They continued with their regular visits, but Aunt Nesbit was much frailer, and now bedridden. Isabella found herself in the role of nurse, administering medicine from the doctor and assisting with bed baths when required. ‘Send the boys out in the garden,’ Aunt Nesbit said, ‘they shouldn’t be in a sick room.’ Isabella warned them not to play ball near the house. She looked out on them from her aunt’s bedroom window, happy to see them enjoying their games. She tapped on the glass if they were doing something they shouldn’t. They looked up, saw her face, and stopped in their tracks.
‘Charlie is home from his latest voyage,’ Aunt Nesbit said. ‘He is coming tomorrow with Anna. Will you ask Tom to carry me downstairs in the morning? I don’t wish Charlie to see me like this. He wants you and the boys to be here, of course. I thought you might care to cook a meal for us all.’ She reached under the pillow for her purse. ‘Buy whatever you fancy!’
Fillets of steak, Isabella thought. I can manage to fry them. ‘Is Tom invited to join us?’
‘Of course!’
‘I’m so happy Anna is coming, too!’ Isabella said.
*
Anna had changed from a skinny fourteen-year-old into a comely young woman. Charlie had matured too. He had grown several inches taller, had the beginnings of a beard and a downy upper lip. He also smoked a foul clay pipe. Even out of uniform he looked like a sailor, down to the rolling gait.
Later, as Anna joined Isabella in the kitchen to help serve up the dinner, she said, ‘I’m glad things have worked out well for you, Izzy. Your Irish Tom is so handsome and jolly, how could Pa disapprove of him as he did? And your boys are beautiful!’ She sounded wistful.
‘Oh, you’ll get married one day and have some of your own, I’m sure!’
‘Mama often said no one would marry me because of my large nose – she said I took after Pa in that respect!’
‘She always had a sharp tongue. Your nose is – well – distinguished – shows character!’
‘Thank you! I am ambitious, and that’s something I admit I inherited from Pa! And I’m proud to have Eliza as my second name, after Aunt Nesbit! I hope to move on to better things, maybe go to London eventually.’ Anna hugged her sister. ‘We mustn’t lose touch. I missed you so much.’
‘As I did you, my favourite sister, Anna Eliza.’
*
In 1844 Abraham died. His widow inherited the family home, the business – and the debts. Due to Abraham’s health problems the company had gone downhill and would have to be sold. Anna and Isabella’s two other sisters received a modest sum each and Charles was left the lease of the apartment in Newcastle. Perhaps Abraham had intended to reinstate Isabella, but there was no mention of her in the will.
This concerned Anna and Charles, but as Anna said, ‘I imagine Aunt Nesbit will make sure Isabella is well provided for when she is gone.’
FIVE
Emma
Wymondham, 1846
The Swing Riots of the 1830s had affected rural life considerably. Farm labourers had faced unemployment due to the advent of the threshing machine, which cut down the numbers of men required to labour on the land. Wages were already at rock bottom. The rioters smashed these machines all over the country and there was an outcry in Parliament. The Whigs urged strict measures to curb the unrest. The ringleaders were hanged and many of the rioters were transported to Australia, most never to be heard from again by their families, who were left destitute.
The cottagers who for generations had produced woollen cloth on looms at home, also saw their industry in decline, due to the import of cheap material from abroad. There was trouble from those out of work, and vigilantes banded together to restore law and order. While Emma’s brother, William, favoured farm mechanisation, he deplored the violence. Wymondham was a pioneer in setting up an early police force, known as Vestries, who employed watchmen to ‘check theft, implement the new Poor Law and keep an eye on alehouses’.
Browick Bottom Farm had lost half its workforce. William took on the brunt of the work and kept things going, along with his father. His elder brother Edward was now the father of a son. The farm could not support another family, especially as Sophia and Tobias had added to their own, so Edward became a drill man on another farm. The drill, invented by Jethro Tull, was now widely used and proved its worth at sowing time. One man could do the work of many. Samuel, the youngest of the three sons, had been offered the opportunity to join an uncle on his fishing boat at Lowestoft. He never returned home, as his father hoped, because he met Thomasina, one of a group of fishwives who came to work there when there was a glut of fish. They fell in love and he followed her back to Scarborough, where they married, and eventually bought a fishing boat.
