by Lynch, R J
‘Why, no, Master. Dick said he found the bucket...’
‘He said someone left it in his garden. I know that. But how did it really get there? That is what I wish to know. And I shall find out, Drabble, however long it takes me.’
Blakiston had only half a mind on what Jeffrey Drabble had told him, though he was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery that seemed to surround Dick Jackson and, whatever he had said to Drabble, he was shocked by the suggested connection between Martin Wale and a harlot. What was really on his mind was what Kate Greener had said to him about her sister. Lizzie had been taken by another man against her will as Tamar had been taken by her brother Amnon. That meant she had been raped. In Blakiston’s view there was rape and rape, for some girls would only pretend to resist in order to preserve modesty and reputation and in the hope that marriage would follow. Lizzie’s anger, visible to the whole parish, suggested she was not one of these. If she had been wronged, everything in Blakiston’s nature said she should be revenged and the rapist punished; but Kate said the man was far too powerful for that.
Who? Who in Ryton parish would do such a thing and then be above the law, if one such as Blakiston decided that action should be taken against him? He did not know, and it hurt him that he did not.
Something did linger, though, from his conversation with Drabble. “After Dick came back from the wars,” the man had said. Which wars? When had Jackson fought for his country? And where? He had not been paying attention. He should have asked. He would do so.
Though Martin Wale could know nothing of what had just passed between Blakiston and Jeffrey Drabble, he did not lack distress.
I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. Father, father, why did you create such a wanton to tempt me? Her and her breasts and her thighs of silk and her filthy enticements?
For I have sinned most grievously. Though wickedness be sweet in my mouth, though I hide it under my tongue; Though I spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within my mouth: Yet the meat in my bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within me.
Why did He make us as we are? She told me the child did not suffer, but it is so hard. So hard.
Lady Isabella sat at her desk. It was not, strictly speaking, journal writing time, but the gossip she had just received was so delightful as to brook no delay in recording it.
Thursday 10th February 1763
When Mister Blakiston came to dinner, he kindly said how much he approved the Rectory’s keeping to the English ways. What he meant was that I served the meal to everyone and John carried the plates from me to them, in contrast to the French style of allowing the dishes of meat and vegetables to be carried round the table for all to help themselves. Our menfolk do not like the introduction of French ways, which they see as decadent and a sign of female weakness. Well! Rosina has had a titbit from Mistress Wortley’s lady’s maid which she passed on to me, and I have to say it has left me breathless. For Mistress Wortley has adopted more of the French ways than I could possibly have imagined. More, I trust, than would ever have entered Mister Blakiston’s very English mind.
I can scarce bring myself to write these words. Mistress Wortley has taken to wearing drawers! There!
If ever I had doubted my wisdom in keeping this journal locked, and the locked journal inside a locked chest, and both keys always about my person, that doubt would have disappeared today. For imagine the effect on poor Thomas’s sometimes fevered mind of opening these pages in a moment of ennui and learning that, when Mistress Wortley takes her seat before him in church on Sundays, when he sees on her face that pious look she affects, when she utters her Amens and her responses always at the correct moment, when despite every temptation of a leaden sermon taking two hours to say something Our Lord said in a single sentence—a temptation yielded to by half the congregation—he sees her not only remain awake but actually retain an expression suggesting she cares a fig for what she is listening to; when, I say, she essays this perfect simulacrum of a woman of piety, a very Mother Superior among the ladies of Ryton, then at that time and unknown to all the other pious ladies whose nether regions like mine are below their gowns and petticoats still today as naked as the day they were born; What, I say, would be the effect on my poor husband of knowing that beneath those white petticoats embroidered with blue and gold flowers to set off the blue and gold of her jacket—MISTRESS WORTLEY IS WEARING DRAWERS! Possibly the only woman in England to be doing so!
Oh! What wanton heart beats beneath that ladylike exterior?
And how I should like it to beat beneath my own.
But I hear my husband calling for me. I shall continue later.
Chapter 12
Blakiston had got into the habit of asking everyone he met to ask everyone they met about Joseph Kelly. There had so far been no result. It seemed that this mysterious wanderer had been able to slip past everyone who might have noticed him. In Blakiston’s mind, this made him the more suspicious, for why would a man seek to avoid being seen unless he was up to no good? He had business near Stella today, and that would give him the opportunity to spread the message to a wider audience. An estate overseer could not call on Lord Widdrington without an introduction from Lord Ravenshead. Widdrington owned no farms locally, so Blakiston had no opposite number there he could approach. There would, however, be a Business Manager.
This gentleman was delighted to receive a visitor and insisted on showing Blakiston the grounds. When they paused on the very bank of the Tyne, he said, ‘The house, of course, is nothing like so grand as Ravenshead Castle. But I think we have the better spot?’
