Lark Rise to Candleford (13 page)

Queenie's ideal of happiness was to have a pound a week
coming in. 'If I had a pound a week,' she would say, 'I 'udn't care if it
rained hatchets and hammers.' Laura's mother longed for thirty shillings a
week, and would say, 'If I could depend on thirty shillings, regular, I could
keep you all so nice and tidy, and keep such a table!'

Queenie's income fell far short of even half of the pound a
week she dreamed of, for her husband, Twister, was what was known in the hamlet
as 'a slack-twisted sort o' chap', one who 'whatever he died on, 'uldn't kill
hisself wi' hard work'. He was fond of a bit of sport and always managed to get
taken on as a beater at shoots, and took care never to have a job on hand when
hounds were meeting in the neighbourhood. Best of all, he liked to go round
with one of the brewers' travellers, perched precariously on the back seat of
the high dogcart, to open and shut the gates they had to pass through and to
hold the horse outside public houses. But, although he had retired from regular
farm labour on account of age and chronic rheumatism, he still went to the farm
and lent a hand when he had nothing more exciting to do. The farmer must have
liked him, for he had given orders that whenever Twister was working about the
farmstead he was to have a daily half-pint on demand. That half-pint was the
salvation of Queenie's housekeeping, for, in spite of his varied interests,
there were many days when Twister must either work or thirst.

He was a small, thin-legged, jackdaw-eyed old fellow, and
dressed in an old velveteen coat that had once belonged to a gamekeeper, with a
peacock's feather stuck in the band of his battered old bowler and a red-and-yellow
neckerchief knotted under one ear. The neckerchief was a relic of the days when
he had taken baskets of nuts to fairs, and, taking up his stand among the
booths and roundabouts, had shouted: 'Bassalonies big as ponies!' until his
throat felt dry. Then he had adjourned to the nearest public house and spent
his takings and distributed the rest of his stock, gratis. That venture soon
came to an end for want of capital.

To serve his own purposes, Twister would sometimes pose as a
half-wit; but, as the children's father said, he was no fool where his own interests
were concerned. He was ready at any time to clown in public for the sake of a
pint of beer; but at home he was morose—one of those people who 'hang their
fiddle up at the door when they go home', as the saying went there.

But in old age Queenie had him well in hand. He knew that he
had to produce at least a few shillings on Saturday night, or, when Sunday dinner-time
came, Queenie would spread the bare cloth on the table and they would just have
to sit down and look at each other; there would be no food.

Forty-five years before she had served him with a dish even
less to his taste. He had got drunk and beaten her cruelly with the strap with
which he used to keep up his trousers. Poor Queenie had gone to bed sobbing; but
she was not too overcome to think, and she decided to try an old country cure
for such offences.

The next morning when he came to dress, his strap was
missing. Probably already ashamed of himself, he said nothing, but hitched up
his trousers with string and slunk off to work, leaving Queenie apparently
still asleep.

At night, when he came home to tea, a handsome pie was placed
before him, baked a beautiful golden-brown and with a pastry tulip on the top; such
a pie as must have seemed to him to illustrate the old saying: '
A woman, a
dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat 'em the better they be
.'

'You cut it, Tom,' said a smiling Queenie. 'I made it
a-purpose for you. Come, don't 'ee be afraid on it. 'Tis all for you.' And she
turned her back and pretended to be hunting for something in the cupboard.

Tom cut it; then recoiled, for, curled up inside, was the
leather strap with which he had beaten his wife. 'A just went as white as a
ghoo-ost, an' got up an' went out,' said Queenie all those years later. 'But it
cured 'en, it cured 'en, for's not so much as laid a finger on me from that day
to this!'

Perhaps Twister's clowning was not all affected; for, in
later years, he became a little mad and took to walking about talking to
himself, with a large, open clasp-knife in his hand. Nobody thought of getting
a doctor to examine him; but everybody in the hamlet suddenly became very
polite to him.

