Eppie (12 page)

‘Our love led to her becoming with child. We were determined
to marry, to accept the hardships we would face together. Her parents were
dead. Her grandfather scoffed at my poverty and would not give his blessing to
our marriage. One day she came to warn me that soldiers were on their way to
arrest me. I had no choice other than to flee. Tormented by love, never could I
forget her. In his letter, her grandfather agreed to our betrothal and, like a
fool, I fell into his trap.’

Eppie drew to his side. ‘What happened?’

Sam’s gentle eyes met Martha’s. ‘I was shown into her
grandfather’s study. There was another gentleman there whom I had never seen
before. Her grandfather told me that she had died in childbirth. I felt sick, cold,
sure it was a lie. I told him so. In my heart, though, I knew he spoke the
truth, for in his eyes was more than hatred for me. I saw a grave sadness. The
magistrate’s men burst in and I was carried off to jail.’

‘You hadn’t done o’t really naughty,’ Eppie said. ‘Not like
murdering someone.’

‘It is against the law for a man to get a woman with child
unless they are in, or propose wedlock,’ Sam answered. ‘Under such
circumstances a man must either marry the woman or indemnify the parish. If the
man cannot pay the parish he is imprisoned. Her grandfather maintained that I had
never intended to marry. He has influential friends. In the eyes of the Justice
of the Peace the crime still stood. I had to be punished.’

‘What became of the baby?’ Martha asked.

‘Lewis visits me in jail, to bring in food and a little
money. A few years back I asked him to find out what he could about the child. The
grandfather flew into a rage. He told Lewis that he would never reveal where
they were buried.’

Martha was surprised. ‘There were twins?’

Sam turned to Eppie. ‘They would’ve been about your age if
they’d lived.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Martha said softly. ‘I see how silly I was
accepting what Jaggery told us about the nature of your crime.’

‘The man has a way of poisoning minds. Now, I will take my
leave. I have encroached too much upon your hospitality.’

‘I
have committed a sin in pre-judging a man,’ Gillow said. In a stronger voice, he
added,
‘It was wrong of me. I beg your
forgiveness.’

‘There is nothing to forgive.’

‘Stay, at least for a meal?’ Martha asked.

‘We’d be honoured if you would,’ Gillow said.   

Eppie grinned. ‘It’s bacon roll n’ treacle pud.’

‘How can I refuse so many kind invitations?’ Sam answered,
smiling.

Martha headed to the larder, whilst Gillow went to unload
the cart. Manoeuvring the jenny this way and that he tried, with Sam’s help, to
shove it through the low, narrow doorway, to no avail. ‘I never thought about
this,’ Gillow said.

Martha was pleased. ‘There’s not a lot of room. Your loom
takes up half the parlour.’

Eppie frowned. ‘I wonder how it goes.’

Gillow grabbed a handful of fibres. ‘I’ll show you.’ He
looked odd, perched on the stool in the garden. When he span the wheel a clamp pulled
away from the spindles, stretching the roving into thread. The faller wire
dropped. The spun thread wound onto the spindles. ‘In the future it’s reckoned machines
in spinning mills will work over a hundred threads at a time.’ The wheel
seized, the clamp shivered. ‘Ah, maybe not such a bargain. I’ll go and throw it
in the woodshed.’

Eppie helped Martha to chop vegetables. ‘Why did pa want to
get the spinning jenny?  Don’t he know you already do enough work?’

‘Your pa hardly notices how much work I do because, unlike
him, I don’t get myself noticed by going around looking for praise or sympathy
for every task I do.’

Sam stepped into the parlour and lightly touched Martha’s
elbow. ‘Thank you.’  

There was a slight tremor in her voice, her smile shaky. ‘Whatever
for?’

‘For listening,’ he said tenderly. ‘For understanding.’

‘Why ya crying, Mam?’

Martha broke off her gaze upon Sam. ‘Sting o’ onions,’ she
replied in a flurry, dabbing her eyes with her apron as Gillow strode in, carrying
the long-forgotten muffin-pike.  

Sam contentedly rubbed his stomach. ‘Those
were the biggest dumplings I’ve ever eaten.’

‘Eppie has a way of making them on the large side,’ Martha
said.

‘Pa calls ‘em horse-leg dumplings.’ 

The treacle pudding had simmered alongside the meat. Fishing
the boiled pudding out, Martha untied the cloth and peeled away the netting.  

There was a rap at the window. Eppie turned to see a
frightful face, covered in what looked like a sprinkling of bran, pressed against
the pane, its nose squashed. 

‘That’s my young friend, Dick Pebbleton,’ Sam said, grinning.

