Lark Rise to Candleford (17 page)

Some of the imported books had their original owner's
book-plate, or an inscription in faded copper-plate handwriting inside the
covers, while the family ones, in a ruder hand, would proclaim:

George Welby, his book:

Give me grace therein to look,

And not only to look, but to understand,

For learning is better than houses and land

When land is lost and money spent

Then learning is most excellent.

Or:

George Welby is my name,

England is my nation,

Lark Rise is my dwelling place

And Christ is my salvation.

When I am dead and in my grave

And all my bones are rotten,

Take this book and think of me

And mind I'm not forgotten.

Another favourite inscription was the warning:

Steal not this book for fear of shame,

For in it doth stand the owner's name,

And at the last day God will say

'Where is that book you stole away?'

And if you say, 'I cannot tell'

He'll say, 'Thou cursed, go to hell.'

All or any of these books were freely lent, for none of the
owners wanted to read them. The women had their novelettes, and it took the men
all their time to get through their Sunday newspapers, one of which came into
almost every house, either by purchase or borrowing. The
Weekly Despatch
,
Reynolds's News
, and
Lloyd's News
were their favourites, though a
few remained faithful to that fine old local newspaper, the
Bicester Herald
.

Laura's father, as well as his
Weekly Despatch
, took
the
Carpenter and Builder
, through which the children got their first
introduction to Shakespeare, for there was a controversy in it as to Hamlet's
words, 'I know a hawk from a handsaw'. It appeared that some scholar had
suggested that it should read, 'I know a hawk from a heron, pshaw!' and the carpenters
and builders were up in arms. Of course, the hawk was the mason's and
plasterer's tool of that name, and the handsaw was just a handsaw. Although
that line and a few extracts that she afterwards found in the school readers
were all that Laura was to know of Shakespeare's works for some time, she sided
warmly with the carpenters and builders, and her mother, when appealed to,
agreed, for she said 'that heron, pshaw!' certainly sounded a bit left-handed.

While the novelette readers, who represented the genteel
section of the community, were enjoying their tea, there would be livelier
gatherings at another of the cottages. The hostess, Caroline Arless, was at
that time about forty-five, and a tall, fine, upstanding woman with flashing dark
eyes, hair like crinkled black wire, and cheeks the colour of a ripe apricot.
She was not a native of the hamlet, but had come there as a bride, and it was
said that she had gipsy blood in her.

Although she was herself a grandmother, she still produced a
child of her own every eighteen months or so, a proceeding regarded as bad form
in the hamlet, for the saying ran, 'When the young 'uns begin, 'tie time for
the old 'uns to finish.' But Mrs. Arless recognized no rules, excepting those
of Nature. She welcomed each new arrival, cared for it tenderly while it was
helpless, swept it out of doors to play as soon as it could toddle, to school
at three, and to work at ten or eleven. Some of the girls married at seventeen
and the boys at nineteen or twenty.

Ways and means did not trouble her. Husband and sons at work
'brassed up' on Friday nights, and daughters in service sent home at least half
of their wages. One night she would fry steak and onions for supper and make
the hamlet's mouth water; another night there would be nothing but bread and
lard on her table. When she had money she spent it, and when she had none she
got things on credit or went without. 'I shall feather the foam,' she used to
say. 'I have before an' I shall again, and what's the good of worrying.' She always
did manage to feather it, and usually to have a few coppers in her pocket as
well, although she was known to be deeply in debt. When she received a postal
order from one of her daughters she would say to any one who happened to be
standing by when she opened the letter, 'I be-ant goin' to squander this bit o'
money in paying me debts.'

Her idea of wise spending was to call in a few neighbours of
like mind, seat them round a roaring fire, and despatch one of her toddlers to
the inn with the beer can. They none of them got drunk, or even fuddled, for there
was not very much each, even when the can went round to the inn a second or a
third time. But there was just enough to hearten them up and make them forget
their troubles; and the talk and laughter and scraps of song which floated on
the air from 'that there Mrs. Arless's house' were shocking to the more sedate
matrons. Nobody crooked their finger round the handle of a teacup or 'talked genteel'
at Mrs. Arless's gatherings, herself least of all. She was so charged with sex
vitality that with her all subjects of conversation led to it—not in its filthy
or furtive aspects, but as the one great central fact of life.

