The Chevalier Read online

  Aunt Caroline had been in a passion that morning, for the washerwomen had finished at Beningborough Hall and had come straight over to Morland Place to ask if Lady Caroline wanted to start her washing a few days early, since the weather was so good. Otherwise, they had said, they were going off towards Leeds, and would not be back for nearly a month.

  Matt remembered that Lady Caroline had called it blackmail, for the summer wash was the biggest, and needed the help of the professional washerwomen, but it was such an upheaval for the family that it needed planning for, and she had planned it for a week hence. Flora had reported to Matt that Lady Caroline had been on the point of sending the women away, and saying they would manage on their own when the time came, until Birch had pointed out that as the weather was so fine and Master Clovis was away in London, it would be foolish for Lady Caroline to cut off her nose to spite her face.

  ‘Though it would have been our noses and our faces,' Flora had said to Matt, 'when all's said and done.’

  And then, when it was decided to go ahead, Lady Caroline had inspected the stores and discovered that they were almost without soap, and there had been a terrific row with Mrs Clough, the housekeeper, for letting the soap get so low. Mrs Clough had retorted that she had intended to boil soap in time for the washing-day as originally planned, and Mrs Birch, who resented Mrs Clough's authority, had said that washing-day had to depend on the weather, and Mrs Clough had no business letting them run out of soap so close to washing-time. Mrs Clough had asked, acidly, what business it was of Birch's, and at that fascinating point Matt had had to leave for school. But evidently it had been decided to boil right away, and in Matt's experience, with the twin disorders of washing and boiling, the house would be a comfortless place.

  When he rode up to the house, tie saw that the green areas all around the moat looked like tenterfields, with the freshly washed linen stretched out on poles and lines to dry, the thorn hedges that lined the path white with small linen like a mysterious snow-fall. He crossed the moat and rode into the yard, and saw two boys scurrying one way with arms full of wood, and two maids scurrying the other way with arms full of soiled cloth, and no cats or dogs or peacocks anywhere to be seen, sure sign that the human inhabitants were all moving about too fast for animal comfort. He hitched Goldfinch to the stable wall and went inside, and up to the nursery to look for Flora. He found her inspecting the nursery naps, and she turned to him with a hot and anxious smile as he came in.

  ‘Oh, Master Matt, is it that time already? What a to-do there's been.'

  ‘I can see that. There'll be no supper tonight, I guess.'

  ‘There's not been no dinner, either,' she said resentfully. ‘We've to work on empty stomachs, to get all done the quicker, but you can get some bread and cheese from the kitchen if you're hungry.’

  Matt was starving, having had nothing since his dinner at school at twelve.

  ‘How is it going?' he asked. Flora rolled her eyes.

  ‘Her ladyship's in a terrible taking, for the housekeeper at Beningborough sent to Mrs Clough to say she's missed some pillowslips, and she doesn't think the washerwomen are honest, and so Lady Caroline says we've to take everything to her to be counted dirty, and then back again to her to be counted clean, and it all has to be written down, and Father St Maur said he wouldn't write down washing, it wasn't fitting, and Lady Caroline can't write numbers, only words, and Birch said she couldn't see to write, and then one of the washerwomen said she could write, and Father St Maur said what was the point of that, if it was her honesty that was in question, and then the washerwomen said what was that? There was such a to-do they nearly up and left. And Father St Maur said he had spent the best years of his life teaching maids in this house to read and write and when one was wanted none could be found.’

  Flora paused for breath, and Matt said, ‘So what happened in the end?’

  She grimaced. 'In the end Valentine was called in to do it, and a fine sulk he made about it too, but there was no help for it. And now you're home I dare say they'll want to put you on it so that Valentine can get on with his own work.'

  ‘It sounds as though I'll be better off out of here,' Matt said with a grin.

  Flora patted his shoulder. 'You skip off, Master Matt, if you want. I shan't say I've seen you, unless they ask.'

  ‘I'll go over to Davey's, and find out why he hasn't been at school. I hope he hasn't been ill. I'll get some supper there.'

  ‘It'll be better than bread and cheese, anyway,' Flora said. 'But if he's got the chicken-pox, don't you go in. You come straight back, and don't touch anyone. We don't want that brought back here.’

