by Rona Randall
Even worse, it was here that the village whores paraded, waylaying the men on their way to the inn and reeling out with them later, screaming with either laughter or abuse and lingering only to pick any pockets that still contained a few coins. For the workers from the pot banks there were no alternative forms of recreation, other than bear-baiting, goose riding, and cock fighting, sports which were patronised mainly by the rich, who could afford to lose. Drinking at the Red Lion cost a poor man less.
One could not grow up in this backwoods community without knowing the raw facts of life, and religious teachings could not blind one to realities. Life was a physical affair ruled by base instincts and baser appetites — but only among the peasants who accepted illegitimacy as commonplace. In their pleasant parlours the better class inhabitants shunned such topics, intimating that they themselves possessed no primitive instincts and that procreation was an animal affair as far as the poor were concerned, but something a great deal more genteel amongst themselves.
There such discussions ceased, except when the sins of others were the topic. Agatha Freeman, a substantially built young woman who prided herself on her charitable works, was never averse to telling her friends about the shocking cases she came across.
“The poor have no sense of sin, alas! And that dreadful old woman who lives down Larch Lane, she who calls herself Midwife, aids and abets, I do declare, I could tell you of the things she does, confided to me by her wretched victims…”
But even during these tete-a-tete conversations with contemporaries, when parents believed their daughters to be diligently sewing samplers, one did not talk or even think about the marriage bed in relation to one’s own future. One waited only for a suitable husband to be found, a match arranged, and children would then arrive, if not from gooseberry bushes, at least with decorum and absolutely no reference to where they came from or how they came about — unlike the Freemans’ under-housemaid, whose voice had been heard all the way from the basement kitchens, loudly declaring that if Hicks the coachman got her in the family way just once more, she would never part her legs for him again.
“’Tis the second time I’ve gone to Ma Tinsley to get rid of a brat, an’ all of a shilling she charged fer a clumsy job that hurt like hell, but thanks be to God I’m still alive!”
Of course, the slut was dismissed, not merely for her sins, but for leaving the service door open at the foot of the basement stairs and sullying refined ears above. Naturally, nothing was said to Hicks. Good coachmen were never dispensed with.
And refined young women knew nothing of sinful lusts or secret dreams of love and passion. Even to entertain such thoughts was degrading and shameful.
Before the Freemans’ distant cousin had arrived for his prolonged visit, Jessica had paid lip service to these conventional teachings, but she was not made like Phoebe, trusting the wisdom of her elders and never doubting that when the time came the most admirable husband would be selected for her. To Phoebe, the hour of bridal glory was more important than the bridegroom’s identity; to Jessica, the reverse. There could now be only one man for her, and of her own choosing. She had even dared to fling the words in Joseph’s face, head of the family though he was, and as she drove to Cobblers Green with her brother she had no regrets at all.
She was surprised by the crowd awaiting the visiting preacher; even the Sunday-idle potters were there, sprawled on the grass or lolling against the walls of the Red Lion although the landlord now refused to open his doors until evening. He was tired of breakages, tired of brawls, and tired of being forced to accept raw bisque-fired pots as payment for drink. So there was nowhere else to spend this warm and sunny day, for there would be no cock fighting until nightfall, no betting, no gambling; nothing to do but be drawn by curiosity to hear this crank who had thought up some newfangled creed called Methodism.
Killing time, the men bandied obscenities and lewd jokes, forcing the genteel to withdraw from their vicinity, at which the ribaldries worsened and the laughter coarsened. Here and there women sprawled with them on the grass, shrieking delighted protests when blatant liberties were attempted, and among them ran half-naked children, as unwashed as their parents, revelling in their freedom from the pot banks and forgetting, for a brief time, the sweaty heat seeping through oven walls and the weight of clay which the sturdiest among them had to hack into great lumps, then wheel in heavy loads to the wedgers’ benches.
