by Jean Stubbs
‘Thy room is prepared for thee, Mrs Dorcas,’ said Zelah, and placed a warm white hand upon those two small cold ones. ‘Thee needs a bowl of hot soup and a toast’
‘Where have you brought me?’ Dorcas cried, agitated. ‘I must go home, at once. Ned will be waiting all this while.’
‘Bring her upstairs, love,’ said Zelah. ‘Tibby and Kitty, I shall need thee to help me with Grandmama. Nancy and Livvy, sit with thy father while he eats. Sophie and Molly, thee must go to bed now.’
‘What a lot of children,’ Dorcas whispered to herself. ‘Where have they all come from?’
She let her hand trail on the banister, wondering. She did not know now who carried her, nor the woman at his side.
‘But they are being very kind to me,’ said Dorcas. ‘I shall tell Ned that he need not have worried.’ Then she remembered.
‘No, no,’ she cried, quite strongly. ‘You must take me to Kit’s Hill. Ned will be riding along the road, looking for me in the dark.’
‘We shall send for him to come here,’ said Zelah soothing her.
Dorcas began to cry weakly: a stranger in a strange place.
‘Please to allow me to go home,’ she begged. ‘It is very late, and I have been away such a while.’
‘God help me,’ said William, from the bottom of his heart. ‘I do not think I can bear more.’
‘Nay, thee must,’ Zelah answered sadly. ‘Here, lay her down and go to thy supper, love. Then thee can come and see her later, when she is settled.’
‘I do not know you,’ Dorcas cried in terror. ‘Where have you brought me?’
‘Mrs Dorcas,’ said Zelah, sitting by her, giving her hands a friendly little shake, ‘it is thy daughter, Zelah. We have brought thee here to rest. Thou halt had a long, hard journey.’
‘My daughter?’ murmured Dorcas.
An image of Charlotte’s ash-grey head lay against her shoulder. She stroked the hair softly, grieving over it. Then in a second, past and present and future merged. She received the full force of Charlotte’s plight in one tremendous blow, and wailed like a child who is utterly lost.
‘Oh, I shall die,’ cried Dorcas.
*
‘I do not practise medicine these days,’ said Matthew Standish truculently to William, ‘but I have come with my nephew in a personal capacity. Miss Dorcas is an old friend of mine. Indeed she is the only friend. For we are both seven-and-seventy years of age, and all the rest are gone.’
So he took his rheumatism painfully up the wide staircase, making crooked progress with the aid of his stick. And his nephew followed him into the large light room where Dorcas lay upon a hill of pillows.
‘Well, do your duty, sir!’ he ordered Hamish, who was hanging courteously back. ‘I shall not be here for ever, you know. You must learn to conduct your practice by yourself!’
Which Hamish would have been very glad to do, but could not say so. He examined Dorcas gently and carefully, which she allowed as being a necessary nuisance. Then he shrugged slightly, turning to his uncle for advice. But Matthew Standish did not trouble with the body. He came forward and looked into her eyes, to discern the temper of the spirit, and asked her how she was.
‘I am pretty well this morning, sir,’ Dorcas answered, ‘but I do not wish to make an effort.’
‘Why should you, ma’am?’ said Matthew kindly. ‘Rest as much as you can.’
‘So you are not going to bleed me, nor set leeches on me, nor cauterise me, nor blister me, sir?’ she asked anxiously.
‘No, no. There is no need of that. No need of anything. A little wine. A light diet. A sleep when you feel tired.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said Dorcas to herself, smoothing the sheet beneath her fingers, ‘for I have not the strength to endure it, and I should not like to die unseemly.’
Matthew Standish regarded her sombrely. His hands, folded upon the carved head of his stick, were cruelly knobbed.
Dorcas’s attention wandered. She said, ‘I should like to consult you as to Charlotte’s health, sir. You was always concerned for her lungs. She is sailing to the other side of the world, you know.’
‘Oh, then she is in the best possible case,’ said the old doctor in a careless tone. ‘A voyage to a warmer climate. Sea air and sunshine. I would recommend that above all things.’
Dorcas brightened. Matthew Standish bent his head.