‘It is beautiful indeed,’ said Blakiston. ‘I wonder, though, that His Lordship does not wish to own farms here?’
‘Our business is all in coal. And, of course, we should not wish to cut down our trees in order to till the earth. Are they not the most beautiful in the county?’
‘Handsome indeed.’ And it was true; Blakiston did feel his spirits soaring as he walked in some of the finest woodland he had ever seen.
‘But you have not come here to talk about trees.’
‘I have not.’
The manager listened attentively as Blakiston described the reason for his visit. ‘I saw no such man,’ he said. ‘But let us return to the Hall, and I will ask the butler to call the whole staff together and you may address them. Someone may have seen something.’
But they had not, and after thirty minutes Blakiston was on his way no further advanced in his search than when he had arrived. This could be a long hunt, and possibly fruitless, and he realised that he could not follow it all himself. He turned his horse’s head towards Ryton. The Constable, dissenter or not, would have to play his part.
Blakiston had not met George Bright before. He saw before him a thin, wiry man of some strength with a shock of dark hair, a narrow, bony nose and a swarthy skin who listened closely as Blakiston described what he needed. ‘You would never have got anything out of Stella Hall,’ he said when Blakiston had finished. ‘They are all papists there. They would hear the name of Kelly and take him for an Irishman and one of their own. They would not give up such a man to you.’
‘I know now where Hornsea is,’ said Blakiston, ‘and I do not have the time to go there. In any case, Kelly is as like as not to have lied to Mister Wale when he said where he was from. What I need to know is who else saw him, for someone must have seen a man walking that distance, and what they can tell me that Mister Wale could not. Our curate may be a man of God but he is not observant of his fellow man. And please do
not turn up your nose like that.’
‘I am sorry, Master.’
‘Can you do what I ask?’
‘I will start this afternoon.’
‘Thank you. Please give me a report each evening until we find the man.’
It was dark by four that wintery afternoon, and Blakiston came in from his round of the farms to find a woman of untellable age waiting for him. She introduced herself as Eliza Swain and said one of Lord Ravenshead’s servants had told her to come. Her style of dress was uncouth even by the standards of the Ryton peasantry; her skin bore the dirt of someone who has not washed herself or her clothes in twelve months or more; and she smelt. In fact, it was worse than that. All of Ryton’s poor smelt. Eliza Swain stank. Blakiston ushered her into his kitchen with every sign of a gallantry and politeness he did not feel. He left the door open. After a moment’s thought, he crossed to the windows and opened those, too. Better to freeze than suffocate.
‘They say you are a witch, Mistress Swain.’
The woman’s answering cackle could have convinced him that they were not wrong.
‘Please, sit down.’
Eliza stared at the table, and at the chair she was offered. Blakiston pondered the possibility that she might never have sat on a chair. She approached it sideways, then slid backwards onto it.
‘None of Reuben Cooper’s children came to his funeral.’
If she was surprised, by the topic or by his directness, she did not show it. ‘They cared nothing for the old man. They were not alone in that.’
‘Do you know where they can be found?’
Bright eyes peered up at him from under a thatch of greasy hair tangled like an unlayered hedge. ‘Why would anyone want to find them?’
Blakiston untied his purse, took out a florin, placed it on the table and pushed it in her direction. He kept his finger on it. Eliza reached out to take it, but Blakiston moved it back a little. ‘The Cooper children.’
Eliza sat back in her chair and stared at him. She untangled a clay pipe from the curls at her ear and turned it over in her hands.
‘Not in my rooms, if you please,’ said Blakiston.
The woman sighed. ‘There are ten still living.’
‘I was told eleven.’
‘Margery died in childbirth five month back. Nobody knows who the father was, though some say…the bairn died with her.’
‘Very well. Ten.’
‘I do not know where they all are. But Nicholas is the one that swore to kill him, and he works for Master Oliver, the farmer in Wall.’
‘He swore to kill his father?’
‘Many times.’
‘Why?’
‘Is this about the money?’
‘What money?’
‘Reuben Cooper’s money. Are you looking for his children to give it to them?’
‘I know of no money. Why did Nicholas Cooper swear to kill his father?’
‘He beat him, Master. He beat all of them. But Nicholas was twin to Margery and they were close. It was said…’
‘What? Out with it, woman. What was said?’
‘Master, Reuben Cooper was a man of appetites. Old he may have seemed, but frail he was not. He had a hold on Margery and it was said…’
‘Yes?’
‘It was said that he forced himself upon his daughters. That he had always done so.’
‘You are suggesting that the child Margery carried was her father’s?’
‘There were those who said so, Master. You should speak to the curate.’
‘The curate? What has the curate to do with this?’