Emma, now six and a half years old, was not aware of all this. She was as happy as the day was long. While Lizzie was still at home not much was expected of her and she was free to accompany William around the farm as she had always done.
‘Us need help to feed the animals and fowl and you, dear gal, do need a good blow o’ fresh air!’ he’d say, and Emma would follow along behind him with the new family dog at her heels. He was a liver-and-white spaniel named Fly, who was as devoted to her as she was to him. William smiled to himself but didn’t comment when he overheard Emma telling stories to the dog. Once she said earnestly to Fly, ‘Do you know why your nose is always damp? It’s cos you poke it in muddy puddles.’
Out in the yard, Emma would first attend to the hens. She didn’t mind putting her hand in a nesting box under a sitting hen and was excited if she found a warm, speckled egg, with a feather or two clinging to it. She’d put the collected eggs in her apron pocket and take a dipper of corn from the sack, praying she wouldn’t see a mouse, and scatter it to the scratching hens. The animal feed was kept in the cobwebby barn and Emma longed to stroke the kittens she saw in there playing and rolling in the hay, but they arched their small backs and spat furiously if she came near. She was rather afraid of the two pigs, although they nuzzled her through the bars of their pen. Also she knew that she couldn’t make pets of them, because they would eventually be slaughtered and end up on the family table. As her father said, ‘You can use every part of a pig except its oink.’ The cows she was not so familiar with, but the farm horse was her favourite, after Fly. She loved the way he blew gently into her palm when he was nosing for a treat. After feeding all the animals, she returned to the house where the reward for her work was a glass of fresh, frothy milk.
But these carefree days didn’t last. Lizzie left home to go into service when she turned fourteen and Emma missed her, especially as she didn’t get on so well with Martha, who was now the eldest of five girls for, after Emma, there was Jerusha, Keturah and a new baby, Rebecca, a few months old. Jerusha was sickly and suffered from asthma, she was what her father called a ‘poor doer’ and Emma loved her dearly. They shared a bed while Martha had one to herself now that Lizzie had left home. Keturah was sturdier and energetic, while Rebecca was a happy, gurgling baby whom they all adored. The two little ones still slept in their parents’ room.
‘Surely the next one will be a boy,’ Sophia had sighed.
Martha’s schooling was virtually over and she no longer joined Emma at the kitchen table for lessons with their mother, for she was needed to help out with chores, though her religious instruction continued. She attended church twice every Sunday and was expected to allow Emma to tag along. Martha also helped her mother in the dairy, while Emma kept an eye on the little ones indoors. The ten-year-old hung out the washing between two old apple trees after she’d spent a steamy morning in the wash ’us, turning the mangle after the clothes and linen had been boiled.
William lit the fire under the copper first thing on washdays, and for the monthly baths in the tin tub placed before the range. They bathed in pairs: Emma with Jerusha, Keturah with Rebecca. Martha was privileged to bathe alone. William ferried water from the copper and later he emptied the bath and mopped the kitchen floor. Then Emma enjoyed brush
ing Jerusha and Keturah’s damp curly hair round her finger into ringlets. ‘Just a few more strokes to one hundred – please keep still!’ she coaxed the small, wriggling girls. Sophia sat alongside, smiling, while she nursed the baby. Sometimes Keturah plucked at her mother’s sleeve, wanting the same comfort, and she was lifted up as well.
Martha was understandably envious of Emma’s relative freedom and determined to involve her in the cooking, particularly the weekly bread-making, which Emma didn’t mind at all. While the bread oven in the kitchen wall was getting hot, Emma was given pieces of the elastic sour dough, which her sister had pummelled and left to rise earlier and was instructed to ‘make some shapes for the little ones’. Keturah, who scrambled up on the chair next to Emma, demanded a piece to play with, too.
‘You can roll little balls for the birds, so they won’t pinch the fowls’ feed,’ Emma suggested.
