by Val Wood
Felix put another log on the fire and several pieces of coal and Frances said, ‘I love the smell of the pine, don’t you, Jamie?’
‘I do.’ He smiled. ‘But do you know that it smells better from outside? The smoke has gone up the chimney, after all.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Can we go outside to smell it, Papa?’
‘But we have to open our presents,’ Mary interrupted. ‘We must do that first.’
‘Why don’t you open your presents now,’ Jamie suggested. ‘And then we can all have a walk later. I’m far too full to move anywhere at present.’
‘Not I,’ Felix mumbled. ‘I spend most of my days outside. Today is one day when I’m staying in!’
His father agreed and said to his daughters that he was going to watch them open their presents and then have a snooze in his armchair.
Both girls looked at Jamie expectantly and, as they knew he would, he nodded. ‘We’ll take a walk down to the sands, shall we, and then we can smell the sea as well as the pine.’
Jamie had bought Frances a silk neck scarf in a shade of blue which he knew she liked, and for Mary he had bought a doll with a porcelain face and a soft body with wooden arms and legs dressed in a white satin gown. Mary was still young enough to play with her dolls and he had seen this one in a shop window in Hull when he was walking to his lodgings one evening after school.
‘Oh, she’s beautiful, Jamie! Thank you.’ Mary got up from the floor where she and Frances were surrounded by boxes and tissue paper and came and hugged him. ‘What name shall I give her?’
‘Let me look,’ her father requested and, taking the doll from her, smoothed its wiry black curls. ‘Yes, she’s lovely. Well done, Jamie.’ His brows wrinkled a little. ‘Must have taken all of your allowance!’
Jamie laughed. ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘I don’t spend very much, Father. I live quite frugally.’
‘What about my silk scarf?’ Frances demanded. ‘Was that very expensive?’
Jamie groaned. ‘Oh, you would never believe the price if I told you,’ he moaned. Then he smiled. ‘But you’re both worth it. I don’t mind in the least living on bread and water for the next six months!’
He glanced at his father as he spoke and saw a hesitation, a query in his eyes as he asked, ‘So you won’t want an increase next term?’
‘I can manage, Father. I don’t need much and you already pay for my lodgings.’
‘So you won’t really live on bread and water?’ Frances claimed. ‘I knew you were teasing.’
‘Never mind all of that!’ Mary protested. ‘What about a name for my doll. She has to have one.’
‘Josephine,’ Felix said sleepily. ‘Anna.’
‘No. I don’t care for the name Josephine and I have a friend called Anna so I can’t call her that. Jamie! What do you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know many girls apart from you two.’
‘As we’ve agreed she’s so beautiful, why don’t you call her Arabella, or Bella for short?’ their father suggested. ‘Bella is Italian for beautiful; is that not so, Jamie?’
Startled, Jamie hesitated. ‘Erm, yes.’ He hadn’t thought of it before. ‘Bella, feminine, yes.’ And how well it suits the Bella that I know, he thought. That thick dark hair; the rounded figure, the dimpled smile. ‘I quite agree,’ he murmured. ‘It’s a perfect name.’
Mary held up the doll and swirled her skirts. ‘So there you are,’ she said to it. ‘Bella! How do you do?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS JAMIE’S eighteenth birthday the day after Boxing Day and his father called him into the study. He was sitting at his desk, facing the window.
‘Sit down, James,’ he said, and Jamie reflected that his father was the only person who ever called him James. Even the servants addressed him as Master Jamie. He had always been Jamie; it had been his mother’s fond name for him and everybody else had taken it up. Except his father.
‘Is anything amiss, sir?’ Jamie said hesitantly, dreading that his father was going to say again that he wouldn’t sanction his going away to university.
‘No,’ his father said brusquely. ‘Why would there be? It’s your birthday, isn’t it? Can’t a man have a chat with his son on his eighteenth birthday without an ulterior motive?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ Jamie said submissively.
‘You said the other day that you didn’t need an extra allowance,’ his father continued without any further preamble.
‘I don’t, Father. I manage well enough on what you give me.’