It was at this time he gave the children's mother the fright
of her life. She had gone out to hang out some clothes in the garden, leaving one
of her younger children alone, asleep in his cradle. When she came back,
Twister was stooping over the child with his head inside the hood of the
cradle, completely hiding the babe from her sight. As she rushed forward, fearing
the worst, the poor, silly old man looked up at her with his eyes full of
tears. 'Ain't 'ee like little Jesus? Ain't 'ee just like little Jesus?' he
said, and the little baby of two months woke up at that moment and smiled. It
was the first time he had been known to smile.

But Twister's exploits did not always end as happily. He had
begun to torture animals and was showing an inclination to turn nudist, and people
were telling Queenie he ought to be 'put away' when the great snowstorm came.
For days the hamlet was cut off from the outer world by great drifts which
filled the narrow hamlet road to the tops of the hedges in places. In digging a
way out they found a cart with the horse still between the shafts and still
alive; but there was no trace of the boy who was known to have been in charge.
Men, women, and children turned out to dig, expecting to find a dead body, and
Twister was one of the foremost amongst them. They said he worked then as he
had never worked before in his life; his strength and energy were marvellous.
They did not find the boy, alive or dead, for the very good reason that he had,
at the height of the storm, deserted the cart, forgotten the horse, and
scrambled across country to his home in another village; but poor old Twister
got pneumonia and was dead within a fortnight.

On the evening of the day he died, Edmund was round at the
back of the end house banking up his rabbit-hutches with straw for the night,
when he saw Queenie come out of her door and go towards her beehives. For some
reason or other, Edmund followed her. She tapped on the roof of each hive in
turn, like knocking at a door, and said, '
Bees, bees, your master's dead,
an' now you must work for your missis
.' Then, seeing the little boy, she
explained: 'I 'ad to tell 'em, you know, or they'd all've died, poor craturs.'
So Edmund really heard bees seriously told of a death.

Afterwards, with parish relief and a little help here and
there from her children and friends, Queenie managed to live. Her chief
difficulty was to get her ounce of snuff a week, and that was the one thing she
could not do without; it was as necessary to her as tobacco is to a smoker.

All the women over fifty took snuff. It was the one luxury in
their hard lives. 'I couldn't do wi'out my pinch o' snuff,' they used to say.
"Tis meat an' drink to me,' and, tapping the sides of their snuffboxes,
''Ave a pinch, me dear.'

Most of the younger women pulled a face of disgust as they
refused the invitation, for snuff-taking had gone out of fashion and was looked
upon as a dirty habit; but Laura's mother would dip her thumb and forefinger into
the box and sniff at them delicately, 'for manners' sake', as she said.
Queenie's snuffbox had a picture of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on
the lid. Sometimes, when every grain of the powder was gone, she would sniff at
the empty box and say, 'Ah! That's better. The ghost o' good snuff's better nor
nothin'.'

She still had one great day every year, when, every autumn,
the dealer came to purchase the produce of her beehives. Then, in her pantry doorway,
a large muslin bag was suspended to drain the honey from the broken pieces of
comb into a large, red pan which stood beneath, while, on her doorstep, the end
house children waited to see 'the honeyman' carry out and weigh the whole
combs. One year—one never-to-be-forgotten year—he had handed to each of them a
rich, dripping fragment of comb. He never did it again; but they always waited,
for the hope was almost as sweet as the honey.

There had been, when Laura was small, one bachelor's
establishment near her home. This had belonged to 'the Major', who, as his
nickname denoted, had been in the Army. He had served in many lands and then returned
to his native place to set up house and do for himself in a neat, orderly, soldier-like
manner. All went well until he became old and feeble. Even then, for some
years, he struggled on alone in his little home, for he had a small pension.
Then he was ill and spent some weeks in Oxford Infirmary. Before he went there,
as he had no relatives or special friends, Laura's mother nursed him and helped
him to get together the few necessities he had to take with him. She would have
visited him at the hospital had it been possible; but money was scarce and her
children were too young to be left, so she wrote him a few letters and sent him
the newspaper every week. It was, as she said, 'the least anybody could do for
the poor old fellow'. But the Major had seen the world and knew its ways and he
did not take such small kindnesses as a matter of course.

