The Tinker's Girl Page 5

  He looked towards the bed now as he nodded, saying,

  'Yes, Ma. Toilet's Ridge.'

  The woman's voice sounded faint now, because she was once more leaning back among her pillows. But the words that came to Jinnie's ears had a sad note, for she was saying, 'The first time I stood on top of the Ridge.

  Oh yes' - she nodded her head - 'the first time I stood on top of the Ridge. But as they say there's a first time for everything and an end to a beginning.' Her next words were quiet: 'Take a bowlful along for him, will you, lad?'

  There was no answer to this at first, then Bruce said, 'I will on my way out. Doubt if he'll be awake yet. Anyway, with the head he will have on him this morning, he'll be wishing for more than porridge.'

  I

  A few minutes later she had finished her breakfast, an outsize bowl of porridge which tasted slightly salty, but which had the advantage of being stiff enough to hold to the spoon, not like the skilly that would run off it, back in the workhouse. What was more, it had been covered with a good dollop of milk.

  Bruce, she saw, was ready to go. He had on his old working coat and a pair of breeches, different from the ones he wore yesterday, for these looked to be made of strong corduroy and were laced at the sides. They reached below his knees and their ends met the top of a pair of high, strong boots. He looked, as she put it to herself, ready for tramping those hills.

  His mother was saying to him, 'Are you bringing any down?' And he replied, 'Oh, no, not if the weather stays like this. The grass is lush in parts up there. But that's the trouble, the more lush patches they find the further afield they go, and I know I'll have to go well beyond the boundary of Philip's farm today. I hope they haven't strayed into the woodlands of the big house.'

  'Oh, they would never get that far.'

  'Have you forgotten last year, Ma, and Mr Gregory coming over those hills as quick as a bullet shot from a gun?'

  'Oh, yes. Yes, I forgot.' Then she said, 'Master Richard should soon be home now from his holiday.

  He went the beginning of June, didn't he?'

  'Yes, he did. But once Miss May and him get abroad in France, they forget to come back.'

  'It's the first time they've gone away so early. D'you miss him running with you?'

  'Yes. Yes, I suppose so. It's good to have companionship.

  But running is running, after all, and you run for running's sake. Anyway, I must run now, Ma, if I'm to see how they're faring.'

  There was a crackle in her laughter, and as he reached the door, she said, 'Have you got a good pack with you?

  It'll be cold up there, you know, no matter what it is down here.'

  'Shoulder of lamb and three pig's feet,' he said, laughing.

  Then he beckoned to Jinnie from the door of the scullery and, there, he said quickly, 'If you hear her groan, she'll be having a pain. In the left-hand side of the chest of drawers you'll find a bottle of pills. Give her one; then take her a mug of hot water. It helps to melt the tablet quickly. Understand?'

  'Yes. Yes. Is ... is she often bad?'

  'You never know; now and then. She keeps a lot to herself. But listen out for that moan. Oh,' he jerked his chin; 'you'll hear it all right. Now I don't know what time I'll be back; but it'll be late evening. Anyway, do what you can inside. Make some bread and that, my dad'll be seeing to the outside. And take that look off your face; there's nothin' goin' to happen to you.

  You'll find him different altogether this mornin'. Not very polite, perhaps, but you needn't be afraid of any

  repeat of last night. Understand?'

  'Yes.'

  'So long.'

  'So long.' . . .

  At about ten o'clock she was making her way to the hen run when, for the first time that day, she encountered the man who was her master. He seemed to be even smaller than he had appeared to be last night. And what she noticed right away, and hadn't taken in before, was that he limped. The thought came to her that likely this was the reason he did not go out with his son to see to the sheep. She waited until he was half-way up a short ladder before she said, 'Mister, missis says I've got to try my hand at a bacon and egg pie, and I have no eggs.'

  'Well, you know where to find them, don't you?'

  She was standing near the side of the ladder, and for a moment he looked down into her face, and she up into his. And she knew now why his wife had called him Pug, for his nose was definitely flat. Yet the rest of his face could have been pleasant, she decided, if his eyes hadn't been bleary. She was thinking of the event of last night when she knocked him on to his back with her forearm, and she was wondering if he too was recalling it. And she would have been surprised to know that he could indeed recall the whole event, for the amazement he felt had somewhat sobered him.

