High Garth

by Mira Stables

  It had been agreed between them that Philip’s lessons should not begin until his preceptress had had a chance to settle into the routine of farmhouse life. This to that young gentleman’s vast content, since he was wholly absorbed in his new pony. Patrick had shown him how to feed, water and groom the little creature, threatening dire punishment if rations were exceeded or too many tit-bits given. “A piece of apple or carrot you may give him occasionally,” he ended, “so that he knows you are his friend. But the best thing is to talk to him. Keep your voice quiet and your movements steady, so that you don’t startle him. I’ll give you a hand with the grooming occasionally, but the more you do for him the better he will learn to know you.”

  Ann, listening, felt once more that he expected a good deal of a small boy. But Philip nodded solemnly and, so far as she could see, followed his brother’s instructions to the letter. By the end of the week Jigs—named eventually from the clatter of his small hooves on the flagstones—was following his little master like a dog. They were for ever pushing that questing brown muzzle away from the kitchen door as the pony demanded admission.

  When he was not with the pony, Philip attached himself to Ann. He had early discovered that she had a fund of stories at her command. The ones about her own childhood he liked best, because they were “really truly ones”. She was knowledgeable about horses, too. But her chief attraction in Philip’s eyes lay in her ignorance of High Garth’s ways, and her willingness to learn of him. This was an experience that had not previously come his way. With enthusiasm he undertook the role of cicerone, growing in confidence as his first shy explanations were received with respect. Patrick, busy about his work in fields and buildings, sometimes saw the pair pass by, Philip expounding earnestly, pausing to take his companion’s hand if he thought the footing treacherous, releasing it to gesture eagerly at some feature of interest, Ann gravely attentive, quite oblivious of his own presence. It seemed to him that good relations were being established in that field.

  The weather broke. Vicious winds brought hail and sleet and made the kitchen chimney smoke. There was an all-pervading smell of wet clothes and sheep. Two cade lambs were bedded down beside the wide hearth and, as they gathered strength, tumbled about under everyone’s feet. The men came in at dusk soaked and chilled and ravenous.

  Despite the clutter the lamp-lit kitchen was warmly inviting, the savoury smell issuing from the big kail pot going far to substantiate Ann’s claim that she really could cook. Supper was the main meal of the day, the only one that could be enjoyed in anything approaching leisure. The men were often out at first light, returning for a breakfast of porridge and cheese and oatcakes when the morning milking was done and the stock fed. Sometimes Patrick and Will would come in for a bite at mid-day, but Jim, the shepherd, preferred to take a piece of bread and bacon or a mutton pie in one of his capacious pockets. There was enough walking to be done, he said, tewing after his feckless charges, even with Fly’s help. Fly was his dog. Ann, who liked dogs, could find little to admire in this specimen, a slinking black and white creature, walleyed and muddy coated, save perhaps her loyalty to her master. She was never admitted beyond the back kitchen where she would lie, nose on paws, until Jim went out. Then she was at his heels, shadow-like, without a word spoken. He never praised nor petted her, yet she ignored all others. Ann’s own polite overtures were disregarded. The others tried to explain it to her.

  “She’s a working dog,” said Janet. “None of your petted lap-dogs. She’s no time for soft soap and compliments.”

  Patrick made matters a little plainer. “She’s Jim’s,” he said. “He’s made her. Raised her from a pup. Wait till you’ve seen them working together. No, I know he doesn’t fuss over her, but I can assure you that there’s not money enough in the Mint to buy her, and he’d starve himself rather than let Fly go short.”

  Even Will, who regarded sheep as vastly inferior creatures, allowed grudgingly that Fly was worth her keep. “That ’un ’ud ’ave made a good cattle dog if she’d been raised right.” And that was praise indeed.

