by Betty Burton
On this Saturday, still dressed in her layers of clothes and her thick boots and shawl, Jude cut a thick slice of bread and left Hanna to tell Bella that she was gone out.
“I’m glad you an’t growing up strange, Lovey. She been like that since she was littler’n you – and Jaen too. They’d a slept up Tradden if I’d a let them. An’t anybody else walks up hills unless they has to.” As she often did when saying aloud some of her puzzled thoughts about Jude, Bella went on and on.
“I remember asking her once what she saw in walking up a great, barren, steep lump like Tradden. Barren? she said. Why there’s something new every time. New? I said, I suppose this year’s grass an’t the same as last year’s. That’s right, she said. I said to her that people would say she wasn’t all there, but she only laughed. She said, perhaps I an’t, and I said that’s tempting Old Harry.” She pointed a hank of raffia at Hanna in emphasis. “You remember that, Lovey. It’s like crossing your eyes and the wind changing. Everybody knows it’s tempting Old Harry, yet you can tell by all the cross-eyed people about that they will still do it. It don’t never do to go against things. She’s gone off up there in the dep of winter. Anybody can see her from the village and you can’t blame them if anybody starts saying she an’t all there. Twenty years old! I’m glad you’m growing up with some sense.”
As Bella was rambling her puzzlement at Hanna, Jude was through the scrubby trees at the back of the farm and climbing the steep slope of Beacon Hill.
The Cantle face of Beacon was north: its steep slope rose up like the sides of a bowl from the flat valley floor. The other three hills, more gently sloping, were criss-crossed with tracks, raikes and footpaths and were travelled over by people on foot, on horses or upon donkeys. Wagons and carriages mainly used the long track up Bellpitt Lane and over Winchester. This gentle slope was the easiest way in and out of the valley, and may have been a reason why the Romans had built fortifications on the high vantage point close by. The upkeep of this track was the duty of Cantle landowners. As the majority of it was Estate or Church land, and as only the Goodenstones and Reverend Tripp owned anything on wheels, it was the Estate and the Church who made sure that it was always useable. By rights Croud Cantle should have contributed some labour to this work, but no one had ever approached Bella Nugent about her duty.
Usually when Jude went out on to the downs, she went instinctively to the part that suited her mood at that particular time. Instinctively, because she had never thought why she went in this or in that direction. Each hill had a character and an atmosphere quite different from the others. As the four hills were almost a circle, except for where the river made its way through, outsiders would find it difficult to know where one hill began and another ended. There were no noticeable indications, not even the river, for part of Beacon was cut off by it from the main hill and was joined to Tradden. But the people of the valley knew which part was which.
Furthest from Croud Cantle was Winchester Hill. Slouching, sprawling, facing south, facing the dark side of Beacon. Mysterious, with the ruined fortifications, the barrow, and the upright slab of alien stone over the crest.
Its partner, Old Marl, also faced south, on the left of the Dunnock. For some reason more trees grew on that hill than on the others. Old Marl sat upright behind the big House, behind the Estate and the Goodenstones, as unaware of them as of others who had scrabbled there before: small tribes, thin, wary, who grazed on seeds; others who gnawed red flesh and fish, aggressive, suspicious. For the most recent tribe, the Cantle people, Old Marl was the least accessible of the four, because the Goodenstones owned the land at its base and any tracks that once existed were now grown over. On Marl, keepers and poachers fought a constant battle with wits and cunning.
Tradden, probably because Croud Cantle was at its foot, was the most familiar to Jude. Her first steps outside the farm were taken there. Tradden purified their well-water, filled their pond and washed down essential particles into their soil. It darkened before the rest, but the morning sun shone upon it. Tradden had spread its knees and made a lap where Jude had cried for Jaen; screamed inside her head on the killing day; taken peace and satisfaction from Will Vickery.