‘Your children will take care of themselves now, ma’am,’ he said. ‘You have done your duty!’ And he lifted the hand which lay so lightly on the coverlet, and kissed it in a courtly fashion. ‘Good-day to you, Miss Dorcas,’ he said.
*
Dick Howarth and his family drove up in the farm wagon, since there was nothing else at Kit’s Hill big enough to hold them all. And they trod softly along the corridor and stood outside her door with reverence.
The woeful face of the little maid who preceded them looked pleasantly familiar.
‘Now you’re a Bowker, if ever I saw one!’ said Dick, heartened by this homely fact in the midst of splendour and death. ‘Yes sir, please sir. Letty Bowker.’
So Dick gave her sixpence, and then wondered if he had done right.
There was a movement among the family as the Howard’s entered. They came forward to press Dick’s hand or kiss his cheek, to nod a welcome and whisper a condolence. They were all there: William and Zelah and the girls, Ambrose Longe, Cicely and Jarvis Pole and their brood. All there except Charlotte.
‘We come as soon as you sent word,’ Dick said hoarsely, ‘but it’s allus the same. Them as lives nearest gets there last.’
They were a handsome crowd of people, composed in manner, elegantly dressed. From the grave grandeur of the iron-master to the small oval face of Dorcas Pole, they bore the marks of close relationship. Standing before them, his hat still clutched in his hands, Dick Howarth seemed a person apart: an honest yeoman, some seven-and-thirty years of age, sturdily built, his skin reddened by all weathers. He looked so simple, and yet he subtly perceived in Zelah the fatigue of long nursing.
They cleared a place for him by the bed, and suddenly all the faces and soft sounds receded, leaving only one face, one quiet drawing of breath.
Propped high against the white pillows, hands folded, eyes closed, Dorcas was dying as she had lived, in an orderly fashion. Zelah had brushed her hair and dressed it neatly under her best starched cap. There was lace on the cap, lace on the neck and cuffs of her best nightgown. But Dick noticed none of these fineries. He saw that she held her mouth as though it had been hurt, that there was a pucker of concern on her forehead, an air of loss, that now and again she gave the softest of moans as though she remembered something best forgotten.
‘Come and sit by her, Dick,’ said Zelah kindly. ‘She will wake in a while. She talks quite freely and coherently. Then sleeps a little. Then talks again. It has been so for days. She will be glad to see thee.’
The children stood solemnly watching.
‘Has she asked for me? I haven’t been so lucky, the times I called,’ said Dick, ‘but you did tell her I come, didn’t you?’
‘Indeed we did, and she was glad of it, but she is something muddled as to people and time,’ said the ironmaster, and he spoke lovingly of her. ‘She has advised us all. And Mr Hurst has nearly slept here the last week! But her Will has become confused with that of Great-aunt Wilde, and the one my father wrote. So this morning she decided that you should inherit Kit’s Hill, and I should have a thousand pounds to buy Belbrook!’
They sat together at their mother’s side, and watched the coming and going of breath.
‘And she has tied up my mother’s annuity so that my father shall not draw the capital,’ said Ambrose wryly.
He was very pale and looked far older than his years. There was in him a sternness of purpose, a depth of grief, which had never been called from Toby.
‘Has she been very poorly-like?’ Dick asked, nodding towards the composed face. ‘She were weak when I saw her a-Wednesday, but
not what I’d call poorly.’
‘She is in no pain, thank heaven,’ William answered, ‘but sometimes restless and ill at ease, and exceedingly difficult to nurse.’
‘Aye,’ said Dick, understanding. ‘She would be. She was allus fond of her own road! But do you mind how she nursed our Betty, all them years since? Day and night. Night and day. All through that summer and well into Martinmas.’
‘Why, you could have been no more than five at the time!’
‘Aye, but I remember all about it, our Will. You was away in Birmingham until the last. They sent our Charlotte to stay with Aunt Phoebe at the Rectory, and they parcelled me off to Windygate for a while. Then they fetched us back at the end. It were foggy and wet. I remember my father holding me up to say goodbye to Betty, and she said I’d been a good lad … ’
They sat together in harmony, as they had not sat since they were young, while Dorcas paused and trembled upon the final threshold. The pale forehead puckered, the lips moved, the breath came short and quick.