  *

  Conn the shepherd's house stood sheltered by a coppice of elms, and the homecoming rooks were making a fine din high up in the branches when Matt arrived. The chained yard-dog barked in a bored fashion, and in a moment Davey's stepmother appeared at the open door, looking distracted. She had a baby in a sling of cloth across her front, suckling as best it could when her movements did not jerk the nipple from its mouth; her hands were thus left free for spinning. Like many of the local women she preferred to spin by hand, rather than with a spinning-wheel, for at a spinning-wheel a woman was tied, and could not move about to keep an eye on crawling children, straying hens, or boiling pots. Almost every good wife span Morland wool, for it made extra income for the household. The agent would bring the raw wool one week, the wife would spin it, and the agent would collect the yarn the next week and pay her in hard coin for her work. Many a woman was chosen for wife on the basis of how well she could spin — it was more important than how well she could cook or sew.

  Ursula had been eighteen when Davey's father married her, and Matt remembered how pretty she had been —'flighty', Old Conn had called her. She was not so pretty now, he thought sadly. She had had four babies since then, and had lost several of her teeth, and her hair was rough and uncared-for; her clothes were shabby and disordered, and she had either grown very fat or was pregnant again. She had a thick cord tied about her middle, into which the end of the distaff was thrust, and even though she was evidently flustered about something, her hands continued to drop and catch the spindle and wind the thread with an unshakable rhythm, as if they were nothing to do with her, as if they were separate animals. The movement of her arm as she caught the spindle jerked her nipple from the bairn's mouth every time, but it was evidently well used to this, and did not whimper in protest, merely nuzzled for it again and continued to suck.

  ‘Oh, it's you, young master,' she said, and her tone was not precisely welcoming. 'I thought it were my master come home, and the supper not ready yet.' There was a smell of cooking from within the house which made Matt's mouth water. Had he thought about it, he would have known that her husband, Young Conn, was not at home, for the upstairs of the house was entirely filled with his loom, and the rattle of the shuttle and the regular double thud of the pedals could be heard from some distance when he was weaving. 'He's gone to help his father. What did you want?’

  It was not hospitable. In the days when Davey's mother was alive, she would have asked him in and offered him food and drink before asking such a question.

  ‘I came to see if Davey is all right. He's missed school, and I wondered if he was ill.'

  ‘No, he's not ill. But his brother Bob hurt his foot and can't walk and someone has to tend to the beasts. I'm sure I can't do it, with four bairns and spinning and getting meals and hoeing the beans and I don't know what else. The Lord He knows He only gave me two hands, and work enough for six.’

  She frowned crossly, and Matt wondered whether she regretted having married Conn. Once she had been the prettiest girl in the village, and parlourmaid to a gentleman. But she'd been turned off when the gentleman married, for the new wife didn't like such a pretty maid in the house, and sooner than become a dairy maid she had accepted the proposal of the newly-widowed cottager-weaver. Conn had been good to her, and never beat her, not even when she burnt the dinner, but there'd be
en four babies, all close together, and then her stepchildren Betty and Bob, older than she, and Davey to feed and clothe, and the old man who to her mind was the worst of the lot and criticized her openly for her muddles .. .

  And now she smelt the stew burning, and fled inside with an inarticulate cry. Matt tied up Goldfinch and followed her in cautiously. He remembered how the house had looked when Davey's mother was alive. Now it was unkempt and neglected, and it had a stale smell about it. There were dirty plates and pots on the big table, and in the corner the bed was unmade and covered with bits of wool, and on the shelf over the fire the treasured pewter did not shine. Ursula had no time for scouring and polishing pewter, as well as everything else. It was a small and rather bare house, but Matt had always found it comfortable, like a second home to him. The big room here was where they lived and ate and sat after work, and in the corner stood the bed where Conn and Ursula slept, and the cradle for the littlest bairns.

  Through the doorway on the other side was the second room where Bob and Davey shared a bed, Betty and Old Conn had cots of their own, and a mattress was put down for the two older bairns at night and rolled up during the day. There was a concealed staircase in the stone wall that led up to the loom-attic above, and across the main room in front of the bed an open wooden stair that led to the root-store, where carrots and turnips and potatoes and onions and apples were kept, and sometimes a sack of oats or beans. In the great chimney there were always hams and bacons and sometimes fish hung up to smoke, and bunches of herbs and garlic hung on nails on the beams above the table. There was a little, cold, stone room leading off at the back of the house where the milk and cheese were kept, and where butter was made, and there was generally a cask of good October ale in there, and a hare or rabbit or pheasant or two hanging up to draw.

