To call the betrothal of Maddy and Cal a nine-day wonder was an understatement. Everyone in the village was full of it and never seemed to tire of discussing the extraordinary prospect of a Whitcomb from Oakwood proposing marriage to a Shillabeer from Duncannon. Even Lew and Charlie got over their initial surprise to offer their genuine congratulations. In one quarter, however, there was a deep and ominous silence on the subject.
‘Her’m closed her mouth tight as a cat’s bum when her were told, and her habn’t uttered a word since,’ Ellen informed anyone who would listen.
Conditions at home were clearly taking their toll on Cal. He was beginning to look white and drawn, and Maddy felt guilty at being the cause. She slipped off the pretty gold and diamond ring which adorned the third finger of her left hand.
‘Here,’ she said, dropping it into his palm. ‘It would be easier if we forgot the whole idea of getting wed. It’s not fair you should have to put up with so much. Let’s end the engagement and have done.’
‘Is that what you really want? Are you using my mother as an excuse? I wouldn’t blame you if you were.’
Strangely enough, when she was facing him, any doubts she had about the marriage disappeared. ‘Of course I’m not,’ she said. ‘If I were having second thoughts I’d say so openly and not make your mother the scapegoat.’
‘Then let’s put this back where it belongs.’ He slipped the ring onto her finger, but did not release her hand. ‘I confess I am finding her a bit difficult at the moment. I thought our engagement would bring about one of her interminable tirades, I’m well used to those. This perpetual silence has caught me unawares. But never fear, I intend that you and your family shall be invited to Oakwood soon. It should have happened long since, and I am ashamed at the delay. But the invitation will come, never doubt it.’
He was as good as his word, and a neatly penned note inviting Mr and Mrs John Shillabeer and Miss Shillabeer to tea at Oakwood Farm the following Sunday was duly delivered.
‘How did you manage it?’ asked Maddy.
Cal’s grin was wide. ‘I merely announced that I was inviting you, with or without her co-operation. Then I told Ellen to get down the Worcester tea service and make sure it was washed in time for Sunday. That did it. The idea of the service being used at all was bad enough, but the thought of Ellen being let loose on it, that was too much. My mother is now speaking to the world again, though not to me if she can help it. And I regret to say that on Sunday you and your parents will have to make do with Crown Derby, the Worcester service is staying on display.’
It would be true to say that no one was looking forward to Sunday afternoon, with the possible exception of Ellen, who was hoping for some lively exchanges. However, even her face dropped when she opened the door to them. ‘Habn’t you brought the babe?’ she said. ‘I were looking forward to having the little one yer.’
‘My brother and his wife and baby aren’t coming,’ Maddy informed her.
‘I suppose they wadn’t invited.’ Ellen gave a sniff. ‘Three Shillabeers at a time be enough as far as her be concerned. Still, if you and Mr Cal gets to un fast enough us’ll soon have childer of our own.’
‘First things first, Ellen,’ rebuked Cal, appearing in the flagged hall, as immaculate as ever in brown broadcloth and snowy linen. ‘There is the small matter of the wedding to see to before such things. Please come in, Mr and Mrs Shillabeer, and you too, Maddy.’
Stiff and uncomfortable, they followed him into the best parlour, Jack running his finger round his highly starched collar, while Joan hissed in Maddy’s ear, ‘I wish I habn’t laced my stays so tight, they’m killing me.’
The welcome they received from Mrs Whitcomb fairly crackled with frost. She was sitting bolt upright on a high-backed armchair, her small plump feet resting on a footstool. ‘For all the world like the Queen herself,’ Jack said later. As if to continue the regal illusion, she extended a hand to her unwelcome guests. Maddy recognised it as a deliberate attempt to intimidate her family, and she exchanged a sympathetic glance with Cal, fearing an afternoon of discomfort. Her stepmother was already obviously nervous and overawed, but she had not anticipated her father’s reaction.
‘Afternoon, Mary,’ he said, grasping the outstretched hand and pumping it vigorously. ‘I hopes you’m feeling vitty.’
The room temperature dropped by several degrees.
‘I don’t recall giving you permission to use my Christian name,’ said Cal’s mother haughtily.
‘Don’t be daft, woman, we’m cousins. I idn’t going to call you Mrs Whitcomb.’ He settled himself in the chair indicated by Cal. ‘Now then, Cousin Mary, what do you think about these two getting wed? I reckon ’tis a grand thing.’
‘I dare say you do,’ was the sour reply. ‘You Shillabeers have got into Oakwood at last, which is what you’ve always wanted.’
‘I must admit that such a thought did pass through my mind, but the more I dwelt on un the more glad I were that our Maddy have found herself a good steady man as’ll treat her well. And I expect you’m equally glad your son’ve found a decent hard-working maid as’ll stand by him through thick and thin.’
‘No, I’m not!’ was the unequivocal reply. ‘He could have done a lot better for himself; but then it’s the sort of thing he would do.’ Mary Whitcomb’s gaze rested on Maddy’s hand. ‘That ring’s familiar. Where did you get it?’
‘From Cal,’ replied Maddy, stung by the accusation in her tone.
‘It was mine to give,’ said Cal. ‘Grandmother Whitcomb left it to me in her will.’
