by Betty Burton
‘Do it feel nice?’
‘A’ course it does. It feels lovely… like nothing bad is left inside you.’ She gives a Bar-like giggle. ‘Sometimes you get a feeling like when you pinched a mug of new scrumpy, only you don’t get the runs or a headache after.’
‘Will you teach me?’
‘Easy, yes. We’ll do it together when you’re be… when you feel you’re up to it, only I don’t want to get into trouble with your aunty, so we’d best wait. When it’s summer.’
‘I might be gone then.’
‘You won’t! You don’t want to go back yet. It’s a lot better in the summer. We could come here and go swimming, if you like, and you could help your aunty at picking time. I always help with the picking.’
Lu is still thinking about hanging by a thread from the sky and being out in the open without your clothes on. ‘Do you have to take your clothes off?’
‘You don’t have to, but it’s better when you do, you can feel all the hairs on your body standing up like a fritt cat… listen.’ She leans her head against Lu’s and her hair crackles.
‘You have to find a place where nobody don’t come, else the daft old villagers would tell on you for being a witch.’
‘Don’t the kids from your school come here to swim?’
‘No, they get the bus down town to that swimming pool they built. They said it’s blue water in a hole as big as a house, and it’s clean because it’s full of stuff that smells like Conde’s Fluid. They think it’s awful swimming with frogs and fishes, but that’s the proper place to swim… and they say this wood’s been witched. Only me and Duke come here.’
‘It’s not witched is it?’
‘Only Duke’s sort of witching. He goes out looking for fox-skulls or stoats’, and he hangs them up in a tree. They’re all daft down there in the village – old fox-bones can’t witch anybody. If you gets scared of a place, it’s only what you do to yourself. Me and Duke don’t mind if they think that… they don’t come making any bother on us.’
* * *
This may have been Lu’s initiation into life on the other side of the hills, for it was from here on that she began to feel that she was no longer a visitor or a stranger.
So another week passed magically, Lu getting healthier by the day, regaining her appetite, sleeping deeply at night. It is Saturday again, the Saturday after the old ‘Cat’ incident and the picnic by the stream. Aunty May, who is still in the house when Lu comes downstairs at half-past seven, says, ‘Half day today, the soil’s so dry the slugs will have a hard time of it. I’m going to have a good clean through, so you and Bar had best make yourselves scarce. I think my father has something up his sleeve. I’ll be all done by dinner-time, then I’m just going to do a couple of hours’ weeding in the house garden.’
Lu likes the way that Aunty May, although she works long hours, still seems to be there to talk to and see to things in the house and when she is in the fields she lifts her head and waves, or walks over and sits for a while, asking if everything’s all right. She never rushes about and, when she is asked a question, always stops and looks as though she’s thinking about it before she answers.
What Lu perceives without understanding is May Wilmott’s tranquil nature, which pervades the entire household. She is a woman blessed with good health, boundless energy and contentment with her lot, most of which she inherited from Gabriel.
Father and daughter have in common, too, a tendency to anarchy. Perhaps that is too defined a tendency – rather, they have a philosophy which allows that there is no ‘right way’ in which anything must be done. This is why they have never had anything to do with orthodox religion or party politics, both of which thrive by constandy trying to impose their ‘right way’ on the rest. This belief, which pervades the Roman’s Fields household, possibly stems from Gabriel’s experience in his youth, when he worked his passage to South Africa to try to discover for himself the truth about the power struggle going on there, about British rumour and Boer counter-rumour. He had returned wretched with shame. Not only had he seen monstrous acts of cruelty committed by the British against the Boer women and children, but the Boer, too, when it came to wanting power over the native bushmen and their lands, behaved with equal barbarity.
After that experience, he came to believe that tolerance grew out of knowledge. And here is Lu Wilmott who, as he very soon realized, was a child with her intelligence unprospected, her experience limited to a poverty-stricken way of life, her schooling mean and niggardly. And here too is Bar, with a fuller, more wholesome childhood. He applied his mind to how he might offer them some new experience, perhaps something that might light a flame which might perhaps illuminate some part of their minds. If not, then no experience is ever wasted.