  The house itself was not without its comforts. Besides the pewter, there was a handsome red rug on the floor before the best seat, a stout oak chair with a deal of carving about it, which Old Conn was said to have made himself in his youth. There were enough stools so that even the bairns did not have to sit on the floor, and a very handsome oak chest for storing the clothes; and a patchwork counterpane to cover the big bed in the daytime that was fine enough for a lady's chamber.

  But there was a frowsty unwelcomeness about it now, and Matt's heart went out to Ursula, who was stirring the stew with one hand, holding her spindle clear with the other, and arching her shoulders against the hanging weight of the baby, who had fallen asleep, its drooping head in danger of being clipped behind the ear by the rim of the cook-pot.

  ‘I'm sorry to intrude upon you, mistress,' Matt said in his politest voice, 'but since I am here, let me at least help you. The bairn's asleep — let me take him from you and put him to bed.’

  She looked at him doubtfully. 'Nay, master, that isn't fitting work for you.' He came towards her, moving quietly as if she were an animal that might be startled. 'What does tha knaw about bairns?'

  ‘I'm very good with bairns,' he said. 'My nurse Flora would tell you.' And though she looked apprehensive, she did not stir while he untied the ends of the cloth sling and carefully gathered the baby into his arms. Her back straightened instantly with relief, but she still eyed him a little nervously as he cradled the baby and looked into its sleeping, grubby face. 'Which one is this?' he asked. Its features were pretty, though it smelled rather unpleasant.

  ‘That's Marigold, of course. Peter's asleep in his cot, thank God, and t'other two are out the back with Bob. What I s'l do when the littlest two are fit to run about I don't know.' Her voice took on the tone of returning grievance, and Matt went quietly away and tucked Marigold into the cot in the dark corner with her brother, and stayed soothing the bairns until they settled. When he turned again, Ursula had calmed herself, put aside her spinning, and was making oatcakes on the baking stone. She gave Matt a gap-toothed smile of conciliation.

  ‘Now then, young master, that's right kind of you. Will to stay for supper? Davey will be home soon enough. He's had the cows and geese out on the common all day, but his stomach will bring him home. Go you out the back and sit wi' Bob till then.'

  ‘Can I help you? I could stir the stew for you?' he offered, but she looked distracted again.

  ‘No, no, you're in my road here. I can manage.’

  Out at the back, where the air smelled wonderfully fresh after the staleness within, there was a bench along the whitewashed wall of the cottage where it would catch the last of the sun, and here Matt found Bob, sitting with his legs stretched out. On the other side, where the cool-house was, the roof stuck out beyond the walls to make a shelter to keep the cool-house cool, and here under the eaves blocks of turf and small logs for the fire were stacked. Some swallows had nested above the fuel-stack, and darted in and out, feeding their young, and their swee-swee of a call was counterpart to the raucous clamour of the rooks.

  Bob's foot was swaddled in bandages almost to the knee, and he glanced up anxiously whenever one of the children came near, while his hands were busy whittling oaken nails. It was a good job for a man tied by the foot, for wooden nails were always in demand and earned the whittler a few coins per dozen. Tom, the younger child, who was two, was playing with stones in the dust, pushing them with his forefinger and crawling after them. He was too young to be useful to the household yet; but Lucy, who was three and a half, was already employed on tasks suitable for her age, like collecting eggs or kindling or keeping the birds off the peas. At that moment she was fetching the hens in for the night, helped by a lame shepherd dog, and she strutted self-importantly when the visitor increased her audience.

  Bob looked up and grinned self-consciously, and said, 'Now then, Master Matt. Tha finds me stuck here useless, I'm afraid.'

  ‘How is it, Bob?' Matt asked.

  ‘Well enough, master, well enough,' Bob said, though his face was flushed and anxious, and there was a white line of pain etched around his lips. 'But I can't walk on it, you see, and that makes things awkward.’