‘No doubt she did.’ The provocative note of doubt was unmistakable. ‘I’m merely surprised you’ve still got it, and not mislaid it as you did your father’s gold watch.’ Mrs Whitcomb turned to Maddy. ‘Don’t think you’re going to have an easy life married to him. He’s got no thoughts in his head save making money. A workhorse, that’s what he wants you for.’
‘Our Maddy won’t mind that,’ put in Jack before his daughter could reply. ‘Her frets if her’m idle. And as for Cal thinking of naught but business, you’m done well enough out of it, I see.’ He was looking at the display cabinets as he spoke, and immediately it was evident that the old lady was tom between indignation at his comment and pride in her treasures. As always the longing to show off her possessions won.
Rising from her chair, she said disparagingly, ‘He didn’t buy me these, they were gifts from my other son, my dear Christopher…’ She gave them the full grand tour; not a teacup, not a silver spoon was left out, complete with its accompanying history. And at every opportunity, she sang the praises of her dead son, wherever possible to the detriment of Cal. Maddy found herself growing more and more angry at this attitude, but she held her tongue. Any outbursts of hers would only make things more difficult for Cal and almost certainly cause problems for the future. The most she could do was to slip her hand into Cal’s. She meant it as a fleeting gesture of sympathy, but Cal’s fingers curled about hers and held them firm.
‘The tea service decorated with the hand-painted birds is Worcester,’ said Mrs Whitcomb, pausing in front of the final cabinet. That’s pure gold inside, you know. A birthday present from my Christopher. He would have bought me the dinner service to match if he had lived. Ordered, it was, but that one cancelled it.’ The look she gave Cal was toll of animosity.
‘A good thing he did, from what I’ve heard,’ said Jack.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Whitcomb stiffened.
‘Well, it wasn’t no coincidence that when Cal, yer, took over the farm, the men started getting paid regular. With yon Christopher in charge it weren’t nothing to hear your workers grumbling ’cos they wadn’t getting no money. They all said he were a nice fellow, mind, but getting wages out of him, that were another matter. And no wonder if he were buying you gew-gaws like this.’
Mrs Whitcomb fairly spluttered with indignation. ‘How dare you say such things!’ she cried.
‘Now what’ve I done?’ demanded Jack, as Joan muttered at him to keep quiet. ‘I habn’t said one word as idn’t the truth. Everyone knows as Christopher Whitcomb were a terrible payer, and that after he died it was his brother as paid the wages right back. How d’you do un, boy?’ he asked. ‘That were where your pa’s watch went, I’ll be bound.’
‘Father!’ protested Maddy, in an agony of embarrassment as Cal looked uncomfortable. She was horrified that Jack could be so tactless. Then she noticed the expression in his eyes. It was far too innocent to be true. He was stirring things up deliberately.
It was fortunate that at that moment Ellen came in with the tea tray. Her face was crumpled in a wide, toothless grin, for she had heard every word.
Tea was not a comfortable meal. Maddy was in agonies, fearing what her father might say next, but to her relief he seemed to have decided to behave himself. Cal was the perfect host, attentive to his guests. He appeared to ignore his mother’s barbed looks and words, though occasionally his gaze strayed out through the window, as if he were eager to escape to where the late afternoon sun shone on a garden rich with the colours of autumn.
His mother noticed his restlessness. ‘Oh, go out, if that’s what you want,’ she snapped. ‘Can’t sit still for a minute, he can’t.’
‘Yes, you two young uns don’t want to be stuck indoors with us old fogeys,’ said Joan, abandoning her awestricken silence at last. ‘Go and get a bit of fresh air.’
‘Would you care to go for a stroll?’ Cal asked Maddy.
She needed no second invitation. The contrast with the tense gloom of Oakwood’s parlour made the brightness of the sunshine doubly welcome. For a moment she stood on the garden path, basking in the warmth. Then she could hold back no longer.
‘How can you stand it?’ she demanded. ‘I’m sorry, I know I’m being rude, but I could hardly bear to sit there and listen to her sniping at you all the time. Yet you never made a reply.’
Cal gave a shrug. ‘I hardly notice it any more.’
‘Why do you put up with it?’
Again he shrugged. ‘What else can I do? I can’t leave her on her own. How would she manage? She has no one but me. You must understand that she is a very unhappy woman. She only ever loved two people – the young man she wanted to marry when she was a girl, and my brother, and she lost them both. Her life has been sad and unsatisfactory and, since Christopher’s death, very lonely. Letting fly at me is the one relief she has. At times she goes too far and I confess I have to curb my tongue, for what good would it do to have a shouting match? It would just deepen existing wounds and make matters worse.’
‘There are few who would have such forbearance,’ said Maddy.
‘I merely accept the situation as it is. I am only worried that Mother might make things difficult for you.’
‘She won’t do that,’ said Maddy with assurance. She knew perfectly well that Mary Whitcomb would go out of her way to be unpleasant, but somehow she would have to learn to cope. ‘When we are married I expect I’ll spend a deal of time with you or else at one or other of our shops. I doubt if your mother and I will get under one another’s feet much.’
It was extraordinary how easily she could say ‘When we are married’ and refer to ‘our shops’. And equally extraordinary was the way saying those words gave her a comfortable feeling inside. It was as if she and Cal had been betrothed for an age instead of a few weeks.