The warm weather persisted, and from observations of rooks, haws, clouds and bones, plus some hope and guesswork, local soothsayers foretold a good summer, but in case it should happen that they were wrong, Gabriel decided to get out whilst the going was good. Yesterday, he had arranged with Duke to bring Pixie, and arranged with May that he will take the children away from the house for the morning.
Lu has never ridden in any kind of horse-vehicle, and is both excited and apprehensive. Unused to the motion, she grips the side and tailboards. Bar, who is wearing a black flared skirt and top which makes her look older, perches easily, without needing to hold on. Duke stands up like a Roman charioteer, his long, curling black hair blowing heroically. Lu wishes she did not feel so apprehensive; by the looks of Bar and Duke, there is a lot of pleasure to be had from a ride in an open cart. ‘Don’t you want to know where we are going?’ Gabriel asks.
Bar says, ‘Duke said he was going after conies.’
‘Well, Duke is a businessman, he’s got a living to make, but we shan’t be cony-trapping.’
‘I don’t care where we are going, I just like being in a cart. And I expect Louise don’t like to ask, do you?’
Lu suggests, ‘To the village?’
‘No,’ Gabriel says, pleased at being out in the warm air with nothing but the prospect of a small pleasure in mind, ‘further than the village, but not very.’
Lu is still a little shy of the old man, but Bar, who has known him since she was able to know anyone, since before his cataract, is not in the least shy. ‘Where then?’ Duke says, ‘Three miles t’other side of the village. Howton’s Ford Farm.’
His sister is scornful. ‘Well, of course you know, you been told.’
‘Ah, but my driver doesn’t know why we are going, Bar. You’d never guess in a month of Sundays.’
‘And neither would they, it is what is called a field-walk,’ he says. ‘A bit like a treasure-hunt. You might not think so at first, but just give it a try, and I’ll be jiggered if you don’t want to do it again.’
Duke’s interest is captured. ‘Gold treasure, Master?’
Lu notices that Mr Strawbridge lifts his face to the sun when he smiles or is relating something interesting. She soon discovered that Mr Strawbridge knows more about everything than any teacher she ever had. ‘Did you know that Hampshire is an old, old county? Did you know it’s Hampshire where we live, Bar?’
Bar nods; whether she does or not isn’t important. Bar likes to listen to him telling about the really olden times.
‘People have been living here, you might say, since time began; all of them building somewhere to live, growing things like we do at Roman’s, really not all that much different from how we do now. They had pots and colanders, and fireplaces; not like ours, more like yours is, Bar. And wherever people live, they leave traces of themselves, even people who lived as far back as the dawn of time itself…’
The sound touches whatever part it is that makes Lu thrill to certain words and phrases. ‘As far back as the dawn of time itself.’ ‘Dame anglaise.’ She would like to find a reason to use or say such words herself, but can imagine the snorts of derision if she put them in a composition at school.
It is not just the word
s, but the significance his expression gives them.
She has been gradually grasping the idea of space since she encountered it in the landscape; perhaps now she can get to grips with the grand scale of time, and the inhabitants of time. As in the landscape, they are not immediately visible or knowable.
As far back as the dawn of time itself. The phrase sings to her mind, and a green bud of an idea of the immensity of time swells. There were people here all that long time ago.
They had pots and colanders, they cooked and ate food. On another level of consciousness she is still listening to Mr Strawbridge’s fascinating story. ‘…Of course, eventually all the crumbled houses with their broken pots get buried, and new ones are built on top. Sometimes not, sometimes people moved on to other places just like we do now, but the houses and broken pots are still there, buried deep now, and we know about some of the places… the land close to Howton’s Farm is one place.’
Lu doesn’t know whether he can see her and Bar, but as he is telling them the story, he leans towards them gesturing with his hands as though both eyes are working properly.
‘Later on, there’s going to be what is called “a dig” going on there. That means taking off the top layer of earth and then digging down to try to find those places where people used to live.’