‘She is fretting again,’ said William, and stroked her hand. ‘What is she saying?’
A dry sob shook Dorcas. She moved her head from side to side as if to escape from something.
‘Eh, why must it be so hard for her?’ said Dick, and he cupped Dorcas’s fluttering fingers and stilled them in his warm clasp.
‘Now then, now then,’ he soothed, as he would comfort a child in a nightmare. ‘What’s to do, my lass?’
Her eyes opened at the sound of his voice. She was with them again. They felt her presence as a physical shock of recognition in the room. It was miraculous. To have been so poor, so harassed and bonded. Then, in a moment, to have put aside dying as though it were a garment she chose not to wear. Her voice was weary but distinct.
‘Why have you been so long?’ she asked the familiar face.
He answered as his father would have done, directly and to the point.
‘It’s a fair way between here and Kit’s Hill, tha knows. I come as soon as I could.’
‘And you will take me back there before dark, will you not?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Aye, never fear,’ said Dick, smiling. ‘I’ll take thee home.’
Reassured, she looked upon the assembly. Children, grand-children, great-grandchildren and old servants. And they moved closer to make their farewells.
She strove to raise herself, saying, ‘Fetch my cloak, Nellie, if you please!’ Then smiled on Dick alone. ‘Wait for me,’ she said. ‘I shall be with you in a moment.’
And was gone.
Epilogue
Thirty-one
They stood together bare-headed in Garth churchyard, two middle-aged men at the head of their families, and watched the sexton begin to spade earth on to the coffin.
‘I had thought, somehow, that she would never die,’ said William, in sorrowful disbelief.
‘Eh, she’d have lived to be a hundred if it weren’t for our Charlotte’s trouble,’ Dick replied quietly.
They stood a few moments longer, before walking away. The funeral had been subdued because of circumstances, but full of a profound respect. Many who were prepared to cut William on account of his sister had pressed his hand in silent sympathy on account of his mother. Humbler mourners had walked from Snape to attend the service and express their sorrow, and Garth villagers wrapped their shawls about their heads or took off their hats in quiet reverence. William and Dick did not know all of them, but Dorcas had, and they would remember her.
There were to be no junketings, but the privacy of the event suited the Howarths better. They had suffered too much to go through a burial banquet as well. It was enough that her family, all but one, were there. They could drink ale or tea together and eat Alice’s honest currant cakes, and spread the summer’s jam on homebaked bread and butter, and talk as they felt inclined. By tacit consent, the brothers, as chief mourners, were left alone and presently went outside to look round Kit’s Hill. And William lapsed into the comfortable speech he had used with Ned. Picking up fragments of the past.
‘Mother drove us to Millbridge in the trap, one time, our Charlotte and me. We’d been mewed up for a long while with that cattle disease, rinder-pest. Forty years, come last May, it would be. And the blossom was out. I broke a sprig off for our Lottie. “Sit down!” says Mother, in that quick short way she had. And I sat. I did as I was told!’
They smiled at each other, knowing.
‘Her back was as straight and supple as a willow wand. Then she points her little whip down below there, and says, “Look, children. You can see the journey we are going to make, almost from start to finish!” Aye, and the valley was different then. And I have to admit to being one of them as altered it so much.’
He was silent a moment. How could he be sorry? And yet some part of him grieved for the shining river and the villages strung like daisies on its chain.
‘But it’s allus the same up here, Dick,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘Kit’s Hill doesn’t change so as you’d notice it. It’s a fair while since I’ve been here, too. Too long, to tell thee the truth. So shall us stretch our legs a bit and you can show me round? I’ve got summat to ask thee, Dick.’
They began to mount the long hill up to Scarth Nick, overlooking the valley. Dick strode easily, as one who was accustomed to such exercise. But William had to stop now and again, for he was some years older and no countryman these days.
‘I’m leaving Wyndendale for good, lad. Nay, don’t look so startled. There’s nowt for me here now, and you know it. I’ve done no wrong but they’ve got a big stick now to beat me with, and there’s too many of them want to get hold of it! They’ll see that I go no further here, bar making a profit, and I want more than that. So we’re off!’
‘But, Will, you was born and bred here,’ said Dick, aghast. ‘It’s thy roots and home and family and all.’
