Lark Rise to Candleford (20 page)

But there were scarcely any offers. A woman here and there
would give threepence for a large pudding-basin or sixpence for a tin saucepan.
The children's mother bought a penny nutmeg-grater and a set of wooden spoons
for cooking; the innkeeper's wife ran to a dozen tumblers and a ball of string;
then there was a long pause during which the vendor kept up a continual stream
of jokes and anecdotes which sent his audience into fits of laughter. Once he
broke into song:

There was a man in his garden walked

And cut his throat with a lump of chalk;

His wife, she knew not what she did,

She strangled herself with the saucepan lid.

There was a man and a fine young fellow

Who poisoned himself with an umbrella.

Even Joey in his cradle shot himself dead with a silver ladle.

When you hear this horrible tale

It makes your faces all turn pale,

Your eyes go green, you're overcome,

So tweedle, tweedle, tweedle twum.

All very fine entertainment; but it brought him no money and
he began to suspect that he would draw a blank at Lark Rise.

'Never let it be said,' he implored, 'that this is the poverty-strickenist
place on God's earth. Buy something, if only for your own credit's sake. Here!'
snatching up a pile of odd plates. 'Good dinner-plates for you. Every one a
left-over from a first-class service. Buy one of these and you'll have the
satisfaction of knowing you're eating off the same ware as lords and dukes.
Only three-halfpence each. Who'll buy? Who'll buy?'

There was a scramble for the plates, for nearly every one
could muster three-halfpence; but every time anything more costly was produced
there was dead silence. Some of the women began to feel uncomfortable. 'Don't be
poor and look poor, too' was their motto, and here they were looking poor indeed,
for who, with money in their pockets, could have resisted such wonderful
bargains.

Then the glorious unexpected happened. The man had brought
the pink rose tea-service forward again and was handing one of the cups round.
'You just look at the light through it—and you, ma'am—and you. Ain't it lovely
china, thin as an eggshell, practically transparent, and with every one of them
roses hand-painted with a brush? You can't let a set like that go out of the
place, now can you? I can see all your mouths a-watering. You run home, my
dears, and bring out them stockings from under the mattress and the first one
to get back shall have it for twelve bob.'

Each woman in turn handled the cup lovingly, then shook her
head and passed it on. None of them had stockings of savings hidden away. But, just
as the man was receiving back the cup, a little roughly, for he was getting
discouraged, a voice spoke up in the background.

'How much did you say, mister? Twelve bob? I'll give you ten.'
It was John Price, who, only the night before, had returned from his soldiering
in India. A very ordinary sort of chap at most times, for he was a teetotaller
and stood no drinks at the inn, as a returned soldier should have done; but
now, suddenly, he became important. All eyes were upon him. The credit of the
hamlet was at stake.

'I'll give you ten bob.'

'Can't be done, matey. Cost me more nor that. But, look see,
tell you what I will do. You give me eleven and six and I'll throw in this handsome
silver-gilt vase for your mantelpiece.'

'Done!' The bargain was concluded; the money changed hands,
and the reputation of the hamlet was rehabilitated. Willing hands helped John carry
the tea-service to his home. Indeed, it was considered an honour to be trusted
with a cup. His bride-to-be was still away in service and little knew how many
were envying her that night. To have such a lovely service awaiting her return,
no cracked or odd pieces, every piece alike and all so lovely; lucky, lucky,
Lucy! But though they could not help envying her a little, they shared in her
triumph, for surely such a purchase must shed a glow of reflected prosperity on
the whole hamlet. Though it might not be convenient to all of them to buy very
much on that particular night, the man must see there was a bit of money in the
place and folks who knew how to spend it.

What came after was anti-climax, and yet very pleasant from
the end house children's point of view. A set of pretty little dishes, suitable
for holding jam, butter or fruit, according to size, was being exhibited. The
price had gone down from half a crown to a shilling without response, when once
more a voice spoke up in the background. 'Pass them over, please. I expect my
wife can find a use for them,' and, behold, it was the children's father who
had halted on his way home from work to see what the lights and the crowd
meant.