‘People who lived as far back as the dawn of time itself?’
He looks as pleased as though she has given the right answer to a hard question. ‘Yes, Lu, there are hundreds of places like that, all over Hampshire.’
‘Is that what the treasure-hunt is?’ Bar asks.
‘Something like that. We’re going to see if we can find bits and pieces that might have worked up through the soil in these fields before the dig starts.’
Duke says, ‘Main queer treasure if you asks me, Master Strawbridge.’
‘If it’s gold doubloons you are after, you’re right, Duke lad, it’s main queer.’
The cart rumbles to a stop at a field-gate, the girls and Gabriel get out. Beneath a large oak tree, where there is a pile of rucksacks and coats, two women and three men are gathered. Mr Strawbridge waves his stick in the direction of their voices. The five appear surprised but offer a flurry of jolly greetings. ‘Is that Mr Strawbridge?’ ‘It is Mr Strawbridge!’ ‘Dear fellow, how unexpected, we haven’t seen you for months.’ ‘Ah no… alas, it’s these blessed eyes of mine… but never mind, I have brought along some young ones that are as sharp as a blackbird’s.’
Lu and Bar follow Mr Strawbridge’s beckoning hand as he makes his careful way into the gathering, using his stick as he does so in an attempt to discover any obstacles his goodish eye misses. Duke, with his snares in his pocket and his ferret in a bag, takes Pixie from the shafts and rides her back through the gate and into the farm-track to hunt the field edges whilst she grazes. Villagers believe that the Barneys can make money better than anybody, which may be true; for all the family, with the exception of the youngest, waste none of their waking hours idling. Even Bar, who is getting paid something for helping out Mrs Wilmott, plus anything extra laying straw and collecting slugs in the fields if Lu falls asleep in the sun.
Lu stands close to Bar as Uncle Gabriel shakes hands all round and then indicates Lu and Bar as ‘temporary members of the expedition’. A gentleman with a beard says, ‘Good-oh! Your eyes are probably the best of all of us. Come with me and I will show you some of the pieces we hope to discover.’
He squats down and opens a cardboard box which contains a mixture of pieces that look to Lu like a ha’porth of broken mixed biscuits. ‘These are pieces of broken pots and jars. Pick up a few, hold them, feel them. Do you think you could spot pieces like this in the field?’ Lu and Bar, dipping into the box, look at one another. Bar says, ‘I should think we could. I found a sixpence in some long grass once.’
The shards are mostly of a nondescript brownish red clay, but a few are a gritty white, some blackened, some holed like a sieve and others crimped at the edges. There are small and large handles, and several discs which were once the bases of vessels that are not much different from a present-day broken jug except that these have no glaze.
Lu stares at the pieces in her hand. The man picks out one. ‘This,’ he holds it up between finger and thumb, ‘before it became broken, was part of a strainer, you know, like your mother uses to strain vegetables.’
‘A colander?’ Lu says.
‘Right!’ His beard opens and he smiles, all red lips and white shining teeth. ‘Who knows, maybe thousands of years ago, some young girl just like you two was helping Mother with the dinner when she dropped it.’ He pulls a face. ‘Or maybe it was old and cracked, so when the family decided it was time to move, they left it behind with all their other rubbish.’ He looks up into their absorbed faces. ‘Would you like to help look for some?’
Bar says, ‘Mr Strawbridge said it was treasure.’
The man raises his eyebrows. ‘More precious than mere ordinary treasure, these were once things that people like you and me made and used every day. They have stories, like the girl straining the cabbage and dropping the colander. Sometimes we can find pieces that fit together and make a jug perhaps. You should get Mr Strawbridge to tell you about some of the things we have in the museum.’
Lu says, ‘We got a museum back home.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Portsmouth.’
‘Oh well, you’ve jars and pots in your museum that have been found unbroken. That’s because you have mud and sea there. When things fall into mud, they often don’t break, so that if a fisherman hooks one, it comes up whole.’
‘Things from the dawn of time?’
He smiles warmly. ‘Could well be.’
