Miss Martha Mary Crawford Read online

  She was fifteen when her mother died, and from that time she had taken over the management of the household. Was it only four and a half years ago? At times it seemed that she had always managed the house, always chastised the girls, always worried over Aunt Sophie, and for ever asked questions of herself, questions that she wanted to put to her papa but couldn’t, even though last year when he sold the mill she had dared to ask why. But as usual he had treated her as a young girl who wouldn’t understand anything that went on outside the running of the house. And that is what he had said. Holding her chin in his hand, he had looked into her eyes and said softly, ‘If I were to tell you, you wouldn’t understand, little mother.’

  The term, little mother, didn’t, she considered, apply to her in any way and she wasn’t flattered by it, for she did not see herself looking plain and homely as a little mother should. Yet she had no bust or hips to speak of, at least not now. Since she was seventeen she seemed to have lost her shape, due, she thought, to two things: she had grown taller, and she was never off her feet from morning till night running here and there.

  Apart from Peg Thornycroft, who rose at five-thirty, she was the earliest about in the household. Very often before Nick Bailey, their one and only handy lad. At one time she could remember Dilly Thompson rising at five, but now Dilly was nearing seventy and was worn out with work, a lifetime of work in this very house, for, like little Peg Thornycroft, she had started in service here when she was eight years old. But Martha doubted very much if Peg would be here when she was nearing seventy. Peg now, at fourteen, was a quick-tongued, high-spirited little miss who would likely make for the town before she was much older. And when that happened what would she do without her, for she was an excellent worker and what was more, she helped with Aunt Sophie…Poor Aunt Sophie, what was to become of her?

  ‘And what’s to become of me?’

  She said the words aloud and they brought her ramrod straight in the chair. This was the third time of late she had spoken to herself, and words along these very same lines. There was something wrong with her. Her sleep was disturbed, she was having dreams that weren’t quite nice. What was the matter with her?

  Of a sudden she slumped back in the chair and put her hand over her eyes. Why was she hoodwinking herself? She knew what was wrong with her. She would be twenty on New Year’s Day. She wanted to be married, she was ready to be married. And she could be married. Yes, she could, but would her papa countenance an alliance between his daughter and the manager of his bookshop? She doubted it. Yet Mr Ducat was in every sense a gentleman; he spoke like a gentleman; he acted like a gentleman; his manners were perfect, and he was the most intelligent person she had ever met, so well-read. She had said as much to her papa, but he had laughed at her. There were gentlemen and gentlemen, he said, and how would she define the difference? Of course she had to admit she had met very few men other than tradesmen, for they had not entertained at all since her mother died. And not very much before, if she remembered rightly, part of the reason being, she supposed, they found all the entertainment they required within the family. And then, of course, there was the situation in which The Habitation was placed.

  She did not think of her home as Morland House but always as The Habitation. Her mother was born in this house and she had loved it, and it was she who had explained the reason why those in the cottages and shacks along the river bank always referred to the house as The Habitation. It was because, she said, their houses, being single-storied and situated on still lower ground than the house, were always flooded when the river rose, and so at such times, they would make for the house, and in the upstairs rooms and the attics they would be safe until the waters subsided. It was a sound habitation they used to say. What was more, although it was built in a hollow it had the protection of a built-up river bank.

  And they still said it today, although there were few people now left in the cottages, or even the hamlets, for over the past years most had made for the towns where the work and money were to be had.

  The Habitation was situated seven miles from Hexham and almost twenty from Newcastle; the nearest places to it being Riding Mill to the west and Prudhoe to the east. The house itself stood at the end of the hollow with a hill rising sharply at some distance behind it, and about a hundred yards from the river. The far side of the river was banked in most places by woodland, the trees coming almost down to the edge of the water, but apart from one or two copses, the land on this side of the river merged into meadows, almost up to the toll bridge two miles away.

  There were six acres of ground attached to the house, mostly rough paddock land. Years ago two acres had been given over to an ornamental garden surrounding the house and almost an acre to the growing of vegetables and fruit. Now, less than a quarter of the latter was cultivated, and the picturesque gardens were overgrown and in many places were almost impregnable with blackthorn and bramble.

  The house had been originally bought in 1776 by Jacob Low-Pearson, Martha’s great-grandfather. It was then not anywhere near its present size, the thirty-foot-long stone-flagged hall being the main living room, with a room at the back and a kitchen to the side and three bedrooms on the first floor, with small attics above. But over the years the house had been added to on both sides, and because of the river’s unreliability these additions had been built on higher foundations, but without the addition of more attics. Yet the extensions made the original house appear as if it were sinking in the middle. To conform with the original structure the ceilings of the new parts had been kept low, giving to the whole interior the illusion of great length.

  Year could follow year when, if the river flooded, the water would reach no further than the steps leading to the main front door; but there were also times when it would swirl up the steps and flood the hall. It was said that one time it had reached the upper floor and flooded the bedrooms, and there remained the watermark around the walls as evidence to show it. Martha had her doubts about the authenticity of the mark. It was, she thought, more likely that left by the removal of a chair rail during redecoration some years ago.

