Eppie

by Robertson, Janice

  ‘I wonder what time Gillow and Wakelin will turn up tonight,’ Martha mused.

  Reaching for a leather flagon, Samuel took a sip of ale. ‘They’ll get caught up in the late night entertainments, jiggering and the like.’

  ‘Jiggering?’ Martha repeated doubtfully. The last time I saw Gillow dancing was at the May dance outside The Fat Duck. That was when he asked me to marry him. I’ve never seen him as drunk as on that night.’

  ‘When I was a lad I saw the fair go up in flames.’

  ‘What happened, Grumps?’

  ‘One night, Bill Hix and Paxton Winwood grabbed a couple of flares that were lighting the stalls and set fire to a tent. No one else but me saw their caper so they got away with it. I thought it was funny until I found they’d also let a black bear loose.’

  ‘Did it get ya?’

  ‘It was making straight at me when I had this idea of tipping up jars of boiled sweets. That bear was so busy guzzling that I was able to escape.’

  As they approached Little Lubbock church, Edmund hailed Samuel from behind a hedge. ‘I’ve just given birth to two lambs and I’ve a third on the way.’

  Samuel hopped from the cart. ‘And there was I thinking that, after you gave birth to that six-legged lamb, I’d seen everything!’

  Edmund was a slender, serious youth whose shoulders were so sloped that he looked like a bottle of beer.

  ‘Why don’t you come an’ watch the next ‘un arrive in the world,’ Samuel asked Eppie.

  He dipped his hands into a pail of lye water to wash away grime. With a look of concentration on his face, he thrust his hand up the ewe’s rear.

  ‘Can ya feel it?’ Eppie asked.

  ‘Aye. Here’s the legs. The mother’s too tired to give birth to this one naturally.’ The lamb slipped onto the grass with a gush. He thrust a piece of straw up its nose. ‘This is the best way to clean out the airways.’ The lamb sneezed.

  A sorry-looking ewe stood within a hurdle. ‘That one gave birth to a single lamb, but it died,’ Edmund said. ‘I was thinking she might accept this last triplet as her own.’

  Samuel rubbed the lamb into the birth fluids. Satisfied that the triplet had acquired the scent of the surrogate ewe, he placed it beside her. A loud mair, the ewe’s greeting to the lamb, was met with a soft bleat, airr, from the adopted lamb.

  Eppie was relieved. ‘The new mam’s licking the lamb’s ears.’

  ‘She’ll lick it clean to get the blood racing,’ Edmund said.

  ‘Love?’ Samuel said tremulously, noticing Martha’s restless fingers plucking the swell of her unborn child. ‘You all right?’

  ‘It’s nothing, only, seeing the lamb being born seems to have brought on my own.’

  ‘I’d best get ya home, double quick. Edmund, take care o’ the dogs.’

  Samuel and Eppie helped Martha clamber back onto the cart. The old shepherd flicked Fleecy’s reins.

  ‘Good luck, Mrs Dunham,’ Edmund cried, waving from the lane-side. ‘I hope it ain’t born with six legs.’

  ‘I certainly hope not!’ she replied, forcing a smile. She held her breath to help her deal with a sudden, crushing pain.

  ‘If I ain’t mistaken,’ Samuel said nervously, ‘and there ain’t nowt I don’t know about lambs, yours intends to arrive sooner rather than later.’

  From behind came the steady spin of carriage wheels. He glanced back. ‘That’s Master Gabriel’s coach a-coming. When I was selling off my barren ewes I met up with him. He’d come to take a look at the fair.’

  Eppie kicked herself for not having spotted her friend.

  ‘It seems Gabriel and his mother journeyed back yesterday. Her ladyship was a mite queasy so she pushed off home. Gabriel said he’d stayed overnight at Malstowe with friends.’

  Eppie stared at the yellow and black carriage bowling along, its horses driven by Fulke Clopton. The severe-faced coachman wore a high-crowned hat with a red ribbon cockade.

  Samuel shouted above the clattering wheels, ‘I know I had my doubts about these ‘ere turnpike roads, but I’ve had a change of heart. We’d never have been able to race along at this pace afore.’

  The sheep cart span towards the smithy. Eppie caught the familiar ring on the blacksmith’s anvil. Far louder, as they approached the bend in the lane, came a pounding of hooves with a sound like butter-and-eggs, butter-and-eggs. Men shouted, encouraging horses to a greater pace.