Side by side they explored the garden. They were just turning towards the mixed orchard, the one where, a lifetime before, her brothers had thrown yew clippings over the hedge, when they were brought to a halt by someone calling Cal’s name. One of the farm hands was hurrying in through the gate.
‘Sorry to interrupt you, maister,’ he said. ‘But us be growing rare bothered about old Boney. He idn’t showing no improvement, if anything he’s weaker. Us’d be real grateful if you’d come.’
‘Boney?’ Maddy raised her eyebrows questioningly.
‘Our ram.’ Cal looked regretful. ‘Any other beast and I’d trust my shepherd to cope, but Boney’s a valuable animal. We’re depending on him to build up our flock. I’m afraid this means I must leave you. I’m very sorry.’
‘Please don’t apologise. Off you go and see to poor old Boney. I’ll walk in the orchard for a while, if I may, then go back indoors.’
With a grateful smile he set off after the farm hand, his hurried stride betraying the anxiety he felt for his precious ram. Maddy watched him go, then changed her mind about walking in the orchard; the sun was sinking behind the trees, taking its warmth with it. She went indoors.
‘What, he’m deserted you already?’ teased her father.
‘Yes, and for a sick ram, too,’ Maddy said with a grin.
‘A ram?’ Mary Whitcomb saw nothing amusing in the situation. ‘That means he’ll be traipsing back through the house smelling of the farmyard.’
‘Of course he will,’ said Jack. ‘What else would he smell of? He’m a farmer, idn’t he?’
Mrs Whitcomb’s reply was a derisive snort.
‘That boy can’t do aught good in your eyes, can he?’ Jack declared. ‘Gawd, Cousin Mary, there idn’t no understanding you! It were tragic, you losing your other son like that, and I knows how that feels, for our Davie be dead, and it don’t look like our Bart’ll ever come home. But it makes me think all the more of the three childer I got left. You’m only got one son surviving, and a good son too, yet it seems to me you don’t want un. You prefers your memories and a few cabinets of trinkets. Have you thought where you’d be without Cal? You’d not be yer to Oakwood, that be sure, you’d never run the farm on your own. Whether you sold un or put in a steward as’d cheat you left, right and centre wouldn’t make no difference. You’d likely end up one of they lonely widow women as lives over to Paignton, drinking tea and driving about in donkey carts all day ’cos they habn’t got naught to do with their lives. I tells you straight, if I was give a choice atween a few shelves of fancy china and my own flesh and blood, I knows which I’d choose and no hesitation.’
‘How dare you say such things!’ cried Mrs Whitcomb for the second time that afternoon, but on this occasion there was a tremulous note to her indignation.
‘I says it ’cos it needs saying,’ replied Jack with surprising gentleness. ‘No one else would. Your Cal be too soft-hearted and ’tidn’t no one else’s place. But we’m kinsfolk, whether you like un or no. We’m Shillabeer talking to Shillabeer. Think on what you got left, maid, not on what you’m lost, else you’m going to end up with naught and that’d be a terrible pity.’
For a moment it looked as though Mrs Whitcomb would explode with fury. Then her face crumpled and tears began to trickle down her plump cheeks.
‘No one has ever had the audacity to speak to me like that before, Cousin Jack,’ she said, her voice barely audible in her distress. ‘Go away! That’s all I ask. Go away and leave me alone, the lot of you.’
It was a very subdued trio who left Oakwood. Even Ellen was unusually quiet as she ushered them out. Cal caught up with them as they reached the gate.
‘I do apologise for deserting you,’ he began, then he noted their faces. ‘What’s wrong?’he asked.
‘Your ma be a bit upset. Twere my doing,’ admitted Jack. The side window opened and Ellen poked out her head. ‘Her called you Cousin Jack, did you notice?’ she remarked. ‘That have got to mean summat.’
‘It have,’ agreed Jack. ‘Maybe I idn’t sorry, then.’
‘What happened?’ Cal asked Maddy quietly.
‘My father did a bit of straight talking, I’m afraid. I’m not sure whether he did the right thing or not, but it’s too long to explain. Perhaps your mother will tell you everything. If not, Ellen certainly will. I must go, my parents are waiting.’
‘Very well. I’ll come to the shop tomorrow. Well talk then.’
Cal stood at the gate and watched them go.
Neither Maddy nor Joan spoke much on the way home. They had both been surprised and moved by Jack’s impassioned comments to Mary Whitcomb.
‘Didn’t know he had such words in un,’ whispered Joan in Maddy’s ear.
‘I don’t suppose they’ll do any good,’ Maddy whispered back.
‘You know, all my life I been desperate to live up Oakwood,’ observed Jack, ignoring the private mutterings of his womenfolk. ‘And now I’ve been there I be glad I don’t. You can’t see the river from Oakwood. Fancy that! I habn’t never realised un afore. I don’t reckon as I could live out of sight of the river, I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I hopes as you can manage un when you’m wed, maid.’
‘I’ll have to, Father,’ Maddy replied. She, too, wondered how she would fare, living out of sight or sound of the river. She would miss it terribly, she was certain, but it would be one of many new things she would have to get used to.
Next morning Cal came to the Totnes shop as he had promised.
