Authors: Jean Stubbs
He had left his woman abed, as he always did at that hour, seeing in the first light her hair upon the pillow, her linen corset on the chair. For nearly forty years it had been so. He could not remember the years before her, except in the context of a long reverie. His humility, and his capacity for love, had brought him this richness in marriage. He reaped what he had sown. Another man could have used her virtues without regarding them, or made much of her faults. Because, to him, her faults were peculiar virtues, and her virtues faultless, he had possessed her wholly. And since, each day, love must be earned, on this November morning he ploughed Sluther for her.
‘We’ll take another turn,’ he shouted to the little lad, ‘and then stop for a sup of ale.’
‘Right you are, Mr Howarth,’ said young Amos Bowker, and confided in the towering horses.
‘A good pull and a long ‘un,’ he said, ‘and you can rest you for a bit.’
Slowly they wheeled in a half-arc, fetching the plough with them. And the man took the weight, eyes like cracks in his weathered face, lips damped, heart straining at the load. The massive coulter swung clear, the ponderous plough hung suspended on the curve, the mighty horses pulled, and an imbalance threatened both man and machine. Unknowing, the boy urged the beasts on. The finest draught-horses in the country, William had said, and he was right. Against both plough and ploughman they set their great shoulders, their powerful haunches and monumental limbs.
‘Steady!’ Ned shouted urgently, harnessed as he was, a puppet in the midst of this impedimenta.
But in the moment that his set teeth chopped at the word he knew that he was lost. That the freed word would float unheeded. That the boy would drive mindlessly on, that the driven steeds would respond, the machine heel over, the strap bind tighter, the whole mass tumble and roll down the steep fell flank.
On me! he knew. But his sense of urgency was done. For after all he must die. The surprise was immense. The event, small and familiar, seen from a great distance, permitted him both to observe and take part. Perhaps he had been through it before.
‘You daft buggers!’ he shouted, into oblivion, spinning.
The earth in his stopped mouth, the crushed amazement, neck snapped like a twig. No pain. Too quick for pain, or so much pain that the mind rejected it. Falling, slowly, gracefully. Falling away. Fallen. Over. Done. With his cheek at last cold against the cold soil. On this fine November morning, in the year of our Lord 1799.
The lad stood silent, hands over his mouth, tears trickling down his cheeks: aware that though the horses could be fetched round and calmed, the plough righted, the man brought out, he was alone in the landscape. Alone, he crept back to look. Alone, he brushed the dirt from that astonished face, felt for the still heart, cried the name into deaf ears. Then ran, shrilly calling, down the hillside.
The great shire-horses ceased to snort and plunge. Their size soothed them. They stood quietly, heads bent. Then, dragging plough and ploughman stealthily behind them, they found a patch of untilled earth, and grazed thoughtfully, waiting for someone to come to them.
Susan had lit the parlour fire and helped her mistress to dress. Nellie had made her breakfast, and closed the parlour door firmly upon her. The death was an hour old.
Dorcas knew that they wanted her to stay here while they made arrangements; and though she could not swallow she poured the tea, and sat obediently before the toast. She had been rendered powerless, but so long and so well had she ordered her household that it could move on without her for a time. The day was clouding over, the mist rose from the valley and covered the hill slopes, she could scarcely see the wall of the kitchen garden from her grey window.
Sounds were translated into sights which would have distressed her to watch, but provided needful information. A clattering of hooves out of the cobbled yard meant that the stable-lad was off to Garth, Snape, Belbrook and Millbridge with his dark news. The hammering and-sawing of hurried carpentry told her they were nailing a rough stretcher together, to carry the body down from Sluther. The front door, not opened since William’s wedding four years since, was being tried stealthily and its hinges oiled with goose-grease. The wedding recalled Zelah to mind, and Dorcas started up hurriedly to ring the bell.
‘Nellie! They must break the news carefully to my daughter-in-law. She is with child, you know.’
‘Don’t you fret, ma’am. Mr William’ll see to everything. Sit you down and drink your tea, ma’am, do.’
The door dosed. She sat before the tray again. The tea had gone cold.
*
The stable-lad reined in at the wheelwright’s shop in Garth, and leaned from his saddle.
‘Mr Burscough!’ he called into the dim shop. ‘Mr Burscough, they’ll be wanting you up at Kit’s Hill. It’s Mr Howarth. He’s dead.’
Joe Burscough paused in the act of planing wood, blew the soft feathers from his tool, and set it on end.
‘Nay, never,’ he said in disbelief. ‘Ned Howarth? However did that happen?’
‘He broke his neck, Mr Burscough. Ploughing Sluther. Broke his neck.’
The lad’s mouth trembled. He dug his heels into the bay mare.
‘I’ve got to go, Mr Burscough. There’s a mort of messages to take.’
And he was off to the vicarage.
