Half a Sixpence

by Evie Grace

  Matty forked up more sheaves from the barn and George kept the horses moving while the spinning drum broke the grain from the straw and fed it across the rollers, where the grain fell through the sieve beneath and into a sack.

  ‘Three or four men can thresh as much corn as twelve can the old way,’ Pa shouted as he clambered down to let John take his place, untying the sheaves and feeding them into the machine.

  ‘So what will the rest of us do over winter?’ Jervis shouted out. ‘I tell you, we will all be starvin’ by Christmas.’

  ‘Have faith,’ Pa called back. ‘We will be able to plough more land, sow more seed and reap more corn. This beauty heralds the start of a new age of prosperity and enow food for all. Step forward, Jervis, and help me take the first sack of grain.’

  Someone pushed Jervis forwards and, to applause, he and Pa loaded the first sack of grain onto the waggon.

  ‘The sails will soon be turning at the mill,’ Emily said, smiling broadly. ‘Ma will be happy.’

  Which meant she wouldn’t be chasing her down with a rolling pin or leather strap, Catherine thought.

  ‘My brother is going to ask for Mary’s hand in marriage this week,’ she told Emily.

  ‘How do you know? Has he said so?’

  ‘I overheard Pa speaking to Mr Nobbs. It seems quite decided. Oh, I don’t know,’ Catherine sighed. ‘Mary has taken a fancy to John, but I don’t think he feels the same way about her.’

  The question troubled her as all around the sounds of late summer filled her ears: the regular clunk of the machine and the rhythmic sawing of timber from the woods. She noticed Drusilla waving at Jervis from an upstairs window in the farmhouse. Jervis smiled briefly before the scowl returned to his face. Catherine wondered if Pa had managed to allay Jervis’s fears over the machine and the potential threat to his livelihood. Pa was right, of course, about this machine. He always was right about everything. She trusted him implicitly, and she was proud to be a daughter that loved her father with all her heart.

  Chapter Three

  Laudanum and Smelling Salts

  Catherine was feeding the hens early on a cold October morning as the mists were rising from the vale. The grass was wet with silver dew and the middlings left on the apple trees were rotten to the core. She blew on her fingers in an attempt to warm them up. The blood started to flow, making her chilblains red and itchy. She checked on Margaret’s piglets – they were growing fast, snorting and snuffling through the fresh straw in the sty. One stopped and looked up at her, then scampered away squealing, making her laugh.

  She headed back towards the house, passing the granary where John, Matty and George were working the threshing machine. George was having trouble keeping the horses in order. They seemed a bit fresh, tossing their heads and swishing their tails. Matty was feeding the sheaves into the machine, which rumbled and shook as it sent the straw flying and the grain tumbling into a sack. John tied the top, dragged it aside and replaced it with a fresh one as soon as it was full.

  Noticing Catherine, John smiled. She smiled back. He had proposed to Mary and been accepted, and plans were afoot for their wedding. She was pleased for them, and confident that John had overcome any doubts he might have had over the match. With their impending marriage, the Rooks appeared to have secured the tenancy of Wanstall Farm for another generation at least. Catherine was looking forward to the wedding celebrations that Ma was planning.

  The sound of an altercation on the track outside the yard cut through the rumbling of the machine.

  ‘Jervis Carter!’ Pa was yelling, his words ringing out like iron through the mist. ‘I’ve told you before. I don’t need you today, tomorrow or the next. Get off my land!’

  ‘Look at you,’ retorted a familiar, high-pitched voice. ‘You have everythin’: a son engaged to a farmer’s daughter; a winter coat; a decent pair of boots. Your wife grows fat like a pig from the fruits of our labours.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Pa growled.

  Catherine realised that the machine had stopped, and George, John and Matty had appeared from the mist to face Jervis and her father as they entered the yard.

  ‘Jervis, think before you speak,’ George cut in. ‘Tom, he don’t mean anything by it, do you, son? Where have you bin anyway? I haven’t seen you for a week and a day.’

