Lark Rise to Candleford (63 page)

Between these few buildings on the quiet side were rickyard
and orchard and garden walls with lilacs, laburnums, and fruit trees
overhanging. This greenery with the golden or dun thatch of the pointed-topped
ricks and the sights and sounds of the farmyard and smithy gave this side of the
green a countryfied air which some of the more go-ahead spirits of the place
resented. They said the land occupied by the gardens and orchards ought to be
developed. There was room there for a new Baptist chapel and a row of good
shops, and these would bring more trade to the place and encourage people to
build more houses. But, for a few more years, the dull side of the green was to
remain as it was. The farmyard sounds of cock-crow and milking-time and the
tang,
tang
of the forge were to blend with the strains of gramophone music and
the hooting of motor horns before the farmhouse was demolished and its stock
driven farther afield and the smithy gave place to an up-to-date motor garage with
petrol pumps and advertisement hoardings.

Except for the church and vicarage, which stood back among
trees at one end of the green with only the church tower showing, and roomy old
inn which had known coaching days and now, after a long eclipse, was beginning
to call itself an hotel, at the other, these two roads were almost all there
was of the village. There were labourers' cottages out in the fields and a
group of these called 'Hungry End' stood just outside the village at the
farther end, and there was the new building estate on the Candleford road, but
neither of these was included in the view from the Post Office.

Between the two roads lay the green with its daisies and
dandelions and grazing donkey and playing children and old men sunning
themselves on the two backless benches: or, in rainy weather, deserted but for
a few straggling figures crossing from various angles with umbrellas and letters
to post in their hands.

The road past the shops was the favourite promenade and
meeting place, but on a few occasions the green itself became the focus of
attention, and the greatest of these was when, on the morning of the first
Saturday in January, the Hunt met there in front of the roomy old inn. Then riders
in scarlet would rein in their mounts to reach down for a stirrup-cup, and
their ladies, in tight-fitting habits with long, flowing skirts, would turn on
their side-saddles to wave their hunting-crops to their friends, or gather in
groups to gossip while their mounts backed and fidgeted, and the waving white
sterns of the pack moved hither and thither in massed formation at the word of
command of the Huntsman, there known as the whipper-in. If one of the hounds strayed
a yard, he would call it by name: 'Hi, Minnie!' or Spot, or Cowslip, or
Trumpeter, and the animal would look lovingly into his face as it turned in
meek obedience, which always seemed wonderful to Laura, in view of the fact
that within a few hours the same animal might be helping to tear a living
fellow creature limb from limb.

But few there thought of the fox, beyond hoping that the
first covert would be successfully drawn and that the day's sport would be
good.

The whole neighbourhood turned out to see the Meet. Both
roadways were lined with little low basketwork pony-carriages with elderly
ladies in furs, governess-cars with nurses and children, farm carts with forks stuck
upright in loads of manure, and butcher's and grocer's carts and baker's
white-tilted vans, and donkey-barrows in which red-faced, hoarse-shouting
hawkers stood up for a better view. Matthew used to say that it was a funny
thing that everybody's errand led them in that direction on Meet Morning.

On the green itself school-teachers, curates, men in breeches
and gaiters with ash sticks, men in ragged coats and mufflers, smartly dressed
girls from Candleford town, and local women in white aprons with babies in
their arms pressed forward to see all there was to be seen, while older
children rushed hither and thither shouting, 'Tally-ho! Tally-ho!' and only
missed by a miracle being hit by the horses' hoofs.

Every year, as soon as the Meet had assembled, Matthew would
hang up his leather apron, slip into his second-best coat, and say that he must
just pop across the green for a moment; Squire, or Sir Austin, or Muster Ramsbottom
of Pilvery had asked him to run his hand over his mare's fetlock. But the
smiths were to get on with their work, none of their 'gaping an' gazing', they
had seen 'osses before and them that rode on 'em though to judge by some of
their doings you'd think they didn't know the near from the off side.

As soon as he had disappeared, the smiths left anvil and
tools and forge and fire to take care of themselves and hurried out to a little
hillock a few yards from the smithy door, where they stood close-packed with their
fringed leather aprons flapping about their legs.