Beacon Hill. In bitter January, Jude had chosen to walk there. Great lumps of its chalky skeleton protruded in places, bare of any vegetation. It offered no welcome. Even in summer it never had the open warmth of the rest of the downs. It had never mellowed. The other downlands often wooed Jude into stopping longer than she had intended, offering, it seemed, a greater amount to interest, more varieties of creatures. Although Beacon was well flocked with sheep and some goats, it was scarcely ever walked upon by any humans, except for shepherds and a few agile berry pickers in late summer, and men who came on rare and special occasions to light a beacon.
Jude climbed Beacon Hill, following the faint track to the Point where she sat and ate her bread.
What will happen when . . . ?
Why do things always have to be pushed under my nose before I realise about them?
Beacon Hill might be lonely and barren, but in the crystal-clear air, from the highest point in the county it was easy to see for miles. Jude looked down on the tiny patch that was Croud Cantle and then out over the swelling downs: Blackbrook abbey to the north, Corhampton and Wickham to the west and south and further south to the far horizon where the waters of the Solent sparkled.
When she turned back to look at the valley again that bright line was still in her mind. Cantle was cramped, confined, isolated and the farm was not even part of what little community there was. Below her level of consciousness, something rankled. Discontent. She could see the field she had run from in panic on Harvest Day. The buried memory of it rose again, turning over her stomach and drying her mouth. She could see Park Manor. The discontent curdled into resentment. There was something wrong when a fool of a man like Harry Goodenstone owned all the farms, all the land, everything and everybody in that valley.
Take the books! I’ve got more brains in my little finger than he’s got in his whole body and he don’t see that books have got any more value than a bunch of dead daisies. He been taught from the time he was little – been to a university even – and all he’d ever done with it was to have himself dressed up in fancy clothes.
Slowly the resentment drained away. She faced the sparkling southern horizon. It didn’t do any good getting het up. She had come out to try and think about what Johnny-twoey had said. How long could they keep going as they were now? Dicken was already too old to do some of the heavier jobs. Johnny-twoey would be a man in a couple of years. Mother, like Dicken, was worn out by years of long hours and hard labour. Jude looked at her own hands. How long would it be before her fingers stiffened too and her knuckles became round balls that were fiery hot? The sensible thing to do would be to take on somebody younger than Dicken. But we could keep on Dicken and he could share Mother’s work . . . and we could get a dairy-maid and . . . and . . .
And I could . . . ? What? What? She wanted – something, to do – something. She was like an athlete; full of power and energy, ready to burst into a run, but finding that the race was the other side of a high wall.
She had started writing a book about the Nugent women, but it was slow, solitary. Since her stay with the Warrens, except when on her chalk-hills, Jude liked to be with people. The people in her book were no substitute for flesh and blood; the information in the Journal was intended for descendants who were generations ahead. She would have liked to tell them face to face and get their response.
A boy with a handcart waited outside Lotte Trowell’s lodgings in Portsmouth whilst she collected together the last bits and pieces from the backs of drawers and cupboards, as Mary would have done. Mary had always seen to that kind of thing. Lotte had never bothered much about half-used bottles and pots and would have left them.
“You’m a fool, our Lotte. You worked for that.”
“Oh Mary, it’s only lavender water.”
“It had to
be worked for, didn’t it? If you leaves it behind you only have to work for it all over again. One day you might be glad of it.”
Most of her things had been put into store until she had decided what to do. It had taken her a long time to sort everything out. She had no real plan for her future; the only thing she knew was that everything had changed. For the first time in her life there was no one to decide for her. From the day Mary had fetched her from home to work on the farm at Cantle right up to now, there had always been somebody telling her what was best for her. Now she had to make some decisions of her own. So far she felt pleased with her achievement. She put everything into store, except her warm and practical clothes.
The only journey she had ever taken without Mary was the one from Cantle to Bristol with Tomas Nugent. The secrecy of the plan and the clandestine way in which they travelled had obliterated every thought except the romantic and exciting future. Sometimes Lotte thought that at coming fourteen she should a’ known better; at others she was run through with bitterness, especially when she went to see Rosie. Tomas Nugent couldn’t help being lost at sea, but he was a grown man and he certainly should a’ known better than to leave a young girl there in Bristol.
