by Evie Grace
‘He’s been sent away to boarding school,’ Catherine said.
‘Where he feeds on beef and suet every day, and l’arns from books and rubs shoulders with the sons of the wealthy who rake in the money from breweries and brickfields.’
‘You wouldn’t wish to be like Hector, though? He has no friends here in Overshill.’
‘He’s a prig,’ Matty pronounced, ‘and you’re right. I’d hate to be sent away from my family. I mean, I’d like to travel the world too, but always come home at the end of it. When I get down on my knees in church to pray, I wish for Ma’s good health, and food for my brothers and sisters. All I dream of for myself is having a cosy cottage, clean clothes and a vegetable patch, and maybe a pig to fatten. I’d like to have my own bed and one day, I’d like to run a few sheep on the marshes, or rent a few acres where I can plant an orchard.’ He turned and looked her in the eyes. ‘It isn’t much to ask, is it?’
She didn’t answer, afraid that his idea of contentment was too much for a farmhand to expect.
‘There’s one more thing,’ he added. ‘I’d like us to be friends.’
‘We are friends, silly,’ she laughed, although his sentiment warmed her heart.
‘I mean good friends for ever. For the rest of our lives.’
‘Well, yes, of course.’
‘Even if I leave Overshill?’
‘I don’t see why not, but why are you planning to leave? It’s home. It’s where we belong.’
‘No one can tell the future,’ Matty said with a shrug. ‘If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’
Catherine gazed at him. He was being serious.
‘You’re a strange one, Matty Carter,’ she said gently. She picked up the book, opened it at the first page, and in the light of the lantern began to read about the role of a shepherd from a text that resembled one of the vicar’s sermons.
‘This is as dull as dishwater,’ she said after a while. She paused to blow on her fingers in a feeble attempt to warm them up. She admired Matty’s determination to improve himself by acquiring knowledge, but she couldn’t help feeling it was going to take a very long time until his efforts bore any fruit. She thought of the damp environs of Toad’s Bottom Cottage and Ma Carter’s swollen body and limbs, and the younger members of the family, half-starved and unwashed. George had spent most of his life working on the land. What had he achieved? What had he got to show for his labours?
‘Keep going,’ Matty urged. ‘I don’t want to end up poor like my father. Your pa has done well out of him.’
‘What are you saying?’ Catherine said, hurt at the implication that her father had somehow taken advantage. She hoped that Matty didn’t hold these sorts of resentments against her dear father, like his ungrateful brother Jervis seemed to do. Catherine always thought of Matty as a quiet and hard worker rather like Stephen, if a bit more mischievous, but now he sounded disgruntled.
‘I don’t mean to give offence.’
‘He’s been good to you. He’s given you both work in the winter months when there was little or nothing to do.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Matty exclaimed bitterly. ‘And he’s paid for Stephen’s apprenticeship and kept Jervis on when others wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Catherine. I’m grateful, but it’s hard to accept that we’re completely dependent on Thomas’s goodwill.’ He leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘Please read.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be on the lookout?’
‘There’s nothing to see. Nothing will happen until the beerhouses close.’
Reassured, she obliged, returning to the rather woolly subject of the husbandry of sheep, until the sound of shouting disturbed her.
‘Did you hear that?’ She tugged at Matty’s cloak and was answered by a light snore. She extinguished the candle in the lantern so she could see better into the distance towards Wanstall Farm. The glint of Ghost Hole Pond and the silhouette of the mill were visible, highlighted by the bluish touch of the moonlight. She caught sight of people out in the field near the rick which was bright with a halo of flames. She could see and smell smoke. Her heart began to pound.
‘Wake up! The hayrick’s alight.’ She shook Matty by the shoulders.
‘Fire?’ he muttered.
‘Yes, at Wanstall Farm.’
With a yawn, he reached out and picked up the vamping horn, then he jumped up and put it to his lips. He blew hard, the sound piercing through the darkness over and over again.