‘Eh, I’m not pacing away tomorrow, lad. Nor next month, nor maybe next year. I shall take my time and look round and find somewhere else for us. And I shall sell Snape. The war won’t last for ever! And it might not be worth as much in peacetime. But I wanted thee to be the first to know, after Zelah, what I had in mind.’
‘If she has a lad this time,’ said Dick, thinking, ‘he’ll be born out of his rightful place.’
‘Aye, I know. But the Williams never stop at home, Betty Ackroyd used to say. I’d sooner stop and king it here, if I had the choice. But if they won’t let me be king I’ll go some place as will!’ He grinned at his younger brother. ‘They call that being a great man!’ he said drily. ‘Well, I’ve learned a thing or two the past few years, and I can tell thee who the great men are. The quiet ones like thee and my father, and Caleb. The ones as don’t need a brass band to march in front of them and tell folks they’re coming. It won’t alter me to know that, but at least I do know it. I’m a nowt, as Betty would say!’
He laughed at his brother’s perturbed face, and clapped him on the back companionably.
‘Now listen to me, Dick, because you’re the Howarth as matters. And you’re the Howarth as is stopping here. How are you off for money, lad? The truth, mind! Tell me t’truth.’
‘Well, a bit short, our Will. But nowt as a good harvest wouldn’t put right.’
‘That harvest never comes,’ said William humorously, honestly. ‘You’re behind the times, our Dick, and that’s just where I want you to be. I don’t want any clever bugger improving Kit’s Hill and turning it into a cotton-mill — nor an ironworks, neither, come to that! Now, I’m selling Bracelet and Thornton House and putting the money in our Charlotte’s name. If she doesn’t come back then it goes to her children. That’s how she and Mother wanted it, and that’s how it will be done. Hurst is seeing to it all for me, and he was fond of our Charlotte — still is — so I know he’ll do more than his best for her.
‘I’m selling my share of Belbrook to Caleb, at a bit below the fair price, which is what he deserves. He’ll be ironmaster in Wyndendale then. By Gow, though, he�
�ll be on his own here. He’s got nobody. Well, some have all the luck and t’others dursen’t step over the threshold! Any road, what I get for Belbrook will be a tidy sum, and I want that money to go to you and yours as soon as I get it. Wait a bit! Wait a bit!’ Holding up his hand. ‘Don’t go and chuck it in my face afore I’ve done talking! Hear what I have to say. It’s not just for thee, lad. It’s summat I can do for all of us, wherever we are. Father used to say that there’d been a Howarth at Kit’s Hill as long as the farm had been there. Well, I’m making sure of that as far as I can do. I want summat to be right, whatever sort of a bugger’s muddle goes on anywhere else. So think on, our Dick, afore you say no!’
Then he laughed aloud, and said, ‘By Gow, you do look like Father when you’re being awkward and stiff-necked, our Dick!’
They smiled at each other then in complete understanding. Nothing needed to be argued or explained. So they strode on past Owd Barebones and the Ha’penny Field: judged a coming crop of Swedish turnips, talked of the drovers. The evening was sweet and mild about them.
‘It seems a poor thing just to say thankee, Will. But I do thank thee. And from the bottom of my heart.’
‘You’re doing me a favour,’ said William, content.
They reached Breakneck, and surveyed Wyndendale.
‘Well, we’ve come full circle, I reckon,’ said Dick. ‘This is where he died, nigh on thirteen years since! Eh, look at that view, wilta? If that doesn’t beat all!’
Kit’s Hill lay small and perfect below them, with smoke curling from its kitchen chimney.
‘How long is it since we first built her?’ William asked. ‘Nay, God alone knows that.’
‘I’ll get Ellis Field to find out for us. We may as well keep the record straight. Oh, and that’s another thing. Ambrose is taking all our Charlotte’s private papers — not the Jack Straw lot, that was King’s Evidence — papers she’s had for years, since she was a lass. Essays in Latin and Greek. Letters that she and Toby Longe wrote to one another. Grand stuff,’ said William humbly. ‘She was a right smart lass. It’s a bloody shame. It went wrong somewhere for her. I don’t know how nor why.’