Lu lets out the common backstreet expression of wonder, ‘Waah.’
In the sectioned field, the bearded professional, the five amateur archaeologists, and the children, Gabriel between the two, go line abreast each in their allotted section. They walk upright, step by step, heads bowed, each carrying a little cloth bag, eyes intent upon every stone and piece of chalk in case it is a remnant of a life once lived close by Howton’s Ford. Although the bedrock here is chalk, it is not known to give up fossils, ammonites and the like, but it is well known that earthworms and ploughing bring to the surface every year plenty of evidence of former inhabitants. The present-day Howtons are reputed to be possessors of a large collection, even the kind of treasure that Duke would have appreciated.
The field-walkers do not walk fast, so Gabriel is not outpaced; perhaps he sees nothing more than his own feet appearing and disappearing with each step, but his face shows his pleasure and satisfaction at taking part in a field-walk, something he expected never to do again.
The first find is signalled by one of the women. It is noted and put into a haversack; after this, finds come thick and fast, and once they have ‘got their eye in’ as the archaeologist says, Lu and Bar’s sharp eyes find no difficulty in doing nearly as well as the experienced adults. Each time, Mr Strawbridge says, ‘Well done, well done,’ and fingers the piece, peering at it through his powerful magnifying-glass.
Lu is spellbound, her imagination working overtime. After the first sweep, there is a pause whilst somebody hands round a bag of boiled sweets, and Lu, reluctant to take her eyes from the ground six inches in front of her toes, pokes a knob of earth which crumbles and reveals a white stone. It is not a shard, she knows that, but it is smooth and white. Like her own lucky pebble which she brought back from Southsea beach, this stone is pleasant to hold in the hand, to fondle and stroke and, like the lucky pebble, it has a hole the size of her little finger.
Bar says, ‘Let’s see,’ and pretends that it is a magnifying glass, looking through the hole at her fingers. As she is returning it to Lu, the woman with the sweets says, ‘Martin, I say, look what the girl has turned up.’
‘May I?’ He holds his hand out for Lu’s stone, rubs off soil with his thumb and says, ‘Well done, the girl with the chestnut curls.’
Lu and Bar watch intently as Lu’s stone is passed around. When it reaches Mr Strawbridge he inspects it closely. ‘I’ll tell you what you have found, Louise, you have found a loom-weight. Whoever made this could have found the stone in the stream we call Howton’s Ford now, or he or she could have brought it with them when they settled here. Feel the hole.’ Lu and Bar each feel in the way that he had done. ‘A person made that. They picked it up and said, “That’s just what I’m looking for.”’
The man, Martin, asks, ‘D’you know what a loom is?’ Neither of the girls does, so another absorbing bit of information comes their way, illustrated by looking closely at the weave of Mr Strawbridge’s tweed coat. To the other field-walkers, Martin says, ‘As far as I know this is the only example in this sector… of course, Howton may be hoarding others… but who knows what Howton may be hoarding?’ They agree by their expressions that they are helpless to know the answer to that. He says to Lu, ‘I’m afraid I shall have to take it.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Lu says, ‘I’ve still got my Southsea pebble on the mantelpiece.’
‘Tell you what,’ Martin says, ‘sometime, when the dig is over, there is bound to be an exhibition, and a loom-weight would almost certainly be displayed. It may not be for a year or so, but I will see to it that you get to know. What is your other name?’ He pops it into a bag and writes a label. ‘See?’ He shows her what he has written, ‘LOOM-WEIGHT. LOUISE WILMOTT, HOWTON’S FORD, FIELD-WALK, APR.’29.’
On the jog back to Roman’s Fields, Gabriel Strawbridge feels gratified at the girls’ response to the outing. What is it the Jesuits say? ‘Give us a child and it’s ours for life’? It would be very gratifying to take Louise and give the world another woman like May, at one with herself and the world. Not young Bar Barney, she was already there. She was growing up, knowing a kind of freedom that enabled her to be herself, that is given to very few girls. ‘Louise, have you ever given thought to keeping a journal?’