She scarcely noticed the streets as she followed the boy pushing her travelling boxes, and was surprised at her lack of emotion at leaving. She had tucked easily accessible handkerchiefs about her dress, expecting that sadness would descend upon her at having to leave Mary in a grave in Portsmouth, where it seemed to Lotte that the only permanent residents were the dead.
The bustle of preparation in The Sallyport yard was soon got over, and Lotte was on the first leg of her journey into an unknown future. For the first time in years she felt that something was happening.
Pilley Heath was not more than fifty miles to the west as the crow flies, but because the south coast is split both at Portsmouth and Southampton Water, Lotte’s journey was long and meandering. The other travellers had little to say to one another once the effects of The Sallyport spiced rum had worn off. Lotte, with her hair and hood arranged to cover her bad eye, sat like a sober and quiet governess looking out through the grimy, clammy window. The coach paused at the top of Ports Down, to recover those passengers who had had to get off to lighten the uphill load. It was where Harry Goodenstone had stopped for breath. Like him, Lotte looked down upon the harbour, the mudflats and the sandbanks. She hoped never to have to see the place again, but Mary was there and you had a duty.
It had been an unlucky place. But that was daft, wasn’t it? When you thought about it you could say that about anywhere, right back to Tomas’s farm. Bristol, where she had sunk about as low as anybody could, but then Mary had come. You couldn’t say that was bad luck; what would she a’ done without Mary then? Perhaps that was the time they should have gone back home. It was easy to say that now, and thinking about it Mary was probably right: they had enough to get on with there without adding to it. Lotte did not often remember that she had other sisters, and brothers too. Was Ma and Pa gone? Years ago most likely . . . they’d be well over sixty.
Some places had been lucky – like London, where she had got her first real chance. That afternoon when both young Mr Hamlyn and young Mr Locke had been taken with the fever and hadn’t been able to go on. Up until that rime her only parts had been walking on and standing about. It was funny how she hadn’t realised that other people couldn’t remember a part almost word for word after hearing it once, like she could herself.
She smiled to herself as she looked out on the bright, frozen countryside of south Hampshire. That was a good moment. Everybody being all at sixes and sevens trying to find somebody to learn the Horatio lines before the evening performance; Mr La Rousse discovering that she knew Horatio’s part as well as almost everybody else’s and telling everybody that Mrs Trowell was destined for a great career. Well, it hadn’t been a great career. She had always been too young-looking and high-voiced for the really good parts. Always been in demand, though, and even though I say it myself, I was good at the naughty wives’ parts – and the boys in doublet and hose. She had only got to have somebody read over a part a few times and she got it. That was lucky; there wasn’t many who could do it.
London had been unlucky as well, though. Mary had said they couldn’t go on letting Rosie travel about with them. She wasn’t a baby any more. It was getting harder to keep her hidden away. Lotte hadn’t seen anything wrong in letting anybody know about Rosie, but Mary had said that Lotte was too young to understand what it would mean to her future. Mary’s arguments had been persuasive, realistic.
“She an’t ever going to be able to keep herself. She won’t be capable.”
“I don’t care. I’ll look after her, I’ll keep her.”
“What with? Is any company going to keep you on if you got to go about with a great girl who perhaps won’t be able to talk nor perhaps even know what’s going on about her? The audience’d laugh you off of the stage, doing ’phelia. The only thing you got that they wants is that you always looks like a twelve-year-old. And any case, what man’s going to look twice at you with a child that isn’t all there?”
Lotte hated Mary saying things like that about Rosie. Mary never could understand that it didn’t matter if some people were like that, they didn’t do anybody no harm; and anyway, who said Rosie wasn’t all there? Not Lotte. Wasn’t she the happiest creature alive?
“I shan’t ever marry anybody!”
And nor I shan’t, thought Lotte. That was one thing she was still sure of, even though Harry Goodenstone and Mary were gone.
