Lark Rise to Candleford (64 page)

In cold, hard winters soup was made twice a week in the
vicarage washing-copper, and the cans of all comers were filled without
question. It was soup that even the very poor—connoisseurs from long and varied
experience of charity soups—could find no fault with—rich and thick with pearl
barley and lean beef gobbets and golden carrot rings and fat little dumplings—so
solidly good that it was said that a spoon would stand in it upright. For the
sick there were custard puddings, home-made jellies and half-bottles of port,
and it was an unwritten law in the parish that, by sending a plate to the
vicarage at precisely 1.30 on any Sunday, a convalescent could claim a dinner
from the vicarage joint. There were blankets at Christmas, unbleached calico
chemises for girls on first going out in service, flannel petticoats for old
women, and flannel-lined waistcoats for old men.

So it had been for a quarter of a century, and Mr. and Mrs.
Coulsdon and their fat coachman, Thomas, and Hannah, the parlourmaid who
doctored the villagers' lesser ailments with herb tea and ointments, and
Gantry, the cook, and the spotted Dalmatian dog which ran behind Mrs.
Coulsdon's carriage, and the heavy carved mahogany furniture and rich damask hangings
of the vicarage seemed to the villagers almost as firmly established and
enduring as the church tower.

Then, one summer afternoon, Mrs. Coulsdon, dressed in her
best, drove off in her carriage to attend a large and fashionable bazaar and
sale of work got up by the county notabilities, and, in addition to her many purchases,
brought back with her the germ which killed her within a week. Her husband
caught the infection and followed her a few days later and they were buried in
one grave, to which their coffins were followed by the entire population of the
parish, and sincerely mourned, for that one day at least, even by those who had
scarcely given them a thought before. The
Candleford News
had a
three-column account of the funeral, headed: 'The Candleford Green Tragedy,
Funeral of Beloved Vicar and His Wife', and the grave and the surrounding
sward, covered with wreaths and crosses and pathetic little bunches of
cottage-garden flowers, was photographed and copies were sold at fourpence each
and framed and hung upon cottage walls.

Then the parishioners began to wonder what the new Vicar
would be like. 'We shall be lucky if we get another as good as Mr. Coulsdon,'
they said. 'He was a gentleman as was a gentleman, and she was a lady. Never interfered
with anybody's business, he didn't, and was good to the poor'; and 'Dealt with
the local shops and paid on the nail,' added the shopkeepers.

Months later, after every room in the vicarage had been
overhauled by workmen and the greater part of the garden and paddock had been
torn up to get at the drains, which were naturally suspect, the new Vicar arrived,
but he and his family belonged so much to the new order of things that they
must be given a later place in this record.

It sometimes seems to us that some impression of those now
dead must be left upon their familiar earthly surroundings. We saw them, on
such a day, in such a spot, in such an attitude, smiling—or not smiling—and the
impression of the scene is so deeply engraved upon our own hearts that we feel
they must have left some more enduring trace, though invisible to mortal eyes.
Or perhaps it would be better to say at present invisible, for the discovery of
sound waves has opened up endless possibilities.

If any such impressions of good old Mr. Coulsdon remain, one
may be of him as Laura once saw him, brought to a halt on one of his daily progresses
round the green. He stood, well-fed and well-groomed, in a world that seemed
made for him, gravely shaking his head at a distant view of the gambols of the
village idiot, as if asking himself the frequent question of lesser mortals,
'Why? Why?'

For Candleford Green had its village idiot in the form of a
young man who had been born a deaf mute. At birth he was probably not mentally deficient,
but he had been born too early to profit by the marvellous modern system of
training such unfortunates, and had, as a child, been allowed to run wild while
other children were in school, and the isolation and the absence of all means
of communicating with his fellows had told upon him.

At the time when Laura knew him, he was a full-grown man,
powerfully built, with a small golden beard his mother kept clipped and, in his
quieter moments, an innocent rather than a vacant expression. His mother, who
was a widow, took in washing, and he would fetch and carry her clothes-baskets,
draw water from the well, and turn the handle of the mangle. At home the two of
them used a rough language of signs which his mother had invented, but with the
outside world he had no means of communication and, for that reason, coupled
with that of his occasional fits of temper, although he was strong and probably
capable of learning to do any simple manual work, no one would give him employment.
He was known as Luney Joe.

