Lark Rise to Candleford (65 page)

In one corner of the bath-house stood the old brewing copper,
now connected by a length of hose-pipe, passing through the window, with the pump
in the yard for filling purposes. A tap a few feet above floor level served to
draw off the water when hot. On the brick floor stood the deep, man-length zinc
bath used by the smiths, and standing up-ended in a corner when not in use was
the hip bath for Laura and for any visitor to the house who preferred, as they
said, 'a good hot soak to sitting in a saucer'. There was a square of matting
rolled up, ready to be put down by the bather, and a curtain at the window and
another over the door to keep out prying eyes and cold air.

To Laura the brew-house baths seemed luxurious. She had been
used to bathing at home in the wash-house in water heated over the fire in a cauldron,
but there every drop of water had to be fetched from a well and, fuel being
equally precious, the share of hot water for each person was small. 'A good
scrub all over and a rinse and make way for the next' were her mother's
instructions. At Candleford Green there was unlimited hot water—boiling water
which filled the small building with steam, for the fire beneath it had been
lighted by the smithy apprentice before he left work, and by eight o'clock the
water in the copper was bubbling. With curtains drawn over window and door and
red embers glowing beneath the copper, Laura would sit, with her knees drawn
up, in hot water up to her neck and luxuriate.

She was often to think of those baths in later years when she
stepped into or out of the few inches of tepid water in her clean but cold modern
bathroom or looked at the geyser, ticking the pennies away, and wondered if it
would be too extravagant to let it run longer. But perhaps the unlimited hot
water did less to make the brew-house baths memorable than the youth, health,
and freedom from care of the bather.

The community was largely self-supporting. Every household
grew its own vegetables, produced its new-laid eggs and cured its own bacon.
Jams and jellies, wines and pickles, were made at home as a matter of course. Most
gardens had a row of beehives. In the houses of the well-to-do there was an
abundance of such foods, and even the poor enjoyed a rough plenty. The problem
facing the lower-paid workers was not so much how to provide food for
themselves and their families as how to obtain the hundred and one other
things, such as clothing, boots, fuel, bedding and crockery ware, which had to
be paid for in cash.

Those with an income of ten or twelve shillings a week often
had to go short of such things, although the management and ingenuity of some
of the women was amazing. Every morsel of old rag they could save or beg was
made into rugs for the stone floors, or cut into fragments to make flocks to
stuff bedding. Sheets were turned outsides into middle and, after they had
again become worn, patched and patched again until it was difficult to decide
which part of a sheet was the original fabric. 'Keep the flag flying!' they
would call to each other when they had their Monday morning washing flapping on
the line, and the seeing eye and the feeling heart, had the possessor of these
been present, would have read more than was meant into the saying. They kept
the flag flying nobly, but the cost to themselves was great.

In those days, when young or progressive inhabitants of
Candleford Green complained of the dullness of village life, the more staid
would say, 'It may be dull in some villages; but not here. Why, there's always something
going on!' which the dissatisfied could not deny, for, although there was none
of the amusement they desired, amusements of a kind were plentiful.

No films, of course, for twenty years had yet to pass before
Candleford town had its Happidrome, and no dancing for the ordinary villager
except dancing on the green at holiday times in summer. But there were in winter
the Church Social, with light refreshments and indoor games, and monthly Penny
Readings, and a yearly concert in the schoolroom. Between these highlights of
the social year, there were sewing parties which met at each of the members'
houses in turn, when one of the members read aloud while the others sewed
garments for the heathen or for the poor in cities, and tea was provided by the
hostess of the occasion. The work parties were for the better-to-do. The
cottagers had their Mothers' Meetings, which were very similar, except that
there the members sewed for themselves and their families materials provided at
under cost price by the ladies of the Committee, and there was no tea.

The reading aloud must have made slow progress, judging by
the amount of talking done at both types of sewing party. The repetition of
every spicy item of village gossip was prefaced by: 'Mrs. So-and-So was saying at
the working party——' Or: 'I heard somebody say at the Mothers' Meeting——' The
fact was that both were clearing-houses for gossip, but that did not make them
less enjoyable.