  Eppie’s skin prickled. Tightly gripping the edge of the cart, she sensed unknown danger.

  Whirling around the corner came two stagecoaches hell-bent in a race to see which would be the first to reach the staging inns in Litcombe, one overtaking the other.

  The green and yellow carriage, which she recognised as one of Thurstan’s flying coaches, was slightly to the fore of a rival carriage belonging to Hurry Eades. Locked in a foolhardy bid to win prestige for their employer, and a few extra coins in their pockets, the drivers were oblivious to the imminent peril of those travelling in the sheep cart.

  ‘What’s ‘em gaming at?’ Samuel cried as the carriages bore recklessly towards them.

  Spotting the sheep cart, the driver of the rival coach drew hard on his reins. ‘Whoa!’

  The stony-eyed driver of the flying coach whipped on his fearful beasts without mercy.

  Whinnying in terror, Fleecy bolted down the only escape route possible, the embankment. The cart toppled sideways. The rope traces twisted under pressure and snapped with a noise like an anchor hitting the sea.

  Thrown out of the cart, Eppie turned head over heels. Her neck wrenched with a sharp pain. Splashing into the brook, she rapidly pushed herself up with her hands, terrified that the cart would fall on top of her, snatched up her bonnet, and scrambled out.

  The cart had come to rest upside down in the brook. Fleecy was cantering down the lane, petrified by the ordeal. The coaches had disappeared into the distance.

  Martha lay in a flattened patch of cow parsley, pain sketched upon her face.

  ‘Mam!’

  She tried to sound calm so as not to frighten Eppie. ‘I’m not hurt.’

  Samuel sloshed out of the ditch. ‘That was a mite close.’ His forehead had struck a stone on the opposite bank.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ Eppie cried.

  ‘I’ll survive; my head’s made of wood.’ He knelt at his daughter’s side and stroked her hand.

  Ebernezer had hurried from the smithy. ‘It’s fortunate Eade’s coach pulled behind Thurstan’s express; otherwise you might’ve been caught up in the accident an’ all, Master Gabriel.’

  Gabriel had gone clean out of Eppie’s mind. Glancing round, she took in his figure as he raced towards them, noticing how slim and handsome he looked, his blond hair caught back in a bow.

  Gabriel averted his eyes from Eppie’s gaze. ‘I’ll take you back to the manor house, Mrs Dunham.’ He turned to the coachman. ‘After that, go to Leighton House and request that Doctor Burndread urgently ride to the manor to tend Mrs Dunham and Samuel.’

  Fulke’s ginger eyebrows, stiff like the hairs on a pig’s back, fell over close-set eyes, lending to him the appearance of an angry squirrel permanently asleep. Sluggishly, he answered, ‘Yes, sir.’ Though he nodded, Eppie thought he looked disgruntled by the order.

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, Master Gabriel, I’ll be off to find Fleecy,’ Samuel said. ‘She’ll be in a state. Martha, love, you’ll be fine with Master Gabriel looking after ya.’ He trudged away.

  Gabriel stooped beside Martha. ‘Are you able to walk a few steps to my carriage?’

  ‘I must go home.’

  ‘There may be complications. You need proper care.’

  ‘Eppie mustn’t go. Not there. Eppie you run after Gramps.’

  ‘I won’t leave you, Mam!’

  Gabriel glanced at Eppie’s anxious face. ‘We need to make Mrs Dunham comfortable. You’ll find rugs in the carriage. Arrange them on a seat.’

  She crossed to where the horses waited patiently
, chomping on their bits. Fulke, smelling strongly of horse provender, glared at her as she stepped inside. Mud dripped from her sodden frock onto a rug and the padded seats.

  Out of earshot of the others, Gabriel spoke softly to Martha. ‘There is nothing to worry about, Mrs Dunham. Mother knows about Eppie.’

  ‘She knows?’ Martha feared that if she did not die from this accident, she would surely perish from a massive heart palpitation.

  ‘She knows that Eppie and I spend time together.’

  ‘That is all?’

  Gabriel’s voice was so low it was scarcely audible. ‘What more is there to tell?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  STUCK UP A CHIMNEY

  Intimidated by the presence of the servants within, Eppie chose not to follow Martha through the grand front door into the house. So, here she lingered on a lawn divided by symmetrical paths and knee-high box hedges. Ugly stumps of yews stuck out of the lawn, forming a circle like a henge. To indulge Talia her mother had asked Alf, the head gardener, to shape the yews to look like wildwood creatures. Shortly after Talia’s death, du Quesne had the trees felled. Lady Constance never forgave her husband for this barbarous act and, to aggravate him, refused to have the trunks removed.