‘Did you hear that, Jem?’ said Joe Burscough. ‘Ned Howarth’s dead. Would you believe it? Here, take over, wilts? I’ll walk up. Oh, and look out that seasoned oak at the back of the shop, wilts? They’ll want the best for him.’
Margery Cheetham, who dealt with the beginning and the end of life in the village, wrapped herself in her old shawl and knocked at her neighbour’s door.
‘Nast heard t’news? Ned Howarth’s dead! Aye, I’m off to lay him out. If anybody wants me tell them I’ll be back after dinner.’
The sexton, Zachary Sidebottom, spat on his hands and grasped the bell-rope. The traditional nine tellers, for the death of a man, were followed by four-and-seventy solemn tolls for the years of his age. ‘It’s a good age!’ thought Zachary. The parson donned a clean collar, that he might comfort the widow in a seemly fashion. The grave-digger shouldered his spade. Garth was abuzz with the news that would travel from end to end of the valley: interrupting such homely actions as the lifting of a pint-pot, the milking of a cow, the baking of bread.
‘Have you heard about Ned Howarth, up at Kit’s Hill? Dead!’
‘Nay, never!’
And a humble procession wound its way slowly down from Scarth Nick: two men carrying a third upon a home-made stretcher, and a little lad leading a pair of shire-horses. From time to time he thrust the knuckles of one hand into his eyes, but the great beasts moved ponderously forward, unknowing. On the dark field behind them all lay an iron plough, and the long leather strap which had been used as a harness.
The oak coffin stood on trestles in the front parlour at Kit’s Hill. They had laid a dish of salt upon the farmer’s still chest, and pennies on the blinds of his eyes. They left the bolts unbarred, the doors ajar, the window of that cold room a little open, so that the soul could stream freely out into the fog. The mirrors were shrouded. The clocks were stopped. At nightfall they lit candles and watched by him.
His widow sat at the head of the coffin because it was all she could now do for him. Her children repeated that she must rest, must eat, must drink. She was content to let them rule her, but obedience was not at the moment within her province. So finally they let her be, and she spoke to him when they were alone together, in a confused medley of old memories, present perplexities, and future speculation.
In the kitchen the ovens had been stoked all day, baking currant bread and buns. Nellie brought out last summer’s stock of elderberry wine and spiced it. The new maids hurried round the village, offering sprigs of rosemary and biddings to the funeral. Then the women servants put on their black Sunday gowns and starched white aprons, and prepared to receive the mourners.
It seemed they would never get everybody in. But they all collected together at last. The men removed their hats, the women bent their heads, the children were silent. There was a smell of camphor among the yeomen farmers’ families, who wore best clothes for the occasion; a creaking of freshly blacked boots, subdued conversation, pale faces. The many poor, who had eaten hungrily of the bread and made their heads spin with unaccustomed wine, stood in their sombre daily dress.
Dorcas held herself very upright. Her small gloved hand put a glass of wine to her lips now and then, for form’s sake. Someone dosed the kitchen door so that she should not hear them nailing the coffin down in the front of the house.
‘I think they are ready now, Mamma,’ said Charlotte in her ear, and took the glass from her.
Grey, white and black. No colour anywhere, except perhaps in the coffin which gleamed tenderly. His two sons, mouths set, eyes bleak, took the lead. His old servants, Tom Cartwright and Billy Sidebottom, followed. Between them they raised the box shoulder-high. It was heavy, broad, sturdily-built. They had some difficulty easing it through the front doorway. Outside stood Gowd and Siller, Pearl and Di’mond, Ned’s team of oxen: harnessed to the wagon, ready to draw him down to the churchyard, according to the custom of his forefathers.
The way seemed long and hard, even with a son on either side of her. Dorcas was glad of the privacy afforded by her veil. The loss was a continual quiet grief within her which would make her weep dumbly, unexpectedly, without immediate cause. She could not comprehend why, after so many years together, he should die alone. She had never parted from him for so much as half a day without asking his leave, nor he hers. It seemed monstrous that he should set out on this last of all journeys, and she not there to comfort him. She had not known God could be so unkind.
*
May 1800
By unanimous consent, William and Charlotte and Dick held their council at Thornton House one Saturday afternoon in the spring, while Dorcas visited Zelah and the little girls at Quincey Place.
As head of the family William took Grandfather Wilde’s armchair. Charlotte presided over the teapot, and Dick supplied material for the meeting. He had just come from the market, and looked the picture of a prosperous yeoman farmer. Into Charlotte’s bees-waxed and flower-scented room he brought the homely odours of saddle-soap, new milk and hay. His gentlemanly brother, his educated sister, were fond of him, benevolently disposed towards him, but the bond was one of a family kind. Less and less did they have in common. So, though he needed their advice, he had excused himself from Charlotte’s invitation to dinner, and consumed mutton pies and strong beer at The Red Lion, in company with his fellows. Now, though he still worried about the dried mud on his gaiters, and wished his teacup was larger and thicker, he placed his trust in their superior judgement.
