by Ann Swinfen
I shook my head. ‘My father went to the court and it killed him.’
Her eyes widened in horror.
‘Later,’ I said. ‘Some day I will tell you what happened when my father went to court. We need the charter to prove our rights. There was a lawyer in London who was supposed to find it and take it to court for us, but nothing has been heard from him.’
I shrugged. At the moment the question of charters and claims in court seemed remote when we were confronted with the need simply to survive the winter with our homes destroyed and most of our supplies of food as well.
It was past midday when the men returned from the village, and we saw at once from their bulging knapsacks that they had managed to salvage some food for us. Rafe was also carrying with pride his son’s beautiful carved cradle. Alice rushed to him, holding out her hands for it.
‘It is unharmed,’ he said cheerfully. ‘All the upper floor of our house has escaped the flood, though there is no denying that it has a dank, musty smell.’
The cradle still held little Huw’s bedding and the delicate shawl I had knitted for my godson as a christening gift. Mistress Cox stood looking down at it, wringing her hands.
‘Everything upstairs is safe?’ she said. ‘You are sure?’
‘Aye, Mother.’ Rafe patted her shoulder uncertainly. Mistress Cox could be difficult at times. ‘All the blankets and linen will need drying out from the damp, but there is no damage done.’
‘And downstairs?’
He shook his head. ‘Flooded to the height of my chest, I fear. The ice in the houses is thinner than outside. It broke up as we waded through it, but most of the furniture is still under water. I could see the top of the dresser, and the dishes on the high shelves are still there.’
‘Rafe,’ Alice said suddenly, ‘you must take off those clothes.’
Like the other men, Rafe was sodden nearly up to his neck. Although he was standing near one of the braziers, he was shivering. He nodded and followed the others into the vestry – our only private place – to change into a dry tunic and breeches.
Altogether, the exploring party had managed to salvage a fair amount of food from the winter stores squirreled away in the attics of the houses at the upper end of the village. We were the richer by strings of onions, two pots of salted beans, a sack of late apples, another of turnips and one of dried peas, a whole cheese and one excellent ham found in Will’s house, hanging from the roof beam in his kitchen, just inches above the level of the flood. Will’s wife Liz handed it over to the common stock with a touch of pride.
‘Meat for all,’ she said.
‘The waters are clearly going down,’ Gideon said, when the men had spread out their spoils to be admired. ‘We could see the clear marks on the interior walls where the highest level reached. Outside, the flood is seeping away beneath the ice, so that it forms a precarious surface with a foot or so of air beneath it. The ice is beginning to collapse in places. Will fell through it.’
‘Aye,’ Will said ruefully. ‘I was glad of the rope then, you may believe me. Mind, I was so wet already from wading through the houses that I could not get any wetter.’
In truth, although they were now in dry clothes, all the party looked grey with cold and our company of cooks hastened to finish the hot vegetable pottage they were preparing for our midday dinner. We lined up with our assorted bowls of pottery or wood or pewter, like orphans lining up for a charity meal, but the helpings were generous and we ate with gusto, knowing that our supplies had been augmented. The goodness of the meal was somewhat marred for me by a bout of the hacking cough which still seized me from time to time, leaving me weak and angry at my weakness. I knew that as soon as conditions permitted, I must ride back to the farm and assess just how bad the damage was. Although we had herded all the four-footed beasts to the glebe lands, our little maid Kitty Parish and I had carried all my hens to the attic, where they should be safe from the flood. We had left piles of grain for them, but I was fearful that the supply would be exhausted and I would return to find nothing but emaciated bodies.
However, I was determined not to give way to my lingering illness and a few days later I persuaded Gideon, Tom, Will, and Jack, together with Hans and Griet Leiden, to sit down with me to discuss what we should do as soon as the retreating waters allowed us to assess how serious was the damage to the whole village.