Martha opened the door.

‘Boyle said I could come and see how you’re doing.’ Dick
sniffed. ‘There’s a good smell o’ cooking in here, missus.’

‘Sit yourself down, there’s plenty,’ Martha offered.

Before the boy shut the door, Eppie noticed Jaggery propped
on his rake, sneering, jealous of Dick being let off work.

‘Fanks, missus!’ Racing to the table, Dick snatched up a
spoon.

Martha passed Eppie her portion.  ‘It’s hot, mind you don’t
burn your whiskers.’

Dick crammed in mouthfuls of sponge and dripping. ‘Never in
me life have I tasted o’t so good!’

Eppie was struck by the thinness of the boy. ‘You can have
mine if you like.’ She added, untruthfully, ‘I’m full.’

‘It’s worked!’

‘What has?’

‘The crooked farthing I found in a pothole. I bit it and
waited for summat lucky to happen. It’s got me a double dollop o’ treacle
pud.’  He slapped the coin on the table before her.  ‘You have it.’

‘It’s yours.’

‘It only works once for each person.’

‘Is it true that jailers force prisoners to pay them protection
money?’ Gillow asked Sam.

‘Some, although Boyle’s a good man.’

‘If a jailer don’t like a prisoner, he’ll torture him to
death to get money off him, even if he an’t got none,’ Dick said.

‘It’d be better if guards were paid regular wages,’ Gillow
reflected. ‘Wringing money out of prisoners by force is ludicrous.’

‘The trouble is that jails are farmed out,’ Sam answered. ‘The
government doesn’t want the bother and expense of maintaining them.’

Dick puffed out his cheeks. ‘I’m stuffed! In the poorhouse
they fed us skilly. After our ma died, me brother Jake and I lived on the
streets of Malstowe. One day this fella shoved us into a wagon and took us to
the poorhouse. Mrs Grieve, the matron, ranted on about how it was our fault that
we was beggars, and how we was gonna be made to work hard for us punishment. We
were taken to this chapel-like place with a high ceiling. Boys were crammed in,
oakum picking.’ Seeing Eppie’s puzzled face, he explained, ‘That’s where ya rip
tatty ropes. They’re plastered onto ships to stop ‘em sinking. I hated picking.
Me fingers was shredded.’

Martha served the men flagons of ale. A rich smell of tobacco
filled the parlour.

‘Me, Jake and this other lad, Dawkin, shared a bed. After a
few weeks, the boys in our ward started itching.’ Proudly, Dick said, ‘I once had
ten ulcers under me armpit. They’d swell, bust, and blow out again.

‘We was made to whitewash the ward windows. Mrs Grieve
reckoned that if the sunlight were kept out we’d stop itching. We din’t.’

He slurped from his mug of milk, revelling in Eppie’s absorbed
face. ‘One morning, Mrs Grieve made us line up at the end of our beds. She
whiffed each of us. Grabbing Jake by the ear, she rushed him to the scrubbing
room. On the way down, me and Dawkin heard him yelling. I didn’t think o’t of
it. Jake weren’t used to being laundered. Still, we decided to take a look. Mrs
Grieve had Jake inside a barrel. Each time he came up for air, she forced his
head under.’

Padding up, Twiss placed his head on Dick’s lap. The men had
drifted into solemn silence; hanging onto the boy’s every word.

‘When Jake went still, the master shouted that they’d drowned
him. Jake always liked a jest. I had this idea that if we could topple that
barrel over he’d slither out like a fish, alive as could be. So me an’ Dawkin put
our backs behind that barrel and shoved for all we was worth. It din’t budge.’

Tears shimmered in Dick’s eyes. ‘At the assizes, Judge
Baulke told Mrs Grieve the only thing he could accuse her of was being too keen
on her duties. He let her go free, saying she ought to get used to the stench of
paupers. I weren’t sent to jail for trying to help me brother though. After
Jake died I was so angry that I set fire to the privy in the boys’ yard. I
almost sent the poorhouse up in flames.’ Mournfully, he added, ‘I wish I had.’

Boyle looked in. ‘Work first thing, Sam. Dick, I want a few
more hours out of you.’

Dick kicked his heels as he
left. 

Gillow went to tidy the yard before bed.

Sam followed. ‘I’ll give you a hand. After such a pleasant
evening my head doesn’t ache so much.’ 

Months earlier, Wakelin had fixed another swing for Eppie
from a goat willow that bordered the stream. Cooling air rushed about her ears
as she threw her head back, tracing the ever-changing hue of the sky,
ultramarine watering to silvery blue. From the orchard came the rhythmical
slash-slash of the scythe. ‘Look at me, Pa. I’m flying to the stars!’