  ‘And why do you think that is?’ Jervis stood in front of them in a torn jacket and muddy boots. ‘Why do you always assoome that I’m up to no good? I’ve bin trampin’ the countryside lookin’ for work, and it’s the same everywhere. All you can hear is the sound of the threshin’ machines and grown men cryin’ as their women and children starve.’ His eyes glittered with anger and tears. Catherine could smell strong beer on his breath. ‘It’s men like you who take advantage of the poor,’ he said, turning to Pa with his fists clenched.

  ‘Don’t you raise your fists to me!’

  ‘That’s enow.’ George stepped between his friend and his son.

  ‘I don’t know why you bother with him, George,’ Pa said. ‘He’s like a mad dog. He’s always bitten at the hand that feeds him. His attitude doesn’t do him any good.’

  ‘How can I be to blame for my attitoode? You’ve brought me to this, favouring my younger brothers over me. Look at them. Stephen hardly speaks to me now, he’s so swelled up with his self-importance.’

  ‘I’ve done all I can for you boys out of my eternal gratitude to your father. You would have been apprenticed by virtue of being the eldest if you hadn’t upset Len so bad that he refused to consider you, and Matty can always be relied upon, whereas you …’ Pa’s words appeared to fail him for a moment.

  ‘Tom has only ever been kind and generous to the Carters. He would ha’ gi’n you work if you’d turned up with the rest of us the other morning. You could have joined the watch with Matty on Saturday night, if you hadn’t been out and about.’ George forced a chuckle. ‘You was walking out with your sweetheart, i’n’t that right?’

  Jervis set his mouth in a grim straight line, refusing to answer.

  Catherine glanced towards Matty, whose face was a mask. She could sense the tension between Pa and the Carters, and between George and his sons.

  ‘I reckon that if you apologised in a proper, genuine manner, Tom would find something for you to do,’ George said.

  ‘I have enow hired hands for the present,’ Pa said stiffly.

  ‘Please,’ George begged. ‘I’ll vouch for his good behaviour in footure if you’ll give him work.’ He slapped his son on the back. ‘Come on, my lad. Say you’re sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Jervis said. ‘I spoke out of turn. I didn’t mean to offend.’

  ‘That’s better,’ Pa said. ‘I was afraid you were coming round to Captain Swing’s way of thinking.’

  ‘No, sir. Of course not, sir.’

  Catherine had heard Pa talk of the mythical Captain Swing, named after the action of the hand flail. Pa had attended a meeting with the squire at the Rose Inn in Canterbury to discuss how they could protect their farms from the rioters who set ricks and granaries alight, and broke threshing machines in protest against the wealthy farmers and landowners, and the law of the land which had changed to disadvantage the poor. There were troops patrolling the country roads on the way, and when he’d walked to the top of the Dane John, he’d seen ricks and farms ablaze in the distance. That had made him realise the seriousness of the situation, so he and the local farmers around Overshill had set up a regular night watch from the church tower.

  ‘Will you hire me, sir? I can dig out the rotten poles in the hop garden, pull onions or lift turnips. I’ll do anythin’.’

  ‘The vegetable patch needs digging over. You can start with that.’ Pa turned to Catherine. ‘Go and fetch Jervis some bread and cheese. A man can’t work on an empty stomach.’

  ‘Pa, I’ll be late leaving for school,’ she protested.

  ‘Do as I ask. It won’t take long.’

  She went indoors. The cheese dish was empty
so she returned with the bread and some butter.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said.

  Jervis snatched it from her and started tearing pieces from the loaf and stuffing them into his mouth. He paused for a moment.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Rook,’ he said grudgingly, his lips covered with crumbs and spittle, before he turned abruptly and walked away into the mist while the machine groaned back into action.

  Catherine carried on with her before-school chores, fetching water for the pigs in the heavy wooden bucket. As she struggled to tip it into the trough, there was a screech and a terrible grating sound, as the machine slowed down. She stopped what she was doing to watch her brother trying to get the rollers moving smoothly again.

  ‘These are blocked,’ John called. ‘You must have put too much in at once.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Matty shouted back from the top of the machine. ‘The straw is longer than usual. It keeps getting stuck.’

  ‘Pull it out then, son,’ George called. ‘I’ll hold the horses.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ John said impatiently. He scrambled up to join Matty and reached in to clear the straw, but George hadn’t yet managed to bring the horses to a halt. The spindle caught John’s smock and started to wind him in.