In summer there were 'the outings'. That of the Mothers'
Meeting, after weeks of discussion of more or less desirable seaside resorts,
always decided for London and the Zoo. The Choir Outing left in the small hours
of the morning for Bournemouth or Weston-super-Mare; and the Children's School
Treat Outing went, waving flags and singing, in a horse wagonette to the
vicarage paddock in a neighbouring village, where tea and buns were partaken of
at a long trestle table under some trees. After tea they ran races and played
games, and returned home, tired and grubby, but still noisy, to find even a
larger crowd than had seen them off waiting on the green to welcome them and
join in their 'Hip-hip-hooray!'

The Penny Reading was a form of entertainment already out of
date in most places; but at Candleford Green it was still going strong in the 'nineties.
For it the schoolroom was lent, free of charge, 'By kind permission of the
Managers', as stated upon the handbills, and the pennies taken at the door paid
for heating and light. It was a popular as well as an inexpensive
entertainment. Everybody went; whole families together, and all agreed that the
excitement of going out after dark, carrying lanterns, and sitting in a warm
room with rows and rows of other people, was well worth the sum of one penny,
apart from the entertainment provided.

The star turn was given by an old gentleman from a
neighbouring village, who, in his youth, had heard Dickens read his own works
in public and aimed at reproducing in his own rendering the expression and
mannerisms of the master.

Old Mr. Greenwood put a tremendous amount of nervous energy
into his reading. His features expressed as much as his voice, and his free
hand was never still, and if the falsetto of his female characters sometimes rose
to a screech, his facetious young men were almost too slyly humorous, and some
of his listeners felt embarrassed when the deep, low voice he kept for pathetic
passages broke and he had to pause to wipe away real tears, his rendering still
had an authentic ring which to Dickens lovers was, as the villagers said about
other items, 'well worth listening to'.

The bulk of his audience did not criticize; it enjoyed. The
comic passages, featuring Pickwick, Dick Swiveller, or Sairy Gamp, were punctuated
with bursts of laughter. Oliver Twist asking for more and the deathbed of
Little Nell drew tears from the women and throat-clearings from the men. The
reader was so regularly encored that he had been obliged to cut down his items
on the programme to two; which, in effect, was four, and, when he had finished
his last reading and, with his hand on his heart, had bowed himself from the
platform, people would sigh and say to each other: 'Whatever comes next'll
sound dull after that!'

They showed so much interest that one would naturally have
expected them to get Dickens's books, of which there were several in the Parish
Library, to read for themselves. But, with a very few exceptions, they did not,
for, although they liked to listen, they were not readers. They were waiting, a
public ready-made, for the wireless and the cinema.

Another penny reader whose items Laura enjoyed was a Mrs.
Cox, who lived in the Dower House on one of the neighbouring estates and was
said to be an American by birth. She was middle-aged, dressed unconventionally
in loose, collarless frocks, usually green, and had short iron-grey hair which
hung loose in curls, like a modern bob. She always read from
Uncle Remus
,
and her rendering of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and the tar-baby may have owed
something to some old black mammy of her childhood. The rich huskiness of her
tone, her plantation dialect, and her flashing smile when delivering some
side-thrust of wit were charming.

For the rest, some of the readings were well chosen, some ill
chosen. A few poems were interspersed between the prose passages, but these
seldom rose higher than 'Excelsior', or 'The Village Blacksmith', or 'The Wreck
of the Hesperus'. Once Laura had the honour of choosing two passages for the
father of one of her friends, who had been invited to read and could not, as he
said, think of anything likely, not if his life depended upon it. She chose the
scene from
The Heart of Midlothian
in which Jeanie Deans is granted an
audience by Queen Caroline and the chapter about the Battle of Waterloo from
Vanity
Fair
which ends: 'Darkness came down on the field and city; and Amelia was
praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his
heart.' The man who read them said he thought they went down very well with the
audience, but Laura did not notice any marked interest.