‘I checked the level of the flood this morning,’ Jack said. ‘It has gone down again and the surface of ice in the centre of the lake is sagging and cracking up. Once it is possible to make one’s way along the Crowthorne road, I want to go and see how they fare, whether their lane is clear through to the old Roman road. That is raised up on its ramper, so if we can but reach it, we can go north to Lincoln or south to London.’
Tom shook his head. ‘It would not be clear yet after one of our usual winter floods. Surely not after this.’
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘it is more urgent to think what we must do here, so that people may return to their homes. And how we may provide for those who have lost their homes.’ I nodded toward Griet and her husband. ‘The settlers have nowhere to go, and there are many young children amongst them. And it is likely that the three furthest cottages along the Crowthorne road will have been washed away.’
‘We must take our neighbours into our homes,’ Gideon said. ‘I have no rights to the rectory any longer, but until the outside world reaches us, it will hold two or three families, if they do not mind crowding together.’
I laughed. ‘After we have lived all of us together in the church, I cannot think they would have any objection.’
‘The houses at this end of the village will be clear first,’ Will said. ‘We should set to, all of the village together, and work our way along the street, house by house, rather than each man trying to repair his own house.’
‘Well thought of, Will,’ I said. ‘That way we can move the oldest and youngest into the houses as they are made fit, never mind whose home it is.’
Tom grinned. ‘Some may not like the idea. Mistress Cox may not wish to yield her fine home to the likes of Joseph Waters.’
We all laughed, those of us who knew Joseph, a jobbing labourer who carried about with him the strong aroma of a farm midden. It had ripened mightily since we were crowded together. Griet and Hans smiled politely. So far they had said nothing, but now Hans spoke.
‘We know you do not like us. We take your land. We did not know. Men told us–’ He turned to his wife and said something rapidly in Dutch to her.
‘We were told that the land belonged to these men,’ Griet said, ‘and that we could each rent a portion for a house and a . . . I do not know what you call it . . . a small farm. Enough for a few animals and grain crops, and what we do best, growing good vegetables to sell in the towns. Now we understand that we were tricked, as you were tricked.’
She wiped her eyes on her apron. ‘We do not know what to do. We cannot go home. We have no money, no houses and no food, but Hans says we will help you all we can. The men are all good workmen. They built our houses in the field and they can help you repair the houses here.’
Her voice took on a desperate note. ‘If you will just allow us to feed our children and keep them safe, until we know what to do.’
I reached out and took her hand. ‘Of course we will not turn you away, Griet.’ I looked around at the others, somewhat defiantly. ‘We will contrive something, will we not?’
‘Certainly,’ Gideon said, and the others nodded.
‘But first,’ he added, ‘and before work can begin on the houses, let us not forget what occasion it is next week.’
I clapped my hand to my mouth. ‘Christmas!’
‘Aye. Christmas. Our services here have been makeshift, but I intend that we shall celebrate Christ’s birth in joy and thankfulness, especially for the children.’
I smiled at Griet. ‘Aye. Especially for the children.’
It was the strangest Christmas I had ever passed, yet a
joyous one for all that. Our little maid Kitty and some of the other youngsters, even a few of the Dutch children, had gone foraging for Yule greenery about the glebe lands. They had found one holly tree with berries on it, as well as plenty of ivy clothing the wall which separated the churchyard from the lane leading to our farm. Returning bright-eyed from the cold, they wreathed the pews and windowsills with their spoils and wove a garland to lay across the chancel steps where the altar rails had been ripped away and smashed by the soldiers in the summer. Those other soldiers, not our soldiers, as I had begun to think of them.
It was agreed that Will and Liz’s ham should form the centrepiece of the feast, cooked in the rectory kitchen and served with roasted turnips and some of the beans. There was some discussion about killing one of the hens, but we all felt they were too precious for the sake of their eggs. Mistress Morley and Alice, together with Mistress Sawyer, Jack’s mother, found enough ingredients to contrive a vast plum pudding. Tied up in a cloth, it was put to simmer away over one of the braziers in the church. All through Gideon’s Christmas service I was aware of the soft bubbling and the occasional rattle of the pot lid as the pudding cooked to perfection.