  In making a place for herself at High Garth, Ann was getting to know its inhabitants in a way denied to casual visitors. She found them puzzling at times. As she had once said to her sister, there was a story behind most people, and she longed to know the stories behind her new friends. Janet had volunteered the information that Jim had been at High Garth longer than any of them, so perhaps it was natural that he should regard it as home and never dream of seeking an easier job in the lowlands. Will was less understandable. He helped wherever he was needed, though the cows were his real interest. Surely he would have been happier on a large farm with a proper dairy herd? He was forthright and inclined to be short-tempered, but he was kindhearted and never bore malice. Jim was much quieter. Indeed, at first, when he was wrapped in one of his brooding silences, Ann thought that he showed about as much sign of intelligence as one of his own sheep. She was to learn that, though his speech was slow and infrequent, he had an age-old wisdom, both acquired and instinctive. His rare pronouncements were well worthy of respect.

  Meg and Jenny, the two young maids, were Janet’s great-nieces. They were twins, fifteen years old, and thought it quite fascinating that Miss Ann should also be a twin. They never wearied of asking about Barbara, and found it hard to believe that she should be so different from her sister, since they themselves were like as two peas. They had been in Janet’s care for nearly three years, since their mother died. Their father was a guard on a mail coach and they were very proud of him. In his scarlet coat with its blue lapels and blue waistcoat and his gold-banded hat, he was a fine figure of a man. You had to be brave to be a guard, they told Ann, and able to shoot at highwaymen if they attacked the mail. Dadda had a bell-mouthed blunderbuss and pistols, too. He did not allow them to touch these fearsome weapons, but he had let them blow the long brass horn which signalled the mail’s approach.

  “But it only made a noise like a sick sheep when we blew it,” said Jenny regretfully.

  “And Dadda can play tunes on it,” confided Meg, wide-eyed with admiration.

  But Dadda’s glamourous calling did not permit him to keep a close eye on two growing daughters. “And Margaret—their mother—was dear as a daughter to me,” said Janet. “I was full willing to take her girls. Only with Mr. Patrick needing me too, it might have been awkward. But all ended well, as you see. The lassies have taken to farmhouse life like ducks to water. And now that you’re here to give an eye to their manners and show them how a proper lady behaves, they couldn’t be better placed.”

  And what claim had Mr. Patrick upon the good soul that might have conflicted with the needs of girls so dearly loved? The very manner of address indicated that Janet had known him in childhood—had probably been his nurse. And this Janet herself eventually confirmed. Though she had taken a strong liking to Miss Beverley and had helped her as much as she could, Janet was a canny Yorkshire woman. Her confidences came slowly, especially where they concerned her adored master.

  There had been the business of Mr. Patrick’s parlour, for instance. On her first tour of the house, Ann had not even been aware of the existence of this apartment, since its door opened from the small square hall that they never used. If you entered High Garth by the front door you stepped into that hall, and the parlour door lay to your left. Since all the residents used the back door or the entrance through the dairy, it was not for several days that Ann, preoccupied with her new responsibilities, realized that there was another room on the ground floor. She had been tidying up in the front garden. Standing back to admire the result of her efforts, she caught sight of Janet polishing windows, and suddenly realized that these windows had curtains, a refinement that was totally lacking elsewhere. Janet, seeing her surprised face, evidently decided that she might now be permitted to enter this sanctum, and asked her help in washing the pieces of china that stood in a small cabinet under the windows.

  “For they’re family pieces and I’ve never trus
ted them to the girls. I always reckon to give this room a good clean in spring. The master doesn’t use it in winter to save firing, but he’ll sit here sometimes of a Sunday in summer. Maybe he’ll let you use it for Master Philip’s lessons.”