‘Fire!’ he yelled. ‘Fire!’ The horn clattered against the floor as he dropped it and took Catherine’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’
They ran down the spiral staircase, one behind the other, out past the vicarage where the Reverend Browning had stepped outside to tie the knot on his robe. They joined a throng of people sweeping along the road to the farm: the Millichips; the butcher and his wife; Ivy, Len and Stephen from the forge; Mr Nobbs and Mary; and George Carter. They rushed through the farmyard to the field behind where the rick was well ablaze, sending glowing cinders of hay high into the air.
The fiery fragments drifted over the tops of the barns towards the house and granary, and fell to the ground. Those that fell on stone or muddy ground blacked out, while those that landed on the thatched roof of the stables and the straw in the pigsty began to burn more strongly, sending out licking tongues of flame.
Margaret squealed and the horses in the stables started to panic, kicking out at the barriers between their stalls.
‘Pa,’ Catherine called, but she couldn’t find him. George was at the pump, passing buckets and bowls of water along a human chain through the gate to the rick.
‘The pigs.’ She snatched a bucket from Ma, who had joined the line, and poured the water onto the burning straw. ‘Matty, help me.’
‘Take one.’ He was back at her side, having picked up a couple of short poles from the woodpile. ‘We can drive the pigs to safety.’
‘What about the horses?’
‘All in good time. Hurry.’
Catherine opened the gate into the sty.
‘Come on, Margaret,’ she urged, but she had to step inside and push the sow out. Her piglets followed, trotting across the yard towards the back of the house, which was all very well, but where were they going to put them so they didn’t escape into the woods and disappear as fodder for the charcoal burners and travellers?
Matty threw a bucket of water onto one of the piglets which had stopped to snuffle at George’s feet. It oinked and scampered towards the farmhouse, where Catherine opened the door and sent the pigs inside.
‘Your ma will go mad,’ Matty observed as he watched her shut them in the scullery.
‘She might be grateful for once. Come on. We need to free the horses.’
Matty reached up and grabbed a coat from the hook in the passageway and they ran outside again. The horses were whinnying and kicking so hard that the buildings quaked. The rick and the pigsty continued to burn. More people had arrived, along with Squire Temple, his bailiff, kennel-man and groom, who were already in the stables, trying to cajole the horses outside. Matty handed the coat to the squire. He threw it over the lead horse’s head. Calmed by the blindfold, the horse walked quietly out into the yard.
‘Pa,’ Catherine called again. Where was he? Was he injured? Where was John?
She ran round to the rick where the fire was under control. The hay that was left was damp, blackened and smoking, and completely useless for feeding to the livestock during the long, cold winter. The pigsty was ruined and the thatch on the stable roof had gone, leaving the timber beams exposed. The men, women and children of Overshill put down their buckets and looked on as a gaggle of men appeared from the fields.
Pa was at the head of the procession with John stumbling along behind him. Next came three youths, flanked by five others, farmhands from Home Farm over the hill. They drove the three youths into the farmyard.
‘Tie them up,’ Pa ordered. He looked around, his gaze settling on Matty. ‘Fetch the ropes from the ba
rn.’
The three youths were swiftly roped together and surrounded. Who were they? Catherine wondered.
‘Jervis, what are you doing here?’ she heard Matty say.
‘For the love of—’ George’s voice broke off.
‘I didn’t do nothin’, Pa,’ Jervis stammered. ‘Honest.’
‘We chased them down to the chalk pit,’ one of the farmhands said. ‘We found matches on this one.’ He showed Pa his haul.
‘I saw them drinking at the Woodsman’s Arms earlier,’ said another. ‘They left at closing time and joined some other troublemakers in the woods. They’ve bin trying to rally others to their cause.’
‘They have no cause,’ Pa said. ‘They’re vandals who don’t spare a thought for the ordinary working man when they’re ruining people’s property. Jervis, I’ve given you work out of the goodness of my heart and for the sake of your father, who is an honourable man, a gentleman in manners if not by wealth. I don’t understand why you run amok.’ He turned to the other two youths. ‘What do you have to say for yourselves?’