Until now we had eaten anywhere, standing, or sitting in the pews or on the floor, but this would not do for Christmas. Toby and Will, with some of the Dutchmen, carried in planks and trestles from the barn, where they had last been used at the harvest supper the previous year, and set up a table large enough for all of us. With pews drawn up on either side for seats, and some of the rectory sheets laid over it for a cloth, it was as fine a communal Christmas table as you could wish. Kitty laid sprigs of holly down the centre and persuaded Gideon to add some stump ends of church candles. At the last minute Jack rolled out a small barrel of ale.
‘I went back to my house yesterday,’ he explained, ‘while everyone was occupied. I knew I had this barrel in our kitchen and I managed to free it from the flood water and mud. It is not much above knee height in my house now.’
‘Will it be spoiled?’ Tom said.
‘If it is proof enough to hold the ale in,’ Jack said, ‘then it will have held the flood waters out. In any case, I have tasted it.’
So we sat down to our first formal meal since we had taken refuge in our Ark. By the time we had poured fresh cream from our cows over the sturdy helpings of plum pudding, few of us could have moved but slowly and carefully from our seats. A few games had been organised for the children, who seemed none the worse for full stomachs, and after that we sang carols. Our English carols were followed by Dutch ones, sometimes sung to familiar tunes, so that in the end our voices blended, two languages, two peoples, but one faith.
At last the flood seeped away from the village green, leaving behind a filthy deposit of mud mixed with great slabs of dirty ice, still unmelted, for it remained very cold. There was another fall of snow on the day we had appointed to make our first general foray into the village, so that it had to be postponed for a day, but at last all of us who were able-bodied set off down the hill, leaving behind the children, the old people, and a few of the women to mind the young ones. It was difficult to pick our way over the broken ice, which was sharp-edged and treacherously slippery. The Coxes’ house was to be the first to be cleared, for it stood the highest and was spacious enough to hold a number of the weaker members of our community. The outside walls were stained from the flood almost as high as my shoulder. What would we find inside? I glanced at Alice, who gave me a nervous smile. She and Rafe had lived here with his parents since their marriage, and Mistress Cox was a fearsome housekeeper.
‘Now we shall see.’ Rafe Cox dragged open the door, which was somewhat warped with the wet, and we stepped inside.
I caught my breath. My first thought was relief that Mistress Cox was not strong enough to be of our party. The floor was a foot deep in wet mud, from which, here and there, household objects poked up – dented copper pans, broken dishes of delftware, linens, strings of rotting onions. There was a strong and unmistakeable stench. It was clear that the flood had washed filth from the midden through the house. Alice looked about her, appalled.
‘Oh, what shall we tell your mother, Rafe?’
‘We will not tell her,’ he said grimly. ‘Come, there should be shovels hanging in the barn, if they have not washed away. Toby, Hans, will you help me to fetch them? We will shovel all this muck on to the midden.’
‘But be careful,’ Alice said. ‘There may be some things unbroken mixed amongst it.’ With some distaste, she pulled a saucepan out of the mud. ‘This has but a small dent, it can still be used.’
‘We will put everything to one side,’ Rafe said, ‘and you can decide what is to be saved.’
With that, he went off in search of tools.
‘Alice,’ I said, ‘let us leave this to the men.’ She was standing helplessly holding the saucepan, a look of despair on her face. ‘When they have shovelled away the mud we can wash down the floor and walls, and the furniture. Look, the good oak chairs and table have withstood the flood. Meanwhile, let us go upstairs and see to airing the beds and the clothes.
She nodded mutely. Together with the other women, she followed me upstairs. Mindful of the filthy state of our boots, we set them aside halfway up. Fortunately, the scene here was not nearly so bad. The upper floor and attics had been untouched by the flood, but Rafe had been right about the musty smell he had described before Christmas. Fortunately, the Coxes’ house was well-built and modern, with a fireplace in every room. Fortunately, too, there was a basket of logs beside each fireplace. Although the flood water had not reached the logs, they were still somewhat dampish and took a while to catch light, but eventually we had a fire going in each room, so that soon a much more pleasant scent of burning wood filled the air.