For the homely Penny Reading, second-best wear was considered
sufficient; that being the last outfit before the newest, which, sponged and
pressed and smartened up by the addition of a new ribbon bow and lace collar,
had to serve another term for better wear before being taken into everyday use.
At the annual concert the audience appeared in churchgoing Sunday best. The
young ladies contributing to the programme wore white or pale-coloured frocks
with a modest 'v' neck and elbow sleeves, and the village girls who appeared on
the platform their last summer's frock with a flower in their hair, or an ivy
wreath, or a bright ribbon bow. For the Church Social, summer frocks were worn
by the girls—last year's in most cases, but, in a few, next year's made in advance
and worn with the collar tucked in to give it an evening-dress appearance. The
older women wore black silk, if they had it; if not, the stiffest and richest
fabric they possessed or could afford to buy for the occasion.

The fashion in dress was by that time more simple than it had
been. The bustle had long passed away, and with it had gone panniers, waterfall
backs, and other drapings on skirts. The new plain skirt was long and full and
slightly stiffened at the hem to make it stand out well round the ankles, and,
with it went a blouse or bodice, as the upper part of a frock was still called,
with balloon sleeves and a full, loose front, often of a contrasting colour.
Small waists were still fashionable, but the standard of smallness had changed.
Women no longer aimed at an eighteen- or twenty-inch span, but were satisfied
with one of twenty-two, three, or four inches, and that had to be attained by moderate
compression; the old savage tight-lacing was a thing of the past.

In hairdressing, the Royal, or Alexandra, fringe was the
rage. For this the hair was cut above the forehead and curled, or, rather,
frizzed, to reach back almost to the crown. Considering that this style of hairdressing
was introduced by the then Princess of Wales, whose beauty and goodness and
taste as a leader of fashion were unchallenged, it is strange that it should
have been condemned by many as 'fast'. As in the case of bobbing during the
last war, men and older women objected extravagantly to the fringe; but they
had to get used to it, for, like the bob, it was a becoming fashion and it had
come to stay. Fringes were worn all through the 'nineties.

Laura, dressing for the Church Social in the cream nun's
veiling frock in which she had been confirmed and in which her cousins Molly
and Nellie had been confirmed before her, wondered if she might venture to cut
and curl a few locks on her own forehead. If Miss Lane or her mother noticed
them and objected, she could say they were little loose ends she had curled up
to make them tidier, or, if they passed unnoticed, she could cut and curl more,
and so get a fringe by instalments. The stem of a new clay pipe borrowed from
Matthew's bedroom served her as a substitute for curling-tongs when heated in
the flame of her candle, and she pushed her hat low down on her brow before
going downstairs. There were comments and some criticism afterwards. Her
brother told her she looked like a young prize bull, and her mother said, 'It
suits you, of course, but you're too young to go thinking of fashions.' But, by
degrees, she got her fringe, and a troublesome job it was to keep it in curl in
wet weather.

The Church Social was strictly a villagers' affair. No one
came from the great houses and the clergyman only looked in once during the
evening. The presence of the curate and Sunday-School teachers guaranteed propriety.
When the mothers had assisted with clearing away the tea and the long trestle
tables had been removed, they seated themselves around the walls to watch the
games. After 'Postman's Knock' and 'Musical Chairs' and 'Here we go round the
Mulberry Bush', a large ring was formed for 'Dropping the Handkerchief' and the
fun of the evening began. '
I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I
dropped it. One of you has picked it up and put it in your pocket
,' chanted
the odd man or girl out as they circled the ring, handkerchief in hand, until
they came to the back of the person they wished to choose and placed the handkerchief
on his or her shoulder. The chase which followed took so long, round and round
the ring and always eventually out of one of the several doors, that two
separate handkerchiefs kept two couples going in the Church Social version of
the game. There was supposed to be no kissing, as it was a Church function, but
when the pursuer caught the pursued somewhere beyond the door with a smudged
roller towel upon it, who could say what happened. Perhaps the youth sketched a
stage kiss. Perhaps not.