The loaves Martha made were placed in the oven on a long shovel by William when he came in for his elevenses. One day when Emma was seven, he came in bursting to tell them some news. ‘The new church school hev opened today – I think our Emma should goo!’
Sophia wasn’t so sure. ‘She’s reading and writing well with me at home, Will. Can we afford—’ ‘Course us can! Tis thrupence a week. She be a bright lass; she do need her chance!’
Martha, who was now as tall as her petite mother and could wear her passed-down clothes and boots, was to take Emma along on her first morning to enrol her at school. She asked Sophia if she might borrow her Norwich shawl, which Tobias had bought his bride on their wedding day. Sophia agreed. ‘Try not to pull any more threads, though, I meant to darn it.’
Dressed in Sophia’s clothes and shawl, Martha looked quite grown up from the front, but the long hair, which hung in a plait down her back, was a giveaway as to her real age.
Emma wore a plain brown Holland dress, with a straight, calf-length skirt over black hand-knitted stockings and well-polished boots. The frock was protected by the regulation pinafore, starched white with no frills and with a clean white handkerchief in the pocket. Her curly hair was tied back with a stiff bow of Petersham ribbon. Her mother had crocheted her a new shawl from the same black wool she had knitted the stockings. She felt nervous; would any of her friends from church be there? She had never been apart from her family or away from the farm on her own before. Martha took her to the reception class, and watched while the children were settled onto the hard benches behind the long tables – desks were for the older pupils in the other class behind the partition. There was only a single large room.
‘Got your rag to clean your slate?’ Martha whispered, as two girls moved along to make room for her sister.
‘Yes.’
‘See you at dinnertime, then. Can you find your way back on your own?’
‘Course I can!’ said Emma, and then Martha was gone.
Emma looked over at the teacher, seated on a high chair behind a tall desk, while the register was called. She had to wait almost to the last to hear her name, as it began with a W. No daydreaming allowed here, the windows were too high to gaze through, but she could hear traffic going by, for the school was near the Abbey, with the schoolhouse next door.
The class was being taught by a pupil teacher called Anne, whom they all knew well from church, but they must now call ‘Miss’. Pupil teachers were boys and girls of thirteen years of age and over who were apprenticed as teachers. It was a five-year apprenticeship before they became qualified. Anne smiled at the thirty-five children in this class reassuringly as she gave out the slates and pencils. Paper and dip pens were for the class they could hear reciting in the other half of the room. Reading books were shared by two and sometimes three children. Texts hung on the wall, which were changed daily. It is rainy, or Sunny, or Snowing today. A globe of the world, much of it coloured pink, was a temptation for the bolder children, who set it spinning if they arrived before the teacher in the morning. There was also a blackboard, not yet dusty with chalk, from which they copied the teacher’s letters or numbers.
Emma looked with interest at the conical paper hat on the teacher’s desk. Whatever could that be for? she wondered. It had a large D marked on it. There was also a whippy looking cane and Emma’s neighbour whispered, ‘You need to wear thick drawers in case you git it.’
The morning’s lessons began with a passage from the Bible read by Miss Anne and then the questions began. ‘Hands up if you know the answer!’ Anne said. Emma’s hand shot up every time, but she was not chosen. Then the class recited a poem, which Anne tapped out on the board. Those who had not learned to read at home made the tempo uneven as they copied desperately what others said. Anne did not miss much and she returned to her perch and made notes in a little book.
Emma enjoyed the drill at mid-morning, although it was difficult to jump about in the gaps between the tables, while wearing a narrow skirt, but in summer, she was told, they would exercise on the grass outside, near the hut which housed the bucket for if you needed to be excused. Emma made her mind up never to venture in there because a boy told her there was a rat hiding inside.
She had learned simple adding up from her mother, but multiplication and division were puzzling to Emma. She was handed an abacus and told how to use it. However, she could pronounce most of the names in the Bible reading, for weren’t some of them in use in her family?
