The People of This Parish (Part One of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  ‘Well, I’m against it,’ Eliza said flatly.

  ‘That is just because you are annoyed about your brother. He is your flesh and blood after all – more important to you than I am, obviously.’

  ‘Ryder!’ In the dim light of dawn she stared at him aghast. ‘How can you possibly make a statement like that? It is a ridiculous thing to say.’

  ‘No,’ he said tetchily, ‘I understand it. You grew up together ... I didn’t realise how badly you felt about the treatment of Guy.’

  ‘I feel badly because there is much good in my brother, whatever people say. Guy is a gentleman. He is a gentle, kind person – look how anxious he was to make up with me. He was humiliated by those men of business, who, after all, have nothing to do with our family, the Heerings and the Martyns.’

  ‘Nonsense, Eliza! The Martyns are your mother’s brothers. They have something to do with your family’.

  ‘I meant to say the Woodvilles ...’

  ‘Oh the “aristocracy”!’ Ryder said with a slight sneer. ‘The people who ground the faces of folk like mine into the mud, who lived in large houses yet could not afford to maintain them. I see whom you really identify yourself with, Eliza ...’

  Suddenly his head shot back, and the sound of the hard slap she’d given him reverberated around the carriage.

  The coachman abruptly woke up and reined in the horses.

  ‘Hoa there, hoa!’ he called, and, obediently, they came to a stop just before Wenham Bridge.

  ‘Go on, go on,’ Ryder called out of the window, his hand nursing his stinging cheek. He then drew the window up and sat back, gazing angrily in front of him. Eliza too stared straight ahead, as if in a state of shock.

  But she could not apologise. She dared not. Yet, even as they proceeded in frosty silence towards the house, she didn’t quite know why she had acted as she did, or what demon had driven her to do it.

  As soon as the coach stopped in front of the house Ryder, who had the door half open, jumped out. With a stony face he put out his hand to help Eliza, and she had just reached the ground when there was a terrible commotion from the side of the house and, to the astonishment of her employers, Beth rushed round, fully clothed, her hands to her cheeks, shrieking at the top of her voice.

  ‘Oh, ma’am, sir,’ she cried, sinking dramatically to the ground, ‘something terrible has happened. Poor Ted has been attacked and left for dead.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Ryder demanded.

  ‘In the kitchen, sir. On the floor, breathing his last.’ Beth, her cheeks streaked with tears, looked piously towards heaven.

  ‘Fetch the doctor quickly,’ Ryder commanded the coachman. Then he turned to Eliza. ‘Come, we must see what has happened. Maybe it is not too late to save him.’

  Half dragging the hysterical maid between them, they took her round to the kitchen door, while the coachman set off to fetch Dr Hardy, who lived on the far side of the town.

  The kitchen presented a scene of confusion and chaos, for all the servants had been raised from their slumbers by the rumpus which had, apparently, occurred not too long before in the grounds of the house.

  Cook in her flannel nightdress was bending over the supine form of Ted, who had been laid on a blanket on the floor, while one of the scullery maids, not immune to his manly charms, held his head tenderly in her arms. This infuriated Beth, who made to fly at her until restrained by Eliza. Attention also had to be paid to the parlourmaid, who had swooned and was being revived in her chair by Eliza’s personal maid, who seemed to be one of the few to have kept her head in the affair. From upstairs could be heard the screams of the children, who had also been disturbed, but Eliza was told that Nancy, the head nursemaid, was already pacifying them. One of the gardeners, who slept over the stables, was trying to fan to life the embers of the fire in the grate, while the head housemaid was endeavouring to boil the kettle with little success.

  ‘Goodness me.’ Eliza, having transferred Beth to the restraining arms of another bewildered gardener, dropped to her knees on the cold stone floor beside Ted. She gently drew up one of his lids and inspected his eyes closely. To her relief his pupil immediately appeared, and momentarily Ted seemed to recognise her before losing consciousness again. From his mouth issued a thick trickle of blood which had already stained his shirt and dribbled on to the floor. His hair was matted as though he had been hit with a blunt instrument, and there was a deep wound from the top of his right eye to beyond his ear.