  Bob's contribution to the household was to tend the beasts - the pigs, the geese, and three heifers that were the household's wealth - and to do the heavy work on their two acres of land, the ploughing and harrowing. The rest was Ursula's job. When not thus employed, he hired himself out as a day-labourer to farms round about. He was twenty-six, a red-faced, stocky man with hands like planks of wood, and the startling dark eyes that were the legacy of 'the foreigner', Old Conn's wife.

  ‘How did you come to do it?' Matt asked.

  ‘I was cutting grass over to High Moor farm, and the billhook slipped. It wasn't such a terrible cut, but it's gone bad on me, and so I can't walk.'

  ‘Can I do anything for you?'

  ‘Why, thank you, Master Matt. I were just thinking it's time to light up my pipe. The midges are a pest this time of night.’

  So Matt fetched Bob's pipe and tobacco for him, and he put aside his whittling and filled and lit it, and a little peace stole over his anxious face as he got it drawing nicely.

  ‘Hasta heard the news about our Betty?' he asked at last. Matt shook his head. 'Well, she's to be wed, this day fortnight. Will Turner is his name, a nice young man from over Aksham Bogs, a horseman, he is, and well thought of.’

  Matt was expressing his congratulations when Davey came back from folding the beasts, looking tired and dusty and not a little discontented.

  ‘Come with me while I wash,' Davey said. 'Supper will be ready soon - are you staying?’

  Davey washed the dust off himself at the cattle-trough with a great deal of blowing and splashing, and Matt thought how strong and brown his arms and shoulders were, compared with Matt's own. And his neck, arched and strong, was no longer a child's. Davey was growing up fast, and leaving him behind, he thought, and it saddened him.

  As he dried himself roughly, Davey talked about Bob's accident. 'Grandfather won't let him alone about it, says that it's all Bob's own fault, because he's no more grace than an eel on a frozen pond. He says every job h
as its rhythm, and Bob rushes at things like a bull. Poor Bob's foot turned on a stone and that's the truth of it, but grandfather won't listen. Old people are a law to themselves.'

  ‘You should be proud of your grandfather,' Matt said. ‘He's the oldest man in these parts. In fact, you're the only person I know that has a grandfather.'

  ‘It's a distinction I'd be happy without,' Davey grinned suddenly. 'Anyway, poor Bob's foot is really bad. Ursula won't dress it - she says it makes her sick - so grandfather does it, and nags away at Bob all the time. So I have to take the beasts out. There's nothing for them here. I've had them up and down the lanes all day.'

  ‘How long will you be missing school?' Matt asked. Davey jerked his head irritably.

  ‘I don't know. Until Bob's better I suppose. Someone has to tend the beasts. If the bairns were older it'd be different, but Lucy can't control three cows and ten geese on her own. I don't like it, you know.'

  ‘I wish there was something I could do,' Matt said guiltily. 'How would it be if I came over after school each day and told you what we'd done, so you didn't miss out.’

  Davey looked embarrassed. 'What, here? I couldn't, Matt, not in front of the family. Bob and Betty had no schooling to speak of, and Ursula thinks it very silly to keep me at school, when I could be earning money. It would be awful to do lessons in front of them all.'

  ‘But you must have schooling, if you're to be a steward,' Matt said anxiously.

  ‘I know that,' Davey said. 'But Ursula - oh well, there are four babies, and another on the way. One can't blame her.' This was not entirely clear to Matt, and he remained silent, as Davey added, 'Never mind, come on in to supper. It's rabbit stew. I caught the rabbits myself with a new snare I've invented. I'll shew it to you afterwards. It's a great improvement.’

  Betty was the last to arrive home, for she had a long walk from the farm on the edge of Aksham Bogs where she was dairy maid. Matt would have known her for a dairy maid without being told, by her swollen red arms, and cracked and swollen red hands, the result of milking cows in the open in all weathers through the year. She was the oldest of the family, being twenty-eight years old, and had the dark hair and eyes of her grandmother, and a hard red face like a rosehip. She was kind in her quiet way, but she worked so hard that in the evenings she had no energy for anything but to eat, sit in silence for half an hour, and fall into her bed. She rarely spoke, and when she did, her voice was so quiet you had to listen for it. All the other children in the family had died young, except for the brother between her and Bob, who had died at the Boyne with Martin.