  To her distress she found that as she got older she doubted more and more the tales she heard about the house and those who had occupied it, and at moments like now she hoped that she wasn’t turning bitter, that age wasn’t going to sour her or touch her mind as it had done Aunt Sophie’s. Loneliness and despair and rejected love could do terrible things to one. Aunt Sophie was a living witness.

  She raised her eyes now towards the ceiling. Up there in a room above this one her Aunt Sophie spent her life in fantasy. Yet not all of it, for there could be days which lengthened into weeks, sometimes as many as three, when she would be as rational as herself, and so sweet, and so understanding of all the problems of the house. But there were other times. Oh dear, dear, yes, there were other times when it wasn’t ‘the turns’ that worried her so much as…the other business.

  It was known that Aunt Sophie had had turns dating from a day when her father had driven her from their farm near Allendale Town into Hexham. She was dressed in bridal white, and he had hired a coach for the occasion. And there at the church she waited, but in vain, for her groom. At first it was thought that his trap had broken down; his was a long journey for his farm was miles away across the river towards Bellingham. But he could have walked the distance in three hours, and that was the time she had insisted on waiting.

  Martha had been told that Aunt Sophie hadn’t fainted, like some young women would have under similar circumstances, but had walked steadily from the church. The only sign of her distress had been that she didn’t speak. It was said they couldn’t get a word out of her for two weeks; and then the first sound she made was of laughter, gay laughter, which reached such a crescendo that it exploded in a paroxysm of weeping, which then took the place of her silence, and went on intermittently for days.

  Grandfather Crawford had driven through a storm to the farm all those miles away, only to learn that the groom had the pr
evious night run off to sea. The old farmer said his youngest son, being but twenty, found at the end he couldn’t face marrying a woman three years older than himself. It was kinder than saying he couldn’t face life with a woman who was subject to…turns.

  Someone on the Crawford farm, her mother had said, must have told the young man about Aunt Sophie’s turns, even though in those early days the spasms were very light.

  It never occurred to Martha to question why her mother, coming from a prosperous business family with some standing in Hexham, should have married into the Crawford family. Circumstances having made her her own mistress, she had been in a position to choose for herself; and Martha could not imagine anyone resisting her father’s persuasive manner for long. Equally, she could not now imagine that he himself had come from ordinary farming stock, for he had the tastes of a gentleman. True it was that he took very little interest in literature or world affairs, but such was his disposition she could see how easily he would fit into any class of society. He was very adaptable and had a keen wit and natural charm. Yet there were times when she could wish that he was less charming and more …

  Again she was sitting bolt upright, but now on the edge of the chair. Here she was wasting her time thinking when she should be acting. There were two buttons needed on the cuff of his shirt; there were also some loose threads to be sewn into the edge of his cravat. What was more, she should be in the kitchen supervising the meal. She must watch Peg with those potatoes; the peelings that she had been taking off of late must have been almost a quarter of an inch thick. She didn’t mind her taking home the pods of the peas when in season or the turnip tops and such-like, but they themselves had hardly enough potatoes left to see them through January.

  But it was fifteen minutes later when she lifted the linen into her arms yet once again, went out of the room down the passage, across the hall and up the stairs.

  It was as she reached the landing that she heard Nancy’s laughter mingled with that of Peg Thornycroft, and when she entered her father’s room there they were kneeling on the mat in front of the fire, one on each side of the hip bath pushing a paper boat back and forth between them.

  ‘Nancy!’

  The name, if not the tone, brought them both to their feet, and Nancy continued to laugh, but Peg, her thin wiry form seeming lost in the ill-fitting print dress and coarse apron, scurried across the room with her head bent like a goat about to ram a wall. Yet her attitude suggested neither fear nor fright, but rather impish glee.

  The room to themselves now, Martha looked at Nancy with a pained expression, and Nancy, tossing her head, said, ‘Aw, Martha Mary…aw, it was just a bit of fun.’

  Martha turned away, silent now, and, going to the big mahogany wardrobe, she opened the doors and arranged her father’s linen on the shelves; all except one shirt, a cravat, a pair of long linings, and a vest. These she now took to the fireplace and hung carefully over a folding rack that was standing to the side of it. When she turned again, Nancy was no longer in the room.

  A bit of fun. A bit of carry-on, as Peg would have put it. There was a time when she herself had been fourteen and Peg only eight and already being harshly instructed into the ropes of a maid of all work by Dilly, when she too had enjoyed having a bit of carry-on with her.

  She had been boarded at Miss Threadgill’s boarding school in Hexham since she was nine, coming home only at the weekend; and although she was being versed in the ways of a young lady and Miss Threadgill had laid great stress on the divisions of class, she had always treated little Peg Thornycroft with kindness because she felt sorry for her being so small and having to scurry here and there all over the house, carrying heavy buckets of water, and of coal; but most of all she pitied her for having to put up with Mildred’s tantrums. Mildred had indulged in tantrums since she was a small baby. Then besides Mildred, there was Roland.