  Yet, looking at her now, he couldn't imagine she had the strength to knock him over.

  'Missis says there's tea on the hob.'

  When he didn't answer but went to step up on to another rung, she said, 'Could I bring you a can out?'

  And at this he turned on her sharply, saying, 'No you won't bring me a can out; if I want tea, I know where

  If to get it.'

  She stepped back from the ladder, her chin jerking now, then made her way towards the hen crees. She collected nine eggs from the boxes and when she returned to the kitchen, she said to her mistress, 'There were only nine. Some of the hens looked to me as if they are moulting. I used to feed the chickens at one time, in the house, and they never laid when they were moulting.'

  'Nine?' Rose Shaleman smiled and repeated, 'Nine?

  If you had been there a little earlier you might have found thirteen, or even fourteen. Raw eggs straight from the shell go a long way towards relieving a headache, especially after the sort of load he had on last night.'

  It seemed natural to Jinnie that her mistress should refer to her husband as 'he'.

  The rest of the morning passed pleasantly, with questions and answers, such as, how much pig's fat you should put in the flour to make the pastry? And was it to be thick or thin on the bottom plate?

  Having covered three large plates with her pastry, she was then instructed to cut from the ham twelve large thin slices, and to divide them with the eggs, among the three plates, and to cover each with pastry.

  As the oven would hold only two plates at any one time, the third had to wait its turn.

  Following this, her mistress guided her through the making of bread ... a different way altogether from that which the lady of the town had shown her.

  It was three o'clock in the afternoon before she took the last loaf and a number of bread buns out of the oven, and as she stood looking at the array of her efforts on the table, she smiled widely, and her smile was picked up by the woman in the bed. 'Well done, lass,' she said;

  'I couldn't have done better meself. Now do something else for me. Split open three of those bread buns and lather them with fat. Then cut a generous shive from one of your plates and put it on a platter and brew up a can of tea and take the lot out to himself. Will you do that?'

  'Yes, missis. Yes.'

  Although she had quickly agreed to the suggestion, she felt more than a little nervous as, the can in one hand and a large plate covered by a piece of clean white linen in the other, she approached the man who was now in the barn. And the sight of him brought a feeling of pity to her. He was sitting on a box and was sewing the side of a sack with string, using a large curved needle.

  Again they were looking at each other face to face, for now, seated, his head was almost on a level with hers.

  'Missis says, will you kindly taste these?' Jinnie said.

  He put out a hand and raised the cloth; then, dropping the cloth and picking up the can, he surprised her by saying, 'You gonna stay?'

  There was a long pause before she answered, 'If I can.'

  'You get on all right with the missis?'

  'Oh yes. Yes. Yes, we get on all right.'

  Again he was staring into her face. Now he asked
,

  'How old are you, really?'

  'Fourteen, coming up fifteen in three weeks' time; July twenty-first.'

  'You don't look it; not fourteen.'

  He again took the cloth off the plate and this time handed it to her. Then picking up the slice of bacon and egg pie, he bit into it. And she stood and watched him, waiting for a word of approval on her achievement.

  But what he said was, 'Come winter, it won't be as easy as now. Think on that. Everything's plummy in this weather, but come winter it'll change and you'll feel it an' all.' Again, he bit into the pie, and as she went to turn away, she said, 'Well, I hope I'm here to feel it, mister.

  Yes, yes, I do.' And on this she walked from the barn.

  She still felt sorry for him, but she didn't know why.

  And he hadn't said if he liked the pie or not. But then he wasn't Bruce, so he wouldn't say, would he? She realised she was looking forward to Bruce's return and to hearing his opinion of her day's work.

  But before Bruce came home they had another visitor.

  As she rounded the end of the building she was brought to a stop by the sight of a man dismounting from a large horse standing opposite the cottage door. She remained still while she watched him look around.

  On seeing her, he said, 'Oh . . . Good-afternoon.

  Is ... Is Bruce anywhere about?'

  She went quickly forward now, saying, 'He's . . .

  he's gone to see to the sheep, sir. But his father's in the stable,' and she thumbed over her right shoulder; then she added, 'But his mother's in the kitchen. She's

  . . . well, she's not . . .'