  Ann stared about her with interest. The room had both charm and dignity. She remembered the stiff formality of the Anstruther’s drawing room. It had been done over in the French Empire style and at vast expense just after she went to them, every piece of its original furniture ruthlessly relegated to humbler rooms. The result might be elegant, but it was cold and unwelcoming. The few pieces in this farmhouse parlour seemed to belong together even if they had not been designed to do so. The gate-legged table was probably Queen Anne if not older, and its oak had the patina that is only bestowed by years of loving polishing. An oak bookcase stood against one wall. But the bureau was walnut, the little china cabinet rosewood and she rather thought that the frames of the two comfortable looking upholstered chairs were sycamore. Yet thee whole effect was harmonious and restful. The clear upland light shining through the windows spared neither faded damask nor well worn carpet, but since the room was wholly unpretentious it didn’t seem to matter. It was quite absurd, but she felt a strong desire to tend and cherish these venerable household gods. Automatically her hand went out to caress the inlay on the bureau.

  She said gently, “It is beautiful. No wonder you did not want anyone else to meddle with such lovely things. I will be very careful, I promise.”

  Over the washing of the ornaments, Janet unbent still further. That large blue bowl had belonged to Mr. Patrick’s uncle. He it was who had bought the farm and had the parlour built on to the original house. He had never married, and after a lifetime spent mainly in foreign travel he had chosen to pass his declining years in this remote spot. “Dear alone knows why,” said Janet, “unless ’twas to be near his sister. His only surviving kin, she was, and Mr. Patrick’s mother. But little enough the old man saw of her, choosing to live at the back of beyond like this and her an invalid ever since Mr. Patrick was born. He’d ride over to the Court now and then to visit her but he never stayed above an hour or so and it generally made trouble. He and the master never saw eye to eye and it was my poor lady that suffered for their disagreements.”

  She set the blue bowl back in its place and transferred her attention to a Chelsea figure. “Though I will say the master never raised any objection to Master Patrick spending his holidays up here with his uncle,” she went on slowly, as though arranging her own ideas. “Maybe he reckoned the lad would soon weary of his fancy for farming if he saw enough of it. But that was where he missed his guess.”

  A lady should never betray personal curiosity; nor should she question servants. It now became apparent that, in this respect, Ann was no lady. “Did he wish his son to follow some other career?” she enquired, in a tone which, she hoped, indicated only polite interest.

  “No need for him to follow any career,” said Janet sharply, “save that of tending his father’s estates and succeeding in good time to his father’s place.”

  Ann concentrated on the careful drying of some Worcester tea cups, and waited hopefully.

  “They’re a queer thrawn lot, the Delvercourts,” said the old woman reflectively. “And Mr. Henry—that’s Mr. Patrick’s father—one of the worst. Not that he hadn’t his good side,” she added fairly, “but obstinate! Nay! That’s too genteel a word. Downright pig-headed I’d call him. Once he took a notion there was no moving him. The mistress used to make excuses for him. She’d talk to me a lot, nights, when she couldn’t sleep and I’d sit with her. Wonderful chief we were together, for she’d no one else to talk to, poor lady. It came of him being a younger son, she would explain. And being a cripple made it worse. Not that he was much of a cripple, but he’d a hip injury from a child that made him walk lame, and one shoulder was higher than the other. He could get about pretty well, but walking or riding he always looked ungainly and it irked his pride. So he was determined to make a stir in the world by hedge or by stile. Maybe if Miss Ellen had been well and strong she could have coaxed him out of his odd fancies, and certain it is he got worse after she died.”

  She began to replace the Various pieces of china on their shelves. “Railways, it was. The hope of the future, he said. By the middle of the century they’d have driven all the coaches and carriers out of business. Nothing else would do but he must drag Mr. Patrick all over the country looking at engines and railways. Up to Newcastle, down to South Wales, then into Surrey, anywhere that men were experimenting with the new-fangled ways. Monsters I call them, but to Mr. Henry they were miracles of power and endurance. Perhaps if Mr. Patrick had shared his father’s enthusiasm, the two of them might have grown closer. But he showed no more than a boy’s natural interest in mechanical things, and even that soon waned. When he began to beg off from the railway visiting and to ask if he might stay, instead, with his uncle at High Garth, Mr. Henry was disappointed and angry. He raised no objection, but it was soon after that that he started to sell his land.”