Yet no one could dislike Mrs. Arless, however much she might
offend their taste and sense of fitness. She was so full of life and vigour and
so overflowing with good nature that she would force anything she had upon any
one she thought needed it, regardless of the fact that it was not and never
would be paid for. She knew the inside of a County Court well, and made no
secret of her knowledge, for a County Court summons was to her but an
invitation to a day's outing from which she would return victorious, having
persuaded the judge that she was a model wife and mother who only got into debt
because her family was so large and she herself was so generous. It was her
creditor who retired discomfited.

Another woman who lived in the hamlet and yet stood somewhat
aside from its ordinary life was Hannah Ashley. She was the daughter-in-law of
the old Methodist who drove the breast plough, and she and her husband were also
Methodists. She was a little brown mouse of a woman who took no part in the
hamlet gossip or the hamlet disputes. Indeed, she was seldom seen on weekdays,
for her cottage stood somewhat apart from the others and had its own well in
the garden. But on Sunday evenings her house was used as a Methodist meeting
place, and then all her week-day reserve was put aside and all who cared to
come were made welcome. As she listened to the preacher, or joined in the hymns
and prayers, she would look round on the tiny congregation, and those whose
eyes met hers would see such a glow of love in them that they could never again
think, much less say, ill of her, beyond 'Well, she's a Methody', as though
that explained and excused anything strange about her.

These younger Ashleys had one child, a son, about Edmund's
age, and the children at the end house sometimes played with him. When Laura
called at his home for him one Saturday morning she saw a picture which stamped
itself upon her mind for life. It was the hour when every other house in the
hamlet was being turned inside out for the Saturday cleaning. The older
children, home from school, were running in and out of their homes, or
quarrelling over their games outside. Mothers were scolding and babies were
crying during the process of being rolled in their shawls for an outing on the
arm of an older sister. It was the kind of day Laura detested, for there was no
corner indoors for her and her book, and outside she was in danger of being
dragged into games that either pulled her to pieces or bored her.

Inside Freddy Ashley's home all was peace and quiet and
spotless purity. The walls were freshly whitewashed, the table and board floor
were scrubbed to a pale straw colour, the beautifully polished grate glowed crimson,
for the oven was being heated, and placed half-way over the table was a snowy
cloth with paste-board and rolling-pin upon it. Freddy was helping his mother
make biscuits, cutting the pastry she had rolled into shapes with a little tin
cutter. Their two faces, both so plain and yet so pleasant, were close together
above the pasteboard, and their two voices as they bade Laura come in and sit
by the fire sounded like angels' voices after the tumult outside.

It was a brief glimpse into a different world from the one
she was accustomed to, but the picture remained with her as something quiet and
pure and lovely. She thought that the home at Nazareth must have been something
like Freddy's.

The women never worked in the vegetable gardens or on the
allotments, even when they had their children off hand and had plenty of spare
time, for there was a strict division of labour and that was 'men's work'. Victorian
ideas, too, had penetrated to some extent, and any work outside the home was
considered unwomanly. But even that code permitted a woman to cultivate a
flower garden, and most of the houses had at least a narrow border beside the
pathway. As no money could be spared for seeds or plants, they had to depend
upon roots and cuttings given by their neighbours, and there was little
variety; but they grew all the sweet old-fashioned cottage garden flowers,
pinks and sweet williams and love-in-a-mist, wallflowers and forget-me-nots in
spring and hollyhocks and Michaelmas daisies in autumn. Then there were
lavender and sweetbriar bushes, and southernwood, sometimes called 'lad's
love', but known there as 'old man'.

Almost every garden had its rose bush; but there were no
coloured roses amongst them. Only Old Sally had those; the other people had to
be content with that meek, old-fashioned white rose with a pink flush at the
heart known as the 'maiden's blush'. Laura used to wonder who had imported the
first bush, for evidently slips of it had been handed round from house to
house.