  'Yes, I know.'

  She now hurried forward and pushed open the cottage door then stepped aside to allow him to enter. But he came no further than the step, and from there he said,

  'Good afternoon, Mrs Shaleman.'

  'Oh, good afternoon to you, Master Richard. You're back then.'

  'Yes, I'm back.'

  'Have you enjoyed your holiday?'

  'Indeed, yes. It was a lovely time.'

  'Bruce'll be glad to know you're back, sir. He'll be up beyond the peak today.'

  'Oh, well, I'll ride that way. How are you feeling?'

  'Oh, not too bad, sir, not too bad.'

  He paused for some seconds before his eyes seemed to flicker about the room, and then he asked, 'Would you like some fruit sent up?'

  'Oh, it's very kind of you, sir, but that would be putting The House to a lot of trouble.'

  'No trouble at all. From what I could see in the gardens yesterday, much of the soft fruit is going bad

  for want of picking. Well, goodbye, Mrs Shaleman. If I shouldn't happen to come across Bruce, tell him I called and I'm ready for a run, will you?'

  'Oh, sir, surely you wouldn't want to be running in weather like this, unless you really had to.'

  'There's always the dawn, Mrs Shaleman. There's no sensation like running in the dawn, as your son only too

  well knows. Goodbye now. I'll be seeing you again.'

  'Goodbye, Master Richard. Goodbye, sir.'

  As he stepped into the road and walked towards his horse, Jinnie, closing the door behind her, stood looking after him. She had never seen anyone so thin.

  Bruce was thin, but this young man was thinner still.

  He had a lovely skin. His face was deeply tanned and the colour merged with his eyes, which were a darker brown still. She was thinking that his liking for running must have taken all the fat off his bones, when he turned about and said, 'You're new here?'

  'Yes, mister . . . sir.'

  He was about to put his foot into the stirrup when he hesitated and, as if the thought had just struck him, asked, 'You are a relation?'

  'Oh, no, sir.' She shook her head quickly. 'No, not me. I'm no relation, I'm . . .' She could not say, I'm from the house. It was too deprecating, too lowering, as she put it; you were always known as a pauper if you came from the house. She'd heard that often enough, and she was determined that she wasn't ever going to be a pauper, because that meant not having enough money to look after yourself and keep away from the house.

  And wasn't that another funny thing? It must have been this gentleman's home to which the missis was referring when she mentioned The House. She hadn't said Manor House or Hall, just The House.

  He had mounted his horse before he spoke again, and then it was a statement. 'You are engaged here to work, then?'

  'Yes, sir, to work, cook, like, and clean and look after Mrs Shaleman.'

  It looked as if he were about to shake his head, but he smiled at her and said, 'Well, see that you work hard;'

  then he pressed his heel into the horse's flank and it moved off. And she moved from the door to stand in the middle of the rough stone path, watching him until I he disappeared round the curve of a hill, her thoughts tumbling over each other. Fancy him coming to look up Mr Bruce! As nice as Mr Bruce was, she had told herself before that he was no gentleman, not in that sense. But the rider just gone, he was a gentleman

  all right. Yet he was so thin. It was a good job he wasn't over-tall, else he would look like a lamp post.

  Fancy him actually calling here, though, for it was "a poor enough place, inside and out. Everything in that room was made of wood, one way or another, except for the iron stove, of course. And it must be some long time since the rough brick walls had been lime-washed.

  As for the outside, as far as she could see nothing could be done to alter its appearance as something little more than a hovel set in a plain of rugged, sparse grassland.

  Why any man should want to build on a piece of land like this, she could not understand. Shale they called it. And that's where his family got its name from, she supposed: Shaleman. Miss Caplin once said that all names sprang from places and things.

  'Jinnie.'

  She turned quickly about and opened the kitchen door and rushed in, saying, 'Yes, missis? Yes, missis?'

  'Why were you standing there like a stook? I could see you through the window. Were you so surprised at the gentry deigning to call on the likes of us?'

  'No, missis. No. Only, he is so thin.'

  'Thin?'