‘It’s about our mother,’ he began, for he loved Dorcas deeply but could not deal with her. ‘And it’s about me, too,’ he added honestly. There was a long pause while the red reached his neck. ‘And — and Alice Wharmby.’
William and Charlotte exchanged smiles over his bent head.
‘Which of the Wharmby girls is Alice, Dick?’ William asked kindly.
For the Wharmbys were rich in daughters.
‘Ah, she will be the nut-brown maiden who steps out like a queen,’ cried Charlotte, remembering the girl at the funeral looking at Dick.
‘Aye, that’s right. That’s Alice!’ Dick said, pleased and relieved.
How could he have described her, driven to doing so? He wished he could say what he felt as well as Lottie did.
The
nutbrown
maiden
who
steps
out
like
a
queen
. He must memorise that. Say it to Alice.
‘Well, Dickie dear,’ Charlotte coaxed, as he remained rapt and silent in contemplation of his love, ‘could you explain a little more to us? Does Mamma not approve of Alice?’
Which would not be surprising, her eyebrows signalled to William. Knowing Mamma!
‘Eh, I don’t know. I haven’t said owt to her!’ he cried, alarmed.
‘How long have you been courting Alice?’ William asked, tackling the situation from another direction.
‘Nigh on twelvemonth. But quiet-like. I mentioned it to Father, and he promised as he’d tell Mother — at the right time, he said. But it didn’t come about. Father were talking about doing up old Luke’s cottage for us. He said that when I were five-and-twenty I should have the running of the farm, and he’d stand behind me. Then, when t’family started coming, he and Mother would go to Luke’s, and Alice and me could have Kit’s Hill.’
Once he started to speak he seemed unable to stop, and they listened to the pent-up chronicle which must have run unheeded in his mind as he strove to assuage his mother’s grief, and to hold Alice without holding her off. The last six months had been hard on him, as well as on the two women he loved.
‘But he died, you see, afore we could set the notion in her head or speak wi’ the Wharmbys. And though I’m five-and-twenty in another week or two I canna see Mother making way for Alice. And I canna see Alice sitting round doing nowt. And whereas my father might’ve got Mother to live in old Luke’s cottage, I dursen’t ask her to go there by herself. It’s too near and too far, if you get my meaning. Besides, I canna stand up agin Mother, never mind Alice trying! She’s got a hundred ways of getting her own road, afore you know what’s going on in her head. I allus knew that Father could handle her, but I never give him credit enough. Nay, I never did!’
And here he rid himself of the troublesome teacup, and wiped his forehead with a large yellow handkerchief.
They could not help themselves, but burst out laughing. After a moment or two of bewilderment he joined in, sheepishly at first and then with relief.
‘It is unfair to laugh,’ said Charlotte penitently, ‘and of course you and Alice must have Kit’s Hill to yourselves. Dear Dick, you have had the burden of Mamma’s grief, and said nothing until now!’
For he was still her baby brother, and she soothing and protecting him, though he could have picked her up with one hand and sat her on top of her own pianoforte.
‘But it is only right,’ said William, ‘that Mrs Dorcas should have more in life than a shepherd’s cottage on the fells. She farmed Kit’s Hill, side by side with my father, for nearly forty years.’
‘Well, we Longes are living in the house that is hers,’ said Charlotte. ‘But what should
we
do if she took us all over?’
‘Caleb will rattle round Quincey Place like a solitary pea in a pod when we are gone to Kingswood Hall,’ said William, looking at his sister, half-teasing and half-serious. ‘I suppose you would not simplify matters by marrying him, would you, Lottie? You always cared for Quincey Place!’
Dick took upon himself the embarrassment Charlotte might have felt. He blushed, but she laughed.
‘My dear Willie, I shall need a better reason to take another husband than the house he lives in!’
‘Then that is that!’ Philosophically. ‘Zelah is devoted to my mother, but the devotion could be strained at close quarters. They are both matriarchs!’
‘Sweet Zelah a matriarch?’ cried Charlotte. ‘Why, she is the most tractable of us all!’
‘A matriarch, my dear Lottie, in fact, in spirit, and even by sheer inheritance. You articulate Wilde ladies are milk-cheese compared to the steel of which the Scholes women are fashioned!’
We shall surprise you yet!’ Charlotte retorted. ‘When do you move to Kingswood Hall?’
‘As soon as Zelah has recovered from the birth of our latest infant. Summer, I suppose.’
‘She would need to be made of steel,’ said Charlotte drily. ‘And when you speak of close quarters, have you no lodges, stables, pavilions or orangeries at Kingwood Hall? Is there no corner for Mamma in all that vast mansion, where she could put her parlourful of Grandmother Wilde’s furniture?’
‘Mrs Dorcas’s considerable talents must be housed separately,’ said William, quite firm on this point.
Dick looked trustfully from one to the other as they talked. He was his father’s son. He knew what was right for him. They were his mother’s children. They knew what must be done.