  ‘Stop, Pa,’ Matty yelled.

  As George pulled the horses up, John’s smock tore apart, releasing him from the mechanism.

  Catherine uttered a gasp of relief, but as the machine jerked to a stop, John lost his balance. He reached out to save himself, but there was nothing for him to hold onto. He toppled and fell to the ground, landing head first. For a moment Catherine stood paralysed in shock, then she screamed and ran over to him, dropping to her knees at his side. George left the horses to join her where John was lying out cold.

  ‘Matty, fetch Tom,’ he said. ‘Quick as you can.’

  Matty ran off, shouting for Pa.

  Catherine patted her brother’s face and begged him to wake up. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He began to twitch and foam at the mouth.

  Pa appeared from the barn, grim-faced and shaking.

  ‘Oh Lord, what have I done?’ he exclaimed. ‘What happened?’

  ‘His smock caught in the spindles as he was trying to clear the machine,’ Catherine explained. ‘He fell and broke his head, and now he won’t wake up.’

  Pa ordered Matty to take one of the horses and fetch the doctor from Boughton-under-Blean.

  ‘What shall I say to Ma?’ Catherine asked, getting up.

  ‘I wish we didn’t have to tell her. This will break her heart,’ Pa said, running his hands through his hair. ‘What are we to do?’

  ‘I think we should move him into the house,’ she said, trying to be practical. ‘He can’t stay out here.’ She bolted indoors to find Ma who was negotiating the purchase of a brace of pheasant from a higgler who had turned up on the doorstep.

  ‘Why aren’t you at school?’ Ma said. ‘You’ll be in trouble with Mrs Fagg.’

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Catherine said.

  ‘Can’t you see how busy I am?’ Ma said, annoyed. ‘I’m right in the middle of something.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s urgent.’

  Ma looked at her properly for the first time, catching something in her tone. ‘Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it?’

  Catherine nodded.

  ‘Is it Pa?’

  ‘Come and sit down.’ She sent the higgler away and led her mother to the kitchen, where she sat her on a chair near the fire. ‘There’s been an accident. It’s John. He’s in a bad way.’

  Ma got up, her face as white as lard.

  ‘Please, don’t move.’

  ‘I have to see him.’ She pushed her aside. ‘You can’t keep a mother from her son.’

  Catherine ran out after her. Pa, George and Jervis – who had appeared from the garden – were moving John onto an old door. Ma wailed and beat her chest. Catherine restrained her to allow the men to carry the patient upstairs unhindered and put him to bed.

  ‘Try not to worry. Pa’s sent for the doctor,’ she said.

  ‘It’s too late. He’s dead,’ Ma exclaimed, wringing a sodden handkerchief.

  ‘He’s breathing.’ Catherine helped her to John’s room. ‘Let’s pray that he wakes soon.’ She called for Drusilla to bring boiled water, clean cloths and the smelling salts. When they arrived, she opened the vinaigrette and held the sponge to John’s nostrils. He uttered a long, low groan.

  ‘Oh, my poor, darling boy.’ Ma sat on the bed at his feet, snatched the vinaigrette and took a deep breath of hartshorn. ‘This is your fault.’ She looked accusingly at Pa. ‘If only you hadn’t insisted on buying that infernal machine. I knew it wasn’t safe.’

  ‘I should have had a guard made for the spindle,’ he said quietly. ‘Mr White advised me to, but I didn’t get around to it. It was expensive.’

  ‘Oh, how I wish to hear the sound of the flail again,’ Ma went on, rocking back and forth.

  Catherine loosened John’s necktie and mopped the spittle from his lips and the blood from his scalp.

  ‘What did you think you were doing, being so careless around that machine?’ she murmured under her breath. ‘I’d give anything to see you open your eyes.’

  ‘Where’s the doctor?’ Pa said with a curse. ‘What’s keeping him?’

  Catherine offered silent prayers, Ma cried, and Pa paced up and down the landing until the doctor arrived on his horse a few minutes after the clock in the hall struck twelve.