  A magical aura emanated from the wood henge, stillness like the silence of sleep, as though Talia were putting Eppie’s mind at ease. Martha and the baby were going to be fine.

  About the manor, with its stone mullion windows, was a marked gloominess. It appeared to have grown over the centuries, with bits added higgledy-piggledy. The Swan Chamber projected into a turret. Supported on stone pillars it looked like a giant’s lantern. A Chilean potato tree with star-like purple flowers rambled up an ironwork trellis to the sill of the window. Eppie recalled Gabriel telling her about the climbing plant and her surprised response, ‘You grow potatoes up your house!’

  Jackdaws cawed hideously, alighting upon the multitude of spiral-motif chimneys.

  Climbing to an open doorway, she slumped beside a Grecian urn and smacked her shoes on the steps to remove mud. A ramp swept down one side of the steps, presumably for the ease of conveying her ladyship into the garden in her wheeled chair.

  Spying Eppie, a freshly-starched chambermaid paced towards her, agitatedly wafting her apron. ‘Shoo. If Mrs Bellows sees ya she’ll have a faint.’

  Eppie stood up smartly, startled to see Molly Leiff working here.

  ‘Have a faint if I see whom?’ the housekeeper demanded in a stentorian voice.

  ‘A gypsy girl’s come a-begging, Mrs Bellows, m’am.’

  Mrs Bellows shoved Molly to the side to make way for her tonnage. She stiffened in shock. ‘Goodness, what a filthy child. Be off this instance.’

  Nervously, Eppie crunched her grime-hardened frock, lost for words.

  ‘His lordship does not behold with giving charity to rapscallions. Go, or I will have the footmen set the dogs on you.’

  Eppie lived in fear of du Quesne’s mastiffs, and was about to run home.

  Rubber wheels screeched upon the polished floor. ‘Thank you, that will be all, Mrs Bellows,’ said Lady Constance du Quesne. ‘You may leave this to me.’

  Eppie gaped in trepidation at the lady, making her face grubbier by rubbing tears into her cheeks. The convertible chair in which her ladyship sat had a reclining back and adjustable footrests, two large wheels at the sides and a smaller one behind. She was adorned in the finest black silk, her bodice fashioned in a crossover manner, her skirts trimmed with elaborate pleats. Notable amongst her attire was a black mourning cap, a black velvet ribbon choker with a tiny brooch inset illustrating a lily, and long black mitts with drawstring cuffs.

  Lady Constance addressed a tall, good-looking liveried footman, ‘Duncan, is that you there?’ Though he stood only a short distance away, beside a tall palm that dominated the corner of the vestibule, she appeared unable to recognise him with certainty. ‘My room feels like a Siberian winter. Arrange further supplies of coal immediately.’ She rapped a wheel of her chair with her walking stick. ‘Come close, child. My son has informed me of your arrival.’

  To appear presentable, Eppie prodded her smudged bonnet into shape and thrust it upon her head.

  Agnes had the task of pushing her ladyship in her invalid-chair. ‘If you’ll take my advice, your ladyship, I would not let this girl near you. She is heavily soiled.’

  A hint of consternation was evident in Constance’s voice. ‘That is something my son failed to divulge.’

  Eppie plucked up courage. ‘Please, I’d like to see my mam.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Constance replied. ‘The doctor is with her. Molly, see to this child’s ablutions.’

  ‘’er what, ma’am?’

  ‘Wash her.’ On impulse, Constance added, ‘Inform Hannah that Miss Dunham will be joining Gabriel and I for refreshments.’

  ‘Your husband would be most displeased to learn of you providing tea for one of his villagers,’ Agnes advised.

  ‘I shall amuse myself in any manner that appeals to me,’ Constance answered dismissively.

  Eppie felt a surge of warmth and familiarity towards this gentle woman. Her former beauty could be discerned in her graceful composure and flawless pink cheeks. From beneath her black mobcap poked wisps of brittle blonde hair. That she suffered from some malady was evident. Sunken in shrouded sockets, the light of her eyes was dimmed like glazed sapphires.

