Lark Rise to Candleford (72 page)

And oh! the joy of the new means of progression. To cleave
the air as though on wings, defying time and space by putting what had been a
day's journey on foot behind one in a couple of hours! Of passing garrulous acquaintances
who had formerly held one in one-sided conversation by the roadside for an
hour, with a light
ting, ting
of the bell and a casual wave of
recognition.

At first only comparatively well-to-do women rode bicycles;
but soon almost every one under forty was awheel, for those who could not
afford to buy a bicycle could hire one for sixpence an hour. The men's shocked criticism
petered out before the
fait accompli
, and they contented themselves with
such mild thrusts as:

Mother's out upon her bike, enjoying of the fun, Sister and
her beau have gone to take a little run. The housemaid and the cook are both
a-riding on their wheels; And Daddy's in the kitchen a-cooking of the meals.

And very good for Daddy it was. He had had all the fun
hitherto; now it was his wife's and daughter's turn. The knell of the selfish, much-waited-upon,
old-fashioned father of the family was sounded by the bicycle bell.

Candleford was a pleasant and peaceful place, but it was no
second Garden of Eden. Every now and again, often after months of placidity, something
would occur to disturb the even current of village life.

Sometimes these events were sad ones: a man was gored by a
bull, or broke his neck by falling from a loaded wagon in the harvest field, or
a mother died, leaving a brood of young children, or a little boy, playing by
the river, fell in and was drowned. Such tragedies brought out all that was
best in village life. Neighbours would flock to comfort the mourners, to take
the motherless children into their own care until permanent homes could be
found for them, or to offer to lend or give anything they possessed which they
thought might be of use to the afflicted.

But there were other happenings, less tragic, but even more
disturbing. A hitherto quiet and inoffensive man got drunk and staggered across
the green shouting obscenities, an affiliation case brought unsavoury details
to light, a sweetheart of ten years' standing was deserted for a younger and
fresher girl, a child or an animal was ill-treated, or the usually mild and
comparatively harmless village gossip suddenly became venomous. Such things
made the young and inexperienced feel that life was not as it had appeared;
that there were hitherto unsuspected dark depths beneath the sunny surface.

Older and more experienced people saw things more in
proportion, for they had lived long enough to learn that human nature is a
curious mixture of good and evil—the good, fortunately, predominating. 'Such is
life!' Miss Lane would sigh when something of the kind came to her ears, and
once she continued in the same breath, but more briskly, 'Have another jam
tart, Laura?'

Laura was shocked, for she then thought tart and tears should
be separated by at least a decent interval. She had yet to learn that though
sorrow and loss and the pain of disillusionment must come to all, if not at one
time then at another, and those around the sufferer will share his or her
sorrow to some extent, life must still go on in the ordinary way for those not
directly implicated.

At Candleford Green there was no serious crime. Murder and
incest and robbery with violence were to its inhabitants just things read about
in the Sunday newspapers—things to horrify and to be discussed and to form theories
on, but far removed from reality. The few local court cases were calculated
rather to cause a little welcome excitement than to shock or grieve.

Two men were charged with poaching, and as this had taken
place on Sir Timothy's estate he retired from the Bench while the case was
tried. But not, it was said, before he had asked his fellow magistrates to deal
lightly with the offenders. 'For,' he was supposed to have added, 'who's going
to stump up to keep their families while they are in gaol if I don't.' Sentence
was passed with due regard to Sir Timothy's pocket. That case caused but a mild
interest and no dissension. A poacher, it was agreed, knew the risks he was
running, and if he thought the game was worth the candle, well, let him take
the consequences.

Then there was the case of the man who had systematically
stolen pigwash from a neighbour. The neighbour, who kept several pigs on an
allotment some distance from his dwelling, had bought and collected the pigwash
from an institution in Candleford town. The thief had risen early and fed his
own pig from his neighbour's pig-tubs every morning for weeks before the
leakage was discovered, a watch set, and he was caught, dipper in hand. 'A
dirty, mean trick!' the villagers said. A fortnight in gaol was too short a
sentence.

