The Reckoning (6 page)

‘
He had the call, all right — to get away from our wretched
cold, wet winter. He didn't go off to do missionary work in
Ireland or Manchester, you notice!'

‘
That is not even worth a protest,' Héloïse smiled, turning
away. 'But I must get on. There is so much to do today.’

James opened the door for her. 'Who goes with you?'

‘
No-one,' she said, faintly surprised. Then, thinking she
had his trouble, 'I do not stay long in each house, and the
ponies stand very well.’

James shook his head. 'It's not that. I just don't want you
driving about alone. There are too many rough customers on
the roads these days — men on the tramp, discharged soldiers
— and Ned says there are quite a few Irish beggars passing
through, too. You had better take Stephen with you.’

Stephen had his own work to do — but she scanned her
husband's face and saw that he was sincerely worried for her
safety, so she said meekly, 'Very well.’

He looked relieved. 'I'll go and find him for you,' he said,
following her out onto the step.

But there was no need — Stephen was already there,
holding the heads of the bay ponies harnessed to the little
park phaeton. James had had that carriage made for her
when they first became betrothed, more than twenty years
ago. The life-span of a carriage, of course, was only eight or
ten years at the most, and the parts of the phaeton had been
repaired and renewed so often that there probably wasn't a
single splinter left of the original. But the design was so pleasing, light and graceful, and the ponies were so well
schooled, that even an indifferent whip like Héloïse could enjoy driving it. Besides, it spoke of James to her, and she
wouldn't have changed it for the most expensive new carriage
in York.

‘
Ah, Stephen,' James said, 'I want you to go with my lady
to the village this morning.’

He met Stephen's eye with a grave and admonitory look, which Stephen returned intelligently. Héloïse observed the
exchange with a small smile, but said nothing.

‘
Certainly, sir,' said Stephen. 'I was going to suggest it
myself. The roads are very poached, my lady, and if a wheel
was to go into a rut, you'd need someone to push you out.'

‘
So I would,' she said, kindly going along with his fiction.
James helped her up into the carriage and she took up the
reins and nodded to Stephen to let go of the horses' heads.

He climbed up beside her. 'Would you wish me to drive, my
lady?'

‘
No thank you, Stephen. You will have quite enough to do
keeping lookout and manning the guns.'

‘
I beg your pardon, my lady?'

‘Never mind it.
Au revoir,
husband.'

‘
Bon voyage,
wife. Give my love to Tharshish. Bring me
back ivory and apes and peacocks.'

‘
And spices, horses and mules,' she agreed. She shook the
reins.
Allons, enfants,'
she suggested to the ponies.

*

The cottages of White and Cobbey were close by each other,
low, single-storey oblongs of daub and timber, with thatched
roofs and tiny, tightly-closed windows, like most of the houses
in the village. They were in Back Lane, which curved round the churchyard and the bell-field, in the centre of which was
still the deep hollow where Great Paul, the tenor bell, had
been cast some four hundred years ago – the gift of a long-
ago Morland. It was good, Héloïse
 
thought as she drove past,
to live in the heart of your own history like this.

Inside the cottages were dark and rather damp. The
earthen floor was a foot or so below the level of the road, and
there was a large fireplace in which a fire was kept going all
year, on which the cooking was done. Furniture was sparse
and functional – a table for all purposes, with a bench and a
couple of stools, a bed in the corner, and perhaps a cupboard.
Where there were children, they slept on mattresses in the
half-attic.

The labouring poor lived in a plain enough manner, and their diet was monotonous in the extreme: bread, potatoes
and beer for the most part, enlivened now and then with an
onion, a bit of cheese, perhaps a little bacon on Sunday, occasionally tea, and in the summer cabbage and beans when they
could be had.

That was when times were good. Hunger was a reality they
were all accustomed to, and when times were bad, starvation
shuffled up to the door, and sometimes stepped in over the
threshold. Sickness, injury, unemployment, old age – these
were the crises which beckoned the Spectre closer. 'Misfor
tunes', they were called, with the wry understatement Héloïse
had come to expect from the English common man. Visiting
the ‘misfortunates' was one of her duties as Mistress of
Morland Place; seeing them in happier times was one of her
pleasures.