  Ann forgot circumspection. “To sell his land?” she queried, scarcely believing that she had heard aright. For this was heresy. A man did not sell his land—unless driven by necessities too shocking to contemplate.

  Janet nodded, divided between triumph at a reaction so gratifying and regret for the cause of it. “I can’t say as I rightly understand such matters,” she confided, “but it seems that only the Court itself, with the home farm, was what they call ‘settled estates’. Mr. Henry was free to sell the rest if he saw fit. Which he did. Though I still hold to it that he was wrong to sell the stands of timber that had been hundreds of years a-growing. Fair murder, that was. Hurt Mr. Patrick more than anything. More than the pictures and his mother’s jewels; more than his father marrying again so soon. Yes. He sold everything that would fetch a price, did Mr. Henry, and all to buy an interest in these new railway companies.”

  She put the last piece of china back on its shelf and straightened up, her face austere. “You’ll be thinking it ill becomes me to gossip about my betters,” she said defensively, “but I was never one for making mysteries out of plain facts. Anyone can see that Mr. Patrick’s gently bred, for all his shabby coat and his easy ways. But when his father died there was nothing left but debts. He puts a cheerful face on it and vows that some day he’ll be rich as Croesus, or whoever the king was that had his cellars stuffed with gold, but if he has to wait until the railways are finished building, dear alone knows when ‘some day’ will be. The Court had to be let, of course, and thankful enough he was to find a tenant for it, with the place stripped to the bone as it was. There’ll be Master Philip’s schooling to be thought of in a year or so. Which is why it’s still make and scrape with us at the moment and every penny to be looked at twice. For let a man work all the hours the Lord gives us, yet he’ll never get rich working a hill farm.”

  As she emptied the bowl and spread the cloths on the rosemary hedge to dry, the truth of that statement was manifest even to Ann’s limited experience. Good management and unremitting toil might wrest a living from this harsh soil. It could never yield more than modest comfort. And yet already she loved the place. The keen upland air quickened her blood; the isolation, the primitive conditions, gave one the sense of belonging to a close-knit community. Not since the days of her childhood had she known this eager zest for living, this feeling that each day promised some new delight.

  Not even the bad weather could depress her spirits. High Garth had been built to withstand such onslaughts. When they drew up their chairs to the wide hearth at night there was a blessed sense of security. The family was gathered within the sheltering walls of their sturdy little fortress. This was Ann’s favourite hour. Philip, in the immemorial way of children, would try to defer the moment of going to bed by begging for ‘just one more story.’ Weary from the day’s toil and pleasantly drowsy from fire-glow and hot food, the men were content to sit at ease, Will smoking his treasured cl
ay, the others either listening to the story teller or lost in their own reflections, while the hum of Janet’s spinning wheel and the soft click of the girls’ knitting needles supplied a soothing accompaniment to the tale.

  Philip’s appetite for stories was insatiable. Thanks to Patrick’s efforts during the previous winter he already knew his letters and could read a few easy words. His delight in stories, thought Ann, would surely encourage him to learn to read, and spared what time she could to satisfy his demands. It was not for several weeks that she discovered that her adult listeners had been quite as attentive as Philip. If that young man had a preference in stories it was for fact rather than fiction. The more exciting events of her childhood—the experiences that were commonplace to the daughters of a family that followed the drum—were soon exhausted. Frequent repetitions were demanded, but when Philip began to correct her, insisting that the exact wording be repeated each time, she decided to extend her repertoire. Fortunately Philip found her stories about London and Hertfordshire interesting in a different way. He could measure them against his own experience. She had a happy knack of enlisting his sympathy with her small triumphs and her many tribulations. He chuckled happily over her account of her own ineptitude in learning to milk. What with the stories and answering the questions that poured from the uninhibited Philip and occasionally, more shyly, from the twins, it was not long before most of the details of Miss Beverley’s early life had been laid before the interested listeners at High Garth.