  Frantic with grief, Beth struggled free and threw herself full length on the floor beside Ted. Clasping his legs, she moaned: ‘’E’s gone, ma’am. ‘E’s gone.’

  ‘He has not gone,’ Eliza snapped. ‘Now get up and pull yourself together, you silly girl. Get me a bowl of hot water and a clean cloth. He has concussion and, I hope, little else.’

  In fact the wound was more superficial than at first seemed to be the case. Eliza thought the doctor would confirm concussion and a deep but superficial scar. Hopefully Ted’s skull was not broken.

  The doctor, who came within a remarkably short space of time, confirmed her diagnosis and commended her nursing skills.

  ‘Don’t forget I am a mother of three and had a boisterous brother,’ Eliza said with a strained smile. ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll recover, ma’am,’ the doctor said, getting to his feet. ‘A couple of days in a warm bed and he will be as right as rain. But who is the one who perpetrated this foul deed? He must be caught and punished.’

  Eliza looked at Beth, who gazed at the floor. But Peter, the gardener, told them what he knew.

  He had been asleep when he heard voices raised in anger and then the sounds of a struggle. He heard a grunt, looked out of the window and saw a figure running through the wood at the back of the house while, just below him, Ted lay slumped on the ground.

  When he had finished his story, Dr Hardy looked grimly at Ted and said: ‘Then he must know who did it.’

  ‘She was there, zur.’ Peter looked sideways at Beth. ‘She was skulking in the shadows too ...’

  ‘Beth!’ Eliza said in an authoritative voice, rising to her feet. ‘Tell us at once who it was.’

  ‘Oh, ma’am, I durst not,’ Beth said, quaking and burying her face in her hands. ‘‘E will kill me.’

  ‘I will kill you if you don’t,’ Ryder snarled, ‘or, rather, it will be back to Farmer Frith. I’m sure he would welcome your return ...’

  ‘Oh, sir.’ By now Beth was shaking all over, but seemed too numb to speak.

  ‘’Twas Albert Newman if you want to know,’ Peter said in a surly voice. ‘I’d know him anywhere.’

  Albert was immediately arrested and taken to the Baker’s Arms, which also served as a magistrates’ court. He was locked in a bedroom for the night and guarded by one of the strong McQueen brothers in case his temper should make him lose control again.

  But there was no fear of that. Poor Albert was too upset, too humbled, because he knew that he had ruined his life, and not just as far as Beth was concerned. His strict Methodist father would allow no brawling son who had dishonoured the family name to carry on the business started over a hundred years before.

  The following day the temporary court held on the first floor of the Baker’s Arms was thronged with people all agog at the spectacle. The magistrate, Mr Leach, who was also the verger of St Mark’s, sent him for trial at the County Court and Albert was taken to Dorchester in chains.

  A few weeks later Albert was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour at a trial which only his sorrowing father and Ted, who had to give evidence against him, attended.

  Ted was a reluctant witness, loath to help send down a man who had once been a friend. But their love for the same woman had put paid to their friendship, and there was only one winner.

  It was nightfall when Ted returned, having journeyed to Dorchester on horseback along the narrow lanes and bridle paths which, as a countryman born and bred, he knew so well.

  Lights burn
ed in the big house, but the stables were in darkness and so would be his room over them. He dreaded the thought of spending the night there, for he was certain he would be haunted by the memory of Albert’s face as he was taken down to the cells.

  As Ted wearily dismounted, there was a movement in the shadows, and fearing some act of vengeance – though he knew not from where – he covered his head with his hands to protect himself.

  ‘’Tis only I,’ Beth said shyly, emerging into the moonlight.

  ‘You startled me,’ Ted said gruffly, and then he led his horse into the stables and lit the lamp before starting to feed it and rub it down.

  ‘Mistress sent me.’ Beth followed him and, in the light of the newly lit lamp, he saw that her face was pale.

  ‘Mrs Yetman sent you?’ asked Ted in surprise.