He came home from the hospital late one Saturday night, after
the children were in bed, and, next morning, Laura, waking at early dawn, thought
she saw some strange object on her pillow. She dozed and woke again. It was
still there. A small wooden box. She sat up in bed and opened it. Inside was a
set of doll's dishes with painted wax food upon them—chops and green peas and
new potatoes, and a jam tart with criss-cross pastry. Where could it have come
from? It was not Christmas or her birthday. Then Edmund awoke and called out he
had found an engine. It was a tiny tin engine, perhaps a penny one, but his
delight was unbounded. Then Mother came into their room and said that the Major
had brought the presents from Oxford. She had a little red silk handkerchief,
such as were worn inside the coat-collar at that time for extra warmth. It was
before fur collars were thought of. Father had a pipe and the baby a rattle. It
was amazing. To be thought of! To be brought presents, and such presents, by
one who was not even a relative! The good, kind Major was in no danger of being
forgotten by the family at the end house. Mother made his bed and tidied his
room, and Laura was sent with covered plates whenever there was anything
special for dinner. She would knock at his door and go in and say in her demure
little way, 'Please, Mr. Sharman, Mother says could you fancy a little of so-and-so?'

But the Major was too old and ill to be able to live alone
much longer, even with such help as the children's mother and other kind
neighbours could give. The day came when the doctor called in the relieving officer.
The old man was seriously ill; he had no relatives. There was only one place
where he could be properly looked after, and that was the workhouse infirmary.
They were right in their decision. He was not able to look after himself; he
had no relatives or friends able to undertake the responsibility; the workhouse
was
the best place for him. But they made one terrible mistake. They
were dealing with a man of intelligence and spirit, and they treated him as
they might have done one in the extreme of senile decay. They did not consult
him or tell him what they had decided; but ordered the carrier's cart to call
at his house the next morning and wait at a short distance while they, in the
doctor's gig, drove up to his door. When they entered, the Major had just
dressed and dragged himself to his chair by the fire. 'It's a nice morning, and
we've come to take you for a drive,' announced the doctor cheerfully, and, in
spite of his protests, they hustled on his coat and had him out and in the
carrier's cart in a very few minutes.

Laura saw the carrier touch up his horse with the whip and
the cart turn, and she always wished afterwards she had not, for, as soon as he
realized where he was being taken, the old soldier, the independent old bachelor,
the kind family friend, collapsed and cried like a child. He was beaten. But
not for long. Before six weeks were over he was back in the parish and all his
troubles were over, for he came in his coffin.

As he had no relatives to be informed, the time appointed for
his funeral was not known in the hamlet, or no doubt a few of his old neighbours
would have gathered in the churchyard. As it was, Laura, standing back among
the graves, a milk-can in her hand, was the only spectator, and that quite by
chance. No mourner followed the coffin into the church, and she was far too shy
to come forward; but when it was brought out and carried towards the open grave
it was no longer unaccompanied, for the clergyman's middle-aged daughter walked
behind it, an open prayer-book in her hand and an expression of gentle pity in her
eyes. She could barely have known him in life, for he was not a church-goer;
but she had seen the solitary coffin arrive and had hurried across from her
home to the church that he might at least have one fellow human being to say
'Farewell' to him. In after years, when Laura heard her spoken of slightingly,
and, indeed, often felt irritated herself by her interfering ways, she thought
of that graceful action.

The children's grandparents lived in a funny little house out
in the fields. It was a round house, tapering off at the top, so there were two
rooms downstairs and only one—and that a kind of a loft, with a sloping ceiling—above
them. The garden did not adjoin the house, but was shut away between high
hedges on the other side of the cart track which led to it. It was full of
currant and gooseberry bushes, raspberry canes, and old hardy flowers run wild,
almost solid with greenery, for, since the gardener had grown old and stiff in
the joints, he had not been able to do much pruning or trimming. There Laura
spent many happy hours, supposed to be picking fruit for jam, but for the
better part of the time reading or dreaming. One corner, overhung by a damson
tree and walled in with bushes and flowers, she called her 'green study'.