  'Yes; that's what struck me about him; he is very thin.' She laughed softly now. 'It made me think. In the Bible it says that a rich man hasn't any chance of getting into heaven, no more than a camel getting through the eye of a needle.'

  'Oh, you tell that one to Bruce and he'll explain to you all about that eye of a needle. They were, I think, referring to the eye of a farm needle that pins down the cover on the huge haystacks. It was the size of a man himself.'

  'Really? No funnin'?'

  'No funnin', really.'

  The woman in the bed was laughing now, but the sound she was making ceased suddenly and her face became straight. 'Come here, lass,' she said holding out her hand.

  When Jinnie stood by the bedside the woman took her hand and, looking into her face, said, 'Tell me truly, was it only yesterday you came into this house?'

  Jinnie was smiling softly now as she answered, 'Yes, missis, it was only yesterday. But to me I seem to have been here a long time.'

  'Yes, lass, yes, a long time, because I'll tell you something: you brought something to it. I don't know what it is, but you brought something to it.'

  'Well, missis, it won't be bad, 'cos I never wish anyone bad.' Her head drooped now. 'Oh yes, I did,' she now confessed, 'and I still do in a way.'

  'Who d'you wish bad on, lass?'

  The voice was a murmur as she said, The last mistress.'

  The hand was dropped, and now the fingers came under her chin and jerked her head upwards and Rose Shaleman asked in surprise, 'You hated your last mistress?

  What for?'

  ' 'Cos . . . 'cos she lied about her man. Her man tried to handle me and I went at him like . . . like I did last night.' The head was inclined to droop again but the fingers kept it up. 'But she swore, the mistress, and said it was me who made what she called advances to her
husband when he was having a nap. She even came to the house,' and as if to differentiate between the two houses she added, 'the workhouse, and told the matron and the only people who didn't believe her were Miss Caplin and Max.'

  'Max?'

  'Yes, he's the man who brought me on the cart. He's a good man. Very, very big. He's always been on my side.

  He looked after me when he could.'

  'Is he an old man?'

  'Oh no, no. I don't know. He's aged, I should think, about thirty.'

  Aged . . . about thirty. The woman was smiling now, saying, 'Well, lass, I'm going to tell you something.

  Here's another one that believes you. Did you leave a mark on him? Because you nearly left a mark on my man last night.'

  'Yes, I did. I dug my fingers in his neck, because he just had a night-shirt on. But then he wore high stiff collars during the day.'

  Rose Shaleman lay back on her pillows now, and again the eiderdown was moving up and down quickly as she said, 'Well, lass, the next one that lays a hand on you

  in that way . . . the wrong way, you know, you leave the mark where it can be seen. Eh?'

  'Yes, I will, missis, I will.' The laughter now trailed off from her voice as she muttered, 'I don't like to be touched, I mean, handled. Max never handled me. I

  ... I never knew you could be handled until I went to that place.'

  The woman was nodding her head now, and her face was solemn as she said, 'Well, prepare yourself, lass, 'cos I can promise you this; you'll be handled a lot in your lifetime whether you like it or not. I think you've got something about you that'll make men want to handle you in one way or another. But let's pray that the majority of the handling will come in a good way, eh?'

  Jinnie was some time in agreeing with this and then, with a puzzled expression on her face, she said, 'Aye, missis. Aye.'

  'Well now--' changing the conversation abruptly, Mrs Shaleman said, 'there'll be somebody glad to know Mister Richard's back. And that'll be our Bruce. He's missed him; he always does.'

  'Is he the one he goes running with?' There was surprise in Jinnie's tone, and some pride in her mistress's as she answered, 'Go running with him? Yes, he does, and has done for many a year, ever since he got back on his legs. Oh--' And now the woman closed her eyes and jerked her head before she explained, 'Well, you see, it was like this. I know it must seem strange to you, a fella like our Bruce, and mind' - the ringer was digging at her now - 'there's not a better or straighter fella than my son. Yet, I'm sensible enough to know there's gulfs all over the world. There's a lot of them in this neck of the woods, and they separate people. And it's surprised more than you that my lad goes running with the son of The House. But they owe my lad more than they can pay. You see, it should happen that the young lad, home from his boarding school, was lost one night. The horse goes home, but there's no Master Richard on it.