After the dust and dirt of the potters’ sheds, the air here was fresh and clean despite the pall of smoke which seemed to hang perpetually over the district, even on Sundays if firings had to be completed. From this pollution there was no respite until the giant ovens were cooling, but at least the open space of Cobblers Green was free of the lung-choking ash which the smallest of the children shovelled from beneath the ovens, and which then had to be sifted and re-sifted until it was sufficiently fine and powdery to be added to glaze. Their eternal coughing was accepted as a minor irritant, both to those who had to tolerate the sound of it and to the children themselves. Today all that could be forgotten, for today was a holiday, the sun shone, all was right with the world.
Martin drove round the wide area of the green until, reaching the opposite side, he halted. “I think we will stay here, Jess. This rise will give an excellent view and we should hear well. I gather Wesley is a great orator.”
Conscience-stricken, Jessica said, “We should have brought Mamma. It was thoughtless of us to come without her. She has few outings and this promises to be something of an event.”
“I did think of it, but she prefers peace to crowds and I doubt if Wesley would appeal to her religious views. Only yesterday I heard her agree with Joseph that the man’s ideas are deplorably unorthodox.”
“Did Joseph say that? How like our conventional brother! And Mamma, of course, would have no choice but to agree, being totally dependent on him.”
“As we all are.”
Not I, vowed Jessica as her eyes scanned the crowd and then settled on the line of carriages adjoining their own. One of them might be from Tremain Hall and surely the Freeman girls would be escorted by their visiting cousin; their brother Maxwell, also, though she devoutly hoped not.
Unfortunately, her view was blocked to left and right, screened by coachmen on the boxes of other stationary vehicles and by carriages bigger than their own. People seemed to be coming from miles around, for many faces were unfamiliar as they drove by, their drivers searching for places on the edge of the green and cursing urchins who dodged beneath the wheels. Ragged boys grabbed at martingales to halt protesting horses, hopefully urging them to a vacant spot which, more often than not, proved inadequate, thus receiving for their pains not the farthing they hoped for, but a crack of the whip.
Her glance wandered to the opposite hillside, the slope down which they had driven from Joseph’s house. She could see its ornamental chimneys, and the timbered gables which were reputedly Elizabethan, though the common belief was that the place had been built by a flamboyant merchant about a century ago, as testimony to his wealth. Sometimes she wondered whether her brother had bought it for the same reason. Had he waited until he was rich enough to build so impressive a place he would not be living there now, for his increasing success had not yet placed him on such a financial pinnacle, but Carrion House had come within his means because for many years it had stood empty, shunned on account of the legends attached to it.
No one really knew what those legends were; versions were many and varied, but the desolate air of the place lent credence to them all. The merchant’s wife had mysteriously disappeared; the bodies of a man and a woman had been found walled up in a cellar; some even claimed that the place was haunted. It was all nonsense, of course, but fortunately for Joseph it had kept buyers at bay, so by the time the house was almost derelict he had been able to buy it cheaply. A practical man such as he knew a bargain when he saw one, even when walls were crumbling. Labour was cheap in these parts and he had rapidly restored the place.
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Now he entertained on a better scale than his parents had ever done, for George Drayton had been ill at ease with sophisticated folk. All Joseph now needed was the right wife as hostess. And I wish her joy of it, thought Jessica, who disliked Carrion House because it filled her with unease despite her brother’s improvements. After her encounter there today, that antipathy had increased.
A voice close by interrupted her reflections. She turned to see the broad figure of Simon Kendall, the canal builder, standing beside the gig, his red hair seeming even brighter in the sun. Like most country gentlemen of modest means, he wore no wig, but Jessica suspected that had he been able to afford one he would have shunned it even so, preferring to feel the wind through his hair. He was an outdoor man, and looked it.
She guessed that the broad tricorne hat in his hand was carried in automatic deference to the Sabbath, and wondered if she would ever see him wear it. His hose were spotless, as were his knee-bound breeches, and there was a tasteful moderation in the amount of lace on his loose sleeved shirt. On weekdays he wore clothes fit for the work of a canal digger, but on Sundays he might well pass for a country gentleman of quiet and reserved tastes.