‘He took Margery’s part, Master. When he came here he lodged with the Rector, but there was trouble and he took a room in Winlaton. Margery was a maid in the house.’ Her hand hovered over the table.
‘You shall have your two shillings when I know what I want to know. In whose house in Winlaton was Martin Wale boarding?’
‘In the home of William Hetherington, the miller, Master. As he is still.’
‘Thank you. Tell me all you can of the whereabouts of Reuben Cooper’s other children.’
When he had all the information he believed her capable of giving, he took his finger off the coin. She snatched it with greedy eyes. ‘Thank you, Master.’ Blakiston took another coin from his purse and placed it on the table. Then he picked it up and stared at it.
‘What is it, Master?’
‘It is a sixpence.’
‘Yes, master. I meant, and meaning no offence, Master, why are you looking at it like that?’
Blakiston held it up for her to look at. ‘You see, it has the letters L I M A below the bust of the last George.’
‘I have seen that before. I do not know what it means. I cannot read.’
‘It means it was minted seventeen years ago and it commemorates the seizure by Admiral Anson of more than a million Spanish pieces of eight. And that is interesting because it is of military matters I wish to learn, and if you can answer the questions you shall have this sixpence to add to your two shillings.’
‘What do you want to know, Master?’
‘When was Dick Jackson in the wars? Where did he fight? Did anything happen to him there?’
‘Master, I cannot tell you. I do not know. But I know that he went with one of the Dobson boys, and the Dobson boy did not return.’
‘And how can I learn more about that?’
‘Master, Dobson’s parents are dead. But his sister lives still in Leadgate. She was married to John Dodd, but he is dead too. Her name is Sarah.’
Blakiston dropped the sixpence on the table without comment and Eliza snatched it up. ‘Thank you, Master.’ She looked around. ‘You have no maid yourself?’
‘I have no wish for people about me at all hours. A woman comes in to clean. I take my dinner at the inn. They send my breakfast in.’
‘A woman may be useful for other things, Master.’
‘What?’
‘Mary Stone is a canny lass. She has two bairns already, and no husband. I am sure you would find her a comfort, from time to time.’
‘Good God, woman!’
‘A man in the prime of life should not be without his comforts, Master.’
‘And you would take a share in what I chose to give her, I make no doubt.’
‘I must have my vails, Master, or how am I to live?’
‘Go, Mistress Swain, before I have you arrested for lewdness.’
‘May I send the girl for you to look at?’
Blakiston stood up. ‘Get out!’
After she had gone, Blakiston went into another room to breathe untainted air. Eliza Swain’s suggestion had been appalling; and yet… like most men of his class, Blakiston had bedded women of the commoner sort. And paid them. He was conscious of a certain excitement, a disordering of his normally peaceful mind. He was also aware that here was one more thing the curate had not told him. How many secrets did the man hide? And why?
That evening, after dinner, Isabella sat down to continue her journal entry.
Thursday 10th February 1763 (later)
Thomas’s interruption was to ask me to show compassion to a woman whose daughter died in childbirth this morning. Indeed, who could resent or refuse such a request?
The Ryton parish register goes back to 1582. When first we came here I read the entire history, really to learn what sort of place it was. Then I read it again, making notes and collecting dates, for I had formed conclusions that I could not believe. And my not to be believed conclusions were correct. When a man and woman marry, the time they have will of course be decided by God, and some will grow old together for forty years while some scarce know twelve months of wedded bliss—but what God has decreed is that in the main th
e duration of a marriage shall be ten years. Some will be more and some less, but ten years will be the mean. And so we hear what I heard today, a man married five years with two children already at home, who loses at the same time his wife and the third child she is bringing him. Now he will marry again, and quickly, and he will not be too particular in his choice of bride, for if there is no-one to look after his children he will be unable to work and all will starve. Only the wealthy have time to mourn the one they have lost. The new wife will be younger than he is, younger than the wife who died, and if she, too, does not die while giving birth then perhaps he will be next to leave his children behind, through accident or illness or simply not having enough to eat. And then his wife, who by now may have five children counting the ones of the first wife and the ones she has borne herself, must find a husband to work to feed her and her family and to keep a roof over their heads, and find one quickly, if she is not to see the Overseers of the Poor despatching her young as maids and apprentices to places from which they may never return. After forty days in a new parish, an apprentice gains legal settlement there and loses it in the parish in which he or she was born, and so the Overseers will always try to settle their apprentices in another parish.
This could not be unless God had meant it. But still it is hard. And the dead woman’s mother sobbed and wept and her grandchildren stared at me in hope that I could change their lives. And I could not.
Sometimes I want to throw my arms round these poor mites and bear them with me into the Rectory, there to keep them safe. I think I know what my husband would say should I even suggest such a thing.