  Roland was a year younger than herself and was a tease. When as a young girl she used to think it was fortunate that Roland was at home only for the holidays, it wasn’t of Peg alone she was thinking, but of them all, for Roland loved practical joking and they all suffered from his idea of fun. Besides, the house never seemed the same when her brother was home for he demanded attention, and got it, and he had the habit of strutting about like a lord of the manor.

  She stood now looking around the room. Everything was in order. She had put an extra blanket on the four-poster bed; there were fresh candles in the candelabra at the head of it; her father’s slippers were by his chair, his housegown was lying across the oak chest at the foot of the bed; the towels were rolled up and lying on the safe side of the high brass open-work fender that surrounded the hearth; there were only the curtains to be drawn, and this she would do when they had brought up the hot water.

  She stooped now and picked the paper boat from the cold water in the bottom of the bath, and she put it on her hand and looked at it.

  Paper boat,

  Paper boat,

  Sail me away to paradise.

  Paper boat,

  Paper boat,

  I’ll pay you one penny,

  I’ll pay you twice

  For a night of delight

  In paradise.

  This was one of the rhymes that Aunt Sophie would quote when she was about to start…the other business. It wasn’t quite nice, it wasn’t nice at all; in fact, the implications made one hot. Where Aunt Sophie got all the sayings and rhymes from, she just didn’t know. She did sometimes read books it was true, but they were those she herself selected for her, books that would be unlikely to disturb her mental state or excite her in any way. It would seem that Aunt Sophie must have made up most of the rhymes and queer sayings in her head, and they were the result of her disturbed state.

  She crushed the wet piece of paper in her hand and threw it into the fire; then after one last look around the room she went out, across the landing, down two steps, round the corner, and so to the room that was situated above her father’s study.

  Today the door was unlocked and she went straight in and looked towards the window where her Aunt Sophie sat. Sophie did not turn towards her, not even to move her head and glance to see who had entered the room, yet she spoke to her by name. She had this uncanny habit of recognising people by their walk. ‘It’s snowing, Martha Mary,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Aunt Sophie.’ Martha went and stood close to her aunt and with a tender movement slid her arm around her shoulders, asking as she did so, ‘Are you warm enough? There’s a chill coming from the window.’

  ‘Oh, I’m warm enough, Martha Mary. Oh yes, I’m warm enough; I’m all warm inside.’ She now turned her face up to Martha’s. All her features were in repose, and because her mouth was closed she had the look of a child; yet if she were to open it a huge gap would be revealed where all her top teeth were missing, and the movement of her upper lip would push her skin into myriads of small wrinkles, which made her appear like a woman of seventy instead of thirty-eight. Her hair, that had once been corn-coloured and thick, was now streaked with grey and hung in two plaits down her back. She was fully dressed. It could be said she was more than fully dressed for she was wearing at least three top skirts over four flannel petticoats, the upper skirt bulging so far out from her hips as to shorten its length and show the other two underneath, besides which she had on a striped shirt waist with an old-fashioned silk befringed one covering it; above this a woollen shawl, and at the back of her head, stuck between the two plaits, was a large fan-shaped bone comb studded with brilliants.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Martha Mary.’

  ‘What have you been thinking, Aunt Sophie?’

  ‘Well—’ she now nodded her head slowly up at her niece—‘I’ve been thinking that your father should do something about you.’

  ‘Father do something about me!’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s what I’ve been thinking, he should do something about you. You haven’t got a beau and you’re nearly thirty.’

  ‘No, no, I’m n
ot.’ Martha was laughing gently now. ‘I’m still only nineteen, Aunt Sophie; I won’t be twenty until January the first next year…1880.’

  ‘January the first, 1880.’ Sophie nodded to herself now. ‘Yes, yes, of course. I was a little out; I’m sorry. You’ll be nineteen…no, twenty. There I go again. It worries me when I get things muddled.’

  Martha now took hold of the thin hands and drew her up from the wooden window seat, saying, ‘Come on over to the fire, you’re cold.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am cold; I didn’t think I was but I am. I’m sometimes very cold inside, Martha Mary. And sometimes I’m very sad inside. Then at other times—’ she gave a small laugh now—‘at other times I feel very happy, gay. I wish we could have a dance sometimes, I mean when I feel very happy, like we had in the barn. We used to have dances in the barn. Father used to say, “Come on, John, get out your fiddle, we’ll have a dance.” I’m always very happy when I think about dancing.’

  Yes, Martha shook her head, Aunt Sophie was always very happy when she thought about dancing. And yet these were the times she herself most dreaded, when Aunt Sophie felt very happy.

  ‘There now,’ she said as she settled her before the fire, ‘you’ll feel warmer.’ Then she added. ‘We are expecting Father at any time.’

  ‘Has he been away?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Martha bent down until her face was on a level with Sophie’s. ‘Don’t you remember? He went to Newcastle to visit Great-Uncle James.’

  ‘Did he? Oh yes, yes. But I thought that was last month.’

  ‘Yes, he did go last month, but he goes every month, sometimes twice a month.’