by Evie Grace
‘What if we refuse?’ Stephen asked.
‘I’ll send for the special constable.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘I believe that he upholds the law every day of the week.’
There was a murmuring, a confabulation from the gallery, and a scraping of chairs as the choir stood up and headed down the steps to the body of the church with those instruments that belonged to them. They walked along the aisle, dejected and defeated, with all eyes upon them.
‘Don’t you feel sorry for them?’ Catherine whispered to Emily. ‘They always put so much effort into their playing.’
‘Sunday mornings won’t be the same without the choir’s tomfoolery’ she whispered back. ‘There won’t be any entertainment.’
‘We’ll be bored to tears,’ Catherine agreed. ‘We should go for a walk sometime like we used to. I have so much to tell you.’
‘Whereas I have very little to say that’s new,’ Emily sighed.
The vicar picked up the vamping horn and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, bringing the congregation back together again with the familiar chant and final ‘Amen’.
Outside the church after the service, Matty and Stephen were standing talking at the gate.
‘You keep your eyes and your hands off our daughters,’ Pa joked as they passed them. ‘What do you say to that, Mr Millichip?’
‘I think that it will be easier to prevent the latter than the former,’ he responded. ‘Eyes are always prone to wander when there are pretty girls in the vicinity.’
‘We aren’t doing any harm,’ Matty said.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Pa said. ‘I’m sorry about the choir. I know you depend on the perks that it brings. I’ll do my best to persuade the vicar to reinstate you, but he seemed quite definite about his decision.’
‘My decision is final and unassailable,’ the Reverend Browning interrupted. ‘We’ve been trying to find ways to reduce the church’s budget and this is an excellent way forward. The choir was the biggest expense in the accounts last month, what with the addition of the cost of new reeds for the clarinet and a barrel of beer to lubricate the voices when they seem perfectly well moistened from the night before. The tower needs urgent repairs and some of the ladies have expressed a desire to replace the hassocks. The money would be far better spent on thread and sherry for the vestry.’
Aware that Matty and Stephen’s eyes were upon them, Catherine linked arms with Emily and stepped out onto the road. They began walking in the direction of the mill.
‘I think that Stephen has a fancy for you,’ Emily said. ‘He keeps looking at you.’
‘You have a vivid imagination.’
‘No, I’ve been observing him and what I say is true.’
The sound of horses’ hooves and the clattering of carriage wheels broke into Catherine’s consciousness. She turned her head to find Mr Hadington’s carriage moving up behind them at speed as the driver whipped the horses up to a gallop. They were a matching pair, two black creatures in harness with glittering bits and buckles. She could see the scarlet lining of their nostrils and the whites of their eyes as they bore down on her and Emily.
Catherine tugged at her friend’s arm, trying to pull her away from the oncoming vehicle before it reached them, but she was too late. The driver hauled at the horses’ mouths and used his whip to redirect them. They moved aside, but not quite enough, because one of the carriage wheels glanced against Emily’s side and knocked her to the ground.
‘Emily!’ Catherine screamed. ‘Someone stop him.’ She flung herself to her knees in the dust, her heart beating fast as the accident replayed itself in her head.
‘I’m all right,’ Emily said, attempting to sit up.
‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Catherine supported her. ‘Any bones broken?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she gasped. ‘I’m just winded.’
‘No harm done then,’ Mrs Millichip said over Catherine’s shoulder. ‘My daughter has a strong constitution. Don’t go using this as an excuse to avoid the bakehouse, my girl, because it won’t wash with me.’
Matty and Stephen stepped in to help Emily to her feet. Catherine looked up the road to where the carriage had stopped. She noticed now that the driver was in fact Mr Hadington himself, in a hurry to get his family home for dinner. When he saw that Emily was upright, he sent the horses off again.
Catherine was indignant.