‘Well?’ demanded Maddy, anxiously scrutinising his face. After the previous day’s events she was not sure whether to anticipate news of peace and harmony from Oakwood or outright warfare.
‘Ellen took great delight in telling me everything that happened yesterday,’ he said. ‘No detail was left out, I promise you. I didn’t know your father had it in him.’
‘That’s what Joan said. How has your mother taken it?’
‘I can’t say that all is sweetness and light at home yet, but when I said I fancied mutton chops for my breakfast, there was no argument. Usually she would complain that there was good ham needing eating up, or some such.’
‘I hope it means some improvement is on the way. But let’s forget family matters for the moment. I’ve got something I want you to read.’
Maddy produced a newspaper and spread it on the counter. It was a copy of Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, a newspaper not often seen in their part of Devon. ‘A customer left it behind this morning,’ she said. ‘Look at this page.’
‘Fear of measles among the royal family?’ asked Cal, deliberately misunderstanding.
‘You can read that afterwards. Look at the piece in the right-hand column.’
‘“Preparations go ahead for the First Annual Meeting of the Devon County Agricultural Association”. Is that the one you mean?’
‘Yes, there’s to be a big agricultural meeting in Exeter in May next year.’
‘I’ve already heard about it. It’s been mentioned at the Farmers’ Mutual Assurance Society several times. I thought I would go if I could spare the time. Would you care to come too? Who knows, we might be married by then.’
‘So we might.’ For a moment Maddy was sidetracked by the prospect, then she thrust it aside, along with the thought that they had not yet discussed their marriage plans. ‘Yes, I would love to go,’ she said. ‘Not just to look, to exhibit.’
‘I did consider that,’ said Cal. ‘But I fear I haven’t got a cow of a good enough standard—’
‘I didn’t mean exhibit your animals,’ Maddy interrupted. ‘Look at this paragraph: “As well as classes for stock it is hoped that there will be competitions to judge the excellence of local agricultural products such as butter, cream, honey, and cider.” And cider,’ she emphasised. ‘You can’t claim that your cider isn’t good enough.’
‘Let me see!’ He moved closer in order to read the paragraph over her shoulder. You’re right! It does say cider! No one mentioned that at the Farmers’ Mutual. What a clever girl you are.’
‘Yes, I am, aren’t I?’ she agreed. ‘That’s one thing we haven’t tried, entering exhibitions. Just think how it would look on the labels – “Oakwood Farm’s Gold Medal Cider”. And the Devon Agricultural Meeting would just be a start. I’ve heard that agricultural meetings and shows are starting up all over the country, some are already quite well-established. Soon every county will have its own; we could compete in each of them.’
‘At that rate there wouldn’t be room on the labels to portray all our medals, we’d have to have bigger bottles.’ Cal’s face was alight with enthusiasm. ‘What a partnership we’ll be. There’ll be none to match us.’ He grasped hold of her energetically as if he were about to kiss her.
‘Please!’ she gasped, her face scarlet, for they were in full view of everyone in the shop.
‘My apologies.’ He released her promptly but with reluctance. ‘I forgot where we were.’
‘What do you propose to do now?’ she asked, awkwardly smoothing down her apron. ‘About the Agricultural Meeting,’ she added hastily in case there was any doubt.
‘It says here the Secretary lives in Totnes. I’ll call in on him on my way home and find out the conditions of entry.’
He did not offer to take her home. Since her father’s complaint he had been meticulous about such things, and she knew that Joshua would come for her when it was time to close the shop.
Things would be much easier when they were married, she decided; at least, in some areas.
Harvest time in the fields was over. The corn had been gathered in and duly celebrated with hymns in church and with more lively goings-on at the various harvest suppers held in farmers’ barns throughout the parish. But in villages like Stoke Gabriel, the year’s work on the land was not finished. The cider apples were beginning to fall, scattering the orchard grass with their splashes of bright colour, varieties that had been grown for as long as anyone could remember, with names as colourful as the vivid fruit – Crimson King, Pig’s Nose, Star O’Devon.
‘Things are looking good,’ Cal announced, watching the first of the fallen apples being delivered to his yard. ‘Demand for our cider has increased to such an extent that I’m going to have to double the quantities of apples I buy in this year.’
‘That’s marvellous,’ said Maddy, delighted at such progress. ‘What will you get? Sweet Alfords?’
‘Yes, if I can. I like to go for the most flavoursome apples. There’s a crop of Woodbines in an orchard up towards Staverton that I hope to buy too, although the farmer’s asking an extra ten shillings a ton.’
‘Woodbine? I’ve never heard of that one before. Is it a new variety?’
Cal laughed. ‘Hardly. It seems the farmer’s wife has pretensions towards refinement, and she won’t let him use the old name of Slack-Ma-Girdle.’
‘I suppose Woodbine does sound better in polite society,’ Maddy chuckled. ‘But it’s not half so descriptive.’
‘I’ve to drive over there tomorrow. Why not come with me and see what an orchard of refined cider apples looks like?’ Cal suggested, adding swiftly, ‘Nan can mind the shop, it will be good experience for her. And as for a chaperon, perhaps your stepmother might like a little outing. You will soon be busy with the Paignton shop. Enjoy some leisure while you can.’
