Eppie

by Robertson, Janice

  ‘You’ve got flour all over her little face!’ Martha said, amused.

  Their merriment was interrupted by a groan from Sam.

  Eppie stroked his slender fingers. ‘His hands are all cut an’ scabby.’

  Boyle poked his nose in at the door. ‘Any problems?’

  ‘We’re managing,’ Martha answered.

  ‘I’ll call this evening. See how he’s doing.’

  Shortly afterwards, Sam recovered enough to accept the barley soup. ‘You’re most kind.’ Though he smiled, Eppie detected an unfathomable sorrow in his eyes. Furrows of stress were etched upon his forehead.

  Martha was in the bedroom, checking clothes in the blanket box for moths. ‘Eppie, do you want to get on with that bacon?’

  Seeing Sam’s eyes fix upon Martha, Eppie was gripped with panic, recalling what Jaggery alleged, that Sam had hurt a lady. Finding it difficult to concentrate on her task, she clumsily hacked the meat.

  ‘I’ll return to my labours,’ Sam said, noticing her nervousness. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’

  Eppie breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ Martha said, unconvinced of his strength.

  Swooning with pain, he fell back.

  She came to his side. ‘You’d best rest some more.’

  ‘I don’t want to be in your way.’

  ‘You’re in no one’s way. Now look what you’ve done - the cut’s bleeding again.’

  She finished winding on a fresh bandage. ‘I don’t want another peep out of you.’

  Comforted by her soothing kindness, he slept.

  Peeling potatoes, dropping them into an earthenware pot, Eppie caught the familiar clippity-clop of Jenny’s shoes. She ran out excitedly. ‘I’ll go and tell pa about Mister Sam.’

  ‘No, let me …’ Eppie had dashed away before Martha could finish uttering her warning.

  She returned moments later. ‘Come an’ see! Pa’s bought a broken wheelbarrow.’

  ‘Whatever for? We already have two behind the cart shed.’

  Gillow released Jenny into the paddock.

  Martha stomped down the garden path. ‘Gillow, the yard is full of rubbish. Why ever do you want to come home with more?’

  ‘It isn’t rubbish. Guess.’

  Eppie clambered onto the cart to examine the machine. ‘Is it a broken spinning wheel?’

  ‘Nop! It’s a spinning jenny. I bought it for next to nothing from Cartwright’s, hardware dealer. It’s years old, from a domestic workshop, but it’s got a bit of life left in it.’ Playfully, he ruffled Eppie’s hair. ‘Like me, hey!’

  Eppie squeezed the spindles, pretending to milk the cow. ‘Why are there eight?’

  ‘So your ma can spin eight threads at once. I’ll get it indoors. She can give it a whirl.’

  ‘You can’t! You’ll wake the prisoner.’

  ‘Prisoner!’

  ‘It’s only Mister Sam.’

  A surge of blood flooded Gillow’s cheeks. ‘I come back and find you entertaining prisoners?’

  Martha gave a short laugh. ‘We’re not entertaining and there’s only one!’

  ‘What difference is there? I don’t want Scattergood or any other prisoner in my home. You have disobeyed me, Martha. I am ashamed of you.’

  ‘Jaggery bashed Mister Sam on the head with a spade,’ Eppie piped up.

  ‘Jaggery must have been sorely provoked. Why else would he hit Scattergood? Ask yourselves that. More to the point, why should we be expected to look after one of them? That’s the guards’ job.’

  Martha began, ‘I thought … ’

  ‘It seems to me, Martha, that you do not do a lot of thinking. You must not be in two minds about this sort of thing. At times you are far too weak-willed. Now they’ve got us down as an easy target they’ll be demanding all sorts of things off us. I’m going to turn him out.’ He marched off.

  Eppie tugged the bottom of his jacket. ‘Let him be, Pa. He saved Twiss.’

  Gillow stopped. ‘I’m all for being neighbourly, Martha, but these sorts of people are sinful and must be punished. I will not have him defiling my home.’

  ‘He isn’t well enough to go back to work.’

  Gillow eyed his wife suspiciously. ‘Why should you care whether he is fit or not?’

  Eppie stared into their faces, realising that they, too, had caught the rhythmical rap-rap of Gillow’s weaving loom.

  ‘What the?’ Gillow stormed indoors.

  Peering around his straddled legs, Eppie saw Sam seated at the loom.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, sir? It is long since I have done any. I used to live a lot like you.’