For stark their lives were, but not entirely bleak. Even the Cobbeys, tottering on the very brink of starvation, had a few possessions of which they were proud – a patchwork quilt, a
set of pewter plates, an embroidered cushion given them on
their wedding-day by Jemima Morland, whom they called
‘the old mistress'. They set a stool at the best place before the
fire for Héloïse when she called. They had worked for the
Morlands all their lives, and had wonderful stories to tell her.
Mrs Cobbey remembered the day they had all gone up to the
Big House to have Jemima presented to them as the heiress,after her older brothers had died 'of the plague'.

‘
She were ten year old, my lady – I were just a year and a
month younger. I remember my Da lifted me up so I could
see over the crowd, and he said to me, "One day tha'll work for her, Molly – she'll be tha mistress,"' Mrs Cobbey smiled
and shook her head at the memory. 'I thought she were the Queen of England, my lady. It were years before I got that
sorted in ma mind!’

And Cobbey remembered when Morland men had gone off
to fight for the Young Chevalier. 'Ah, they were better days
then, my lady, when men spoke out, like, for what they
believed in. We brought up our bairns to stand up straight
and fight for what was right. But now – well, my lady, I don't
know what the world's coming too, straight I don't. Young
men today – why, it's all soft collars and trousers and slang,
my lady. It were never like that in ma day.’

That was the plaint of all the older people; but Héloïse
supposed that every generation found the succeeding one ill-disciplined and incomprehensible. Either the world had been
steadily going to rack since the beginning of time, or else
human memory was faulty. It was hard to say which, since to
her own certain knowledge, girls nowadays had much more
freedom than she did in her youth.

The Whites in the next cottage had a great many children,
of whom they were very fond – much tumbled-over and
slapped though they were in that confined space. Mrs White
found time, between spinning and housekeeping, to teach them to read and to cipher; and White, a wool-comber by
trade, took time from his labours to take the children to
prize-fights, public hangings and country fairs, and to the
Church festivals the common people thought of as particularly
their own – Plough Monday, Easter Day, and Harvest Home.

In this the Whites were not exceptions, from Héloïse's
experience. So many children still died in infancy or child
hood, and the survivors were put to work, in the house or the
neighbouring fields, as soon as they were old enough to
understand. But most parents contrived to send their little
ones to the dame-school for a time, or to teach them the very
minimum at home. They gave them their religion, fed them
first in time of famine, kissed them when they hurt them
selves, and cried dreadfully when they died. Knowing this,
Héloïse wondered how Parson Malthus could bring himself
even to suggest that the ills of the world would be cured if
only the poor would refrain from having children.

The last call, on the Battys, presented a different kind of
domestic scene. The cottage itself was much bigger, for Batty
was a journeyman weaver, and weavers were the élite of the
wool-workers. As well as the living-quarters, his two-storey
cottage housed his loom-shop, which comprised the whole
upper floor. He had two looms and a hand-jenny, and
everyone in the house did their part. Mrs Batty — his second
wife, and much younger than he — did the spinning; the
children scribbled and wound wool from the time they were
old enough to grip; and the eldest boy, who was thirteen and
a cripple, did a little weaving on the second loom.

Mrs Batty had lately been confined, however, of their
ninth, and had almost simultaneously caught the feverish
cold which was going round the village. When Héloïse called,
the house was full of snivels and unwashed children. Mrs
Batty was in bed, dismally croaking at her five-year-old — a sturdy little fellow who had just discovered the twin delights
of roaring and kicking his smaller sisters — and trying to be
heard over the din of the new baby. She looked startled when
Héloïse came in, but was obviously feeling too miserable to
make more than a token struggle to get up.

‘
Oh m'lady! I wasn't expecting anyone! I'm right sorry you've caught me like this. It's not fitting. Stop that, our
Jacky, do! Leave Martha be! Oh m'lady, just let me get up
and make maself decent —'

‘
No, no — lie still, Mrs Batty, and don't upset yourself. I
came to see how you are, that's all.'

‘
Oh, that's right kind of your ladyship! But the place is
such a mess, and the bairns so fractious — !'

‘
Never mind, poor little souls. They all have such dreadful
colds, don't they, and that would make anyone feel cross,'
Héloïse said soothingly, eyeing with deep misgiving the noses
of the two little girls. Master Jack, at least, had been startled
into silence by her appearance, and was staring at her with his
mouth open. She hastened to consolidate her advantage.
‘Now then, Jackie, just you run outside to the wood-pile and
bring in some more wood for the fire. It's burned down very
low, I see.'

‘
Do as her ladyship says, our Jacky — quick now!' Mrs
Batty whispered violently. The child stared one moment
more, then scuttled away importantly through the back door.