In the end, Lotte had agreed that she would let Rosie go so long as they could find somebody who would look after her and bring her up being kind and gentle. Rosie didn’t have to be brought up ladylike or anything like that, just so as she wouldn’t realise that she was different. It had taken them months to find somebody suitable, then at last they had come across Constance Sylver, who was in pretty much the same boat as Lotte; but she was trying to keep body and soul together by dressing and painting up the actors and powdering wigs backstage.
One day, Constance had been forced to bring her child to the theatre with her. It was a drooling, moon-faced, slant-eyed child, who smiled and smiled. The way that Constance had been thrown out by the great actor-manager had proved to Lotte that Mary was right. That had been lucky really – Mary being kept at home with the runs that day – she hadn’t been able to interfere when Lotte had gone to see Constance Sylver. It was funny, looking back. Things had quite often come out all right somehow, the few times Lotte decided something for herself.
Lotte had made a bargain with Constance Sylver. If Constance would take Rosie and bring her up as near to ordinary as she could, then Lotte would provide for them all: Rosie, Constance and Constance’s little Eileen. Lotte had to admit that she couldn’t have done what Constance had. People had treated her rotten, especially at first, when she had gone back and tried to live in her own village. It was better now that they had gone to Pilley Heath. It was hardly even a hamlet, more a settlement of charcoal-burners on the edge of Savernake. Constance could stand it if strangers were nasty to her, but she said they hardly took any notice. Constance reckoned that it was because the charcoal-burners were looked down on by ordinary villagers . . . so she was really quite content there.
You’d think your own kind would treat you better than that, though, but then you can understand in a way – times being hard enough without having any more burdens. It was hard enough for people with their health and strength looking after their old people, their lame, their idiots. Not that Constance and the children were ever burdens to anybody. Lotte kept her end of the bargain, even though it meant all those years of Harry Goodenstone.
It had broke Lotte’s heart at first, but Mary was probably right. It would a’ been bad enough if Rosie had been like anybody else, but you had to watch her all the time. Lotte wouldn’t have minded; she loved teaching Rosie to do things other children could do naturally. It h
ad taken ages for her to learn to hold out her arms to have her shift put on, but after she did get the hang of it they were both so pleased. Rosie was so loveable and pretty. Rosie. Why ever had she christened her Rosalinda? Rosie was exactly right – like the wild roses; pink and open and . . .
Remembering, Lotte’s eyes brimmed and she had to be careful not to blink in case they should run over in tears.
She didn’t know what they would do now. She had gone over it a dozen times in these last weeks since Mary died, trying to work things out.
When Mary was ill, Lotte nursed her night and day, not really taking much notice of the bruise and grazes Harry Goodenstone had made. When the place started to become hot and sore Lotte did wonder for a bit if she had got smallpox, but the apothecary who had looked at it said it was just festering; probably from face-powder or one of the other concoctions women put on their faces. He had seen the same sort of thing enough times. Lotte had scarcely listened to all that, just as long as she hadn’t taken the smallpox and could nurse her poor, tortured Mary.
She forgot the irritating wound until the day after Mary had been buried. Then at last she had a good look at herself. The stiff-hair trimming of his riding-crop had made a kind of burn on the skin. It had blistered and let the infection in and the wound had healed like a burn, leaving a pale mulberry-coloured scar that was shiny and tight. She was too busy to think much about it then, but Lotte had felt a kind of relief when she had realised what a mess that part of her face was.
The woman sitting next to Lotte in the coach was wearing a high and complicated wig under a wide and complicated hat which, for a start, was a nuisance to those on either side of her; but Lotte had noticed when standing behind her as they climbed on board that the woman had far more than the usual number of wig-lice: so many, apparently, that there were some on the ribbons of her hat. You expected to pick up more than usual on any coach, but when the woman took her seat Lotte was conscious of all the time she would have to waste when she got to the other end, getting rid of the fleas that would certainly overflow on to other people. So Lotte tried to make as much space between them as possible, but each time Lotte edged away half-an-inch, the woman spread into it until, at last, Lotte had only part of her allotted space.