‘And what about these trips to the theatre that I’ve heard about? Don’t they cost?’
Jamie’s eyebrows shot up. Who had been telling tales?
‘It’s all right.’ His father gave a ghost of a smile. ‘It was Mary; she said she’d like to see the singers and dancers on the stage as you had done.’
‘Once, sir,’ Jamie told him. ‘It was a fellow’s birthday and we were invited to a burlesque show. His father paid. And twice more to the theatre; once to see Macbeth and the other to see Dr Faustus. A tutor took a party of us.’
‘Oh, I see.’ His father’s face cleared. ‘So you’re not wasting my hard-earned money on decadent living!’
‘No, sir.’ Jamie smiled. ‘Not at all.’
‘So what about this scholarship you said had been mentioned?’
Jamie felt a sudden surge of uplifting expectancy. ‘It was – erm, an exhibition, Father, not a scholarship as such. Sometimes fees are reduced, but it depends on circumstances.’
‘And why King’s College?’ his father interrupted. ‘Why London?’
‘They take students from all walks of life, sir,’ Jamie explained. ‘Jews, Catholics, Nonconformists, women too are being admitted to various colleges, such as Bedford and Birkbeck, and I like the idea of its being so universal, but mostly because I can study medicine as well as other subjects.’
‘Huh,’ his father grunted. ‘And according to Sollitt’s letter you’ve a chance of an outstanding career in front of you.’
Jamie flushed. ‘I don’t know, Father. I haven’t seen the letter.’
‘So you could be a top physician or specialist in your field?’ Roger Lucan flipped his bottom lip with his forefinger. ‘Your mother would’ve liked that,’ he murmured.
‘Yes, I think she would,’ Jamie replied softly, blinking away the tears that had suddenly formed at the mention of her. It was during his mother’s last illness and Dr Birchfield’s frequent visits that the idea of studying medicine was first planted in his mind. But as for being a top physician or specialist, that hadn’t really occurred to him; what had finally persuaded him to think of medicine as a career was a lecture on Hull’s cholera outbreak of 1832 which had informed him of the varying medical opinions and observations on the cause. Three hundred people of the port town had died in the epidemic, and the majority of them were poor and starving.
Jamie had been particularly affected by the enormity of this and had waylaid the master to ask him if he thought that some of the victims might have recovered if they had been better fed and healthier.
‘Cholera is a highly contagious disease,’ he was told, ‘and medical men in India, where the disease first showed its ugly head thirty years ago, think that it is water-borne, which is perfectly understandable when you consider the Ganges and the thousands who bathe in it. But it is a fact that the poor stand no chance against such virulence – or any other disease, come to that – when they have insufficient food and bad housing conditions. They have no energy to fight off any ailments, let alone one as deadly as cholera.’
Jamie had begun to observe the people who lived in the area close by the school and near the River Hull; he saw the poor housing for himself and the people living in it and realized that if they couldn’t afford food then they’d hardly be able to afford a doctor when they were sick.
He was a good scholar, he knew that; whether he was a brilliant one remained to be seen and he
wasn’t sufficiently confident in his abilities to consider being a specialist in anything, but he was open-minded and willing to learn.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ his father announced. ‘I’d hoped that you would join your brother in running the estate. It’s too much for one man even with good workers.’
Jamie frowned a little. His father had run it single-handed before Felix had joined him; was he saying that Felix couldn’t manage it alone? But his father was still a relatively young man. He had celebrated his forty-sixth birthday during the summer; he was surely not ready for retirement yet.
‘But if I don’t go to university, Father,’ he said, ‘and join you and Felix, there would be three of us; would there be a living for us all?’
Roger Lucan chewed on his lip and then said thoughtfully, ‘I suppose I’m feeling mortal; it’s been growing on me since your mother died. If you don’t join us then I’ll sell one of the farms, maybe even two, to tighten up the estate, and then if anything should happen to me Felix would be able to manage on his own and Frances and Mary will have a reasonable dowry when they marry.’