  Gillow was stumped. ‘Well, er …’ He straightened his back so that, to Eppie, his head appeared to reach the rafters. ‘Seeing as how you’re on the mend, I’d be obliged if you’d kindly leave. Now!’

  ‘Of course. I never wished to impose. Though, forgive me, before I go, I would value the opportunity to tell you a little about my so-called crime.’

  ‘I don’t need no account.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, even if you do not care to listen, I feel that I owe your wife and daughter an explanation. I saw fear in their eyes, yet they showed me compassion. I would like them to understand me a little.

  ‘My father was a farm labourer. On his deathbed, he made Lewis, my elder brother, and I, promise that we’d better ourselves. We worked hard, half-starved, saved. Eventually, we were able to rent a parcel of land, with a small cottage, outside of Malstowe. All was going well until I met a lady by far my social superior.

  ‘Our love led to her becoming with child. We were determined to marry, to accept the hardships we would face together. Her parents were dead. Her grandfather scoffed at my poverty and would not give his blessing to our marriage. One day she came to warn me that soldiers were on their way to arrest me. I had no choice other than to flee. Tormented by love, never could I forget her. In his letter, her grandfather agreed to our betrothal and, like a fool, I fell into his trap.’

  Eppie drew to his side. ‘What happened?’

  Sam’s gentle eyes met Martha’s. ‘I was shown into her grandfather’s study. There was another gentleman there whom I had never seen before. Her grandfather told me that she had died in childbirth. I felt sick, cold, sure it was a lie. I told him so. In my heart, though, I knew he spoke the truth, for in his eyes was more than hatred for me. I saw a grave sadness. The magistrate’s men burst in and I was carried off to jail.’

  ‘You hadn’t done o’t really naughty,’ Eppie said. ‘Not like murdering someone.’

  ‘It is against the law for a man to get a woman with child unless they are in, or propose wedlock,’ Sam answered. ‘Under such circumstances a man must either marry the woman or indemnify the parish. If the man cannot pay the parish he is imprisoned. Her grandfather maintained that I had never intended to marry. He has influential friends. In the eyes of the Justice of the Peace the crime still stood. I had to be punished.’

  ‘What became of the baby?’ Martha asked.

  ‘Lewis visits me in jail, to bring in food and a little money. A few years back I asked him to find out what he could about the child. The grandfather flew into a rage. He told Lewis that he would never reveal where they were buried.’

  Martha was surprised. ‘There were twins?’

  Sam turned to Eppie. ‘They would’ve been about your age if they’d lived.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Martha said softly. ‘I see how silly I was accepting what Jaggery told us about the nature of your crime.’

  ‘The man has a way of poisoning minds. Now, I will take my leave. I have encroached too much upon your hospitality.’

  ‘I have committed a sin in pre-judging a man,’ Gillow said. In a stronger voice, he added, ‘It was wrong of me. I beg your forgiveness.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive.’

  ‘Stay, at least for a meal?’ Martha asked.

  ‘We’d be honoured if you would,’ Gillow said.r />
  Eppie grinned. ‘It’s bacon roll n’ treacle pud.’

  ‘How can I refuse so many kind invitations?’ Sam answered, smiling.

  Martha headed to the larder, whilst Gillow went to unload the cart. Manoeuvring the jenny this way and that he tried, with Sam’s help, to shove it through the low, narrow doorway, to no avail. ‘I never thought about this,’ Gillow said.

  Martha was pleased. ‘There’s not a lot of room. Your loom takes up half the parlour.’

  Eppie frowned. ‘I wonder how it goes.’

  Gillow grabbed a handful of fibres. ‘I’ll show you.’ He looked odd, perched on the stool in the garden. When he span the wheel a clamp pulled away from the spindles, stretching the roving into thread. The faller wire dropped. The spun thread wound onto the spindles. ‘In the future it’s reckoned machines in spinning mills will work over a hundred threads at a time.’ The wheel seized, the clamp shivered. ‘Ah, maybe not such a bargain. I’ll go and throw it in the woodshed.’

  Eppie helped Martha to chop vegetables. ‘Why did pa want to get the spinning jenny? Don’t he know you already do enough work?’

  ‘Your pa hardly notices how much work I do because, unlike him, I don’t get myself noticed by going around looking for praise or sympathy for every task I do.’