Maddy was touched by his concern. During their betrothal she had enjoyed several such ‘little outings’ – invariably chaperoned by Joan. And while she took much pleasure from seeing the countryside, she found that she derived greater enjoyment from learning about Cal’s business in greater detail. It did not matter that the gathering and buying in of fruit did not directly concern her, nor that she did not need to know what varieties were required to make the best quality cider, she found every aspect of it fascinating.
‘The builders are still busy at the Paignton shop, so I can’t do much there yet,’ she replied. ‘Yes, I would like to come with you.’
‘It were kind of your Cal to take us with him,’ declared Joan, when they returned home after their trip to Staverton. ‘I enjoyed that. He’m proper thoughtful. You’m got yourself a good man there.’
‘I know,’ said Maddy. The more she was getting to know Cal, the more she was beginning to appreciate his many excellent qualities. She was, indeed, very lucky.
‘And the excursion have done you good, you’m got some pretty colour in your cheeks,’ Joan said approvingly. ‘Cal were right, you’d do well to take advantage of all the fresh air you can get. Once you open that new shop you’ll get less chance than you do now.’
The advice was timely, for when the builders and carpenters had finished, Maddy went into action.
Very conscious that they would be catering for a more varied clientele, it had been Maddy’s idea to divide the new premises into two, allowing those who preferred to sit in comfort with their pint of cider and their pasty to do so, while those who declared they ‘didn’t want naught fancy’ could enjoy simpler surroundings. Maddy was on tenterhooks in case it did not work. She chose colours and fittings she thought appropriate – with one eye forever on her budget. With the Totnes shop she had needed Cal’s approval for almost everything; now it was all left to her, and she was nervous of such responsibility.
She need not have worried. The new enterprise was a success from the beginning, mainly due to her hard work. She was first to arrive in the morning, last to leave at night, her keen eyes never missing an opportunity for improvement. She had anticipated a fair amount of local trade, but before long she was delighted to find they were acquiring seasonal business as well. Cal had been right; their proximity to the railway station was certainly attracting customers from the increasing number of people who came to winter at the resort.
‘Six boxes of pasties we sent up by train today,’ she told Joan when she arrived home one stormy evening. ‘Along with the flagons of cider to wash them down. They were private orders – folk sending a few local delicacies to friends and relatives up in London.’
‘All that way?’ Joan was amazed. ‘I can see you opening Oakwood shops up-country afore long. But there idn’t no need to start this minute. If you keeps dashing about from hither to yon you’m going to be wore out long before the wedding.’
‘I’ve plenty of time to recover if I do, with the wedding not until June,’ laughed Maddy. Then she grew serious. ‘I hope Charlie will be home. I’d not like to be married without both my brothers there.’
‘As far as Charlie be concerned, ’twill depend on the weather and the stone company’s sailings,’ said Joan. ‘Still, as you say, ’tis a fair way off. You come and sit by the fire. Your father be fond of a treat, going up to the Church House on a bitter night like this.’
‘Lor’, ’tis a rare old storm out there,’ said Annie, entering the kitchen. ‘The rain’ve stopped, though.’
‘The wind habn’t,’ retorted Joan. ‘Come on in, and let me bar that door. The draught be cutting through yer like a knife. Have William gone?’
‘Yes, he and Jack and Joe Crowther have gone up the hill together. Mazed fools when they can bide in comfort.’ Annie settled herself in front of the burning logs. She nudged Maddy conspiratorially. ‘I got summat for you, maid. Our Kitty’ve called, and her brought a couple of paper patterns. One of them’d make a lovely wedding dress.’
‘I thought I told you, I’m getting wed in my new two-piece.’
‘But that be wool,’ protested Annie, producing the patterns from her pocket. ‘You’m going to swelter in wool come June. Yer, have a look at they.’
For the next hour or more the three of them sat by the fire arguing amicably about wedding clothes, their skirts turned back over their knees to get full benefit of the warmth.
Suddenly Maddy sat bolt upright. ‘What was that?’ she said.
‘What was what?’ asked Joan. ‘Be someone coming?’
‘No, I’m sure I heard a cry.’
‘I don’t know how you managed that.’ Joan was sceptical. ‘I can’t hear naught but the wind howling and the river roaring.’
‘I know I heard something,’ insisted Maddy.
Then came the sound of the Crowther’s dog barking. Not the usual excited yap he gave when a fox or cat dared to cross his territory, but a deep disturbed baying.
‘Maybe you’m right, maid,’ Annie said. ‘Us’d best go and have a look. You two go on ahead. I’ll come as best I can.’
Gathering up shawls and lanterns, they went out into the stormy darkness, to encounter Elsie Crowther, followed by a string of children. ‘I were coming to you,’ she said, the wind almost whipping away her words. ‘Something have set the dog up good and proper, and he won’t settle. There, look at the mazed beast!’
By the scant light of their lanterns they could see the dog running back and forth along the edge of the river, barking at something unseen in the swiftly flowing water.
‘I saw something,’ cried Maddy. ‘Someone’s out there! Look!’
The three women held their lanterns aloft. Their light was not strong enough to penetrate far, but the meagre beams caught something white being tossed by the seething waters some yards away from the shore. It was a fleeting sighting, then whatever it was disappeared in the watery darkness.
‘Tis a bit of bleached driftwood,’ insisted Joan.