But over the case of Sam and Susan, neighbours quarrelled and
friends were divided. They were a young married couple with three small
children and had, as far as was known, always lived peaceably together until
one evening when a dispute arose between them, in the course of which Sammy, who
was a great, strapping fellow, fell upon his frail-looking little wife and gave
her a bad beating. When this was known, as it was almost immediately, for such
bruises and such a black eye as Susan's cannot long be hidden, there was a
general outcry. Not that a wife's black eye was an entirely unknown spectacle
in the village, though it was a rare one, most of the village couples being
able to settle their disputes, if any, in private, but on account of the
relative sizes of the couple. Sammy was so very big and tall and strong and
Susie so slight and childish-looking, that every one who heard of or saw the
black eye called out at once, 'The great big bully, him!' So far opinion was unanimous.

But Susie did not take her whacking in the ordinary way.
Other wives who had in the past appeared with an eye blackened had always
accounted for it by saying that they had been chopping firewood and a stick had
flown up and hit them. It was a formula, as well understood and recognized as their
more worldly sisters' 'Not at home', and good manners demanded that it should
be accepted at its face value. But Susan gave no explanation at all of her
state. She went in and out of her cottage in her usual brisk and determined way
about her daily affairs and asked neither sympathy nor advice of her
neighbours. Indeed, several days had passed before it became known that, with
her black eye and her bruises still fresh, she had gone to the Police Station
at Candleford town and had taken out a summons for Sammy.

Then, indeed, the village had something to talk about, and
talk it did. Some people professed to be horrified that a great, strapping
young fellow like Sam should have been such a brute as to lay hands on his nice
little wife, good mother and model housewife as she was, and far and away too
good for him. They thought she did quite right to go to the police. It showed
her spirit, that it did! Others said Susan was a shrew, as all those thin,
fair-haired, vinegarish little women were bound to be, and nobody knew what
that poor fellow, her husband, may have had to put up with. It was nag, nag,
nag, they'd be bound, every moment he was at home, and the house kept that
beastly clean he had to take off his coal-heaving clothes in the shed and wash
himself before he was allowed to sit down to his supper. Two parties sprang
quickly into being. To one Sam was a brute and Susan a heroine, and if the
other did not actually hold up Sam as a hero, they maintained that he was an ill-used
young man and that Susan was a hussy. It was a case of one quarrel breeding
many.

But Susan had another surprise in store for them. In due
course, Sam came up before the Court and was sentenced to one month's
imprisonment for wife-beating. Susan came home from the Court and, still
without saying a word as to her intention to any one, packed her three small children
into the perambulator, locked up the house, and marched off to Candleford
Workhouse, as it appeared she had then the right to do, having no official
means of support while her husband was in prison. She could quite well have
stayed at home, for the tradesmen would have given her credit and the
neighbours would have helped, or she could have gone to her parents' home in a
neighbouring village, but she chose her own course. The step lost her many of
her warmest supporters, who had been looking forward to standing by her with
sympathy and material aid, and caused the opposition to condemn her more fiercely.
She said afterwards she did it to shame Sam, and in this no doubt she
succeeded, for it must have added to his humiliation to know that his wife and
children were chargeable to the parish. But the period spent in the poorhouse
must have been punishment to herself as well. It was common knowledge that life
in such establishments was not a bed of roses for a respectable young woman.

However, it all ended happily. A sight Laura could never
forget was that of the reunited family returning to their home after Sam's
sentence had expired. They passed the Post Office, talking amiably together,
Sam pushing the perambulator and Susan carrying a string bag containing the few
little luxuries they had purchased on their way for their second house-warming.
Each of the three children clutched a toy, that of the little toddling boy
being a tin trumpet which he tootled to let people know they were coming.
Afterwards Sammy became a model husband, almost excessively gentle and
considerate, and Susan, while still keeping the reins in her own hands, took
care not to pull too hard on them for Sammy's comfort.