Unlike Jervis, they had a lot to say, including the fact that they had met Jervis at the beerhouse and he had persuaded them to accompany him in setting the rick on fire as retribution for the miserly wage that Pa paid him, and for the resentments he felt at being passed over for the opportunities that his brothers had received.
‘I can’t turn a blind eye this time,’ Pa said angrily. ‘I’m not made of money and I’m tired of trying to do the right thing by people like you. You’ve damaged my livelihood and put lives at risk with your thoughtless actions. If Matty hadn’t spotted the rick on fire and sounded the alarm, it could have taken hold on the barns and the house. You were supposed to be on watch yourself. I can’t forgive you.’
Jervis swore.
‘One day, Mr Rook,’ he said, finding his tongue, ‘if I have my way, people like you will find out what it’s like to be destitoote and without hope.’
The back of Catherine’s neck pricked with unease as Pa responded.
‘You aren’t welcome within a mile of this farm or my family ever again. Go, before I change my mind. Other men have hanged for less.’
‘Thank you for your compassion,’ George said. ‘He is a foolish, weak-minded lad and I’m ashamed of him.’
Jervis spat and cursed again as he struggled against the rope that bound his wrists.
‘I did that for you and you alone, George. If I ever see him here on my property again, I will have him arrested and let the full force of the law come down upon him.’ Pa nodded towards Matty. ‘Untie them. You’d better run before the special constable arrives from Faversham. Go on. Get out of my sight.’
The three youths hastened from the farm and up the lane.
‘Why did you let them go?’ Squire Temple asked. ‘We should make an example of them.’
‘We can still set the hounds after them,’ the bailiff said darkly. ‘They’ll bring them down. Failing that, I would have them shot ere they show their faces back in Overshill. It would be no loss to anyone.’
Catherine shuddered. Matty put his cloak around her shoulders, but she wasn’t cold. She was even more fearful for the future now with the bailiff’s violent threats and the thought of Pa being forced to choose between buying in hay and selling the animals that she loved. With the talk of shooting and arson, she didn’t feel safe any more.
‘Keep hold of my cloak until tomorrow. I’m off,’ Matty said. ‘I don’t want to be here when your ma finds out the pigs are in her scullery. Goodnight, Catherine.’
‘Thank you, Matty.’ She smiled ruefully as she watched him hasten away. A few pigs in the scullery were the least of the Rooks’ worries.
She thought back to the harvest and how she had wondered if the tranquillity of Wanstall Farm and Overshill could ever be broken. Within less than three months, everything had changed. John’s accident with the threshing machine had set his life and the fate of the Rooks on a very different course. Tension had grown between farmers like Pa and the farm labourers whom the introduction of threshing machines had put out of work, and now there was the fire and the fallout from that to cope with.
It wasn’t all bad, though, she mused as she wrapped the cloak tightly around her. She had made a friend in Matty Carter.
1833
Chapter Five
A Silver Sixpence
Overshill, East Kent
It was three years after the rick fire and a kind of peace had settled over the Kent countryside. The incendiarists had been apprehended thanks to the reward of one hundred pounds offered by the Kent Insurance Company for their detection. Some had been hanged to put fear into other would-be rioters. Farmers like Thomas Rook had raised wages and lowered the rents to help their farmhands, and the poor seemed to have settled for their lot. Wanstall Farm had recovered from the rick fire, but Catherine wasn’t sure that her father would ever be quite the same again, his spirit diminished further by Jervis Carter’s betrayal and his concerns for the future.
One morning in June, a day after Catherine’s sixteenth birthday, she was in the kitchen with her mother. Pa had gone to market in Faversham with Matty and John while George remained at the farm, supervising the workers. Drusilla, having turned up late as had become her habit, was trying to catch up with her chores. Catherine could hear her stamping along the passageway with buckets of water for the copper.