But both Elsie and Maddy were more familiar with the river.
‘That were a face! No two ways about un,’ declared Elsie. ‘Some poor soul be in trouble out there. Yer, where’m you off to?’ she demanded, as Maddy rushed away from the water’s edge.
‘To get the boat.’
‘You’m idn’t going out there!’ cried Joan and Elsie in horrified unison. But they hitched up their skirts and ran after her towards the boat store just the same.
Maddy flung open the large doors. Buffeted by the wind, the women and children struggled to drag the boat out and across the foreshore, Joan scolding Maddy for her foolhardiness every step of the way. As they pushed the craft into the water Maddy feared her stepmother was right. The gale was whipping up the swift incoming tide so that the water seemed to seethe and boil. Only a fool would take an open boat out in such conditions, and in darkness too. But she had seen a face out there in the tumult, and in that one brief glimpse she was convinced that the face had registered despair.
The boat was already bucking and pulling on the waves as Maddy scrambled aboard and set the oars in the rowlocks.
‘You’m idn’t going to manage on your own,’ cried Elsie, already tucking up-her skirts to climb in with her.
Joan pulled her back. ‘You’m got little ones to think on,’ she said. ‘I be going.’ With a helping hand from Elsie, and Annie, who had now reached them, Joan scrambled into the bow of the rowing boat. She knelt there, clutching at the gunwale with one hand and holding the lantern aloft with the other.
Conditions were bad enough when they were in the relative shelter of the bight of Duncannon. As Maddy began to edge the boat upstream, further from the shore, the full force of the storm hit them. It needed all her strength at the oars to maintain control. Joan’s lantern, at her back, was of no use to her and in the darkness she used sheer instinct and experience to judge where she was; too much one way and they would be tossed ashore, perhaps against some rocky outcrop; too much the other and they would be swept into the turbulence of midstream, where their craft would stand no chance on such a night.
‘I saw something,’ yelled Joan above the screaming of the storm. ‘Head further away from the shore.’
Obediently Maddy pulled on the port oar as well as she could. It was a dangerous manoeuvre, she knew, for she could feel the current tug more strongly at the boat. Her admiration for her stepmother grew with every minute. Maddy was afraid. It was more than the bitter cold that was causing her teeth to chatter, it was sheer terror, yet she knew the river well and was accustomed to being in boats. Joan had no such advantage; her experience on the water was restricted to accompanying Jack on the occasional summer’s evening. Nevertheless, the older woman had volunteered to come, and now she remained crouched in the bow, peering into the gloom with never a protest or hint of panic.
‘There be something right ahead. Oh no!’ At Joan’s cry they were overwhelmed by utter darkness. The lantern had gone overboard. There was movement in the bows, making the boat more difficult to handle than ever, but just as Maddy was about to urge her stepmother to sit still there was a thump. The boat had hit something.
‘Tis a maid,’ cried Joan. ‘I got her!’
But catching hold of the drowning woman was one thing, getting her into the boat was a very different matter. For what seemed an age Joan struggled to pull the waterlogged body aboard. Maddy grappled with keeping the boat as stable as possible, conscious that she was growing more and more exhausted and that the most strenuous part of her task was yet to come.
‘We aren’t – going – to manage!’ gasped Maddy. ‘Can you – keep a hold – as she is?’
Joan’s reply was a sob of assent.
Maddy began the perilous task of turning the boat, hampered by its heavy, trailing burden. The instant she got it turned, heading against both the current and the wind, she feared her arms were going to be tom from their sockets, for the craft bucked and leapt like a wild thing. Strenuously she hauled on the oars until her muscles felt like strands of red-hot wire with the effort, but with every pull the tide tossed them back upstream. The sodden body, still grasped by Joan, acted as a sheet anchor, hampering them even more. In a brief glimpse over shoulder, Maddy saw that Annie, Elsie and the children had a fire on shore to guide them in. Biting her lips with dete: jination she made a greater effort. She tried to ignore the deepening chill round her feet as water came into the boat. She knew that, although she was trying to pull harder, her strokes were actually growing weaker as fatigue took its toll.
Heroically Joan attempted the near impossible by bailing whilst continuing to grasp the woman.
‘Us idn’t getting – no closer,’ she gasped. ‘I be going to have to – let her – go.’
‘No! Hold on!’ Somehow, in that agony of effort, pain and fear, Maddy managed to grunt out the three words. Common sense told her that the unknown woman was probably dead by now, but it made no difference. She was determined that the three of them would get back to shore. But even determination such as hers had its limitations. The oars felt like lead in her hands and they were making no headway. She knew she was barely keeping the boat under control in the roaring tide.
Through her exhaustion she heard Joan’s shout, ‘They’m coming!’ She was too tired to wonder who ‘they’ were, until she was suddenly aware that the boat had become comparatively lighter and freer. Then miraculously another craft came close and her father’s anxious voice shouted across, ‘You’m all right now. Us’ll throw you a line and tow you back.’
Manning the other boat with Jack were William and Joe Crowther, and in the stem was a dark heap which she guessed must be the unknown woman. Somehow they had managed to haul the body aboard their craft, freeing hers of its burden. Catching the flailing line was no easy task but after several attempts, Joan managed it. Then came the journey back to land. Although there were three strong oarsmen in the other boat, Maddy knew they could never tow another craft unaided in these conditions. Every part of her throbbed with pain, cold and fatigue, but she bent over to the oars again to give them her utmost assistance.