A family dispute about some land at one time caused great
excitement. An old man of the village had many years before inherited from his
parents a cottage and a couple of small fields which he had so far enjoyed without
question. Then a niece of his, the daughter of a younger brother long dead, put
in a claim for part of the land, which, she said, ought rightfully to have gone
to her father. It was an unsound claim, for the house and land had been left by
will to the eldest son, who had always lived at home and assisted his parents
in working their small holding. Eliza's father had been left a small sum of
money and some furniture. Apparently she had the notion that while money and
furniture could be left by will according to the testator's fancy, land had
always to be divided between the sons of a family. Even had it been a just
claim, it should, after that lapse of time, have been settled in Court, but
Eliza, who was a positive, domineering kind of person, decided to take possession
by force.

She was living in another village at the time, and the first
intimation her uncle had of her intention was when one morning a party of
workmen arrived and proceeded to break down the hedge of one of the fields.
They had orders, they said, to prepare the site for a new cottage which Mrs. Kibble,
the owner of the land, was about to have built. Old James Ashley was a
peace-loving man, a staunch Methodist, and much respected in the village, but
at such an affront, understandably, his anger flared up and the workmen were
quickly sent about their more lawful business. But that was only the beginning
of a quarrel which lasted two years and provided much entertainment for those
not affected.

About once a week the niece appeared, a tall, rather handsome
woman, who wore long, dangling gold earrings and often a red shawl. She always refused
to step indoors and talk it over reasonably, as her uncle suggested, but
planted herself on the plot she called hers and shouted. She might well have
relied on her own voice and human curiosity for an audience, but to make sure
of one she had provided herself with an old-fashioned dinner-bell which served
both to announce her arrival and to drown any rejoinders made by her opponent.
He, poor old man, stood no chance at all in the contest. It was contrary both
to his own nature and his religious beliefs to take part in a brawl. He would
often go in and shut the door and draw down the blind, hoping, no doubt, that
his niece would soon tire of shouting abuse if he appeared to take no notice.
If something she said was more than he could bear in silence, he would open the
door, poke out his head, and, keeping a firm hold on his temper, make some
protestation, but, as whatever he said at such times was drowned by a clanging
of the bell, it had little effect on village opinion, and certainly none on his
niece's behaviour.

His title to his modest estate was so clear that it was
surprising how many of the villagers sided with Eliza. They said it was a shame
that before his father's body was cold, old Jim should have seized all the land,
when it stood to reason it ought to have been divided. These admired Eliza for
her spirit and hoped she would insist upon getting her rights, perhaps also
hoping subconsciously that she would continue to provide them with entertainment.
More thoughtful and better-informed people maintained that the right was on old
Jim's side. 'Right's right, and wrong's no man's right,' they quoted sententiously.
In the meantime wrong, plus a dinner-bell, appeared to have the best of it.

But old Jim, though an unworldly man, had no intention of
parting with any of his property. When he found that lawyer's letters had no
effect upon niece Eliza, he did at last take the case to Court, where it was quickly
settled in his favour, and Eliza of the bobbing ear-rings disappeared from the
Candleford Green scene. After that, for a time, life in the village seemed
strangely silent.

But such disturbances of the peace were well spaced out and
few—too few for the taste of some people. The one constable stationed at
Candleford Green had plenty of leisure in which to keep his garden up to the standard
which ensured him his customary double-first at the annual Flower Show for the
best all-round collection of vegetables and the best-kept cottage garden. After
the bicycle came into general use, he occasionally hauled up before the Bench
some unfortunate who had exceeded the speed limit, or had been found riding
lampless after lighting-up time; but, still, for three hundred days of the year
his official duties consisted of walking stiffly in uniform round the green at
certain hours by day and taking gentle walks by night to meet his colleague on
point duty.