‘I was talking to Mrs Nobbs at church the other day. It turns out that Mary has made a good match,’ Ma said as she rolled pastry out on the table. ‘Not as good as if she’d married our John, if things had been different, of course,’ she added sadly. ‘Her husband has inherited a farm near Maidstone, and she has one child and another on the way.’ Ma lifted the round of pastry on the rolling pin. ‘Don’t you think that Hector is rather handsome?’
‘He doesn’t look well,’ Catherine said. He’d grown into a pale, sickly-looking creature that might have crawled out from the depths of the pond.
‘When he follows his father into the Church, he’ll need a capable woman at his side.’ Ma laid the pastry across a dish of plums. ‘You’d do very well for him – you’re pretty enough. And you can cook.’
‘I couldn’t be a vicar’s wife, making much of her good works, and looking down her nose at people.’ Catherine was smarting at Ma’s comment about her appearance. Even though she said it herself, she had grown into a good-looking young woman. She was taller and had curves where she hadn’t had them before, and her hair was as dark and glossy as a raven’s plumage.
‘You mustn’t talk of Mrs Browning in that way. I’m fondly acquainted with her.’
Catherine frowned.
‘Don’t you think it’s odd that she takes a gift of calf’s foot jelly around to Ma Carter’s on a Friday, and by Sunday, her husband is sermonifying against the idle sluggards of the parish who lie abed day and night, avoiding their duty to their families and the church?’
‘I’m sure she doesn’t influence her husband in any way.’
Catherine had always fancied that it was the voice of Mrs Browning that echoed through the church at every service.
‘I fear that the vicar is more an instrument of his wife than one of God.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t speak so. One of these days, you’ll be struck down by lightning.’
Catherine raked the fire out of the bread oven in the alcove and placed the pie inside.
‘If you won’t consider Hector, there’s poor Mr Johncock, recently made a widower by the death of his wife in childbirth.’ Ma tipped her head to one side as if considering. ‘Of course, he has four little ones who need a ma.’ She smiled at Catherine’s confusion. ‘He’s a farmer with ten acres of his own and another twelve rented from the squire. You could do worse.’
‘He has no teeth,’ Catherine said, repulsed at the thought of marrying an old man who had taken to drowning his sorrows at the beerhouse.
‘Better a husband with no teeth than to spend the rest of your life in
the sorry state of spinsterhood. I was married by your age. It’s time you were off my hands.’ Ma handed Catherine a bowl. ‘Go and fetch the buttermilk.’
In the pantry, she found lines of emmets marching into and out of the honeypot. She picked out as many of the ants as she could and placed a board on top with a jar of pickled eggs on top of that to keep them out, before she returned to the kitchen.
Ma yawned and patted her mouth.
‘I’m going to retire for an hour. I can feel one of my heads coming on and if I don’t rest, I won’t be fit to accompany Mrs Browning on her visit to see the Norths this afternoon. You’ll be coming with us.’
‘I’d prefer not to,’ Catherine sighed.
‘It won’t hurt you. Now, finish off here before you help Drusilla with the laundry.’ Ma took herself off to bed.
Catherine added potatoes and carrots to the stew-pot, gave the peelings to the pigs and returned indoors. She slipped into the scullery to find the water boiling in the copper, a piece of lye soap ready on the side and the mangle set up, but no sign of Drusilla. Wondering if Ma had stirred and called her away, Catherine went into the hallway where she noticed that the top drawer of the bureau had been opened and the key left in the lock.
The sound of light snoring from the parlour caught her attention. She pushed the door open to find Drusilla sprawled out on the chaise with her eyes closed and her mouth ajar, and the bottle of sleeping drops at her side.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Catherine hissed. ‘The laundry doesn’t do itself.’
‘More’s the pity,’ Drusilla murmured as she came to her senses. ‘I thought to take some medicine for my womanly pains.’
‘You stole it,’ Catherine accused her. How she regretted not pouring the laudanum away after she’d decided that John had no more need of it. That way, Ma would never have acquired a taste for it. Their voices must have roused her from her sleeping-drop induced slumber, because she arrived in the parlour, her expression dark with anger.