No one was likely to have business at the Post Office counter
that morning, but the telegraph instrument had to be attended to, and, although
that was furnished with a warning bell which could be heard all over the house,
both Miss Lane and Laura found it necessary to be in constant attendance.

From the window near the instrument the green, with its
restive horses and swaying crowds, its splashes of scarlet coats and its white
splash of hounds, could be viewed in comfort. Miss Lane could recognize at sight
almost every one there and give little character sketches of many for Laura's
benefit. That gentleman there on the tall grey was 'out-running the constable';
he had got through a fortune of so much in so many years and was now in 'queer
street'. The very horse he sat upon did not belong to him; he had got it to try
out, as she happened to know; Tom Byles, the vet., had told her only yesterday.
And that lady there with the floating veil was a perfect madam; just look at
all those men around her, did you ever, now! And that pretty quiet little thing
was a cousin of Sir Timothy's, and that fine, handsome young fellow was only a
farmer.

'Poor young things!' she said one day when a man and a girl
rider had, ostensibly to soothe the restlessness of their mounts, detached themselves
from the main body of the Hunt and were riding at a walking pace backwards and
forwards before the Post Office windows. 'Poor young things, trying to get in a
word together. Think they are alone, no doubt, and them with the eyes of all
the field upon them. Ah, I thought so! Here comes her mother. It'll never do,
my poor dears, it'll never do, with him a younger son without a penny to bless
himself, as the saying goes.'

But Laura, as yet, had less sympathy with lovers. Her eyes
were fixed on a girl of about her own age in a scarlet coat and a small black
velvet jockey cap, whose pony was giving her trouble. A groom came up quickly and
took its reins. Laura thought she would like to be dressed like that girl and
to ride to hounds across fields and over streams on that mild January morning.
In imagination she saw herself flying across a brook,
her
hair streaming
and
her
gloved hands holding the reins in such a masterly fashion that
other riders near called out 'Well done!' as she had heard riders near her home
call out when witnessing a feat of horsemanship.

When the Hunt moved off to draw the appointed cover, men and
women and boys and girls would follow on foot as long as their breath lasted.
Two or three working men of the tougher kind would follow the Hunt all day, pushing
through thorn hedges and leaping or wading brooks, ostensibly on the chance of
earning a sixpence or two for opening gates for the timid or pointing out
directions to the lagging horsemen; but, actually, for the fun of the sport,
which they thought well worth the loss of a day's pay and a good dressing down
by the Mis'is when they got home torn and tired and hungry at night.

In summer what grass there was on the green was cut with the
scythe by the man who owned the donkey which grazed there. It is doubtful if he
had any legal right to the grass, but even if not, his gain in donkey fodder
was well repaid to the community by the newly-cut-hay scent which seemed to
hang about the village all the summer. One of Laura's most lasting impressions
of Candleford Green was that of leaning out of her bedroom window one soft,
dark summer night when the air was full of new-made-hay and elderflower scents.
It could not have been late in the evening, for a few dim lights still showed
on the opposite side of the green and some boy or youth, on his way home, was
whistling 'Annie Laurie'. Laura felt she could hang there for ever, drinking in
the soft, scented night air.

One other scene she remembered at the time of year when it is
still summer, but the evenings are closing in. Then youths were on the green flying
kites on which they had contrived to fix lighted candle-ends. The little lights
floated and flickered like fireflies against the dusk of the sky and the darker
tree-tops. It was a pretty sight, although, perhaps, the sport was a dangerous
one, for one of the kites caught fire and came down as tinder. At that, some
men, drinking their pints outside the inn door for coolness, rushed forward and
put a stop to it. Madness, they called it, stark staring madness, and asked the
youths if they wanted to set the whole place on fire. But how innocent and
peaceful compared with our present menace from the air!