  ‘Dr Whebley, thank goodness you’ve come,’ Ma said when Drusilla showed him up to the sickroom. He strolled in, dressed in a great coat and boots, and carrying a leather case. He was about sixty years old, his face deeply lined and his moustache the colour of salt.

  ‘The boy told me what happened,’ he said gruffly. He examined John, looked inside his eyelids, pinched his fingers and toes, and listened to his chest with his ear to a paper cone. ‘You were right to send for me in such a case of insensibility. Concussion of the brain as a result of a contusion cannot be regarded too seriously.’

  ‘What can be done for him?’ Pa asked, his voice raw.

  ‘He’s a young man and his body is strong. I prescribe regular doses of laudanum mixed with water to allow him to continue to sleep quietly and without pain while his head repairs. I advise you to cut his hair short and apply cold to the bruise. It wouldn’t hurt to apply hot water bottles to his feet as well to try to bring him out of this suspended animation.’

  ‘You’ve seen this before? He will get better?’ Pa said.

  ‘It’s too early to give an opinion on the likelihood of his recovery, but I shall have a better idea upon my return on the morrow.’ The doctor bade the family farewell and rode away down the lane at a smart trot on his chestnut mare.

  Pa left the room and Ma sat with John until she seemed to be unable to bear her grief any longer. Catherine remained with him, willing him to live, not just for her sake, but for Mary’s and the rest of the Rooks too.

  News of the accident spread fast, resulting in a constant stream of visitors during the afternoon. Mrs Browning called with her daughter, Jane, bringing an offering of junket.

  ‘Oh my dear Mrs Rook, we heard of your terrible misfortune, and came as soon as the milk had set,’ said Mrs Browning as Ma showed them into the sickroom to see the invalid for themselves.

  ‘It is the end of the world. My lovely boy is brought to this! He’s as good as d-d-dead,’ Ma sobbed.

  ‘Please, don’t say that. What if he can hear you?’ Catherine said.

  ‘Catherine is right,’ Mrs Browning said. ‘Words like that are of no encouragement in bringing him round. We should remain optimistic and pray for his recovery. Jane and I will leave you in peace. If there’s anything we can do, let us know.’ The visitors left, taking the junket with them. Catherine assumed it was destined for another invalid – Ma Carter, perhaps – one able to appreciate it.

  Young Thomas Rook rode over to see his
brother as well. He looked in on the patient and talked briefly to Catherine, giving her news of her nephews and nieces before returning to his farm. George Carter called in at the end of the day to offer his regards and express the wish that it had been him, not John, who’d got caught up in the machine, which wasn’t very helpful because it set Ma off into an attack of the vapours which necessitated her retiring immediately to bed.

  Catherine was dripping water laced with laudanum into John’s mouth when Drusilla brought her a supper of soup, bread and cheese.

  ‘What is that, miss?’ she asked, putting down the tray and picking up the chemist’s bottle.

  ‘It’s medicine – Dr Whebley prescribed it.’

  ‘Is it sleeping drops?’

  ‘I believe it is similar.’

  ‘Is there any change?’ Drusilla put the bottle down.

  Catherine shook her head. Even Ma’s frenzied sobbing hadn’t made John stir.

  ‘I will cast a spell to make him better.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Anything was worth a try, Catherine thought, although she was a little dubious about the practice of witchcraft. The Reverend Browning wouldn’t approve.

  ‘Is there anything else you need, miss? Only it’s time I was goin’ home.’

  ‘No, I’ll see you in the morning.’ Catherine wished her goodnight.

  She nibbled at the bread, but the soup went cold on the dressing table. The candle at the bedside flickered and the smell of burning tallow filled the sickroom. A barn owl, a harbinger of doom, started to shriek into the dark night. She leaned across and looked closely at the patient’s face. His eyes were half-closed. He seemed sleepier than ever after the laudanum. Now and again his breathing stuttered, as if it were about to stop altogether. She reached out and held his hand.

  ‘Don’t leave us,’ she begged. ‘You have everything to live for. Please, John, squeeze my fingers, do anything to show you can hear me. I love you, my brother.’ She waited, but there was no response, just the clatter of a small shower of stones against the window.