At noon, some of the children opened their lunch pails on the tables before being released outside. Emma had not far to go, but she ran all the way home. Martha was laying the table and Sophia was spooning delicious, bubbling stew, with light Norfolk dumplings, onto plates. Emma’s favourite. The dog sat under the long pine table and waited for her to drop him a morsel or two. ‘Not too much,’ her mother said, ‘he’s got a juicy marrow bone of his own. How did you get on this morning?’
‘Oh, all right. I put my hand up, and I waved it, but Teacher didn’t pick me, and I knew all the answers—’
‘You would!’ Martha said. ‘She didn’t pick you cos you waved your arm – that’s rude!’
‘Jam roly-poly – or are you full?’ Sophia asked quickly. She’d spotted a tear in Emma’s eye at Martha’s remark. Tobias and William kept quiet – they knew this was the best way.
‘Yes please! ‘Emma said. She would have to pay a visit to their privy outside before she went back to school, she thought. I know Martha will laugh at me if I tell them about the rat.
*
A year later William married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah, whose sister was married to his brother Edward. Emma and Jerusha were to be bridesmaids, but Martha said firmly, ‘I’m too old.’ Keturah and Rebecca were too young – their turn would come, Sophia told them.
The bride was married in the shiny, plum-coloured frock she wore to church on Sundays. She was a practical young woman and this frock would be around for many years. At some point it would become an everyday dress, then unpicked to make small garments and, lastly, it would be a splash of bright colour in a rag rug. She wore a bonnet trimmed with a matching ribbon and a silk rose, fashioned by her grandmother, who also made the posies from garden flowers and asparagus fern.
Sarah was the prettiest gal around, her proud bridegroom thought, with her golden hair and big blue eyes. She was nicely rounded – who wanted a skinny gal? She was strong, too, having worked on her father’s farm. The best man was Edward, a reversal of their roles from when William had stood side by side with his brother. The bridesmaids wore matching frocks made from white muslin bought at the market. Sophia had embroidered French knots on each bodice and added pink satin sashes. There was no money to spare for shoes that would be worn only once, but early that morning William had polished the bridesmaids’ everyday boots to a mirror shine. As it was summer, they wore little caps and it was Martha who wielded the brush and divided their long hair into a mass of ringlets.
The church was packed with family and friends. Lizzie was home for the weekend and sat between Keturah and Rebecca in the front pew. M
artha sat on the aisle end to prevent the young ones from escaping. Keturah had already dropped her penny for the collection and was anxious to retrieve it. Sophia’s hands were clasped in her lap, and Tobias guessed she was saying a silent little prayer that their next baby would be a boy. He stifled a little sigh at the thought as he covered her hands with his big ones and gave them a squeeze. He was sad there had been no word from Samuel in Scarborough, or from Sophie, who was now in Norwich.
In the pew opposite were Sarah’s family and at the front of the church, with their backs to the congregation, stood William and Edward looking very presentable in their smart waistcoats, jackets and trousers. The rector stood on the dais facing them, prayer book in hand. At eleven a.m. precisely, the bride and her father were ready to walk down the aisle.
Heads turned to watch the little procession. Emma clasped Jerusha’s hand. ‘Don’t drop your flowers, Ru,’ she whispered. ‘We are to sit down next to Mother when we get there.’
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together,’ the rector announced loud and clear.
*
The reception was held in a big barn at Sarah’s family’s home. It had been swept clean of cobwebs and emptied of its usual contents. There were fresh bales of straw to sit on and plank tables covered with clean white sheets. Waiting for the company to arrive were the music makers: a fiddler, a flautist and a lad with a kettle drum. They struck up the minute the door opened and the guests filed in. The only people missing were William and Edward who were tending to the animals at Borwick Bottom and would rejoin the party as soon as they were finished.
Sarah’s father welcomed them one by one with a handshake. His grandson, also called Edward, soon lost his shyness and joined the other children, including Keturah, Rebecca, Jerusha and Emma. Sophia gave Martha an encouraging push. ‘Go and join them, have fun for once! Get them dancing!’ Once William arrived back, chairs were brought forward for the bride and groom to hold court and to greet the guests in turn.
The Forget-Me-Not Girl Page 4