  Sam stepped into the parlour and lightly touched Martha’s elbow. ‘Thank you.’

  There was a slight tremor in her voice, her smile shaky. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘For listening,’ he said tenderly. ‘For understanding.’

  ‘Why ya crying, Mam?’

  Martha broke off her gaze upon Sam. ‘Sting o’ onions,’ she replied in a flurry, dabbing her eyes with her apron as Gillow strode in, carrying the long-forgotten muffin-pike.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ARSON IN THE POORHOUSE

  Sam contentedly rubbed his stomach. ‘Those were the biggest dumplings I’ve ever eaten.’

  ‘Eppie has a way of making them on the large side,’ Martha said.

  ‘Pa calls ‘em horse-leg dumplings.’

  The treacle pudding had simmered alongside the meat. Fishing the boiled pudding out, Martha untied the cloth and peeled away the netting.

  There was a rap at the window. Eppie turned to see a frightful face, covered in what looked like a sprinkling of bran, pressed against the pane, its nose squashed.

  ‘That’s my young friend, Dick Pebbleton,’ Sam said, grinning.

  Martha opened the door.

  ‘Boyle said I could come and see how you’re doing.’ Dick sniffed. ‘There’s a good smell o’ cooking in here, missus.’

  ‘Sit yourself down, there’s plenty,’ Martha offered.

  Before the boy shut the door, Eppie noticed Jaggery propped on his rake, sneering, jealous of Dick being let off work.

  ‘Fanks, missus!’ Racing to the table, Dick snatched up a spoon.

  Martha passed Eppie her portion. ‘It’s hot, mind you don’t burn your whiskers.’

  Dick crammed in mouthfuls of sponge and dripping. ‘Never in me life have I tasted o’t so good!’

  Eppie was struck by the thinness of the boy. ‘You can have mine if you like.’ She added, untruthfully, ‘I’m full.’

  ‘It’s worked!’

  ‘What has?’

  ‘The crooked farthing I found in a pothole. I bit it and waited for summat lucky to happen. It’s got me a double dollop o’ treacle pud.’ He slapped the coin on the table before her. ‘You have it.’

  ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘It only works once for each person.’

  ‘Is it true that jailers force prisoners to pay them protection money?’ Gillow asked Sam.

  ‘Some, although Boyle’s a good man.’

  ‘If a jailer don’t like a prisoner, he’ll torture him to death to get money off him, even if he an’t got none,’ Dick said.

  ‘It’d be better if guards were paid regular wages,’ Gillow reflected. ‘Wringing money out of prisoners by force is ludicrous.’

  ‘The trouble is that jails are farmed out,’ Sam answered. ‘The government doesn’t want the bother and expense of maintaining them.’

  Dick puffed out his cheeks. ‘I’m stuffed! In the poorhouse they fed us skilly. After our ma died, me brother Jake and I lived on the streets of Malstowe. One day this fella shoved us into a wagon and took us to the poorhouse. Mrs Grieve, the matron, ranted on about how it was our fault that we was beggars, and how we was gonna be made to work hard for us punishment. We were taken to this chapel-like place with a high ceiling. Boys were crammed in, oakum picking.’ Seeing Eppie’s puzzled face, he explained, ‘That’s where ya rip tatty ropes. They’re plastered onto ships to stop ‘em sinking. I hated picking. Me fingers was shredded.’

  Martha served the men flagons of ale. A rich smell of tobacco filled the parlour.

  ‘Me, Jake and this other lad, Dawkin, shared a bed. After a few weeks, the boys in our ward started itching.’ Proudly, Dick said, ‘I once had ten ulcers under me armpit. They’d swell, bust, and blow out again.

  ‘We was made to whitewash the ward windows. Mrs Grieve reckoned that if the sunlight were kept out we’d stop itching. We din’t.’

  He slurped from his mug of milk, revelling in Eppie’s absorbed face. ‘One morning, Mrs Grieve made us line up at the end of our beds. She whiffed each of us. Grabbing Jake by the ear, she rushed him to the scrubbing room. On the way down, me and Dawkin heard him yelling. I didn’t think o’t of it. Jake weren’t used to being laundered. Still, we decided to take a look. Mrs Grieve had Jake inside a barrel. Each time he came up for air, she forced his head under.’

  Padding up, Twiss placed his head on Dick’s lap. The men had drifted into solemn silence; hanging onto the boy’s every word.