‘Isn’t someone going to stop him?’ she said in front of the crowd who had assembled. ‘Pa, he can’t be allowed to tear around the country like that without a thought for anyone else. You must speak to the magistrate at least.’
‘What good would that do? Mr Hadington is a lawyer so he knows about justice, how to deliver it and how to evade the consequences. He defends people in court and gets them off the charges, more often than not. If challenged, he’ll merely state that Emily was walking in the middle of the street, chattering with you, so she didn’t hear the carriage. He’ll lay the blame for the accident on her inattention.’
‘He was in the wrong. He was driving too fast,’ Catherine countered. ‘He’d whipped the horses up to a frenzy. He didn’t give Emily a chance to step aside.’ She felt weak thinking about how it could have been so much worse. ‘We could have been killed. We should at least talk to him.’
‘It’s never wise to get on the wrong side of people,’ Pa told her. ‘If they make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, then best to conceal it. You never know when you might need their assistance in future.’
‘I’ll never have any need of a lawyer. They’re for the rich.’
‘I’ve used him before to transfer the deeds to the land I acquired for Young Thomas.’
‘Then you must never use him again.’
‘There is a saying, beggars can’t be choosers.’ Pa stared down at the ground. ‘He is a man with a reputation, and by that I mean not a good one.’
‘I can see why.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Pa shook his head. ‘You’re too young to understand and it was a long time ago. It’s best not to plough poisoned earth – I implore you to let this subject lie fallow. You, my precious daughter, are worth twenty of him.’
They returned home to the farm, and later the same afternoon, Emily called. Catherine invited her into the kitchen where John was on the prowl for food.
‘Are you well?’ Catherine gave her brother a barley sugar twist from the jar on the windowsill. She offered one to Emily and took one for herself.
‘I’m a little battered and bruised.’ Emily had a bandage wrapped around her wrist.
‘Is that new?’
‘Ma was cross with me. She said I should get my head out of the clouds and watch where I’m going.’ Emily smiled ruefully.
‘Good day, Emily. What brings you here?’ Ma came sailing in and stood waiting for any crumbs of gossip that Emily might have brought with her from the bakehouse.
‘Let’s go outside,’ Catherine said, and the two of them walked out to the yard. ‘Ma doesn’t have to know everything. What are you here for?’
‘I’ve brought you this for saving my life.’ She put her hand in her pocket and withdrew her fist.
‘I don’t need a present,’ Catherine said shyly. ‘And I didn’t really save your life. I pushed you out of the way. Anyone would have done the same.’
‘I know how close I came. I felt the hot breath of those horses and the wheel of that carriage. Without your intervention, I should have been killed, so’ – she took a deep breath – ‘please accept this humble offering from your best friend without further ado.’
Catherine opened her hand and watched a silver sixpence fall from Emily’s clutch into her palm.
‘It’s all that I have.’ She folded Catherine’s fingers around the coin and clasped them together. ‘I want you to keep it as a token of good fortune and friendship.’
‘We will always be friends, whatever happens.’
‘Of course.’ Emily smiled.
The cat was sunning herself on top of the pigsty, perfectly content with her situation, whereas Catherine felt a sense of restlessness as she gazed around the farmyard. She envied Matty’s dreams of travel and a life beyond Overshill, but she loved the animals and the woods, and the idea of staying in the village to bring up her children alongside Emily’s. But what of the future of Pa’s beloved farm? Upon his demise, or before if Squire Temple so chose, it would pass to someone else, and not one of the Rooks. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right that she would be overlooked for the tenancy by virtue of her sex. If she’d been born a boy, she would have saved Wanstall Farm for the family. As it was, she was doomed to marry the likes of Hector Browning or poor Mr Johncock – she gazed at the coin that Emily had given her – and the few possessions she had would become rightfully theirs.
She wondered what the future held for the Rooks and Wanstall Farm, and how long she would be able to avoid making an unsuitable marriage. At the moment with Pa running the farm and Ma needing her to look after John and do the chores, there was no rush, but she knew from the experience of John’s accident that life was prone to taking unexpected twists and turns.
