The Drayton Legacy

by Rona Randall

  She could scarcely wait for his return the day she found a fine neglected shrub, a Pieris almost buried in the undergrowth at the bottom of the garden, or again when she unearthed a well stocked herb patch beneath a stack of wheelwright’s rubbish not far from the back door. “I will only have to step outside to pluck marjoram or thyme or sage or borris — and many another herb, I daresay, as soon as light and air revive them. Isn’t that splendid, Simon?” And she had flung her arms round him, hugging him in her delight, and he had held her briefly before putting her aside — and it was then that she experienced her first startling awareness of him, a feeling which went beyond self-consciousness, puzzling her.

  This awareness had continued, even when he was not there. She attributed it to the fact that she saw few other people except Sir Neville, who always stopped at their door when riding by. He was a kindly man — dandified, white haired, avuncular — and she enjoyed his company over the cup of tea which was now an established ritual whenever he called. There was also the local rector’s wife, whom Jessica had not welcomed too warmly since that lady delicately enquired how long she had been married, birdlike eyes darting to Jessica’s belly as she spoke. There were also villagers, mostly farmers, a neighbouring blacksmith whose wife turned out to be Clara’s sister, and a woman reputed to be the best midwife for miles around, but it was Simon’s company that filled Jessica’s life now and for which she waited as the day drew in.

  Now the sudden rush of colour to her face, and the warmth of his hands penetrating the thinness of her gown, revived the shyness which assailed her all too often these days and which she attributed to the physical change taking place within her. Why else should she wonder if he was beginning to find her appearance embarrassing?

  She left the money where it was.

  “Then why suggest that I buy something special?” she asked.

  “For your sister’s wedding. What other reason?”

  She almost laughed in relief.

  “I — I thought you were finding me ugly, ungainly — that perhaps my condition was not sufficiently concealed for your liking.”

  His hands were still on her shoulders. His grip tightened. He even shook her a little.

  “To me, you are too beautiful ever to look ungainly or unattractive. Now I have told you something I resolved not to tell you, but it is the truth. As long as I can remember I have thought you the most handsome young woman for miles around. My only regret is that the bloom of motherhood has not been planted in you by me.”

  His hands fell away. He had said too much, and now it was his turn to be embarrassed.

  He said gruffly, “Please, Jessica — take the money. I have bought you nothing since we married. All the clothes you possess belonged to you before that. I have watched you altering them and adapting them, and I know you would look elegant whatever you wore, but it would make me happy to feel that I had bought you something new for the event.”

  “You don’t understand. It isn’t necessary because I — we — won’t be going.” When he stared, she nodded. “We are not invited.”

  His anger was even greater than his shock. For his part he cared little if the Draytons and the Freemans and the whole of local society slighted him, but to do it to Jessica was something he found intolerable and, from her family, unforgiveable.

  Sensing his reaction, she smiled and covered his lips with her fingers.

  “Say nothing — please. Don’t get angry or upset. In a way, it is a relief. You saw what happened outside the church. It would only be repeated.”

  “By Joseph and your spoilt sister. I never could stand either of them!”

  “Then you will be glad to be spared another meeting.” She spoke lightly, and indeed she felt almost light hearted now she had told him.

  “How long have you known?” he asked.

  “Since the Sunday we moved the Tinsleys.”

  “And kept it from me. That means you were hurt. You hid it for that reason. I shall never forgive them for that.”

  He put his arms about her and held her for a long time, and she was glad to remain there, protected, comforted. He rested his cheek on her hair, feeling the softness of it and the lingering touch of her fingers on his lips. He had had an overpowering desire to kiss them and now the desire to lay his mouth against her hair was equally strong, but this too he resisted.

  He put her aside and said, “Please take the money, Jessica.”

  Five gold pieces lay there. He must have saved them diligently. For such a sum she could have a very fine gown indeed.

  “I can’t, Simon. It is too much. You must have denied yourself — ”

  “If you need no gown for the wedding, you will need one for the child’s baptism. I want to provide it.”

  His voice brooked no argument. He picked up the coins, reached for her hand, and closed her fingers over them.

  “And by the way,” he added, “I brought you something else.” He rummaged deeply in a pocket, and produced a small bottle. “Rosewater, for your hands. You seem to have forgotten what I said about taking care of them. All this garden work will make them worse. It will also tire you. I want you to take particular care of yourself, for time is passing. You must not overdo things or take unnecessary risks.”

  Then he left her. Through the window she saw him striding through the small orchard at the side of the cottage. Beyond the orchard was a rough paddock with outhouses which the wheelwright had used for storage, and in the wheelwright’s shop adjoining the cottage he had erected benches along three walls. The benches were spread with papers, and maps of every county between the Trent and the Severn. He must have executed no less than a dozen preliminary plans for the next canal project, drawing and writing laboriously. She was proud of the progress he had made in his studies, and equally proud of him.