  ‘Mistress thought you would be unhappy, and a word from me would make you feel better.’

  ‘She’m a good woman,’ Ted said, removing his horse’s saddle.

  ‘She said ...’ Beth paused and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘She said that I was to tell you as she’d had a word with her ladyship.’ Beth gestured towards the house. ‘That is, that if you wus willing, you could be groom at Riversmead. And we ...’

  ‘Groom at Riversmead?’ Ted looked startled.

  ‘If we wus wed,’ Beth said, wiping her nose again. ‘There, I’ve said it.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ Ted said. But he was not an impulsive kind of man – indeed, he was a little slow –and only after he’d fed and watered his horse, rubbed it down and stabled it for the night did he give her a reply.

  ‘I’ll be blowed,’ he said again. ‘First time I ever heard of a woman popping the question.’

  ‘Well, it’s done,’ Beth said, throwing up her arms helplessly.

  ‘You know it’s done,’ Ted said, a little more gently, putting out his hand to touch her before gingerly feeling his head. ‘A blow well worth having, to my mind, to get such a reward.’

  Euphemia Yetman, who had waited so long for marriage, found in it all the contentment and fulfilment that she had desired. Though her husband was so much older than she, he was the kindest, most considerate and loving of men. He reminded her of her own dear father.

  Euphemia was, by nature, calm and tranquil. She looked forward to her confinement with a certain amount of dread, but with an unswerving faith in God and his goodness.

  She knew that at forty she was considered old to have a baby, and her pregnancy had not been easy, which gave her a measure of foreboding about the outcome.

  Euphemia went into labour just after Albert Newman was sent to prison. During the early stages, she remained in the drawing room doing her tapestry, her feet resting comfortably on a stool and an expression of serenity on her face. Her contractions were light and frequent. John sat next to her reading a book, but he was anxious and he would often put the book down on his lap and look soulfully at her.

  ‘I do love you, my darling Effie. You have made me the happiest of men,’ he said.

  ‘Dearest.’ Effie put down her work and reached for his hand. ‘Don’t sound as though it’s all in the past. It is only the beginning. This blessing of a child of our own will enhance our love.’ She touched his face gently and gazed into his eyes. ‘But should anything go wrong, I want you to know, John, that this has been the happiest year of my life. Whatever happens I have never regretted marrying you, and I am grateful to you for the love you have given me.’

  Later, when Effie went to her room, Eliza came up to the house to be with her while Ryder talked to his father and tried to allay his fears.

  ‘She is old to have a child,’ John repeated again and again, clutching at the pipe in his mouth for comfort.

  ‘Father, you are upsetting yourself needlessly. Euphemia will be all right, but you won’t. Come, let’s take a stroll outside.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that,’ John protested, ‘in case she needs me.’

  ‘When we come back it will all be over.’ Ryder looked out of the window and saw the doctor hurrying up the path. ‘See, here’s Dr Hardy.’

  He went to the door but found that Eliza had already gone to greet the doctor and was talking quietly to him in the porch.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ Ryder enquired in a low voice after he had joined them.

  ‘She is very weak and distressed. I asked the doctor if he had forceps.’

  ‘It may not be necessary,’ the doctor said, patting his bag. ‘Come, Mrs Yetman.’

  ‘I thought I’d take Father out ...’

  ‘Good idea,’ Eliza said, looking over her shoulder at Ryder as she mounted the stairs behind the doctor. Then, appearing to have second thoughts, she silently shook her head.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ John Yetman asked anxiously when Ryder returned to the drawing room.

  ‘Of course, Father, have a whisky,’ Ryder said, going over to the cabinet and pouring out a large measure for each of them.

  Upstairs, after examining Euphemia, the doctor opined that everything was in order. But after he had listened to her heart through his stethoscope he seemed less happy, though none of this was discernible to Euphemia, who seemed almost insensible to what was happening.

  Dr Hardy put his ear against her abdomen and listened to the baby’s heart beat. He seemed satisfied with this.