Perhaps in all the man took a pound that night, which was
fifteen shillings more than any one could have foretold; but it was not sufficient
to tempt him to come again, and thenceforth the year was dated as 'that time
the cheap-jack came'.

A familiar sight at Lark Rise was that of a young girl—any
young girl between ten and thirteen—pushing one of the two perambulators in the
hamlet round the Rise with a smallish-sized, oak clothes box with black handles
lashed to the seat. Those not already informed who met her would read the signs
and inquire: 'How is your mother'—or your sister or your aunt—'getting on?' and
she, well-primed, would answer demurely, 'As well as can be expected under the
circumstances, thank you, Mrs. So-and-So.'

She had been to the Rectory for THE BOX, which appeared
almost simultaneously with every new baby, and a gruelling time she would have had
pushing her load the mile and a half and, at the same time, keeping it from
slipping from its narrow perch. But, very soon, such small drawbacks would be
forgotten in the pleasure of seeing it unpacked. It contained half a dozen of
everything—tiny shirts, swathes, long flannel barrows, nighties, and napkins,
made, kept in repair, and lent for every confinement by the clergyman's
daughter. In addition to the loaned clothes, it would contain, as a gift,
packets of tea and sugar and a tin of patent groats for making gruel.

The box was a popular institution. Any farm labourer's wife,
whether she attended church or not, was made welcome to the loan of it. It
appeared in most of the cottages at regular intervals and seemed to the
children as much a feature of family life as the new babies. It was so
constantly in demand that it had to have an understudy, known as 'the second-best
box', altogether inferior, which fell to the lot of those careless matrons who
had neglected to bespeak the loan the moment they 'knew their luck again'.

The boxes were supposed to be returned at the end of a month
with the clothes freshly laundered; but, if no one else required them, an extension
could be had, and many mothers were allowed to keep their box until, at six or
seven weeks old, the baby was big enough to be put into short clothes; so saving
them the cost of preparing a layette other than the one set of clothes got
ready for the infant's arrival. Even that might be borrowed. The stock at the
end house was several times called for in what, by a polite fiction, passed as
an emergency. Other women had their own baby clothes, beautifully sewn and
laundered; but there was scarcely one who did not require the clothes in the
box to supplement them. For some reason or other, the box was never allowed to go
out until the baby had arrived.

The little garments on loan were all good quality and nicely
trimmed with embroidery and hand tucking. The clergyman's daughter also kept
two christening robes to lend to the mothers, and made a new frock, as a gift,
for every baby's 'shortening'. Summer or winter, these little frocks were made
of flowered print, blue for the boys and pink for the girls, and every one of
the tiny, strong stitches in them were done by her own hands. She got little
credit for this. The mothers, like the children, looked upon the small
garments, both loaned and given, as a provision of Nature. Indeed, they were
rather inclined to criticize. One woman ripped off the deep flounce of old
Buckinghamshire lace from the second-best christening robe and substituted a
frill of coarse, machine-made embroidery, saying she was not going to take her
child to church 'trigged out' in that old-fashioned trash. As she had not
troubled to unpick the stitches, the lace was torn beyond repair, and the gown ever
after was decidedly second-best, for the best one was the old Rectory family
christening robe and made of the finest lawn, tucked and inserted all over with
real Valenciennes.

When the hamlet babies arrived, they found good clothes
awaiting them, and the best of all nourishment—Nature's own. The mothers did
not fare so well. It was the fashion at that time to keep maternity patients on
low diet for the first three days, and the hamlet women found no difficulty in
following this régime; water gruel, dry toast, and weak tea was their menu.
When the time came for more nourishing diet, the parson's daughter made for
every patient one large sago pudding, followed up by a jug of veal broth. After
these were consumed they returned to their ordinary food, with a half-pint of
stout a day for those who could afford it. No milk was taken, and yet their own
milk supply was abundant. Once, when a bottle-fed baby was brought on a visit to
the hamlet, its bottle was held up as a curiosity. It had a long, thin rubber
tube for the baby to suck through which must have been impossible to clean.