She noticed then that he was holding out a small linen-bound book to Martin, and from its cover she saw that it was an elementary reading primer.
“The exercises you set me are inside, Master Martin.” Although addressing him as the lower orders in Burslem were expected to address their betters, there was nothing subservient in his tone. There would never be any tugging of the forelock with Simon Kendall, never any kow-towing, never any humility. Even his speech was not that of the Staffordshire peasant; either it had improved with the years, or he had never spoken like them, though the flat vowel sounds of the Midlands were there and, being accustomed to them, they worried Jessica not in the least. Her own father, being a Midlander born and bred, had spoken like a Midlander too, though he had tolerated his wife’s determination that their daughters, at least, should not. A gentleman, Emily Drayton maintained, would want a wife who sounded like a lady.
Her other ambition was for her sons to have the aspects of gentlemen in appearance, speech, and manners. In Joseph this ambition had been fulfilled. University had given him a polish of which his mother was proud, but which Jessica resented on Martin’s behalf, for Joseph had never been assigned to apprenticeship at the works nor his education prematurely curtailed.
Nor had it been necessary for him to learn how to read and write when fully grown to manhood…
Seeing Jessica’s glance, Kendall inclined his head, the merest concession to a bow. “Miss Drayton, ma’am, good afternoon to you.’ His voice was deep and pleasant, though she knew it could be harsh, even strident, when shouting instructions to the canal workers. She had ridden close to the area one day, and heard it even at a distance — powerful, ringing. He had been working along with the men, stripped to the waist, mud and sweat gleaming on his back and amongst the hair on his chest; copper-coloured, a shade darker than on his head. And he had been not in the least embarrassed when he saw her, either by his semi-nakedness or by his language. He had carried on as if she were not there, using words unfit for any withdrawing room, but words the labourers understood and felt at home with. She had thought then, as she thought now, that in his way he was an interesting man.
Martin said, “You’ve been quick, Si. Do you spend all your spare time studying?”
“Of course. Isn’t that what books are for? And it’s no use working at something with only half your heart. I want to read well, and soon. I want to start on some of the books your father gave me. I take them down and look at them most evenings, but they’ve got me beat, as yet.”
“But not for long.” Martin glanced at the closely-written sheets slipped within the pages of the book, and let out a low whistle. “You’ll soon be asking for the next volume.”
“I’m asking for it now, Master Martin.”
“If you come to the house at seven-thirty tonight, I will have it ready for you.”
“I’ll do that. And thanks.”
Another inclination of the head, another murmured “Miss Drayton…” and he was off, striding down towards the green where there was now much fighting, a great deal of jostling, and mounting impatience interrupted by whistles from the men and catcalls from the women as Meg Gibson swaggered into view.
She wore a clean white blouse drooping from bare shoulders; it was half unlaced so that much of her rounded bosom was enticingly exposed. She had washed away a week’s deposit of clay dust from her bright red skirt. Like all the other women, she possessed only one and, while they considered it a waste of time to launder clothes which would only be dirtied again the next day, Meg did not.
More than that, it was well known that she filled a wooden tub with water every Saturday night and washed down her whole body. She had been standing in it, stark naked, lathering herself all over with a lump of scouring soap from the works, when that old crow Ma Tinsley had walked into the Gibson hovel with a potion for Meg’s ailing mother.
Cackling over the story in the Red Lion later, Midwife Tinsley had related how the brazen hussy had even held the soap aloft and declared, ‘Yes, I stole it, Martha Tinsley, and I dare you to tell on me!’
“And wot did ye say?” someone had demanded. “Called ‘er wicked, I’opes?”
“Called’er mad, too, for taking all ’er clothes off an’ getting ’er body wet. That way’s folly.” It was an easy answer to conceal the truth, for in reality Martha had chuckled and said, “Make the most of it, lass, and of that body o’ yourn. It could make your fortune, but not in Burslem.”