Joe spent his spare time, which was the greater part of each
day, lounging about the green, watching the men at work at the forge or in the
carpenter's shop. Sometimes, after watching quietly for some time, he would
burst into loud, inarticulate cries which were taken for laughter, then turn
and run quickly out into the country, where he had many lairs in the woods and
hedgerows. Then the men would laugh and say: 'Old Luney Joe's like the monkeys.
They could talk if they'd a mind to, but they think if they did we'd set 'em to
work.'

If he got in the way of the workmen, they would take him by
the shoulders and run him outside, and it was chiefly his wild gestures, contortions
of feature, and loud inarticulate cries at such times which had earned him his
name.

'Luney Joe! Luney Joe!' the children would call out after
him, secure in the knowledge that, whatever they said, he could not hear them.
But, although he was deaf and dumb, Joe was not blind, and, once or twice, when
he had happened to look round and see them following and mocking him, he had
threatened them by shaking the ash stick he carried. The story of this lost
nothing in the telling, and people were soon saying that Joe was getting
dangerous and ought to be put away. But his mother fought stoutly for his
liberty, and the doctor supported her. Joseph was sane enough, he said; his
seeming strangeness came from his affliction. Those against him would do well
to see that their own children were better behaved.

What went on in Joe's mind nobody knew, though his mother,
who loved him, may have had some idea. Laura many times saw him standing to
gaze on the green with knitted brows, as though puzzling as to why other young
men should be batting and bowling there and himself left out. Once some men
unloading logs to add to Miss Lane's winter store allowed Joe to hand down from
the cart some of the heaviest, and, for a time, his face wore an expression of
perfect happiness. After a while, unfortunately, his spirits soared and he
began flinging the logs down wildly and, as a result, hit one of the men on the
shoulder, and was turned away roughly. At that, he fell into one of his
passions and, afterwards, people said that Luney Joe was madder than ever.

But he could be very gentle. Once Laura met him in a lonely
spot between trees and she felt afraid, for the path was narrow and she was
alone. But she felt ashamed of her cowardice afterwards, for, as she passed him,
so closely that their elbows touched, the big fellow, gentle as a lamb, put out
his hand and stroked some flowers she was carrying. With nods and smiles, Laura
passed on, rather hurriedly, it must be confessed, but wishing more than ever
she could do something to help him.

Some years after Laura had left the district she was told
that, after his mother's death, Luney Joe had been sent to the County Asylum.
Poor Joe! the world which went very well for some people in those days was a harsh
one for the poor and afflicted. For the old and poor, too. That was long before
the day of the Old Age Pension, and for many who had worked hard all their
lives and had preserved their self-respect, so far, the only refuge in old age
was the Workhouse. There old couples were separated, the men going to the men's
side and the women to that of the women, and the effect of this separation on
some faithful old hearts can be imagined. With the help of a few shillings a
week, parish relief, and the still fewer shillings their children—mostly poor,
like themselves—could spare, some old couples contrived to keep their own roof
over their heads. Laura knew several such couples well. The old man, bent
nearly double upon his stick, but clean and tidy, would appear at the Post
Office periodically to cash some postal order for a tiny amount sent by a
daughter in service or a married son. 'Thank God we've got good children,' he
would say, with pride as well as gratitude in his tone, and Laura would answer:
'Yes, isn't Katie'—or Jimmy—'splendid!'

In those days, if any one in a village was ill, it was the
custom for neighbours to send them little dainties. Even Laura's mother, out of
her poverty, would send a little of anything she thought a sick neighbour might
fancy. Miss Lane, who had ten times the resources of Laura's mother, did things
in style. In cases of sickness, as soon as she heard the patient had 'turned
the corner', she would kill or buy and have cooked a fowl in order to send a
dinner, and Laura, being the quickest walker, was deputed to carry the covered
plate across the green. It was an act of kindness which blessed giver and
receiver alike, for the best cut from the breast of the bird was always
reserved for Miss Lane's own dinner. But perhaps that was not a bad plan;
anticipation of the enjoyment of her own tit-bit may have acted as a stimulus
to her good intention, and the invalids got the next-best cuts and broth was
made from the bones for them later.