  But as she watched his tall figure disappearing through the orchard she was conscious of more than pride. Her gratitude to this man was something she felt she would never be able to express fully. She pressed the hand containing his hard-earned money to her cheek, and as she did so his words echoed through her mind. “My only regret is that the bloom of motherhood has not been planted in you by me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  People came from miles around for the marriage of Maxwell Freeman to Phoebe Drayton. It was significant that the bridegroom’s name sprang to people’s minds before the bride’s, though appearing in correct order on the invitation. In most eyes that formality did not alter the fact that a Freeman was more important socially than a Drayton, the bride’s mother being merely the widow of a master potter who had been something of a failure.

  Furthermore the modesty of the invitation, with engraving far less ornamental than befitted the occasion, also indicated that Emily Drayton could not afford anything more costly. This caused her eldest son acute embarrassment. His mother might consider the style and quality to be sufficient, but not he.

  “It is inferior, my dear Mother. Your daughter’s entry into the landed gentry should have been heralded with something more appropriate. There are titles on the Tremain side, don’t forget. What the Freemans must think, I cannot imagine, particularly since they have so generously offered the Tremain Chapel for the ceremony.”

  Emily protested feebly, “I would have preferred the parish church, where Draytons have always wed and where dear George and I made our vows. And I consider the invitation very pretty.”

  She had looked forward to seeing the village church packed with local inhabitants, all agog to see the bride, with the press of villagers outside waiting for the couple to emerge. All this she had been denied on Jessica’s wedding day, but for Phoebe’s she had fully expected to hear bells pealing and people cheering. Now everyone would be cheated of such pleasure. There would be no excitement in the village, no church bells ringing, and the only people to attend the service would be the guests, predominantly on the Freemans’ side. The bridegroom’s mother had supplied a list which far outnumbered the Draytons’ friends and r
elations.

  After inspecting the disappointing invitation, Joseph said, “At least the reception at Carrion House will be no cause for shame.” Nor was it. He had spared no expense on the marriage feast, nor on making his home fit to receive the many distinguished guests. He was aware that Charlotte Freeman would have liked the celebration following the ceremony to be held at Tremain Hall, with the bridal couple walking across the lawns from the family chapel in traditional style, but as head of the bride’s family he had the right to choose the setting and therefore made sure that it was his own house. It was a golden opportunity to show the world how prosperous he was and that when the time came for his own bride to leave her home to take up residence in his, she would by no means be demeaning herself

  He had therefore gambled heavily on making a good impression, borrowing substantially to install even more improvements in decorations and furnishings, and paying handsomely to have them speedily put in hand. Agatha’s fortune would discharge the debts later. Once she became his wife, he would have full control of her money.

  Emily’s maternal pride was assuaged by the knot of people gathered at the gates of Tremain Hall to see Phoebe, in all her bridal array, depart with her well-born husband for the wedding feast. Despite being a private affair from which outsiders were excluded, the news of the marriage had caused a stir and people had trudged for miles, determined to see as much as they could. An even greater number had gathered at the entrance to Joseph’s house to see the cortege arrive. The cheers and admiration made up for Emily’s earlier disappointment, and even diminished her sadness about Jessica’s absence, which had not passed unnoticed. After the service Ralph Freeman had bluntly asked why she was not present and Emily had been too confused to answer. It was Joseph who pointed out that circumstances prevented it.

  “You mean because she’s in the family way? But everyone knows that, sir, and since she has wed the man, why should she not be here? She cannot be ashamed of her appearance, surely to God. What woman is at such a time? Proud of it, they are, and so they should be. And I saw her when driving through Cooperfield only a week ago. Splendid, she looked. Handsomer than ever. Sorry she and her husband aren’t here. Sorry indeed.”

  That made poor Emily tearful because she felt the same way, though she dare not show it in front of Joseph. She missed Jessica sadly these days, remembering only what a good daughter she had been despite her rebellious spirit.

  One other thing marred the day for the bride’s mother — her younger son’s wrath when learning that Jessica and Simon had not been invited. That news had been carefully withheld from Martin and only revealed when the bridegroom’s father remarked on their absence. Throughout the ceremony the boy had scanned the pews for a sight of Jessica, never imagining that she had been deliberately excluded.

  The truth had made him explode.

  “They should be here, both of them! They should have been included as part of the family. They are part of the family!”

  “Not in my eyes, nor in Phoebe’s,” Joseph had said in his frostiest voice. “Would you have had the bride humiliated on her wedding day?”

  At that Martin had cast him one furious look and promptly behaved as on that Sunday outside the church. He turned his back on his brother, heading fast for home.

  So he didn’t see the bridegroom’s behaviour toward the end of the wedding feast, his staggering attempt to rise to his feet in response to a toast, glass waving, face flushed, grinning foolishly as he hauled his bride to her feet and planting a kiss loud and long on her mouth, ripping her bridal gown from the shoulders as he did so and then slobbering his wet mouth over her chin and down her neck while she struggled to cover herself amidst the cheers and laughter of Max’s more raucous friends. Nor did he see Ralph Freeman’s fury and his wife’s embarrassment and Joseph’s disgust and poor Emily’s distress; nor the way in which the father pulled his son away from his bride and thrust him into his chair again while Phoebe, clutching her torn bodice, turned and fled and the bridegroom collapsed in a drunken stupor on the floor.