Those who did not care for the dull side of the green would
point with pride to the march of progress on the opposite side. To the fine new
plate-glass window at the grocer's; the plaster-of-paris model of a three-tiered
wedding cake which had recently appeared among the buns and scones at the
baker's next door; and the fishmonger's where, to tell the truth, after the
morning orders for the big houses had gone out, the principal exhibits were
boxes of bloaters. But how many villages had a fishmonger at all? And the
corner shop, known as the 'Stores', where the latest (Candleford Green)
fashions might be studied. Only the butcher lagged behind. His shop stood back
in a garden, and the lambs and hares and legs of mutton behind its one small
window were framed in roses and honeysuckle.

Interspersing the shops were houses; one, a long, low brown
one where Doctor Henderson lived. His red lamp, when lighted at night, made a cheerful
splash of colour. Less appreciated by those who lived near was the disturbing
peal of his night bell followed by some anxious voice bawling up to him through
the speaking-tube. Some of his night calls came from outlying hamlets and
farms, six, eight, or even ten miles distant, and those from the poor had to be
brought on foot, for bicycles were still rare and the telephone was, as yet,
unknown there.

The doctor, dragged from his warm bed at midnight, had often
to saddle or harness his own horse before he could start on his long ride or drive,
for even if he kept a man to drive him around in the day time, that man might
not be available for night work. And yet, swear as he might, and often did, on
the journey, damning horse, messenger, roads, and weather, the doctor brought
cheer and skill and kindness to his patient's bedside.

'She'll be all right now our doctor's come,' the women
downstairs would say, 'and he's that cheerful he's making her laugh between her
pains. "That's my fifth cup of tea," he says. "If I have any
more"—but I'd better not say what he said'd happen—only it made Maggie
laugh and she can't be so bad if she's laughing.' And that was said of a man
who, after a hard day's work, had been dragged from his bed to spend the night
in a tiny, fireless bedroom overseeing a difficult delivery.

Laura's mother used to say. 'All doctors are heroes', and she
spoke feelingly, for the night before Laura was born the doctor came from the nearest
town through one of the worst snowstorms in then living memory. He had to leave
his horse and gig at a farmhouse on the main road and walk the last mile, for
the by-road to the hamlet was blocked to wheeled traffic by drifts. No wonder
he said when Laura at last put in an appearance: 'There you are! Here is the
person who has caused all this pother. Let us hope she will prove worth it!'
Which saying was kept as a rod in pickle to be repeated to Laura when she
misbehaved during her childhood.

From her Post Office window in summer, Laura could see the
grey church tower with its flagstaff and the twisted red-brick chimneys of the Vicarage
rising out of massed greenery. In winter, when the trees were bare, there were
glimpses of the outer tracery of the east window of the church and the mellow
brick front of the Vicarage with rooks tumbling and cawing above the high
elm-tops where they nested in early spring.

At the time when Laura arrived at Candleford Green a
clergyman of the old type held the cure of souls of its inhabitants. He was an
elderly man with what was then known as a fine presence, being tall and large rather
than stout, with rosy cheeks, a lion-like mane of white hair, and an air of
conscious authority. His wife was a dumpy little roly-poly of a woman who wore
old, comfortable clothes about the village because, as she was once heard to
say, 'Everybody here knows who I am, so why bother about dress?' For church and
for afternoon calls upon her equals, she dressed in the silks and satins and
ostrich feathers befitting her rank as the granddaughter of an earl and the
wife of a vicar with large private means. She was said by the villagers to be
'a bit managing', but, on the whole, she was popular with them. When visiting
the cottagers or making purchases at the shops, she loved to hear and discuss
the latest tit-bit of gossip, which she was not above repeating—some said with
additions.

The church services were long, old-fashioned and dull, but
all was done decently and in order, and the music and singing were
exceptionally good for a village church at that date. Mr. Coulsdon preached to
his poorer parishioners contentment with their divinely appointed lot in life
and submission to the established order of earthly things. To the rich, the responsibilities
of their position and their obligations in the way of charity. Being rich and
highly placed in the little community and genuinely loving a country life, he
himself naturally saw nothing wrong in the social order, and, being of a
generous nature, the duty of helping the poor and afflicted was also a pleasure
to him.