As well as their flower garden, the women cultivated a herb
corner, stocked with thyme and parsley and sage for cooking, rosemary to
flavour the home-made lard, lavender to scent the best clothes, and peppermint,
pennyroyal, horehound, camomile, tansy, balm, and rue for physic. They made a
good deal of camomile tea, which they drank freely to ward off colds, to soothe
the nerves, and as a general tonic. A large jug of this was always prepared and
stood ready for heating up after confinements. The horehound was used with
honey in a preparation to be taken for sore throats and colds on the chest. Peppermint
tea was made rather as a luxury than a medicine; it was brought out on special
occasions and drunk from wine-glasses; and the women had a private use for the pennyroyal,
though, judging from appearances, it was not very effective.

As well as the garden herbs, still in general use, some of
the older women used wild ones, which they gathered in their seasons and dried.
But the knowledge and use of these was dying out; most people depended upon
their garden stock. Yarrow, or milleflower, was an exception; everybody still
gathered that in large quantities to make 'yarb beer'. Gallons of this were
brewed and taken to work in their tea cans by the men and stood aside in the
pantry for the mother and children to drink whenever thirsty. The finest yarrow
grew beside the turnpike, and in dry weather the whole plant became so
saturated with white dust that the beer, when brewed, had a milky tinge. If the
children remarked on this they were told, 'Us've all got to eat a peck o' dust
before we dies, an' it'll slip down easy in this good yarb beer.'

The children at the end house used to wonder how they would
ever obtain their peck of dust, for their mother was fastidiously particular.
Such things as lettuce and watercress she washed in three waters, instead of giving
them the dip and shake considered sufficient by most other people. Watercress
had almost to be washed away, because of the story of the man who had swallowed
a tadpole which had grown to a full-sized frog in his stomach. There was an
abundance of watercress to be had for the picking, and a good deal of it was
eaten in the spring, before it got tough and people got tired of it. Perhaps
they owed much of their good health to such food.

All kinds of home-made wines were brewed by all but the
poorest. Sloes and blackberries and elderberries could be picked from the
hedgerows, dandelions and coltsfoot and cowslips from the fields, and the
garden provided rhubarb, currants and gooseberries and parsnips. Jam was made from
garden and hedgerow fruit. This had to be made over an open fire and needed
great care in the making; but the result was generally good—too good, the women
said, for the jam disappeared too soon. Some notable housewives made jelly.
Crab-apple jelly was a speciality at the end house. Crab-apple trees abounded
in the hedgerows and the children knew just where to go for red crabs,
red-and-yellow streaked crabs, or crabs which hung like ropes of green onions
on the branches.

It seemed to Laura a miracle when a basket of these, with
nothing but sugar and water added, turned into jelly as clear and bright as a
ruby. She did not take into account the long stewing, tedious straining, and careful
measuring, boiling up and clarifying that went to the filling of the row of
glass jars which cast a glow of red light on the whitewash at the back of the
pantry shelf.

A quickly made delicacy was cowslip tea. This was made by
picking the golden pips from a handful of cowslips, pouring boiling water over
them, and letting the tea stand a few minutes to infuse. It could then be drunk
either with or without sugar as preferred.

Cowslip balls were made for the children. These were
fashioned by taking a great fragrant handful of the flowers, tying the stalks
tightly with string, and pulling down the blooms to cover the stems. The bunch
was then almost round, and made the loveliest ball imaginable.

Some of the older people who kept bees made mead, known there
as 'metheglin'. It was a drink almost superstitiously esteemed, and the offer
of a glass was regarded as a great compliment. Those who made it liked to make
a little mystery of the process; but it was really very simple. Three pounds of
honey were allowed to every gallon of spring water. This had to be running
spring water, and was obtained from a place in the brook where the water
bubbled up; never from the well. The honey and water were boiled together, and
skimmed and strained and worked with a little yeast; then kept in a barrel for
six months, when the metheglin was ready for bottling.