The crunch of shingle beneath the keel was a most welcome sound. She felt her icy fingers being gently prised from the oars, and strong arms lifting her. Then she was enveloped in warmth and light and she knew she was safely home again. After that, everything went black.
It was the sharp pungency of smelling-salts that brought her back to consciousness.
‘You’m going to be right as rain presently,’ Annie’s voice said reassuringly.
‘Joan! Where’s Joan?’ were Maddy’s first words.
‘Yer, maid. More or less in one piece.’
With difficulty, Maddy opened eyes that stung with salt spray and saw her stepmother, pale but managing to smile, sitting opposite her. William and Joe were there too, looking concerned.
‘And Father?’
‘He’m just carried that poor soul upstairs,’ said Annie.
‘Poor soul? You mean the drowned woman.’ Oddly enough Maddy had almost forgotten the stranger who had been the cause of it all.
‘Yes, but her idn’t drowned. Her’m still alive, though Lord knows how… But not for long, I fear. Not in her condition. Elsie be tending her.’
As Annie spoke, Jack came hurriedly downstairs.
‘How be her?’ asked Annie.
‘Very poorly,’ replied Jack. ‘I wondered if I should go over to Paignton for the doctor or summat, but Elsie reckons her be beyond doctors and it be the parson her needs.’
‘I’ll go for un,’ said William.
‘And I’d best get back to the childer, seeing as my Elsie seems likely to be here for a spell,’ said Joe.
When they had gone, Jack looked at Maddy and Joan. ‘I don’t know if I should be proud as punch of my maids for being that danged brave,’ he said, ‘or leather the daylights out of the pair of you for near scaring me to death.’
‘I’m sorry if we gave you a fright, Father,’ said Maddy, ‘but we couldn’t just let her drown.’
‘Us’d never have slept easy again for the rest of our lives, and you knows it,’ put in Joan.
‘Even so, ’twere foolhardy.’
‘Maybe it were,’ put in Annie, ‘but I’ll tell you something near as daft, and that be you two sitting there soaked to the skin. I took the liberty of setting some dry clothes to warm over the chair there. And there be some broth heating.’
‘I’ll go and make sure us’ve got plenty of water and kindling, then,’ said Jack. ‘’Tis going to be that sort of a night, I reckon.’
Maddy was so stiff and racked with pain she wondered if she could change out of her soaking garments, and judging by the groans coming from Joan she was suffering too. Somehow she struggled into dry clothes, and slowly began to feel their warmth and that of the fire seep into her chilled bones.
Elsie came downstairs just then, a large jug in her hand. Seeing Maddy and Joan, she beamed.
‘You’m a deal better, ’tis obvious,’ she said. ‘A pair of drowned rats wadn’t in it, the way you was looking.’
‘What about the woman?’ asked Maddy.
Elsie grew grave and shook her head. ‘Not much more’n a girl, and no wedding ring. Tis the old story. Her’m paying for un now, poor soul. Baby’s on the way, but you can tell the maid habn’t got the strength, even without being fished out of the Dart. ’Tis a mystery how her got in the river, but I don’t suppose us’ll ever find out. Her’m too weak to talk. Skin and bone, her be, and that dirty even the river habn’t washed her clean. That’s why I’m come for some warm water, see if I can tidy her up a bit. Tidn’t right for her to meet her Maker all mucky.’
‘Well come up and help.’ Joan made to rise from her chair, but Elsie pushed her back.
‘You bide by the fire and get some hot broth in you,’ she said. ‘You won’t help no one by asking for lung fever. I can manage for now.’
It would have been good to sit by the fire, recovering from their ordeal, if the increasing cries and groans from upstairs had not reminded them that the night’s drama was not over.
‘I reckon us should go up and help, don’t you?’ said Joan eventually.
‘I’ll bide yer, minding the fire and keeping the water boiling,’ said Annie. ‘I finds they stairs hard going.’
Maddy knew exactly what she meant when she tried to climb the steep staircase. Her legs were too stiff to obey her, and she finished up on her hands and knees, with Joan following her in a similar manner.
Elsie was standing over the double bed usually occupied by Jack and Joan. In it now a gaunt, emaciated female tossed and turned in the agonies of childbirth.
‘I wish William’d hurry up with Parson,’ Elsie whispered. ‘Her’m idn’t going to last till the babe be born. ’Tis a miracle her’m kept going this long.’
Maddy went over to the bed and, picking up a towel, gently began to dry the pitiful creature’s still-wet hair. Unexpectedly, the girl’s eyes opened and she looked straight at Maddy.
Instantly Maddy stopped her drying.
‘I know her!’ she exclaimed. ‘We all do! She’s Victoria Fitzherbert, that’s who she is!’
Elsie and Joan gazed down at the bed in amazement.
‘Why, so it be!’ Elsie exclaimed. ‘I never recognised her, her’m that changed.’
‘Yer, in that case us’d better fetch her folks,’ said Joan. ‘Maddy, my lover, your limbs be youngest. Can you make it downstairs and ask your father to go?’
But before Maddy could move, she found her hand clutched by Victoria.