  ‘When Jake went still, the master shouted that they’d drowned him. Jake always liked a jest. I had this idea that if we could topple that barrel over he’d slither out like a fish, alive as could be. So me an’ Dawkin put our backs behind that barrel and shoved for all we was worth. It din’t budge.’

  Tears shimmered in Dick’s eyes. ‘At the assizes, Judge Baulke told Mrs Grieve the only thing he could accuse her of was being too keen on her duties. He let her go free, saying she ought to get used to the stench of paupers. I weren’t sent to jail for trying to help me brother though. After Jake died I was so angry that I set fire to the privy in the boys’ yard. I almost sent the poorhouse up in flames.’ Mournfully, he added, ‘I wish I had.’

  Boyle looked in. ‘Work first thing, Sam. Dick, I want a few more hours out of you.’

  Dick kicked his heels as he left.

  Gillow went to tidy the yard before bed.

  Sam followed. ‘I’ll give you a hand. After such a pleasant evening my head doesn’t ache so much.’

  Months earlier, Wakelin had fixed another swing for Eppie from a goat willow that bordered the stream. Cooling air rushed about her ears as she threw her head back, tracing the ever-changing hue of the sky, ultramarine watering to silvery blue. From the orchard came the rhythmical slash-slash of the scythe. ‘Look at me, Pa. I’m flying to the stars!’

  She watched the men, their figures silhouetted, heaping brambles beside the earth toilet.

  ‘Do you see much of your son?’ Sam asked.

  ‘He sometimes walks home after the evening market of a Saturday and returns to Litcombe on the Sunday night. To be honest, I’m not sorry to see less of him. There’s no love lost between me and the lad. He’s as hard as nails and has a knack of exasperating me.’

  ‘I feel the same way about Jaggery.’

  ‘Why’d he end up in jail?’

  ‘He was taken on by a brewer, name of John Basset, and Jeremiah Grimley, a mill owner. They’d set up a bank. Jaggery was paid to protect mail coaches carrying their money. There were a spate of robberies involving money from Basset and Grimley’s bank. Basset accused Jaggery of being involved. The next morning, Basset’s various body-parts were found in the oddest places around the town. Jaggery
burst into the mill office, threatening Grimley with a blunderbuss. Longbotham, the clerk, fell off his stepladder. He tumbled onto Jaggery, who shot himself in the leg. That’s why he walks with a limp.’

  ‘I’m surprised Jaggery wasn’t hung for attempted murder.’

  ‘Even murder may be lightly punished. Money buys privileges. If Jaggery had enough robbed money put aside I’m sure he’d have paid someone to do his jail sentence for him. What money he has he squanders in the gambling den and on gin. Dick was fortunate. Judge Baulke sentenced him to death but later reduced his punishment to imprisonment.’

  ‘Thank the Good Lord for that! He seems a pleasant lad.’

  ‘He is, though he sometimes looks on the grim side of life. Sam, he says, we’ll never get out of this Inn from Hell. If we don’t die of jail fever, we’ll be eaten alive by these flesh-eating beetles.’

  Eppie bounded to where the men toiled. In a jocular mood, Sam tugged a bramble with his gloved hand. ‘This is the winner. It has to be eight feet long.’ The bramble resisted, clawing his shackles.

  ‘It’s a sea monster got ya!’

  Gillow chopped it with a billhook. ‘This area gets overlooked. Beneath your feet there’s an arsenic pit.’ Startled, Sam stepped away. Gillow jumped on the piled brambles, crushing them. ‘All the land around here used to be sheep country. When an animal plague struck, the pit was dug for use as a sheep dip. Now it’s mostly filled with sludge.’ Taking dried fungus from his tinderbox, he struck the flint. Flames sputtered, smoked and burnt brightly. Eppie cast twigs into the inferno. Brambles twirled red and died ashen white.

  ‘If you ask me, the whole judicial system could do with a shake up,’ Gillow said. ‘Those of superior standing have too much power. It’s not right they should influence lawmakers, bringing in whatever Statutes or punishments they deem fit. At manorial courts, Lord du Quesne is able to decide whether a person hangs or is lightly punished for what he considers to be a crime.’

  Billows of smoke wavered and floated towards them. They backed off. Crackling flames flickered, bright against thickets of fruit bushes.

  Wilbert and Sukey were quarrelling again, their raised voices from the Hix homestead cutting through the chill air, sharp and clear.