Zillah could be trusted to cook the chicken, but, once, when
one of Miss Lane's own friends fell ill, she herself brought out from somewhere
a cooking apron of fine white linen and, with her own hands, made him a wine
jelly. The history of that jelly was far removed from that of those we now buy
in bottles from the grocer. To begin upon, calf's feet were procured and
simmered for the better part of a day to extract the nourishment.

Then the contents of the stewpan were strained and the stock
had another long boiling in order to render it down to the desired strength and
quantity. Then more straining and sweetening and lacing with port, sufficient
to colour it a deep ruby, and clearing with eggshells, and straining and
straining. Then it was poured into a flannel jellybag, the shape of a fool's
cap, which had to hang from a hook in the larder ceiling all night to let its
contents ooze through into the vessel placed beneath, without squeezing, and
when, at last, all the complicated processes were completed, it was poured into
a small mould and allowed yet one more night in which to set. No gelatine was
used.

What Miss Lane called 'a taster' was reserved for herself in
a teacup, and of this she gave Laura and Zillah a teaspoonful each that they
might also taste. To Laura's untutored palate, it tasted no better than the red
jujube sweets of which she was fond, but Zillah, out of her greater experience,
declared that a jelly so strong and delicious would 'a'most raise the dead'.

Few would care to take that trouble for the sake of a few
spoonfuls of jelly in these days. Laura's aunts delighted in such cookery and
her mother would have enjoyed doing it had her means permitted, but already it
was thought a waste of time in many households. On the face of it, it does seem
absurd to spend the inside of a week making a small jelly, and women were soon
to have other uses for their time and energy, but those who did such cookery in
those days looked upon it as an art, and no time or trouble was thought wasted
if the result were perfection. We may call the Victorian woman ignorant, weak,
clinging and vapourish—she is not here to answer such charges—but at least we
must admit that she knew how to cook.

Another cooking process Laura was never to see elsewhere and
which perhaps may have been peculiar to smithy families was known as 'salamandering'.
For this thin slices of bacon or ham were spread out on a large plate and taken
to the smithy, where the plate was placed on the anvil. The smith then heated
red-hot one end of a large, flat iron utensil known as the 'salamander' and
held it above the plate until the rashers were crisp and curled. Shelled
boiled, or poached, eggs were eaten with this dish.

Bath nights at Candleford Green were conducted on the old
country system. There was near the back door an old out-building formerly used as
a brew-house. Miss Lane could remember when all the beer for the house and the
smiths was brewed there. In Laura's time it came from the brewery in
nine-gallon casks. The custom of home brewing was fading out in farmers' and
tradesmen's households; it saved trouble and expense to buy the beer from the
brewery in barrels; but a few belonging to the older generation still brewed at
home for themselves and their workmen. At the Candleford Green Post Office
Laura issued about half a dozen four-shilling home-brewing licences a year. One
woman there kept an off-licence and brewed her own beer. There was a large old
yew tree at the bottom of her garden, and her customers sat beneath its
spreading branches on the green, just outside her garden wall, and consumed
their drinks 'off the premises' in compliance with the law. But, as she brewed for
sale, hers must have been a more expensive licence, probably issued by the
magistrates.

Miss Lane's brew-house had become a bath-house. It was not
used by Miss Lane or by Zillah. Miss Lane took what she called her 'canary dip'
in a large, shallow, saucer-shaped bath in her bedroom in a few inches of warm
rain water well laced with
eau de cologne
. In winter she had a bedroom
fire on her weekly bath night, and in all seasons the bath was protected by a
screen—not, as might be supposed, to preserve Victorian modesty, but to keep
off draughts. On the farm churning days a quart of buttermilk was delivered for
Miss Lane's toilet. That was for her face and hands. When, where, and how
Zillah bathed was a mystery. When baths in general were mentioned, she said she
hoped she knew how to keep herself clean without boiling herself like a pig's
cheek. As she always appeared very fresh and clean, Laura supposed she must
have bathed by the old cottage method of washing all over in a basin. The
smiths, on account of the grubby, black nature of their work, needed baths frequently,
and for them, in the first place, the brew-house had been turned into a
bathroom. Wednesdays and Saturdays were their bath nights. Laura's was Friday.