  Martin left the wedding to escape from his anger over the exclusion of Jessica and Simon, as well as from the noise and the overheated rooms of Carrion House. Despite being August the chill of the place demanded fires — besides which, Martin suspected, Joseph liked to draw attention to that magnificent gothic fireplace in his impressive hall. Leaping flames certainly obliterated its gaunt black cavern and helped to banish the oppressive feeling which, he knew, Jessica also experienced whenever she visited the place.

  In the midst of today’s merrymaking it was hard to recall the sinister legends attached to his brother’s house…the walled up lovers, the wife who had mysteriously disappeared, the local belief that the building was haunted. Nor did Martin wish to, for at this moment he could think of nothing but his own eagerness to get away.

  Instinctively, he headed for the one place where he was unlikely to be discovered, but first he went home to shed his fine linen and to don his working clothes. Then he set off for the pot bank. In honour of the wedding every master potter in Burslem had given his workers half a day’s holiday. Drayton’s premises were deserted.

  Martin had no keys, nor could he lay his hands on them since Joseph allowed no one to have access to them. On peril of dismissal the gatekeeper had to deliver the keys personally to the Master Potter’s house after locking up at night, and to collect them from his trusty housekeeper in time to open the works again before six the next morning, but Martin gained entry by climbing a wall at the rear of the premises, the main gates being too conspicuous. With his lame leg it was a struggle, but it was not the first time he had done it. With every attempt he became more proficient in this challenging game of breaking and entering and, as always, he headed immediately for the forbidden territory of the glazing shed.

  To him, the place was an Aladdin’s cave, stocked with minerals bearing magic names like dolomite and manganese, vanadium and potassium, rutile and copper, and the less exciting but even more important whiting and feldspar and silica. Since the encounter in Joseph’s office, he had been slipping in here at every opportunity, unbeknown to his brother, to watch Jefferson at work. The man had worked at Drayton’s since the age of five and was now chief glazer. Despite asthmatic breathing and insistent coughing, the old man still put in a thirteen-hour day.

  Jefferson was rumoured to be only forty, but Martin didn’t believe it. He thought sixty more likely, judging by the sparse hair which was forever white with glaze powder, and the wrinkles which were embedded with it, and the shoulders bowed through years of stooping over glazing troughs, mixing and stirring and sieving and repeating the process over and over again.

  The man scarcely paused even at dinner time, but ate his hunk of bread and drank his half of small ale as he worked, unheedful of the dust on his hands and the white film which settled on his food and drink. The air was clouded with it, but no one took any notice because the air of a pot bank was always thick with dust of one kind or another — clay dust or ash dust, silica or alumina dust. It was all part of the business of making pots, and so it had been through the centuries.

  Jefferson was a kindly man and always pleased to see Martin. A different kettle of fish from the Master, was the younger Drayton, so any questions the lad wanted to ask were readily answered. From these illicit visits he had already learned how to mix basic stoneware and earthenware glazes. He had scooped the three necessary ingredients from the ever-open sacks — ball clay ground to powder, feldspar pounded equally fine, and silica reduced to the same consistency to act as a frit in providing stability and adhesion in the glaze. These tasks normally belonged to journeymen, the lowest of the ranks above apprentices. A step up the ladder for them would be weighing the correct amounts in proportion with the requisite amount of water, then blending and stirring and sieving until it finally met with Jefferson’s critical approval.

  Martin’s eagerness to share any of these laborious tasks surprised all the workers except the glazer h
imself. Jefferson appreciated the boy’s enquiring mind and predicted that he would one day be the best potter the Drayton family had ever produced. As for Martin himself, these secret and hurried sessions whetted his desire to learn more, and this desire had intensified since Amelia’s vase had been bisque fired and now awaited glazing.

  It had not been easy to smuggle the raw article to the firing chamber because the area, as yet, was also forbidden territory and every batch of Draytonware was inspected by the Master Potter before firing. So frivolous an item as a fluted vase would have been immediately noticeable amidst cooking pots and salt pigs and all the other household crocks for which the place was renowned, and it would most certainly have been rejected. Equally certain would have been Joseph’s demand to know who had had the temerity to waste good clay on so flighty an object, and with equal certainty he would have guessed, Martin being the only worker forever chafing to make something different.

  In the end, it had been Meg who smuggled the vase to the oven master, her great dark eyes pleading for his co-operation. She could promise untold favours with a glance, and though the man knew by now that such favours would never come his way — he had been thwarted too often to cherish any further hope — he could never resist her blandishments. The raw vase had been added to the firing load after the Master Potter’s inspection.

  But such subterfuge would be difficult when it came to glaze firing. At the biscuit stage, pots could be stacked on top of each other so long as pressure was well balanced to avoid warping; smaller items could be placed inside larger ones, lain on their sides or stood upside down, filling every available space because the material was unglazed and therefore incapable of adhering to other pieces. Amelia’s vase had been easy to hide within a massive pot on which others were stacked, but it would not be so easy in a glaze firing for every item needed space around it to avoid coming into contact with others. Glazing loads were therefore of smaller quantity and every article could be seen and checked on.