From their place on the edge of the green, Jessica watched Meg’s bright figure skirting the crowd. How striking she was, black hair gleaming like ravens’ wings in the sun, bare arms and shoulders rounded and inviting, eyes bright, smile challenging. She was luscious, as tempting as ripe fruit — a gypsy of a girl whom one couldn’t help liking. Jessica watched her with interest as she went swinging by. Plainly, Meg was more interested in her own affairs than in any visiting preacher. Head high, hips swaying, she headed for the opposite hillside, apparently bound for a country walk since there could be no other reason for going in that direction. It struck Jessica as a surprising way for a girl like Meg to spend a Sabbath afternoon.
The place Martin had chosen was on a slope, an advantageous position rapidly becoming crowded. “We came just in time. Another minute and we would have missed this spot.” There was satisfaction as well as excitement in his voice. Entertainment in Burslem was confined to occasional visits to neighbouring friends, to church festivals, and to celebrations with the family. Beyond that, life was centred in the pot bank for six days a week, thirteen hours a day, with Christmas Day as a holiday, followed by Good Friday and then May Day — three days a year. And, because he was a Drayton, the additional privilege of a week in the summer in which he accompanied his mother and sisters on a visit to Harriet in Chester.
Joseph set as much store on family unity as he did on his position at its head, and visits to and from relatives were, he insisted, obligatory. Duty calls on those within reach of Burslem were arranged by him at regular intervals, but always on Sundays so that working routine should not be disrupted. Absenteeism among his workers was not tolerated, and he ensured their regular attendance by enforcing the rule of ‘no work, no pay’. This applied to his young brother as much as to anyone, and he set an example by never missing a day’s work himself.
Nor, indeed, would Drayton relatives have welcomed social visits on weekdays, interrupting their major interests of tanning, textiles or pots. By displaying the same family devotion to work Joseph was reinstating the Drayton pot bank in their esteem, for it had fallen sadly from grace in the hands of his father. Drayton relatives had no time for dreamers. Nor had Joseph.
Nor had he time for Wesley and his preposterous schemes for educating the masses. Learning would give them ideas above their station and arouse discontent among
the workers, and what would happen to the potteries then? Martin reflected with satisfaction that there was no risk at all of his brother coming to listen to the man, so he and Jessica could relax for an hour or two without fear. This was a holiday unlike any other, heralding someone from another world, a man who had travelled, a man who was famous, a man who was making his voice heard. If he could not drink at the fountain of knowledge, at least he could sit at the feet of those who did.
Murmurs ran through the crowd like sudden ripples in a pool; restlessness became expectancy, impatience changed to eagerness, even belligerence among the rougher element momentarily subsided, for the great man had arrived and, without any preliminaries, was addressing the audience in flowing oratory which not even catcalls and derision interrupted. But Jessica had been right when saying that the male population of Burslem would welcome no one preaching against their sins, and in this they were joined by the village’s roughest women, egging on their menfolk with raucous voices.
“Give ’im wot for, Sam Smollett!”
“Blast ’is eyes out, Joss Bailey!”
“Oo does ’e think ’e is, tellin’ us ’ow we should be’ave?”
“Where’s Bill Watkins? ’E’ll knock ’is block off!”
But the pugilistic Watkins was absent and a flying clod of earth sufficed as the first attack. It struck the sober-clad preacher on the side of the head, to the delight of the agitators and the indifference of John Wesley, who continued to speak as if nothing had happened.
Martin gasped, “Did you see that, Jess? They are out to injure the man!”
To his astonishment, Jessica had not seen the incident. She was staring at a carriage slowing down not far distant. He recognised it as one of the fleet from Tremain Hall and knew at once why his sister looked so stricken. The carriage contained the two Freeman girls, Agatha and Amelia, accompanied by their brother Maxwell, but no one else.