘I wonder who that can be.’ She smiled as she watched his complexion flush the colour of a ripe apple. It was her sisterly duty to embarrass him.
‘Eyes forward.’ Pa laughed as he took up a scythe and began to cut the corn alongside his son. ‘I’ll race you to the end.’
Matty and two of the other labourers stacked the sheaves, leaning them against each other to form a stook. Jervis added an additional sheaf across the top to act as a hood to keep the rain off while the stook dried.
The sun rose higher and the day grew hotter. Their shirts stuck to their backs and the sweat dripped from their foreheads. John and George stripped down to the waist as they continued to mow the field. George’s scythe needed frequent sharpening, slowing the reaping down. The Irish complained about the lack of beer, and Pa grew impatient about the lack of progress.
‘At this rate, we won’t be done before winter,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know what’s got into everyone.’
Catherine felt the perspiration trickling from beneath her bonnet. Her back and arms ached, but when the burning sun reached its midday zenith, Pa gave her some respite, sending her and Matty to fetch food and beer for the labourers. Matty mopped his brow with his shirt as they walked side by side to the farmhouse in awkward silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ they both said at the same time.
‘I shouldn’t have done what I did,’ she said, keeping her face averted. ‘I didn’t think about how it would look to you.’
‘And I didn’t think of how you’d feel about me turning you away with a flea in your ear when you’d come to us out of kindness. I shouldn’t have said those things about you either. I was angry.’
‘Ta. Let’s say no more of it. How is your ma?’
‘She can’t work in the fields no more, but Pa and I can, and my brothers and sisters as soon as they’re old enough.’
‘How do you manage?’ Catherine dared to ask.
‘Stephen gives us money when he’s able to, and after the harvest, we’ll have earned enough to pay the rent and settle our debts, and I’ll have leather for a new pair of boots.’ He grinned from ear to ear. ‘As long as your pa keeps us on for the threshing, we won’t need no charity.’
They entered the house, and fetched
and carried according to Ma’s instructions.
‘Don’t you dare get your grubby fingers on those loaves,’ she called as they struggled to carry a basket of bread together across the farmyard and out past the granary to the field. As they turned the corner, Catherine lost her grip on the wickerwork handle, and the basket fell, tipping a loaf onto the ground.
‘Oh no. Ma’s going to yell at me.’
‘She’ll never know.’ Matty picked up the loaf and gave the crust a quick rub to remove some of the dust.
‘You’ve made it worse.’ Catherine giggled as Matty buried it beneath the others in the basket.
‘Keep it to yourself,’ he whispered.
‘Oh, I shall.’ She had learned her lesson about telling tales.
There was cheese and beer, and caraway cake as well as bread for the reapers who sought the shade beneath the hedges and farm buildings, where they ate, drank and swore aloud. The more they drank, the more they cursed, and the more anxious Pa became. He rounded them up and set them back to work as the heat shimmered from the stubble.
The harvest continued over the next fortnight. Catherine was out in the fields from dawn until dusk, day after day, but at last, the final cart laden with barley was brought to the barn by a horse decorated with ribbons and a garland of flowers around its neck. The corn dollies that the women had plaited from the last standing sheaf to keep the spirit of the corn goddess alive until sowing the following spring sat on top of the waggon. The ensemble was accompanied by a motley marching band comprising members of the church choir and a pair of the Irish playing a pipe and fiddle. George Carter played the accordion while the three older Carter brothers and the rest sang their hearts out.