She watched the men, their figures silhouetted, heaping brambles
beside the earth toilet.

‘Do you see much of your son?’ Sam asked.

‘He sometimes walks home after the evening market of a
Saturday and returns to Litcombe on the Sunday night. To be honest, I’m not
sorry to see less of him. There’s no love lost between me and the lad.  He’s as
hard as nails and has a knack of exasperating me.’

‘I feel the same way about Jaggery.’

‘Why’d he end up in jail?’

‘He was taken on by a brewer, name of John Basset, and Jeremiah
Grimley, a mill owner. They’d set up a bank. Jaggery was paid to protect mail
coaches carrying their money. There were a spate of robberies involving money
from Basset and Grimley’s bank. Basset accused Jaggery of being involved. The
next morning, Basset’s various body-parts were found in the oddest places
around the town. Jaggery burst into the mill office, threatening Grimley with a
blunderbuss. Longbotham, the clerk, fell off his stepladder. He tumbled onto
Jaggery, who shot himself in the leg. That’s why he walks with a limp.’

‘I’m surprised Jaggery wasn’t hung for attempted murder.’

‘Even murder may be lightly punished. Money buys privileges.
If Jaggery had enough robbed money put aside I’m sure he’d have paid someone to
do his jail sentence for him. What money he has he squanders in the gambling
den and on gin. Dick was fortunate. Judge Baulke sentenced him to death but later
reduced his punishment to imprisonment.’

‘Thank the Good Lord for that! He seems a pleasant lad.’

‘He is, though he sometimes looks on the grim side of life. Sam,
he says, we’ll never get out of this Inn from Hell. If we don’t die of jail
fever, we’ll be eaten alive by these flesh-eating beetles.’

Eppie bounded to where the men toiled. In a jocular mood,
Sam tugged a bramble with his gloved hand. ‘This is the winner. It has to be
eight feet long.’ The bramble resisted, clawing his shackles.

‘It’s a sea monster got ya!’

Gillow chopped it with a billhook. ‘This area gets
overlooked. Beneath your feet there’s an arsenic pit.’ Startled, Sam stepped
away. Gillow jumped on the piled brambles, crushing them. ‘All the land around
here used to be sheep country. When an animal plague struck, the pit was dug
for use as a sheep dip. Now it’s mostly filled with sludge.’ Taking dried
fungus from his tinderbox, he struck the flint. Flames sputtered, smoked and
burnt brightly. Eppie cast twigs into the inferno. Brambles twirled red and
died ashen white.

‘If you ask me, the whole judicial system could do with a shake
up,’ Gillow said. ‘Those of superior standing have too much power. It’s not
right they should influence lawmakers, bringing in whatever Statutes or
punishments they deem fit. At manorial courts, Lord du Quesne is able to decide
whether a person hangs or is lightly punished for what he considers to be a
crime.’

Billows of smoke wavered and floated towards them. They
backed off.  Crackling flames flickered, bright against thickets of fruit
bushes.

Wilbert and Sukey were quarrelling again, their raised
voices from the Hix homestead cutting through the chill air, sharp and clear. 

Eppie yawned.

Gillow stirred ashes. ‘Bed, my little maid.  Go and find
your ma.’

‘I’ve been glad of your friendliness,’ Sam told Gillow.

‘Same ‘ere,’ he answered, abashed. ‘Reckon I’ll take a
stroll. Get the smoke out o’ me chest.’

Moths flitted toward the lantern light as Sam opened the
door. ‘Is it all right if I step in?’

‘I’ve put Wakelin’s sack back in the loft for you, with an
extra blanket, should you feel the cold.’ Martha’s hand shook slightly as she
handed him the candle sconce. ‘First thing tomorrow I’ll fix you some tack.’  

‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’ 

‘It’s no trouble. I’ve the cream to take from the milk.’

The oil lantern was set upon the windowsill. Martha turned
down the wick. ‘I only wish you didn’t have to go back.’

Sam stepped close behind her. They gazed into one another’s
mournful eyes, reflected in the shining blackness of the pane.

Martha trembled at the warmth of his breath on her hair.

‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘Though, hopefully, it won’t be
forever.’

He trod to the loft, a caged
animal, shackles clanking. 

Gillow’s rumbling snores greeted the early day.

Martha removed the metal couvre-feu and tossed a handful of
moss and wood chippings onto the warm embers. She puffed the bellows until a
cheerful blaze flared. Soon a mouth-watering smell drifted from the pan.