1837
Chapter Six
Smoking out the Bees
Overshill, East Kent
In the twelvemonth that Catherine turned twenty, it seemed that the corn dollies from the previous year had failed to impress the goddess of the fields because the barley went mouldy on the stems and the harvest was poor.
Catherine was in the garden at Wanstall Farm, picking the last of the gooseberries, and topping and tailing them as she moved along the row.
‘Catherine?’
She sighed at the sound of her mother’s voice.
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘I need you to take the pot that’s on the table along to the forge – the handle’s come off.’
‘I’m in the middle of something. Can’t you go?’
‘I’m asking you. When you’ve done that, you’ll come with me to call on the Brownings. I believe that Hector is at home.’ Ma gave her a stern stare. ‘I still have hopes that you will win him over. There’s no sign of this other young lady of whom Mrs Browning once spoke. What are you waiting for?’
For an excuse not to have to visit the vicarage, she thought. She wondered how long she could loiter at the forge.
‘Don’t be long,’ Ma said as she left with the broken pot. She passed Matty in the yard where he was repairing the henhouse. John was holding the pieces of wood while he knocked the nails in.
‘Morning, miss,’ Matty said.
‘Good morning,’ she said, heat flooding up her neck. Why when they were just great friends did his address have such an effect on her? Why did she sometimes find herself kissing him in her dreams?
She walked to the forge where a mare with a colt foal at foot was tied to the chestnut tree outside. Len glanced up from where he was trimming the mare’s feet. Catherine quelled a shudder at the sight of the dent in his forehead and the crescent scar that filled most of the socket of his left eye where he had been kicked by a horse when he was an apprentice.
‘What do you want?’
‘Ma sent me to have this pot repaired,’ she said awkwardly. Len was one of the few people who made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. ‘Would you mind? She wants it back in rather a hurry.’
‘That’s typical of your mother. Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he grumbled. ‘Go and see my apprentice. He’ll do it for you.’
She thanked him and went to find Stephen, who was stoking the fire inside the forge. He greeted her with a smile and an elaborate bow, then stood back with his hands in his pockets, hardly able to meet her eyes.
‘Len said you’d be able to repair Ma’s pot.’
‘Of course,’ he said, moving round to take it from her by the handle. It fell apart and clattered across the ground. ‘I’m sorry.’ He picked it up. ‘Oh dear, I’ve put a dent in it.’
‘Never mind,’ Catherine said.
‘I’ll fix it. You can take a seat on the bench over there. Take the weight off your feet, not that you’re a hefty sort of a lady.’ His face was bright red. ‘I always say the wrong thing. I get fanteeg.’
‘You don’t seem flustered.’ Catherine dusted down the bench before she took a seat to watch him at work. His limbs were long and gangly like the colt’s, and the sinews in his arms looked as hard as iron. ‘You can take as long as you like over it,’ she went on. ‘I don’t want to go home – Ma has plans for me later.’
‘I shouldn’t like to upset your mother.’
‘But you’ll take a while – for my sake?’
‘Of course, miss.’ He placed a strip of metal in the fire and waited until it glowed white-hot when he picked it up in a set of tongs, applied it to the pot and reattached the handle. Once he was happy with the joint, he dropped the pot into a bucket of water that bubbled and hissed as it cooled. He pulled it out again, and hammered at the dent before wiping the pot with a cloth and handing it back.
‘There you are, miss. Happy to oblige.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. She made her way back to the farm where Ma criticised her tardiness and the quality of the repair before sending her upstairs to change.
‘You must wear the green dress,’ she said. ‘It sets off the colour of your eyes.’
She didn’t have a choice, Catherine thought. She had one smart dress that still fitted her. She had outgrown the rest and there was no sign that there’d ever be enough money for new ones. When she arrived downstairs, Ma insisted on brushing her hair and putting it up.