Jamie was shocked. ‘But they’re so young, Father. You surely don’t have to think of that yet?’
‘Of course I do,’ his father replied briskly. ‘If I invested the money I’d get from the sales there’d be a nice nest egg for them in eight or ten years’ time. I’d leave you a lump sum and Felix would get the estate.’
‘And if I join you? How will that help?’
‘You’ve got a head for figures; Felix hasn’t, and neither do I think the workers like him much. Not that that matters too much as long as he gains their respect, but he hasn’t got the right manner to win them.’
Felix is only twenty, Jamie thought. He’s arrogant and thinks he knows everything, but he’ll surely change as he gets older and gains experience.
He swallowed hard. ‘What do you want me to do, Father? If you really want me to give up my studies, then …’ he thought of his mother and how ill she had been and how desperately he had wanted to do something to help her, ‘then I will, but reluctantly. I have to be honest: my heart won’t be in it.’
His father had been gazing out of the window, but now he looked up into Jamie’s face and blinked. Then he gave a shake of his head.
‘You sounded just like your mother,’ he said. ‘She always knew what she wanted, but frequently gave way to me, even against her better judgement.’ He sighed. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ he repeated. ‘I’m not promising, but I’ll give it serious thought. When do you need to have a decision?’
‘When I return in January, sir, and – Father, will you discuss it with Felix too? He’ll want to know your plans. He has a right to know. It’s his future too.’
His father laughed; a self-deprecating sound. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You are just like your mother. She always believed in fair play and honesty. You’re not cut out for dealing and trading, or buying and selling, are you?’
Jamie shook his head. ‘No, Father,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m not.’
On the Monday following Christmas Day, Bella was up early as usual to rake the fire and prepare breakfast for Joe and William before they went to work. She opened their door and called them and saw that they were still hidden beneath their blankets. Nell’s door was firmly closed.
William rolled over and grunted something indiscernible; Joe didn’t answer and shuffled further down the bed.
‘Come on,’ Bella said. ‘It’s back to work.’
She yawned. She was tired too; it had been a busy weekend. Although they had closed on Christmas Day they had opened on Boxing Day, and visitors from out of the area had called in for ale and refreshments. Bella and her mother had been kept busy making up plates of pork and ham and other savouries, and William and Joe served the drinks.
The sausages and bacon were sizzling in the frying pan. She dropped some eggs in with them and went to the bottom of the stairs and called up.
‘Joe! William! Breakfast is ready.’
She heard a muffled thud as someone got out of bed and heard also Henry’s chortling cry as he wakened. She sighed and wished she could have had an extra hour’s sleep, but it just wasn’t possible. She realized that she was living the life her mother must have done when she was first married. The difference is, she thought, that I’m not married, and although Joe and William, Nell and Henry are my family, they’re not my sons and daughter and I don’t have a husband; and I don’t think I ever will have.
I don’t know why I feel so grumpy this morning, she thought as she turned over the sausages. Is it because Christmas was such a strain? I missed Father and I know the others did too, but I’m bothered about Ma. She doesn’t seem to have an interest in anything, not even Henry.
She glanced out of the kitchen window. It was a bright sunny morning but extremely cold and she thought it might snow later. I’ll go for a walk after breakfast, she decided, and visit Alice’s mother. I’ll ask Ma if I can take her some slices of pork or goose. I know she hasn’t much money.
She went to the stairs again and yelled up. ‘Breakfast! Do I give it to ’pig or what?’
William came clattering down, his shirt tails flapping. ‘All right, all right. I’m here.’
‘Is Joe up? I’ll not keep it warm for him,’ Bella grumbled. ‘It’s not as if I’ve nowt else to do!’
William tucked in his shirt and sat down at the table, reaching for the bread whilst Bella dished up and then sat opposite him.
‘He can help himself,’ she muttered. ‘I’m not his skivvy.’
William didn’t look at her, but forked into a sausage. The fat spurted out. ‘He’s still in bed,’ he murmured.
‘What!’ Bella glanced up at the kitchen clock. ‘He’ll catch it from Mr Wilkins if he’s late again.’