We shook out all the bed clothes and feather beds, and draped them over the bed rails to air. The clothing, which was stored in deep oak coffers, with lavender and rosemary to keep it sweet and free of moths, was in a better state than the bedding. Nevertheless, we shook this out too, laying gowns and tunics and breeches and hose over chairs and chest lids to benefit from the warmth of the fires. I thought that Mistress Cox would not have been pleased to see strangers handling her chemises, but she need never know of it,
When we had done, we ventured downstairs again. The thick layer of mud had gone, though everything was covered in slime. It also felt very cold after our fires upstairs. There was no dry wood here.
‘Is there any firewood in the barn which was out of the flood?’ Alice asked Rafe. She turned to me. ‘We should have saved some of it for downstairs.’
I nodded. It was one of many lessons we were to learn as we cleared the village. Rafe went in search of dry wood and managed to find two small bundles, which he lit in the large kitchen hearth. Then he and the other men moved on to the house Jack shared with his widowed mother. Next after that would be the house and workshop of Ned Broadley, the village carpenter. When they were gone Griet, without being asked, found a couple of buckets.
‘Where is your well?’ she asked.
Alice led her out into the yard, where they filled the buckets and brought them back to heat the water for our cleaning.
‘The well is polluted,’ Alice said drearily. ‘It will serve for rough cleaning now, but how long before it is clear enough for cooking and washing?’
I shook my head helplessly. Our normal managed floods did not pollute our wells. I had no idea how long it would take for a well to draw clear again.
There were twelve of us women working together to scrub down the house, and it must have taken us four hours at the least. Some things we were forced to throw away. The cushions from the chairs and benches were past saving, although they had been exquisitely embroidered by Mistress Cox. Griet filled the stone sink with hot water and carefully washed all the kitchen pots and dishes, the broken ones as well as those which had escaped undamaged.
‘Many of these you can glue together,’ she said to Alice. ‘See, thi
s plate is broken in two clean halves. I am sure it can be fixed.’
Alice nodded. She knew, as I did, that Mistress Cox would never eat off a mended plate, but perhaps Alice could make use of the broken dishes when once she had a home of her own.
As we scrubbed down the walls and furniture, I was relieved to see that they had withstood the flood waters well, although the lime-wash on the walls was stained. I hoped that the same would be true of our farm. By mid afternoon the winter dusk was setting in, but we were satisfied with our work. The house was as clean as we could make it and the warmth of the fires was beginning to rid it of that unpleasant mouldy smell. Rafe had found a store of peat forgotten in the loft of the barn. Because of the invasion of the drainers during the last year, there had been little of our usual peat-cutting for fuel. We dampened peats and laid them in a layer over the embers of the fires to provide some continuing warmth during the night, then trudged wearily back over the ice field to the church.
This was to be the pattern of our days for the next week, as we worked our way along the village street, house by house. Not all the houses had survived intact, so that the building skills of the Dutchmen were called upon to make good the weakened structures. After we had folded away the clothes and made the beds in the Coxes’ house, Rafe’s parents, who were both somewhat frail, moved back in and found room for several old people, including the widow Peterson. To do her credit, Mistress Cox also gave sanctuary to one of the pauper families from the far end of the village, who had lost everything. Alice and Rafe chose to stay, with baby Huw, in the church with the rest of us, declaring that the more feeble should be housed first.
By the end of that week, we had made six houses habitable, though the losses in household possessions and stores of food were considerable. Fortunately most families in the village used their attics to over-winter their supplies, but the flood had come so fast, and everyone had been so taken up with saving people and livestock, that regular kitchen supplies had been left where they were, and were spoiled. We were especially short of salt. The damage grew worse as we worked our way down the hill to the brook, for the houses on the lower ground had been drowned deeper.