  ‘We shall just have to wait,’ he said to Eliza. ‘Send one of the servants for the midwife. I may have to administer chloroform and deliver the baby by Caesarean section.’ Then, putting his mouth close to Eliza’s ear, he whispered: ‘I don’t like the colour of her face. It is too blue.’

  At two o’clock in the morning Dr Hardy decided to deliver the child in an effort to save it as well as the mother. He made a swift, neat incision and, within seconds, drew from Euphemia’s womb a girl child who at first sight appeared to be dead. She was completely blue and lay lifelessly in the midwife’s arms.

  By this time Eliza was downstairs with her husband and father-in-law but, summoned by one of the two maids who were assisting, she went back upstairs.

  She looked with horror at the scene in the room, the midwife trying desperately to staunch the blood that issued from the open wound; the inert child now lying in the arms of the doctor, who had inserted a tube down its throat and was sucking hard.

  ‘You must baptise this child,’ he said to Eliza between mouthfuls of air. ‘There is no time to send for the Rector.’

  Without a word Eliza took a little water from one of the jugs in the room and put it in a cup. Then, though she was trembling and could hardly speak, she poured the water over the head of the new-born infant, naming her Constance. The doctor then placed the child in Eliza’s arms and, going over to the bed, began to stitch up the hole in Euphemia’s belly.

  Eliza cradled the baby and hugged her to her.

  ‘Live, live, little one,’ she murmured, wishing with all her heart that she had the power to work a miracle. The water from the baptism was still on the tiny furrowed brow and, tenderly, she wiped it off. Then, forgetting everything else that was happening in the room, she sat on a chair with her back to the bed, hugging the baby and, softly, she began to croon to it.

  After a while, though it seemed almost fanciful to imagine it, she thought she observed the baby’s eyes flicker; and then she knew they had. The tiny wrinkled hands were moving as though the baby were trying to stiffen her fingers, and suddenly she coughed and spluttered and began to cry.

  The doctor turned round, a look of astonishment on his face; the midwife gave a cry of joy.

  But for poor Euphemia it was to late.

  14

  Agnes Yetman awoke with a start to hear birds singing. She rubbed her eyes, but it was still dark. The sounds were coming from the grounds of Moreton Park, home of Lord and Lady Mount.

  ‘Quick,’ Agnes whispered, pushing the man slumbering beside her. ‘It is already morning. You must go!’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Guy Woodville murmured, too sleepy to move
, but then his arm encircled Agnes’s waist and drew her down to the bed again. ‘Too late if the birds have started to sing.’

  ‘But you can’t stay here!’

  ‘I am safer here than creeping through the house when the servants are about. Then some time in the morning I’ll saunter forth and no one will be any the wiser.’

  ‘You might be seen then.’

  ‘My dear little girl,’ Guy said, sliding his hand between her thighs, ‘don’t be always worrying about what might happen. Let us enjoy what is left of the night.’

  As always she was overwhelmed by his demands, and, as always, she gave in, putty in his hands. He was her first and only lover, and for the last three years she had been in thrall to him. Those years had coincided with her time as governess to Laetitia, the youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Mount. They had been the most exciting, the most dangerous, the most rapturous of her life.

  Guy had become her lover shortly after she had assumed her position of responsibility in the household. It had not been easy. Not only did his wife keep a close watch on him, but the Mount house was full of servants, few of whom were particularly well disposed towards Agnes, whose manner was haughty and distant.

  She knew what the servants thought about governesses, who were usually poverty-stricken members of the genteel classes. In her opinion she was too good to be one. She had money and if not born a lady she had been brought up as one. Her father had paid for her to be well educated. Except for Ryder, she and her brothers spoke the Queen’s English, their Dorset vowels erased by good schooling. It was just sheer bad luck that, with so much going for her, she had not found her place in the marriage market.

  Agnes Yetman had been enamoured of Guy Woodville since she was a young girl and had seen him riding through the town in his scarlet coat after a day’s hunting. He was then about nineteen and she was five years younger. He was now thirty-four and she was thirty.

  Snatching opportunities to meet was so difficult that it added a spice to their relationship, which was one of the reasons it had lasted so long.