The only cash outlay in an ordinary confinement was half a
crown, the fee of the old woman who, as she said, saw the beginning and end of everybody.
She was, of course, not a certified midwife; but she was a decent, intelligent
old body, clean in her person and methods and very kind. For the half-crown she
officiated at the birth and came every morning for ten days to bath the baby
and make the mother comfortable. She also tried hard to keep the patient in bed
for the ten days; but with little success. Some mothers refused to stay there
because they knew they were needed downstairs; others because they felt so
strong and fit they saw no reason to lie there. Some women actually got up on
the third day, and, as far as could be seen at the time, suffered no ill effects.

Complications at birth were rare; but in the two or three
cases where they did occur during her practice, old Mrs. Quinton had sufficient
skill to recognize the symptoms and send post haste for the doctor. No mother
lost her life in childbed during the decade.

In these more enlightened days the mere mention of the old,
untrained village midwife raises a vision of some dirty, drink-sodden old hag without
skill or conscience. But not all of them were Sairey Gamps. The great majority
were clean, knowledgeable old women who took a pride in their office. Nor had
many of them been entirely without instruction. The country doctor of that day
valued a good midwife in an outlying village and did not begrudge time and
trouble in training her. Such a one would save him many a six or eight mile
drive over bad roads at night, and, if a summons did come, he would know that
his presence was necessary.

The trained district nurses, when they came a few years
later, were a great blessing in country districts; but the old midwife also had
her good points, for which she now receives no credit. She was no superior person
coming into the house to strain its resources to the utmost and shame the
patient by forced confessions that she did not possess this or that; but a
neighbour, poor like herself, who could make do with what there was, or, if
not, knew where to send to borrow it. This Mrs. Quinton possessed quite a stock
of the things she knew she would not find in every house, and might often be
met with a baby's little round bath in her hand, or a clothes-horse, for
airing, slung over her arm.

Other days, other ways; and, although they have now been
greatly improved upon, the old country midwives did at least succeed in
bringing into the world many generations of our forefathers, or where should we
be now?

The general health of the hamlet was excellent. The healthy,
open-air life and the abundance of coarse but wholesome food must have been largely
responsible for that; but lack of imagination may also have played a part. Such
people at that time did not look for or expect illness, and there were not as
many patent medicine advertisements then as now to teach them to search for
symptoms of minor ailments in themselves. Beecham's and Holloway's Pills were
already familiar to all newspaper readers, and a booklet advertising Mother
Siegel's Syrup arrived by post at every house once a year. But only Beecham's
Pills were patronized, and those only by a few; the majority relied upon an occasional
dose of Epsom salts to cure all ills. One old man, then nearly eighty, had for
years drunk a teacupful of frothing soapsuds every Sunday morning. 'Them cleans
the outers,' he would say, 'an' stands to reason they must clean th' innards,
too.' His dose did not appear to do him any harm; but he made no converts.

Although only babies and very small children had baths, the
hamlet folks were cleanly in their persons. The women would lock their cottage
doors for a whole afternoon once a week to have what they called 'a good clean up'.
This consisted of stripping to the waist and washing downward; then stepping
into a footbath and washing upward. 'Well, I feels all the better for that;
some woman would say complacently. 'I've washed up as far as possible and down
as far as possible,' and the ribald would inquire what poor 'possible' had done
that that should not be included.

Toothbrushes were not in general use; few could afford to buy
such luxuries; but the women took a pride in their strong white teeth and cleaned
them with a scrap of clean, wet rag dipped in salt. Some of the men used soot
as a tooth-powder.