William chewed and swallowed before answering. Then he said, ‘He’s not going.’
‘Not going? Not going where?’ Bella said. ‘To Mr Wilkins, do you mean?’
‘Yeah.’ William dipped a piece of bread into his egg. ‘Can I have his breakfast if he’s not eating it? I’m starving hungry.’
‘Do you mean he’s not going in this morning, or—’
William shook his head. ‘He’s not going in any more – that’s what he said. He’s finished.’
Bella stared at her brother. ‘Does Ma know?’
‘Dunno. Don’t think so. Can I have his breakfast then, or not?’
Bella got up and scraped the contents of the frying pan on to William’s plate.
‘Well, I’m not cooking him another breakfast,’ she said. ‘He can cook it himself if he wants one.’ She heaved a deep breath of frustration. ‘What’s Ma going to say? Father paid out good money for his apprenticeship!’
‘I know.’ William nodded and continued eating, but keeping one eye on the clock. ‘Wilkins’ll be furious and he’ll not give ’money back.’
‘Course he won’t,’ Bella agreed. ‘And why should he? Did Father sign a contract for indentures or whatever they are?’
‘I expect so.’ William hurriedly finished his breakfast, belched and stood up. ‘Same as for me.’
‘And what about you? Are you staying on, or are you giving up as well?’ she mocked.
William shrugged into his coat and scarf. ‘Don’t tek it out on me,’ he muttered. ‘It’s nowt to do wi’ me what he does. Nor you either, come to that. But no,’ he added. ‘I’m not leaving. Not for a bit anyway. They won’t tek me in ’army yet in any case.’
‘But what’s he going to do?’ Bella said. ‘Apart from stay in bed half of ’day,’ she scoffed.
William looked at her. ‘He says he’s going to run ’Woodman.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BELLA SAID NOTHING to her mother about Joe’s being at home when she came downstairs with a well-fed Henry. It wasn’t her place, she decided; what was it that William had said? That it was nothing to do with him nor her either. So it wasn’t until midday that the thud of feet descending the stairs ma
de Sarah look up sharply and say, ‘Who’s that upstairs?’
Joe came into the kitchen, stretching and yawning and scratching his head. ‘Is there any tea in ’pot?’
‘Why aren’t you at work?’ His mother frowned. ‘It’s Monday, isn’t it?’
‘Aye, it is.’ Joe went to the range and put his hand on the teapot. ‘Mek us a fresh pot, will you, Bella?’
Bella didn’t answer but waited for her mother to speak.
‘I asked you why you’re not at work,’ Sarah said again.
‘Didn’t our William say? Didn’t you say, Bella?’
‘I don’t know why,’ Bella answered flatly.
‘I’m waiting, Joe.’ Sarah’s voice grew sharp. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘I’ve finished.’ There was a stubborn edge to his voice. ‘I’ve given up ’apprenticeship. I can do a better job here at ’Woodman than sawing up bits o’ wood for Wilkins. He’s allus saying I’m no good anyway.’
‘Why didn’t you speak to me first?’
‘Because I knew you’d try to persuade me to stop on wi’ him. And I didn’t want to. It’s best that I stay here wi’ you, Ma. I can look after ’bar and ’cellar and get properly organized if I’m here all day instead of being at ’carpenter’s shop.’
‘Have you told him? Wilkins, I mean? Cos if you haven’t we’ll have to go and explain.’
‘He’ll guess, I expect.’ Joe sat down at the table and looked up at his sister. ‘Fetch us a glass of ale, Bella. I’ll have it while I’m waiting for me dinner.’
Bella opened her mouth and was about to tell him to fetch it himself when she caught a warning glance from her mother; she turned and went out of the room in a furious temper. It’s not fair, she thought. I’ll be at his beck and call all day if he stays at home. I’ll have no say in anything.
She slammed the tankard of ale in front of him when she returned, slopping some of the liquor on the table, and he tutted at her.
‘I hope you don’t do that to ’customers,’ he said. ‘Waste o’ good ale for one thing.’