‘You’ll do,’ she said eventually. ‘Come along now. We haven’t got all day.’
She and Ma walked to the vicarage to find that the Reverend, perhaps wisely, had locked himself in his study. Mrs Browning showed them into the parlour, where Jane was working on some embroidery and Hector was standing at the window.
Ma dropped a curtsey.
‘You are back from university for the summer?’ she said.
Hector, pale and ethereal as if he never stepped out into the summer sun, nodded.
‘I’m looking forward to returning to my studies. I’m finding Overshill rather dull.’ He spoke with a lisp like his father.
‘Oh, Hector, it isn’t that bad.’
‘Mother, you’ve said yourself that you will die of boredom unless you can find a way to return to town. You’re always telling me how East Kent is filled with dullards; farmers and labourers, and their tedious families.’
‘Hector! You have completely misunderstood me.’ Mrs Browning flushed the colour of the velvet curtains. ‘Mrs Rook’s husband is a tenant farmer. He has many interests.’
‘He is an educated man?’ Hector enquired.
‘He reads books,’ Ma said.
‘Ovid, the Metamorphoses? The Conquest of Gaul?’
Ma frowned.
‘He studies farming texts on the breeding of sheep, for example,’ Catherine said, trying to help her out. In spite of the way Ma treated her sometimes, she didn’t like seeing her being put in a bad light.
‘Not the classics, then.’
Catherine met Hector’s eye.
‘I don’t know what they are,’ she said.
Ma gave her a dig in the ribs, making her bite down hard on her lip. How was a young woman supposed to act when her mother wished her both to make herself noticed and maintain a modest silence at the same time?
‘The classics would be of no use to Miss Rook,’ Jane said.
‘Except to provide her with an intelligent and engaging topic of conversation,’ Hector said rudely.
They didn’t stay long after that. As she and Ma trudged back to the farm without speaking, Catherine felt her lack of education sorely, but she knew that Jane was right. What use was it to a farmer’s daughter? Ma remained silent on the subject until Pa and John returned from the fields that evening for supper. When they were sitting down around the table, she opened her mouth.
<
br /> ‘I have had the most dreadful day,’ she began. ‘I have never been so offended.’
‘Who has crossed you this time, my dear Margaret?’ Pa asked as John shovelled food into his mouth.
‘Mrs Browning and her son. Who would have thought that a well-educated young man like Hector would have been so contemptuous of our family?’
‘What do you mean?’ Pa put down his spoon and sat up straight.
‘When I heard that he was at home, I took it upon myself to call upon the Brownings – seeing that you have little or no interest in pursuing a suitable match for our daughter.’
‘It isn’t something that needs to be pursued, as you put it. It will happen. A young man will come along and ask for her hand soon enow.’
‘That isn’t how it works and you know it,’ Ma snapped. ‘There are very few bachelors in the area, and even fewer that are eligible.’
‘Hector couldn’t make any woman, let alone Catherine, happy.’
‘But he will follow his father into the Church and make a good living,’ Ma argued.
‘And for the sake of being able to tell the world that your daughter is married to a vicar, you would have her be miserable for the rest of her life.’ Pa rested his elbows on the table. Ma glared at him, but he ignored her. ‘We’ve brought our children up on the land and that’s where they belong. Our youngest should marry whom she pleases, preferably a man who is content to get his hands dirty, not some lisping, lily-livered laggard who’s only interested in books. And that’s the last thing I shall say on the matter.’
Inwardly, Catherine thanked her father for having her best interests at heart. It was a relief to know that Hector Browning was no longer a consideration.
August turned into September. On a sunny day when the swallows were gathering on the rooftops to fly to warmer climes, Catherine was outdoors collecting eggs when she heard the familiar sound of Matty’s whistle.
‘Where are you?’ She picked a feather from one of the freckled brown shells.
‘Over here.’
‘Show yourself. I can’t see you.’