‘They won’t come… turned me away…’ The girl’s voice was barely audible.
‘They never did! What sort of folk be they?’ demanded Joan in a whisper, scandalised at such heartlessness.
‘I came here… nowhere else to go… then I saw the river…’ The words faded, though her hand continued to grip Maddy’s.
The three women tending her exchanged shocked looks across the bed. She had tried to drown herself! What Maddy and Joan had thought to be her struggle for survival had been the exact opposite.
‘The river wouldn’t take me! It pushed me back!’ Victoria’s sudden cry of despair shook them all.
‘Un didn’t want you, my lover,’ said Elsie, gently smoothing Victoria’s brow. ‘The river have took its due for thus year. Un don’t want no more.’
The irony of the situation was tragic: it had been Patrick, Victoria’s lover and presumably the father of her child, whom the Dart had claimed.
Another burst of birth pains overtook her and she writhed on the bed in agony. As she did so, the neck of her nightgown – one of Maddy’s – came open, revealing a favour hanging on a damp, grubby piece of ribbon. It was a Janus ring, identical to the one Maddy kept in her drawer. At that moment any lingering animosity that she had for Victoria faded and all she felt was a deep pity. How easily she might have been the betrayed girl in her place, deserted and desperate. But no, Maddy knew she would never have found herself in Victoria’s plight, for there was no way that Jack and Joan would ever have turned her away from their door.
Carefully easing Victoria’s fingers from her wrist, she hobbled downstairs and went in search of her father. Readily he agreed to fetch Mr and Mrs Fitzherbert, though he feared that their daughter might not survive long enough to see them.
Contrary to Elsie’s prediction, Victoria was still alive when her child was born. It was a boy, perfectly formed but far too small to have survived. Joan swiftly wrapped the tiny body in a piece of clean sheet and laid it in a basket on the floor. ‘Never had no chance, poor little mite,’ she said. ‘Oh, why don’t William get yer with the parson!’
Her stepmother’s speedy action had prevented Maddy from seeing the child, and she could not tell if he had resembled his father or not. She was glad. There was enough tragedy about that night without further reminders of Patrick.
Below stairs the door slammed in the wind, and the parson’s voice echoed up the stairs. ‘I know my way, Annie.’ In a moment he was with them in the lamplit bedroom.
‘Thank goodness you’m yer, Mr Bowden,’ said Joan. ‘Her’m sinking fast. I don’t know how her’m lasted this long, and that be the truth. I reckon her’m waiting for you, that be all I can figure.’
Joan’s words proved uncannily accurate, for as Mr Bowden approached the bed, Victoria’s eyes flew open. They were huge and overbright with fever.
‘Must tell… been very wicked.’ Her voice was no more than a faint rasp.
‘The Lord is compassionate to those who truly repent, my child,’ said the Reverend Bowden gently. ‘And you have suffered much for your sins’
But Victoria grew agitated. ‘Not the baby… not that. Patrick… I killed Patrick.’ If she was aware of the gasp of horrified surprise from the others, she gave no sign. Her troubled eyes were fixed on Maddy. ‘You loved him too… must know, I didn’t mean to kill him … We doubled back to Dartmouth. I had some money… gave it to Patrick for tickets… boat to America… he spent it… so angry I threw his fiddle into the river… Didn’t know he’d try to rescue it… poor Patrick…’ Her voice had faded to nothing as tears of sorrow and weakness trickled unheeded down her cheeks. For a moment it seemed as if she had slipped away, and the parson began to pray. Then unexpectedly she rallied and a faint smile lit her face. ‘He was the gypsy and I was the lady,’ she said quite strongly. ‘I fell in love with a raggle-taggle gypsy and I ran off with him and…’ She got no further. The light faded suddenly from her face and her eyes glazed over.
‘Her’m gone, poor maid,’ said Joan, gently closing the pale eyelids and drawing up the sheet.
‘Such a pity we did not have time to persuade her the young man’s death was not her fault,’ said Mr Bowden, rising stiffly from his knees. ‘She might have died more easy in her mind.’
‘I couldn’t fathom what her were saying right at the end,’ added Elsie. ‘Going on about gypsies. There wadn’t no gypsies. Her were rambling.’
Maddy knew what Victoria had meant. Patrick had never been quite at ease in the real world. His life had been a series of make-believe episodes, always with a woman involved. With her, he had been the worldly fellow in love with a simple rustic maiden, relishing opening her eyes to the wider world about her. Later, after Davie’s death, he had played the mainstay and comfort. From what she had heard about his brief affair with Lucy Ford, at the Church House, he had been the ardent admirer happy to appreciate the jewel that had no place in such a sordid setting. With Victoria, as in the old folk song, he had evidently played the wandering gypsy whose vagabond life was irresistible to the lady of quality.
Scenes from a play, with himself as the central character – that was all Patrick’s love affairs had been. Looking back, Maddy did not regret having loved him. As for taking him seriously, the unfortunate Victoria was proof of the folly of that. Maddy had prided herself that she understood Patrick completely. What arrogance and foolishness. The village gossips had been right, she had had a lucky escape. After an age of trying to bring herself round to their way of thinking, she suddenly found herself agreeing with them. And with that wisdom came an unexpected sense of freedom.