  Lady Constance drifted into a state of reverie. ‘Only yesterday it seems was I brought to bed of a daughter, Genevieve.’ Eppie gazed at the lady, awestruck. ‘She was a sister for Gabriel, to make up for the loss of my darling Talia.’ Approaching footsteps broke her sombre thoughts. Although Molly only carried one cloth with which to dry Eppie after her wash, Lady Constance said, ‘Ah, here is the girl, with a great bale of linen it would seem.’

  Molly curtseyed. ‘I’ve been below stairs, m’am, and set about boiling a cauldron of water to chuck Miss Eppie in.’

  ‘You make it sound as though the child were a lobster. No doubt, if you hunt around, you will find some garment suitable for Miss Dunham. Agnes, I will take in a little air.’

  ‘You had an alarming cramp in your hand earlier,’ Agnes objected. ‘You would be well advised to rest.’

  ‘Do not question my orders! Garden!’

  Eppie followed Molly down a long corridor, off which ran servants rooms, including a stillroom and scullery.

  Stepping into the kitchen, she was overwhelmed by its immensity. It looked as if it had been built for a giant. The windows appeared the height of the Town Hall in Litcombe. Several pies, which seemed the size of the circle seat around the mulberry tree, were laid upon a table that had drawers as big as coffins. Upon numerous shelves were rows of copper pans. Spoons longer than Eppie’s arms hung from a rack.

  She gazed sorrowfully at a turnspit dog, padding slowly in a wheel set within the inglenook fireplace. In a basket close by slept another dog, which she imagined would take over when the other one became too tired to walk any more.

  ‘Turnips ain’t turning the meat proper,’ Molly said. ‘I wonder where Hannah’s got. I’d better warn her.’

  Approaching the Elizabethan staircase, they heard a babble of high-pitched female voices coming from the first floor, each person speaking over the other in a confused and troubled fashion.

  Cloths laid upon the staircase were specked with coal dust. They leapt up the stairs and raced along the corridor.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Molly asked as she and Eppie entered Robert du Quesne’s study.

  A huddle of boys, clutching soot-scrapers, stood before the hearth.

  ‘A climbing-boy’s stuck up the chimney,’ answered Kizzie, the fair-faced, bright-eyed stillroom maid. ‘Up there’s a maze of tunnels. It seems the lad tried to get away from the smoke by climbing along the ducts.’

  Hannah folded her arms across her ample chest. ‘Normally, we have Jack Clavelle, a master chimney sweep. His lordship insists on a professional s
ervice. This querier,’ she spoke disparagingly of a man who stood with his head up the chimney, listening to the plaintive cries of the child, ‘isn’t a proper master. He roams around town ringing a bell or calling on houses in the countryside. He happened to come a-knocking after that jackdaw fell down her ladyship’s chimney. Seeing as his lordship isn’t here to complain, I saw no reason not to ask the man in. Now I regret it.’

  ‘There’s scraps of pot littered about the hearth,’ the chimney sweep said.

  At the memory of that voice, a shudder of remembrance of the spoon-hanging boy swept through Eppie.

  Gilbert Crowe ground his heel into shattered pot in the hearth. ‘The gases from the coal have destroyed the lime mortar around yer chimney. The pot must’ve fallen away when the lad took hold of it.’

  Leather-bound books were meticulously arranged like wheel spokes upon a round mahogany table. A bell jar containing a great-horned owl stood in the centre of the table. A dormouse dangled from its beak.

  Pegged onto a wall behind the table was the skin and snarling head of a brown bear.

  Lured by the bizarre spectacle of the animals, Eppie wandered around the room. She recognised the beaver, pelican, tarantula and moonfish from the sketches in Gabriel’s books. The crocodile looked awkward, walking upright on its back legs.

  Many creatures she had never seen. A huge white and grey bird with a hooked beak was labelled Mollymawk. Beside an assorted collection of snakes, frogs which floated in jars, parrots, and other exotic birds, was a grey-green spotted pike longer than the parlour table. It had to be the fish that Wakelin caught in Lynmere. Martha had spoken of it often. In its lower jaw it had large, sharp teeth, whilst in its upper jaw were hundreds of smaller teeth that pointed backwards to stop its prey escaping.

  ‘Awful, aren’t they,’ Kizzie said. ‘Some were shot by his lordship on his hunting expeditions. Most of them he gets from sea explorers. A leather upholsterer stuffs them with rags and cotton.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Eppie asked, spying a strange metal helmet.

  ‘A scold’s bridle. I reckon his lordship keeps it as a warning to her ladyship not to go spreading wicked clack about him. It don’t discourage her, though.’